Chapter 6

Booth was glad for the time to spend with his brothers. Even though three of them had their mates, they still carved out time for them to be brothers again. They were just being served their salads, a big part of their meal, when a man with several armed what appeared to be guards came into their little section of the restaurant and asked for a Mr. Dixon.

And being the smart asses they were, they all six said yes, that was who they were. The man looked about as flustered as he seemed to be pissed off, which wasn’t saying much. He looked to be always pissed off. Then, with a short nod, the armed men stepped around them all and stood with their hands on their weapons. Their faces couldn’t be seen, but it was apparent who was in charge of whatever was going on. The man just so happened to be standing in front of him when he demanded to speak to the idiot who was teaching kids how to speak other languages. Again, the six of them said yes, it was them.

“For Christ’s sake. This person’s name is Booth. Booth Dixon. I want him to come with me right now so that I can get out of this small town and back to my own office.” Booth stood up, and he looked at the others. “Was that so hard? Christ, you small-town idiots really burn my ass. Let’s go, young man. I have a deadline to meet, and you’ve wasted enough of my time with your little games.”

“I’m Booth Dixon, but I’m not going anywhere with you. And to call us idiots when it’s obvious that we can speak more languages than you or you’d not need us. Isn’t that about right?” He asked him if he wanted to be arrested. “For being Booth? I don’t think so. Besides that, you might want to take a look around, buster. My brothers have taken exception to your treatment of me.”

“That’s it. I’ve had—arrest this man. He’s not cooperating with his government when they need him.” No one moved, not even the men that were directly behind him. It was then that the man turned around and saw that Waylon and the others, with the exception of Dallas had shifted and were now holding the head of each man in their large hands that were right in front of them. “What the hell is the meaning of this? You will…how did you bring these monkeys in here?”

“We’re apes, not monkeys. Actually, we’re great apes. Now, as I was saying, I’m not going anywhere with you. You’re rude and a straight-up bastard. But that’s not the real reason. I don’t like you. We were having a great time, and I can’t believe that you’ve come in here with your armed men. Well, they were armed and thought to fuck up our day.” He reached out to Amy and told her what was going on and could she please call her brother. “What the hell is your name anyway?”

“None of your business.” Booth sat down and then heard from Amy. She told him that he had nothing to worry about. While the man was going on and on about what he was going to be doing if he allowed him to while he spoke to his sister-in-law.

“His name is Alexander Winterson. He works for the government, that’s true but he’s only looking for you because Jamie suggested that he ask you about translating some papers that were found in an abandoned house in DC. He said that was all he did was suggest that you might be able to or know someone who can help out. I don’t know anything about that other than Jamie is pissed off because of the tactics that Winterson is using.” He said that he’d caused them all to shift, and the only ones that weren’t were him and Dallas. “He’d shit his pants if one of you were to go all apeshit on them, don’t you think? I’m going to suggest it to one of them now.”

She must have said something to Dallas because, in no time at all, Waylon stood up on his feet and pounded on his chest like they had seen in the movies. Each of the soldiers that were with Winterson not only dropped their weapons but dropped to the floor along with their hands over their heads. It looked like all their bravery was gone now. They were, it looked like they were smart in this, terrified. In the silence of the room, a cell phone rang.

Dallas pulled out his phone and put it in front of Winterson. “It’s for you.” The man didn’t look like he was going to take it. Just then, everyone in the room who had a cell found it to be ringing. It was the most comical thing he’d ever seen. “I’d answer that if I were you. It could be the difference between you living and dying right here on the floor. I was told not to hurt you unless you provoked me, and I can tell you right now that you’re very close to being on my last fucking nerve.”

Winterson snatched the phone from Dallas and put it up to his ear after connecting. All he got out was ‘who is’ before he paled a little and began sputtering about how it was his fault that things had gone awry. His glare at him was something that he’d not expected like he was blaming him for whomever he was speaking to.

