Water under the Bridge

by Sherryl Hancock

  Water under the Bridge

  Sherryl D. Hancock

  Copyright © Sherryl D. Hancock 2016

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Vulpine Press in the United Kingdom in 2017

  ISBN 978-1-910780-63-3

  Cover by Armend Meha

  Cover photo credit: Tirzah D. Hancock

  www.vulpine-press.com

  Acknowledgements

  As always, thank you to my beautiful wife Tirzah who is my life and love and who is responsible for helping me bring these stories to life for all of you to read.

  Thank you too, for the people who are willing to read a new author, and give me a chance to be heard. I am forever humbled by your kind acceptance.

  For lovers everywhere who need to believe that everything happens for a reason and that their love is strong enough to survive anything. Keep believing, it’s worth every second!

  Chapter 1

  “What’re you doin’?” Tyler Hancock asked her wife as soon as she picked up her call.

  Air Force Captain Shenin Devereaux-Hancock smiled; it was something Tyler had always said as a greeting when she knew who was calling.

  “Driving in fun LA traffic, how about you?” Shenin replied.

  Tyler sat back in her chair in her office on base, putting her combat-booted feet up on her desk and smiling.

  “Just kicking back and relaxing for the next few minutes,” Tyler replied.

  “And then what?” Shenin asked, knowing that Tyler rarely relaxed for long when she was on duty.

  “Oh, Obama is expected to come through, so we’re on,” Tyler said mildly.

  “Brat!” Shenin said, scowling. “Ask him for that transfer while you’ve got his ear.”

  Tyler chuckled. “Yeah, that’ll be the first thing I say to him, ‘Hey Mr. President, I know you’re busy dealing with national issues, but can you sign this transfer request so I can go be with my wife in California?’ That’ll go over big.”

  “Hey, he’s married and in love with his wife, I think he’d understand…” Shenin said, her tone reflecting the grin on her face.

  “Yeah, yeah…” Tyler said, smiling at her end too. “So what does your day look like?”

  “Oh, the usual chaos. It’s astounding how many of these units need aviation resources. I feel like I’m constantly juggling,” Shenin said, shaking her head.

  “Well, you got into this because you’re good at logistics,” Tyler pointed out.

  “I got into this because that last accident really trashed my ability to do security force work,” Shenin said, scowling.

  “Okay, but you’re good at what you do now, babe…” Tyler said, sensing her wife’s mood drop from over twenty-six hundred miles away.

  Shenin was silent on the other end of the phone.

  “Shen…” Tyler queried, her tone worried.

  Shenin blew her breath out, knowing that worrying Tyler wasn’t going to help anything.

  “I’m here, I’m fine,” she replied, almost automatically.

  Tyler sensed that as well. Pressing her lips together she fought the anger that rose every time Shenin put her off. Shenin Devereaux was the only woman Tyler had ever loved to the point of feeling complete. Unfortunately, loving someone that much meant that you felt every nuance of their moods, good or bad, and that wasn’t always helpful. Loving someone as headstrong as Shenin Devereaux also meant having to try and work around her stubborn nature that kept her from asking for help when she needed it.

  “So, how is it going at the department itself?” Tyler asked, purposely lightening her tone.

  “Okay,” Shenin said, shrugging at her end.

  “Making any friends?” Tyler asked, knowing that Shenin was a social person. She needed to have people to talk to; that would help her settle in better.

  Shenin had been in Los Angeles for eight months, six of which had been with her new assignment as the Air Force Aviation Liaison to the Department of Justice’s LA IMPACT task force. It was very different from their lives in Washington, D.C. where Tyler was part of the security force at Andrews Air Force Base, and Shenin had been a logistics officer. They had Tyler’s family in Maryland, a lot of family, as well as friends they’d made over the almost four years they’d been married. Now Shenin was alone in a different city.

  “A couple,” Shenin said, her tone taking on an edge.

  “Uh… Why that tone?” Tyler asked.

  Shenin cleared her throat, also knowing her wife quite well. “They’re lesbians,” she said.

  “Uh-huh…” Tyler murmured, knowing that wasn’t the part Shenin was worried about telling her.

  “They’re both involved. I mean, Skyler’s even married, but Jet has a girlfriend.”

  “Skyler and Jet?” Tyler repeated, like she was making a list.

  “Stop it,” Shenin countered immediately.

  “What?” Tyler asked, grinning.

  “You know what,” Shenin replied.

  “They’re butch, huh?” Tyler asked.

  Shenin didn’t answer for a moment, her eyes narrowing on her end of the phone. Finally she sighed. “Yeah, they are. So?”

  Tyler shook her head on her end; she knew that Shenin hadn’t wanted to tell her that part.

  “Why do you assume I have a problem with them because they’re butch?” Tyler asked, her blue eyes sparkling with heat.

  “I know how you get,” Shenin told her.

  “How I get?”

  “How you think.”

  “And how do I think?”

  “You think that because they’re butch they’ll hit on me,” Shenin said.

  “That does tend to be the pattern,” Tyler said.

  “With me or with lesbians?” Shenin asked, narrowing her gold eyes.

