Mackie's Men (23 page)

John took over kitchen duties with the teens doing the unpacking and putting things where he told them to put the stuff. “This way you’ll know where everything is, and can help yourselves when you get hungry.”

Dinner was plotted between Ginny and John, and the resulting dinner of mac and cheese with sloppy joes was a hit. Mackie shook her head in amusement when she saw that every male in the house had dribbled the red juice from the sandwiches onto the front of their shirts and ignored the spots. Ginny had delicately nibbled at the food in front of her, all the time looking as if she would fall asleep at anytime. The girl barely spoke to her after seeing the way Darryl played the victim from her earlier punch into his hard abs.

Mackie wondered how it felt to feel loyalty to someone who was a close relative but one she’d never met before. She suspected there was a deep hero-worship thing going on here. Looking at Darryl sitting between the teens and talking to them, she could see why Ginny felt that way toward her newfound big brother. He was larger than life.

The next morning, rather than take the kids to school, Darryl insisted on taking them to get new clothes and things they needed. He had a few tense minutes with Eddy, but in the end, Mackie was drafted to go with Darryl to help with “girly things”.

Darryl had no idea what the girl needed, but he was counting on Mackie and told the two straight up, “I don’t care how much you spend, but get rid of those baggy things that belong in a burn barrel. I want to see a happy little sister with enough bags and boxes of girl crap and clothes to outfit two fourteen year olds.” He handed Mackie a credit card and pulled her close for a hug and a quick kiss, before pointing Eddy to the shoe store directly across from where they stood.

The first place they walked inside of, Mackie had to almost drag the girl inside. “Look, Darryl wants to make you happy, and from what he told me last night about the life he thought you led, and the life you actually have been living, he feels guilty for not paying attention to you for all these years. If you don’t do what he is asking you to do, he’s going to feel even more guilt. So this is what I think you should do. Let’s teach him a lesson in how women can spend money when a man is dumb enough to say he doesn’t care how much you spend.”

A twenty something gum popping girl with blue streaks in her brown hair came close with a big smile. “Did I hear that right? Did he really say he didn’t care? Well, sister, you came to the right place, let’s see how much fun you can have spending your dad’s money.” She tugged Ginny through the store pulling clothes from racks as they passed and set her up in a changing room in the back of the store while she went on the hunt for more clothing to entice the shy teen. Mackie was thankful for the girl’s selling technique, and sat outside the fitting room to help Ginny decide on which clothes looked best on her slender frame.

By the time they’d selected four new outfits and the belts and a hat to add to the pile, Ginny was more enthusiastic, and tossed her old clothes into a bag while she wore a new pair of jeans and a t-shirt out of the store. They hit the lingerie section hot and heavy at the next stop and Ginny looked at Mackie when she was standing in front of a display of thongs and g-strings.

Mackie knew this was a test, she wasn’t sure why, but she played along. “I hate those things, and I still can’t see what the big deal is. I tried them for a week and tossed them out, I mean how uncomfortable does a woman have to be? I hate that feeling of the material up the crack of my butt. I prefer a French cut or bikini cut for myself, but if those are what you like then go ahead.” She turned to look at bras and noticed the girl left the sexy panties in the display alone, she turned to the next table with a rainbow of beautifully colored bikini cut panties, and began making her selections.

Shoes were selected just before noon, and Mackie couldn’t resist buying two pair for herself. “Some women feel good in sexy underwear, some feel good in pretty dresses, and some, like me, feel good in a pair of nice shoes, it’s my weakness, and I own too many pairs of boots and heels than I should, but I like them, I pay for them and they are my big indulgence. So you know my vice now, please don’t tell Darryl or the guys, they would tease me unmercifully.”

Her confession brought about the first giggle from her companion, and from then on, they began to actually talk. Ginny divulged the name of the boy in Eddy’s class she had a crush on, “He doesn’t know I exist, but he is the cutest, smartest guy in the whole world.”

The girl was shocked when Mackie made appointments for them after lunch to have their hair cut and styled. “My mom said I didn’t need to get my hair cut until I was older and boys started to notice me, she said that until then I needed to select the best boys that came from the best families, so I could marry one of them when we graduated high school.”

She looked down at her feet when she said that, and Mackie asked her if she really wanted that kind of life. “Do you really want to pick out a husband from a crop of hormone riddled boys with no idea what they plan to do when they get out of college? Not to mention that if a boy gets married right out of high school nowadays, he probably won’t go to college because he’ll be busy working at a dead end job to support the two of you.”

Ginny shook her head. “No, I mean yes I want to maybe get married, but I want to travel and I want to have a career. I think I’d like to work for Darryl, or something interesting. He said that you are a security expert person like him. He respects you a lot, and I think he loves you too. Whatever I do, I don’t want to end up like my mom.”

The girl shut down after that until they met Darryl and Eddy at the food court for lunch. While the teens ate foot long hot dogs and greasy fries, she got a plate of fried rice and sweet and sour chicken, which Darryl kept stealing pieces of.

The men were ready to leave, but Ginny shook her head, “But Mackie made us hair appointments and,” she shut up and began plucking at the pepperoni on her plate.

Mackie shot him an evil glare, and Darryl shrugged his shoulders. “Well go for it, we can hang out at the sporting goods place next door, just text me when you’re ready to go.”

