Page 14 of Brad

He talked to both women, and they had a good time. When it was all said and done, Calhoun decided that she was about as sound of mine as anyone that he knew. More than likely more than most of the rest of her family. About the time her last show was over, Calhoun was calling her grannie, and she was calling him Cal. It was not a name that he particularly cared for growing up, but he didn’t mind being called that by Mitsy.

He imagined that she might well have been around when things were flush with her family. While the house needed some repair work, it wasn’t a dump. No dust in any of the corners, nor did he see any cobwebs, something that elderly people tended to forget about when they lived alone. There were dishes, too, neatly stacked in the China cabinet with matching glasses and other items. He, too, had a set of dishes, long packed away, that he’d have to find and give to Ruby. She might get a kick out of them. He knew that he would again.

After Brad joined them, his file that he’d brought handed over to her, the two of them talked about the changes that she wanted and how her estate, which, as she had pointed out to him, wasn’t that much. After not getting all that far into the work, she asked them to wait for her granddaughter to show up so that she could be a witness to the paperwork. DJ was there, but she didn’t want to be the witness as she lived with her grannie, taking care of her and keeping her safe. She didn’t want anyone to say that she had been made to change things to suit her.

Yes, Calhoun could see that happening, too. Their family seemed to know all the angles in getting things to work in their favor. He was sure that there were other tricks that they used too that would get them whatever they wanted in the way of government handouts as well.

“They all think I’m about loopy. I’m not. Got a brain in my noodle that serves me well. MJ, my other granddaughter she’s got the same curse that I do. Don’t have to study up on things but to read it or hear it and it’s there forever. Should have seen that little one going to school with her sister and ticking off them teachers. Most of them didn’t have any more brains than my son does, but they were getting paid to get it wrong, and MJ wasn’t having it. She’s a good girl. Both of them are.” DJ laughed, too, then, saying that she had inherited it as well, but not to the degree that her grannie and sister did. “Ah, but you’re a smart cookie, aren’t you, sweetie? I knew in my heart that the two of you would have trouble as soon as you were born. And I think that MJ is…well, she’s handling it much better than I would. Her being smart and all.”

“Do both girls live with you?” She said that it was only DJ, but MJ provided for her. “That’s nice. For all of you, I’m betting.” Brad joined them in the kitchen a few minutes later. The file that he’d brought with him was marked with colorful tags in places that he said he wanted to go over for her.

She said that was fine, but if he waited, he would only have to go over it the one time as MJ would be here. Brad said that he’d wait, but they’d have to do something for her while waiting. Neither of them was used to just sitting around on their duffs when there were pretty women to impress. Mitsy laughed with them.

“You boys. I swear to you. You know how to treat an old lady.” They both claimed they didn’t know anyone who was old, and that made her blush. “Go on with you now. DJ will have a little bit of work for you if you ask her. She’s a good girl, that one, and has given up a lot to hang out with me all day. I would imagine that if MJ had been able to do this, she’d be here too, living with the two of us.”

Mitsy was a very nice woman, and anyone who thought she was off her rocker had never taken the time to get to know her, he realized. She was smart and charming. A couple of qualities that few people had nowadays.

“We’ll make up some dinner while we wait. The girls had a birthday just a few days ago. Twins, you see. I couldn’t love them any more than if there were fifty of them. But MJ and DJ have been good for me—better than them durned sons of mine. But that’s all right. They’ll straighten up or else. Them girls will keep them in line.” He didn’t know if they could or not and decided that he’d have a few of his sloth hanging around close in the event that they might need it.

There were pork chops in the freezer that he was going to grill for them all. Brad was set to peeling taters, not potatoes, he was told, but taters. DJ came back from her outing, she had been out to get her nails done—Calhoun suspected that she’d been meeting a man. She smelled different than when she’d left, and she seemed less stressed. Of course, no one said a word to her about her nails either. They were neither painted nor smoothed out. Calhoun liked DJ too and would dare anyone to say a word differently about where she’d been the last couple of hours.

Around about six, they were all getting the table set up with plates and glasses when there was a rumbling sound that had him thinking he needed to run for cover. There was only one thing that sounded like that, and it made him wonder what the hell a helicopter was doing when flying so low around here. Just as he was going to ask if that happened often, he glanced out the kitchen window and watched the sucker land in the back field and two people get out while it was still running.

“That’ll be MJ.” Mitsy smiled and said that they’d told her they’d have her home by six. “They know better than to mess with her or me. I’m glad to see that they’ve kept their promise. It’ll bring them boys a running, but that’s okay, too. With all of you here, I’ll be as safe as I can.”

This is where I will start writing again. Anything beyond here won’t be the same, I hope, anyway.

The person standing low and talking to someone in the chopper still was dressed in fatigues. They were brown, dessert colors, and he could see that the other person was dressed more formally. Before the second person got back in the chopper, he turned and waved at them before getting back inside, and the first person began running toward the house, holding onto their hat that would have surely taken off in the force of wind from the blades still going fast enough not to be able to make out.

Calhoun watched the person making their way out of the blade’s proximity while also keeping an eye out for anything else that might be in the way. Just the way that they were bent over made him think that they had been on a chopper numerous times, and simply didn’t think about the fact that the thing could take a person’s head off without any effort. When the person he could see it was a woman now, who was several feet from him, it was all he could do not to gap at her.

