Page 17 of Marshall

“He’ll never know where you are if you don’t ever contact him.”Warren winked at her.“The other women are jealous that you’re doing this.Especially Rosie and Ruby.But Rosie said that she’d be a go-to doctor if you needed it.”

“I’m sure that we will.I don’t want to take the chance this time since it’s all last minute but I want to have a place for women and men to go that might need medical care where no one will find them.”Warren wrapped his arm around Mary and they both disappeared.Wherever she was, Meggie hoped that Mary had a good life.

Going back into the restaurant, she was surprised to find that Henry was laying on the floor with Robin’s foot on his back.Going to the other woman, hoping that she hadn’t been hurt, she told her what happened.

“About the fifth time that he snapped his fingers I finally went over and asked him what the hell he wanted.He didn’t answer but snapped at my face again, asking me about someone named Mary.I told him that I didn’t know anyone by that name, and he hit me.He actually hit me and thought that I’d be all right with that.”Robin winked at her.“I feel all a flutter about it.He slapped me like I wasn’t a person.”

“Where the fuck is Mary?”Robin told him what sounded like a lot of times before that she didn’t know who that was.“You’re wearing her goddamned sweater, ain’t you?”

“No, I’m wearing my sweater…you know what, I’m not going to justify to you what I’m wearing.Oh good, the police are here.”After Robin gave an award-winning performance on how she was so distraught about being hit, Henry was taken away in cuffs, screaming about how Mary had better get her skinny ass at the jail and bail him out.It was, in his mind, that she was the reason he was there in the first place.

After Henry was gone, the people at their tables applauded.While they didn’t seem to understand why they were clapping, she and Robin left the restaurant and headed for their own celebration.

“I’m so jealous of you for thinking this up.”She told Ruby that she’d not had anything to do with the planning of it but had winged it.“Well, you got it done, didn’t you?”

“I did, but I was terrified.We need to come up with a better plan.I mean, we can tell our husbands what we’re doing, of course.But I think that we just play it down so that someone doesn’t come gunning for us for keeping their spouses safe.And children.Remember, we have two at our house right now that are orphaned because of domestic abuse that ended up killing the two of them.”Everyone knew about the children and had been bringing gifts to them, too.“We also need a destination list.Not for them, I don’t think they should know where they’re going until they get there but a list of places where they can blend in and not be noticed.Busy cities, I’m thinking.”

“Perfect.Warren took Mary to Tennessee.He told me that taking her to the park would be the perfect place for her.He also set her up with a place to live that she’ll live in until the baby comes.That is part of her rescue.She is going to pass it on, us helping her out and she’ll help others.”It was Lauder who said they’d have to be more organized, too.That she had been afraid of all of them getting hurt.“Well, I think that it went perfectly.And don’t forget that we have that place where I stayed too for so long.I mean if we run into trouble or they need more medical care, they can be housed in the area where I lived.It’s nice there now without anyone around.”

By the time they were finishing up dinner, the men had joined them.Hamish had a handful of prepaid cards that would be helpful and told her that while it wasn’t a great deal of money, it would be more than enough for them to set up their places and not get caught.

Becka was going to make it so the women that they helped would never remember their faces or their names.They wouldn’t even be able to remember much about the way that they’d gotten away.Just the basics so that it wouldn’t come back to bite any of them in the ass.Meggie thought that she liked that idea the most.

On their way home, she heard from Mr.Habersham again.He told her that he had a list of women and two men that were going to need their expert help.And that he’d heard from Mary.

“She’s so happy.She told me that she was going to have a pizza for dinner then she was never going to have another one.Mary told me that he’d ruined that for her, but she wanted to celebrate, and that was all that would deliver to her.”Meggie asked him a little about each of the women.“I’ll have to get that for you too.I didn’t think about them having kids around.I’ll make sure you get that information, too.Also, I was thinking that I’m going to do some digging before I hand over these names.For all I know, they could be pulling a fast one on me, and that would get these old bones into trouble.I don’t need that none.”

