more than a whisper. As she watched the anger crash upon Robert’s face, Austin smiled, “Now there are some cupcakes over there, so why don’t you be a gentleman and try and not choke on one. Then come back and thank our little chef here,” she looked to Grace and smiled, she looked back over at Robert and was delighted with his expression. “Then you can leave, while being reminded that your words are absolutely futile on me.”
Everyone watched as Robert stormed off, slamming the door to his office behind him.
“Mommy,” Grace said looking to her mother with a sour expression. “I don’t like him. He’s so mean!”
“I know, baby, but not everyone is nice. You just need to know how to deal with them,” Austin told her daughter politely, kissed her forehead and looked at her husband. “Sorry, baby.”
“Don’t apologize, I love watching him get knocked down a notch or two.” Tyler smirked impressed. Tyler watched his wife as her face once full of thunder melted into its happy complexion. It might have taken time, but the woman before him was definitely the tenacious girl he had fallen in love with.
Chapter Five
“WHY do you look so pissed off?” Dean asked as he sat opposite his baby sister.
She looked to him and huffed before she quickly caved and told him what was wrong. “I’m just fed up with practically all of the Truman family,” Austin mumbled and reached out for her glass of wine. She had originally gotten it to relax, but right now, she was gulping it down with such haste she would make it to the bottom of the bottle before she knew it. “Grace and I took cakes down to the station earlier. Robert tried to touch Grace and I wouldn’t have any of it. He then turned around and told me how I have to live with the scars left from Natasha. As if I don’t know,” she scoffed and looked to her brother. “I mean, really, over more than three years and they’re still going on about all this?”
Dean smirked and shook his head. “They might still go on about it, but clearly they haven’t learned the all important thing here.”
“What’s that?” Austin asked as she looked at her brother and cocked an eyebrow, and pressed him to answer her.
“You’re not exactly the girl who came back to town are you?” he asked her rhetorically. “I mean, the Austin that came home was defeated. You were a ghost of yourself until Tyler was by your side and then it was like you were next to a livewire. The moment he was gone, you were too. Now,” he chuckled, casting a chaste gaze to his niece before looking back at his sister to continue, “Now, you’re strong and feisty, and you hold your own. You’re no one’s pushover and, Austin, you scare me the best of times.”
Austin could only smile impishly as he said that. She knew she had changed; the fire had done that to her. She might have been scarred, but she was more resilient, more prepared at fighting her own battles instead of admitting defeat. Of course, she was prone to those weak moments like no other, but it was easy to fight back to her happy state. Austin was more than the girl that Natasha had tried to destroy and that was why she was able to be so carefree and confident that Tyler would never stray. She knew, without a doubt, that Tyler loved her wholeheartedly and no one else.
“I was never a pushover for you,” Austin retorted and winked at him.
“Lies,” Dean muttered back at her sarcastically. “Big brother rule.”
Rolling her eyes, Austin realized that after telling her brother what was sitting so heavily on her shoulders, she no longer felt the need to drown the bottle of wine she had deliberately opened. “You know what I don’t get?” she suddenly asked in a quick burst. She looked over at her brother and just thought for a moment before speaking up. “Why Robert can’t see what a little bitch he brought up.”
“Daddy’s little girl.” Dean chuckled over the matter. “That man, unlike his
Learning to Kill: Stories