Judith (Queen's Birds of Prey 3)

“I don’t know for sure. But there were times when she’d come to see me, and I’d have to be awakened. Back then, when I was younger, I did sleep. After Mom died, I never had the need for it.” Jude told him she’d be careful. She also told him the story about his mom. “I’d like for you to do that when you think of something. I didn’t know her the way you and the other birds did. I knew her as my mom and not the queen she was. I’ll even tell you all things she said to me about you. It was never anything but praise. Sometimes she’d tell me how one of you, mostly Mercy, would get on her about this or that. While she didn’t like it, I think she respected all of you for loving her enough to make sure she was safe.”

“Thank you for that. I have plenty of stories about her I could tell you. I thought of something else just now. Your mother was already dead when we destroyed the castle.” Duncan looked at her, his face filled with hope. “I know she took a poison before she summoned us to destroy all while she was in it. We didn’t want to, but she told us, and we knew she was right—that if this king were to make it here, she’d be dead anyway. She knew as well as we did, he wasn’t going to keep her around. He only wanted the castle and the lands and people here. I believe she also knew that Mercy, in her grief, would destroy the ship he was coming here in.”

“Mom didn’t tell me that part in her letters to me, about where she died first. She only explained to me why it had to be done. And how. If the castle was destroyed, then no one would think anything of looking for her people. With her dead inside, it would look as if she was set upon and had died defending it.” Jude nodded. “The people being gone too would have made it look as if they’d been taken captive and were more than likely all dead too. I need to know these things. All the information about her. This was a good story, Jude, and it cleared my heart of thinking of her suffering, even a little when the walls came down. Thank you for this.”

“It’s my pleasure, Duncan.” She ate some of the sandwich but did prefer the fruit. As a bird, she didn’t really get much in the way of fresh fruit as she did as a human. “Something else I want you to know about your mom. She wasn’t perfect, not even close. Dante made a great many mistakes when she was queen. She also was stubborn as hell about things. But she would admit, readily, when she was wrong and would say she was sorry right away. Nor did Dante hold a grudge. You should know too, when she was right about a plan or project, it was epic. And she’d make sure we celebrated those victories very well.”

“I knew that about her. She was never one to say she told you so either.” Jude told him that was right. “Thank you again, Jude. I wish there were more pictures of the two of us sometimes. I understood the reasoning behind her hiding me away. What I have trouble with is how she was able to keep her pregnancy so quiet.”

“She used magic, I would imagine. She had a great deal of it. Dante could make a person see what she wanted them to see—or not see, in this case. I’m sure she had your father believing she never conceived or had a child, even if he was in the room with her when she birthed you.” Jude laughed. “Your mom could never make it work on any of us. There wasn’t any reason for her not to have been able to trick us, but she couldn’t do it anyway. I used to think it was because she created us. I don’t know. But it is nice to know she couldn’t.”

“Nor me. Mary, yes, but never me. The only reason I’m sure of it is because she told me how she was making Mary rest more. For her to go to certain merchants when Mom was in need of something she didn’t want others to know about. I believe it was mostly potions and such. Mom could cast too if she needed to.” Jude knew that, as well. “Well, my dear. What do you have to do today?”

“Several things, actually.” She handed him the list she’d started in the bathroom this morning. “Tracy has decided she wants to take some college classes online, so we need to get her registered for that soon.”

After telling him her list, Duncan pulled up his phone. She knew she should be more fluent with the phone and what it could do for her. Jude just didn’t care all that much to do it. Someday, she’d kept telling herself. Well, it was, in her opinion, too much to learn now. Besides, she had her own method, and it worked well for her.

Laughing at Duncan’s attempts to get her up on the latest things, she left the house and him with a short kiss. There really was a lot to be said for having a paper list. She could simply scribble it out when she was finished with it. He could only delete.

~*~

Going over the paperwork that had been on his desk since Christmas, Duncan concentrated on each word this time in order to make sense of what it was saying. There was something there, some word that was out of place that he knew was going to trick him up. After reading it several more times, he put it down when a happy distraction entered the room with him.

“Tracy. Thank goodness you’re here.” She laughed, and he smiled at her. “I have this paperwork, contract I guess you’d call it, for the new building that we’re putting in. It’s going to be for things like large gatherings, as well as plays and such for all the grades.” She sat down and took the paperwork. “I think I’m reading more into this than there is, but for some reason, it’s eluding me as to what I’m missing.”

“What do you mean?” Duncan explained it to her as best he could. “So, you think there is some sort of magic on the page that is keeping you from reading it properly?”

