Page 11 of Dyson

“However, it’s all true.” He put the car in drive, and the two of them left the area. “Is there anything there that you have to have? Any kind of family things that you need tonight?”

“There is nothing in the place at all that can’t be replaced. I have nothing but a few items that I even paid full price for.” She looked at him as he pulled up in front of one of the nicer shops in town. “What are we here for?”

“We’re going to get you what you might need for the next couple of days—shampoo that you need, toothbrush. Things like that. Then I’m going to take you to a hotel where I know you’ll be safe.” She asked him why. “There isn’t any safeguard at that place like there will be at the hotel. No one will know you there so the other family won’t come looking for you. Once we move into the Manor, if we do, then I know that the magic there will keep you from being harmed. I worry about you.”

She nodded and got out of the car with him. While Emma didn’t know what he thought she could afford here, she was willing to see what they had. The little boutique was full of the prettiest things that she’d ever seen. And she wanted it all.

~*~

Never had he done any shopping with a woman and getting things for her. Dyson found that he was having a good time. At first, she was looking at things that she wanted but could afford. Then, after he picked out a nice dress that he thought would look good on her, he found other things that he wanted to see her in. By the time they were being rung up, she had enough clothing to last her a couple of months. He didn’t care. It was fun being able to afford whatever she wanted.

“I don’t know what came over me in shopping like this. I was going to blame it all on you, but I had a wonderful time as well.” Dyson agreed that he had as well. “Good. We can’t do that all the time, but I can’t tell you that it wasn’t a blast.”

“I enjoyed it as well. It’s the first time in my life where I didn’t look at prices when I wanted something. I mean, I really didn’t have to do that at all, but I certainly enjoyed the look on your face when I found something that I thought you’d look good in.” she smiled at him, and in that moment, he thought that he could go for the rest of his life on the feelings that it had given him. A simple smile from a mate did that for him. “My mom got in touch with me while we were there. She wants to know if she can go over to the house and make it safe. I told her that I had hoped to have it done soon and she wants to make sure that everyone that lives there is as safe as she can make them. She’s already gone to the nursing home to take care of that. She told me too that three employees weren’t able to enter the place when their shift came up.” Emma asked them what she’d done. “Figured out that they were harming the patients that were bedridden and some of the ones that were confined to wheelchairs in order to get around.”

“That’s terrible.” He agreed with her just as they were pulling up in front of the hotel. “I’ll have to let your mom into the Manor, won’t I? Or can she just slip in without anyone being the wiser?”

“Mom won’t need to get into the house right away. But in order to make it so that your grandda can sit on his porch and enjoy himself, she’ll make the land surrounding the place a safe zone for all of us living there. I’m ready to move in now. I figured that if you liked the house, I will as well. And your grandda had done such a wonderful job describing it to me that I think I could find my way around all on my own.”

“He loves that old house. He and my grandma lived in it from the time they were married until she passed away. After they forced him into retirement and declared him incompetent, they forced himto move into a small apartment where they could keep an eye on him to control him. When he moved himself into the nursing home, one of the others would bring him back after beating the shit out of him. They liked him living where no one was watching over him so that they could get to his money and other things in the house.” Dyson told her that he thought that was sad, too. “It is. Darling and her daughter lived there for a while, right after I was forced to move out, but since there wasn’t any kind of internet around the house, they couldn’t stand it. I’m going to have to figure out a way to get at least cable for him. He’s enjoyed watching the old westerns on television as well as some old shows that he and grandma watched when she’d been alive.”

“I’m sure that one of the faeries will be glad to do that for him. They enjoy his stories, and he treats them well when they show themselves. I think that a couple of them would live out their days with the elderly man just to be able to say that they’d been around someone so great. Your grandda is a good man.” Emma said that she thought so as well. “I like him. He says what he thinks, and that’s a wonderful thing.”

“When my grandma was alive, she used to scold him when he was so vocal. Then, toward the end of her life, a few years, she became just as blunt. I remember once when they’d gone out to eat, Grandma hadn’t liked her fish dish. After sending it back to be redone, they simply gave her the same fish on a different plate. She was fit to be tied. Not only did she demand to talk to the chef on duty, but she had the entire management team trying to make things right. And you know what they did? Left a huge tip because they knew that it wasn’t the waitstaff’s fault but that of the cook. I don’t believe they stayed in business much after that. A bad review from them would make a lot of people stand up and take notice. They felt bad about the closing, putting all those people out of work, so they made sure that those who wanted one had a job at one of their factories. I believe a great many of them still work there.”

After getting a room for each of them, he went to his room after carrying up a bag of things that Emma would need tonight. It occurred to him that she could change at will if she wanted to, but he thought that would have been less fun than shopping. He might have to do that more often, shop with her just to see her eyes shine in happiness.

Going to bed after hearing from his mom. She was going to meet with them tomorrow evening. The staff had been made aware of them coming there for dinner, and the house was being cleaned from top to bottom tonight and into tomorrow. He was glad for the extra hands. While he’d never been in the house before, Emitte had assured him that there were rooms that had been closed off in a while and they would need a good cleaning. He was looking forward to touring what he was going to consider their forever home. He only hoped he wasn’t putting too much faith in what Emitte had told him instead of what was really going on with the house.

Chapter 4

Darling wasn’t at all happy. And when she wasn’t happy, things didn’t bode well for those around her. She looked at her daughter, Poppy, and told her to get her feet off the table. She moved them, more than likely sensing her mood, but she’d wanted to fight, and her doing what she asked wasn’t giving her what she wanted.

