Page 7 of Aaron
“Well, you are old.”Grandda looked at him and looked as if he was more pissed off than when he came out here.“I’d die if something ever happened to you and I was just trying to keep you from hurting yourself again.The last time with the shovel nearly took ten years off my life when I found you bleeding like you were.And that didn’t help for you to have that large piece of wood hanging from your thigh either.What were you thinking?”
“I get tired of having to have someone do all the things for me that I used to do.I’m a grown man and don’t want to be treated like I’m going to keel over in the next minute.”Aaron told him that he was just going to have to get used to people doing things for him.“I don’t have to like it.”
“No, but you can be a tad bit nicer about it when someone wants to help you.Or goes out of their way to help you.”They were both shouting, and he tried to calm himself down.“Look, you want to plant Grannie some roses, then have at it.But I’m going to be here so that if something happens to you, I don’t have to walk into what I did before.You have no idea how scared I was for you.”
“I thought that I was going to die.”He’d never admitted that before, usually going on about how it was just a little bit of a cut, and after he shifted, he was just fine.“For days after that happened, and I was all right after I shifted, I hurt.I had me some nightmares too from thinking of how fast that blood was coming out of my leg.If you hadn’t of been there…well, there’s no telling what would have happened to me.”
“I love you, Grandda.With all that I am.”He asked him why.“What do you mean, why?I love you because you’re the best grandda that I have.And I have another one, too, that has passed away.Sometimes when I’m talking to you, I wonder what it would feel like to not have you around anymore, and I nearly have a panic attack.I can’t live without you in my life.You’re my everything.”
“You should be saying that to some pretty girl.”He asked him why he’d tell some girl that he loved her.“Because I want great-grandchildren, you big lummox.Am I going to have to teach you how to woo a girl now?Good lord, son, I had to teach you boys how to be around a pretty girl, now here you are with all your wooing years just fading away.I’ve been waiting on a baby to spoil of yours since you turned about twenty.That’s been nearly a decade ago.Now all you boys are marrying age and not a one of you has found your mate.”
“What is wooing years?”Grandda popped him on the back of his head.“I’m just asking.Maybe I’m not very good at wooing.I might need your help on that.”
“If I thought that it would do any good, I’d teach you, but I think that the six of you are just plum too old to find yourself a mate now.Are you even looking for her?”He said he’d been busy keeping him out of trouble.“You’re not blaming this on me, you young little crapper.I tried, and you know that I did to help you out.”
“Yes, you did.I still remember you telling me about the birds and bees.But so you know, Dad’s version wasn’t any better than being told that I had to pollinate a girl to get her pregnant.It took me six months of thinking hard on that until I went out the first time with Missy Crabtree.She taught me things that you and Dad never mentioned before.”Granddas face brightened up red, and he told him to behave.The only thing he wanted to do now was embarrass his grandda again, and he could do it, he knew.“Can you imagine my shame when she told me that her being pollinated wasn’t something that men do to women.Yes, sir, she was a lot more help than you two were.”
“Behave before I tell your mother what you’ve been up to.”He told him that he was pretty sure that she knew what he’d been up to since he was eighteen.“There’s no talking to you when you get in a mood like you’re in.I’m going to forgive you for calling me an old man if you help me with the roses.And you were right in telling me that my Milly doesn’t want a garden anymore.She told me that she’s just too old to be doing all that bending over to pick things anymore.”
“I’ll help you if you tell me that you forgive me for calling you out when you’ve no business driving one of those big pieces of equipment without supervision.”He told him that he loved him.“That’s good enough for me.I love you, too, old man.You’re the best part of this family, and I don’t want to think about life without you around.So stay safe for me.Please.”
“I’ll do that if you at least go out once a week to find yourself a mate.She’s not going to just fall into your lap, you know?She’s going to need you to be on your best behavior and woo her like you mean it.”He said he still didn’t know what that meant.“It’ll come to you when you find her.You’ll find that you don’t want to do a thing in life—especially not hanging around your old grandda when she’s around.”
“Nah, that’s not true.She’s going to love you as much as I do, and you know it.I might even be a little jealous she’ll love you so much.”Grandda turned away and said he had dust in his eyes.Looking out over the deck, he thought he’d gotten the same dust in his eyes, too.
