by J. M. Madden
Having the two of them in the warehouse space with him had taken some getting used to. For so many years he’d been alone and he guarded his privacy. Angela made sure not to step on his toes or bother him too much when he was focused on something, and he appreciated her insight. She gave him his space when he needed it and welcomed him with open arms when he craved her. Angela was, literally, the ideal woman for him in every way and he was totally in love with her. Part of him was still waiting for her to open her eyes and realize how fucked up he was and leave. That fear was compounded by the fact that she still kept her apartment.
Aiden knew she was feeling her way along in the relationship, as well. He got that. But her keeping the space signified to him that she was unsure about him and the apartment was her backup. Was he not enough for her? Like he hadn’t been enough for his mother…
Aiden blinked at the realization, suddenly aware they were still sitting in the car in the lot. It was the time of season for family, and he was beginning to see that his lack of family was directly impacting his current life. Aiden shook his head, smiling crookedly. “I love you,” he told her, leaning over to press a kiss to her lips. “Let’s go see those damn kids, as John likes to say.”
Angela seemed a little bemused by his change of direction, but she smiled and reached for her coffee cup. “I think he uses a different word, but yeah, let’s go.”
Shannon opened the door with a harried smile, trying to keep one of the twins in with one hand while she opened the door with the other. “Come on in,” she said, swinging the boy up into her arms as she backed away.
“Dane!” the boy squealed, arms outstretched for his uncle.
Aiden dropped the oversized Christmas gift bag just inside the door. “Hello, Wyatt, my man. How the heck are you?”
Wyatt launched into a spate of chatter, patting him on the cheeks. His dark hair was slicked down on one side, like he’d gotten food in it or something and Shannon had slicked a towel through it to clean it. The baby’s cheeks were rosy with health and his pale gray eyes were clear.
“I don’t know how you tell them apart so easily,” Shannon murmured, hands on hips.
Aiden looked at her. “You can’t tell them apart?” he asked curiously.
“Well of course I can,” she huffed, “but most people can’t.”
Aiden quirked a brow at her. “I’m not most people.”
Shannon went around him to hug Angela, pulling her inside the house and closing the door. “I know you’re not,” she laughed. “How are you, Angela? Catch any bad guys recently?”
“Of course,” she murmured, leaning into the hug. “But they’re all very considerately taking a break for Christmas, letting us lowly cops have a break.”
Shannon snorted. “Right…”
John rolled into the room from the kitchen, the second twin wrapped around his neck like a monkey. The little boy tried to lunge off John’s lap when he saw his favorite aunt and uncle at the door. The wheelchair ran into the couch as John struggled to stay balanced with the boy trying to climb down. The child landed on his feet with a thump and took off, his little legs churning toward his uncle.
“Just so you know,” John growled, “they wouldn’t take their afternoon nap because they heard us talking about you coming over. It’s been ‘Dane and Angel’ all day.”
Aiden laughed even as he leaned down to catch a hurtling Caden. “Hey, wild man!”
Hoisting both boys into his arms he tried to follow their gibberish conversations. Every once in a while, he would catch a recognizable word and he would repeat it. Shannon probably understood what they were saying better than he did, but he caught the gist of what they wanted. “You want to show me the tree?”
The Christmas tree had a place of pride right in front of the main window, six feet tall, at least. It was decorated beautifully with colored lights and a profusion of ornaments, although there seemed to be less ornaments on the bottom. Had the boys rearranged?
Aiden set them on the floor and they each took a hand, leading him toward the tree. “Hey, John,” he said, laughing as he was towed across the room, past his brother.
“Hey, ‘Dane’,” John snorted, cocking an arm over the back of the chair.
Aiden knelt down beside the boys and looked at the ornaments, his attention caught by one in particular. It had the Navy SEAL crest on it, and his name in gilt along the bottom. His throat tightened as he looked at every individual letter of his name. Then he reached out and ran his thumb over the blue globe.
The boys’ chatter faded as he looked over the rest of the tree. It was beautiful. He’d been around Christmas trees before, but none had had his name on them, even when he was little. If his mother had decorated, he certainly didn’t remember it, and the orphanage had been too poor. They might have had a tree and he might have gotten a present, but it had surely been a generic boy gift, probably donated or handed down.
Nodding to the boys, distracted, he looked around the room. Shannon had decorated the house and tree beautifully, but that tiny little detail, that ornament, made it feel more like a home to him than anything else. He looked at Shannon. She stood with her hand on John’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he told her, but she shook her head, nodding her chin at John. “He did it. Not me.”
Aiden looked at John, and there was an understanding there that very few people in the entire world would get.
Wyatt turned his head forcefully to look at him. Aiden grinned as the boy told him something and Aiden felt the emotion more than the spoken words. He reached out and hugged the little man who looked so much like his big brother. Aiden expected him to wiggle away, but he let Aiden hold him for several long seconds before being distracted by his brother.
Angela brought the present bags toward the tree, distracting the boys even more. At eighteen months old, they were very pleasure driven. Everything was supposed to make them happy, or they objected. And now, as Shannon told them they couldn’t open the bags yet, they yowled.
