MY BOYFRIEND'S BACK
THE SUN WAS shining, the birds were singing, and the air was muggy with leftover rain. It had barely been half an hour since the storm had hit and it was almost as if it hadn’t stormed at all, save for the wet ground and the dripping trees.
The sun didn’t help Zac’s mood, however. After Bessie had left him, he had begrudgingly pulled himself together and walked home. He’d cleaned himself up, changed into some dry clothes, and sat alone in the middle of the empty, silent trailer.
So this was it. He was home. Sitting in the trailer on a hot, muggy Tulsa afternoon, while Bessie was mad at him.
He had absolutely no idea what to do next.
What he could have done, if the afternoon hadn’t been so late, was head down to the feed store and announce his presence to old Burt. But Burt never wasted a moment past five to close up shop and it was already nearing six, so Zac knew he wouldn’t catch him there.
He could call on Burt at his house, though…
Yes. That was exactly what Zac needed. He needed Burt’s words of wisdom. Hell, he’d missed the old man. He hated that he didn’t write him more often. Did Bessie tell him that Zac was coming home? Did Zac even have a job to go back to?
Zac was standing, gathering up his cap, when he heard the light rapping on the metal door. He nearly fell over himself, tumbling over one of Taylor’s suitcases on the way, but finally managed to catch his footing as he nearly lunged out the door and into the visitor.
Bessie!
She was a vision, as always. The late afternoon sun glinted against her newly honey-colored hair and her hazel eyes popped against the sage-colored day dress she had changed into. Behind her, in the distance, her bicycle leaned upright against a tree. Surely, she had only been home long enough to change clothes. Had she been caught in the storm? There was no way she could have ran home in enough time to miss it. The thought of her walking through the woods alone, upset and soaked to the bone, broke his heart.
“Bessie,” he breathed in surprise. “You’re—you’re here. Already, you’re--please understand how sorry I am. Please accept my apology. I love you so much, Bessie.”
She fidgeted with her fingertips as she stood on the thin bottom step and her eyes darted nervously into his. “Well, I—well, I shouldn’t be here at all. But it didn’t take me long to think about it because—well—my gut tells me that I should get out before I get hurt, but my heart—my heart won’t let me give you up. Because I love you too much. And I feel like we belong together. And—and what we have is good. I don’t want that to go away.”
There was no way that Zac could describe what he was feeling in that moment. Elation? Relief? Like his knees would give out any second? Like he dodged a bullet? Maybe not just a bullet, but a huge, oversized bolt of lightning that had been hovering over his head since New York. There was no possible way that he’d ever felt more grateful for anything in his entire life.
He stepped down onto the top step. “So—so you forgive me?”
She shrugged a meek shoulder. “Well, you didn’t actually cheat. The fact that the temptation was there is a little disconcerting, but you didn’t actually do it. I suppose there’s going to be temptation wherever you go—“
“No,” he shook his head rapidly. “Never again. I’ll never be tempted again, I swear to God.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she arched an eyebrow at him and pursed her lips. Yes! Scolding. Scold him. He deserved all the scolding she could give him! “You can’t swear a thing like that. But if you’re really going to swear to God, you can come to church tomorrow morning and do it. I’m sure you and the good Lord have much to discuss.”
“Yes,” he agreed desperately. “We do, we absolutely do. I’ll pick you up. We’ll even get there before the preacher—“
“I trust we will.”
Finally, he closed the gap between them and took her up in his arms. “Oh, Bessie,” he whispered, brushing her hair off of her face. “My good, sweet girl. Thank you. I will make this up to you, I will—“
“Zac,” she whispered back. Her expression had changed. Her eyes were full of want and desire. It was an expression that he had waited a month to see again and now his heart was beating beyond full speed. “I want to put this behind us.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
“I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve missed you, too, baby, so much.”
“I just want to spend tonight in your arms. I’ve been needing you for so long.”
Zac’s jaw dropped and he stood there, frozen, with his arms still wrapped around her. Why was he shocked? He wanted the same thing. He wanted the same thing every single night from now until the rest of forever. But, suddenly, the judge’s earlier warning rang loud in his ears. He couldn’t afford to risk screwing this up this time. He couldn’t risk it ever again.
But as her fingers pulled the tie out of his hair and her nails grazed the back of his neck, sending chills down his spine, there was no way he could say no. He needed a release like no other and Bessie was the only one who could give it to him.
And so he had a thought.
“If you stay with me tonight, you’ll have to repent at church in the morning.”
Her lips grazed teasingly against his. “I want to spend the entire service repenting by your side.”
Dear sweet Jesus.
Then he remembered the money he had stashed away. He could afford to blow a little of it. Right?
“Bessie, baby,” he said gently. “Let me take you out tonight. On a real date, something I wasn’t able to do before.”
“But we’ve been on dates, wonderful dates,” she objected.
“No. I mean something real. Put on your best dress, I’ll take you to dinner, maybe we’ll see a picture or we’ll go for a walk. And then…I can find us a place to get away for the night. Alone, together, just you and me. So we’re not camping out under the shade tree or listening to my brothers snore. We’ve never had that before.”
Her eyes widened. “But, Zac. I don’t want you to waste your hard-earned money, especially when—“
“Not a single cent that I ever spend on you will be a waste, do you understand me? Not ever. I’m asking you, please. Let me take you out tonight. Spend the night with me tonight. Fall asleep in my arms. Let me show you how much I adore you.”
Finally, a smile crept across her face. “Oh, Zac!” She threw her arms around his neck and held him tightly. “That sounds wonderful! Oh, it sounds just heavenly!”
He smiled as he buried his face in her hair. At the moment, he realized that he had absolutely no idea where he would take her on such short notice like that and, even worse, he already couldn’t wait until the end of the night when they were alone together in the dark…
TAYLOR WASN’T SURE what he expected upon arriving home. Maybe he expected Aishe, his beautiful gypsy queen, to be retrieving her beloved laundry from the line. Maybe her black hair would shine under the sunlight and her dark eyes would sparkle as a welcoming smile crossed her face. Maybe his heart would swell with pride and warmth as she bounded in her bare feet across the patchy grass, unable to stand being away from him a moment longer. Maybe that was the kind of homecoming he expected from a wife-to-be.
What he didn’t expect was for their lovely reunion to take place in the crack of her front door.
Slightly put off by her lack of immediate enthusiasm at his presence, Taylor plastered a smile on his mouth and presented himself to her, arms outstretched. “I’m home, baby!”
For a moment, a smile crossed her exotic face as she looked him over. Then her lips turned into a thin line. “Come back later,” she instructed.
Taylor thought his eyes would burst out of his head. “Later? I’ve been gone for an entire month, and all you have for me is ‘come back later?’ Are we still getting married, or what? Do you still love me?”
“Yes,” she agreed quickly. “But now is not a good time.”
“Now, you see here,” he replied, growing increasingly frustrated. “Very soon, you will all be my family. I will be the man of this…” He paused and his eyes darted around. “…wagon…and I demand to be respected as such, starting today. Now I’ve just come home from a very long trip—“
“You are the man,” she nodded. “Yes, yes. Here.” Opening the door a little wider, she managed to turn around and shove her kid brothers out the door and they nearly tumbled all over him. “The man go and take boys and catch fish. Bring home supper. Big fish. Come back later.”
“What?”
And then she began spitting something out in Romani at her brothers. As they stared at her, wide-eyed, she slammed the door on all three of them.
Danior and Nicolae—Dan and Nick—stared up at him in silence. And then Nick, the younger of the two, began pumping his fists into the air excitedly. “Fish! Fish! Fish!”
For a moment, Taylor glowered at the pair until he decided he would spend the entirety of the trip pumping the kids for information. As Dan shared his excitement of digging for worms, Taylor reluctantly turned on his heel and headed back to his trailer to gather supplies. Behind him, the boys were close on his heels.
While the guys hadn’t stopped to fish while they were away, when you lived in a travel trailer, all your earthly belongings traveled with you whether they were warranted or not. The brothers tried not to keep very many material objects for this very purpose, but when money was hard to come by, fishing became a necessity. So the next ten minutes was spent unpacking fishing gear.
As Taylor went through the small inventory, he decided that he should probably spend a dollar or two for new string and lures sometime soon. But for now what he had would do because he was certain that Aishe didn’t really want fish that badly.
He glanced curiously at the boys as they admired the tackle. “Say, what have you two been up to lately?”
Dan shrugged a shoulder, never taking his eyes off the gear. “Just playing.”
“Is Bessie coming today?” Nick asked excitedly.
Huh? “Bessie?”
Dan rolled his eyes. “Nicolae has a crush on Bessie.”
“I do not!”
“Why would Bessie come today?” Taylor asked.
“She comes lots of days,” Nick informed him.
“Mostly in the afternoons,” Dan interjected.
“She brings us yummy cookies!” Nick exclaimed.
“And she comes around a lot?” Taylor quizzed them. “Why?”
“I dunno,” Dan muttered.
“She plays games with us and gives us supper and makes sure we’re clean so Aishe can tend to--!”
“Shh!” Dan scolded his brother vehemently.
Quickly, Nick clamped his mouth shut in shame.
“Tend to what?” Taylor spat a little more harshly than he should have.
“Puridaj!” Dan blurted. Then he smiled sheepishly. “Because she’s so old, you know.”
Nick’s head nodded in agreement so vigorously that Taylor swore he heard his brain rattle around in there.
“Fine,” Taylor conceded suspiciously. “I’ll play your little game for now. But this isn’t over.”
“Can we go catch fish now?” Nick asked.
“If they’re biting,” Taylor grumbled through his teeth.
Whipped. Wasn’t that what they called it? Hadn’t he heard Zac use that term once? Whipped, meaning when the woman says jump, the man doesn’t hesitate to ask how high? Apparently, that was what had happened here. Taylor attempted to assert his natural, manly dominance and Aishe shut it down, made a demand, and now here he was: lugging fishing gear through the woods with two very hyper chatterboxes. The more creative term was “pussy-whipped” if he remembered correctly. Pussy-whipped would probably more accurately fit his current situation except that the only problem was, he hadn’t even had any--
“Did you go to the big city?” Nick interrupted his thoughts as he bounced backward down the trail to address Taylor.
Dan rolled his eyes. “It’s called New York.”
“Did you go to New York?” Nick continued. “What’s it like there?”
“Big,” Taylor deadpanned.
“Big like how?”
“Pretty big…”
“Big like the moon?”
“Not quite. I took photographs if you want to see them sometime.”
Taylor had to shake this mood. He couldn’t be upset at the kids. After all, they’d looked just as dumbstruck as he felt at Aishe’s strange behavior. Then again, with Aishe being Aishe, was her behavior really that strange? Or was he upset by the fact that he didn’t get the sort of reception that he could about guarantee that Zac was getting from Bessie?
He let out a breath. That was fine. He would get her stupid fish. And she had damned well better be a lot more appreciative when he brought them to her, too.
Upon approaching the river, Taylor’s eyes scanned the area and found that there weren’t as many people out there as he’d expected to see. A small group of girls sunbathed, a couple of boys goofed off in the water, and an old man sat on the opposite side with his line in the river. Thankfully, Taylor’s favorite spot was vacant and so he led the way.
His favorite spot was on the embankment, underneath a cluster of lustrous trees. There was more than enough shade to keep out of the sun—and to keep the fish sequestered in it—and the branches were just tall enough to keep the lines from catching in them while casting.
After he’d arranged the tackle and baited the hooks, he pulled his shirt over his head and hung it from a nearby branch. Dan and Nick immediately followed suit. Abandoning his sour mood, Taylor could only shake his head and smile.
He had to admit that, after the sudden downpour, digging up the worms had been easy on the boys and apparently the fish were happy to have the fresh worms. It was as if they were practically begging to be caught and Taylor and the boys seemed to be reeling them in, one right after the other. It made the fishing trip a little more exciting, brightening his mood a little bit, and he even had to laugh when Nick was nearly pulled into the water by one that was trying to swim off with his line.
After awhile the fish got smart and they weren’t biting as often. It was quiet as both man and boys sat there, patiently waiting for bites, and Taylor was impressed with how well-behaved the two boys were in the moment. It was obvious, though, when young Nick opened his mouth, that they were silent because they’d been busy pondering.
