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I’d finally talked him into letting the kids go back to school after keeping them home for days, but the crazy man had the people’s school surrounded. I don’t know what excuse he’d given them but one of the boys’ teachers had told me that Colt’s argument had been that his kids were just as important as the President’s and the asshole movie stars’, as he’s fond of calling them. She thought he was cute the way he carried on to get his way; little does she know.
Now, he’s talking about making a run somewhere. Uh huh, rare parts my ass. I know my man and that is not the look he wears when he’s after parts for one of his specials. That’s his ‘somebody’s about to get fucked’ look.
I know very well that Colt likes to take matters into his own hands, but we’re both getting too old for this shit. I didn’t even bother fussing at him as I watched him walk back and forth getting his stuff together for his little impromptu ride.
By mutual agreement, we don’t discuss the pregnancy, though Colt steals rubs of my tummy and at night he sleeps with his hand over our girls. But this evening after dinner, he’d been mumbling about leaving me with the babies, like he was wrestling with his conscience.
I bit my tongue and didn’t say a word of what was going through my head. Like the fact that my house was still surrounded by half of his crew from sunup to sundown, and the fact that these men were now taking up residence in our guest house and my damn basement.
“Daddy…”
“Well shit.” I held my hand over my mouth to cover the snicker that threatened to escape at his reaction to our youngest daughter’s interruption. “Yes Catalina.” He stopped what he was doing to look at her. Even with my mind in turmoil, I knew this was going to be good, it usually is where these two are concerned.
“How long is uncle Max going to be here?” Max was one of the crew that Colton had staked out in our basement. No one was talking, which was not surprising and the one time I tried making an end run around Colt to get some information, he gave me one of his looks and I got the screwing of my life that night. He’s still very territorial, still doesn’t like men around me no matter who it is. Which made the fact that they were here very suspicious indeed. And he wonders why I’m always on his case.
“Why?” He barely contained the huff that was never too far when dealing with his baby girl. I guess it’s poetic justice that he has a kid who’s his carbon copy. The fact that it’s one of our girls and not the boys was just the icing on the cake. I have to get my kicks where I can, living with Mr. Crazy, and these little skirmishes never disappoint.
“He’s taking up all my space.” Her little hands went to her hips, which was something she’d picked up from her grandmother lately and which gives her daddy fits. “What space, you pay rent?” Oh this ought to be good.
“Daddy, don’t be silly. So when’s he going home?”
“He’s not, what is it that you’re doing down there anyway?”
“Stuff.”
“Stuff? What stuff, you’re five years old you don’t have any stuff.” She rolled her eyes and hopped up on the bed for a cuddle.
I pulled her in close for a smell of her hair. Her sister was getting too old for mommy time, which was heartbreaking, but I still had my little terror and her new baby brother. She studied her fingernails and toes, which were full of sparkles from the mani-pedi set my mom had given her for Xmas. Something else that had caused world war six in my house when Colt first saw it, but was also one of the things that tipped me off that he was up to no good.
He’d been working up a good head of steam when he got a good look at her fashion statement. You’d have thought the child was committing a crime the way he’d carried on, but all she’d had to do that time was bat her lashes at him and tell him how all her little friends were doing it, and Colton Lyon had melted like a puddle of goo. Uh huh.
That, coupled with the fact that he’d had us under armed guard for weeks now was more than enough to put me on high alert. I’d asked him more than once what was going on, but each time I’d just get his patented ‘nothing for you to worry about Katarina’ like that was gonna work. This time I knew exactly what to do though.
“Scram kid, I need to talk to your mom.”
“Eww daddy, you just wanna do more of that kissing stuff.”
“I what, what the hell?” He really needs to take it easy before he gives himself a coronary.
“It’s okay daddy, I know all about it, my boyfriend…”
“Catalina Lyon, if you don’t want to spend the rest of your life locked away somewhere you’d stop right there.”
“Geez daddy-it’s just a kiss-just lips touching-people do it all the time, it’s like…saying hello.” She waddled off the bed on her little spindly legs reminding me that for all the words that were coming out of her mouth, she was still little more than a baby.
“Kat we gotta do something.” He actually looked distressed when he plopped down on the mattress next to me. “Aww poor baby, you know she’s just a little more curious and just a tad bit smarter than the others, but there’s nothing to worry about.”
“You won’t be saying that when we’re knee deep in teenage pregnancies, what the fuck have you and Elena been doing around that kid? I find it strange that Caitiebear who was practically raised by me doesn’t do any of that shit, but the one I left to you and my mother is twisted as fuck.”
What could I say to that enlightening piece of logic? There was no talking him down when it comes to her anyway so why bother? “Poor Colton, she scares you doesn’t she?” I dared not laugh because that would just send him off on one of his tangents again.
“You think this shit is funny, don’t you? Well we’ll see how funny you find it when you’re collecting her ass from Juvie in a few years.” He hopped off the bed mumbling something under his breath about Mengele’s experiments or some other such thing.
***
I stood in the doorway smiling and waving all the while formatting my words in my head. As soon as he cleared the street and I heard the last engine disappear I hightailed it to the nearest phone. I had to be careful though because I didn’t want anyone to hear.
This has got to stop. For weeks, things have been crazier than usual around here, and since meeting the other women, I knew something was definitely up, but their men were no more forthcoming than Colt was. I knew enough to know that whatever this was, it had more to do with us as a family than Colt was letting on. Now Caitie was getting strange emails and I knew that more than anything else would send my husband over the deep end.
