Chapter 3

“You have the right to remain silent.” Douglas cut the man off and told him that he knew the Miranda warning better than he did. “I’m sure you do, but I have to tell them to you again. You have the right—”

As the cop droned on about his rights and shit, Douglas thought about why he’d been pulled over. It was his right, he thought, that he should be able to use the car that his daughter owned. She’d not been putting up any fuss when she drove it around like she owned it. That made him laugh a little. She did own it, he supposed but what he didn’t understand was why she was being so stingy about letting him have it when he needed it.

“Do you understand what I’ve just said to you, Mr. Brandon?” He waved him off, forgetting where he was for a minute. “You have to give me a verbal answer.”

“What’s that?” He explained to him what the word verbal meant. “Yeah, all right. I understand my rights. What I don’t understand is why you pulled me over in the first place. I used my ticker. I even used my arm to signal when I was turning. The lights are all working, too. I checked that before I left the house.”

“I’m arresting you because you took the car without permission from its owner.” He pointed out that the owner was his grannie or daughter and that his daughter knew that he had it. “She’s the one pressing charges against you.”

“Now, that can’t be right. She’s not allowed to do that on account of me being her daddy. That there is against the law.” He told him that he was incorrect. “Well, it should be right.”

It was then that he noticed they were patting down his brothers. Fuck a duck and watch it waddle. They were all three carrying when they shouldn’t have been. As soon as he asked him if he had a gun, he started to lie and say no, but they had already found the one that he had stashed in the back of his pants. He knew he should have probably worn a longer shirt. But his belly made everything shorter than he liked.

They were all cuffed up and put in the back of three different cruisers. If he’d of been asked, he might well have thought that they didn’t have three cruisers in this little town. But there they were, just lined up like they’d been expecting to arrest them. Damned cops, anyway. Didn’t they have better shit to do than to take him away from his search?

He’d been looking for his kin since he’d gotten out of jail this morning. He was getting mightily sick of being in jail then not. Either they were to keep him so that he could get a good night’s sleep someplace where it was warm or not.

Douglas had an idea that since it didn’t appear to him that anyone was home at the house that he could just move in. Ben and Todd thought it was a good one, too. But almost as soon as they stepped out of their car and onto the land, they were chased away from the house by a big bunch of coyotes. Or whatever the hell they were. They had sharp teeth. That’s all he knew for sure.

Then when he’d had Todd go back for the car, he’d nearly been eaten alive by the biggest fucking bears—not that he’d ever seen any up close like they’d been—but he barely got out with his ass intact. Christ love the lord. He thought for sure that Todd was going to be eaten alive before he was able to get the car out of the driveway. As it was now, there were big scratches on it that the fucking bears had done to it. How was he supposed to ride around in a nice ride when it was scratched to fuck? he asked Ben.

“I don’t know.” That was his answer for everything. ‘I don’t know’. He was getting mightily sick of his brothers, if truth be told. They were idiots, the two of them. And since he was the one that had him some kids, even though Ben was older than him, he’d taken on the role of being the smartest one in the bunch. He was, too. He’d finished up the tenth grade, more than two years longer than the others. Of course, they all spent a lot of time in the grades they’d taken.

Douglas was sure that Ben had spent four years in the ninth grade. Then when he’d aged out, what they called him turning nineteen and all, he was told he would have to have another form of education. At least he’d gotten to the tenth grade before they done did the same thing to him. It made him sound like he was as old as Methuselah.

He couldn’t remember who that was but he knew it had something to do with him being in the Bible. He might well have been the person who had tied his ass to a tree or something, but whenever he thought about that, his ass clenched up so tight that he could barely get a fart out. It must have been right painful to have had that done, he thought. There was no way that he’d of done that on his own.

Once he was at the jail, again, they were each given different cells. That’s another thing that he didn’t understand. Why the hell did they separate them? It wasn’t like they didn’t know everything there was to know about each other. With them being in different cells, you’d think that they’d be wanting to keep the cleaning done down as far as they could get it.

Not that he did any cleaning up but still, it had to be more work for somebody. If’n they were in cells together, he’d just have one of the other two to clean up for him. That’s the way it should have been. Like his daughters should have been doing.

