Chapter 4

As I shared George’s information with everybody, Evie gave me a very pointed look. “How did you know about Taney County Airport? How COULD you know about something so obscure?” She had a point. I’d screwed up by offering knowledge I couldn’t possibly have had.

Quick thinking saved the day. “Hazel loved the travel channel. She left it on for hours and hours and hours. They did a number of shows about how Branson, Missouri was growing up and becoming a real city, complete with a brand new airport, capable of handling airlines. When we were turned away from home, I wanted to go somewhere I’d heard about.”

That seemed to satisfy her ... for a little while.

In due time we landed at Taney County and our cars were waiting for us as promised. To keep Evie from figuring out that I was far more than she knew, I let our pilots figure out how to get us to Chateau on the Lake. The suite was large, lovely, and had a great view of Table Rock Lake. It was so good to be home, or as much as any place could, Branson felt like home.

Our suite came with a wonderful balcony complete with hot tub, and I hurriedly tossed off my clothes and slid beneath the perfectly hot water. Evie watched me for a few seconds, and then joined me. Her naked body titillated me just as she hoped it would and we were soon locked in an R-rated kiss.

With nipples as sensitive as Evie’s it wasn’t long before she was on the verge of orgasm, so I hastened the process with a couple of very delicately place fingers and brought her off. After the tremors subsided, Evie used my body for immoral purposes, and I helped!

Later, in bed, Evie was listlessly running her hands over my chest, pinching the occasional nipple, stroking Mr. Johnson when she paused near him, and generally lazing about like women do after good sex.

“I will never completely understand how your brain works, Terry...” Evie was back on the airport thing. “How does a boy with no life experience, simply pull the name of an obscure airport out of a hat? It makes no sense at all.

“You must be one of those gifted, impossibly smart, savants. It’s the only explanation I can come up with. You should let me have you evaluated by a neurologist specializing in extraordinary children, and see what they think of your amazing intellect.”

There was no way.

No way, at all.

Final Answer...

While we slept, a fresh team of bodyguards arrived to help look after us until George could arrange transportation for our regular team. We didn’t take any with us to see the Regents because we were coming right back and not going anywhere exposed. Now that we were sidelined in Branson, George felt we needed significant protection.

Riley, Ed, and Jose were waiting in a suite next door to ours when we awoke in the morning. The message light was blinking on our room phone and George promised to see us by suppertime to oversee our wellbeing in person.

I wanted to show Evie around Branson, but needed to pretend ignorance, so I asked our protectors to show us the town in the Enterprise Cadillac Escalade that they picked up when they arrived. We both enjoyed riding through the theater strip, reading the marquis signs, and trying to figure out if either of us had ever heard of some of the named performers.

Lunch was a wonderful steak at a huge steakhouse on the upper strip, near the gigantic zip line on the mountain. There was no way Evie was going to allow herself to be strapped in to a harness and dangled over the gorge, by a single wire, so when we were simultaneously launched out over the trees, from the tower on top of the mountain, she screamed at me, saying things that were quite unladylike.

I forgave her...

But ... it was a very close thing...

She said some very hurtful things, in between screams of terror, as we rocketed down the hill. Some of those imprecations were very negative and reflected badly on my parentage ... which gave her great cause for apology once she figured out that Terry’s parents were both dead.

But I forgave her, anyway.

It was hard ... but ... sometimes one has to rise above the actions of their detractors...

And I promised to allow her to make it up to me in bed later.

So there you go.

Branson was ... quiet.

After being gone for so long, coming back in a very damaged boy’s body, and having been busy in all sorts of unhealthy ways since arriving in Ross’ body, the lassitude of Branson was a bit of shock. It was a good shock, but a shock all the same.

The strip was as I remembered. It was not as busy as it was during my previous times through. The tornado had torn things up very badly. That coupled with the shift in guest behavior had taken the top off the business. At least one of the long-time, mainstay shows closed due to the tornado and never reopened. Shoji Tabuchi, the extraordinary violin player, was a huge Branson favorite for about twenty years, but was never seen again.

An old man, sitting in front of one of the many time share selling locations gave me the four-one-one. “People aren’t as anxious to board a bus and ride a long distance to go to shows in Branson these days. The new – older – generation is far more interested in high energy entertainment for the kids and grandkids, and a nice place to kick back for themselves. The bus tours have dropped off dramatically.” Looking around town, it looked like he understood the problem pretty clearly.

My old estate – the big one – on Table Rock Lake was still there. At least some of my past lives still existed. Seeing the estate, even from a distance, made me lonely for Colleen. I could close my eyes and see her losing her clothes on the way to our great big bed, upstairs, with the big windows that looked out over the lake.

Our driver took us down to the lake and we found a nice restaurant where we could all eat and watch the boats on the water. It all made me so homesick that I needed to get out of town before I tried to patch things back together with Colleen. Being rejected time after time hurt too much to even consider making another attempt to contact her. It was time to close the book on Branson and head out into whatever my new life was going to be.

The next morning Chasen Wellington called and asked the team to hire a bus and take us home. He was stuck in Europe, but uncomfortable with me far from home. “Deirdre is being driven home from Texas by her bodyguards. I think your team should do the same thing with you.” One doesn’t argue with Chasen Wellington; Especially about the safety of his grandchild.

Problem solved.

Except that it wasn’t...

The phone rang less than an hour after Chasen rang off. “Terry, we have some problems back home. There have been a number of terrorist attacks within the last half an hour, and things may not be safe on the highways. I’ve reached Deirdre back and asked her to have her team rendezvous with you somewhere between Missouri and Texas. She is no doubt attempting to call you now, so I’ll ring off and let you tow work out a plan. Book a whole floor if you need to, as long as your team feels it’s safe.” He spoke with the guards and they called back and forth to Deirdre’s guards and everybody agreed to meet in Texarkana, Texas to wait for further news and instructions.

Evie held my hand and squeezed very tightly against me as she contemplated our safety. With my hand trapped in hers, she managed to turn it over so that my knuckles were atop her furry friend. The only separation between my hand and her clitoris was caused by her slacks and panties. To torment her, I slowly rubbed at the apex of her slit bringing her ever closer to coming.

She smiled at me as I tried to give her some pleasure to help her forget the bad news. Her response was to press up into my hand and shimmy her bottom just enough to increase the pace and friction. When she came, it looked like it was all she could do to keep the news to herself, but I just caught the tiniest strangled groan as the crotch of her black slacks felt suddenly wetter.

Oh well...

Sometimes you’re just good.

Once Evie was properly calmed, I used my satellite phone to find eight rooms in a block, including the Presidential Suite at the best hotel in Texarkana. The hotel was grateful to have paying guests because there was almost zero traffic going anywhere, and the manager thanked us for bringing so much business to an otherwise sparsely occupied location. Before arriving at the hotel we stopped and stocked up on snacks, drinks, and easy to prepare foods in case things got less friendly in the next few days.

Our group arrived first. Evie helped me carry our things into the big suite, where we each took a room and saved the third bedroom for Deirdre. We’d have to work out a system of who gets to play house with me, once she arrived, because I was hooked on their intimate company. The hours between our arrival and Deirdre finally arriving were spent in front of the TV catching up on the news.

It seemed to be all bad and getting worse.

“FOXNEWS has learned from unidentified sources, that the four explosions that affected power plants up and down the East Coast were the work of a highly coordinated terror cell that has apparently been living and operating unidentified within the United States for a long time.