“What’chu mean,Mama?”
“I mean, I ask you what Bull wanted, and you tell me nothing, ’cause you think you’re protecting me from worrying about Bull’snonsense.”
Slade grabbed a cookie from the table and shoved it whole into his mouth before answering. “Not sure I know what you mean,Mama.”
“Slade?” Her sharp voice let him know she meant business. He’d caught hell one time too many as a kid to not heed the warning that came with thatsound.
“Mama, Bull is threatening to sell off Venus. In order to save it, I have to get Mandisa to sell me hercompany.”
Mama Indy shook her head and folded her arms across her chest, another sign that she wasn’t pleased with Slade’s behavior. “Please tell me you didn’t bring that nice girl down here under false pretenses. I know I raised you better than that,Slade.”
“Mama, Mandisa is here because I want her to be. The business thing is important, but it’ssecondary.”
She squinted her eyes as she watched him carefully, measuring his truthfulness, looking for his tells. When she appeared satisfied Slade was being truthful she leaned forward and placed a weathered brown hand overhis.
“Bull has taken a lot from you, Slade. He’s always forced you to play his game to get the things you deserve. Don’t let Mandisa be another thing that you lose tohim.”
The sweet drink in Slade’s mouth turned bitter with her warning. He closed his eyes for a moment, and a highlight reel of Bull’s transgressions against Slade played on a loop. Bull’s treatment of his natural mother while she was alive, her subsequent death resulting from that ill-treatment, and the most recent loss,Macy.
“Slade, be careful.” Mama Indy’s voice pulled him out of the deluge of memories flooding hismind.
“I already told you I wouldn’t let him near Mandisa,” Sladeanswered.
The older woman shook her head and continued. “I’m not talking about your daddy, Slade. I’m talking about you. You have a tendency to rush into things, things that aren’t necessarily right for you. You see something, and you don’t stop until it’s yours. That quality can be a good thing. But it can also hurt you if you never take the time to ask yourself if you should be chasing the thing in yoursights.”
Slade couldn’t deny her statement. He had run in head first in several situations without thinking about the consequences. And he’d suffered tremendously everytime.
“You’re the best judge of character I know, Mama. Are you saying you don’t think I should try to see where this thing goes with Mandisa andme?”
She stood up and gathered his face into her soft hands, leaning down to press a loving kiss to his forehead. It was her way of soothing him. As a child when he’d scraped a knee, or Bull had done something to send Slade away in tears, she’d always console him by granting him a warm kiss on the forehead. It was his signal that everything was going to be allright.
“That young lady is not Macy. She may be here about business, but she’s here for youtoo.”
He laughed quietly, her motherly adoration the remedy to the dark thoughts beginning to swirl in his head. “How could you possibly know that, Mama? You’ve spent less than a handful of hours withher.”
The matron waved a dismissive hand at Slade and walked over to the kitchen counter. “If you know what you’re looking for, it don’t take a whole lot of time to get to know folks. The fact that Mandisa doesn’t take her eyes off you when you’re in the same room tells me she’s more concerned with you than any business deal. She tracks you across a room, watches you hard when she thinks you’re not looking. Her face lights up with just the sound of yourvoice.”
Mama Indy turned away from him, grabbed a knife from the counter top, and began slicing vegetables in preparation for their eveningmeal.
“You know what else I notice?” she asked. Her voice was filled with just enough mirth to know whatever her observation, it was going to be at his expense. “I notice that you do the same thing. Watch her when you think no one is looking, light up like a Christmas tree when you hear that gal’s voice. Macy didn’t do that for you, or to you. Macy only lit up when you pulled something new out of a box forher.”
If that ain’t thetruth.
“Mama, things are still very new with Mandisa, and they’re complicated by business matters. I don’t know where it’s going. Hell, it may not go anywhere. Her home is a four-hour plane ride away from here. I know I like her. I also like spending time with her. That’s all I plan to do while she’s here. As for Bull, I won’t give him the opportunity to destroythis.”
Mama Indy stopped chopping vegetables long enough to look over her shoulder at Slade. Her face was weathered by time, and there was a weariness about her eyes that made the son in him worry for hismama.
“It’s always disturbed me how easily Bull could hate his own child. I did my best to protect you as a boy. So did your grandma. But no matter what we did, we still couldn’t stop that man from hurting you. He’s a hateful man, Slade. Just be careful. He’s mean. If he can’t get to you, he won’t have a problem going afterher.”
Every word she’d just spoken was absolute truth. Bull was an evil old man who’d do anything to get his way. It wouldn’t do to take him lightly, not with Mandisa’s wellbeing hanging in thebalance.
“I’m working it out, Mama. I’ve already got Aaron working on something for me. I can protect Mandisa. I’m just not so certain about LoganIndustries.”
“That business ain’t worth your soul, Slade.” She shook the knife in the air, punctuating each word with a hard jab as she spoke. “Don’t lose your soul to the devil trying to save a thing. Whenever you’re ready to not be at Bull’s mercy, you just need to speak the words, and it’ll be over. Until then, I’m scared you’re fighting a losing battle,son.”
His blood began to boil when he thought about it. Slade had been playing Bull’s game since he was a child, and he’d yet to definitively win. He’d thrown the old man a few times, had even managed to win by default. But never, not once in all their years of battling, had Slade delivered a knockout that would leave his father destroyed. And if Slade was honest, that was what he really wanted—Bull defeated and devastated. Just the way he’d left Slade for all theseyears.
“I know you think I can just let this go, but I can’t,” Slade replied. “You and Aaron keep telling me to let it go, but it’s my legacy that old buzzard is trying todestroy.”
“Your legacy is what you make it, baby. That business does not define the beautiful boy I raised. It doesn’t begin to represent the fine man you’ve become. The reason Bull is always able to win is because he goads you into being something you aren’t. I’m not saying to give up, or to stop fighting him. I’m saying fight him your way, nothis.”
