“None of us would allow that.” Grandda looked down at Dru and then started crying. It broke Dean’s heart to see him so upset, and he went to sit in front of him. “Your grandma, she sure would have loved this little man so much, don’t you think?”
“Yes. When you go and visit her the next time, you tell her how much we all love him already.” Grandda said that he’d do that. “Grandda, I’d like for you to do me one more favor. It’s not huge or anything like that, but would you mind seeing if you could find some of our things that Mom and Grandma made for us boys? I know there was a wagon that you made for Shep that I’m sure he’d love to have. There are other things, too, like the books that you and Grandma got us every year for Christmas. Little things like that will brighten up his room.”
“I got some quilts that your Grandma made too. Not the ones that she’d sell like she normally did, but things that she put by for you six. I plum forgot all about them.” Dean thought that was a wonderful thing to put in the room. “Yes, I think I got some old pictures too that we could put together for each of you boys. Just so that you can pass down history and what not for the kids coming along. I’m telling you, Dean, I surely do feel a good deal better about having all that stuff. Harris, she would never say anything...well, she would say plenty to me if she had a mind to, but that stuff would be better off in each of your homes instead of collecting dust in your brother’s. I’ll go and find out where I put them blankets and make sure that you get the ones that were made for you. They have names on them someplace.”
They talked for a couple more hours. Not about too much, but enough to make sure that Dru was good and asleep, Grandda said, before he let him go back to his bed. Dean was sure that Dru would have slept right through a bomb going off the way he was limp with exhaustion when he put him into the crib.
Breakfast with his grandda brought back all sorts of memories, but Dean decided that he wasn’t going to dwell too much on old memories. He was more than happy to create some new ones. Fletcher joined them a little while after their food was being cooked, and he sat with them. Dean knew that he was a little uncertain as to where he was, but after a couple of minutes of talking to them, he got it cleared up. Enough so that he asked about Dru.
Almost as if Fletcher had conjured him up, Bella and Dru came into the kitchen to eat too. The little guy went right to Fletcher when he put up his hands, and Dean was very happy for that. They’d take care of each other, he thought.
“I was just telling Dean here about some of the things that I’ve got myself into. Are you going to be out and about working today, little lady?” Bella told them all that she had four projects going on with work today, but she could work on something he needed if he wanted something. “Nah. I was just wondering where you might be digging in the dirt, and I could find you around lunchtime. Would you have lunch with this old man?”
“I don’t know any old men. But if you show up around that time, I’m sure that we can work something out.” Grandda asked Fletcher if he wanted to go too, and it was set up. Dean was going to be working around the house today, so he would be with his son. “Dean, will you be going to the show house today? I have two crew members that want to go there and work with you on it. They’re fully trained on just about everything you’re doing. It might be nice to have some help.”
“I’d love that.” Dean smiled. They were sounding like a family that had been together for a long time now. “Also, we need to get some more things in for Dru. He has three sleepers that my brothers picked up for him, but not too much more than just diapers. Also, I was thinking that we should get us at least one car so we can travel with him in the car seat, and he’s not jammed up against the diaper bag and stuff.”
Setting up times was getting easier for him to keep track of because he’d gotten himself a phone. The calendar on it was a great addition for him. Stuff written on his home calendar never got looked at. Or he’d forget to write it down. This way, he could pull it out and take care of making the dates work as someone, mostly Bella, gave them to him.
When Bella was leaving for work, Dean took Dru to the door so he could say goodbye to his mom. Grandda said that he was going to go and look for those blankets and that Fletcher was going with him. If anyone could keep track of the other man, it would be Grandda.
Bella had purchased her dad a medical bracelet so that in the event he got lost, someone could find him by it. And all of them had his scent so he’d not get so far they’d not be able to find him.
It took him nearly three hours to go over the plans to the house. It might well have been a lot shorter except for him playing with his son. Dean loved saying that. After he was put down for his nap, Dean made himself stop staring at Dru while he slept and tried to get more work done in the afternoon. He was going to have to stay focused, or he was never going to get anything finished up in a reasonable time frame.
When Bella called him to tell him she was running late, he was fine with that. He knew firsthand how things could get all messed up when you were busy. It hadn’t been work that had thrown her off, she told him, but his grandda and her dad’s visit. Their help, she told him, was not as helpful as they might have thought it would be. Dean was still laughing when he hung up twenty minutes later.
“I guess Mom is going to be telling your granddas no when they want to have lunch with her again. What do you think?” Dru was lying on the floor in his office while he worked on plans for the other home. He, of course, didn’t move all that much, and only occasionally rolled over. Not on purpose, but when a toy was too far away to reach. “I was thinking that we’d make up a clothing order for you, then have Mom approve it when she gets home. Or, she can do it, and you’ll have less clothing than I’d order because I have no willpower where you’re concerned. In the event that you don’t think that’s right, I got a whole three hours of work done today during an eight and a half hour day. You are a major distraction.”
