Chapter 8

Now that they were back from their honeymoon—more than she could have hoped for in their time together, the two of them were settling into a job. He had one, of course. Maverick managed the funds and charities that they used to help out their community as well as a great many other things. He did manage their money, including all her money that was still being found from her uncle stashing it all over the place. So far, they'd found five offshore accounts as well as several safety deposit boxes that not only held lots of cash but some of the things, like her mother's jewels, that she was to have had when she reached eighteen. They were still trying to figure out how he'd managed to get those without her permission, but then, a lot of the things that he'd done while she had been depending on him were a boggle to everyone's mind.

"How's it going?" Barkley, Maverick's dad, came to see her while she was working at least two times a week. If she wasn't busy, they'd enjoy lunch together. And if Lisa was nearby, she'd join them as well. "I see you're taking more notes now. Is Jade pleased with them?"

"Is Jade ever pleased, I wonder?" They both laughed and she told him what she'd learned after the first couple of weeks at her doing this job. "Once I got passed looking at the surgery itself, I got the hang of what she needed for me to do. To be honest with you, I thought that she was giving me just a busy job, but Maverick assured me that she'd never do that. I started seeing things that I doubt that even Jade would if she were to watch herself performing surgery."

"I hear that you were also watching the recordings of the surgery after it was finished. Now, that fascinates me. What is it you're looking for when you do that?"

Jade had asked Grace to watch the surgeries being performed in the operating room. Occasionally, she would observe recordings in the emergency room, but mostly, she focused her energy on ones that were going on beneath from the observation room. She was to find repetitive motions.

Like did the nurses stand in one spot for long periods of time because there were too many of them in the room. Did they have to reach far, as in moving around the big room to get extra supplies for the surgery, and did they do that every time. Did the doctor or the nurses with the patient seem to not have a flow of their movements?

"When I'm finished with a surgery, I need to go back and watch it so that I can read my notes. I might just put penlight here. I might not remember what that means at first, but once I watch the recordings, it will trigger the reason, and I can make better notes." They both looked down when the man at the side of the table, she never knew their names was barking orders to the person across from him. "I don't know this man's name, but he is never polite to the people who work with him. The anesthesiologist will talk low, not so that I can hear it—another reason for me to watch the surgery over again, and I can see what he's doing to keep balance in the room. It doesn't always work with this person, but he does try."

"Jade told me that you didn't want to know names when you're here. Why is that?" She said that if she ever had to have an operation, she didn't want to be too nervous when she came in here if it was someone like the guy below. "I know him. I won't tell you his name, but I know who he is. That might be something that you can help me with as well. I could go back and revive the recordings as you are, but you don't know the entire picture by looking at just one surgery, do you?"

"No. You get a feel for the people that you see all the time. I only ever have numbers that I assign each person but I can tell you right now that the doctor that works with him, the gas guy I call him, he doesn't particularly care for the man. However, he works for him a great deal. I know that the surgeon is having marital problems, and it's because his wife thinks that he's seeing one of the people that he works with. That's true to a point but he doesn't flirt with the women in here while working. Just the men."

She knew the exact moment that Barkley got what she was saying. His face turned a pretty shade of beet, and he wouldn't look her in the eye for several seconds. After he got over his initial shock, Grace told him some of the other things that she had observed.

The two of them ended up having lunch with Jade. She'd been at the hospital doing an install of a piece of equipment that would fold sheets. It didn't sound like much to her on the surface until she thought about how many beds would have to be made daily and the amount of laundry that had to be sent out to clean. Adding a department that only dealt with sheets for the hospital and nothing more, it would save the hospital millions of dollars in a service that did it for them. With each conversation that she had with someone in this family, the more excited she was to be a part of it.

Before I forget to tell you, there will be a delivery to your house in a couple of days. The shipping warehouse that my order is coming through asked if we'd split the shipment up between drivers. So one person doesn't have to lift and carry all that heavy equipment. So in helping them, I was able to get the order to go to eight different places, all the family and then we'll come by and load it up in a truck bed to take to the shop." Barkley asked how much more that was costing them. "It is a bit more expensive, but I'd rather have a higher cost on my end than to have men and women breaking their backs to have stuff delivered to me all together. It'll work out in the end."

