Shades of Gray

by Vicki Hinze

  “You bribed that damn judge, didn’t you?”

  Laura masked her expression and dropped her voice in the hope that Madeline would, too. “This is a private party, Madeline.”

  “Yes, I’ll bet it is.” Anger flooded her face, and she swiped a hand over the table, knocking everything on it onto the floor.

  Dishes clanged, pizza flew, and the root beer float splattered foamy ice cream and soda on chairs three seats away.

  “The party’s over.”

  The disturbance gained the attention of the manager, a brawny man about thirty, and he started over to the table.

  “If you leave now,” Laura said from between her teeth, “I won’t have you arrested.”

  “Is everything okay here?” the manager asked Laura.

  Laura didn’t answer, just held Madeline’s stare, ready for anything to happen.

  Madeline leaned closer, and the smell of sour Scotch tortured Laura’s nostrils.

  She dropped her voice so only Laura could hear. “This isn’t over. I’ll get the adoption overturned,” she said, her eyes glinting slivers of steel. “And I’ll get you and that goddamn judge for this. You might have bribed him, but you can’t bribe me.”

  “Miss?” the manager persisted. “Is everything okay?”

  Madeline glared back at him, then pulled herself upright and stumbled to the door.

  Timmy sat woodenly staring at Madeline’s retreating back, following her with his gaze until she left the building and the door swung closed.

  “Everything is fine,” Laura told the manager, forcing herself to smile. “We just had a minor accident. Totally my fault.”

  “No problem,” he said, clearly aware Madeline had caused the disturbance. “We’ll get you some fresh food and drinks right away.”

  Laura gave the man a genuine smile. “Thank you.”

  Shadows from the ceiling fan’s twirling paddles flickering over his face, he nodded, then headed toward the kitchen.

  Timmy’s jaw dropped open. “We’re staying?”

  Bless his heart. Laura reached over the table and clasped his cool hand in hers. “Remember me telling you that we can’t control other people’s actions, only our reactions to the things they do?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, if we leave now, then we’re letting Madeline control our actions. I don’t think we should do that. We came here to celebrate—and I’ve waited a long time to legally be able to call you my son—so I vote we stay.”

  Timmy thought it over, then agreed. “Yeah, me, too. We control us. Not her.”

  “Right.” Laura could have hugged him. And she would have, except Madeline still sat outside in her car, watching them.

  The swamp smelled dank.

  Even gliding along in the airboat, the air felt thick and heavy and wet. The humidity had to be a hundred percent.

  Alert to the night sounds, Jake identified them. The Everglades teemed with wildlife; in it, there were sixty-eight species of threatened and endangered animals—which he’d been warned not to terminate—alligators, the nocturnal raccoon, and snakes. Tons of snakes. He had seen a few in the moonlight, but so far none had threatened him. Still, he knew to be on guard. Among others, rattlers, copperheads, and cottonmouths thrived here. They had to thrive there to earn a mention in the geographical briefing.

  In survival school, Jake had insisted Laura kill the snakes, saying she feared them more than he did, and she had to overcome it. If ever taken prisoner, that fear would be used against her. Jake smiled at the memory. He’d rather face a platoon of the enemy armed to the teeth than a single rattler. She had known the truth, of course. Just as she had known the truth when he’d called her last night. The woman understood him as well as she understood herself, and she had understood that this time things were different. This mission was different.

  Laura had taken care of Timmy even before he had been born, insisting to Jake that his son have a father he knew loved him. She’d been right about that. Timmy was worth every ounce of hell Madeline had put Jake through, and then some. And Laura had stood fast and loyal, helping Jake through all of it. Yeah, Laura was nothing if not long on loyalty. A good friend. The greatest. But fantasies were fantasies, and she could never be more.

  I won’t love you. And I won’t forget it—not for a second.

  He’d said and meant it, and he hadn’t forgotten it, yet those wifely fantasies still were giving him hell. Why, he had no clue. He dealt with life and death every day. They had no future. He and Laura couldn’t have each other. Not now. Not ever. And he knew better than even to fantasize otherwise.

