Chapter 1
“How are the checks made out?To Tank and Ace like we wanted them to be?”Cassian told his brother that they were and that he was excited to give them to the other two.“I am as well.It’ll be nice for the money to go to something good rather than gather dust, not being cashed by either one of us.”
He and Cassian were brothers, and their parents had both been condemned to death by the dragon council.Even their sister Margo, a mean bitch if there ever was one, had also been killed when the council had decided that they’d done enough misdeeds in the world and it was time to take them to task.There were insurance policies taken out on them before they died, and it was left to the two of them as their only living relatives.Neither one of them wanted the money, as it had been tainted because it had belonged to them.
They were giving the insurance checks to their cousins, Ace and Tank, to use as they saw fit.They had no use for the money in the first place and thought that their cousins, who were down on their luck, could use it more.They’d only been around for about a hundred years and had yet been able to save money like they had.He just hoped that they’d take it and use it for good.
“How did you want to give it to them?I mean, just say here and be done with it?”He said that he thought that they could do better than that.“I guess so.I’ve never been this excited about giving someone millions of dollars before.Am I getting so jaded that I would rather give it away than figure out something else to use it for?”
Brenin laughed.“It could be that.I know that I’m excited to be giving it to them, too.But we’ll have to explain why we don’t want the money.They might even be able to guess, but I don’t want them to turn us down, so we can’t just shove it at them and hope they take it.”Cassian said he supposed not.“We have to be delicate with money like this.It’s well over five million dollars, and we really want them to take it.”
“Well, I hope you’re ready because they just pulled into the driveway to visit us.Do you have this delicate way for them to take it practiced?”He said he’d not given it any thought.“Well, then we go with plan B and tell them they have to take it because we said so.”They were both laughing when they joined them in Cassian’s living room.
After hugs were given, the best part of greeting his cousins; they invited them to have a seat.Brenin was leaving the giving part up to his brother, and when he sat down, waiting expectantly for his brother to speak, he just pulled out the two checks and shoved them at them.
“Here.We don’t want this, so we’re giving it to you.”Then he sat down too.Rolling his eyes, Brenin got up and tried to explain.But Cassian cut him off.“It was from our parents and Margo.You might as well take it because we don’t want it.”
“This is a lot of money to be just giving away.”Of course, Ace would be worried about the amount instead of just taking the money from them.“I mean, I’m not saying that we can’t use it, but really, it’s a lot of money.”
“Our parents must have taken it out when they were younger or something.Margo would have gotten it, I’m sure, as they wouldn’t want us to have it.But since we did get it, we want you two to have it.”He looked around the room.“That made no sense whatsoever.I’m sorry.I’m not doing this very well.Our parents took out these policies, and so did Margo.Or Mom and Dad took it out on her, we’ll never know.But the money came to us as their only living relatives, and we have no use for it.The first people we thought of to give it away were the two of you.Tell us you’ll take it from us so we don’t have to worry with it anymore.”
“The checks are already made out to us.I mean, you really meant for us to have this money.”Brenin said, of course, they had.“I’m sorry.This is a lot to take in.We came over to see if you wantedto have lunch with us.This is quite a surprise.”
“Yes, we’d love to have lunch with you.Raven is working with Skye and Kaida today, so it would have been just us anyway.”Standing up after only just sitting down, he grabbed his coat and headed to the door with the rest of them.“The bank will give you grief about cashing the check, but we’ll take care of him.He’s been our banker for the past twenty or so years, and I’ll talk to him about it.”
There was some confusion about where they were going, but it got settled out in the end.Cassian suggested they go to the diner on the other end of town, and that was all right with the other two.As soon as they were seated, the checks having been put away for now, they talked about Ace’s job as mayor.Tank was his assistant in the deal, and they were doing such a good job at their jobs that he doubted anyone would ever want to vote them out of office again.
“I’ve found more money in the way of grants to use in the town proper.It’s for new lights that would light up the main street.They’re going to be put in once winter is over, and they’ll be perfect for hanging all the lights on for the holidays.It seems like they just put them away, and now we’re about ready to have them put back out.”Cassian said that they were all broken from being out for so long when they noticed them.“I can’t get decorations with the money, but the lights will be nice to light up Main Street when the kids are out walking around at Halloween over the next few years.”
“That’s wonderful news.You’ve saved the taxpayers so much money this year, and you’ve only been in office all of six months, right?”He said it was about that.“I went by the pool the other day, and it’s beginning to look good.They said that the foundation would be done by the end of September, and that’s about four weeks away.Then there are the bathrooms that are going to be put in as well.It’s looking really good.”
