Gerard (7 page)

“They’ll come with us if you feed them. He doesn’t want to have to go another winter without making sure that his family is safe. Will you…can we take them to the ranch? At least for the winter?” He tried to think how he could feed them when all he had on him was a bottle or two of water and a single sandwich. “I mean feed them at the ranch. They’ll come to you as a herd if you’ll take care of them.”

“You should do it.” When she shook her head, he nodded. “The Mitchell ranch hasn’t been a viable ranch for years, and I know that they raised horses at one time. This is more than I’ve ever seen on the place, but I think you and Gerard can make it work. You could sell them if you want. And I’m pretty sure that you would be able to train them in ways that no one else ever would. Christ, Susie, they already are accepting of us, and you’ve yet to do more for them than to touch their leader.”

“What about Gerard? I think he has it in his head to raise cattle, as you are. What do you think he’ll say about having horses on the ranch instead of cows?” Mason was sure that Gerard would love to get out from under the cattle business. He’d not had his heart in it for years, but he just smiled at Susie. “I don’t think I like that look.”

“If you take these horses back with you, you could sell enough of them to buy the ranch outright. We’d make you a good deal. There are a lot of hands around us, not just on our ranch but the others as well, that need work and would do an honest day’s job for the two of you. You and Gerard could train them to accept other paranormals like us, ones that can’t ever hope to ride a horse because of what they are.” Mason was warming to the idea and felt his excitement for it growing. “The only reason I can ride the one I do is because he has been on our ranch as long as I have. The one you’re on? You are on her because she let you. You are going to make a great deal of money with your talent. And I promise you, no one will ever know your secret. Ever.”

She only stared at the herd. He didn’t want to push her…okay, that wasn’t true, but he did know that she’d come to this decision on her own. Or after talking it over with Gerard. When she told him she’d think about it, he told her they should head back. The harras followed right behind them.

“I don’t think we should tell anyone what we’re doing.” She looked over at him after they’d gone about halfway back to the ranch. “I’d like to see their faces when we come up on the ranch with these guys. I mean, don’t not talk to them, but don’t tell them what we’re doing.”

“You’re very strange.” He only laughed. And Mason realized that they’d come together today, her and him. Maybe she didn’t fully trust him as yet, but their relationship was a little friendlier.

Mason was surprised—even though when he thought about it, he shouldn’t have been—by how the horses seemed to herd themselves. The mustang that had been up on the ridge first would ride with Susie for a bit, then drop back to the rest of the harras and see what they were about. If this had been cattle they were bringing in, it would have taken them a dozen men and they would have lost a couple on the way. He wasn’t stupid enough to think all rides with horses would be this way, but he liked it all the same.

As they entered the main part of the ranch, he could see the trucks in the drive as well as several men standing outside the large barn. Mason wasn’t worried, knowing that if anything was wrong, he would have been notified about it. He reached out to Gerard when he saw him come out of the barn.

Open the gates, little brother. Your wife has brought you something huge.
When he just stood there staring at them, Mason could imagine what was going through his head. But they were getting close now and they had to have somewhere to put them. After telling him again to open the gate, several men went to the other corrals and opened them as well. And like the way they had come with them down the pasture, the horses moved into the paddocks like they’d done it every day for their entire life.

It was nearing midnight when they had a count. Not a perfect counting of them—there was simply too many of them—but enough to know that even if they sold them for a thousand apiece, Gerard and Susie were not going to have to worry about money again. And the other ranchers who had come to see the new harras had a lot of questions for the new owners.

“How many do you think you’re going to have sold come morning?” Gerard looked at him, glassy eyed, and Mason patted him on the back. “You’re going to be just fine. And you should talk to Susie about the house and what to do with the horses. I’m thinking that you two will have enough money to make a solid difference in your lives.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that we’re going to be fine. But right now, I don’t see it. We have over six thousand horses here. Six thousand. How the hell am I going to feed them? I don’t even have a good bed and couch.” Mason wanted to tell him he could afford it now but didn’t. “Do you have any idea how much the vet bills are going to be? Christ, I think…I’m going to be sick.”