Gracie was forever impressed with this family. They were willing to take a hit, this time in shipping, to help out their fellow man. She'd seen all of them at different points since she'd been a part of it get out of their car and help someone with a flat, pull a car out of a tree if it's just a finder binder. Even Jenson, who had won the congress seat for their state, was always there to be counted on when he was needed. She could see him, at some point, being the leader of the country. He wasn't a sap, as some had called him, but a man who got things done.

On her way home, she stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few things that they'd needed for their dinner. On Tuesdays, the cook was off, and the two of them usually cooked out or ordered something to be brought to them. But tonight she was going to try and make grilled salmon with rice pilaf.

She was just putting her things on the belt when she heard a terrible screeching sound. Tires. Grace ran out of the store to see if she could do anything, not having any idea what that might be when she saw what the man in the truck had nearly run down—several puppies.

"They just come out of nowhere. I swear, they have a death wish or something. That one there, the black puppy, it seemed to be pissed off—look at it. I can almost understand the thing is telling me to be more careful next time." She picked up one of the smaller brown ones and held him to her cheek while checking on the other three. "Look, lady, if they were yours, you should take better care that they're not run over or out in the streets."

"They're not mine. But yes, you're right about better care. This one looks like he's not eaten in a couple of days. I have a feeling that he's been going after the food, bringing it home to his family rather than eating it for himself." The man told her that she was weird. Then Tommy, the young man that worked in the store came out with one of the baskets that people did their shopping in. "Thank you so much. I think we might need another one, however. They're coming out of the woodwork now."

There were nine of them. Varying shades of white to black. It reminded her of a post she'd seen once when a person lined them all up, and it looked as if the printer was running out of ink by the time he got to the last one. Her heart broke for the little ones she was playing with.

Putting them in the car, she was determined not to fall in love with them. She'd had a dog once, not too long ago that she had loved more than humans most of the time. Danny, her support dog, had been by her side for most of her childhood and then into her adulthood until he was killed. If she fell in love with these puppies, she'd be raising them all, and she was sure that Maverick would have a fit.

Putting them on the back seat, it was as if they knew that she was going to take care of them. They wandered all over her and the seats, getting into her face and licking her. Once she had her belt on, she put them in the basket and told them that they had to be still or they'd be in an accident with her. It shocked her to no end when the black puppy barked at her, then the others, and they settled down on the floorboard of the seat. There was more room for them there, and they went right to sleep.

Taking them to the only vet in town, she was glad when someone came out to help her cart them all in. Mr. Markus had told her to keep the baskets, he'd not want anyone to use them after having doggies in them, and she was going to donate them to the clinic.

"Mr. Markus called. He said you had hit the mother load of dogs. I didn't know what he meant until he sent me a picture of you wrangling them." She was slightly embarrassed but got over it quickly when Jon, the local vet, started sorting them out to be examined. "It's going to take a while for them all to be healthy enough to give away. You have room for all of them?"

"I'm not keeping them. There are nine dogs here." He just stared at her. "Maverick will be pissed off if I take them home. Don't you think?"

"I think that Maverick would go out of his way to find you nine more puppies if he thought that they would make you happy. But we'll see. He's on his way here right now."

She had to think of a good excuse to tell him why she'd picked all the dogs up and brought them with her if she wasn't going to take them. As soon as he pulled into the parking lot, he got into his back seat and then came at her while snow fell down all around the two of them.

"Honey, you missed one." The puppy that he handed her was much smaller than the others. He was the only one too that was covered in all the colors, from the black to the bright white. The little guy also had spots of orange and a blueish color that the others didn't have. "I think he might be the runt."

"Don't call him that. You'll give him a complex. How would you like it if someone called you a name simply because you were smaller than your brothers." Blackie, what she'd been calling the bossy one, turned out to be a girl, and she let Maverick know that she wasn't pleased with him either. "You tell him, honey. Tell him we're not going to be picking on the other, or we'll take care of him too."

