The Alpha's Choice (46 page)

"Oh God, not Rollie." Rollie was at the
bottom of all his dreams. Rollie taught him everything he needed to
know and some of those things had saved his life a time or two.
Rollie was his only living kin and the best damn distiller of
illegal corn whiskey in the mountains.

Cob dropped the duffle and leaned against
the house.

Lorelei heard a dull thud and a quiet groan
and dropped the wet overalls back into the basket. She looked up at
wooden screen door that led to the kitchen.

“Rollie? Rollie honey? You okay?” If the old
man fell again because he refused to use the damn walker, she’d
kill him herself. It was hard enough to pick him up last time and
it niggled at the back of her mind that the old fart did it on
purpose, just so he could cop a feel while she helped him up. He
never fell when she was at work or if he did, he picked himself up.
“Rollie?”

“Godammit woman, can’t a man have a minute’s
peace? What do you want?”

Breathing a sigh of relief she called back,
“Nothing. Sorry.” She bent to pick up the denim pants from the
basket.

“He’s alive?”

Lorelei eeked and spun. She held the
overalls out in front of her like a shield. “Who the hell are
you?”

“Cob Thornton and this is my house, so who
the hell are you?”

“This is not your house, buddy.” She took a
step back and toward the stairs. “Rollie?” she called as loud as
she could. “We got company! Now!”

“You live here? With him?”

“What if I do? It’s his place.” She dropped
the pants and took another quick step toward the porch and safety.
She hated showing this guy her fear, but she’d been in this place
before; alone and at the mercy of a strange man and she wasn’t
pregnant then. “Rollie!”

Cob stopped, mouth open. The woman was
pregnant, belly swollen and about to pop. Rollie had a woman? A
young and beautiful woman. A pregnant woman. Shit! What’d the old
man do, win the lottery?

He raised his hands in a gesture of peace,
not wanting to frighten her any more than she obviously was. He
heard the door open. “I won’t…” hurt you, he started to say.

“Damn right. You won’t do squat. Stay right
there, Mister.”

Rollie, looking older and a lot smaller than
Cob remembered, stood on the back porch holding a shotgun that
wavered vaguely in Cob’s direction.

The woman, now behind his uncle, reached for
the gun. “I got it, honey.”

“The hell you do. It’s my legs don’t work. I
can shoot just fine.” He rested the barrel on the rail.

Hands still in the air, Cob said quietly,
“Rollie, it’s me, Cob, your nephew,” he added, in case the old man
had lost his mind as well as the use of his legs. He stared at the
woman’s middle. Obviously other parts worked just fine.

“The hell you say. Cob’s dead. Been dead
these last fourteen years.”

“Then how the hell am I standing here now?”
Cob thought for a minute before he came up with something the old
man would understand. “Did they ever send you a check?”

“Don’t deal in checks. It’s cash money or
nothing. Anybody who knows me knows that.”

Cob’s head dropped to his chest. He gave it
a quick shake and picked it up again. “You are as thick as the
soles on a banker’s shoes, Rollie Roper.” It was what his mother
said over and over when he was a boy.

Rollie took his finger off the trigger.
“Step on over here so’s I can get a good look at ya.”

Rollie handed the shotgun to Lorelei and
leaned over the rail to get a better look. The boy had been tall
and skinny when he left. This feller wasn’t as tall as Dewey
Tolliver, but he was twice as broad.

“What was your Mama’s name?”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Cob started to lower
his hands and then noticed how the woman held the weapon. She
looked a damn sight more competent that Rollie.

“My mother’s name was Abigail. My father was
Elijah. I was born in this house, or so I was told, in the same
damn bed as you were, though I hope to God it wasn’t the same damn
mattress. We came to live with you when I wasn’t much more than a
baby. You had an old hound you called Boner that my mother hated
though I didn’t understand at the time it was the name she hated,
not the dog. He lived under that porch you’re standing on and you
told me he would eat me alive if I dared leave the house without
you or my mother. I believed it, you old bastard.”

Rollie slapped the rail. “I’ll be damned. I
thought you was dead. Got notice from the gov’ment.”

“That I was wounded, not dead. Didn’t you
listen to what they said?” He started to drop his hands again,
stopped, looked at the woman and completed the move when she nodded
and lowered the weapon, though she didn’t put the safety on when
she cradled it across her arm.

“Didn’t talk to ‘em. Saw the car and the
uniforms and knew why they were here. They don’t send a car lessen
you’re dead. You best come in since you ain’t.” He turned,
tottered, and was rescued from falling by the woman.

“Good to see you, too,” Cob muttered as he
went to retrieve his duffle.

When he entered the kitchen, Rollie was
sitting at the table and the woman was leaning over him, rubbing
his back and cooing something into his ear. There was an aluminum
walker next to the table. Rollie didn’t look good. Maybe she
thought she and the baby would inherit this house when the old man
died. She wasn’t wearing a ring. Still…

He heard Rollie blow his nose. The woman
leaned further in and kissed the top of his uncle’s head. “Thanks
for being there, honey. You’re my hero. I’m going out back to
finish hanging my wash.” She glared at Cob, but spoke to Rollie.
“You call if you need me.”

Cob moved out of the way as she passed. For
a woman ‘great with child’, she moved gracefully without the
waddling gait he’d noticed in other women in her state.

She stopped just past him and turned her
head. “Don’t upset him again,” she warned.

Upset Rollie? His uncle wasn’t the one held
at gunpoint, was he?

The screen door slammed behind her and he
turned his attention to Rollie.

“Who the hell is she?”