Connor: House of Wilkshire ― Paranormal Dragon Shifter Romance

by Kathi S. Barton

  “Eighteen hundred and one. I don’t think that my name will be in that book, will it?” Roxanna told her that she’d not be in this one, but maybe the second one. “I don’t know if I want to know now. Do you understand?”

  “I do. But you want it more than not. And to find your family after all this time, it would be worth reading each entry in these things until we do.” April thanked them both. Connor told her that it was fine as he continued. “We both want to do this for you, April. It’s as important to us as it is you. We were just talking about family. And this is our family too. You and the rest of the people that share this house with you.”

  Roxanna was thumbing through the pages when she found the year. Then looking down each row, she not only found April’s name, but things she might not have ever known without this book. She looked at the woman, and knew that she could feel that what she’d found was important.

  “Your husband never left the area. Your children were raised here as well.” April shook her head, and told them what she’d been told before she was killed. “No. The house and barn that we found? Your husband lived there until his death. He was sold away instead of shipped back. Your children were on the same farm.”

  ~*~

  Connor did an inventory on the things that they’d found in the tin box. The book didn’t tell them why the treasure was there, but when they found Michael, April’s husband, he’d been able to tell them what had happened. After, of course, he’d been told of his wife being so close.

  “The master, he told me to take the jewels that belonged to his daughter and hide them away from the carpetbaggers. They were a terrible bunch.” Michael kept looking at April, touching her when he could. “But he was kilt that afternoon, and so was I. I was an old man by then anyways, so no one bothered to bury my bones anywhere.”

  “We can do this later, Michael. After you’ve spoken to your wife for a while.” Michael shook his head. “It’s fine with us. You’ve been apart for so long that I’m sure you have plenty to say to each other.”

  “My boys, our children, they’ve gone on, you see. They were just mites back when they got the sickness. I don’t rightly remember the name of it, but it made them powerful sick. I don’t think they had it in their mind to stay with me. They’d been in such terrible pain, and went on.” Connor said he was sorry. “It’s all right, sir. The master, he was a good man. He paid me a little wage so that I could have me some personal things. He even, after I got sick one winter, had me living in the big house so that I’d be close to the fire. I never felt the touch of a whip but a couple of times, and that was my own fault. Surely it was. Master Jacobson, he would tell me stories too. A whole lot of them. About the people about. The things that they’d not want proper society to know about them. It was a good way to spend the evening.”

  “Roxanna, she is doing research on the people in town. I guess you could have told her a great deal about them.” Michael said that he could, but he didn’t remember too much no more. “That’s fine too. Whatever you know, that would be helpful.”

  “I knows that my wife here, my April sunshine, she’s not no darkie like me. She’s that master’s daughter.” April said that wasn’t right. “It is. Master, he told me that right after my…our boys passed on. I’m thinking he told me that because it might make me feel better that you were gone, but I done already figured that out. You have such pretty skin and hair.”

  “That’s wonderful news.” April asked Connor why he’d think that. “Because you know who your father is. That’s always a good thing. And in this case, if you find him around, you can take whatever anger you have out on him. You couldn’t before. But the fact that he killed his own daughter, that’s against any law, for the living or the dead. Even his wife, who would have rightfully been your stepmother, you can deal with her as well.”

  “Really? I can’t be in trouble for going there and maybe punching them in the nose or something?” Connor told her that she was justified in it, according to the laws of the dead. “Well then, I’m surely thinking that we can hang around for a bit longer and take care of them for us. Just a little anyway. I want to go and see my boys.”

  Now here he sat, looking at the treasures that had been deemed riches to see what he could do with them. There was a great deal of it too. Mostly jewels, as Michael had told him, but there was cash too. Some coins that had been dropped inside, along with the deed to the property—the property that he’d not been able to figure out who owned until now.

  “Have you got a minute?” Connor told Roxanna that he would always have time for her. Then he wiggled his brows. “Not for sex right now, thanks. Maybe later. I was wondering if you knew anything about the two houses on the other side of town. One of them, I think, used to be an improper house, as Randal called it—a whore house. The other was just a residence. Perhaps he thought the owner of the establishment owned it.”

  “Let me pull up the records. If we can’t find it there, then we can always ask Devon or his grandmother. Anna knows a great deal more about the land than her son did.” Roxanna sat down and asked him why that was. “When her daughter was married to Devon’s father, Anna had spies all over the place. Only people that she trusted. These people, after her daughter died, would tell her how Devon was faring. That was how she knew of the death of his lordship the week before Devon told her. She moved right into the castle after that, and has lived there with him for the biggest part all his life.”

  “I guess his father was a bastard. That’s what I’ve heard anyway. Devon told me when I asked him if he’d killed his father. He said that he was his sire, not his father. Then he told me that he had killed him. They’d argued about him being a dragon, and then he knocked him down the stairs.” Connor told her how the household was sure that he’d waited long enough to make sure he was dead too. “Yeah, that’s what he told me. I respect him for that. To be able to kill the man who had abused him and his mom for more years than he should have been able to get away with.”

