Chapter 9 #2
“I like that idea, but I think that my family would miss us. I know they would you anyway.” She told him to shush; he was talking too much. Laughing again, he’d never felt so good in a long time, if ever. “I love you.”
“I love you too, my dearest husband. Now go to sleep. I don’t plan on this getting me down for long.” He smiled as he watched her body slow down by degrees. When he knew she was fully asleep, he got up out of the bed and tried to make some of the covers in the right position.
Once he got them in the right way, he slipped into the bathroom and out again before she missed him. Just as he was getting back into bed, his brother contacted him. It was far too late for him to not be worried. He asked him what was going on.
“I just got a call from the hospital. They couldn’t reach you. Mr. Mulkeen passed away about two hours ago. He said that he died in his sleep and had a smile on his face when they found him. I’m so sorry, Falkner. I had no idea that you were that close to him.”
“Just in the past few days. The surgeon said he would have made a full recovery. I wonder what happened.” Dallas said that he didn’t know, but that it could wait until tomorrow.
“Yes, I suppose so. When I talked to him today, he said that he was going to have to get out and about again. He was looking forward to it.”
“I’m so sorry.” He told his brother that it was all right that they’d had a lot of long conversations over the past few days. “Well, he’s in a better place, or so people say. I’m betting that you and Doone are going to miss him. He’s the one who tried to catch you fraternizing with Doone, right?”
“Yes, he was.” He thought about the man that he’d come to respect over the last week and a half. He couldn’t believe how much he was going to miss him and his talks. “He was a rule stickler until the surgery. Now he was thinking that more needed to be broken. Yeah, I’m going to miss him.”
After closing the connection with his brother, he laid in the bed thinking about some of the things that the elderly man had told him.
He’d been feeling off for days before his fall, and he thought that he’d hit his head before.
But couldn’t remember when. He thought that he might well have been right in saying that, as the surgeon had told him that they’d found a second bleed when they had him opened up.
Falkner decided not to wake Doone to tell her what was going on.
She needed her rest as much as he did. After snuggling down in the blankets again he held Doone to him and kissed her gently on her mouth.
She was his everything in the world and he couldn’t wait for things to be normal for them soon.
He believed that it would be too. Once her mother was out of the way and in prison.
It didn’t take him long to get relaxed enough to fall asleep.
His body was worn out and he had a feeling that he was going to be sore in the morning.
Glad that he’d taken some over the counter drugs before getting back into bed, he thought about all the things that he had going on at the moment.
Beside his work, he had a lovely wife to take care of and to make sure that she was happy.
Closing his eyes, he was falling into sleep in that moment. It was the nicest thing in the world to have a home and a wife, he thought just as he was dozing off and couldn’t have been happier himself.
~*~
Doone was off for the next two days and she was going to make the most of them. Falkner had to work both her days off but she had traded Friday for one of his days off so that they could be together. She was going to make sure that he had a good time too.
He’d told her before he left for work this morning that Drake had passed away in his sleep.
It broke her heart to hear that, as he’d become a good friend over the last few days.
He’d told her stories about each and every doctor in the hospital and how some of the nurses had been caught by him making love to some of the doctors when he’d been making his rounds.
He found it funny now that he was better and she would find herself in his room when she was on break or had a few minutes to enjoy his company.
He turned out to be a great listener, too.
She’d told him about her mom and dad. How her dad was thinking of staying around here to be close to her again. How her mom was in jail for lying to the government about the amount of money that she actually had, over what was in the paperwork that she’d filed.
“You should go and see her again before she’s sent off to prison.
You might want to say a few things to her that you won’t get to later on.
Tell her how she made you feel.” She asked him about his own family and how he’d cut his sister out.
“We were never close to begin with. She’s sixteen years younger than I am and was treated like an only child after I left home. ”
“That’s sad. Very much so.” He said it was nobody’s fault but their own.
Once he’d left home, he’d never looked back until his parents were both gone, and it was too late to build any kind of relationship with his sister.
“You did at least try to get in touch with her, didn’t you?
I mean, I’d hate to think that she’s going to miss you if anything were to ever happen to you. ”
“I’ve lived a good long life. I’ll be eighty on my next birthday.” He laughed when she looked at him, shocked. “I should have retired or been retired a long time ago. At least by the time I was at a good age to retire. I missed out on a lot of things working the way that I did.”
“I want to live my life to the fullest. I’m going to, too, when I get out of my contract with the hospital.
” He asked her how much longer she had. “I signed a five-year contract with them when I got out of college, and they paid off my loans. That will be up in February. Then I’m free to go where I please to work.
But to be honest, I really like it here now. ”
“Because of Falkner.” She’d never told him that they were married.
He guessed it on the second day when they were in the room together with him.
“He’s a good man. Other doctors would have given up on this old man when I started not feeling like my usual self.
I’m glad he didn’t. I got to know the two of you very well in the last few days. ”
He told her that the evening before he died.
She wondered if anyone had ever taken the time to talk to the old man and realized that he more than likely died happier with them in his life than if he’d died at the hospital doing a job that he loved.
She knew that she felt better for having him in her life.
He might have been a prick before, but he certainly changed for the better after falling with his dog.
She wondered what would happen to his dog now that the man had died.
Her front door was ringing just as she was coming down the stairs.
Knowing it was going to be someone that she didn’t want to talk to, she was surprised to find Loren on her front steps.
Inviting him in, they sat in the living room until he was ready to talk to her.
He was the oddest person she knew, but she really did love him.
“I have a problem. And I think that you and Falkner can help me with it. I have a set of twin girls that need a place to stay until they’re old enough to be out on their own.
” She asked him about Booth and Dee, and he said that they’d just taken on three small children and wouldn’t have time for the twins.
“I have no problem with that if that’s all you need.
But I do have to talk to Falkner about it.
This was his house before I moved in with him. ”
“I’ve already spoken to him and he said that it would be up to you.
” She asked him about the girls, and he told her everything that he knew.
Which seemed to her to be an awful lot of information.
“They’ll be eighteen in a few months. They both have their driver’s licenses and a car that they share.
They’re good girls and have a job too, but they can’t live on their own until they turn eighteen.
They just need temporary housing until then. ”
“Sounds too easy.” He told her that it was actually, but she could handle it. “I’m sure that I can, and they’re welcome to stay. Do I help them get a place to stay? Or do they have that already, too?”
“No, if you’d like to help them, that would be wonderful.
They’ve never been apart from each other, and they might need a little bit of help understanding all the ins and outs of having a place on their own.
As I said, they’re good girls, just a bit underage right now.
” She said that she’d had an apartment once and could certainly help them with that.
“Good. I knew you’d be the one who could take care of them. ” When he stood up, so did she.
“When will I have them here? I’m assuming since you talked with Falkner first that it would be soon.” He told her that they were in the car right now. “Bring them in then. I can’t believe you made them wait outside. I’ll get them set up as soon as I know if they want to share a room here or not.”
“They would like to be apart in their staying here. To get used to having a place of their own with two bedrooms.” She said she understood that and was excited to meet them. As soon as they were in the house, she felt a connection to them like she’d known them all her life.
Alex and Abby weren’t identical twins, but they did look a great deal alike.
While Alex was built bigger, she was the athletic one of the two of them; Abby was softer and seemed to have a good head on her shoulders.
She couldn’t wait for them to get out on their own soon and start living the life that they wanted to live.