Gabe and Shelby strolled into the kitchen, both sleepy-eyed. “We, umm, fell asleep,” he admitted sheepishly as he delivered a squirming and wide-awake infant into Jake’s hands. “Sorry. What’d we miss?”
“Raymond’s gone home,” Lacy said simply.
“Damn, and we missed it?” Gabe asked, raking a hand through his thick, mahogany hair. “Can you do it again? I mean for someone else?”
Lacy narrowed her eyes, striving to see past the boyish good looks of one of Alex’s best snipers. “I’d love to paint someone home for you, Gabe.”
“It’s not for me, it’s for a guy I know. It’s for…” He shook his head. “Man, he’ll be freakin’ pissed at me, but—”
“Maverick,” Jake said what Gabe didn’t seem able to say. “It’s for Maverick, isn’t it? You want Lacy to paint his brother home.”
Gabe nodded. “Yeah. Maverick. I think this might help, only, crap, he’ll beat the shit out of me if he finds out I put you up to this.”
“Then don’t tell him,” Lacy declared. “I painted a hundred warriors home before I ever gave a single painting to their families, Gabe, and to be honest, I didn’t start doing this for their parents or anyone they’d left behind. I did it for them, for the ghosts. They talked to me, and I just listened. Why don’t you bring Maverick and China over for a beer sometime? Let me take care of the rest.
“That’s an ambush,” Alex growled. “Not fair.”
“Not really,” Kelsey said, one hand on her touchy husband’s forearm as she looped her other arm around his waist. “Think of it as an intervention on Maverick’s brother’s behalf. Darrell’s like Raymond, Alex. He wants to go home, and deep down, Maverick wants that, too. He just doesn’t know it.”
“Darrell, huh?” Lacy asked as an image of Batman and Robin, stick horses, and little boys with cowboy hats raced through her mind. “I really like that name.”
Jake strolled up the dark hallway. The deal was that after Lacy fed Baby Ray during the night, Jake got burp duty, because, well, she had equipment Jake didn’t have for the feeding part of this new adventure. But burp time was Daddy time. Just a man and his son, the way it should be.
With Baby Ray tucked into his arm like a football, they roamed the hallway, circled once through the living room, then headed out the back door into a humid August night. Stars glittered down from an inky black sky and the moon shed silvery light on the white vinyl fencing Jake had installed around the backyard. Crickets chirped and some neighbor’s dog barked a block away. Which reminded Jake…
He now knew a kennel for Alex’s dogs, Whisper and Smoke, had once stood in the corner of hisbackyard. The previous owner had torn it out and replaced it with—nothing. Whoever they were, they must’ve loved dirt because before Jake had this backyard re-sodded, there’d been nothing but ruts, weeds, and dust.
The disgust on Alex’s face when he’d heard how much work, time, and money had gone into restoring this little cracker box, as he’d called it, was heartwarming. He’d gotten uncharacteristically chatty for a minute there. Talked about fighting a wisteria vine that choked the wooden swing he’d built for Kelsey every spring. Told Jake an oak tree had once stood guard over the dog kennel, and how it shaded the entire yard when the afternoon sun got high in summer. Shared a couple stories about that empty space in the basement where his woodworking shop once turned out toys for tots at Christmas. Told Jake how Kelsey couldn’t handle a sheet of sandpaper, much less a nine-millimeter pistol when he’d first met her.
“Poor thing was scared of guns back then,” he’d said. “You ever need a hand installing a security system or building a doghouse, you let me know.”
Somehow that sounded like an order. Jake agreed, but that was the moment Alex left him standing on his back porch alone. Apparently the guy had radar when it came to his wife. He was back inside the house before Jake knew what happened. But it was okay. All that guy-chat had opened Jake’s eyes to the real Alex. He wasn’t so different than other married men. Everything he did, he did for Kelsey, his country, or the people on his team.
Baby Ray squirmed so Jake snuggled him against his chest, humming low and soft, but nothing operatic. Not any more. That day was in his compulsive past where it belonged.
