"So Spencer healed more slowly than he should have," Dave questioned his daughter and Spencer.

"Much more slowly dad," Shawnda said. "I watched the entire time and it was like watching a movie in slow motion. It took well over a minute before it was completely healed and it might even been two minutes."

"Hmm," Dave said thoughtfully.

"I was thinking that he might need another dose," Shawnda told her father, even as she chomped down on a cinnamon roll her mother had baked just yesterday, so they were still fresh.

Spencer was also eating with great relish as he took a bite out of yet another cinnamon roll which was really, really good just like the eclairs the other night. He was really going to have to check out his soon to be mother-in-law's bakery because he loved the two things he had tried so far and he was sure he'd love everything he bought there.

"That's probably it," Dave said. "Let's hope that's the answer, because it's the only way I know of to turn Spencer into what we are."

"Well, he's at least partly immortal, because he did heal from the shallow cut he put into his hand," Shawnda said. "We only did one syringe of blood, because we weren't entirely sure it was going to work at all, which tells me that our blood is powerful stuff, because otherwise one syringe would not have been enough for him to heal, even if it was at a much slower pace. Also, my blood did him absolutely no harm and he slept peacefully throughout the night and didn't stir until after 9 o'clock this morning."

"That's a good point honey," Dave told his daughter with a proud expression.

"It is logical," Spencer told the other two people sitting at the kitchen table. "You're right that blood is the only way to turn me into what you are since the first method won't work. To me, that means that if whoever created immortals and intended for them to have mates, then being able to turn those males immortal was necessary. That means blood has to work, since in my case, sex isn't an option."

"This is the first time this particular situation has come up, but you're also very right Spencer," Dave told him impressed with how well his son-in-law was handling everything. Most people would have reacted much differently. Jazz's treats strikes again. "I wasn't turned immortal by a God but by a very powerful wizard. For Aaron, it was different. I've always known that they were supernatural forces out there and Aaron and I just happened to run into them. We'll try another dose tonight, as we don't need to wait too long and hopefully, that second dose will be enough."

"If this works at least we'll know how to do it in the future," Shawnda told Dave who nodded.

"That's true," Dave agreed.

"I mean I have plenty of sisters and what if they meet their mates, like I met mine? This will help them know what to do when that day comes," Shawnda pointed out.
"That's a very good point sweetie," Dave told his daughter. "You are the first of my daughters to find their mate, but then, that makes sense, because you are the oldest."

"I don't think any of my brothers have found their mates either," Shawnda said.

"Not as far as I know. Jazz and I would've been told if any of our sons had net their mates, as it's not the kind of news you keep to yourself," Dave said, "so you really are the first. Quite the honor really. I'll be at your place by 9 o'clock just like I was last night. We'll try this again."

"Good, because I'm anxious for him to be completely immortal so we can get married," Shawnda said.

"We don't necessarily have to wait you know," Spencer who had been silent said.

"No we don't," Shawnda agreed calmly, "but let's handle one problem at a time. I've already been planning the wedding, but I'm sure mom and Aunt Shonda will be glad to help me with that."

"You know they will honey," Dave snorted in amusement. "This is the first time that one of our family is going to get married, so of course, they'll be excited to help plan. I remember what a big wedding your mother and I had at that time and if Shonda's and Jazz's mothers hadn't been around to help plan it probably would've taken much longer. Jazz had a bakery to run after all and at that time she only had a small staff and not a single one of them had magic."

Shawnda nodded as she had heard this story multiple time growing up.

"Jazz and I really didn't want to have such a big wedding," Dave told Spencer who was listening attentively. "We kind of had to though."

"Why?" Spencer asked curiously. "Why couldn't you just have the wedding you wanted?"

"Because her father was a well-known and successful stockbroker," Dave explained. "One with political connections."

"And grandma was on the town council," Shawnda added.

"Ah," Spencer said understanding why Shawnda's parents had to have such a big wedding. The people her parents had known would've been insulted if they hadn't been invited and so Jazz and Dave had had to invite people they'd rather not.

"Exactly," Dave agreed seeing the Spencer understood the point he was trying to make. "Jazz's parents were well-respected within their community and while they both had magic that wasn't exactly known outside of those that also had it."

"So that means you had to invite people you'd rather not have there," Spencer said and Dave nodded in confirmation.

"All the who's who of Moonlight Gorge," Dave agreed.

