The Rented Mule Read online

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2014 Bobby Cole

  All rights reserved.

  Biblical verse on page 7 from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  ISBN-13: 9781477808603

  ISBN-10: 1477808604

  This book is dedicated to all of my friends and family in Montgomery, Alabama. It was a fine place to grow up.

  CONTENTS

  Start Reading

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  CHAPTER 71

  CHAPTER 72

  CHAPTER 73

  CHAPTER 74

  CHAPTER 75

  CHAPTER 76

  CHAPTER 77

  CHAPTER 78

  CHAPTER 79

  CHAPTER 80

  CHAPTER 81

  CHAPTER 82

  CHAPTER 83

  CHAPTER 84

  CHAPTER 85

  CHAPTER 86

  CHAPTER 87

  CHAPTER 88

  CHAPTER 89

  CHAPTER 90

  CHAPTER 91

  CHAPTER 92

  CHAPTER 93

  CHAPTER 94

  CHAPTER 95

  CHAPTER 96

  CHAPTER 97

  CHAPTER 98

  CHAPTER 99

  CHAPTER 100

  CHAPTER 101

  CHAPTER 102

  CHAPTER 103

  CHAPTER 104

  CHAPTER 105

  CHAPTER 106

  CHAPTER 107

  CHAPTER 108

  CHAPTER 109

  CHAPTER 110

  CHAPTER 111

  CHAPTER 112

  CHAPTER 113

  CHAPTER 114

  CHAPTER 115

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

  The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from among you.

  DEUTERONOMY 17:7 NIV

  CHAPTER 1

  1ST FRIDAY

  Cooper Dixon was gently roused from an exhaustive sleep by the warm hand running down the top of his bare leg. Lying on his side, he blinked several times to adjust his eyes. With blurred vision, Cooper could see the dim glow of the alarm clock in the pitch black. 3:33 a.m. A sudden wave of anxiety washed over him as he tried to remember where he was. His business required that he travel frequently, and he often awoke in the middle of the night, confused. The major difference this time was the warm inviting hand, tenderly touching him. Cooper feigned being asleep, enjoying the gentle touch. He rolled over and eased his hand down her bare back and then slowly across her firm thighs. His touch was warmly received. She responded, hungrily. Pushing him back over, her dark hair spilled onto his face as she climbed on top, passionately kissing his neck. He could hear, “Cooper, Cooper.”

  “Cooper!” a raspy, older female voice yelled. “Your wife’s on hold! Do you hear me? I said, Kelly’s on hold.”

  Cooper slightly raised his head from his arm and looked around his office. He exhaled deeply and tried to focus.

  “Ugh… yes ma’am, put her through.”

  The electronic ringing of the telephone helped transport Cooper back to the agony of his daily life. This was the second time in two weeks that he had fallen asleep at his desk. Passed out is a better description. Exhaustion was setting in with a vengeance. He leaned forward to activate the speakerphone.

  “Hello,” he answered, and then cleared his throat.

  “Am I on speakerphone?” asked Cooper’s wife, instantly agitated.

  “Yep,” he said, letting out another deep breath.

  “Pick up, dammit!” she snapped.

  Cooper grudgingly raised the handset.

  “Yes, dear?” He asked with no small amount of sarcasm.

  “Cut the crap, Cooper! I need you to run some errands. I don’t have the time. Millie’s blood pressure’s botherin’ her, so she didn’t show up, again,” Kelly said with urgency. She must be tired from a long day shopping, he thought.

  “Is she okay? Do I need to go check on her?” he asked as he leaned forward.

  As the longtime family housekeeper, Millie was getting up in years. She had helped raise Cooper, and he considered her family.

  “No, she says she’s all right, she always is. You gotta run some errands.”

  “Fine. What do ya need?” he asked, unenthusiastically, picking up a pen. He loathed running errands.

  “Get the dry cleaning. There should be six shirts and two dresses. Be sure and count them, and pick up two bottles of good red wine. Then I need you to get the party trays from the country club. They’re expecting you. I have the planning meeting tonight here at the house for Alexandra Von Wyle’s daughter’s bridal tea next month. I happily agreed to host this tea, which will be the biggest social event of the year. Everybody who is anybody will be here, including the editor of Southern Living magazine, and it will be at my house. I’m so excited. Oh yeah… get yourself and Ben something to eat… I’m not gonna dirty the kitchen, and there isn’t much here to eat anyway,” she explained excitedly.

  Cooper exhaled deeply. “Does this deal gotta be so extravagant?”

