As I slide the transmission into park, I look at my home again, admiring the newly painted shutters and the front porch swing I put up a few days ago. The flowers across the sweeping expanse of the wrap-around porch look a little parched. I’ll need to give them a good watering to save them from the sweltering Tennessee August heat.
Opening the door of my Camry, I stretch to get out the kinks of a twelve-hour shift plus an hour-long drive from Johnson City. Then I rub my belly, scratching the stretching skin that has started to itch since I turned twenty-three weeks yesterday.
“Alright, baby boy,” I say to my expanding stomach. “Let’s be brave and see if the postman’s given us some good news.”
As if in response, Little Ryland, or maybe Little Ryker—we haven’t completely decided on a name yet—gives me a little kick. ‘Come on, Mom,’ the kick seems to say.
“Okay, okay,” I tell him and push against the skin where I felt the movement, hoping he’d kick me again. I’d just really started to feel him move, more than the initial butterfly flutters. It never gets old. Feeling the life inside me, imagining what he’s doing. That’s the awesome part of being pregnant and I still have many weeks to enjoy this little guy.
But he’s still now. It was like he’d done his duty to make his mom stop being a wuss and had gone back to sleep again.
Taking a deep breath, I walk over to the mailbox and stick out my hand to pull the front down.
“Hey, Grace!” I jump, turn around and see my neighbor and best friend waving from her porch across the road. Behind her, the front door slams open and two little towheaded three-year-olds come bursting out, a big Bernese Mountain Dog on their heels.
“Auntie Grace! Auntie Grace!” they yell and I notice one of them holding something in his little hands. “Come look at our turtle.”
I look back at the mailbox, give it a little frown and then head over to the gate of their pristine white picket fence.
“A turtle?” I say with as much enthusiasm as my tired body can muster. “Is it a girl turtle or a boy turtle?” I ask as I pet Bernice the Bernese on her pretty head.
The twins look from me to the turtle, then back at me. Jayden flips the little box turtle over and Hayden pulls on its tail. I laugh. It’s clear the boys stay at their grandparent’s farm three days a week while Natalie cuts hair at the beauty salon down on Main Street. “How can we tell?” Hayden asks, looking at the turtle’s butt very closely.
“I’m not sure, Hay,” I tell him, reaching for the turtle to pretend I’m giving it a good look, but actually saving it from any poking or prodding.
“I thought nurses were supposed to know everything,” he said, although the words came out “I tho no-ses pos ta know evewythin.” His little lisp and country accent gang up on my ability to decipher his words.
“Well, I’m a people nurse. Not a turtle nurse. We might need a turtle nurse to answer that question.” Then, to change the subject quickly, before I’m thrown a dozen questions about how and where to find a turtle nurse, I ask, “What did ya’ll name him?”
“Thomas the Turtle!” they yell at the same time.
“Well, why am I not surprised,” I say and poke both boys on their Thomas the Tank Engine covered tummies. They are freaks about anything Thomas.
“Come in out of that heat, prego,” Natalie yells. “It’s hotter than blue blazes. Boys, let Auntie Gracey rest a bit. You all go on and play on the swing set. Just don’t let Bernice get hold of Thomas. She’ll chew him like a bone.”
The boys and dog jump up and down and the turtle retreats into the safety of its shell. Smart turtle. Then they’re off. Full speed everywhere they go. I give a mental ‘oops’ when Jayden falls. But he just rolls and is back on his feet in an instant, speeding to catch up with his brother.
“Let’s go to the back porch so I can keep an eye on those hellions,” she says with a big grin and rubs her own pregnant stomach. We found out we were both expecting within two weeks of each other. Fate, as Nat calls it. Since I’m having a boy and she’s having a girl this time, we’re convinced they’ll be the perfect couple one day.
I scowl at the mailbox again, but sitting down after twelve hours on my feet with a glass of iced tea does sound pretty good. Besides, Rob won’t be home for a couple more hours. And since he’ll be gone so late, I don’t have to fix supper.
