Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Calhoun wasn’t happy about being roped into going with his good friend to meet with his client. He had to have a witness, and Calhoun had been the only one who had been free. He hadn’t been, but with him working for himself, he was able to shift things around and be there for him. Brad had also asked him to evaluate the elderly woman, making sure that her changing her will wasn’t going to be brought into question. That he’d done a great deal. It seemed to him that very few people were as trusting as they once might have been. Knocking on the door, he straightened up, adjusting his tie as he did so. The younger woman at the door asked them what they wanted. Brad did the talking while he made sure that they weren’t going to be ambushed while waiting for the door to be opened wider for them.

“Hello. I’m here to talk to Ms. Brandon. I’m here to change her will around. We’ve spoken on the phone a great deal over the last few days.” The door opened wider, and he could see the gun pointed downward toward the floor. The woman wasn’t taking any changes, it seemed.

“You must be Margaret Jane.” She said that it wasn’t her but her sister. And to call her DJ, but her name was Diana June. “All right. Can we come in and get started on this? There is a great deal of paperwork to be done, and I know that Ms. Brandon is wanting to get this finished up before she goes into the hospital. I don’t blame her for wanting things to be finished up. But that sort of surgery is done a great deal lately and I doubt that she’ll have any issues. I’m to understand that she’s having open heart surgery next week. Oh, my name is Brad Kirk. I spoke to her about having a psychiatrist to come to see her, too. That will eliminate the possibility that she isn’t of sound mind when the will changes come into question. Like I told her on the phone, my name is Brad Curt. I’ve been an attorney for several years.”

Calhoun had been told that his expertise as a doctor was needed. He’d also been briefed, very briefly, as it turned out, before coming here. While he didn’t know what the family was like, he decided that he wasn’t going to be making any kind of speculations until he had all the facts. Something that he liked having when he was dealing with people left out of wills. When they were invited in, the gun that the younger woman carried was put in the holster that was along her shoulder. It was Brad who asked her if she carried all the time.

“Usually not when I’m home. But I don’t trust anyone enough, mostly my relatives like my father, uncle, and brothers, not to come barging in here where they’re not invited. I will have no trouble blowing your brains out if you fuck around with my grannie. Understand?” They both said that they did. “All right, let’s get this shit show on the road, shall we?”

It was Calhoun who asked the other woman how much the family had been in the house and what they did when they got inside. So far, DJ told him they’d not been able to breach the door, but that didn’t mean that they wouldn’t continue trying.

“So. Don’t upset her, please. She’s been having a rough time with it, and I would like her not to worry about what’s going to happen to her.” The woman’s entire demeanor changed as soon as the gun was put away. Like she was an entirely different woman. “Grannie is in the living room, watching her soaps. As soon as it’s over, she’ll be able to talk to the two of you. Would you like a tea? Perhaps something to eat? Grannie made scones just yesterday, and they’re delicious.”

“I’d love a scone and a cup of tea if it’s not too much trouble. Calhoun? Want anything?” He said he’d have the same. “What soap does your grannie watch? I got hooked on one while I was recuperating a few weeks back.”

He just stared at Brad. He was acting strange himself. Reaching out to him, he asked him what the hell he was going on about. What he told him had him having to suppress his own bit of laughter, too.

“The grannie is also carrying a weapon. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that she will use it if provoked. I don’t want to be shot if you don’t mind. I’ve only just found my mate, and I’m having a good time getting laid on a regular basis. Not to mention fun just hanging around with her and my son.” Calhoun asked him what all the guns were for. “They weren’t kidding when they mentioned the brother and grandsons. The family is not the nicest people in the world, and she’s put them in the hospital a couple of times when they decided that she wasn’t going to die like they wanted. I kid you not, Calhoun, they were recorded saying that to her when she’d put one of them in the ER. Knocked his head into the wall, causing all kinds of wounds. DJ called me the other day and made certain that I wasn’t going to bullshit her, either. I told you this. Remember?”

“I do. Yes, but I thought…never mind. I’ll behave.” When they were shown to the living room, he nearly burst out laughing. Whatever he had expected, it wasn’t the sight that he was seeing now.