“Taylor,” Nick asked. “Are you going to be our new dad?”
“No,” Taylor answered quietly, his gaze still fixed on the water. “I’m going to be your new brother.”
“Because you’re getting married to Aishe?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
More silence followed.
Dan caught another fish.
And then Nick spoke again. “Taylor? Do you have a dad?”
Taylor’s mouth remained shut. He had just been away for a month. He had been broken and beaten, made to feel like his life meant nothing, had his dreams ripped away from him, and then treated like his absence hadn’t mattered when he came home. The last thing he really wanted to do was talk about the two people he needed most at that very moment.
Swallowing the lump in his throat was proving painful.
He glanced over at the two dark-haired, dark-eyed boys that sat along the grassy embankment beside him. Both sets of eyes stared back at him expectantly, patiently awaiting his answer. Their dark faces were smudged with dirt, the ankles of their pants tattered, and holes covering their shirts. They slept in a tiny wagon, possessed a very limited amount of education, but were sometimes wise beyond their years. Yet they wanted for nothing, didn’t long for more, and seemed to be perfectly happy with their day-to-day lives. But something in their eyes read more. There was a longing and a loneliness in them, along with an innocent curiosity that demanded attention. These boys needed Taylor. They needed a positive male influence in their lives. They needed guidance and nurturing. And it wasn’t that Aishe wasn’t good at either of those things. It was just that she wasn’t enough.
She wasn’t a man.
So he sucked in a silent breath and he nodded. “I used to. But I don’t anymore. I don’t have a mother, either. They both passed away several years ago. They were very sick.”
“Oh,” Nick whispered.
Dan dropped his head sympathetically.
“We don’t either,” Nick continued. “We never had a dad before.”
“Yes, we did,” Dan argued.
“No, we didn’t! We were little tiny babies when he died.”
“Yeah,” Dan agreed. “Then our mother died right before we settled here.”
Now it was Taylor’s turn to feel sympathetic. He wasn’t sure he ever knew exactly what had happened to their parents. He only knew that the boys were being raised by their sister and their grandmother. “Oh. I had no idea. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“So that makes us the same,” Nick mused.
“Yeah,” Taylor nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose it does.”
“And people who are the same have to stick together, right?”
“Yeah, they do.”
Nick nodded and looked back out at the water. “It’s okay that you won’t be our dad. Aishe isn’t our mother.”
“Right…” Taylor agreed. “But I’ll still look after you the same way a dad would. You can come to me with anything, anytime, no matter what. Don’t ever forget that.”
“Okay,” Nick agreed.
“Are we going to be able to carry all this fish home?” Dan interjected.
Happy for the relief in conversation, Taylor chuckled. “Looks like we got the entire pond’s population right here, doesn’t it?”
The boys looked at him quizzically. “What a population?” Nick asked.
Taylor let out a breath and looked at them. “Well, I said anything, anytime, didn’t I? Come on, guys. Let’s grab all this up and then we can discuss what population means. And any other questions you might have for me.”
Turned out, the boys were full of nothing but questions, endlessly, for the entire trip home. By the time they returned to the gypsy camp, Taylor was both physically and mentally exhausted and he couldn’t help but scowl when his eyes landed on the boys’ wagon.
“Come on!” Dan said excitedly. “I’ll go find some knives and we can gut these things and cook them up!”
It was as if the sound of the child’s voice prompted the door to open and Aishe’s head peeked out. As Taylor stood there with a heavy string of fish hanging from his hand, she cautiously stepped one foot, and then the other, out onto her small, narrow steps, carefully closing the door behind her. To Taylor’s dismay, a smile crossed her lips. “You brought fish,” she observed.
“You sent me for fish,” he deadpanned.
She giggled. “And you bring back all the fish?”
Taylor wasn’t amused. In fact, he very much despised how much in love with her he was at the moment. Because she hadn’t been fair. He’d only just recently hit absolute rock bottom and all she could do was stand there and tell him to come back later. Her smooth, rich skin and her mysterious eyes were the most beautiful thing he’d seen in a month and all he’d gotten was “come back later.” How did he recover from something like that?
“Yeah,” he replied, expressionless. “All the fish. Because that’s how I am. You want fish? I’ll bring it all. You want me to cook it for you? I’ll turn it into the best goddamn gourmet meal you’ve ever had. You want me? Here I am. All of me. Yours. Everything I have to give, my heart, my soul, all of it. But if you don’t, then tell me now. Don’t waste my time. I asked you to marry me because I love you. Did you agree because you were put on the spot?”
She narrowed her eyes in confusion. “On the spot?”
He let out a breath. “Pressured. Forced. Because everyone was watching.”
Her jaw dropped and the realization washed over her face. It was the most emotion he’d seen out of her in…well, in over a month, he supposed. “My answer was not forced.”
“Well, it sure feels like it was,” he spat. “I come home, missing you, after a long month, to you, to my fiancée, to the woman I’m going to marry and…and then you cast me aside? You didn’t even bother to ask about my trip, why I’m home, anything. It’s like you don’t even care that I hit rock bottom and I almost killed myself last week. Or at least, I thought about it, anyway.”
Her face changed to absolute horror, but Taylor couldn’t be bothered with it now. He was on a roll.
“I understand that your culture is different from mine. And I imagine that the differences are going to take a lot of getting used to. But common human decency? And love? That’s universal, no matter who you are. And your indifference to me today showed me different than the words that are coming out of your mouth, I’ll tell you that.”
She stepped down a step or two and she wrung her hands nervously, her eyes darting around in remorse. “Taylor, I’m—I’m sorry. I—I—I have…something that must be taken care of, it cannot wait. Please, if you’ll only give me just…maybe three
days—“
“Three days for what? What is going on with you, what aren’t you telling me?”
“You wouldn’t understand. Please, you just have to trust—“
“Trust this,” Taylor spat uncontrollably. “I’m going to clean this goddamned fish and I’m going to make dinner for you and your family. And then I’m out of here. I’ve been traveling all day, I’m thoroughly exhausted, and this is bullshit.”
“Taylor,” she objected in a tiny voice.
It was that time that Nick and Dan rounded the corner and conversation ceased. Reluctantly, Aishe turned around and went back inside and Dan plopped a slab of lumber on the ground in front of them with a grin. “Okay. Let’s carve those guts out!”
But Taylor couldn’t be excited about the fish guts anymore. He was busy trying to keep his own guts inside his body.
ZAC AND TAYLOR were long gone before Isaac decided to make his exit. He’d admittedly milled around the trailer and stalled, unpacking everything he could unpack and making sure each item was secure in its intended location. Coming home this time was so much more different than every other time before and the notion tore his nerves apart. It was bad enough coming home with an act that had been permanently dissolved. It was bad enough that he had come home with literally no foreseeable future to speak of.
It was even worse that he had come home with a heart now only intended for Judith Carter.
Jesus, the timing couldn’t have been more wrong for a pair that was so right in every way. Isaac loved how much they had in common, it didn’t even matter how much younger she was than him. He loved the way she accepted him for exactly who he was and he loved the way she stuck by his side, through thick and thin, no matter what. He loved his little partner-in-crime.
He loved her.
He supposed he did. He knew he did. He knew it before he left for New York. And now he was home again and it was finally time to face the music—he had to tell her. He had to. Or he could let it eat away at him from now until the end of time.
Isaac had never been so anxious in all his life. Getting all worked up wasn’t his style. He was a businessman, always able to keep himself together, even in times of crisis. He lost his religion to no man or no woman—until now.
Until Judith Carter.
How the hell did this sort of thing work, anyway?
Standing in the middle of the trailer, he fought to calm the racing of his heart as he checked his watch. What time was it? Late afternoon? Would she be at the speakeasy? Possibly. She’d need the time to count her cards and prepare her table before patrons started arriving. He’d start there.
On the way into town, he was glad to have been able to drive the car. Creeping slowly through the torrents of rain that had seemingly come out of nowhere, he white-knuckled the steering wheel, praying that the tires wouldn’t end up stuck in the mud before he reached the pavement.
As the city came into view, however, it was as if the good lord, himself, had opened the sky and shined the light on downtown Tulsa to guide Isaac’s way. The rain disappeared and the bright, golden sun cast its rays onto the buildings as the street glistened in front of him. While he enjoyed the hustle and bustle of big city life, he had to admit that there was nothing quite like the beauty of a late, quiet Oklahoma afternoon.
The air still smelled of rain when he stepped out of his parked car. Naturally, the sidewalk along the storefronts on the block were relatively bare, as the shops were closed for the day. Darting his eyes around to make sure nobody was watching, he adjusted his cap and slipped behind the buildings.
It was considerably darker in the back alleyway, as it rarely saw sun, and he walked through the soggy mud and gravel mixture until he reached the back of the middle suite, trotting down the stairs and to the basement door.
He knocked lightly and whispered, “Black cat.”
He waited.
There was no answer.
“Black cat!” He whispered again.
Finally, a response from the other side of the door, the voice deep and familiar. “Wrong answer.”
Isaac cocked his head at the door. “Then why are you acknowledging me?”
“Password’s been changed.”
“What? Since when?”
“’Bout a week ago.”
Isaac rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Merle, it’s Ike. Just open the damn door, will you?”
“Not without the password.”
Isaac let out an exasperated breath.
Merle was a good guy. Generous. Loyal. Sensible. Enormous. Isaac liked the guy. One would never know by looking at him that he’d been an accountant before the stock market crash. He was six feet and three inches of pure brawn and muscle and Isaac gathered that once he lost his job and all his money, he had to resort to putting his available resources to use, which apparently resulted in being the watch dog of a weasly little mob boss.
“Merle,” Isaac tried to reason. “Come on. We’ve never had to go through this before, you know me.”
“Sorry. Strict orders.”
“On what grounds?”
“I just work here, I don’t ask the questions.”
Isaac sighed in defeat. He knew he wasn’t giving in. The man’s resolve was as solid as his body was.
“Fine,” he relented. “Then tell Judith to come out here.”
“She ain’t here.”
His patience was wearing extremely thin. “Don’t play games with me, Merle, I ain’t got time for this shit—“
“No games. She ain’t here.”
“Right,” Isaac scoffed. “Then who the hell is dealing cards? I know it sure as shit ain’t you—“
“Johnny does it.”
“Oh, please. Johnny doesn’t know jack shit about…” Isaac’s voice trailed off.
Johnny? Johnny Carter deals…?
Before he knew what he was doing, Isaac was throwing his weight into the door. “Where the hell is Judith? Where is she? What’s he got her doing? I swear to God, if you don’t open this door right now, I’m going to smash--!”
“He ain’t got her doing nothing,” Merle replied, his voice growing more argumentative. “Like I said, she ain’t here.”
“Bullshit.”
“Honest. She ain’t working here no more. Word on the street is she picked up a case of influenza. Johnny gave her the boot. Didn’t want her infecting the customers.”
The news nearly knocked the wind out of Isaac’s chest. Stumbling backward, his shocked stare remained fixed on the closed speakeasy door. Influenza. Judith. That was impossible. And furthermore, it was unfair. Influenza had already torn his family apart. And now it wanted to take his girl, too? Just when he’d decided to make good on his feelings for her? Just when he thought he’d filled his void, found his purpose…fallen in love?
No. Absolutely not. Not this time. If Isaac had to spend every cent he had earned on tour, Judith would have the very best healthcare money could buy.
His eyes darted around his dark, dank surroundings. So where would she be? Hospital? Home? If she was at home, who the hell was taking care of her? Surely not her father or her brothers who broke their backs at the lumber yard for the better part of fourteen hours a day just so they could eat. So what was going on? Was she secluded in her bedroom, alone, withering away so she wouldn’t infect anyone else? Had she been sent away? Was she--?
“Hey,” a loud whisper came through the door. “You still there?”
Isaac blinked his way back to the present and he furrowed his brow at the door. Was he still there? Why did it matter? According to Merle, he had been given specific instructions to apparently make it very difficult for Isaac to get in. And now Johnny was dealing the poker games? It was obvious that Isaac was no longer needed, no longer welcome, and no longer employed. If he was that easily dismissed by someone who had initially given him the ultimatum of a pine box, he’d better get while the getting was good.
