Hush Little Baby

by Jennifer Rebecca

  I let the waves of her climax flow over me as I drove deep inside her. The tile floor abrading my knees, but I didn’t fucking care, because she was coming again, and it was just as glorious as the last time, yet this time, I let it carry me away.

  I groan as hot ropes of my cum hit the shower wall, reminding me that what I want most I still don’t have. The only thing left of my time with Emma are just memories, ghosts that haunt and won’t let me go.

  I rinse myself and then the shower wall quickly before grabbing a towel from the rack and drying off. The heaviness of the day finally sinks into my bones and leaves me with an exhaustion that only a three-month hibernation will cure. One look at the clock shows me that I’ll have to settle for four hours instead, so I make my way to the bed and pull back the covers. I flop down on the mattress and pull the blankets up to cover me.

  And then, blessed sleep claims me, but not for long.

  • • •

  Eyes.

  The smell of sulfur fills my nostrils, and smoke sears my lungs. The heavy weight of the rifle in my hands is like second nature to me. I could carry it in my sleep. During training, I probably did.

  But it’s the eyes that chill me to the bone in the middle of this hot desert.

  I don’t know how the intel had gone so bad. I know it happens, but not like this. One minute, the mission was going to plan, and the next, the world exploded. Spurts of gunfire can be heard all around me, but it’s the screams that ring in my ears.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I hear Adams scream through the comms in my ear. “They’re dead. They’re all dead.”

  And he’s right. They’re all dead. Every last one of them. I was helpless to prevent this, but still I feel like I should have. It’s as bad as if their blood was directly on my hands.

  I make my way through the village we’ve been watching, my heart in my throat. Buildings, homes, the carts in the market, they’re all gone, burned out shells of what they were before. And bodies are crumpled where they fell. Men, women, children—death does not discriminate. Their eyes vacant after life left them.

  If eyes are the windows to the soul, then this is a portal to hell as I look at the faces of each person who should not have died. A child we gave a candy bar to yesterday, an old lady who offered coffee in the market, and a beautiful young woman whose belly was swollen with a baby.

  Her dark eyes watch me, haunt me, as she sees me but nothing at all. And then they change to the brown of Ashley Horner’s, her belly cut open and her child just gone. I was helpless to stop her death too. I didn’t know her, and she still died.

  The smoke burns my throat as I turn to the left and see Emma’s blonde-and-pink hair, her blue eyes open and watching me, her beautiful body mutilated, because I was in her life.

  “No!” I shout.

  But the eyes of the dead scream that this is all my fault.

  FOUR

  * * *

  WE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN

  Air rushes into my lungs as I sit up in bed and hold my head in my hands, my arms braced on my thighs.

  I had the dream again. But this time, it’s changing, morphing into a nightmare I don’t know how to overcome. The irony of the clusterfuck that my life has become is not lost on me. I sent my sister Claire to Dr. Anna Garner, the department shrink, for her psyche evaluation when she put her name in the running to be promoted to detective. I thought Claire would flunk her tests with flying colors, having no idea that my baby sister was a mastermind at hiding her real trauma.

  What I hadn’t expected was the two to become friends.

  One night, when her on again, off again undercover-cop boyfriend had finally left her for good, Anna and I drank too much and then I took her back to her place to fuck like bunnies. Something I regretted immediately, not because Anna wasn’t an amazing human being, but because she was hurting, and she deserved better. And also because I had never crossed the line of sleeping with a colleague before. All around, it was a low douchebag moment of mine, and I’m not proud of it.

  What I also did not know was that one night would become the catalyst for feelings Anna harbored for me, feelings I did not return. And also feelings no one knew about, because she kept them locked away until after Emma and I had fallen into bed together and didn’t want to climb back out.

  There was always a spark with Emma that I could never find with anyone else and probably never would. Her mind is fascinating. She’s brilliant and funny, and I could talk to her for hours and then just be quiet with her for even longer. Emma is the total package. If I could describe the perfect woman for me, it would be her.

