Chapter 8 #2
“I do. Oh exciting. She was making this for her grandson, who is to be born in three months. There are booties and a cap that go along with it.” Calla said that she’d seen them and was excited for their first grandchild. “The needles are a little stronger. Let me see what I can get.”
After holding them for several minutes, all she got from them was dread. She told Calla that. After picking up the man’s wallet, she was able to see more of him than the woman. The man wasn’t dead, but he was hurt badly and might not make it if help wasn’t gotten to him soon.
“They’ve had an accident.” She put the wallet to her cheek.
“The man is dying because he’s been crushed by the tree that he hit.
The woman…I can’t get anything from her.
I fear for the worst.” After telling them where they were, Brew and Rance went to the scene of the accident and found them.
The woman, sadly, had passed away, but the man stood a chance to make it if he got help right away.
“It’s touch and go for him. They’ve been missing for four days.
” Calla told her that she used to talk to them all the time when she went to the store.
They were a really nice couple and would have helped anyone who needed it.
“I’m sorry that I couldn’t have helped sooner.
Had I known, we might well have been able to save the woman, too. ”
They talked about the accident for a little while. Calla said that she had another missing couple, but two kids. They’d been out on a date and hadn’t returned in a week. Everyone feared the worst for them, and none of their friends were sure of where they went.
“They’re both safe. She’s going to have a baby, and he’s the father.
They didn’t want anyone to keep them apart, so they decided to pack up and leave so that they didn’t embarrass the family.
” Calla asked her if they were going to make it.
“I can tell that he’s a little headstrong and nearly hits her a couple of times a day, but so far, he’s not. In the future…Let me see.”
She could see only bits and pieces of their lives together.
She told Calla that the woman ended up in the hospital several times a month.
That was all it took for them to have the kids found and brought back home.
The man, a kid himself, didn’t want to be a father, and he blamed it on the girl.
She wasn’t going to make it either if they didn’t get apart now, while they were still able to have a good conversation about things. One without loud voices and fists.
“They have the baby, but the woman isn’t able to care for him as much as she should.
He beats on her more as the months go by, and he can’t find a job.
He blames that on her as well.” Calla asked what she thought they should do.
“Find them as you said. Then separate them. They don’t need to be together if all he’s going to do is knock her around.
She will end up leaving him, but her life doesn’t get any better with that.
She’s already afraid of him now, so it’s only a matter of time before he shows his true colors and hits her for the first time. After that, it becomes a daily thing.”
They ended up finding the kids and taking them back home.
Sharie was welcomed home with the baby, and Tim decided that he wanted nothing to do with raising a child.
He left her at her parents’ house with the promise of paying for support.
Kimmy couldn’t tell if he did that or not, but just to have him away from the little family would go a long way in making her and her son safe from now on.
~*~
Rutger loved his job. He’d been working as an investment banker for some time now.
It paid the bills, and he was able to meet people.
Unlike the others, in their little kiss, Rutger enjoyed people of all kinds, but especially humans.
He thought them odd and very strange in how they worked so hard in getting things set up for themselves in the way of money, only to die and not spend it on anything that they’d been saving for.
It was why he did things when he wanted to do them and didn’t care about the cost. Of course, he could say that because he had a great deal of money around, but he did enjoy taking small and long trips when he was in the mood for one.
Just last month, he’d taken a month off and had gone to Europe.
He’d had so much fun that the trip had only started out as two weeks and had ended up being four.
It helped that he could do his job anywhere he wanted, so he could pack up and go for long periods of time and not worry about anyone missing him. Or so he thought.
This time, not only had the family missed him, but they had been worried too.
He’d told them that he was taking a trip, but he’d not given them any indication of when he’d be returning.
They had welcomed him home after he explained how much fun he’d had, but he knew then that he was going to have to let them know when he left and how long he’d be gone.
It was the courteous thing to do, he’d been told no less than fifty times.
It was just one more thing he was going to have to worry about when he decided to pick up and go.
He’d do it, but he’d be more careful from now on.
He didn’t want to be enjoying himself only to have the police wherever he was staying to find him having fun and run him home.
He didn’t need babysitters, but he had been remiss in letting them know how long he’d be gone. He’d do that from now on.
“Do you have time to go over these investments that I’ve been playing around with?
I think they’re going to have a good return, but I can’t tell.
Just yesterday their stock went up nearly sixty percent, only to have it down a great deal today.
I knew they were going to expand, but I didn’t know it was going to be so soon.
” He looked it over and agreed with his friend about the investment that he’d made in the company.
“I thought they’d wait, but I guess with the money right there, they figured that they’d go ahead and get started on it. ”
“How much did you invest?” He told him. “That’s not a great deal when you think about it. I’m assuming that you signed some kind of contract with them to keep busy with your money?”
“I just wanted to help out. As you can see, it’s a good company that’s been around for a while.
They used to make taper candles, then they got into the craze with those three-wick things.
Right now they’re filling an order for several thousand candles to be used in churches and at lighting ceremonies.
” Rutger asked if they were the white candles that were used for evening services.
“That’s the kind. They’ve been fulfilling this order for some time now and only needed a boost to get it finished.
That’s all I was hoping to help them out with.
But they did want to expand, and I saw no reason for them to not do that too.
I just figured that it would be later rather than right off the bat. ”
They talked about some other investments that he had on the plate, and Rance was surprised that he was helping a start-up company, too.
It was one that made knitted hats for winter, and he thought it was just a little too small a company for him to have bothered with.
Rutger knew he had a big heart, and he was afraid that sometimes he’d be taken advantage of.
So far, he’d not and was happy for himself.
He wasn’t as flighty as he seemed to be, and that was a good thing, too.
As they were headed out to get something from the store for Kimmy, he asked his friend how he was enjoying married life.
His embarrassment told him enough, and he was glad to be able to embarrass him just enough that he looked uncomfortable.
“It’s a great deal better than I thought it would be.
I mean, I was so dead set against having a human for a mate that I messed up badly when we were first together.
” He asked him how long it took for her to forgive him.
“I’m still working on that. I tell her every time I see her that I love her and that I’m sorry.
I don’t think it’ll ever be enough for how I fucked things up with her.
Don’t do that. I mean, be happy that you’ve found your mate and don’t fuck it up by being a dick because she’s not what you wanted. ”
“I don’t care what she is. I’m going to make her as happy as I can.” Rance told him that was good. “I have a feeling that it’s not going to be that easy, however. She’s going to bust my balls about everything, and I find that I don’t care.”
They talked about a great many things while together.
He missed just hanging out with Rutger and was glad that they didn’t need to talk every day to still be friends.
As they were parting ways, he made his way home.
It was a nice house, but nothing he thought that someone would want to live in forever. Especially not a forever mate.
He’d lived in the house for the last fifty or so years.
It was a good, solid home; it had things that needed to be taken care of, and he thought that if he were to have a mate, she’d be disappointed in how badly he’d left things go.
He decided to have it taken care of now, while he had time, and then he’d think about selling it.
It wasn’t what he wanted in a house, but it had served him well over the years.
It was time to move on. Or perhaps it was time for him to move up in the world and have a house that at least had more than one bathroom on each floor. He’d let things go long enough.