“You’ve made it your own. All of it. You and Caleb and Tommy and Chloe.”
Shelley smiled, obviously pleased. “We have. We’re not a traditional family, but tradition’s overrated. We are what we make ourselves and what the Lord makes of us.”
“You’ve made something good here. Wonderful and good.” Laurel kept her voice neutral, but an old wistfulness whispered through her. With an effort, she held herself back from hoping too hard that she might someday have a place with them.
Home isn’t where you go, she thought, recalling something she’d read on the back of a cereal box years ago. It’s where you come back to.
Shelley and Caleb had done that here. They’d made a home with toys and flowers and the sounds of children’s voices. Laurel had never known the love of family. The closest thing she’d ever had to a family was the barracks where she’d done basic training. She pushed away that depressing thought.
She told herself that she liked being unencumbered by possessions and other people’s feelings, but the truth was she wanted ties, wanted the love and mess and noise that came with family.
Suck it up, girl.
“I knew I wanted a home,” Shelley said. “A real one where I could be a mother to Tommy and Chloe. Neither of us—” she sent an understanding look Laurel’s way “—had much of an example in Bernice, or Victoria as she was then, but I learned. Poor Tommy. He had to put up with my first attempts at mothering, but he survived.”
Laurel knew that Shelley was speaking of more than Tommy surviving her mothering. In researching S&J and Shelley and Jake in particular, she’d learned that Tommy’s parents had been murdered, and he, along with Caleb and Shelley, had become the targets of killers who had no remorse. Protecting Tommy had brought Caleb and Shelley together.
“It’s obvious that you love him and that he loves you.”
“I can’t imagine my life without Caleb, Tommy and Chloe.” Shelley’s eyes glistened with tears. “I’m sorry,” she said huskily with a quick swipe of her thumbs to wipe away the tears. “Every time I think about what the Lord’s given me, the waterworks start. What about you? Do you think you’ll marry someday, start a family?”
Laurel took her time in answering. “I don’t know,” she said at last. Despite her longing for a real home, she’d never thought of herself as a wife, a mother. Her career in the Rangers was everything to her. Or it had been. Her future loomed uncertainly. If her shoulder didn’t heal, there’d be no career to go back to.
“I don’t know how to be a mother,” Laurel confessed. “Or if I even want to. What if I mess up and my child suffers because of it?”
Shelley nodded. “Bernice did a number on all of us. If you want to talk about it, I’m a good listener.”
Laurel stared down at her hands as though they held the answers to questions that had plagued her for as long as she could remember. Did she dare take Shelley up on her invitation to talk about what they had both suffered at the hands of the woman who had given birth to them but had never been a mother?
Bernice had abandoned both Jake and Shelley. In Laurel’s case, Bernice hadn’t as much abandoned her as made it such that Laurel, who had just turned sixteen, had had no choice but to leave. It was that or fall prey to the dealers and lowlifes who had frequented Bernice’s trailer on a regular basis.
Laurel raised her head to gaze at the sister who looked nothing like her. What did they have in common but shared pain, a pain they had each thought was theirs alone? Did that make it better? Or worse?
“I know,” Shelley said, reading Laurel’s mind with ease. “We don’t look a thing alike. I’m ridiculously short while you’re—”
“Ridiculously tall.”
“I was going to say you’re tall and beautiful. You could have been a model. Ever think of it?”
Laurel shuddered. “No. Having people stare at me, take pictures of me like I’m a thing rather than a person. No.”
Shelley grinned. “I get it.” Her smile winked out. “I guess you had enough of that when you made Rangers.”
Finally. Someone who understood. “Sometimes I felt like I was on display 24/7.” Another shudder. “One of the photographers even suggested I put on makeup. Like I’d be wearing makeup tramping through the mountains or crawling through the desert.”
“Idiot.”
In perfect harmony, they smiled at each other. The smiles died when both women acknowledged that wasn’t what Laurel wanted to talk about.
Laurel drew a deep breath. “You and Jake made it through everything she did to you and came out on top.” There was no need to identify who the “she” was.
“And so will you.”
“I’m not so sure. Sometimes I still ask myself why she couldn’t love me and if it was my fault. I know it’s foolish, but—”
“She couldn’t love anyone,” Shelley cut in. “That’s on her. Not on you.”
Laurel prayed with everything in her that Shelley was right.
* * *
After the day he and Laurel had put in, the last thing Mace had wanted to do was go to dinner tonight. He’d longed for a quiet night with a good book, a bowl of ice cream and maybe some jazz playing in the background. Now that he was here, though, he was glad he’d agreed.
Shelley and Caleb’s home was beautiful, not because of the appointments or furnishings but because of the love that filled the space. He liked the bits and pieces of everyday living that were strewn about. He liked that Shelley made no attempt to apologize for the clutter. He liked the small touches that said this was a home, not a showplace.
When Caleb excused himself to start the steaks, Mace wandered back to where Laurel and Shelley sat and unabashedly listened to them talk about the mother who had never been a mother.
