Wrangler (Sheppard’s Shadow #3)

Chapter 7

“Who the hell are you? Unless you’re here to get me out of this mess, then get your ass away from here. I got no time for people dropping by.” She told William that she was Lily the Mother Earth. “Bull shit. There ain’t no such thing as a Mother Earth. Who are you, and if you’re not here to get me out of here like I said, then I don’t want a thing to do with you.”

“I don’t want anything to do with you either, but you’ve been messing with the wrong family. My family, as it turns out.” William asked her who they were. “My daughter’s family and mine. The Sheppard’s. That would include your son and daughter, too, in the event that you don’t understand what I’m telling you. You’re upsetting them, and as much as I know what your answer is going to be, I’m asking you to leave them alone. Will you?”

“Bull shit. And no, I’m not going to leave them alone. They got my damned kids, and I want them back. Pontiac.” She told him the word he was needing was pronto and then asked him if he liked the term about bowel movements. “When it suits. Like, I can tell you to fuck off, too, and other shit like that. What do you want by coming here? They said that as soon as I paid my fine, I could be set free from here. The Sheppards are costing me a good deal of money and time that I’m not too happy with. The way that you sound, it’s like I should just let that go. I ain’t gonna. Money costs too much.”

“It’s doubtful to me that you’re ever happy unless it’s something going your way. And it won’t from now on.” He told her that he had the luck of the Irish on his side. “I don’t know what that means, nor do I care. But you will heed my words, both you and your wife. Nothing, not of this realm or any other that you might seek refuge in, will give you anything but back luck in all manner of things.”

William felt it roll over him. Like her words had really made it so that he’d have nothing but bad luck from now on. He didn’t believe it and shook himself hard, free of whatever mumbo jumbo shit that she was saying. She was as unimportant to him as his children were. He needed the money and fame that they’d bring to him.

“What are you going to do? Huh? You gonna put a spell on us? Won’t happen because I don’t believe you can do it. Oh, you might be able to say some mumbo jumbo shit, but it won’t hurt us. We’ve been landing on our feet since we got hooked up together.” The woman told him that his luck, no matter where it was from, wasn’t going to be there for them any longer. “We’ll see about that. I’m going to get my kids, make that man pay me some money for keeping them from me then I’m taking them back home. I don’t like it here. After that, I’m going to do what I damned well please, and there isn’t anything you can do to me.”

It occurred to him while he was listening to his wife jabber on that he couldn’t for the life of him remember what the woman had looked like. Lollipop was the only thing that would come to his mind and scary. Why those two things had him thinking of the woman was beyond him, but he just wrote it off as her being ugly. But that didn’t sit right, either. Shaking his whole body again, he thought that he’d just taken a nap and had slept funny, that was all.

However, he did have a sense of dread. Like maybe what she’d said to him was going to turn out true. Bad luck? He’d never had so much as a splinter in his finger that bothered him overly much. Bad luck indeed, he told himself. He invented having the best of luck, and he would dare anyone to say anything different to him.

The officer came back, and he just offhandily asked him who the woman was. If she told him her name, he couldn’t recall it any better than what she looked like. Her voice, that was nice, she never raised her voice, but that was about all he could remember.

“You haven’t had a visitor for three days. That is if you don’t count your attorney. And he’s a male. What did you want for your supper?” He didn’t even realize it was that late and asked him about lunch. “You were sleeping. I told you to wake up but all you did was grumble something about luck and told me to go away. So again, what did you want for supper?”

After getting the choices, he said he’d like to have a roast beef dinner. He didn’t know who was cooking that meal, but it was the best thing on the menu that they had. As the man was walking away, he came back.

“The roast beef is all gone. We ate it all at lunchtime.” He asked him what they’d not eaten. “Well, there’s fish sammiches as well as a wiener on a bun.”

“I don’t like either one of those things. Can’t you scrape the bottom of the pan and make me some beef. I’d really like to have that.” He gave him his options again. “Wiener, I guess. But I need two of them. They don’t fill up a man like a beef dinner does.”

When his meal came, a lot later than he thought that it should have, he was given just one wiener and it wasn’t even on a bun but a slice of white bread. The beans that he usually had at a cookout thing wasn’t there either but some kind of tater salad that was covered in eggs and mustard. It was so gross to him that he had to choke it down with every bite. And the single cookie he was given had raisins in it. Raisins. Who the hell put raisins in cookies and thought that it was going to taste good. He found himself eating them when he’d picked them out of his cookie because he was about to starve to death without them.

