Page 6 of Colby
After dinner, she and Jack stayed in the living room while Grandma went up to her bed.She was going on her cruise tomorrow, and it would be good for her.She and Jack would have the whole house to themselves, and they were planning on making a good go at getting in practice so that when she was ovulating, she could get pregnant on the first go at it.That’s all she wanted was a baby of Jack’s to make herself feel complete, now that she had a love of her life to be with.
As she was headed up to bed around midnight after spending a great deal of time on the phone with the stationhouse, she thought that she could sleep until the following morning, as she was so tired.With the opening of the new warehouse and the employee hiring, she had been busier than she’d ever been before.As it was now, she was short fifty or so employees and could use another dozen drivers like she had already hired.Christ, would there ever be enough hours in the day?She didn’t think so at the moment.
“Did you get them situated?”She told Jack that she thought so.“It shows that they’re eager to start work if they come in the night before you need them, doesn’t it?I mean, I don’t know what I would have done had that happened to me.I have a good crew right now, and if they showed up twelve hours before working, I’d just tell them to get a new job; waiting tables doesn’t need that much dedication.”
“Your staff loves you and would do that just to show you how much they care about you.It also doesn’t hurt that they’re making good money on tips, too.What did you tell me that you paid out last night in tips this morning?Wasn’t it about four grand for six waitresses?”He said it was a little less than that, and he was happy for them.“I am as well.People always leave Jack’s Place with a full belly and a big smile on their faces.That’s what I love about the place, too.You wanted to serve comfort food, and people took that to heart.They love the place.”
People really did, too.There hadn’t been an open table since he’d opened, and there was usually a line out the door of people hoping to get a seat if they hurried through their meal for the next set up and table filled.It had been written up in some nice articles about the place, too, about how it’s always busy but well worth the wait.One critic wrote their entire article on the mashed potatoes, telling how they were so fluffy and delicious that he compared them to his own grandmother’s dishes she used to make when there was a family dinner.And she’d never been so proud of anyone as she was of Jack and Jack’s Place.
Snuggling up with Jack, she closed her eyes.It was going to be a longer day tomorrow with getting things caught up, then it seemed like today had been.But she wouldn’t trade anything for the world, as she loved being busy and seeing her idea come to fruition.With her businesses, she’d been able to create nearly five hundred new jobs for the city, and she was going to keep right on hiring until anyone who needed a job there was one there for them.
The next morning, she was asked to go and see her mom.She had no plans to visit her in prison, and the judge who had called her said that it might go a long way in paving the road to her own salvation.Not that he thought her mom was going to learn anything, she had been spouting off things like she was going to kill the judge as she was being dragged from the courtroom.But it might give her the closure that she might need down the road.
“I’ll go and see her, but I’m not going to be nice about it.She didn’t want me.”He said he knew that was true, as she had said it a great many times during the trial.“Well, I don’t know what sort of salvation it’s going to give her when I’m not going to be locked up with her.I won’t, will I be?”
“Oh no.That never entered the conversation on my part.No, you’ll get to live out your life in relative quietness and happiness so long as she’s away.Why her parents let her get to that point in her life is beyond me.Speaking of them, I have a letter here from them.It’s been sent by their attorney out east.I don’t know what it says, but I have a feeling that they’re both gone now, and wished to let you know.That’s my feeling on what’s in here anyway.Come by my office when you’re done with your mother, and we’ll talk about things that are going to happen when she’s in prison.There are rules she’s going to have to follow that she’s not going to like any more than she did when I told her you weren’t going to be a part of her sentencing.”
At nine in the morning, she was at the stationhouse seeing to her mother one more time before she was going to be carted away to prison.She made sure that she was dressed up; she didn’t want her mom to ever forget that she was a businesswoman first and foremost.As soon as Mother was chained to the table and the floor, she asked her what she could want from her now.
“I want you to get me out of here.”She said that she’d made her bed, now she had to lie in it.“They think I’m going to be doing housekeeping while away from you.You’re going to have to tell them that I’m not doing that.It’s beneath me.You should be in the cell with me because who is going to get me things when I need them?They also told me that I was going to have to eat my meals in the general population.I don’t know what that means.”
“You’ll have to eat with all the other inmates like yourself in the dining room.There will be no special place for you to go when you want to take a crap, either, mother.Everything is right out there in the open with the prison you’re going to, and that suits me just fine.”She asked her what she was going to do to make her special at this place.“Nothing.I don’t want to have another thing to do with you from now on.I hope you learn that not everything is about you.”
“But everything needs to be about me.And you need to get up off your ass and make sure that everyone knows it, too.I have a list of things that you’re to make sure I have.And don’t think that you’re going to get out of visiting me every day.I want you there from dawn until dusk so that I can keep an eye on you.Are you still living with that man?Jackass or whatever his name is?”She said that they were married and they were living as man and wife at the big house.“Where I should be, too.That’s why this is all your fault, Taylor.If you’d have just let me live with you and that grandmother of yours, then none of this would have happened.See what you’ve done by not allowing me the same privileges that you have?I deserved to live in that house, too.You could have been giving me all that I needed without all this bother of that man.And now that you’ve married him, not that I believe that you have, you’re going to continue to take your birth control so that there are no children.They’ll be first in your life and I’ll not—”
“I know, mother, you’ll not have it.Well, I guess it sucks to be you because as soon as I can, I’m going to have a child and love it like you never did me.Also, I’m going to allow it to have a childhood like the one you denied me by being selfish and cruel and needing to be the center of attention all the time.”She said that she liked being the center of attention, and she’d better not be having children.“I will because I want to love it…you know what?I’m done talking to you.If there is anything that you need, you’re going to have to work for it.I’m finished wasting my breath on you.”