"You've named her?" Grace told Maverick that she couldn't just call them puppies as there were ten of them now. "But you named that one?"

"Really? That's all you can focus on. And for your information, I named them all, mister smarty pants. See? The girls are Blackie, Betty, Wilma, Pebbles and Pearl. He eyed her with a smile. "The boys are Dino, Bamm-Bamm, Fred, and Barney. And I think that I'm going to name this one the Great Gazoo. I saw the cartoon this morning when I was walking down the hallway from the kids' area. Sherm was in there, just watching them with the other kids. I didn't know that he volunteered at the hospital." He told her not to change the subject and then asked her who Pearl was. He'd apparently watched the cartoon as well. "Oh, well, Pearl is Fred's mother-in-law. I think. I only saw the one cartoon, so I could be wrong about how she's related, but I think I have—why are you laughing at me? It's a perfect set of names to keep them…not that I'm keeping them. I mean, that would be a lot of work for someone. Don't you think?"

He kissed her on the nose and hugged her with the Gazoo between them. "What I think is that we're going to be raising ten puppies in our house and we'll be all the happier for it. I can also imagine that we're going to be the most favorite on the block when the kids find out that we have enough to go around."

Gracie loved this man. While the others were being examined, Blackie kept them in line. She thought that she should change her name, but she'd gotten used to calling her that and didn't think she'd like it if she had to answer to something else. Besides, she thought all the names from the show were used up in their little family, so she didn't bother.

They were all healthy, if not a little underfed and dehydrated. Pebbles had a sore foot, but once it was cleaned up and wrapped up for her, she seemed to be as energetic as the rest of them.

By the time they got them all situated at home, food, bowls, sleeping beds, as well as the medication that they needed, she was exhausted. Gracie hadn't even told Maverick the best news yet. She was afraid that he'd make her take them all back. Once they were in the house with them, she figured it was safe to tell him that—

"I talked to Doc Miser today. He called me, wishing me congratulations. It took a long conversation about breastfeeding and how much sleep we were going to miss before I understood what he was telling me." She was perturbed that the doctor had told him before she could. "I love you, Grace Strong. I cannot wait to have more puppies with you."

~*~

Trevor didn't care for the little girl. He wasn't one to make snap judgments about people, but there was something decidedly creepy about the kid. Even Sherm, the nicest kid he'd ever met, seemed to not want to have much to do with her. Debra Carter was odd. Not only that but she was snippy, as his mom would call it.

No one knew that the child was with him. Well, not him, but his parents. Sherm was the only kid who knew that she was around, and he wouldn't tell. He was the most adult child that he'd ever met and trusted him more than he did his own banker.

"She's weird." He told Sherm that wasn't nice. "Well, she is. Last night, I asked her if she wanted to play a game on my reader, and she told me that it would melt my brain. I might be younger than her, but I know better than that."

"Sherm, you're younger than I am, and you know a lot of things that I don't. But you found out her age?" He told him that she told him that she was twelve. "You say that like you don't believe it. You think she's older or younger?"

"I don't know, to be honest. She's just weird." Sherm had been telling him that for the past three days. It was like he didn't know what other label to put on the girl. While Mrs. J had left them notes on the child, there really wasn't enough personal information about her to be able to know where she came from or how she had ended up at Mrs. J's home.

Then there was the thumb drive that he'd been given. He no more understood that than he did how a kid could be so smart with the dumbest parents around. Correcting himself. He knew how that happened. Sherm was a product of a good home. Just yesterday, he'd been talking to someone at his office who said that their child had been tested and was considered gifted.

"She's reading off the charts in books. Only five years old and reading at a high school age. Can you believe it?" He was reasonably sure that he wasn't supposed to answer no at that point. "I just can't believe how smart my little girl is."

Neither did he. He had attempted to converse with the child, who appeared to be an ordinary kid at first glance. However, when he offered her a book, she didn't settle down to read as expected. Instead, she fidgeted restlessly, tearing out pages and eating them. Unless she was somehow absorbing the book's contents through her mouth, he doubted she could read at all.

