Page 4 of Daniel Watson

It had worked out really well with Luke and his five sisters living with him. The house that he’d gotten from Caleb—more like a flipping hotel to him, it had fourteen bedrooms as well as a butler’s house. He’d been making use of it while the women and Luke made good use of his house. Besides, they were cooking for him, and he couldn’t think of a single reason to have them looking for another place.

“Nah. I’ve been cold before. When my daddy was hanging around us he’d sell off my clothing that I’d get from the shelter place. By the way, Sen said to remind her about the receipts that she has for detergent and also donations.” Daniel said he’d do that. “Good. Now don’t forget. I won’t get dessert tonight if you don’t do this. She’s depending on me to remember all kinds of stuff for my job. You know? It sure is nice to be able to walk around town without having to worry all the time, don’t you think?” He agreed with him.

Burt Branch, their father, had been arrested not ten minutes after he’d been released the last time for drunk and disorderly conduct when his wife, Olivia, had passed away. He’d gotten out and went to the grocery store and tried to steal steaks and French fries. Not only was he run in again, but he had to wait for the judge to come in and hear his story before he could be released. Everyone was happier for those arrangements. Luke certainly was.

The sisters of Luke were working for the family, helping Tabby sort donated clothing so that it could be given away when people needed it. There were five of them, all mother hens when it came to their little brother. Luke would fuss about them, but he certainly loved them all. And Daniel couldn’t blame him. They were about the nicest bunch of women he’d met in a long time. Between the five of them, he and his little buddy had been eating well every day since they moved in.

“I don’t think that you’re listening to me, Mr. Daniel. Are you getting all goo-goo over that woman at the desk? She’s pretty but…well, she’s pretty mean when she needs to be, too.” He told him he was sorry, but he’d been thinking. “I’ve been doing that a lot, too. Anyway, my sister is taking me to the college tomorrow so that I can sign up for some college classes. I’ve not been hit once since my daddy was put in jail, you know. Even my sisters are healing up now, too. Do you know when my aunt and cousin are supposed to be coming to town?”

“I bet that they are. And no, not yet. I thought that they’d be here by now, but they had some trouble with the tickets that had been left for them at the airport.” Daniel thought about what he’d heard about the mess up at the ticket counter but decided it wasn’t his place to make a judgment about the two people. “Tabby said that you and your sisters have gotten all the donated things separated out and washed and dried. That has to be a great thing for the people that go there.” Luke said that his sister was allowed to wash their clothing there as well. “That must be nice. You tell them that the washer and dryer that I purchased will be there tomorrow. Then they don’t have to lug their things over there too. I certainly don’t have enough dirty things to use it all that often.” He’d gotten him a smaller set for the house he was using. It was working out well for the little bit that he was wearing. And it was close, too.

“I’ll tell them that. I think that they feel bad about using the one in the donation place. It’s a nice one, but like you said, they have to lug all their clothing in and out of the place, and it has about fifty stairs to it.” They both laughed, knowing that the place only had about five steps, but they were steep. “Sen has a job interview with Mr. Caleb tomorrow, too. Did you know that?”

“Doesn’t he know what she can do already? I mean, she’s been working for him for two weeks now at the donation place.” Luke told him what apparently his sister had told him. “Oh. Yes, I can see where he’d want to make it fair to everyone that was applying. Also, I do the same things here. Interview for a lot of different jobs that need to be filled up then put them where I think they’ll work out. Good idea on his part but I guess he didn’t get rich by being stupid. Caleb is smart for doing it that way if he has that many jobs that need to be filled in different areas around town. The hospital alone needs about three dozen more people working here.”

Caleb, the man who had set out to find him and the other men who had been sired by Howard Berkley, had gathered them all up and made their lives a good deal better than they had ever been. Caleb’s mom, Abby Anderson had made it so that her son had plenty enough resources to do what he needed to not just find them but to bring them here to live around him. Daniel had been the last of them. His mom, like the others, had been raped by Howard and left to raise him on her own.

His mom, like most of the other half-brothers, had passed on. He didn’t think that his mom had ever been all that healthy even before she had him, and raising him on her own hadn’t been all that easy on her. But, and he would be forever thankful to her, she had made him the man that he is today. Someone that people could depend on.

After getting Luke set up to have an x-ray of his arm, he looked them over and declared him well enough to start exercising it. The kid had been complaining about only being one-armed in trying to hold down a job. Daniel thought that at ten years old, he could hold off on working full time. The kid, he loved him to pieces and he had a charm about him that made him feel like he was on top of the world just by being around him.

When his cell phone rang, another gift from Caleb so that they could talk whenever they needed to, he answered with his name. Realizing that it was Tabby, Caleb’s wife, he smiled, thinking about how happy he was that his brother had found himself such a wonderful person to live the rest of his life with.

“I just heard from Olivia’s sister.” He had to think a moment and remember that she was talking about Luke’s mom. “Her name is Beatrice Miller, and her daughter is July. I have to admit something only to you, I don’t know that I’m going to care for her. The aunt. She’s kind of…how should I say this… She’s a fucking bitch.” He laughed and was happy that Luke had gone out to go help Ava, one of his sisters, clean the kitchen up at home. “I want everyone to be on their toes around her. She’s been making comments about the kids that make me think that we shouldn’t have bothered with contacting her. Ms. Miller is a great deal like her brother-in-law, Burt. A mean person.”