Dropping everything that he had in his hands, his body automatically stiffened up, and his right hand went to his forehead and a salute that he’d never forget. Watching as she stopped long enough to salute the chopper as it took off, she turned and did the same to him and Brad, who had saluted as well. Christ, oh mighty, he thought, she wasn’t just army like he’d been lead to believe, but a god damned general.

“You’re going to piss her off if you keep standing there.” Mitsy laughed and stood up to meet her granddaughter. “Hello, darling. I have missed you. She won’t say it, but DJ did, too.”

“Grannie? Are these men treating you right?” She told the general that they were as good as gold. “If you say so. However, we have a lot to get done before my dad and uncles show up. Couldn’t get here any other way than flying. Next time, I will try and get here quieter.” Following them into the house, Brad stopped him before he could grab the door when it started to shut. He asked him what was wrong.

“General? She’s a damned General? What the hell? Why weren’t we told?” DJ laughed and said that they wouldn’t have believed her if she had. No one ever believes that there is a woman general. “I guess that’s about correct. But she is a very beautiful one and your identical twin, I’m thinking.”

DJ was still laughing at Brad when she went into the house after picking up her sister’s luggage. He didn’t even try and take it from her, there was no way that either of these women were going to be a pushover, and he wondered at that as well. Why did their uncles and father think that—well, Calhoun thought, this was going to be a fun thing to watch. He only hoped that they would show up while he was around. Might be the best entertainment he’d had in a very long time.

~*~

It didn’t take long for the family to show up. Brad had to work especially hard to keep them all still alive by the time the police were called, but he was able to get the will filed, and the other paperwork finished up and put away, too. It didn’t seem to him like there was much to the estate, but it was up for grabs as to who wanted it more. Any of the four sons would fight to the death for it, he’d seen but as for Grannie, she certainly wasn’t going to let it go to any of them since she had such lovely granddaughters.

It had shocked him to see the women together. MJ and DJ were identical looking but that was all that they were alike about. While DJ could be hard, he noticed that it was MJ who seemed to command the power to make the other men do what she told them. Her pulling her gun on her father had made all of them laugh, but it had nearly turned deadly when the dad of the twins drew back to hit the elderly Brandon. Christ, he’d never seen anyone move so quickly as he’d seen the women move as one to stand in front of their beloved Grannie.

“You really want to rethink your next move, father. I won’t have any trouble whatsoever burying you in a shallow grave out back. Dead or alive, it makes little difference to me. I’ve had plenty of practice at it, and I’m always armed with not just a bullet with your name on it but a handy shovel, too.” Brad watched as MJ racked her glock and caught the bullet midflight as it shot out of the chamber. Then she set it on the table. And sure enough, it had her father’s name on it in bold print. He could hardly tear his eyes away from the ammo so that he could see what the older man would do now. Her father called her an ungrateful, rude, useless woman. “Better that than a fucking bastard of a man who couldn’t take care that his own wife and children didn’t have to go without. I do wonder at times what it was that you did with the money that was mothers? Did you spend it on your whores, or did you drink it all away? If you tell me that you saved it for us, then I’ll not believe you. You couldn’t save your dick from getting hurt when you did have a job. How long ago was that now since you’ve been able to get that fucking thing up? I guess it’s been at least twenty years now.”

“You leave my dick out of this, Margaret Jane. And I’ll have you not going around telling lies about me either. Keep your damned mouth shut before I shut it for you. In a permanent way, too.” She laughed. It didn’t sound like she had found anything at all to be happy about. Her voice nearly dripped with sarcasm. It actually made the hair on his arms and neck dance, she had conveyed it so well. “You hear me, girl? You’d best be listening to me before you get what your mother did.”

“I’m not the least bit afraid of you.” DJ stepped in front of her father with her back to her sister. She didn’t say anything, but it did take him a full five minutes to realize that DJ had a gun pointed right at her father’s gut. He’d not seen it, for the man had a large hang over his belt belly that he wondered how the man ever saw his dick anymore, much less use it.

When DJ told her father to go, he kept staring at MJ. The light in her eyes, the power of her anger, had him putting his hand on his own weapon. He knew that there was going to be bloodshed before the end of the evening. Brad did wonder how often they got into this sort of argument. No wonder they were all armed all the time. It was more than likely why the women in this family were still around. Not only were they all armed with guns, but he’d bet his last check that what MJ had told him about burying him in the backyard wasn’t an idle threat either.

There wasn’t much in the way of conversation on the way back to town. Brad knew that he was going to be peppered with questions about what had happened when he got home. Becka had wanted to go with him to the other home, but she’d been called away to help with a loaded truck that was stuck in traffic. It had been all over town that the Brandon women were hard on men. Also that they didn’t have a sense of humor. That part he was able to say wasn’t true. But not so much about them being hard on men. He’d been so stressed when he left that he’d slept all the way home.

“While I was in town, I heard from a couple of people that the low-flying chopper was MJ Brandon herself flying. Was that true?” He tried to think, and while he was doing that, Becka asked him if it was true that the two sisters looked a little alike. “They’re supposed to be very intelligent as well.”