Without an answer, he turned around and walked away. He washed his hands of poker, of the speakeasy, and of Johnny Carter. Illegal practicing—of anything—wasn’t his bag anymore. Now his only concern was Judith and his vow that neither one of them would ever step in an establishment like that again.
* * *
Judith met Isaac at his car.
He had raced to her house after he left the speakeasy, a dwelling he had only laid eyes on a couple of times in the two years he had known her. It sat just on the outskirts of town, with a small yard, and neighbors much closer together than they would have been out in the country.
The house itself was a two-story structure that had clearly seen better days. A few of the shingles nearly hung by a thread, the wooden banister on the front porch badly needed replacing, and a fresh coat of paint would have done wonders. Speaking of wondering, Isaac wondered how a house occupied by four lumber laborers could remain in such ill repair.
He could only imagine how difficult it must have been for Judith to suffer through an illness in such a home, and recovery seemed damn near impossible to conceive.
He would have felt more sorry for her if she wasn’t currently standing before him, looking healthy as a horse.
She looked the same—and as beautiful—as she ever had, her platinum blonde hair shining in the sun against her porcelain skin. She wore no mascara and no lipstick, making it one of the only times he had ever seen her without makeup and appearing more like the priceless China doll that she was. A black silk kimono hung loose off of her shoulders over a white nightgown and her jaw hung slack in her surprise to see him.
Standing before her, he studied her for a moment before he spoke. “Is it true?”
Her crystal blue eyes widened. “Is what true?”
“Are you sick?” He demanded.
“Who told you I was sick?”
“Merle.”
Wringing her hands together, she glanced behind her before looking up at him meekly. “As far as Merle is concerned…yes.”
He cocked his head and furrowed his brow. “Merle…”
“Yes,” she replied carefully. “And Johnny and the customers and anyone else who might be asking.”
“But as far as I’m concerned…”
“As far as you and Millie and Bessie are concerned, I’m…not.”
“So…are you or aren’t you?”
“I’m not,” she confirmed.
“And you’re not working at the speakeasy anymore.”
At that, he thought he saw her eyes light up with joy. A true happiness that, admittedly, he had never seen before and it made her even more angelic than she already was. “I went straight, Daddy. Aren’t you proud of me?”
The relief that he felt nearly brought him to his knees to know that Judith was no longer involved with that operation, but something wasn’t adding up and he wasn’t satisfied with her answers. “Why?” He demanded.
She looked wounded, as if he had struck her. “You want me to be sick?”
“No,” his voice softened. “Why did you go straight all of a sudden? Why do all the boys think you’re sick?”
She began to wring her hands again.
Isaac took a step toward her. “Judith…” His heart pounded. “What happened while I was away?”
“I had to get away,” she whispered. “I couldn’t stay there a moment longer, not without you. With knowing what I know, faking sick was my only way out. If Johnny kicked me out, he would have no reason to retaliate. It keeps you and I both safe.”
“Safe from what?” Isaac spat.
She smiled in an attempt to lighten the mood. “What does it matter now? That place is dead to me now.”
“It matters. It matters to me to know why you had to go to such lengths to get out of there. What happened when I left?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered harshly. “What matters is we don’t have to worry about them anymore. Can’t we just be happy? You didn’t even tell me you missed me. Didn’t you miss me?”
And that was when he caught a glimpse of the yellow marks on her neck. Healing bruises. Why the hell…? Were they even bruises?
Isaac’s blood boiled. “He made you do it, didn’t he?”
“Please,” she whispered.
Isaac thought he might be sick. “He did. He went back on his word and he made you—I can’t even say it.”
Tears welled up in her eyes and it was then that he noticed that she had bunched her kimono up in her hands and was wringing as if her life depended on it. “Please, Daddy. I didn’t want you to know. I’m utterly disgusted with myself, fifty thousand baths won’t wash the filth off of me. I only just recently realized that I love you and I was afraid that if you knew that you would be disgusted with me, too, and I didn’t want to lose you!”
He closed the gap between them before he could take his next breath. Gathering her into his arms, he ran the backs of her fingers along her satin cheek and whispered breathlessly, “Don’t say anymore.”
“It was awful,” she revealed. “Absolutely awful, the terrible and disgusting things I was made to endure. I didn’t have any other way out but to fake sick. Not if I didn’t want to risk getting thrown in the slammer and you being killed!”
“Judith, I love you,” he revealed. He was surprised at how easy it was for him to say. He thought it would be more difficult to get out of his mouth.
“You do?” She squeaked.
“Yeah, princess. I do. I suppose I always have. You’re my something special, the only girl for me. And I promise I will protect you for as long as I live.”
“Oh, Ike,” she breathed.
“Judith!”
The gruff voice pierced through the moment like a knife through the heart. Both of them turned their heads to look at her father, who stood in the doorway on the porch.
Gerald Carter was in his fifties, but easily looked at least ten years older. He was a little on the short side, with bushy gray eyebrows to match his wild gray hair, and he was impressively built for a man his age due to the years of hard, physical labor he put in. He looked haggard as he stood there in his white button-down tee shirt, the sleeves rolled as far as they would go, revealing the anchor tattoo on his arm from his time in the Navy.
Instinctively, Isaac took a step back from Judith.
“You oughta just go on now,” he informed Isaac. “Don’t want nothing getting passed on to you or anyone else.”
Isaac’s eyes darted into Judith’s in surprise. Her own father didn’t even know she wasn’t sick?
“I couldn’t tell him,” she hissed. “I couldn’t risk it!”
He glanced from Judith to her father. And then visions of Johnny flashed in his mind, his anger growing.
No. This ended today.
Boldly, Isaac stepped around Judith and strode purposefully toward the porch. Judith trotted right on his heels. “Ike, stop it,” she pleaded. “Don’t do it. Very, very powerful people come into that place, we’ll all be…obliterated! Obliterated, I tell you!”
No. Nobody was obliterating anyone. And Gerald Carter would either be with Isaac or be against him.
Mr. Carter’s eyes trailed up as Isaac now stood before him, as if studying his intent. Raising one of his bushy brows in examination, he asked, “You got a death wish, son?”
“Look, I know I’m not the ideal pick for your daughter—“
“You’d be right about that. But in case you haven’t noticed, I ain’t exactly in a position to judge.”
“Right.”
“Now, get on,” he waved him off. “Judith, come on in the house, you know better with your condition.”
That was it. Isaac had had enough. “Judith’s not sick,” he blurted.
“Ike, don’t,” she begged.
“With all due respect, I think I know how to take care of my own daughter.”
“She isn’t sick,” Isaac pressed. “Judith, tell him.”
Now her father’s eyes looked at his daughter in confusion. Judith’s eyes fell in shame. “It’s true,” she admitted quietly.
“So…so you don’t have influenza?”
Judith shook her head.
“Then why--? Why would you--? I’ve missed an entire week of work to stay home with you.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy, I really am, but I had no choice!”
In spite of himself, Isaac snorted. “Given the circumstances, I’m sure your foreman out there had no problem giving you the time off.”
“Eh?” Mr. Carter asked. “You know Henry?”
Isaac blinked at him. “I mean Johnny.”
Mr. Carter looked equally puzzled. “Johnny who?”
“Your nephew,” Isaac deadpanned.
At that moment, two very large, very burly young men came to the door and flanked their father. Had it not been for their surprisingly jovial expressions, Isaac would have been more intimidated at how outnumbered he was while he was standing so close to their baby sister.
“What’s all the talk about Johnny?” One of them asked.
Isaac attempted to clear his throat inconspicuously. “I was simply commenting on how nice it was of him to hold your father’s job while he…tended to family business.”
The other brother guffawed loudly. “Hold his job? Why, how in tarnation would he have the pull to do that?”
Isaac’s eyes surveyed the three men, three pairs of eyes that stared back at him in innocent expectation. “Because he’s the foreman…”
Hulk Number One’s guffaw matched Number Two’s. “Foreman? Johnny ain’t no foreman. He’s just the part-time help that sweeps the floors!”
Isaac’s entire body went numb. It was as if it had instantly shut down in anticipation of the overload of different emotions that it knew it would endure following news like that. He began to have flashbacks. Standing in the office while that weasel puffed cigars behind the desk. Pine boxes. Money rolls. And now that he thought about it, those meetings typically took place after dark and he never remembered seeing a name on the door or the desk.
He had been bamboozled! Hoodwinked! Played for a fool!
He glared over at Judith. “Did you know that?”
Her eyes were as wide as saucers as she shook her head. “No! Honest!”
Mr. Carter took a step out the door while one of the brothers commented, “Judith, you’re outside. You’re not supposed to be--”
Mr. Carter’s expression turned cold all of a sudden. “That’s because she ain’t sick.”
Isaac swore he saw hackles raise on those hulks and, as they stepped outside with their father, he began to break a nervous sweat. This was no longer a trio of innocent laborers. This was a close-knit pack of wolves and Isaac had just become the innocent rabbit, grazing alone in an open field.
Holy shit, he was a goner.
Mr. Carter eyed both Isaac and Judith.
“What do you mean she ain’t sick?” Hulk Two asked.
“I mean she ain’t sick!” Mr. Carter barked harshly. “Now hush it, boy, or go back inside the house!”
Hulk Two chose to lick his wounds in silence.
“What’s the big idea here?” Mr. Carter asked. “I know trouble when I smell it. When I feel it. So somebody better start talking.”
Isaac drew in a deep breath. This was it. This had literally become a life or death situation. “Here lies Isaac Hanson. Killed in the name of love, at the bare hands of an angry father. No magic tricks could get him out of that strangling. He will be missed.”
He could only pray that Taylor would make it sound that eloquent. Zac liked poetry, though. Maybe he would write it…
He was brought out of his thoughts by a pair of small hands that had wrapped themselves around his arm. “Ike,” she whispered. “Please don’t. Please. There are people that come in there who will ruin us, I’m telling you!”
“People where?” Mr. Carter asked. Nothing was certainly lost on him.
Clearing his throat, Isaac stood a little straighter and took a deep breath. “Mr. Carter. Sir. The truth is, your nephew, Johnny, runs an illegal speakeasy downtown—and Judith and I both worked for him.”
Silence followed. Dead silence. But the crimson hue of Mr. Carter’s face reflected much more than silence—and it certainly wasn’t the summer heat.
The old man’s neck and knuckles cracked simultaneously. “Judith. Don’t think I never knew that you were running around with this…ruffian.”
“Daddy!” She gasped.
“I’ve always known. I blame myself for the trouble I’ve allowed him to get you into—“
“Daddy, it wasn’t Ike, it was Johnny!”
“Now, I won’t stand here and have you telling me stories, you hear? You fooled me once with your illness, I won’t listen to anymore of the thoughts he’s put into your head!”
“Mr. Carter, you’re a smart man,” Isaac boldly interjected. “Now how could I go putting things into her head when I just got back into town a few hours ago?”
“Well, sure, but before—“
“I only just learned about her illness, or lack thereof, several minutes ago for myself.”
Was that bad? That sounded bad. That sounded like he was throwing the blame off on Judith and that wasn’t his intent at all. He’d only meant to back up that Judith was telling the truth about Johnny. Jesus, he was only digging his hole deeper and deeper, wasn’t he?
Mr. Carter seemed to freeze, however. His fists and his jaw slackened. Good. He was willing to listen to reason. He was only cantankerous and unreasonable on the surface. Excellent.
“Daddy, it’s true,” Judith admitted. “I worked for Johnny first. And then I…forced Isaac to work for him, too. If anything, it was me getting him into trouble—not the other way around.”
“You know times are hard,” Isaac said. “I needed money and Johnny had it coming in. When I found out Johnny was her family, I assumed she was safe, so it wasn’t a big deal.”
“And what did you do in the speakeasy?” Mr. Carter asked through his teeth.
“Poker,” Isaac answered quickly, before Judith could open her mouth. “At first they were pulling tickets and he wanted me to run money. I convinced him that sitting behind a poker table was more profitable. In the meantime, it was safer for me to not be running the streets.”
“And Judith?”
“She sat with me. That was the deal. She sat next to me and helped me deal cards. That was all. I was led to believe he was the foreman at the lumber yard. All the meetings were held there in the office. I was led to believe he was a powerful, influential guy who knew a lot of people.”