  Jake goosed the engine. A rush of warm air breezed over his skin. Still, she was special. He recalled a C-130 crash during a readiness exercise last spring. Jake had been assigned to the Accident Investigation Board. He’d known and worked with three of the eight crew members who had died.

  After the six-week investigative TDY, he’d returned home with raw nerves and bruised inside. He’d seen too many die.

  “It’s the nature of the beast,” Laura had said. “You do your duty, and, if you survive, then you do it again.”

  She had sat with him, silently offering her support just by being there.

  Jake hadn’t been able to tell her then how much that meant to him. Friends just don’t talk about some things, and that was one of them. Not even married friends. Especially married friends.

  Less than two percent.

  He had no right to tell her anything. They’d made an agreement. Settled on terms. And it was best for both of them to stick to them. They had no future. She didn’t love him. Wasn’t in love with him, and even in her wildest imagination, she couldn’t fathom ever loving him. That truth still stung his ego, but it was right. For them, it was right.

  The heart plays hell with logic, and the heart always wins. Jake had learned that lesson. And he didn’t need a refresher course to remind him of it.

  Watching a swarm of fireflies, he slowed the boat. A lot of stumps protruded up from the murky water. Tall and thin, they looked like spindly, twisted sentries, and he couldn’t risk hitting one hiding just below the water’s surface and screwing up the prop.

  He couldn’t risk a refresher course, either. In fact, last night he shouldn’t even have called home. But knowing his survival odds, he had to talk to Laura and Timmy . . . just once more. Just in case.

  So he’d buried the nagging fantasies, blaming them on the mission’s adrenaline rush, and phoned home. And knowing it could be the last time he’d talk to either of them, before he could say a word, he’d had to force his heart out of his throat and back into his chest where it belonged.

  “I’ve got a few more minutes of pounding the ramp before the flight takes off,” he’d told her. “Thought I’d call and wish you luck tomorrow.”

  He was flying out and letting her know it. Aware their phone could be tapped by Intelligence, friends or foes, she had known better than to ask any questions or act as if this trip was unexpected or abnormal. But in his mind’s eye, Jake had seen her scrambling for the remote, tuning in to CNN and muting the sound, trying to get a fix on where he might be headed.

  “Thanks,” she’d said. “We need all the luck we can get.”

  His voice had dropped a notch, unsteady as hell. “I wanted to wish Timmy luck, too. Any chance he’s still up?”

  With that request, she’d also known Jake was worried about this mission. To awaken Timmy, who always went to bed at The Big Nine-O, Jake had to be damn worried. And that no doubt had terrified Laura.

  But her voice had come out as smooth as silk. She knew the drills. No surprise. No regret. No awkward emotions. “I hear his CD player. He’s up. Hold on a second.”

  Timmy had come on the line, sounding sleep-fogged, and Jake had pictured him curled up on his Star Wars sheet
s, holding his lucky rabbit’s foot. He always slept with his lucky rabbit’s foot and his stuffed tiger. And Jake had wondered: Would he ever again get to slip into the bedroom during the night and watch his son sleep?

  “Hi, Daddy,” he’d said.

  Daddy. Not Dad. Jake veered left, avoided a thick clump of swamp grass. Timmy definitely just had awakened. He considered himself too old for Daddy anymore. Jake missed it.

  They’d talked for a few minutes, then Jake had said, “Good luck tomorrow. I’ll be thinking good thoughts.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hold down the fort.” Jake always said that to Timmy before leaving. Always. “And take care of Mom.” That, too. Funny how many little traditions they’d developed without him realizing they were developing them. “I love you, Tiger.”

  “I love you, too, Dad.”

  Jake’s heart swelled, feeling too big for his chest. That was the reason he did what he did, took the risks he took, led the life he led. For Timmy.

  When Laura had come back on the line, her voice had cracked. “Hurry home safe.”

