Chapter 165

MIDVILLE, WYOMING

The tour of the area completed, Bill and Luther sat in the preacher's living room sipping coffee. The women had left to go visit someone. "I hate to pressure you, but have you and Megan decided anything about the vacation?" Bill asked.

A slight frown flicked across Luther's face. "I ... I suppose I still feel guilty for even considering such an expensive ... gift from someone I barely know."

"You know my wife, and the gift comes from her, too. And she and I both know you saved her life. I'm not at liberty to expound on that, Luther, but you did save her life."

"We only gave her a couple of meals, a place to rest up for a while, and a little bit of money. We helped her. Saying we saved her life is far beyond..."

Frustration welled up in Madison, but he knew better than to push the block. "Dammit, Luther. You did. I can not tell you anything more, but she would have died in a couple of days. She barely survived as it was. And don't start about hospitals and doctors, or how her health was saved. Please, just believe me."

Luther hesitated for a moment, staring at Bill, reading the sincerity on his face. Finally, "There was another person who helped."

"Yeah, Megan told my wives. The mechanic who repaired Jill's car. That's being taken care of in several ways. But I need for you to take us up on the vacation. As I mentioned before, when you took Jill in, she overheard you and your wife talking about the vacation the two of you had been planning all your married lives. Heck, you don't even need a passport to go to Hawaii, unless you continue on to a foreign country from there. You tell me where else, and we'll take you there in that same luxury jet. It belongs to Frank, but he's already said it is available for me to use any time. He can even expedite the passport process if you and Megan should need one."

Luther let out a chuckle. "Okay. Okay. We've considered your offer."

Bill didn't notice the slight grin on Luther's face, but instead, went on. "I'm told you have DSL here, right?"

"Well, I don't. I can't afford it anymore, but we have it in the town, if that's what you mean."

"How did that happen? You only have the one cell tower. I really didn't expect DSL?"

"I think the phone company had to bring the cable through to go on to the next city, so we just lucked up, I guess."

DSL will do until Tingle gets things updated here. "Frank does a lot of his business from a mountain retreat using videoconferencing. It would be no big deal to set up a videoconference from Hawaii with your town council here. We have several possible options in setting that up. Each council member will be given laptops tomorrow. So will you and Megan, of course. Plus, we'll set up a big screen in the council hall. To keep the council from bugging you on your vacation, you could schedule a videoconference with them at a time of your choosing. Get up each morning, go for a walk on the beach, have breakfast, then check in with the town council. And of course, there are always smart phones..."

"We had to give our cell up. We couldn't afford it any longer..." Luther started.

"Tingle already has one for you, your wife and the town council members — unlimited coverage, of course, and we'll renew the contract when the time is up. He'll give the phones to you when he passes out the laptops at your meeting in the morning."

Luther just looked at the pilot.

Bill continued, "I'm going to be tied up all this week, but after next weekend, the plane will be free any time you decide to go." And we'll stop off in Denver for a wardrobe for you and your wife, then spend a night at the Retreat where you'll get a late-night visit from Jeff and Little One. You saved an Alpha's mate. My mate. And, by damn, I will do my best to repay you.

Bill took another sip of coffee, the grin back on his face. "My wives and I live with a millionaire on a mountaintop. He won't let me spend a dime on anything while I'm in his home. I fly a billionaire who picks up the tab for everything while my wives and I are with him. The plane trip will cost me nothing, and the cost of the vacation itself is of no consequence. I just need you to say yes before I wind up pulling my hair out."

"Yes," Cambridge quietly said.

"It's not going to..." Bill began. "Yes?" he asked, thinking he had not heard correctly.

"Megan and I decided last night, late. Very late."

Bill pulled out his phone and hit a speed dial number. A couple of seconds later, Jill answered the call with, "I know. Megan just told us."

THE RETREAT

Jeff and Art were sitting in the living room as Diana came in. "Hope?" the Prime questioned.

"Arlene is keeping her busy. I think Hope is still a little embarrassed for the things she said to you, Art. I suspect she's a little worried that you're still mad at her."

"I'm not mad at her — never was," Art said. "It just tears me apart to think what that ... uh, guy did to her. As far as that's concerned, I'm still having problems about her father prostituting her. That is just ... sick. Getting his brains splattered over that wall was too easy for him. He should have had to suffer as she did. And ... she's probably right. The guy she sketched, if he is a diplomat, will never be prosecuted. Probably, the worst thing that will happen to him — if anything happens at all — is that he'll be sent back home. And that won't happen unless there is a lot of publicity and it results in public pressure on the government to do something. Which means that Hope's name would be in the news practically forever."

"You're positive he was one of the slavers?" Jeff asked.

Art sat up straighter. "Oh, yeah. It was a couple of days before the shootout. I never heard his name, but we were expecting him. He came in a private jet. We met him at the airport and took him to a supposedly very important meeting with my boss — the guy who got in the gunfight with Hope's father. Then we took this guy back to the jet afterward. My boss was going to buy Hope and send her to the guy that Hope sketched. I think she was going to be his f ... uh toy. Excuse me Diana."

Diana waved the almost-slip aside and turned to her husband. "Baby, she literally hates this person. She tells me her father sold her to a number of men, most of them fifty years old or more, but this man is younger. Some of them were rough with her, but this guy deliberately hurt her. Hurt her badly. She says he was arrogant and brutal, and more than once bragged that the US could never do anything to him. Can't something..."