There sat, in one of the biggest bright pink recliners he’d ever seen, the most un-grannie-like woman that he’d ever encountered. Laughing a little more, she turned to look at him and winked. It was all he could do not to go to her, pick her up, and hug the stuffing out of her. However, he felt like if he did that, he’d be in about as much trouble as he’d ever been with his own grannie. Smiling at her, he prudently waited for a commercial to come on before speaking to the elderly woman. However, she spoke first.

“You here to give me one of them there head tests? I’ll tell you right now, I’m not a pushover. Nor am I like any of them old women down at the nursing home. Christ, oh Lord, they’re nothing like I am, thankfully. I still like to get out and have me some fun even if I am ninety-three years old. If I ever get stuck in one of them, you might as well blow my head off. I won’t last a durn day there. Mushy food. Mushy people and the most uncomfortable chairs I durn near ever sat my fat keister in. What are you anyway?” He told her that he was a psychiatrist. “No, I mean, what are you? Not human, that’s for sure. I’m thinking…No. I was gonna say wolf, but you’re not one of them, are you? Too tall. I knew me one of them wolf shifters once. Best lay I’ve had in my life. Durn, but he knew all the right spots to touch for me.” Her cackling had him laughing, too. However, he wasn’t sure if he believed her or not. Nor was he going to ask her.

“Bear. I’m a bear shifter. The very first of my kind. My mate and I are the king and queen of all bears, too, if that’s something that you’d like to know.” She nodded, then sort of tuned him out. With her show on, as she called it, he was free to look around the rooms he could see.

There were the remnants of a cake, chocolate if he didn’t miss his bet on the dining room table that he could see from where he was seated. It, the table, and the cake had seen better days, but he’d bet that the cake had been homemade. And delicious, too. There were candles spread out on the table, too, and some plates with small bits of icing on them that he wouldn’t have missed for the world if that had been his plate. It was his favorite part of all the treat.

When he heard Ms. Brandon clear her throat, he smiled and looked at her. Might as well get things going, he thought to himself. Again, she beat him to it. She was beginning to grow on him, and he decided that he really liked her. Even if they’d only exchanged a few words.

“I want to change my will around. I don’t have all that much. A few acres of land that I rent out to farmers when I can. Don’t charge them all that much. And they more than make up for it with all the fresh stuff they make sure I have. Gotta have fresh roughage, or as an old fogie, I might not be able to take a good poop when I need one.” He laughed again. “Them boys of mine, they got no more sense than a rock if you ask me. Just the other day, one of them, Andrew, is his name. He told me that I’ve been hanging around long enough. That I should get to dying so he can have my money. Can you imagine saying that to your own mother? Not me. She would have knocked me three ways to Sunday. Anyway, I just stared him down with my gun pointed at the most useless part of him. His head. Don’t even hold a bit of brain up there. Might well be his wiener is where the dummy keeps his brain, but I don’t get into that with him no more. Stupid ingrate.”

They enjoyed the next show together. DJ brought them a plate of scones that were so good that he ate two of them before he was able to have his tea cooled off enough to drink it. It was good, too. Calhoun had loved that they’d not put any sugar in his cup so that the scone wouldn’t make it sweeter. Few people knew that about eating sweets with unsweetened tea.

He talked to both women, and they had a good time. When it was all said and done, Calhoun decided that she was about as sound of mine as anyone that he knew. More than likely more than most of the rest of her family. About the time her last show was over, Calhoun was calling her grannie, and she was calling him Cal. It was not a name that he particularly cared for growing up, but he didn’t mind being called that by Mitsy.

He imagined that she might well have been around when things were flush with her family. While the house needed some repair work, it wasn’t a dump. No dust in any of the corners, nor did he see any cobwebs, something that elderly people tended to forget about when they lived alone. There were dishes, too, neatly stacked in the China cabinet with matching glasses and other items. He, too, had a set of dishes, long packed away, that he’d have to find and give to Ruby. She might get a kick out of them. He knew that he would again.