When he hung up he stood there looking like he’d just lost his best friend and lost the girl too. When he straightened out his tie and handed the phone back to Dallas, he looked like he was at a loss for words up until he found them.

“You actually called the president of these United States on me? I hope you know that his little tantrum didn’t do anything to me. You’d best bet that I’m going to come out smelling like a rose while you smell like the shit that you are.” He told him that he was bothering him. “Now he, the stupid shit that we have as a president, wants me to come home and count my blessings that he’s not fired me. For doing my job. Can you believe that? You’ll pay for this, see that you don’t. I swear you’d better be watching yourself from now on. I’m going to be keeping an eye on you. See that I don’t.”

“You didn’t learn anything from this, did you?” Winterson asked Booth what he was supposed to have learned. “That you’re a bastard and a bully and just got your ass handed to you by your own boss didn’t mean a thing to you. I’m sure that he told you how wrong you were in treating someone you need a favor from to be nicer to.”

“You’re still going to do as you’re told. And coming with me to get those papers translated will be your only job from now on. I don’t give a rat’s ass what that man said to me. When I’m given an assignment, I take it on with full guns.” Booth just shook his head. “Get your gear gathered up, and we’ll be on our way. I believe that we’ve wasted enough time on your poor little feelings for one day.”

Booth didn’t move. But the men that came with Winterson had simply gathered up their weapons and left the man standing alone. Waylon stayed his gorilla, and it made him wonder when was the last time that he had himself a good run. Or even slept out under the stars as they used to do as kids. It was going to be something that he—

“Did you hear me?” Booth asked him if he’d heard what he said. “I don’t like that you’re not doing what I want. Get your ass in gear, and let’s be on our way. I have things to do, and hanging out with a panty waste like you is getting nothing done. Get up. Right now or so help me, you’re going to be shot in the head.”

“Don’t shoot my brother. You’ll only serve to piss him off.” Just as he was reaching into his suit pocket it was Cullen that disarmed him. The gun fell to the floor, and then Winterson was there as well. Cullen had him not just in a good tight grip but he also was making it difficult for him to breathe as well. “Remember Cullen, he’s human.”

“Yeah, I guess he might be considered a non-shifter, but there is no way that I’d call him human. He’s been like this his entire life, too.” When Cullen didn’t explain what that meant, he asked him. “He bullied his parents, too, and his sister until they didn’t want to have anything to do with him. He’d been a pain in the ass for some time to the president as well.”

Winterson looked like he wanted to speak, but his brother only gave him enough breath to breathe for a bit longer. Cullen didn’t seem all that impressed either that the man was someone who was working for the president. He did, too, he supposed, but there was something more going on here than just what they were dealing with at the moment. When his cell rang, he answered it without looking to see who it might well be.

“Booth, I’m assuming.” He said that it was him. “This is Jamie. I was wondering if the idiot had ever apologized to you.” He told him what was going on. “I see. So, I’m going to assume that’s a no. All right. If you’ll allow me to speak to one of the…are the secret service still there?”

He handed his phone to the man on the floor, who said that he was in charge. Not saying much on his end, none of them seemed to have any idea why the man simply stood up and put his gun to the back of Winterson’s head. Booth was sure that things were going to get shitty here in a few minutes when, all of a sudden, the room filled with police as well as other agents. Then the phone was handed back to him.

“Booth, I’m so sorry this has happened to you. And your brothers, I was told you were just having a nice get-together when Winterson came in spouting his gibberish. I swear the man has gotten on my last nerve over the past two weeks. I believe he’s part of the people that were out to get my wife and myself killed a few weeks back.” He told him he was sorry about that but that the police were there as well as the other. “Yes, they’re going to be getting him out of your hair and into a nice quiet jail someplace until I have time to fuss with him. Which might be a few years for the way I’m feeling right now.”

“What did he want? Something about translating something for you.” He told him not to worry about it now. He’d find someone else to take care of it. “I don’t mind. I’m off school right now with it being summer break and would love to look over the paperwork for you.”