When his tray was picked up, no amount of begging got him anything else to eat. Damned jail. If he was in charge, they’d have a cookout every night so that there were plenty of burgers and steaks for everyone to have. William asked about his bail.

“I don’t have anything to do with that. Your attorney is supposed to get back with you. All I know is that you’re going to be spending more time here because you didn’t pay your fines.” He asked about his wife. “Mrs. Damon had some stashed someplace else and her attorney was able to get her out. She’s been out of here since before lunch.”

“That can’t be right. Why didn’t she stay behind so that I could get out? You get her here so I can ask her.” He was told no, a word that he hated more than there is no more. Damned people. “You find her for me, and I’ll make sure you get you a tenner slipped to you.”

“No.” Damned if he didn’t just walk away after him telling him that he didn’t like that word. Or did he tell him. Lying down on his cot, the flipping thing was no bigger than something a kid would sleep on. He had to settle his mind up in trying to figure out what he’d been saying to people. That woman. Who had she been?

He let his mind muddle through the things that she’d told him. No good luck? Could that be why there wasn’t no roast beef for him. And him being stuck in the cell…wait. She told him that neither him nor Patsy would have good luck. Sounded to him that Patsy was having all the luck that she needed. She was out, wasn’t she?

“Mr. Damon.” He sat up, wiping the sleep from his eyes as he only just realized that he’d dozed off. Not only was it bright outside, it had been dark when he’d laid down but the man standing in front of him looked just like one of them Sheppard boys. He asked him what he wanted. “As I have said to you twice now, my name is Jameson Sheppard. I’m representing Amber Sheppard and William Sheppard, your biological children. Are you awake enough to listen to me now?”

“Give me a minute here. What time is it anyway?” He told him it was just after eight in the morning. “Must have slept hard last night. Don’t remember ever having—like you care. What are you doing here waking me up so early? A man should have his breakfast before some shit like you comes around waking him up. Don’t you think?”

“I haven’t any idea. When I’m awake, I go and make my own breakfast. Are you ready now to listen to me?” He washed his face off in the sink, then straightened up his clothing. He didn’t know what the little pisser wanted, but he was going to make him wait until he was ready. “Mr. Damon. Will you please listen to me?”

“All right. I’m ready. What are you going to tell me? That my kids are ready to come back to me? That they’ve seen the error of their ways and ask me to forgive them? I ain’t in no forgiving mood, and you tell them that.” The man said what he came to say. “What did you say? My wife ain’t no way dead. What a thing to…why didn’t you tell me that right off instead of making sure that I was—this is all that woman’s fault, ain’t it? She told you to come in here and tell me that lie to make me feel like her hexing me was right. Tell me that what’s going on?”

“Your wife is deceased. Sometime after she left here, she was caught shoplifting in one of the all-night stores. While the police were talking to her, she told them that she had the money to pay and that she was going to give it to the man who had called the police.” William said that didn’t sound like a reason to kill off someone. “No, it wasn’t what caused her death. When she reached into her pocket, the police were watching her, and when the gun came out in her hand, they opened fire on her when she shot one of the officers in the leg. She passed from a gunshot to the head. There were other shots, but that was what was determined what was her cause of death.”

“I don’t believe you.” The man nodded and handed him a picture. It was of his wife lying on some kind of table with a hole in her forehead. He was going on about something, the other man was, and all he could think about was that his wife, his lover, and his friend were gone. “How do I know that this is her?”

“Look at the second picture. She had a tattoo on her left hand wedding ring finger. As you can see, it’s there with her face in the picture.” He did see it there, but anyone could have done that before he could tell the man that he saw something that no one else would have known.

She’d had breast cancer. And instead of taking off all her right breast, the only thing that the doc did was remove the cancer. He said that it might not get it all but it turned out all right for them. The scar, a small one about the size of a dime, was there under her deformed breast for the drainage that had to be there when she caught a bad cold while recovering.

