Page 6 of Marshall

When the smells of food came wandering down his way, he figured he’d been right about the time.It had been a couple of hours at least.Mentally rubbing his hands together, he was surely thrilled when he could smell fried bologna coming to them.His daddy called that Kentucky round steak.It was just as good, he thought, or better than a big, thick steak.Especially when his momma would cook up some onions and taters to go with it.

~*~

Making her way to the bathroom on her own, MJ was feeling good about her progress.Yesterday, she’d not even been able to get out of the bed.Now, here she was, not just getting around but able to pee by herself too.Slowly going back to the bed, she decided that she wanted to sit for a bit.The chair had been set up by the window a couple of days ago, and she tried to enjoy it as best she could a littlebit every day.

“You’re not going to believe what I just found out from those people you’re supposedly related to.”Lauder.She would enter a room in full conversation before she’d gotten sat down.“I refuse to believe that you’re related to them.It’s either you were kidnapped by them and brought to their home, or you’re not really related to them and were found on the doorstep.”

“According to DNA records, they’re my father and two uncles.What is it you found?”That was something else she’d figured out.Lauder could easily get off track by just mentioning one of the passions she had.One of them being the center they were putting together for drunks to dry out.She was handed papers without a word.

Looking them over, three things struck her at once.One, this was a contract between her uncles and someone else.Two, it was a contract to kill her.The third thing was, that she thought the two signatures were dead on correct at the bottom of the papers.Handing it back, she asked her where she got it.

“Your father had it on his person when he was arrested.”She shook her head.“Yes, he did.I swear to you, this is what he had.I was hoping that you’d tell me that this wasn’t either of their signatures.”

“It is.I don’t want to believe it, Lauder, but I think it is.”She asked her how sure she was.“Ninety-nine percent.But like I said, I don’t believe it.He’s my boss.”

“Mine too on some things.”She sat there.If Lauder was talking, she didn’t hear a word she said.It wasn’t until she was ready to talk…about anything but the paperwork when she realized that at some point Lauder had left and Marshall was there.“He’s my boss as well.Do you think that it’s possible that Michael Lowery signed this hit taken out on you?I mean, think hard.If so, then I think we’re all in trouble.”

“I’m afraid of my answer.”Marshall said that he could understand that as well.He didn’t want to believe it.“If he did, and I’m not sure if it’s right in my head right now, a lot of things fall into place when I think about the shit that’s been going on lately.The one thing that I don’t like that happened is that Grannie got a letter from the city saying that she’s behind in her taxes.Not possible.It comes directly out of my paycheck every month.I had to get payroll and Micheal to send a certified letter there to get it taken care of.Michael, when I asked him about it blew me off for days before I just showed up at his office to have him do it.”

“The person that shot you, it says here that it was James Smyth, he goes by Chummy.It says that your relatives were to contact him to kill you…or he’ll have you, I guess, have you wreck the chopper.I’ve been talking to Brad, and he said that it sounds to him like he’s playing on the sympathy votes for this year to start his campaign on a sad note.It would be said how good of friends you were as well as how, and he said that this is just speculation on his part, but they’ll mourn the deaths of your grannie, who will suddenly die of old age, and your sister from grief.He said that would be the way that he plays it.”She told Marshall that Brad had a sick mind just like she did.“That’s what he told me, too.That you’ve already figured that out and that you were thinking about some other shit that has gone down.I’ll have to tell him that he was correct.”

“I need to have better security on my sister and grannie.”He said that she now has a warrior faerie with her and DJ all the time.“How come you’ll call her DJ and not me, MJ?”

“I’m in love with you, that’s why.”MJ didn’t know what to say, so she changed the subject.She asked him about coverage here.“No one is getting by me and the team that I have around.In addition to the gate having someone at each section, there are faeries all over the inside of this house.”He pointed to the ceiling.“They’ll die before anyone gets up the stairs to you.”

“Why would you have them do that?I’m not that special.”He told her that she was to him, but he’d not asked them to do that.They would because they loved this family so much.“Oh.I guess I might have…I don’t want anyone to die, Marshall.I’m terrified of someone dying because of me.Because someone is protecting me when they have a family of their own to protect.”

“As I said, no one is telling them to do anything.These are all volunteers at the house and ineach room.I wouldn’t want that either.”She looked out the window again.Watching the swaying trees lose their bouquet of beautiful colors drop to the ground and dance around with the ones already there.“Becka has a new talent that she’s made good use of.She can make it so that no one enters the house with ill will in their heart.I love that rule, by the way.Not to mention hearing that from witches that I know, it works well against allowing weapons, such as bullets, to not enter as well.”She didn’t look at Marshall when she started to speak to him.