They were still in the office when Bella came home. It was a wonderful way to end a day, he thought. Family, and now dinner together. As Bella picked up Dru, she was telling them both about her day. Dean thought it was funny that Bella was watching her language like he’d been doing all day. Parenting was a great deal more of watching yourself than watching the baby, he realized.
Chapter 11
Lachlan Russell looked over the orders that had been hung up in front of her. The cook for the night should have been the head chef, but who the hell knew where he was? Three nights a week was all he was scheduled to come into work, and the fucker hadn’t been in for the last two weeks. She was getting sick of picking up his schedule and hers while not getting any of the benefits that he got. Dobie Richardson was on her shit list.
“How much longer on that steak?” Lachlan looked at the order stamp and saw that it had been in for less than three minutes. Saying nothing to the waitress, Allie, Lachlan put three chicken breasts on the grill and checked on the salmon that was there. The chicken would be set aside to use in salads if they were ordered. “You’re taking too fucking long on orders. I’m going to let Lance know that you’re fucking around on shit.”
“Go ahead. I’ll just tell him that every three and a half minutes, you’re back here wanting me to rush your order ahead of everyone else that put in their order as soon as they took it. You can’t do that to me. Take their order, give them their salads, then want me to rush things along because you can’t do your job correctly.” Allie bounced out of the room.
“She’s a pain in the ass.” She nodded at Berkley, one of the many dishwashers that worked at Lacy Gray. “I got a mind to tell her daddy that she’s not worth the spit of his dick when he made her.”
“Yes, you do that. I’m sure that will go over very well.” Berkley cackled like he always did, reminding her of a broken down old bus with brakes that screamed at you when you pushed them too hard. “Do you have any idea where Dobie is tonight? I swear to you,
the man had better be dead or something for all the work I’m doing here.”
When the two meals were finished that were ahead of Allie, she finished up the waitress’s order and had her paged. It really wasn’t a pager, but a light that showed up in the wait staff area with their number on it. Allie flounced back to the kitchen and told her that her people had left. Taking the steak off the grill, she set it aside. Usually, she gave stuff like that to the staff, but tonight Lachlan wasn’t feeling so generous.
With a plate held out to her, Lachlan asked Allie what she wanted. “The steak that you screwed up. I’m starved.” This was the second time in the last week that Allie had claimed the same thing. That her order was canceled and that she would eat the mistake. “You fucked me over for a tip too, so don’t think I won’t forget that either. Hand it over.”
“I already promised it to Berkley if there was a mess up tonight.” Berkley came over with his clean plate, and Lachlan put the steak on it. “I thought for sure that you’d not let this happen twice in one week, Allie. Are you sure that you’re not trying to scam me out of a dinner?”
Three other waitresses came to stand in the kitchen with Allie. She was hot. Lachlan didn’t care. But once they started talking, she knew that Allie had done just what she’d thought. The bitch had been scamming her for dinner for free.
“Allie, the first reserved table tonight doesn’t even come in until five-thirty. Where is this mystery diner that you have? Because as far as I know, there is only one couple in the house right now, and they’re not in your section.” CarolAnn, a good waitress, had trained most of the others here. “Is he hiding in the corner someplace, or did he run off to the men’s room? Where could he be?”
Laughing at how the girl was being given a hard time, Lachlan didn’t duck in time when Allie threw the plate at her, hitting her in the forehead with it. Lachlan fell against the grill and burned her arm when her coat caught fire. Then, falling back on the ovens behind her, she felt the hot steel burn into her back as she fell to the floor from there.
“What the fuck did you do?” Several of the others had pinned Allie to the floor when she picked up two more plates to use as weapons. Lachlan did hear Allie say that it was all her fault, and that Lachlan shouldn’t have given away her food. She must have blacked out for a moment or two, because when she opened her eyes, Berkley and CarolAnn were talking to her. Lachlan asked them to slow down, she needed a minute.
Lachlan was in too much pain to see who was screaming. She had a feeling it was her, but it turned out to be Allie. She was mad that the other staff wouldn’t allow her to finish the job of killing her, she told them. There wasn’t much of Lachlan that didn’t hurt right now, especially her arm and back.
Blood was blinding her in her left eye, but she didn’t want to reach up to feel how bad it might be. CarolAnn asked her if she needed her to help. She did, she told her, but didn’t know where to start. She supposed help might be a good idea.
“Call the police and an ambulance. Please? I think I’m going to die.” CarolAnn told her to hang on, that she wasn’t going to die while she was there. Berkley got down on his knees near her. “Berkley, please tell me that you changed out the tapes for the kitchen.”
She was hurting, but she also knew that if she didn’t take care that Allie didn’t get the tapes that were put in the recorder at the beginning of the shifts, she’d be shit out of luck when it came to getting her medical bills paid for.
“I did it first thing. You don’t worry none about that.” She asked him to get them before Allie remembered. “I’ll do that now. You just hang on, little bit. The folks that are going to get you better are on their way. I even left a message for Lance. Don’t know if he’ll get it or not, but I did it.”
