Chapter 80

Sheriff Tate and his women came in, almost late, the Sheriff having gotten tied up at the department. Frank Wainwright grabbed Tate and they went to sit and talk.

Helen came in pushing a cart with the cake on it, sixteen candles adorning each end, tiny statues of twin teenage girls in the middle. Jeff's heart went out to the twins when, from their faces, he suspected this was their first time to have anything remotely resembling a birthday party, let alone cake, candles and presents. His baritone joined the extended family as everyone sang Happy Birthday to the accompaniment of Dave's twelve string guitar. Diana, standing beside her husband, sang harmony alto. He had heard her do this in church and when they sang on occasion at the retreat, but he had never heard her do it to the birthday song. To Jeff, it made the simple little song into something that sounded astonishingly good. I'm more amazed with this woman every day, he thought, his pride plain on his face for all to see. The song ended with laughter from everyone, and the party was on.

The candles lit and blown out, Whitney served the twins, then Diana brought Jeff his piece of cake next. Nat looked around for her adopted grandmother who was standing behind the others. "Meemi, why are you standing way back there?"

Shortly, Nicki dragged Susan into the center of the festivities. Susan looked over, caught Jeff's eye and mouthed, "Thank you."

Jeff was certain he had nothing to do with the girls adopting Susan as their Meemi, but he was just as certain that was the basic thought behind the thank you. He was sure, however, that he was very, very pleased the girls had chosen her, though.

The twins were seated and Jeff's younger wives began bringing in presents. He watched Diana covertly wipe her eyes as Whitney proudly presented her presents for Nat and Nicki to open. Jeff realized that the three girls had lost their bras somewhere along the line. Whitney's presents to her "sisters" were matching negligées. The twins immediately jumped up and held the frilly, almost-transparent garments against their bodies, their eyes shifting to Jeff for approval. His smile and nod seemed to suddenly do something for them. The twins grabbed Whitney and hugged her, dancing around like girls half their age, their exuberance catching. The sound volume climbed in the big room as his younger wives got involved, too.

Jeff had felt his face flush when the twins had obviously looked at him for approval of their negligées. Damnit, I'm a grown man. Men don't blush. But he remembered seeing every one of his Alphas blush at one time or another. If I understand Little One correctly, the ability to blush is one aspect of a young and healthy body, he thought.

Jeff felt Diana snuggle under his arm. Absently, having done it a thousand times, he put his arm around her and pulled her tightly to him as they stood there. He felt the side of her breast push against him; felt the sex she seemed to unconsciously project; felt his manhood respond. Consciously, he willed himself to stop swelling. It was a close thing.

Diana seemed to know what was happening, but might have misinterpreted the reason for his body's response. She let out a soft chuckle, "They love you, you know."

"Di, I..."

But Diana interrupted with, "Whitney was absolutely beyond herself when she realized she could shop for the twins."

"But you guys didn't go anywhere. Surely shopping on the net isn't that much fun."

"Yeah, we didn't really have time to go out, with everything that's been going on. But you're wrong about how much fun it can be to shop on the net — particularly for someone who has never done it much. Then she kept trying to search for bargains. After a while, Arlene and Ann had a talk with her. I think she's still leery about spending money on herself or her sisters, but she certainly had a good time picking out those gifts. Christmas should really be a wonderful experience for her — all three of them, for that matter. They've never had the experience of giving, for they had nothing to give. Other than their love for each other," she added quietly, her voice almost choking up.

They stood watching the twins open gifts for a while, then, "Oh, Jeff, I know we've talked about it a lot, and you and I thought we had a hard time after we married, but our problems were nothing compared to those three. I mean, watered-down soft drinks or mostly just water to drink — ever. God has been good to us, Husband. And you came back to me from that ... fight without a scratch. Jeff, damn you, I was scared to death," she hissed out, smacking him in the side.

Jeff looked down at the tears in her eyes. "I didn't set out to do what happened..."