Diana's eyes were leaking, but Jeff wasn't sure whether it was sadness or anger that produced the tears. The Queen sat down hard on his lap, putting her arms around his neck and her face beside his, her tears dripping onto his neck. He pulled her to him, rubbing her back. "Easy, Baby. Art and I sent the picture and his comments to the General. I also called Whitworth to make sure there were no slip-ups. He'll confirm everything we told him before any action is taken, of course, but if what we sent Whitworth checks out, this bastard won't be bragging much longer. He will get what's coming to him."

The Queen sat back up, wiping her eyes with her hand. Taking a breath, she looked at her husband. "One of us will be with her at night for awhile. I think she's had a little too much time alone, particularly with all the things that have happened to her. She knows our immediate family from Georgia, of course, but there are a lot of us here that are basically total strangers to her. Intellectually, I think she knows she's welcome here — is part of us. But her mother disappeared, and her brother probably found out what was going on. For whatever reason, he suddenly went to live with his uncle, and her father forced her to be a whore. Somehow, she has to trust us — know that she's forever safe here — that what happened to her will never happen again. It's easy enough to say it won't, but feeling it is probably something she hasn't accomplished just yet."

"Di, we've told her she's family. I've welcomed her home..."

" ... And, she knows that. But knowing, and feeling safe might not be the same thing. Maybe if she belonged to one of you..."

Jeff was shaking his head, "No, it's way too early for that, plus she isn't sixteen, yet."

Art was also shaking his head, "Don't look at me. I have two women to marry tomorrow night, and that scares the crap out of me, as it is. And I barely know Hope."

"But you're her hero," Diana insisted.

"I'm not a hero. Anybody else in my shoes would have done the same thing. And like Jeff says, she's too young."

Diana sighed. "Oh, I agree that it's too soon, but something has to happen. She needs somebody to hold her at night, someone to get her mind off all the bad things that have happened to her."

"The last time the General talked to Whatley — the SAC in Atlanta — he said the FBI had not been able to find a trace of Hope's mother for a couple of months prior to the shootout. She just disappeared. Chances are the slaver organization did something with her. Whitworth's people haven't had any luck either," the Prime said.

With a look of disgust, Diana continued, "From what I gather from Hope, her mother did nothing to restrain her father from taking her with him every weekend. Toward the end, he was using Hope almost every day."

"So how is someone staying with her at night going to work?"

"Jennie will sleep with her for a few nights, since they're sisters. Then Melissa, since they've known each other all their lives, then Arlene for the same reason. After that, Hope should be okay with any of the rest of your younger wives. Each will stay several nights in a row. Hope will know all your younger wives much better by the time everyone has cycled through their session with her. We'll continue it until she decides she doesn't need us anymore. The emphasis will be to make her feel like she's part of us. It certainly won't be as good as you or Art taking her for a wife, but I think it's the best we can do under the circumstances."

Jeff's frown had deepened. "So one of my wives won't be in our bed for the foreseeable future."

"Well," Diana returned, "'foreseeable future' is a bit more than we expect. But yeah, this could last for several months. Jeff, she's dreaming about those awful men. When she wakes up, there isn't anyone there to comfort her. No one. Helen is working with her, but their sessions have barely begun. Hope isn't nuts or anything. Heck, considering what's happened to her, she's doing really well. She just needs someone to talk to and comfort her when she has one of her dreams — nightmares — of these beasts raping her. I would be looking for them with a gun, but she doesn't have that option. I'll be spending time with her, also. My time will be mostly in the daytime to begin with, but I intend to spend a few nights with her as well. When she drank my milk, we bonded. Not the way your other wives and I are bonded, but still, there's a connection there. I can't take her mother's place, but the bond is similar now. She knows I won't let anything happen to her, but she needs more than that."

Jeff looked over at Art, who raised an eyebrow.

Diana leaned back a little as she grinned at her husband. "We'll make sure you have extra alone-time with whichever wife is going to spend the night with Hope."

"I didn't mean..."

"Suurrrre, you didn't," she teased, with just a hint of sarcasm. "And you can get that smirk off your face, too," she said to Art without bothering to look back at him. "We might get around to Sandra and Bobby before this is over."

How did she know? Art thought, even as Diana answered his unvoiced question.

"Men are predictable. Remember that, and you and your new wives will get along just fine."

Diana stood, leaned over and kissed her husband, then turning to Art, she kissed him on the cheek and sashayed out the door.

The men were silent for a time, finally Art looked over at the Prime. "Your wife is..."

"Yeah," Jeff said, quietly, "she is."

Diana stuck her head back in the door. "Art. You might think about finding Sandra and Bobby and telling them bye. They aren't going to sleep with you the night before their wedding, and you can't see them tomorrow until they walk down the aisle."

"Wait," Art got out. "We don't go all the way. We..."

"Oh, we know that, but absence makes the heart grow fonder. We've moved you to a suite on another hall. Go say bye to them, and they'll show you where you're going to sleep tonight." Diana smiled at him and was gone.

"Tradition," the Prime offered.

"Tradition," Art repeated, trying to not grind his teeth.

Later, Diana, Sandra and Bobbie sat in the nurses' sitting room, Sandra and Bobby side-by-side on the couch, and Diana in a seat directly across the coffee table from them.

"I take it that Art wasn't pleased with his sleeping arrangements for the night," the Queen chuckled.

"We think he was looking forward to the blowjobs he thought he was going to get tonight," Bobby said with a giggle.

"We tried to tell him we only get to be brides once," Sandra offered. "We've waited a long time, and aside from relieving ourselves of our hymens, we've never been with another man, and other than Art, we never will be."

Diana took a sip of her coke. "Those words are probably truer than you realize. As you're well aware, many marriages don't last, but yours is guaranteed to."