Execution Style

by Lani Lynn Vale

  I shrugged. “Patience. And Foster was a lot of help, as well.”

  Miller’s eyes turned soft, and he wrapped me in his arms from behind.

  “Thank you, baby,” he rumbled. “I love you more than anything.”

  “More than your Guns and Ammo Magazine?” I teased.

  “Way more. Like tons more. More than my Shotgun News Magazine.”

  I smiled.

  Living with Miller hadn’t been easy these last few months.

  I’d found cause to bitch at him over just about anything. My emotions going all over the place as my hormones took over control of my brain.

  I knew I’d been rough, but I really and truly had the best husband in the world. One that would put up with my crazy mood swings, and rub my feet.

  One that would bring me home donuts on his lunch hour because I’d been craving them and was too tired to drive.

  Also one that didn’t flinch at having my water break all over his legs and boots.

  “You didn’t just pee on me, did you?” Miller asked for confirmation.

  “Nope,” I said instantly. “That’s a negative, Ghost Rider.”

  ***

  “Who the fuck is Ghost Rider, and why does she keep calling him the son of Satan?” Foster asked from the other side of the curtain.

  As I gave one final push through the most God-awful pain I’d felt throughout my entire life, I couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

  “What’s that all over his face?” Miller asked when our child was pulled from my body and then unceremoniously dumped on my chest.

  He had a whitish mixture of goo all over him, which was now all over my chest and hospital gown.

  “That’s the vernix, Miller. It’ll wipe right off,” the nurse, Cheyenne, said, scrubbing my son’s back vigorously. “See, perfect!”

  We’d realized about hour three of my eleven hour labor, that Cheyenne was Sam’s wife.

  Cheyenne was a beautiful blonde with hair nearly down to her butt, even in the loose pony tail that went down to her back.

  She looked like a goddess, while I looked like a big pile of steaming horse puke.

  Miller still lifted his lip, sneering at the Cheyenne. “That’s gross.”

  Needless to say, Miller hadn’t taken to well to the birthing process.

  Although he’d handled my water breaking on him, he hadn’t handled the screaming pain, blood, and…other questionable stuff, that came with it.

  “I swear to God, you better have the goods covered, because I’m coming in!” Foster called from the curtained area.

  I looked down at the doctor currently between my legs. “My va-jay-jay is exposed. Maybe you can take a trip to the cafeteria for a bite to eat and come back?”

  I heard grumbling from the peanut gallery that was behind the curtain, but they left, leaving the doctor between my legs, and the nurse still cleaning off our son, and us.

  “I make you tighter than ever,” the Chinese doctor between my legs said. “Like born again virgin.”

  My doctor was, of course, out of town.

  Instead, I’d had the on call doctor looking after me, and let me tell you something, he was a fucking hoot!

  He was the life of the party, and had celebrated right along with me when I made it through another contraction.

  “Okay, done here. Perfect for you once again, my dear sir.” Dr. Chen said, patting Miller on the back.

  I tore, of course. The baby, that was a perfect blend of Miller and me, was worth it, though. Worth every single tear. Every single drop of blood. Every single painful tremor.

  Miller blushed.

  Actually blushed.

  The baby was taken from my chest, and Miller followed him to the corner of the room where they weighed him and took his foot prints.

  “Let’s get you changed into something clean. Sound good to you?” The nurse’s assistant asked me once I was free and clear from prying eyes.

  I took the opportunity to clean myself up while the aide changed the linens.

  “Alright, there you go! Is there anything else I can get you?” The aide asked.

  Before I could answer, though, the doctor who’d been checking out the baby started to sing.

  “Happy birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy birthday dear baby. Happy birthday to you!”

  Tears started to form in my eyes as the doctor kissed my son’s feet, and then left without another word.

  “Oh, God, that was so sweet!” I cried.

  Cheyenne smiled. “He does that with each baby he delivers. It never fails,” Cheyenne said softly.

  “Nice guy,” Miller rumbled, eyes still on our son in his arms.

  “Alright, you two. I’ll give y’all about half an hour to an hour with this sweet bundle of love. That sound okay?” Cheyenne asked as she tossed her stethoscope around her neck.

  I nodded my head, and she left with a wave of her hand.

  Silence prevailed as Miller finally made his way towards me.

  I was sick to my stomach.

  On one hand, I wanted to hold the baby with all of my heart. Look at his features, smell his scent. Kiss him and smother him with love.

  What I didn’t want to see, however, was any signs of Mitch in him.

  “You ready?” Miller asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  I nodded, holding my breath as Miller placed our son in my arms then slowly lifted his cap from his head, and then unwrapped his tiny, bundled body.

  Then I gasped.

  “Oh, no.”

  ***

  “I can’t believe he has the Spurlock cleft chin. He even has your curly hair,” my mother gushed.

  “I can’t believe you stole our baby name!” Trance said animatedly. “That was our name! You stole it!”

  “Oh, hush. You’re being ridiculous,” Sloan snapped at her middle son.

  Micah snorted. “Your momma sure knows how to put you in line. Mercy, let her know if you need any pointers. These Spurlock boys are a handful. Even after they grow up.”

