Chapter 58

Fred sat outside the RV in the near darkness, the closest streetlight a block away. The folding chair creaked as he crossed his legs and swapped the cell phone to his other ear, holding the instrument in position with his shoulder as he retied a shoelace and talked to Jeff.

"Buddy," Jeff said from one of the small sitting rooms in his mountain home, "I can call Madison and he'll bust his ass to have that plane here as fast as he can. I'm not familiar with the airports in Florida where you are, but he will be..."

"Jeff, I know that, and I appreciate the thought," Fred interrupted. "But what good would it do? I know that whatever you have would heal her body, but she's brain dead according to the doctors. What good is a revitalized body with nobody home?"

Jeff sighed, having already fed the information to the Healer as best he could. She had told him much the same thing. Plus, he remembered from before when she said she could repair the brain, but would not attempt to do anything with a personality.

"They're rerunning the test in the morning?"

"Yeah. But I don't hold out much hope. I think Doc is just doing it for me. He said if the test still showed no brain activity, they would shut the ventilator off. Her body will die shortly after that." Fred said nothing for a moment, then, "I'm supposed to be taking a nap right now, but I can't sleep. Fuck, sometimes I wish I had taken another route when we started down this way..."

"Things will work out, Buddy. You'll know in the morning and then be on your way."

"We'll be on our way after we give her a funeral and bury her. I haven't gone this far just to leave her for the county to put in a pauper's grave. The sheriff's deputy says they can't find any next of kin."

"'Do what you think is right;' that's what you've always told me."

"Thanks, Jeff. I just needed to talk to someone."

"Keep me posted, Fred. If you want me there, I'll be there..."

"I know. No use in that. Hell, we don't even know this person. Now Brenda is feeling guilty for throwing my money away. I keep telling her it's her money, too. We made it together, and saved it together. At least we had it and did what we could."

"Get some rest. Hell, maybe it won't be bad news in the morning after all."

"Yeah, and if frogs could fly..." Fred let out a sick laugh. "Take care my friend."

"You too," Jeff said as he pushed the Off button on the handset, then returned the phone to its cradle.

A couple of minutes before Fred's call had come in, Jeff and Diana had gone into a small sitting room/alcove not far from Whitworth's suite, and had seized the opportunity to be alone for a few minutes. Now Jeff turned to Diana who was sitting nearby listening. "I feel useless," he sighed.

Diana got up and sat in his lap. "I think the General and his wives would argue that point with you," After a pause, "You didn't know he had more than one wife?"

"I think he has mentioned his wife a time or two, but he certainly never mentioned he had two. He kind of kidded me about all my wives, but never said anything derogatory. I guess we know why now."

Diana adjusted herself on his lap. "He didn't make any effort to hide it here. Of course he was obviously stressed, and well he should have been."

"I can't imagine one of you..."

Susan stepped into the sitting room, but stopped near the doorway. Hesitantly, "Can I talk with you a moment?"

Jeff glanced over at her. "Sure. Come on over and have a seat." Not wanting to continue the subject of multiple wives and give Susan an opening to trash him, "I was just talking with Fred a few minutes ago about the woman they rescued."

"Is she better?" Susan asked as she sat in the seat next to him.

"Her body is doing a little better according to Fred, but unfortunately, the doctors think she's brain dead."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I was hoping..." Susan wound down instead of saying the obvious. Then thought, Crap, Diana is sitting in his lap. I had planned to startle him by sitting there, then in the sweetest voice I could conjure up, ask him if I could live here. He would know I was fucking with him, but he wouldn't be able to acknowledge it aloud. But Di doesn't look like she's interested in going anywhere in the near future. Ah, heck, I'll just wing it.

Susan's seat was very close to Jeff's, so she reached over and took his hand. Squeezing it lightly, she smiled at him and said, "Jeff, I..."

"Certainly you can, Mom," he interrupted before she could even ask.

"I..."

"We would be tickled to have you. We'll send your keys to a moving company and have them pack up your things and ship them out here. Just give the keys to Dave with a list of the things you want. He'll take care of it. I've already told him about it."

Diana buried her face into Jeff's neck and giggled.

"I, uh," Susan said.

Diana got up, grabbed her mother's hand and dragged her out of the alcove. Down the hallway and out of earshot plus quite a bit more distance because of Jeff's keen hearing, Diana began laughing. "I told you when you started to fuck with him the other day that he would fuck back, remember? Remember also, he never would tell us what his IQ was from that test in high school, and even then, I suspect he held back and didn't do as well as he could have. Mom, despite what you think, he's the greatest guy in the world and I almost lost him because of my stupidity. I'll never let that happen again."

Both women had now stopped and stood facing each other. Susan smirked at her daughter, "Well, with the pussy brigade you've provided for him, I doubt if he's going anywhere." Susan pushed out an overly-dramatic sigh. "How can you stand watching him fuck another woman, let alone your daughter?"

