Alexander (11 page)

The visit was short. The nurse brought a tray of clear liquids in for Heather and Alex was sure she’d only eaten what she did because Jack had badgered her into it. She was drifting off when the three of them left the room. They were to the elevator when Tom turned back to him.

“
You gonna fix this?”

Alex didn’t even try to pretend he didn’t know what he was talking about. “Yes, sir. If she’ll let me. I said something…I told her—”

“
Don’t rightly care what you said, young man, but I want it fixed.” They both looked at Jack standing so still in front of them. “She’ll kill for him, but for herself…well, she’d about do anything for him.”

With that, he stepped on the yawning elevator and pushed the button. With a final “fix it” as the doors closed, Alex was left standing there alone. He made his way back to her room. He felt like a man going to his own hanging standing outside her door. He hadn’t meant to say those things, wasn’t even sure he believed them anymore. He hated himself that he had said them and hated himself even more that he’d hurt her.

When he entered her room again, he had decided to tell her he was sorry and offer to put them all up in an apartment and pay the rent until she found it in her heart to forgive him.

He expected her to be hurt when he went back inside. He even expected tears. He hated them, but felt he deserved them from her. He didn’t know what had happened between her and Steven Baxter, but he was sure as he was standing there it wasn’t the way her mother had told him it had been. What he didn’t expect was her to have a bargain of her own to offer.

“
I’ll let you fuck me as much as you want if you let my family stay until I can…until I can get us back on our feet.”

~Chapter
11~

Edgar looked over at his wife before slanting his eyes back to his son. He wasn’t sure what Alex wanted them to say so he waited before speaking. He honestly was hoping for them to tell him it was a joke, but was reasonably sure it wasn’t. He decided to come at this from another angle.

“
Did you believe her when she explained about Baxter?” He knew the moment he’d asked that he wasn’t going to like the answer. “You didn’t ask her, did you?”

“
No. I didn’t…she was so upset before that I thought I’d not bring it up again. Then she throws this at me.”

Alex got up to pace. Edgar moved closer to his wife. Candace had told him that she’d liked the girl. She said that she was as stubborn as Alex and had thought that the two of them would suit. Suit what he wasn’t sure, but he let it go…for now.

“
Alexander, there are more than just the two of you involved in this. There’s that young boy to think of.” Candace frowned when Alex said nothing to her. “Alexander, are you listening to me?”

“
Yes. You don’t think I’ve thought about her son? I like that kid. He’s smart, friendly, and loves her to death. But I didn’t make the offer to her, she told me. She said she’s only doing this for him. If it were…Christ.” Alex paced some more. “If she didn’t have him or the old man, she’d probably…fuck. Now what the hell am I supposed to do?”

No one said anything about his language. His mother hated that word and he knew she wasn’t overly fond of the situation either. But he was a grown man. Edgar looked over at his daughter and her husband for help.

“
Are you in love with her, Alex? This girl, do you love her?”

Edgar smiled at Jared.

“
No. I don’t…I’m not going to be either.” When Jared snorted, Alex turned on him. “It’s not the same as you and Wills. I will never give my heart to another woman for her to trample into the dirt.”

“
Sometimes it’s not a matter of giving it away, Alex, as it is someone earning it.” Edgar took the look his son gave him for saying it, but he couldn’t help it. He felt his son’s pain like it was his own. Alex’s ex-wife, Bethany Sheppard, had hurt him. And it wasn’t until years later that they’d, his mother and he, had gotten the whole story.

Bethany had been from a good family. In fact, the two families had been nearly in each other’s pockets since the adults had met before they’d had children. Bethany was the older of the children. Then Alex and Charles, Bethany’s brother, then Wills. The children had played together all their lives.

Then one summer, Bethany announced she was in love with Alex. Alex had just turned nineteen and Bethany had been three years older. She’d told them all, including Alex, that they’d be married the following summer. Everyone was deliriously happy for them.

Alex was in love. Any fool could see it. His mother had commented on it almost daily how happy he looked. But she didn’t think it was the smartest of moves that they wed. At least so young, she’d told them.

Alex and she had fought and the closer the wedding came, the more depressed Candace became. She had tried to talk to him, tried to convince him to wait, but the more she tried, the harder he dug in. It wasn’t two weeks after the wedding that he’d come home upset and needing to talk to them.

“
Bethany is pregnant,” he’d told them. “And it’s…I’m not the father. She knew this before we married.”

Candace didn’t say anything as she held their son. She simply held him as he poured the entire story out.

“
She was sick on our honeymoon. Every day. I kept asking her what was wrong and she said it was the flight, or the different food. I believed her. I was a fool.”

“
You weren’t a fool,” his mother said. “You were in love. I’m so sorry, baby. I know this hurts.”

“
Are you sure it’s not yours?” They both looked at him when he’d asked. “I’m sure you didn’t remain celibate before you were married, did you?”

“
No, sir, but… Well, I used protection when we had sex. I didn’t…kids are not in the picture right now. I’m trying to get this business going with Brick and we…I didn’t want a baby just yet. I thought she understood.”

They fought, Bethany and Alex, bitterly and long. When years later Alex had told them, long after the accident, neither he nor Candace could believe it. Bethany wanted to continue on with her affairs and she could see no reason for Alex to be upset about it. Then the accident.

Charles and Bethany had been driving back from the airport after dropping off their parents. Bethany was about six months then, her belly rounded and full. Charles was just to turn sixteen in a few weeks. He had been driving.

