Force of Nature (2 page)

“The wicked bastard is dead, huh? Are you going to celebrate or just have a huge party in honor?”

She smiled at his greeting. “Nah, I thought I’d go and piss on his grave next time I’m in town.” She shifted on the big bed. “What’s up?”

“Do I need a reason to call my dearest and oldest friend? Can’t I just call and say hi, how’s it hanging?”

“You could, I suppose, but as I have nothing hanging, as you put it, and you know that I’m your only friend, that doesn’t cut it.” She smiled when he snorted. “So I ask again, what’s up?”

“I bought you something today with your money. You’re going to stop this driving shit now as you promised some time ago and become stationary so we can have an occasional dinner together. There’s even a house in on the deal for you.”

She had promised him that she’d give up the life of a trucker once her father was gone. She couldn’t remember the why of that now, but at the time, she thought it had been a sound idea. CJ

closed her eyes and tried to think of a reason for her not to give up the road.

“Phil, I—”

“No. I won’t hear anything other than, ‘thanks, Phil. Give me all the details of this wonderful opportunity.’ Say it, CJ, tell me what I want to hear. I miss you.”

She looked around the cab that had been her home for over six years. She loved her life as a driver and wondered why again why she said she’d give it up.

“Thanks, Phil.” CJ closed her eyes again. “Let me finish this run and I’ll be there in a few days. Can you make arrangements to have Grandma’s house opened for me…do I still own it?”

His laughter is what she needed. “Yes, I didn’t sell it. But you should know that your mom’s house is yours again. You do own it free and clear now. I’m making arrangements to have it sold if you want. There’s a company wanting to buy it and had approached your father about it several times during his life. Of course he couldn’t sell it, but now that he’s gone, they have contacted me. What do you think?”

What did she think? Her mother had brought the house to their marriage and when she’d died, had left in her will that CJ would get the house so long as she let her father live there until his death. CJ shuddered to think what he’d done to the house and was sure that he’d done nothing to maintain it. She’d told Phil to make sure that the roof stayed fit and the other things, but other than that, she didn’t care.

“Let me think about it. Send in some cleaning crew and have the place cleaned out of his things. Box them up and give them away, I don’t care. When I get there, I’ll have a look at it and we’ll decide then.”

She hung up after making arrangements to have him contact the company she was carrying for. She owned her own rig so she could simply go to her grandmother’s and stay there with it.

She was an independent driver so she had no contracts to break or any kind of equipment to return.

CJ closed her eyes. She had another eight hours to drive tomorrow to drop and hook this load then deliver the one on the other end to a local company. Then she would be finished. She had had a moving home for so long she wondered how hard it would be to get used to living in a house again.

~Chapter Two~

Austin Force looked at the man across from him. Phil Campbell had been a hard man to track down and even harder to nail down to an answer. Austin wanted that property and he wanted it yesterday. His growing pack had been after that property for over a decade now. His father before him had wanted it, and now he wanted it. Wolves needed a place to run and Austin, alpha of this little pack, was trying to make it happen.

“What do you mean your client is thinking about it? If it’s more money, I can tell you right now that I’m already offering you more than the fair market value for it. If he thinks he can rob me then he’s got another thing coming.”

Phil shifted in his chair and Austin nearly smiled. The guy was nervous. Good, the more nervous he was, the more Austin thought he’d put on his client.

“No. No, it’s not more money. It’s just, with the death recently, my client wants to have a look around. It’s a great deal to think about right now. Plus, CJ is a trucker and hasn’t been home in some time.”

Austin could just see this guy. Long hair pulled back in a greasy ponytail graying at the temples. A beard that would be dirty from donuts and other bits of food he didn’t want to think about. He’d wear loose-fitting clothes so that as his ass expanded, he could still keep his pants up over the ample belly he’d gotten from sitting on his brain all the time.

He knew it was a cruel and probably wrong description of this guy, but frankly, he was pissed. He wanted to get this house bought and his mother put in it before she drove him nuts. Or nuttier, he thought with a laugh. But he really wanted the land.

