Tyler Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  World Castle Publishing, LLC

  Pensacola, Florida

  Copyright © Kathi S. Barton 2018

  Paperback ISBN: 9781949812336

  eBook ISBN: 9781949812343

  First Edition World Castle Publishing, LLC, November 26, 2018

  http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

  Licensing Notes

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

  Cover: Karen Fuller

  Editor: Maxine Bringenberg

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 1

  Jazzie could not wait for the last bus to pull away from the building. She looked at the array of gifts on her desk and wanted to sob. They hated her. And if she had only thought that was true before, this sort of set it in stone. Picking up one of the gifts, she looked at the mug.

  “For the worst teacher of the year.” Jazzie wanted to toss it across the room, see it smash against the concrete wall, and hear the pottery shatter.

  The rest of the gifts from her class were no different. There was a word of the day calendar that she knew one of the parents had picked up for the kid. It gave a word a day to describe hate. Not just the word, but also a little blurb about how the word could be used about her.

  Jazzie also had a pen that when you clicked the button at the side, it would change a line to describe what they’d like to see happen to her. There were other things too, all in the same genre and directed right at her. A total of twenty-three gifts in all. She had to have been given the most gifts of all the teachers.

  Gathering them up and putting them in a box, she decided that she was going to find a job over the break, quit this stupid job that got her nothing for her work, and move away. She should have known better than to think she could make a difference after the first day of classes, when one of the students had given her a note from their parents.

  “Don’t even think about giving my son a failing grade. You do, and you’ll regret it for the rest of your short ugly life.” Jazzie still had it. She had framed it, thinking back then that it had been a joke. No, she’d come to find out. Not only wasn’t it a joke, but more of the parents had threatened her the same way.

  When she was putting the mug in the box, she knocked over the calendar. Its word today was piss-off. Jazzie had no doubt that these were from the parents, but—

  She looked at the calendar as it lay open on the floor. Even from where she was sitting, she could see that there was some sort of device in it. Sitting down, trying to think what this might mean, she counted to ten. Then again, and again, trying to make her heartrate slow enough that she wasn’t dizzy.

  Taking out her cell phone, she put it away. Somewhere she thought she had read that cell phones could be used to make a bomb go off. While Jazzie wasn’t sure that’s what this was, she didn’t want to hurt anyone that might still be here in the building with her. Joey, her son, was safe with the sitter today if something should happen to her.

  Leaving the calendar where it was, she stepped into the hall and hoped that she was far away from the thing to make a call. She dialed her sister, knowing that she was going to regret it almost as soon as she pressed the button. And of course, it went right to voice mail.

  Jazzie tried to think who her sister worked for—somebody that had more money than brains, she thought. And then it occurred to her to call her Uncle Lloyd—Jazzie was sure that he’d know what to do. At this point, she wasn’t even sure that the police would come and help her. And if it wasn’t a bomb, then she’d be laughed out of the town faster than she was planning to leave anyway.

  When he answered the phone, she sobbed.

  “Honey? Jazzie? What it is, love? Are you hurt? Joey? Is he okay?” Crying harder, she slid to the floor and asked him to hold on. It took her five minutes to spill out the story and tell him what she’d found. “Have you touched it? The calendar or the device?”

  “No. I mean, the calendar, it was a gift from one of my students, but I think it’s more from their parents. They’re all so hateful, Uncle Lloyd. I have never been so hurt by something as I am this. I guess if the sucker is a bomb, then I’d be hurt more. Will you take care of Joey for me? He’s all I have in the world. Ash and Mom, they told me that they were tired of me—”

  He said her name hard and she shut up. “I’m to ask you who else is in the building with you.” She said that she didn’t know. The buses were all gone. “Good, the kids are gone then. All right. I want you to find a fire alarm and pull it. Then get out. As fast as you can.”

  “What if it’s not a bomb? Uncle Lloyd, you have no idea what I’ve been putting up with here.” He said her name again, but this time softer, gentler. “I can’t do this anymore. I just want to let it take me away.”

  “Now you listen here, young lady. You do what I tell you or I will paddle your bottom. You know that I will, too. That sister of yours, Ash, she should have had hers beaten a bit more, but she was too far gone by the time I came around.” He laughed. “However, I think she would have beaten my bottom worse. Now, do as I tell you.”

  She went into the room, after getting his permission to get her purse, and then went into the hall to pull the alarm. When it sounded, several of the teachers came into the hall and asked her what the hell she was doing. After telling them that there was a bomb in the building, they simply closed the doors and went back into their rooms.

  Screaming, she went to the first door that had opened and pounded on it. Before Mrs. Hale could say anything, Jazzie slapped her, then asked her if that hurt.

  “I’m going to report you to the board. There is no cause for you to go around hitting people. I wish you’d just leave.”

