Crazy

Prologue

Haden

I never went to the bar on a Thursday. It just wasn’t me, but I was having a bad night. My girl left me and I was tired of life in general. You look like you could use a stiff one. The old man sitting next to me chuckled before signaling the bartender.

You could say that. Smirking I shifted in my seat a little. Names Haden. Haden Montgomery. Holding out my hand I waited for him to tell me his name.

Bart. Bart Cooper. He smiled shaking my hand.

Nice to meet you, Bart. The bartender finally made his way over and I ordered a whiskey neat. There was a football game on behind the bar. It was early November and the air outside was crisp.

Good to meet ya. He nodded thoughtfully. You wanna tell me about it?

My girl left me. Said she couldn’t take it anymore. I’m not the same as I was before. My night terrors wake her up every night, and I get confused.

Ahhh, you have that PTSD stuff. He nodded like it was obvious. I shrugged. No marine wanted to admit that they were broken, that they were weak. That’s what it was, right? A weakness. I would have rather lost a limb than go through what I’d been going through for the last several months. I was medically discharged from the marines because of it. I was still trying to figure out what life held for me after the war. I saw a lot of good men lose it from that condition.

You a military man? I asked not surprised in the least. Bart seemed a little rough around the edges. His gray beard was a little grizzled and his silver eyes held a wisdom that I could only hope to have one day.

I’ve seen it all, kid. He chuckled. You don’t get to be as old as me and not know a thing or two.

I bet you’ve seen it all, I replied wistfully. I always wanted to see the world. It was one of the reasons I’d enlisted in the military. The only place I’d ended up seeing was that damn desert.

You definitely see a lot being in two separate wars, he agreed. Man, you should have seen the look on my parents’ stuffy faces when I told them I enlisted. I thought they were going to blow a gasket.

Old Bart was eighty and he looked like he was having the same issues. Women trouble and night terrors, we were quite a pair, so when the game was over I looked at him. His eyes sparkled as we talked about everything under the sun.

My first wife, oh how I loved that woman. I thought she felt the same, but when I came home from the war I found out she was shacking up with my best friend. She just couldn’t handle the life of a military spouse, I guess, he said as we talked about our own pasts. We had a lot in common, I’d just come back from Afghanistan a couple months before. He had served in both Vietnam and the Cold War. It was humbling to see an old man who still loved life the way old Bart clearly did.

We talked for hours about everything and nothing. Finally, around two a.m. the bartender came over.

Last call, he said gruffly. We were both pretty close to three sheets to the wind but we each ordered a final beer. "God’s great. Beer is good, and people are crazy." I recognized the words to the Billy Currington song right away. We clinked our bottles together and finished our beers, those last words running through my head on an endless loop as I made my way home. Bart was right about one thing. People are crazy.

Chapter One

Haden

Five years later…

A fist pounding on glass woke me up from a dead sleep. I’d managed to keep my car even after everything else was gone. I’d parked it with no gas in a superstore parking lot which is where I slept most nights. The years hadn’t been good to me. I’d lost everything after my girl left. I could barely be out in public because any kind of loud noise had the flashbacks coming. I woke up once with my boss’s throat in my hands squeezing. It was the last straw and I’d gotten fired. I tried to convince myself that it was just a dumb construction job and that I could get another job no problem. Six months later I’d been fired twelve times and was officially evicted from my apartment. The only thing I owned outright was my ’68 Camaro. That was where I was currently being woken up. A man in a suit stood outside looking absolutely disgusted with me. Pshh. I couldn’t give two shits what the arrogant asshole thought of me. Rolling down the window, I looked up at the man. What do you want? I grunted.

Are you Haden Montgomery? he asked with an upturned nose.

Who wants to know? He shoved a picture in my face. It was a newspaper clipping of an obituary. I barely recognized the old man’s face staring back at me. A fuzzy memory of the night Tammy broke up with me rose to the surface, and it made me sad. That old man had been the best conversation I’d had outside my brothers in the Marine Corps.

He’s dead? I don’t understand. Why are you looking for me, then?

It seems that he left everything he owned to you. The man sniffed the air, scowling at the smell. I had no doubt he was smelling me, and whatever he smelled wasn’t exactly pleasant.

Wait, what? I sat up so fast that I smacked my head on the roof of the car and grabbed at it when the dull pain pulsed in my skull.

Mr. Cooper left the entirety of his estate to one Haden Montgomery. We have been looking for you for months. He looked like he was anything but happy he’d found me.

What do you mean? I asked still not understanding.

I mean that the heir to the Cooper fortune is currently living in his car in the middle of a superstore parking lot. He sneered.

Well excuse the hell out of me. At least I’m not living in the tent city by the river. I raised an eyebrow at him.

I’m forever in your debt for that, he said sardonically.

