Military Romance Collection: Contemporary Soldier Alpha Male Romance (8 page)

Finding Grandpa Chuck’s PO Box turned out to be easier said than done. The town listed,
Adelaide
, wasn’t one Google recognized. Charlie spent the better part of two days driving around, figuring the town couldn’t be that far from the ranch, but he never found any sign of it. Finally, feeling defeated, he was driving back toward his place when he spotted a library.

He stopped and asked the librarian if there were any maps he could look at.

“Sure thing, honey,” the librarian, who was old enough to be Charlie’s mother, replied. “What exactly are you trying to find?”

“Adelaide, Texas,” Charlie replied. “Specifically, the post office.”

The librarian started to laugh. “And why do you need the Adelaide post office?”

Charlie pulled his head back, surprised. He thought that was a strange question. “My Grandfather passed a few months ago, and as far as I know, they’re holding on to his mail there. I just found out about it because we’re trying to get some tax stuff sorted out.”

The librarian’s face softened easily. “You must be Chuck’s boy.” She peered at him intently, and then shook her head. “No. You’re the grandson. Your father would be older.” She laughed again. “Of course, most fathers are.”

Charlie laughed. “I’m the third,” he said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Well, you definitely have more manners than the old man did,” the librarian laughed. “I’m Delores Holmeswatter. Now let me explain to you about the Adelaide post office.”

Adelaide, it turned out, was not a town, but a person. “Back in the day – and I mean before I was born, so we’re talking at least twenty years ago,” Delores said, with the air of a storyteller who enjoyed her work, “Miss Adelaide Lopez was a rodeo queen. She did some trick riding, she did some barrel racing, but mostly, she was the pretty girl everyone came to the rodeo to see.”

Charlie nodded. “Okay.”

“And when I mean they came to see her, she gave them something to look at,” Delores said. “Which meant all the cowboys loved her, and all the cowboy’s wives…”

“Didn’t?” Charlie guessed.

“You could say that,” Delores agreed. “Adelaide was with the rodeo a good little while. But then she got hurt, pretty bad.” She shook her head. “It turns out nobody really wanted Adelaide living next door to their ranch. Jealousy’s an awful thing.”

“Everyone has to live somewhere,” Charlie said.

Dolores nodded. “But it took Adelaide a while to find her somewhere. For a long time, she had this little beat up Winnebago she lived out of. She’d park way out at the edge of people’s property, keeping out of sight until the wives found out and made her move along. Eventually she come up with some money and bought a little piece of land way on the edge of town.

Now people who got nowhere to go know they can stay with her if they need to. People who want to keep their business to themselves have their mail sent to her.” Delores nodded. “It sounds like that’s what Chuck did.”

“Why?” Charlie asked. “Grandpa lived alone. It wasn’t like he had to be worried about anyone going through his mail.”

Delores burst out laughing. She laughed long and hard, until tears started to appear in the corners of her eyes.

“What’s so funny?” Charlie asked.

“I’m sorry,” Delores said. “Your Grandfather did live alone. But let’s just say he never really lacked for company.” She lowered her voice, even though they were the only two people in the library. “Your Grandfather was a ladies’ man.”

“Oh, my.” Charlie replied. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was supposed to say to that, so he forged ahead with his initial objective. “So you think Adelaide has my Grandpa’s mail?”

“I’m certain of it,” Delores said. “She takes her responsibilities very seriously. Much better than the real Post Office, actually,” she continued, “but that’s another story…”

“Yes, thank you.” Charlie cut off that conversation before it could get started. “Could you give me directions to Adelaide’s place?”

“Yes,” Delores said. “And I’ll give her a call to let her know you’re coming.”

Charlie thanked her and headed for the door. Delores had one more bit of advice to share with him. Just before he stepped out, she said, “Be careful of those damn dogs of hers! They all bite, as far as I know.”

“Great,” Charlie said. “This is going to be an adventure.”

The drive to Adelaide took Charlie to a corner of the county he’d never been to before. Houses were far and few between in this area; the terrain was sparse and hilly. It must have been prairie chicken mating season. The little birds were running all over the place, ruffling their feathers and kicking up an unbelievable amount of dust.

Charlie kept having to slow his truck down to avoid hitting the prairie chickens as they ran across the road in front of him. In their wake, they left trails of sand. As he drove on and on, the sand trails thickened and became more numerous, growing closer and closer together until they covered the road completely.

The directions Delores had given Charlie indicated he still had five miles to go before he reached Adelaide’s, so he kept driving, albeit slowly. Every now and then he thought he could glimpse some few inches of pavement revealed by drifting sand. Even so, he wasn’t entirely sure he was still on the road. Spotting the carefully groomed cactus garden Delores had told him about as a landmark made Charlie feel much better.

Adelaide’s house was small and low to the ground, just as Delores had explained it. And also as Delores had indicated, the place was full of dogs. There were at least seven that Charlie could count: a big shepherd, three hound dogs, and two pairs of terriers that started barking ferociously the minute they saw Charlie.

