“Satisfied with what?You’re still giving me bits and pieces.”She looked out the window.“For all I know, this ride is something of a nightmare ride, and when I get off, I’m going to be in my bunk with the other men and women that I share with, and you’ll be nothing but a bit of heartburn.I haven’t ever had it before, but you could be that.”
“I’m really a witch.”She nodded, still not looking at the woman.“You have to believe me.I’ve brought you good news.Say you believe in me, and I’ll show you something else that you’ll need to know for your meeting with Jeb.”
“Who’s Jeb?”She told her, and Molly turned to look at the beautiful woman.“I’m not sure what’s going on.You’ll have to give me more than you have, or I’m going to believe what I should.That I’m about to be let go from the service for some unknown reason, and I’m going to be struggling to finish my Pop-pop’s house for the rest of my life.Because if I don’t get my check, that’s what’s goingto happen.”
“You’ll finish the house and in record time because you’ll be able to afford the crews needed to work on it.Also, I’ve told you…well, no, I didn’t, but I’m telling you now that this is going to be a good thing with the meeting with Jeb.He’s not known about you, but I’m bringing you to him so that he can help you out of the service before your six months are finished.He can do that too.You’ve worked enough overtime that it’ll be a piece of cake for him to help you out of the service with all the perks you’ve been waiting on.”She asked about the house.“The house is going to be a showcase with you and Kayce behind the renovations.And your children will grow up to appreciate all the hard work that you’ve put into your lives and will be there for you forever.”
“I understand that we’ll find the means to do the house.Though why it would be in my granddas bedroom is beyond me.But I get you think so.Also, that we’ll have six kids.Though that’s another thing I don’t understand.You might say I’m humoring you on that part.That’s still a lot of kids to have.”She nodded and told her she’d be a good mother.“Thank you for that.I don’t know how I could be when I know nothing about children.I’m thinking I understand about the president and him getting me out of the service, but what does all of this have to do with me being in the service in the first place?I only have six months to go, so why not just allow me to do that bit for my country, and the rest of the stuff will fall into place?”
“You have to be home for Kayce when he needs you.So far, he’s doing very well without you around.And he will continue to do so.But he will need you around just to be someone he can talk to.He’s not going to have a good time in leaving the group that he’s in.They’ll try to drag him back, and with you around, he’ll do the right thing.”She asked if he would be hurt.“Physically?No.But mentally, they’ll drag him down to their level, and that won’t be good for the two of you.You will have your first child by the summer of next year.”
They were pulling into the White House driveway when she turned to look at the woman again.She didn’t understand anything that was going on.She wanted to, but didn’t.Why did her getting out of the service have so much riding on it?And if she was going to have a baby by next summer, she should be starting on that, as it wasn’t but ten months away.When the limo came to a full stop, they both just sat there.She had a thought that this wasn’t the only thing going on with this meeting.
“You’d be right.”Frustrated beyond anything she’d been frustrated about before, she got out of the car when the door was opened for her.There in the doorway stood the president of the United States with his wife standing next to him.Not sure what she was supposed to do, she waited until he made the first move.There were just too many Secret Service agents around for her to think that he was going to give her a huge bear-like hug.Though that’s exactly what he did.
“Hello Molly.Welcome to your home.I say that to all the guests that I meet.It throws them off a bit.”He introduced his wife to her, and she shook her hand.“There are some people here that I’d like for you to meet.And Kayce is here as well.I had to work hard in getting him to come to me, but he’s here now.”
Molly looked at Parker, the witch.“You had something to do with him getting here before me, didn’t you?”She said her husband had.“I see.More mystery to unravel.I suppose this is where I get my job taken care of.”
“Among other things.”She decided that she was going to go with it.Not having any idea what she was going with, but she decided it was that or go insane.When invited into the grand building, she made her way to where Kayce was standing and took his hand into hers.Whatever happened next was going to either get them both arrested or they’d be going home together.Time would tell.
Chapter 3
The kitchen was a mess.Every place he looked, there were piles of debris.He didn’t want to freak out or anything, but he was beginning to think that the house was never going to be the same and they’d never be able to live in it.He stepped outside on the covered porch and sat in the swing that was still there.He was happy when Molly decided to come out and join him.
“I’m still trying to figure out how I was able to get out of the service because of my overtime hours when I was paid for them.Also, and this one boggles my mind a great deal, we were married in the White House with about fifty guests that I didn’t know.Did you know any of them?”He said that he’d met some of the Fosters but not all of them, and that was who was there.“Ronin is some kind of big deal to you, isn’t he?I got that feeling when you were around him, you seemed sort of scared of him.”
“He’s the king of my kind.He and his wife rule us.Brook, I’ve talked to the most, but I know them, yes.And Parker and her husband.”She told him that she was scary.“No kidding.I find her to be more scary than Ronin and Brook for some reason.”