Instead of Diana getting mad, becoming defensive, or arguing with her mother yet again, Diana just laughed at Susan. "We do, indeed, fuck like rabbits much of the time, as I've admitted before, but then again, Jeff can be the tenderest lover you could ever imagine. He seems to know what we want, or need, and do just that. If you keep messing with him, he'll, sooner or later, lay you down and lick you unconscious."

Susan made an almost-spitting sound. "No damned way. He's just a man, and no one has ever screwed me unconscious, let alone done it with his tongue."

"Uh huhhhh," her daughter responded, stretching out the sound. Then continued the sarcasm with, "And the reason you cream your jeans when he kisses you?"

Susan sputtered to a stop. "That was a fluke. I had been without a man so long."

"Sure, Mom. Sure. You just keep telling yourself that. I've already given him my permission — not that he needs it — to fuck your brains out anytime he decides to."

Susan glared incredulously at her daughter. "So, he can just break his marriage vows any time he pleases, huh? Now he can do it with your mother?"

"Mom, I broke our marriage vows — not Jeff. And he can't cheat if I've given him permission, now can he? Besides, I wrote new marriage vows and each of my sister-wives agreed to them before our wedding. We vowed to never have another man — he didn't vow to not have another woman — I made sure of that. He just wants to wait until the wedding night to fuck each new wife. It's his idea, not mine. I would just as soon he fuck your brains out right now. It would solve a lot of problems, and I guarantee you would have a hard time getting mad at him after that."

Susan stared at her daughter. "You're implying that I'm going to marry him. That's absolutely preposterous..."

"Implying, heck, Mom, it's practically set in stone."

"Di, you have lost your mind. He's an obnoxious, arrogant asshole. I'm certainly not going to become another harem ... uh..."

"Careful, Mom, before you say something you'll regret, and yeah, I know you just love him to death. But just restrain yourself, and he'll ask you in good time," Diana chuckled, then turned to walk away. After a couple of steps, she called over her shoulder. "Don't forget to make that list for Dave."

Susan just stood there and watched her daughter walk down the hall.

"This place is enormous," Barbara said as they turned into the hallway. "This is a house?"

"No," Ellen replied as she glanced over at her husband. "Diana told us it was originally a retreat and conference center. Colonel Matthews got it as part of the deal when he sold his invention."

"It looks like..."

"Yeah, it is," General Whitworth finished for her.

"Yeah, our suite is beautiful and this hallway is even elegant." Barbara looked around her. "I can vaguely remember your carrying me into that room. I don't even remember this hallway, though," she said.

"We came from that way," her husband said, pointing. "The kitchen is down the other way, then turn right."

"And he has how many wives?" Barbara asked as they began walking in the direction the General indicated.

"Hell, I think it's nine, but from what I can see, there are others waiting in the wings."

"And they're the only people living in this enormous building?"

"Uh, no, there are more, and some of them don't live here all the time. Look, you need to ask Diana, she'll tell you. I was so worried about you that I'm not even sure what Matthews told me."

"I can't believe we ate all that food they left in the suite for us. I'm still so hungry, though. But I don't want to make them mad at us by sneaking into their kitchen this late in the evening."

"They won't care."

A few moments later, Whitworth pushed the kitchen door open for his women — and stopped.

"Come on in," Helen said brightly, "Ann just put your steak on, Barbara. How do you like it?"

"Uh, medium well," Barbara stumbled out. "How did you know..."

Diana hurried over. "Oh, we just thought you would be getting hungry again and we saw you coming down the hall," she said, motioning toward the monitor. Then pulling chairs out for them, "Well, come on in and have a seat."

"We have three different types of pie for you to snack on while Barbara is eating her steak," Melissa said, as she pointed.

"But how did you know..." Barbara managed as the General seated first her, then Ellen.

"Someone told us you would be ravenous," Jeff said, meaning Little One.

The girls looked at each other, but didn't say anything. Nicki got up and plopped down in Jeff's lap, then looked over at the General, her expression unreadable.

"I see that the young ladies have settled in well," Whitworth joked as he recognized the far-from-subtle attempt by Nicki to show him that they belonged to Jeff.

HELICOPTER APPROACHING FROM THE NORTH — IDENTIFIED AS CAPTAIN REED'S AIRCRAFT, the computer said as the monitor came on above the counters.

"Who is this 'Captain Reed?'" the General asked as the monitor showed the navigation lights of the copter and it's big downward-pointing white light, the copter itself only now becoming visible in the darkness as it neared.

"It's Frank Wainwright, Margaret, Captain Madison and his wives," Jeff said. "Frank called when they left the airport. Margaret has been giving him hell about working too much, so I guess they decided to make it a three-day week this time."