After spending what little time he did with Debra, he realized that she was forever staring at things. Not like looking, he looked at things and observed. But she would go off in this kind of trance and stare at something for a good hour before she'd look back at him. Trevor shivered. That just creeped him out, too.

"Did you know that there are tests that you can give someone to see what sort of intelligence they have?" Sherm told him all about the tests he'd taken them several times and what they would tell you about a gifted person. "It…Grandma said I can't call her an "it" anymore. She might be only gifted in one thing. Like I am. I can read, hear, or smell something, and I will remember it forever. But I've applied my gift, I guess you can call it, so that I can use it to help others. There are some kids who can do math and see things beyond the scope that it is. I can do that too but I have to have something to draw it out so that it doesn't get all fuzzy in my head."

"What do you think Debra is gifted with?" He told him, again, that she was just weird. "Sherm, I don't think that's a gift. Being weird, I mean. What would that even be?" But the more he thought about it, he thought that was what she was gifted with. Being weird.

Trevor hadn't been able to talk to Jade or any of the others about the girl or the thumb drive. He'd watched it from beginning to end several times, and he no more understood what he was looking at then than he did a book on political science that Jenson had given him. It might as well have been in a different language as far as he was concerned.

There were other things about the girl, too. She had a habit, well, he wasn't sure it was a habit or not, something else that made her weird, he supposed, but she wouldn't eat things on her plate that touched something else.

Like she'd not eat succotash. The corn and the lima beans touching were too much for her. All her food was put into separate bowls or plates. And she would need a new fork with each thing, too. The other night, she'd had a meltdown because he'd put mushrooms on her steak. She had wanted both, but he'd not known about the touching thing until then. Dad had to leave the room, and Mom…well, she seemed like she thought the kid was…weird. Like Sherm had said.

Also, she wouldn't wear socks with her shoes. She'd wear them around the house, keeping her feet cozy inside of them, but once she had to put on shoes, nope, she'd take them off and put them in the laundry.

As he was eating his lunch, making sure that everything on his paper plate touched, he had to laugh when his Mom sat down beside him and told him to behave. As if she knew just what he was up to. After kissing her on the cheek and offering her the last of his chips, she took one bite and picked up his drink.

"You could have warned me." After she drank down most of what was left in his paper cup she made him go and get her a refill. While he was there, he also got her a bottle of water. Setting both down in front of her, he watched as she tried to get rid of the flaming hot taste in her mouth. "What am I going to do with you, Trevor? Some woman is going to come along, take one bite of your dinner, and run to the hills."

"Nah, she'll have to get used to it. But I don't need another woman in my life. I have all I need right here with you." She smacked him on his arm. "What are you doing in this part of town? Not that I'm complaining, I love seeing you, but you don't usually come down here unless you need…did that girl say something to you?"

"She's odd, don't you think? But no, she didn't say anything to me. I don't know what to do with her most of the time." Trevor almost told his mom not to be alone with her, but he didn't. He had no idea where that thought came from but he knew it was true as much as his love for his mom. "I came into town to have lunch with Jade, but she's in the middle of a huge project. Jenson is working on his office in DC. And Grace had already eaten by the time I was able to run her down. I felt so lonely."

"I have an idea that both Jenson and Jade will be gone for the rest of the day. She told me that Jenson has some furniture that he needs to move. Grace told me that she had puppies. I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I didn't ask. I love her to pieces, but she sometimes talks like she's been having a conversation with you for several hours and that you just need to catch up with her. Also, and this one really floored me. What the heck is a Flintstone? She did mention it was an old cartoon, but I've never heard of it."

Mom was laughing. He was happy to see it; she'd been down a bit for the last few days, and when she explained to him what the Flintstone reference was, she had him look it up and watch one of the cartoons that she had enjoyed as a child.

