Doin' a Dime

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  And though I didn’t get to experience these things with you, I know that you’ll do well.

  And I know, without a shadow of a doubt, the man that you take as yours will treat you right. Or I’ll haunt his ass from the afterlife.”

  I snorted hard at the way that her father spoke.

  I would never test that.

  Not ever.

  The day that you were born, my entire world stopped spinning. One second it was all about your mom, and then it was all about you and your mom. The constant struggle to allow you the freedom to breathe, but protect you from the nasty things in life that I hope you never have to experience.

  I love you. Your mama loves you. I can’t wait to see you again.

  But you live your life as long as you can, and we’ll be here when you’re ready.

  Love you,

  Daddy

  Wyett was officially bawling.

  That was the photo we hung up in our bedroom. Her face buried in my neck, her arms around my shoulders. Her breasts pillowed against my chest.

  “Thank you so much, Hunt,” Wyett whispered. “You have no idea how much that means to me.”

  I kind of did based on how hard she was hanging onto my neck.

  “Love you, Wyett,” I told her quietly. “You mean the world to me.”

  She pulled back so I could look into her watery eyes. “You are the world to me.”

  EPILOGUE II

  You can either be happy, or help your child with their math homework. You can’t do both.

  -True facts of life

  HUNT

  Years later

  “Shit,” I grumbled as I saw the state trooper walking toward the car’s back door. “Shit, motherfuckin’ shit, shit.”

  I was going way too fast.

  Why? Because I wasn’t paying attention.

  My head was thinking about something else, and everybody knew how I got when I was thinking about something else.

  Needless to say, I should’ve been focusing on my fucking speed. Not about whatever in the hell I’d been focusing on.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  I rolled the windows down and placed my hands on the steering wheel, my fingers reflexively squeezing and relaxing on the cool leather beneath my hands.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  I’d gotten a shit ton of tickets in my life, but this one was going to take the cake.

  And let’s just say, Wyett was going to be pissed as hell, because I could see the food on the seat beside me cooling off second by second. Chick-Fil-A was only good hot.

  And that meant that when I got there, she was going to lose her shit that it wasn’t.

  That was what happened when you had an eight-month pregnant wife at home that was on bed rest and couldn’t leave the house for anything.

  Luckily, I’d only been going ten over, and that meant that I wouldn’t be arrested or anything.

  But he’d run my license, see the ‘felon’ stamped on my sheet, and automatically start acting like a prick.

  There would be no getting out of this ticket.

  No way, no how.

  Groaning low under my breath, I rolled the back window down also, and placed my hands back on the steering wheel, and then waited for him to walk up.

  After about five minutes of him likely running my plates and seeing the three speeding tickets I’d had in the last three years—sometimes I went a little fast on the bike because I damn well could. They were lucky I stopped at all since I could likely get away from them. He made his way up to my truck window.

  He was at the tailgate, his eyes on mine in the side mirror, when I saw his hard eyes.

  They weren’t covered in glasses like the last two, showing me how hard and unyielding he was.

  Yeah, I wasn’t getting out of this ticket. Nope.

  Just as the state trooper got close enough to the car that he could hear what was going on inside, my four-year-old, who was fucking smarter than me when it came to computers, started yelling.

  “Oh, God. Daddy! It’s coming out of my ass!” he yelled. And when I say yelled, I mean screamed. “Why did you pull over, Daddy? It’s coming out!”

  There was a moment of shocked and stunned silence as his words processed in my brain.

  Then, I closed my eyes as horror washed over me.

  Son of a bitch.

  “Daddy!” Jester yelled. “Oh, God! It’s crawling up my back!”

  “Uhhh,” the state trooper said. “Is everything okay here?”

  Jester, my bright and shining star, said, “Does it sound like everything is okay here? I just had Mexican food and I’m literally unable to keep the squirts from catapulting out of me! The only thing saving my mom’s truck right now is the fact that I’m in a car seat!”

  My other son, Bastian, squealed in toddler delight. “Squirts!”

  The state trooper took one look at the back seat full of kids, looked at me, then said, “Head home, sir. I’m sorry.”

  Then he walked back to the cruiser behind us. Laughing.

  I waited until the trooper was in his car before slowly putting my truck into gear and starting off.

  The moment the trooper couldn’t hear us anymore, Jester stopped.

  “What…” I paused, trying to contain my laughter, as I looked in my rearview mirror at my son. “In the hell was that?”

  “That was me saving your ass,” Jester said. “After you got pulled over that last time, I looked up ways to get out of tickets. That was one of the suggestions.”

  My son was so smart, that sometimes he sounded more intelligent than an adult.

  It was disheartening at times how smart he was.

  Ten minutes later, I wasn’t laughing anymore.

  I walked through the door, and her eyes narrowed on me.

  “Why,” Wyett said quietly, “did I just get a call from my best friend telling me about some hilarious story spreading around the station about a man in a truck with his four-year-old screaming ‘I have to take a shit’ and ‘it’s coming out of my ass?’” she paused. “And why do I feel like that might have something to do with why my fries are cold?”

