Beau, p.2
Beau, page 2
The only room that she’d been having trouble with was the master suite. It wasn’t the room that was giving her trouble, but what she’d found in the room. Her grandmother had had notes in thick books about every person in town. Little snippets of information that could have been used for blackmailing them, even children. One that bothered her the most was about five-year-old Peter Day. The note said the little boy picked his nose. What reason would she have for keeping that sort of information about a child? She didn’t want to know, nor did she care to find out. Grandmother wasn’t the best sort of person to be around, even when you were family.
Carrie, Archie’s wife, could see ghosts and had dealt with her family before they crossed over to the next place. She’d told her that her dad had sobbed about being dead and wanted to know if she could send him back for two months so that he could live a few weeks more without his mother’s constant harping on him. The poor man hadn’t anything else to hold him here, so he had left when Carrie had told him she couldn’t do that for him. To be under such restraints, like he’d been only to be killed a few hours after he’d killed his family, would make her sad when she thought about it. Poor, poor man, her dad was.
Opening the door when her new doorbell sounded—her grandmother had had a herd of elephants running through a forest as the sound when she’d moved in—she was surprised to see Amber, Wrangler’s wife, there on the stoop. Inviting her in, she said she didn’t want to mess up her time there. Danielle assured her that the only thing she was doing was thinking, and that might get her into trouble.
“I know how that is. I get myself in trouble a great deal when I have nothing to occupy my time.” She laughed with the other women. “The reason I’m here is that I wanted to invite you to have lunch with us tomorrow. The women in the family get together once a week when we can to have lunch and to talk about life in general.”
“But I’m not part of your family.” Amber waved her off, saying that she might as well be for as much as they all loved her already. “I’d love to have lunch with you and the other ladies then. I have an appointment in the morning with Jameson at the bank, but other than that, I’m free all day.”
“I heard that you were going to talk to the farmers who are renting your land from you. Jameson said that since you’ve decided to allow them to continue renting it, he said you’ve made a lot of people happy.” She told her that as long as they continued to pay on time, she didn’t want them to leave her. “Jameson said that as well. Now that you’ve met all the brothers, we figured that you’d enjoy a day out with us.”
“I’ve not. Met all the brothers yet.” She cocked her head at her when she entered the house. “Not that it matters, but I’ve not met Beau. He’s been taking college classes, I was told, so that he could cook for himself. I think that’s commendable. Maybe I’ll do the same now that I have time to devote to some more college classes to learn the basics. I can’t cook at all, but for a few basic things like grilled cheese and maybe some tomato soup from a can.”
“He’s learning how to cook so much more than that. He had Wrangler and I over for dinner the other night, and we were both impressed with his skills. You should do it.” She said she was just enjoying the freedom of life right now. “I can well imagine that too. You’ve not had a great year from what I’ve heard from Jameson.”
“What did you mean about me meeting all the brothers? And what does that have to do with having lunch with you guys?” She said that she’d hoped that she was one of their mates. “Mates as in wives or something? No thanks. If I had wanted a husband, I could go to any police station and find myself a man who would do that for me.” Amber asked what she meant by that. “It’s just that I don’t want anyone to take my freedom away from me now that I have it. I’ve heard about mates all my life, and I want nothing to do with them.”
“The Sheppard men aren’t like that.” She only nodded. “They aren’t. I swear. They would die for their mates, and it would be something small to them. The men in this family grew up with a person worse than your grandmother and managed to turn out all right.”
“I know that Jameson has, and the others seem to be really nice, but I’ve only just gotten things to where I don’t have to work for a while, and it’s all mine. To have someone come along and tell me that I have to have him run things for me just doesn’t appeal to me. Thanks, but no thanks.” Amber just smiled at her. “Am I still invited to lunch tomorrow? I can understand if you say no.”
“We want you there. And the sooner you meet Beau, the better if he’s your mate.” She didn’t say anything about her not meeting Beau because she was going to avoid that as much as he could. As she’d told her, she didn’t want a man coming along that was going to ruin things for her when they were perfectly fine the way that they were. “I’ll pick you up since I don’t know where it is that we’re going yet.”
They made arrangements for what time she was going to pick her up, and Amber left. After closing the door, Danielle made her way to the kitchen to read the instructions again on how to microwave her lunch. The instructions were plain enough, but she didn’t know what wattage her microwave was, so she was having a hard time figuring out what time she should cook it for. It had taken her fifteen minutes of reading the manual that had come with it when she bought it to know how to set up the power settings. Putting it in the thing, she decided to watch it carefully to make sure she didn’t burn it like she had her supper last evening. She’d gotten distracted and had forgotten about it until it was too late. And she wasn’t going to think about the burnt popcorn that she’d decided to have after the meal disaster.