Hulks One and Two were no longer guffawing. Instead they were glaring. Hulk One stated, “Johnny don’t know nobody and he ain’t no foreman. He sweeps the floors ‘cause nobody likes him and he can’t run the machines. He only has the keys to the office ‘cause that’s where the janitor’s closet is.”
“But,” Judith sputtered. “He knows people. All over the country, bad people—“
“No he don’t. In fact, he owes a guy money cause he gambles away all his sweepin’ money.”
Isaac was suddenly livid.
“How do you know that?” Mr. Carter spat.
Hulk One scoffed. “’Cause Johnny don’t know when to shut his mouth.”
“You think it’s true he’s running a speakeasy?”
“I’m surprised he’s smart enough to run anything!”
“Daddy, I wouldn’t lie to you!” Judith cried.
He glared an accusing eye at her. Then he looked up at Isaac. “All right. Fine. We’ll say my nephew is running a speakeasy. So why the hell is Judith faking sick? Why the hell have I missed a week’s pay, endured the grief--?”
“Because when Ike left, Johnny went back on his word! I was supposed to deal cards in Ike’s place and I was…for a little bit. And then he went back on it—“
“He sent you away.”
“No, he…found other work for me. And told me it was that or he would hurt everyone I loved, including Ike, because all he had to do was get word to his guys in New York—“
“What kind of work?” Mr. Carter threatened.
Isaac couldn’t bear to hear it. But her father had to know. Johnny couldn’t be allowed to get away with such abominable actions.
Nervously, she pulled the collar of her kimono to the side and revealed the healing wounds on her neck. “The kind that causes this,” she nearly whispered.
Isaac thought her father might have a heart attack. Her brothers were now standing at full attention with murder in their eyes.
“My daughter…”
“Daddy, it was awful! But I had no choice, he threatened to hurt everyone, even you! Faking sick was the only way I could get out of it because if Johnny had a reason to dismiss me himself, he wouldn’t have a reason to make good on his promises! If I told you the truth, it could have put you in danger!” She then burst into tears, hiding her face in her hands. “I didn’t know none of it was true, I’m so sorry, Daddy, I’m so sorry!”
While Mr. Carter stood there and seethed, Isaac awaited the inevitable. All he had to do was say the words. Disown her, cast her out, make sure she knew how ashamed of her he was. Isaac would take her in, his brothers would just have to suck it up and make room. He would take care of her.
Instead, Mr. Carter directed his attention to Isaac. “So Johnny’s running a speakeasy, huh? Got no problem turning his family out to pay off his own debts?”
Isaac cleared his throat. “Yes, sir. It’s all true. I can tell you everything. Where it’s located, what hours it operates, who runs the door…but not the password. They changed that, wouldn’t give it to me—“
“I don’t need no dad-blame password,” he barked. “Boys! Grab the shotguns off the wall! We got ourselves a party to crash!”
Oh…holy shit. These guys were true blue backwoods Oklahoma boys, weren’t they? Isaac’s eyes widened nervously. “Uh…sir? With all due respect, I thought maybe we might just have the joint shut down? Have Johnny thrown in the slammer? You know…?”
“That little shit violated my daughter. I ain’t got time to wait on no coppers to whoop his ass. This time it’s personal. This time that little asshole’s messed with the wrong uncle. Move outta my way!”
* * *
It was dark outside. The wind was still, the air was dry, and the trailer was quiet. Zac was nowhere to be found and Taylor brooded quietly in the corner.
It had been an eventful evening. By some miracle, Isaac had managed to convince Mr. Carter not to storm the speakeasy and, as a result, three shotguns, a tiny blonde girl, and a former magician all stormed the police station instead.
After the old man had loudly barked his reason to believe that an illegal speakeasy was operating downtown, graciously leaving both Isaac’s and Judith’s names out of it, the department had gathered an army of officers, led by Lieutenant Don Parker, and paraded out the door. Isaac imagined that this was probably the most action the department had seen in quite some time.
Judith had waited in the car while they used Isaac to get in. Apparently Merle had decided that Isaac was relentless and was tired of arguing and so they played a game of 20 Questions until question number four revealed the new password to be “pine box.”
Isaac should have known.
Once Isaac was through the door, the police officers nearly mowed him down to get in. The raid sent patrons scattering and left a wide-eyed District Attorney Stanley Connors standing by the bar. The pieces were starting to come together much too easily and Isaac glared at him with intent in his eyes.
Connors composed himself quickly and had put on quite a show. “Gentlemen! Oh, thank heavens you’ve finally arrived! I’ve been calling and calling that station, anxiously awaiting your arrival, as you very well know that I don’t have the authority to shut this place down!”
Lt. Parker looked unconvinced but, like everyone else in the room, knew that an accusation or a criminal charge would get him absolutely nowhere, witnesses or not.
As officers milled about, making arrests and seizing evidence, Connors glanced behind him and began waving the handkerchief he nervously clutched in his fist. “Oh, deplorable things are going on back there, simply deplorable! Make sure you get that little blonde girl, too! Such an abomination, these young ones these days!”
“Little blonde girl?” Lt. Parker asked.
“No girls back here, lieutenant,” an officer announced from behind them.
Lt. Parker arched a suspicious eyebrow at the D. A. and went about his business. Connor’s eyes then landed on Isaac. How Connors actually had the balls to approach him was beyond Isaac.
Shoving his handkerchief in his pocket, he shook Isaac’s hand with both of his. “I assume you’re responsible for getting this joint shut down. Excellent job, thank you. It’s absolutely horrendous that these places even exist. Good to know that at least one of you boys has a head on his shoulders.”
Isaac jerked his hand from Connors’s clammy grasp. “Little blonde girl?” He asked menacingly.
In that moment, Stanley Connors’s expression had changed. It flashed from realization to fear and then settled to a chill. “That’s what I said.”
Stanley Connors didn’t scare Isaac. Isaac stepped close to him and lowered his voice out of earshot of the officers. “If I ever catch you near any ‘little blonde girls’ again, you’re finished. Do you understand me? If I can get a place like this shut down with my ass on the line, just imagine what I could do to your career.”
Isaac entertained the notion that he may have rattled Connors a little, but the man would never show it. And so he turned and he walked away, right out of the speakeasy door, and into the Tulsa night air.
He wanted to return to the car, to Judith, but the sound of Merle’s voice caught his attention as he was being shoved into the backseat of a police cruiser. “Hey, what about Johnny? Where did Johnny go?”
Isaac shook his head. Poor Merle. It seemed the guy just couldn’t catch a break, perpetually being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was a shame. He really was a decent guy. Maybe if he’d just let Isaac in the first time…
Nah. It still would have happened that way. Happy trails, Merle.
Now, though. Now it was quiet. Judith was at home, having dinner with her father, a rare occasion since he found himself with some time off work. Isaac couldn’t be selfish and keep her by his own side, not in light of recent events. And especially since he appreciated not being on the other end of her father’s sawed-off double barrel.
So he lay there on his bed with a book, not really reading it, but trying to figure out how get a radio in the trailer. Normally when it was this quiet he might be fiddling around with a magic trick or something, but now it seemed that late night activities were finding themselves lacking. Speaking of, maybe what he should have been doing was discussing with Taylor the options for disposing of their props. Sure would clear some space in the cramped trailer with them gone.
The knock at the trailer door caused both Isaac and Taylor to straighten their spines from their respective locations. After an exchange of curious glances, Isaac crossed the trailer and opened the door.
There were three visitors.
The moonlight was barely enough light to see them, but it bounced off of Judith’s angelic hair, giving her away in an instant. As for the other two figures, Isaac fumbled around and fished a matchbook out of his pocket so that he could light the torch that hung by the door.
The firelight reflected the faces of Mr. Carter and a taller man with a black mustache that stood between the father and the daughter that Isaac didn’t recognize.
Isaac wasn’t sure that confusion quite fit the emotion he was feeling right then.
“Are you Isaac?” The man in the middle spoke.
“Yes…”
“Splendid. I’m Henry Howard. I’m the foreman and general manager of the lumber yard. How do you do?”
Isaac accepted the extended handshake and stepped down a step. “I’m well, thank you.”
“Wonderful. It’s come to my attention that you had a speakeasy shut down tonight—“
“I helped. It was a joint effort…”
Mr. Howard smiled sheepishly. “Yes, well, that joint effort cost me a sweeper, you see. Police came and plucked him right off the floor.”
Isaac shifted his weight from one foot to the other and he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Well, sir, I’m sorry to hear that, but the guy had it coming.”
“Oh, I didn’t come here to blame you. Please don’t get the wrong idea. I came here to offer you a job.”
A job? Isaac was being offered a job? Why…nobody was getting job offers anymore! Nobody had jobs to offer! He was stunned.
“A job?”
“Well, the floors do still need to be swept. But, you see, word on the street is you know a thing or two about fixing cars.”
“Uh, yeah,” Isaac replied, struggling to keep his composure. “There something you need me to look at?”
“Oh, no,” Mr. Howard chuckled. “But I also heard about the way you fixed Burt Anderson’s old Beulah and that popcorn never tasted better, I tell you. I need a floor sweeper, but I need someone who might be able to look at the machines when they go on the fritz. Happens more often than not lately and calling a repairman from out of town is mighty time-consuming.”
“That’s—I’ve never—I’ve never even looked at a machine like that before.”
“Maybe not. But you got a lot more mechanical know-how than most of those old boys in there do and, hey, if you can’t fix the machines, the floors will never leave you!”
At this point, floor sweeping was as good as it was going to get. Granted, it wasn’t as lucrative as poker or carnival acts, but sure as hell was more steady. And honest. At this point, it was high time for steady and honest.
Isaac smiled and extended his own hand to his new boss. “Mr. Howard, you got yourself a deal. Thank you very much, I appreciate it.”
“You’re very welcome, glad to have you on board,” Mr. Howard smiled. “Now it’s night work, so I’ll give you a day or so to rest up. Come in the day after tomorrow after dark.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll be there,” Isaac grinned. “Thank you again.”
Mr. Howard tipped his hat and took a step backward. “See you in a couple of days.”
As he walked away, Isaac stepped down another step and Mr. Carter met him there. With his hands clasped together in front of him, the old man cleared his throat and jutted his chin out. “Young man. Judith is my only daughter. It’s not easy raising a girl without a mother and I haven’t been the best of parents over the years, what with not being able to keep an eye on her all the time and all. But you’re a stand-up fella, I gotta admit, and if she had to do her fair share of running around, I’m glad she had you to watch out for her. That being said, I know you just got back into town and all so I, uh, I put in a good word for you with the boss. Thought maybe you might be a good fit down at the yard.”
“Thank you, sir,” Isaac nodded. “I appreciate that very much. I won’t disappoint you, you’ll see.”
“I know.” Then he nodded his head to his right, in Judith’s direction. “Have her home in two hours and not a minute more. I sleep with my shotgun by the bed.”
“Absolutely, sir.”
And then he turned and followed in Mr. Howard’s footsteps.
After she was convinced that her father was out of sight, Judith closed the gap and all but threw herself into Isaac’s arms. “Oh, Isaac,” she breathed. “I’m so proud of you. You were so brave tonight!”
A smile crept across his lips as he held her tightly. “I’ll always look out for you, princess. Nobody’s gonna mess with you as long as I’m around.”
“I love you so! I can’t stop saying it!”
“And I love you. And I don’t ever want you to stop saying it.”
“I don’t want to drink alcohol anymore,” she confessed with a shake of her head. “It’s nothing but trouble and it’s nothing I need. Let’s make a pact right now, just you and me. Let’s never drink another drop of alcohol ever again!”
Isaac swallowed. Um…never? Never another drop? He liked whiskey. He liked the way it tasted on his tongue and the smooth way it trailed down his throat. He liked the warmth in his belly and the calming of his nerves. On many occasions, whiskey had been the only comfort he could rely on.
But, then again, back then he didn’t have the love of a beautiful young woman, either. It turned out that looking into her eyes caused many of the same effects he had sought in the whiskey, and felt even better. Maybe she was right. Maybe alcohol was unnecessary anymore. Maybe all of it was, the smoke and the drink, everything. Maybe that’s what love was about. Maybe all they needed was each other.
“All right,” he nodded. “No more alcohol. Ever.”
With a smile, she took him by the hand and led him up the steps and into the trailer where the pair spent the next two hours fulfilling the pact, disposing of Isaac’s entire stash, one hidden flask at a time.