“Really? You would save me so much time, Booth. I haven’t any idea what the paperwork might entail. There has been speculation that it’s just a simple recipe but I don’t speak whatever the language is that it’s written in.” He told the other man that he was fluent in several languages but if it was something that he didn’t know, he had friends that could help out. “I’ll have to know who they are before you send it to them. Like I said, it looks like a recipe but it’s difficult to know what it is. I’ll have them couriered over to you as soon as today. Whatever you need, just tell me, and I’ll get it for you.

By the time the room was cleaned out but for the six of them, the night seemed to have been ruined. They were, however, going to go on a nice run through woods and climb a few trees while they were at it. It was, after all the things that had happened in the last few weeks, nice to be able to just be their other selves for a change. He knew that it was for him.

It was nearly midnight when he made it back to his place. The courier was there waiting for him to sign for the thick envelope, and he felt bad about that. Taking it into the house, he didn’t bother opening it up because he knew that he’d get involved in it, and that would be the end of his good night’s sleep.

As soon as he got into bed, Booth knew that it was a lost cause. He lay there tossing and turning, wondering what the papers said. Getting up and taking another shower to get himself in the mood, he was sitting at his desk looking over the first few sheets of paper and realized that it was a recipe. One for baked brie. He hoped that the rest of the papers were that easy but he knew better than to think that. As soon as he got to the second page, it was written out how the allies, the United States, were sending troops to the fort to fight on night maneuvers.

At six in the morning, he was picking up his phone when it rang before he could touch it. It was Jamie again. He wanted to know when he was going to start working on them, and he also wanted him to keep track of his hours. After telling him what the first page was about, he told him what a wonderful find the paperwork had been about the Civil War and some of the maneuvers that had been launched in order to get their freedom.

“It reads like someone was just jotting down their thoughts. There are also references to how much money was being spent and on what sort of goods. This is wonderful so far, and I’m really enjoying myself.” After telling him how far he’d gotten and the things that he’d found out, Jamie wanted him to come to DC to read it to him. He was also a history buff and wanted to hear the accountings as he was reading them. “There is a whole passage on how the person writing this met Lincoln. He said that he was a good man but tall. He mentions that several times in the first couple of pages.” He asked him where the papers were found.

“It’s a long-dead relative of Edwin Staton. He was a former U.S. Attorney General back then, and he had some far distant cousins that he might have stayed with while in the DC area. The house had been abandoned for some time, and when it went on the market, the new owners were doing some remodeling, bringing it up to code. I was told when they tore open a wall and found this little room with things like that you’re reading in it. There are books as well that are going to be donated to the library.” He asked him what the people who owned the house thought about that. “The realtor told them that the house was just old enough that it might have national treasures in it that they had to turn over to the government. I don’t think that it was legal him telling them that but they were more than pleased to be able to impart some history with their home.”

They talked for another thirty minutes when Jamie had to go to some meetings. After talking to him about the papers, he went back to the first page and began taking notes on what was being said. He was especially excited about the recipe then, to know that it was a part of the history of an old house in DC.

~*~

Lydia, Dee, to her friends, didn’t like driving in DC. It was difficult to get around and she was sure that every other street was named something to do with a senator or something. And there were so many round abouts that she never knew where to get off. Give her an old-fashioned stoplight, and she’d be just as happy.

The man behind her in traffic had been tailing her for the last hour. After pulling out into traffic a few streets back, he’d been screaming obscenities at her at every stop sign and light. She wasn’t going fast enough, he kept telling her, but she wouldn’t speed up for anyone. It was against the law and she couldn’t afford a ticket right now.

Stopped at a light with him behind her, she kept both her hands on the wheel when he continued to yell and rev up his engines. Like that would be something that would frighten her into speeding through a red light. Then she started moving.

He was pushing her into the oncoming traffic, and she was suddenly afraid. Once she was in the middle of the road, barely missing several cars coming toward her, she was hit in the side. After the airbags were deployed, she felt herself being tossed around like a ball in a dryer and couldn’t make heads or tails of where she was or what was going on.

