by Amy Lane
Glen had to clear his throat to get them moving, and Spencer followed the two of them blindly out of the hospital room to the waiting wheelchair in the hall, Theo at his heels.
Damien had brought what they referred to as the Cadillac Black Hawk. He’d had it retrofitted with soundproof panels and luxe seats, and while they could have spoken to Damien through a commlink to the cockpit, that’s not what happened.
What happened was Theo made sure Spencer was comfortable, made sure his leg was elevated, and then took the seat right next to his in spite of the fact that it sat six comfortably, with room for an EMT crew and two patients if they needed it.
And then Theo—without asking, without giving Spencer a chance to say no—leaned his head on Spencer’s shoulder and stayed there. Quietly holding his hand, lacing their fingers, all the way back to the ranch.
It was the damnedest thing.
Spencer couldn’t think of a word to say.
THEO let him off the hook that night. After getting settled into his room again, seeing all the changes, and, of course, meeting Colonel, who could not bear to be parted from him after nearly three weeks’ separation, Spencer was forced to concede he was still healing and needed to rest. Theo had the gall to tuck him in, making him set his clock for five in the afternoon so he could hobble across the property—on the walkway Preston had built for him while he’d been laid up—and have dinner in the big house with, well, everybody.
Because as Damien informed them, Cash had flown in that afternoon, and Glen had left the hospital to pick him up, and Elsie and Josh were arriving at six.
“Who’s running the goddamned business?” Spencer grumbled.
“Two guys Glen hired last week,” Theo told him cheerfully. “Or I should say a guy and a girl. Sadly, not partners like you and Elsie, but I’m pretty sure we’ll cure that.”
“Whatever,” Spencer grumbled, but Theo had gazed at him until his cheeks heated, and he’d been forced into honesty. “It’s nice,” he said reluctantly. “I missed everybody.”
“Was that so rough?” Theo teased, but he was running his hands through Spencer’s hair as he said it.
“You have no idea,” Spencer mumbled—or meant to mumble—but he might have fallen asleep first. He wasn’t sure.
He woke up at 5:00 p.m. when his phone went off and then spent an inordinate amount of time grooming. Usually he just let his hair grow until he couldn’t stand it anymore and then cropped it short. It was past that point now, so he had to run a wet comb through it after he shaved. Then he picked a dress shirt—something decent, green because he liked the color—and hobbled his way into the living room, where Theo was waiting.
Theo had dressed up too.
He was wearing a gold shirt with jewel-colored dragons on it, of all things, and a clean pair of jeans. His hair had been trimmed in the last month, and he smelled of a fresh shower and aftershave.
Spencer eyed him with a combination of suspicion and yearning.
“There were… pink things in my bathroom,” he said, the disgust not feigned in the least.
“Those were towels and a rug, with matching soap,” Theo said. “I borrowed them from Belinda, but we can buy something in dirt brown if you need to.”
“Why? Why do we need pink things in my bathroom? There’s soap, shampoo, a razor, pit-stop—”
“How about you-stop.” Theo rolled his eyes. “Matching soap and a rug around the toilet aren’t going to make your penis shrivel. Did you find everything else you need?”
Spencer nodded uncomfortably. “You dressed up,” he said.
“So did you,” Theo told him, eyes twinkling.
“Why did we do that?” And he wasn’t trying to be smart; he couldn’t understand the impulse; not at all.
Theo closed the distance between them and kissed his cheek, which was damned near the most romantic thing anyone had ever done to him, and Theo did it all the time.
“Because your friends are celebrating that you’re not dead, and it’s respectful,” he said softly. “At least that’s why you dressed up.”
“Why did you dress up?” Spencer asked, and while he actually had an idea for this one, he wanted to hear Theo say it.
“Because I wanted to impress you,” Theo told him, and Spencer actually held his hand to his chest, because it felt swollen or something.
“Why?”
“Because you keep trying to convince yourself not to keep me,” Theo said dryly. “I thought maybe I should sweeten the pot.”
