Love Refound
by: E Walk
(© 2008 by the Author)
 

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Chapter 33

They Take No Captives

I was transfixed watching Cole dry his body.  I kept trying to figure out why he thought he loved me.  My thoughts were interrupted by Cole. “Doug, please stop looking at me like that, or I’m going to pop another boner.”

I looked away, “Sorry Cole, I was just trying to figure what was happening.  Cole, you’re a very handsome young man.  There are many young women and men who would be glad to be your friend.”

Cole’s demeanor changed, “I’m sorry Mr. C., I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I pulled on a pair of coveralls and a pair of boots and started toward the area where the horses were stabled, I looked at Cole, “Cole, I’m not upset.  I’m just confused.”

I was working in the stables when I heard Cole’s truck pull away.  I guess I wasn’t really working because there was almost nothing that needed to be done.  I was trying to make sense of everything that seemed to be happening at the same time.  It suddenly dawned on me that I needed to get back to the house or someone was going to be looking for me.

When I walked into the kitchen, Mother started on me, “It’s about time, Douglas.  We have some exciting things to talk about other than breeding horses.  The gentleman who was here today to look at the possibility of adding on to the house has some exciting ideas.  He is going to work on them over the weekend, put a preliminary plan together and bring it to show you and Autumn on Monday evening.”

Mother wasn’t finished, “The gentleman who is going to be in charge of relocating the trailer was here today and they will be bringing both sections of the trailer at the same time first thing Monday.  They have already packed the fragile items and placed them in storage until the two sections are reattached and the utilities are working.  He hopes to have the trailer move in ready by Friday of next week.  Now let’s eat.”

As we were eating, I was thinking out loud, “I guess we’ll need to have Cole bring his Grandmother here, starting Monday, to help take care of Benji.  It sounds as if this place is going to be a madhouse for a while.  Autumn, what time is your meeting that you need to go to on Monday?”

Autumn looked at me and winked, “It’s scheduled for ten o’clock.  I’ll probably be gone about an hour and a half.”

Autumn and I were doing the dishes because my parents were going to go visit Uncle Howie and Rob Nixon.  After they left, Autumn looked at me, “Your parents sure don’t take any captives or let any grass under their or anyone else’s feet.”

We were sitting in the living room and I was feeding Benji when Jeff arrived.  We heard him yelling from the door, “Thanks for the ride guys.  I’ll see you tomorrow.  I’ll check to make sure that I can work the job tomorrow.  I’ll let you know at church.”

Jeff entered the living room, “Hi everyone.  It was a fun party to cater.  There were a bunch of young people at the party.  Bill wants us to work another job tomorrow from three to six.  I told the guys I needed to check with you first to make sure it was okay.”

I shook my head yes, “Jeff, you certainly have our permission to work as often as you wish.  You need to remember, though, that you guys are still young and need to have some fun.”

“Working with the guys is fun for me.  I feel as if I finally have some friends that I can rely on.  I told them we would be going to the eleven o’clock service tomorrow.  I hope that’s okay.  By the way, does anyone need to borrow some of this germy money people keep giving us.  Jim’s going to be giving us one contaminated check each month so we aren’t be exposed to so many germs.  I need to go to bed since I don’t think Cole will be here in the morning.  His Grandmother wants to go to the early service.  I told him I could handle it as long as The King wasn’t going to be required to service another mare.  Granddad, when will The King be recharged and his services needed again?”

Dad laughed, “Cole, I’m sure that The King will be ready to go when one of his clients calls to say they will be arriving.”

I got up early on Sunday morning, still bothered by the encounter with Cole on Saturday.  I checked on Benji and he was sleeping, so I decided to go to the stable to check on the horses and was cleaning one of the stalls when I heard a vehicle pull in.

I heard two voices entering the stable, Jeff and Cole were talking and Jeff commented, “I thought you weren’t going to be here this morning.  I told everyone last night that you weren’t planning to come.”

Cole responded, “Jeff, you people here are the only people I have in the world except for my Grandmother.  If Mr. C. hadn’t come along when he did, I don’t know where I would be.  I feel as if Benji is part of me, since I found him.”

I decided I needed to let the guys know I was there, so I started to whistle as I was working.

That was a wrong decision.  It would have been easier had I snuck out and reappeared because Cole lit into me, “Mr. C., what are you doing here?  That’s what you’re paying us for.  Now get your butt into the house and make sure that people aren’t spoiling Benji.”

The rest of the day went pretty much as expected.  Cole left to take his Grandmother to church and we went to the late service.  I was surprised when Cole arrived and sat down beside me,  “I came to make sure Benji was okay.”

After the service, Cole declined the invitation to go to lunch, saying, “I’m going to go read some of the textbooks for the classes that I’m going to have next year and see if I can understand them.  I’ll meet you guys at The Shack at 2:30.”