“What’s all this racket?” Charlie heard Adelaide before he saw her. She was a small, stooped woman with an impressive looking rifle in her hands. Her eyes was bright and brown, and she wasn’t smiling when she said, “Are you Chuck’s boy, or am I going to have to kill you?”

“Whoa!” Charlie said, putting his hands up. “I’m Charlie. I talked to Delores. You’ve got my Grandpa’s mail?”

“Course I do,” she replied. “He had it sent here, didn’t he?”

“I just found that out,” Charlie replied.

“Took you long enough,” Adelaide said. She coughed for a moment, and then leaned over and spit on the ground. “Didn’t you read the note?”

“What note?” Charlie asked.

“I told him to leave you a note,” Adelaide replied. “Well, not you, specifically. But for anyone who came along to clean up his mess after he died. So they’d know where all the important stuff was.”

“Honest to God, Miss Adelaide,” Charlie said, “I didn’t find any notes.” He was starting to get nervous. “Can you please put that gun down?”

“If I do, that doesn’t mean I won’t kill you later,” Adelaide said. “I’m almost one hundred years old, and that means I mean what I say!”

“Okay!” Charlie agreed. “That’s fine. Just please don’t kill me now.”

All at once, the old woman broke into a huge grin. “I hardly never kill anybody the first time I meet them,” she said, “so you should be all right.” She turned back toward her house. “Come on. I’ve got boxes of Chuck’s mail for you.”

Moving carefully, Charlie started to follow Adelaide. The dogs had stopped barking, but when Charlie began to walk, they started growling.

“What about the dogs?” he asked.

“Don’t worry,” Adelaide said. She said something to the dogs, speaking some language Charlie thought was Spanish. “They’ll be fine.”

“What did you tell them?” Charlie asked.

Adelaide laughed. “I told them not to bite you unless you bit them first.” She looked back over her shoulder and wagged a finger toward his face. “So you’d better be on your best behavior.”

Adelaide’s house was much larger than it looked from the outside. “It’s built into the ground,” she explained. “These sons of bitches tax collectors want money for every square inch of your house.” When Adelaide laughed, it sounded like chickens cackling. “But that’s every square inch they can see. What they don’t know about, I don’t have to pay for.”

“My Grandpa had some problems with taxes, didn’t he?” Charlie asked. “Did he ever talk to you about that?”

“He didn’t have no problem with them,” Adelaide said. She’d made her way to a closet door, opened it, and started pulling out boxes. “It was them that had a problem with him. They wanted a cut of his prize money, and he said no way, he’d won that free and clear.” Adelaide straightened up with a shoe box in her hands. It was full to overflowing, with the lid barely held on by a rubber band. “They didn’t like that position too much.” She thrust the box into Charlie’s hands. “And they kept writing him to tell him that.”

“Why’d he have them send all this stuff here?” Charlie asked. “Instead of to his house?”

“Well, he figured that way, the IRS wouldn’t know where he really lived. So if they come to take his property, they could have this place, and I’d go live on the ranch.” A brief flare of hope flashed through the old woman’s eyes. “You’re here to tell me it’s time to get ready to move, aren’t you?”

Charlie took a deep breath. Adelaide had put her gun down, and he still remembered what she said about killing him. The dogs weren’t all that far away either, and they didn’t look thrilled about Charlie’s ongoing presence in their home. Nobody knew where Charlie was, except for Delores, the librarian. It wasn’t the most comfortable conversation he’d ever had. “I’m sorry, Miss Adelaide. But the IRS is fixing to take the ranch.”

“Those sons of bitches,” Adelaide said. “They just can’t leave decent folk alone.” Her eyes narrowed and she glanced at Charlie quickly. “They don’t know about this place, do they? Because I’m not giving it up without a fight.”

Charlie shook his head rapidly. “Your secret is safe with me, Miss Adelaide.”

“It had better be,” the old woman replied. “You’ve got his mail, now get out.” She shooed Charlie toward the door, following him through the threshold onto the sand. “And when you come back next time, bring some whiskey. I like whiskey.”

***

The oldest postmark Charlie could find in the stack of documents was over twelve years old. He sighed, poured himself a stiff drink, and sat down to read.

The dispute was exactly as Ada and Adelaide had explained it. The IRS had sent Grandpa Chuck repeated notices that his horses’ earnings on the rough stock circuit were taxable income. For a while, there were copies of Grandpa Chuck’s replies to the IRS, where he explained he’d be happy to pay any taxes due when he sold the horses in question, but until then, no dice. The IRS wrote back, saying that wasn’t exactly how tax law worked, and Grandpa Chuck wrote back, explaining that that’s how it was going to work this time.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Charlie couldn’t help but laugh. It seemed pretty clear that his Grandfather had been in the wrong right along on this situation, but the old man hadn’t budged an inch on his position. Each year’s tax return subsequent to the first notice diligently recorded any revenue realized from the sale of horses, but not a penny more.

“I won that money fair and square,” a typical letter read. “So the government has no right to it.” Grandpa Chuck would then generally go on to insult whoever was in political power at the time – except for a notable break when Grandpa entreated the IRS to “Go check with President Bush as he is a rancher who will surely agree with me.”