Spencer gave half a laugh and shook his head. “Pot’s pretty sweet already, Woodchuck,” he said softly. “Just trying to give you a chance to run away, is all. No room to run away on the raft. There’s more room here.”
“There is,” Theo agreed, going to the door and opening it. “Which means me staying here is completely my choice. And that includes you. You know, in case you were wondering.”
Spencer grunted. “That much, I seem to understand.” With a heave, he started pushing himself forward on the crutches, being careful to minimize the stress on his leg. His side had healed decently in spite of the infections that he’d finally beaten off with a club. His leg, on the other hand—well, the doctor hadn’t been shitting around. He was just going to have to keep using it, brace and all, in spite of the pain, but he had to admit, the walk between his trailer and the big house—a half mile at most—had never seemed so long. Colonel, who normally would have been running circles around him while he trotted the path, must have sensed something was up. He stayed at Spencer’s side at a steady pace, and Spencer felt like crap because he was apparently letting even his dog down.
He was sweating by the time they got there, and Theo eyed him critically.
“You go inside. I’ll be back in a few.”
“Where are you going? You can’t leave me with all these people by myself. You don’t know what they’re like!”
Theo laughed and knocked on the door before opening it. “He’s here, guys! I’ll be back in five.”
And Spencer looked through the door to see Elsie and Josh bearing down on him at speed.
“Ack!” he cried, only kidding a little. “Oh my God, look at all the people!”
He’d even seen their vehicles as he’d come down the slight rise from his place. It just hadn’t occurred to him that there were so many of them until they were all crammed into Oscar and Belinda’s space.
“Well, you should enjoy remembering how to be a human being,” Elsie said, giving him a kiss on the cheek while juggling Caden on her hip.
“I human just fine,” Spencer protested, and then Elsie backed up and he found himself in a full-body hug from Josh, the only man he respected enough to give Elsie to since he wasn’t up for the job.
Josh was shorter than he was—around five-nine—but still taller than Elsie. Tanned, with sandy brown hair and California boy good looks, Spencer’s first thought when he realized Josh had been their assigned council in the Air Force had been, “Oh shit, we’re doomed!” But Josh had proven to have a core of steel—the airman who’d ended up unconscious before Spencer had arrived had wanted Spencer to rot at Ft. Leavenworth, and his father had been pissed. Josh had done his homework, though, playing hardball and finding evidence of at least three other assaults the piece of shit had been involved in. Yeah, Spencer had quit because the court-martial had seemed rigged from the get-go, but Josh was the one who kept him from being railroaded into prison out of hand.
“No,” Josh said, looking him up and down. “I think you still need help to human. I mean, I thought Glen and Damien would have helped, but they’re assholes too, so no dice.”
“Wait till you meet Theo,” Elsie said, nodding excitedly. “He’s great at giving human lessons. Where’d he go, anyway?”
“I have no idea,” Spencer said. “He got here, said, ‘Back in a sec!’ and ran away. Apparently I’m a nightmare human student, and I terrified him back into the trailer.”
“I doubt that very much,” Glen said, join
ing the throng around him. He clapped Spencer on the back and Spencer tried to suppress a wobble—that walk had taken more out of him than he liked to admit.
Glen saw it, though. “Okay, all, let’s let him sit at the dining room table, and then we can bother him.”
Glen cleared the way, and Spencer found himself sitting, a cold beer in front of him, and everybody he cared about surrounding him, chattering fiercely.
And it was funny. He’d never really thought about it before. He’d worked so hard being there for Glen and Damien, having Elsie’s back, being grateful to Josh and to Preston, and truly loving Oscar, Belinda, and their toddler who ate everything, that he’d never, not once, realized what he might mean to them.
But sitting in the middle of all that noise, he realized that he actually meant something, something important, and that put salve on a wound he didn’t know he had. He’d left his home so angry—and reasonably sure his parents wouldn’t want a fucking thing to do with him after he’d gone.