It was rich and fertile, full of wildlife and trees to cover them when they ran. Austin wanted to run free on his land without worry that someone else, someone with a gun, could come on and kill what was his. Old man Webber had been like that.

The first time he’d met the guy, Austin had been out running. The man had drawn a gun on him and had he been a better shot, Austin would be dead. As it was, he’d only had a few rocks scrape his skin bloody. He’d never been happier to hear when someone died than he had the old bastard. The man had put electric fencing around his property like he had something to hide.

When Austin had heard of his death, he’d done a small jig. His mom had tisked at him, but frankly, he’d been too happy to care and now this relative from nowhere had come around.

“When will this CJ person be back? I’d like to get things finalized before winter. And I’d like to get the house cleaned up.” Austin shuddered when he thought of the state of the house Webber had lived in. “The man wasn’t exactly a clean sort of guy.”

“Be that as it may, I cannot give you a date until CJ is back. The load that is being delivered now is the last one, then after that it will take about a week to drive here. The rig is CJ’s, but the rules of a driver still apply whether there is a load attached to it or not. You will just need to be patience, Mr. Force. As soon as I hear from CJ, I will let you know.”

After the lawyer left, Austin sat in his office. This CJ person better be willing to sell. That was all he could think of. He wondered how this trucker was related to Webber. Austin picked up the paper again. The man’s obit read more like a list of transgressions than something one would think to read about in the paper.

He’d been unemployed, but had won the lotto about three years ago and had spent his money foolishly. He’d lost more in the last few months on ridiculous deals and scams than Austin had made all of last year. Winning over seven million dollars had not made the man any smarter, it seemed. In addition to scams and bad deals, he’d also invested in a bar that had gone belly up in the first month after opening. Austin was pretty sure the place was still for sale. It had also said he was a widower and had no children.

Austin had his family, three brothers and a sister that he loved with all his life, and then there was his mother and her sister too. Austin just couldn’t imagine life without family. He heard one of his brothers in the hall and thought maybe there were days when he would like for them to live a little further away from home, but he still loved them. Setting down the paper, he walked out into the hall to see what they were arguing about.

“What the hell is this?” Blood soaked the front of Connor’s shirt and Gordon looked like he’d gone three rounds with a heavyweight. Neither of them looked as if they were finished either.

“He said that he was going to take out Chantal Betts. I had already told him I was going to ask her.”

Austin tried to remember who she was then he looked at his brothers. “Girl with the big…front? Either or both of you could date her and she’d never know the difference. So what’s this all about?”

Gordon looked ready to belt Connor again and only managed to get knocked on his ass by Austin for his trouble. “Stay there or so help me you won’t get up for a week. Answer the fucking question.”

“We have dated her. Both of us…the same night, but she likes me better. I told him that I wanted to take her to the movies and he said skip the movies and just fuck her.” Gordon started to rise again, but stayed put with just a look from Austin.

Austin turned to Connor. “And you? What’s your beef with his taking the girl out first? And so help me if either of you tell Mom we’re having this conversation, I will personally make your lives a living hell.”

Connor flushed. “I hate going second.”

Austin looked at both men. They were men at twenty-six, he knew they were, but there were days when he would swear they were only ten. Identical twins, women had been falling all over them since they’d figured out that the two of them liked women. Austin often thought they knew that from birth, but said nothing.

“I’m reasonably sure there are more women out there that would sleep with either of you if asked. Why not just find another girl and do whatever it is you want? So long as she is okay with it. If I ever hear of either of you—”

“Never,” both of them said at the same time. Then Connor finished. “We don’t have to force anyone. They think we can ‘cause of our name, but we don’t. We know you’d castrate us if we did.”

“Damn right.” Austin looked at the hall and the mess they’d made. “Ten minutes to get this cleaned up or I’ll tell Mom why her flower pot is smashed up.”

With a grin, Connor reached out a hand and pulled his brother up off the floor. They both started to set the hall to right when Gordon called back to Austin.

“When was the last time you were laid, Austin? Gotta be at least a hundred years or so.”

Austin felt a moment of anger, but let it go. “For that I’m going to tell every woman I know you have a pencil dick and that you can’t satisfy them no matter what.”

Austin went down to the kitchen to find his mother standing next to the stove stirring something that smelled like garlic. She turned to him when he entered.

“You do know that I heard every word you told them, right?” Then she did something she’d not done since he’d been a child. She hit him with the wooden spoon. “Shame on you, Austin Jackson Force. Your father would have been a bit more discreet about his advice.”

He rubbed his hand and smiled at her. “Yes, he would have, but then we both know he would have grounded them from seeing the girl too. Fat lot of good it would have done, but he would have done it.”

She pulled a large pot from under the counter and began filling it with water. He knew she was building up to something to say so he got a beer, sat at the table, and waited. But he couldn’t get the comment out of his head about his dating…or lack of it.

It had been a while. He tried to think how long and decided that if he had to work at it that hard then it had been longer than he thought. Ten, maybe eleven years? At least since his dad had died. He really didn’t have time. Not now. He looked over at his mom when she sat down.

“You need to get out more. You can’t just be here for the rest of your life and not have someone to love.”

“I have you to love. I don’t need anyone else. Besides, finding a woman who can cook as good as you would be impossible.” He took her hand in his. “I’m happy, Mom. Very happy.”

She snorted and stood up. “I’m going to start finding you women like this Chantal girl if you don’t start finding someone to see on your own. You might be a bit more relaxed if you did get laid once in a while.”

Austin really wished he’d have timed his drink a little better. The beer he’d had in his mouth spurted out and his nose flared up when it hit his sinuses. Between the burning in his nose and his embarrassment, he wasn’t sure he’d ever recover. Coughing and choking, he tried to say something to his mom about her and her comment. She simply smacked his hand again with the spoon.

“Oh don’t look at me like that, young man. How on earth do you think you got here? Under a rock?” She turned her back to him and put the pot of water on the stove. “Go and get cleaned up. Dinner will be in seventeen minutes.”

Austin got up and kissed her cheek. “Yes, ma’am. And just so you know, I’m not looking for a one night stand, but the one. She’s out there. I’m just waiting for her.”

“You can’t find her if you don’t look. You have to look to find the right girl, Austin. Please don’t close yourself off. I need you to be happy.”

He didn’t say anything, but hugged her and left the kitchen. He wanted to say he would try, but he knew that it would be a lie. He wasn’t ready to settle down. Hell, he wasn’t ready for anything right now. He had enough on his plate trying to keep his family together.

~~~

Phil hung up the phone. The sale was final and now all he had to do was convince CJ that this was what she wanted. He leaned back in his chair and thought about her.

CJ was his best friend, no doubt about it. They’d met in college all those years ago and had hit it off wonderfully. They’d dated once or twice, but they decided that it was just not right.

When her mom had gotten sick and she’d called him one night, he had listened to her pour out the entire story about her father and then flew to her side when Rebecca had passed away. It was the fight at the cemetery that had him do everything in his power to make her happy.

He looked at his notes again without moving. She was going to be pissed about this purchase. But she’d told him from the first day she’d become a driver that he had carte blanch on her money.

“Just make me comfortable. I don’t want to be doing this forever so make me comfortable.”

And he had. More than comfortable, he’d made her very wealthy.

He understood why she’d become a driver. She’d been one hell of a lawyer, but she’d had to stay put to make it work. Her father would find her and when he did, he would make her life…difficult until she had to move on.

Charles Webber didn’t want his daughter to be good at anything. So she’d cut herself off from everyone but her grandmother and Phil and took to the road. Then when her grandmother had passed away, only him.

But buying the bar her father had failed at was his crowning glory. She would run it and do it with success. Then when she did, Phil was going to go to the cemetery and piss on the old bastard’s grave. His phone ringing brought him out of his daydream of doing just that.