Operation: Healing Angel

by Margaret Kay

  Whiskey

  Shepherd was surprised when he woke to morning sunlight. He checked his watch. It was zero seven hundred. He checked his phone. There were no messages. He rolled back over and took Diana’s still sleeping form into his arms. She stirred and her eyes fluttered open. She squinted against the brightness.

  “I guess we forgot to pull the shades last night,” she murmured, re-closing her eyes and snuggling in close. “What time is it?”

  “Zero seven hundred.”

  “We were supposed to have one more day at the cabin. We should be talking about going for a hike right now.”

  He kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry. We’ll make up for it the next time we go up to the cabin.”

  Diana smiled. “I like the sound of that.”

  “Just as soon as we get the bastards responsible for coming after us.”

  “Any word on that yet?”

  “No. It hasn’t even been ten hours yet. I would think we may have something by this afternoon.”

  She shuddered. “I still cannot believe that happened last night.”

  Shepherd held her more tightly. “It’s over, and you are safe.”

  “I know,” she agreed.

  “Would it help if you talked with someone? We have a doctor on staff that treats the team to be sure everyone is mentally healthy. He knows what we do, reads every mission report. PTSD is real, and it’s best to stay ahead of it.”

  “He’s a counselor or psychologist?”

  “Yes, and he’s a good guy. What happened last night was traumatic. Joe can help you.”

  “Probably would be a good idea,” she agreed. “Let me know when you can get me an appointment with him. Tomorrow after work would be best. I have a full schedule of patients tomorrow.”

  “If you need to talk with him right away, I could ask him to come in today.”

  “It’s Memorial Day. Let the man have the holiday off.”

  “Cooper mentioned they planned to have a BBQ at his place today, if work doesn’t get in the way. He invited us. Would you like to go? The other wives will be there.”

  “That sounds nice,” she agreed. “Do you know what also sounds nice?”

  Shepherd nuzzled her and pulled her pelvis against his erection. “Yes, I do.”

  “Coffee,” she said with a big smile.

  Shepherd feigned outrage.

  She laughed and reached between them, grasping his length. “Okay, this too, then coffee.”

  Later that day, they arrived at Cooper and Madison’s new house. It was situated on a cul-de-sac in the family neighborhood one street over from the townhomes where the other members of Alpha Team lived. Shepherd pulled into the driveway, recognizing Jackson’s, Garcia’s, and Doc’s cars. Looked like he and Diana were the last to arrive. He had met Garcia’s son shortly after he was born, but he hadn’t seen him since. He was now just over two months old. Shepherd looked forward to seeing how much he grew.

  “Are you sure it is safe for us to be out of the office? What if they come after us again?”

  “Ops is on alert, is whenever a large number of agency personnel are gathered outside of HQ. I kept watch as we drove over. We weren’t followed. And every team member at the BBQ will be armed. Nothing is going to happen, Diana.”

  “Okay, thank you for assuring me of that.” She glanced at the house. “It looks like a lovely home.”

  “They just bought this place a few months ago, so they’d be in a family neighborhood with a yard for Hahna to play in. The school is a few blocks away,” Shepherd said as they got out of the SUV.

  “This is very nice,” she said, following him to the front door.

  “The rest of Alpha Team live within a few blocks.”

  “Do they all have children?” Diana asked.

  Shepherd rang the doorbell. He had to think about that for a second. “Yes, they do. They all help each other out with the kids.”

  Cooper swung the door wide and greeted them with a smile. “Come in. I’m glad you came.” He locked eyes with Diana as she stepped into the entry. “How are you doing?” His gaze was sympathetic.

  “I’m okay, thank you,” she replied. The sounds of many voices engaged in overlapping conversations could be heard from the back of the house. The sound of a crying baby rose above them all.

  “Everyone who will be here is part of the team or a wife or girlfriend.” Shepherd said.

  They followed Cooper through the short hallway to the kitchen where the sound of the voices originated. The kitchen and a large family room opened in front of them. Doc held a screaming little girl who looked to be about a year old. Diana’s gaze swept over the others. She smiled at Angel, who stood near the French door in the family room. Jackson stood nearby as well, with another man she recognized from the night before. Two women sat on the couch she’d never seen, one cradling a newborn.