The rest of the day whizzed by and the next thing I knew, it was Monday morning.

I looked out and Cole’s truck was in place, so I went to check on Benji and Dad was feeding him.  I took a shower and dressed for the day. I ate the breakfast that Mother had ready.

When I arrived home that night, I was met by strange sights everywhere.

The trailer was in place, and a Bobcat was digging a hole, which I was to find out was to make it possible to connect to the sewer and water lines.

Dad, who was monitoring the progress, looked at me, “The people are working overtime because they have been told that they have three big projects scheduled.  They aren’t complaining, though, because they haven’t been very busy in these difficult economic times.  Let me introduce you to the foreman, Peter Jackson.”

After the introductions were completed, Pete sighed, “Sorry, if we’re going to be an inconvenience, but the trailer should be ready to be occupied by this time Wednesday evening.  You don’t know how excited these people are to have work.  Work has been very limited lately and these working people have been living a very frugal existence.”

Mr. Jackson looked at me, “Mr. Christiansen, we guarantee our work and if a problem should develop, we’ll come fix it.  We’ve been in business for forty years and are looking to be around for another forty years.”

When I went into the house, Mrs. Weaver was holding Benji.  She looked at me, “Mr. Douglas, why don’t you take your handsome son with you and get comfortable.  I’ll tell the skinny dippers that dinner is ready.”

I took Benji to our bedroom and laid  him on the bed and was putting on jeans when Autumn came in, “Doug, I am pregnant and the doctor thinks it might be twins.  It’s a little too early to be sure.  What are we going to tell your parents?”

I sat down on the bed and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.  I was trying to get my thoughts together when my Mother called, “Dinner will be served in the dining room in five minutes.”

I looked at Autumn, “Why don’t you tell everyone at dinner what you found out, so we can get it out of the way.  My parents are going to go ballistic whenever we tell them.  Hopefully they don’t stay overtime or we’ll be in the poorhouse forever.”

When the three of us, Autumn, Benji and me, arrived in the dining room, Cole and Jeff were putting the food on the table.  After my Dad blessed and the food had been passed around, I asked, “Autumn, how did your meeting go today.”

Autumn nonchalantly said, “Doctor Walker said I was definitely with child and that we might even be going to have twins.”

You can’t even imagine how quiet it was after Autumn dropped that bomb.  It was as if everyone was suspended in a time warp.  Autumn and I continued to eat as if nothing was unusual.  Jeff was the first to recover, “I guess that means I’ll need to move here to help Cole take care of Benji.  Honestly, Uncle Doug and Autumn, couldn’t you have waited until after everyone had eaten.  You’ve comatized everyone and our dinners are getting cold.”

That caused everyone to start eating and it was still a little eerie because no one was saying very much.  Finally my mother said, “Okay that settles it.  When Mr. Kennedy gets here tonight, we’re going to make the arrangements to add on to this house.”

Mrs. Weaver asked, “Cole and I don’t need to be here do we since we’re going to be living in the trailer?  I need to decide what we need to keep and get the other things ready to give to the needy.  Thank you for having me here today.  I feel alive here and if I were at the old place, I would be sitting feeling sorry for myself.  Cole, as soon as you and Jeff finish the dishes, I need to go home.  We still have some thank you notes that we need to write.”

Benji started to fuss and Mrs. Weaver got up and picked him up and started to sing to him, “Hush little one, don’t you cry.  Your Daddy and Mommy are going to get you a new brother to boss around.”

Before the Weavers could leave, the door bell rang and Autumn went to get it, “Hi, Jack.  Come in. We just finished our dinner.  Everyone else is still at the dining room table.  Why don’t you show us the plans in there?”

Mr. Kennedy entered the dining room with a gentlemen who turned out to be Logan Turner.  After the introductions were completed, even Cole and Jeff were watching as Mr. Kennedy showed us his proposals.

He proposed that we add a wing on to each side of the existing building.  He explained, “That way you could have lots of room for a family to grow.  You could have a play room on one side so any children could be visible most of the time. While you’re remodeling it would be well worth your while to remodel the kitchen and make it state of the art.  Upstairs, you can make a master suite with all the amenities on the second floor of one addition and at the other end you can have a mini master suite so that your parents will be begging to come visit.”

Cole asked a very poignant question, “Mr. Kennedy, after what happened near here in May, what do you propose to be in the basements of  the new additions?”

“Cole that is a very good question.  We would excavate and make a basement area on either side of the existing basement.  On one side, we could make two additional bedrooms and on the other side, we could have the utility room and a storm shelter.”

Jeff went to the easel which Mr. Kennedy had set up, “Sir, how much more would it cost to add a covered walkway to the trailer which the people are working on as we speak and to the stables, so people wouldn’t get wet walking between structures in inclement weather?”

