Page 4 of Dyson (Walsh’s Lair #3)

Emitte Marshall, better known as Pops, watched the nurses go in and out of the room. He’d been back at the nursing home, Little Bit of Sunshine, for a week now and he was finally figuring out the way things were supposed to be going. He thought that getting the lay of the land, so to speak, was the only way he was going to fit into the place. And he liked it.

“Mr. Marshall, did you get yourself any lunch yet?” He said that his granddaughter and adopted daughter, Emma, was coming to eat with him. “Oh, how nice. Is she doing all right now, too? I heard that she had to spend a couple of days in the hospital after the last time you were here.”

“Yes. Got herself a concussion. She’s doing better now that my daughter and other granddaughter have to stay away from the two of us.” He’d nipped that in the bud right fast. He’d called his attorney when he’d gotten out of the hospital, pressed charges against his family, got control back of all his money, and then bought Little Bit so that he could change the rules to suit himself. They weren’t going to be bothering them again, by doggies. “She’ll be in here soon enough, I’m thinking.”

There she was, coming through the door like she was supposed to. Glancing at the clock over her head he was thrilled that she knew how much he hated when people couldn’t show up on time for meetings and the like. She was two minutes early. And durned if she didn’t bring that friend of hers, Sidney Walsh.

“I bought you some company, Pops.” She was the only one who called him that. His family thought that it was just too undignified for a grown man to be called Pop like he was a soft drink or something. “Sidney has been brushing up on his chess, too, so that you can have someone else to beat. And I brought hamburgers too. I know you love them.”

They didn’t talk while they were eating. He was all right with the quiet, too. It gave him the worst kind of heartburn when someone wanted him to think while he ate. So he appreciated Emma telling Sidney the same rules. After they were finished up, Emma cleaned up the mess and he and Sidney got down to some serious chess moves.

“I heard from your attorney, Mr. Marshall. He said to tell you that everything is just the way that you want it to be here and with Emma. You’re back to full control of everything.” He was glad that Sidney was discrete about what he said and spoke when Emma was out of the room. “He also said to tell you that the big house is going to be cleaned from top to bottom. Were you going to sell it off?”

“No, I’ve not decided just yet. Emma said she can’t afford the place what with the furnace bills being in the triple digits. She don’t know that I left everything to her yet. She’ll be able to afford it without any trouble then.” Sidney nodded and moved his rook. “I say there, you don’t love Emma enough to marry her, do you? It would do my heart a bit of good to see her married off and someone to take care of her. My family, they ain’t gonna like her getting everything when I pass on. No sir. They’re going to be fit to be tied.”

“No, sir. She’s not my mate. I have other brothers, three of them that haven’t met her yet but that might be a bust too. Melbourne, Edgar, and Dyson aren’t mated yet, but they’re very set in their ways. I’m the only one that is a free spirit.” They both laughed. Emmitte thought that the young man was charming and smart and told him so. “Thank you, sir. I appreciate that coming from you.” The game was forgotten when the young man told him of his family and what they were.

“I knew that you and that family of yours had been around a good long time but I had no idea that you were dragons too. I would imagine that your parents are ancient, too.” He told him how his dad was a vampire and his mom a dragon. And that all six of his brothers were dragons with some vampire traits. “Good to know. Wouldn’t it be good to have our Emma hooked up with a dragon? They’d surely protect her better than I can, that’s for sure. I worry for her, you know. Once I’m gone, they’ll take everything out on her. My wife Sally, rest her soul, raised her as our own, even going so far as to adopt her so she’d have our last name. Darling, my daughter, she didn’t want a thing to do with her other than to adopt her, thinking that she’d get in the family way so she could take her back to the system that they got her from.”

“That’s sad. I know that it hurt Emma when she told me about it. My heart broke for her when she was just a kid.” He asked him how long he’d known his Emma. “Oh, about ten years. I knew her from high school, and she was hanging around the college campus when I was going there. I don’t think that she actually took any classes then but sat through them so that when she could afford it, she could do better in the classes. She did well from what I’m to understand when she finally got to go.”

“Yes, sir, she did better than all right. Got her self graduating at the top of her class she did. Smart as she can be, too.” Emmitte moved his piece only to have it captured. “I guess she was right in telling me that you were good at chess. How about another game?”

“I’d love that.” Emma joined them a few minutes later with a grocery list in her hand. The girl was forever taking good care of him, and when she said she’d be back, it was hard for him to let her go out alone. One of them durn kids of his would get at her, and they might not stop at giving her a terrible headache. “She’ll be all right, Mr. Marshall. I’ve sent a faerie with her. He’ll keep her safe from any harm and he has an entire pip to—” He had him explain what a pip was. “Oh, a group of faeries. They’ll keep her safe from any and all harm. I promise you that they might be small, but they’re very dangerous when they need to be.”

