Page 29 of Love vs The Ooze Monster!
“Alright. But we are going to have to have a serious discussion about the future, very soon, Boyd. I mean it. I don’t like rushing forward without a plan.”
“Don’t worry, doll. I’ve got a plan.”
She shot him a skeptical look over her shoulder and went flouncing upstairs.
He’d wait for Mabel forever. …But he didn’t think he’d have to. She was barely kicking up a fuss over him ruining her sterling reputation. Knowing Mabel, that meant shewantedto stay with him. Otherwise, she’d be marching out the door, nose in the air. The prickly Miss Harrison had chosen Boyd over respectability.
Seemed like the woman was stuck on him, too.
Boyd smiled to himself and headed for the library. Usually, he would have taken a moment to appreciate the fact that hehada home with a library. There had been times in his life when he would have been thrilled to even have a home with a roof. At the moment, though, he was fully focused on reexamining his inheritance.
Boyd didn’t have enough books to fill the library shelves. Mostly just discards from the former owner.The Wonderful Wizard of Ozwas sitting alone in a place of honor on the middle shelf. He grabbed it up, switching on the light at the secondhand desk and sitting down to look over the battered tome.
Checking the date of publication, he saw that it was a first edition. This was the exact copy Lew had given Mabel for her tenth birthday. He was sure of it. Flipping to the inside cover he read, for the thousandth time, the inscrutable words Lew had written there:
To Boyd Cassiday,
I leave a heart, a brain, and courage, all wrapped in a tornado.
Provided he has the heart, the brain, and the courage to realize it.
Boyd drew in a deep breath and finally understood the magnitude of his inheritance.
Mabel.
Lew had given him Mabel.
She was the “big job” that Lew had been planning to unveil. She was the “tornado” he warned they’d need to get past at the Valentine’s party. She was “the heart, brains and courage” Volstead’s very own wizard was offering. Mabel was the most valuable thing in Lew’s life and the person he loved most …And he’d left her to Boyd Cassiday.
Boyd closed his eyes as emotions poured through him. Relief and gratitude and possession and happiness and fifty other feelings he didn’t even have names for.
Mabel washis. It was right there in black-and-white!
Her father had placed her in Boyd’s care. That was as good as a wedding ring, as far as he was concerned. Mabel had been entrusted to him with purpose and intention. Out of everyone on Earth, Lew had chosen Boyd, because he knew Boyd would recognize the value of the gift.
And he did.
Boyd and Lew were alike in a lot of superficial ways. They had both been born poor. They had both scrambled up the ladder of the Volstead underworld. They both loved fast cars, and flashed easy smiles, and had a talent for gambling. Lew had talked to him about all of that. But mostly he spoke of deeper things. The shit thatreallymade them the same. They’d both lived through violence and poverty and darkness that should have killed them.
And they both knew Mabel Harrison was thereasonthey’d survived it.
Having her gave their fucked-up lives meaning. Some force had gotten them through, so they’d be around to protect her. To love her. To make her smile. She was the reason the whole goddamn world kept turning for them.
Lew had asked Boyd so many questions about the war and his life on the docks. He’d watched closely and made sure Boyd would be worthy. And he must have decided that Boyd measured up. It was the highest compliment Boyd could ever be given. The biggest show of trust. When Lew was nearing the end, he made sure someone would be there to keep his daughter safe. Someone who got that she wasit.
Mabel belonged to Boyd, now. Or maybe he belonged to her.
Either way, the woman was safely ensconced in his bed, and there was no force on the planet that could take her away. For a kid who’d come up with nothing, Boyd suddenly possessed a treasure.
He slammed the book shut and reached for the phone set up on the desk. “VO-933.” He told the operator who answered. It took him several minutes to connect to his new top lieutenant. “Vince? Rico’s turned on me and I’m going to kill him. That means, you’re promoted.”
“Oh.” Vince’s half-awake voice yawned. “Okay. Thanks, boss.”
“Get Charlie over to my house. I want it guarded.”
“Charlie’s watching Miss Mabel’s place. You said you always wanted eyes on the boardinghouse, just in case somebody came at her.”
“Mabel’s with me, now.”
