Theirs (11 page)

“I don’t see why not,” Alex agreed. “Uh…how are things at the factory going?”

“A lot better than it was. We’ve bought in a lot of talent to get it to where it is now. I’m head of operations and Rusty heads the online division.”

“Wow, sounds like a lot of changes were made.”

Rusty nodded. “We had to grow with the times or else shut down like other
s
in our line of work. We’ve finally gotten it to a point where it practically runs on its own.”

“That sounds fantastic. I’m sure the townspeople are happy. I know so many people rely on that place to stay open.”

“Actually Bradfordville has been built up quite a bit since you’ve been gone. You would hardly recognize it,” Cash spoke in between taking bites of food.

“Oh?” Alex never thought she’d care about that town again, but her interest was piqued.

“Some bigshot land developer brought a lot of that old dilapidated farml
and off county line road and built a bunch of townhomes. It started this big boom. The old strip mall has been torn down and they built one of those fancy outside malls. There’s also a handful of restaurants. Della and Mickey sold their
diner
and moved to Florida,” Rusty explained.

Alex was surprised to hear this, especially that the diner was gone. That place had been a community gathering place for as long as she could remember. “So the diner is no longer there?”

Cash shook his head. “Oh, it’s still there. It was sold to some fella from out of town who trained as a chef in London a
nd he wanted to try his hand at running a restaurant. He
creates traditional diner food
dishes
with a twist. He’s become so popular that he was featured on some food channel and ever since then, people from out of town stop by just to visit that place. It’s always packed.”

“Wow, sounds like a whole different town,” Alex said out loud. Was this some kind of omen telling her that maybe going back to Bradfordville mi
ght not be a horrible thing?

“
There are certainly a lot of new faces and the town had changed but there are still a lot of familiar faces. You might be interested to know what happened to your old nemesis.”

She frowned at Rusty’s words. “My nemesis? You mean Tabitha?”

“Yeah, for all the grief she cau
sed, it seems Karma caught
up
to
her tenfold.”

“What happened?”

“You know how her father was Sheriff?” Rusty reminded her.

Alex rolled her eyes. “How could I forget? She only reminded
people every other time she spoke. It was how she got away with being so rotten.”

“Well, she came home after a year of college very pregnant and no father in tow. She was the talk of the town for a long time but all the gossip died down after a while until she got pregnant again and no one knew who the father was. She wouldn’t name names. According to the town
gossip
,
her father couldn’t deal with the shame so he forced her to marry the pastor.”

“Oh, I thought Pastor Hart was married.”

Rusty smirked. “No, not the one at New Hope Baptist. I’m talking about Israel
Church of Christ.”

Ale
x had never gone to services there
. Only super religious people stepped foot into that house of worship because
of
the group
’
s extreme beliefs. They were one of those sects where women could only wear dresses or skirts that went to their
ankles
and no makeup. The women were also supposed to walk two steps behind their men. There were rumors that they danced with snakes and didn’t believe in traditional medical care but that had never been verified because she didn’t personally know anyone who attended that particular church. She
did
, however,
remember Pastor Roberts quite well because he could be found on Saturdays
in the center of town preaching that everyone was going hell if they didn’t repent.

Alex grimaced in disgust. “No way, that guy is a 137 years old.”

Cash and Rusty both laughed out loud. Cash was the first to recover. “Yeah, he’s up there but not quite that old. I’d say he’s in his late 60’s.”

“And Tabitha is married to him?”

“With three more kids bringing it to a total of five. Last we heard she was pregnant with number six. She’s quite miserable from what we understand.”
Cash started laughing again.

Alex couldn’t help giggling either. Sitting at the table, sharing a meal with Cash and Rusty reminded her of the old times. “
It couldn’t
have happened to a nicer person.”

Chapter Ten

“We’ve had dinner, dessert, coffee and even an after dinner mint. You can’t put this conversation off any longer, Alex.” Cash pushed away from the table and stood up.

Alex had stalle
d long enough but
in all honest
y
,
she’d enjoyed their meal tog
ether more than she thought she
would. It was like old times as they reminisced over the mischief they got into together. They spoke of times less
complicated
when their friendship was intact and their world was perfect. Taking a deep breath she got up and walked to the living room. I guess we should take it in here. Can I get you two something to drink before we start?”

Before she could sit down, Rusty caught her by the wrist. “What are you so afraid of Alex? Didn’t we have a good time tonight?”

“Yes. We did and that’s actually why I’m reluctant to drag up things that caused me a lot of pain.”

Rusty took her chin between his thumb and forefinger.
“We’re never going to make progress if we can’t get past this conversation.”