  I frowned. “Why was Six at the police station?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Bailing out Bruno. Apparently, he got into a bar fight.”

  I snorted. “Over what?”

  “I didn’t think to ask,” she admitted. “I was too upset thinking about how you got pulled over. Again.”

  I pulled out my phone and texted Bruno, then thought better of it and just looked up his arrest record by breaking into the local precincts data base.

  “It was because someone tried to run over his dog,” he said. “Or, at least, I think that’s what I’m reading.”

  “Regardless.” Wyett waved that off. “How about you tell me the entire story?”

  I sighed and rolled my eyes. “It wasn’t like what you’re thinking,” I explained. “I didn’t tell Jester to say it.”

  “What did he say?” she asked.

  So I explained everything, ending with how worried I was about getting her French fries to her hot.

  She started to laugh, holding her belly as she did.

  “Oh, God.” She wheezed. “How the hell did we get a kid like him?”

  I asked myself that every day.

  Then again, I asked myself how I got so lucky as to have been blessed with all of them.

  I was one lucky man.

  Laughing, she only walked away, letting me off quite a bit easier than I ever expected.

  I walked into the kitchen an hour later, twenty minutes after putting the ice cream to ‘freeze’ in the ice cream maker, when I saw my four-year-old, the one that’d bailed me out today, standing by the mixer.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  My child whirled around, Barbie in hand, and stared at me warily.

  That’s when I saw the milky substance dripping off of the Barbie’s feet.

  How could this kid be so smart with computers, yet so weird wh
en it came to everything else?

  “Where is my Barbie?” I heard Wyett ask. “I swear I just had it on my bed.”

  I raised a brow at my kid, and he tossed it in my direction and took off running.

  Rolling my eyes, I washed the Barbie’s legs off, then took it to my wife who had, while on bed rest, taken it upon herself to start making Barbie clothes and making a damn killing off of it on Etsy.

  I tossed it onto the bed, then went ahead and crawled up the length of my wife’s body.

  She stopped what she was doing—sewing what looked like a dress—and stared at me warily.

  We hadn’t had sex in five months.

  And it’d been five months too long.

  I couldn’t wait until this newest baby was here, and I wasn’t even going to lie and say it was because I was excited about adding a third baby to our household.

  I was excited.

  Only, I found that I missed my wife’s…

  “What are you thinking?” Wyett asked, her breath fanning my lips.

  I looked down into her eyes.

  “Thinking about how much I miss this beautiful body of yours,” I admitted.

  Her lips twitched. “I…”

  “Hey, your kid is busy dipping what looks like a celery stalk into your ice cream on the counter. You might want to go deal with that,” Six said as she came into the room, took up a spot on the bed next to my wife beside her fabric, Barbie dresses, and romance novels. “By the way, way to go today. You’re the talk of the station.”

  I rolled my eyes, left with a quick kiss on my wife’s lips, and then went to find my son.

  Only later, when the house was quiet, the dogs were in their respective places in front of my kids’ doors, and my wife was snuggled deep in my arms, did I tell her.

  “I thank whatever fates there are every day that sent me to that prison. Because without that shitty three and a half years, I would’ve never had these five beautiful ones with you.”

  She answered me with a snore.

  The baby in her belly, however, rolled against my side.

  And that was enough for now.

  • • •

  I hope you enjoyed Hunt and Weytt’s story. Next up is Sin and Blasie in Kitty Kitty!

  Turn the page for a preview.

  What’s Next?

  PROLOGUE

  Drill Sergeants: they will kick your ass and look sexy doing it the entire time.

  -Blaise’s secret thoughts

  BLAISE

  Six years ago

  Oh. My. God.

  “Holy shit,” the girl beside me breathed as she got a load of the male drill sergeants.

  I didn’t say anything.

  Couldn’t.

  I didn’t want to be singled out and be forced to do anything more than I was already doing.

  When I’d told my parents that I was going into the military—the Army specifically—I didn’t have any clue just how bad it was going to be at first.

  It was… hard.

  Like, really hard.

  One second, I was a happy twenty-one-year-old, and the next I was in the Army, being yelled at by really screechy female drill sergeants for eating two freakin’ kiwis instead of just one.

  I mean, for God’s sake, it didn’t say ‘you can only have one goddamn kiwi.’

  How was I supposed to know the limit was one?

  Anyway, I digress.

  The men standing in front of us were… gorgeous.

  But one drill sergeant in particular kept drawing my eye.

  The name stitched into his uniform said ‘Solomon’ and he was so sexy I could barely breathe.

  Then again, that barely breathing thing might have something to do with the number of push-ups we’d been forced to do over the last hour.

  Whatever the reason, I had a feeling that every single eye in the entire unit I was in was currently focused on one drill sergeant in particular.

  “Drill Sergeant Solomon,” our female drill sergeant, Drill Sergeant Ames, called. “Would you like to lead the next drill?”

  A small flicker of annoyance crossed Drill Sergeant Solomon’s face, then he stepped forward and led the next drill.

