Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Alexandra felt beautiful tonight. The way she was being stared at was nerve-wracking because both women and men stared at her like she was a slice of chocolate cake. Dusty had kept his promise to stay by her side throughout the dinner engagement, and she couldn't have been more happy. Well, she could have, but Dusty asked her out first.

Alexandra knew that she was in love with Locke. She had been there from the moment he first opened the door to her all those weeks ago. Had it only been three? She couldn't believe how lucky she'd been to have to stay in the mansion with him, but she honestly didn't know if she could stay around and be so much in love with him at the same time. It was killing her not to be able to tell him her thoughts and feelings. She needed to know what he felt about her. Was it love from him, too? Did he find her to be a pesky woman? Nagging at him, she'd caught herself doing it so that he'd care right for himself, but was that what he saw?

"Are you all right? You looked sad there for a few minutes." She told Dusty that she was a little overwhelmed. "Yeah, I can understand that. I usually go to these things by myself or with one of my brothers. Not that I don't love having you here with me; it's been nice to have you at my side, but I never realized what one of these things could look like to someone new."

"There are so many people here." He nodded, and he pulled two glasses of champagne off a tray as it moved by them. "You're very handy to have around. I couldn't get anyone to stop for me at the start, and now I've just given up on eating anything. How about you find one of the food staff and get me a couple of those green and black things." He told her what it was. "Never mind. I don't do caviar."

Like all his brothers, Dusty was a nice man. Even when one of the guests had nearly leapt in his arms, he was able to get her to behave herself as he handed her off to her husband. Smooth, she thought. A smooth worker.

The two of them had no trouble finding food that they could both enjoy. It was fun asking each other what color appetizer they wanted to try next. He reminded her again that dinner was going to be served in small portions, so they tried to fill up their bellies with what they started calling pre-food. When they were finally called to dinner, she was thankfully seated next to Dusty and not across from him like a lot of other dates and spouses did. Mimicking his every move to get the napkin out of the ring, she wanted to yell to the table and ask them why they had to make that so complicated.

"Dinner is seven courses." She looked at the woman next to her and smiled. "Seven courses to have a meal. I'm more of a put it on my plate and leave me to pick what I want next on it. My name is Madam Gloria Roseville. And who might you be? Before you answer that, I want to know how you got that young man to come here with you as a date?"

She wasn't sure how to answer that, so she was truthful by telling her that he'd asked her. Gloria laughed, not at all dainty-like like, and told her she was sorry. It took her a few minutes to tell her what she'd meant by saying that.

"All those Erikson brothers are good-looking men. There's not one skeleton in their closet, either. I checked. Other than them leaving home when they were well old enough to and leaving behind their abusive father, they're saints." Alexandra looked at Dusty as he was telling the man across from him how the futures looked. She hadn't any idea what that was about but looked at Gloria again. "But you're in love with one of the others."

"What did you say?" Gloria speared a small piece of lettuce along with a cherry tomato at what looked to her like a skimpy salad they were serving all of them from the same plate. She did the same, getting a couple of the black olives that were on the tray as well. "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm sorry."

"Which one of them do you love, Alex? I may call you that, can't I?" She nodded, and before she could tell the elderly woman anything she started with Dusty in naming the brothers that she had come to love too. Then, she mentioned Locke. "Ah, so that's the young man that has taken your heart. He's the best of the lot if you ask me. When I had a cold last year, Martha insisted that I have him have a look at me. He listened to my heart a couple of times before he had my nurse call an ambulance. I had double pneumonia and wasn't getting treated for it. My nurse was fired by me so I could have my staff call for someone for me to be taken in. She and that quack doctor of mine was trying to heal my ‘common cold,' he called it, by using green teas and some other god-awful concoctions that tasted like field grass and honey. Needless to say, I got better almost immediately."

"I'm so glad that he was there to help you out." She looked around the table and noticed that no one was paying them any mind. "I do love Locke, but I've only just met him, so that might be all it is." Gloria shook her head, knocking her larger-than-life head dressing off and to the floor. "Careful there, ma'am. You don't want any of those pins to come loose and stab you. They look very sharp."

"I only wore that thing so that I could grab the attention of the host. I was hoping if she thought me addled, she'd stop inviting me to these boring dinners. She has them monthly, and each time, I wear a more extravagant hat and dress. Just look at my dress. Who wears pink and green paisley nowadays? Just me, I think. Oh well. Better try harder next time." They gossiped the two of them about the people around the table with them before the final course. Some kind of bright pink gelatin thing bounced on her plate and then to the tablecloth. She was, of course, mortified, and Gloria got the giggles.

The two of them were walking around after the dinner and talking about Martha's passing when it was time to talk and mingle. Then, they spoke about her stupid son, and that was when she told the elderly woman that he was her father, too.