“Gerard?”

They both turned to look at Susie. She looked just as poleaxed as her mate did. Mason suddenly felt bad for what he’d done. He’d talked her into this, and when they’d gotten here, he’d convinced Gerard that it was a good idea as well. When the two of them walked away from him, holding hands, Mason went to find Jace and ask him if he’d been a fool.

“No. Not a fool, but it’s going to take more work than just the two of them can handle, ever. The cattle that we have coming in, as well as the ones we have on the two ranches alone, are going to take more work than we have men for, much less letting some of them come here to help out.” Mason asked if he thought they could sell some of them. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem, but knowing how much, to whom they can sell them to, and what sort of paperwork is going to be needed to sell them is the real question. And not to mention, Susie might need to train a few of them too. They seemed to be fine around all of us, but is that because she’s here? Will they run wild when they go to the new owners?”

Mason could see even more problems with this many horses. The barns weren’t in the best of shape. There were a few downed fences along the way they’d come, and they had no idea if someone else had a claim over the horses or not. They’d been on their land, so he’d just brought them here. Mason realized he might have fucked up, and said as much to Jace.

“I don’t think so. Palmer is looking into the legalities of the thing right now. By the way, he’s flipping excited to be a part of this. Ground floor, he keeps calling it. Ed is coming over in the morning to have a talk with Gerard and Susie about their ownership of them. I’m thinking, and this is just me, we should sign the house over to them in good faith just so they have something they can call home for these horses. And I hope you don’t mind, but I also asked him to see what the going price for prime horse flesh is right now.” Mason nodded his thanks and told him he was probably right about the house too. “You did right, Mason. I wouldn’t have done it, but I think you did the right thing. Even if they only manage to sell a third of them, they’ll be able to afford to buy this place. Aunt Georgie said that they’re hurting for money.”

“How much are they hurting?” Jace told him what their aunt had said to him. “My first instinct is to buy them what they need and to give them money, but I don’t think that’ll work with them.”

“Why not? Both you and I have enough, more than enough, and we can do this for them. I think we should.” Mason shook his head and looked over at the couple in question. “They’re not going to make it if we don’t give them a hand up.”

“I think they will. And these horses? I think we should let them decide what to do with them. Susie found them; they came to her.” Jace asked him what he meant. “She asked me what I’d think if she told me there were more than the six we went there for…and here they came. Like they were waiting for someone to call to them. She said that she didn’t do it, but I think she’s like some sort of animal savant.”

“Remember what she said to you when you asked her for help?” Mason had been thinking the same thing. “You think her father knows what she can do and that’s why he wants her to come to him? So he can…Christ, you suppose he was having her tell him what horses were going to win and by how much? Isn’t that what she said to you that day?”

“Yes, and I do. And now that we know what she can do, we’re going to have to protect her with our lives. Whatever she can do, someone is going to want that information as well. And for more than just the horses.” Mason thought of something else. “The people that come for the horses. We’re going to have to come up with an idea on how we just happened to have them. Even if we were to say they were on the ranch, Mitchell’s widow could claim a part of the money.”

Mason stretched his arms above his head. He was suddenly too tired to think about anything else tonight. As he made his way to his truck and the rest of them theirs, he wondered if he should have told Susie that they’d come back to help with the horses in the morning. Leaving them out there for one more night wouldn’t have hurt anyone, he supposed, as the barns were in not too bad of shape. It was too late now, of course, but he did worry about her and Gerard. He did tell his brother he’d see him in the morning, and felt bad about how stressed he looked.