When they finally got out of the beauty salon, Darryl smiled, and it was Eddy’s turn to scowl. He said under his breath, “Damn, now I’m going to have to bust some heads at school, the first guy I see hitting on my little sister will be sorry.”

The teens were with them for the rest of the week, and everyone hugged it out as Darryl and Liam loaded the SUV to take them back to their father’s house. It was amazing to see the massive amount of things the kids had collected from all of the adults in the house. John had taken Ginny to the kitchen supply store and had come back with boxes and boxes of kitchen gadgets and special pans. The two of them had been watching cooking shows, and she had abandoned her thoughts of going to work with Darryl. She now wanted to be a chef, so John did his best to make sure she could indulge in her new hobby. He took Eddy with him to get the tools of every teenaged boy’s “boy’s junk” as Ginny called it. Including bats, balls, a mitt, and new running shoes. Liam wasn’t about to be out done, and just before they closed the back of the SUV, he added a game system with several games and accessories.

That night, the house seemed empty, and finally Mackie had enough of the gloomy faces. They had all been very careful around the kids, and she decided it was time to talk. The week had been a great way to get to know each other. The tenderness each man had displayed even when they would rather not be interrupted by noise from the yelling kids, told her everything she needed to know about them.

She found them hiding out in the weight room in the basement twice, and laughed at the relieved expressions when she told them the kids went to bed for the night.

It was time for her to tell them her story in its entirety. If they still wanted to make the relationship work, she planned to love these men with everything she had inside of herself. If they couldn’t see their way to wanting her after she told them, then she would start her life over with a broken heart, but she would survive.

They were all sitting around the living room talking about the workload for the upcoming week when she brought in two bottles of wine and glasses for all of them to enjoy. She set the tray down and opened the first bottle, poured each of them a glass and handed them around, before sitting down on the floor opposite where they sat.

“So, it’s been quite a week, and I think I’ll miss the noise.” Groans followed her words from the men, but she smiled and took a sip of her wine before she set it down and sat up straight. “I think you guys should know who I am, so I’m putting it all out for you.

“My birth name is Maxine Timmons. I was placed in a foster home when my parents were killed in a drug raid at the house we lived in when I was eight years old. The foster home was great, but three days after my tenth birthday, I was pulled off my bike by a man named Renaldo. I was taken to a place where they manufactured and packaged cocaine, and sometimes heroin.” She took a sip of the blood red wine, and swallowed it past the dryness of her mouth. “I was forced to help other children package the stuff for the pushers to sell, and the day I arrived, they beat me bloody to make me understand that there was only one way out, and that was if I was dead.”

She didn’t look at the men while she spoke. They remained silent, so she continued her story. “Four of the children died while I was there, but I can’t remember much about them. One night, just before dark, after we finished packaging up four bricks of coke, we were sent to our room. We started to hear gunshots and shouting. The quiet afterwards was eerie. The two girls that were with me and I stayed huddled in a corner for probably an hour after the shooting, waiting to see if we were next, but no one came. I got up and peeked around the door, and all of our captors were dead except for one, it was Renaldo, and he was limping around gathering a bag full of cash and drugs before he snuck out of the place.”

She sipped a few more swallows of her drink and continued her tale of being frightened, and helping the twins return to their hometown. She looked directly at Liam when she explained how she hooked up with Louisa, and once she was finished telling them, she got up and reached for the bottle to refill her drink. She changed her mind in mid reach, and instead set the glass on the table before turning to walk out of the room. “I need to take a walk, I’ll be back, but right now, I need to be alone.” She kept walking and left the house, quietly closing the door behind herself. She felt raw inside, and she needed to sit in the fresh air for a while. Sometimes when things got overwhelming, she had to go outside and breathe.

John spoke after the outer door could be heard opening and closing. “Was that her way of telling us that she feels stifled? Or did she just bare her darkest secrets because she finally made a decision? I can understand how her life must seem to a young girl that other people might judge, but what she told us hasn’t changed my mind about her one bit.”

Liam nodded his head in agreement. To think that this woman had gone through such a childhood, and came out like the smart, talented women she was now, gave him an even deeper sense of pride in his choice of woman to be the one for them. “She’s a survivor, and what’s the bet that when those children were huddled in that corner of the room, she was shielding the other two? Can you imagine the courage that took for a kid her age?”

Darryl agreed with everything the others said, and wanted to add more praise for the little girl who had come from hell and survived the test each time life threw one at her. He didn’t bother to say the things that boiled in his gut to be said. Liam and John weren’t the ones that needed to hear what he had to say—Mackie was. “You know the way she acted with the teens tells me she would be a bitch on wheels if she had kids of her own. We’d never have to worry they would be neglected or left with someone just for her convenience. The kids might feel like Mommy was overprotective, but God help anyone who hurt them.” He grinned at his companions. “Can you imagine her as an archangel complete with a sword to smite the bullies?”

The answering grins and possible scenarios filtered through their minds. Each man nodded almost in sync. They knew she was the one to complete their circle. Now it was up to her.

Mackie walked through the field thinking about her life. She had never told anyone about the last night at the drug house, even the shrink. Remembering the look on her friend’s face in death still gave her a sense of purpose when she was protecting clients, but she’d often wondered over the years who would stand up for her if she needed a hero. Picturing the three of them in tights and capes made her smile through watery eyes.