They were just finishing up their third game when Emma came back. She was happy, her face just bright with smiles. After telling him that she’d gotten him some ice cream, they all shared a dish of the treat, and then it was time for them to go home. Sidney told him before he left that he’d run her by his brothers on the off chance that she was their mate. After they left, Emitte went to the sunroom to take a little nap. He was glad for the new games that had been provided with his purchasing of the home, as well as a few more televisions in the place.

Startling awake, he took a few minutes to figure out where he was and what was going on. There was a little bit of a fuss about what to watch on television, but he didn’t think that it was going to amount to much. Getting up, making sure that his cane was close by, he made his way to his room to catch up on some of the things that Sidney had brought him to look over.

Unlike most of the older people in Little Bit, he knew how to make a computer work for him. He could look things up and get into his email account without any trouble. All thanks to Emma.

She’d been good for him and Sally when she’d been living with them. She was smart, articulate, and had a good heart. He could sit and talk to her for hours on end and not be bored. And as far as his multibillion-dollar businesses, she knew a lot about them, too. He’d taught her everything that he’d known, and she’d been brilliant at it. She was going to fit right in when he passed on and he couldn’t have been happier about leaving his money and businesses to anyone but her.

Pulling out some of the things that she’d gotten him at the store, he had him a large bowl of soup beans. It wasn’t as good as his Sally’s, but it was a good enough substitute. After dinner was over in the dining room, he made his way there to watch a little TV. He had one in his room, but he liked to watch Jeopardy with some of the others around him. He’d been watching it in the big room since he’d been here.

At bedtime, around nine o’clock, he was set up to sleep until the breakfast bell rang. He’d have his bath finished up and dressed for the day by the time his bowl of oatmeal was on the table. It was nice being able to eat what he wanted, too. He was nearly one hundred years old and he thought that if he’d made it that far, people should leave him alone about what he should and shouldn’t be eating. His durned granddaughter wanted him to eat healthy. He told her to blow it out of her butt.

Darling had never been a good daughter. Emitte blamed it on her husband, Wally. He’d spoiled her good when they were first married, and she now expected everyone to do the same for her. Thinking that she needed her butt beat a little more, Emitte thought that she’d do well to beat her daughter too. Poppy. What sort of name was that for a kid, he wanted to know.

Just as he was turning off his lights, his cell phone rang. The only people who had the number were Emma, Sidney, and his attorney. Answering it with a little caution, he was happy to hear from Sidney. The first thing he asked him was if he called too late.

“No. I was headed to bed, but I always have time to talk to you. What’s going on?” He told him how Emma was going to have dinner with his family tomorrow night, and he wanted to know if he would like to come too. “My goodness. Yes, I’d love that. I hear that your mom can put on a good feed bag. I’ll be happy to…someone will have to come and get me. I don’t drive anymore. Reflects are a little slower than I want them to be.”

“I’ll pick you up when I get Emma. She’s not real keen on coming over, I guess she’s still not used to being around a lot of people but she’s coming because I told her that I’d ask you to come.” He asked him what he would have done if he couldn’t make it. “I was going to talk you into it because all my brothers will be there. I thought that way you can see for yourself whether she’s a mate or not. I don’t believe that she is, to be honest. I’ve been talking about her for a decade, and they all feel like they know her already. But it will be a good dinner. Steaks and baked potatoes. Also a nice green salad like you like.”

“And some of that crusty bread that Emma tells me that your momma makes. That’s something that I’ve been—you don’t have to put your momma out, young man, but if she has an inkling to bake some bread too, I won’t turn that down either.” Laughing, he said that he’d ask her. “Good. Don’t you be telling her to make it for me. I’m not going to turn down a good meal and not be invited back again on account of me wanting something she didn’t want to make.”

“My mom only does what she wants even if someone was to beg her for it. She’s a wonderful person and I’m slightly afraid of her. I’m sure she’ll not have any trouble making sure that you have a good loaf of bread that you can take home with you, too.” They both laughed, and it made him feel good. “I’ll pick you up around five o’clock. That way, we can talk a bit before dinner.”

He was a bit too excited to go to bed but he made himself get into the mood to sleep. To be having dinner with the family was something that he never expected but he was looking forward to it as much as he had anything in his life. Kissing his Sally’s picture, he told her about his day and how much he loved her. He was on the fence about going to see her soon. He thought that she’d be mad at him if he left too soon. Oh, but he missed her something terrible.

~*~

It was just a little past five when he pulled up in front of the nursing home. Emitte was just where he said he’d be. Waiting on the front porch so that they’d not have to get out of the car. Emma had to get out to hug her grandda, and it brought tears to his eyes to see how happy the two of them were to see each other. When he knew for a fact that they’d seen each other just this morning and had a lunch date, too.