  “Are you willing to just stay in your room and let a bomb, which was given to me by one of the students, go off and blow you to shit?” Mrs. Hale looked down at Jazzie’s door, then at Jazzie again. “If you think that slap hurt, how to you think it’s going to feel when the fucking building comes down on your head? Did you think of that? Now get your old skinny ass out of here before I have to knock you out and drag you by the hair.”

  She had no idea where all this violence was coming from, but it got Mrs. Hale moving. And she, in turn, got the rest of them moving as well. By the time the police and fire trucks pulled up, the teachers were standing as far back from the building as they could and still be in the parking lot. She almost forgot that she was still talking to her uncle.

  “Remind me to never upset you. Where did that come from?” She smiled; it was the first real one she’d had since coming here. “Now, I want you to have a seat on the ground and let the people that know what they’re doing take care of this.”

  “What if it’s not a bomb?” She sat on the cold ground and waited for him to finish talking to someone with him. “Uncle Lloyd, I’m so sorry. I forgot you might be working.”

  “It’s all right, love. And it was a bomb. A friend of mine, he sent someone there and to your home. You were going to die if you’d not knocked over that gift.”

  If he continue
d talking, she had no idea what he was saying. Her mind kept looping around and around. “You were going to die. You were going to die.”

  When she woke up, she was in the back of an ambulance and a man was sitting next to her. Sitting up a little, she looked at him when he asked her to please stay still, someone was coming to get her. Not sure who that would be, she just assumed it was her uncle.

  “How long have I been here? And why does my head hurt so badly?” She put her hand to her forehead and came away with blood when she felt it was wet. “Did one of the parents hit me?”

  “Ms. Scott, my name is Danny. And I’d like to advise you to not say another word.” She asked him why. “Your phone was ringing and I answered it. Lloyd said for me to tell you when you woke that he was coming and that you were to keep your mouth shut. He’s a very intense person, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. When there is someone hurt that he— There was a device in my office. Was it a bomb?” He helped her to sit up a little, but she had to wait until her head stopped spinning until she could look in the direction that he’d pointed. “Oh no. Oh my goodness. My son? Oh, my son?”

  “Your uncle, he told me that he was going to get him.” She asked him why he trusted him with the message. “I guess the guy that he works for, Tyler Winchester, told him that his brother knew me. Dom and I went to school together. Now there is a nice man.”

  “I’ve had enough of nice men.” She didn’t know why she said that, and looked at what was left of the building. “I should have asked this before, but was anyone hurt?”

  “No, thanks to you. Mrs. Hale said that you got a little violent on her to get her out. She is telling everyone that you saved all their lives.” Jazzie told him that no one liked her. “Ah, I find that hard to believe. I mean, you seem like a nice person to me.”

  “I got the bomb from one of my students. Also, I had a lot of other things in my office.” He nodded and told her to lay back and close her eyes. Almost as soon as she did that, she heard a voice she didn’t know.

  “She awake yet?” Danny told the man that she had hit her head pretty hard. “Yes, well, I need for her to explain a few things to me. Like, why is it that her room was targeted? How did the bomb get into the school? Don’t tell her that her own home is gone. I’d like to see her reaction when I tell her. There is something fishy going on here.”

  “Yes, I think so too.” Danny’s voice had turned hard then, and the cop, or so she thought it was, asked him what was up his ass. “Nothing. But from what I’ve heard, she saved a lot of teachers by getting them out of the building. And I know for a fact that the teachers here were taught what to look for in devices, as well as what to do. All the teachers in the district had to take it or they couldn’t teach this term.”

  “Yeah, well, she could have made it, brought it in on her own, then had second thoughts. Tell me when she wakes up. I have a lot of questions for her.”

  Danny told her he was gone but she didn’t move.

  “My house is gone too.” He said that he was sorry that she had to find out like that. “I have nothing left. Nothing for my son, nothing to put on him. My savings is gone because I had to bury my husband, the lying cheating fucking prick.”

  When her uncle arrived, he sat with her while the police finally got around to asking her questions. Before she could utter the first word, even if she knew how to answer the one where he asked her if she had done it, an attorney came into the room and demanded that she be allowed to go to the hospital. Wendall Forthright not only had her on her way to the hospital in a few minutes, but he met her there too, bringing her uncle along.

  Joey was there as well, and as soon as she saw her little man, Jazzie felt better. Her head was pounding so he kept trying to kiss her boo-boo, and that too made her feel human again. Sixteen stitches and a trip to where her uncle worked later, Jazzie found herself tucked into a nice warm bed, with her son in a crib right next to her. The meds that the doctor had given her for the trip had put her under. Her last thoughts were that it was a really nice hotel that someone put her and her son in. She only hoped that no one expected her to pay for it. She was pretty sure that not only was she out of work, but that she might be going to jail as well.

  ~*~

  Tyler was on his way to France when the call came in about Lloyd’s niece and her son. He told him to bring them both to his home, put them in a room, and not to tell anyone where she was. His family was all right, but not anyone else.

