Bucked (The Invincibles 6)

I leaned forward and rested my arms on the table. “From what? The book?”

“Yes, and lower your voice.”

Now I was pissed. “Not on your life.”

“Maybe on both of our lives.”

“What does that mean?”

When Barb got up from the table and walked into the other room, I followed. She pushed aside the drape and looked out the window. “I have a bad feeling, TJ.”

I turned my back so she couldn’t see me roll my eyes. “Time for me to head out.”

“Wait. We aren’t finished talking about this.”

With my fists clenched, I slowly turned back around. “Yes, Aunt Barb, we are. This book, this story, is important to me. Probably the most important of my career. There’s nothing you can say that will make me change my mind about seeing it through.”

“Even if it means the same thing will happen to you that happened to me?”

“Jesus, stop this. I don’t know what kind of straws you’re grasping at, but the situations have zero in common.”

“You’re wrong. They have a lot more in common than you think.” After looking over her shoulder, presumably for Nancy, she walked over to the baby grand piano that had always been in her apartment but I’d never seen her play. I watched her lift the keyboard cover, count ten keys from the right, lift the one she had landed on, and pull out an entirely different type of key. She walked over and handed it to me.

“What’s this?”

“It opens a safe-deposit box,” she whispered.

“What’s in it, Barb?”

“Keep your voice down.” She looked over her shoulder again and motioned me closer. “The evidence.”

I took the three steps between her and the piano, lifted the same key she had, dropped the one in my hand under it, and silently closed the cover. I approached my aunt and rested my hands on her shoulders.

“I love you, Aunt Barb. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, and I can never repay you for it. That includes by me giving up my book. I won’t do it. Don’t ask me again.”

My aunt’s eyes bored into mine, but she didn’t speak.

“Are we clear?”

When she didn’t answer, I dropped my hands, walked into the kitchen, and grabbed my things.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said before walking out and closing the door behind me.

5

Buck

“A dude ranch? Are you serious?”

I watched my brother’s face fall. “You sound like the old man.”

“Hang on a sec. I think it’s a great idea.”

“You do?”

“Hell, yeah!”

“We have another one.”