Riley and His Girls (Mills & Boon Vintage Cherish) (Mills & Boon Cherish)

by Janis Reams Hudson

As if on cue, a car pulled up behind Amy’s at the curb. The man behind the wheel honked the horn and three little girls came squealing out of the backseat.

  Riley and the man waved at each other, the man gave another toot of his horn, then he drove off.

  “Brenda’s father?”

  “Frank Green. He and Marva will be over after dinner.”

  If Riley said anything else, Amy didn’t hear it over the sound of excited girls.

  “You came, you came!”

  “Sergeant Amy, you came!”

  “Ice cream? You brought us ice cream!”

  Dinner with the Sinclairs proved a unique experience for Amy. She had never been the object of such adoration by the three little girls, and something she could only describe as speculation from Riley.

  Amy basked in all of it, using it to keep her mind off the coming meeting with Brenda’s parents, specifically, her mother, Mrs. Green, who had been dead set against Brenda joining the Guard. Surely Brenda’s death must be impossible for her to accept. Now Amy had to bring it all up again, the grief, the anger. She would most likely direct her emotions at Amy.

  But Amy could handle it. She had learned a thing or two from Brenda about how to handle her mother and she was ready, as long as she didn’t think too much about it beforehand.

  Sharing a dinner table with three beautiful, laughing girls trying to outdo each other to entertain her, and their handsome father laughingly keeping order amidst the chaos, did more than take her mind off what was to come.

  Handsome father, indeed. Amy had trouble keeping her eyes off him. She felt drawn to him in a way that startled her. It had been a long time since she’d felt such awareness for a man. When their eyes met across the table and held, something earthy and elemental passed between them and gave her a rush.

  “I know a joke,” four-year-old Cindy announced.

  Amy tore her gaze from Riley. “You do?” she asked, trying to focus. The girl seemed a little young to understand the intricacies of timing and punch lines, but, then, Amy didn’t know all that much about kids. She winked at Cindy. “Esmeralda knows a joke.”

  Cindy’s eyes widened. She giggled and covered her mouth with her hands. The other two girls giggled, as well, and Riley chuckled.

  “No,” Cindy snickered. “I’m Cindy.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Amy declared. “I forgot. Sorry. Go ahead, Cindy, tell us your joke.”

  “Okay. What did one casket say to the other casket?”

  Amy glanced at Riley, but the awareness in his eyes made her look away.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “What did one casket say to the other casket?”

  Cindy giggled. “Is that you coffin?”

  Amy laughed. The joke was funny enough on its own, but the impish look on Cindy’s face was even more amusing, making Amy laugh all the harder. “That’s a good one, Cindy.”

  “See?” Cindy stuck her tongue out at Pammy. “I told you I could tell a funny joke.”

  “So?” Pammy wasn’t quite sneering, but it was close. “Any imbecile can tell a joke.”

  “No name-calling,” Riley cautioned.

  “Yessir,” Pammy said.

  Cindy waited until Riley looked down at his plate, then made a face at her oldest sister.

  Amy swallowed a chuckle.

  After dinner, and ice cream for dessert, Amy helped Riley and the girls clean up the kitchen just in time for the arrival of the grandparents.

  “Nana! Gramps!” the girls cried when the older couple entered.

  Marva Green, Brenda’s mother—Nana to the girls—was everything Amy had imagined her to be. Brenda’s descriptions had been perfect. Petite, maybe five-two, a hundred and ten pounds, with immaculate makeup and pale-blond hair styled in a sweeping flip. She was dressed in varying shades of pastel pink. Her lipstick and nail polish matched. The only things, including her flesh, that weren’t some shade of pink were her blue eyes and lavender eyeshadow. The pink pearl lipstick did nothing to make her smile look genuine.

  Nothing, Amy feared, could accomplish that under the present circumstances. The woman was doing great to be able to offer a smile to her granddaughters. Amy hoped they wouldn’t notice the wariness in their grandmother’s eyes.