“I know. Let’s do this.” She pulled away from him because his touch was wreaking havoc on her equilibrium. Plopping down on the couch she clasped her hands together tightly. Cash and Rusty joined her, sitting on either side of her. Both men
gave her no space. It was if they wer
e deliberately making sure she
had no space by molding their thighs against hers.

They were making it very hard for her to think straight by being so close, but the part of her that missed their
touch
,
still craved their nearness,
overrode any need for self-preservation.
“
Well
I guess I should go ahead ask the burning question. You guys said that you knew of my whereabouts not long after I’d left town but you never came for me. I thought a lot about this and I just don’t understand why I didn’t even get a letter.
So if what
you guys said is
true,
tell me why it took you eight years.”

“It’s a long story. Not even sure where to begin,” Rusty sighed.

“
Well
,
it’s a good thing I’m off tomorrow so I have plenty of time. How about starting from the beginning. So who’s going to answer my question?”

“I’ll start.” Cash moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue
. “
First and foremost, Rusty and I wanted to come see you more than anything but around the time you left a crisis with the factory sprang up and we had to deal with it. We had agreed that when we got things under control we would go visit you and explain what had happened, but things were much worse than we thought.
Rusty and I felt that it wasn’t fair to get
you
involved with the mess you were in. You needed to concentrate on school and we didn’t want to ruin that experience for you.”

Alex laughed without humor. “I nearly flunked out my freshmen year because I was so heartbroken over what had happened. It was only when I was threatened with the loss of my scholarship did I get my act together because it would have been a financial strain for me to stay in school otherwise. It was tough. Whatever you two were going through I would have liked to have known. I would have supported you.”

Rusty placed his hand on her knee
. “We’re so sorry you had to go through that. Maybe we made the wrong judgment call at the time but our thought process was not to drag you into our mess because we knew how much
it meant to you to get away to school. We had hoped you would enjoy your college experience without worrying about us.
We made sure
,
however
,
that you were safe and
had
somewhere to stay. That job you got working as
a part-time receptionist for the
construction company was also through our father’s associate.”

“
I didn’t realize you guys had done that for me.
I thought it was almost too good
to be true
because I was just a college student whose only work experience was waiting tables. That position
paid enough
so that
I didn’t have to get a second job like a lot
of other students. I guess, thank you in order.” Though Alex was appreciative about what they’d done, she wasn’t sure how to feel about it. She’d learned to value her independence over the past eight
year
s
and to know they’d had a hand in her getting a decent place to stay and a good job made her wonder what would have happened without their interv
ention. “All this time I’ve been
so proud of myself for being able to stand on my own two feet but it was you guys all along,” Alex said more to herself than to them.

Rusty gave her knee another squeeze. “Don’t look at it that way. We might have helped you in the beginning but the rest of it was all you. You’re the one who studied your butt off and graduated college. You’re the one who secured your own apartment and you were the one to find your job on your own. We only gave you a slight head start. You wouldn’t have succeeded without your drive and determination so don’t
minimize your accomplishments. The fact that you even made it to college by yourself was quite a feat and having the fortitude to find that youth hostel was another one. So many other people would have crumbled but you didn’t.”

When put like that Alex felt better. Even though Cash was the more level-headed of the two brothers, Rusty often offered his own gems of wisdom. “Thank you. I needed to hear that.”

Rusty smiled.
“
You’re welcome. We did periodically get reports from the PI that you were doing well. If we would have gotten even the slightest hint that you were in
trouble
for any reason Cash and I would have been there in a hurry. B
ut you seemed to be doing fine. And that scared the hell out of us.”

She glanced at him, incredulous. “How did that scare you? I was the one who was disowned by
my grandmother
and
shunned by the people in town. Do you have any idea what people were saying about me?”

“Don’t,” Cash whispered.

“
Don’t what? Tell you the truth? Like you said before, we need to have this conversation in order to move on and I have to get some things off my chest so that I can finally let them go.
You need to know that peo
ple would whisper when I’d walk
by and they’d point and stare. My last day in town when I went to the bank, I ran into a woman who happened to be in the
diner
the day I quit and she had her daughter with her. She said within
earshot
of me to ‘not turn out like that
girl,
because she’s trash
.
’ You don’t get to be the scared ones in this scenario because I was the one on my own. At least the two of you had each other.
” The humiliating memory made her
cheeks
burn.

Cash nodded. “You’re right. That was a poor choice of words. We were worried that you’d realize you no longer wanted us. We gambled on the fact that you would be there when everything was settled.”

