Dylan (Bowen Boys, #3)(56)

“She’s not a…. I want you to bring her here, to home. I’ll have a good talk with her, and if that don’t work, then I’ll take her out to the woodshed. She’ll see reason once she’s had a taste of my switch.” Dylan grinned.

There was no switch and never had been. The first time he’d been taken there he’d expected no less than having his legs bleeding for a month and that he’d need massive reconstructive surgery to put him back together. But what he’d done to him that day was much worse. His dad had told him how disappointed he’d been in his actions, and went on to point out that he’d let his mother down, as well. Dylan had never been back to the shed. He’d not been perfect, but one look from his dad, that look that told him he was getting close, was all it would take to straighten him around.

“I’ll ask her if she’s ready to come back. But I know why she loves it here. It’s peaceful and homey.” He looked around the kitchen after telling his dad he’d try to get her home in a few days and hanging up.

The cabinets were glass fronted and lighted from above. The table was huge in both size and weight. She’d made it from lumber that had been left over from building the house. The floor was quarried stone she’d had brought in and was heated from beneath. Jack had told him the first morning there that she’d never spent her money on clothes or anything else, and had sank everything she’d made into this place. It showed.

The living room/dining room had a stone fireplace in it that heated the house. Vents that were fed from the fireplace had been placed throughout the entire house. They heated the entire house without the need for ductwork. She said in the winter if she had a good fire going, she could get it up to nearly eighty degrees.

The bedroom was huge and had a view and a deck that was amazing. They’d left the door opened nightly to let in the fresh night air and the sounds of the forest. He had never slept better in his life than he had that first night. After that, he’d been too worried about her to do more than hold her while she tossed and turned. When he was finished washing up the dishes, he went to the bedroom again. She was still sleeping.

Stripping down, he crawled into the bed with her. She was warm and soft, but he tried not to hold her too tightly and wake her. As soon as he pulled the covers over them again, she rolled over and wrapped herself around him. He closed his eyes and decided to try and sleep while she did.

The room was dark when he woke. She was still sleeping, so he got up to go to the bathroom and wash up. He looked in the mirror and thought he looked rested…more so than he’d looked earlier. When he pulled his cell phone out of the drawer he’d been putting it in so as not to wake her, he was shocked to see he’d missed nine phone calls and a few dozen texts, all of them from his family. That’s when he realized the date was different. They’d been asleep for well over twenty-four hours. Dylan went back to the bedroom to find her awake.

“Hi. How you doing?” She smiled at his question. “We must have needed this, because we’ve been in bed for a whole day and a half.”

“No way. I haven’t been sleeping well. That can’t be right.” He handed her his phone when he got back in the bed with her. “Are you sure this is right?”

“I know. I didn’t believe it either, but I think it’s right. I feel like it’s right, too. I feel great.” She lay back down, and he pulled her to him.

“I feel better, too.” She stretched over him and his cock jerked. “Dylan, do you want to open the box now?”

He wanted to tell her later, that he wanted to open her now, but nodded. She got up and went to the kitchen, and returned with the box. She sat on the bed with her legs crossed and looked at it.

“It’s probably nothing. I’ve been worrying about nothing.” He asked her if she believed that. “No, but I know that I have to open it or it will eat me up inside.”

She flipped up the small clasp and started to raise the lid. She reached for his hand and told him to help her as Jacob had told them to open it together. When the lid was back as far as it would go, they looked inside. On top was a letter.

“It’s from Jacob.” She opened it slowly. “He starts it with a thank you.”

“Thank you so much for what you have done for everyone. Not just for your family but for all mankind, in the future as well as your own time. There have been many before you who have tried, but no one but you have succeeded.

“You’ll find within this chest a great amount of wealth. Not just of the monetary kind, but of things you’ll learn to treasure and hold. The money has been added to over the centuries by different wizards, as well as me, who had to hide to stay alive. We were fighting a losing war with Lucius long before he decided to take the White House. He has hunted our kind to near extinction.

“I would like to visit you again someday soon, but for now know that I will continue to watch over you all. I have a special fondness for panthers myself as I started my life as one before becoming a wizard. It was only after I changed that I realized how much I missed being able to run with a family.

“Good luck in all that you do. I hope that you will know that everything you did you did for the greatness of mankind. You have saved so many people, human and others, that you cannot know how indebted we will be to you forever. Sincerely, your friend Jacob.”

Dylan dumped the contents of the box on the bed and looked at it, stunned. Jacob wasn’t kidding when he said there was a great amount of wealth. There was enough in just stones that they could live off of for years…lifetimes…without ever spending it all. He picked up one of the larger rubies while Jack picked up the small thumb drives.