  The first thing Amy wanted to do was disarm Mrs. Green. And she knew exactly how to do it. The second Riley said Marva Green’s name, Amy reached for the woman’s hands and squeezed them. “Oh, I am so glad to finally meet you so I can thank you in person for all those wonderful goodie boxes you sent to the troops in Iraq. Mrs. Green, you were a real lifesaver.” Amy knew she was gushing, and it was working; Mrs. Green was smiling. “Even the little things like bobby pins and cotton swabs. But those shampoos and conditioners, and the body lotions. The body lotions nearly caused a riot. We had to draw numbers to see who got them. You were wonderful to think of us that way and go to all that trouble for us.”

  Marva Green smiled and patted Amy’s cheek like a doting grandmother. “I’m so glad you all found a use for the things I sent. I thought it was the least I could do for our brave girls in brown.” Suddenly she frowned. “Somehow, that just doesn’t have the same ring to it as boys in blue.”

  “Maybe not,” Amy agreed with a smile, “but it’s accurate. And you must be Frank Green,” she said, turning to Marva’s husband.

  Frank—Gramps—seemed as genuine as they came. He wasn’t a large man, standing maybe five-nine, built of solid muscle. He had the bearing of a man who’d made the armed forces his chosen career for life—straight up, no nonsense. He had the crewcut and salt-and-pepper hair to go with it. He smiled not only with his mouth, but with his eyes.

  After the introductions, followed by nearly half an hour with the girls, Riley sent the girls to the den to watch television and give the adults some privacy.

  Once they were settled in the living room, Frank Green did what Amy imagined was his habit—he took charge. “Why are we here, Riley? You said there was news about Brenda.”

  “It was news to me,” Riley answered, “but it’s something we should have been told when it happened. If not for Amy, we still wouldn’t know.”

  “Know what?” Frank barked.

  Riley looked at Amy. “Amy?”

  Amy wanted to fidget under the harsh scrutiny of Frank and Marva Green, but she forced herself to sit still. She chose her words as carefully as she could, knowing that Marva Green hated that Brenda had joined the army, and that Frank could not have been happier or more proud. Amy felt as if she were walking a tightrope, trying not to cause any more upset than necessary, but no matter the words she used, this must seem to Marva and Frank like losing their daughter all over again.

  “My God,” Frank said, stunned by the news Amy delivered. “She should have received the Bronze Star for what she did.”

  “Yessir,” Amy said. “She was nominated. I’m putting in an inquiry to find out the status.”

  Marva’s mouth couldn’t have been any tighter. “She’s still dead,” she said darkly.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Amy said. “But she’s a hero, Mrs. Green.”

  “Who should have been home tending her babies,” Marva spat.

  “Mother,” Frank growled.

  “I know, I know,” she said with a sigh. “We are grateful for this information, Miss Galloway, but if you knew her, you had to know how unsuited she was to army life and combat zones and all that dust.”

  “Forgive me,” Amy said. “I know this is upsetting to you, bringing up her death all over again. But you’re wrong about Brenda being unsuited. I know you didn’t want her there, but she was good at her job. She was a good soldier. She hated being away from her family and her home, but she decided early on that if she was sent to Iraq she would do the best job she could. And she did. She went way above and beyond, and there are four of us who are alive today because of her.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” Marva said, “but it seems to me that if she had stayed under cover she would have been safe. Why couldn’t s
he have just sat still?”

  Amy shook her head. “It wasn’t in her to let someone else do what she could do for herself. As for that particular instance, that injured private was a nineteen-year-old kid from Omaha. He’d been terrified all week and trying not to show it. Brenda had taken him under her wing and tried to look out for him. She said he brought out her maternal instincts.”

  “Sounds just like her,” Frank said gruffly. “She was a good girl, our Brenda was. And from what you say, a hell of a soldier.”

  “That she was,” Amy agreed.

  “What happened to the private and the other two?” he asked.

  “They’re okay,” Amy said. “A couple of wounds here and there, but nothing vital.”

  “What about you?” Riley asked quietly.

  “What about me?” she asked.