She finally sat down beside him, and he took her hand.There was something comforting about having her close that he didn’t know how to explain it.She kissed the back of his hand, and they rocked for a few minutes while the hammering and sawing went on behind them in the house.Molly finally turned to him.
“I’ve been through my granddas bedroom, and I didn’t find anything worth all that much.There are some lovely quilts that I’d like to use on the kids’ beds, but nothing that would make me think it’s going to be enough to finish the house with.”He said that it might be in the walls.“Then I guess we’ll have to have them start on that room before we do the bathrooms.Don’t you think?”
“I don’t know what to think.”She agreed with him on that, and they rocked some more.“What do you think about us having six kids?I mean, it seems like a lot to me, and I’m going to be carrying them.Do you think she should have told us that part?I mean, she kind of took all the surprise out of us finding out on our own.Especially the one that we’re having by Christmas of next year.That’s not a great deal of time, is it?”
“Do you want to have a child this soon?”Molly shrugged, and he did the same back to her.“I don’t have an opinion one way or the other.It’s your body, and if you want to have a child right away, I’m all for it.”
“You just want to have a part in making the baby.”He said that there was that.“I see how you are.We’ll have a baby by Christmas, and I guess it will be settled.Though there is a lot going on here for me to suddenly have a baby.The house is a mess.Did you think it would be like this when you and I decided that the kitchen needed to be taken down to the studs and rewired?I certainly didn’t.”
“My offices are worse than in here.They had to take down walls so that they could put them back up with more power running through them.”He looked in the direction of his new offices and thought of how Molly had saved him a lot of heartache when he’d left the group.“I’m so glad you were there when I had to deal with them.They were saying that I had not worked out my contract.If you’d not gone over it the night before, I would have been scrambling to find the part where I had to give them sixty days’ notice, and you knew right where it was.I would have been devastated to know that I had to work another sixty days with them.Thank you for that.”
“It was something that the witch said.”He called her by name.“Yes, that’s it, Parker.She told me that I’d be helpful when it came time for you to leave.I’m just glad that I went over your contract when I did.And that you had stapled your letter of resignation to the back of it.I might not have had that if you’d not been so good about keeping them together.”
They swung some more, and he was just getting to the point where the noise in the background was getting too much when Molly stood up.She wanted to see how his buildings were coming along.He decided that going with her would be better than hearing the house being demolished right in front of them.They’d go see his offices, having the same thing done.
“It looks like the wiring is finished.”He could see where the new wiring was sticking out of the new drywall, and there were places for plugs.“You’re going to have a lot of plugs in the walls.I hope that’s normal.”
“I have quite a few things that will need to be plugged in.Mostly they’ll be used for equipment, but I will have extra if I need them.”The two of them were careful where they walked.“The reception area is looking like it’s coming along, too.I’ve already decided that I’m not going to take the nurse from the practice where I was.She and the other nurses were too tight, and I have a feeling that she’d be telling them everything that’s going on here.Look at this.I love the waiting area.They were able to use most of the woodwork from the old building, like I wanted.”
He would have his own office, of course, plus one where he could talk to patients when necessary.There would be six rooms set up for his patients to be seen in, and he had some equipment for the reception area that was going to make appointments and keep track of records.There would be three bathrooms set up in the place.One set for his nurses and himself, the other two would be for patients.He wanted privacy when he went to the bathroom and didn’t mind paying a little extra so that he could have that.Kayce pointed out the things that were going to be in the reception area and what kind of computers he was thinking of buying so that things would be up to date from the very start.
“I want to keep my records on the computer as well as hard copies.They did that at the other place, and I kind of liked having a copy of everything that was in the records that they kept.”She said that she had a scanner that she used to download all her receipts onto the computer so that she could keep track of them.“Good idea.We’ll have to start doing that for the house when it gets finished.”
“Do you think it will get finished?”He said that he had faith in the system.“I’m glad that one of us does.All I can see is a mess.I’m afraid to bring pop-pop around.He’ll have a heart attack over what we’ve done to his house.”
“I’ve been showing him pictures, not of the messes but of the offices that I have going in.He is having a good time telling me what my offices need over other offices.He said there should be up-to-date magazines around instead of them being years old.I promised him that I’d take care of that.”They both laughed, and she waited to see what one of the workers was going to be doing with the drywall that he had in his hands.“I didn’t know they were that far along in the process.I thought that it would be another month before they were ready to hand drywall.”
“I think that they’re getting the rooms done first.It’ll be chilly soon, and they can work on the bigger rooms all together.That’s what I see anyway.”They were excited to have something getting done, and the foreman said that’s what they were doing.Getting one room at a time done so that they could see progress.“I love being able to see what’s going to happen here.It’s like the entire building is going to be done right when I can see one of the rooms finished up.”
