Page 13 of Brad

He was laughing when what he said to her occurred to her. The little shit was going to pay for that. And even with her threatening him, he still laughed harder at her. By the time they were both calmed down, he told her that he hurt a little from laughing so hard.

“I love you, Mom. So very much. And I know that my mom was your sister. I don’t know that I would have turned out half as good as people say I would have without your help and influence.” He laughed a little, but she could hear a bit of sadness in his voice as he continued. “You are what you learn, I’ve heard said about people. And I believe that I’ve learned from the very best with you in my life.”

“Oh, Toby. I do love you.” He told her how much longer he was going to be at the pack house and asked her if she and his dad, the first time she’d ever heard him say that, could meet him for dinner in town. Then he told her about this girl who worked at the diner and that he wanted to go out with her on his first date.

“I’m going to be glad that Brad is with me, aren’t I? I’m going to be a sobbing mess when you take off with another woman and marrying yourself off.” He told her that he was just hanging out with her, nothing more. “Right now, you say that. In a few years, you’ll be getting laid and everything.”

“Christ, I hope so. The every part sounds good, too.” She was laughing again as they were hanging up. All she wanted to do was ask one of the women in the family to find out all they could about this other woman. She’d have to have Brad talk to him about women and money. There was a great deal of that stuff, marrying for some sort of payoff in the end, so she didn’t want him to be suckered. She knew a lot of people that had happened to. Women or men marrying someone simply to divorce them later for a huge chunk of money. It sounded like she was jaded, but she was also old enough to know that it could happen to anyone.

~*~

“I don’t think you’re taking this job seriously. I’m offering you the job of a lifetime, and you’re laughing at me.” Becka assured Sarah that she wasn’t laughing at her but laughing at the thought of her being in charge of so many little people. “Well, yes, I did point out that they’ll be like children. But good children that wish to please and to do a good job for you. I didn’t mention it to any of them, but I would imagine that you’re going to have your hands full with them. Okay, now that I think about it, I can understand why you are laughing. It is funny. You will be in charge of thousands of children, like people who are thousands of years old. Goodness. I don’t know that I’d take that job on.”

They both laughed. Becka had been staying in the other realm with Brad for the last several days. It had been fixed up that Toby could come and go as he pleased, which made them both very happy. The fact that he was still traveling back and forth from the local college was keeping Toby happy as well. She’d never been so proud of anything as she was him at the moment. Thinking about him and how his parents would feel made her sad at how much they had missed.

As it turned out, Toby had been able to skip his freshman year of college altogether. Not only that, but he’d been able to test out of some English classes because of him knowing four other languages as well as a few math classes. He’d always been a great reader, too, so that had given him an advance on a few other classes that were going to be required of him.

Brad was acting like he’d really fathered Toby by walking around telling everyone that he met, some of them more than once, how his son was brilliant and, at only sixteen, was now a junior in college. Toby was more embarrassed than happy. He’d never been one to like a lot of attention paid to him.

“Are you going to take it?” After pretending that she had to think about it, she told Sarah that they both would. Brad was going to teach them some very outdated swordplay, having been a man who had carried one before in his lifetime, while she was going to keep them busy. It was a lot, she knew that, but right now, all she wanted to focus on was how happy she was with them living the way that they were. Traveling between the two realms was fun, too. And she was learning a great deal by being in both places.

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.

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