Crowley, Jo, and Bobby had made the drive to Duke Freddies country estate the next day alone. After the plane ride back from Scotland Grandfather and Will went home and Roderick decided to go into the office for awhile. It was a longish drive, but Jo enjoyed seeing some more of the country.
Freddie greeted them happily when they finally pulled up at his estate. He was very excited to show them the large garage sitting at the back of the house. He pulled out a key and unlocked it, then he and Bobby pushed open the long sliding door, it seemed like it hadn't been fully opened in a long time. Freddie searched the inside wall for a light switch, when he found it the old florescent bulbs flickered and spurted but eventually came on, lighting up the sea of cloth covered cars.
Jo and Bobby grinned at each other and and headed for the closest car, they pulled the sheet off to find the same 1947 Cisitsalia Freddie had sent them a picture of. The paint was peeling and Bobby could tell there was a lot of rust on the underside and on the inside the upholstery was shot. They popped the hood, to look at the motor, it was in surprisingly good condition.
Crowley and Freddie stood back and watched with interest as they looked over the car and talked about what they needed to do to it for restoration purposes. They quickly went on to the next car, then the next. Crowley and Freddie stepped out side to chat, not that the two noticed when they walked out.
"So, what's the plan with these cars?" asked Crowley.
"I am hoping they can take as many as possible. My wife wants them gone, she is ready to just call the scrap yard to come get them. She wants to put in a gazebo and possibly a koi pond on the land, when I told her I had a possible buyer she agreed to wait, but whatever they don't take will end up scrapped." Freddie replied with a sigh.
Crowley scrunched his eyebrows, "I understand that a lot of these cars are worth money even in this condition."
Freddie just shook his head, "She doesn't care. She wants this garage cleared, and honestly I have no idea what to do with them. I thought of hiring someone to take care of it but apparently that would 'take too long', her words."
Crowley nodded, "I understand. Maybe we can work out a deal. My father has mentioned investing in Roberts garage. This might be the perfect time to start that."
"At this point I'll take any deal so long as the cars get to go somewhere where they won't be garbage. Perhaps they would restore one of the cars for me in exchange for a great price on the whole lot?" he asked hopefully.
Crowley tapped his finger against his chin, thinking. "Perhaps. What if there turns out to be something very valuable in there?"
Freddie shrugged, "Lucky them? I won't renege on a deal. In fact I would be overjoyed if they found something great in there."
Crowley nodded, "I'll speak with them, see how many cars there are, what they think, and see what kind of deal we can come up with."
Freddie grinned widely, "Wonderful, I will go update my wife and give you some time to speak." he turned around and headed for the house.
Crowley made his way back into the garage and looked around, he didn't see them right away, he looked further back in the room and saw them almost to the back. There was no path, he couldn't tell how they got there. "How on earth did you get back there?" he called.
Jo popped up from where they were looking inside a hood, "Skill!" she called with a laugh.
Crowley shook his head with a smile, "Well come back up here, we should have a chat."
He watched as the two of them made their over and around the cars to make it back to him. When they finally made it to the front they were smiling about the collection they were digging through. "Well, find anything promising?" Crowley asked.
"You're damn right," replied Bobby looking pleased, "I don't know how we're gonna choose."
Crowley grinned, "What if you didn't have to choose?"
Bobby narrowed his eyes, "There are 120 cars here, we counted. There is no way we could afford to take them all, much less shipping them to Nebraska and storing them there, we have the property easy, but they need to be in a garage, not sitting out in the elements."
Crowley smiled at him, "This is true, unless you had an investor who wanted to help you with this little venture. One who wanted to help you grow your establishment."
Jo and Bobby exchanged looks, "Since when do you want to invest in the garage? And why?" asked Bobby crossing his arms.
"Actually, it was my Father's idea. The first time Jo mentioned working for you and showed us pictures of the her truck. She said you've had to turn down clients because your operation is too small." he looked at Jo for confirmation, she nodded, "You see one of the things we like to do is invest in small businesses, we find that people who start their own companies are often more motivated to do well, when they get investment they flourish."