“I ordered pizza,” Natalie tells me. “It should be here in about thirty minutes. I got plenty.” Nat’s husband, Scott, is the head football coach at the local high school and is gone to some type of training camp for the week.
I follow her into her house, step over Tonka trucks and a pile of Legos and work my way through the clutter to her kitchen without falling over anything.
“One of these days I’m gonna shock the shit out of you and have a clean house,” she says over her shoulder, her short blonde bob swaying with the movement.
I laugh and grab a tub of antibacterial wipes and start scrubbing the peanut butter and jelly off her counter top. I can’t wait until I’m doing the same thing at my house.
“Stop it,” she says, laughing and snatches the wipes from my hand. “You’ve just had a fourteen hour day, what with the drive and all. You need to put up your feet and drink sweet tea until your eyeballs float, and for goodness sakes, let me chop off those split ends. With your curly hair and this humidity, you look like a frizz ball.”
I scowl at her and then touch my hair, still pulled back in a tight ponytail for work. I pull the long brownish-reddish-blondish strands around so I can give them a good look. Good heavens, she’s right. How did I not notice how damaged it was?
Oh yeah … in the last couple months I graduated from physical therapy school, took on a full-time nursing schedule at the med center, moved into a new house and studied my butt off for the national physical therapy exam. And threw up like clockwork at least twice every morning.
Split ends didn’t make it on the to-do list.
I think about the mailbox. Dang it. I really want to look and see if my results came today. Ryland/Ryker kicks me again. I give the bump a rub and then give Natalie a pitiful look.
“What?”
I press my lips together and make my face look even more pitiful.
Her dark brown eyes widen in acknowledgement. “You think it came?” The girl can read my mind. “I wish you’d get that computer fixed so you wouldn’t have to wait for snail mail.” Then she puts her hands on her hips and raises an eyebrow. “Or use mine. Or your phone. Or one at the hospital. Or—”
I laugh, knowing how stupid it sounds. “Okay, Okay. For your information, I dropped the laptop off at the computer place at lunchtime. They said they’ll have it done by tomorrow night. I think a part of me just wants the letter. Real envelope. Real paper. You know, a real letter that I can either hold up in victory or crumble in a ball and throw.”
She shakes her head and begins slicing into a lemon for our tea. “No need for any throwin’. You’re gonna ace it. I just know.”
Natalie has always been my biggest cheerleader … literally. She cheered while I played basketball and volleyball in high school and then came to as many of my volleyball games at ETSU as she could between going to cosmetology school, getting married and having the twins.
She’s been my bridesmaid, my study partner, my shoulder to cry on when I wanted to give up. She’s my rock and I love her as much as my own sister.
“Well, it was supposed to be here yesterday, so I’m thinking there’s a good chance it’s sitting in that box right now.”
She drops lemon into two tall glasses and wipes her hands on a dishcloth. “Watch those two, will ya? I’ll run over and check.”
Before I’m able to open my mouth, she’s out of the kitchen, and I hear the front door slam. I peek out the window and am horrified at what I see. I run to the back porch. “Boys!” I call. “Turtles are not supposed to go down the slide!”
“Can he swing?” Jayden asks, looking at me with almost-four-year-old innocenc
e.
“That’s not a good idea either.”
“How ‘bout cwimbin’ da twee?”
I stop my smile from growing wider. “No, Hay Hay. Turtles like it best on the ground.”
Jayden frowns at me. “But if we put him on the ground, Bernice will chew him like a bone. Mama said.”
“How about you put him back in his new home and then you can play with him later?”
They look at me as if I’m the smartest woman ever put on this earth and come running into the house. “Wash your hands. Get all the turtle germs off.”
“Okay,” they chorus. The water turns on and almost immediately turns off.
“With soap!”
The water turns on again. I listen to them begin singing the ‘hand washing’ song so they keep at it for the minimum twenty seconds.
The front door slams again and my heart picks up speed. I meet Natalie in the hallway. She’s holding a white envelope over her head.
It’s here.