Mason thought about his family all the way home. They were a great bunch, and he knew that if any of them were to know what kind of shape that Gerard was in, they’d step right in and help them. Then he laughed. He supposed his aunt had known and just fixed it. But it was a gentle kind of helping. Not really his style, but he did know that something had to be done…and soon. He might just let Emma handle it. She was nicer than he was anyway.

Chapter 6

Ernie watched the news feed twice more before he got up and left the bar. The fucking bitch was giving away his hard work. Not that he’d had much to do with raising his daughter. Other than a few squirts of his cum into her mother, he’d been pretty absent from her life. Of course, she had come to live with him for a time, but that hadn’t been much. Knocking her around, he discovered, had been about the only thing he’d enjoyed about having a kid. That was until he found out she could converse with the animals.

“Like a fucking Doctor Doolittle.” Ernie had called her that too, a lot, when she’d tell him she didn’t want to do her job anymore. And he was pretty sure that she’d lied to him on a few occasions too. Telling him that so and so horse was gonna win, and then they didn’t even place. She said it wasn’t her fault, but he knew that she was controlling them animals like he did her with his compulsion over her. Now she had this herd of them right there to sell.

The news people had said that it was a beautiful sight to see all those ponies together. He knew better. They went on about how those horses just started to come in, a few at a time. Some of them had been given to them by farmers who were just not able to care for them, and others still had been brought to the Douglas ranch, she’d told the camera person, by way of donation. Hearing that they were caring for them made the reporter’s heart feel good.

“Bullshit.” Susan had made them come to her, and he knew it. And not only that, she was going to make money off them ponies and think she wasn’t going to give any to him. “Bullshit on that too, damn it.”

Ernie decided that he wanted a little of that action and was going to get it. Making his way to the hotel he’d been in since they’d let him out of jail a week ago, he tried to think how the hell he was supposed to get out to where she was.

He didn’t have a car…not that he knew how to drive anyway. When he and his wife had been together, she’d driven them everywhere, and Ernie had liked having his ass carted around. He never let Anna hold it over him that she could do something he couldn’t. The one time she did start to hold that shit over him, he’d beaten her within an inch of her life. And being mates didn’t save her ass either. He was the leader of their ambush. She never brought it up again.

The hotel he was staying in was kinda run down. Not that he tried to complain too much. It was free on the condition that he find a job soon. The state was paying for it, as well as making sure that he had some food. He’d never been so happy in his entire life to find out the halfway house he was supposed to be staying at was full. Now he was out on the state’s dime, and he planned to suck that tit dry.

There were other conditions too, not that he’d bothered to figure them out. But now that his darling little piece of shit daughter had some money coming her way, he was going to go and have a talk with her. This was going to be a way better deal than the release money she’d been given when they found out he’d had his guy lie on her. The news had called her Susie Douglas, but he knew her when he saw her. Changing her name wasn’t going to keep him from figuring out who she was. Not when they’d blasted her picture all over the fucking news.

Ernie sat down on his bed and thought about his dinner plans. He wasn’t supposed to go in bars or even any kind of establishment that served liquor of any kind. Hell, he thought, what was a man supposed to do after a long day of not looking for a job? Grinning, he called the pizza place down the road again and told them who he was and what he wanted.

“Yeah, about that. You said that the state would give us a check when we called in your bill. They said that you weren’t getting any kind of compensation on food that wasn’t prepared on your own.”

Ernie said he’d come down there and make it for them then. “But if I have to make my own damned pizza, I expect to get a nice discount. One you give me, but don’t tell them state boys I’m getting. That way we both make out, don’t you think?” The man on the phone said that wasn’t going to work either. “Why the hell not? You want to follow them rules, and I’m just helping you out some. A man has to make a little on the side, or things don’t seem right.”

“You’re not going to come here and make your own dinner. And I’m pretty sure that’s not what they meant when they said that. You’re to go and buy your food and cook it on your own. As it is right now, you owe me two hundred forty-two dollars and ten cents. And I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get that unless hell freezes over, am I? You are a piece of work, you fucking prick.”

