Opal (Rare Gems Series Book 4) (15 page)

Fletcher sat down and stared at her.
“I don’t have any family but…. Do I know you? I mean, you look familiar, but I can’t place you. I’ve not been around for a while.”

Her laughter had him remembering again
, but it was there and gone too fast for him to catch it. When she settled, he watched her closely as she put her hand over her heart to slow it. Fletcher knew as surely as he was sitting with her now that the woman would be dead before morning. And for some odd reason, that saddened him just a little.

“
I’m sure you think you know me, but you don’t. My mother…well, you didn’t know her either. She was your sister.” Fletcher shook his head and the woman nodded. “Yeah. After you left they had another child. My mother. Then after they died, my mother had me. I married late in life; I’m nearly seventy years old, but my heart has always given me—”

“
She’s dead. She died from a broken heart. My mother, I mean. She was dead and I was her only child. So, whatever you’re saying can’t be right.” The woman laughed again. “Father told me she died. He stood there on our front stoop and told me she’d taken her own life when she found out what I was. He forbade me to come here again because I had killed her.”

“
He told you that, yeah, but she was living. Her heart was broken and having my mom nearly done her in at that age of her life. Women back then didn’t have children at forty, but there my mom was. Not a year after you went and got yourself changed over my mom was born to them. Grandma never said anything to her, but Mom was saddened by it all. Mom always thought she’d wanted a son, one to replace you. But that didn’t happen, now did it?” Fletcher was shaking his head, but she pulled a chain from her neck and showed him a small locket. He felt as if he’d been slapped in the head. “My mother got this when she was married, and I got it when she passed. I’m going to give it to my daughter to pass on to hers. You wanna see the pictures?” She was working at the tiny clasp when he felt as if he was going to be sick. Or pass out. Neither of which he was going to allow.

Fletcher stood up and backed from her.
She was lying. His mind screamed at him over and over,
liar, liar, liar
. He moved to the tree line again and stood there as the man and the woman came back out of the little trailer. All he could think of was that this woman was having his great niece. Fletcher watched them and decided that this was another trick Henson and Crane were playing on him. His mother would not try and replace him. He was her only son.

He nearly fell over the mail box as he moved toward the road. But as he sat there in the dirt staring at it
, everything in his life, every murder he’d committed, every lie he’d told came rushing back to him. He stared at what had been his parents’ mail box. The name was different, of course, but he knew that hand-carved box anywhere. It looked just as his home had looked when he’d gone there the last time. Including the falling down roof.

Fletcher wandered around the town
without talking to a single person. Things were not the same, of course. Over a hundred years had passed since he’d been there. There was no way that things could be the same. As he made his way to the cemetery, he had only one thought in his head. His father had lied to him.

The part of the cemetery where his
family had been laid to rest was larger than most of the family plots. He opened the little gate and walked in to stand over his father and mother’s graves. Staring at the headstone, he thought about how he’d mourned the loss of his mom for decades; still did on occasion. And now he found out she’d not only lived, but had forgotten him altogether. He looked at the headstone.

“
Loving wife to Alfred Stone and mother to Shawna Stone. May she find eternal peace in the next world.” He laughed bitterly. Her death was ten years almost to the day after he’d been to see them that night. He looked over at his father’s grave and spit on the stone there. His father had died a few short weeks after his mom had. Fletcher thought it only fitting. The man could do nothing without involving his
little woman,
as he called her. The grave next to theirs was marked with Shawna Cartwright. She had lived to be only twenty-eight. The stone next to hers said the man had lived to be forty years older before he died as well, only a few months ago. The empty space next to him looked to Fletcher like it was just big enough for the old woman on the front lawn.

No matter how he tried to think of it
, Fletcher had been cut from their lives as surely as he’d died that night. And the fact that he was never mentioned in the cemetery, not a marker or even a word on her headstone, made him realize that she’d been hiding from him as surely as his dad had lied. He wanted to go back to the trailer and kill them all for what they’d done to him. Instead, he made his way to the county seat and to the archives to look around.

It was all there. Even his name, his real name of
Alfred Stone Junior, had been stricken from the records with a dark mark of a pencil. Beside the name was the word “monster.”

