After driving through the flickering dim and bright tunnel created by the huge trees for almost half an hour Cassy literally saw the light at the end of this tunnel.
She and Alex had made a lot of effort to keep the conversation light; he had told her as much about his brothers as he could; and that happened to be an earful, she doubted that she would be able to recall it all, event with her ‘super’ memory!
As they drove through the tree-made tunnel closer to the light, Cassy had an urge to scream: Don’t go into the light!; but thought better, Alex was most likely not equipped to deal with that kind of behavior, nor was he likely to be expecting it from her. Honestly, she would never have expected that from her either; must be nerves speaking. Funny; she never knew she had any. Alex had dropped a call to his brothers to let them know they were turning in the ‘driveway’ and now he was tapping the steering wheel with an uneven rhythm, it seemed he was nervous too.
The closer they got to his home, the more Alex worried about the state the house would be in. In his mind he compared the neat, clean and well organized home Cassy had left and compared it to what he last remembered of his own home. It was a far cry from the well ordered home she was used to. When he had told his brothers to clean up; it normally meant they had to clear the living areas of any dirty dishes and laundry. Not that there was a lot of laundry to speak of. They were boys for goodness sakes! And wolves to top it off! Most times they just ran around in wolf form or but-naked. There was never any body else to consider before. He only prayed they were going be dressed today.
Driving into the clearing Cassy noticed that there were at least twelve houses that she could see from where they were driving. The pack house would most likely be the large double storey building, nearly half way down the line of houses. Opposite the pack house were two more large buildings; possibly some administrating offices and a conference centre of some kind. What was very clear as they drove past the houses was that they really were in urgent need of some TLC.
The truck stopped in front of a group of six boys. Cassy could not believe her eyes. She was dumbstruck as Alex came around to her side, opened the door, lifted her out and put her on her feet. They walked around the truck; his hand on her back. She stared at them and they stared right back at her.
When at least she came out of her daze, she faced Alex, put her hands on both sides of his cheeks and slightly pushed and pulled to alter his features. Then she said triumphantly: “Your parents must have liked the way you came out, because they definitely used the same blueprint for the rest of them.”
Cassy turned to face the nearly identical replicas of Alex. Their thick hair all the same shades of light brown, lightened by the sun, and their eyes were almost the exact same green. Their generous mouths fitted into their angular faces so perfectly it was almost sinful. These boys were all going to be heartbreakers!
“Oh, I like her! Can we keep her?” A shorter stockier version of Alex with a crew cut was slapped on the back of the head from both boys on either side of him.
“Shut up Conrad!” the rest of them sang out in chorus; including Alex.
A serious looking heartbreaker with a tiny scar under his left eye stepped forward to shake her hand formally. “Don’t mind him; he never knows when to keep his trap shut. I am Brian; second to Alex. This is Carter;” and he pointed to the Alex with shoulder length hair and thin eyebrows. “His twin Conrad you know, next to him is Derrick and Dennis, also twins. Then there is Ethan, he is the youngest.”
“Hmm,” Cassy said, taking a closer look at Ethan; she turned her head towards Alex. “He has not changed yet?”
Alex had a thoughtful look on his face; the answered apologetically. “No not yet, sorry; forgot to mention that.”
“No train smash.”
Alex stepped closer towards her putting his hand in the small of her back. “Guys; this is Cassy; my mate.”
They spent another two or three minutes staring at each other until Alex cleared his throat uncomfortably; he could not delay going into the house any longer. Heavens! Did they even have something decent to offer her to drink?
“Let’s go inside.”
The boys fell into a line behind Alex and Cassy as they walked towards the front step of the house. As they got closer Cassy realized that everything around here needed a whole lot more than TLC to get it to even resemble the fine house it used to be. She sighed; these were boys after all, no way that they would be able to keep this huge place running. She was definitely not going to be scoring any brownie points with the boys. They are going to be working their sexy little buts off!
The state of the porch, entrance hall and what appeared to be an informal lounge area confirmed her suspicions. She sighed internally after a quick glimpse at Alex. He seemed relieved; that can only mean that it could have been a whole lot worse! Oh well, she would have been keeping herself busy back home. Busy was busy, the dirt ratio might be a lot worse; but then, that was life for you. By the time she was finished with them she will be able to impress their mates with how she got them housebroken.
“I recon there will be some beer in the fridge guys?” She watched their astounded expressions turn hopeful. Hopeful that they were going to get of easy? Not bloody likely! She gave them her megawatt smile.
They practically fell over each other to get through the kitchen door.
Alex stared after them, then stared at her from the corner of his eye; he had a sneaky suspicion Cassy was just softening them up. He watched as she walked towards the window and gently touched the yellowing lace curtains.
“These were hand made; did you know that?” She asked, not really expecting a reply.
“No, I did not.”
A ruckus at the door announced the arrival of the boys, and one of them stepped forward triumphantly, handing her an ice cold beer.
“Thank you Dennis.”
“Sure, no prob.” He answered casually, trying his best to hide the smile that was threatening to split his round face in two.
They all watched as she twisted the top off of the bottle and lift it in salute. “Cheers fellows.”
After she had downed almost all of it in one long gulp, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Do I even want to know what the kitchen looks like?” She asked this so pleasantly that it took them a while to realize that it held a generous measure of reprimand.
