"You think Harper is going to want to do that stuff?"
"Harper is four. It's a little early to predict if she will be a dancer or a swimmer or...whatever."
"Yeah, well, I just don't want that glittery stuff all over the house. The guys won't ever let me live it
down, I show up to work all sparkly like that." He shook his head.
Cyndi stepped closer to her husband and wrapped her arms around him. "I'm exhausted, honey. How about we go to bed?"
Jason hugged her close. "You gonna wear a little
French maid's outfit like you do when you clean those offices?"
"Jason!"
"Can't fault a guy for trying." Jason's grin was a sharp contrast to his earlier scrutiny. He pulled out the neckline of her top and peered down into it. "Come on. I know you gotta wear some kinda uniform!"
Thank God she had changed in to her old white bra from the discount store and left her bustier at work. Stepping back, Cyndi held her arms out and spun around slowly. "You're looking at it, baby. Doesn't my ratty old sweatshirt turn you on?"
"Not as much as a little maid's outfit would. It's nearly Halloween. Maybe I ought to pick one up for you to wear at work. You know, so you don't mess up your own clothes."
"Ohhh, Jason... you are such a guy!"
"You would rather I be such a girl?"
"Of course, not! Just don't be so obvious about being a man all the time." Cyndi filled a glass of water from the tap, drank it in one gulp, then placed her used cup in the sink before heading toward their bedroom. "Come on, cop man. You play your cards right I might let you frisk me before we go to sleep."
Cyndi heard light switches flip, door chains sliding and the announcement that the house emergency alarm was being set. Jason rushed through his nightly round of safety checks as he yelled to her
from various locations around the house.
"Do you have anything on you that might hurt me?" Snap went the deadbolt on the front door. "Needles, knives, or guns?" Click went the security latch on the sliding door to the back yard. "Do I need gloves or cuffs...?"
"Not sure you're gonna need gloves but cuffs might be fun," she called back as she climbed out of her clothes and dropped into the cool sheets. Her head hit the pillow and exhaustion consumed her. The last thing she heard was the sound of Jason undoing his belt as he entered the room followed by the click of the magazine on his gun as he checked to be sure it was loaded before dropping it into the bedside safe. She was fairly certain she actually heard him dangle a pair of handcuffs before she slipped away into sleep. Falling asleep was never her problem. Staying that way was.
Just like every single night of her adult life, sometime later Cyndi awoke suddenly. The room was dark, the house quiet. Only the soft, even hum of Jason breathing disturbed the silence. After tossing and turning for a while, she decided to get up and see what the girls were up to. Just like most every night.
The group of insomniacs she referred to as her girls were members of an online police wives group she belonged to. Internet was the one real splurge neither she nor Jason could give up no matter how frugal they tried to be. Grabbing a blanket off the back of a chair, she curled up in the corner of the sofa and waited for the familiar log-in screen. The clock on the microwave had read 2:56 when she passed through the kitchen for a glass of water. So many years of Jason working the night shift had drastically altered her sleep patterns.
Even when he was home she never slept all the
way through the night. Three a.m. was the witching hour for her. Without fail, every single night, three hundred and sixty-five nights a year she awoke at the same time. Somewhere in the back of her mind she
believed that if something was going to happen out on Jason's patrol, it would be at three in the morning. Her
subconscious obviously believed that if Cyndi were awake, she could somehow prevent the horrible thing that was supposed to happen to the man she had loved for fifteen years.
The familiar blue background of the site filled her computer screen. Cyndi joined the secret group of police wives immediately. As far as she could tell, they were all there. She greeted the group with her usual conversation starter.
Cyndi: Good Evening, Ladies...It's 3 a.m. Do you know where your husbands are?
Angela: With a hooker...AND her john! LOL
Diana: Crack house!
Jessy: Jail!
Cyndi: Ah, so all the usual places then? LOL
Diana: Jason on duty tonight?
Cyndi: Nope. It was my work night.
Angela: How's that new job of yours going??
Cyndi: Made $300 bucks tonight...
Diana: That's something like $150 an hour!