"I'm so sorry. I shouldn't be blabbing my mouth about…Do forgive me, child. I never meant to insult your genealogy." Alex told her that it was just fine as she didn't care for him either. He was a mean person and drank too much. His wife wasn't all that different from her spouse. "Yes, well, I have known him a good deal longer than you have. William would never pass a bottle that he didn't have his lips around and food? Oh my, he could put that away too. I swear to you, the man had a hollow leg, and that's where he stored food for later."

"He and his family were at the reception that Locke had had at the house after the funeral. I saw him going through the line several times. I know that it's there to be eaten, but people weren't getting their first plate full, and he was in line again." Gloria nodded and told her that it sounded just like him. "I don't know him all that well. I know that my mom didn't care for him all that much, but she never talked about him unless I would bring him up. She was smart, my mom, keeping records of all my medical bills when I was growing up, as well as every time she had to take him to court for unpaid support for me. He'd pay a couple of times, then blow it off. The money would have come in handy when I was a child, but we could get by. I know that he's fathered several children that are about my age and skipped out on them as well."

The two of them had a wonderful evening. Dusty would talk to them as well, but he was wonderful at introducing her to everyone who came by. Mrs. Roseville, too. And when the elderly lady wanted to leave, Dusty escorted her out to her awaiting car and kissed her on the cheek. She thought that he was the most romantic man she'd ever met and told him that when he came back to her.

"Thank you, my dear, but it's not me. It's Locke who is romantic. He could…never mind. That was a dirty limerick, I nearly said." They were both laughing. "If you're ready to leave as well, we can get out of here. I think that I've shaken enough hands for one night. And I'm bushed. Do you regret coming with me?"

"No. I've had a wonderful time. Thank you for asking me." He kissed her on the cheek, too. "What was that for? It was nice, but you didn't need to do that."

"Alex, my dear, when I take you home, I believe that my brother Locke is going to not allow any of us within a mile of you if he sees you in this dress. I'm to understand that you had to get dressed here, like a lot of the other women that just got off work." She nodded but didn't understand. "I think you understand more than you think. He's in love with you too. And I eavesdropped when you and Gloria were talking, so I know you feel the same about him."

She didn't know what to say until they were in his car. It was then that it seemed to her that the cotton got out of her mouth, and she was asking questions a mile a minute. When he laughed, she sat back in her seat and decided that she wasn't going to speak again. There was something wrong with her, she thought.

"There is nothing wrong with you, honey. You're just sheltered. Or we are. I don't know anymore. But I do know that Locke loves you. Or he's beginning to love you. He told me himself just before I left the other day, the same day that I asked you to go with me." She asked him what he'd said. "Only that he wasn't sure that it could be love so quickly, much the same thing that you said to Gloria. I love that woman, too. She can tell you right to your face if she thinks that you're a screw-off or not. She can also burn your ass if you need it too. I did a couple of times with her, and she put me on the right track."

"She does seem like a formidable woman. My grandda would have said she has the look of someone that could beat a bear back with a switch. Or something along those lines." They both laughed as they were pulling into the drive of the mansion. "It's so lovely, isn't it? Gloria was telling me that you and your brothers worked very hard to bring it back to what it looks like now. That must have been hard."

"It was, but we were used to hard work. She even had all the rooms redone to come up to this century. Including the kitchen, which I love, by the way." Locke met them at the door. He was dressed in his usual attire, a pair of worn jeans and a tee shirt as well as his feet were bare. She thought he was the most sexy man that she'd ever known.

Alex, just because she could kiss Dusty on the mouth, wasn't the least bit surprised by Locke telling his brother to go home. Now. Dusty was still laughing as he got into his car and drove off.

~*~

Dusty pulled into his driveway, thinking about his brother, and was jealous of his brother's love affair with Alex. Or whatever they ended up doing around being together. He was jealous himself. Being in love—even jealousy looked good on his brother. Dusty couldn't wait until the rest of them had a romance worthy of the one that Locke and Alex would have. He'd bet within a week, the two of them would be a couple, then marriage not long after that. And he was about as happy as he could be for his older brother.

Going into his home, he looked around. If a stranger would have come into his home, they would have thought that he'd only just moved in rather than living here for the last nine years. He walked into his dining room and looked at still unopened boxes of dishes that Martha had given him as a housewarming gift when he first moved out. The cabinets that the dishware was supposed to go in still have the boxes wrapped around them and sitting in the middle of the room. The dining table wasn't put together as yet, and he decided that he needed to get his ass in gear, thinking that if his future wife came here, she'd be convinced that he was a lazy fuck and run back out before he could tell her he'd been too busy to mess with it.

It was nearly six in the morning when he finished up with the room. He'd had to move the dish cabinet out the French doors to have the room to put the table together. It was, he thought, the most beautiful set he'd ever seen. And large enough that his brothers could come and have dinner with them if he ever got around to hiring a cook.