Chapter 4
Her ankle was killing her.As soon as she got back home, she was going to see a doctor who could give her some answers.Mac was sick of hurting every time she took a few steps out of her room.Just as she was getting up to speed again, she turned her ankle and fell.If not for the man who was coming out of the police station when she’d been going by, she surely would have busted her face all up in addition to hurting the rest of her body.
“There you go.”She couldn’t move with the man half on top of her and half off.She was struggling to get up when he finally told her to stop.She froze so quickly that she smacked him in the face when her hand was suddenly free of his.“I’m going to help you up, then I’ll get up.All right?”
“What were you doing coming out of the building so fast without looking anyway?”He said he didn’t expect a train to run him down.“I’m not that big that I’m able to replicate a train moving across the tracks.”
“Just let me get you up.”He sort of half shoved her off him and rolled her to her feet at the same time.That was the exact moment that her ankle, which had been giving her fits all morning, decided that it wasn’t going to bear any weight anymore.She screamed out in pain and fell back in his lap.“Hold on.I know you’re hurting, so let me see what happened.Can I call an ambulance for you?”
“I think it’s broken.”He nodded and asked someone to call for an ambulance for them.“I thought I broke it before, but the stupid quack said it was only sprained.That was nearly a year ago, and it’s not getting any better.”
“My father is a doctor, and I can give him a call to meet us at the hospital.”She was in so much pain right then that she would have agreed to meet anyone at the hospital if they’d only take away the pain she was in.“All right then, I’ll give him a call.My brother Reagan is a doctor as well.Whichever one of them gets there first should be all right, okay?”
“Yes, please help me.”He said he would, and she only then realized that she was still sitting on his lap.“I’m usually not so clumsy, but I’ve been trying to walk off the extra pounds I know I’m putting on from the pizza place down the street.They have the best pasta dishes I’ve ever eaten, and don’t get me started on their meatball sub.I could eat a whole one every day and not feel the least bit bad about it.”
“Their chef’s salad is good too.My brother and I usually get it with double the meat.You should try that sometime.”She nodded, nearly cross-eyed with pain.“Look, that’s my dad now, and he has his bag.Just let him examine you before the medics get here, and you’ll feel much better.”
After he examined her ankle, he deemed that it was indeed broken.He teased his son about knocking women around to get a date, and then he asked her if she needed something for pain.It was just then that the ambulance pulled up and two of the littlest women she’d ever seen popped out to help her.As soon as the doctor gave her something for the pain, she felt so much better than before.
She knew who she had knocked down.There was no way a person could be in this town without having one or all of the Dresden boys—men, really—pointed out to her.She knew who they were from the files that she had on them, but to see them up close and personal was something entirely different.They were so much more…that’s it, just so much more than they were in a picture to see them up close.Aaron introduced her to his father first, then to himself.She smiled and said she’d have to be a nun in this town to not have it pointed out who each of the men were.
“Yeah, because we’re all single, that’s all.”She asked him what that meant when she was being loaded onto the gurney.“People think that we should be married and are forever trying to set us up.I’m sorry, but I like the old-fashioned way of meeting someone, and that’s to be knocked down and have them sitting in my lap.”
“Oh, I see.You’re supposed to be funny.”She was feeling the medication more now that she was in the ambulance.She thought it was because she’d been given just a bit more, but her head was spinning around so much that she thought that she might be sick from it.“I don’t feel so good right now.”
“Take it easy, Ms.Troff, and I’ll make sure you’re going to be all right.”There was a little bit of a tussle when she was told that someone should ride with her, and she wanted Aaron with her, but the doctor said he could get her treated faster if he went.She was disappointed but didn’t say anything as she was embarrassed enough to be in the situation in the first place.“Is there anyone we can call for you?”
“No, I’ll call my boss later on to tell him what has happened.”That wasn’t a call she wanted to make anyway.He’d be pissed off that she’d been hurt first of all, then he’d be madder still when he found out how she’d been introduced to the Dresden family.“He’ll be understanding.”
No, he wouldn’t.He’d be the exact opposite.He might even call her off the case, and she’d be happy about that.It was a stupid reason for her to be here in the first place.No one was kidnapping the women, and while she couldn’t prove it, she’d met two of the men who had been left without a wife when they’d disappeared one night.
She thought about the things that she’d found out.None of the women had been taken in the same way.One had been let go out of the shed she’d been locked in.Yes, locked in a shed.He didn’t think that there was anything wrong with that either when asked why he’d have her locked in the shed.He said it was to keep her from running, and she did anyway.
