Sighing, I turned to the smoker.
“I only have the Tahoe,” I tried. “It won’t fit.”
She gave me a look. “It’ll fit if you take Way’s car seat out of the back.”
I scrunched my nose. “It’ll get the Tahoe dirty,” I tried again.
“We’re getting it detailed tomorrow while I’m at the hospital. In fact, your mother’s taking it for us. It’ll be alright.”
“If I take it, then I won’t have the room for the other three people that were going to ride with me,” I tried one last time.
She gave me a pointed look, and I growled in frustration.
“Fine,” I muttered. “Max! Will you help me load this into the Tahoe?” I asked pointing at the smoker.
He broke off from my father, and headed straight for the smoker.
This afternoon, being my last day as a father of two, I was going out to get a drink with the rest of the boys, and would be spending some much needed guy time away from the estrogen fest of my house.
Plus, there would be a baby shower there and I just didn’t do well with explosions of baby shit.
Grabbing one side, we both moved the smoker to the back of the Tahoe before I crawled inside and unhooked Way’s car seat.
I ignored the mountainous mound of crumbs underneath her seat, and folded the entire seat forward to allow the smoker some room to sit.
Once we were done I turned to Max. “You think you can drive, too? I’ll meet the rest of you there after I drop the smoker off at my house.”
Max nodded, and I headed back to Lennox for one more kiss.
I found her on her knees in the dirt.
“Lennox Jane Alvarez, swear to God!” I growled, coming up behind her.
She threw some dirt to the side, hitting my foot as she asked, “What?”
“If you overexert yourself and go into labor, I swear to God I’ll spank your ass until you can’t sit down,” I growled.
She snorted. “You could try.”
I just shook my head, knowing this wasn’t a fight I could win.
“Did you check your blood sugar?” I asked.
I could hear her growl of annoyance at my question.
I asked it a lot.
Sometimes too much.
But I liked the effect it had on her.
“Yes,” she hissed.
“Give me a kiss, wench. I’ll be back in time for Way to go to bed, okay?” I asked, bending down.
She got up onto her knees and offered me her upturned lips, which I took without hesitation.
“I fucking love you, asshole,” she said, smiling up at me.
I grinned. “I fucking love you too, witch.”
She winked, knowing I wanted to call her something else, but also very aware of the fact that I wouldn’t say something like that in front of Way or my mother.
I touched my lips to my mother as I moved off, and said, “Take care of her.”
She gave me a droll look. “And when have I not?”
I scrunched my nose up at her, and finally caught Way, who was being chased around by Reagan seeing as Way had stolen Reagan’s iPod cord that she was using to charge it.
“Give me a kiss, heathens, so I can go,” I said, bringing Way’s belly up to my mouth so I could blow a raspberry on it.
She squealed, and I tossed her over to my father who caught her effortlessly.
Reagan was next, and I gathered her into my arms and gave her the same directions I gave my mother. “Take care of Nox for me, okay?”
She rolled her eyes. “Mom can take care of herself, but I’ll keep an eye on her and let you know if she overexerts herself, okay?”
Knowing that would be as good as it got, I gave Max a wave, and headed out to the house.
But it was only fifteen minutes into my trip home that I realized that I wasn’t alone in the car.
In fact, the longer I thought about it, the more convinced I was that I felt something slithering around at my feet.
“Fuck me,” I breathed, pulling the SUV over without making any sudden moves.
I about bit a hole in my tongue as I slowly eased the door open, and bailed.
Somehow I managed to look back as my feet hit the pavement, only to see a long rattle tipped tail ease back under the seat of my Tahoe.
“Holy fuck,” I breathed, after I realized I’d nearly just died.
Then I cursed myself when I realized that not only had I left my phone in the truck, but my sidearm as well.
Lennox may very well kill me for shooting her car up, but there was no way in hell that I’d get back into the SUV without being assured that the fucker was dead.
So there I stood, for fifteen minutes, as I opened every single door, and backed away to wait.
Downy and Luke rolled up five minutes later, and they were looking at me like I was fucking possessed.
“What the fuck man?” Downy asked, stepping out of Luke’s truck.
I nodded my head to the Tahoe. “There’s a fucking rattlesnake in the Tahoe.”
“Seriously?” Luke asked with a raised brow.
I nodded. “Lennox made me take the old smoker out of my parent’s flower bed. It’s in the back of the Tahoe; it must’ve been where it came from.”
Luke, ever curious, made his way to the open door to the Tahoe, took one glance in the backseat, and back pedaled like his dick was grabbed.
“Holy fucking shit, that thing’s massive!”
Then, like horrible fucking timing, none other than the rest of the Motley Crew pulled up, and they all piled out of Max’s Suburban.
“What’s up?” Max asked, easing up to the side of us without getting out.
I nodded my head towards my Tahoe. “There was a snake in the smoker.”
Max blinked. “Not shit?”
“No shit,” I confirmed.
“Well, what’re you going to do now?” He asked.