After Brad joined them, his file that he’d brought handed over to her, the two of them talked about the changes that she wanted and how her estate, which, as she had pointed out to him, wasn’t that much. After not getting all that far into the work, she asked them to wait for her granddaughter to show up so that she could be a witness to the paperwork. DJ was there, but she didn’t want to be the witness as she lived with her grannie, taking care of her and keeping her safe. She didn’t want anyone to say that she had been made to change things to suit her.

Yes, Calhoun could see that happening, too. Their family seemed to know all the angles in getting things to work in their favor. He was sure that there were other tricks that they used too that would get them whatever they wanted in the way of government handouts as well.

“They all think I’m about loopy. I’m not. Got a brain in my noodle that serves me well. MJ, my other granddaughter she’s got the same curse that I do. Don’t have to study up on things but to read it or hear it and it’s there forever. Should have seen that little one going to school with her sister and ticking off them teachers. Most of them didn’t have any more brains than my son does, but they were getting paid to get it wrong, and MJ wasn’t having it. She’s a good girl. Both of them are.” DJ laughed, too, then, saying that she had inherited it as well, but not to the degree that her grannie and sister did. “Ah, but you’re a smart cookie, aren’t you, sweetie? I knew in my heart that the two of you would have trouble as soon as you were born. And I think that MJ is…well, she’s handling it much better than I would. Her being smart and all.”

“Do both girls live with you?” She said that it was only DJ, but MJ provided for her. “That’s nice. For all of you, I’m betting.” Brad joined them in the kitchen a few minutes later. The file that he’d brought with him was marked with colorful tags in places that he said he wanted to go over for her.

She said that was fine, but if he waited, he would only have to go over it the one time as MJ would be here. Brad said that he’d wait, but they’d have to do something for her while waiting. Neither of them was used to just sitting around on their duffs when there were pretty women to impress. Mitsy laughed with them.

“You boys. I swear to you. You know how to treat an old lady.” They both claimed they didn’t know anyone who was old, and that made her blush. “Go on with you now. DJ will have a little bit of work for you if you ask her. She’s a good girl, that one, and has given up a lot to hang out with me all day. I would imagine that if MJ had been able to do this, she’d be here too, living with the two of us.”

Mitsy was a very nice woman, and anyone who thought she was off her rocker had never taken the time to get to know her, he realized. She was smart and charming. A couple of qualities that few people had nowadays.

“We’ll make up some dinner while we wait. The girls had a birthday just a few days ago. Twins, you see. I couldn’t love them any more than if there were fifty of them. But MJ and DJ have been good for me—better than them durned sons of mine. But that’s all right. They’ll straighten up or else. Them girls will keep them in line.” He didn’t know if they could or not and decided that he’d have a few of his sloth hanging around close in the event that they might need it.

There were pork chops in the freezer that he was going to grill for them all. Brad was set to peeling taters, not potatoes, he was told, but taters. DJ came back from her outing, she had been out to get her nails done—Calhoun suspected that she’d been meeting a man. She smelled different than when she’d left, and she seemed less stressed. Of course, no one said a word to her about her nails either. They were neither painted nor smoothed out. Calhoun liked DJ too and would dare anyone to say a word differently about where she’d been the last couple of hours.

Around about six, they were all getting the table set up with plates and glasses when there was a rumbling sound that had him thinking he needed to run for cover. There was only one thing that sounded like that, and it made him wonder what the hell a helicopter was doing when flying so low around here. Just as he was going to ask if that happened often, he glanced out the kitchen window and watched the sucker land in the back field and two people get out while it was still running.

“That’ll be MJ.” Mitsy smiled and said that they’d told her they’d have her home by six. “They know better than to mess with her or me. I’m glad to see that they’ve kept their promise. It’ll bring them boys a running, but that’s okay, too. With all of you here, I’ll be as safe as I can.”

This is where I will start writing again. Anything beyond here won’t be the same, I hope, anyway.

The person standing low and talking to someone in the chopper still was dressed in fatigues. They were brown, dessert colors, and he could see that the other person was dressed more formally. Before the second person got back in the chopper, he turned and waved at them before getting back inside, and the first person began running toward the house, holding onto their hat that would have surely taken off in the force of wind from the blades still going fast enough not to be able to make out.