THE SUN WAS shining, the birds were singing, and the air was muggy with leftover rain. It had barely been half an hour since the storm had hit and it was almost as if it hadn’t stormed at all, save for the wet ground and the dripping trees.
The sun didn’t help Zac’s mood, however. After Bessie had left him, he had begrudgingly pulled himself together and walked home. He’d cleaned himself up, changed into some dry clothes, and sat alone in the middle of the empty, silent trailer.
So this was it. He was home. Sitting in the trailer on a hot, muggy Tulsa afternoon, while Bessie was mad at him.
He had absolutely no idea what to do next.
What he could have done, if the afternoon hadn’t been so late, was head down to the feed store and announce his presence to old Burt. But Burt never wasted a moment past five to close up shop and it was already nearing six, so Zac knew he wouldn’t catch him there.
He could call on Burt at his house, though…
Yes. That was exactly what Zac needed. He needed Burt’s words of wisdom. Hell, he’d missed the old man. He hated that he didn’t write him more often. Did Bessie tell him that Zac was coming home? Did Zac even have a job to go back to?
Zac was standing, gathering up his cap, when he heard the light rapping on the metal door. He nearly fell over himself, tumbling over one of Taylor’s suitcases on the way, but finally managed to catch his footing as he nearly lunged out the door and into the visitor.
Bessie!
She was a vision, as always. The late afternoon sun glinted against her newly honey-colored hair and her hazel eyes popped against the sage-colored day dress she had changed into. Behind her, in the distance, her bicycle leaned upright against a tree. Surely, she had only been home long enough to change clothes. Had she been caught in the storm? There was no way she could have ran home in enough time to miss it. The thought of her walking through the woods alone, upset and soaked to the bone, broke his heart.
“Bessie,” he breathed in surprise. “You’re—you’re here. Already, you’re--please understand how sorry I am. Please accept my apology. I love you so much, Bessie.”
She fidgeted with her fingertips as she stood on the thin bottom step and her eyes darted nervously into his. “Well, I—well, I shouldn’t be here at all. But it didn’t take me long to think about it because—well—my gut tells me that I should get out before I get hurt, but my heart—my heart won’t let me give you up. Because I love you too much. And I feel like we belong together. And—and what we have is good. I don’t want that to go away.”
There was no way that Zac could describe what he was feeling in that moment. Elation? Relief? Like his knees would give out any second? Like he dodged a bullet? Maybe not just a bullet, but a huge, oversized bolt of lightning that had been hovering over his head since New York. There was no possible way that he’d ever felt more grateful for anything in his entire life.
He stepped down onto the top step. “So—so you forgive me?”
She shrugged a meek shoulder. “Well, you didn’t actually cheat. The fact that the temptation was there is a little disconcerting, but you didn’t actually do it. I suppose there’s going to be temptation wherever you go—“
“No,” he shook his head rapidly. “Never again. I’ll never be tempted again, I swear to God.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she arched an eyebrow at him and pursed her lips. Yes! Scolding. Scold him. He deserved all the scolding she could give him! “You can’t swear a thing like that. But if you’re really going to swear to God, you can come to church tomorrow morning and do it. I’m sure you and the good Lord have much to discuss.”
“Yes,” he agreed desperately. “We do, we absolutely do. I’ll pick you up. We’ll even get there before the preacher—“
“I trust we will.”
Finally, he closed the gap between them and took her up in his arms. “Oh, Bessie,” he whispered, brushing her hair off of her face. “My good, sweet girl. Thank you. I will make this up to you, I will—“
“Zac,” she whispered back. Her expression had changed. Her eyes were full of want and desire. It was an expression that he had waited a month to see again and now his heart was beating beyond full speed. “I want to put this behind us.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
“I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve missed you, too, baby, so much.”
“I just want to spend tonight in your arms. I’ve been needing you for so long.”
Zac’s jaw dropped and he stood there, frozen, with his arms still wrapped around her. Why was he shocked? He wanted the same thing. He wanted the same thing every single night from now until the rest of forever. But, suddenly, the judge’s earlier warning rang loud in his ears. He couldn’t afford to risk screwing this up this time. He couldn’t risk it ever again.
But as her fingers pulled the tie out of his hair and her nails grazed the back of his neck, sending chills down his spine, there was no way he could say no. He needed a release like no other and Bessie was the only one who could give it to him.
And so he had a thought.
“If you stay with me tonight, you’ll have to repent at church in the morning.”
Her lips grazed teasingly against his. “I want to spend the entire service repenting by your side.”
Dear sweet Jesus.
Then he remembered the money he had stashed away. He could afford to blow a little of it. Right?
“Bessie, baby,” he said gently. “Let me take you out tonight. On a real date, something I wasn’t able to do before.”
“But we’ve been on dates, wonderful dates,” she objected.
“No. I mean something real. Put on your best dress, I’ll take you to dinner, maybe we’ll see a picture or we’ll go for a walk. And then…I can find us a place to get away for the night. Alone, together, just you and me. So we’re not camping out under the shade tree or listening to my brothers snore. We’ve never had that before.”
Her eyes widened. “But, Zac. I don’t want you to waste your hard-earned money, especially when—“
“Not a single cent that I ever spend on you will be a waste, do you understand me? Not ever. I’m asking you, please. Let me take you out tonight. Spend the night with me tonight. Fall asleep in my arms. Let me show you how much I adore you.”
Finally, a smile crept across her face. “Oh, Zac!” She threw her arms around his neck and held him tightly. “That sounds wonderful! Oh, it sounds just heavenly!”
He smiled as he buried his face in her hair. At the moment, he realized that he had absolutely no idea where he would take her on such short notice like that and, even worse, he already couldn’t wait until the end of the night when they were alone together in the dark…
TAYLOR WASN’T SURE what he expected upon arriving home. Maybe he expected Aishe, his beautiful gypsy queen, to be retrieving her beloved laundry from the line. Maybe her black hair would shine under the sunlight and her dark eyes would sparkle as a welcoming smile crossed her face. Maybe his heart would swell with pride and warmth as she bounded in her bare feet across the patchy grass, unable to stand being away from him a moment longer. Maybe that was the kind of homecoming he expected from a wife-to-be.
What he didn’t expect was for their lovely reunion to take place in the crack of her front door.
Slightly put off by her lack of immediate enthusiasm at his presence, Taylor plastered a smile on his mouth and presented himself to her, arms outstretched. “I’m home, baby!”
For a moment, a smile crossed her exotic face as she looked him over. Then her lips turned into a thin line. “Come back later,” she instructed.
Taylor thought his eyes would burst out of his head. “Later? I’ve been gone for an entire month, and all you have for me is ‘come back later?’ Are we still getting married, or what? Do you still love me?”
“Yes,” she agreed quickly. “But now is not a good time.”
“Now, you see here,” he replied, growing increasingly frustrated. “Very soon, you will all be my family. I will be the man of this…” He paused and his eyes darted around. “…wagon…and I demand to be respected as such, starting today. Now I’ve just come home from a very long trip—“
“You are the man,” she nodded. “Yes, yes. Here.” Opening the door a little wider, she managed to turn around and shove her kid brothers out the door and they nearly tumbled all over him. “The man go and take boys and catch fish. Bring home supper. Big fish. Come back later.”
“What?”
And then she began spitting something out in Romani at her brothers. As they stared at her, wide-eyed, she slammed the door on all three of them.
Danior and Nicolae—Dan and Nick—stared up at him in silence. And then Nick, the younger of the two, began pumping his fists into the air excitedly. “Fish! Fish! Fish!”
For a moment, Taylor glowered at the pair until he decided he would spend the entirety of the trip pumping the kids for information. As Dan shared his excitement of digging for worms, Taylor reluctantly turned on his heel and headed back to his trailer to gather supplies. Behind him, the boys were close on his heels.
While the guys hadn’t stopped to fish while they were away, when you lived in a travel trailer, all your earthly belongings traveled with you whether they were warranted or not. The brothers tried not to keep very many material objects for this very purpose, but when money was hard to come by, fishing became a necessity. So the next ten minutes was spent unpacking fishing gear.
As Taylor went through the small inventory, he decided that he should probably spend a dollar or two for new string and lures sometime soon. But for now what he had would do because he was certain that Aishe didn’t really want fish that badly.
He glanced curiously at the boys as they admired the tackle. “Say, what have you two been up to lately?”
Dan shrugged a shoulder, never taking his eyes off the gear. “Just playing.”
“Is Bessie coming today?” Nick asked excitedly.
Huh? “Bessie?”
Dan rolled his eyes. “Nicolae has a crush on Bessie.”
“I do not!”
“Why would Bessie come today?” Taylor asked.
“She comes lots of days,” Nick informed him.
“Mostly in the afternoons,” Dan interjected.
“She brings us yummy cookies!” Nick exclaimed.
“And she comes around a lot?” Taylor quizzed them. “Why?”
“I dunno,” Dan muttered.
“She plays games with us and gives us supper and makes sure we’re clean so Aishe can tend to--!”
“Shh!” Dan scolded his brother vehemently.
Quickly, Nick clamped his mouth shut in shame.
“Tend to what?” Taylor spat a little more harshly than he should have.
“Puridaj!” Dan blurted. Then he smiled sheepishly. “Because she’s so old, you know.”
Nick’s head nodded in agreement so vigorously that Taylor swore he heard his brain rattle around in there.
“Fine,” Taylor conceded suspiciously. “I’ll play your little game for now. But this isn’t over.”
“Can we go catch fish now?” Nick asked.
“If they’re biting,” Taylor grumbled through his teeth.
Whipped. Wasn’t that what they called it? Hadn’t he heard Zac use that term once? Whipped, meaning when the woman says jump, the man doesn’t hesitate to ask how high? Apparently, that was what had happened here. Taylor attempted to assert his natural, manly dominance and Aishe shut it down, made a demand, and now here he was: lugging fishing gear through the woods with two very hyper chatterboxes. The more creative term was “pussy-whipped” if he remembered correctly. Pussy-whipped would probably more accurately fit his current situation except that the only problem was, he hadn’t even had any--
“Did you go to the big city?” Nick interrupted his thoughts as he bounced backward down the trail to address Taylor.
Dan rolled his eyes. “It’s called New York.”
“Did you go to New York?” Nick continued. “What’s it like there?”
“Big,” Taylor deadpanned.
“Big like how?”
“Pretty big…”
“Big like the moon?”
“Not quite. I took photographs if you want to see them sometime.”
Taylor had to shake this mood. He couldn’t be upset at the kids. After all, they’d looked just as dumbstruck as he felt at Aishe’s strange behavior. Then again, with Aishe being Aishe, was her behavior really that strange? Or was he upset by the fact that he didn’t get the sort of reception that he could about guarantee that Zac was getting from Bessie?
He let out a breath. That was fine. He would get her stupid fish. And she had damned well better be a lot more appreciative when he brought them to her, too.
Upon approaching the river, Taylor’s eyes scanned the area and found that there weren’t as many people out there as he’d expected to see. A small group of girls sunbathed, a couple of boys goofed off in the water, and an old man sat on the opposite side with his line in the river. Thankfully, Taylor’s favorite spot was vacant and so he led the way.
His favorite spot was on the embankment, underneath a cluster of lustrous trees. There was more than enough shade to keep out of the sun—and to keep the fish sequestered in it—and the branches were just tall enough to keep the lines from catching in them while casting.
After he’d arranged the tackle and baited the hooks, he pulled his shirt over his head and hung it from a nearby branch. Dan and Nick immediately followed suit. Abandoning his sour mood, Taylor could only shake his head and smile.
He had to admit that, after the sudden downpour, digging up the worms had been easy on the boys and apparently the fish were happy to have the fresh worms. It was as if they were practically begging to be caught and Taylor and the boys seemed to be reeling them in, one right after the other. It made the fishing trip a little more exciting, brightening his mood a little bit, and he even had to laugh when Nick was nearly pulled into the water by one that was trying to swim off with his line.
After awhile the fish got smart and they weren’t biting as often. It was quiet as both man and boys sat there, patiently waiting for bites, and Taylor was impressed with how well-behaved the two boys were in the moment. It was obvious, though, when young Nick opened his mouth, that they were silent because they’d been busy pondering.
“Taylor,” Nick asked. “Are you going to be our new dad?”
