Her Fairy-Tale Life

"Aye, it's me, lass," he grumbled getting to his feet. "Why didn't ye call me when this happened? I had to hear it from old bicycle Bill late last night."

"I've barely seen you in the last year. I didn't want to bother you. I have insurance, and Alecks will make sure it's all fixed up," she tried to sound positive, but she was more than happy to see the old man.

"Ye put too much trust in that boy and his mother," he said grumpily, "but if you want me ta go, I will."

"Why would I want you to go? You're the only one I trust here in the greenhouses. It's just a shame you've been so busy this year and didn't get to see all the changes I had made before they were destroyed," she smiled, hoping he would stay. Elena had told her he didn't want to be reminded of his late wife by coming to see her so often anymore, so she hadn't pushed him to visit, even though she missed him terribly.

"I thought you didn't want me here, underfoot and in your way," he looked at her, realising he should have questioned Elena's harsh words that warned him from being here to help her. "It's a right mess. You will probably need some help to save some of these," he hinted that he would like to be the person to help.

"I'd really appreciate all the help I could get right now," she said, equally keen for him to stay.

Bob was her father's closest friend, and when he had died rather than staying with Elena, who moved to the city with her boys, she had stayed with Bob and his wife, Lois, until she finished school and came of age to take over the farm. He was like a second father to her, and when Lois had died she had grieved with him and his children. His children were much older than Maggie and had moved away before they had taken her in, she'd only seen them on special holidays, like Christmas, and she knew that disappointed their father.

"I'm guessing Elena and the boys won't be wanting to get their hands dirty," he snorted, followed by a chuckle at the thought of it making Maggie smile.

"They said they'd come down this afternoon to take a look for the insurance," Maggie defended them, though she wasn't sure why she should. They were awful people who deserved Bob's assessment of them. She hadn't always felt that way about them. In fact, she'd thought she was in love with Alecks once until he betrayed her in the worst way. She shook her head, clearing the hurtful thought from her mind.

"I better clear out then," he grumbled.

"No, stay, please!" she said hurriedly. "I know it's not easy coming here, but..." she looked around at the mess. "I don't even know where to start," she said sadly.

"Ah, lass, coming to see you is the easiest thing in the world," he wrapped his arms around her in a great bear hug. "I will always be here when you need me, you just have to ask." He was getting the feeling that Elena had driven a wedge between them with lies that seemed so plausible that neither had questioned it.

They worked together through the morning and into the early afternoon, ignoring the mess and debris of the crash and concentrating on saving as many of the rose bushes as they could.

"Lass, I'm going to nip home for a bit, but I'll come back tonight if you like, or tomorrow if you want, all you have to do is pick up the phone. I would wager that Elena won't take kindly to seeing me here, and I don't want to give her any more reasons to grumble at you," Bob said, placing a hand on his lower back and arching into a stretch.

"Why would she care?" Maggie frowned.

"I'm not sure, lass, but I think something's amiss. Don't worry, as soon as they're gone I'll be back," he touched the side of his nose and ambled toward the door of the greenhouse. "I have a bit of a surprise for ye as well I want to pick up."

Maggie walked him out and decided she could use some lunch; she walked up to the house. She pulled her phone from her pocket and saw two messages. She mustn't have heard the alert over the music when they had worked in the greenhouse. She pulled up the first one.

"Good morning, Angel. I was wondering if you would like to save me a second time?" she read, curiously realising it must have been from Kaeden.

"Save you from what? You're not flying around the corridors of the hospital in a wheelchair, are you?" she wrote back smiling.

The second message was from Alecks to confirm that the flood waters had receded and he and Elena would be arriving at four that afternoon. She sent back a smiley faced emoticon and entered the kitchen through the back door.

She was searching her pantry for some soup or something equally easy to heat and eat when her phone came to life. Grabbing a box of crackers, she snatched up the phone without looking at the number. "Hello?"

"Hello, my angel," Kaeden's voice was smooth and clear.

"Please stop calling me that," she sighed. "My name is Maggie, and I am not an angel."

"Is that right, Maggie?" His voice deepened with innuendo, and she could imagine that crooked smile of his.