The police said that his inexperience had caused the accident. He’d over compensated when he’d hit a slick spot on the wet road. The car, a compact, had hit the guardrail several times before it had stalled in the road only to be hit broadside by an oncoming tractor trailer. Charles was killed instantly, his neck broken, as was most of his body. Bethany had been alive when they reached the hospital, but the baby had been lost. But it was the last thing she’d said to Alex that had hurt him, killed something inside of him that day.

“
You were nothing to me,” she’d said. “Nothing but a means to an end and even in that you failed me. I never loved you, never liked you most of them time. I’m glad the child wasn’t yours.”

There had been more, more biting remarks, more recriminations, and more of her telling him what a failure he’d been. And he’d taken it all from her, taken every word she’d uttered. When they’d wheeled her to surgery, Alex left the hospital.

It was several hours before they found him to tell him she was dead. A hemorrhage that they’d not found until it was too late had caused internal bleeding and she was simply gone.

The Sheppards had wanted to blame Alex, but they couldn’t with him not even in the car. And it wasn’t until the funeral that they’d found out that her parents knew about the child and that Alex wasn’t the father. They had not spoken to them since.

Edgar watched his son pace and wondered if this woman, this baker, could be the one to make him love again. He wanted to talk with the girl, and her son, and see their worth.

“
Did she give you a reason for her…offer, I guess? What did she say when you asked her about it?” Wills, ever practical.

“
She said that she knew I’d talked to her mother and that since I’d come to my own conclusions about her, she might as well take advantage of it. And before you ask, yes, I did talk to her.”

When he didn’t continue, Edgar looked at him. “And?”

“
And…and…I’m not sure. I think I believe her. I mean, all the things point to what she’s saying, but I just don’t know.”

“
Oh for heaven’s sake, Alexander, what things? What is this woman saying about her own daughter?”

Alex sat down before answering his mom. “That Heather seduced her step-father into her bed and got pregnant to break up their marriage.”

~~~

Mik looked at the pictures before him. They showed Alexander James with a kid. He didn’t have any idea who the kid was, nor did he give a tinker’s damn, but he filed away the information for use later. He wanted Alexander.

Brick had been useful, but not what Mik had wanted. When he had perused the company to help him with his “problem,” he’d wanted them both. What he’d gotten was the brawn not the brain. Brick had been good, just not good enough. So Mik had had to let him go.

He smiled when he’d thought of the man and his wife. So stupid and so very trusting. Mik hadn’t wanted to hurt the woman, but sometimes one had to go the extra mile in order to get better results.

“
What do we know of Alexander now? Is he ready to open another company? Or is he still trying to be retired?” Mik looked up at his man when he didn’t answer right away. “Well?”

“
He’s bought himself into a bakery—House of Aromas. He and his new partner have started on the renovations into the building already. He has some property, a house that he’s also having some work done on.”

“
But? What are you not telling me? I know there has to be something along the lines of computer somewhere. The man is just too good not to want to play some.” Mik wanted him to open another company, something he could get into. Something, Mik hoped, he could use against the man.

“
Nothing so far. I have been watching him at the coffee shop, keeping an eye on what he’s into there. He has a good security system on his Internet access so it’s taking me awhile to break into his computer, but I will.” David was his best computer expert and if he was having issues, he knew it had to be good. But there was more.

“
Are you going to tell me what else or do I need to keep guessing? If I have to keep guessing…” Mik pulled out his gun and laid it on the desk. “I’m going to start shooting something. Or…someone.”

David pulled at his collar. He was sweating now, Mik could see, and sweating a great deal.

“
I think I may have been made. Mr. James, he saw me. Him and that brat, they saw me hanging around the bakery. Then there was…I’m sure they saw me snapping the pictures of him.”

Mik picked up the gun and fired. David was dead before he hit the floor. Mik looked at the two men at the door. Neither of them turned around when the shot had been fired and he smiled at that. No one would say a word either. He knew as well as they did that he’d kill them if they did.

“
You, by the door. What’s your name?” He needed a replacement and it was as good a time as any to get one.

“
Jimmy Dugan, sir. And this here is Danny Dugan, my brother.” The man looked over at his brother. “We can…you want so we can get rid of the body for you?”

Ah
, Mik thought,
an intellect. “
Yes. Then I need you to go and see what you can find out about Alexander James and the brat. I want everything you can find including if there are any women in his life. Don’t disappoint me or you’ll find yourself in the same place David here is.”

Both men looked down at the dead man and shuddered. Good, that’s what he wanted, fear and a little terror. He wanted them to get him what he wanted.

Alexander was the man to get. Mik had known this the moment he’d realized that breaking into banks with a computer instead of a gun was safer. He’d been building his clientele for months as he watched the A&B Company grow and expand. And he’d been planning. The small glitches had been planned right down to the irregularity of them. First the system would be down for a matter of seconds, then more. He’d just started to make them be offline for more than ten minutes when his geek had died of a massive stroke.

Mik had been looking for someone to get him into the system and Alexander James was his man. He already had the perfect plan figured out on how to make him work for him and do what he’d wanted. And his lovely sister would make a nice addition to his little harem of broken women.

~Chapter
12~

Heather was going home. Well, not home, but to Mr. James’ house. She’d not seen him since she’d told him she’d sleep with him. But he had called her twice. Each call had ended with her in tears and him pissed off. She didn’t know what he was so mad about. He wasn’t doing anything more than lending them money until she could get them out.

She watched her grandda as he sat in the big chair waiting on the doctor to come in to release her. She’d been waiting for over an hour and hoped that they could get going soon. Heather was still trying to figure out if she should tell her grandda what she was doing or just keep it a secret.