“So who won?” Dolphina had to ask, grinning at the picture Robin had painted.
“Cosmo’s mom killed us all—starting, of course, with Janey, her own teammate.”
“Speaking of Cosmo’s mom,” Dolphina said. “Yashi’s dad is here.” She singsonged, “He asked me where she wa-as.”
“Oh, really?” Robin was intrigued. He’d told Dolphina on Thanksgiving that he thought he’d noticed a spark between the two older members of their dinner party. Dolphina hadn’t noticed it then, she’d been too busy dodging Will, but this afternoon, Yashi’s dad had been just a smidge too casual when he’d asked about Mrs. Richter.
“Have you seen her?” Dolphina asked Robin now.
“Not since she arrived,” he said. “But knowing Cos’s mom, she’s queuing up to play Balls—probably trying to talk Commander Jacquette into being on a team with her.”
SEAL Commander Jazz Jacquette was about seven feet tall—a very big, very black, very handsome man who rarely smiled. She couldn’t imagine him teaming up with Cosmo’s mom to do anything, let alone play Balls. And yet…Cosmo’s mom was so infectiously upbeat—Dolphina had never seen anyone say no to her.
Maybe it was time to wander up to the spectator loft…“If you see Yashi’s dad,” Dolphina started.
“Cosmo’s mom and Yashi’s dad,” Robin mused. “They must’ve had real names at some point in their lives…”
“Lois and Clark,” Dolphina said, and at Robin’s disbelieving look, she confessed. “I don’t know what Yashi’s dad’s name is, but Cosmo’s mom is Lois.”
“I kind of liked thinking of her as Mom,” Robin admitted. “But now, all I’m going to be able to picture—whenever I talk to her—is her flying through the night sky, with Yashi’s dad in a Superman suit.”
They both laughed, because Yashi’s dad was an exact replica of Yashi, only older. Both men were deadpan and slow-talking, but with a dry sense of humor. There had been times, during Thanksgiving, that Dolphina had wanted to check Yashi’s dad for a pulse.
“Thanks so much for that, Dolph,” Robin continued. “I gotta find Jules…”
“That’s why you pay me the big bucks,” she called after him as he went in search of his partner, no doubt to make sure that Jules, too, would forever carry that image of Cos’s mom and Yashi’s dad in his head.
“Hey.”
Dolphina turned, and there they were. Will and Maggie. “Hey!” She focused her sudden quick rush of pleasure on the girl, who was dressed in warrior gear, including a cammie-print bandana, worn biker-style on her head. She held out her arms, and Maggie gave her a warm hug. “How are you? You look ready to play Bah—laser tag. I’m glad you could come.”
“Are you kidding?” Maggie radiated excitement. “I can’t believe I was invited. Where’s Jules? I want to meet Jules.”
Dolphina stood on her toes and scanned the room and…Oh. Jules was still in the corner, by the door, in deep discussion with the much taller, dark-haired man who obviously had come only as a spectator, dressed as he was in khakis and a polo shirt. He looked like an insurance adjuster from Iowa, and not at all like someone whom the Secret Service believed posed a threat to the President.
“He’s still talking to Jones,” Robin answered for Dolphina as he reappeared, and Will stood on his toes to look over at Jules.
“Lot of people here,” Will told Dolphina as she looked at him. “Gotta start learning names.”
Oh, God. She fished in the bag she was carrying on her shoulder, pulling out a set of labels she’d made for the occasion. I am a Boston Globe Reporter, they read. She stuck one on the front of his T-shirt, aware of how solid he was beneath her hands.
Will laughed as she turned him around and put one right in the center of his back as well.
Robin, meanwhile, was giving Maggie a low five. “You came to play, huh, hot shot? You want to head over to the gaming area and partner up?”
“With you? Yeah.” She turned to Will. “Can we go over there?”
“I think I’m going to just stand right here,” he replied, “and let Dolphina cover me with labels.” He looked at her. “Don’t stop with only two—I’m enjoying this.”
“I’m done,” she said. And great. She was blushing now.