“Don’t you be calling me names, now. And you’re damned straight you ain’t. Not with that sort of attitude, you ain’t. Christ man, can’t you cut me some slack? I’m outta work.”

The man only hung up on him, telling Ernie in his parting comment to get a fucking job and stop living by stealing.

Ernie could remember a time when he’d been leader of an ambush and businesses would beg him to take their products. Of course, that might have been because he’d been robbing them blind. That was until they saw the narrow path he was leading them down. Bankruptcy and ruin, one man had called what he’d done to him by eating there nightly with his friends and not paying for a single thing. Hell, they didn’t even have to tip the waitress if they didn’t want, which was fairly often. The owner had shut down his restaurant and left town the next week. Back then, one woman would suck him off while another would let him eat their pussy at the same time. He’d only had to knock them around a bit to get them to do it, but he was the leader, not some pussy who paid for sex. He’d had it all. Drugs, money, and women. Then he’d met Anna.

She’d been something else, his mate. Gave as good as he dished out to her, and then some. There had been nights when he’d fuck her so hard she’d be bleeding. Then she’d pick up a heavy something or other and beat him to shit with it. She was a firecracker. He should have taken better care of her, made sure she had some money for her habit. And it was a strong one, her being what she was. He should have told her that robbing that convenience store at that time would surely get her in trouble. Being in another state on a job, he’d only been able to stand by and watch her life fall to shit without him. But the state had figured out that Susan was his and he’d had to go and pick her up. They’d made him promises back then too…more money on his food card, prime housing, and she’d have her lunches for free as long as he maintained a good work ethic.

“Like I knew what the fuck that was.” He knew the definition but not how to go about it. He was an ex-con, for fuck’s sake. How was he supposed to get a fucking job? And not one that made him wear a polyester uniform and be bossed around by some snot-nosed kid that thought he was all that because he was the manager of a fucking burger place. When he’d tried to work at one of them places, he’d smelled like raw meat and dirty grease for hours after he’d gotten off work. One day working that shit had made him see the light. Robbery was the only way to get ahead in this world as far as he was concerned.

He had standards too, by God. And they didn’t have him working in a fast food place. He ate there, he didn’t fucking work there.
Not in this lifetime
, he thought.

He leaned back against the headboard and tried to think what he was gonna do now. There wasn’t any way for him to get credit. His money was all gone, too. Ernie had spent it for the gun he’d had to have almost as soon as he’d been released. He wasn’t supposed to have it, being a con and all, but he wanted it and had bought it. Nobody was going to tell him what to do.

There was the possibility that he could go out and stick a place up, or rob some shit that had more money than he did smarts, but that would require him to get up and move. And right now, Ernie was comfy right where he was. He kicked off his shoes and wiggled his toes. The hole in his sock made him laugh, but he only had the one pair. Life had to get better soon or he was gonna be naked, he thought.

The real money was in the fucking daughter, but figuring out how to get to her and get it, that was the question. He was her sire, as well as the one she answered to, and she’d better by God remember that. But she was slick, he’d give her that. Making sure she was put with him in the same prison had cost him, and it hadn’t even worked out that way. All the work he’d put into her getting caught and all was wasted. Bitch.

The monitor on his ankle burned him, but he didn’t give two shits. He hated to have it on him, someone knowing where he was all the fucking time, but it wasn’t as bad as being at one of them halfway houses, and a damned sight better than being in prison again. So long as he was out and not in one of those monitored houses, he could put up with a little discomfort. And what did he care if they wasted their time by putting it on him? He knew for a fact that they didn’t really monitor them. He’d been all over this city since he’d been out, and not one cop had come to ask him what he was doing.

He glanced over at the bag that his first and only purchase had come in. The gun, bought and paid for with money the state had given him when he’d been let out, was to make Susan do what she was told if she gave him any shit. And he was almost hoping she would try it.

