Chapter 127

SUNDAY AFTERNOON, THE NURSES' HOME

The new doctor had just left. Whatley, Grigsby, Sandra and Bobby sat in the den as the nurses briefed the two FBI agents. Whatley had talked to the doctor, but maybe because of their shared history, Whatley trusted the nurses more and had asked for a meeting with them.

"So, he's on oral medications entirely now?"

"He's a free man," Bobby joked. "No IV's or drains anywhere."

Grigsby flinched, picturing the drains being jerked out, since he had seen it done after his father had a major surgery.

Sandra and Bobby locked eyes with each other, and Bobby gave an almost imperceptible nod to her sister. Sandra looked from Grigsby to Whatley. "We heard a couple of comments you two have made, and I guess I don't know which of you to ask this, so I'll just ask both of you. We, Bobby and I, have ... uh ... well we've ... Oh, crap, we think you're going to move Art, before long and ... we want to go wherever he goes. We've..."

"Fallen in love with him," Bobby supplied.

The two men glanced at each other, then Whatley said, "Both of you?"

The nurses' red faces were enough to answer that.

"And what does Agent Hanes say about this?" Whatley asked, just to tease the two a bit.

Bobby breathed deeply, realizing that she had been holding her breath. "He says he wants us to go with him — if you decide to move him."

"We don't have a place yet," Whatley responded. "But you do realize that you will have to sever all ties to relatives, employers, and so forth for an extended period of time. It could be years. That means no phone calls, e-mails, or any communications with anyone you have ever known. Nothing."

"Can we take our reloading equipment with us?" Sandra asked.

The non sequitur caused both Whatley and Grigsby to hesitate for a second.

"Loading our own ammo and target shooting are the only real hobbies we have," Sandra offered.

"Uh, yes, I guess that would be okay," Grigsby answered as Whatley winked at him.

"We don't have any other family," Bobby continued. "The only thing that would tie us to this area is our house payment. Surely we could do that anonymously. But we would have to have jobs to keep from losing our investment here."

"We've already told you that you will be paid until Agent Hanes is ready to go back to work. As far as that's concerned, this would be an ideal safe house under 'normal' circumstances. We've considered purchasing another safe house in the area, so the Agency could purchase this one and take care of that problem for you," Whatley said.

Bobby smiled at him. "You don't seem very surprised about our wanting to go with Art."

Whatley and Grigsby grinned at each other, then Grigsby turned to the women. "Let's see now," he said, his manner teasing. "Each of you held his hand and talked to him while he was unconscious. You have given him the utmost in professional care. You were both — make that are — very protective of him. While he was in the intensive care unit, any other nurse barely made it past the door of his room, hmmm. Whichever of you was going off shift, managed to stay around for several hours to 'help out.' Then you rented a room at the hospital's motel so the one off duty could 'be available' just in case she were needed. Not to even mention the way the two of you acted during the assassination attempt. One of you put her own body in the way of a bullet, and the other one killed the assassin."

Bobby and Sandra glanced at each other, their faces flushing more and more.

"Now you suddenly want to go with Agent Hanes, if we decide to move him."

"We didn't know our feelings had been that obvious..." Sandra started.

"We think it's a great idea," Grigsby injected.

"And ... we've been expecting your request for some time now," Whatley said. "Also, you're right. There are ties with you to the hospital, so we need to protect you, as well as Hanes. These people have resources — obviously. They'll eventually figure out that Hanes wasn't killed, and discover that you two worked at the hospital, took care of him, then ... suddenly stopped working in the intensive care unit."

Grigsby continued, "As I said before, all our safe houses are occupied right now. We literally don't have a suitable place at this point in time. When something becomes available, we'll move Agent Hanes, and sever all ties with the hospital and this area. That's the only way to be absolutely certain these people don't get to him before we're ready for the arrests, and that the resulting court cases are completed with these people in jail."

Whatley cleared his throat, "This might very well be a lifetime change for Agent Hanes and for the two of you, also. Convicting several of these people won't shut down their organization, no matter how much we hurt it. As long as there are any of these bas ... uh, people out there, Hanes could very well be killed in retaliation. That goes for the two of you as well."

"I'm sorry we got you into this," Grigsby said.

"Don't be," the sisters responded as one, then Sandra continued with, "We're where we want to be. He's the man we've been looking for. As long as you let us go with him, we'll be satisfied. Art said that you would have to move us to protect us, even if we didn't want to go with him. But we do want to go with him. Please don't consider anything else. No matter what it takes, we want to be with him."

"Maybe something will turn up in a week or two. Until then, we're going to stay right here and at high alert."

Startling both men, the nurses got up and hugged them, then went to tell Hanes the good news.

Grigsby started to stand, "Well, I guess I need to check on things..."

"Wait a minute," Whatley said motioning. He leaned over and took a box out of his brief case sitting near his feet. Tossing the box to Grigsby, Whatley continued. "I bought two of these this morning. I gave the other one to your wife."

Grigsby jerked his head up from staring at the cheap phone to lock eyes with his boss. "You gave the other one ... Oh," he finished as his brain took in the implication. "She was emphatic about my not contacting her. I guess she didn't want me pissing off her boyfriend."

"She claims she doesn't have one, and I didn't see any evidence of a man in her apartment."

"How did you find her?"

"She had a land line phone put in. It isn't an unlisted number. She isn't really trying to hide."