Lachlan thought that she must have been out longer than she’d thought if he’d had time to do all that. The pain was washing all over her now. Not just on her back, but her arm felt like she’d seared it. When she asked him how it looked, he moved, and a medic was kneeling down beside her.
“Hello, beautiful.” Lachlan snorted at him. “Good, you’ve not lost your sense of humor, now have you. What do you need to tell me about you before we begin?”
“I’m pregnant.” She could hear the complete silence around the room when she said that. “I’m a surrogate for my sister and her husband. I’m about three months now.”
“Good for you. Now, tell me all about you while we have a good look at your head.” Lachlan told him everything she could think of, including the name of the doctor that was taking care of the baby she was carrying. Then she told him about her back, and asked him to look at it before he laid her down. “We can do that. But I am more concerned about the pieces of glass that are in the wound on your head. How about I give you something for the pain and then we’ll have a look at you? All right? Are you a true redhead, Lachlan?” She told him that she was, then asked him why anyone would want to fake being a redhead. It was difficult enough in life.
As soon as the pinch of the needle made her aware of the shot, she was fuzzing in and out. Trying to ask him if it would hurt the baby, it was too difficult to make her mouth move. Letting it roll over her, Lachlan closed her eyes.
The next time she woke up, she was in a room with the brightest light shining in her face. Moving her head so that she could see where she was, someone told her where she was and what was going on. Dutch Jasper, the registered nurse that was with her, was someone that she’d gone to high school with.
“Lach, they’re going to be taking you into surgery soon to remove the glass from your head. Someone has notified your sister and your mother.” She thanked him. “Also, your boss, Lance, is coming in to talk to you. I’d not do that without witnesses if I were you. He was spouting off shit that might be better recorded.”
“His regular cook hasn’t shown up in weeks. He’s not happy about anything that I ever do anyway. Why should getting hurt by his daughter be any different? But when I took that job, they said that she was to be treated like everyone else. I don’t think she got that memo.” Dutch laughed. “Can you tell me if the police said anything? I didn’t get to see them after the ambulance showed up.”
“They arrested Allie. But you didn’t hear that from me.” They both got a laugh out of that. “Also, they did take a bunch of pictures when you got here. As well as a few of your backside. Honey, you need to wear prettier underwear when you leave the house. Didn’t your mom ever tell you that?”
“I don’t think she ever cared all that much about my underwear after I was potty trained, to tell you the truth.” Dutch, of all people, knew what sort of life she’d lived at home. “Did Rita say anything when she was called? I don’t think she’s going to be happy about the meds they’re giving me. I think she thinks I’m going to hurt her baby or something. Which I won’t. I’m only doing this because I know her and Roger wanted a baby so bad. Her not being able to carry one to term is just sad. Plus, I was sort of bullied into this. You understand.”
“Is that what she told you?” Before she could answer him, not only did her mom and sister come into the ER room, but Lance did as well. And Dutch was right, he was spitting mad.
“You had my daughter arrested?” Lachlan didn’t even bother answering her because Dutch did. He pointed to the wound on her forehead. “If you think I’m paying for this medical stay, then you’re fucking insane. You had my daughter arrested. What the hell for?”
“She hit me with several plates? She knocked me around so badly that I’m burnt? Not only on my back, by my arm too? Allie fabricated an order so that she could get a free dinner? I don’t know, Lance, you tell me.” He asked why she wanted a free dinner. “I haven’t any idea. Why don’t you ask her? And you are too going to pay for this medical stay. Or so help me, I’ll own your ass. You told me to treat her like the other staff. Well, as you can see, she didn’t think that was fair that I wouldn’t allow her free dinners
a couple of times a week.”
“Christ, you’re a nightmare. Have I told you that?” Glancing in the direction of Dutch when he waved his arms above Lance’s head, she saw him pointing to the camera on the wall. Then he gave her a thumbs up. “I’m going to fire your ass and backdate it for a month ago. We’ll just see who owns whose ass, you fucking cunt.”
“Excuse me.” An officer came around the corner and shoved Lance up against the wall when he told the cop to fuck off. The officer was spouting off charges even as he took Lance out of the room. “You are the stupidest man I have ever had the pleasure of arresting.”
“Well, that was not necessary.” She looked at Rita and could tell that she wasn’t happy either. “I do hope you know that all the drugs they’re giving you are harming my unborn child, Lachlan. Can’t you just suffer through it a little more? I mean, I don’t want him hurt because you have a little head wound.”
“Neither do I, Rita. And by the way, yes, I’m going to be all right. And they’re going to remove the glass soon. Thanks for asking.” Rita tisked at her. Lachlan looked at her mom. “I didn’t think you were in the country. When did you get home?”
“Just today. I had only just walked in the door when the police called. Lachlan, do be more considerate next time you’re hurt. I wanted a nap and to take a long shower.” Lachlan didn’t even bother answering her. “Why aren’t they just pulling it out? I mean, I can’t see what the big deal is. I would have just pulled it out with a pair of plyers or something.”
Dean: Marshall’s Shadow – Jaguar Shapeshifter Romance (Marshall's Shadow Book 2) Page 15