"Remember, this was only a small community compared to the big city so there were around 200 people there right dad?" asked Shonda

"That's right. Everybody of importance from Moonlight Gorge and some people from the surrounding towns," Dave agreed.

"At least you dealt with Jorge before you wed," Shawnda mentioned.

"Now there is a name from the past," Dave said looking nostalgic.

"Who is Jorge?" Spencer inquired curiously wondering what Shawnda meant by dealt with. Dealt with had several different meanings including that they had killed this Jorge. It could also mean that they simply either got him to stop bothering Jazz by talking some sense into him, or he had left town or it was also possible he'd gone to prison because he broke the law. There were quite a few possibilities. He wasn't going to assume that Dave and Jazz had killed this Jorge.

"He was someone who had been annoying Jazz for years before I ever entered the picture," Dave explained. "She had rescued him when they were teenagers from being beaten up by some bullies at school and he took that as a sign that they were soulmates and would marry. He'd created a rich fantasy of them being together in his head, of them having children and building a life together. He kept asking her for a date and she always turned him down because she really didn't like him that much. She was simply a nice person that didn't like to see anybody being beaten up just because they were different. Her one act of kindness came back to bite her in the butt for years after that."

"When dad came into the picture he got worse. Jorge actually came into her bakery and caused a scene in front of at least a dozen people when he saw the way that mom and dad were flirting with each other," Shawnda added.

"He'd been bothering her for years and Jazz was just about at the end of her rope with him," Dave continued. "The only reason her parents hadn't interfered is she had asked them not to as otherwise, Jorge would've been chased out of town with pitchforks."

Father and daughter explained the rest of the story to Spencer who listened.

"So Jorge was sure she was guilty and didn't look for other suspects when she was accused of killing this tourist and even after she was proved innocent he kept on bothering her and never apologized for his actions. It finally came to a head years later and it all started back when they were teenagers," Spencer said, as if working out the story in his head.

"That's right. That's when his obsession began," Dave said. "I wasn't around back then. I didn't meet Jazz for years after that. She was already at the end of her tether with him when we met, but after we did he stalked us everywhere we went, which wasn't that hard really, because there wasn't many places we could go to have a little privacy except her apartment. Jazz never completely lost her temper with him, which was a miracle considering she got her temper from her mother, Shawnda's grandmother. Anastasia Lincoln was well known for her fiery temper."

"Why not? I mean, he would've deserve it," Spencer said.

"Because Jorge was as officer on the police force and Jazz believed that Jorge would've pressed charges, used it as a wedge to get her to at least date him if not marry him in order to drop them," Dave explained. "After I saw him in action so to speak, I agreed with her assessment.

"He went to prison for many years and he knew better than to approach us if he came back to town to visit his mother after he got out. Jorge ignored every lesson his mother tried to teach him about proper behavior. Ignored his mother's lessons in how to be polite to people and not insult them behind their backs or to their faces whether true or not.

"He couldn't control his emotions around Jazz when he saw her flirting with me when he wanted her for himself. Not a single person from Moonlight Gorge missed him once he was gone. He'd created more enemies than friends with his attitude. He's lucky that someone didn't pop him one long before I came into the picture. I learned later that he was a lot like his father Wiley Mason who was dead by the time I met Jazz."

"So he was planning on kidnapping her to get her to see that he loved her," Spencer said, as he went over the story in his mind. "That doesn't sound like love me, it sounds like he was obsessed."

"He was obsessed. His mind had snapped," Shawnda said, "and he didn't know that mom had magic to defend herself with."

"When he threatened to shoot me and the puppies we had just adopted at that time well that was the last straw. Jorge didn't bother to consider that the whole community would've been looking for her. Her parents, her siblings all her friends and his own police captain if he had managed to pull off his kidnapping scheme. There was only so many places he could go around Moonlight Gorge and those that had lived in the town all their lives knew where they were."

"Luckily, it all ended well and Jorge went to prison," Shawnda said.

"Yes it did," Dave agreed. "It was the best possible outcome where Jorge got to live instead of me having to kill him."

"Would you have really killed him?" Spencer asked Dave tentatively.

"If it was to protect myself and the woman I loved? Absolutely," Dave told Spencer seriously with a hard glint in his eyes that frightened Spencer a little. "Jazz was my only chance at happiness, at having a family and she wasn't immortal yet. If she had died it would've been permanent and there would be no Shawnda or any of the rest of her siblings."

"You're immortal though," Spencer said.

