Page 4 of Jack

“I’m Taylor Murphy. You must be Hudson’s brother. That’s right, I remember now, I met you last night.” He said that she had. “I was slightly freaked out but getting a better handle on things today.” He followed her to the back of the house to the door. “Mrs. James, she’s our cook, is going to have a pot roast tonight, and the thought of fresh carrots and potatoes with it made my mouth water. She’s making zucchini bread too.” She looked at him. “I’m having a hard morning so far. I’m sorry to babble. My grandma is dying, and I hate the thought of losing her.”

He held her while she cried. Every part of him wanted to figure out how to make her grannie better because of the sobs that were tearing at his heart. When he seemed to have gathered herself up, she pulled away and started washing off the vegetables in the basket and talking about the weather. There were still breaks in her voice, but she didn’t seem to need him anymore.

“It’s supposed to be warmer tomorrow, but I couldn’t wait to get out here. I could spend my entire day outside and never get all the things done that need to be done. It’s wonderful too that the house is self-efficient in that it doesn’t buy fruits and vegetables unless we run out. Our meat as well comes from a ranch that we have in another county. And in all the years that I’ve been here, that’s never happened. The household also has another ranch that raises milking cows and goats for our cheese and other dairy products. I love living here more than I do anyplace else in the world.” She led him to the large garden in the back of the house. It took up an entire acre of land that looked like something his own grannie would have envied. “There are trees too that give us plenty to use as well as bushes of other kinds of fruit. The entire house is heated by the wood, too, that we cut down when it’s necessary. I love this place so very much.”

She took him to the several barns and to the other plots of gardens that had people working in them. There were long lines of flowers, fresh for the house she told him so that summer was in all the time. After they had toured the most beautiful deck that he’d ever seen, he wanted to beg to work there just so he’d have access to all the things that she’d shown him around the house. It must have taken years to get them to this point, and he wished that he’d been a part of it from the beginning.

“I didn’t catch your name.” He told her his name and shook her hand, getting a shock of something rolling between the two of them. “I’m sorry to have taken up all your time this morning. I needed it, and I can’t thank you enough for letting me go on and on. Are you here to see my grandmother? I think she was on the phone when I last saw her.”

“It was my pleasure. I heard that you were to have a meeting with my sister-in-law today. I hope that I didn’t take up your time in that.” She said that she was going to have lunch with them, he could too if he wished. “I don’t want to intrude. I only came out to…I didn’t touch you yesterday, so I didn’tknow until I got home. Then, when it happened, like a fool, I sat around my place thinking of nothing but the fact that you were her. After talking with Hudson, I needed to find out—”

“I’m confused. What happened to you?” He nodded, trying his best to figure out a way to tell her when he heard someone calling out her name. “I have to go in. Will you come in and explain to me what you meant?”

“I’m your mate.” She didn’t seem to want any more explanation, so when she put up her hand, he didn’t say anything more. Following her to the back deck again, she asked him to talk to her after her meeting with Georgie was over. He didn’t know how that was going to work since Georgie would know as soon as she saw him. There were no secrets when it came to finding mates, he understood.

Georgie seemed glad to see him. Since he was sure that either she’d figured out what Taylor was to him or Hudson had told her, she didn’t say a word about them being mates. Lunch wasn’t ready, so the four of them, including Mrs. Murphy, joined them in the big office, and he watched as the two younger women got down to business. After about another hour, they were called to eat.

There was zucchini bread to go with the warmed butter and vegetable soup that was a part of the basket full of things he’d watched Taylor gather. Also, much to his delight, there were fresh sliced apples with homemade caramel in a cup to dip the apples into.

When Mrs. Murphy was finished with lunch, she asked him to join her in her gardens. He didn’t want to disappoint her, so he was ready to go look at them again. This time with her. But it wasn’t the vegetable garden that he’d already seen but the orchards as well as her flower gardens.

“We grow them for the house. There are always fresh flowers in the house throughout the year. I so love that they put them in the front hall so that a person can see them first thing. They also use some of the edible ones for salad and garnish.” She picked him one and handed it to him. “These are my favorite. They have a delicate taste that I so enjoy and the flowers are the most beautiful yellow in the early spring.”

“It tastes like cucumber.” After his excitement with the first bloom, she handed him more and had him guess the flavor. “I think that this was in our soup too. Next time, I won’t be so quick to push them to the side, thinking that they’re just there for show.”

“Do you believe there will be a next time?” Her voice was so low that he might not have heard it if he’d been human. “I’m dying, young man. And if I know my shifter lore correctly, you and my granddaughter are mates, am I right?”

“Yes, you’re right. I told her when I first got here and then she seemed to not want to talk about it.” She told him how she had a great deal going on at the moment, but she was still thinking about what he was to her. “I don’t know her well enough to know that. She’s very intense, isn’t she?”