  “You don’t have any idea about these things. Let me handle them, okay? Now hurry home. There’s still a lot of things I need you to help with in order to have the house ready by seven,” she added.

  “What about Piper?”<
br />
  “She’s spending the night with a friend. Don’t be late.”

  “Okay, fine. Bye,” he replied and hung up the phone before she could give him any more instructions. He knew this event was going to eventually turn into a big headache for him. Lots of yard work, maybe some remodeling. Some rich blue blood gets engaged, and I get a month of grief, complete with an inch-high stack of bills.

  Cooper stared out the window and then down at his desk calendar and realized for the second time that it was a beautiful late August Friday afternoon and he was stuck. Stuck at work. Stuck with an unhappy wife. The only positive was that Piper and Ben were full of excitement that the new school year had started. He knew they weren’t typical kids and he loved them for it, but he dreaded going home. His life and wife were driving him crazy. Things weren’t exactly going as planned.

  For most of his thirty-six years, he had done the right things. He cruised through high school, struggled through college at Auburn, and managed to marry his college sweetheart. They had two great kids. Ben at eight was so much fun. Cooper coached his baseball team, and Ben loved to hunt and fish, so they spent a lot of time together. Piper was a teenager, and he could easily see her growing need for independence. Everyone had warned him about the stage she was about to enter, and he dreaded it. Cooper had already decided she wasn’t dating until she was twenty-one. Not really, but it made her nuts to hear him say it. The kids were by far the best things in his life; they’re what drove him to be successful. Like most parents, he would do anything for them.

  Cooper’s perception was that Kelly had changed since the kids were born; she had gone from being his lover to being a mother. He realized that this was a natural progression, but nonetheless, he missed the old days. Kelly had moved on to her motherly and social duties and never looked back at Cooper, except for funding. She could spend everything he made, oftentimes before he ever made it. She had an image that she wanted to maintain, and Cooper was her ticket.

  When they met at college, Kelly was simple and genuine. She was from a small town in Bullock County, Alabama, where her dad grew tomato plant seedlings and she helped after school and during breaks. Now, she spent all of her energy trying to be the socialite hostess for Montgomery’s elite. Cooper missed the modest small-town girl he’d fallen in love with and often wished that they lived in a quaint little town, without all the societal distractions. Feeling frustrated and tired of arguing all of the time, he woke up earlier, stayed later at work, and basically buried himself in his career.

  Cooper Dixon was an owner of a successful ad design group in Montgomery, Alabama, called the Tower Advertising Agency. Actually, he owned only 30 percent, while a college buddy by the name of Gates Ballenger owned the remaining percentage.

  Gates came from old Montgomery money. His father had reluctantly loaned the young men the money to start the business, knowing that Gates needed Cooper’s sales skills to make it viable.

  They formed a limited liability corporation with Gates having a controlling interest, which was of paramount importance to him; Cooper had a piece, but all of the daily headaches. Not paying attention to the formalities, Cooper considered himself an equal partner and did significantly more than his 30 percent of the work. Kelly Dixon got one of the things she wanted—the status that accompanied being married to a successful, independent business owner. Even Gates’s two ex-wives were pleased with the arrangement.

  Cooper would have been happy with a small office, in an old home rezoned for business, tucked quietly in a neighborhood, but Gates and Kelly insisted that they have a prominent address downtown in the prestigious RSA Tower. Their offices were on the eighth floor and cost more per month than Cooper cared to consider. He did, however, enjoy his view of the Alabama River and the baseball complex for the city’s minor league team. Now, realizing he should have pushed for a larger ownership share and an equal vote in the key business decisions, Cooper stayed frustrated but worked harder and longer hours than ever.

  Gates was city slick, always scheming something. Cooper hadn’t really been bothered by this trait until the last few years of their working relationship.

  Just recently, Gates had successfully lobbied a local bank to purchase the Tower Agency and the sale was near completion, pending the final year-end numbers. The buyer had been very pleased with the agency’s campaigns for the bank and was looking to diversify its holdings. The bank was willing to pay—cash—four times the agency’s earnings. Gates was really pressuring Cooper to increase monthly ARs, suggesting they take clients who they never would have handled before. Cooper didn’t want to sell, but he didn’t have any choice. This company had been his life for almost ten years, and their twelve employees had been more loyal than family. Kelly wanted to sell simply because Cooper stood to walk away with almost a million dollars and hopefully a cushy monthly retainer for at least the next twelve months. It was not enough for Cooper to retire on, but not a bad payday either. Cooper secretly wanted the money too. He had a dream.

