Chapter 3 #2
“Oh, she is when she’s not taking over my house.
I just want things to be back to the way they were before.
Without her around.” Meggie laughed a little and stared at the couple.
“I’ve forgotten your names already. I guess that’s all right.
Will you please remind Doone that I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning?
For her not to be late. I so hate being late for things, and she knows that. ”
“Yes, I’ll remind her. I’m sure she knows.” Meggie nodded and laughed again. She was nearly giddy with the thought of Doone being out of her home that she wanted to dance a little bit of a jig. “You have a well-deserved life, Mrs. McFarlen. You get just what you need.”
“Oh, I will now that I have things back to the way I want them to be. Doone will be all right with this other person, and we’ll be back to her taking me places and not being here all the time.
It wasn’t a good time for me to have her here all the time.
It almost makes me wish that she’d not come here that night at all.
I know that sounds cruel, but it’s just messed up my life so much to have Doone here all the time.
Well, when she wasn’t working. She certainly did work a great deal while she was staying here, too. ”
After they left, she felt lighter again. Like everything was back to the way that it should have been. She had her place back; she could make as much noise as she wanted, and she could take long naps in the afternoon in her own bed like she wanted. It was all perfect.
She did wonder about the man that Doone was going to be living with.
She hoped that he was at least tolerant of her and didn’t want to send her packing soon after moving in.
Maybe he’d help her find someplace to live if he didn’t want her living with him anymore.
Or better yet, she would have saved enough money up so that she could find a place of her own.
However it worked out, she was simply thrilled that she wasn’t living with her anymore.
She got a message from Doone telling her that she’d be there first thing in the morning, that she had to work in the afternoon, so there would be no time for lunch.
That was her favorite part of the outings that she had was Doone paying for them a nice, fancy lunch.
She could forgive her this one time for not being able to do it, but not after this time.
She needed those lunches as much as she did her own place.
She felt that Doone sort of owed her lunch, too, for all the things that she’d had to give up while she was living with her.
She’d given up a great deal, too, to have her daughter living with her.
Mostly, it was her freedom. It didn’t seem to matter to Doone that she’d lost so much with her living with her, and she wanted her to respect her losses, too.
Just because she was homeless because of her apartment burning down didn’t mean that she had to give up everything that Doone had worked so hard to get for her.
It simply wasn’t fair of her to think that she’d been completely all right with her living in her home.
She was going to have to talk to her about it and have her thank her for all that she’d done for her daughter.
She had given up her bed for her. The least that she could do was to show her thanks a little more.
Yes, she thought, she’d have a talk with her when she picked her up tomorrow. She’d tell her what she’d given up in order for her to have a roof over her head, and thought that she should be a little more appreciative about it.
~*~
Falkner was glad that Doone was going to be staying at his home.
It made him feel like he could protect her better with her being there.
She had messaged him, the only way that they’d been able to talk at work, and told him that she was having no luck finding a place and wondered if his offer of her staying with him was still open.
He nearly danced around the room when he heard from her and told her yes, it was forever open for her to live with him.
He’d told his family that he’d found Doone, and they couldn’t wait to meet her.
But he did explain that she’d been homeless, living with her mother in a cramped one-bedroom house that the government was subsidizing.
He also explained how he was going to be living with her, but not in the same room.
Mom and Dad thought that he was great for doing that for her, but he wasn’t so sure.
He felt like he should be doing more for her, but she wasn’t having it.
This was temporary, she’d told him, just until she could find herself something on her own. Then she’d told him about her mom.
“She wants me out. Now, as a matter of fact. I know that it’s her place and all, but I’d only just lost my own things and place to live two weeks ago, and now I have to start fresh.
” He told her that he’d help her with anything that she wanted.
“I don’t know what I want other than to feel like my life is getting back together.
Like I’m no longer living off the kindness of others. ”
Now here she was moving into his place, and he couldn’t have been happier.
They just had to keep it quiet at work that they were seeing one another, or one of them was going to have to give up their job.
He’d worked so hard to be a doctor, but he knew that if it came to it, he would go to another hospital in a heartbeat because she’d be the bad guy in all this.
He’d heard from doctors around the hospital that nurses weren’t appreciated as much as the doctors were.
“I don’t have a great deal.” He said that they’d take care of that. “I don’t want you spending all your money on me, Falkner. I have some money and I’ll be looking for someplace to live. I don’t want to be a burden to you.”
“You’re not.” He had heard from Dallas and Amy how things had gone at her mother’s home.
It was no small wonder that she’d come to him and asked about living in his house.
Not living with him, but staying in his house.
“I promise you that I want you here as much as I’d want one of my brothers staying here if they’d had the same issues as you have.
And if you want, I can take your mother to her doctor’s appointment in the morning. ”
“I’ll take her.” She looked around the room and then at him.
“I could take her to lunch, but she’s been so hateful toward me that I find I don’t want to do anything nice for her.
I know that she was just putting up with me living there.
But it’s not like I had a choice in the matter.
I didn’t have a thing to do with the fire.
But to hear her talking, I caused it just so I could mess up her life. ”
When she looked away, he could see the tears in her eyes. It hurt him to his soul when she cried, and he couldn’t do anything about it. And he found that he really wanted to do something for her so that she’d be happy with living with him.
After she put her things away and asked if she could use the washer, he showed her that there was one on each floor so that they didn’t have to walk as much.
When she said that she wanted to take a nap before work, he left her in the room and went to his office.
He had plenty to do now that he didn’t have to worry about her anymore, so he started right on the paperwork that he’d been putting off for the last two weeks.
At just after two, he heard Doone moving around. The walls weren’t that thin, but his hearing was better than a human’s. As soon as she came down the stairs, he could see that she looked less stressed, and he was happy for that. Then he asked her if he could take her to work.
“No, that wouldn’t go over well if someone were to see us.
” They both made their way to the kitchen, and their cook had made her dinner early and had even packed her a lunch to take with her.
He was going to have to start packing his lunch to take to work, something that he could pick at during the day when it was busy in the department.
When she was finished eating, he wanted to talk to her, but he didn’t want her to be stressed out before heading to work.
So, going to the door with her, he bid her have a good night and to be careful and let her drive off.
He’d never wanted to go with someone to work as much as he did with her.
Falkner had heard the rumors about the nurses being treated badly.
He’d even witnessed it himself a few times.
He avoided Doone, so he didn’t know if she was getting the same treatment, but to hear Mulkeen talk about it, Doone was one write-up from being fired.
However, he couldn’t find a single doctor or nurse who didn’t have great things to say about his mate.
He knew that she was working until seven in the morning, so he made sure that there would be food for her when she got home.
He didn’t know if she would eat something heavy, but then remembered that she was taking her mother to the doctor and might not have time to eat.
He was going to have to take care that her mother’s appointments didn’t interfere with her sleeping and eating schedule.
Falkner didn’t know why, but he found himself not caring for Meggie McFarlen.
He thought that it was from the things that Dallas had told him.
How selfish she sounded about her daughter living there with her.
Also, the little things that Doone herself said about her mother, too, made him think that she wasn’t going to be nice when she heard that he and Doone were mates.
That made no sense to him, but that was how he felt.
He hoped that he’d be wrong about her and hoped that she was just as stressed as Doone was about everything that had gone on with her daughter.