"Oh, bullshit. You knew damn well you were going to kill that son-of-a-bitch when you left here," she hissed out, trying to keep her voice down. "You might not have known just how you were going to do it, but you knew he was going to die. He messed with a Prime's family. I could feel it when you left. Jeff, I could feel it. I knew you were going to kill him. I was so ... damn ... scared. Please, don't ever do that to me again."

Jeff turned fully to her, taking her face in his hands and wiping the tears away with his thumbs. "I'm sorry, Di. I didn't mean to scare you like that. I..."

"Oh, hush," she choked out. "Go hug those two and tell them happy birthday."

Jeff kissed her forehead and turned to go. "Honey," she said, reaching to take his arm for a second. "Tell them you love them — all three of them. There isn't anybody here but family, so kiss the girls like you mean it. Doing it in front of everyone will send a message that you really love them."

The party roared on, at least it felt that way to Jeff. Is that music? he mused. I must be getting old. As he sat back about halfway down the living room and watched, he idly wondered if he could sneak down to the range and get his earplugs, but decided his younger wives would retaliate, probably in a way he wouldn't like. He knew they were fucking with him, though. He had seen Ann watching him just before they all squealed. Being an Alpha with sensitive hearing had its drawbacks, he decided.

Quinton Tate walked up and handed Jeff a cup of punch, then sat with a sigh. The Sheriff raised his cup a little as he looked over at Jeff, "With everything that's been going on, I might be tempted to spice this up a bit, but then again, I've never been much of a drinker, just a beer after cutting grass in summer, shoveling snow in winter, or working on the house, something like that. The way things are at work these days, I wouldn't even consider that single beer, though. Might get called in because something happened, or the Captain might call saying we're too short on personnel. We have random drug tests, and my name is on the list just like everyone else's, plus if anyone is injured, they have to be tested. Any alcohol in their blood and they're looking for a job. Wouldn't do for my own rule to bite me in the ass," he finished, chuckling, as he took a sip of the punch.

Jeff saluted with his cup and took a sip, also. "Well, I've about come to the conclusion that whatever Little One has done to enhance us doesn't particularly like alcohol. Margaret wanted me to taste her wine a while back. It tasted vile. I got to wondering and opened a beer. One sip and I almost puked. Dave tried to drink a beer a couple weeks ago with the same basic result. He said he tried three different brands and they all tasted foul. He drinks about as much as you described, so I guess the two of us aren't a very good study, but accurate study or not, I don't think we're going to be consuming any alcohol in the near future. Come to think of it, I haven't seen Frank and Margaret drinking any wine lately. Wonder if it has started to affect them, too?"

Tate sat back and crossed his legs, returning waves from Rachel and Cindy (Tate's nieces).

Jeff continued with, "I know that some of the airlines allow their pilots to have a small amount of alcohol in their blood. I guess about the equal of two beers, but it would scare the crap out of me to smell beer on the pilot's breath as he walked down the aisle past me. And a member of a combat team going off-world with booze on his breath — well, I doubt if the person in charge would have to do anything other than see that the offender got medical treatment for his 'mysterious' injuries after his buddies beat the shit out of him."

Before Tate could respond, Jeff nodded toward Rachel and Cindy. "Those young ladies fit in just fine here. And if I'm not badly mistaken, they project — well let's just say — a sense of possession when they look at you..."

Tate grinned over at the Prime. "Now I'd just about bet that's your ... uh, subtle way of asking me if I'm fucking them, right?"

Caught, Jeff almost shot out a denial, but then grinned. "I didn't mean it quite that bluntly, but yes."

Tate took another sip of his punch, wondering aloud what they had put in it. "This stuff actually tastes good," he finished, delaying.

Jeff took another sip of his punch, then grinning, "No telling. I wonder if they would be able to duplicate it. Seems to me that they just dump some of everything into the mix." Jeff nodded toward the others. "Your women are the only ones wearing bras," he inserted, just to see what Tate would say.

"Not around the house. I forbade it. They only wear them when we go out. And no, I'm not fucking my nieces. And just how many women are in your bed now?"