He’d written them the obligatory postcard, letting them know he was graduating with his wings, and he hadn’t even gotten back a congratulations. He’d realized he’d been right. He didn’t matter. He’d made it clear he wasn’t following his father’s belief system and… well, that had been the end of it.
But that hadn’t been the end of these people here. These people, in this house, seemed to care about him no matter how much he snarled, and he looked around almost desperately for Theo, because he suddenly realized what Theo had wanted to tell him—and he got it.
Theo showed up shortly after that and spent a moment scooping up Caden and blowing bubbles on his tummy. The sound of baby cackles filled the two-story farmhouse, which was feeling not nearly that large with the lot of them squashed up on the ground floor.
Belinda, who was moving about in the kitchen with an efficiency and comfort that she didn’t usually exhibit in big crowds of people, smiled cheerfully at him.
“You want to feed him his dinner, Theo?”
Theo grimaced and then, with a resigned look at Spencer, said, “Sure!”
Belinda had some cognitive challenges—she had to make lists or she forgot things, and Spencer had been part of the family meetings during which she and Oscar and Preston had sat down and put together schedules so she could be the mom she wanted to be and not the mom she was afraid of being. But her people intuition was right-on. She paused what she was doing and took a good look at him.
“Oh! You’re dressed so nice! Don’t worry, it’s not anything messy. He’s getting macaroni tonight. We feed him with a spoon.”
The relief on Theo’s face was heartwarming, and Spencer had to look away.
Elsie saw it, though. “What’s that look?” she asked under the chatter. “Why do you look so pleased?”
“He dressed nice,” Spencer mumbled.
“So did I.”
Spencer laughed—she was wearing a dramatic red ruffled blouse and a black skirt, complete with bangles, because when she wasn’t in the air, she had embraced the complete lack of military in her life to dress as dramatically feminine as possible. She also knew that her complexion, vividly dark, and her sable-fringed, oval-shaped eyes, looked particularly sultry and fabulous in bright colors with a little bit of sparkly in her eyeshadow.
“You look glorious,” he told her truthfully. “But I know you’d look glorious if the rest of us were wearing our flight suits, because you can look amazing and you don’t back down from shit. But Theo… I think he had to buy that shirt from his savings so he could dress up for tonight.”
“Oh,” she said, her full lips tilting into a smile. “He did that for you.”
Spencer pursed his lips against the smile. “Looks like it, yes.”
She arched an eyebrow playfully. “And how does that make you feeeeeeeeel…?”
He darted his gaze away, because what he felt was way too serious.
“Like that, huh?”
“Look at him,” Spencer said, nodding to where Theo was setting the baby down in his chair. Oscar had gotten him what they all called “the feeding shirt”—which was a 3X sized T-shirt for the grown-ups so they didn’t wreck all their clothes, because mac and cheese was not as clean as all that when the baby got hold of it. He was smiling at the baby and making faces and blowing bubbles in his neck, and Caden was giggling the whole time.
“Yeah, that’s a damn shame,” Elsie agreed. “He’s actually making my ovaries bat their eyelashes and shake their asses. And he seems to like you.”
He slid a sideways look to her. “You and Josh want kids someday, Else?”
“Yeah. We’ve been talking about it.” She smiled winsomely. “Look at my little California boy. Don’t you think he’d make a pretty baby?”
“Only because the mama’s you,” Spencer said. He really had no impartiality about Elsie, and the way she preened told him she knew it. “Theo’s going to want kids someday.”
Elsie nodded thoughtfully. “That terrify you?”
“God yes.”
“Enough to send that perfectly adorable man who takes no shit and gives no fucks about your snarly asinine mouth to that perfectly adorable little guest room he set up for himself? He’s got pictures on the walls and everything, because he’s not a barbarian.”
Spencer smiled softly, thinking about the seascapes Theo had purchased for his room—and the big framed print of a WWII bomber he’d put up in Spencer’s bedroom, probably thinking Spencer wouldn’t notice. “No,” he said, not aware he’d spoken.