“Are you sure?” he teased. “Because they’re not very big. You might want to put a few more on me, just to be safe—”
“Come on, Maggie. Let’s leave these kids to their squabble and go kick some butt,” Robin said, but then turned to Will. “If it’s okay with you…?”
“Go wild.” The reporter looked hard at his niece as Dolphina jammed her sheet of labels back into her bag. “But Mags—”
“I know.” The girl was clearly long-suffering. She began to recite, with plenty of eye rolls as accompaniment: “I don’t leave the building, I don’t give anyone my phone number or e-mail address, I leave my cell phone on so you can call me if you need me, I don’t bother anybody, I don’t ask any embarrassing questions…”
“Embarrassing questions like what?” Dolphina heard Robin ask as he led her toward the gaming area.
“Change the subject, Mags,” Will shouted after them, but it wasn’t clear if she’d heard him. He looked at Dolphina and rolled his eyes, too. “I guess he asked for it.”
“I’m a little afraid to ask,” Dolphina said.
“Isn’t it weird to film a love scene? What’s it like be naked in front of all those people? What if you really hate the person you’re kissing?” He did a dead-on imitation of Maggie. “What if they think you weren’t really acting and later they knock on your trailer door? What does Jules think when he watches a movie where you’re kissing someone else?” he said. “The list goes on. And on. So where’s my hug?”
Maybe it was that same insanity that had her watching the door for him. Or maybe she wanted to throw him into the same kind of chaos that she was feeling.
But she did it. Dolphina actually hugged him, enjoying the flare of astonishment in his eyes.
But then he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back, even as he laughed with a mix of surprise and appreciation. “I guess I should stay away from you more often,” he said, his breath warm against her ear.
Ever since that first day when he’d shown up early, he’d been careful to keep to his scheduled appointments with Robin and Jules—none of which had brought him out to the house.
Will had e-mailed her, though, numerous times throughout each day—and even on the weekend—sometimes just a brief line with a link to an article or a YouTube clip that he’d thought would make her laugh, but usually a longer, charming, chatty note, in which he’d written, surprisingly candidly, about himself.
He wanted to write a book—nonfiction. He had a number of ideas, and quite a few leads on what he believed would be not merely a great story but also a timely subject.
Living with Maggie had turned his world upside down—in a good way. It had raised his respect for his sister enormously. He remembered back when Maggie was seven, Arlene had lost her job. He’d been so blasé. So? Get a new one. Now he was the one worried about what the next few months were going to bring. It was eye-opening and humbling.
On top of his e-mails, Will’s columns in the Globe had been both interesting and respectful—his two-part article on Robin’s father’s decision not to attend the wedding had turned into a charming profile on a local Boston couple—two men who’d been together since they’d met in the Navy during the Second World War.
The next day, Will profiled Robin’s father’s dismal marriage track record, then filled the remaining space with a list of other so-called “defenders of marriage,” mostly senators, congressmen and right-wing pundits who had married and then discarded their first, second and sometimes even third wives.
He ended the article by stating that the elderly couple that he’d profiled the day before, who had stayed together through sickness and health for sixty-two years, had celebrated the third anniversary of their legal marriage this past Ma
y.
As icing on the cake, Will had sent Dolphina another e-mail just yesterday, telling her that Monday’s column would be focused on Greater Boston PFLAG’s Safe Schools Program—one of Robin’s favorite charities.
All discussion about the Secret Service’s perusal of the guest list had ceased. As had any request for Adam Wyndham’s contact info.
“I was thinking about your…dinner invitation,” Dolphina admitted now as she pulled back from their embrace. She suddenly felt shy. Awkward. What if he’d stayed away because he’d decided he wasn’t interested after all? “I mean, if you still want to have dinner—”
“Very much,” he said. He hadn’t let her go, his arms still around her, and as he tugged her even closer, she didn’t know where to put her hand. “Very, very much.”
