19
I was immediately tense and I just moved quickly down the aisle of which Tom immediately followed.
"Get away from me!" I snapped but he raised his hands as soon as he was in front of me.
"Hey it's fine, I ain't gonna hurt you." he said and I just moved back down the aisle to keep space between us.
"What do you want?" I snapped looking around for Luda Mae, but his body blocked my vision.
"I was just looking around." he said. I shook my head.
"Bullshit." I replied and he bit the inside of his cheek.
"Okay okay. You're right. I just wanted to come see how you're doing." he replied.
"Never been better." I replied and he just nodded.
"Okay. Then I just wanted to say I'm sorry for all the trouble my mom caused yesterday. I don't know what she would have done if Thomas was there… but I know he was protecting you. I'm just sorry okay." he said and I just watched him carefully not knowing what to really say. I sighed and looked away for a moment.
"How is your mom?" I asked not really caring but thought the question would calm me and this tense situation. Tom nodded.
"She's going to be fine. She just has some bruising, but she will recover, thanks to you." he explained. I shook my head.
"I didn't do anything." I replied moving down the aisle slowly. Tom followed placing his hand on the metal pole of which the clothes hung off of.
"Yeah you did… if you hadn't had stopped him, he would have killed her and you don't hurt your family." he explained. I just looked down at the clothes noticing more dresses as I listened.
"Well let's hope she and your sister don't make the mistake of threatening us again." I said looking up at him seriously. He nodded curling his fingers out ward and then letting them curl around the pole.
"Lesson learned." he said and I just scanned over the dresses finding a few gowns that I liked. Some of them had lace patterns in the front. I looked back up at him to see him smiling at me and I just tilted my head.
"Anything else?" I asked and he chuckled.
"I'm not your enemy you know. You're my family too." he said and I just arched a brow remembering Luda Mae telling me that Tom's parents were related to her. "And believe it or not we grew up together too before your kin moved away."
I paused in my movements and looked up at him.
"Really. I don't really remember a handsome young white boy ever playing with me as a child." I said and he chuckled some moving calmly around the aisle and I watched him closely and carefully.
"Of course not. I was invisible to you and your family. Your mom tried so hard to shield you from me and my family." he said now standing in front of me and I looked up at him. He was not as tall as Thomas, but he hovered over me. I tilted my head some and nodded.
"And now I can see why." I said and he just nodded.
"Kids my age were scarce back then and even now there's only a few of us." he said and began to pick out some dresses and observe them. I looked down and toward the dresses looking through them and pulling out some I liked.
"Why don't you leave. You are in the medical field you could get a good job and make money and start a family?" I asked glancing up at him and he just scoffed playfully.
"You don't abandon your family." he said and I just looked him in the eyes now and it seemed we were caught in each other's gaze.
"Do you eat what we eat?" I asked seriously and his jaw clenched some and I wondered if his family had real food and with that had reason to look down on us. He leaned back and looked away.
"It's not like we have other options." he said confirming our shared eating habits. I nodded and he raised the dresses to me. "You should try these on. It'll be getting cold soon and we are all going to need each other to stay alive. I figure I could help by giving my opinions on these when you try them on." I looked down at the dresses and then up at him. It's every girl's dream to get their man to participate in shopping. I had many friends who complained about their men never paying attention to them when they went out and shopped.
"Shouldn't you be at work?" I asked looking him over and he chuckled.
"I'm off." he said giving a charming smile. I thought about his offer for a moment before I just shook my head. He made me unsure of what was going on and I didn't like it.
"Sorry. I can't." I replied moving to put the dresses back and he just looked down disappointed.
"Alright I get it you don't trust me. Guess I'm going to have to win you over." he said watching as I backed away from him.
"Don't hold your breath." I said and turned and left to find Luda Mae. She was still at the front of the store and it looked like she hadn't found anything either.
"Didn't find anything? Well that's okay hon, we'll find something next time." she said and I smiled and followed her to the front door. I looked back over my shoulders to see Tom still standing in the aisle looking the dresses over that I had in my hands earlier. He looked up at me and smiled lifting his hand and giving a slight wave. I was a bit thrown off by his kindness. If I were him, I'd hate me for what I did to his sister and what Thomas did to his mom. Hell, we both almost killed the matriarch and future matriarch of their family. Why would he be so willing to be nice to me? Because we're family? I leaned against the door a bit as we drove on.
"What's gotchu so quiet, Tati?" Luda Mae asked looking at me from time to time and I just looked at her.
"It's no secret. I bashed that girl's head in days ago, and Thomas nearly kills Leanne yesterday. What's gonna happen?" I asked. Now she gave a soft chuckle.
"Oh darling. Nothing is gonna happen. Family's fight all the time. And Leanne got in way over her head when she went up against Thomas. When she is better we will all get together for dinner and give offerings of peace to each other." she said chuckling some. "Long ago when inner family's feuded like this, the daddies of both sides would give their oldest son and youngest daughter to each other to marry to make the family stronger and to create a new blood line. That's how I met my late husband, Charlie's father. Oh he was the spitting image of his daddy. Oh, those were the days. But you have nothing to worry about. Everyone will apologize and we will be a family again." I hadn't noticed how close I was leaning in to her to listen.
"Did you love your husband?" I asked and she nodded slowly.
"Oh yes. Loved him until the cancer took him." she said lowly and softly. "Oh he made me very happy." I cracked a smile and she just smiled back and patted my hand gently. "And don't you mind Tomalyn." I crooked my head to the side.
"Tomalyn?" i asked and she nodded.
"Tom. You don't remember him much, but he played on the school yard with you and your brother. He was a pudgy boy with the fattest crush on you. But like Thomas he was shy and never confronted you." she explained. My eyes widened some at her and i grinned.
"What? You jest." i replied and she shook her head.
"No. He liked you more than the cookies his dad baked for him. But it doesn't matter now. Thomas likes you and if he think Tom is gonna move in on you... he's going to saw him in half." she teased, but for some reason, i couldn't help but take her words seriously. "But it's okay, after we make peace there will be no more fights." I just nodded.
"Yes ma'am." i replied.
We returned home and Charlie was sitting on the porch spitting into a cup.
"Well what happened, you all ain't got no clothes." he said.
"We didn't find anything. We will look next time." I said and he just muttered and waved me off and I just grinned and moved into the house. I moved up to my room and looked out the window. I could see Thomas in the barn, with two new men in the barn hanging on hooks. It seems while Luda Mae and I were having our girl time, Charlie and Thomas were having some male bonding time. I looked up at the sky and noticed how white and cloudy it looked. I wondered if we would get snow.