“We’ve only run into one snag, and that was when they were going to put the lift in for the handicapped.It wasn’t that big of a deal, but we had to enlarge the area around the lift so that the person using it would have enough room to get on it and off it without any trouble.”He told Ace that it was coming along nicely.“I’ll say.I was out there just this morning, and I can’t believe how much better it’s looking.With the larger pool, we’re going to be able to have more people swimming than before.Not to mention the memberships that are selling.A lot of people want to use a portion of it to have birthday parties there.And the lifeguards are going to be a big hit with the younger parents.I have twenty-three applicants who want to have their lifeguard training to be paid for, and they’ll work for us throughout the summer months until it’s paid off.We’ll still pay them, but this is working out better than we could have hoped it would.”
“I’m so happy that you ran for the Mayoral position.The town is really starting to look like someone is around that cares.”He thanked them and blushed slightly.“What are you going to do when there is no more help needed around town?But then I’m sure that there will be something that needs your attention.”
“I hope so.I’m having fun.And making so many new friends.We never had any friends all that much where we lived before.This is an unexpected bonus of being mayor.”He asked about their old house.“This money will help.We’ve been making payments on it since we moved here, and it’s been difficult.We still have the PI business that we own, but it’s not getting as much business as we thought it might.I don’t know how much longer we’re going to be doing that.”
“That’s a shame.I know you were really good at it.”They had magic that would allow them to find someone right away if they had some kind of connection to them.Be it just a shirt or something that used to belong to them, they could find them.When they’d first met them, that was the way they were supporting themselves.He wondered what had happened that made it so they didn’t want to do it anymore.He wondered if it had just been something that the two of them were doing before they got the mayoral position.
After lunch, they went to the bank with them so that they’d have no trouble with the checks.They’d had the insurance people divide the checks into two equal parts so that they’d both have money.The banker had been prepared for them, so they had no trouble at all with them.He was glad, but hewas still afraid that they’d change their mind about taking them if there had been too much in the way of trouble.
Going back to his house, he had plenty to do; he started working on the paperwork that he’d left behind in favor of getting the checks to his cousins.Glad now that they’d done it that way, Ace and Tank both were so grateful that they both cried when the checks were deposited into their accounts; they must have thanked them about twenty times each for thinking of them.It was his pleasure not to have anything to do with the ill-gotten gains from his parents and sister.Cassian felt the same way about the money, and they were glad that someone would put it to good use.
By the time he was hungry again, he decided that dinner at home would be good.He had his cook make him a sub sandwich, and he had it with a baked potato.After getting his fill, Brenin sat in the living room with the television on, reading a book.The game on the set wasn’t as interesting as the book he was reading, and he was all right with that.Sometimes reading was by far more fun than doing anything else that was going on around the house.
Going up to bed after finishing the book, he was surprised that he’d enjoyed it that much.Tomorrow, he’d write a review on the book; he’d heard how authors really enjoyed getting feedback on their work, and he seldom read something without giving it a review.He’d do his best to get it done quickly because he didn’t want to forget.As he was getting into bed, he thought of Ace and Tank.
Ace had been able to get all kinds of grants of money to help out around town.There had even been money for the lift being put into the pool for people to use.Then there was the money that he’d found for small business owners that took care of their broken windows along Main Street when their businesses had collapsed.He was a wizard at finding money for others to use as well as the town.It was making things like sidewalks along the main streets to be repaired for little to no money from taxes being raised.
Tank was a great assistant, too, in that he would scope out things that they’d been told about that needed to be improved.Twice now, things were worse than they thought, and it had to be taken care of right away.But all in all, the town was looking better than it had before, and everyone loved it.They loved the two men, too, and that was wonderful.
Brenin was going to be out of town for the next several days and put his phone on the service when he was ready to go.Calling his brother, he reminded him that he’d be out of town and also reminded him to get his mail.He could have had it stopped, but since he was going to be gone for only a few days, it was easier just to have Cassian pick it up for him.There was usually nothing more than advertisements and credit card offers anyway.
He was going to be looking at a business that was thinking about coming to town to bring jobs to the area.He was going there to see how they would fit in the community.And whether or not they’d have enough people to work the jobs that the business would create.It would be a total waste of time and money if they were to be too large for their area and not be able to get enough employees to work the shifts.There were a lot of people out of work, but if they wanted more than they could handle, it would be a flop.
Brenin had another date tonight.He’d been enjoying himself dating other shifters because they knew that there would be nothing long-term between them.Sometimes they got together just for sex, but most of the time they would go to dinner and see a movie.It was fun, and they would part as friends.
Picking Dana up at six, the two of them had a nice dinner.They were trying a new place in Zanesville that specialized in Mexican food.They enjoyed a good appetizer and then dinner.When it came to having dessert, they both declined in favor of getting an ice cream at Tom’s Ice Cream Bowl, still in the town.They had the best cherry ice cream in the state as far as he was concerned, and Dana got herself a chocolate malt.As they were leaving, she said that she had a pounding headache and wanted to go home.He took her straight home and walked her to the door.
