The months after their daughter's birth passed and it was now summer time. J.J. was enjoying working with young under privileged kids in a summer sports program, when a familiar biprop suddenly flew overhead, and swooped around coming in for a landing on the high school track where J.J. was working. "She's coming in for a landing, get off of the track, now!" J.J. called out to his summer football team.. The kids all ran off of the track and cheered as the plane landed and turned around at the end of the track, before the engine shut down and a woman in Uniform hopped out and removed a white scarf from around her flat topped Air force Dress Uniform hat that kept it in place while she flew.
"You're full of surprises today, Scarlet. What's up Sky Angel?" J.J. asked his wife with a beaming smile that faltered when he noticed the tears of rage in her eyes. He pulled her into his arms and held her as she broke down sobbing and clinging to him. "Scarlet, Angel, what's wrong? Is something wrong with the kids?" he asked as he tried to calm her down.
"No, Justin, it's my brother, T.J. My Dad finally decided to slink back home, and tried to kill my mother. T.J. got in the way and got shot." Scarlet said as she tried to regain control of herself.
"Oh, my god, is he?"
"No, he's not dead, but his arm is in a cast because the bullet ended up breaking the bones in his arm just below the bicep. He'll probably never play football again." Scarlet said giving her husband and I really need you right now kind of look.
"You want me to come with you to Houston, don't you?" J.J. asked already knowing the answer.
"Please Justin, I'm not sure that I'll be able to stop myself from killing the old bastard if he hurts mother or worse, kills T.J. or mother. I've left the kids with your mother, and have already cleared my flight plan with both airports, although I won't be landing at Bush or Hobby this time." Scarlet said as she tightened her scarf around her hat tighter and pulled her husband towards the plane.
"Coach Carter, this is going to take a while, can you handle things until I come back?' J.J. asked as he placed a Pirates ball cap onto his head and climbed into the back seat of the blame.
"I've got it, Justin. Go and take care of your family business." the other coach smiled as Scarlet started the plane's engine and started moving the plane forward while J.J. buckled himself in.
He had been in the plane with her before and had even flown it a few times with her guidance, but he had no idea that she could make the old biprop move as fast as it did into the air, and screamed out in shock when his hat was ripped from his head by the draft and narrowly missed catching it before it slid through his fingers. Scarlet didn't speak the entire trip, and he knew that she was fuming with rage. He dialed the Houston Police department on his mobile phone ducking as low as he could so that they could hear his voice over the wind that rushed past them, and ordered them to meet them at the Yates home giving them an estimated time of arrival, to go with as he checked their position on the GPS screen.
He looked down over familiar landscape and city buildings as they finally flew into Houston, and over the old neighborhood where they had both once lived, and then as they passed over the Yates home he heard her curse as she brought the plane back around and started to land it not caring at that point that her own father was standing over T.J. who was laying over his sobbing mother while his father raised a baseball bat over his head. "Suddenly J.J. heard her voice as she stood up and ordered him to land the plane , before she surprised him and leapt from the plane knocking her father to his face as she kicked him in the back with both feet.
As Scarlet's feet hit the ground her father got back up and was about to hit her with the bat not realizing who he was trying to hit or perhaps not giving a damned at that point and swinging anyway. In one quick motion she drew her saber from her belt of her uniform and slashed it cutting the wooden bat clean in two as if it was a hot knife through butter leaving the knobbed handle in her father's shocked grasp as she kicked the top of the bat away and pointed her sword at him . "Don't do it, dad, you really don't want to piss me off farther than you already have by going there and trying it again." Scarlet snarled as J.J. landed the plane and ran as the cops pulled up to stop them from potentially shooting his wife who now had her sword at her father's throat, and had his arm now twisted behind his back held in a brutal grasp with her Prosthetic arm.
"I think that you've done enough old man. First you reject me after I return home mangled, disfigured, and feeling broken, and then you try to take away my boys, my babies just the day after their birth. You beat the shit out of my mother, and then shoot, my brother, and try to kill my brother because he won't allow you to harm our mother anymore, and you just think that I'm just going to sit here and allow you to rip our family apart further than you already have. You need mental help, Old man." Scarlet raged as she forced her father to walk towards the waiting police and lowered her sword before holding him still for them to place handcuffs on and only released her bone crushing grasp once he was held firmly by two policemen .
"Mrs. Watt, do you wish to press charges?" one of the policemen asked.
"Yes, he has already had a charge of assault and battery, attempted murder, and arson. I think that he should face charges of spousal abuse, and another charge of assault with a deadly weapon, and attempted murder for his actions against my brother and my mother. I don't want him out until I have been shown the report that clearly states that he is mentally stable." Scarlet said as she knelt and helped her sobbing mother to her feet.
"Wait, Scarlet, baby girl! I didn't know that it was you. I'm sorry! Please forgive me!" her dad screamed as he was forced into the back of the squad car.
"Oh, a little over three years it takes you to recognize me, father. Very funny, ha, ha, I'm laughing. Get the mental help that you have needed for years, and show me a sign that you've changed or you can forget ever seeing me, mother, T.J. or my and Justin's children." Scarlet said coldly as she helped her brother to his feet and checked him over for injuries.
"You two are going to get yourselves on the first flight to Wisconsin. You both need a break from this place." Justin said calmly.
---0---
By the end of the month Justin and Scarlet had talked T.J. and his mother into moving to Wisconsin with them permanently, and since T.J. had been injured by his father to the point where he'd never be able to grip a football correctly again, he retired and took a job at the University of Wisconsin as their head football coach. Martha Yates, was enjoying her new life as well, watching her grandchildren grow up, and was equally thrilled when T.J. fell in love and soon married an English Professor that he had fallen hard for a year later. Regrettably Mr. Yates had never recovered his sanity and was forced to spend the rest of his life in the mental Unit of the Polansky Unit in Livingston Texas far from his now Ex-wife, his son, his daughter and her three soon to be four children with her husband Justin James Watt.
As For Justin and Scarlet, and their thus far three children J.J. Jr., John Tayler, and Angel Connie Watt, they spent the months that passed after Angel's second birthday awaiting the birth of what would prove to be another baby sister, that they named Skyla Margaret Watt. She was born on Christmas morning just before sunrise, and Scarlet laughed when the nurses handed her, the newest member of her ever growing family in a large red stocking with the baby's name on it. Life was as it was always meant to be, filled with laughter, love, and family, and J.J. considered himself to be the happiest and most lucky man in the world. How often could a man wish for a family filled with love, and have everything that he ever wanted handed to him in his lifetime? He didn't know , but as he held the youngest of his four children for the first time, he felt that it just couldn't get any better than this.
The End
YOU ARE READING
Free Fall
RomanceT.J. Yates or the Houston Texans has always been more than a bit over protective of his baby sister Scarlet Rose. The only problem is that instead of settling down and getting married to a nice guy, she prefers living her life on the edge as is pro...
