Chapter 12

Rachel spoke up and said, "I'm going to have the fence checked, Chief Thompson thinks they may have cut a hole in the fence somewhere. Our security people will handle watching over this place whenever you're out of town George, Mia will be very safe."

George frowned a bit and remarked, "That may be so, but, I will be teaching her how to shoot a pistol at least, that guy could have shot her."

Rachel nodded in agreement and said. "I'll stay over tonight and help clean up a bit. Tomorrow, I'll get a crew up here to repair the door and secure the house. I've got a feeling that your honeymoon is almost over, sorry about that!" George shrugged and commented in agreement, "Yeah, I'm getting that feeling too. I am going to send a message to my in-laws telling them that Mia is having 'difficulties' and bad morning sickness, or whatever it will take to get her family out of that damn sand trap."

Rachel sighed and pulled out her phone, moments later she said, "Honey? I'm gonna have to ruin our evening together. I'm really sorry about this, but we've had a situation and the rangers are involved." She paused a few moments and replied, "I'm fine, in fact I'm great. My field agent, George Bryce and his new wife..." Rachel laughed and said, "I'm just as shocked as you are, babe. Anywho, they were involved in a shoot out and two bad guys are dead now..." She paused again, then said, "I can't give you all the details, except to say it got pretty hairy for a moment or two. We're all good but Mia..." Again she paused, "Mia is George's new wife, he met her in Algeria and we brought her back here to the ranch house. As I've been trying to say, she's pretty upset and the idiots trashed the place pretty bad. I'm going to stay here tonight and help straighten things up." She paused one last time, smiled and said softly, "I love you too and we will be making up for lost play time! Bye now."

Rachel spent the night to help George and Mia clean up the mess made by the trespassers and restore the pilfered items back to their rightful places. To his amazement and relief, they had overlooked the simmering crockpot he had set up earlier that day. They had gotten into their wine though, much to Mia's disgust. After eating the miraculously overlooked dinner, George propped the door back into its jamb and put a couple of long screws in it to hold it up. Mia and Rachel had finished up the cleaning by the time he was done propping up the battered door, and were relaxing in the living room with what little wine the trespassers had left them, when he returned from putting his tools away.

That night, Mia showed off her new clothing. The clothiers Sara had recommended had really gone all out for her, with several blouse and skirt combinations that gave her a pretty nice wardrobe without it being overly elaborate for daily wear. She even showed off her new brassieres, of which she had several in increasingly scanty aspect. George blushed a bit at the sight of the delicate underthings that scarcely supported the rondure of Mia's ample bosom. Rachel burst out laughing and declared happily,

"My God, you are an innocent! You still blush at the sight of a naked woman? Mia, he is a treasure, guard him with your life!"

Mia blushed a bit herself and asked shyly, "Don't you get excited at the sight of your husband naked?" Rachel grinned and retorted, "I'm an old married woman, puhlease!" then she paused, grinned and said, "Yeah, I still look at him, he's not perfect, but we've grown into each other!"

Mia got sick the next morning and while George was fussing over her. Rachel just smiled and called a private physician she knew, one who specialized in difficult pregnancies, "Hello Doctor Sims, this is Rachel Thompson, I'd like to make an appointment for someone. It's just morning sickness right now, but I want her looked at to make sure everything's alright."

She listened for a few moments and replied, "Yes, she's the woman we gave you all the medical data on. Oh yes, she has been sexually active, very active! That's why I suspect a pregnancy." she paused a few more moments and then said, "Okay! Thursday at 2:00 P.M. Yes, I'll be bringing her in the back entrance. Thanks Doctor Sims, we'll see you Thursday!"

Rachel glanced over and saw that they were looking at her, she declared in a matter of fact tone, "I've made a doctor's appointment for you Mia. I think you're pregnant and want to get you looked at by a doctor affiliated with our organization. She's already seen your body scans and is familiar with your anatomy."

Mia smiled weakly and said, "We lamias usually get pregnant the very first time we mate, I expected this." George started blushing and grinning, then he said cheerfully, "Wow! I'm gonna be a father!"

He quickly sobered up and said quietly, "My parents are both dead and my twin sisters and I were put into foster homes, I have some cousins on my mom's side though I haven't been in touch with them for years and Mia would probably freak them right out."

Rachel asked, "Why's that? Aside from the obvious?" He grinned and replied, "They're pretty religious, as in 'gimme that old time religion' religious. Mia would be quite the shock!" Rachel shrugged and remarked, "It's their loss my friend, their loss."

Doctor Tanja Sims finished examining Mia , peeled off her exam gloves and washed her hands. She pushed her glasses back up to the bridge of her aquiline nose, picked up her notepad and studied it for a few moments. Raising her eyes Doctor Sims said evenly, "Mia is definitely pregnant alright and she is in very good health. Still, I want her to come in about every three weeks just to be sure."

Tanja Sims looked right at Mia and said earnestly, "Mia, your pregnancy is very special to us and to me. No lamia pregnancy has ever been monitored before and I'm afraid you're going to feel like a lab rat after a while. So I'm going to apologize in advance!"

Mia smiled shyly and asked timidly, "Is it okay for us to... Um...You know...?" her face reddened and she fell silent, too embarrassed to finish her question. Tanja smiled at her and said softly, "Of course you can, you're quite healthy and sex will be no problem at all for both of you."

Mia just blushed some more and averted her eyes while George just reddened a bit.