  Hurry home safe. Jake squeezed the boat’s steering wheel and adjusted the throttle. She’d known, all right. In thirteen years of friendship, of crises and triumphs—hers and his—not once had Laura Logan ever said anything like that to Jake.

  This mission wasn’t routine. Jake knew it, and with that phone call home, Laura knew it, too. That was a fringe benefit of marrying a former Special Ops officer. Or a curse. Rather than being blissfully oblivious, she had recognized the signs of trouble. And the signs of fear.

  Jake’s life was always at stake. They both knew that came with the job. But he wasn’t always under immediate threat.

  He was now.

  And, God help him, he was fighting it hard but falling into a trap he had sworn to steer clear of forever: Seeing Laura, a woman he could never have, not as his friend, but as an attractive woman. As his wife.

  The airboat’s engine groaned.

  Jake pulled back on the throttle, slowing the boat to a stop near two twisted oaks on what looked like a little island of solid ground in the marsh. He wished he could be at home with her and Timmy now instead of in this sweltering sweat box of a swamp, getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. He wished he knew whether or not the damn adoption had gone through.

  With less than a two percent chance of survival, Jake really needed to know if the adoption had gone through. And, since he was wishing, he wished he knew if Laura even had remembered that today was their anniversary. Telling himself that he was merely curious, that it didn’t make a damn bit of difference, he wished he knew if during their two-year marriage she ever had thought of herself as his wife.

  Had she? Even once?

  Six

  When Laura and Timmy left Pizza Hut, Madeline was nowhere in sight.

  Laura checked her watch. Madeline had pulled out of the parking lot a good fifteen minutes ago, but an uneasy feeling that she was close nagged at Laura and kept her on alert. Madeline had been in Intel, and even an airhead screw-up with a serious drinking problem could pick up a lot of potentially dangerous skills there, which is why Laura braved the rain to run a hasty check on the car. She hadn’t lost sight of Madeline since she’d left the restaurant, but. Laura hadn’t seen the woman come in. She could have done something to the Mustang then.

  Everything looked okay, so Laura told Timmy to get in, then cranked the engine. Jake had been on her back for at least three years to replace it, but she liked the old car. It fit her, and it felt comfortable.

  She backed out of the slot, shifted the four-on-the-floor transmission into first gear, and then pulled out onto Manzanita Street into traffic. Street lights turned the wet pavement into shimmering amber gold, and the rain came down in thick sheets, pelting against the roof and hood. Passing the bowling alley, she flipped on the defroster, then turned the wipers up a notch.

  Timmy adjusted the strap on his seat belt, then reinserted the end into the slot. It clicked it back into place. “Mom?”

  “Mmm?” Why wouldn’t the transmission shift into second gear? The damn thing seemed stuck. She checked the rearview mirror. It was blissfully empty of headlights. Slowing down, she again attempted to shift. Nothing moved.

  “What’s wrong with the car?”

  “I don’t know. It seems frozen in first gear.” That couldn’t be due to Madeline. So while it was a nuisance, it didn’t inspire deep concerns.

  “Can we make it home?” Timmy sounded worried.

  “Sure.” She flashed him a smile. “It’s only a couple more blocks. We’ll just have to go slowly.”

  Reassured, Timmy turned his gaze back to the windshield. From the set of his jaw though, something was on his mind. Something important. He’d hinted at it during their celebration dinner, but he hadn’t yet come forth with whatever was troubling him. Maybe he needed a little encouragement. “What’s eating at you, Tiger?”

  “Nothing.” He shrugged.

  “Uh-oh.”

  He frowned at her. “What’s that mean?”

  “Every single time you say ‘nothing’ in that tone and you shrug, it’s something.” The windshield misted over. She flipped the wiper control up to high, then watched the blades sweep the glass, hearing their familiar clack, clack, clack. “Come on,” she said, half-figuring he needed to vent about Madeline’s stunt at Pizza Hut. “Out with it.”

  Timmy let out a sigh that could part hair on a woman’s head or turn it gray. “I was just kind of wondering something.”

