Page 9 of Maverick

“I shouldn’t be. I have rights, you know? And you’re infringing on my rights for me to have a fair trial. You guys keep looking into shit that isn’t making me happy. I want you to stop that right now.” The man was still laughing as he made his way to the front of the stationhouse. “Did you hear me? You’re going to be in big trouble when I bring it up at the courthouse how you guys were treating me.”

Bradon thought that he’d heard the man to say go for it, but he wasn’t sure. Sitting back down, he was able to add two more things to his list. It was growing, too, his list of grievances that he was figuring out for himself that would get him all his money back as well as out of the charges that were against him. Knowing they were weak didn’t stop him from looking anyway.

To get out, he was going to have to talk to Gracie and tell her what udder nonsense it was to press charges to her only living relative. That sounded so good that he unlined it twice. She just wasn’t being nice to him, and he didn’t think that was right either. None of the things she’d been doing of late were very nice of her.

Then there was the top one, the one where they were digging too deeply into his life was something that he knew if he could get them to stop, would negate the rest of his list because that would basically devoid the others. He just needed to come up with some brilliant reason why they should stop. Bradon didn’t think that saying that he just wanted them to stop was going to go very far. Perhaps he’d just use the one about being Gracie’s only relative again. That’s the ticket he told himself.

It took him the better part of an hour to get finished up with his list. Or as best he could. The lights had been turned off, and he was supposed to be sleeping. Like he was a ten year old having to be told when to go to bed, for Christ’s sake. But he kept his mouth shut, knowing that they were keeping a list of their own about how much he cooperated when they told him something.

Bradon was a nightlife person. He loved being out when everyone else was cuddled up in their little beds. He made his best deals in the cover of darkness. Even going so far as to make sure that his people were following the rules that he’d beaten into them about what he wanted done. That was another thing that he found that was difficult for people to understand. If they’re asked to do a certain thing, then they should just shut the fuck up and do it. Not tell him that it wasn’t anything that they had signed on for or some shit like that. Once again, he thought that there should have been a book.

He’d oftentimes thought that he’d write the book. How to Be a Millionaire By Being a Fucking Prick would have been the name of it. Long, but it got the point of the book across. Closing his eyes against the harshness of the brilliant moon shining on him, he felt himself drifting off with thoughts of chasing the next big money maker. There was shit tomorrow that he might be able to take care of, and he was going to make it work, even if he had to use the phone somehow to get things moving.

~*~

Maverick couldn’t believe how many boxes of ‘junk’ that was lying out on the lawn of the household he and his family had gone through. His dad told him that it made him consider downsizing even more than they had after Clay and his family had moved into the Manor house. Looking at the stuff, not all of it junk, he could understand his dad’s meaning. Who on earth needed more than one cheese grater?

There were other things as well that there were duplicates of, but he wasn’t going to think about that. He and Grace had counted nine beds, all of them looking to be about a queen that they sorely needed for their house. They didn’t have guests or family yet that would need a bed, but he thought that if there were friends coming into town or something like that, he’d be prepared. They were standing in front of one particularly beautiful set when his mom came to them.

“I have never been very good at betting at these sorts of things. So I asked your dad, and you know what he told me? To find Sherm. He seems to be able to get the best price for a lot of things. I want you to know that I’m going to do it, too. Are you hoping to score some bedroom furniture?” Grace told his mom about the empty bedrooms and how they were going to fill them out. “Aren’t they all hardwood floors in there? I believe that they are. You might want to have a look at the rugs that they’re going to be auctioning off, too. But right now, the police are looking them over. I have no idea why they’d need rugs but there you have it.” Maverick nodded before telling her what he knew.

“Someone here reported that one of the rolled-up rugs had a body in them. Some kids, no doubt, trying to cause a scene.” Grace and his mom wandered over to the rugs to have a look. He was nearly to the front of the box lots they were selling off first when his dad joined him. “You have your eye on something here, Dad?”

“Sherm is going to be bidding for both myself and your mom. He’s a wonderful kid, don’t you think?” Maverick said that he thought so as well and wasn’t at all surprised that Sherm joined them at the lots. “Maverick, you should see how well he’s doing on selling some of the things that he got at his first auction. I think that he’s made nearly a thousand bucks already.”

“You want to invest that, Sherm. Get more money for your buck.” When the auction started on the boxes that he wanted, they all stepped back from him. He loved the fact that they just seemed to understand about the auction zone.

He ended up winning all the boxes that he wanted pulse eight more for less than ten bucks. There were some tools in the boxes that he knew his contractor had lost, and he didn’t feel the least bit upset with getting them all for a good price. Standing near the boxes but far enough away to be able to talk to his dad, he asked him if Gracie had been upset about the newspaper article.