"What would this investment involve?" asked Jo. Bobby seemed to be thinking hard.
"We give Singer and Son an amount of money to grow the business. We start with buying this lot of cars and shipping them. Build several extensions to your shop and help you plan ways to get your name and product to a wider audience. Jo has already started that with her networking here. I'm sure there are things you wish to upgrade in your shop to make things more efficient. Hell even hiring on more people." Crowley responded.
"How would this work? Would we have to pay you back?" asked Bobby.
"Depends on how you want to do it. We could give you the money and you would pay us back over time, or we could do this as us being a partner/part owner of the business. Which would mean we would get a percentage of the profits when one was made." Crowley explained.
"I would say yes, right now and bring you in as a partner. But it's not just my Garage, Dean is an owner as well." said Bobby looking worried.
"We have time don't we? I mean we should be able to talk Dean into it, right?" asked Jo.
"Actually, we may not." said Crowley. Both Jo and Bobby looked at him in confusion, "Freddie was telling me his wife wants this land to use, before he met you she was wanting to have all the cars hauled away to a scrap yard. She has already said whatever you don't take she is getting rid of post haste."
"Shit," Bobby and Jo said at the same time.
"Ok, so I'll call Dean now. See if I can convince him it's a good idea." said Bobby pulling his phone out. "Just so we're clear you'd be a silent partner, right?"
"Of course, I know squat about cars, but I can give you some ideas of things that might help you. But you aren't required to use them. I really do just want to help." replied Crowley.
Bobby nodded and pressed the call button. He waited but Dean didn't answer. "Crap." muttered Bobby.
"Let me try the office, he might have the music blasting and can't hear the phone, we'll get Cas to get him." said Jo as she pulled out her phone. She called the office, thankfully Castiel picked up quickly.
"Singer and Son Auto, Castiel speaking, how may I help you?" came his rough voice.
"Cas, it's Jo. I'm looking for Dean. It's important, can you find him?" Jo said.
"Hi Jo, and that's easy he's right here." said Cas.
"He's in the office?" asked Jo surprised, Dean avoided the office as much as he could.
"Yes, here he is," Castiel said as he handed the phone to Dean.
"Hello?" Dean barked into the phone.
"Dean, you didn't answer your phone! We need to talk to you. I'm handing the phone to Bobby." said Jo quickly. She handed the phone to Bobby.
Bobby took it with a nod of thanks and walked away from Jo and Crowley talking into the phone gruffly.
Jo and Crowley spent the next 15 minutes looking over the cars, Jo pointing out ones they were most excited about and ideas Bobby had already told her he wanted to try on certain ones. There were a couple cars that would only be used for parts because they were in to bad of shape to restore.
Bobby came back in and tossed Jo's phone to her, "Talking to that boy is like talking to a stump, sometimes. But I got him to agree, even though he thinks you have evil plans." Bobby to said to Crowley with a roll of his eyes.
Crowley raised an eyebrow, "What kind of evil plans could I have for a auto shop?"
"Who the hell knows." replied Bobby, "So what do we do now?"
"We come up with an offer on the cars. As soon as we have the titles I'll get a team in here packing the cars into shipping containers. I think we will store them and ship them one or two at a time so you don't get a 100 cars all at once. What do you think?" Crowley asked them.
"Where you planning to store them?" asked Bobby.
"I was thinking in a warehouse by the docks. They will have to come over on a ship. Once they get to America, we ship them by train or truck?" Crowley mused.
"They can't be by the water long, they'll rust quicker, we need to avoid that." Bobby replied.
"Right. Good point, is there enough room to store them all on your property, if we stacked the containers?"
Bobby thought about it, "Yeah, should be, but we need a garage to house them before winter."
"Alright, we send all of them over at once, stack them in your yard. You call Dean back get him working on figuring out what kind of building you need. But first, how much do we offer for the cars? Bulk price." Crowley asked.