"Oh my, Trevor, you do my heart a lot of good. I'm so happy I came to find you." She chuckled a bit more before she asked him what the puppies meant. "Do you think that it's code for something? It would be like her to come up with something like that. I just love that girl. She's forever making me have to think hard and then laugh just as hard. I believe that her sense of humor is just as good as Jade's sarcasm."

The two of them decided to go by to see Gracie. Pulling into the drive, they were amazed to see a truck backing up to the garage. Wondering what they had ordered now, the two of them bypassed the garage and made their way into the house.

The barking started first. Then the cutest little puppies, all of them round and fat, came running to them. Gracie, chasing them, yelled for us to close the door or they'd escape again had Trevor closing the door and then sitting on the floor to get as much loving as he could get from the rambunctious bunch.

After telling them how she'd ended up with the ten little beasts, she said that it had been so much fun watching them grow into their own personalities. But then, she explained that she'd only had them a few days and was still getting used to them.

"Are you going to sell them?" The look Grace gave him had him raising his hands in defense. I was just asking. Because if you are, I want my pick of them. Christ, this is like having a bundle of love right here in your hands."

"I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them all. I don't want to part with them, they give me so much joy all the time when I'm here alone, but I've only just realized today how much it's going to cost for us to feed them when they get full-sized. The vet told us that they were going to be big dogs and would need a lot of yard to play in. I have that, we have it all fenced in as well, but we've had to have the local store bring us food for them on a semi." That explained the truck in the garage. "Yes, I know. I might well have gone a little overboard with that but we won't run out anytime soon. It's difficult for me to bring home fifty-pound bags of dog food by myself weekly."

"I'll take two." She asked him if he was serious. "Yes. I want to…do you know their sex yet? If so, I want to take a male and a female. I'll have them both fixed, but I think that a brother and sister will have fun growing up together. I know that I'll enjoy it."

Trevor didn't even mind that they had names. He figured that if Gracie was willing to part with two of them for him that he'd leave their names for them. Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm were going to go home with him, along with their beds, food, and collars. Christ, he thought to himself, he was nuts but was going to enjoy this so much.

By the time Maverick made it home, his other brothers and their families showed up to get to know the newest additions to the family. Sherm wanted one so badly that it hurt him to know that he couldn't. At least not until they got their yard fenced in as well. When all was said and done, Gracie was left with two of the dogs, Fred and Wilma, so that she could watch them grow up as well.

"I have something to tell you guys since you're all here." Maverick raised his glass of tea up, tapped it with a spoon, and smiled. "Grace and I are going to have a baby in June. By then, we're hoping that the dogs will be able to be around them without falling over."

The dogs were clumsy. But so adorable. When he asked Dad if he was going to take one, he said he had enough on his plate right now with Debra. He didn't sound any more thrilled with the girl than his mom had. Trevor decided right then that he was going to dig deeper into the girl's life and find out firstly what was wrong with her and secondly why it was so important to keep her hidden away.

Something very telling was that not one of the puppies would go near her. Blackie, the pup that seemed to be in charge of the others, just stared at the young girl and barked. In doggie language, he was sure that he told his little family that they were to avoid her. Having a dog, just a little one to avoid someone, told him that he couldn't put off any longer what he should have done by now. See what the fuck was her issue.

When he got home that night, after walking the dogs around the yard, Trevor decided that he was going to have to move into something bigger than the one-bedroom condo. They didn't have any kind of rules as to having pets, but he couldn't see that they'd be able to run around as much as they might need to when they got older.

Deciding that he didn't want a mansion like the others had but something with a couple of bedrooms and a nice yard. It was the yard that he wanted most. Something that was his and his alone. He realized that he was sick to death of sharing the space with about fifty other people.

That night, after the pups settled down, he got on the computer to have a look around. Nothing on Debra as yet. He'd do that later but to find him a home. As he was sitting on the floor, where he did his best work, he thought, the pups came over to him and cuddled up on his lap. He found himself so relaxed with them snoring gently by him that he was going to go to bed.

Something was up with the girl. He didn't know what, but he was going to find it, and if it turned out badly, anything that made her a threat to his family, he was going to make sure that she was never found. That was his job, after all.