  Connor didn’t tell her that he’d been back a couple more times, that he’d been into some heavy shit that had gotten him into trouble with a great many of the household. She was dealing with a great deal right now. What with the thing about her grandma, as well as finding out what she could do to help the ghosts that came around all the time. Roxanna asked him what he’d found out.

  “Nothing to do with any of this in the way of seeing that a family gets it. I guess the man that owned this house didn’t have much in the way of family. His wife died sometime before Michael got there. And since then, he’d become a recluse of sorts. That’s more than likely why no one knew about the house and the barn.” Roxanna said that was sad. “It is. And it doesn’t get any more cheerful either. After he was killed, the banker back then tried to have the place burnt down. I’m not entirely sure about that, but I’m thinking that like this house, it was haunted. As for why that never happened, I don’t know that either. All this, however, amounts to just over two million dollars, just for the cash. It’s very old. The jewelry I’m still looking up, but that brooch alone is worth more than the cash is. Nearly four million. It’s pure diamonds and emeralds. Very rare, I guess, in how it was designed.”

  “What the hell was he doing holding onto that much money and shit? I mean, he could have gotten him a home closer to town so that he’d be around people.” Connor said that he thought perhaps he was living out there so that he could continue to grieve for his wife. “Okay, I guess that makes sense. I don’t know what I’d do if something were to ever happen to you. I like the fact that you keep me on my toes, and are just as much a pain in the ass as I am.”

  “Thank you. I think.” She stood up, then remembered about the houses. “Those belong to Devon. Both of the houses. I can ask him to sell them to me, but he’ll just give them over. He’s very generous like that.”

  “He might want to do that after I tell him what I want one of the two house
s for. I’d like to talk to him about making it into a museum for the people around here to see if they can find someone in their family in the book. We’ve also came across some nice treasures while we’ve been searching. I know that I’d like that, if I were a doing a family search.” Connor told her that he thought that was an excellent idea. “Yeah, I can have them on occasion. Oh, before I forget to tell you again, I have someone coming around that might know a little about a cemetery that was covered up some time back for a playground. All the headstones have been moved to another location that the faeries are searching for, but the playground was a bust. I guess the ghosts there didn’t take kindly to having their homes messed with.”

  “I’ll let Devon and the rest of them know about that too. They might even have some input on where the headstones are located.” She thanked him and started for the door. “My sister will be arriving in a couple of days. I’ve told her to stay here, but she wants to stay in a bed and breakfast. I think that she is excited to get away for a few days. She and her husband are bored with where they’re living now.”

  “Do she and Spencer have kids? You might have told me, but I think I forgot.” Connor told her that they had two. “Whatever they want to do is fine by me. Maybe you could convince them to hang around here for a little while, or for good. I know that the more the merrier when it comes to having dragons around, with the babies everywhere. Did I tell you that some of them are ready to move on?”

  “Yes—you didn’t tell me, but Nicole did. She and Jackson are finding lands for them to be shared to. They’re eating a great deal now, but they’re also helping out with the earth.” She told him what she’d found out. “Now that, I didn’t know. I guess I should have known that our shit is very good for the earth, but to be honest, I really don’t think about my poop.”

  “Good thing, too. I would imagine that as a dragon as fucking big as you are, that would be a huge dump.” He laughed, and told her that she was so delicate sometimes. “Yeah? I think that people miss that about me. I’m extremely easy to get along with too. I don’t think that people see that either.”

  “Yes, sure you are, love.”

  Blowing him a kiss, she left him there.

  As he wrote himself notes on the things that they’d talked about, he went back to work on the jewelry. There wasn’t that much of it, but with it being so old, it was taking him time to find out how much it was worth. While he didn’t know what their plans for it would be, he was sure that whatever they did, it would pay for just about anything they had in mind.

  By the time the sun was going down he’d been able to tag each piece with an approximate amount that it was worth. While he was waiting for Roxanna to come home again, he looked for supplies to show off the things that they’d found. It would be great to have them put into the museum, he thought. Or at least a picture of what they’d found. Someone would surely steal something as valuable as these things were.

  Stretching, he made his way to the kitchen and found Roxanna there with the other women. Including Anna. They were deep in their discussion, as well as the treats that had been put out for them. Kelly suggested that he gather up the other dragons and have a men’s night. While he had no idea what the women were talking about, he didn’t want to get into the middle of it. Calling the rest of the guys, they agreed to meet in town for dinner. Connor was excited to tell them what he’d found.

  Chapter 8

  Dak watched over his mistress as she slept. They’d had a good day, thanks to Lord Connor. Spending the day at a museum was the best time he’d had in a long while. The art there, all of the different kinds of it, had been things that he’d seen in his lifetime. Aisling said that she’d never had such an eye opening experience before.

