Chapter 140

As Art, Sandra and Bobby looked into the living room, they saw Jeff and the General sitting by the window. "I'll talk to Jeff while you two help with supper," Art said, quickly kissing the nurses and walking over to greet the men.

Sandra and Bobby went on to the kitchen, opened the door and suddenly stopped to stare at the activity. The women weaved by one another, chatting and laughing. The clatter of cookware and the whir of kitchen machinery added to the seeming chaos, but it only took a moment for the nurses to realize that what appeared to be confusion was instead extreme coordination. "Wow," both whispered as they wondered if they could ever learn to assist. Diana quickly walked up to them. "Don't be intimidated; if you've come to help, you'll catch on quickly."

"Gosh, we hope so," Sandra answered for them. "Everyone looks so busy. Uh, after supper, could we talk to you? Art, Bobby and I want to be married like you guys."

"That's great," Diana said. "We'll have a nice chat after our meal."

Arlene had walked over and heard. "Go, Mom. There are certainly plenty of us to get supper on the steam table. Go sit and have your chat now. We'll take care of this."

"I don't..."

"Mom," Arlene said, her hands on her hips, pretending to be mad, "You're the Queen. Queens don't cook."

"You're a Queen, too, and you're cooking," Diana said, while pretending to swat at Arlene's butt, but she danced out of the way, laughing, her braless breasts bouncing. Turning back to the nurses, "We'll go find a place to sit where it's quiet, but let's take a glass of iced tea with us, unless you would prefer something else," she said, reaching for glasses.

Soon the three were seated in the hallway alcove where Diana and Jeff had their discussion earlier.

The nurses seemed to almost have to tear their eyes away from the snow-covered scene out the window, but Bobby spoke up, "It's startling to look out there and see mountains and all that snow. We were in Georgia and then that ... ship just ... did its magic and we were here. It seems unreal. One day, we're nurses doing our jobs, then there's a gun battle a block from our house, then we're hiding here to avoid being killed."

Diana got up to hug both of them for a moment. Reseating herself, she smiled at them. "I know it must be hard and you're doubtlessly stressed, but things will improve. We'll get to know each other. I'm sure there are many things to discuss. It's going to be so interesting to hear about your lives — your careers. You haven't had a chance to meet Caitlin yet. She's also a nurse and works locally."

The nurses glanced at each other before Sandra asked, "Uh, we heard someone say something about the girl Art rescued from the slavers living with you? Is she here?"

"Yes, she's here," Diana said, hoping the nurses would drop the subject.

"We saw someone in the hall that we didn't recognize, and she took one look in our direction and almost ran the other way. Was that her?"

Diana stopped to choose her words. "You've been introduced to everyone else, so it had to have been her. I don't want to go deeper into that subject right now. So, let's just say that things should be much better shortly. At least I hope so, because it was my idea. Now why are we out here having this conversation?" the Queen said, obviously changing the subject.

Sandra and Bobby joined hands, and Bobby said, "We want to marry our man, and we want to have a relationship like you and your husband have, with all of you, we mean."

"I'm married to my husband, but also to all of my sister-wives. Is that what you're referring to?"

"Yes," they both said.

"When?"

"As soon as possible," they both responded.

"Then you can select your dresses on our favorite dress shop's web page, and we can call in your measurements to expedite things, if that's alright with the two of you. Unless you would rather have another shop make them, of course."

"Are you kidding?" Sandra laughed. "We know approximately where we are, and the snow-covered mountains are pretty. That's absolutely all we know about this area. If you say you like the dress shop, it's fine with us. But we have another far more serious problem."

"We can't get..." Bobby started

" ... to our money," Sandra finished.

Diana chuckled, then burst out laughing. The nurses looked at each other, then back at Diana. "Oh, Jeff is going to love this," the Queen said.

"Whaaatt..." the nurses said, apparently unaware of what had happened.

"Do you finish each other's sentences very often?"

After a glance at each other, Bobby answered. "We've always done it to some extent, but it seems like we're doing it more lately. Sometimes, we don't even notice we're doing it."

"Arlene and I have done it since she was a little girl, and now we sometimes have to force ourselves to not do it. I think it's somehow associated with being an Alpha's mate. We tease our husband by doing what the two of you just did. Particularly our younger wives do. They really get a kick out of teasing Jeff, even more when they, well we, chain speak to him."

"Chain speak?" Sandra asked.

"Yeah. Each of us says one word of the sentence."

"Oh, my gosh. You guys..."

"Do..."

"That..."

"Too?" they alternated, then giggled.

"Oh, we're going to get along just fine," Diana laughed. "Now let's discuss whatever you two are worried about, and somehow I don't think it's shopping for wedding dresses."

Bobby took a big sip of her tea to try and settle her nerves. "This is embarrassing, but after what's happened ... Uh, Sandra and I have worked extra shifts and spent most of the money on our home near Atlanta, but we've always put some money in our savings account since our first payday. We've been frugal with our paydays, other than the money we spent on the house."