"You know what I meant," she couldn't keep the amusement from her voice. "Was there a reason for this call?"

"Of course there is a reason, I need you to save me again," he sounded wounded.

"And what, pray tell, do you need saving from?" she asked.

"Boredom, mostly, but Nurse Naggard, here, thinks it's amusing to not only shine torches into my eyes but to poke and prod me as well," he grumbled. "And not in the nice way you did it, so I need you to come and show her how."

"I am sure the nurse is infinitely more qualified than I am, so stop being a baby and take your medicine," Maggie laughed.

"You're meaner than I remember," he accused. "Would you come if I said I just wanted to see you again and thank you properly? We could have dinner," he suggested.

"As much as a dinner of hospital food is hard to turn down, Elena and Alecks are coming this afternoon to look at the greenhouse for the insurance, and, when they leave, I will still be cleaning up the mess you made," she teased.

"Can I send someone to help?" he offered.

"No, I'm trying to save as many of the plants as I can, and having someone else tramping around not knowing what they are doing would just slow me down," she said in a tired voice. "Thank you for offering, though."

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I never meant to cause a mess for you to clean up."

"I know it was an accident. I'm just glad you're safe," Maggie said. "The farm will be good as new in no time. If you had been seriously injured, or worse, that would have been something I couldn't have handled as well as a few broken pots," she said sincerely.

"I was hoping if you came you could bring me something from the plane that I left behind," he said, trying another tack. He wanted to see her again, and, although they let him out of the hospital, he wasn't supposed to drive for another few days at least.

"Was it important? I could probably send it back to you with Alecks this afternoon when he goes back to the city," she suggested.

"There's some paperwork in a portfolio. It's a little sensitive, and I wouldn't want people I don't know handling it," he said slowly.

"You don't know me, silly. What makes you think I won't snoop?" She asked.

"Because you're an angel, whether you like to admit it or not. You're a good person, Maggie, who cares about other people," he said confidently. "Will you bring it? I don't mind how late or early you come. You can just drop it off at my apartment. Nothing's going to change if you take a break from work for a couple of hours tonight."

"I'm not sure I can make it tonight, I'm exhausted. Can it wait until tomorrow?" she asked.

"Sure," he said, trying to hide his disappointment behind the fact that she had agreed to come the following day. "Whenever you can get here tomorrow is good," he said somewhat cheerfully.

"I'll go get the folio now, so it's safe. Where did you leave it exactly?" she asked, listening intently as Kaeden told her what it looked like and where it should be.

So, I'll see you tomorrow then?" he asked.

"Unless you'd like me to courier it to you tonight, that might be faster," she suggested. The thought just occurring to her.

"I'd like you to bring it, I'd rather not trust it to a complete stranger," he said, worried that she would find an excuse not to bring it herself.

"Okay, well, you get some rest, and I'll see you sometime tomorrow," she said.

"Thank you, my angel," he said softly, and hung up before she could argue with him again for calling her that.

Maggie grabbed a handful of crackers from the box and headed out to the plane. It took her a good half hour of searching, but she finally found the leather-bound case in the tail section of the plane where it must have fallen in the crash. Stealing herself against opening it, she carried it back to the house and put it in her bedroom where it wouldn't fall under the eagle eyes of Elena and where she couldn't forget it.

With Bob's help, she had gotten more done today already than she thought she could accomplish, and feeling properly hungry for the first time in days she decided to make some damper, so there was something to offer Alecks and Elena when they arrived. Between not being able to get out in the floods and the state of her bank account the cupboards were pretty bare, but she had the staples, and there was a lot you could do with flour, eggs, sugar, salt and long-life milk.

By the time they arrived, Maggie had managed to bake two dampers. She had thought she could take one to Kaeden tomorrow, not wanting to arrive empty handed. She had also made a plate of pikelets and was just finishing off some muffins she had decided to make with a tin of black cherries she'd found in the back of the pantry.

"Someone's been busy," Elena raised her eyebrow and gave Alecks a meaningful look.

