My thanks to sexnovella for the editing of this chapter. Even after all this time many of you have mailed me and told me that this series felt unfinished. I'm sorry it's taken me this long to do just that with these last two chapters.
*****
It was with some reluctance that Laurel got off my lap, we hadn't planned to do much more than slum it around the cabin until I reminded her that we needed supplies. A quick look in the kitchen got an agreement from her so she dressed and asked me to put her waist chain on. We both knew she was capable of doing it herself but the fact I was doing it meant more to her.
We hit the mall first for some more clothes and then got Laurel some new boots. She tried on a few hats and even got me to try one on as well, once we both realized that I looked like a dork in a cowboy hat I stopped looking. The food hall got us two carts full and some scratching of heads as to making everything fit into the car, we may need to get Laurel a pick-up of her own.
Laurel had dinner ready by the time Mandy turned up. I got washing up duty while both the girls went and had a talk and judging by the smiles on both there faces allot of air got cleared in that talk of theirs. Mandy still had to get back to the city she had a meeting early the next day but promised that she would come back the weekend.
Our time was broken down into Laurel going to the site for the animal hospital in the morning and a couple of trips into town to register her license and to a couple of the drugs companies both to introduce herself and also look at secure cabinets they had available to buy. I kept myself busy since all I had to do was open my laptop and I was once again at work, I had lunch ready for us for mid-day although Laurel insisted that she would make dinner.
It seemed that almost every other day we would get a phone call from one member of the Colson family inviting us to dinner, I'm sure if I dug deep enough I would find that someone made a roster as to who's turn it was to invite us next. Laurels acceptance back into her family was beginning and it was pleasing to see, the children always got to aunt Laurel first, wives soon realized that she wasn't some weirdo and soon her brothers and sister realized that the woman sat at the table was the girl they grew up with.
Tony was the only one that made the dinner conversation stop dead in its tracks when he asked Laurel when she planned on returning to church with them on Sunday's. Laurel didn't get a chance to answer, Heather stuck her elbow into her husbands side, for a big man he buckled real quick. The glare he got when he turned to his wife to ask her what she did that for made him take a step back and think on it.
The girls came up on mass for the weekend, no sooner were they in the door of the cabin than all of them got naked. Laurel blushed and smiled a tear welled up in her eye and she asked to be excused for a moment, being a tradition that ladies never go to the bathroom alone Amy got up and went with her. Both came back a few minutes later arm in arm, the temptation to ask what they had found out about Mike was close to overwhelming. The fact they had said nothing about him in front of Laurel was also not lost on me.
Laurel wanted to show the girls the site for the stable and barn, the humor of seeing a bunch of naked people troupe out of the cabin and stand in one corner of a field wasn't lost on me, yet the way Laurel explained everything to us left me certain that she held every one of us captive. Not one of us had a question for her when she had finished and more than once we nodded our heads at her attention to detail.
All that was left to do was to talk to Jonathan and arrange a weekend and the materials. Charlie phoned about an hour after our return from the field and asked to come to the cabin, we asked for an hour and he and Jonathan arrived two minutes after the hour. Mandy, Laurel, Amy and Jonathan went back out to the field, I watched from the porch as he took notes and talked to the girls. Carol-Ann made us all drinks and took theirs out to them.
"She looks happy now."
I smiled at what he was looking at. Laurel had taken charge of the barn and stable design and soon to be construction. She was in her element.
"She's on familiar ground Charlie. You will see it when she's at the site for the animal hospital building as well."
"I heard the rumors of what she was doing at college when mom and dad came back, I almost didn't recognize the woman who walked out of the airport terminal to me when I picked her up. I was afraid I had lost my baby sister."
His gaze never left his sister, for a big man like Charlie that must have come as a total shock to him.
"Jodie told us all that we were not to look up on the internet concerning what you do to women, she said that so much of it was not you. I couldn't help myself I had to know, my wife made me stop."
Charlie laughed, a nervous laugh like he was a kid who had just been caught with his hand stuck in the cookie jar.
"My first thought was to come up here and shoot you before I took my sister back, my wife knows me too well and phoned Jodie for help. It was Jodie who sat me down and talked to me she told me about your wife and Mandy, she told me that she had seen both Mandy and my sister semi-naked a few days after I dropped her off here and the contrast between them were opposite ends of the scale."
The girls and Jonathan were on their way back to the cabin, still deep in conversation.
"My Father was right about you folks, I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to realize that. I've already seen the difference in her and it has only been a couple of weeks. The whole family knows that the man she was with at college treated her badly, we all know you won't and we see that in her eyes every day we see her."
Charlie looked at me, his hand outstretched. I took it and as we shook on it as he said. "Look after my baby sister for me please."
"She is no longer a baby Charlie but I understand what you mean. She loves you all and you can take that to the bank, Laurel is happy now and getting better by the day. All she asks from you all is understanding."
The rest of the girls came out of the cabin just as Laurel and the rest came up the steps. True to his word Charlie hugged and apoligiesed to each of the girls, when he got to Mandy he also said thank you. That got him an extra hug from Mandy and a 'your welcome' in return.
*******
The barn and stable build was set for two weekends away, Jodie was constantly on the phone both with Laurel and the rest of the wives. The giant family table was moved onto the back lawn on the Friday afternoon, Laurel was with Mandy at Dr Hartmann's for a check up so they waited for the rest of the girls and came on mass. When Amy commented that she would have just got the caterers in both Jodie and Laurel looked at her like she was from Venus.
Mandy gave me a brief rundown on what the doctor had said and after a second and third test, the third at Laurels insistence, she was pronounce STD free. The only sword she felt that hung over her head was aids but the good doctor told her that they had done all the tests and although they would continue to do so when she came in for the tattoo removal sessions none so far had shown any signs.
Laurel's impatience did make me smile and I caught Mandy doing the same.
"Submissive or not I think she plans to attack you tonight."
"We have yet to discuss your roll in all this."
"Oh I plan to stand back and watch you drown."
