A Barrel of Whiskey - (An Urban Fantasy Whiskey Witches Novel) (25 page)

No. Paige was going to let this one slide. This time.

Leah met Paige’s gaze.

Paige held up one hand, her lips flat, and tipped her head to the side.

Relief shone on Leah’s face as she sank back into the hard cushions of the couch.

Taking the only other cushioned chair, Paige sat. “How long ago was he fed?”

“An hour,” Alma said.

“I didn’t realize you had a baby,” Rachel said.

“It’s not something I wanted to broadcast.” Paige met the woman’s gaze. “Especially to you.”

Rachel’s expression dried. “Let me guess. The father was a drifter. You don’t even know his name?”

Dexx perched on the armrest. “No. He’s mine.”

Rachel’s eyes widened. “When did this happen?”

“Last time I was in Denver. We were solving that ghoulish murder, remember?”

“No, dear.” Rachel resituated in her chair. “I don’t really keep track of all your cases. None of them are really official anyway.”

They’d been close at one point? She’d practically raised him? Paige struggled to see that.

“Right, well, anyway.” Dexx shrugged. “We were working that case and one thing led to another.”

“And you didn’t tell me you married?”

That fucking woman.

“We haven’t.”

“So, your firstborn child is a bastard?” Rachel tipped her head. “Dexx, I thought I taught you better than that.”

Paige didn’t know why Dexx had stepped into the line of fire on this one, but she appreciated it. However, she wasn’t going to stand for that line. “All of your children were bastards, or don’t you remember? We all three had different sperm donors and you never married.”

“Hmm. Well, look at Miss Priss protecting her own sperm donor.”

“He’s not my sperm donor, Rachel.” Which rang with truth because it was.

“Can I at least hold my grandson?”

“No.”

Rachel’s eyes widened as she turned to Becky. “Do you see this? She’s refusing to allow me to spend time with my own grandson.”

Becky smiled. “I’m not participating. I’m only here to supervise your visitation with Leah.”

Rage rose in Paige’s chest. She was
really
going to use
that
card? “So, you’re going to throw a tantrum because I won’t let you spend time with my son? Like the time you refused to let me spend time with my daughter? Like that? No. See, I’m at least allowing you into the same room with them.
You
had me
arrested.
”

“Paige.” Rachel huffed daintily, looking away, her hands crossed primly in her lap. “You were a danger to that child.”

“I was a danger to no one.” A statement she could only utter out loud because no one had told Rachel of what had really happened. “You still got a restraining order against me.”

“You could have called.”

“I did. Every night and half the time, you didn’t let me speak to Leah.”

“You upset her.”

“Or when you did, it was on speaker phone so you could listen in.”

“To ensure you didn’t say anything that would hurt her.”

“Hmm.” Paige nodded, clamping her lips shut.

“It was my idea not to tell you,” Dexx said.

Exaggerated hurt crashed over Rachel’s angular features. “Why would you do such a thing? What did I ever do to you? Didn’t I tell you that spending too much time with Paige would turn you against me?”

“Rachel,” Dexx said, his tone soft and sweet, “I did it so you wouldn’t be hurt. I knew that if you found out, you would want to spend time with him, and Paige would feel uncomfortable. I was trying to find the right time.”

“Right time?”

“To tell you.”

“When was that going to happen?”

“When he was seven,” Paige said bluntly.

Rachel whuffed a chuckle. “Oh. How cute. You really have soured Dexx to me, haven’t you? He’s like a son. At least—” she turned a sour look at him, “—he was.”

“I didn’t do anything. You, actually, did most of the work.”

“If only I’d been able to keep both my boys safe from your clutches.”

Paige narrowed her eyes, her lips twisted in numbed disgust. “What?”

Rachel studied Paige for a long moment. “You really are such a disappointment, you know that?”

Paige shook her head. “How am I a disappointment?”

“You’re a whore.”

Paige had no idea why that upset her. She
wasn’t
, and even if she was, it didn’t matter. “I am not.”

