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“We’re married, Colby.” With that, he helped her stand up and held her in his arms as her mom’s old beater of a golf cart came rumbling toward them. Once it was in front of them, rolling back a bit when she didn’t set the parking brake hard enough, the four of them, including GGMa, looked around at the area they were standing in.
“I’ve always thought it would be such a lovely place to have a home back here, don’t you, Grannie?” Colby told her mom that she didn’t want anyone to be upset with her and Hadley building a home without asking first. “Peashaw. It’s going to be your land someday. You might as well have a home that you can live in. And I’m to understand that you’re going to be around for a good long time anyway. That’s good, too, right?”
“Yes, I’m immortal like Hadley is.” She thought about her mom leaving her along with her grannie and grandma. “You’ll allow him to make it so that you’ll be around for a while, too, won’t you guys?”
“I’m finished with life once it’s time for me to go, honey.” GGMa, as she’d asked Hadley to call her too, said that she wanted to go with her Abe. “But what will I do without you? You need to be hanging around here so that I can talk to you.”
“No reason you can’t still talk to me, child. But I’ve had a wonderful life. A better one, as you know, than I had before.” GGMa had told her about the change in her life. And how she’d been given a second chance with her GGPa. Colby knew too that she was the only one she’d told. “I don’t want to hang around any more than I have to. You? You and this young man here should be thinking of your own lives, not about some old woman that has more trouble than not in getting out of bed in the morning. Listen to me, child. You go on living out the best life you can, and you’ll make me prouder than a speckled pup under a little red wagon. I’ve always been proud of my girls.”
Mom hugged her grannie then she did as well. It was then that her mom spoke to her, hugging her tightly as she’d done all her life. They were closer than mother-daughter, she thought. As was she with her own mother. The Colby women were tight, she thought. And loved with a passion that she’d never seen with other families.
“I’m not sure what I think about being immortal, either, Colby. I loved your father very much, and I miss him daily. But living forever? I don’t know. I bet if you asked Hadley here, he’d tell you that it’s not all that exciting after a while.” Hadley said that it had perks too. Like grandchildren, she’d be able to be around. “Colby put you up to that? Yes, I’d love to be around my grandchildren if you have them, but it’s something that I’d have to think about. All right?”
“Yes. I have given you a bit of myself so you’ll be safe as I can make you for the time being.” Colby thanked Hadley for that. “It’s my pleasure. I don’t want anything to happen to any of you, either. You’re my family too.”
At that moment, even though she’d thought she’d been in love with Hadley when he helped her get rid of Levi and his dad, she knew she was for the simple things that he’d been doing for her. All in all, being someone that she could depend on. But the fact that he’d done this for her family, her mom and the others made her know that he was going to be the man that would be perfect for her forever.
They walked around the property for about an hour. The faeries had fixed up the cart for her mom, and she and GGMa were having a blast making the sucker speed up ahead of them. Taking hills so that they’d be air bound for a few seconds. It was like having a couple of teenagers riding around with fresh licenses in their pockets.
Once they were able to decide on the perfect place for their home, the faeries set to work. Not able to watch them as they buzzed around so quickly, Colby had to turn her back on them. It was then that she saw someone standing along the darkened tree line that she didn’t know. At least from this distance, anyway. One of the aunts, she couldn’t remember her name, seemed to just come out of nowhere and sat with them on the ground. A picnic basket appeared in front of her, and she began to take the things out of it as she spoke in low tones to them. Hadley joined them once drinks were being passed out.
“Winnie Manning. I’m the protector of dragons.” She handed her a sandwich that seemed to change from tuna if she wasn’t mistaken to roast beef that she really wanted. “The man over there in the woods is from town. He heard that you married a Manning but wants to warn you about some of the things that he’s heard that are going around town. I don’t know him, perhaps you do, but he’d be honest in his knowledge that he has on the Mitchel family.”
“Why don’t you go and talk to him?” Colby didn’t get an answer unless she counted the grin that Winnie gave her. “I have no idea what that means, but I’m assuming it’s important that I asked him for some reason.”