Elsie put her face down by his ear. “No what?”
“No, it doesn’t scare me enough to send him away.” But he was tired already, and dinner hadn’t been served. “Maybe not tonight, but….”
“Good,” she murmured, kissing his temple. “Good.”
DINNER after that really was a celebration. Theo rejoined them when it was being served, still a little damp and smelling pleasantly of baby products. Before they all dug in—and Belinda, it seemed, had gone all out with stroganoff, salad, garlic bread, and even bruschetta, which didn’t really fit in as a meal concept, but which she knew Spencer adored—Glen cleared his throat and gave Cash a rather grumpy look.
“Cash told me I had to talk,” he said. “Which is a mistake. But here it is. We all had to fly some turbulence to get here, and last year when we thought we were through it, Mother Nature burned down this house and we had to start from scratch, so that was rough. But we all know the worst kind of rough weather is when someone we love is missing and we’re not sure how they’re going to be when we find them. And that’s happened to a lot of us, and every time, everybody in this family has pretty much shit puppies until our people were home. So Spencer, you probably thought you got to avoid that. You work really hard to make sure nobody’ll miss you if you do something stupid like fall out of a fuckin’ helicopter into an apocalyptic flood or something, but I’ve got news for you, buddy. Every person here—and that includes my brother and Oscar and Belinda and Cash and Damien and me—all shit a litter when you were gone into the big wide wet. So we are really glad you’re back, and we hope your hurts heal soon, and if you had to go scare the puppies out of us, we are so glad you got to bring Theo with you when we brought you back, because if we ever lose him, we’ll probably shit kittens instead, and that’ll give us a break from all the dogs.”
Spencer laughed, his face on fire, and realized he had to say something back. He looked at Elsie in agony and she shook her head and gestured for him to go on.
“I, uh, never thought Elsie and I would land somewhere we wanted to stay,” he said. “But you all didn’t only hire us, you adopted us, and now Elsie and Josh love you, and since I shit some puppies last year when the fires came, I think it’s safe to say I love you all too. And I really love that, like a true family, you adopted Theo when you didn’t need to, and you gave him a place to land when he might have been adrift.” He gave Theo a sideways glance, and his mouth twisted. “And I’m super thrilled you all came b
ack for us, I can tell you that.”
There was general laughter then, and Glen said, “Belinda, my love, dig in. I’ll get any damned thing you want from the kitchen, but just once I’d like to see you eat a hot meal.” And with that, dinner was served.
Spencer ate some and listened some and laughed a lot and wondered at the future a little. It was all cozy now when he was hurt and not flying and not gone four or five days a week, but would Theo be okay with that? Would they be able to make this work?
Still, as Theo passed the food to Spencer, making sure his plate was full and laughing with the people Spencer had grown to love like Theo’d lived there all his life, Spencer felt a truly alien emotion in his chest.
Maybe it was hope.
BE that as it may, he really was exhausted by the time they’d polished off their dessert. Apple pie—couldn’t beat that. And for a moment, as he’d taken a healthy bite with some vanilla ice cream, he’d been transported back into his mother’s kitchen when he was a kid and he’d believed in his parents’ love.
He’d come to with a shock and realized these weren’t his parents, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t loved. His eyes burned, and he thought that maybe it had been a big day back.
“Spence?” Theo said quietly. “You about done in?”
“No!” he said, sitting up straight, but that pulled muscles in his ribs that had grown weak, and he grunted and sank down again. “Augh!”
“I’m taking that as a yes,” Elsie said. “Do you need help getting him back, Theo?”
“Nope,” Theo said, smiling smugly. “I got that little golf cart thing Preston bought last week and drove it around to the front door.”
“Preston bought a what?” Spencer asked, looking in surprise at Glen’s brother.
“It was practical,” Preston said without batting an eyelash. “The horses are almost half a mile away, and the volunteers were spending half their volunteer time running around the property. And if it helps you for a little while, that’s purely by accident.”