Bobby blew out a breath and looked around then looked over at Jo, "How do we price this? We still haven't even looked at all the cars, it would take days to figure out what each one is worth."
Jo nodded, "Also taking into account the overall condition of the cars and how much it's going to cost to send them all to Nebraska." Jo added.
"Freddie said he would take any offer, but he had a stipulation." shrugged Crowley.
"What stipulation?" asked Bobby.
"He wants you to restore one of the cars for him. He didn't say which one, or if he was going to pay you for the work. I really think he will take any offer, with that in mind, I say we offer 100 thousand for the cars and see what he was thinking for the car he wants from you." replied Crowley.
Bobby nodded but looked pensive, "I think it would be a fair price, if he was just going to scrap it all anyway."
Jo nodded in agreement. "Lets go talk to him then."
"Well that went well," said Jo an hour later as they were loading into the car to head back to Park Hall Manor. Crowley was driving and Jo was sitting shotgun, while Bobby was in the back seat on the phone with Dean, they were having an intense sounding conversation about getting a new building, how big it would need to be, where it would go, and how quick they could start getting it up.
"It did," replied Crowley with a smile at her. "Are you happy with your deal?" he asked.
Jo being the one who usually buys and sells the cars at the shop had taken the lead in dealing with Freddie. Crowley had enjoyed watching her work. She had a flare for getting what she wanted. She even got Freddie to agree to take another 10 thousand off the price to help pay for the car he wanted restored, which Freddie left to her discretion, he just wanted one of the sports cars so he could show it off to friends. Jo had agreed to that as long as he told them where he got it. He had agreed and even asked if he could have some of their business cards to hand out. Jo was very pleased. It seemed Bobby was as well if all his grouching at Dean was anything to go by.
Half way through the drive Jo fell asleep. Crowley and Bobby glanced at each other in amusement when she started snoring. "Has she always napped a lot?" asked Crowley.
"No, not that I know of, shes always been running around busy. Just like her mom. Why has she been doing this a lot?" asked Bobby slightly worried.
"She's been tired. But she hasn't really mentioned feeling off at all." said Crowley with a worry line between his eyes.
"She wouldn't mention feeling off if she was on fire." replied Bobby with a snort. He leaned back in his seat to look at the foreign terrain going by.
Crowley nodded to himself, that was for certain, she was very stubborn. He glanced at her and smiled, heaven help him he even loved that about her.
The next morning after breakfast Jo was in the kitchen, she had finally met Charles, Grandfather's live in cook and helper, Jo was hesitant to think he was a butler even though that's what it seemed like, and she had immediately liked him. He was helping her figure out what to have for lunch with Kate. Jo wanted to make something herself but wasn't sure what. She was searching through the shelves and fridge, with Charles making recommendations but everything he wanted to make was too fancy. Jo wanted Kate to feel like she was just going to a friends for lunch, not that she was there for some formal purpose. Charles seemed scandalized at the thought, but he was trying to help none the less.
Jo looked in the freezer and found some strip loin, she considered it for a second before going back to the fridge looking at the vegetables she found a couple green peppers and mushrooms. She also found some provolone cheese. "Hey Charles, do you have some sandwich rolls and some onions?" she turned to ask him.
"Yes of course," he pulled the items down and put them on the counter.
"Wonderful! I'll do Philly cheese steak sandwiches." she grinned at him.
"What would you like me to do?" Charles asked having never made such a thing.
"Umm..." Jo thought a moment, "Well I can put it together pretty quick except for the onions. If you wanted to start those around 11:45, then I'll come in at 12 and get everything else ready, none of the other things take long."
"Of course, what do you want me to do to them?" he asked seriously.
Jo grinned, "They need to be thinly slices and caramelized.
"I can do that easily." he replied with a smile, "Anything else?"
"Nope, maybe when I come in to finish up but we won't worry about that until then." Jo smiled, then pulled out her phone to check the time. It was almost 11, she decided to go check on Will and see if he was ready for his play date.