  Emma Parker is the one.

  But it was a tangled web I had no idea I was weaving. And the house of cards would soon come crashing down.

  I had no idea Anna would become frantic to hold my attention and had intentionally inserted herself between Emma and me. It was desperation she felt to belong somewhere to someone. It was that wild need that got her killed.

  But I will never forget hearing Anna beg with her last words that Emma love me like I loved her, and Emma denied it. Since then, our working relationship has been awkward at best.

  A quick glance at my phone shows it’s about an hour before my alarm should go off, and the way my heart is still racing from my nightmares proves I won’t be going back to sleep. So much for four hours.

  I kick out of the tangle of sheets and my towel I kept wrapped around me after my shower, having been so tired that I just fell into bed. I prowl to my closet and pull on a pair of workout shorts and slide my feet into socks and running shoes. I grab my phone and my earbuds and head down the stairs to punish my body in my basement gym.

  I pop my earbuds in and crank up the music before punching all the buttons on my treadmill. My life feels like everything is an unbearable uphill climb lately, and so can my run.

  • • •

  “Dammit, Goodnite!” I shout from where I’m standing in the small kitchenette in the station. I was pouring myself a cup of the dark tar we call coffee when my very pregnant sister paraded by with a huge smile on her face and a duty belt wrapped precariously around her big belly.

  The minute I saw her, I was so distracted by her newest stunt that I poured coffee all over my hand, scalding the skin. I dropped my favorite mug on the floor, shattering it. Although “favorite” is a term I use loosely about coffee mugs, because I seem to break so many of them on the regular.

  I grabbed a paper cup from the cabinet and filled it with coffee before stalking back to my office. I couldn’t help but notice all the faces that watched me lose my shit over my sister with excited and gleeful looks all over their faces.

  “Get back to work!” I shouted as I stomped through my office doorway. I hoped when I got here this morning that I would be able to sneak in, pound another pot of coffee in the hopes of shaking the cobwebs loose, and get to work. Instead, I noticed the mountains of paperwork on my desk. I hate paperwork, and I hadn’t had nearly enough sleep to handle all the bureaucratic bullshit that comes with the job, so I slung my leather jacket over the back of my chair and avoided it like the grownup I claimed to be.

  I made my way into the small kitchen fully prepared to lick the burned coffee to the bottom of the pot. I was so desperate for caffeine, and luck was on my side; there was a full pot. I was just pouring a cup of fresh coffee, which finding in the station was akin to winning a multi-state lottery, when my sister pranced through with her new “uniform.”

  While maternity regulations had her discreetly armed while on desk duty, it did not provide for a full duty rig including baton and taser, which is something Claire knows. However, she’s fucking bored. Our mean old grandma always said, “Idle hands are the devil’s playground, so wash these dishes before you masturbate and blind the baby angels.” I’m thinking the same rules apply to Claire on desk duty.

  “You wanted to see me, Cap?” she asks sweetly while peeking her head around the mostly closed door to my office. I swear one day I’m going to
have a stroke at my desk, and it’ll be all her fault.

  “Get in my office now.”

  “You… uhh… need something?” she prompts, and I can see the hamster on the wheel in her head trying to work her way out of this newest stunt.

  “What are you wearing?” I ask, my voice calm and even, which throws her. Claire’s eyes widen a fraction before she schools her face.

  “Hey, man,” Wes says as he walks into my office. My FBI agent best friend and new brother-in-law was bound to make an appearance when he got back from D.C. I knew he’d show soon enough, because bad news never waits. “Hey, baby, I didn’t expect to see you here so soon. Get called to the carpet early?” He laughs before getting a good look at her.

  I just wait for the other shoe to drop. So does Claire, as she bites her lip. Fortunately, we don’t have to wait long, and I feel my face split with a maniacal grin as her husband realizes she’s been up to no good the whole time he’s been gone.