  “Hi, I’m glad you came,” Madison greeted. She stepped from behind the counter and came up to them. “How are you today?” She asked Diana with a compassionate grin on her face.

  “I’m fine, really,” she replied, noticing the side conversations in the room had quieted. She appreciated the concern, but she really didn’t want to discuss it.

  “This place is nice,” Shepherd said, clapping Cooper on the shoulder.

  “I’ll give you the grand tour in a minute,” Madison said. “First, Elizabeth and Sienna, come meet Diana.”

  The two women came over.

  “This is Elizabeth, Doc’s wife,” she said, motioning to the tiny, young woman.

  “Hi, Elizabeth. I’ve heard a lot about you,” Diana greeted.

  “Alexander told me a lot about you too. You are the one responsible for the miracle of Shepherd walking again,” she said with a big smile.

  The baby reached out to her and jabbered what sounded like “momma” followed by a shriek.

  “Olivia, you are fine with your daddy,” she said.

  “Momma!” The baby shrieked again and lunged for her.

  “I’m sorry, Alexander,” she said, taking the baby from Doc. Her gaze swept back to Diana. “She’s going through a horrible stage where she is so clingy, just wants me. Two months ago, it was daddy.”

  “All very normal phases,” Diana said, smiling at the suddenly contented baby.

  “This is Olivia,” Doc introduced.

  “She’s beautiful,” Diana said.

  “Thankfully, she looks just like her mother,” Shepherd said with a shit-eating grin beamed at Doc.

  Doc playfully flipped him off and everyone laughed.

  “Hi Elizabeth.” Shepherd said before his gaze shifted to Sienna and he reached his hands to her. “Hi Sienna. May I?”

  She handed the baby boy over. Diana watched Sam cradle the little baby in his arms. The sight melted her heart.

  “I’m Sienna, Anthony’s wife,” she said to Diana.

  “Hi, it is nice to meet you.” Diana assumed Anthony was the other man in the family room standing with Jackson. Not only was he the only other person in the room, he was the only Hispanic man and the baby was clearly Hispanic.

  “You probably know him as just Garcia or Razor?” Sienna said.

  “I’ve actually never been introduced,” Diana answered. Her gaze swept to him and Jackson. “I’ve seen him a few times.”

  “Garcia,” Shepherd called. “You and Diana have not been formally introduced?”

  “I guess not,” he replied. He approached them. “It’s nice to officially meet you, Diana.”

  “Little T has gotten so big,” Shepherd said, still cradling the baby.

  “Shepherd, thank you so much for keeping Anthony at home for so long after he was born. That helped so much.”

  “Well, he didn’t deploy, not sure he was really home that much,” Shepherd said with a laugh.

  “Well, it was very nice knowing he wasn’t going to get scrambled at any time. Getting this little guy’s sleep on our schedule was quite a task.”

  Diana wondered if eit
her of these women knew what their husbands were doing the night before at her lake house. This conversation was all so normal, or would be, if their husbands hadn’t rescued her and Sam the night before wearing bulletproof vests and carrying assault rifles.

  “I’m glad he finally is sleeping more at night for you,” Jackson said. “We’re soon to be among the exhausted, not getting enough sleep.” He caressed over Angel’s large tummy.

  “Speak for yourself. I already am exhausted,” Angel said. “I swear, this baby needs to sleep through the night right away. He or she is already keeping me awake half the night.”

  “He still gets up a couple times, which is normal for his age,” Garcia piped up. “When I’m home, I get up with him so Sienna can get as much sleep as she can.”

  “Plus, we all know you are a nocturnal creature,” Jackson said.

  Everyone laughed.

  “Where are Sammy and Hahna?” Shepherd asked.

  “In the backyard on the swing set. My mom is out there with them,” Angel said. “Sammy is already getting so spoiled coming over here to play with Hahna. He loves the swing set here.”

  Diana had forgotten Angel’s mom, the nun, was in town.

  “Well, he is welcome anytime,” Madison said. “Hahna thinks Sammy, Little T, and Olivia are her brothers and sister. She drew a picture of her family at school last week and drew ten adults and three other kids on it.” Her eyes went to Shepherd. “She even had a stick figure that was supposed to be you in your wheelchair.”