“Miss? Can you hear me?” She tried to open her eyes to look to where the voice was coming from and she couldn’t make them work. “Do you know your name, miss? Can you tell me who you are?”

“Lydia Townhouse. My friends call me Dee.” She was starting to get her bearings then and asked the man where she was. “That man, the one behind me, he pushed me into oncoming traffic. I want to press charges against him.”

“The police will want to talk to you about that, I guess. I’m here to try and get you out of your car.” She said that she could unlock it. “I’m afraid we’re well beyond that point, honey. You’re penned in and upside down. You took quite a beating with your car.”

By the time they were able to get the doors off her car and were pulling her out, she began to take inventory of her body, and nothing seemed to be in pain. Even them helping her out with a gurney to the awaiting ambulance had her wondering how it was that she’d been in an accident. She was trying her best to be nice. It wasn’t their fault that she’d been hurt. She was ready to throw up or be knocked out. Her head was hurting her so bad that she was surprised that she could even think, much less answer their questions. Almost as soon as she was in the back of the ambulance, there was a pinch to her arm and she was feeling better. She did, however, get a good look at the intersection she’d been at the light at.

There were cars everywhere, it seemed. Right there in the middle of it was a large helicopter. She didn’t know if it was any bigger than any other one, but it looked huge to her when they were. They were telling her that she’d be life-flighted to the hospital and that they were ready for her.

She kept floating in and out of consciousness. Dee knew that she had on a neck brace but they kept asking her if she could feel her toes. Trying hard again not to scream at them, she told them that all she felt was pain in her head and that she thought that she was sick with it. Even being drugged up didn’t help at all when it came to her being able to answer questions. But the one that kept coming around was the one about her legs.

Closing her eyes once she felt the stabilization of herself, she saw the lights and people in increments of too much light in her eyes. They didn’t ask her any more questions, but they did talk around her. At some point, someone did ask her if she had any next of kin and all she could think about was her friend Cullen Dixon. He’d been her best friend since they’d met about ten or so years ago and hadn’t been able to be anything more than friends. The date had turned into several over the next few years, and she was forever happy to drop whatever she was doing just to be around the nicest man she’d ever met.

Cullen had been there for her when her dad died. When her cat, older than any other feline that she knew, had passed away in her sleep at the ripe old age of seventeen, he’d seen her through that. She’d been there for him too when he’d come home from being out of the country—all she ever knew about his job and that he might need someone to hang out with and was his sounding board when he would open up about how things were messed up everywhere and that he didn’t much care for people, with the exception of her.

He never told her about his big family. She knew that he had one. It had been in all the papers when they’d first met about how this unsung hero was one of six children to his parents and grandparents as well. There was more about him when Amy, sister of Jamie, the president, was found, and since then, there had been plenty of articles about his family that she felt like she could point each of them out and be correct about them.

She wasn’t entirely sure if anyone had been able to get in touch with him, but she hoped that he’d not mind that she’d put him as her next of kin, the only person that she truly trusted when she was hurt. Knowing him the way that she did, he’d more than likely tell them to pull the plug, if there had been one, so that she’d not be a bother. Not that she ever was to him, or so he told her, but she loved the big man more than she’d thought possible and not have any sexual thoughts about him.

Waking up once more, just before they were taking her to surgery, she saw him there. He was her knight in shining armor again and she wanted to sob out her relief. Instead, he leaned over her and kissed her on the cheek. She was never so relived to have a friend with her than she was this friend. He was, and would be forever, her one true friend for life.

“Behave yourself. I don’t want to have to go in there and kick your butt simply because you have a break in your spine.” She nodded, not entirely sure what he was talking about. “I love you, Dee-Dee.”