“No,” Taylor answered quietly, his gaze still fixed on the water. “I’m going to be your new brother.”
“Because you’re getting married to Aishe?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
More silence followed.
Dan caught another fish.
And then Nick spoke again. “Taylor? Do you have a dad?”
Taylor’s mouth remained shut. He had just been away for a month. He had been broken and beaten, made to feel like his life meant nothing, had his dreams ripped away from him, and then treated like his absence hadn’t mattered when he came home. The last thing he really wanted to do was talk about the two people he needed most at that very moment.
Swallowing the lump in his throat was proving painful.
He glanced over at the two dark-haired, dark-eyed boys that sat along the grassy embankment beside him. Both sets of eyes stared back at him expectantly, patiently awaiting his answer. Their dark faces were smudged with dirt, the ankles of their pants tattered, and holes covering their shirts. They slept in a tiny wagon, possessed a very limited amount of education, but were sometimes wise beyond their years. Yet they wanted for nothing, didn’t long for more, and seemed to be perfectly happy with their day-to-day lives. But something in their eyes read more. There was a longing and a loneliness in them, along with an innocent curiosity that demanded attention. These boys needed Taylor. They needed a positive male influence in their lives. They needed guidance and nurturing. And it wasn’t that Aishe wasn’t good at either of those things. It was just that she wasn’t enough.
She wasn’t a man.
So he sucked in a silent breath and he nodded. “I used to. But I don’t anymore. I don’t have a mother, either. They both passed away several years ago. They were very sick.”
“Oh,” Nick whispered.
Dan dropped his head sympathetically.
“We don’t either,” Nick continued. “We never had a dad before.”
“Yes, we did,” Dan argued.
“No, we didn’t! We were little tiny babies when he died.”
“Yeah,” Dan agreed. “Then our mother died right before we settled here.”
Now it was Taylor’s turn to feel sympathetic. He wasn’t sure he ever knew exactly what had happened to their parents. He only knew that the boys were being raised by their sister and their grandmother. “Oh. I had no idea. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“So that makes us the same,” Nick mused.
“Yeah,” Taylor nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose it does.”
“And people who are the same have to stick together, right?”
“Yeah, they do.”
Nick nodded and looked back out at the water. “It’s okay that you won’t be our dad. Aishe isn’t our mother.”
“Right…” Taylor agreed. “But I’ll still look after you the same way a dad would. You can come to me with anything, anytime, no matter what. Don’t ever forget that.”
“Okay,” Nick agreed.
“Are we going to be able to carry all this fish home?” Dan interjected.
Happy for the relief in conversation, Taylor chuckled. “Looks like we got the entire pond’s population right here, doesn’t it?”
The boys looked at him quizzically. “What a population?” Nick asked.
Taylor let out a breath and looked at them. “Well, I said anything, anytime, didn’t I? Come on, guys. Let’s grab all this up and then we can discuss what population means. And any other questions you might have for me.”
Turned out, the boys were full of nothing but questions, endlessly, for the entire trip home. By the time they returned to the gypsy camp, Taylor was both physically and mentally exhausted and he couldn’t help but scowl when his eyes landed on the boys’ wagon.
“Come on!” Dan said excitedly. “I’ll go find some knives and we can gut these things and cook them up!”
It was as if the sound of the child’s voice prompted the door to open and Aishe’s head peeked out. As Taylor stood there with a heavy string of fish hanging from his hand, she cautiously stepped one foot, and then the other, out onto her small, narrow steps, carefully closing the door behind her. To Taylor’s dismay, a smile crossed her lips. “You brought fish,” she observed.
“You sent me for fish,” he deadpanned.
She giggled. “And you bring back all the fish?”
Taylor wasn’t amused. In fact, he very much despised how much in love with her he was at the moment. Because she hadn’t been fair. He’d only just recently hit absolute rock bottom and all she could do was stand there and tell him to come back later. Her smooth, rich skin and her mysterious eyes were the most beautiful thing he’d seen in a month and all he’d gotten was “come back later.” How did he recover from something like that?
“Yeah,” he replied, expressionless. “All the fish. Because that’s how I am. You want fish? I’ll bring it all. You want me to cook it for you? I’ll turn it into the best goddamn gourmet meal you’ve ever had. You want me? Here I am. All of me. Yours. Everything I have to give, my heart, my soul, all of it. But if you don’t, then tell me now. Don’t waste my time. I asked you to marry me because I love you. Did you agree because you were put on the spot?”
She narrowed her eyes in confusion. “On the spot?”
He let out a breath. “Pressured. Forced. Because everyone was watching.”
Her jaw dropped and the realization washed over her face. It was the most emotion he’d seen out of her in…well, in over a month, he supposed. “My answer was not forced.”
“Well, it sure feels like it was,” he spat. “I come home, missing you, after a long month, to you, to my fiancée, to the woman I’m going to marry and…and then you cast me aside? You didn’t even bother to ask about my trip, why I’m home, anything. It’s like you don’t even care that I hit rock bottom and I almost killed myself last week. Or at least, I thought about it, anyway.”
Her face changed to absolute horror, but Taylor couldn’t be bothered with it now. He was on a roll.
“I understand that your culture is different from mine. And I imagine that the differences are going to take a lot of getting used to. But common human decency? And love? That’s universal, no matter who you are. And your indifference to me today showed me different than the words that are coming out of your mouth, I’ll tell you that.”
She stepped down a step or two and she wrung her hands nervously, her eyes darting around in remorse. “Taylor, I’m—I’m sorry. I—I—I have…something that must be taken care of, it cannot wait. Please, if you’ll only give me just…maybe three
days—“
“Three days for what? What is going on with you, what aren’t you telling me?”
“You wouldn’t understand. Please, you just have to trust—“
“Trust this,” Taylor spat uncontrollably. “I’m going to clean this goddamned fish and I’m going to make dinner for you and your family. And then I’m out of here. I’ve been traveling all day, I’m thoroughly exhausted, and this is bullshit.”
“Taylor,” she objected in a tiny voice.
It was that time that Nick and Dan rounded the corner and conversation ceased. Reluctantly, Aishe turned around and went back inside and Dan plopped a slab of lumber on the ground in front of them with a grin. “Okay. Let’s carve those guts out!”
But Taylor couldn’t be excited about the fish guts anymore. He was busy trying to keep his own guts inside his body.
ZAC AND TAYLOR were long gone before Isaac decided to make his exit. He’d admittedly milled around the trailer and stalled, unpacking everything he could unpack and making sure each item was secure in its intended location. Coming home this time was so much more different than every other time before and the notion tore his nerves apart. It was bad enough coming home with an act that had been permanently dissolved. It was bad enough that he had come home with literally no foreseeable future to speak of.
It was even worse that he had come home with a heart now only intended for Judith Carter.
Jesus, the timing couldn’t have been more wrong for a pair that was so right in every way. Isaac loved how much they had in common, it didn’t even matter how much younger she was than him. He loved the way she accepted him for exactly who he was and he loved the way she stuck by his side, through thick and thin, no matter what. He loved his little partner-in-crime.
He loved her.
He supposed he did. He knew he did. He knew it before he left for New York. And now he was home again and it was finally time to face the music—he had to tell her. He had to. Or he could let it eat away at him from now until the end of time.
Isaac had never been so anxious in all his life. Getting all worked up wasn’t his style. He was a businessman, always able to keep himself together, even in times of crisis. He lost his religion to no man or no woman—until now.
Until Judith Carter.
How the hell did this sort of thing work, anyway?
Standing in the middle of the trailer, he fought to calm the racing of his heart as he checked his watch. What time was it? Late afternoon? Would she be at the speakeasy? Possibly. She’d need the time to count her cards and prepare her table before patrons started arriving. He’d start there.
On the way into town, he was glad to have been able to drive the car. Creeping slowly through the torrents of rain that had seemingly come out of nowhere, he white-knuckled the steering wheel, praying that the tires wouldn’t end up stuck in the mud before he reached the pavement.
As the city came into view, however, it was as if the good lord, himself, had opened the sky and shined the light on downtown Tulsa to guide Isaac’s way. The rain disappeared and the bright, golden sun cast its rays onto the buildings as the street glistened in front of him. While he enjoyed the hustle and bustle of big city life, he had to admit that there was nothing quite like the beauty of a late, quiet Oklahoma afternoon.
The air still smelled of rain when he stepped out of his parked car. Naturally, the sidewalk along the storefronts on the block were relatively bare, as the shops were closed for the day. Darting his eyes around to make sure nobody was watching, he adjusted his cap and slipped behind the buildings.
It was considerably darker in the back alleyway, as it rarely saw sun, and he walked through the soggy mud and gravel mixture until he reached the back of the middle suite, trotting down the stairs and to the basement door.
He knocked lightly and whispered, “Black cat.”
He waited.
There was no answer.
“Black cat!” He whispered again.
Finally, a response from the other side of the door, the voice deep and familiar. “Wrong answer.”
Isaac cocked his head at the door. “Then why are you acknowledging me?”
“Password’s been changed.”
“What? Since when?”
“’Bout a week ago.”
Isaac rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Merle, it’s Ike. Just open the damn door, will you?”
“Not without the password.”
Isaac let out an exasperated breath.
Merle was a good guy. Generous. Loyal. Sensible. Enormous. Isaac liked the guy. One would never know by looking at him that he’d been an accountant before the stock market crash. He was six feet and three inches of pure brawn and muscle and Isaac gathered that once he lost his job and all his money, he had to resort to putting his available resources to use, which apparently resulted in being the watch dog of a weasly little mob boss.
“Merle,” Isaac tried to reason. “Come on. We’ve never had to go through this before, you know me.”
“Sorry. Strict orders.”
“On what grounds?”
“I just work here, I don’t ask the questions.”
Isaac sighed in defeat. He knew he wasn’t giving in. The man’s resolve was as solid as his body was.
“Fine,” he relented. “Then tell Judith to come out here.”
“She ain’t here.”
His patience was wearing extremely thin. “Don’t play games with me, Merle, I ain’t got time for this shit—“
“No games. She ain’t here.”
“Right,” Isaac scoffed. “Then who the hell is dealing cards? I know it sure as shit ain’t you—“
“Johnny does it.”
“Oh, please. Johnny doesn’t know jack shit about…” Isaac’s voice trailed off.
Johnny? Johnny Carter deals…?
Before he knew what he was doing, Isaac was throwing his weight into the door. “Where the hell is Judith? Where is she? What’s he got her doing? I swear to God, if you don’t open this door right now, I’m going to smash--!”
“He ain’t got her doing nothing,” Merle replied, his voice growing more argumentative. “Like I said, she ain’t here.”
“Bullshit.”
“Honest. She ain’t working here no more. Word on the street is she picked up a case of influenza. Johnny gave her the boot. Didn’t want her infecting the customers.”
The news nearly knocked the wind out of Isaac’s chest. Stumbling backward, his shocked stare remained fixed on the closed speakeasy door. Influenza. Judith. That was impossible. And furthermore, it was unfair. Influenza had already torn his family apart. And now it wanted to take his girl, too? Just when he’d decided to make good on his feelings for her? Just when he thought he’d filled his void, found his purpose…fallen in love?
No. Absolutely not. Not this time. If Isaac had to spend every cent he had earned on tour, Judith would have the very best healthcare money could buy.
His eyes darted around his dark, dank surroundings. So where would she be? Hospital? Home? If she was at home, who the hell was taking care of her? Surely not her father or her brothers who broke their backs at the lumber yard for the better part of fourteen hours a day just so they could eat. So what was going on? Was she secluded in her bedroom, alone, withering away so she wouldn’t infect anyone else? Had she been sent away? Was she--?
“Hey,” a loud whisper came through the door. “You still there?”
Isaac blinked his way back to the present and he furrowed his brow at the door. Was he still there? Why did it matter? According to Merle, he had been given specific instructions to apparently make it very difficult for Isaac to get in. And now Johnny was dealing the poker games? It was obvious that Isaac was no longer needed, no longer welcome, and no longer employed. If he was that easily dismissed by someone who had initially given him the ultimatum of a pine box, he’d better get while the getting was good.
Without an answer, he turned around and walked away. He washed his hands of poker, of the speakeasy, and of Johnny Carter. Illegal practicing—of anything—wasn’t his bag anymore. Now his only concern was Judith and his vow that neither one of them would ever step in an establishment like that again.