  He’d gotten called about one of the houses that he owned. He’d sent Lloyd, Ash and her mother, as well as a friend of the family’s—Laveen Richardson’s—mother, Jannie. They went there to find out what had been going on. And right after Lloyd had returned, thinking things were squared away, the house was vandalized. Tyler had to go there because there was no signed contract between him and Ash yet. So he was off again.

  The contract had been drawn up to have her sign when she returned from this trip. The other homes, all that she’d taken care of, seemed to be doing very well now. In the few weeks that she’d been there, he’d not gotten a single call from anyone. Again, Tyler wished that he’d hired someone much sooner.

  His cell was ringing just as he unbuckled and got ready to do some paperwork on the plane. It was his dad. Smiling, he waited for him to finish talking to Mom before he spoke to him.

  “I’m telling you right now, if that girl ain’t your mate, I’m going to claim her as my own.” Tyler asked him what was going on. “That little man of hers—that’s what she calls him, her little man—he’s been having the best time with us. Or I should say, we’re having it with him. His poor momma. She’s the one that Lloyd told you about that had to bury her husband last year.”

  “He said that when the accident occurred, he and his lover were killed.” Dad told him that was the one. “Why are you having so much fun with the little boy? I mean, don’t you have enough grandchildren to play with there?”

  “I do. But a man like me, he can always have him a few more. You need to get yourself busy on that for us.” Tyler knew the moment that Mom hit Dad in the back of the head. “Durn it, woman, a man can beg, can’t he? I mean, the boy is all set for one. Got him a house right next door to us, and money in the bank. Heck fire, he could take her all over the world and not have to visit one of them there fancy hotels once. Why not push him a little?”

  “Because, you old fool, he is not even in the States, and you’re adopting children for him. What is wrong with...are you still talking to him? What about his phone bills? Did you think of that when you were hanging on there like a monkey from the tree?” Tyler waited. He had explained to his parents, several times, that with a cell phone, it didn’t matter. His dad explained that to Mom while he waited for them to remember that someone had called him. “Tell him I love him, but I have to go and fetch some diapers for little Joey.”

  “That’s his name, in the event you didn’t know it.” He told Dad that he didn’t and thanked him. “That man of yours, Lloyd, he’s fit to be tied. They’re blaming that bombing on her, I guess. Durn fools. Even her house—everything that she had was in it, and they’re treating her like she’d went and done it. There weren’t a soul hurt either, on account’a she went and made them leave. I tell you what.”

  Dad had been saying that for years, “I tell you what.” No one knew what he was going to tell you. He never explained, and rather than get into a discussion that would more than likely not give them the answer, they all just let him say it. Even Mom—she’d walk away from him when he’d spouted off that little tidbit.

  “I’ll be home in about a week. Just make sure that she has whatever she needs. Lloyd means a great deal to me, and I don’t want him upset.” Dad told him that they were getting together supplies right now. “Good. How is he doing? Is he all right?”

  “Yes, seems to be. He does fuss a bit more. And that little boy, he sure does love him his uncle. Took me pert near a whole day to figure out that he ain’t really their uncle. He was just a
really good friend to her daddy. And when he passed on, Lloyd took over helping them out.” Dad laughed, and he smiled again. “I tell you something, son. That girl has a temper on her too. Just yesterday, right after she got herself up and going, Addie came in and started ordering her around. None too gentle like either. But she didn’t want her up and around, and the girl just took her to task like she wasn’t armed and dangerous like you see them people on television. I tell you, she’d have peeled paper off the wall had they been in the living room.”

  Why the living room? Tyler had no clue, but he didn’t ask. He knew that would be another long and drawn out explanation that would never answer the question. Tyler loved his parents with all his heart, but his dad could make a merry-go-round ill with the way he went around and around to get to the point.

  Dad told him that he had to go. Now that his momma was gone, he had to teach little Joey how to walk. Tyler asked him what Joey’s momma would say about that, and he just laughed, like asking parents about their kids’ habits was funny to him. Well, Tyler hoped that if his house guest wasn’t happy with it, she’d peel his wall paper off too.

  By the time he got everything straightened out in France—it only took him about an hour to get the paperwork fixed up—Tyler thought that he’d stay for a few days, just to relax. He also wanted to pick up a few things for Christmas while he was there, as well as bring home a few bottles of wine for gifts.

  Cartwright Winery was well known all over the world, and he wasn’t going to change the name because of that. But he thought it’d be fun to have Winchester Winery on the label at some point. Maybe he’d ask Caleb what sort of designs he could come up with, incorporating Cartwright in the name at some place. Tyler thought that was a good idea.

  The next day when he got up, he was still on home’s timeframe, only a five-hour difference. Tyler made his way to the water just to watch the waves come in. It was too chilly to walk in the water, but that didn’t matter to him—Tyler was happy having the area all to himself. The house had its own beach front, and he loved it there.