“Hadley, yes. You intimidate him a little. He thinks that you’re too pretty to talk to him. I believe him to be a good man, and he has a good head on his shoulders about some of the things that he’d like to see happening in your little town. If you don’t help him, then that would be fine as well.” Colby asked her what the consequences would be for the town if she didn’t help. “It will die. It won’t affect anyone here, not this land at all but the town will die off once there is no more income coming in for the people working there.” Hadley stood up and said he’d be back. As he made his way to the tree line, Colby looked at Winnie.
“What sort of jobs are we talking about? Do you have an idea that we can get started on?” Winnie said that the stranger might have one. “Good. We’ll work on it together and save the town. I don’t want anyone to have to leave here. This has been a wonderful place to live since I was a child. Before that, too, I’m sure.”
“Here, on the land.” She looked around when one of the faeries said her name. “They wish to take you someplace. Hadley’s home near his family.”
“Why?” The faerie, Hoda, said that it would only take a second. They needed ideas from her about the inside of their home. “Oh. All right.”
Before she knew it, she was standing in front of a home that she absolutely loved on sight. She was taken to each of the rooms and shown what had been added to the house by them and then to the gardens. When she was standing near the picnic place again, Hadley had joined them with a man that she knew all too well.
“First of all,” She looked at Hoda and smiled. “I want it to look exactly like that. Everything inside and out. Can you do that?”
“Oh yes, mistress, we can.” Hoda buzzed away, and she was nearly knocked to her feet when the earth sort of moved under her. Once she was seated, she looked over at Donny and smiled.
“How are you, Donny? Please tell me they’re not hurting you anymore, are they?” Donny looked over at Hadley and then back at her. His face was so pink that she thought that he might have a little bit of a fever. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, ma’am. Mr. Hadley, he said that I could call him that told me that I have a place here so that I don’t get beat up no more.” GGMa told him he should have come to her sooner. “I would have, misses, but I was beat up real bad this time. Levi, he don’t like it none when I tell people he’s my little brother. I don’t know why that hurts him so, but it’s the truth.”
“Of course it is. Have something to eat now, and we’ll talk about you having a place to live around the farm. I’m to understand that you have some ideas on some work we can be doing around here.” While GGMa and her mom talked to Donny, she felt a small nudge to her mind. When she looked at Hadley as he took her hand, she somehow thought it was him.
“It’s me.”She nodded, then looked around. “I didn’t want to upset Donny when I told you that he was beaten badly. If not for the bit of magic that I gave him, I don’t know that he would have made it over the next couple of days.”
“Levi hates him. And don’t get me started on Levi senior. They both should be shot for the way they treat him. It wasn’t his fault that he was born the way he is. The cord was wrapped around his neck when he was born, and it made him slow. I’m not sure that’s the term to use, but that’s what we were told.”Hadley told her that he thought it was more than that. That Donny was well-liked, and they weren’t.“I don’t doubt that either, now that you bring it up. Will the faeries fix him up a place around here to live? I don’t want him hurt anymore.”
“He can stay with us until we figure out if he is able to stay on his own. It’s hard to judge his mental capacity when he seems to be so terrified right now.”She nodded and handed Hadley another sandwich.“He really does have some good ideas to run past you guys. One of them is the fact that he can drive a tractor. Donny said that he’d help out around here more if he could be safe. He said that your GGMa taught him how.”
“She did. I’d forgotten about that. It was another incident where he needed someplace to recuperate, and she found him hiding in one of the barns. Once she got him moving around again, it was easy for her to teach him how to use the tractor. He’s been helping with the planting since. You think he’d be able to do it with strangers around?”Hadley told her that it would be up to him.“I suppose. I don’t want him hurt. Physically nor mentally. Levi and their father are cruel to him. They don’t even try to hide the fact that they mistreat him when they’re in a crowd, either.”
“I’ll take care of that.”She didn’t know what he was going to do but didn’t care right now. As she looked at Donny, she could see that he was sporting more wounds than she had first noticed.“He’s going to be all right, Colby. I’ll make sure of it.”
She believed him. As they continued to talk to Donny, she found herself being charmed by his ability to let go of the fact that his brother and father treated him poorly. While she knew that he didn’t live in the house with his family, she did wonder where he was staying. It wasn’t until he said that he was going to get his things that she realized that she’d missed something.
“GGMa said that I could bunk with her. Not in her bed but in her house.” She nearly laughed but didn’t when Donny explained what he was going to be doing. “She said that I could have all my things from the shed I’ve been staying in.”