“No. I mean, I think she was a little embarrassed at first. Then, when I told her the thinking behind it, she was thrilled. Last night, when I spoke to Bradon, I mentioned it to him. Joey said that he’d asked for a newspaper right after the phone call, so it had the desired effect.” Dad asked him if he was going to the prehearing on Monday. “I’m going with Gracie. She’s going to be asked to testify. How much more information was anyone able to get from the bloodwork on his parents? Jade said she had it, but I didn’t want to pester her too much. She was really doing a great job with getting stuff on the man to set him up in jail forever.”

“There are two pretrials going on Monday and Tuesday. There is the one for Toria’s sister, Lorie. I nearly forgot about it until I looked at the calendar. I have to admit, using that thing to schedule around this entire family and the grandkids is very handy. I know that I have to make sure that Sherm has three books for his online classes that start the following Monday.” Maverick told him that he used it all the time and loved the family share, too.”

While keeping an eye on the furniture, they talked about the two trials. The one with Lorie had been the worst they’d had to deal with. Lorie Dutch had confessed to telling Sherm’s biological grandparents that her sister was taking the baby to France for some reason. Toria had been nearly dead when a neighbor had brought over Sherm a birthday gift, and she found her on the floor bleeding to death from gunshot wounds to her head and chest. Sherm had been kidnapped by them, and it was all because of her sister, who didn’t think that her one little lie was worth her getting into trouble about. She was the worst narcissistic person he’d ever met. Not only nearly killing her sister off, but the grandparents had been killed as well when it was figured out that they were fleeing the country with the young boy.

He got the bedroom sets for much less than he had budgeted himself for. Counting the lot boxes that were still selling, he had made off really well. Maverick was glad that he’d brought his truck in case he won them and was now glad that Grace had told him to do it. Laughing, he hung around the box lots still talking to his dad.

They didn’t get into anymore more serious than the upcoming holidays, as well as a couple of financial things that his dad wanted him to look into. Making a note on his phone, he was ready to hit the larger boxes when Grace and his mom joined them. Sherm had gotten them a great deal on his parent’s items, and Dad said he was paying for dinner if they wanted to join them. Grace didn’t want to leave just yet. There were things in the house that she was looking into so while she and Sherm went into the house to look things over—he didn’t care what it was so long as she was happy—while his dad made reservations. He just wanted them, the six of them, to have a meal together tonight.

Dinner was wonderful. Mostly, he attributed to the company, but he was full and didn’t want to move either. He and Grace had been fast food for the past couple of weeks and the contractors said that they’d have the kitchen finished up by next weekend. He couldn’t wait. There was something to be said for having a home cooked meal. That was something that he was looking forward to more than anything else.

After driving home, pulling the truck into the shell of a garage that was being put on the new property, they walked hand in hand into the house. They both wandered around the kitchen area, thinking that it was never going to be finished. But the walls were up, and the new cabinets had been put in since he’d been here this morning. Tomorrow, he’d get the beds cleaned up and then put them in the bedrooms.

There were leftovers in the fridge that had arrived, too, that hadn’t been put against the wall but had been plugged in. Looking them over, he decided that he’d not eat them and tossed them into the trash. Dad warned him about tossing things out in the yard as that would attract all kinds of varmints.

“I’m exhausted. How about you?” Maverick told Grace that he was about as bone tired as he’d ever been. “I know we have to get up early tomorrow to go to the courthouse to file the paperwork for the new addition on the back of the house—no wait, it’s Saturday tomorrow. Cancel all that. I’m going to sleep until I want to wake up and not an alarm screaming at me to do so.”

“I love that plan.” She’d been keeping him at arm’s length because she was so very stressed out about the trial. He didn’t blame her. It would be over soon, he knew.

The thing was, he was all right with not making love to her yet. He wanted her. There was no doubt about that. But he also wanted their union—he laughed a little about the use of such an old-fashioned word—to be good for them both. To have come to him, willingly and with her heart in it, he wasn’t worried about them together. Maverick found himself not to be worried about a great many things when it came to the two of them being married and happy. She was his one and only, and they had the rest of their lives to do the things that married people did. Making love was only a small part of that.

Plus there was a great deal hanging on Grace’s testimony she was to give on Monday morning. She was going to talk about how he’d beaten her, taken her money right from her account that he wasn’t on, as well as burning down hers as well as a great many other people’s homes because he wanted her to pay. However, he thought that his family had been able to dig up enough anyway to keep the man out of their hair for a long time. The same with Torie’s sister. They were bad people and set up to get their comeuppance in a jury of their peers.

Taking a shower again to wash off all the dust he’d gotten into tonight, he was so exhausted that he didn’t think that he’d make it to the bed after coming out of the bathroom. As soon as he laid down, a wave of dizziness washed over him, and he let himself fall back onto the pillow and be consumed by darkness.

Chapter 5

Grace was about as nervous as she’d ever been. Last night, she’d been so worked up that she thought for sure she was going to have a massive stroke, and that would be the end of it. However, her love for the man who had saved her again calmed her down and assured her that she had this. Then he told her all the things that he was going to do to her when the day ended, and they were going to come home alone and make love on every hard surface in their new home. She liked that idea and told him so.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com