“And it took eight years for everything to settle?” She used air quotes on the last word.

“
We wanted to make sure everything was in order before we made contact. We didn’t count on it taking so long,” Rusty explained.

Alex decided to cut to the chase.
“
So what was this crisis that kept you away?”

Cash
lowered his head and took a deep breath before reestablishing eye contact.
“We made a deal with our mother.”

Alex narrowed her eyes in suspicion.
“
What kind of deal?”

“
Just promise you
’ll
listen and try to understand the position we were in at the time.” There was a look of desperation in Cash’s eyes. It made her wonder what they must have gone through for him to think she wouldn’t understand.

“Sure, I’ll listen. Just tell me. What did your mother have to do with any of this? What kind of deal did you make?”

Cash raked his fingers through his hair. “Yo
u’re already aware that
Dad
willed the controlling shares to me, Rusty and Mom three ways. At the time, everything started falling apart,
I was a year away from
gaining control of
shares and Rusty
three. There was an independent executor whom my father’s will had named. But our mother had a lot of influen
ce over him. To be perfectly honest she was probably sleeping with him long before our father passed, but that’s beside the point. Needless to say, my mother told him how to handle our shares so that basically put her in charge.
She
took
control
of the factory and basically ran it into th
e ground within the first year.”

“Wow. How in the world did she manage that? I mean I thought the factory was doing so well. Wouldn’t it have taken longer for her to do any serious damage?”

Cash nodded. “Yes, if the factory was the success we thought it was. My dad worked his fingers to the bone but it wasn’t doing the same business that it used to be. The business was barely in the black. That stress of trying to hold things together was probably what led him to have a massive heart attack. We had no idea how bad things were. But Mom only made things worse. She gave herself a salary that was quadruple of what our father was making,
while refusing to give the workers raises. That led to some unrest. And then to make matters worse, she didn’t see fit to
get some of the more outdated equipment up to safety standards which resulted in a few injuries.
She didn’t renew the company’s worker’s compensation insurance policy so there was no way to pay the people who were hurt on the job. The factory got slapped with some many citations and fines things we
re looking very bleak. We were on the verge of ruin.
”

Alex had no idea their situation had been that bad. “Oh no. I don’t understand why your mother would do something like that. I would have expected her to just collect money from the shares and live off of the money while she allowed someone else to do all the work.”

Cash’s twisted his lips in derision. “That would have been the reasonable expectation.
The thing is, my mother ha
d
no business trying to run the company
,
but she wanted to prove
a point. Not a lot of people know that she came from nothing when my father married her
but the ones who did believed
she wasn’t Bradford material. It’s why she always put on airs. And
,
it’s why she was so hard on you. You reminded her of the background she’d spent years trying to erase. She wanted to run the company to show everyone else she was better than them.”

It definitely made sense.
The diner had been a hot spot for gossip and Alex had heard plenty of rumors when she was a waitress.
There had always been whispers that
Sabrina
Bradford was from one of the poorest trailer parks in the county, although no one dared to repeat that rumor around the woman h
erself. Mrs. Bradford had always seemed cold and self-absorbed and sometimes she was downright rude to people she thought were beneath her. But knowing that some
of
the things that had been said about her were true, gave Alex some incite. That still didn’t make the things she did right but at least Alex now understood the other woman’s motivations. “So how did you guys find out what was going on with the factory?”

Rusty pointed his thumb in his brother’s direction.
“Cash got a call from the factory’s business manager to tell him what Mom was doing.
When Cash got a lot at the books, it was worse than either of us could have imagined so once he knew, he confronted Mon about it.”

“Yikes.” Alex flinched as she imagined how that must have been. “How did that
turn
out
?”

Cash sighed. “It wasn’t pretty. Our Dad raised us to respect our
elders
and people in authority but what she did
wasn’t right. Jobs were
los
t
, the factory was bleeding money and she didn’t seem to give a damn. I yelled and raged and even cussed. She screamed back and me and remained defiant and then she turned on the waterworks. When she saw that I was unmoved by her tears she dropped the act. She said that she was in charge and there was nothing I could do about it until I gained control of my shares.”

“Oh wow, that’s horrible. Why would she dig in her heels like that? Even she had to know she was over her head.”

Cash shrugged. “If she knew she didn’t give a damn. But instead of just asking for help or letting the business manager handle things, she saw a way to use it as leverage. I wanted
to take over and set things right
so I
offered to buy
my mother’s shares with my inheritance money. I was willing to give her every single cent in order to save the factory. I thought the money would be enough for her but apparently it wasn’t.
Mom agreed to sign her shares over only if we
promised not to contact you.”