There was no record of the IRS ever reaching out to President Bush. Charlie read every notice diligently, including the letter Ada had sent a little over a year ago indicating that she was the new agent working on Chuck’s case, and that she was looking forward to bringing the matter of his outstanding taxes to a close quickly. She’d even offered to talk to his Grandfather about reducing the amount of money owed, Charlie realized. As far as he could tell, Grandpa Chuck had never replied.

There were two letters that indicated that the IRS had become aware of Grandpa Chuck’s death, indicating that a final tax return needed to be filed and that all past due taxes were now payable immediately. Charlie set these to the side, finished his drink, took a deep breath, and called his brothers.

“I think we should sue,” Matthew said, the minute Charlie finished explaining what had happened.

“Sue who?” Charlie asked. “Grandpa’s dead. It’s not like we’re going to be able to get the money out of him.”

“Sue our attorney for one,” Matthew replied. “Wasn’t it his job to find out we didn’t have anything like this hanging over our heads?”

“I asked him about the estate taxes, and he said we were clear,” Charlie said. “Even the IRS lady agreed with that. This other stuff?” He shrugged. “I don’t know how he was supposed to even know about it. He had his mail going to this old lady way off in bum fuck nowhere.”

“Sue her, then,” Matthew replied. “For interfering with the mail or whatever.”

“She doesn’t have nothing, Matt,” Charlie replied. The idea of suing Adelaide made him angrier than he expected to be. “I mean, she lives in a freaking hole in the ground, all right? So give it up with the lawsuit thing already.”

“Well, where are we going to come up with $100,000?” Matthew shot back. “I don’t have that kind of money.”

“I’ve got $23,000 saved up,” David said. It was a calm statement that took all the energy out of Charlie and Matthew’s bickering. “If that’s going to help us hold onto the farm, we can use that.”

“How the hell did you save up $23,000?” Matthew asked.

“There’s not a lot to spend it on out here,” David replied. “Seeing as the whole damn country’s been shot to shit, you know?”

“I don’t want to spend your money, David,” Charlie said. “You’re going to need that when you get out of the service.”

“I’m going to need a place to live when I get out,” David replied. “I’m going to need a job. I’m going to need a super hot cowgirl wife. I’m expecting that if I put this money into keeping the ranch, you can take care of the rest.”

Charlie teared up, touched by his brother’s gesture. He struggled to keep that emotion out of his voice when he replied, because he knew David always preferred to keep things light. “You want a brunette hot cowboy wife or a blonde? They take a while to find, you know…”

David laughed. “You know better than that. Find me a red head. And make sure she can juggle, fix cars, and fish.”

“No problem,” Charlie said. “I’ll get right on that.”

“I can’t get that far into it,” Matthew said. “Money. Well. Money’s pretty tight right now. But give me a day or two. I should be able to get together a couple of grand without Amy knowing.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, man.” Charlie had never been married, but something in his brother’s advice made it possible for him to predict exactly how well his sister-in-law would react to spending money to save a faltering bucking bronco ranch. “We’ll make it work, seriously.”

“No,” Matthew replied. “This is a family thing. I need to…we need to be part of that.” There was a pause and then he said. “It’ll be all right. Don’t worry about it.”

“As for me,” Charlie said, “I sank all the cash I had into getting this place up to speed. Mr. Roderigurez helped me get some money going, but I don’t know if it’s going to be enough, fast enough, to raise the amount we need.” He did some quick calculations in his head and swallowed. “Seeing as that’s like sixty-five grand.”

“Is there anything on the ranch we can sell for some quick cash?” Matthew asked. “What about Bad Ass? He’s got to be worth some serious money.”

Charlie shook his head. “He’s the best horse I’ve got on this place.”When rodeo season started, he explained to his brothers, he would be able to send out some stock to work. “Until then, Bad Ass is the only money maker I’ve got.”

“Shit,” Matthew said. “What about the other horses?”

Charlie started explaining what he knew about the market value of the rest of his herd when he heard someone shouting in the background of the call. “David, are you all right man? You need to go be safe?”

David’s reply was quick and puzzled. “That’s not me, man.”

“It’s here,” Matthew cut in. “I’ve got to go. Talk to you all later.”

He dropped off the call. “What is going on with him?” David asked. “He doesn’t sound right at all.”

“I don’t know,” Charlie said. “But you’re right. Something is definitely up.”

“He’s worried about money all the time lately.”

“Well, I could say the same,” Charlie replied. “You wouldn’t believe how much simple shit – everyday stuff, like hay and grain – costs. It’s nuts.”

“Freedom isn’t free, bro.” David laughed. “That’s the way life works.You’ve either got money and nothing to spend it on or stuff to buy and no money.”

“I’d much rather have you back here and broke, you know.” Charlie said. “For real.”

“I know, bro,” David said. “And don’t fret. Soon enough that’ll be the case.” He laughed. “So you better get started on finding my kickboxing, gourmet cooking, ballet dancer wife to be.”

“I will, for sure,” Charlie laughed. “Talk to you soon. You stay safe, you hear?”

“Wow,” David replied. “You’re even starting to sound like a Texan.”

***