So what do I have to do? Where is Bart’s stuff? I asked not fully grasping what the man in the suit was telling me.

His stuff is in his house, which also now belongs to you, the suit said as if I were an idiot. Maybe I was an idiot. Men in suits didn’t track down homeless veterans for boxes of knickknacks.

Wait… how much are we talking here? I asked as panic started overtaking me. Why the fuck would Bart trust his estate to a guy he had a conversation in a bar with five years before? Was he crazy? Something he’d said that night flitted through my mind. People are crazy… Shit. Bart was right. People were crazy and he was the craziest sonofabitch on the planet.

Millions, the suit said and I caught my breath.

He didn’t have any family? That couldn’t be right. I remembered him talking about kids and grandkids. Why did he leave it to me?

His will states that they were all spoiled and money hungry. He wanted to leave it to someone who wasn’t… vapid, as he put it.

Holy shit, I breathed. How was it that a chance encounter had made me, a broken-ass marine and homeless veteran, millions of dollars. It didn’t make sense.

If you would come with me, we can get papers signed and you can read the letter that Mr. Cooper left for you… after you shower and burn those clothes.

What about my car? I asked not willing to get rid of the only thing that was actually mine.

Your car? he asked with distaste as he looked over the vehicle.

Yes, I want my car. I raised an eyebrow.

Fine, give me the keys and we will have it towed to the estate. He waved a hand in dismissal.

Fine. Let’s do this. I opened the door to the car. His lip snarled probably at the smell and for the first time, I noticed the black town car waiting a few spaces over.

Yes, let’s.

Chapter Two

Gabriella

Did you see what she wore to the premiere? Natasha giggled.

Her hips are way too wide for something like that. Whoever was dressing her should be fired. Her stylist is awful.

Natasha gasped, then giggled. Gabby. That was a terrible thing to say.

It’s true and you know it. We were sitting down after just having lunch as we waited for the server to come back with my credit card. It was one of the trendiest restaurants in the city, and I’d already seen a couple of B list celebrities in there having lunch.

The waiter came back with a worried frown on his face. I’m sorry, miss, your card has been declined. Do you happen to have another card you can use?

What? I all but shrieked. What do you mean declined? That’s not possible. Reaching in my wallet, I pulled out another card and handed it to him. It was mere minutes before he came back shaking his head. The scandalized look Natasha gave me had me cringing. What the hell was going on? I needed to find out, like immediately. Natasha pulled out a card and handed it to the waiter, but the damage had already been done. I could hear the whispers and see all the people at nearby tables staring at my humiliation. I wanted to cringe away and hide in embarrassment, but I was a Cole and I’d been trained to never show weakness. If Mother heard that I’d been weak in front of the it crowd, she would flay me alive.

Pulling out my phone, I thought it was weird that it said no service in the middle of Hollywood, but shrugged it off. Maybe the restaurant was in a dead zone. Is your phone working?

She pulled her phone out and showed me that it had full bars. Something really strange was happening and I needed to find out what it was. I need to go talk to Mom, I grumbled getting up from the table and walking out to my car.

The drive up to the Hollywood Hills didn’t take long, but the farther I got the more confused I was. What the hell was going on? Were Mom and Dad bankrupt? It didn’t make any sense. Mom came from old money and there had always been plenty. What was I gonna do if they were? I had no skills and hadn’t even gone to college. Pulling into the gate at the family estate, I was filled with dread at what I saw there. There were moving trucks outside. Men were taking furniture and things to the trucks. All the air rushed out of me when I saw my mom yelling animatedly at the movers. This was not good. The ever-stoic and proper Linda Cooper never screamed at people. It wasn’t ladylike. She came from a time of sophisticated elegance and did her best to instill those same qualities in me. It was one of the reasons that I never learned any functional skills. She said women of my upbringing weren’t meant to work. We were meant to marry well and take care of the home and host dinner parties and do charity work. Anything else would have been an embarrassment to the family. I’d always rolled my eyes at that but followed her wishes. Now, it was looking like I was completely screwed.

Mom? What the hell is going on? I asked as I got out of my car.

Gabriella, watch your language, she admonished shaking her head. Even in the midst of chaos she wanted me to be a lady.

Mom, I was just humiliated in one of the trendiest restaurants in town.

She gasped. Oh my goodness, baby, what happened? Tears started to prick at my eyes.

My card was declined. Natasha had to pay for my lunch and everyone was whispering and staring. What is going on? Why aren’t my cards or my phone working?

Grandpa’s will. He cut us all out of his will and gave everything to some man I’ve never heard of.

He did what? It was too absurd to believe. Grandpa Bart had always been slightly off, but doing something like this was just plain wrong. How could he do that to us?

"It hadn’t been a problem until now. The private investigator the lawyer hired found him