He'd even gotten all the dishes and other things with it that he had no idea what it was for put into the cabinet. Dusty had even run them through the dishwasher twice so that they'd be clean when he was ready to use them. The set looked so beautiful behind the glass doors that he took a picture of it to send to his family. The emojis that he got back weren't nice, but he was used to being teased about something from the lot of them. This was just one more thing that he could be teased about.

He'd had to move the table twice. Once when he got it set up, then a second time when he forgot to put the beautiful rug down. Not being sure if he liked having a rug under a table, he left it there with a mental note to ask Alex what she thought about it.

Bringing in the cabinet, the last thing that he had to move, he nearly killed himself, tripping over the edge of the rug. Landing on his back and shoulder, he was in a great deal of pain but didn't think that much about it as he wanted to finish up in there before he was done for the night. That really brought home the fact that he did not want the rug under the table. It was pretty and all but not all that practical. He would remove it as soon as he woke up tomorrow.

Stretching his back and arms, it hurt more than he thought it should have, but again wrote it off as him being out of shape. By the time he was finished up with the house, he'd be great.

Going up to bed, he was surprised to find out that he'd been so busy that he'd not heard his phone ringing. Plugging it in to charge up, he listened to the message that was from Locke. Dusty decided that he was going to save it forever and tease him with it when he and Alex were married for ten years.

"Don't take this the wrong way—actually, I don't care if you do. I don't want you dating Alex. I don't want any of you pawing at her, either. I've decided, after a long talk with myself, that I am indeed in love with her and I'm going to tell her tomorrow. With one of the rings that Martha left me."

Dusty laughed and saved the message. He didn't call his brother to congratulate him but rolled into his bed, clothing and all. He'd not felt exhausted like this in a long time. At least since they'd finished revamping the Grable Mansion. Wondering if they'd change the name to the Erikson Mansion. He fell asleep almost as soon as his head touched his pillow.

When he got up at ten, never one to sleep in all that late, he showered and tried to work the soreness out of his arms and shoulders. Almost as soon as he reached for a towel, he thought that someone had ripped his arm off and left it there to taunt him. Trying his best not to sob like a baby while trying to get dressed, Dusty almost needed another shower as he was covered in sweat, just trying to go down the stairs. He had a feeling that when he'd brought the cabinets back into the house, the trip that he'd fallen to the floor had done more than just bloody his elbow.

Calling his brother to see if he could take him to the hospital, he moved to sit at the new table to rest. He heard Alex answer just as he was screaming in pain. He didn't pass out this time, but he knew that he was going to need something more than the aspirin that he'd taken in the bathroom. He was hurting so badly that he couldn't form words. He was in that much pain. Thinking about how she'd see him at his worst, he thought, he begged her to help him get out to his car.

"I'm coming there. Don't move." He whispered, for some reason, he thought that if he said it aloud, he'd be in more pain. Though how that would come to be, he'd no idea. Dusty told her that he was hurt. "Don't move. I'm on my way there now."

While he didn't have any idea how he was going to manage a stick shift, he let himself feel sorry for himself as he waited for help. Dusty didn't feel like this when he was helping with the renovations. Thinking that he was ten years older than he'd been back then, he sat as still as he could, not even blinking the unshed tears that blurred his vision.

She kept talking to him, he knew to calm him down enough that she could get him help. She told him that she would contact the others, too. He didn't object to that, hoping it would be one of his brothers who arrived first so he'd not be caught crying like a little baby in front of Alex.

He was never so glad to see someone than he was when Alex showed up. Crying because he really was sick with the pain, he asked her if she could help him stand up so that he could get into the car. Instead, she told him that he would get pain medication sooner if she called an ambulance to come to help him. Dusty told her that he'd love that as he cried a bit more.

When the ambulance arrived, he could have kissed each and every one of the men that had come with it. But he was really trying to hold his emotions intact until they asked him if he could stand up. He didn't dare nod but said that he could. He couldn't.

Throwing up everything that he had on his stomach, he passed out again. He wasn't out for long, but it was long enough for his brothers to show up to help. There was no way that he'd be able to make it if he had to move again. The medics were taking his blood pressure when Alex came to hold his other hand.

"You're going to be all right. I have faith in that." He thanked her. "I don't know what you did to yourself, but don't you dare do that again. I mean it."

He laughed, which made him cry out in pain just as one of the medics told him that he was going to give him something for the pain. It hit him hard, and he nearly fell out of the chair, feeling that good when he was startled out of his lack of pain by one of the medics pulling him right out of the chair.

More dizzy than he was sick this time, he was glad that when he woke up, he was in the ambulance and strapped in. Alex was still with him holding his hand and he couldn't have been more happy that it was her instead of his brothers. She wouldn't punch him around, telling him to get over himself.

