Cal was only too eager to comply. He sat down, feeling Althea'swomanhood brush against his tailbone as it got harder. She hugged himaround the waist, ...hen noticed the large wound on his leg. It wasn't ahole anymore, but it was still a deep gash, from Tawny's halberd. "Whathappened to you, darling?" she whispered, rubbing her dainty fingertipsacross the puncture wound. She felt Cal tense up in pain from thecontact."Well, I woke up last night and went out to do some training, and,Tawny came too.. Martin and Chaser, you are the next two I let down. I expected you to love me but I didn’t trust either of you to support me. I expect it is going to take me some time to earn that trust back.”“So, let’s talk about how we are going to rebuild this community that Darcy has been so diligently trying to save, despite our best efforts to undermine him,” Huntress said.Darcy was watching and listing from the patio. If they could have seen him, they would have seen a big grin on his face. He had been. Phil parked the limo along a stretch of trees; the beach was only a short walk through them.“Jess-Ma’am,” Phil said to her as she hopped out of the limo. “I hope you understand that I can’t accompany you folks on to the beach. Going inside your house is one thing but leaving my car to party on the beach with a bunch of kids half my age would be very bad for me should my company find out.”“I wish you could come with us, Phil, but I totally understand and would never want you to do anything that. Mary and I needed to talk. This was definitely not a time for those "Jedi Mind Tricks" from that movie that I had watched back in Utah with my three wives. This was serious, and as Aimee pointed out, it needed to be done now.In retrospect, it was interesting how much I was focused on Mary's trust. I had been talking about trust right before I made that stupid mental jab at Mary.I took many deep breaths, trying to bring my emotions under control. I refused to wipe the tears off my face but I.