“After dinner,” she said firmly.
Angela had brought a broccoli casserole. She disappeared into the kitchen with Shannon, leaving John and Aiden to watch the boys.
“It’s a little weird, isn’t it?” John asked him, sitting back in the chair as the boys played on the floor.
“What?” Aiden asked.
“Real life.”
Aiden laughed, feeling exposed, but nodded. “Very. I’m trying to be all cool and sh-crap,” he changed quickly, glancing at the boys, “but the holidays put me on edge.”
“The orphanage always gave away the lamest toys,” John murmured. “I think a lot of the time they were toys that kids had forgotten when they got adopted and stuff.”
Aiden laughed, not surprised the two of them had been thinking along the same lines. “I was remembering that this morning, actually.”
“And the military, well, you were lucky if you got a good meal.”
“Yeah,” Aiden murmured. “I remember.”
They were each lost in thought for a moment.
“I used to hate Christmas with a passion. It wasn’t until I was with Shannon that I realized how skewed my conception of the holidays were,” John told him, rolling closer. “You and I didn’t get a great start in life, but since I’ve had the boys I’ve been trying to change. I think if we focus our efforts, we can make sure that they have no idea how hard it can be out there.”
Aiden looked at John, seeing the emotion as he looked at his boys. “I’ll do anything I can to help. Even if it’s out of my realm of knowledge,” he laughed.
“I’ll teach you brother,” John said, reaching out and resting a hand on Aiden’s shoulder.
Chapter Two
Eating dinner with two toddlers was an experience in itself. John and Shannon each took a boy and tried to feed them as they ate, but Shannon ended up focusing completely on Caden when he decided Carmella, the family Golden Retriever, needed some mashed potatoes too.
“No, Caden. Carmella eats her d
og food, remember?”
He nodded sagely, looking at the dog. “Yum, foo. Yum, foo.”
Shannon looked at the boy, head cocked. “He’d better not have been eating dog food again,” she muttered, giving John a dark look. “We moved it into the garage for a reason.”
“I haven’t seen him,” John said, holding up his hands defensively. “I swear.”
Aiden snorted, his gaze connecting with Angela. Amusement danced in her eyes. Maybe we should have gotten them a doghouse, he told her mentally.
Angela snorted, then covered it with a cough, covering her mouth with the napkin. She shook her head the tiniest bit.
Wyatt, the oldest of the twins by just a few minutes, ate his food, kind of. He tried to maneuver the spoon full of broccoli but it didn’t quite make it to his mouth. John had to help him, which Wyatt didn’t appreciate. “Mine,” he said taking the spoon back from John.
His brother glowered, brows going down over his fierce dark eyes. “You’d better be nice, Wyatt.”
The boy glanced away from his father’s Gunny Sergeant voice, picking up a piece of broccoli with his fingers and putting it on the bowl of the spoon. When the vegetable made it to his mouth he grinned at John, his bright little teeth full of green. Then an odd looked crossed the boy’s face. Within a few seconds a very distinctive odor reached their noses.
“Chane, Daddy. Chane.”
With a beleaguered sigh, John looked at the little boy. “If you can tell me you need changed you should be able to tell me you need to go potty like a big boy. Come on, rugrat.”
Wyatt giggled as John lifted him out of the highchair and pretended to drop him, then settled him to his lap. Wyatt jerked back and forth in John’s lap, trying to try to get the chair to go faster.
“We’ll be back,” John told them. “Go ahead and eat.”
“Maybe I should take Caden too. Do you have to go potty?” Shannon singsonged to the child.
“No! No potty.”
Shannon gave them an apologetic look. “If you’ll excuse us a minute. We’ve been trying to get this potty thing into gear, but it’s hit and miss, if you know what I mean.”
Angela laughed. “You go do what you need to do. We’ll be here.”
The Palmers left the kitchen and Angela climbed to her feet to start gathering dishes. They’d been over enough times that she knew where things went so she started putting leftovers in containers. She did leave John and Shannon’s half-full plates out, though, just in case they wanted to finish their meal.
Aiden began gathering items and taking them into the kitchen where she stood at the sink, scraping plates and loading them into the dishwasher. He’d gotten used to doing this domestic chore with her after their own meals, and he didn’t mind it.
“Those kids are something, aren’t they?” Angela said, her mouth quirked in a smile.
“Something, all right,” he agreed.
“I wonder if you were a good baby or a bad baby,” she said thoughtfully, giving him a look. “I have a feeling you were terribly precocious.”
Aiden snorted. “I’m sure. I’ll take that. But I think John was just a bad kid in general. I think his getting two kids as bad as he was is justified.”
“I don’t think they’re bad,” Angela corrected. “I think they’re incredibly smart and love learning about their world.”
Yeah, he thought the same thing, actually. They were twins, but he’d observed them doing things that toddlers over three shouldn’t have been able to do, like the potty training. They picked up vocabulary like crazy and he didn’t think most kids that age could talk as well as they did, but maybe he was wrong. And the boys seemed to have an affinity for each other. It was amazing to watch them together and he looked forward to watching them grow.
“Is it normal for babies to be so… independent?”
