Page 18 of Waylon

“I’ve spoken to the man, General Briggs, and he’s decided to retire as of today.” Jamie laughed, but it wasn’t full of humor like one would expect. “The man thought that he was doing the country a favor by making sure that our best man wasn’t going to the other side. As it is now, he’s lucky that he still has his pension as well as the ability to retire, like I’m allowing him to do. Stupid man.”

“Cullen wants to get out of the service. I believe, too, that he’s done plenty for his country and deserves his pension as well as his retirement. If you have a problem with that, then I’ll have no trouble taking you on either.” Cullen laughed, and she smiled at him. “Are you going to have a problem with that?”

“Not at all. I was going to suggest that you write up a contract that favors him, but I have a feeling that you’ll have him living in the White House with me so that he can keep an eye on me for the time I have left.”

“Damned straight.” They all three laughed and she was glad that it turned out so well that she was going to make this as her first win. Not that she had a great deal to do with it, but it was finished up in Cullen’s favor, and that was a win so far as she was concerned.

Chapter 8

Booth watched Lydia’s face after the doctor told her that she was paralyzed. He could see disbelief on her face as well as bits of anger. The thing that the doctor didn’t know or seem to understand was that she was healing. Just this morning, he’d noticed that she could wiggle her toes. A large feat if you asked him about it.

“Do you have any questions, Lydia?” She just stared at the doctor. “I know this is a great deal to take in, but we’re all here for you should you think of something later that you have questions about. We’re here for you.”

The doctor was gone for a good twenty minutes before she turned and looked at him. There was pain there, not from her body but from her heart. She asked him what was going to happen to her now.

“I’m not sure what that means.” She told him that she wasn’t going to be able to walk again, not to mention to have sex. “Yes, well, I’m not sure that you have to worry about any of that. I told you yesterday that you wiggled your toes. I think that once I’m able to claim you, as my gorilla really wants to do, then you’re going to see vast improvements all over your body.”

“How do you know.” He touched his finger to her toe and asked her if she could feel it. “Yes, but that’s just my toe, not my legs. I wouldn’t count that as a big win when I’m not going to be able to do anything other than to just sit around in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. And from what you told me yesterday, that’s going to be forever.”

The day before yesterday and last night again, they’d talked about her being his mate. She sometimes had to have him repeat it several times, but he thought for sure that she understood that now. Sometimes, she’d ask him a question that he’d answered before, but that was all right as well. It was a great deal to take in, and a lot of stress going along with it. Today was just for him answering questions after the doctor left. He didn’t much care for the man. He seemed like he had more important things to do other than to answer questions for her but with Falkner around most of the time, they were understanding more and more about what was going on than when he’d been explaining it to them.

Just as he was thinking of his younger brother, he walked into the door with not just food for the three of them, but he told her that he had good news for them as well. There wasn’t any time for them to eat as Lydia was peppering him with questions about what he’d been able to find out.

“There is swelling along your spine that is causing the paralysis. I’m not entirely sure where he got that you had a broken back, but it looks like the swelling is going down.” He looked at her with a wink. “There was a break in your spine, but since Booth has been hanging around with you more and more, it looks as if you’re healing on your own. With his magic, I guess.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something. Do you heal your patients when you’re around them?” Good question, he thought and waited on his answer with Lydia. “I mean, he’s just been hanging around, as you said, which I have to say, he must have more important things to do other than that, but he won’t leave, and I guess I’m fine with that too. He’s like some old mold. He’s beginning to grow on me.”

“I’m betting that he loves hearing that too. But no, I don’t heal them because they’re not my mate. Nor have I claimed them as my family.” He laughed. “I actually thought of that as well when I first started out. But no, I don’t heal them unless it’s by prescription or other means. But that is a great question. How are you dealing with all of this?”

“I have no idea. One minute, I’m all right. The next, I’m upset that that man hurt me and thinks that he should be treated special because of what he is. Bastard. I wonder how he treats his family.” Booth answered that question for her. “Just as I thought. He’s a bastard to everyone he’s around. His poor family must be happy that he’s in jail right now. I know that I am.”

By the time Falkner left, she was able to bend her ankle. Being told to take it easy so that she’d not be sore, she told him that she wanted so badly to get out of bed and dance. Not that she could, but that was what she wanted to do more than anything. Just get out and move.