Calhoun watched the person making their way out of the blade’s proximity while also keeping an eye out for anything else that might be in the way. Just the way that they were bent over made him think that they had been on a chopper numerous times, and simply didn’t think about the fact that the thing could take a person’s head off without any effort. When the person he could see it was a woman now, who was several feet from him, it was all he could do not to gap at her.

Dropping everything that he had in his hands, his body automatically stiffened up, and his right hand went to his forehead and a salute that he’d never forget. Watching as she stopped long enough to salute the chopper as it took off, she turned and did the same to him and Brad, who had saluted as well. Christ, oh mighty, he thought, she wasn’t just army like he’d been lead to believe, but a god damned general.

“You’re going to piss her off if you keep standing there.” Mitsy laughed and stood up to meet her granddaughter. “Hello, darling. I have missed you. She won’t say it, but DJ did, too.”

“Grannie? Are these men treating you right?” She told the general that they were as good as gold. “If you say so. However, we have a lot to get done before my dad and uncles show up. Couldn’t get here any other way than flying. Next time, I will try and get here quieter.” Following them into the house, Brad stopped him before he could grab the door when it started to shut. He asked him what was wrong.

“General? She’s a damned General? What the hell? Why weren’t we told?” DJ laughed and said that they wouldn’t have believed her if she had. No one ever believes that there is a woman general. “I guess that’s about correct. But she is a very beautiful one and your identical twin, I’m thinking.”

DJ was still laughing at Brad when she went into the house after picking up her sister’s luggage. He didn’t even try and take it from her, there was no way that either of these women were going to be a pushover, and he wondered at that as well. Why did their uncles and father think that—well, Calhoun thought, this was going to be a fun thing to watch. He only hoped that they would show up while he was around. Might be the best entertainment he’d had in a very long time.

~*~

It didn’t take long for the family to show up. Brad had to work especially hard to keep them all still alive by the time the police were called, but he was able to get the will filed, and the other paperwork finished up and put away, too. It didn’t seem to him like there was much to the estate, but it was up for grabs as to who wanted it more. Any of the four sons would fight to the death for it, he’d seen but as for Grannie, she certainly wasn’t going to let it go to any of them since she had such lovely granddaughters.

It had shocked him to see the women together. MJ and DJ were identical looking but that was all that they were alike about. While DJ could be hard, he noticed that it was MJ who seemed to command the power to make the other men do what she told them. Her pulling her gun on her father had made all of them laugh, but it had nearly turned deadly when the dad of the twins drew back to hit the elderly Brandon. Christ, he’d never seen anyone move so quickly as he’d seen the women move as one to stand in front of their beloved Grannie.

“You really want to rethink your next move, father. I won’t have any trouble whatsoever burying you in a shallow grave out back. Dead or alive, it makes little difference to me. I’ve had plenty of practice at it, and I’m always armed with not just a bullet with your name on it but a handy shovel, too.” Brad watched as MJ racked her glock and caught the bullet midflight as it shot out of the chamber. Then she set it on the table. And sure enough, it had her father’s name on it in bold print. He could hardly tear his eyes away from the ammo so that he could see what the older man would do now. Her father called her an ungrateful, rude, useless woman. “Better that than a fucking bastard of a man who couldn’t take care that his own wife and children didn’t have to go without. I do wonder at times what it was that you did with the money that was mothers? Did you spend it on your whores, or did you drink it all away? If you tell me that you saved it for us, then I’ll not believe you. You couldn’t save your dick from getting hurt when you did have a job. How long ago was that now since you’ve been able to get that fucking thing up? I guess it’s been at least twenty years now.”

“You leave my dick out of this, Margaret Jane. And I’ll have you not going around telling lies about me either. Keep your damned mouth shut before I shut it for you. In a permanent way, too.” She laughed. It didn’t sound like she had found anything at all to be happy about. Her voice nearly dripped with sarcasm. It actually made the hair on his arms and neck dance, she had conveyed it so well. “You hear me, girl? You’d best be listening to me before you get what your mother did.”

