Page 2 of Brad
“I want you to know, young man, that I’m going to beat you senseless when we get out of this mess.” As he walked by her, he kissed her on the top of her head, and she felt her eyes fill with tears. “That isn’t buying you any points.”
“Yes, ma’am, I know that. I’ll be back.” She glanced again at the man sitting there by where Toby had been.
“The police have pulled up and are now in the front of the restaurant. I want to thank you for not making it known throughout the place what’s going on back here. This man,” she watched the man she was holding the gun on head wobble when Mr. Kirk hit him, “He’s going to jail for a long time. He is the reason, along with his buddy there on the floor, why we needed you to bring in our delivery earlier.”
“I don’t know them. But that man threatened me.” He said that he knew that too. The police came, and she felt the bite of a gun put to the back of her head. “I have a license to carry, and that man—”
“Officer Hill, I want you to remove the gun from her head. I told the dispatcher when I called them that I had this under control. Remove your gun, or I will. And you know me well enough to understand that I’m not a man that likes to repeat myself.” The gun pressure disappeared. Before she could ask what the hell was going on, Mr. Kirk began speaking again. “These are the two men that were on camera yesterday breaking into the back of the dairy area and pissing into the vats. My staff here worked through the night to get them serialized and ready for today’s milk. I also told you that they’d be back and that they’d all but told us that they would. And today, not only did they show up, but they brought a gun into a very public place and threatened my patrons. Going so far as to make it so that one of my very loyal patrons had to kill one of them because you couldn’t get up off your fat ass and make sure that the other people here were safe too.” When Kirk stood up, she didn’t move. Something was going on. A pissing contest, she thought, and it pissed her off that she was in the middle of it. Just as she was going to turn over whatever the hell was going on to the other officers standing around, a woman, a very beautiful and elegant woman, sat down when her son did.
“Mom, don’t kill her.” She glared at Toby and then asked him what he was doing. “I thought that since we more than likely won’t be allowed to come back here anymore that I’d throw us a big party. This lady here, her name is Lander, I think she said, found me in line. I wouldn’t have talked to her, but she’s with this monster of a man, too, and I’m sort of afraid of him. He’s filling up his plate along with hers.”
“Toby, do you know that we’re going to have to be here for a bit? I killed a man.” He ate a chicken leg while he answered her. “I guess I need to practice more on knowing who is who then. No, I didn’t know she was a vampire.” She looked around at the open window shades. “How sure are you about that?”
“He’s very sure. Why are you eating a salad when there is all this other food up there? I saw they had pudding. I love that stuff.” She told the woman, not having any idea why she was what she’d been thinking about a salad. “How long have you two been on the road? I’m assuming it’s been a while, right?”
“I was an infant when I was with her. She’d only just graduated from trucking college, and my mom and dad wanted to go out to a fancy dinner.” Toby told the table the rest of the story, how he’d been with her and not dead when their bruin had been ambushed. When he pushed away his food, he looked at her. “If not for her all these years, sixteen on the road, I don’t think that I’d be half the person that I am. I’ve called her mom from the start, and I don’t know if I’d ever do anything different. She saved me.”
No one said anything, and when the large man sat with them, he was talking to men and women in flak jackets with FBI and other initials on them when another woman sat down at the table. Toby, smiling, volunteered to go up and get another few plates of food when asked and came back with her a cup of hot tea. She really needed it about now.
Taking a lot less time than she thought that it might have, she was free to leave the bloodied table and enjoy some dessert. Not that she wanted any. She’d only been able to eat the salad because she’d been bullied into it. When Toby sat down next to her at the cleaned table, she hugged him to her.
“Did you want to hang out with Mr. Kirk?” He said that he was planning a play date, no. “I don’t know how that works. For all I know, you guys go around sniffing each other’s asses all the time, and that’s how you know each other.”
“I promise you, there is no butt-sniffing. And Mr. Kirk isn’t a real bear. He’s friends with someone powerful, and they gifted him immortality. There’s more to it than that, I’m sure, but for now, I’m ready when you are to get on the road.” She didn’t move but stared at him. “What?”