She found the little boy with Crowley in his office, they seemed to be playing a game on the computer. Jo smiled at them, "Are you almost ready for your play date?" she asked from the doorway where she had been watching them.
Will looked up and smiled, he slid out of his fathers lap and ran over to her, "Is it time?" he asked excitedly.
"Just about, we should go get some of your toys and games to take to the living room, so you boys can play there, okay?" Jo smiled at him.
"OK!" he exclaimed and grabbed her hand to tug her towards his room.
Jo laughed and waved at Crowley who was watching them with amusement, "Have a good time" he called after them.
After gathering some of Wills toys they made their way to the living room to put everything down, about that time Jo heard the doorbell go off. Will cheered and ran towards the main door. Jo followed after him.
Jo opened the door to find Kate and George, there was a dark car parked out front with several suited men standing near it, Jo shot Kate a questioning look. Kate just rolled her eyes and shrugged. "Life as a royal." she muttered to Jo as she entered. The boys were already loudly making their way to the living room. Jo and Kate followed at a more calm pace.
After hour of boisterous playing on the boys part and friendly chatting on the ladies part, they all made their way to the kitchen. If Charles was surprised to have the Princess and the future King in his kitchen, he hid it well. Kate,George, and Will all sat down at the island to watch Jo put together lunch. She did it with the quick ease of someone who was used to helping her father cook at their bar. The Philly cheese steak was a big hit, and nothing anyone there, other then Jo, had tried before. Jo asked Charles if he would make sure the other men in the house got some for lunch as well. She made them up plates and he took it off to where ever they were.
The play date wasn't a long one, Jo had a lot of packing and preparing to do for the next day. So at around 2pm Kate packed her now tired 4 year old up and headed out, telling Jo they would have to do it again as soon as they were back in town. Jo agreed and told Kate to call her or text her anytime she just wanted to chat. They gave each other a brief hug, and Kate and George left.
"Did you have fun?" Jo asked Will.
"Yes! Did you?" he smiled at her.
Jo laughed, "Yeah I had a good time. Come on squirt, lets clean up the living room, then go start packing for tomorrow. Are you excited about coming to Nebraska?"
"Yeah! I wanna see your truck!" Will grinned at her as they made their way to the living room.
Jo laughed as she started picking up toys and putting them in the basket they had brought them down in. "You'll definitely get to see that!" she replied.
Will darted around grabbing toys and putting them in the basket until there was no more laying around. He followed Jo as she picked up the basket and headed upstairs. "We gonna pack my stuff?" he asked as they went into his room.
"Yeah, I think we should." Jo said looking around. She went to the closet and opened it, looking towards the top, on the very top shelf she found his suitcase, she pulled it down and opened it on the bed. "Ok this is going to be a long trip, what do you need?" she asked the little boy.
Will looked around with a serious look on his face that made Jo think of Crowley. "Clothes." he said looking at her.
Jo nodded, "Definitely. Lets pick some out."
Will picked out his favorite shirts, while Jo pulled out a couple pairs of his pants, some shorts, several pairs of overalls, as well as socks and underwear. They piled it all neatly in his case. While Will was picking out toys to take, Jo went into his bathroom and looked in the drawers, she found a new toothbrush still in it's package and decided to bring that, she figured it would just be easier to buy him new soap and shampoo once they got there, but for now at least he would already have a toothbrush.
"In the morning after you brush your hair make sure you put the brush in your bag, ok?" she told the little boy as she put the toothbrush in his bag. He nodded at her and put the same two toys he had taken with him to Scotland in his suitcase. "Are those all you want?" Jo asked. Will nodded. "Alright then, why don't you go find Daddy or Grandfather, while I go pack, ok?"
"Ok, Mummy!" said Will with a smiled as he dashed out the door.
Jo sat down on his bed and took a deep breath, that was the first time he had called her Mummy. She had already agreed to it, and had been waiting for it, but hearing it was still shocking, and wonderful. She let out a small laugh and shook her head at herself. She got up and made her way to her and Crowley's room to pack before they had to head out to dinner.