"But we can't get to it," Sandra picked up. "The FBI has held Art's salary for over a year while he was undercover, but if they transfer the money to his account and he tries to use it, it could be traced to him. Art is also leery about trying to contact his supervisors in Atlanta. Somehow, we have to have access to our money. But if we can't, we told Art we didn't have to have wedding dresses or rings now. We could buy the rings later..."

But Diana was shaking her head. "Not in my house will you be married without a pretty wedding dress of your choice, and certainly there must be rings."

"But we can't..."

"Let Jeff and the General take care of your gaining access to the money. But that's not really important at the moment."

"But we have to..." Bobby started.

Diana was shaking her head as she said, "Just stay here for a few minutes. I have to get something, but I'll be right back."

When Diana had hurried away, "I wonder what she is doing?" Sandra said.

Bobby shrugged. "No idea, but it looks like she has a plan."

In a few minutes, Diana was back with her laptop. "Come on. Follow me," she said. A little way down the hall, she turned into a conference room just as Arlene and Ann caught up with them. Arlene had measuring tapes, pens and small pads with her.

"Start measuring them while I connect to the website," Diana said to her sister-wives as the Queen chose a seat and booted her computer. While the computer did its thing, she picked up a phone and dialed a number from memory. "Maybe she's still there," she said to no one in particular.

A woman answered the phone and Diana smiled. "May I speak with Dana?" There was a pause, then, "This is Diana Matthews." After greetings, and telling Dana that she was on speaker, "I have two young women who need wedding dresses. They'll be shopping on your website in a few moments. Usual procedure if you can get the dresses ready for a fitting here on Sunday afternoon." Dana knew that Diana meant a bonus was involved.

"Diana you know we will have them ready for you. I was fighting to keep my head above water the first time you walked into my shop. As I said the other day, my business is now solid and even with extra employees, we have more work than we can complete without overtime. Trust me, that's a nice problem to have, and my girls love the extra money. All of this is possible because of the business you and the Wainwrights have sent our way. We have shipped numerous dresses out of state, and wealthy people from all over have been flying in to buy from me. Just enter the measurements into the order forms, have them choose the dresses they want, and we'll do the rest. What time Sunday afternoon? And to reiterate, your orders are always next."

"Thank you Dana. We certainly appreciate that. How about two Sunday afternoon?"

"We'll be there."

When Diana disconnected, "But how will we pay for the..." Bobby started.

"Don't worry about that," Diana said. "Just use your first names on the order form. We'll settle about the money when you manage to get access to your funds."

"Diana we can't..."

Diana hugged them. "We're not going to screw around waiting on your money. Now please don't hurt my feelings. It's a done deal."

Ann measured Bobby while Arlene did the same to Sandra, then the two girls swapped to double check that everything was correct. "Your measurements are darn near identical," Ann said as they reviewed their work.

The nurses did their usual thing as they glanced at each other. "We've never been measured with this much detail," Sandra said.

"Dana taught us," Arlene answered, "and we've had a lot of practice lately."

"And they're delivering the dresses to be fitted here?" Bobby asked. "That must cost a ton of money." While she had been talking, she glanced at the computer, her mind focusing on the prices of the dresses. "Oh, my goodness. Call her back, please, Diana. We don't have that kind of money. We're just nurses, we can't afford any of these dresses, even if we manage to somehow gain access to our account."

Diana managed to hug both of the nurses at the same time. "Hush. You're soon to be the wives of an Alpha. My husband is a Prime. An Alpha of Alphas. What is ours is yours. I'm sure my husband is telling your mate the same thing as we speak."

"But ... but, Diana, those dresses are so expensive. We can't..."

Diana pushed a credit card into Bobby's hand, then did the same to Sandra. "That man of yours needs a wardrobe. Although, come to think of it, you might not want to buy him too many items for a while. With his enhancement, he's going to grow at least a couple of inches, and his body, although already nice from what I can see of it, will fill out and muscle up more in the near future. But don't be stingy with your purchases, either. Anything that no longer fits can go to a church we know about. The preacher and his wife helped with Carla and Jessica's harvest."

"Which dress?" Arlene asked.

"That one," the nurses said in unison. Then they saw the price, and it was more than the one they had previously noticed.

"Wait. Oh, my goodness, it's too..."

But Arlene was entering the information from their measurements sheet and paying no attention.

"We need ring sizes," Diana interrupted. "We buy all our rings from one place." She picked up a ring sizer that Ann had brought in. "Hold out your left hand, Sandra. Let's get your size first. When Arlene and Ann finish entering your measurements," Diana continued, "we'll go to the jeweler's website and let you see if you can find rings you like. Maybe we need to get Art in here for his input and measurements; we need his ring size, too."

"Yeah," Bobby said. "We need to ask him about the rings. We don't know what he would like, but I think we should get a simple gold band like you're wearing." Sandra nodded her head in agreement. "We want to wear the rings for what they represent, not for decoration."

A little while after supper, Jeff came jogging back from the Ship. Diana was waiting for him just inside the rear door that opened to the inside garage. He was smiling as his Queen hugged herself to his right arm and looked into his face as they started down the hall.