“Wanna swing, little guy?” he asked as he dropped his butt to the new cedar swing he’d bought Lacy, but hadn’t had the chance to show her yet. Oddly, he’d placed it at precisely where the swing Alex had made for Kelsey had once stood. Talk about weird. Tiny green sprouts were breaking through the cracks in the concrete. Apparently that wisteria vine was making a comeback.
Weirder still, Jake looked forward to fighting the pesky vine almost as much as he looked forward to mowing his lawn and raking his leaves from the sugar maple soon to be planted by the kennel he still needed to build. This tiny house needed a couple diligent trees standing guard over it, maybe an English walnut or two in the front yard. what was more, Jake looked forward to shoveling snow off his front walk in the winter, and coming into the bright, warm heart of his home after a hard day’s work, hugging his wife and his little boy. Mostly of—coming—with that unexpected angel sleeping in his bed. God, life is good.
Easing Baby Ray upright to his shoulder, Jake cupped his son’s head extra carefully. Sure enough, the little guy let out a man-sized burp to be proud of. “Way to go,” Jake praised. “Wanna do it again?”
Easing two fingers up the little guy’s spine, he coaxed another wiggle and a smaller burp out. Nothing extraordinary but still. “That’s my boy,” Jake said, his heart filled with pride for the child in his arms. “Wait till I tell Mom what a good job you did.”
Baby Ray settled his cheek into the crook of Jake’s neck and let out a tiny sigh of contentment. And there they sat, father and son rocking in their backyard, surrounded by their fence, and living in their very own—home. The word meant everything to Jake now that he’d finally gotten his head straight. Well, mostly straight.
He didn’t time warp like he once did because he knew how to anchor himself to reality now, as in Lacy, and that went a long way to solving most of his other issues. He’d gotten the counseling he’d needed, and he’d reunited with his family. Mom and Dad both cried like babies when he’d shown up in Little Rock with a pregnant wife, but Grandpa Elias damned near crushed the life out of him, he’d hugged Jake so hard. Hugged him like he wasn’t a former Marine but that hard-headed ten-year-old kid who needed to remember who was boss again, and just who loved him best. The old coot made Jake cry. Even now.
He ran a quick finger under his eye, not ashamed of his tears. “Thing is, Baby Ray, tears need to come out else they’ll mess up your head,” he whispered. “They weren’t meant for storage, no sir. They’re a gift to wash out the heart, so you cry all you want. ‘Course, not in front of the other guys and not when Mom’s sleeping, okay? She needs her rest right now, but you just give me the word, and we’ll come out for another swing if you need to let loose. Don’t ever be ashamed to have a heart, son. That’s what makes this country great, men and women with hearts like your grandpas’ hearts. Like your Mom’s.”
Baby Ray offered a tiny sigh of agreement, and that was enough for Jake. He stretched his long legs and rocked that wooden swing, loving the quiet creak of complaint between the chain and the S-hook overhead. Might need a drop of oil for that. Loving the stars in the sky and the woman tucked in his bed. Loving just about everything at the moment. Life couldn’t get more perfect than this.
Oh, wait. Yes, it could get maybe just a teensy bit more perfect. Jake rubbed his lips over Baby Ray’s downy head and drew in the powdery scent of his firstborn. Pressing a fatherly kiss to his boy’s dark hair, he whispered the first of many father and son conspiracies. “Don’t tell Mommy yet, but Harley’s giving us a puppy. His name’s Blade and you’re gonna love him.”
The End
About the Author
Irish Winters is an award winning, Amazon best-selling author who, when she isn’t writing, dabbles in p
oetry, grandchildren, and rarely (as in extremely rarely) the kitchen. More prone to be outdoors than in, she grew up the quintessential tomboy on a dairy farm in rural Wisconsin, spent her teenage years in the Pacific Northwest, but calls the Wasatch Mountains of Northern Utah, home. For now.
She believes in making every day count for something, and follows the wise admonition of her mother to, “Look out the window and see something!”
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www.irishwinters.com
Jake (In the Company of Snipers Book 16) Page 28