  Now he was shoving his tie deeper into his jacket pocket. Whatever this was, it meant a lot to him. Timmy never fidgeted or hesitated unless he was carrying a bomb of an inquiry. “About what?”

  “You’re really my mom now, right?”

  “Right.” Satisfaction warmed her chest. Finally, she had a son. An adorable, wonderful, eat-your-heart-out-the-rest-of-the-world son.

  “Does that mean you’ll live with me and Dad and Mrs. Miller forever and really be my mom now? Or are you going to move back to the apartment again?”

  The longing in Timmy’s voice had Laura curling her fingers around the wheel until she held it in a raised-knuckle grip. Her heart beat so hard she could feel its pounding in her temples and toes. She had to tread softly here; she knew that well. When she’d moved in with Timmy and Jake the first and second times, she and Jake had explained carefully that the reason was to get Timmy adopted. Their live-in housekeeper, Mrs. Betsy Miller, who’d once been Laura’s newly widowed next-door neighbor, had helped them reinforce to Timmy that Laura living with them was a temporary thing.

  But, as kids do, Timmy quickly had grown accustomed to having a mom and a dad around, and when Laura had moved back home, Timmy had been hurt and angry. He’d sulked for weeks, until Laura had nailed the core cause of his upset. Despite her and Jake’s reassurances that she loved Timmy as much as always, he had gotten it into his head that she thought him too much trouble, so she’d left him, just as Madeline had left him. Timmy, bless his heart, had felt abandoned and unloved.

  This time, before Laura had moved in, she and Jake had emphasized their living together as a temporary arrangement even more strongly, and they’d thoroughly explained the reasons necessitating it, trusting that Timmy was mature enough to understand the truth. He had understood. But, evidently, the little boy who yearned for a real mom still resided there inside him.

  God help her to handle this right. For all of them.

  The transmission whined. Laura eased off the accelerator, pushed in the clutch, and then again tried to shift. Still frozen and refusing to budge. Her voice went soft. “What do you want me to do, Timmy?”

  “Having a mom would be kind of nice.” He turned away from her and stared out through the side window. “If you wanted to stay with Dad and me, it’d be okay.”

 
He wanted a mom around desperately. Tears swam up into Laura’s throat. “You know I love you with all my heart, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Either way. Living in the same house or not.”

  “Either way.”

  His idea held far more appeal than it should. “I’ll talk it over with your dad.” Whenever he got his buns home—which she hoped would be soon. She also hoped he’d return safe. “But no promises, okay?”

  “Sure.” Timmy shrugged.

  Laura hated his shrugs. She really did. He only shrugged when something mattered too much—cut too close to the bone. She reached over and clasped his cool hand with hers. “On the same planet or not, much less in the same house or not, I’ll love you forever. That’s a promise, Tiger.”

  “And you never break your promises,” he said, sounding gruff, but grinning. “Yeah, I know.”

  “And?” She hiked an eyebrow at him.

  “And I love you, too.” His grin widened, spreading cheek to cheek. He rubbed at his stomach, devilment dancing in his eyes. “Even if you do make me eat too much pizza before I can have the dessert kind.”

  Laura laughed, just as he’d intended. God, but he was so much like his father. Jake pulled that stunt regularly. Get too serious, too close, and he teased his way back to emotionally safer ground.

  “Mom.” Looking out the side mirror, Timmy gasped. His voice screeched, loud and tinny. “That car’s coming up behind us too fast.”

  Laura darted a glance into the rearview mirror. The car was coming far too fast, and with only first gear, she couldn’t speed up to get out of its way. It was going to hit them.

  Laura reached over, pushed against the back of Timmy’s head. “Keep your head down between your knees.”

  The car clipped their right rear fender.

  Laura jerked. Timmy grunted. Glass broke; the taillight had shattered. The Mustang skidded on the wet pavement. Laura gripped the wheel hard, veered right, and glanced back into the mirror. Damn it, why couldn’t she get a fix on the car? Was it Madeline?