He knew Shelley and Jake’s story, and now he was learning more of Laurel’s. His lips stitched closed in anger at the woman who had essentially abandoned her children, leaving them to fend on their own. Even though it had been Laurel who’d done the leaving, she’d done so out of self-preservation.
His childhood hadn’t been perfect, but at least he’d known that his parents loved him. Shelley and Jake had had each other, but Laurel had had no one. She’d made something of herself and had done it on her own. From what he could see, she had done a fine job.
Caleb reappeared, took a look at Mace and said, “Listen to them. They sound like they grew up with each other.”
Mace had met Caleb Judd only a few years ago but had quickly come to regard him as a good friend.
“I never understood how hard it must have been on Jake and Shelley and now Laurel with the mother they had.”
Caleb clenched his hand, unclenched it and clenched it again. “Yeah. Shelley still keeps parts of her childhood from me. She thinks it’ll make me sad. What it mostly does is make me angry. Sometimes I’ll hear her crying in her sleep. I’ll wake her and ask her what’s wrong. She never says much, but I can see the pain in her eyes. I’ve never felt more helpless.”
Mace had entertained the same feelings. “Why would a woman who clearly disliked her children keep them for as long as she did? Why not give them up to the state where they might be raised in foster homes or even put up for adoption? Why not give them the opportunity to be loved?”
“Selfishness,” Caleb answered promptly. “She didn’t want them, but she didn’t want anyone else to have them either. And then there’s the money thing.”
It made a horrible kind of sense. Laurel was too smart not to have known. What must it have done to a young girl to know that the only reason her mother kept her around was for money?
Caleb took out his cell. “Mind if I turn on the news for a minute?”
“Not at all.”
Caleb brought up the news on the phone just as the anchorman was giving a rundown of the day’s events.
“At the bottom of the hour, we�
��ve learned that local man Tony Wexler was found dead in an alley. Police reports reveal that his throat had been cut...”
Mace inhaled sharply as a picture of his snitch was shown.
Tony the Snitch had been murdered. And Mace had been the cause.
* * *
“I’m glad we found each other,” Shelley said to Laurel. “The DNA test hasn’t come through yet, but I know. Here.” She placed a hand on her heart.
“So am I.” Laurel covered her own heart, rejoicing in the knowledge she might have a sister. “I’m a Ranger, but in some ways I’m still that little girl wanting her mother to love her. Does it ever go away?”
The warm understanding in Shelley’s eyes was balm to the ragged edges of Laurel’s heart. “With the Lord’s help.”
With the Lord’s help. Laurel held on to those words.
“I’m sorry you were alone,” Shelley said. “I had Jake. He looked out for me.”
“I survived. I got my GED when I was sixteen, left home, and never looked back.” No, she thought, in a moment of self-honesty, that wasn’t true. She’d sometimes wondered if Bernice had noticed that her child was no longer there or if it had been business as usual. “I hadn’t spoken to Bernice in more than a decade.”
“And then you got the call that she’d been murdered.”
It shamed Laurel that she’d considered, even for a moment, not returning for the funeral.
Bernice had never been a mother, but a sense of duty had sent Laurel back to that Podunk town with its harsh judgments that had been meted out to anyone who didn’t measure up to the narrow-minded standards, especially to anyone who lived in the trailer park that was on the wrong side of the tracks.
Whatever Bernice had or hadn’t been, she hadn’t deserved to be murdered in her own home.
Laurel looked about the pretty garden that was really an extension of the house and once more wished she’d known this kind of home, where small bits and pieces of daily living mixed together in chaotic harmony.
The love for family shone everywhere she looked. In the basket of toys flanking a chair. In the football that rested on a table, an incongruous note against a pot of African violets.
Caleb and Mace joined them then, with Caleb slipping an arm around Shelley’s shoulders.
“You gave me family I didn’t know I had,” Shelley said and reached for Laurel’s hand, gave it a gentle squeeze before releasing it. “I should be thanking you.”
Laurel bit down on her lip. She would not cry. She would not cry. She would not cry.
She started to stand, winced and prayed that neither Shelley nor Caleb had noticed. Mace already knew about the IED. She dug her teeth into her lip once more to steady herself. A spasm ran through her right arm up to her shoulder. This time she couldn’t control the flinch.
“Your arm’s giving you trouble, isn’t it?” Caleb asked. He rounded the chair and offered her a hand up. “I noticed it right away. Doing PT for it?”
A grimace took hold on her mouth as she thought of the hours of grueling physical therapy. So much for working to downplay her injury. “I was. Before...before Bernice and everything.”
“I’m guessing you took shrapnel to the shoulder and it shattered some bone. Now it’s messing up your arm.”
“Something like that. How did you know?”
“I had a buddy who went through the same thing.”
She asked the question and wasn’t sure she wanted the answer. “Did he make it back?” What would she do if she couldn’t be a Ranger any longer? Up until now, she had refused to think that she wouldn’t be able to return to the work she had trained for most of her adult life.
“No.” Caleb didn’t soft-pedal his answer, and, for that, she was grateful. She didn’t need well-intentioned platitudes. She needed honesty. “He’s working for a private firm now. He’s doing well enough, considering.”