When they took him out of the back of the ambulance, they rushed him to have an x-ray of his shoulders. Christ, it was a roller coaster ride the way he kept getting something for the pain and then passing out again. As soon as he was finished, them taking the pictures with him still on the gurney, he was never so happy that they had contributed a great deal of money for this hospital to keep it up to date. As he was being taken to a room, he was surprised that there were a lot of people, none of them family, waiting for him.

They were talking around him, which he didn't mind so much as he was feeling the pain again while they cut off his shirt. It was the first time he'd really looked at his shoulder and could see a bruise just starting to form. They sat him up to hear his heart, and he heard Alex tell him that his back was nothing but a giant bruise. Having her take a picture with his phone's camera, Dusty had to close his eyes and count in order for him to breathe through the horrific mess his back was when she'd shown him.

Dozing in and out, finally not being moved after they switched him to the emergency room bed, he saw that all of his brothers had joined him, and he was glad to see them. It was Locke who explained to him what the doctor had said when he came to see him.

"You have dislocated your shoulder. That's an easy fix, he said, but it would be painful. There is also the fact that you have four broken ribs as well as a contusion on the back of your head. What the hell were you doing that you didn't notice any of this?" He told Locke that he'd been in like a Zen mood getting the dining room fixed up. "I should hope that the next time you decide to move mountains, what the doctor said it looked like you'd done that you call one of us."

Dusty had an IV in his arm now, and they told him that he could press the button for pain medication. But he was to limit it the best he could because he was going to have to have surgery on his back as one of the ribs needed to be realigned back in place.

Sometimes, he hated the fact that when he asked for a report on something, Locke didn't waste words but told him straight up what was going on. So long as he didn't move, not even to inhale deeply, he wasn't hurting that much. Alex told him to not let the pain get too much. It would hurt him more.

"I love you, Alex. You have no idea how nice it is to have a woman's hand to hang onto while hurting." He looked at Locke. "If you don't marry her and soon, I'm going to. She's the best thing that has ever happened to all of us."

Locke smiled and got down on one knee with a small box in his hand. Alex told him to get up and that this was no time for him to be a romantic idiot. In answer to her scolding, he told her that his family was all there and it was perfect timing as far as he was concerned.

Then he opened the box, and Dusty knew which ring he'd chosen from Martha's collection. The sapphire was so beautiful that the only thing that he could safely compare it to was the look on Alex's face when Locke asked her to marry him.

"Are you sure? Because if I answer you, I'm not going to wait around for you to figure out that I'm not right for you. Not to mention, you having any kind of affairs while I'm with you. It's us, forever, or I'm not going to give you an answer." He told her that he loved her and would for the rest of his days. And was too afraid of her to step out on her. "All right. I'll marry you. I love you as well. But the first time you step out, it'll be the last time you do. Understand me?"

"Yes. And you can count on me never hurting you. Physically, mentally, or verbally. I might say something that I would regret but I would never cause you pain if I can help it." She looked at Locke's brothers and asked them what they felt about her being Locke's wife. Instead of answering her, they kissed her on her cheeks and told her that, like Dusty, they loved her as well. "No wedding but the courthouse or a big one with all the bells and whistles."

Locke held her to him, and again, Dusty was jealous of the love that was all around the two of them. He thought, telling himself it was the drugs that if they were to bottle that feeling into a perfume, there wouldn't be any use for divorce attorneys any longer.

He was taken to surgery just as the pain was becoming nearly unbearable again. But as soon as he was in the operating room, all bright lights and steel, he was given something that knocked him completely out. He did startle awake once when they moved him to the operating table, but almost as soon as he felt the pain, it was gone. He was a goner, too.

Dusty woke to find himself lying on his stomach with his face in a sort of massage table apparatus. He didn't like being on his stomach. He didn't even like sleeping that way. When he saw shoes, white ones that he'd seen the staff here wear, he asked if everything had gone as planned.

"I don't know, Mr. Erikson. They did say that it was going to be painful going for a while. The doctor will come to see you. I'm going to call him now to tell him that you're awake." Dusty asked about his family. "Well, now that's one I can answer. You're still in recovery, but since you're going to be with us for a while until you're healed, they're up in your room waiting for word on how you're doing. I'll call them in a few minutes for them."

"Thank you." He felt the same ball that he'd had in his hand when he'd been given drugs to himself and asked her if that was what it was. She told him it was, and then she told him the same thing that Alex had, don't let the pain get out of control, or he'd take longer healing. Giving himself a bit more for the pain, he closed his eyes.

He didn't know how long he was going to be in the hospital but really worked up enough energy to reason why he'd rather be home. At least here, he didn't have to worry about tripping again, and he was sure that whatever he had waiting for him to return at his home would still be there when he returned. But this time, he'd ask for help before nearly killing himself with falling again.