Page 7 of Ewing

Against her will, she was falling in love more and more with Ewing’s big family. When she decided that she was going to keep an eye on him, the girls seemed to be way ahead of her. They were dragging him all over the store to look at the displays and how much they wanted him to make their rooms look like this, too. Like they were really interested in a commode filled with pine cones.

“Help?”It startled her when she heard the word and looked around for the source, if there was one in here. After a few seconds, she had to ask who it was that was talking to her, and it turned out to be Ewing.“It’s Ewing. This woman is going to abuse my body in the most sinful way if we don’t leave here soon. Please, help by distracting her or something?”

Taking her cues from the girls, Trinity wrapped her arm around Ewing’s waist while he was being shown the newest tea flavor in the store and smiled at him when he turned her way. Kissing him quickly on the mouth, something that she realized she needed more than her next heartbeat, she asked him if he wanted to have a cookout with the girls tonight.

He kissed her then and smiled. It was a devious sort of smile but she figured it was too late for her to back off now. Ewing looked at the girls.

“How about burgers on the grill tonight, my little ones? Hot dogs and brats.” He looked at her again. “We’ll have to go and get buns. There aren’t any in the house that I know of.”

“Good. I have the list from the house. We can get that taken care of, too.” She had no idea what she was talking about but Trinity was certainly having a blast. When her jacket was tugged on, she turned and swept Rachel up in her arms and hugged her.

“Gee whiz, Ms. Trinity, you sure do give good hugs. Are you going to be our momma now?” She didn’t answer because she’d gotten a good solid punch to her heart that made her slightly dizzy. However, what scared her the most was that she wasn’t afraid to be their mom. It was, she realized what she’d been made for. To be a mom to these six kids and to help shape them into better human beings.

“Yes, I believe that I am.” But when she turned to look at Ewing to get his take on her being the girls’ mom, he looked at her like he was pissed. “I think I would enjoy that, but I can see that your dad might—”

Ewing took her hand into his and kissed the back of it. If it wasn’t for the overly tight hold, she might have thought that he was all right as well. Wanting to jerk his hand from hers, she decided to fuck it all and get out while at least a part of her heart didn’t belong to him when he started speaking to her.

“I can smell him.”She started to look around.“No, don’t. I don’t want to alarm the kids but he’s been following us around for most of the morning and yesterday. I didn’t think much about it because he’s a local. But it’s him. The boss of the other four men that wanted the teenagers.”

She’d heard about the death of the four teenagers and that they’d been mutilated beyond all recognition. Trinity didn’t have all the facts, so she didn’t know what Ewing was talking about with the man, but she gathered up the girls and went up to the counter.

It was much too close to the door, she realized when the man swept by her and it looked to her like he was reaching for Beth—she was the only one that she couldn’t get between her and the counter. It was scary to think that he nearly got the child when all she did was reach out her hand to hold onto the children and wrapped them close to her while she paid for what she had picked out for the house that she’d never been to.

“Come on, girls. We’re headed to home.” She didn’t want this man to know where they lived. More than that, she was terrified to think that he nearly got one of them. Once they were outside, her knees felt like they were going to buckle, but she held on until Ewing came out with her. “Are you ready?”

He shook his head before speaking. “I need to go into the hardware store for a couple of things. The girls are drawing us so many pictures that I want to hang them up in a way that we can displaythem all the time.”

She wasn’t sure she should follow him when he kissed her on the mouth again and asked her to go to the car. She didn’t have one and had no idea where he’d parked, but nodded, telling him to be careful. Nodding, he left the seven of them standing there, including Billy, in his car seat and wondered what she’d do if something happened to Ewing.

~*~

Mac made his way back to the hardware store that he worked in. He’d damn near had himself a little girl. Or a passel of them. The people had been asking him if he could get them a kid to kill for weeks now, and it wasn’t anything that he’d ever planned on doing. But they’d been right there. Five of the prettiest little things that he’d ever done did see. Then he’d tipped his hand somehow and lost out on it. Their momma she nearly snatched his hand away when he’d started to grab the one nearest to the door. Damned woman. He put out the open sign when he got the door unlocked.

He should have been the owner of the hardware place, too. But one of the Cross people had purchased the building right out from under him. Not that he could have afforded as much as they paid for it but he nearly had old man Mason ready to just hand it over to him for all his years of loyal service. Standing behind the counter when the door opened, he ducked down behind it when he saw two of the very Cross men that he hated with a passion.

“Mr. Mason around, Tetters?” That was another thing that he hated about the Cross men. They always used his last name instead of calling him by his first. “Tetters? Is Mr. Mason here? I wanted to see if the corks that I ordered have come in yet.”

“There ain’t been no deliveries in today, but he’s already gone on home. His daughter picked him up about an hour ago.” The nod. Like they knew he was lying to them. Which he was. “I know he ordered them. I saw him doing it.” Another lie.

In a fit of rage about three months ago, he’d killed the Masons—and their little barking all-the-time dog when they sold this place to a Cross family when they knew that he’d been counting on it.

Also, since he didn’t know the first thing about ordering and shit, there hadn’t been anything ordered for the little shop since then, either. It did a fairly good business here but if he didn’t figure out how to order more product, he was going to be selling next to nothing next month.

It was a good thing that he had his other gig going—which he needed to get with the boys that had been ordered to get him some girls for him to sell off soon. He needed at least that to be giving him cash money. He’d not have any money at all by the end of the day if not for that.

Everybody was paying by credit card and he couldn’t get to that money as it went right into Mr. Mason’s account every day. Fuckers. Who did shit like that anyway? Pay for things with a credit card all the time instead of having cash on them. Even the kids that he sold, nary a one of them had even enough to make a phone call. But they did have their cells, he thought. Damned—

“I’ll have to go out to his home then.” He asked him why he’d do something like that. “Because I need the corks he ordered for me. Why do you care if I go out there, Tetter? I mean, he’s the one that I asked to order them for me. I would have thought that he’d have them in by now.”

Mac decided that he was going to take one of the big eye hooks that he had on the counter and ram it into Ewing’s face. Several times. With all his strength. The other one was some big deal with the Feds but Ewing had them pretty little girls. He was a fucking pussy.

What man would take little kids into his home—not even his own kids—without nary a person around to help with them. Christ, he just couldn’t understand the Cross men at all. People were stupid to think that they were the smartest men on the planet. Also, he thought that women were just off their noodles, too, talking about how nice they were to everyone. Well, they’d never ever been nice to him.

He knew that they had money. A lot of it, too. But they never once offered any to him. Laughing a little to himself, he did admit to himself that he’d never asked for any money but they should have offered it to him all the same. Any fool could see that he was about as broken as the Masons were dead.

“I’ll call him. I’m sure that he wouldn’t care for you going all the way to his home to talk to him about corks, for Christ’s sake.” Ewing just looked at him, and Mac worried that he’d tipped his hand.So, letting out a long breath, he spoke to Ewing in a much calmer voice. “I’ll call him and figure out what’s going on. He put me in charge here, and I’d like him to, you know, think I can do a good job.”

“All right.” He thought that was settled, then the little fucker asked him if they had any of the other things that he’d ordered. “I believe that my brothers have some things coming in as well, don’t they? It seems like things are taking longer to get to us now days. I wonder why that could be?”

---