  He eyed her steadily. “Were you wounded?”

  She waved his question away. “Not so you’d notice.”

  “What’s that mean?” he asked.

  “I didn’t come here to talk about me. I’m fine.”

  “Have you been discharged?” Frank asked.

  “Yessir,” she said.

  “How’d you manage that, in this day and age? Usually they’re not letting anybody out on time.”

  “It wasn’t on time,” she said, “believe me. I signed up for a one-year hitch in the Guard and ended up serving five. But I’m officially discharged. Until they change their mind and call me back up.”

  When the Greens were leaving a little while later, Frank shook Amy’s hand. “Thank you for telling us what happened. Thank you for being Brenda’s friend.”

  “You’re welcome,” Amy told him.

  Tight-lipped and frosty-eyed, Marva Green gave a sharp nod and stepped outside just ahead of her husband.

  “It’s times like these,” Riley told Amy after the Greens had left, “that I wish I was a drinking man.” He eyed her critically. “You look in as bad a shape as I feel. I think we could both use a good stiff drink about now.”

  “You could be right.” Amy felt weak in the knees after the ordeal of telling yet again about Brenda’s death.

  “I’m afraid the strongest thing I have on hand is beer. Will that do?”

  “It’ll do fine,” she said with a slight smile. “And I don’t need a glass.”

  They took their bottles of ice-cold beer back to the living room. Riley set his down and took a moment to check on the girls before settling on the divan, near the chair that Amy took.

  After a long silence, Amy asked, “Will they be all right?”

  “The girls?”

  “The Greens.”

  “Eventually.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve started the grieving process all over again, for them and for you.”

  “Maybe,” he conceded quietly. “Some.”

  “I’m sorry.” A deep ache of sympathy bloomed in her belly. “I am so sorry.”

  “You don’t have anything to apologize for,” he said. “You came here to do a favor for a friend. It’s not your fault that the army dropped the ball last year. You shouldn’t have had to be the one to tell us how she died. It couldn’t have been easy for you, and I made you do it twice. Thank you, Amy.”

  On the drive home, Marva kept quiet for all of two blocks until she simply couldn’t hold her feelings in another second.

  “I don’t like it, Frank,” she stated tightly. “I don’t like it one little bit.”

  Frank pulled slowly away from the stop sign at Main and turned right. “You don’t like that our daughter died a hero?”

  Mere mention of her beloved daughter and death in the same sentence still had the power to drain the blood from her brain and her heart. Three slow heartbeats passed before she could speak. “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the way Riley looked at that girl.”

  “What girl? You mean Sergeant Galloway?”

  “I mean that Jezebel who sat there and made cow eyes at him while talking about how our baby girl died. Called herself her friend. Ha! And he looked right back, don’t you say he didn’t, because I saw him.” Marva would have gone on, but her chest was heaving, and that was unladylike. If she didn’t calm herself, her cheeks would become unattractively flushed, and if she didn’t relax her facial muscles, her wrinkles would deepen. God forbid. Some of them, she feared, would soon rival the Grand Canyon.

  “So what if he looked back?” Frank asked as he turned into their driveway and hit the button to open the automatic garage door. “He’s a red-blooded man, and she’s a nice-looking woman. What’s wrong with them looking at each other?”

  Men, Marva thought with disgust. They just didn’t understand a thing. Riley had no business thinking of other women when his own sweet wife had been gone barely more than a year. It wasn’t proper.

  If Marva had her way, it would never be proper. Riley belonged to Brenda, and always would.

  “He’s still grieving,” she said tersely. “So are the girls. It wouldn’t be fair to them for him to bring a new woman into their lives.”

  “Fair?” His eyes widened, his tone sharpened. “You think it’s fair that Riley raise them alone for the rest of his life?”

  “He’s not raising them alone,” she snapped back. “We give him all the help he needs.”

  “Woman,” Frank said with that low growl in his throat that set Marva’s back up.

  “Don’t use that tone with me, Frank Green.”