“Did you ever hear what happened with the tickets that were waiting for them at the airport?” She explained to him how the mess-up had occurred. “How is that your fault? If she didn’t get to the airport on time, I don’t see how she can say that you were the one to mess their flight out. Yeah, I’m right there with you. I don’t know that I’m going to like them either. She’d better not be a bitch to those kids. I know the older ones can hold their own, but not the two younger ones.”

“Maybe she’s just grieving. I know that it can make a person say and act differently than they normally did.” He didn’t believe that, and he was sure that Tabby didn’t either. “Anyway, she’s going to be here this evening. If you don’t mind, we’re going to meet up at your house when she arrives. We’re sending a car for her since, according to her, she’s going to need time to chill before meeting her sister’s family. I’m all right with that. I don’t want to be in a car with her for over an hour, either. I’ve made a couple of calls. Her plane will arrive at about four this afternoon. After they get their luggage then get here, it’ll be around five-thirty or six. The caterers will be at your home about that time. They’ll set up and clean up, too. I just don’t want to have to deal with food since the weather has turned again. Did you know that it was supposed to be ninety today? Yesterday, it was forty. I don’t care for the weather around here.”

After making sure that he knew what he had to do when the caterers arrived and where the aunt was staying with her daughter, he told Sen when she came out of the elevator after her interview with Caleb. He also reminded her about the receipts, too.

He really liked this sister. Daniel loved them all, actually, but Sen and her sister Ava were the ones that he had spent the most time with at the house, being about his age. They were all smart, too, and could hold their own in a conversation.

“I don’t remember her at all. I did remember my mom talking about her a couple of times. How they really didn’t get along all that well. But since she’s all mom had, she wanted her to come and see to Luke and Beth. They’re the only two that aren’t adults yet.” Daniel asked her why she didn’t adopt her brother. “I’d love to, I would. But mom didn’t want me to be settled, she called it with my little brother if a man came along and wanted to marry me.” She snorted.

“You don’t think that anyone would want to marry you?” She did that twirl-around thing, showing him, he supposed what a man would be getting if he did. “I don’t know if you’re serious or not but I would think that any man would be thrilled to have a partner like you in life. You’re smart, beautiful, and funny. And you have a readymade family right here.”

They both laughed. That was another reason for him to like her a great deal. She never took anything seriously if she didn’t have to. She and Luke were off-the-charts smart, both of them having graduated from high school before they were ten and started college right away. The other four sisters were smart, too, but they’d not graduated until they were twelve. It made him smile when he told anyone how brilliant his housemates were.

At three o’clock, he made his way home. While he was on call for the entire day, there hadn’t been a single emergency in since he’d gotten there. The entire area had been told that if they had an emergency and could make it to one of the other hospitals in the area, to go there. The hospital was very short-staffed, and it would be a while before it was up to standards again, even with the extra help that was coming in from other hospitals.

Lucky for him, he didn’t live all that far from the hospital and could walk home. The girls had been using his car since he’d gotten it. Or since his big brother had gotten him one. Caleb was an extremely generous brother.

~*~

Watching the trees as they swayed back and forth, she thought that she’d never realized how relaxing it could be to sit quietly and not fill her mind up with things that could have and should have been done. Looking to her right when the door opened, she stood up and carefully made her way to the room where she’d be doing her exercises in.

“You’re doing very well, Major. I don’t have to ask if you are keeping up with things. You’re muscles are loosening up very nicely now.” Cassie asked her if she’d heard from her boss. “No. Only in that, you’re supposed to be given the best of care no matter what you have to say. I think that he’s going to want you better sooner than you do.”

“I didn’t want to be better at all. That’s the problem.” Cassie had been shot when her brother had been killed. Every day since she woke up from the operations that had saved her life, she wished that they would have just let her die along with him. Bradley had been her hero, her best friend and her brother like none other. “Did they tell you when I can get out of here? I’d like to go to his grave before the snow comes in. And is there any word on who it was that killed him?”

“No word on when you can leave here to go see his grave. I’ve been thinking that someone could take a picture of it for you. Cassie, you do understand that you’ve been declared dead as well, don’t you? If you go snooping around, as I think you want to do, you could be caught and killed. No one wants that, I promise you.” She nodded, then turned away from the woman. “I’m sorry, Cassie. I truly am. I know it won’t be the same, but I’ll go there after I leave here and take some pictures for you. And I’ll ask in my report when you’re going to be taken out of here.”

“Please do.” Being declared dead had more than likely saved her life along with the people that she’d been staying with. But she didn’t want to live. There was nothing for her to live for. Not anymore. “I’ve lost so much, Connie. Everything when you think about the fact about how I’m living. Hiding away in the dark like an animal. I miss my brother.”

Cassie lifted her legs as she was asked to do when the two of them settled into their routine. Exercising her body, trying to get back into the shape she’d been before was difficult for her. Not that she’d been all that out of shape before being shot at, but she just didn’t have the will to do anything lifesaving. She’d lost so much that she didn’t want to be sticking around to lose anymore.

First, her parents when she and her brother had been just teenagers. They’d been killed when the plane that they’d been riding in had simply dropped from the sky. It had been their anniversary that week and they’d planned to go back to the places that they’d seen on their honeymoon. They were on their way home when the plane crashed, killing all two hundred eighty-seven on board, including the crew.