She knew where she wanted to put it—on the back of his neck, her fingers in the softness of his too-long hair. Instead, she touched the sleeve of his T-shirt, the warmth of his arm. “Because I was thinking, you know, the wedding’s next Saturday. Maybe…we could make plans for…Sunday?” She looked up into his eyes, and God, she was in trouble.
Because he was looking at her the exact same way she knew she was looking at him.
With all of this crazy attraction right there in her eyes. With heat and desire and, yes, even fear…
But also hope.
“Uhn,” he said—an exhale that was more a sound than an actual word, yet still managed to express exactly what he was feeling. She knew because she felt it, too.
And Dolphina couldn’t help it. She put her hand on his neck, but instead of kissing her, he grabbed her. He pulled her back with him to the shadows at the edge of the room, where he yanked her into his arms and finally did capture her mouth with his.
Unlike that gentle kiss in his apartment, this time he kissed her hungrily, pulling her tightly against him as if he wanted every inch of her touching every inch of him, as if he wanted to absorb her, to fuse together so he’d never have to let her go.
Or maybe that was just what she wanted.
It was crazy.
And it was a darn good thing they were standing here, in a crowded room. If they’d been alone, there was no telling how much of their clothing would’ve been on the floor by now.
Which was crazy. And totally unlike her.
Of course, she’d been so careful with Simon, and look where that had led.
In the end, it was Will who stopped kissing her, resting his forehead against hers, breathing hard. His voice was rough. “Now I know exactly what I want for Christmas.”
She started to laugh, but he kissed her again, and it was a searing promise of heart-stopping, mind-blowing sex. God, God, God…It was weeks until Christmas. “Maybe we should celebrate Chanukah this year,” she told him. Chanukah had already started.
She’d surprised him—again—and he laughed as he looked at her. “Yeah,” he said, but it was strange, as if he weren’t responding to her, but instead coming to a conclusion. “Yeah.”
“So…dinner on Sunday, then?” she asked. “Maybe just the two of us…at my place?” Her audacity made her voice sound a little tentative, so she added, “I don’t make that kind of invitation very often.” That is, if not very often could be defined as never.
But somehow Will knew, because his eyes were soft now, and as gentle as the hand he used to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I would love that,” he said. “But I’d also love to take you out, so if you decide you’d rather…”
She kissed him again, and he made a sound, low in his throat. “Or we could skip the whole dinner and dating thing and just get married.”
He was smiling at her, clearly kidding, or…Was he? There was a glint in his eyes that seemed deadly serious. Of course she really didn’t know him very well, so maybe this was how he teased. So Dolphina laughed, and reached for him again, but this time he kept her at arm’s length.
“We’re both supposed to be working here,” he reminded her. “I’ve got to go interview a Navy SEAL or two, and check out this game that Robin and Maggie are playing and…you’re looking at me as if you want to kiss me again and I’m never going to leave this corner of the room if you don’t stop that.”
“Well, maybe you should stop looking at me like you want to kiss me again,” she countered.
“It can’t be done,” Will confessed. “I’ve been looking at you like this ever since I crashed the shower. I always thought love at first sight was a crock of shit. But, God—I feel as if I’ve known you forever. And I’ve never been so certain of anything before in my life. You’re the one.”
Dolphina’s heart was in her throat. He was serious. He was…She nodded. “You had me at crock of shit,” she told him and he laughed. “But would you mind repeating that very last part…?”
His smile faded, but it didn’t disappear. It just morphed into something tender, something heartfelt. Something she’d been afraid she’d live her whole life without ever seeing. “You’re the one,” he whispered as he searched her face, no doubt looking for that same wondrous something.
And finding it in her eyes, he kissed her again.
The party was winding down.
At least this part of it was. Tonight, those who could stay were coming back to the house for pizza, and to help trim the Christmas tree.
Most of the SEALs and Troubleshooters had left, off to do some combined training. Jules knew that he could thank the commanding officers of both groups for setting up what had rapidly become their yearly tradition—cold weather training in the mountains of New Hampshire—during this, the week of his and Robin’s wedding.