"Don't look at me, I haven't touched her in years," Alecks said. Maggie scowled, wondering what she had ever seen in her vain, pompous step-brother.

"All this effort, you really must stop making an even bigger fool of yourself with all this swooning over a man you simply can't have. Alecks is engaged now. The party is in ten days, and you don't want to embarrass him or yourself with trying to impress him and hope he'll come back to the farm," Elena said in a sweet voice tainted by malice. As soon as she had found out about their little dalliance she had put a stop to it.

"Not that you'd care, but I've been flooded in here for over a week, and just when the roads begin to open a plane crashes into my life. So, I have to bake or starve at the moment," Maggie said indignantly.

"So much baking," Alecks said with a knowing smile. "We slept together twice, Maggie. I never loved you; you were just here and easy. You need to stop trying to make me change my mind about us. I mean, look at you, you don't honestly believe we could ever have been more than some teenage experimentation."

"You have made your feelings on the subject abundantly clear," Maggie said in a steady voice, despite the knife blade she felt twisting in her stomach. "So, do you want to look at the greenhouse?"

"We could see it on the way in, I don't think there is any need to dirty my shoes," she pulled a chair out and sat down, helping herself to a still-warm muffin. "Ruslan has gone down to check it out with the assessor."

"I'll clear this off so you have room to talk about my insurance claim," she began grabbing the plates and placing them on the bench.

"Make some tea, dear, this muffin is very dry," Elena wrinkled her dainty nose in distaste. "You never were a particularly good cook, were you?"

"You can cut the damper too," Alecks instructed. "I assume you have some of that rosewater jam somewhere?"

Maggie slipped into her usual mode of silently waiting on them as they spoke down to her and discussed how much money they could get over and above the insurance claim from the McConnell's.

"I've told Kaeden I just want the insurance assessment. I don't want to sue, it was just a freak accident," she said more confidently than she felt, and regretted it immediately as they turned their eyes on her.

"You, stupid bitch, do you know how much they are worth?" Alecks raged. "I warned not to agree to anything they offered! Why were you even talking to him?"

"I wanted to know he was okay, that I hadn't hurt him more that he already was getting him out of the plane," she said hastily. "He's fine, though, luckily."

"No matter, we can claim emotional duress, so anything she agreed to verbally on the day of the crash we can dispose of easily enough," Elena waved her hand.

"I expect his lawyers feel the same about his willingness to pay for any and all damages!" Maggie said sharply.

"Trust me, that boy can't afford another scandal, they'll settle, and we will gain a nice chunk of change from this," Elena said. Maggie had an uneasy feeling about the way Elena said we and listened very carefully as the afternoon went on.

"Ruslan!" Maggie smiled. She quite liked the older of her step-brothers, who was obvious about his self-serving ways but had always treated her like a sister. She rose from her chair and hugged him as another man entered the small kitchen. "New boyfriend?" She asked curiously.

"Hah! No," he laughed at the look on the man's face. "He's the insurance assessor; he was taking some measurements and checking the structure."

"Your photos were good, but I needed some additional information," he explained. "The McConnell's are wanting this dealt with quickly, so I should have the assessment done by tomorrow evening."

"Here, sign this," Elena pushed a contract with a pen toward her.

"What is it?" Maggie asked.

"It's an agreement giving me the right to act on your behalf in this insurance matter," Elena said, waving away Maggie's concerns.

"I'd like to read it first," Maggie said. "I'll read it tonight and email you a scanned and signed copy tomorrow."

"No, you will sign it now so I can serve them with the intention to sue tomorrow!" Elena said threateningly. "Do we have to go through all this again? Didn't you embarrass yourself enough last time you took me on? I'm your mother, for God's sakes, just sign the goddam contract!"

"It's not like we want you depending on us for support," Alecks snarled at her. "The farm and all its debt are yours alone. We are just trying to make sure you get what's coming to you so you can stay here, on the farm, where you belong."

"Give her a few minutes to look it over. I'm sure she'll sign it without all the nastiness," Ruslan interjected on her behalf. Maggie smiled at him. She knew his loud and proud brand of homosexuality was thought of as an embarrassment to Alecks, and Elena as well, and she was grateful for his small show of support.