“No, you don’t.I’ll have Lauder run these names just to make sure that they’re on the run from someone else.It would also help me if you were to tell me about the abuser, too.Like, does he carry a gun?”Mr.Habersham said that he’d known that he’d picked the perfect person for the job.“Thank you.I’m really glad that we were able to get Mary away and have just as much success with the rest of them.”

She hoped so, too.Going home after being gone most of the day, she fed Emma her bottle while watching Marshall and Tad playing around on the floor.Meggie thought that this was the perfect thing to come home to.Family and love.

Chapter 8

Years later

Marshall looked out over the crowd of his family, and it was quite the crowd that had come to see his son’s graduation from college.Tad was graduating with honors, and he felt like every one of those honors could be broken down into the family.They had all raised him when he’d been nothing more than a child.Looking down at his granddaughter, him being the first grandfather of all the men of the kiss, he kissed her tiny forehead and laughed at her frowny face when he did.Pulling back the blanket that covered her from head to toe, he wasn’t surprised to find, like other children here today, she had on the tiniest little set of noise-canceling headphones that he’d ever seen.

“Your momma must surely love you, tiny one.Grandpa loves you so very much, too.”Someone sat down beside him, but not before kissing him on the cheek.He could smell her, Emma.Margaret Jane’s momma.He looked at her.“Don’t be thinking that you’re taking her from me.As soon as my thirty minutes are up, she goes to Grandma Meggie.”

“Uncle Hamish told me that you were hogging her and wouldn’t allow anyone else to hold her.I told him that he had to wait his time like everyone else did.”She laughed.“I even told him that if he messes with me, I’ll pull out his fangs and stab him to death with them.”

Marshall laughed, startling MJ.She put up a fuss but settled down again.Lauder used to say that to Hamish all the time.He wasn’t sure, but she might well be still threatening him with the same death.

Emma had graduated from high school and studied at home for most of her college education.Since she worked for the firm that they all worked for now, she was able to take tests that made it possible for her to be able to graduate, too, but much earlier than her brother.Then, at her party, she’d met her mate, and they were married soon after.

Marshall didn’t like that.Him having to give up his little girl so soon.But she made it clear that he was to allow her to marry Alan, or she’d run off and marry him anyway, and he’d not see their children.It was difficult, but in the end, Meggie told him that she’d go with her if she ran.That settled it up quickly, and a month later, they were having the wedding of the century.

He didn’t care for that either.He wanted her to have a plain ordinary wedding so she’d be too disappointed to marry Alan.But again, his lovely mate had put down her foot, telling him that he was childish and that he’d better straighten his ass up, or she’d be making his life hell.

She never said what she would be doing to make his life hell, but he’d been married to her for just over a hundred years now and was as terrified of her now as he’d been back when he’d first met her.Maybe a bit more so.

The auditorium was filling up now.There were a lot of humans there that he’d gotten to know over Tad’s six years of college.He’d been studying to be a doctor, of all things, and had gotten a doctorate in medicine.Tad could speak seven languages, thanks to how he was raised.And he could read ten more.Several of those he wouldn’t ever tell anyone about.He knew bear, vampire and a few others that made him very special to this family.Tad also kept the books for the firm, the ones that said who had lived and died since the beginning of their times on earth.A lot of the males and one female in the family, being older than dirt, as Tad was fond of saying, were considered to be ancients as they were nearly as old as the dirt they walked on.

“How do you feel?”He wanted to snarl at Becka when she leaned in and simply took Margaret Jane from him.But he knew better.Over her years working with the faeries she had gained a great deal of magic that none of them had.“I’ll give her back to you, Marshall.I just wanted to give her a bit more magic.She’ll need everything that she had when she meets her mate.”

“Why do you say that?And he’d best not be lurking around the corner, Becka.I’m in no mood to lose another one of my family.Emma was hard enough.”His daughter kissed him on the cheek again and took the baby from Becka.She, in turn, handed her back to him.“See?She knows she has enough magic.”

“She also knew that I’d already given it to her.Why are you so selfish with her?You get to take her home with you nightly, don’t you?”he didn’t even glance at Emma, not sure what she’d told anyone yet.“Ah.So you’ve found yourself a home, have you?Good.Marshall and Meggie were spoiling you too much.If you would have come to the other world and lived with me, you’d be so happy.”

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