He was the only person that called her that. The only man who had seen her naked, too. It had been a date, their first one, when she’d spilled wine all over her dress too close to a flame, and both she and the dress caught fire. He jerked her clothing off so quickly that she didn’t think a thing about it until later. He took off his jacket and helped her put it on before anyone was the wiser on what had just happened. Dee couldn’t believe how many times he’d come to her rescue and never once held it over her head.

Dee swam up from the deep water to be able to see. Someone was talking, not to her, she realized, but talking in the room. Not sure what was going on, only just remembering that she’d been hurt, she tried to pull the things off her face so that she could see, but she couldn’t lift her hands up no matter how hard she tried. The hand on face pulled the mask on her face gently but firmly away, and she knew better on some level not to fight.

“You’re going to be fine. I have you.” She didn’t know the voice. Or she didn’t know if she knew the voice. Almost as soon as she was told again to behave, she was exhausted and in pain in her head again. “They’re giving you something for it now, baby girl. Just let it take you under, and we’ll talk when you’re awake and feeling better.”

Floating away again, she tried to focus on the voice, but it kept fleeting away. Letting the pain medication or whatever it was take effect, she was down again before she could find out if Cullen had left her again.

~*~

“Just how sure are you?” His brother just looked at him with a cocked brow. “I don’t mean to question your word, but we’ve been friends since what seems like forever. And you never mentioned it before.”

“I’ve never met her before now. At least, I don’t think so. You’ve talked about her a great deal, but I don’t think that you ever brought her home. What did you say happened? I know you said accident, but I haven’t been able to find out anything about it in the papers nor on the news.”

“They’re trying to keep it hush-hush. The senator who was driving the original truck that pushed her into traffic had a blood alcohol level of .45%. Dee’s car was shoved into traffic by him, and eighteen other cars were involved in the accident that she was a tennis ball in. The police are saying that she was hit as many as half a dozen times but other cars, and if not for the men who had pulled her out of the car when it was upside down, there is no telling what she would have had to have done to her when the thing caught fire. As it is now, there are four dead and sixteen injured, three of which aren’t expected to live, and the senator is under house arrest and expected to be arrested as soon as tomorrow. Jamie, as you probably have figured out, is looking to have him lynched.” Booth asked what he was saying. “That it was her fault. Something about her not getting her ass in gear when she had to know that he was someone important. They’re trying to figure out if he was just drunk off his ass or stoned as well. There was enough coke and other paraphernalia in his truck to have felled one of us. Christ, you should have heard him barking orders about Dee when he found out that she’d been brought in by chopper and he’d had to ride here in a police cruiser. He was acting like this was all her fault, too.”

Cullen and Booth took turns going in and out of her room. After surgery, she was put on a special floor so that the press couldn’t find her nor Senator Fullner. The man was going to be in big-time trouble if he didn’t keep his mouth shut and away from the press. To hear him talk about it, there should be special roads for people like him so that he didn’t have to deal with John Q. Public when he was late getting around. The man was certifiable.

The room that she was in was private. Even if Jamie hadn’t of made sure that she got the best of care, he would have. She was his friend and had been someone that he could cry on her shoulder when he needed it. Right now, she needed him more and he’d not let her down. Also, he’d be there for her when she woke up and found out that she’d never walk again, much less be able to use her arms and body. Cullen wondered if her being mate to his brother Booth would help with that in any way. He hoped so. He wanted to see her dance again.

Their parents showed up around seven the next morning. They were still monitoring her every fifteen minutes and he and Booth could only see her ten minutes at a time each hour. They weren’t able to touch her, nor were they able to talk to her if she woke up. He and her had a connection made between them years ago, and he’d speak to her when he wanted and needed to and be damned their rules.

It was Falkner who looked over her chart and told them what the doctors hadn’t. She was going to be paralyzed from the waist down because of the accident, and he was hurt all the way to his feet for that. Whether or not Booth could heal her, no one knew just yet. But for now, they were holding off in healing anything about her because of the circumstances of the accident. If she were to heal up too quickly, there would be hell to pay, and he didn’t want that for his best buddy.