  I smiled wide and snuggled into Miller’s chest. Our son, Samuel Adams, was nestled in the bed between us. His perfect five pound body fitting into the small crevice between us like he was made to be there.

  He was a perfect, albeit smaller, replica of his father, and I was so beyond overjoyed that I could barely keep in my happy giggles.

  “I love you, Miller Genuine Spurlock,” I said quietly, brushing a kiss over his bearded jaw.

  He turned into me, capturing my lips with his own, as he said, “Back ‘atcha, babe.”

  Epilogue

  You’re going on a date for Valentine’s Day? That’s cute, I’m going to listen to the police scanner so I can hear my husband’s voice. Oh, and most likely eat everything edible in the refrigerator.

  -Police Wife Fact of Life

  Miller

  Valentine’s Day, one year later

  “We just made Samuel a baby sister, I can feel it,” I murmured against my wife’s lips, rotating my hips to punctuate my claim.

  She snorted and pushed until I rolled to the side, disengaging from her in a groan.

  “If we did, then you have to help with diapers. I’m over this whole diaper business,” Mercy replied.

  I smacked her ass as she got out of bed. “I’ll have to agree to disagree.”

  She tossed me a ‘you’re so not amusing’ look over her shoulder, and flipped the light on in our bathroom.

  I rolled to my back and pushed my hands beneath my head, closing my eyes and sighing.

  “You sound like you’re tired, when I know for a fact that you slept in, and took a nap today,” Mercy said from the bathroom doorway.

  She was brushing her teeth, the foam from the toothpaste running down her chin.

  “And how would you know that?” I asked dubiously.

  She grinned. “The baby monitor.”

  I opened my mouth, and then closed
it.

  “How’d you know it did that?” I asked suspiciously.

  “You have an app for it on your phone. And it’s not hard to figure out what your username and password is. It’s been the same since I’ve known you,” she teased, resuming brushing her teeth.

  I grinned unrepentantly. “You caught me. I just like to see you and Samuel during the day.”

  She shrugged. “As long as you realize that turnabout is fair play.”

  I nodded. “I never intended to keep that from you, it’s just that you rarely ever have a need for that since you had that handheld monitor. I never really thought to tell you what else it did. I only found it out myself a few months ago on accident.”

  She shrugged and turned to rinse her mouth, filling a glass of water from the sink before she came back in the room.

  Naked.

  My cock started to harden, but the only thing I did was pull her into my side once she climbed into bed.

  My Mercy was a hard worker.

  She was dedicated to her job, both as an owner of a business, as well as being a mom.

  She took Samuel everywhere she went, whether it be her office, or her jobsite. The guys in her employ loved him, and as long as it was safe, then I was all for not having to have my son in daycare.

  Thump-thump.

  “Your son’s awake,” she murmured into my side, sounding half asleep.

  “Let him come. It’s alright,” I said just as tiredly.

  There was just something about having Mercy in my arms that made me let go. Made me release all of the tension of the day, even if all I did the entire day was sit on my ass and do nothing.

  The door to the room creaked open, and I heard the distinct sound of my son’s feet slapping against the hardwood floors before he was climbing up into our bed.

  He didn’t bother announcing his presence with his voice, he only threw himself down on the bed between us, and squirmed until he was under the covers, exactly where he wanted to be.

  We’d tried to discourage the act when he was around nine months old, but now, at a year and a few weeks, we’d yet to find a solution for it besides locking him in his room. Something neither of us wanted, so we let him do whatever he wanted.

  Hopefully, just hopefully, in a few years, he’d start sleeping in his own bed. For now, though, I was happy. I liked having my family in my arms; the feeling was enough to make my heart full to bursting.

  ***

  Valentine’s Day, one year later

  I’m not sure what I thought would happen, me marrying her. One thing I could say for sure, though, was that I was in love with her now just as much as the day we married. There’s not one day I regret being married to her.

  She’s a wonderful mother two children, a perfect, supportive wife, and a loving, caring woman.

  I was amazed by her, daily.

  “I can’t believe she got this event set up so quickly,” my mother said at my side. “It’s amazing.”

  I couldn’t either.

  Slinging my arm around her shoulders, I pulled her close to me and rested my cheek against the top of her head.

  “I can’t either. She raised over fifty thousand dollars in a little over three weeks. Now every single person on the police department has a brand new bullet proof vest. She even got one for Downy’s K-9 unit, Mocha,” I told her. “Now she’s throwing a birthday party for Elton’s kid.”

  I still couldn’t believe it.

  She’d worked her ass off after another officer, a rookie named Elton Beret, had been shot in the line of duty.

  Mercy had become somewhat of the ‘class mom’ of the police station.

  She took care of us all, as well as our children.

  Samuel was now two, and was a spitting image of me when I was his age.

  Sierra Nevada Spurlock was the newest addition to our little family, and at two months old, she was the most perfect child in the world.

  Of course, that was a matter of opinion, but I felt that way nonetheless.

  “Oh, look! Seems your Samuel has found a woman to call his own,” my mother said, laughing happily at my side.