“I’ve fallen in love with you as well, Marshall.If you would have asked me as little as ten minutes ago, I would have said no.But sitting here, with you telling me what you’ve done to protect my family, it makes me realize that you’ve been doing everything in your power to keep everyone safe.”She turned then.“I do hope that you’re taking the same precautions as well.”

“I am.Now that I’ve found you, I don’t want to lose you either.”He took her hand into his.“I have two things that we have to talk about.One of them I don’t need an answer for but the first thing I do.I want you to know that I have a choice, too.I can take on the pack as my own and you’d be the alpha with me or not.It won’t cause us to lose our guards, but it will make them stronger as well as us.”He asked her if she’d accept that responsibility.

“I don’t know.I’m pretty beat up right now.What if I have to be called into action.The most I could do right now is shoot someone.I thank you for getting my own weapon, too, by the way.”He said that she was welcome but that she’d be completely healed if she took on this job with him.“What will that do for my father and uncles?Will it go badly for them when it comes to me being shot?”

“No.No one will know about that but my family.Your relatives are humans so they’ll not know at all.Also, so is the president.None of them will ever figure it out unless we tell them.”She asked him what the responsibility would be for the two of them.“Keeping the pack working is the most important thing.Money won’t be a problem as there is a lot of it to be handed down to us.We would be the overseer of about a thousand acres thanks in part to Hamish.He’s donated some to them in the last few years.You should also be aware that while it’s a big pack, there isn’t much in the way of younger people.With the addition of jobs that are coming here, more will come to our pack to seek entry into the pack.The better we run it and take care of the people that we have under us, the more people will come to us.”

“That sounds like we’ll have a battalion to run.I’m good at that, even if I do have to say so myself.I have about two hundred men and women that report to me not counting the civilians that work at the base as well.”He told her that was about how many he had when he’d been in the service.“I forgot about that.You told me that you were an ancient, so I’m assuming you’ve worked for a lot of presidents.Has any one of them treated you so badly as this one is to me?”

“Yes.And I have an idea that if I go back into the service, he won’t be the last either.You told me you were retiring.Is that anytime soon?”She just leaned back on the back of her seat while thinking.“This will hit the papers when we can catch him at this.We’ll have to be slick.And out of touch.What do you say that once he’s going to be arrested, that you and I take a long honeymoon so that we are here to answer questions?”

“You’ve not even asked me yet.Not to mention, we’ve never been anywhere but to the hospital and back.”He moved out of the chair that he’d been sitting in.“If you’re proposing to me right now, jackass, I’m going to tear your dick off and slap you around with it.”

“Lauder used to tell Hamish that she was going to knock out one of his fangs and stab him to death with it.”He got down on a bent knee.“Margaret Jane Brandon Morton, will you consent to be my wife?”

“That’s it?Just will I marry you?No romance even?”He told her what he thought she’d do to him if he had interjected romance into his speech.“I think you might be right.I would have told you to shut up and get it finished.Are you sure about this, Marshall?I mean it.If I answer you, I’m never going to allow you to take it back.Even if we have fifty years together before you figure out you’ve made a mistake.”

“You’re immortal, the same as I am.And the only mistake that I think that I’ve had is justwaiting too long to ask you.”She pointed out that they’d only known each other for about a month now.“Yes, and it’s going so well.”

“All right.But no takebacks.I swear you’ll never see the bullet coming.And I won’t be aiming at the parts I was trained to either.”He cupped his cock and balls, and she felt her face heat up.“Yes, I’ll marry you.”

He opened the little box that he had in his hand.If asked, she wouldn’t have thought that she wanted a ring.But as soon as she saw the one that he had for her, she knew that she’d treasure it for as long as she lived.

It was a single blue sapphire with diamonds surrounding the outer circle.The band was wide, wider than her own ring.Looking at it in the bright sunlight, she could see that it had wolves chasing one another around it, and they grew larger as they moved around the band.She loved it.

It was the most beautiful ring she could have ever wanted.It was more lovely than any ring she had.Her other piece of jewelry that she was never without, her military college ring from when she graduated from Tech college, was a close second to it, but she had a feeling that it would go down the list if she were to see this one every day.She’d only ever worn her college ring, the one that she’d gotten from her time in becoming a Technical General as she was now.A general with distinction.

“I know that being in the service, we’ll need a large wedding—” She asked him why they’d need that.“Because, my dearest love, I want to see you in the White House sometime soon.You’d be a perfect fit for that post and I’d be your husband in waiting too.”