They looked at each other for help. The kitchen is a place were dirty dishes are kept; she was aware of this fact wasn’t she?
“Well,” Ethan volunteered eagerly. “It is huge!”
“Great!” Cassy sounded so enthusiastic that they all smiled in relief. “That means you can all fit in there to clean it up then.”
Four hours later Cassy could see the floor, the cupboards and the island counter. She had to open up the back of the truck and look for the boxes that had her kitchen supplies in. Surprisingly there were no clean kitchen towels in the house. And no dish wash liquid either. The walls were washed, but in need of at least two coats of paint; but that had to wait until she had actually seen the rest of the house. The cupboards were practically bare, she felt like she had stepped into Old Mrs. Hubbard’s world.
For lunch they would be eating out – out of cans! For dinner she should be able to do some macaroni and cheese; that would most likely be the first proper meal they had in a long time. By the time she had to start preparing, the kitchen should be clean enough. That should restore some goodwill between her and the boys. In a show of solidarity Alex was manning the wash basin. Cassy was sure that by now he was regretting his decision, but like a trooper he kept on going. He had the younger twins Derrick and Dennis drying. They were muttering under their breath at each other.
Alex had growled at them to shut up, but Cassy gave him a wink and a smile, letting him know that she was not rattled at all. He had a look at the tower of dirty dishes that were still piled sky high, waiting for their turn to be immersed in the soapy water and come out sparkling clean. And he now made sure he cleaned them properly. His brothers received too much enjoyment shoving dirty dishes he had already washed back in his face.
It still amazed him how Cassy had herded them all into the kitchen after finishing her beer; and put them all to work. She had not allocated any work to him, but when his brothers temperatures had started rising, he had stepped in. He would have chosen something else if he had know they had this many bloody dishes in the house. He had even considered going Greek and breaking all the plates!
Cassy had cleaned the insides of all the cupboards and was re-organizing them to get the most out of the space she had available. She felt rather pleased with what they had accomplished. When she had seen the state of the kitchen she had felt like running away. Never before has she seen such a large gathering of dirty dishes before and she was relieved beyond reason that Alex had taken charge of that. It was just as amusing to see how much pleasure the twins got from sticking the dirty ‘clean’ dishes in his face. She was suitably impressed that his temper managed to outlast the pile of dishes.
When the kitchen was sufficiently clean enough, Cassy dismissed the boys with her thanks and started preparing dinner. She had been told that there was vegetable garden behind the house and had found some tomatoes, carrots and greens that she would be able to fix up in a salad of some sort. So while the pasta was boiling merrily away, she had trekked ‘outback’ to explore and collect the salad veggies in a worn out basket she had discovered in the empty pantry. At least the boys had made sure there were plenty of cheese, eggs and bacon, so she should be able to feed them for breakfast as well. But she was seriously going to have to get into town tomorrow to do some proper grocery shopping. Alone. The one cupboard that was not empty had the unhealthiest range of breakfast cereals, snacks and sweets that most likely was the biggest part of their diet. The cans she had opened for lunch dated from the pre-historic era. She had considered throwing them out; there was a reason ‘best by’ dates were put on perishable products after all; but decided against it in favor of having lunch. They were werewolves with iron constitutions – they could handle it.
It was a sullen bunch of boys that Cassy found at the far side of the cozy little village. The closer they came to the pack house, the less reluctant they became; sniffing every now and then, at last getting a whiff of the dinner waiting for them.
In the kitchen the table was set for eight, and they eagerly took their places. Cassy put a large bowl of salad on the table and one dish of macaroni. They stared at the one dish with such sadness that Cassy burst out laughing.
“There are two more of those in the oven boys, tuck in.”
It had been a long time ago that Cassy had felt such satisfaction at feeding people. These boys have had no woman’s hand in their upbringing; they were absolute diamonds in the rough. It would take a lot of cutting and even more polishing to have them shining, but Cassy was determined to do exactly that.
After dinner she chased the boys out and did the dishes while thinking about the best way to go about cleaning up the rest of the house. The living areas down stairs were a priority. She would worry about the bedrooms later.
The bedrooms … Where was she going to sleep tonight?
She wiped and wiped all the surfaces in the kitchen until they were sparkling. At last Alex came looking for her.
“If you carry on with that, we are going to have to re-surface all the counters in here.”
Clutching at her chest she swung around to face him. “What are the sleeping arrangements for tonight?” she almost accused him.
Alex blinked his eyes rapidly. He had not thought of that. His brothers had all moved into their own rooms during the past four years. There were more than seven rooms, he knew that much; but he had actually never gone though and counted them. Then there was also the rooms his parents had shared, back when his mother was still here. Since then his dad gone ‘wolf’. He still hung around the pack grounds, which were rather large, it had taken at least four of them to keep running patrol, and they still caught his scent from time to time. So it would be the best if he put Cassy in those rooms. Especially because it had its own bathroom, huge walk in cupboards and a nice balcony.
“You could take my parents room.” He stepped closer to her and smirked; he caught it when her heart stuttered. “I will be joining you there later.”
Cassy stumbled around, looking for something to say. He had made it clear to her that he was not going to be changing the situation between them. Confusion was clearly written all over her face.
“In a few weeks maybe?”