Rachel smiled and said to Tanja, "I'd sure like to know where this legend of the lamia being a wicked seductress came from. They can't leave each other alone, yet they will blush like school kids when the topic of sex or even nudity comes up." Tanja grinned and replied, "I'm an MD, not a mythologist. I can't answer that, all I can say is Mia has perfectly normal reproductive organs and aside from her reptilian tail, is within human parameters. Her skull and mandible are slightly prognathous, but only an anatomist would really notice it."

"Prognathous?" Asked George.

"Prognathous means her jaw protrudes a bit more than most humans and her jaw can open a bit wider too, about ten degrees more than average. To accommodate her folding fangs I suppose." Replied Tanja Sims, MD. George had a fleeting memory of Mia's mouth opening wide and her fangs sinking into his neck to seal their bond.

The next day, Rachel arrived bright and early, following her was a couple of work trucks and a crew of four men. Stopping in the driveway, they piled out and stood about sipping at their coffee cups and looking the house over as Rachel exited her own SUV.

George came out of the house and Rachel called out to him, " Good morning! This is Tom Burroughs and his crew, they're going to look the place over and make some repairs to the damage from the other day."

George grinned at Tom and extended his hand, "How ya doin'?" he said as they shook hands briefly, Tom grinned back at him and replied, "Can't complain, I hear you had a little trouble out here and need a broken door looked at."

One of the men who resembled a young Tom Burroughs, walked over to the front door, looked it over briefly and called out,"Dad! They broke the door frame pretty good when they kicked in the door. We might need to replace it."

Tom walked over and looked over the splintered door frame himself. He turned to George and Rachel and said, "We can do a quick repair to secure the door, but to do it right and have it match the house, we're gonna have to restore this. To do it justice."

Rachel nodded and replied, "I'm going to leave it up to you Tom, this house has been in your care since we got it."

Tom grinned and said to George, "My dad originally built this place back in the sixties, I used to come out here on weekends and help out when I was a kid." George grinned back and said, "Well, we'll keep out of your way then, you know this place far better than I do."

Tom turned to his son and said, "When you do the tear out, be as gentle as possible, okay Jeff?" Jeff nodded and replied, "Gotcha!"

Tom turned to Rachel and asked curiously, "You mentioned that one of the people living here was very special, can you tell me anything about this?"

Rachel smiled at Tom and asked him, "Are you, or any of your men, afraid of snakes? Really big snakes?"

Tom grinned at her and replied, "I'm a Nam vet, I saw some pretty freaky things in the jungle including some big ass snakes!"

George smiled at Tom and said, "I've seen some freaky things too in the jungles of southeast Asia. But nothing like this, My wife is a lamia from southern Algeria, we brought her here and hope to bring her family here in the near future."

Rachel smiled at Tom and remarked, "You've worked for us for a while now, so we know you're not prone to being rash."

George asked, "Would you like to meet her?"

Tom simply shrugged and replied, "Now's as good a time as any, we'll be seeing her soon enough anyway."

George turned and called out, "Mia? Could you come out here? I want you to meet some people who will be fixing the house."

Moments later, Mia sinuated out of the house wearing a halter top and a short blue denim skirt, revealing her shapely arms, trim waist, swaying hips and massive pythonic tail. She came up to them, coiled up her massive tail and sat on it. She smiled shyly at the men and said, "Hello!".

Tom whistled and said in amazement, "You look like a python swallowed your legs. I've seen some really big pythons in Vietnam, when I was there, but you've got them all beat!"

Jeff and the other men just gawked briefly, one of them named Danny commented, "My sister Sara is going to flip when I tell her about you."

Rachel said quickly, "I'm afraid I'm going to have ask you to be quiet about Mia and no photos, it's a matter of life and death for her family."

Danny looked slightly crestfallen and said ruefully, "Damn, I was hoping you wouldn't say that. Sara used to work in the reptile house at the San Diego zoo. She would absolutely flip over you." George grinned at him and asked, "Is your last name Thompson?"

When Danny nodded a yes, George remarked, "If you're related to the Sara Thompson who works at the University of Phoenix medical imaging department. She has already seen Mia, her and the Wharton family who run the..."

"Seriously?!" He cried, "Even they know about this? This is so unfair!"

Rachel laughed and said, "We did tell her not to say anything to anyone, so it's not like it was a personal choice of hers."

He grinned at her and replied, "That actually makes it better, Sara always shares things with me, not being able to say anything must be killing her! I'll let her know that I've met Mia too, after I've had a little fun with her." His sly chuckle did not bode well for Sara Thompson, his younger sister.

While the men tore out the broken door frame and chipped back the plasterwork, George and Mia led Rachel and Tom down to a fairly level area near the house where a natural spring trickled from the hillside.

Once there, George paused and gestured about, "Mia and I think this would be a good place to put a few houses. This spring could feed a cistern to use for watering some fruit trees and a few crops of vegetables, If we trucked in a few hundred yards of topsoil we could grow most of our own food right here. Putting solar panels on top of all the buildings could make enough electricity to light the place up nicely if we use only L.E.D. Lighting."

Mia spoke up and said, "We could make the houses to be suitable for both humans and lamias. George and I have been thinking about this a lot and we hope that my family will be more willing to leave Algeria if they have homes to go to."

Tom looked the area over and commented,"Building here would be fairly easy, the grade is fairly level so there wouldn't be a lot of grading and scraping necessary to build. We can handle pretty much any sort of thing you want to build. What we need is architectural drawings for both the houses and the landscaping. Then there is the sewerage to consider, where is the waste water going to go?"

Rachel grinned at him and replied, "We'll handle all of that, are you willing to build it?" Tom simply grinned. Rachel chuckled and said, "Yeah, I can't believe I asked that dumb question either."