“I’m not the least bit afraid of you.” DJ stepped in front of her father with her back to her sister. She didn’t say anything, but it did take him a full five minutes to realize that DJ had a gun pointed right at her father’s gut. He’d not seen it, for the man had a large hang over his belt belly that he wondered how the man ever saw his dick anymore, much less use it.

When DJ told her father to go, he kept staring at MJ. The light in her eyes, the power of her anger, had him putting his hand on his own weapon. He knew that there was going to be bloodshed before the end of the evening. Brad did wonder how often they got into this sort of argument. No wonder they were all armed all the time. It was more than likely why the women in this family were still around. Not only were they all armed with guns, but he’d bet his last check that what MJ had told him about burying him in the backyard wasn’t an idle threat either.

There wasn’t much in the way of conversation on the way back to town. Brad knew that he was going to be peppered with questions about what had happened when he got home. Becka had wanted to go with him to the other home, but she’d been called away to help with a loaded truck that was stuck in traffic. It had been all over town that the Brandon women were hard on men. Also that they didn’t have a sense of humor. That part he was able to say wasn’t true. But not so much about them being hard on men. He’d been so stressed when he left that he’d slept all the way home.

“While I was in town, I heard from a couple of people that the low-flying chopper was MJ Brandon herself flying. Was that true?” He tried to think, and while he was doing that, Becka asked him if it was true that the two sisters looked a little alike. “They’re supposed to be very intelligent as well.”

“They look a great deal alike. Identical twins as a matter of fact.” He thought about what Mitsy had said about them being so different that if they married their husbands wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. He told Becka that. “I think that I could tell them apart if I had to. But it would be hard. Especially if they didn’t speak. They’re hard. Not just on men, like you said, but about themselves too. Also, and this is going to sound strange, but I think they’re harder on themselves more than they are their father and four uncles. Who I’ve met, by the way.”

“So have I. Just before the helicopter went overhead and to the field, the men were in the grocery store where I was picking up a couple of things. To be honest with you, I didn’t even hear it go over it was so loud in the store. They were arguing with Mr. Kinkade about how much milk had gone up in the last fifteen years. Fifteen years. Like everything hasn’t gone up over that period of time. Moron. Then they all four stiffened up and ran out of the place like it was on fire.” He asked what she thought of it. “It said Army on the bottom of the helicopter so I just assumed that it was out on drills around here. I didn’t know that it was going to land as soon as it was out of town.”

“Did the Brandon men cause any trouble before they went to the house? I’m hoping that they’ll behave themselves over the next week. Ms. Brandon has open heart surgery the day after tomorrow, and I’d hate for them to upset her before she goes in.” Becka pulled a carrot out of the bag he’d just picked up from the store. Before she ate it, he pulled it out of her hand and peeled it for her then handed it back. “Thanks. I’ve never had a lot to do with them, the Brandon men, I mean. From what I’ve heard, they can be about as evil as the devil himself. What do you think?”

“I don’t know. They’re afraid of the girls, that’s for sure. And when Mitzy pulled out her gun and aimed it at the ceiling, firing two rounds in the upper floors, they scrambled out of the house like they were on fire.” The two of them laughed about that. He was glad to see that Becka was in a better mood than she’d been before. When Toby came in from work, he’d gotten himself a part-time job just a few days ago. Becka told him what had gone on. The boy looked like he’d shot up about a foot since he’d been living here.

Brad loved both Toby and his aunt Becka. Of course, Toby called his aunt his mom, and only a few people knew that he was her nephew rather than her son. But he didn’t care so much as he loved him like he was his biological son and couldn’t wait to hear someone call him dad. He’d talked it over with Becka a couple of times, but he’d not called him anything but Brad since they’d been married.

He’d been working in the yard for most of the afternoon. They had been living in the magical world for the last week and were having a good time scouting around for the things that Sarah had them looking for. For the most part, they’ve found very little trouble with the land or the house. Everything in their future it seemed hinged on Allison okaying them to live full-time in the realm the two of them did.