  I fell over my feet twice as I tried not to stare at his bulging biceps.

  How the hell did they not rip the damn shirt?

  Jesus Christ.

  I…

  “Do you have a problem, recruit?”

  I shivered at the low, raspy voice of the other male drill sergeant that had come with the sexy one.

  The name on his shirt read ‘Brees.’

  The shiver that’d run down my spine wasn’t the same type of shiver that Solomon had gotten out of me earlier.

  No, this one was one of downright terror.

  Because there was something about this particular drill sergeant that had freaked me out from day one.

  When I was younger, I’d had a lot of ‘premonitions.’ Not like ‘you’re about to die, don’t step off that curb’ kind of premonitions. No, this was the kind of feeling that maybe the person you just met wasn’t a particularly good person. That they were someone that I needed to stay away from. A man that in this case, if at all possible, I needed to not gain his attention.

  “Sir, no, sir.” I went rigid at attention.

  The man’s eyes traveled over me, head to toe, and his lips twitched. “Mackenzie.”

  I swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”

  “I know a couple of Mackenzies,” he drawled.

  God.

  Dammit.

  Of course, he did.

  That meant he was going to be paying more attention to me.

  Wonderful.

  “Carry on.” He gestured to the rest of my platoon that’d started off without me.

  I rushed to catch up, a feeling of utter relief coursing through me at not having to stay with him any longer.

  The only problem was, I’d gained his attention.

  When a man like Drill Sergeant Brees had you in his sights, things were bound to go bad.

  And they did.

  • • •

  Three weeks later

  I. Was. Terrified.

  Drill Sergeant Brees had made a comment this morning during our morning drills. One that had left me with my eyes wide open even though I needed the sleep desperately.

  You may think you’ve won, but you haven’t. I’ll see you tonight, Mackenzie.

  Normally, it was only the female drill sergeants that dealt with the female soldiers.

  This morning, though? It was like Drill Sergeant Brees had gone out of his way to make sure that my life was a living hell.

  It was boot camp.

  I’d expected it to be hard.

  But not this hard.

  The one shining bright light in my dark sky over the last three weeks had been one single man’s attention.

  When I caught Drill Sergeant Brees’ attention, I’d also caught Drill Sergeant Solomon’s.

  And not because of anything that I’d done, but because of what the other drill sergeant had done.

  He hadn’t liked Brees’ attention on me.

  Not one little bit.

  And he’d thwarted almost every single attempt of Brees’ at getting me either alone, or almost alone.

  But tonight, I wasn’t sure that he would be saving me.

  The sick feeling in my stomach grew until it was a pounding ache that nearly doubled me over.

  As if these last three weeks weren’t enough, now I was on my period, in need of tampons, and about to head to sick hall for some medication on top of that.

  I was blessed with awful, and I do mean awful, periods.

  Every month, like fucking clockwork, I had them.

  They would tear me down, one cramp at a time, until I was lying sick on the floor.

  In bootcamp? That kind of thing wasn’t ever going to fly.

  So, even though I felt like utter and complete shit, I forged ahead.

  Why couldn’t I just be like tho
se other chicks that were so damn stressed during basic training that I didn’t have a period at all?

  Oh, because the universe hated me, that’s why.

  “Something I can help you with, Mackenzie?”

  Those words, said in an amused tone, had my stomach almost emptying itself right then and there.

  Swallowing hard, I tried not to let on how freakin’ scared I was.

  “Drill Sergeant Brees.” I tried to smile, but I was sure it came out more as a grimace. “I’m headed to sick hall to get some medication.”

  “For what?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

  Though his physique was impressive, it wasn’t nearly as impressive as Sin’s.

  Absinthe Solomon.

  I’d learned his entire name just yesterday when he’d stepped in between me and Drill Sergeant Brees.

  Drill Sergeant Brees had all but assaulted him for interrupting us.

  Thank God he had.

  Now not only did I know his name, but I also hadn’t had to do anything more humiliating than I had.

  Thank God.

  “Umm,” I hesitated. “I’m having cramps.”

  I didn’t see the point of lying.

  Maybe the idea of me bleeding would turn him off and make him step away.

  If anything, it only made him step closer.

  “Cramps?” he asked. “You PMSing, Mackenzie?”

  I felt another cramp start, nearly bringing me to my knees.

  “Yes, sir.” I didn’t lie.

  “Okay.” He gestured. “Let’s go. I’ll walk with you. Keep you out of trouble.”

  I’d rather go back to my bed and die.

  But when I would’ve turned, he caught my arm in an unyielding grip and didn’t let go.

  His grip was so punishing that I didn’t even think to tug it away.

  I knew that if I did, the result would only be worse than the original intent.

  But, instead of leading me the usual way, he led me the long way, and the ever-darkening dusk started to make me feel very uneasy.

  There were now not many people around.

  Those that were around weren’t paying us any attention.

  Which had to be why, when we slipped past a darkening building, nobody noticed when we both disappeared into the shadows.