  “With butch lesbians hanging out around a very femme lesbian who happens to be very hot, and with no wife in evidence,” Tyler replied, her tone heated.

  “And if they hit on me, naturally I’m just going to go to bed with one of them, right?” Shenin asked, her tone reflecting her annoyance at the direction of the conversation.

  Tyler blew her breath out; this wasn’t the conversation she’d wanted to have either. She couldn’t help her reaction when she heard about other women around her wife. Without a doubt, Shenin was one of the most beautiful woman she’d ever come across. Tyler knew that lesbians, attached or not, tended to flirt. Right now, that was the last thing Tyler wanted to think about with Shenin on the other side of the country.

  “Ty?” Shenin queried when Tyler didn’t answer.

  “Babe, it’s not that, okay?” Tyler said, putting her feet on the floor in her desire to fix the conversation.

  “It is that, Ty,” Shenin said, her voice serious.

  Tyler closed her eyes at her end of the line, knowing she’d just pissed her wife off and also knowing that nothing she could say right then was going to fix it.

  “I gotta go,” Shenin said then, wanting to get off the phone.

  “Shen…” Tyler began.

  “Don’t,” Shenin said shortly. “I gotta go.”

  With that Shenin hung up.

  At Andrews Air Force Base in D.C., Tyler threw her phone across the room.

  “Goddamn it!” she yelled.

 
; She absolutely hated the distance between them, and what was really eating at her was that it wasn’t just miles. There was an emotional distance between them, and Tyler couldn’t seem to get through to bridge that distance. The eight months on the other side of the country hadn’t helped at all. Tyler hadn’t even been able to get out to California since Shenin had been transferred. It was driving her crazy. Things at the base had been insane, taking up so much of Tyler’s time that she barely had time to eat or sleep, let alone have a relationship with her wife. Tyler knew that it wasn’t the only thing causing problems though, Shenin had been distance since the incident.

  Tyler hated to even think about that time the year before. There’d been a mission to establish a small operation in Iraq near Baghdad. For once Shenin and Tyler were scheduled for the same mission. Shenin was the operational logistics officer and Tyler was part of the security force. However, at the last minute, Tyler had gotten pulled from the mission and Shenin had gone to Baghdad without her. The entire team had been captured by ISIS members. It had been a terrifying month that Tyler simply remembered as a nightmare. Shenin had finally been returned, wounded, but alive. The distance between them had been growing since that time.

  In Los Angles, Shenin got to the office, and got out of her car. She stood smoking for a few minutes, doing her best to calm her nerves. She was still out there when Jet’s black Maserati pulled into the lot. Shenin looked over and once again found herself astounded by the outrageously expensive car.

  The day after the division-wide meeting where Shenin had introduced herself and the program she worked for, she met Jet Mathews for first time. Shenin was in the parking lot getting her gear bag out of the rental car she was driving and was struggling with it because it was stuck on something in the car. Jet drove up and getting out of her car, she immediately offered assistance.

  “I got that,” Jet said, seeing the problem and reaching past Shenin to pull aside the strap that was getting caught under the seat.

  “Thanks,” Shenin said, moving to take the gear bag.

  Jet held the bag fast, her light green eyes sparkling. “We’re going the same way, I’ll take it.”

  Shenin looked back at the woman, naturally sensing that she was gay. Jet had a very butch look about her, but that alone wouldn’t have been a tip off. The fact that Jet’s eye contact was direct, and held a few seconds longer than necessary, was the tip off.

  “Okay,” Shenin agreed, then her eyes settled on the car that Jet had parked in the space next to Shenin’s. “Holy crap, is that a Mas?” she asked.

  Jet grinned widely, inclining her head. “Yep.”

  “Nice…” Shenin said, nodding.

  They became fast friends.

  “Good morning?” Jet asked, walking over to Shenin. She could see that Shenin had obviously been standing there smoking for a bit, since there were a few butts on the ground.

  “Sure, if you say so,” Shenin replied, her eyes slightly narrowed.

  “Uh-oh,” Jet said, grinning as she pulled out a cigarette to join her friend. “What happened?”

  Shenin shook her head. “Nothing, just not a good morning so far,” she said.

  Jet narrowed her eyes. Shenin was normally fairly cheerful, even in the morning, so this was odd enough to pursue.

  “Come on…” Jet cajoled. “You can tell me.”

  Shenin looked back at Jet for a long moment. In her head she was doing the math; she could definitely understand Tyler’s concern if she’d actually seen Jet Mathews. Jet was beyond handsome. She had black hair that was worn loose and shaggy down to her collar, with really beautiful light green eyes and a long leanly muscled frame. Then again, so was Skyler Boché, who actually looked a lot like Jet, with shorter dark brown hair and light blue-green eyes. She was a little more strongly built too. Yes, the two women she’d become friends with were quite attractive, but Tyler didn’t know that. All she knew was that they were butch, and that’s what pissed Shenin off.

  “What if I don’t want to tell you?” Shenin asked, her grin wry.

  “You know you do,” Jet said, grinning.

  “Do I now?” Shenin countered.

  Jet gave that brilliant white smile, which would definitely have lesbians all over LA checking up to see what their wives were up to at that moment.