Startling Tate, Jeff answered him. "All but Susan and the three new girls. And if Diana has her way, they'll join us soon."

Tate shifted uncomfortably, "I've licked them and they've gone down on me, but that's the extent of it." Then, "Those twins of yours sure are getting one hell of a lot of sexy sleepwear for girls who aren't going to show it off," he commented, deadpan.

The men sat quiet for a time, just watching. "Why don't you give up and make love to your nieces? It's going to happen sooner or later. You're an Alpha. No way can you back off after going as far as you have. They're hooked."

Tate didn't answer immediately, the two continuing to watch the activities. "I love them. Love them more than just as my nieces — a lot more — but damnit, I'm the fucking Sheriff. I enforce the laws of this state, and the last time I looked..."

"When exactly was the last time you've enforced any incest laws, or anything to do with morality? And besides, they're your wife's sister's daughters. There's no blood kin."

"Well..."

"Unless there's a minor child involved or something like that, I'll bet you've never done it."

"Ah, fuck, Jeff. My wife and my sister-in-law have ridden that horse to death. They..."

"So your wife and the girls' mother are okay with it, but you keep holding back because of your job, right? It's not because you don't love them, or they don't love you, right? Diana and I have talked about antiquated laws before. I'll bet there are a lot of those antiquated laws still on the books. I remember reading about some of them. I think it was a small town in Alabama where they still had an ordinance on the books about spitting on the sidewalk. I think there was a town in Texas like that, too. Someplace else had an ordinance about leaving a horse unattended. People got a big laugh out of those old laws, but a hundred years ago, laws like those made sense. There were board sidewalks in the towns and chewing tobacco was prevalent among a lot of men during that time. Around stores or where there were seats around sidewalks for people to sit, the sidewalks became slimy with brown spittle; thus the ordinance."

Tate turned more to face Jeff. "We've talked about this before. Where're you going with this?"

"You know exactly where I'm going with this. The laws still haven't been changed about a man only having one wife, but you know damn well that there are a lot of guys out there who live with more than one woman. Same-sex marriages are now legal in several states. Not much of a stretch to think about multiple wives becoming legal. Do you think the DA would even take a bigamy case, especially a high profile one?"

Tate chuckled. "DAs only take cases they think they can win, particularly if they intend to be the actual prosecutor. Slam dunk, or they tell us to get more evidence. But remember, the DA is a politician. If he thought prosecuting the Sheriff for bigamy or for incest would be a sure thing that would put the DA back in office at the next election, he might just do it. And that applies to our DA who has been appointed by the governor in the interim, too."

"Bullshit," Jeff said. "Bullshit. It would be political suicide for the DA, appointee or not. You don't even have anyone running against you. Everybody has given it up as a lost cause. You could parade half a dozen wives, or at least women you were openly living with, and there wouldn't be a thing said. Hell, you would probably get the rest of the women's votes. If... there are any who wouldn't vote for you now," he finished, chuckling. "And besides all that, I think it would be hard to convince a jury it was an actual marriage if you don't get a license and make it a legal marriage with the state. So you stand up with friends and pledge your love for each other, and the girls wear rings; I don't think you have anything to worry about."

Both men again sat quiet for a minute or so, then Tate sighed, "I love those girls. I don't want to fuck up their lives. They're both virgins. What if they get tired of me and want someone their own age? Shit," he finished, trying to take a sip from an empty cup and barely noticing.

Jeff saw Arlene looking at him, pointed to his cup, then to the Sheriff. A moment later she was walking toward them with two cups of punch, a bounce and sway to her breasts to match her mother's.

Amazing, Jeff thought. They seem to grow up knowing how to walk to make their tits bounce without it seeming contrived. Of course, I'm glad, he mused.

Arlene did a little curtsy and made a crack about the "Oh, so honored" males, then giggling, started to walk off. Quickly turning back as if she had just remembered it, she asked, "Sheriff, did Dad tell you about gutting the bastard who sent those men to kill us?"