“Something happened? Did one of them…that woman, Lander, did she push you into something or say something to you? Where is she?” He pushed her back in the chair when she started after the woman. “Toby, you’re all I have. I have to protect you.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed it or not, but I’m about a foot taller than you are and outweigh you by a good fifty or so pounds. And I can shift into a big black bear.” She felt her eyes fill again. “Don’t do that. If you do, then the two of us will be blubbering all over each other, and we’ll not be able to find us a place to sleep tonight.”
“I can cry. They said that we can sleep on the lot tonight.” He held her to his chest, and she sobbed. It terrified her every time something out of the ordinary happened, and he might get hurt. “Your parents would have been so proud of you, honey. You know that, don’t you?”
“I do. Even though I never had any memories with them, you’ve brought them alive for me every time we talk about them. Even if you’re just—that’s it, isn’t it? I completely forgot. Today would have been her birthday.” She nodded and tried very hard to keep herself under control for a few seconds. “Ah, Mom. You’re the best. I don’t think in all the world that anyone could have ended up with a better role model than what I’ve had all these years.”
They ended up leaving the lot and finding them a nice little camping area. They no longer shared a tent, but she knew that he was close by. Just as she was coming back from the shower, a very much needed one, she saw that there was a large jeep in their spot. She didn’t have to reach out to Toby to figure out what was going on. He was standing by the car, talking to a man next to him. It turned out to be Mr. Kirk.
~*~
He enjoyed talking to the young man. Toby was personable as well as polite. Kirk thought that he was smart, too, but he, for some reason, kept it under his hat about that. When Dill, his aunt, joined them after changing into something less jammie, she called it, he thought that he could have stayed there forever.
“Why are you here?” He nearly laughed at her but didn’t. She seemed to be on edge about something. It could have been the shooting, but he wasn’t positive that was all of it. “You got all your delivery. The cops were taken care of. Though I will admit that it was nice seeing someone of authority get their comeuppance. So, again, why are you here? Toby and I aren’t the kind of people men like you socialize with.”
“I don’t even want to hazard a guess at what you might mean by that. However, you’re right. It is nice seeing the bad guys get what they deserve. But I’m here because I’ve been enjoying myself. Both this afternoon and now.” Toby told his aunt to chill. “No, don’t tell her that. She’s just protecting herself and you. And from what I’ve seen, she’s done a good job of both. No, I’m a wealthy man who doesn’t get to hang out with someone around a campfire. Ever, I don’t think. But even with all the crap going on today, I’ve really enjoyed your company. By the way, did you open the envelope? I was asked by my secretary to remind you about it?”
“It was something from my attorney.” She’d opened it in the bathroom in case it was bad news. “It’s all fine.”
Brad didn’t think it was anything near all fine, but he nodded. “I swear to you, Becka, I have no other motives here but to have a nice relaxing evening with a couple of nice people.” She stood up, and he did as well. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No. I’m tired. I have a long drive tomorrow, and I have to get up early enough to go and get my trailer from the lot.” She hugged Toby, then told him thanks for the food, and she was gone. She told Toby not to stay up too late. He had homework.
“You online school?” Toby said that he was a freshman in college and was taking a few classes through the summer. “Good job on that.”
The two of them sat there for another two hours, just talking. He really didn’t want to go home. And thought very seriously about driving a few spaces away and sleeping in his car so that he could—
“Mr. Kirk, my aunt made sure when I was younger to have spent time with a burin. She did it because I’m a bear, and I had questions that she didn’t know. My dad changed my mom when they met so the two of them could run the burin together. I got a lot of questions answered while there, and I’d like to think I’m a bit more knowledgeable than most. All right?” Brad said that she’d been smart for doing that. Even though he’d been gifted a lot of magic and other things from a powerful burin, he knew very little about them. “Yeah, I kind of got that. You don’t know crap, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
Brad laughed a little, and the two of them sat there for a little while longer before he realized that he was staring at Becka’s tent again. He’d been thinking all kinds of odd thoughts about her since she’d gone to bed. When Toby said his name, he looked at the young man.
“I don’t want to upset you none here, but you’re my aunt’s mate. You know that, don’t you?” Brad laughed, thinking that this was a good joke that the kid had. “I’m not kidding you, Mr. Kirk. I could smell it on the two of you. She won’t figure it out either unless I tell her, but I think that you need to be told. Before someone else tells you. I have a feeling that the people with you today would make fun of you for not figuring it out on your own.”