  “Don’t give me that smile, Jet Mathews…” Shenin said, narrowing her eyes.

  “Who’s doing what to who?” Skyler asked as she walked up to the two, her grin wide as she looked between them.

  “Jet’s trying to charm me,” Shenin said, waving her hand in Jet’s direction.

  “She can’t help that, it’s a habit,” Skyler said, winking at Jet. “So what’s up?”

  Shenin rolled her eyes, dropping her cigarette and stubbing it out with a sandaled foot. She was dressed in civilian clothes that day. She only wore her Air Force uniform when she knew she was going to the base.

  Blowing her breath out, she saw that both women were now looking at her expectantly.

  “Jesus, you two are like bookends!” Shenin said, moving to grab her gear bag.

  Jet and Skyler exchanged a look, grinning at the analogy. Skyler moved to take the gear bag from Shenin.

  “I got it!” Shenin insisted.

  “Uh-huh,” Skyler said, as she took the bag out of Shenin’s hand and shouldered it.

  “See? This kind of thing is what’s going to drive Ty nuts…” Shenin said, then grimaced as both Jet and Skyler turned to look at her.

  “Whoa… Okay, where did that come from?” Jet asked, raising a black eyebrow.

  Shenin sighed and leaned against her car.

  “I told Ty about you two this morning and she got all pissed off.”

  “Wait, you hadn’t told her about us before now?” Skyler asked, setting the gear bag on the car’s roof.

  Shenin shrugged. “It never came up before.”

  Jet and Skyler exchanged a look.

  “So, you told her about us this morning?” Jet asked.

  “Yeah,” Shenin said. “She asked if I was making any friends here.”

  “And you said that the two friends you’ve made here are butch?” Skyler asked looking surprised.

  “Well, I didn’t say, ‘yeah I made friends with the two hottest butches in the department’, geeze!”

  Jet and Skyler both chuckled at the inference.

  “But you obviously told her that we’re both butch,” Jet said.

  “Yeah,” Shenin said, nodding.

  “And you only told her today because she asked?” Jet asked.

  “Yeah…” Shenin said, her voice trailing off as she saw the look of oh Jesus on Jet’s face. “Why?”

  “And she got pissed,” Skyler said.

  Both Skyler and Jet had seen pictures of Tyler. With the exception of the long golden brown curly hair, Tyler was very butch. They knew what the problem was immediately.

  “Yes, she got pissed, and that’s not okay with me,” Shenin said.

  “Why?” Jet asked.

  “What do you mean why?” Shenin asked, her look baffled.

  “Are you trying to tell us that you didn’t know she’d react like that?” Skyler asked.

  Shenin sighed, rolling her eyes heavenward. “I’m trying to tell you that it’s bullshit that she acts like this at all. I’ve never given her a reason not to trust me.”

  “Dev…” Jet said, shaking her head. “She’s away from her girl. That’s bad enough, but to know that her girl is making friends with butches that she doesn’t know from Eve…” Jet’s voice trailed off as she grimaced.

  “What’s the big deal?” Shenin asked. “I even told her that you two were both involved with women.”

  “Won’t matter,” Skyler said. “She doesn’t know us so she won’t trust us.”

  Shenin made a ‘pfft’ sound. “It’s stupid.”

  Jet grinned. “It may be, but I can’t say I blame her.”

  “Nope,” Skyler confirmed.

  Shenin looked
between the two of them befuddled. “Why?”

  “Well,” Jet said, “for one, you’re pretty hot, Dev.”

  “Yeah, no one could miss that,” Skyler said, shrugging.

  “And like I said, she’s way over there, and you’re here,” Jet said.

  “Well, that’s not my fault,” Shenin said defensively.

  “Is it her fault?” Skyler asked, knowing the answer, because Shenin had told them why Tyler was still back in Washington D.C.

  “Damnit!” Shenin exclaimed. “No, but she sure as hell could have come out here by now to meet you two, right?”

  “You mean the two butches she knew nothing about until this morning?” Jet asked, her look amused.

  “Oh, shut the fuck up, Jet!” Shenin growled, even as she started to grin.

  Jet chuckled. “If you were my girl, I’d be pretty paranoid too,” she told her.

  “I second that,” Skyler said, nodding.

  “You aren’t going to tell Ty that when you meet her, are you?” Shenin asked her look wry.

  Jet and Skyler both laughed, and the three of them walked into the office together.

  ***

  Sebastian was staring at numbers on his computer screen when he heard the knock on his office door. Looking up, he saw Ashley standing there smiling at him.

  “Hi,” he said warmly.

  “Hi,” Ashley said, smiling.

  “Glad you could make it,” he told her.

  “Well, you did say you were going to make it up to me…” Ashley said her look amused.

  “I did and I am,” Sebastian said, looking at his computer screen again. “Come on in,” he said, beckoning with his left hand, while his right hand tapped at the computer keys.

  Ashley walked into his office, looking around. She’d never been in there before. She walked over to the wall where pictures and framed certificates hung. She saw pictures of him with a group of men, obviously Army Rangers like him. There were also pictures of him and Kashena Windwalker-Marshal, an ex-Marine.