“Not a fucking clue,” I admitted.
So, one by one, the lot of us got out and tried to see the snake, which had taken up against the baby’s car seat that I’d tossed into the front seat.
“Shoot it,” Michael muttered.
“Grab the top of the car seat and pull the fucker out with it,” Sam suggested.
“Your phone’s ringing,” James said, stating the obvious.
“Maverick calling,” my Tahoe announced to me.
I reached in and pressed the phone button on the steering wheel, knowing I wouldn’t get too close to the snake, which meant getting anywhere near my actual phone wasn’t gonna happen.
“Hello?” I asked warily.
This was all her fault!
“Umm,” Lennox said. “I might, or might not have, over done it. And I’m currently standing in a puddle of my water that just broke.”
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut as terror gripped me in its claws.
“Get my dad to take you to the hospital,” I said quickly.
“I can’t. Your dad has cloth seats. We have leather. Come back and get me,” she said urgently.
I cleared my throat. “There’s no can do on ours. There’s a snake in there, and there’s no way I’m getting it out by myself.”
She was silent for a few moments before she started giggling. “I’m sorry.”
I ground my teeth. “You should be. It crawled out of the smoker.”
She hissed, and my stomach clenched with the sound.
“At least,” she breathed out roughly. “It didn’t come out when you were carrying it to the car. Or if you’d have left it, and I moved it. Things could be worse.”
“Get dad to take you to the hospital. Mom’ll have to watch the kids until dad can get home to get my truck. I’ll catch a ride with Max,” I told her.
She sniffled, and my heart broke to know she was in pain.
“It’ll be okay, baby.”
The men around me shuffled their feet, none of them liking the fac
t that a woman was in pain any more than I did.
“I know, Benny Boo Boo,” she sniffled. “I fucking love you.”
I winced at the use of the nickname she’d given me.
She’d watched How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days, and had ‘fallen in love’ (her words not mine) and had used the nickname in private ever since.
Now, though, I figured my free pass was gone.
“I’ll meet you there, baby. Love you too.”
Lennox hung up, and I backed away from the Tahoe warily, fishing my keys out of my pocket and handing them to Max.
“Thanks man,” I muttered, tossing him my key.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “What makes you think I want to deal with that?”
“Because your niece or nephew is on his or her way, and I’m not there yet?” I asked with a raised voice.
He waved me off. “Get out of here.”
Thirty minutes later, with five men in tow, I burst through the maternity wing doors and headed straight to the room I’d been told via Downy’s phone.
I got there in time to see them wheeling her down the hospital hall and straight into surgery.
“Over here!” Payton called, waving me over.
I ran to her and started stepping into the clothes she offered me.
I ripped the booties with the size of my feet, but Payton waved me onward. “It’s fine, just get them on as far as you can and let’s go.”
I left my sister with a kiss at the door of the operating room, and hurried through the glass doors.
“Mr. Alvarez, I assume,” a nurse fully garbed in her surgical gear asked lightly.
I nodded my head, looking over the nurse’s shoulder. “Yeah. That’s me. Is she okay?”
The nurse nodded, her eyes shining with humor. “She’s fine. They’re just getting to the good part.”
She led the way further into the room, and I nearly dropped to my knees at the sight of my wife’s belly gaping open with a diagonal line gaping open.
I swallowed thickly, forcing myself to move, one foot in front of the other, until I came to Lennox’s side.
“I knew you’d make it,” she whispered, not bothering to open her eyes. “The snake didn’t bite your wiener, did it? I’m quite fond of that.”
I blinked in surprise. “No, my wiener is all good.”
The anesthesiologist snorted in amusement.
“She could feel a little more than what we were comfortable with, so I shot her up with a nice cocktail about a minute before you walked into the room,” he informed me.
“Ahhh,” I said, understanding now why she was speaking the way she was.
“A little pressure!” A man’s voice called from the opposite side of the curtain.
Then, I kid you fucking not, I saw the man hop up over the curtain, and then saw my wife’s body forcefully rock as he came down on her belly.
“Head’s out!” A woman called in excitement.
Nausea boiled in my belly, and I looked down at my wife to see her smiling, and her eyes dilated until I could barely make out any color at all.
“You have a boy!” A woman crowed, and I came to my feet in an instant.
“A boy?” I asked excitedly.
The doctor held the blood covered baby up for me to see, and sure enough, he was a boy!
A very pissed off at the world, boy!
I dropped down into my seat once again, and looked down at my wife, who was smiling from ear to ear.
“Did you hear that, baby?” I asked in happiness.
She smiled from ear to ear, the black bar across her forehead that was measuring her temperature crinkled with her skin as she did.
“You’re welcome,” she said smugly.
I leaned down and placed my lips upon hers.
“I love you, baby. You’ve given me so many gifts that I don’t think I can ever repay you.” I told her softly.
She pressed her lips against mine.
“I love you too, Bennett. And you’ve done the same, if not more, for me. I think we’re even,” she whispered.
