Piper (Queen's Birds of Prey #4) - Kathi S. Barton Page 0,37

I doubt there will be much, as no one will believe that someone can live forever. Anyway. I’d like for you to stay here. I’d like to get to know you. But I have parents now, and I love them very much. So the uncle thing will have to be forever too.” Benson told him that he was fine with that as well. “Good. Mr. Bloom—he was a good friend of mine—he gave me his house when he passed away. I loved him too, and if he’d been around longer, I might have gotten to adopt him as my grandda. But he left me his house, as I said. I want you to live there until you can find a better place. Or not. You can stay there for as long as you wish. The house is in good repair. Dad told me it would be better to have someone staying in it rather than letting it sit and rot away. I don’t think Mr. Bloom meant for me to do that anyway.”

“You have a house?” Abe smiled and nodded. “I don’t have anything. Not even a home anymore. Once I got sicker, I lost a lot of things.”

“This will be a good start for you then. Mom said, sometimes, it’s good to have a clean slate. Sometimes you can remake yourself into whatever you want. I’d want to be just me, but she told me I was too young to make that sort of decision.” Abe got up. “Come on downstairs, and we’ll eat together. Then I’ll see if Dad can take us to the house. You can stay here for as long as you want. Mom said the house would need to be aired out and cleaned up. It’ll be nice for you to be there. I can ride my bike to see you whenever I want. Won’t that be fun?”

Benson entered the kitchen and found the rest of the family there. He didn’t say much to them. He wasn’t even sure what he could say to them. They’d saved him, opened their home for him, and all he’d done was sleep. Asking for something to eat, he wanted to beg them to let what Abe had been telling him to be true.

“It is.” He looked at who he thought was Jude. He didn’t remember names well from a few days ago. “Come on, Benson, join us for lunch. You were right. I’m Jude. This is my husband, Duncan. Everything Abe has told you is true. We’d love for you to stay and get to know him. Also, as he said, the house is there for you to use. It’s a lovely older house. Furnished and well maintained. It just needs someone there to make it a home again.”

“You don’t know me. Why would any of you do this for a man down on his luck?” She asked him if it was true that he had been a physician. “Yes. I was a pediatric physician for a long time. But when it was discovered that I had AIDS, everyone dropped me, including the partnership I’d started. I can no longer afford my insurance either. So I guess I’m sort of a doctor.”

“I think we can take care of all of that, including a nice salary for you.” She asked him to sit down again. “My sister, Piper, and her husband are going to try and save as many abused children as they can. And when I say to save them, if necessary they’re going to snatch them from the hands of the people hurting them, then that’s the route they’re going to go. We all agree it’s far better to have them missing with us than to be missing and dead.”

“You wish for me to help you by making sure they’re healthy. I’d gladly do that for what you’ve done for me. But I don’t think you having to pay me much is necessary. I have a home now. Food and friendships. Plus, I get to be uncle to this little guy.” They all laughed, but Jude told him it was a done deal for him to make money. “We’ll work something out on that if that’s all right with you.”

She didn’t answer him but did smile. Benson thought he was going to be making what they said he would and that he’d just have to live with it.

As soon as the food was placed in from of him, he realized he was starving. Pacing himself so he’d