Cyndi: I know.
Jessy: Does Jason know yet?
Cyndi: No. And he isn't going to.
Diana: How do you explain all the extra money?
Cyndi: *sigh* I don't... I only give him about $100 of it every two weeks. What I would make if I was still cleaning offices.
Angela: What about the rest?
Cyndi: Right now? It's in an oatmeal container in the back of the pantry. Jason hates oatmeal! LMAO
Diana: LMAO I might have to steal that idea. Donnie has no idea that all those calls coming in on Saturday night aren't actually from shopping network customers...Wouldn't it be interesting if Detective Massey discovered what his wife really did while he was working the night shift?
Jessy: Maybe he'll think it's hot that his wife moonlights as a phone sex operator? LOL
Diana: I totally doubt that! LOL Hard to give up though, been doing it since college... How do you think I paid for the Bachelor's degree? Ha-ha! I think I am as addicted to it as those creepers who call in every night!
Jessy: eeewww! LOL
Angela: So what y'all are saying is that your husbands work their asses
off worrying about money and they have no idea you two sexy things are raking in the dough?
Cyndi: Trust me when I say Jason doesn't give a damn about money. All he worries about are
perps...and potential perps...and people who don't even know they might qualify as potential perps...
Jessy: Your boy needs to get over himself, Cyn... not everyone is out to get him.
Cyndi: Try telling that to him! LOL I've been unsuccessful at getting through to him for too many years.
Diana: Donnie doesn't care about money either. As long as he has clean socks and underwear and his next meal is always waiting he could care less about what comes in or goes out.
Angela: Yeah, my Jake is the same way. As far as he is concerned there is a money tree growing in the basement...oh wait...we live in the south, we don't have a basement.
Jessy: LOL Sam thinks we have a tree too, I swear!
Angela: Not to change the subject or anything but a weird call came in to dispatch tonight when I was
on shift.
Diana: Weird how?
Angela: Some heavy breathing dude called in from one of those dump phones, you know the pay-as-you-go cell phones?
Yeah, he called in, said "The girl is dead" and hung up.
Cyndi: That was all he said?
Angela: Yup. He didn't say anything else, just hung up. I couldn't even dispatch a unit to check it out, we had no idea where he was calling from. The number just came up as "cell phone."
Diana: Hmmm...maybe just a drunk playing games?
Angela: He sounded pretty sober and lucid to me but who knows? He could have been an escaped mental patient or something. I passed the information on to Jake. He was on duty tonight so he and his partner did a little digging but nothing turned up.
Jessy: Because there are so many escaped mental patients wandering around the streets of Virginia Beach... You are more likely to run into a fox! LOL
Cyndi: OMG! Jason and I were talking about the foxes tonight too! He thinks I give too much credit to that stupid article.
Diana: The beach has foxes all right but they are more the two-legged variety j
ust waiting to pounce on all the pretty bikini clad sheep!
Cyndi let out a big yawn. Harper would be awake in another three hours.
Cyndi: I am gonna call it a night, ladies. Little one will be up with the sun.
Diana: Yeah, I'm pretty beat too. Night all!
The other ladies bid farewell and Cyndi shut her computer down. In no time at all, the sun was shining and little Harper was standing by her bed. The nightstand clock read 6:30, much too early to get up.
"I'm hungry, Mommy."
"Of course you are, my little sweet pea," Cyndi muttered. "How about you cuddle Mommy for a minute or two first?"
"Okay!" Harper wasted no time climbing in between her and Jason. Her husband never even stirred and it wasn't long before she and Harper both drifted back to sleep.
Coming Soon from Carolyn LaRoche
Will Logan's cousin Kaiden finally find love in Book Two of the Defenders of Love Series: Homeland Security?
Diana Massey learns that secrets kill in Book Two of the Secret Lives of Police Wives series: In The Shadow of the Shield.
Meet Ben Callahan, former Air Force Special Forces and Layla Evans in the Rescuer's Heart series: Tormented Triology.
Witness Protection (Defenders of Love Book 1) Page 18