* * *
Judith met Isaac at his car.
He had raced to her house after he left the speakeasy, a dwelling he had only laid eyes on a couple of times in the two years he had known her. It sat just on the outskirts of town, with a small yard, and neighbors much closer together than they would have been out in the country.
The house itself was a two-story structure that had clearly seen better days. A few of the shingles nearly hung by a thread, the wooden banister on the front porch badly needed replacing, and a fresh coat of paint would have done wonders. Speaking of wondering, Isaac wondered how a house occupied by four lumber laborers could remain in such ill repair.
He could only imagine how difficult it must have been for Judith to suffer through an illness in such a home, and recovery seemed damn near impossible to conceive.
He would have felt more sorry for her if she wasn’t currently standing before him, looking healthy as a horse.
She looked the same—and as beautiful—as she ever had, her platinum blonde hair shining in the sun against her porcelain skin. She wore no mascara and no lipstick, making it one of the only times he had ever seen her without makeup and appearing more like the priceless China doll that she was. A black silk kimono hung loose off of her shoulders over a white nightgown and her jaw hung slack in her surprise to see him.
Standing before her, he studied her for a moment before he spoke. “Is it true?”
Her crystal blue eyes widened. “Is what true?”
“Are you sick?” He demanded.
“Who told you I was sick?”
“Merle.”
Wringing her hands together, she glanced behind her before looking up at him meekly. “As far as Merle is concerned…yes.”
He cocked his head and furrowed his brow. “Merle…”
“Yes,” she replied carefully. “And Johnny and the customers and anyone else who might be asking.”
“But as far as I’m concerned…”
“As far as you and Millie and Bessie are concerned, I’m…not.”
“So…are you or aren’t you?”
“I’m not,” she confirmed.
“And you’re not working at the speakeasy anymore.”
At that, he thought he saw her eyes light up with joy. A true happiness that, admittedly, he had never seen before and it made her even more angelic than she already was. “I went straight, Daddy. Aren’t you proud of me?”
The relief that he felt nearly brought him to his knees to know that Judith was no longer involved with that operation, but something wasn’t adding up and he wasn’t satisfied with her answers. “Why?” He demanded.
She looked wounded, as if he had struck her. “You want me to be sick?”
“No,” his voice softened. “Why did you go straight all of a sudden? Why do all the boys think you’re sick?”
She began to wring her hands again.
Isaac took a step toward her. “Judith…” His heart pounded. “What happened while I was away?”
“I had to get away,” she whispered. “I couldn’t stay there a moment longer, not without you. With knowing what I know, faking sick was my only way out. If Johnny kicked me out, he would have no reason to retaliate. It keeps you and I both safe.”
“Safe from what?” Isaac spat.
She smiled in an attempt to lighten the mood. “What does it matter now? That place is dead to me now.”
“It matters. It matters to me to know why you had to go to such lengths to get out of there. What happened when I left?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered harshly. “What matters is we don’t have to worry about them anymore. Can’t we just be happy? You didn’t even tell me you missed me. Didn’t you miss me?”
And that was when he caught a glimpse of the yellow marks on her neck. Healing bruises. Why the hell…? Were they even bruises?
Isaac’s blood boiled. “He made you do it, didn’t he?”
“Please,” she whispered.
Isaac thought he might be sick. “He did. He went back on his word and he made you—I can’t even say it.”
Tears welled up in her eyes and it was then that he noticed that she had bunched her kimono up in her hands and was wringing as if her life depended on it. “Please, Daddy. I didn’t want you to know. I’m utterly disgusted with myself, fifty thousand baths won’t wash the filth off of me. I only just recently realized that I love you and I was afraid that if you knew that you would be disgusted with me, too, and I didn’t want to lose you!”
He closed the gap between them before he could take his next breath. Gathering her into his arms, he ran the backs of her fingers along her satin cheek and whispered breathlessly, “Don’t say anymore.”
“It was awful,” she revealed. “Absolutely awful, the terrible and disgusting things I was made to endure. I didn’t have any other way out but to fake sick. Not if I didn’t want to risk getting thrown in the slammer and you being killed!”
“Judith, I love you,” he revealed. He was surprised at how easy it was for him to say. He thought it would be more difficult to get out of his mouth.
“You do?” She squeaked.
“Yeah, princess. I do. I suppose I always have. You’re my something special, the only girl for me. And I promise I will protect you for as long as I live.”
“Oh, Ike,” she breathed.
“Judith!”
The gruff voice pierced through the moment like a knife through the heart. Both of them turned their heads to look at her father, who stood in the doorway on the porch.
Gerald Carter was in his fifties, but easily looked at least ten years older. He was a little on the short side, with bushy gray eyebrows to match his wild gray hair, and he was impressively built for a man his age due to the years of hard, physical labor he put in. He looked haggard as he stood there in his white button-down tee shirt, the sleeves rolled as far as they would go, revealing the anchor tattoo on his arm from his time in the Navy.
Instinctively, Isaac took a step back from Judith.
“You oughta just go on now,” he informed Isaac. “Don’t want nothing getting passed on to you or anyone else.”
Isaac’s eyes darted into Judith’s in surprise. Her own father didn’t even know she wasn’t sick?
“I couldn’t tell him,” she hissed. “I couldn’t risk it!”
He glanced from Judith to her father. And then visions of Johnny flashed in his mind, his anger growing.
No. This ended today.
Boldly, Isaac stepped around Judith and strode purposefully toward the porch. Judith trotted right on his heels. “Ike, stop it,” she pleaded. “Don’t do it. Very, very powerful people come into that place, we’ll all be…obliterated! Obliterated, I tell you!”
No. Nobody was obliterating anyone. And Gerald Carter would either be with Isaac or be against him.
Mr. Carter’s eyes trailed up as Isaac now stood before him, as if studying his intent. Raising one of his bushy brows in examination, he asked, “You got a death wish, son?”
“Look, I know I’m not the ideal pick for your daughter—“
“You’d be right about that. But in case you haven’t noticed, I ain’t exactly in a position to judge.”
“Right.”
“Now, get on,” he waved him off. “Judith, come on in the house, you know better with your condition.”
That was it. Isaac had had enough. “Judith’s not sick,” he blurted.
“Ike, don’t,” she begged.
“With all due respect, I think I know how to take care of my own daughter.”
“She isn’t sick,” Isaac pressed. “Judith, tell him.”
Now her father’s eyes looked at his daughter in confusion. Judith’s eyes fell in shame. “It’s true,” she admitted quietly.
“So…so you don’t have influenza?”
Judith shook her head.
“Then why--? Why would you--? I’ve missed an entire week of work to stay home with you.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy, I really am, but I had no choice!”
In spite of himself, Isaac snorted. “Given the circumstances, I’m sure your foreman out there had no problem giving you the time off.”
“Eh?” Mr. Carter asked. “You know Henry?”
Isaac blinked at him. “I mean Johnny.”
Mr. Carter looked equally puzzled. “Johnny who?”
“Your nephew,” Isaac deadpanned.
At that moment, two very large, very burly young men came to the door and flanked their father. Had it not been for their surprisingly jovial expressions, Isaac would have been more intimidated at how outnumbered he was while he was standing so close to their baby sister.
“What’s all the talk about Johnny?” One of them asked.
Isaac attempted to clear his throat inconspicuously. “I was simply commenting on how nice it was of him to hold your father’s job while he…tended to family business.”
The other brother guffawed loudly. “Hold his job? Why, how in tarnation would he have the pull to do that?”
Isaac’s eyes surveyed the three men, three pairs of eyes that stared back at him in innocent expectation. “Because he’s the foreman…”
Hulk Number One’s guffaw matched Number Two’s. “Foreman? Johnny ain’t no foreman. He’s just the part-time help that sweeps the floors!”
Isaac’s entire body went numb. It was as if it had instantly shut down in anticipation of the overload of different emotions that it knew it would endure following news like that. He began to have flashbacks. Standing in the office while that weasel puffed cigars behind the desk. Pine boxes. Money rolls. And now that he thought about it, those meetings typically took place after dark and he never remembered seeing a name on the door or the desk.
He had been bamboozled! Hoodwinked! Played for a fool!
He glared over at Judith. “Did you know that?”
Her eyes were as wide as saucers as she shook her head. “No! Honest!”
Mr. Carter took a step out the door while one of the brothers commented, “Judith, you’re outside. You’re not supposed to be--”
Mr. Carter’s expression turned cold all of a sudden. “That’s because she ain’t sick.”
Isaac swore he saw hackles raise on those hulks and, as they stepped outside with their father, he began to break a nervous sweat. This was no longer a trio of innocent laborers. This was a close-knit pack of wolves and Isaac had just become the innocent rabbit, grazing alone in an open field.
Holy shit, he was a goner.
Mr. Carter eyed both Isaac and Judith.
“What do you mean she ain’t sick?” Hulk Two asked.
“I mean she ain’t sick!” Mr. Carter barked harshly. “Now hush it, boy, or go back inside the house!”
Hulk Two chose to lick his wounds in silence.
“What’s the big idea here?” Mr. Carter asked. “I know trouble when I smell it. When I feel it. So somebody better start talking.”
Isaac drew in a deep breath. This was it. This had literally become a life or death situation. “Here lies Isaac Hanson. Killed in the name of love, at the bare hands of an angry father. No magic tricks could get him out of that strangling. He will be missed.”
He could only pray that Taylor would make it sound that eloquent. Zac liked poetry, though. Maybe he would write it…
He was brought out of his thoughts by a pair of small hands that had wrapped themselves around his arm. “Ike,” she whispered. “Please don’t. Please. There are people that come in there who will ruin us, I’m telling you!”
“People where?” Mr. Carter asked. Nothing was certainly lost on him.
Clearing his throat, Isaac stood a little straighter and took a deep breath. “Mr. Carter. Sir. The truth is, your nephew, Johnny, runs an illegal speakeasy downtown—and Judith and I both worked for him.”
Silence followed. Dead silence. But the crimson hue of Mr. Carter’s face reflected much more than silence—and it certainly wasn’t the summer heat.
The old man’s neck and knuckles cracked simultaneously. “Judith. Don’t think I never knew that you were running around with this…ruffian.”
“Daddy!” She gasped.
“I’ve always known. I blame myself for the trouble I’ve allowed him to get you into—“
“Daddy, it wasn’t Ike, it was Johnny!”
“Now, I won’t stand here and have you telling me stories, you hear? You fooled me once with your illness, I won’t listen to anymore of the thoughts he’s put into your head!”
“Mr. Carter, you’re a smart man,” Isaac boldly interjected. “Now how could I go putting things into her head when I just got back into town a few hours ago?”
“Well, sure, but before—“
“I only just learned about her illness, or lack thereof, several minutes ago for myself.”
Was that bad? That sounded bad. That sounded like he was throwing the blame off on Judith and that wasn’t his intent at all. He’d only meant to back up that Judith was telling the truth about Johnny. Jesus, he was only digging his hole deeper and deeper, wasn’t he?
Mr. Carter seemed to freeze, however. His fists and his jaw slackened. Good. He was willing to listen to reason. He was only cantankerous and unreasonable on the surface. Excellent.
“Daddy, it’s true,” Judith admitted. “I worked for Johnny first. And then I…forced Isaac to work for him, too. If anything, it was me getting him into trouble—not the other way around.”
“You know times are hard,” Isaac said. “I needed money and Johnny had it coming in. When I found out Johnny was her family, I assumed she was safe, so it wasn’t a big deal.”
“And what did you do in the speakeasy?” Mr. Carter asked through his teeth.
“Poker,” Isaac answered quickly, before Judith could open her mouth. “At first they were pulling tickets and he wanted me to run money. I convinced him that sitting behind a poker table was more profitable. In the meantime, it was safer for me to not be running the streets.”
“And Judith?”
“She sat with me. That was the deal. She sat next to me and helped me deal cards. That was all. I was led to believe he was the foreman at the lumber yard. All the meetings were held there in the office. I was led to believe he was a powerful, influential guy who knew a lot of people.”
Hulks One and Two were no longer guffawing. Instead they were glaring. Hulk One stated, “Johnny don’t know nobody and he ain’t no foreman. He sweeps the floors ‘cause nobody likes him and he can’t run the machines. He only has the keys to the office ‘cause that’s where the janitor’s closet is.”