“You had two children by two different fathers.”

“You had three children by three fathers. But, let me guess, you only claim the third because he was the only salvageable one.”

Rachel huffed and glanced around the room. “Why do you always twist my words around on me?”

“I twist words?” Paige shook her head. “How long does visitation have to last?”

“As long as you allow,” Becky said. “Within reason, of course, but you have the control.”

“What can we do about having visitation elsewhere? I don’t want this woman in my house.”

“Of course. We can go to a neutral location. It will cost more, of course, but we can make that happen with relative ease.”

“Let’s do that.” Paige stood. “And let’s get a schedule. No more unexpected visits at my home. I don’t want her here.”

“Of course.”

Rachel remained in her chair.

Becky got up to leave. “Ms. Whiskey, if you would leave with me, that would be lovely. Thank you.”

“I’m not leaving until I get some actual visitation with my grandchildren. I want to hold my grandson and I want to speak with my granddaughter.”

“It would appear that Leah doesn’t want to speak with you right now,” Becky said. “However, when we schedule your next visitation, I’ll make sure she leaves her music in the car. You can make sure that happens?”

Paige closed her eyes briefly. “Of course.”

“And what about my grandson?”

“You’re not coming anywhere near my son,” Paige gritted out.

Becky forced a smile, shaking her hair back. “There are no orders for her son.”

“I will have those orders,” Rachel said. “I don’t even know his name.”

Paige shrugged. “Sorry. Sucks to be you.”

Alma stood. “Rachel, it’s time for you to leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Dexx pulled his phone out of his pocket.

“What are you doing?” Rachel demanded.

“Calling 9-1-1, Rachel. You leave me no choice. You’re endangering the life of my son.”

“Endangering? I’m sitting on the sofa.”

“You’ve been asked to leave and you’re refusing.”

“That’s what ‘endangering’ is in this country?” Rachel asked with a sneer.

“I forget.” Paige tipped her head to the side. “What lies did you tell to get a restraining order served on me?”

“They were not lies.”

“Oh, really.” Paige ground her teeth.

“You threatened to kill me.”

She’d done something a little worse than merely threaten. “You took my daughter and fled the state. What did you expect? A thank you card?”

“A little gratitude, maybe? I did you a favor.”

After having lived the single life for the last five years, there was little ‘favor’ there. She’d had a pretty good life. “I didn’t ask for it.”

“What else are mothers for, but giving their children what they need before they even ask for it?”

“You may have given birth to me,” Paige said, her voice dark. “But you are not my mother.”

“Yes.” Dexx said into the phone. “We have someone in our house who is refusing to leave?” Dexx cleared his throat. “Yes. No.”

“You really called the cops on me.” Rachel’s expression lost color. “You’re like a son to me.”

Dexx lowered the phone and smiled grimly at her. “That,” he said, pointing to Bobby, “
is
my son. Get out.”

Becky breathed heavily inching toward the door. “I put his name on the birth certificate,” she whispered.

“Thanks?” Paige whispered back. “Now, get her out of here.”

“This all escalated rather quickly.”

“Yeah. Well, you should have thought of a different game plan than allowing that woman into my home with the daughter she stole and the baby you don’t want her to know about.”

The angel winced.

“She’s getting up.” Dexx said into the phone. “Yes. Send someone right now. I don’t know what her state of mind is like right now. We have children. Babies. Please hurry.”

Rachel walked to the door, her head held high. She stopped at the door and looked down her nose at Paige. “You think you’ve won, but you’re wrong.”

“’Just wait until I tell Michael,’” Paige finished for her, quietly so that only those in the entryway could hear her.

Rachel’s dark eyes flared. “Yes. You best remember that. I have Michael on
my
side.”

Paige leaned in so Becky couldn’t hear. “I have all of Hell on mine and unlike you, I can bring Hell here. I don’t have to wait for them to come when it’s convenient for them.”

Rachel sneered. “I will have that baby.”