It would have been impossible for so many of the SEALs to arrange leave all on the same day. And catching a flight to Boston would have been another challenge. This way, they were within a relatively short drive of the festivities, with all of next Friday night and Saturday scheduled as downtime.
Of course, there were no guarantees that SEAL Team Sixteen wouldn’t have to go wheels up before the wedding. Heck, there were no guarantees that Jules wouldn’t have to do the same—if a situation arose that was dire enough.
But Jules had learned, as Robin had, that it was often best to take life one day at a time.
And today had been a very good day.
Even with that crappy conversation Jules had had with Jones, back at the start of the party.
Jones was now sitting with his arm around his wife, Molly, on one of the sofas in Laser-Mania’s spectator loft. Their two-year-old daughter, Hope, was angelic in sleep, with her head on her mother’s lap.
Jones looked over, as if he felt Jules’s eyes on him, and smiled, shaking his head slightly as if to echo the very words he’s spoken earlier. You worry too much, Cassidy. Did you really think I didn’t expect the Secret Service to mark me? I’m fine with however you want to handle it—including watching the ceremony off-site, via webcam. I want to be there, you know I do, but we both know it’s more important that the President attends.
Despite Jones’s reassurances, Jules knew that it was going to bother the man to sit in the church surrounded by an armed security team—like he was some kind of monster.
A monster who leaned over and sweetly kissed his wife, after laughing at something she’d said to Cosmo’s mom.
Who was sitting on one of the sofas perpendicular to the Joneses’, discussing her favorite rap artists—unbelievable, but true—with Yashi’s dad, who was named Greg, not Clark.
Although Lois Richter did seem to be looking at Greg Hirabayashi as if he might, indeed, wear a giant S on his chest, beneath his gray Boston College sweatshirt.
Jules had to smile at the Superman image Robin had put in his head, and then he was just thinking about Robin and grinning like a fool.
Alyssa, who was curled up at the other end of that third sofa where Jules was parked, poked him with her toe. “That’s some smile,” she said.
He met her eyes, still grinning. “So did you ever think you’d be best man at my wedding?”
<
br /> She thought about it. “I think I did. I didn’t think it would be Robin you’d be marrying, but…I’m glad it is. I also didn’t think it would be a wedding wedding, more like a commitment ceremony.”
“It’s not the same thing,” he told her. “It’s just…not.”
“If you move out of Massachusetts,” she started.
“I know,” he said. In most states, his marriage wouldn’t be considered legal. “It’s incentive to stay.”
“Have you…” Alyssa started, but Jules shook his head and she stopped. She knew not to press him on the issue of his plans after his current temporary assignment ended. Instead, she gave him a sudden brilliant smile. “I think the thing I find most astonishing is that I’m sharing my best man duties with Sam. I still wake up sometimes in the night and see him in bed next to me, and…” She laughed.
“You think, Holy shit,” Jules spoke for her, because he knew exactly how that felt. “How’d I end up here? But it’s a good holy shit. It’s the polar opposite of waking up in a ditch, or in jail. I mean, I’m just guessing, since I’ve never done either of those things. Well, there may have been a ditch once, back when I was in college.”
“You? Never.” She poked him again.
“No fair, I’m ticklish,” he said, grabbing her feet.
“Remember how nervous I was when Sam and I got married?” she asked.
Jules nodded. He did remember, and he answered her next question before she asked it. “No, I’m not nervous at all.”
“You’re such a liar.”
“I am,” he agreed. “I’m extremely nervous. This is a huge fucking deal.” He looked over at little Hope and winced, but he was in luck, she was still asleep. “Kind of like having a baby,” he pointed out. “I mean, look at you, Lys. Yikes. You’re already huge—that thing’s only going to get bigger, and then? It’s going to want to come out. Have you thought about that? I mean, good grief—have you taken a long look at Sam? He was no mere seven-pound baby. You’re going to be giving birth to a…a Texan.”
Alyssa was laughing. “I’m aware of how tall Roger is, yes, thank you.”
All Through the Night: A Troubleshooter Christmas Page 16