The group devoured most of the baking she had done while she scanned the contract looking for anything that was strictly related to the crash and subsequent insurance claim. The Dorian Corporation, which had been set up when Elena handed over the farm to her, was mentioned, but only regarding the management of the mortgage for which she had needed a guarantor to take over at such a young age.

She couldn't see any reason why she shouldn't, so she reluctantly signed the document, and they left almost immediately after leaving her feeling as if she had just signed her own execution notice.

Feeling awful, she called Bob and told him she was going to have an early night and curled up on the couch with a book. Usually, she could chase away all of the horrible things her family said, but with visions of Kaeden in her mind she couldn't help letting all the negativity get to her. She was being stupid being taken in by his flirting. He was just being nice because Elena was going to sue him and he wanted her to go easy.

She picked up her phone and sent a text, "I can't make it tomorrow. You will have to send someone to pick up your folio, it's safe here until then." Her phone immediately came to life, but she let the ringtone play out several times.

Then, after a short silence, the phone buzzed again and a short text appeared, "What happened?"

Nothing and everything had happened. Maggie was tired and emotional and not up to playing Kaeden's games tonight, she thought, as she stared at the message. The phone began to sing its lullaby again as she stared at it, feeling tears sting her eyes. It went silent again. "Please pick up the phone, Maggie," appeared on her screen, and finding it hard to say no, even to herself, she turned her phone off.

Chapter 4.

Kaeden cursed as the call went straight to message bank again. The evil step monster must have told her not to speak to him because of the lawsuit she was going to bring to him. He didn't care, he could afford it without touching his family's money. After taking over the hotel chain and making it one of the most exclusive and luxurious he never had to answer to his family for anything he did. Not that he had done even half of the things that had been reported about him.

He was lucky he came from a close knit supportive and loving family, unlike Maggie. Worry gnawed at him. The way she had talked about Elena and called her a step-monster made him think this was more than just a simple stay away warning because of the lawsuit. Something else was going on here, and he wanted to know what.

He checked his watch, it was still early, not even six, and he picked up his phone again and called his brother in law, Neil, and outlined what he wanted, then he called his brother, Wade. Neither questioned his motives or his sanity; he knew they wouldn't. They'd all been brought up to trust their gut instincts, and if Kaeden thought something wasn't right with this family, then chances were it was true.

Kaeden stood and stretched. The heavy head caused by the mild concussion had all but disappeared, but the bruising to his chest and abdomen caused by the seatbelt was still tender and caused him a lot of discomfort. He didn't like the thought of driving anywhere. Feeling at a loose end while his brothers did what they do best and investigated Maggie's family, and Elena particularly, he tried to call Maggie again, becoming frustrated when the call went straight to message bank.

"Turn your phone on, Maggie. I just want to talk to you. I deserve an explanation about why you cancelled our date, don't I?" he said in a gentle voice, leaving a message for when she finally turned her phone back on. She ran a business, after all, she had to turn it back on at some point.

He was persistent, if nothing else, and he decided not to let her dictate the terms of their future relationship. He called Ravi, a young guy who drove for Uber that had given him his number in case he ever needed something picked up and delivered. Kaeden was sure the young guy envisioned supermodels and the party lifestyle when he offered, but had found, on the few occasions Kaeden had called him, that his life was far removed from what the media reported. The two had struck up a trusting friendship over time.

"Ravi," Kaeden said into the phone, "What's your schedule like for the next week?" he listened as young man eagerly put himself at Kaeden's disposal. "I'll give you two grand, cash in hand, for the week, plus extra for expenses, but I want twenty-four-hour service, starting tonight, right now." Again, he listened as the deal was eagerly accepted. "Okay, first I need you to find a teddy bear that looks like a pilot, go build a bear if you need to. Are you writing this down?" He gave him a list of things he wanted and instructions to come and see him at seven with as many of the items as he could find in forty-five minutes. With a bonus, if he could find the bear.

*****

Maggie frowned. wondering who could be at her door at this time of night. She opened it the small amount that the chain would allow and peered at the young man standing there. "Hello?"