  “Don’t you go planning Riley’s life out for him. Don’t think you’re going to be the only female those girls have to help raise them. You leave Riley alone when it comes to other women, you hear me? Don’t you meddle in his private life.”

  Marva gave her husband of thirty-eight years a cool glance. She didn’t bother arguing with him. She would keep an eye on this Amy girl. If she got too close to Riley and the girls, Marva would have to step in and put a stop to it. The girl couldn’t possibly be worthy of Brenda’s family.

  Chapter Three

  Amy could have finished the Christmas presents for the three little girls in a matter of hours and delivered them to Riley Sinclair. Her task would be complete.

  But she knew in her heart that she wouldn’t. She was going to drag it out as long as possible, because she needed to stay in town long enough to find out if Tribute could become the home she’d never had. She settled into her room at the motel and made herself comfortable.

  During the next few days she familiarized herself with the town of Tribute, exploring the shops and city facilities such as the library and courthouse on Main Street. She had sampled the offerings at every restaurant in town and already had a list of two or three favorite meals at each place.

  Amy had also done a little research and found out how to go about getting Brenda’s name added to the Tribute Wall in the park. She had to write a letter to the city council explaining why Brenda should be added. The mayor’s secretary warned her it wouldn’t be easy to convince them, because Brenda was already listed on the regular war memorial.

  Amy mentally prepared herself for battle. No way was she leaving town now.

  The one thing Amy had spent money on since leaving the army was a laptop computer. She didn’t waste much on clothes, and her car was as unpretentious—and cheap—as they came. She still had a tidy little sum in savings, so she hadn’t minded turning some of it loose for the computer. She was now spending her mornings working on a proposal for the city council to add Brenda’s name to the wall.

  She was also going to do some in-person politicking. She had learned that the local newspaper publisher, Wade Harrison, had conceived of the wall and seen to its creation. He wasn’t on the city council, but even she, who had been out of the country for two years, knew that Wade Harrison had been one of the country’s richest, most eligible bachelors and head of one of the country’s largest media conglomerates before he’d chucked it all for a woman and a small-town newspaper. The man still had pull. If she could get him on her side, Brenda would be a sho
o-in for the wall.

  Throughout her exploration of eating places and her effort to get Brenda’s name on the wall, and her tinkering with completion of the gifts for the girls, Amy was truly enjoying the town of Tribute. She loved the smallness of it, the fact that everyone seemed to know everyone else. And everyone was so friendly, saying hello whether they knew her or not, asking how she was doing, as if they actually cared.

  Every day, Amy felt more and more at home. Her financial situation would allow her to stay in town until the first of the year, but after that she would have to get a job, whether she stayed or moved on.

  But before any further heavy thinking could happen, she needed food. It was lunchtime and she was hungry. If she remembered correctly, today’s lunch special at Dixie’s Diner was spaghetti and meat sauce. She could almost smell it from her motel room.

  Ten minutes later she could smell it for real as she followed the Dixie for whom the diner was named and slid into a side booth.

  Dixie handed her a menu. “How are you today?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Can I get you something to drink?”

  Amy ordered iced tea and the day’s lunch special.

  “How nice, you came back.”

  Amy turned to the elderly woman two tables away, who had introduced herself a couple of days earlier. “Hi, there, Ms. Trotter. Yes, I came back. I couldn’t stay away on spaghetti day.”

  “Neither could I. I can tell you it was worth the trip.” There was barely a trace of sauce left on the woman’s plate. “And you can call me Ima, dear.”

  “I’d be honored.”

  “Miz Ima,” came a deep, familiar voice from behind them. “Are you corrupting the visitors to this fine town?”

  Ima Trotter pursed her lips and shook a bony finger, but she couldn’t hide the twinkle in her eyes. “Riley Sinclair, don’t you be giving me a hard time or I’ll see to it all the junk mail in town hits your box.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I take it all back.”

  “That’s much better. Have you made the acquaintance of Sergeant Galloway?”

  “Amy, please,” Amy said. “I’m not in the National Guard anymore.”