  I turned to find Samuel in the sandbox, playing nicely, next to the birthday girl.

  “You did really well, my boy. I’m very proud of you,” my mother said quietly, running her finger down the middle of my daughter’s nose.

  I nodded.

  “Thanks, mom.”

  “Thanks for what?” Mercy asked as she sidled up to me, wrapping her arm around my chest and giving Sierra a kiss on the forehead.

  “She’s proud of me for eating thirty two hotdogs at the carnival you set up for the PD,” I lied.

  She narrowed her eyes at me.

  “I don’t think it counts as ‘eating,’” she finger quoted. “If you throw it all up twenty minutes after you’re done.”

  “Hey!” I said indignantly. “At least I went longer than Foster.”

  “That’s ‘cause I ate forty hotdogs,” Foster tittered from across the room.

  I discreetly flipped him off.

  Not discreetly enough, however, since I received a smack on both shoulders from two of my favorite women.

  The only other one that surpassed them both was the little girl currently shitting her pants in my arms.

  “Here you go,” I said to my mom. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  I didn’t make it twenty feet before my mom started yelling at my back.

  “Hey boy!” my mother ordered. “Come back here and change this baby!”

  “Whoever smells it first, has to change it! You know the rules!” I yelled back.

  Foster and Trance snorted once I reached the bar.

  “Nice one,” Foster said.

  “I try,” I agreed.

  Sitting down, I reflected on how much my life had changed in a little over three years.

  A wife. Two kids. A house. A stable job.

  Fuck, but I’d become domesticated.

  A wail pierced the air, and I looked over to see my little guy getting the smack down laid upon him.

  He got free of her, finally, and came barreling at me like a ball of fire and energy. His little heart was broken, and as I caught him up into my arms, I felt complete.

  Everything about this moment was right.

  My brothers at my side, happy with a family of their own.

  My parents in front of me, doting on my other child.

  Then there was my Mercy Me. My everything. My heart, soul, and drive, staring at me.

  I love you, I mouthed.

  She winked. Back ‘atcha, big boy.

  Coming Soon

  Charlie Foxtrot

  September 3rd, 2015

  Chapter 1

  I don’t know why people think I’m such a dick. I’m a fuckin’ delight to be around.

  -Secret thoughts of Foster

  Foster

  “I need to speak to the officer that gave my grandfather a ticket. Right now,” I heard snapped over the phone.

  I shook my head and stood up out of my chair.

  “I’ll be there in a minute, Pat,” I said tightly, reining in my anger as best I could.

  Pattie Hightower was the front office receptionist who sat behind the wall of glass. The first person the general public saw once they entered the building.

  She had a shit job, and didn’t make enough. Everyone in the precinct was guilty of abusing her niceness, myself included.

  Limping around the desk, I winced as my leg started the familiar aching burn that usually came around when I’d done too much work with it.

  Which I had.

  I did every day, but today I’d re-qualified with the SWAT team.

  I’d run the obstacle course that every new potential member of SWAT had to run to be accepted into the fold.

  I’d previously been on the SWAT team, but an incident last Valentine’s Day with the crazy bitch that tried to take my
brother, Miller’s, and my sister-in-law, Mercy’s, life had sidelined me temporarily.

  Linda Moose, a.k.a. Crazy Bitch, CB for short, had tried to plow her car straight through Mercy’s face.

  At the time, Mercy had been pregnant with my nephew. I’d seen her small body fold into my brother’s, and before I knew it, I’d started running.

  Right into the path of the stupid bitch’s bumper.

  CB had reversed, so I had, too.

  I’d stopped when my back had met the brick mailbox. Unfortunately, Linda had not.

  She backed straight into me, pinning my left leg in between the bumper and the brick mailbox from hell.

  Then she’d tried to leave.

  Bad for her, my gun had been in my hand before I’d even consciously thought about it.

  I’d shot her through the back glass.

  The first two bullets had passed through her left shoulder, and the next one had grazed the top of her head.

  She’d crashed after my last shots took out her tires.

  It was inconclusive whether she passed out from hitting the tree, or the bullet to the head.

  Regardless, I’d managed to stop her before my leg finally realized there wasn’t much left to stand on.

  I’d fallen to the ground and promptly passed out.

  Then had woken up in a hospital bed ten hours later, legless, and in a perpetual bad mood.

  “You got a live one, Crush,” Chief Rhodes said, eyes alight with laughter.

  I didn’t bother to respond.

  I’d somehow become the laughing stock of the station.

  They thought it was funny to call me Crush.

  I, on the other hand, thought it fucking sucked.

  I didn’t need to be reminded on a daily basis that I was missing my leg. Well, half a leg.

  I had a below the knee amputation.

  Which was better than, say, an above the knee amputation. Regardless, it was still an amputation and it had impacted my life greatly.

  I witnessed the fact every morning when I looked down. Every morning when I fitted the prosthesis on my leg. Every morning when I walked into work.

  My prosthesis looked like anybody’s leg when I was wearing jeans or long pants. The problem was, was that everyone on the force, as well as in the community, knew I was missing a leg. Knew the weakness I had.