Something that his daughters had been doing, too. Since they’d gotten old enough to read, something that he didn’t like at all—reading was for dummies. But since they’d gotten to be around six years old, they’d come back at him if he were to raise a hand to them. Then when their momma died, Margaret Jane had gotten it into her head that she was in charge of the rent and grocery money.

“How long you thinking it is until lunch, Doughy Dougie?” He hated that, too. Being called Doughy Dougie. Ben had started calling him that since he’d been out of diapers. “I’m durn near ready to eat on my mattress a bit if they don’t hurry things along.”

“It’s only about ten in the morning, you moron. We just ate…he didn’t know what time it was nor what kind of time passed when they’d eaten last. “You just hang on a little bit more, and they’ll be bringing you something. I told you to get enough food that you’d not be starving, didn’t I?”

“You did, you did. But when I found something that I wanted to eat, you done took it away from me. You know, you ain’t the oldest no more.” He told the idiot that he was the oldest. “Right, like I was saying, you ain’t the oldest. I had my birthday just last week, and I know that I’m about fifty years old.”

Was he? If’n Ben was about to approach his fifties, which he didn’t doubt that he was, that meant that he as in his late forties. Right around the corner, fifty was coming up fast. He didn’t want to be thinking about that. Not today. It was depressing. It was Todd who asked him how old he was.

“How the hell should I know, dummy? I have enough trouble keeping up with my own age.” His momma used to send them cards with little numbers on them. It would say something along the lines of ‘happy birthday, dummy you’re’ whatever age he was. She was there, he was supposed. She’d better be right on the date.

Now, he didn’t even get a card with a little cash in it. His momma had surely turned mean in her golden years. He knew why, too. Them damned daughters of his. Poking their noses into shit that didn’t matter to them. He was glad that they watched over his momma. But he couldn’t figure out why they’d not smothered her in her sleep like he’d told them to over and over again.

When the smells of food came wandering down his way, he figured he’d been right about the time. It had been a couple of hours at least. Mentally rubbing his hands together, he was surely thrilled when he could smell fried bologna coming to them. His daddy called that Kentucky round steak. It was just as good, he thought, or better than a big, thick steak. Especially when his momma would cook up some onions and taters to go with it.

~*~

Making her way to the bathroom on her own, MJ was feeling good about her progress. Yesterday, she’d not even been able to get out of the bed. Now, here she was, not just getting around but able to pee by herself too. Slowly going back to the bed, she decided that she wanted to sit for a bit. The chair had been set up by the window a couple of days ago, and she tried to enjoy it as best she could a little bit every day.

“You’re not going to believe what I just found out from those people you’re supposedly related to.” Lauder. She would enter a room in full conversation before she’d gotten sat down. “I refuse to believe that you’re related to them. It’s either you were kidnapped by them and brought to their home, or you’re not really related to them and were found on the doorstep.”

“According to DNA records, they’re my father and two uncles. What is it you found?” That was something else she’d figured out. Lauder could easily get off track by just mentioning one of the passions she had. One of them being the center they were putting together for drunks to dry out. She was handed papers without a word.

Looking them over, three things struck her at once. One, this was a contract between her uncles and someone else. Two, it was a contract to kill her. The third thing was, that she thought the two signatures were dead on correct at the bottom of the papers. Handing it back, she asked her where she got it.

“Your father had it on his person when he was arrested.” She shook her head. “Yes, he did. I swear to you, this is what he had. I was hoping that you’d tell me that this wasn’t either of their signatures.”

“It is. I don’t want to believe it, Lauder, but I think it is.” She asked her how sure she was. “Ninety-nine percent. But like I said, I don’t believe it. He’s my boss.”

“Mine too on some things.” She sat there. If Lauder was talking, she didn’t hear a word she said. It wasn’t until she was ready to talk…about anything but the paperwork when she realized that at some point Lauder had left and Marshall was there. “He’s my boss as well. Do you think that it’s possible that Michael Lowery signed this hit taken out on you? I mean, think hard. If so, then I think we’re all in trouble.”

“I’m afraid of my answer.” Marshall said that he could understand that as well. He didn’t want to believe it. “If he did, and I’m not sure if it’s right in my head right now, a lot of things fall into place when I think about the shit that’s been going on lately. The one thing that I don’t like that happened is that Grannie got a letter from the city saying that she’s behind in her taxes. Not possible. It comes directly out of my paycheck every month. I had to get payroll and Micheal to send a certified letter there to get it taken care of. Michael, when I asked him about it blew me off for days before I just showed up at his office to have him do it.”