“You’ll do as I say because I’m your mother.”She told her that she’d never been her mother, and that was just sad.“I gave birth to you even though I didn’t want to.Now you’re stuck with me, and you’re going to do what I want.I demand that you either get me out of this situation, which is all your fault, or you come and live at the prison with me so that I don’t have to do the things that they want me to.I’m the center of your world, Taylor Ann, and it’s about time you remember that.I’m all you have.And I’m all you’ll ever have so long as I’m alive and well.”
Standing up, she straightened her suit and picked up her purse.There was money in her bag that she had planned on setting up a fund for her mother when she got to prison.But that would be justone more thing that she’d hold over her.‘Why wasn’t there enough in the account?’‘Make it so I have all your money so that I can be the center of attention when I spend it all on stupid shit just to spend your money.’It wouldn’t be that way; she was sure of it, but it was something that her mother would need, and she was sick of catering to her every whim and leaving her heart open to being hurt again.
Leaving the little room, she decided that she was never going to see her mother either.She’d been tossing that around in her head as to coming to visit her once a month, but it would only be more of the same.Her mother making demands of her, and her heart hurting because of the way she’d been treated.
~*~
Colby had been on his boat for the last three days on a reservation to go fishing with five men.He hated to be away from Emma, but she was busy, too.He’d spoken to her about being mates, but she wasn’t having any of it.To her, it was the same as a prison sentence, and she had a good job that she’d worked hard on as well as a new little house that her mom had picked out for them to live in.
“But you don’t even care for the house.You told me that.”She had told him that she didn’t care for the house, even though she was planning to live there with her mother when she wasn’t driving her rig.It was just that, a house.“I have to find us one that you’ll like and want to live in.Even your mother can have a place in our house.”
“I don’t want you to buy a house simply because you think that I need one.I’m quite capable of buying my own home if it comes to that.”She was being stubborn, and he was going crazy trying to figure out how to make her happy.“Besides, there will be nothing between us as I’ve said to you a million times while we were out on the road.I have a life, believe it or not, and it doesn’t involve you or your mate business.Why would you want to strap your life with mine when you have everything you need already?Just leave me alone.”
He couldn’t do that.Not even when he was in the middle of the ocean with five strangers around him, he couldn’t leave her alone.He’d been able to touch her, thankfully, or he’d not have a connection to her.That seemed to work now that they were mates and there was no need for the exchange of blood.Colby was glad; he didn’t know what he’d do if he couldn’t at least get into her mind to see what she was feeling at any given time.But she had Crumble with her too, and he promised to let him know if anything happened to her that he could help with.Like he knew anything about being a truck driver with a big rig.She more than likely knew more about his job than he did hers.He’d been talking about it with her when they were traveling together.
She’d allowed him to ride with her when she’d been doing a test run for the stores that Taylor had coming out of her warehouse.She drove the route that would hit all the stores that she had along the coast and stay for however long it would be for unloading.They figured two hours for that to happen at each store.It would be less time than it would have been with several trucks showing up several times a week, they had told him.Still, she could hit all the stores in one trip—provided that the loads weren’t that heavy, and only have one stay overnight during the entire trip.If the loads were heavy, say at holiday times, then she might have to stay overnight as much as three times, but that would only be for a few weeks, not the entire season.
He’d not gotten this information from Emma but from his brother Jack.He had a wealth of information about the driving part of her job, and he appreciated it very much.He’d not realized when he was brought back from the trip that he’d only been the one talking about his job and she’d remained closed-mouth about her own part in the work she’d be doing.
“Mr.Colby, there’s a phone call for you.It’s a landline.”He remembered the last time he’d had a landline call, and it made his belly churn up.The man had wanted him and none of his crew to go on a fishing trip in the middle of the ocean.But in reality, he’d wanted to dump a couple of bodies while out on the sea and more than likely kill him in the process.“It’s your brother, Denver.He said to remind you that you’re fine for some reason.You are fine, aren’t you, sir?”
“I’m great.My brother just has a terrible sense of humor.”He picked up the phone and asked his brother if everything was all right.Why did he have to talk to him on the phone?“I mean, I don’tknow how much these calls cost you, but they can’t be cheap.”
“I called because you’re on speaker phone right now.”He didn’t understand that either.As he could get in contact with all his family at once through their links.“I have a gentleman here who would like to book one of your trips.He said that it would help him think about sealing the deal with him.You’re too busy to do it in the next three weeks.All right?”
“All right, I can be busy for you.Will you explain later?”His brother said he would, but for now, he had to make things look good to the man in his office.“I’m sorry, Denver, but I’m booked solid for the next three or four weeks.Business has really picked up since word has gotten out about the last trip we made.Did I tell you that the fishermen caught their limit on the second day?”
“That’s wonderful news.No, I’d not heard how well they’d done.”Denver explained by way of their link that the man was trying to get them to pay for him to go out on a trip so he could think on whether or not he really needed the money to expand his business.“I guess my customer will have to think of something else to do his thinking with.I’ll let you go and talk to you later.”
“I’m sorry, Denver.I truly am.”He told him that was all right, but he’d done good on selling the fact that he was too busy to take on another client right now.“I’ll talk to you when we return.It’s not for another couple of days, then I go right back out.”