Just before she’d run off when she’d been a kid, he’d beaten her. Maybe he had gone a little over the top with his fists, but his cat had wanted more, so he let him have a go at her too. Frowning, he remembered something else about that day, something that had made him not try to find her for a while. She’d healed.

As his daughter, there was no way she could heal herself after he applied his superiorness to her. Smiling, he knew that his cat was bigger and meaner than she’d ever be, and he was positive that so long as she lived, no male would ever get close enough to her to become her mate. She was pretty enough, he supposed, but she was weird. And men, especially ones he knew, did not go for weird. Then there was the added fact that he had final say over everything she did. She was his.

The phone ringing startled him. He knew that it could only be one person…his parole officer, or in this case reporter. Neither the guy he’d been dealing with in finding Susan nor the girl herself had his number, but he did have the burner number, the phone he’d picked up a week ago, to make his calls. Picking it up, he didn’t say a word until the person on the other end either hung up or spoke first. He wasn’t above playing petty games.

“Then I guess you don’t want what I know.” The man then hung up. He had no idea who it had been, and he felt a slight tremor of fear slide over his body. What did he want? And more so, how did he get this number? He’d been told that as long as he was staying here, there would be no giving out the number to anyone. And he hadn’t given it out himself. Putting the phone in the cradle again, Ernie stared at it, willing it to ring again.

When it did an hour later, he snatched it up like it was going to save his life. This time he not only said hello, but gave his last name too. He didn’t know what this person knew, but he had a feeling he was going to want it.

“No more fucking games.” He told him no, no more games. “When I call, you’d better fucking answer or you’ll be set out on the streets like the piece of shit that you are.”

He wanted to tell the man to shut up, he wasn’t shit, but he felt himself slide off the bed and onto the floor. Ernie put his head on the floor and closed his eyes, waiting for the man to tell him to expose his belly, the softest and the most vulnerable part of any shifter.

“No, sir. I won’t. Next time, you’ll not have any problems with me.” Ernie laid still. He was really afraid to have a thought, he was so terrified. When the man laughed, he started to lift his head but stayed when the man spoke again.

“She’s not going to come to you easily. And when she does, you’d be better off just listening to her and then walking away.” Ernie asked him who. “Susan Douglas. Your daughter. Though how she came from you is beyond me. Listen to her or not, but you stay away from her.”

“Her name ain’t Douglas, it’s Benjamin, like mine. And I can take her back any time I want. I’m her daddy.” The man laughed again. “Who the fuck is this? You tell me right now, and I’m going to come to you and kick your fucking ass.”

“I’m Mason Douglas, her brother-in-law as well as her leader. And come on and try it. I’m betting right now you’re so close to pissing yourself that you’re holding onto your dick.” Ernie moved his hand from his cock and shook himself. No way the man knew what he was feeling. “Stay away from my leap, or you’ll regret it for a very long time. And you have two days to get out of my territory or so help me, I’m going to make you pay in ways you can’t even imagine. I am leader here and I fucking rule you.”

The line went dead, but Ernie just held it to his ear. He didn’t move, wasn’t even sure that he could. Fear of something or someone bigger and meaner than him made him hold his bladder tight and clench up his ass. The man was stronger than Ernie had ever been, even in his hey-day. Christ almighty, he was fucked.

But the longer he lay there, the more his thoughts shifted in his mind. Someone had just threatened him. He, Ernest Benjamin, had been threatened by some dick that was going to get himself killed as soon as he saw him. It didn’t matter to him that he’d been thinking of rolling over for the man. That didn’t even come into the picture now. The fucker had threatened him, and that just wasn’t right.

Getting up to see if anyone was lurking outside his room, he didn’t see anybody, so he felt stronger for it. Not even the payphone across the way from him had anyone standing around watching. Of course, they might have left by now, but he’d find them, sure as he was standing there. He wasn’t even sure that it worked.