“As I said, she has a great deal going on. I just told her the other day that I’m probably not going to make it to my hundredth birthday, and she’s dealing with all the businesses I’m going to leave her in charge of. Then there is her mother.” He asked about the mother. “I’ve asked Taylor to live with me in my final months, and she has agreed. I’m glad now that she’ll have you here with her when I pass. But her mom is none too happy with the fact that I won’t allow her to be here, too. I love Gilda Jane, but she’ll drive me batty with her flighty ways, and that won’t do any good to anyone while at this point of my life.”

“I’ve never met her, I don’t think.” Harriette, as she asked him to call her, assured him that he’d remember her if he had. “Do you think that she’ll cause trouble after you’re gone? And if so, what sort of trouble so that I can keep track of her.”

“I don’t know that Gilda Jane has enough sense to cause trouble. But that’s what will drive me and her daughter insane. She’ll be sticking her nose into business that doesn’t concern her. Whatever it will be, Gilda Jane will think that she has the best advice on things and will be like a dog with a bone in telling you how you’re doing things wrong. And she treats me as if I’m a doddering old woman who needs to be yelled at to be able to hear her. Oh, she just frustrates me to no end. And if not for Taylor, I would have turned her out long ago.” When she burst into tears, he sat down beside her and held her in his arms. She was so upset and crying so hard he was tempted to find Gilda Jane and beat the snotout of her for making this wonderful woman so heart brokenly upset.

When she calmed down, he continued to hold her. Given the chance to look around he couldn’t believe the colors and the vegetation that was surrounding him. It was enough to make his own beast calm a bit, and more than that, he felt as if he was at peace with the world here.

“You must think me to be an old fool.” He smiled and told her that he didn’t believe that she was either. “Thank you for that. I’ve had a rough few days myself, as a matter of fact. The doctor is telling me that I’m going to suffer in the end without chemicals in my body. I told my granddaughter that I wanted to leave this world just the way I came into it. With my body without chemicals and my hair on top of my head.” He laughed. It just struck him as funny that she was so furious about her needs.

While she gathered herself together, he wandered not far from where she was sitting. There was plenty for him to see, and it didn’t take him long to see that other things were growing in the garden. For so late in the summer or early fall, there were lots of pumpkins growing between the roses. Zucchini was growing along and over the fence that he was sure was meant to keep the deer out. He noticed, too, that fruits were growing along the back fence that looked to him to be blueberries. He didn’t know they would grow this late in the year.

“You’ve made me feel better, young Jack.” Jack told Harriette that it was his pleasure to be there with her when she needed it. “I didn’t realize that I had until I started sobbing like a small child. Do forgive me. I do feel much better. I guess it’s true that you need a stranger to cry on their shoulders once in a while.”

“You have me for so long as you wish.” He heard the door open and looked up to see Georgie and Taylor coming toward them. When Taylor asked her grandma why she’d been upset, she glared at him. “I didn’t do anything but comfort her when she needed it. I swear to you—”

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, Taylor. He was there for me when I got a bit overwhelmed.” Nodding, Taylor apologized to him. “He’s a good man to have in your corner. I was just telling him about your mother, too. And how she wants to come here. It just overcame me a bit, and he was there for me.”

“You didn’t change your mind about her, did you?” Shaking her head no, she said that he’d not do that but just gave her a shoulder to cry on for a bit. “Well, thank you for that. Georgie and I have come to an agreement. She’s going to help me bring my distribution center here with good tax cuts as well as all the employees that I need. A win all the way around, I think.”

~*~

Taylor didn’t want to talk about being his mate. She didn’t want to talk to anyone at the moment. Her head was stuffed full of things that she needed to take care of and having him around all the time was making her crazy. Well, not really. He’d been a gentleman, and it seemed like he was a good balm for her grandmother, too. While waiting for dinner to be ready, the three of them met in the living room to talk.

“I was just telling your grandmother what I wouldn’t give to have a garden like you guys do here. I could not only supply my home with food, but the restaurant would benefit from it as well. I could make my menu according to what was in season. I’ve not lived here long enough to know what’s in season or not year-round, but it would be fun to have fresh throughout.” She rattled off some of the things that she knew were in season right now. “I noticed that you had pumpkins. The things that my grandma could do with just one of them used to amaze you. Pumpkin soup, my favorite, would be a real treat with homemade bread and pumpkin log or pie for dessert.”

“You came here for what?” He told her, much more politely than she’d spoken to him, that he’d come to tell her that they were mates. “And you think that because we are, you can come into this house and demand things that don’t belong to you.”

“Taylor Ann Murphy. What is the matter with you? This is my house and my guest, and you’ll treat him with the same respect that you would anyone else.” Harriette told Jack how sorry she was and then glared at her. “He’s been nothing but a nice man to the two of us and a comfort to me.”

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