“The person that shot you, it says here that it was James Smyth, he goes by Chummy. It says that your relatives were to contact him to kill you…or he’ll have you, I guess, have you wreck the chopper. I’ve been talking to Brad, and he said that it sounds to him like he’s playing on the sympathy votes for this year to start his campaign on a sad note. It would be said how good of friends you were as well as how, and he said that this is just speculation on his part, but they’ll mourn the deaths of your grannie, who will suddenly die of old age, and your sister from grief. He said that would be the way that he plays it.” She told Marshall that Brad had a sick mind just like she did. “That’s what he told me, too. That you’ve already figured that out and that you were thinking about some other shit that has gone down. I’ll have to tell him that he was correct.”

“I need to have better security on my sister and grannie.” He said that she now has a warrior faerie with her and DJ all the time. “How come you’ll call her DJ and not me, MJ?”

“I’m in love with you, that’s why.” MJ didn’t know what to say, so she changed the subject. She asked him about coverage here. “No one is getting by me and the team that I have around. In addition to the gate having someone at each section, there are faeries all over the inside of this house.” He pointed to the ceiling. “They’ll die before anyone gets up the stairs to you.”

“Why would you have them do that? I’m not that special.” He told her that she was to him, but he’d not asked them to do that. They would because they loved this family so much. “Oh. I guess I might have…I don’t want anyone to die, Marshall. I’m terrified of someone dying because of me. Because someone is protecting me when they have a family of their own to protect.”

“As I said, no one is telling them to do anything. These are all volunteers at the house and in each room. I wouldn’t want that either.” She looked out the window again. Watching the swaying trees lose their bouquet of beautiful colors drop to the ground and dance around with the ones already there. “Becka has a new talent that she’s made good use of. She can make it so that no one enters the house with ill will in their heart. I love that rule, by the way. Not to mention hearing that from witches that I know, it works well against allowing weapons, such as bullets, to not enter as well.” She didn’t look at Marshall when she started to speak to him.

“I’ve fallen in love with you as well, Marshall. If you would have asked me as little as ten minutes ago, I would have said no. But sitting here, with you telling me what you’ve done to protect my family, it makes me realize that you’ve been doing everything in your power to keep everyone safe.” She turned then. “I do hope that you’re taking the same precautions as well.”

“I am. Now that I’ve found you, I don’t want to lose you either.” He took her hand into his. “I have two things that we have to talk about. One of them I don’t need an answer for but the first thing I do. I want you to know that I have a choice, too. I can take on the pack as my own and you’d be the alpha with me or not. It won’t cause us to lose our guards, but it will make them stronger as well as us.” He asked her if she’d accept that responsibility.

“I don’t know. I’m pretty beat up right now. What if I have to be called into action. The most I could do right now is shoot someone. I thank you for getting my own weapon, too, by the way.” He said that she was welcome but that she’d be completely healed if she took on this job with him. “What will that do for my father and uncles? Will it go badly for them when it comes to me being shot?”

“No. No one will know about that but my family. Your relatives are humans so they’ll not know at all. Also, so is the president. None of them will ever figure it out unless we tell them.” She asked him what the responsibility would be for the two of them. “Keeping the pack working is the most important thing. Money won’t be a problem as there is a lot of it to be handed down to us. We would be the overseer of about a thousand acres thanks in part to Hamish. He’s donated some to them in the last few years. You should also be aware that while it’s a big pack, there isn’t much in the way of younger people. With the addition of jobs that are coming here, more will come to our pack to seek entry into the pack. The better we run it and take care of the people that we have under us, the more people will come to us.”

“That sounds like we’ll have a battalion to run. I’m good at that, even if I do have to say so myself. I have about two hundred men and women that report to me not counting the civilians that work at the base as well.” He told her that was about how many he had when he’d been in the service. “I forgot about that. You told me that you were an ancient, so I’m assuming you’ve worked for a lot of presidents. Has any one of them treated you so badly as this one is to me?”

“Yes. And I have an idea that if I go back into the service, he won’t be the last either. You told me you were retiring. Is that anytime soon?” She just leaned back on the back of her seat while thinking. “This will hit the papers when we can catch him at this. We’ll have to be slick. And out of touch. What do you say that once he’s going to be arrested, that you and I take a long honeymoon so that we are here to answer questions?”

