Tante Lulu snorted her disgust and stomped back into the house, leaving Charmaine alone on the porch. That was okay. Charmaine was a big girl. Her father couldn’t hurt her anymore.
“Ladies, let me introduce myself. I’m Winston Oliver, CEO of Cypress Oil, and these are my associates Pierre Pitot and Max Elliott from our Dallas office.”
Big whoop! “I don’t care who you are. You are not welcome here.”
“Charmaine, behave yourself, and go call Lanier,” Valcour said. “He’s been ignorin’ our letters and phone calls. It’s time for a one-on-one with that ex-con ex-husband of yours.”
“Daddy, you behave yourself. Rusty is a better man than you on his worst day. And, no, I’m not going to call him back to the house. Anything you have to say about the ranch can be said to me.”
“And why is that, girlie? You spreadin’ yer legs fer convicts now, too? Ha, ha, ha.” He looked to his cronies who had the grace to appear embarrassed by a man speaking thus to his daughter. Little did they know!
“If I was sharing a bed with Rusty, and I’m not saying we are, it might be because we’re still married. Surprise, surprise! Furthermore, I own half the ranch.” That was way more information than she should have revealed, but her father had always had a talent for pushing her buttons.
“What?” her father practically squealed. The three other men appeared stunned, then pleased by the news. They probably figured that family ties would work to their advantage.
“If you own half of this ranch, then you damn well better sell us the mineral rights,” her father concluded, dumb ass that he was.
“And why would that be?”
“Because you owe me, dammit. So stop jerkin’ us around.” He turned to one of the gentlemen who stood in the background, which might very well be a bodyguard and not an executive, and told him, “Get the papers out of the limo so my daughter can sign them.”
“You are unbelievable. A real piece of work.” She waved to the man who had just emerged from the limo with a folder in hand. “Hey, you. You just hand those little ol’ papers to my father so he can shove them where the sun don’t shine.”
“You allus did have a gutter mouth,” her father remarked with disgust. Amazing how a low-life like him could be disgusted by anything.
“Can we come inside and discuss this?” Mr. Oliver inquired in a patently sly manner.
“No, you cannot come inside. My aunt and I are busy. We were just about to go off to shoot a steer for Thanksgiving dinner.” She spun on her heels, about to walk back into the house, pleased with her outrageous pronouncement.
Well, not so outrageous when she saw Tante Lulu standing in the open doorway with a rifle aimed at the group in the front yard. The rifle was almost as big as she was.
“Does she know how to use that thing?” Valcour asked Charmaine.
Tante Lulu probably couldn’t hit a bull in the ass with a bass fiddle. “A crack shot,” Charmaine said.
All four men turned green.
Especially when Tante Lulu let loose with one shot, which put out the headlight on the limo.
“Jesus H. Christ, are you nuts, Louise?” Valcour exclaimed.
“Let’s get out of here,” Mr. Oliver said.
All four of them scurried back into the limo and raised dust as their squealing tires backed up, then flew down the road. Her father leaned out of the window at the last minute and yelled, “This isn’t over yet, you bitch.”
“Which one of us was he calling a bitch?” Charmaine asked.
Tante Lulu shrugged, a huge grin on her face.
“Were you aiming for the headlight?”
“Naw. I was aimin’ for Valcour’s too-too.”
At first, Charmaine’s jaw just dropped, but then she grinned, too. She and Charmaine gave each other high fives, followed by little Snoopy dances of victory. After that, buoyed by their brave actions, they went back into the house to finish their grocery lists.
All in a day’s work.
More almost-sex…
“You did what?” Raoul raged at the two dingbats when he got back to the house by midafternoon.