“I’d never thought of that. Yes, that might be it in a nutshell. It’s hiding something from me. I was wondering if you could see what I can’t.” She looked it over, then looked up at him. “You’ve found it, haven’t you?”

“Before I tell you the answer, there is something I need to tell you first. I went to speak to Mercy yesterday. I told her how I was worried that people might take advantage of me now. You know, people have to know that you and Mom have money. I asked Mercy what I could do to prevent magic from being used on me to fall in love with a dead beat jerk and things like that. Understand?” Duncan told her he could have done it for her. “Yes, but like Mom, you would have wanted to know who had done such a thing to me, and would have been ready to hunt them down. This was a preventive thing, not someone taking me to the cleaners now.”

He smiled at her, and she grinned. “I believe you know us all too well. Okay, so Mercy helped you with this magic. I’m assuming she told you to tell us about it.” Tracy told him she had been very stern about letting them know. “Good for her. And for you for making sure you knew when someone was pulling something like that on you. What does it say, honey?”

“Mostly, it’s just what you’d think in a contract, except for this little bit in the middle. Right here, it says this. ‘If the project runs too long, there will be no consequences made to the builders. And if there is any leftover material, no matter the cost, it will be given to the builders at no charge to them.’ I’m thinking if they’re doing the ordering, you’re going to be in the red for an exceedingly long time on this project.” As he took the papers back, she went on to explain something else to him. “There are a couple of other benefits to the builders there. Mostly it’s what I thought about them doing the material ordering, as well as they hire as many men as they need to finish the project. For that alone, even knowing it’s in there, I’d not hire them. I would like to work with you on more projects so that I can run them too.”

“You want to work with me?” She said for him. “No. You’re my daughter. And someday I’d like for you to take over a lot of the projects. As my oldest, it would fall to you to take them anyway.”

“I’m not your child. I mean, biologically, I’m not of your blood.” Duncan set the papers on his desk and looked at her. “I know I’m going to have to take some hits in that I’m not your daughter. I think, and I’m sure this is true that you took me under your roof because of Abe. And I’d—”

“Stop right there. Have I treated you as if you’re nothing more to me than someone I took in?” She said he?

?d been really nice to her. “Good. I’d hate to think that with my first child, I’d mess up that badly. Tracy, as far as I’m concerned, you’re my child. Blood or not, I won’t treat you any differently than I would a child born to myself and Jude. I love you—both you and Abe. You have no idea how much I look forward to things that I’ll be asked to do as your father. And I am. The same as if I had raised you from birth.”

She turned away, then looked at him again. There were tears on her cheeks, and his heart hurt for them. Standing up, he came around the desk and held her in his arms when she stood up. It was as if holding her brought the doors to the dam wide open. She sobbed against his chest like she’d been holding them in for a while now.

“I’ve been on my own for so long. Even living in the home so I could take care of Abe, I was still alone. I never dreamed, at my age, that anyone would love me. Not like a child of their own. Never as a woman falling in love with a man. Then you and Mom came along and opened so many doors for me. I will tell you, I kept waiting for one of you to slam them shut in my face. Every time I speak to you, I think this will be the time you tell me it’s been a joke.” Duncan told her he’d never do that. “I know in my head you wouldn’t. However, my heart is waiting for the day you come to your senses and kick me to the curb.”

“Never. Besides, I think even if that thought came into my head, one of the birds would take me to the highest peak in the world and kick me off to see me crushed on the rocks below. I won’t tell them this, but they scare me.” Laughing, Tracy looked up at him. “There. That’s what I wanted to see—a smile from my firstborn. Tracy, I love you. Very much so. You’re my daughter, and I’d be honored if you would work with me. But never when you have homework.”

“I promise, homework and life is first.”

He held her tightly and saw Jude in the doorway. “She was feeling a little insecure. I thought a hug would take care of that. You have one for her?”

“I do, as a matter of fact.” Jude came and hugged the two of them tightly. “My goodness. I never thought of anything I’d love as much as being a bird. But this, right here and right now, makes all the things I had to go through to be a human all very worthwhile.”

They stood there, hugging and saying how much they had grown to love hugs. Tracy was no longer crying. She also looked more like she believed them. Duncan went to sit at his desk when she pulled away. His heart, for the first time in longer than he could remember, felt tender and wounded that she’d believed he’d ever let her leave.

Jude came to look over some of the other reports they’d gotten in the mail today. Mostly it was people wanting to borrow money for their projects. Each of them would be considered and looked into. The first one on top of the list was one he thought they could use right now. But both Tracy and Jude disagreed.