Mackie's Men (15 page)

Laura put her arm around Mackie’s shoulders and they sat that way for a few minutes. When she started talking Mackie was surprised, not as shocked as she probably should be, but it was no longer a mystery why Ishmeal was treated like family.

“I have never told another soul this, and you might be surprised to know that Thom and I have a third in our bed at times. Ishy is loved by both of us, and we would never hurt him. For obvious reasons, he cannot live here, and we will never be able to go public as a ménage relationship, but he’s been with us since a year after our marriage over twenty-five years ago. When I retire at the end of my term this year, Thom will retire the following year and Ishy will retire at the same time or within a few months. You know that we own that farm up in the Detroit area right? The house is huge, and the housekeeper will not be a live-in.”

Laura looked in Mackie’s widened eyes and smiled, “Our middle son, Wyatt, is fathered by Ishy, and he knows it. After three days of sulking, he managed to come to terms with knowing about the three of us, and he still carries his father’s name in a way. His middle name is Ishmeal.” She gave Mackie another squeeze and let her go, before standing. “You have the attraction, and men like that would never take a chance telling someone what they have shared with you, unless they were sincerely interested. They have far more to lose than you do, yet they still opened a vein and gave you information that would destroy them publically if it got out to the wrong people.

“Liam Klinger told us that you were brought into the trap last night without your knowledge or consent, regardless of how you became involved, you have my blessing and love. If you decide to stay with me, we’ll weather the controversy of you being seen with Darryl Reynolds. If you decide to go with them, I’ll be happy for you, and enjoy knowing that you will have finally found someone to love you, even three someones.”

She brushed her hand down the back of Mackie’s hair and said, “You deserve to be happy, you deserve to be loved and have someone for you to know you can depend on to take care of you, just as much as you will take care of them. Don’t let fear hold you back, if you want them now, love will grow as long as you are all honest with each other.”

Laura left her still sitting on the chest, and Mackie digested everything she’d heard as she dropped the bath sheet and got dressed for the day. Would it be as easy or as simple as honesty? Could she find the love and compassion inside of herself to love three men equally? She was thirty years old, and had been solitary most of her life, taking care of others was what she did. The occasional wish for someone of her own was being handed to her, and she was almost afraid to take it.

She was still arguing the pros and cons of her choice when she came downstairs and handed Darryl her suitcase and gave Liam her old Army duffel bag that was packed to capacity. She walked back to the stairs and picked up her backpack and the cat carrier. GreyC was going with her on this new adventure.

Thom and Laura waved goodbye from the front door, and for some reason Mackie choked up. She looked at Darryl and Liam in turn and wondered,
what have they done to me
?

They dropped Liam off at his office, and again, Darryl waited until he was safely inside the big glass doors before continuing on their way. They drove for almost half an hour before she asked where they were heading. “I don’t recognize the area, or I wouldn’t ask.”

Darryl gave her a quick side glance and grinned. “First, I’m taking you to the main house, and after we drop your bags off and change into something more comfortable, I thought we could enjoy the rest of the day entertaining each other.”

She turned her head to look out of the side glass. He was grinning too much for her to be at ease right now. “What exactly do you mean by that? What kind of entertaining are you planning?”

He laughed outright and just shook his head. By the time they pulled into the long driveway and stopped the SUV in front of an old farmhouse, she was nervous. Darryl grabbed the duffle and the suitcase when she reached for it, so she was left with the backpack and cat carrier. “You know, I’m not exactly helpless, right? I’m used to carrying my things, and pulling my weight. I appreciate your help, but you don’t have to coddle me.”

He transferred the suitcase to the same hand that had the duffle slung over the shoulder, and punched in a series of numbers on the keypad, it clicked the lock, but when she tried to turn the handle, it refused to open. He laid his hand straight on the metal panel, and the door swung open.

“Oh that’s a nice trick there,” Mackie complimented the secondary locking system that only the owner or someone who’s print was programed into the reader could gain access into the house. “I haven’t seen this one on the market, is it one of your designs?”

He led her through the house and up the steep stairs. “Yes, I’m not the genius that John is, or the slick business ace that Liam is, but I have brains, and I like to tinker a bit here and there.”

They stopped outside the third door in the hallway and she turned the knob and stepped inside. This room was modern compared to the house in town, and she liked it, but there was no character in the furnishings, and everything in the room appeared to be reproduction pieces of good quality, but 1950’s blonde wood and squared edges. It would do to start.

Darryl told her to worry about unpacking later. “We have things to do, so bust out a pair of your oldest jeans and a sweatshirt or t-shirt and a sweater that you don’t have sentimental attachments to. Sturdy shoes and you will want long sox on too.” He looked at his watch and frowned. “The sooner we get moving the better, I’ll meet you downstairs in ten.” He dropped her luggage on the bed and left the room before she could question him.

GreyC was napping in her carrier and there was plenty of food and water in the side cups that were built in inside of the thing, so she would be fine for a while longer. So she left the carrier on the floor by the bed, and opened the duffle. She didn’t have any old clothing, everything she might have possessed had been blown up with her house. She pulled on jeans and a t-shirt and added a zippered hoodie. She had hiking boots, and hoped they would be good enough for what he planned for the day. She pulled her hair up onto a high ponytail and braided it. It wasn’t the prettiest hairdo, but it would keep strands from getting in her line of sight if they were going to the range. She checked her watch and headed out to meet Darryl downstairs.

He was waiting for her and nodded in appreciation for her outfit. “You look beautiful no matter what you’re wearing, and I’m glad that you have boots, you’ll need them, let’s go.”