After Falkner left them, they didn’t speak for a while. Booth did hold her hand. There was something so comforting about it that he watched as she started to drift off. By the time she was sleeping soundly, he was getting tired himself. It had been a long few days, and he wanted to take her home with him and heal her completely. But this way was better. She’d be healing a little at a time and that wouldn’t make anyone suspicious about her being better so quickly.

Getting up to walk around, his body becoming stiff just sitting there, he went to the window and looked out onto the gardens below. There were staff out there having their lunch, and he watched as they fed the birds some of their crumbs. Laughing when one of the bolder birds landed on the table they were sitting on, he managed to get away with nearly half a slice of bread and take it to the trees where he was sure his family was. Animals were a great distraction when it came to having to think about the bad news that this entire thing could have been.

Booth thought about the translations he was doing for the government. They’d been able to find more papers in the small room that had been discovered. For their cooperation in letting the government have the paperwork that they’d found, they were paying for the renovation of the house for the couple. They were more than a little pleased with the arrangements and Booth was happy about it as well. It seemed like they were all coming out ahead on this.

“Did you know that you talk to yourself?” He turned and smiled at Lydia. “I thought that you were talking to me, but then I realized that you weren’t. What are you talking about that seems so important to you?”

He told her about the papers that had been found and anything else about the work that he was going to cheer her up. He also told her that he’d been able to find several more recipes in the same hand and that he was going to find someone to cook them for him. The one that he really wanted was the roast quail with pine nuts.

“I don’t think that I’ve ever had quail of pine nuts, but the little bits of notes that they put in the lines of ingredients that make me think that I’ll like it.” She asked him about the notes. “It’s funny really. It talks about how an aunt doesn’t care for the nuts, so they have to leave them out for her and that one of the nephews doesn’t care for quail, so they tell him that it’s chicken and he’s been devouring it.”

“My grandma used to do that to me. Tell me it was chicken when it wasn’t. We had lamb one year for easter. I don’t have to tell you what a disaster that was for us. My questioning mind wanted to know why there were these large lamb chops when I hadn’t ever seen a chicken with a chop before. Turns out she finally had to tell me the truth, and I never trusted her about chicken or food for that matter ever again.” He told her about broccoli and how he had hated it until he tried it. “Yes, I can see a kid doing that. Broccoli does look odd, and to think that it’s a vegetable is really off-putting. For me, anyway.”

They talked about their childhood, getting around to her injuries as well. When she seemed to be drifting off again, he didn’t say anything to her but watched as her eyes closed slower and slower. When it seemed that she was out, he pulled himself over a chair and began reading some more of the transcripts.

The notes, like he’d observed before seemed to have been jots of notes that someone wrote down to remember something for later. The author, a man by the name of William S. Prater, would also cut out clippings of the paper and put them into his notes as well. There were a great deal of misspelled words as well as his translation of things, like the billboards that he would read, was a bit off but he usually got the drift of things and did a good job. It was enjoyable to him and to Jamie about how much the man seemed to have an opinion about nearly everything, from politics to the growing of apples.

Reading a passage about the weather, it was cold, and the snow was piling up. He went on to explain how he was going to go through his wood before the season was nearly over. Also, he seemedto have a good accounting of the people in town, too. The man was a savant gossiper as well as someone who was free with his opinions about how people raised their children.

Since he did mention several times that he had none of his own, it was also funny to him that he thought that he could do a much better job than anyone else when it came to disciplining them as well. He was a ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ sort of man.

There were prices of cattle, pigs, and corn that he would ruminate about as well. He felt that if he were in charge of such things, the country would be better off not paying the farmers for their product because it was for the good of the country. Booth had to laugh when he figured out on his own that it was farmers who kept the world going and that not paying them could and would lead to harder times. He also didn’t mind admitting when he was wrong either. Which, by Booth’s accounting, wasn’t all that often.

When he had about enough of William, he’d turn to looking things up on the internet. Nothing as profoundly as what he was reading but just little tidbits of things that he thought were interesting. Nothing to do with politics or the price of grain. He liked thinking that he was living in a time when he could afford to be a part of both and not have to worry about the consequences of talking about either or both of them.