She’d done all right for herself this time and was eating her lunch when the front doorbell rang again. Going to the door, she was surprised to see Jameson there with one of his brothers. She just knew that it was going to be Beau and that Amber had sent him here so that she could test the theory about him being her mate.
“I’m staying right here, and you two are going to go home.” Jameson laughed and told her that he had been sent by Carrie, the leap bitch. “I don’t care what she is, I’ve decided to not have a mate, and while the idea is probably nothing I can do anything about, I’m not going to allow you anywhere near me.”
“Sounds like a plan that I can get behind. However, I don’t have a choice in the matter. I have to make sure.” She simply stepped back into her house and closed the door behind her. There was no way she was going to allow anyone to do anything with her new life without a fight. The doorbell rang again. When she opened the door, it was Beau at the door, and it was too late for her to do anything when he touched his hand to her arm. “I’m sorry.”
Leaping back from him, she was surprised when he moved when she did. Had he not been there for her, she would have fallen to the floor, down the stairs that led to the doorway, and busted her head. All she could do was look up at him when he held her in his arms.
“Well?” He only had to nod when she asked if she was his mate or not. “Great. Just what I needed. I don’t suppose you’ll give me a month to get used to living here by myself, will you? I’ve only just moved in and I haven’t even had my first meal in the house.”
“I heard what you think of having a mate, and you can take all the time you need.” She asked him if he was always a bastard. “I don’t think I’m being one now. I belong to you, and you tell me when it is that you want me to be a part of the life that you’ve carved out for yourself. I don’t have a house as yet, so I couldn’t tell you how you feel about owning your first home.”
“I’ve heard that you won’t make me do anything that I don’t want to do, but I’m having a hard time believing it after all the mates I’ve seen together.” He said that he wouldn’t dare make her do a thing that she didn’t want to do. “I guess time will tell. Now that you’ve worked your way into my house and life.”
Chapter 2
Beau had taken all the classes that had been offered at the college for basic cooking. He felt really good about being able to feed himself and his mate if she were to come around. And now that she did, she was upset with him for being pushy. He’d have to talk to his brother Archie about making him go and find out. It wasn’t any of his business when or if he found her, and to make him go see her wasn’t right.
He thought about his mother then. How her plan had been to kill off the mates of him and his brothers so that they’d not make her a grandmother. Then, when Nash had met his mate in Sunny, a waitress from a little diner, she pitted the two of them against one another as she’d done making the brothers hate one another. It had taken a great deal of sneaking around and talking to one another to figure out her plan. Then, after that, it had gone downhill for her and her dad when the six of them had been on the same side and working against her.
It wasn’t a thought that he thought about often. Had she been able to kill off any of them? They’d asked her and she had said no, but she’d been lying to them since they were children, and they didn’t trust her at all. She’d even killed off their dad and grandmother when they got in the way of what she was doing. But she was dead now, along with her dad, and they had been living the life that they thought they deserved. Now he had a mate, and he wasn’t sure what to think about that.
He’d heard about Danielle, of course. She’d been living in the Pine mansion since coming to town after the family had been murdered. He’d not had the opportunity to meet her as he’d been really busy with classes, but now that he had, he didn’t know how to convince her that he wasn’t going to make her do anything. Just the opposite, he thought, in that he’d wait for her direction on how things were to go.
He was standing in the middle of his nearly empty apartment when he realized that he’d not need the house that he’d been planning on building, nor the land that was part of the estate that their father had left them. While he didn’t think that it would matter what he did with the land, he wasn’t going to do anything that might piss off Danielle in the meantime. She was doing that already, and he didn’t want to add to her day.
When his cell phone rang with just a number, he answered it so that he could hang up again if it was someone that he didn’t want to talk to. When no one said anything, he was nearly ready to hang up when he heard someone sobbing. Waiting for the person to tell him what was going on, he went out of his place to get to his car faster if they needed him somewhere.
“What did you do?” He asked the woman to repeat herself. “It’s Danielle Pine. I thought I told you that I didn’t want anything to do with you. So what did you do about sending faeries around here to help me? And I’m using that term lightly as they’re driving me crazy right now. So again, what did you do?”
“Nothing. I swear it.” She told him that there were about a thousand little people in her house right now that were helping her get things squared away. “I don’t even know what that might mean, but I didn’t have anything to do with them coming to your home. I have a few dozen in my apartment now, but I didn’t send—I didn’t even tell anyone that you’re my mate.”
“I asked about that, and they told me that the magic surrounding you told them. Now I have magic too, they’re telling me.” He said that he’d not directed any kind of magic to her. “Well, are you coming over here to take care of this? I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with them around here all the time. There are just too many of them—can you just get here soon and tell them that I don’t need them? I don’t want to hurt their feelings again. When I tried to get them to go away, I could feel their hurt. I can’t handle that or them. Come and take them back with you.”