He led them to the hip-roofed barn and still managed to hold the door for her before she could open it for herself. They went through the common area that housed two large tractors and several horse stalls and the hayloft appeared to be half full of fragrant alfalfa. She didn’t ask questions because she was busy scoping the place out for possible future use. They came to a double door near the rear of the barn and again Darryl punched in buttons and his hand slapped the panel. The door opened and he stood back for her to go through first. This polite treatment was driving her crazy, but she smiled a little and walked into a room full of guns and knives, swords, bows and arrows. And she was itching to touch each and every article.

She grinned and looked at Darryl as he stood just inside the door watching her and her reaction to his playroom. He shut the door behind him and walked over to a display of handguns. He smiled at her and wiggled his eyebrows.

“Hey, little girl, wanna play with me?” He waved his hand across the span of the collection and she almost ran over to his side. “If we play for an hour and you can stand the company, then we venture further afield. Do you have any idea of how difficult it is to find a date that likes to play with my toys? I took a date to a gun range and it turned into a disaster. She whined about the noise and the smell of gunpowder, and to top that off, she almost shot me. It was embarrassing.” He selected a .38 special and raised an eyebrow when she zeroed in on the hammerless version of the same .38 he held.

“You can choose what ever you want to shoot, I try to change guns each time I come in here so I keep accurate with all of them, it’s also a good excuse to clean them after I use them, so none of them get dusty or rust when it’s damp outside. If you look under the benches you will see bins of litter and silica. It sucks the water out of the air, and I keep fans going all the time for airflow, and it works for now. When I get the new building finished, I won’t have to worry about any of that. The room will be controlled electronically.” He grabbed two boxes of bullets and walked to the blank wall with a single door. “Come on, you’re gonna love this.”

Mackie was delighted to see that he guessed right, she loved his underground setup. “How did you do this? I love it, but how did you manage to do all of this?”

The “this” she spoke of was a shooting range complete with doors with cardboard bad guys behind them and a few innocents. She shot a bad guy that was hiding behind a plastic shrub and almost shot a little kid silhouette peeking over a windowsill. They spent over an hour talking and shooting.

Darryl explained how he designed and made the place his own. “We bought the place for somewhere to unwind and enjoy getting out of the fishbowl of everyday life. There was four silage pits already dug into the ground next to the barn, and I knew the farm would never use them again, so I brought in a contractor and we drew up the designs for an underground range. It was fun trying to find a good concrete man to pour the curved walls and flat floor, but I love it.”

They were on the way back to the gun room when Mackie stopped in her tracks and stared at his back as he kept walking, until he noticed she wasn’t following him. He retraced his steps and stopped in front of her. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

She blurted the first thing that came to her mind. “You’re DE Fields, aren’t you? I feel a little dumb here, but in my defense, I never thought about it until now.” The security gadget company was relatively new on the market, and she’d purchased some of their offerings for the setup of her home in the country.

He shook his head no, and sighed. “No, my father is DE Fields, I am just Darryl Fielding. I do hold several patents, and some may be sold in the stores, but you can be sure the old man doesn’t know who invented those items, or he wouldn’t carry them.” He began walking and she followed without further conversation.

Once they reached the gun room, Darryl pulled down a springboard table and took a cleaning kit from the shelf in the wall behind where the board had been hanging on the wall on its hinges. “I’m sorry, I never talk about my old man. Long story short, I came home on leave, found my mother dying in a hospital bed, and my father and her nurse fucking in the spare bedroom. The whore was wearing my mother’s jewelry and her fur coat while his old ass was drilling her cunt.” He shoved the cleaning rod into the barrel of the revolver and continued cleaning while he finished his story.

“The house was willed to me through my mother’s parents. My mother was gasping for every breath because that cunt hadn’t turned the oxygen on, and they were making a joke of her last minutes on earth. I beat his ass and tossed him out of the house. His whore was screaming and threatening to call the cops, I made her leave my mother’s jewelry on the fucking bed, watched as she grabbed her clothes, and locked the door behind her.” He finished wiping the pistol down with a soft cloth and set it in the designated spot. “DE tried to get back into the house, but if he’d succeeded, I would have killed him. He tried to have me arrested, but by the time the police he’d called showed up, the paramedics were hauling my mother’s body out of the house, and I was not in the mood for his excuses. I let the cops stay while he packed his shit, and left in his fancy little pussy trap sports car.

“I told the cops what he and his whore were doing when I walked in, I wanted them charged with negligence and anything else that could be used to put them away. The only thing that kept them from being arrested was that my mother was terminally ill with brain cancer that had spread into her bones. She only had a few days left, according to her doctors. He ended up marrying the slut three months after my mother died. She divorced him after three years and the two kids they had are now teenagers, and I hope they’re giving that bastard hell.” He took the pistol from her hands, looked it over, and put it with the others.

“If he had waited a few weeks, she would have been gone, and I might not have liked him playing around so soon after mom’s death, but I would’ve probably let it pass after a while. The lack of respect he had for the woman he’d been married to for twenty-five years sickened me. He was never much of a father figure, always claiming he had work to do, and we believed him. Now I know that he married my mother for her family’s money. It’s how he financed the first DE Fields store.

“My mother must have known ten years before her death, because she changed her will. His debt to her for financing his store was forgiven at her death, but that is all he received. It was quite a surprise when the will was read. I got what was left, and the man even tried to swindle me out of my inheritance two years after she passed.”

Darryl gave her a sad smile. “I’m sorry to unload on you like this, he really is a selfish bastard, and isn’t worth thinking about.”

Mackie reached out and pulled his hand into hers. “I need a hug, and you need a hug too. We can’t pick our parents or relatives, all you can do is smile and nod your head as you keep walking past. Someday I might unload on you about my history, trust me, it’s not nearly as interesting as yours is.”