“You’ve not even asked me yet. Not to mention, we’ve never been anywhere but to the hospital and back.” He moved out of the chair that he’d been sitting in. “If you’re proposing to me right now, jackass, I’m going to tear your dick off and slap you around with it.”

“Lauder used to tell Hamish that she was going to knock out one of his fangs and stab him to death with it.” He got down on a bent knee. “Margaret Jane Brandon Morton, will you consent to be my wife?”

“That’s it? Just will I marry you? No romance even?” He told her what he thought she’d do to him if he had interjected romance into his speech. “I think you might be right. I would have told you to shut up and get it finished. Are you sure about this, Marshall? I mean it. If I answer you, I’m never going to allow you to take it back. Even if we have fifty years together before you figure out you’ve made a mistake.”

“You’re immortal, the same as I am. And the only mistake that I think that I’ve had is just waiting too long to ask you.” She pointed out that they’d only known each other for about a month now. “Yes, and it’s going so well.”

“All right. But no takebacks. I swear you’ll never see the bullet coming. And I won’t be aiming at the parts I was trained to either.” He cupped his cock and balls, and she felt her face heat up. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

He opened the little box that he had in his hand. If asked, she wouldn’t have thought that she wanted a ring. But as soon as she saw the one that he had for her, she knew that she’d treasure it for as long as she lived.

It was a single blue sapphire with diamonds surrounding the outer circle. The band was wide, wider than her own ring. Looking at it in the bright sunlight, she could see that it had wolves chasing one another around it, and they grew larger as they moved around the band. She loved it.

It was the most beautiful ring she could have ever wanted. It was more lovely than any ring she had. Her other piece of jewelry that she was never without, her military college ring from when she graduated from Tech college, was a close second to it, but she had a feeling that it would go down the list if she were to see this one every day. She’d only ever worn her college ring, the one that she’d gotten from her time in becoming a Technical General as she was now. A general with distinction.

“I know that being in the service, we’ll need a large wedding—” She asked him why they’d need that. “Because, my dearest love, I want to see you in the White House sometime soon. You’d be a perfect fit for that post and I’d be your husband in waiting too.”

“You’re a goof. I used to think about that job, I did. But then I became disillusioned about it when—” She stared at him, her mind working around the things that she’d been thinking about off and on. Marshall asked her what she had remembered. “The day that I’d been given the orders to…that doesn’t matter. The day I went home for my birthday, Michael said something to me. I didn’t get it until right now. He told me that someone would come gunning for me, just like that. Someone would come for me. I asked him what he’d said, and his face, just for about a split second, he looked angry. He said something about my uniform when I asked him to repeat it. About how my shirts weren’t going to fit all the medals because I was so little. Or something like that. That’s not important. But I remembered him saying that.”

“You have that memory thing, what your grannie calls a curse. That’s why you were so sure that he’d signed off on that paperwork. You’ve seen his signature before, correct? Does he or anyone in the service know about your memory?” She shook her head, a lot of other things coming to her as she sat there. “You’re going to have to be extra careful now, babe.”

“So will you and the rest of the family. Not that he knows about the shit I have in my head, but I also know things about him that no one else knows. The president is living on borrowed time as far as I’m concerned.” They talked for another hour.

When it was dinner time, not even realizing that it was that late, he helped her down the first flight of stairs and then carried her down the rest. It was a good feeling having a man lift you up off the floor and carry you around like you weighed nothing. It also made her feel like she was feminine too. Something that she’d not felt like since she’d gone on a date with Bobby Dunn his senior year, and he kept staring at her boobs. When Marshall stopped walking and asked her about Bobby, she laughed.

That was another thing that she loved. Being able to laugh when she wanted. Being a stick in the mud during her service years hadn’t diminished her sense of humor, but it did hide it pretty well. Being unable to join in the humor of her battalion left her feeling left out. Cold hearted. Which was the purpose of it, she supposed, but being free of her burden, something that she was beginning to see as just that, a burden, she was able to have a lot of fun too.

Grannie and DJ joined them in the kitchen. They’d been taking their meals in the bid warm room, and she was thrilled that both her sister and grandmother were able to be so close. It wasn’t until DJ squealed that she remembered that Marshall had asked her to marry him and then she got to show off her ring.