“I heard from Allison today.” He sat back down, thinking that he’d go back to work to keep his mind off of what was going on. “She has put her mark on us living here. She has a list of things that she wants us to do for the realm. Most of it was what Sarah had said we’d be doing. But keeping the faeries and the brownies busy all the time will certainly help keep them out of trouble. What do you think of being a babysitter for thousands and thousands of little people? I’m nervous about it, to be honest, but it’s a job that I believe we’d be good at. Being able to have Toby come and go as we wish will make it easier on me.”

“Me too. I couldn’t do this and not see him when I can. He’s a great kid, and I’d miss having a conversation with him. Not to mention watching the sports channels with him on the weekends.” She agreed with him, and he pulled her into his arms. “Tell me what else she said. She really doesn’t want us to do this, does she?”

“It’s not that at all. No. She did give me a better understanding of the magic that we’d need to have. I’ve never thought of some of the other creatures wanting us to help them, too. But we’re not to do that. She said that they have their own crews that can keep their people busy. It’s hard enough for them to find something for the faeries to do in the middle of summer.” She grinned up at him before continuing. “We’re to have them start on getting the flowers and buds for the teas and drinks that they sponsor in the other world. I didn’t know that the brew, as Sarah calls it, is an invention of one of the brownies.”

He said that he thought that he’d had some once a while back. “It made me all hyped up so that I couldn’t do anything but buzz around for a week after I drank it. I don’t even remember the next two days after drinking it. But I have refused to have any since.” Becka laughed, just as he’d hoped she would.

“Because you’re not a faerie. This brownie, his name is Hoot, he liked to have a nice hot drink with his meal, and it had to be strong enough to make him sleepy at the end of his meal. Caffeine has the opposite effect on the faeries than it does on humans. Also, there are a few weeds that they’ll collect for Allision, which she uses for a wrap when one of them is hurt. I guess it smells really bad. However, it doesn’t do anything more than make them lie still while she puts it on their wounds. After they were lying still, she told me that she could have a good look at the wound and know just how to fix them up. It also works for small children who have a cough. The wrap has a horrid smell and taste, so having them lying down makes it so that they aren’t required to eat it. Works all the time, she told me.”

There were plenty of stories like that one. He’d heard a great many of them over the last several weeks while working around here. Mostly, it was falsehoods that were told to the faeries to have them rest. They would quite literally work themselves to death if they had a project given to them. That was a reason, too, that they needed a guiding hand, he and Becka, to keep them in line. He’d seen it happen on more than one occasion. The faeries were there to help and to please. Without someone telling them that they needn’t work forever until it was finished, they would work round the clock to have someone happy about their project.

They had made a chart that would cover the four seasons. Actually, in this realm, there would be four seasons all the time. The beauty of the place made it so the faeries working with the fruit trees could give them a bit of downtime. The trees and the faeries. Also, and he thought this was a wonderful idea, there was also a time for vacations as well.

Each time that an area went dormant for the ‘winter season,’ it would be the time for the faeries and all the other creatures to have their downtime, too. It didn’t happen, but twice a year for a week at a time per season. However, it was looked forward to and enjoyed by all, including the queens of the realm, who made sure that the weather was perfect for all to enjoy. They’d pack up their things, take a trip to one of the other seasons, and have a cookout or enjoy skiing—whatever their hearts desired, it was there for them to have fun with. Whatever sport or kind of vacation they wanted, they’d travel to that area and enjoy the freedom that they so craved.

That was another thing that they were going to be in charge of. Making sure that everyone took their allotted time off and rested up before going back to work.

There were doctors now who would care for any of the small creatures that were a part of the whole realm. It wasn’t discussed much, but there was a great deal of depression that was rampant and more and more trouble between the areas. Sarah thought it was just boredom, but Becka said it was because there was too much competition between the groups, and that needed to be dealt with. Whatever it was, it was something that had to be taken care of soon, or it would get out of hand quickly.

They were just waiting on word to take over the job, and he knew that they’d work very hard for the queen and her sister. But not, as they were told, at the risk of their own health. He figured that they’d be watched over, too, by the two royal ladies of the realm.