“Over my dead body.”

Rachel shrieked and flung the door open.

The walls rocked. Pictures fell. Dishes fell out of the cupboards and crashed onto the floor.

“What’s going on?” Becky asked.

Paige looked out the door and stared into the face of a white dog. A huge, white dog. With the wings of an angel. “We’re under attack.”

R
achel’s face lit up as she saw the dog on the lawn. She turned to Paige. “Give me the baby.”

Like hell. “No.”

“You do know what that is, don’t you?”

Paige had a couple of guesses. Angel wings? Hell had hounds. It only made sense Heaven did, too.

Rachel nodded. “Yes. Heaven hounds, and they’re here because
I
called them.”

“Mmm.” Paige smiled tightly. “Tell them good luck trying to get through Grandma’s wards.”

“They don’t need luck. They have the power of Heaven behind them. They have God’s will.”

“So, it’s God’s will that you take my children from me?”

“You are a whore of Satan, child.”

“Mmm. Interesting.”

Dexx put his hands on Rachel’s shoulders and shoved her out the door. “Get out. The cops are on the way.”

“Don’t you see? I don’t care. God is on my side. He wants me to have this child.”

“That’s not God, Rachel. That’s a dog. With wings.” Dexx looked at Paige. “A dog with wings? For real?”

Paige shrugged, not sure what response he was looking for.

“You have no hopes of raising this child on your own,” Rachel continued. “Neither one of you is capable.”

“And when this one gets gifts you don’t approve of?” Paige asked. “Will you abandon him, too?”

“I didn’t abandon Nick.”

“Yeah. He’s the perfect child.” Paige gripped the door. She forced her will into the door frame. “Get out.”

The house shook again.

“I will have that baby.”

Paige smiled grimly. “No. You really won’t. Now, get out and take your demon dog with you.” She pushed her mother onto the doorstep and slammed the door in her mother’s face.

Alma maneuvered around the furniture to the door. “What’s going on?”

“Heaven hound.”

“Is he after Bobby?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Paige moved the filmy curtain aside from the side window to see where the hound was. “Still out there. Dexx.”

“Silver?” he asked, taking the stairs two at a time.

“Can’t hurt to try.”

“I don’t know anything about the hounds,” Becky said. She flexed her fingers and straightened her shoulders. “I could go out there and talk to it.”

“No.” Paige walked to Alma’s workroom. “That hound is here—”

The house shook again.

Paige staggered into the doorframe, then righted herself, dust from the ceiling getting into her eye. “—because Rachel called him saying I’d had another child. That thing’s not here because of what Bobby is.”

“So?” Becky asked.

“So, I don’t want you flaring your angel wings and announcing to Heaven that we’ve got something stranger going on here than what we already let on. Okay?” Paige stopped at the other side of the table. “Let us Whiskeys do what we do best and take care of him like you wanted.”

Becky nodded and took a step back.

Paige took in a deep breath and looked down at Bobby. “How you’re sleeping through this is beyond me.” But she wasn’t going to complain. “Leslie,” she yelled. “I need you down here, please.”

Thundering footsteps sounded on the stairs. “I’m already on my way.”

“Oh, good.” Paige muttered.

“What are ya plannin’?” Alma asked.

“Strengthen the wards.”

“They’re already strong.”

“They’re just yours, Grandma. That’s a heaven hound. I think we’re going to need everyone on these things.”

“We don’t need everyone else’s magick taintin’ those wards.”

“Tainting isn’t what I’d call it.”

“Witches don’t join their magicks in their shields.”

“This is true, Grandma, but we’re a bit different. We’re Whiskeys.” She’d gotten the idea after her visit with Chuck. He’d called her an alpha. As an alpha, that meant she had a pack.

Not necessarily,
Cawli said.

I understand that,
Paige said, quieting her nerves.
In this case, it just means you and I can talk. Great. But I
do
have a pack. We just call it a coven. Kind of. Or we would. You know what I mean.