“You never complain,” Shelley said.
Laurel squared her shoulders. “Whining doesn’t help.” She’d never been a whiner. She wasn’t about to start now.
“It’s not whining when it’s family.” Shelley rose as well and tenderly hugged Laurel, careful of her arm. “We’ll see this through together. All of it. If you need to set up PT here, Jake and I can help.” A frown gathered in her eyes. “Jake’s had his share of therapy for his leg. He knows the ins and outs of the system.”
The tears came then. Despite everything Laurel could do to stop them, they trickled down her cheeks.
Mace didn’t say anything, only handed her a handkerchief.
“Thank you,” she murmured, then turned back to Shelley and Caleb. “I don’t know what to say. To either of you. You had no reason to accept me, but you did.”
Shelley squeezed Laurel’s good arm. “Say that you’ll let us help you.”
Laurel hugged her sister back, and, after a moment’s hesitation, awkwardly did the same with Caleb.
One corner of his mouth twitched in a smile. “I always wanted a sister. Looks like I’ve got one now.”
What would Mace say if she were to hug him just then? Would he understand that the hug she gave him would be far different than the one she’d just shared with Caleb?
Shelley called Tommy to wash up. She got Chloe up from her nap and brought her out to join the party.
The four adults, two children and Sammy enjoyed the casual dinner in the garden. Teasing and lighthearted humor set the tone.
“Will you come again?” Tommy asked when Laurel and Mace got ready to leave. “And bring Sammy?”
“Of course.”
Laurel drew in a soft breath and realized that she felt a measure of peace. The future, still uncertain, loomed before her, but she no longer felt alone. For the first time in her life, she had family. Thank You, Lord. Thank You.
After saying goodbye, Laurel and Mace stepped outside—and were met by a hailstorm of bullets. Recognizing the staccato of MP5s, Laurel dropped to the flagstone sidewalk, gathered Sammy to her and protected him with her own body. She and Mace drew their weapons and, from their prone positions, returned fire.
But the men weren’t aiming at her. They were aiming at Mace, clearly wanting him out of the way. One man went so far as to get out of the car and head her way. He turned back when he saw Caleb, weapon at the ready, join them.
All three kept firing until the car had rounded a corner.
By that time, Shelley had joined them, a Glock in her hands. “I put the children in the back room. What happened?”
Mace looked grim. “Someone just tried to take Laurel and kill me.”
TWELVE
For the second time in four days, Mace and Laurel sat in the uncomfortable chairs of the detective’s office and answered questions. For the second time, they parsed out answers with an eye to telling the truth but refraining from making assumptions. Trusting the police was an option they could not afford.
Shelley had had to come in for questioning, too, as the attack had happened at her house.
After the interrogation, she called Jake and arranged for the four of them to meet at S&J headquarters. In the rental truck, Mace steered expertly through the late-evening traffic.
When he pulled the car to a stop at S&J headquarters, he didn’t immediately open the door. “I know it seems they have us on the run, but the game’s not over. Not by a long shot.”
Laurel warmed to the determination in his voice and the big hand he laid on her shoulder, but the guilt of having brought trouble to Shelley’s family was almost more than she could bear.
In her office, Shelley ran to Laurel, threw her arms around her. “Remember, you’re not alone. We’re in this together.”
“Thank you. You don’t know how much I needed to hear that. But I’m sorry I brought this trouble to your door. I didn’t think it through.”
Shelley shook her head. “None o
f that.”
Remorse swept through Laurel at the danger she’d put Shelley’s family in. “If I leave, maybe the goons the Collective keeps sending after me will follow and let you live in peace. I was selfish in coming here.”
Sensing her distress, Sammy pressed closer to her leg.
“There’ll never be peace as long as groups like Winston’s exist. They feed on hate and fear,” Jake said. “You were right to come here. We’re family.”
His attitude toward her had done an about-face. Maybe he was coming to accept the possibility that they might be brother and sister. Or maybe he wanted to please Shelley, who so obviously wanted the connection to be real. From what Laurel knew about the brother and sister, Jake had always considered himself Shelley’s protector, even now.
Laurel offered a tremulous smile. Shelley and Jake were both more generous than she deserved.
Shelley seemed to grow in stature as she paced the room, her energy a force to be reckoned with. For a moment, Laurel actually felt sorry for whoever was behind this. Shelley wouldn’t rest until they were behind bars. For all her small size, she was as tenacious as a bulldog and didn’t back down from a fight.
Laurel blinked back tears at Shelley and Jake’s staunch support. The knowledge that she had family and friends who were willing to stand beside her was the most precious gift she’d ever received.
“I am so sorry,” she said. “If something had happened to Chloe or Tommy...” Her voice choked.
“They’re okay,” Shelley said. “Caleb’s with them. We’ve posted a couple of operatives outside the house. We’ll rotate them until this is over.”
“How did they find us?” Laurel asked. “We weren’t followed. Mace did several SDRs on our way to your house.” Surveillance detour routes were standard procedure for military and civilian operators.
Mace looked at her jacket. “A tracking device.”
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