“My mom said to tell you that she’s going to bake you bread once a week so that you have a nice treat.” That made Emitte a little teary-eyed, but he thanked him for it all the same. “She has some jelly and other things for you to take back with you when you leave. She said that she has plenty now that we all don’t live at home anymore, so you’re welcome to it.”

Letting the older man gather his emotions, he changed the subject to what he and Emma had been talking about before they’d picked up Emitte. He told him that since he was a might older than him he should just call him by his first name. Sidney was honored to do that for the man and thought that they could be very good friends from now on.

“I’m bringing you to my house for two reasons.” Emma asked him if it was her stellar conversation. “Something like that. But my brothers are going to be here, and I wanted to see if you were mated to one of them. It’s all good if you’re not, but I’d love to have you as part of my family.”

“I’m not your mate, am I?” He shook his head and looked at her when he stopped at a light. “What if I am? What’s going to happen then?”

“To be honest, the only thing that I know for sure is that you’re going to be taken care of for the rest of your life. And that you’ll never have to worry about your family getting the better of you. Also, my brother, if one of them is your mate, you’ll be loved like no one has ever loved you before.”

“I have that with you and my grandda.” He told her that it would be different. A long and lasting romance, too. “I don’t know about that, Sidney. I don’t have my life together enough now to hold down a job, much less have some guy that I barely know to want things of me that I don’t have in me to give to him.”

“It won’t be like that. I swear.” He hoped he was right but right now, he didn’t know. He’s seen how his brothers had been to their mates. He worried, too, that the saying that mates couldn’t hurt one another might not apply to Emma. She was pretty mean when she wanted to be. “I’ve told you so much about them over the years that I’m sure that you could pick them out on your own. And since Fowler and Madison have their mates, they have changed a great deal in their mannerisms, too.”

“I don’t know. I feel like…I don’t know what I feel. I’m worried that I’ll be a huge disappointment to whoever wants to marry me.” She looked at him. He could feel her sadness as he drove the last few blocks to his parents’ home. “I’m not much of a girl that you guys would want to be around. I mean, even my own parents didn’t want me and dropped me off at the fire station when I was only a few hours old.”

“It doesn’t matter if you are or not one of their mates. You still have me in your heart, and I have you in my life, and that’s more than I could have hoped for. I love you, Emma. I will for the rest of my days, too.” She turned away, and he allowed her the few minutes he drove so that she could compose herself. As he pulled into the driveway, he thought about his brothers and didn’t know if he wanted one of them to be her mate or not. They were very stuck in their own ways, and Emma was a free spirit. He loved that about her, too.

Mom and Dad met them at the door. He was never so proud of them as he was in that moment. They were welcoming his friends into their home and he loved them for that. As hugs were given, Mom looked at him and winked. He had a feeling that not only did Mom know who Emma was mated to but that she was already immortal like they were, as well as her grandda. Christ, he so loved his family.

Each of his brothers stood up when they entered the living room. It was a rare treat to have both his parents here. They’d been staying in the other world with Fowler and Amy for the last few weeks. It was great to have them all together again.

After introductions, it was Dyson who kept standing when the others had settled down on the couches. He was wondering what was wrong with him when he simply stared at Emma. Dad popped him in the back of the head, and he finally sat down. Emma asked him if she was his mate.

“Yes, I belong to you.” She rolled her eyes, and that seemed to tickle his brother in some way. “While I’m not sure of things right now, I’m going to make it my life work to make sure that you’re going to live a long and happy life.”

“What makes you think that I’m not happy with my life now?” Emitte put his hand on Emma’s leg, and she apologized to Dyson. “I’m sorry. I’m out of sorts because my family is trying to make sure that grandda and I never see each other again. I can’t handle that. He’s the only person that has ever believed in me.”

“I believe in you. And while I don’t have a home, when I find one the two of you can live there together for as long as you wish. No one will ever harm either of you, nor will they be able to get into the house with ill-will in their hearts and minds.”

“I know about you, Dyson. A little, anyway. Sidney used to talk about you all when we were hanging out together. He’s been my friend and confidant since I was just a kid.” He told her that he was glad that she had someone in her corner. “Thank you for that. I don’t know what I would have done if you were to have told me that I couldn’t see him anymore.”

“To do that would mean that I’d not see him either. And I love my brothers, my entire family too much to not be able to see them anymore. Much like it is with your grandda.” Dyson grinned at him. “Thank you for keeping her safe, Sidney. I owe you a great deal.”

“My pleasure.” Dinner was called, and the family went to the dining room. It was wonderful to be able to call Emma and Emitte family. He also wasn’t as worried about the two of them as he had been before. Life was suddenly taking on a new outlook. And he couldn’t have been happier with the way things had turned out. He hoped it would just get better and better, too.