With shaking hands, he handed the pictures back to the man. There might have been more said, but like before, his mind was going all over the place. Sitting down on the cot, he was feeling pretty hopeless and didn’t know what he was going to do now that she was gone. They had expected it. She’d been real careful about going to the doctor and all, but to be killed like this, well, it wasn’t right.

“You all right, Mr. Damon?” He shook his head and then looked up at the man. “My family knows that you don’t have any money left. The courts have seized it all, and we’ll take care of the arrangements for you. She’ll be cremated and—”

“No, don’t do that. You can’t burn her up. She’s afraid of fire. She don’t want that done to her, and I was never going to do it. The thought of being burned alive scares her something terrible.” Instead of arguing with him, like the other doctor did when his wife was suffering so badly from the breast cancer operation that his wife wouldn’t know a thing, he said he’d take care of it for him. “I know that she won’t feel a thing, but that’s all we talked about when we were together.” He looked at him again. “Are you sure she’s gone?”

“Yes, sir, I’m sure.” A chair was brought to the man, and he sat down across from the cell. William could have reached out and grabbed the man and killed him, but he just didn’t have it in him. “We’re still trying to find out where she got the gun.”

“We bought it when we got ourselves here. Wasn’t hard. Just paid five hundred dollars to this man, and he even through in some ammo. I can’t believe that she’s gone.” He looked up from the floor. “Do the kids know? I mean, they must be pretty broken up to know that they caused the death of their own mother by making us come here. They should have done what they were told.”

He didn’t say anything, and William took that as an agreement. His grief was profound right now, and he just wanted someone to let him out of there so that he could go and see her. Hold her hand one more time.

By the time that his mind settled up a bit more, he turned to ask the man what could be done for him. Surely, they wouldn’t keep him in jail now that his wife was gone. But the man was gone. Not even the chair was there to tell him that he’d been there at all.

“That damned woman did this.” He didn’t know how it was her fault; she’d surely not told Patsy to rob the grocery store, not to mention taking a gun there, but it was like her luck and been taken away, and now he was left alone with nobody around but his kids. And getting them to come to him was going to be harder now. His heart was broken, and it wasn’t his fault.

“Damned people. I hate them all.” Rolling onto his cot again, he cried. Using the end of his blanket as his tissue he was wondering what he was going to do now. If they…he was really broke, he was going to be in deep shit when he was able to get out of here. And by god, he was going to get out of here if he had to kill someone to do it. His kids were responsible for the shit that was going on, and they were going to fucking pay.

~*~

They were headed up to bed later than they normally would have been but neither of them seemed to be as exhausted as they normally would be about this time of night. Wrangler had spent the evening with his brothers, the six of them running through the woods as they played whatever game they’d been doing, and he looked…well, he looked refreshed. Like he’d had a good long nap, something that she wanted, and was now feeling great.

“It’s the baby that’s exhausting you all the time. You’ll get used to it soon enough. Just make sure that you rest up more. I don’t want anything to happen to either one of you.” She said that she’d been drinking a lot of juice, too. “Good idea. Make sure that it’s fresh. And are you drinking the tea that Lily gave you to keep your belly stable?”

She made her way into the bathroom, so glad that they had one for each of them, and decided that she wanted to have her brains fucked out of her head. Laughing a little, she decided right then and there that she wasn’t going to wear anything to bed anymore. It was wonderful waking up in the morning or even in the night with Wrangler nibbling on her. He did that very well.

Amber looked down at her breasts when Wrangler continued to stare at her. She’d not spoken to him when she left the bathroom but watched him as he stood there. Christ, she loved this man. After a quick glance at his cock, she could see that she was having the perfect effect on him for some good old fashion fucking. Cupping her hands around them, trying to show them to him, had him coming just close enough that she could feel his breath on her skin.

“Don’t, Amber. Let me... Christ, but you’re beautiful.” His voice was husky and low. It did things to her body she’d not felt in...Well, not since they’d had sex just this morning.

When he cupped his hands over hers and lifted them with his, her breath caught. Then, when he smoothed his thumbs over the top swell of her, she closed her eyes, not wanting him to see the effect he was having on her. But she couldn’t stop the small moan when he ran his tongue along the same path.

Wrangler’s tongue was hot and wet as he moved it along her other breast. When he gently removed her hands and filled his with her breasts, Amber felt the ground tilt beneath her. It was like that every time he touched her. Even to take her hand into his.