Fletcher left to make his way back home.
To his home. When he realized he didn’t have one any longer, he stood in the middle of a great field and screamed. The birds taking flight, the sounds of the animals scurrying for shelter, didn’t make him feel any better. Instead, he made his way to the building that had been his home last night. It was his only safe place.

~~~

“I’d order ten dozen of these. You can always put them back if they don’t sell this late in the summer, but I don’t think you’re going to have that problem.” Opal looked at her growing list on the computer. Jade and Diamond had come over early that morning, and then Sapphire and her other two sisters had shown up at lunch time. Opal was so nervous that she was sick to her stomach. It was too much, much too fast.

“
What if none of this sells?” All three of her older sisters only snorted at her while Emerald laughed. “I’m in over my head. This will never work as a business. I’ll just use the entire space for my studio and that will be fine with me.”

“
No, it won’t. Here. I think you should go with this color tissue paper. It will look really good with the business cards I made for you.” Sapphire told her to order six thousand sheets, and Opal just stared at her. “Take a deep breath and change that number from fifty to six thousand.”

She did it before she could think not to
, and then she stood up. They’d been in her building all day and she suddenly needed to get out. As she moved toward the door, she felt Sloan touch her mind.

Don
’t.
He laughed and she tried to think if she could kill him in his sleep when he laughed again.
Do you have any idea how much money this is going to cost me? I’m never going to be able to pay you back. They’re spending money like you have billions.

I do.
She stopped moving and waited for him to tell her he was kidding. He didn’t.
I’ve been around for thousands of years, Opal. Thousands and thousands. I have a great deal more money than they can spend in several lifetimes. And whatever this costs us, we’ll make back in no time. You’re going to do fine.

What if I don
’t?
He told her they would.
Sloan, this is insane. I can’t run a shop, work on my orders, and not worry about every little penny I spend on this. What if I fail?

You won
’t. But if you think you will then you will. Think of it this way: you have more money than you can spend in decades, you’ve no overhead, very little expense, and what you do have is all merchandise that will sell. I know it. And if you fail, you just pick up the pieces and try again. You have plenty of time to do whatever you wish.

She sat down on the chair and thought about what he was saying.
I’m going to live for a long time. A very long time.

Yes you will.
A very long time. So will your family.
She nodded, knowing that whatever Jade and Quentin had gotten had been spread around to the rest of her sisters. They all would live for a very long time. And their grandmother too. But not Allen. He had told them that he’d just as soon die when his time was up. He had a mate that he wanted to see.

The order that they
’re helping me put together…I’m terrified to see the cost.
He told her he wasn’t.
What if I do break you? What if I use up all your money and you have to get a job? You can’t be out in the daylight. How will we make this all back?

The only breaking me I worry
about is when you ride me. Do you have any idea how hard I come when you are sitting atop me and taking your own pleasure?
She looked over at her sisters as he continued.
I wish you were here now. Well, not here, but with me now. The meeting I’m in isn’t going as I had hoped.
She remembered that he’d been called to a council meeting early this evening, and it was why she’d called her sisters to come and mess around in the shop. A mistake she was less worried about than she was for Sloan.

They think you should bring him in
, alive? They think you should bring that monster in so they can give him a fair trial.
He told her yes
. I think I should hunt this bastard down and tear his throat out. Then piss on him.

I like the way you think. Unfortunately, they don
’t agree with me. Rufus is even getting pissy with them.
She asked him if he’d talked to Blair yet about Ruby.
Yes. And believe it or not, Blair is okay with it. Of course he doesn’t know about the sex part, just that she fed him. I don’t think he’s thrilled about it, but he was there when Rufus was hurt so he knows that he needed to feed. You have no idea how thrilled I was to hear him say that. Christ, it could have gone very badly.

He laughed
, and Opal felt better.
I’m going to try not to worry about this bastard if you promise to be safe. I need your bank account.
He told her he’d try and she stood up. She might as well finish this so she could get back to the house. But before she went no more than a few feet from the door, Rufus was standing in front of her.

“
Hey.” She still was upset with the vampire but knew that what he’d done to Ruby had been because she’d asked him to. And Opal was having a hard time being even mad, because she knew what it was like to have a vampire make you come. He nodded to her sisters before he spoke again. “I need your help with something. Them girls over there too. I’ve a plan but I don’t know shit about girls and you are the only ones I know.”

“
And you’re needing our help with a woman? Is this poor woman your mate? You’re needing our help making your mate like you.” He shivered and she laughed, having her answer then. “What do you need the help of girls for? And so you know, none of us are girls. We’re all women.”

“
Yeah, I know’d that. But you can help me. I gots…I have me a problem with one. She’s a faerie and she’s a mite pissed at me.” They moved to the table again and he nodded to her sisters. “I need to make something up to her and she’s not having it. Now she’s taken liberties with me and…well, I…well she’s…damn it all to hell, she’s making me crave something I’m not into craving.”

“
Like what?” He flushed so brightly that Opal laughed. “Sexual in nature? Or has she made you crave the taste of a burger and fries?”

Sloan had been in the kitchen with her last night when Alex was making her some dinner. He
’d eyed her sandwich so hard she’d made him take a bite of the sandwich and then a fry. It was all Alex could do to keep up with him. Sloan had eaten seven burgers and four plates of fries before he’d picked her up and carried her to the bedroom to fuck her nearly senseless.

“
No, nothing like that. She asked me to do her a favor and I messed it all up.” He sat down and she could see that he was really upset. “I never had to pick posies before. Have you ever done it? Well, they all look about the same to me. Weeds with bigger heads than some of the humans that like them. Anyway, she needed this here particular flower and I picked a bunch of what I thought she needed. Turned out…well, I done picked her field of herbs she was growing for something else. Now I don’t know how to fix it.”

“
Herbs. I’m assuming this faerie is someone who has helped you and Sloan in the past.” He nodded. “What was she looking for?”

“
Purslane. You ever hear of it?” Opal nodded, as did Jade. “I done picked all her chicky weed instead of getting her what she needed. Now she’s threatening me with not wanting sex for the rest of my days. And me craving something called a milk shaker. Whoever heard of such a thing?”

“
I have some. Purslane, I mean. Not a lot, mind you, but about fifty containers of it. It’s not as popular as I thought it would be when I first had it in the store, but now people are picking it up. It’s usually thought of as a weed but….” Jade shrugged. “I’ll let you have what I have left for cost. I’d have to either plant it somewhere or let it die over. And I might even be able to help you out with the chick weed, not chicky weed.”

Rufus nearly took her arm off leading her to the door. He was telling her he
’d pay her any price if she helped him out, and Jade was laughing. As they made their way out of the building, Opal turned to the rest of them.