"While that's true do you think I would want to live if my mate was dead? Look at it from my point of view," Dave told Spencer calmly, as they sat there at the kitchen table, eating another of his wife's amazing cinnamon rolls. "No one knew I was immortal, except Jazz at that point so I would have had to disappear. I might even have to change my identity if there was enough hubbub about the death of Jazz. Even if we both had been uninjured we would have had to explain things to the police. I do try not to bring that type of attention. Even though Jorge had been a pain in the butt for years Jazz didn't want him dead unless there was no other choice. Really, what happened back then was the best possible outcome. Both Jazz and I were basically uninjured and Jorge didn't have to die."

"I see your point," Spencer said finally seeming to be deep in thought. "Luckily, that situation turned out for the best."

"Yes, it did," said a familiar voice.

"I see your home from the bakery," Dave told Jazz rising to his feet and giving her a hug, kissing her forehead.

"The staff has everything well in hand," Jazz said returning the hug. "They didn't necessarily need me. So tell me Spencer, Shawnda, did the blood work?"

"We were just discussing that a few minutes ago," Spencer answered.

"It partially worked," Shawnda explained to her mother. "He's healing much slower than we always do when we get injured so I just thought that maybe he needs another dose."

"I agreed with that," Dave said, "because if he's partially immortal now then it makes sense that more blood will make him fully immortal."

"It does make sense," Jazz said thoughtfully. "I'm sure you've been told this is the first time we've tried to turn a man immortal," Jazz told Spencer.

"Yes, I have," Spencer replied. "We'll have to see what happens when we do another syringe filled with blood tonight."

"I was saying earlier that we can set a standard for every female in this family. Right now, we're kind of working out how to do it, but once we know it works we can pass that information on to my female siblings," Shawnda explained.

"That's a good point honey," Jazz said, as she joined the family at the kitchen table. "I see you lot have demolished the cinnamon rolls I baked just the other day."

"You shouldn't be such an excellent baker if you didn't want them to be eaten," Shawnda told her mother seriously then grinned unrepentantly.

"I agree with Shawnda," Spencer added. "I've never had cinnamon rolls so good and those eclairs were the best I'd ever had."

"Thank you for the compliments," Jazz said blushing a little.

"You're welcome and I'm definitely going to have to come by your bakery and look at all the treats you bake on a regular basis," Spencer said.

"So now that we're done flattering you what about helping me plan the wedding?" Shawnda asked her mother.

"I'll be happy to and so will your godmother. I hope you're going to ask her as well," Jazz said thrilled.

"Course I am mom. I can use all the help I can get," Shawnda replied. "I just think we should concentrate on turning Spencer fully immortal, get it out-of-the-way, before we go to the next task in front of us. I would think making sure he's fully immortal would be more important than anything else."

"It is, but I have no doubt we'll figure it out Shawnda," Jazz said. "There's only so many ways to transfer someone's DNA and the first method is not available and not only because your father could only turn me immortal and no one else due to that first method because Godfrey Ambrosius had to arrange it that way."

"That only leaves option two. The one we've already tried," Dave put in immediately seeing what his wife was getting at.

"Exactly," Jazz agreed. "He probably just needs more blood in order to complete the process."

"I already promised to be there at nine tonight to give him another dose," Dave said. "We should know if it works within 24 hours."

"At least we'll know how much blood it takes in the future," Spencer commented.

"True, we will," Dave agreed. "I'm certainly glad you're willing to allow us to experiment."

"I knew the risk was minimal as blood types don't seem to apply to immortals," Spencer said. "I certainly came to no harm and slept all night with no problems."

"He slept like a log," Shawnda confirmed. "He didn't even get up to use the restroom."

"That means we've passed the first hurdle," Dave said. "We know that our blood won't do you any harm, which by extension means it won't do the others that follow you any harm either."

"That is a relief," Jazz said. "It's not like we can go to a doctor and tell them to transform Spencer into an immortal."

"No we can't," Shawnda agreed, even as she kissed Spencer's cheek. "I'm looking forward to our wedding day."

"So am I," Spencer promised with a smile. "I never imagined I would say that in a million years. I figured I'd never get married in the first place. I figured no woman would ever accept me for myself."

"Looks like you were wrong about that," Jazz told him dryly. Her expression was furious however.

Spencer immediately realized that his future mother-in-law wasn't mad at him, but at everyone who had been so nasty to him including his father and that made him feel all warm and good inside.

The world suddenly seemed much brighter then it had been with Shawnda in his life.

~~~Shawnda and Spencer~~~

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