“I still have my old wedding dress. Your momma, she was a bit uptight and wouldn’t wear a hand me down dress. Durned fool paid enough for her own dress that I could have paid all the taxes in town for it. The marriage didn’t last much longer than you two being born. She was about four months gone when you two came along. Then she was gone about a month or so after you kids turned four.” Meggie, as she decided that she was going to go by from now on, said that she’d love to wear her dress. Even if it was at the courthouse. “Nah, you’ll have yourself a big wedding after this mess with my boys is over. We’ll need something to celebrate. Besides, I’m guessing that now that you have Marshall in your life, you’ll take on that dream you used to have of being the president right up front for you to do. You never were a kid. Neither of you girls were ever ones to sit on your fanny’s when there were things to get done.”

They joked around at the table until the dishes were taken away and put in the dishwasher. The cook, Pie, of all things, said that they could have a bowl of fresh fruit if they wanted. Or she could make something different. They all had an idea of the dessert they wanted, and it ended up being on the table for them to enjoy.

Watching a little television she wasn’t really paying attention so much as she thought that she would have otherwise. All she could think about was that the president, her president, had put out a hit on her, and her father was—or had already attempted to kill her. Not him per se, but he’d hired someone to do it for him. It hurt her heart to know…well, she didn’t know if it hurt her heart that he’d do that to his own child, but more like she simply couldn’t believe it about him.

“MJ.” She smiled at her sister. “Did you like the movie, or are you pining for your future husband?”

“Neither. What do you think about what Marshall told you guys about Father? I want a serious answer.” She gave her an answer that she didn’t realize her sister would be thinking about. “Killing them all isn’t an option, I’m afraid. Father would be no trouble, but you’d have to take out the uncles, too. They’d be whining about losing their brother. Like he’d only just wandered off. The president? He’s too high profile. But I’d do it to either one of them if it came to me or them.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I’m assuming you mean Grannie and I in that count, too.” She said that she’d be covering their backs forever and would do it until everyone learned to leave them all alone. “I had hoped that you’d feel that way. But before Marshall? I don’t think you cared if you lived or died, did you?”

“Not really. I would only admit that to you. But yeah, I was getting bored with life. And me. Do you ever feel like I’ve put too much on you by me working and you staying with Grannie?” She said she’d never thought about it. “I did. All the time. I was afraid every time I’d come home…not afraid so much as thinking every time would be the last time I came home, and there you were with her.”

“I love the two of you too much to do that to you or her. Besides, you’ve given me more than I think you did for yourself. If not for you, I couldn’t have gotten a good education. Had a roof over my head. Not enough to eat either. When you found me after you got out of boot camp, I thought for sure I was going to end up dead. And back then, I could have cared less. But now…it’s like you saved my life by being in the service. Given me hope and a purpose. I don’t know why I thought that I needed a man in my life or even thought that one would have been needed to provide for me. I can do that on my own, thanks to you and Grannie. You saved me from that as well. I would have been married with a bunch of kids without home nor hearth and as miserable as I’d ever could have been.”

The two of them talked for a little bit more. She told her that Marshall had been called away by Hamish but that he’d be back before they locked up the house. Also, that grannie had gone to bed too.

“She loves living here. I don’t think that she’ll want to go back home after this is all over.” Meggie asked her sister why she thought that they’d have to leave. “I don’t know, MJ. Because you’ll have a family soon? That you have this hunky man at your beck and call? Any and all of that, I think.”

“None of that matters to me one bit if I feel like I’ve abandoned the two of you. You’ll live here with us and grannie until you find a man that sweeps you off your feet, too. A more hunky one.” They both laughed. “I want you to stay here until you can’t stand me anymore. We have plenty of help around here that Grannie doesn’t need you so much. I want you to get out there and find Mr. Hunky for yourself too.”

“Maybe.” They both headed up to bed after locking up. Marshall told her that he’d be a little later than he had thought and that he’d see them in the morning. That was all right with her. She wanted to be healthy enough to find out just how hunky her new mate was. At the last minute, she decided to leave a note on his desk, knowing that he’d go there before coming up to bed. When she finished with it, simply saying that she’d love to be his mate in all ways and she would stand wherever he needed her to run the pack.