“Well, go on. Open it,” she says as she thrusts it in my hands.
Like a Band-Aid, I tell myself. Then I’m tearing it apart, pulling out the letter and scanning for the winning word: Congratulations.
“I did it.” The words are an exhale, then I’m gulping for air. “Nat, I really did it.”
“Well, of course you did. Should have made you bet twenty on it.”
I stare at the paper some more, making sure the word hadn’t changed in the nearly full minute Nat hugged me. Nope. I still passed the national physical therapy exam. I’m a licensed physical therapist as well as a registered nurse. How’s that for job security?
“Say cheese.” I look up and automatically smile at the camera pointed in my direction. I turn the letter around, strike a pose and smile so big my cheeks hurt.
“Now,” she says after taking several shots. “Let’s go fix that hair. It’s drivin’ me crazy.”
An hour later, I’m still on the back porch of Natalie’s house with a new haircut and licking pizza sauce from my thumb. The boys are taking an ‘outside’ shower, something Nat lets them do during the hot summer months. Shampoo, a bar of soap and a water hose. They’re squealing with laughter and getting clean—mostly—at the same time. Bernice is in the house, whining at the back door, clearly forlorn at having to miss out on the fun.
“No wet dog this late, Miss Bernice,” Natalie had told the beautiful black, brown and white patterned dog. Bernice’s ears had drooped and her eyes went from shiny to sad. She wouldn’t even take the rawhide bone Natalie tried to tempt her with. She was the pure definition of heartbroken.
“Five more minutes, boys,” Natalie calls out to them. “Soap up.”
I lean back in the comfortable wicker chair with its soft, brightly striped cushion and simply soak in the mountain range before me. The sun has turned into a fiery orb that’s dying the heavens with brilliant streaks of red, and oranges, and pinks. The mountain range grows darker, shadowed, as the sun inches closer to the majestic peak.
“I could spend my life looking at this,” I say to her and take yet another sip of sweet tea. My eyeballs aren’t floating yet, but my bladder will be soon.
“Like magic dipped in glitter,” Nat says. Then raises her voice. “One minute, boys. Rinse off.”
This was met with a chorus of groans and pleadings for extra time.
“How do they stand that cold well water? It makes me cold just looking at them.”
“Snips and snails, Gracey-Lu.”
I smile at that and rub my belly. Can’t wait for my puppy-dog tails.
The sound of a diesel truck cuts through the peace of the valley and I sigh. “Rob’s home. Guess I need to get going.”
“What’s he doing home? It’s not dark-thirty yet.”
I grin at her. My husband is a ‘professional fisherman’ and he spends most of his life on a bass boat. I stopped asking him long ago what time he’d be home, knowing thirty minutes after dark—dark-thirty—would always be the answer.
“Bass must not be biting today. Don’t blame them. Too hot. Let me help you get the boys dried off then I’m going home and going to bed.”
“You’re going to tell Rob about getting your license, aren’t ya?”
I meet her eyes. “Yes, of course I am.”
She curls her nose and covers my hand with hers. “Well, the good news is, he should be thrilled that you’re worth more money now. Just don’t let him talk you into paying for a bigger boat.”
“You know he’ll try. I pay for everything else.”
Nat grabs two towels and stands up, yelling for the boys to turn off the hose. I hear her mutter, ‘horse’s ass’ but I don’t want to get into it with her again. Yes, I know my husband is never going to grow up. Yes, I know I’ll probably be supporting him when I’m eighty. Yes, I know I deserve better. No, I don’t believe having a baby will make him change.
We’ve been over all that a million times before.
“Come on, guys.”
Grumbles. Groans. Desperate pleadings.
I point to the sunset. “Hurry up,” I call. “You’re about to miss the sun kissing the mountains.”
“Thank you,” Nat whispers as the boys turn off the water and run, as naked as the day they were born, to the porch.
Nat snags one while I snag the other, wrapping them in towels and watch the sun dip closer to the peak.
“Three.”
“Two.”
“One.”
“Yuck, they kissed,” yells Jayden, delighted.