  “What the hell are you wearing?”

  “A… uhh… desk sergeant rig?” she asks. I hate the way she manages to answer a question with a question when she knows someone won’t like the answer she has to give. Marriage had mellowed her—some—but there was still a lot of wild and recklessness in my baby sister. Luckily, Wes could handle what she dished out.

  “Jesus Christ, Claire,” he bites out. “You’re pregnant with twins. You’re supposed to be on desk duty.”

  “I am!” She throws her hands up over her head.

  “Really?” Wes barks. “Because it looks like you’re carrying more equipment than you need to, and you know the doctor said you were two seconds away from bed rest.”

  Looking considerably chastised, Claire shrinks before us, looking so much like she did as a little girl and not a thirty-year-old woman who I can’t help but rush to her defense.

  “Now, she wasn’t that bad while you were gone,” I tell Wes, making Claire’s violet eyes, the ones just like mine, narrow on me.

  “That’s all you’ve got?” she snaps, showing it was all an act. Claire is a hot mess, but I love her, and for the most part, she really is harmless. “I wasn’t ‘that bad’? Really, Lee? Some brother you are.”

  “I’m the brother who loves you and is tired of seeing you in hospital beds,” I say gently.

  “Oh all right,” she says. “I love you too.”

  “At least she didn’t meddle in your love life while I was gone.” Wes laughs, but it’s cut short when he notices the sheepish grin on his wife’s face.

  “What did you do?” I ask.

  “Nothing really,” she hedges.

  “Claire,” Wes drawls firmly. “What did you do?”

  “Well, they’re never going to get their shit together.”

  “That’s not for you to decide,” he says.

  “But they’re doing it all wrong.”

  “You promised,” he reminds gently.

  “I lied.”

  “I’m getting that.” He stalks toward his wife. “You’re just lucky I think it’s sexy how bad you lie. And I missed you.”

  “If you could take your foreplay with my sister out of my office, that would be great,” I say, rolling my eyes.

  “No can do, brother. I have to brief you on Palmer’s death.”

  I sigh and push a giant stack of paperwork that needs to be filed toward the edge of my desk when I notice Claire trying to sneak out the door before I can catch her. “File that, will you, Goodnite?”

  “No?” she responds.

  “It’s an order. Since you seem to be so bored on desk duty.”

  “Fuck,” she mumbles under her breath as she grabs the files off my desk and heads out into the station, making me bite back a smile. If I know anything about my sister, it’s that if she sees my reaction, she will seek revenge. We both know she’s not going to do that paperwork but find trouble instead. My sister is a nut, and I love her so much.

  I catch a look at Wes and notice his mood has dropped significantly since his wife left the room. It instantly sobers my own mood and makes the smile I was trying to hide only seconds ago slide right off my face. I know it could be weird that my best friend married my sister, but I love them both, and honestly, it’s the best thing that could have happened to either of them. I’m so happy for them, even if I’m also secretly a little jealous.

  “So, Palmer?” I ask after I clear my throat.

  “Yeah,” is all my friend says, letting me know the case that took him out of state was, in fact, because a former teammate of ours, Sam Biggs, who we lovingly referred to as Palmer—since he got caught jacking it in the desert—had ended his own life.

  PTSD is the dirty word that no one talks about, but every former service member has firsthand knowledge on some level. If you would have asked me out of all our former teammates, who would be the one I would worry about most, it wouldn’t have been Palmer. The kid was happy-go-lucky, he never let shit get to him, and he always kept us in stitches.

  But I guess he had monsters of his own that he kept on a much deeper level than any of us realized.

  “Fuck,” I say without even realizing the expletive escaped my lips. I rest my elbows on my desk and let my head fall into my hands while I give my feelings over my fallen friend a moment to sink in.

  “Yeah.”