“But,” Judith sputtered. “He knows people. All over the country, bad people—“
“No he don’t. In fact, he owes a guy money cause he gambles away all his sweepin’ money.”
Isaac was suddenly livid.
“How do you know that?” Mr. Carter spat.
Hulk One scoffed. “’Cause Johnny don’t know when to shut his mouth.”
“You think it’s true he’s running a speakeasy?”
“I’m surprised he’s smart enough to run anything!”
“Daddy, I wouldn’t lie to you!” Judith cried.
He glared an accusing eye at her. Then he looked up at Isaac. “All right. Fine. We’ll say my nephew is running a speakeasy. So why the hell is Judith faking sick? Why the hell have I missed a week’s pay, endured the grief--?”
“Because when Ike left, Johnny went back on his word! I was supposed to deal cards in Ike’s place and I was…for a little bit. And then he went back on it—“
“He sent you away.”
“No, he…found other work for me. And told me it was that or he would hurt everyone I loved, including Ike, because all he had to do was get word to his guys in New York—“
“What kind of work?” Mr. Carter threatened.
Isaac couldn’t bear to hear it. But her father had to know. Johnny couldn’t be allowed to get away with such abominable actions.
Nervously, she pulled the collar of her kimono to the side and revealed the healing wounds on her neck. “The kind that causes this,” she nearly whispered.
Isaac thought her father might have a heart attack. Her brothers were now standing at full attention with murder in their eyes.
“My daughter…”
“Daddy, it was awful! But I had no choice, he threatened to hurt everyone, even you! Faking sick was the only way I could get out of it because if Johnny had a reason to dismiss me himself, he wouldn’t have a reason to make good on his promises! If I told you the truth, it could have put you in danger!” She then burst into tears, hiding her face in her hands. “I didn’t know none of it was true, I’m so sorry, Daddy, I’m so sorry!”
While Mr. Carter stood there and seethed, Isaac awaited the inevitable. All he had to do was say the words. Disown her, cast her out, make sure she knew how ashamed of her he was. Isaac would take her in, his brothers would just have to suck it up and make room. He would take care of her.
Instead, Mr. Carter directed his attention to Isaac. “So Johnny’s running a speakeasy, huh? Got no problem turning his family out to pay off his own debts?”
Isaac cleared his throat. “Yes, sir. It’s all true. I can tell you everything. Where it’s located, what hours it operates, who runs the door…but not the password. They changed that, wouldn’t give it to me—“
“I don’t need no dad-blame password,” he barked. “Boys! Grab the shotguns off the wall! We got ourselves a party to crash!”
Oh…holy shit. These guys were true blue backwoods Oklahoma boys, weren’t they? Isaac’s eyes widened nervously. “Uh…sir? With all due respect, I thought maybe we might just have the joint shut down? Have Johnny thrown in the slammer? You know…?”
“That little shit violated my daughter. I ain’t got time to wait on no coppers to whoop his ass. This time it’s personal. This time that little asshole’s messed with the wrong uncle. Move outta my way!”
* * *
It was dark outside. The wind was still, the air was dry, and the trailer was quiet. Zac was nowhere to be found and Taylor brooded quietly in the corner.
It had been an eventful evening. By some miracle, Isaac had managed to convince Mr. Carter not to storm the speakeasy and, as a result, three shotguns, a tiny blonde girl, and a former magician all stormed the police station instead.
After the old man had loudly barked his reason to believe that an illegal speakeasy was operating downtown, graciously leaving both Isaac’s and Judith’s names out of it, the department had gathered an army of officers, led by Lieutenant Don Parker, and paraded out the door. Isaac imagined that this was probably the most action the department had seen in quite some time.
Judith had waited in the car while they used Isaac to get in. Apparently Merle had decided that Isaac was relentless and was tired of arguing and so they played a game of 20 Questions until question number four revealed the new password to be “pine box.”
Isaac should have known.
Once Isaac was through the door, the police officers nearly mowed him down to get in. The raid sent patrons scattering and left a wide-eyed District Attorney Stanley Connors standing by the bar. The pieces were starting to come together much too easily and Isaac glared at him with intent in his eyes.
Connors composed himself quickly and had put on quite a show. “Gentlemen! Oh, thank heavens you’ve finally arrived! I’ve been calling and calling that station, anxiously awaiting your arrival, as you very well know that I don’t have the authority to shut this place down!”
Lt. Parker looked unconvinced but, like everyone else in the room, knew that an accusation or a criminal charge would get him absolutely nowhere, witnesses or not.
As officers milled about, making arrests and seizing evidence, Connors glanced behind him and began waving the handkerchief he nervously clutched in his fist. “Oh, deplorable things are going on back there, simply deplorable! Make sure you get that little blonde girl, too! Such an abomination, these young ones these days!”
“Little blonde girl?” Lt. Parker asked.
“No girls back here, lieutenant,” an officer announced from behind them.
Lt. Parker arched a suspicious eyebrow at the D. A. and went about his business. Connor’s eyes then landed on Isaac. How Connors actually had the balls to approach him was beyond Isaac.
Shoving his handkerchief in his pocket, he shook Isaac’s hand with both of his. “I assume you’re responsible for getting this joint shut down. Excellent job, thank you. It’s absolutely horrendous that these places even exist. Good to know that at least one of you boys has a head on his shoulders.”
Isaac jerked his hand from Connors’s clammy grasp. “Little blonde girl?” He asked menacingly.
In that moment, Stanley Connors’s expression had changed. It flashed from realization to fear and then settled to a chill. “That’s what I said.”
Stanley Connors didn’t scare Isaac. Isaac stepped close to him and lowered his voice out of earshot of the officers. “If I ever catch you near any ‘little blonde girls’ again, you’re finished. Do you understand me? If I can get a place like this shut down with my ass on the line, just imagine what I could do to your career.”
Isaac entertained the notion that he may have rattled Connors a little, but the man would never show it. And so he turned and he walked away, right out of the speakeasy door, and into the Tulsa night air.
He wanted to return to the car, to Judith, but the sound of Merle’s voice caught his attention as he was being shoved into the backseat of a police cruiser. “Hey, what about Johnny? Where did Johnny go?”
Isaac shook his head. Poor Merle. It seemed the guy just couldn’t catch a break, perpetually being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was a shame. He really was a decent guy. Maybe if he’d just let Isaac in the first time…
Nah. It still would have happened that way. Happy trails, Merle.
Now, though. Now it was quiet. Judith was at home, having dinner with her father, a rare occasion since he found himself with some time off work. Isaac couldn’t be selfish and keep her by his own side, not in light of recent events. And especially since he appreciated not being on the other end of her father’s sawed-off double barrel.
So he lay there on his bed with a book, not really reading it, but trying to figure out how get a radio in the trailer. Normally when it was this quiet he might be fiddling around with a magic trick or something, but now it seemed that late night activities were finding themselves lacking. Speaking of, maybe what he should have been doing was discussing with Taylor the options for disposing of their props. Sure would clear some space in the cramped trailer with them gone.
The knock at the trailer door caused both Isaac and Taylor to straighten their spines from their respective locations. After an exchange of curious glances, Isaac crossed the trailer and opened the door.
There were three visitors.
The moonlight was barely enough light to see them, but it bounced off of Judith’s angelic hair, giving her away in an instant. As for the other two figures, Isaac fumbled around and fished a matchbook out of his pocket so that he could light the torch that hung by the door.
The firelight reflected the faces of Mr. Carter and a taller man with a black mustache that stood between the father and the daughter that Isaac didn’t recognize.
Isaac wasn’t sure that confusion quite fit the emotion he was feeling right then.
“Are you Isaac?” The man in the middle spoke.
“Yes…”
“Splendid. I’m Henry Howard. I’m the foreman and general manager of the lumber yard. How do you do?”
Isaac accepted the extended handshake and stepped down a step. “I’m well, thank you.”
“Wonderful. It’s come to my attention that you had a speakeasy shut down tonight—“
“I helped. It was a joint effort…”
Mr. Howard smiled sheepishly. “Yes, well, that joint effort cost me a sweeper, you see. Police came and plucked him right off the floor.”
Isaac shifted his weight from one foot to the other and he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Well, sir, I’m sorry to hear that, but the guy had it coming.”
“Oh, I didn’t come here to blame you. Please don’t get the wrong idea. I came here to offer you a job.”
A job? Isaac was being offered a job? Why…nobody was getting job offers anymore! Nobody had jobs to offer! He was stunned.
“A job?”
“Well, the floors do still need to be swept. But, you see, word on the street is you know a thing or two about fixing cars.”
“Uh, yeah,” Isaac replied, struggling to keep his composure. “There something you need me to look at?”
“Oh, no,” Mr. Howard chuckled. “But I also heard about the way you fixed Burt Anderson’s old Beulah and that popcorn never tasted better, I tell you. I need a floor sweeper, but I need someone who might be able to look at the machines when they go on the fritz. Happens more often than not lately and calling a repairman from out of town is mighty time-consuming.”
“That’s—I’ve never—I’ve never even looked at a machine like that before.”
“Maybe not. But you got a lot more mechanical know-how than most of those old boys in there do and, hey, if you can’t fix the machines, the floors will never leave you!”
At this point, floor sweeping was as good as it was going to get. Granted, it wasn’t as lucrative as poker or carnival acts, but sure as hell was more steady. And honest. At this point, it was high time for steady and honest.
Isaac smiled and extended his own hand to his new boss. “Mr. Howard, you got yourself a deal. Thank you very much, I appreciate it.”
“You’re very welcome, glad to have you on board,” Mr. Howard smiled. “Now it’s night work, so I’ll give you a day or so to rest up. Come in the day after tomorrow after dark.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll be there,” Isaac grinned. “Thank you again.”
Mr. Howard tipped his hat and took a step backward. “See you in a couple of days.”
As he walked away, Isaac stepped down another step and Mr. Carter met him there. With his hands clasped together in front of him, the old man cleared his throat and jutted his chin out. “Young man. Judith is my only daughter. It’s not easy raising a girl without a mother and I haven’t been the best of parents over the years, what with not being able to keep an eye on her all the time and all. But you’re a stand-up fella, I gotta admit, and if she had to do her fair share of running around, I’m glad she had you to watch out for her. That being said, I know you just got back into town and all so I, uh, I put in a good word for you with the boss. Thought maybe you might be a good fit down at the yard.”
“Thank you, sir,” Isaac nodded. “I appreciate that very much. I won’t disappoint you, you’ll see.”
“I know.” Then he nodded his head to his right, in Judith’s direction. “Have her home in two hours and not a minute more. I sleep with my shotgun by the bed.”
“Absolutely, sir.”
And then he turned and followed in Mr. Howard’s footsteps.
After she was convinced that her father was out of sight, Judith closed the gap and all but threw herself into Isaac’s arms. “Oh, Isaac,” she breathed. “I’m so proud of you. You were so brave tonight!”
A smile crept across his lips as he held her tightly. “I’ll always look out for you, princess. Nobody’s gonna mess with you as long as I’m around.”
“I love you so! I can’t stop saying it!”
“And I love you. And I don’t ever want you to stop saying it.”
“I don’t want to drink alcohol anymore,” she confessed with a shake of her head. “It’s nothing but trouble and it’s nothing I need. Let’s make a pact right now, just you and me. Let’s never drink another drop of alcohol ever again!”
Isaac swallowed. Um…never? Never another drop? He liked whiskey. He liked the way it tasted on his tongue and the smooth way it trailed down his throat. He liked the warmth in his belly and the calming of his nerves. On many occasions, whiskey had been the only comfort he could rely on.
But, then again, back then he didn’t have the love of a beautiful young woman, either. It turned out that looking into her eyes caused many of the same effects he had sought in the whiskey, and felt even better. Maybe she was right. Maybe alcohol was unnecessary anymore. Maybe all of it was, the smoke and the drink, everything. Maybe that’s what love was about. Maybe all they needed was each other.
“All right,” he nodded. “No more alcohol. Ever.”
With a smile, she took him by the hand and led him up the steps and into the trailer where the pair spent the next two hours fulfilling the pact, disposing of Isaac’s entire stash, one hidden flask at a time.