“Please...I...please, Wrangler.” Amber hated to beg, but she needed more, more of what he was doing to her and more of what she was sure he could do to her. “I need you. So much.”

Wrangler seemed to understand and picked her up by cupping her ass in his hands and lifting her up so that her breasts were right at his mouth. As soon as her back touched the wall behind her, he pulled her nipple deep into his mouth. Every nerve in her body felt it. Wrapping her legs around his waist, Amber buried her fingers in his hair and held him to her.

“Baby, if you’re going to stop me, now would be the time. If not, I’m going to move us to that big bed and fuck you until we can’t move. Then me, Amber, tell me you want me as much as I want you.”

Amber’s hissed “yes” had her flat on the bed quick. His mouth moved up her shoulder even as she moved her hands to the front of his shirt. As soon as she touched it, it disappeared. Wrangler pulled back to look at her.

“Nice trick. Can you make us both naked again? I need to feel your body beneath mine now. Right now, Amber.” She did as he told her and was surprised by the feel of his cock at her entrance.

Wrangler’s pants had disappeared next, along with his boxer briefs, shoes, and socks. Amber reached down and cupped his hard cock in her hand. He was thick and hard. And the small pearl of cum on the tip made her mouth water. Thumbing it off, she brought it to her mouth and suckled it off. Wrangler growled deep.

“Take them off. Take them off before I tear them from your body,” Wrangler growled in her neck.

As suddenly as his clothes disappeared, hers did as well. Wrangler leaned up on his hands and looked down both their bodies. His cock throbbed with apparent need, and even her tight curls were wet with her cream. Wrangler leaned further back on his knees. Amber whimpered.

But when he began stroking his cock with his left hand, he then entered her with the fingers of his right. Amber could feel her body responding to what he was doing. The in and out motions matched what he was doing to his cock perfectly.

“Wrangler, please stop playing with me. Fuck me.” He laughed, a small, sexy laugh that had her wanting more of the man than just playing around with her.

Wrangler’s smile was pure sin. “So impatient. But so am I. Amber, look at me. I won’t take you hard if you say no. But I’m going to fuck you hard if you agree. And make you scream. I will never harm you, you know that, don’t you? Know that I’d never do anything to you, Wills, or our children should you wish to have any after this child.”

“I want your children growing in me, Wrangler. Take me and give it all to me.” She was prepared, or so she thought, for him to enter her. But she screamed when it felt like he was tearing her apart. In a wonderful way. “Yes, more.”

He fucked her hard. Harder than she’d ever in her life thought that she’d enjoy, and when he came, she could feel his seed entering her womb. She cried out just before sinking her teeth into his shoulder when he did the same to her.

Her body seemed to be turning inside out, and when she closed her eyes against all the colors that seemed to be surrounding her, she knew that, on some level, this was more than the first time they’d made love. This was powerful. Wonderfully powerful.

Waking up, she saw that Wrangler wasn’t in the bed beside her. Instead of getting up to look for him, not even sure that she could move, he came out of the bathroom and curled his chilled body against her. Not minding at all, she asked him if he was all right.

“Better than all right, I think. I feel like I’ve conquered the world and am about as happy about it as I am about anything in this world.” He put his hand on her flat tummy. “Our child grows here. I know you know that, but I can’t explain to you how happy that makes me. I can’t wait to see you heavy with our baby.”

She put her hand over his and curled her fingers around his. “I love you, Wrangler. With all that I am.” He told her that he loved her as well, and she closed her eyes before opening them again. “Is that your phone?”

“Yes, let me get it. It’s midnight or a little after. I don’t know who that could be.” After saying his name, he got up and walked into the bathroom. Whatever it was, he had closed the door on her, and it made her heart start to pound. Just as she was ready to get up and find out what was going on, he came back out and held the phone out to her.

“No. I don’t know what it is, but you tell me.” Wrangler told her that it was his brother and he left the jail after talking to William. “You tell me. Tell Jameson that I’m glad that he called, but I don’t want to know, not right now.”

After telling his brother that he was going to relay the news, he got into bed with her. She was crying by then and didn’t think that she’d sleep another wink without knowing what happened. Rolling over in his arms, she asked him if it was something to do with her parents.