  Gates was focused on nothing but the money, and it was making Cooper crazy. He had all but abandoned Cooper during the last two months as he positioned the agency for the big sale.

  Cooper stood and then walked over to the small refrigerator he had in the corner of his office. It contained a dozen or so small six-ounce bottles of Mexican-made Coca-Colas that Cooper regularly imported through a friend. Popping off the cap, a tired and frustrated Cooper sat down on the corner of his desk and stared blankly out the window, thinking about the property he wanted to buy, his Promised Land.

  The property was perfect. It was exactly what he had always wanted with seven hundred rolling acres of hardwoods and old-growth pines mixed with some hay fields. It was a turkey hunter’s heaven. He dreamed of building a cabin overlooking a pond and managing the property for wildlife—his true life’s passion. It would be his retreat from the daily pressures, plus it was a solid investment. He had an option on the property to hold it until he could put the financing together, if he could, which was a big if. The option was about to expire, and he cringed knowing he would have to tell Kelly soon. Tell her or ask her, he wondered. Either way it wasn’t going to be pleasant. The money from the sale of the agency would make it work though, if he could invest it before she spent it.

  Gazing down at the snaking Alabama River, he wondered about the woman in his dream. Since she wasn’t Kelly, his subconscious was playing with fire, fueled by several months of her increasingly intense comments and glances, making his vivid imagination run wild. It had surprised him and even felt good to have been the recipient of such attention. She made him pay more attention to how he dressed and acted. She made him feel young and alive. He wondered if she was just flirting or actually wanted more. Wishful thinking. The thought made him smile.

  Cooper switched off the lights in his office as he headed out to complete his ubiquitous honey-do list.

  CHAPTER 2

  Stretching her legs, Brooke Layton eased her tanned feet through the sand until her toes popped up into the bright afternoon sunshine. She noticed her toenails needed painting. Upstairs in the condo, she had a bottle of hot pink nail polish. She planned on painting them later that night, after she and her son returned from playing miniature golf. Leaning her head back on her lounge chair, Brooke tried to relax, but kept wondering what her life would be like if her father had not lost his fortune. It would certainly be more comfortable than being a working, single mother.

  The sky was an intense blue with an occasional white puffy cloud blocking the sun. The sand was sugar white, and the water was calm and foamy green as it lapped lazily at the beach. Brooke couldn’t really afford to go to the beach this weekend, but her son Grayson had begged, and she gave in without much resistance. She had borrowed a friend’s beach condo for a much-needed long weekend.

  She slowly rubbed suntan oil on her arms and legs, paying careful attention to her upper thighs—they never seem to get enough sun. Just a few chairs away, a middle-aged wife sharply
elbowed her husband for enjoying the scene just a little too much.

  Brooke tried to take care of herself and was constantly dieting and exercising in an effort to stay in shape. She dressed to accentuate her assets. The shapely brunette had always enjoyed men staring. Brooke had a certain electric attraction about her. But you would never know that behind the dark sunglasses, the outwardly confident Brooke Layton was deeply frustrated with her life. It was missing something, and she knew all too well what it was.

  From the beginning, Brooke had tried admirably to make the marriage work. She had read books and magazines, wanting to believe they could have a perfect marriage. Since the first night of their honeymoon, she sensed something wasn’t right and that something really important was absent. The longer their marriage dragged on, the more apparent her husband’s true colors became, and she realized that marrying him had been a colossal mistake. Staying married was an even bigger screw-up. After four years they divorced in what was a bloody legal mess. Four and a half years later, the chaos continued, leaving her in a constant state of raging emotions.

  She held her head high and made no apologies for ending the marriage. Her sole focus was her son and his welfare. She felt that she could handle anything. Almost anything, she thought.

  The problem was that her ex-husband had never accepted the divorce and hadn’t moved on with his life. He hadn’t even thought of moving on. He regularly stalked her, but was smart enough not to cross any legal lines… or at least ones that she would notice. At first he wanted nothing to do with their son, but in the last few years he had petitioned the courts for joint custody, mostly just to harass Brooke. So, now, every other weekend Brooke had to see him and he did his best to upset Grayson in some demented, desperate attempt to work his way back into her life.

  Only Brooke knew the truth of her ex’s dangerous side. She was certain that he was a sociopath, and he displayed symptoms of various mental disorders: bipolar, split personality, and last but certainly not least was multiple personality disorder. He had eventually admitted to her that he required medication after she threatened to club him with a tee ball bat.