“Jeff, that’s not something that I had thought about, but I will look into it after the trailer is in place.”

Mother started, “In light of Autumn’s announcement tonight that she and Doug are now expecting an addition in the near future, how long would it take to complete what you propose with the least disruption to the family’s life?”

Mr. Kennedy pointed to Mr. Turner, “That’s why I brought Logan with me.  Logan owns a construction would be able to answer that question much better than I can.”

Logan stood and went to easel with the overall proposal.  “If you were to begin next week, I should think that the entire project could be completed by Thanksgiving.  It would be my recommendation that the project be done in phases to keep disruptions to a minimum.  I would recommend that you build the wing that will house the master suite first.  The other wing would follow and the any kitchen renovations be the last thing that you would do because that can be done when there is  inclement weather as Jeff calls it.”

“The kitchen renovation will be the time when the family’s life will be the most disrupted.  I like Jeff’s idea of a covered walkway to the stable and trailer.  It would add a sophisticated touch and you could have trellises with plants along the pathway.”

Cole commented, “Mr. Logan, you mentioned that the remodeling of the kitchen would be the biggest disruption.  That shouldn’t present too much of a problem.  The refrigerator and the basic items could temporarily be moved to the new family room and the family could fix a simple breakfast and lunch if they’re here and have dinner with my Grandmother and me in the trailer.”

Dad looked at Cole, “Don’t you think that you should have checked with your Grandmother before making a commitment like that.”

Nana Weaver as she was to be called answered, “Why, he’s the man of the house, or in this case, the trailer.”

Dad turned his attention to Mr. Kennedy, “Jack, how soon can you have the detailed plans completed?”

“I can have them ready for your approval by Friday.”

Dad was very direct when he asked the next question.  “Logan, I gather that you are very interested in doing the project, or you wouldn’t be here.”

Logan nodded, “Mr. Christiansen, my firm needs the work badly.  I have two excellent teams of craftspeople whom I am going to have to put on furlough starting next week if I don’t find work for them.  Right now there is very little new construction being done. Hopefully it will start to pick up soon.”

Mother asked, “Mr. Turner, do you have any of the facilities that your company has built that  we might look at to see what your craftspeople, as you call them, have constructed?”

Mr. Turner nodded, “The biggest and showiest facility that we have constructed is the Administration Building at the Harwood Community College.”

I started to laugh, “Mr. Turner, you’re just the person I need to talk to. There are these scratch marks on my office walls.  Could you please take care of them?”

Jack and Logan started to laugh and Jack spoke, “So you’re the Dr. Christiansen whose in charge of the college while Doris and the Coach are on their extended trip to South America.  Why wouldn’t we have we have guessed?  You don’t even look old enough to be out of college yet.”

Dad asked, “Logan, if Jack’s plans are approved, would you be able to start next Monday?”

Logan nodded, “We can start as soon as you give us the go ahead.”

Moneybags Dad grinned, “Jack and Logan, why don’t you have some cost figures ready on Friday when we can meet to decide what Doug and Autumn are going to do, say at seven, since Doug has to work all day.  Maria and I want to get this resolved before we leave next Monday.”

The two gentlemen left after agreeing to meet on Friday.

Nana Weaver handed Benji to my Mother.  “Come on, Cole, we need to get home so I can get up and come back in the morning.  It appears to me that I will need to be available to take care of Benji while his Mother and Grandparents take care of business.”

The Weaver’s had just departed when the phone rang.  I was the closest so I picked it up.  “This is Doug Christiansen.”

 

“Doug, it’s Damien.  I have a mare who is ready to be serviced.  Can I bring her by tomorrow night after work?”

“Just a minute, Damien.  Let me talk to my Dad.”

“Dad, it’s Damien and he wants to bring a mare by tomorrow night after work.  Do you think The King is ready to perform again?”

 

“Doug, I’m sure he is.  We’ll soon find out once he’s around the mare.  Tell Damien to bring the lady on.”

“Damien, we’ll be expecting you around seven tomorrow night.  See you then.”

Jeff, who had been sitting quietly, suddenly spoke up, “Gees, I need to go to bed.  It sounds as if tomorrow is going to be another busy day in the neighborhood.  Uncle Doug and Aunt Autumn, are you sure you don’t need me to stay and go to school here with everything that is going to be happening?   Goodnight, everyone.”

To be continued...

Editor's Notes:  It really looks as if things are moving along at quite a rapid pace.

I really like Cole's Grandma.  She seems as though she has a real good grasp of what is going on in the world. She is going to really enjoy taking care of Benji too.  Maybe she will be willing to help take care of the twins as well, assuming there are twins. I am still totally amazed at the number of twins and triplets that find their way into some of these stories.  I'm not complaining, just so you know.  That was just an observation. I am ready for the next chapter, of course.

Darryl AKA The Radio Rancher

Posted: 07/31/09