Chapter 13

I called Don to see how the house was coming and to ask if he knew of someone who could read the Native American blessing. "Bob, I know just the guy. He is one of my carpenters; he is half Apache and half Osage. I think he would be perfect. What is the passage?"

"Don, it is an Apache wedding blessing, something about 'You will feel no rain, for each of you will be the shelter for the other, ' then something about not feeling cold for you are warmth for each other. I found a Cherokee blessing too, and I might just combine the two, or your guy may know something better. We plan on having a spiritual bonding ceremony once we can move into the house. It may take a couple of weeks to get everything together, but I would like you and Barb to be there for me. I have a friend in Pflugerville, and a couple from here, for my parties, I think it will be a small affair; we can have it in the backyard. I really want it outdoors; it seems more appropriate that way. I think my father told me once that we were descended from the Lipan Apache that roamed northwest Texas and New Mexico, until they were virtually eliminated by the Comanche, the US Army, and the Mexican Army. Those that survived were shipped to Oklahoma and integrated into other surviving tribes. I guess that is where I got this urge to pay homage to my heritage. Have your guy call me and we can work something out. And, Don, thanks for everything."

"Bob, it is my pleasure, and it is a real honor that you would invite Barb and me to something this close to your heart. You know we love you three and want only the best for you."

"Thanks, Don, I'll let you know when everything is going to be, as soon as I get my schedule from my women."

Tammy and Nicole came out of the office, and I asked, "How did it go?"

Nicole nodded to Tammy, so she went first. "Well, it seems that my family will be here tomorrow sometime, if they can arrange it. It seems that they want to see you in your environment first, and they want to meet Nicole's parents too. They did not congratulate me, or tell me I was a fool yet, but they are coming. They wanted to surprise me with a visit. Well, they sure surprised me. OK, Nicole, tell him your news."

"My parents have wanted to meet you for some time now, but we have been so busy that we really haven't had any down time since we came back from our vacation. So they are coming tonight for an initial meeting. They will be here in about an hour. I also do not know their mood, since I couldn't detect it over the phone. We might want to clean the place up a little before they come over."

We cleaned up what we could. The house was always a mess, as we were gone most of the time, and really busy the rest of the time. We did the best we could before the bell rang. I answered the door and invited Thomas and Helen Kidd into our home. I introduced myself and Tammy and showed them seats on the couch. The girls sat on either side of me on the arms of my chair. I think this floored the Kidds.

Helen started first, "So you are to be our new son-in-law?"

"No Ma'am, I love your daughter, but I will not marry her, just like I will not marry Tammy either. We are a triad, a group of three. I will not have the law take one of my women from me, and they, in turn, will not allow the law, or anyone else, to take me from them. I know this is confusing, but let me try to make some sense of all this.

"First, I have grown to love each of these women as though we could marry, but it would not be fair to the other one, as they each love me the same way. You love you husband and could not bear to have him come to harm. That is exactly the way that I feel about your daughter, and that is the same feelings she has for both Tammy and me. You see, we just started out as employer and employees. That lasted for about two weeks before I started having feelings, very deep feelings, for both women. Because of our jobs, we are apart for much of our lives. I know that when I am away, I long to be here at home with both of the women. And no, it has been only the last couple of months that we have been intimate with each other. Before that, we have slept in the same bed, and nothing untoward happened. I know, I for one, was celibate during the entire time I have known your daughter, until two months ago, when we were all home at the same time and decided to consummate our love for each other. Now, I ask you to look at your daughter and ask yourself; is she happy, is she being mistreated, and is there something she needs that she is not receiving. After you have the answers to those questions, you can condemn me for my love for your daughter."

I think I was about to be hugged to death by both of my lovely ladies. I was kissed and fussed over while Mr. and Mrs. Kidd sat in stunned silence. Thomas found his voice first. He looked at his wife and then said, "I think that you put that quite nicely. We have been getting such glowing reports of what Nicole has been accomplishing with you, as far as business is concerned. But her love for you has been obvious from the first time she came home after working for you for about a month. She didn't say much, but she had a very dreamy look on her face when your name was mentioned, and at other times, when she told us of your praise for her work, she positively beamed with pride and excitement.

"Nicky now has a purpose in her life. That is something she hasn't had before. You know she is older than your average college student, she was aimless for a while after high school, she went to UT-Dallas for a year and then quit. She lounged around, tried her hand at working, and at doing nothing. Suddenly, a little over two years ago, she went back to school and studied hard, she changed her major from business to computers. I asked her why, and she said it just came to her to change majors. Then after a year, she changed from mainly computers to website design, but by then we just accepted that she knew what she was doing. We just couldn't see the reasons. Then she came home one day, said she had interviewed with you about a job, then said you had hired her on the spot. We couldn't believe it. Somehow, she knew that she would need everything she was learning to be able to work for you.

"I don't begin to understand what is going on between the three of you, but I see it is positive. Your business is doing great right now, do you think it will continue, or do you see a downturn later on? I'm only asking to make sure our little girl will be well cared for."

"Thomas, I can assure you that my business is on solid ground. In fact, we are looking into hiring at least three more employees for the business. I'm not sure what Nicole has told you about our new location in Taylor, but we have the business set up across from the house and you two are welcome anytime. Right now we have three open bedrooms, so like I said, anytime, you will always be welcome. Now as for the ceremony, we still have some things to iron out, but please this is important; we will not be married, we are only committing ourselves to each other. It's called a spiritual bonding ceremony. We cannot even consider us to be married, or we will run afoul of the law about bigamy. However, each of us will be well cared for, even if any of us split up or die. We have a decent amount of money available to us.

"Just like your daughter, I somehow knew that she would be a part of me, from the first time I met her. I felt the same way about Tammy too. I never once thought of hiring anyone else until now. But we will be looking for some new employees to run things for us as we will be retiring and just run the office part of the business when we are not traveling. I assure you that your daughter will be well treated and well cared for."

Helen spoke this time, "Bob; that is all any parent can ask for. We all want our children to be loved and cared for and not be abused or neglected. I can see the love you have for our Nicole. I can see it in your eyes, and in the way in which you talk about her. I can also see the love my daughter has for you. I see the all consuming love she has for you. You are right, the three of you are something I have never seen before; each of you is only a part of a whole. Lose one piece, the other two suffer. I can see that for me, that is enough. I can see that our daughter will be happy and safe in your care. I just hope that we can be a small part of your family in the future."

"Helen, we would gladly welcome you and Thomas into our family. I think I can speak for all three of us, in that we hoped that you would accept us as a unit, as that is what we are. Each of us is a part unto ourselves, but when together, we are a force of our own and become much greater that any of us alone. I was making a decent living with the business I started over two years ago. However, since these two lovely ladies joined our company about eight months ago, we have grown four fold. We have so much work that we are trying to turn it away. However, new clients are telling us that they will be ready whenever we can get around to them. How this is happening, I can't say, all I know is that it is happening. We already have work scheduled for the next month and that is unheard of in this industry. People don't wait a month to have someone design their website. There are so many companies out there designing sites that competition is fierce. We are also getting many more small companies that want work done and have us maintain their site on our servers. For that, we charge them an initial fee for the site work, then a monthly fee for the server use.