“I’ll come over, but I don’t know what you expect me to do with them all now that they’ve found out about you. I didn’t even tell my brother Archie and his wife, Sunny. Sunny is the daughter of the boss of the faeries, so I’m not sure—”
“You have to come here and straighten this out. I don’t know Sunny well enough to know her mother yet, but I’m thinking that she found out somehow, or they might well have magic that tells them how this happened.” She sobbed again. “All I wanted to do was microwave my dinner tonight after taking a long nap. Now I’m stressed out and can’t think right. And it’s all your fault. I told you this would happen. Now my life is messed up. Because of you.”
“I’m sorry. But I didn’t have anything to do—you know what? I’m on my way. I’ll figure out how they found out about us, and I’ll make sure they know that you don’t need them.” She told him not to hurt their feelings. “I’ll try not to do that, but I can’t promise anything about that. I’ve not had to deal with them much, so I’m not sure how to get them to cooperate. All right? I’m on my way there now.”
He didn’t have a clue how he was supposed to not hurt their feelings. He’d been truthful about telling her that he’d not dealt with them all that much, so he didn’t know how to not hurt their feelings. Getting in his car, he was nearly there when what he was doing occurred to him. Pulling off to the side of the road, he laughed until he hurt. He didn’t even know how she’d gotten his number, but was dropping everything that he had planned for the day to help her with a faerie problem.
He didn’t even get a chance to ring the doorbell when the door was opened, and he was pulled into the house. When he saw just how many faeries were in the front hallway, he took a step back from them. There had to be at least a couple of thousand of them in the main hallway.
“Hello, Master Beau. My name is Honey. This is Stack. We’re in charge of the faeries.” When Danielle said that she knew who they were, they fluttered to him and landed on his outstretched hand. “We have stressed the young miss out. It wasn’t our intention when we came here. Our only intention was to help her clean the manor up. There are still blood stains on the floor in the front room.”
“I told them I was going to put a carpet over it, but they insisted that it needed to be cleaned up.” She’d been crying, and his heart hurt for that. He looked at Honey and asked why there were so many of them here. “That’s something that I’d like to know as well.”
“This house is a manor that hasn’t been touched in decades, and with all of us willing to work for her, we thought it would take us less time to get it cleaned up, and she’d not have to worry with it.” Beau pointed out that was how they’d stressed her out. “I understand that now, Master Beau. It wasn’t what we wanted when we came here.”
“Perhaps you can tell us why you’re here and who sent you?” Honey said that they’d been living around here for decades, but were not able to do anything with the gardens that came with the house. “There are gardens here?”
One look at Danielle and he had to hide a smile. She apparently didn’t know about any gardens either. So, for some reason, that had him laughing quietly. He’d never laugh at her out loud as she was already stressed out enough to cause tears, so he looked at Honey again, asking him why they were so quick to want to start on the gardens.
“They used to be, at one time, the glory of this house. The house sang with happiness, too, when the flowers were in bloom. But for the last fifty or so years, the gardens have been left to ruin, and we wanted to bring them back to life. You’ve been told that children have the best sort of magic.” He said that he had been told that at some point in his life. “There are flowers and plants growing here that grow nowhere else around here. With the house being cleaned, we thought perhaps she’d allow us to go to the gardens and bring it back too.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that?” He thought it was a good question and decided to allow Honey or Stack to answer. It was Stack that answered Danielle. “Oh. I understand now. I should have allowed you to speak instead of yelling at you when you got here. That’s all on me. But one of you could have interrupted me and told me what was going on.”
“We were trying hard not to stress you out.” Beau couldn’t help it then; he laughed. “She’s been very stressed out for a few days now. We wanted to unburden her by making sure that the house is in tiptop shape for you and her. You will be living here, correct, Master Beau?”
“We’re still working things out.” He thought that was a good answer and was glad that Danielle didn’t say anything differently about their living arrangements. Instead, she told Honey that they could do the gardens and house, but not to stress her out more. “I’m assuming that you’ll all not be staying here when this is finished?”
“You wish us to leave?” The sound of his breaking heart was heard by him, and apparently, Danielle too. She was quick to tell them that they’d have to work that out as well as they were only just getting to know one another. “‘Tis a large home, my lady, and it will take a pip of us to keep up with it. Right now, there is a need for a new furnace as this one is already broken, and you have several leaks in the roof that need to be repaired before they do much more damage to the ceiling in the upper floors.”
“How much will it cost me to have those things fixed. I have money, but not a lot of disposable income right now.” Stack said that they could have it repaired in no time with no cost to her. “You can’t just fix it without some help from someone bigger, can you? I mean, I don’t know anything about furnaces, but I know it’s a big job.”
“We have magic.” That didn’t sound like a good reason for them to be fixing the furnace, but he didn’t comment when Danielle didn’t. “We can do anything that you need done to the house. Such as filling the rooms out that are now empty. We’ll just adjust things to suit you as you wish.”