“Your mother made bail somehow. Your father wasn’t happy about that, but he was told that she had a stash someplace, and that pissed him off. Apparently sometime when they arrived here in Ohio, they purchased a gun. When she made bail, she decided that she was going to get more money to get William out. We don’t know that, but that’s what the police are speculating. She tried to rob the local grocery store, and she was killed.” She curled around him and held him tightly, just knowing that there was more. “Your father has been told. He doesn’t believe it, Jameson told me but he is plotting a way to get to you and Wills still. I don’t know what that would entail but that’s what he’s said to him.”

“He’s more than likely blaming us for her death, isn’t he?” Wrangler told her that he didn’t know that much but that was his first thought as well. “Now, what happens? I mean, he doesn’t get out, does he?”

“That would be up to the courts.” She asked him if there was more. “Yes. Lily, Sunny’s mom, went to see them earlier tonight—I guess that would be yesterday now. She told them that they’d have nothing but bad luck from now on. She feels just horrible and is fearful that you’re going to be mad at her. She’d like to speak with you and Wills tomorrow after arrangements have been made for Patsy’s funeral. Oh, Jameson told William that we’d take care of the funeral, and he told him that your mother was terrified of fire, that she couldn’t be cremated. We’ll still take care of the arrangements, but it’s doubtful that anyone other than a few people will go. I don’t know if your father will be released to go to the funeral or not. It’s doubtful, but I just don’t know.”

She didn’t say anything for a while, her mind working on what she’d just been told. Of course, she’d have to tell Wills that she was gone, not that she thought that he’d be any more moved by her death than she was. But she had been their mother, so there was some sorrow for the loss. But what to do with her father was something that she was fearful of.

Since being around what she considered normal people, she’d realized how dysfunctional her parents were. It did mean that they were too as their children but she didn’t think that either one of their parents could live without the other. They were so in love or whatever their version of what was going on with them that they never saw anything that was going on around them. Or it could have been that they just didn’t care. More than likely, the latter of the two.

Getting up when she knew that Wrangler was asleep she made her way down to the kitchen to have a cup of tea. She didn’t know what was in the little packets of herbs and flowers but it had a way of calming her that she’d never had before. Just as the kettle was beginning to hiss, she took it off the stove and poured the still-boiling water into her cup. Taking her first sip, she heard her brother coming down the stairs. She poured him a cup of the brew, too.

“What’s going on?” she told him everything that Wrangler had told her. Leaving nothing out so that he’d not be shocked or upset if something came out later that she’d not told him. “I remember her being afraid of fire. She didn’t like to even have campfires either. What happens now? I mean, to William?”

“I don’t know, not really. I don’t see him getting any bail gathered up. He’ll be more dangerous now that Patsy’s gone. I was thinking before coming down here that they never loved anyone like they did each other. I mean, I’m sure they didn’t love us.” Wills told her that was a good assessment because he never loved them either. “I’m not sure what I felt for the two of them when I was little. I know that even before you came along, they weren’t good parents. I went to school most days without any lunch, and I doubt they ever paid any fees for me. You either, for that matter.”

“I want to change the subject. Okay?” She nodded at him and watched him carefully as he sipped at his tea. “I’m going to take some of the survival classes that they offer at the pack school. Also, the sloth school is going to allow me to go there to learn some of their things, too. He, Mr. Mann, said that I could help the cubs blend in better when they’re around humans. The things that might make them stick out a little too much when with them.”

“That sounds like something you’d be good at. Blending in has kept us alive for a long time.” He nodded and got up to get him a bowl of cereal. “If you want, I’ll make us a big breakfast. You can even ask the others if they want to come. But I’ll need to know how many to cook for.”

“I’d really like that. Maybe Ms. Lily would like to join us. I bet she’s never had biscuits and sausage gravy like you make it.”

In the end all the family showed up to eat with them. Even Ms. Lily. When she pulled her and Wills aside, she could tell that she was nearly in tears for what happened and it was Wills that hugged her first.

“You didn’t do anything. They were on the way to getting caught, and I’m glad that at least one of them is gone. Don’t feel bad for those terrible people. Please?” She nodded and told Wills that he was a good man. “Thank you. Without my sister and dad, Wrangler, I mean, I don’t know where I’d be right now.”

“You’d be just fine, young man. Just fine indeed.”