  “We should have known something was wrong,” I admit my greatest failure. It’s hard to hold so much guilt. I’ve failed so many people who deserved better than what they got from me. Claire, Anna, Emma, and now Palmer. Who’s going to be next? It makes the dark thoughts I try to keep buried so deep rise to the surface. Maybe I should throw in the towel too.

  “We should have known,” he repeats my words, and I look up to see his green eyes stare hard at me. “But it’s not your fault.”

  “I know that,” I lie.

  “Do you?” he asks me, still seeing more than I think I care for.

  “Of course,” I tell him before changing the subject. “So how are Chancey and Monk?”

  “They’re having a rough time of their own.”

  “I see Jake has some opposition in Washington. I wasn’t sure there was anyone alive who didn’t love the golden boy.” I smile. “It’s good for him though.”

  “Rick had a rough moment, but it all worked out,” Wes says.

  “How so?” I ask, suddenly worried about two of my oldest friends.

  “Someone kidnapped his daughter, but we got her back,” he admits. “Off the books.”

  “And everyone is all right now?”

  “The aide-de-camp took a bullet, but he’s fine.” Wes shrugs.

  “I read he got hurt in a hunting accident.”

  “Sure.” He shrugs again.

  “Wes—” I start, but in typical Wes fashion, he hones in on what I don’t want to talk about.

  “So I heard you and Emma got along well at the crime scene last night,” he interrupts, dropping a bomb on my desk like it’s not a big deal. Asshole.

  “Sure,” I mirror his earlier evasions.

  “So how did that go?”

  “It went.”

  “Come on.” He laughs. “You have to give me something.”

  “I don’t have to give you shit, you asshole.” I laugh.

  “I have been telling Claire to leave you both alone for months, even though everyone in the tri-state area knows you guys banged like bunnies for weeks right after my wedding,” he says. “I have to admit, I even thought that baby was yours when she said she was pregnant.”

  “Yeah, me too,” I murmur quietly as my heart pangs. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted someone to be pregnant more in my entire life. For a hot second, my greedy mind thought that if that baby was mine, I could have her forever. Fucked up, I know.

  “Hey, I’m sorry,” he says, realizing how much the whole thing hurts me. “I had no idea.”

  “What?” I laugh again, but there’s no humor behind it. “That I’m in love with her and she doesn’t love me?”

  “I d
on’t think she doesn’t love you,” Wes replies. “I just think it’s…”

  “What? Complicated?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Because that’s exactly what Emma said every time I brought up the idea of our being together,” I confess.

  “Ouch.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe you just need to move on,” he suggests. “Find someone new.”

  “And how did that work out for you?” I ask, because we both know that the years in between when he fell in love with Claire and when they finally got their shit together, he was almost completely unbearable to be around. Wes was angry, moody, and had a death wish. All of which made him a great SEAL and then FBI agent. But who he was then and who he is now are night and day.

  “You love her that much?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then quit fucking around,” he says. “Lay down the law and go get your girl.”

  “And how did that work out for you?” I ask again raising an eyebrow because we both know that hindsight was more than twenty twenty for him where my sister was concerned. “Because I remember Claire jumping out bathroom windows and hot-wiring cars to get away from you.”

  “Yeah.” He smiles a ridiculously dopey smile. “But it was fun to chase her for a bit.”

  “Yeah, all right.” I roll my eyes.

  “No,” he says, looking like he’s really thinking about it. “Maybe that’s exactly what you need to do. Maybe you need to chase her a bit. Knock her off balance and see what she does.”

  “You’re ridiculous,” I tell him.

  “If by ridiculous you mean ridiculously happy, because I finally have the girl I wanted my entire life and I get to go home to her every night. And every night, I get to hold her in my arms and watch her lose her temper over something stupid and then fuck the frown right off her face, then yeah, I’m ridiculous.”

  “That’s my baby sister you’re talking about,” I warn him.

  “And you already got your free punch in when I slept with her the first time,” he throws right back. “Now she’s my wife and you are over it.”