“When I find that girl, I’m going to have her cremated alive.” Poppy didn’t say anything, which was good, she supposed, but it did make her more pissy. “Don’t you have anything to say? I’m needing an outlet, and you’re not giving it to me.”

“I know. I’m still nursing bruises from the last time you wanted to fight.” Darling huffed. “Where is Father? Shouldn’t he be here taking some of your anger? I don’t like to be the only one that’s around to feel the pain, Mother. And what are you so hyped up about anyway? When the old buzzard dies, we’ll have it all.”

“I don’t know anymore.” Poppy asked her what she meant. “Well, he’s terribly cozy with that girl, Emma. And she’s stuck so far up his ass that I’m sure that she’d telling him things about us. True or not, she should just keep her mouth shut.”

Darling had hated the child since she’d been brought to their home to make it so that she’d have another baby. The old saying that if you adopted a child, then you’d get pregnant wasn’t as true as people thought. For sixteen whole years, she’d put up with that brat only to never have another child but Poppy. When she’d been told that she was too old to carry a child, she’d shipped Emma off to her parent’s house for her to be a slave for them. Little did she know that they’d take the child as their own, going so far as to adopt her as their own child. Darling supposed that made her a part of the family, her step-sister, but she didn’t care to share anything with her, so she never acknowledged her in any way. She looked at her daughter.

“They told me from the start that you were supposed to be a boy. All eight months that I carried you, the scans came back that you were a little boy. How I so wish you would have been one sometimes.” She told her mom that she was glad that she was a girl. “Of course you would. Because you don’t know how things work in the financial world. My father would have left it all to you had you been a boy and not given Emma a second look. But since he didn’t have a grandson to hand things over to, it’s going to take me some time to get your father to turn the running of the company over to me. As the rightful owner.”

“I don’t know that Grandfather thinks that way. And why would he turn it over to Father? I don’t think that he even likes him all that much.” That was true. Her dad hated David more than she did at times. Of course, he was lazy as fuck and drank too much, but he had stayed with her even after having numerous affairs. Even those hadn’t produced another baby. “Do you think that he’ll live much longer? I mean, isn’t there some kind of rule that states that after a certain age, they have to be put away? I think that’s a good rule if you ask me.”

“No, that’s not a rule. Even though I like that too, they’ll let people in their hundreds run around and rule the world like they have some kind of experience or something. Father should have died some time ago, like when Mother died. Had he done what I wanted and been in the car with her, then none of this would be an issue. They’d both be dead, and I’d be spending all his money like I should be able to do.” She thought about killing her mother off, and it pissed her off every time she thought of how Dad hadn’t gone with her to the meeting that she went to every Wednesday night. Damn it all to hell and back. “I think his funeral arrangements are all settled like mom’s were. Had I been in charge of them, I would have had her cremated and no service. But that fucking funeral director thought that people would want to come and see him and wish him a good life. I wonder if he realized that he wasspending my money? Stupid bastard. And there is no way to kill him off, either. The man is a nuisance, and I wish him and his family would just die, too.”

Darling had heard somewhere that the director was a vampire. That he sucked the blood from the dead, and that was what kept him alive. She also heard, too, that vampires couldn’t drink from the dead. While not knowing what to believe, she’d tried to get into the funeral home to test the theory, and he’d been waiting for her. Since then, she didn’t go to anyone’s funeral for fear of the big man. Christ, what was this world coming to when you couldn’t even trust anyone to be human anymore. Stupid bastards, all of them.

“Mother, did you know that someone said that the Walsh family is considered to be the richest people in the world? I think that it was in the newspaper last month. We should try and get into their good graces somehow.” She asked her if she thought that was true. “I don’t know why not. Have you seen the houses that they all live in? They wear designer clothing even when walking in town. Could be that they’re richer than grandfather too.”

“I doubt that. He’s a millionaire several times over. There aren’t that many people around here that have as much money as he does. Even if they say they do, who are you going to believe.” She thought of something. “Are any of them single? I mean, you might be onto something by saying something about getting into the family. What would you say to marrying one of them? Or at the least pretending to be knocked up by one of them so they have to take care of you.”

“I have no desire to have any children. For any reason. I’d rather be homeless than to have some baby sucking the life out of me.” She shivered, and Darling asked her what experience she had with children. “Minx has three of them. They cling to her like she’s a tree and they’re a bunch of monkeys. Christ, when one of them isn’t sucking at her tit, the other two are sitting around in shitty diapers screaming to be changed. No way, no how am I going to even pretend to have a kid for money.”

“All right then, that’s a good thing. No grandchildren. And if dumbass gets with child someday, it won’t be related to me only by adoption. Why they did that is beyond me. She was supposed to be their servant, not their child. I don’t need a step-sister for Christ’s sake.” She decided to look up the Walsh family on her phone. “Christ, Poppy, they are more wealthy than Father is. It says here that their wealth is uncalculatable there is so much. I think that I could count very far, and they’re saying it’s more than that.”

She read how two of the brothers were married and that they were a happy family. Good to the community as well as anyone that needed help. They talked about some of the investments that they worked on as well as how they were responsible for the pool in the city being open all the time as well as some of the charities around town able to be so generous with their funding to help out the homeless as well as others that were around. They were a big deal. Perhaps she’d find them out and about and try to sink her claws into one of them. It was worth a shot, she told herself.

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