I looked down into her eyes as I listened to the wails of my crying son.
“No baby. But I’ll spend my life trying to make it so.”
And I would.
Forever.
Sneak Peak
Here is the sneak peak of Michael’s book, Coup De Grace. Michael’s book comes out on November 4th, 2015. Hope you enjoy it!
Chapter 1
I licked it. So it’s mine.
-Fact of life
Michael
“You’ll need to make sure you get to the house by six if you want to make it on time for dinner,” my father said tiredly. “You know how your mother gets when you don’t show up on time.”
I winced.
I did know how my mother got.
Irrational is what she got.
It’s as if she hadn’t been married to a doctor for the last thirty years.
I can’t name one single time that my father got to any event on time, whether it be a birthday, vacation, sporting event, graduation, or hell, even a fucking birth.
Not one time had I seen her lose it over my father being late, but her baby boy was late and suddenly the whole world stopped.
“I’ll try to be on time,” I told him. “But I’m not promising anything. I have to work until five thirty; it takes nearly thirty minutes to get to your house from the station. And that’s if I leave on time. I told her to make sure she held the party later, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“Joslin wanted six,” my father told me hesitantly, opening the door to his office. “And that’s when Dean could be there.”
I squeezed my hands tightly into fists, trying my hardest to not punch a hole in the wall with my fist.
I had no earthly idea why my mother continued to invite my ex-wife.
Dean was at least my fuckin’ brother, and I could understand why he’d have to be there.
It was as if my mom didn’t care that Joslin was no longer married to me. Usually the family chooses the child over the child’s ex.
We were together for a little over a year and a half when I found out she’d cheated.
Granted, the reason she’d cheated had been my fault, or so she’d said, but that still didn’t give her the right to do that to me.
We’d taken vows. And I’d at least meant them.
Refraining from saying, ‘Fuck Joslin,’ I walked to the side doors of the hospital and to the ambulance bay with my father.
“I see,” I settled on.
My father’s face looked pensive, as if he wanted to say something, but didn’t know how to say it.
“Michael, I need to tell you something…” my father started.
I would’ve stayed to listen, but the mic at my shoulder started squawking.
“The nearest unit is needed at 5543 Pleasant Circle. Possible double homicide,” the dispatcher ordered.
Sighing, I turned and offered my hand to my pop.
“Gotta go, dad. I’ll try my hardest to get there on time, but I’m not promising anything,” I told him.
He nodded, looking for the world like he was upset that he hadn’t said what he had to say, and shook my hand before saying, “Be safe.”
My father, like my mother, hadn’t liked that I’d chosen to go into law enforcement.
They’d spent thousands and thousands of dollars to get me through medical school only for me to quit to join the Navy.
Once in the Navy, I’d continued my schooling. After I’d finished, and then got medically discharged due to some slight nerve damage in my left foot from a bomb exploding, did I decided that the medical field wasn’t really something I was much interested in anymore.
Which had pissed both my mother and father off.
Immensely.
But I’d hated it.
I’d only done medical school because it was expected.
None of my f
amily could understand why I’d quit.
My mother was a nurse. My father was a doctor. My brother was a doctor, and my sister was a nurse.
They couldn’t see past the fact that I was happy. They could only see the millions of dollars I was flushing down the drain to be a SWAT officer.
Not to mention they were hardcore Democrats, and I was most definitely not.
My mind, however, screeched to a halt as I saw her.
Nikki.
She had long, rich brown hair, beautiful brown eyes, and stunning caramel skin.
Today, she was in her scrubs.
A dark gray color that, although it should look incredibly ugly, didn’t.
She was a phlebotomist and on the IV team. A licensed paramedic that worked as a tech in the ER. She went around doing IVs throughout the hospital, but mostly stayed down in the ER where she was needed the most.
She was also studying to be a midwife, and from what I’d learned from Nico, her brother and another member of the SWAT team, she was well on her way to graduating.
I was in love with the woman.
No if’s, and’s, or but’s.
So in love with her that I could barely be around her.
She was in love with me, too…or had been when we’d first met.
But I’d ruined that, like I always ruined every-fucking-thing.
See, I was an asshole.
A diagnosed asshole, but an asshole nonetheless.
I was bi-polar.
I take my meds religiously.
Yet, there were times…like when I told Nikki that I didn’t want to have kids with her… that the asshole slipped through, and took hold of innocent people, tearing apart relationships as collateral damage.
I’d not meant it to come out that way.
I’d actually meant it to come out the opposite way entirely.
I didn’t want to have kids fathered by me.
I didn’t want my children to suffer from what I had.
Being bi-polar was only the tip of the iceberg.
I battled with depression during the winter months.
I had ADD and ADHD.
And swear to Christ I didn’t want to put a kid through that.
I was a prime example of a person that shouldn’t have kids.
But I was Nikki’s, even if Nikki wasn’t mine. At least not anymore.
She would forever have my heart, but I’d never hold hers.
Kill Shot (Code 11- KPD SWAT Book 6) Page 21