Angela widened her eyes. “I’m not even sure,” she laughed. “It’s not like I’ve been around a lot of kids that size.”
“I have to admit, they’re kind of fascinating. And jeez, they’re getting mobile!”
Angela gave him a soft smile. “I think if you look at them together you can imagine it being you and John, when you were kids. One bigger, one smaller. It’s actually pretty adorable.”
He stared at her, rolling her words around in his head. “You might be right,” he agreed. Turning, he leaned back against the counter. Then he tugged her toward him, resting his hands on her hips. Angela smiled and leaned into him, resting her cheek against his. Aiden wrapped his arms around her back, holding her tight to him. “I love you, Angel.”
“I love you, Aiden.”
She whispered a kiss across his ear, his cheek, then pulled back to find his lips. Aiden had never expected to find intimacy like this and it still occasionally shocked him. Sometimes he would wake up, his heart pounding because he knew he had to go out on the streets again to watch for the Collaborative and protect his brother. Then reality would hit him and the past two years would flood back into his mind. Wulfe and Fontana were struggling the same way, he’d learned, though Wulfe seemed to be adapting the best. But then, he and Elizabeth had known each other before.
When John and Shannon returned, the children toddling in front of them as fast as their little legs could churn, Aiden allowed her to step back. “I need to send Zeke a message,” he whispered.
Angela grinned, an excited light entering her eyes. “Yes!”
John and Shannon snatched a few more things from their plates before they all adjourned to the living room and settled around the tree. They’d decided to exchange gifts tonight because Shannon’s parents would be invading on Christmas Day to see the boys, and it would be significantly more crowded. Aiden didn’t really care when they did it, just that they did get together.
Within minutes, chaos had descended as the boys began ripping into their presents. The adults exchanged brightly wrapped packages as well, but most of the attention was on the twins and their ephemeral joy. Aiden was fascinated to realize that they enjoyed the tissue paper and sticky bows as much as some of the gifts. He took picture after picture to document their play.
Again, his thoughts wandered back to their mother. Had she ever taken pictures of them during the holidays? There hadn’t been anything in his belongings when he’d turned of age. He looked at John, meeting his brother’s gaze. John must have understood what he saw in Aiden’s eyes because he shook his in the negative. “I never got any pictures either. Thanks for doing that,” he said, jerking his chin to the phone.
Yeah, John would appreciate these now. Aiden was finding that even pictures of he and Angela together were precious to him. Fontana was getting into documenting his time with Jordyn, too.
Angela set a long box on his lap and he looked at her in surprise. “I thought we were having our Christmas tomorrow?”
She grinned at him. “We are. This one needed to be shared though.”
He looked at the box in his hand. It looked like a regular shirt-sized box. He began pulling the paper apart at the seams. Once he’d gotten through it he cut the tape on the sides with his pocket knife and flipped the lid. Inside the mound of tissue paper was something soft. He pulled it out and let it fall open, then he turned to look at Angela. “What is this?”
She grinned at him, though her eyes were a little guarded. “What does it look like?”
His heart shuddered in his chest. Aiden blinked and looked at the baby outfit. “Are you serious?”
Terror rolled through him at the thought of actually having a baby. Because he’d been tested on with the ayahuasca he hadn’t really thought about having children. What if there were repercussions on the child from what had been done to him? Angela was on birth control and they used condoms but that would not negate what was in his blood. What if the baby was born…different?
“Are you pregnant right now?” he demanded, voice a little sharper than he meant.
Angela was watching him closely. “I am. And before you say it, I have not forgo
tten any of my pills and this isn’t a bid to get a commitment from you. I mean, I’m committed to you, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be official, or anything. No ring or anything if you’re not ready.”
He frowned, not liking that his completely steady girlfriend was losing her shit. The color was high in her cheeks and her eyes were avoiding his. “I know you wouldn’t have done this on purpose, Angela.” He felt bad for even making her think it.
Unexpectedly, tears filled her eyes. “I didn’t, I swear to you. I don’t think I’m ready either. I mean, we just got together, and I wouldn’t risk us,” she motioned between them, “for anything. I hope you know that.”
“I do,” he breathed, leaning in to kiss her. “It was just a shock.”
And it still was. He glanced up and realized they had an audience. He wiped at his face as Angela drew back. “I guess next Christmas might be a little busier,” he murmured, finally allowing a grin to cross his mouth.
John laughed and rolled forward, hand outstretched. Aiden took it and allowed John to pull him into a hug, taking strength from his brother’s arms. When they separated, John’s dark gaze held his own, as if he sensed the turmoil. “It’ll work out buddy.”
Aiden tried to believe it would, but it had been so long since anything decent had actually happened in his life. Then he paused, realizing how wrong that thinking was. In the past year he had connected with his brother, helped rescue other tortured fellow prisoners and fallen into a relationship with Angela. He realized that the past year had been filled with amazing things. They’d gotten the men out of the torture camps. They were all in Arlington, now, with Elizabeth and Wulfe, getting the care they needed. And Damon, the head of the Silverstone Collaborative, the one responsible for their torture, was dead.