  “To think of all the things that I’ve tossed out, when it could be sitting behind glass in a building bigger than me when I’m my dragon.” Dak laughed with her. They were trying a different place tonight, food neither of them had had before. “What do you suppose they use as the meat when they barbeque it?”

  “I don’t know, my lady. It does smell very good, don’t you agree?” Aisling said that it did. “I’ve been watching the plates that come out of the kitchen here. I think that you should order the everything platter so that we can try it. There are a lot of orders for that going out as I have seen.”

  As soon as they were seated, they were brought a basket of rolls. Most of the time they would just leave them in the basket, as neither of them had any good remembrance of bread before the great sleep that Aisling had had. The steam coming off the top of the basket and the light brown butter had them pulling off the first slice and moaning at the taste.

  “It has an herbal taste. Like cinnamon. Do you remember that taste, my lady?” She said that she didn’t usually care for the treat, but liked it this way. “I do as well. May I have another slice? I should like to have it all, but I will share.”

  “I won’t hog it all to myself, Dak.” She laughed. “I know that the last time we had a good meal I did eat all the beans that were green. What a silly name for them, green beans. I would have called them sticks of deliciousness. They were so good.”

  “Yes, well, I guess I’ll never know, will I?” Aisling told him that she’d order them both some if it was on the menu. “If you’re sure that you’ll share with me, then I’d like that.”

  He was only teasing her. She hadn’t had to share with him, but he so enjoyed that she did. Other faeries to dragons that he knew long ago were responsible for finding their own foods. Aisling had always shared with him, even if it was her last bite.

  After ordering—there were green beans on the menu—they dug into their salad. She would also cut up his leaves into much smaller pieces so that he didn’t have to wrestle it around to take a bite. They’d also gotten to the point where they didn’t want any dressing on their salads. It would take away from the taste of the wonderful greens, when that was what they both wanted anyway.

  The barmaid brought them another basket of bread, and he was pleased when Aisling gave him an entire slice of it after she’d buttered it up. That phrase was something that confused him still. It could be used for saying that you were buttering up someone to make them give you something you wanted. Or it could be used when you talked about the creamy concoction on a slice of bread. He was especially fond of it on bread.

  Their meal was brought to him on several plates. The green beans were in bowls by themselves, as well as something called slaw. He didn’t think he’d care all that much for it, as it smelled of cabbage. That was something that gave him a belly ache all the time. But he did try it when Aisling told him of the taste.

  “I don’t know that I care for it, my lady. It’s very spicy, isn’t it? In a cabbage drowned in milk sort of way.” She laughed, and he noticed that a couple of people turned to look at them. They couldn’t see him, for which he was grateful, but they could see and hear her when she spoke to him. “I’m so glad that we figured out the speakers at your head, my lady. It doesn’t cause you as many stares as before.”

  They’d been window shopping—another term that confused him. He was never in the need of shopping for a window, and didn’t understand it when he overheard two women talking about it. As he watched them he came to realize that they didn’t wish for a window at all, but for the things on the other side of the glass. He’d enjoyed it too after that.

  Aisling had seen a man talking to himself—or as they both had thought, talking to his faerie. After chasing him down and trying to ascertain what it was he was doing, they discovered that he had this little rock like things in his ears that spoke to him.

  They still had no idea how he got the thing to talk to him, until two nights later they’d been watching the television box and saw an advertisement for them. It was for a cellular phone device. As they had no use for that sort of thing, they’d gotten her a pair of the headphones, as they’d been called, and she would
pretend that it talked to her so that she could converse with him.

  The pulled pork was very good. Tender, they thought, and full of flavor. Surprisingly, he’d not cared at all for the green beans, but had enjoyed the thing called baked beans a great deal. There was chicken, as well as something called a brisket that they’d both enjoyed, and having more of the sauces to pour over each dish had been a delight to figure out as well.

  “I think that I could make a meal out of the French fries every day. How about you, Dak? They’re both salty and hot. And pouring the hot sauce all over them was the best idea that you’ve ever had.” He said that he liked them with lots of pepper. “Hum, me too. I don’t care for the ketchup, though. It’s very bland, and the thought of swiping the potato through that stuff didn’t set well with me.”

  “Nay, I didn’t care for that at all. Nor the grilled bread. It had a funny taste to it.” They both agreed with that. “This was a very good place. We’ll have to find another one just like it to eat at in a couple of days. Tomorrow you said that we could go back to the pizza place. Who would have thought that something so ugly could be so good?”

  “Here you go.” Dak almost didn’t move fast enough when the barmaid brought them the check. “You can just pay whenever you’re ready, honey. By the way, are you a food critic? I’ve been wondering that since you added so many things to your plate. At least I hope you are. My daddy and I have raised this place up to be what it is today.”

  Dak told Aisling to tell the woman that was what they were. He’d go and find out what critic meant to someone in the restaurant business when she left them. While he didn’t have any idea what that was, he was terrified to death when the waitress, she called herself, brought them a piece of chocolate brownie.