“The mountain’s got cooties now,” Hayden adds, his nose all wrinkled up.
After we get them dried off and in their Thomas the Tank pajamas, I give all three of them a hug and head across the road.
To the beautiful home I love and the husband I don’t.
Chapter 2 – Duffy
An MRE brownie with a match in the center is plunked down on the table in front of me. Specialist. Karl Wyman, my squad second in command, flips the switch of a pistol shaped lighter and sets my ‘candle’ aflame, nearly scorching the entire damn thing.
I look up into the faces of seven smiling men and close my eyes as they open their mouths… “Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you...”
I try to tune them out and take a good look at the brownie. Someone carved ‘28’ on the top. Damn. Twenty-eight years old today. And look where I’m spending it.
“…Happy birthday to yooooooooou.”
I laugh. I’m spending it exactly where I want to be … with my ‘brothers’.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say, leaning back in my chair and looking at them one by one. “We’re finally in the lap of luxury and I get a fucking MRE? Talk about cocksuckers. You asswipes suck. You know that, right?”
Then another round of the birthday song begins and a cake—a real cake, a big ass cake—is carried through the door.
“Damn, that’s more like it. Please tell me there’s a girl in there ready to pop out.” Of course, the cake isn’t nearly that big, but a man can hope. I’ve not fucked anything but my fist in four very long, very dry months.
An envelope is slapped on the table next to the brownie. I look at the crew and then open it up. Hell, yeah. Eight tickets to a local club.
“Thought we could hit that up after we get POTUS in the air,” Wyman says, a big grin on his face. “Got to take advantage of the local scenery on a night off, especially in a place that isn’t hell.”
Hell is right. I’m still finding grains of sand in my ass after spending the past three months training the Kurdish army deep in the desert. In an ultimate twist of irony, the US took out Hussein and his Iraqi army over a decade ago, and now we’re helping to rebuild them under their new leadership. But that’s for a good reason. We’re helping them fight the new evil—ISIS.
I just hope it doesn’t turn around and bite us on the ass.
Darren slides the cake closer to me. Twenty-eight candles. Damn. Where did it go?
I can an
swer that in four letters—A.R.M.Y.
Ten years in the Army now and I ended up going all the way. Rangers. Green Berets and then the ultimate team … 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta. Most know us as Delta Force, but we’re also known as CAG—Combat Applications Group. Or ACE—Army Compartmented Elements. More and more, we’re simply The Unit.
My team is a Ghost Unit. We appear, fuck things up or take what we want, then disappear. And we don’t exist.
Twenty-eight candles. Overall, twenty-eight damn good years.
Two mistakes.
Both women.
Anna and Mattie.
No. Not thinking about them today.
I blow out the candles and then hack into the cake with a naked woman realistically drawn across it. Who cares that it’s eight in the morning local time. It still feels afternoon for us.
“Always have been a tit man,” I say as I cut a square containing the double-Ds. Then I pass the knife. When it comes to cake, it’s every man for himself.
“Ghost 4 to Ghost 1,” I say into my shoulder mic. “Check your six. Black jacket. Black pack.”
“Checking, Ghost 1. Over.”
Through the crosshairs of my scope, I watch Operator Mike Jackson pull a cellphone from his pocket and hold it to his ear, pretending to talk. He stops and turns, looking pissed.
“Eye on suspect,” I hear Jackson’s voice in my ear.
“Nice acting, Ghost 4.”
I barely see the casual bird he floats before I sight back in on the target. The big man in black is sweating profusely. Bad choice of dress in this ninety-seven degree heat. Made him easy to spot. That, plus his eyes blink rapidly. His pupils are dilated and his breathing is accelerated. It’s coming so fast his nostrils flare in and out with each breath. For one so young, he looks close to having a stroke.
Jackson walks up to the guy, still talking on his ‘phone’ and sweeps him with the device. My eyes flick to the monitor beside me as it transfers the x-ray images to my screen.
Badass - The Complete Series: A Billionaire Military Romance Page 7