"You sure she doesn't have a boyfriend?"

"Matt, she just can't handle the stress. She told me about her dad being killed."

"She was fucking paranoid about me getting hurt..."

"And she didn't have any reason to be?" Whatley said sarcastically, his face grim. "I thought she was going to faint when I told her what really happened at the hospital. And don't look so shocked. Far too many people know about it already. It will out sooner or later, and unless I'm totally wrong, it won't be because of her. She wouldn't give me permission to give you the number from the cell phone I gave her, but I gave her your number. I told her to not call you on your private cell. These people probably have resources to find your cell number and at least be able to locate the cell tower you hit when you use your phone, but there's no way they can find you with those two anonymous phones."

"How much do I owe you..." Grigsby started.

"We'll discuss it later. I also insisted that the two of you have dinner with my wife and me."

"Why are you doing this?" Grigsby quietly asked.

"After what you did for me in that hospital, do you have to ask?"

"I was saving my own ass, too."

"Maybe so, but I am alive today because of what you did. I'll never forget that. I ... just had a talk with her. Might not have accomplished a thing, but then again, I think that just maybe I did. Time will tell. I hope she calls."

The ASAC frowned for a moment, but then his face cleared. "Thanks. I owe you one."

"No you don't," Whatley interrupted. "You'll never owe me one. Oh, yeah, there is one other thing," but he hesitated. "Hmmm. Maybe, on second thought, I'll let your wife tell you about that."

Grigsby raised an eyebrow and said with a sardonic chuckle, "If she calls. And there's very little chance of that. Very damn little."

"Just charge the phone and make sure you leave it on; can't ever tell about women," the SAC finished with a look on his face that Grigsby couldn't interpret.

Jeff sat in one of the hallway alcoves with Susan and Kayla snuggled to him. They had kissed and cuddled for some time. Hope had walked by twice.

"She wants to stop and talk, but she's..."

" ... uncomfortable around me," Jeff finished for her.

"Yeah," Susan agreed, "but she was very interested in what happened during our wedding night."

Jeff grimaced. "Just thinking about your telling her about that is embarrassing."

Kayla tried to tickle him. "Why? All of your wives wanted to hear everything, and Nat, Nicki and Whitney hung on every word."

"Well, I can understand those three. After all, they'll be in that suite tonight, but with Hope being afraid of men ... I don't know; it just seems odd that she would want to hear about..."

" ... about a man making love with his wives on their wedding night," Kayla supplied. "Loving instead of the sex that was forced upon her by arrogant old men who wanted to fuck a child? Her father, damn his soul, who was trying to sell her after he couldn't make her look twelve anymore."

"But, crap, Kayla, she was standing there this morning when you two showed your pussies. They were swollen and looked abused."

"She knew we weren't abused. I'll guarantee you that thought never entered her mind. She's heard too much about you, even before we talked about our wedding night. She hung on every word this morning."

Susan spoke up with, "You should have heard her giggling when we told about holding your cock as you peed."

"Oh, shit," Jeff said, "that's so..."

"Sexy," Susan supplied.

"That's not what I was going to say."

"We know," the women said in unison.

"But men need a little guidance from time to time," Kayla added, laughing at Jeff's expression.

The traditions of the milkshake, being awakened by his Queen, dressed by his mates, and the sendoff of "make me proud" were all scrupulously adhered to. He met his three young brides in the hallway and escorted them into the small dining room. Being served the numerous small servings by their soon-to-be sister-wives obviously touched Nat, Nicki and Whitney.

"I can't believe this is happening," Nat whispered, very tense, as were the other girls.

"You need to back out?" Jeff quietly asked, concerned.

"No," the three instantly replied in unison.

"We've had so many nice things happen to us since you rescued us from that... dungeon. It just seems..."

" ... like a dream," Nicki and Whitney finished for her.

Jeff's expression became serious as he looked at each of them. "This is forever, Ladies. If you have the slightest doubt, now is the time to express it. I can walk in there and..."

Again in perfect unison. "No. Never."

"We're..."

"Just..."

"Uptight," the three said without the slightest bit of hesitation between the words.

At an unspoken agreement, Whitney continued. "As soon as we say 'I do, ' everything will be alright. No, that's wrong. Everything will be perfect," she corrected.

"As we've told you over and over, there were very few good things that happened to us in our whole lives. Heck, we thought a new, half-worn-out pair of jeans that fit reasonably well was a wonderful thing. All this is ... overpowering. It's hard to think it isn't a dream," Nat said.

Nicki continued for them. "We have so many new clothes that it will be weeks before we wear all of them."

"The other day, we saw an advertisement about a new game, and we were just talking about it. The very next day we had it in the game room. We thought Arlene might have ordered it, but later we found out it was Diana who had overnighted it. We wound up having a ball with it as we played with your wives," Nat said. "We love everyone here, and soon all your wives will be our sisters ... our ... sister-wives."

Arlene, Ann, Jennie and Melissa each came in with a tiny bowl of ice cream for the brides and groom to finish off their meal.

Jeff stood and looked at the three one last time before he was to meet them in the living room. "See you in a few minutes, Ladies. I love each of you more than you'll ever know."

Jeff and Diana stood with their backs to the glass wall as they watched Nat, Nicki and Whitney come down the stairs and walk toward the Prime and Queen. In a voice audible only to Diana, Jeff said, "If those smiles are real, they got over being tense."