  “That is seriously just so sweet,” Angel said. “I can’t imagine what the teacher thought, though.”

  “Families come in all shapes and sizes,” Sienna said. “A teacher does not think anything negative. I have several kids in my class that draw at least fifteen people in their family pictures.”

  “This will be the first time Hahna and Sammy will see you out of the chair,” Cooper said. “It should be interesting to see if they notice.”

  “Of course, they will notice,” Angel said. “What will be interesting is what their reaction is.”

  “That’s what I meant,” Cooper said.

  “Come on, let me show you the house,” Madison prompted.

  After the grand tour of the large, four-bedroom house, they descended the stairs to more, louder voices. They reentered the kitchen and there were three more women there. Brielle and two more that Diana didn’t recognize. One had an auburn-red hair color that was stunning, worn short and in a choppy, uneven bob that framed her cute face. The other woman was Hispanic, with shiny black hair that fell to her shoulders.

  She watched Sam greet each woman by name, Kaylee and Annaka. “This is Diana,” he said with a smile.

  The redhead, Kaylee, gave her a hug. “It is so nice to meet you, Diana. I’m Gary’s wife.”

  “Thank you, you too.” Her gaze shifted to Annaka’s big brown eyes with thick, black eyelashes. “It’s nice to meet you, Annaka.”

  “You too. I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said, much to Diana’s surprise. “And I’m Danny’s girlfriend.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know who either of those men are. I probably saw them but have never been introduced.”

  Kaylee pulled her phone from the back pocket of her blue jean shorts. She held a picture up of her and one of the men who was there the night before but departed on the helicopter. “This is Gary. You probably know him as the Undertaker.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen him.” She remembered him and that Sam had mentioned his name in giving the order to get info out of the wounded man.

  “And this is Danny,” Annaka said, doing the same. “He goes by Mother.”

  “Yes, I recognize him too.”

  “I was just getting a glass of Madison’s famous sangria,” Kaylee said, holding up a large wine glass. “Would you like one?” She handed the glass to Diana.

  “Yes, thank you,” Diana said, taking the glass.

  “I’m sorry Delta Team can’t be here today and is working through the holiday,” Shepherd said. “Please know what they got called in for was important.”

  “When Danny got the alert last night, we had just settled in to watch a movie,” Annaka said. “At first I was pissed, but I know that it is never for something that is not important, which I remembered shortly after he left.”

  “Hopefully nothing comes up today, for the rest of you,” Kaylee said.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time during a party,” Madison added.

  “I remember both teams getting scrambled during our housewarming party. Everyone left us standing there, remember Angel? We went from a houseful to just you, me, and Michaela left to open the gifts.”

  “Yes,” she said. She wrapped her arms around Elizabeth. “But that was okay because we got Elizabeth out of that mission.”

  Diana listened intently. So, the women didn’t know why the team was alerted the night before. What she noticed in between the words was the acceptance on everyone’s part of plans being interrupted and their men getting called away unexpectedly. She also noticed the affection they all seemed to have for each other.

  “Where is Michaela, anyway?” Kaylee asked.

  “She called, decided not to come,” Madison said.

  “Why not?” Kaylee demanded.

  “Said she’d feel weird without Lambchop here,” Madison said.

  “That’s just ridiculous,” Kaylee said. “I say we go over there and get her.”

  “You can’t force her to come,” Brielle said. “It’s not like you are going to go kidnap her and throw her in the trunk of the car.”

  Kaylee wrapped her arms around Brielle, who had an exaggerated pout on her face. “No, no one goes in the trunk of cars because that is just wrong.”

  “It sucks, and it’s scary.”

  “Yes, it is,” Kaylee agreed.

  They both laughed, which confused Diana.

  “She likes to forget that many of us work in Ops and see the tracker report and know that she and Lambchop are basically living together. He’s at her place just about every night when he’s in town,” Jackson said.

  “I don’t get why it’s such a big deal,” Garcia said.

  “Because he’s a man of God,” Elizabeth spoke up.

  “Like any of us care that the man of God is sleeping with the woman he loves,” Doc said.

  “Neither of them wants to advertise that they are kind of living together. No matter how okay with it Landon appears to be, he still believes two people sleeping together should be married. But he loves Michaela, and he knows she isn’t ready to make that commitment to him yet,” