Gabriel's Promise (A Romantic Comedy) (12 page)

Sam and Jenny have been gone for over two hours, they went
shopping of all things, I was very surprised not to mention pleased when flower
had been so excited about going shopping when she'd been so against it before
though I didn’t ask any questions just handed over my card and some additional
funds which made her squeal and told her to have fun.
I would've felt much better if mom or even Darlene had gone with the but the
driver would be along so that gave me a little comfort.
Chief and Prince Charles were around here somewhere, he'd already caused his
quota of trouble for the day so I guess he was off regrouping.
He’d taken one look at Sam's hand and off he went.

" I guess you finally hogtied her huh!"
"Chief..."
" What, I'm just saying, how else did you get the rock of the dome on her
hand?"
"It's the dome of the rock.”
"Same thing."
I shook my head, why bother?
That had started the two of them bickering back and forth, my baby was too
happy to get too riled though so his only punishment was dry wheat toast for
breakfast. Idiot.

The phone started ringing as he found me in the den.
" Gabriel I'm so sorry."
"Jennifer what's going on, where is Samantha?" I knew I shouldn't
have let her leave without me.
" With... the police."
"WHAT?"
" There was a little problem could you please come down to the
station?"
I hung up the phone in a rush, my heart pumping over time, what could possibly
have happened?
Oh shit, this is flower we're talking about, Lord please don't let anybody be
dead.
"Let's go chief."
"Where we going?"
I really didn't want to tell him this, but there was no way around it.
"To the police station, seems your daughter was arrested."
"Good Lord, what did Oliver twist filch now?"
"Shame on you chief, I'm sure it's nothing like that, Sam would never do
such a thing."
"I don't know what the country bumpkin would do when let loose in the
city."

He was talking all that nonsense but I could tell he was very
nervous.
"Don't worry chief whatever the hell's going on I'll get to the bottom of
it.
We made it in ten minutes.
I walked swiftly inside to find Jennifer and Samantha handcuffed and sitting in
some type of holding area.
This is after asking about six different people where to go.
Sam looked pissed and Jenny looked worried, and the officers looked harried.

"I'm Gabriel Sweeney, who do I talk to about getting these
two out of here?"
The chief was giving his daughter looks like he was sorely put upon.
"Well sir, the lady wants to press charges but we're waiting for the tale
of the tape to see which way we should go since there seems to be a few
differing opinions as to what really transpired."
"What lady?" What the hell was he talking about?
"It was Brenda Gabriel she found us in the store and followed us around
pestering poor Sam.
We tried to get away from her but she wouldn't let up, we even went to the
dressing room to get away from her but she followed us there too;
then she started calling Sam names and she got in her face..."
"Yep, that's a sure fired way to get Rocky Balboa ramped up, guess she
didn't learn her lesson the first time around eh champ?"
I didn't even bother shushing him, what was the damn point? My life used to be
so peaceful, yeah but I wouldn't change it for anything.
"Well, then Sam
..
.
she
..."
The cop decided to pick it up from there.
"Apparently Miss. Holder tried to choke the life out of Miss.
Winters."
"Way to go Albert De Salvo."
"Chief shut it."
"Okay so what do we need to do now to get her out of here, besides this
tape business, should I be contacting my lawyers?"
"Not quite, like we said our guys are going over the tape to see if their
story can be corroborated, if so then they're free to go. If not we'll have to
book them and then you can call your lawyers."
I looked over to Sam who still hadn't said anything which was not at all
normal,
she did look royally pissed though. I decided to
leave well enough alone and wait until we got home.
"What did you do to her, why is she so quiet?"
"She's quiet now sir, but...is she a law student perchance?"
"No why do you ask?"
"Well she sure does know a lot about the law."
"Her father was chief of police back home."
"Heard about him too, yes sir, we got an earful, that's why we're going
through the tape now as opposed to waiting. You're the
fiance
I take it, the one who would skin us alive if we touched a hair on her
head!"
"That would be me yes, no one touched her did they?" I think I heard
the older of the two mutter 'who would risk it?'
Damn straight.

"Why were you arrested Jenny?"
"Honestly, I don't know, I was trying to get Sam off the blonde idiot and
she started screeching that we were trying to kill her, so I belted her one to
get her to shut the hell up."
"Stupid waste of space."
"Uh oh, Sweeney Todd has decided to speak."
I'm gonna lock chief in a cell and leave him here, either that or let Sam make
good on one of her threats and bean him with something if he didn’t shut up.
Of course my parents showed up, Jenny was still a minor after all.

When they had been appraised of the situation they were none too
pleased to say the least.
"That's it for the
Winters
son, I don't care what
dealings you have with them, that's it, to have not only my daughter but my new
daughter in law arrested as well, there are no words."
"Yes mom."
She meant that shit too, she saw nothing wrong with dissolving contracts that
were worth millions not to mention the headache of severing business alliances,
and truth be known neither did I.
If they couldn't keep a leash on their daughter, or sister, whatever relation
she was to them, then I had no uses for them.
I went over and kissed my baby since she was no longer looking like she was
ready to chew nails. The chief was pestering the poor officers about who knows
what, probably sharing old war stories.

"You okay there sweetheart?" Dumb question I know, but I
had no idea what to say when the love of your life was arrested.
"I'm fine, I just wish that hussy would leave me alone, she's worst than
Diana and Paula combined, jeez. Next time I'm bringing my gun, nobody listens
to me unless I'm peppering their backside with buckshot."
"I'm thinking you might not want to say that too loud around here."
"Ooh, good one, sorry, where's my baby?"
"I left him home with Betty."
"You know pop's never gonna let me live this down right?"
"I'll keep him in line flower, don't worry about it."
She seemed more worried about that than the outcome of this fracas.

At the end of the day the tale of the tape freed the two girls and
the tables were turned. When Sam was asked if she wanted to press charges for
harassment mom took that bull by the horns and said yes.
Oh Lord, now she was on the warpath, that's all I needed.
We left the station house and headed home, of course chief couldn't leave well
enough alone.
"So tell me there my Bostonian friend, how does it feel to be a
criminal?"
"She's not a criminal chief, she wasn't even really arrested."
I tried to head shit off before he got her going, it was never a good idea
while driving to let those two go at each other.
"They put the steel on her, she was two minutes away from the clinker,
CRI- MI-NAL."
"Chief, what did you have for breakfast this morning, and dinner a few
nights ago, do you never learn?"
She was still messing with his food when he pissed her off, which turned my
house into an enemy camp, but still he persisted in starting shit with her.
"I'm not afraid of Miss. Priss, her new best friends and I have an
understanding, she starts anything with me I have their numbers, us cops stick
together you know."
"You know pop I've been thinking."
Oh shit.
"You know how you're afraid of kittens..."
He started sputtering after that, I was laughing my ass off, the chief was
afraid of kittens?

Chief

Engaged and arrested all on the same day, only Calamity Jane, I
don't know what I'm gonna do with that girl. Thank the heavens she wouldn't be
my problem much longer, the boy had put a rock the size of Jupiter on her
finger.
My little girl, I could just cry I was so happy, but she had already put my
manhood in question with that crack about kittens, I wonder how she had figured
it out anyway, when she was younger every time she would ask for one I would
tell her I was allergic, I wonder when she figured out the truth? Those things
scared the crap outta me.

GABE

I just put the chief and Sam on my private plane to return to
Lexington without me, it felt like tearing off my right arm. They were with me
for almost three months but it felt like two weeks.
I wanted them to stay but they had to return to see about closing up their home
and getting things in order, of course I wanted to go with them but business
matters kept me from making the trip.
I felt like half a person as I made my way to the office, her sad little face
wreaking havoc with my heart.
Of course the chief had rolled his eyes and mumbled about face sucking and what
a disgrace we were, but he was a little sad himself.
I would be meeting them in a couple weeks to bring them home, at least that was
a happy thought, but how the hell was I supposed to live without her for that
long? Even the chief was going to be missed.
The damn mausoleum was going to feel empty without them, there now I'm
insulting my own home, I've become just as warped as he is.

It's been two
days,
I've spent about ten
of the forty eight hours they've been gone on the phone with her. I got her the
iPhone, an iPad and a MacBook but she still just calls me, no
FaceTime
for my girl, I really need to drag her into the
twenty first century like the chief keeps saying.
My phone rang and their house number showed up, did she lose her phone already?
"Baby?"

"Baby? Baby?
don't
baby me you
snake."
"Chief?"
"Exactly what the hell was going on up those stairs while you had me locked
away in the basement?"
"Basement, what the hell..." Had chief finally lost his ever loving
mind, I knew this day was coming but not this soon.
"Listen here Lothario, Sam's been sick every morning since we've been
here, I only just put two and two together, because... well never mind
that..."
"Sick, what do you mean sick, she was fine when she left here."
"Boy, shut your yap and listen, she's sick as a dog when she wakes up,
then about an hour later she's buzzing around here like a worker bee, and the
only thing she doesn't eat is the wood off the table..."
"Sick how chief, I'm not understanding you."
"Lord help my poor grandchildren, some people should not be allowed to
reproduce."
"Chief!"
"Boy read between the lines, she throws up every morning like clockwork,
then an hour or so later she's fit as a fiddle and starving like a pack of
hyenas on a buffalo's ass what do you think that means?"
I had to give it some thought, but I got it eventually, especially after all
the mutterings about brain dead baby fathers who didn't have the sense God gave
a duck.
"Oh shit..."
"Exactly, now your problem is, who's going to tell the clueless wonder
that is my daughter, because she actually thinks she has a stomach bug, I'm not
telling her cause who knows how she'll react to the news so that's on you. Now
listen here J Edgar, when you tell her please leave me out of it, and I don't
mean like the last time when you blabbed and got me in trouble, this is your
mess you fix it on your own thank you very much, and when you're done it's you
and me in the back yard for some fisticuffs."
"Uh, chief, I'm not fighting you."
I had a stupid grin on my face, my baby was having our baby.
"Whatever, two things, you better tell Summer and Jenny to get that
wedding ball rolling or better yet head to the justice of the peace, and two
you better get here quick before Jane does her Tarzan and Jane stuff with
Brand, jumping off cliffs."
"What the hell?"
"Oh she didn't tell you, that's one of their favorite pastimes, jumping
off the cliffs at the state park a few towns over, se ya."

Chief

I'm too old for this mess, between those two I'll be raising this
kid on my own, I'm already raising the damn dog, Miss. Priss don't know spit a
about no dog, damn thing's been sissified.
I wasn't too bent out of shape about the baby, not really, these young people
today are so hot blooded what can you do? Besides the boy was marrying her
wasn't he. I just had to keep her from doing something crazy before he was able
to tell her what was going on, the girl really had no
clue,
I guess no woman in the house was to blame for that. The stomach flu.
Oh spit, I hope she wasn't bringing in a ringer, that's all I need another one
of her running around to make me nuts.
Maybe I ought to move in with Geoffrey save myself the aggravation.
Then again no, if I want my grand kid to have a lick a sense I was gonna have
to be there to see he or she was raised right, obviously there was no hope for
Pippy
Longstocking
, but another
little girl might be nice to raise. Lord
help
us all.

Gabe

I called up the pilot to schedule a flight plan and get the plane
ready, it's funny how a week ago business matters kept me here, now those same
matters seemed so insignificant. I had called the chief to let him know I was on
my way, he'd grumbled something about tying her down until I got there, I hope
for his sake he was kidding, she's likely to bean him with something if he
tried. Hopefully I'll get there in time before all the theatrics. A baby, I
can't believe it, what if chief was wrong and it really was just a bug? No, we
hadn't once used protection, was that my subconscious way of tying her to me?
Or was it just that every time I got her naked my common sense went out the
window and all I could think about was being inside her? Better think of
something else there Sweeney you have a long flight ahead of you.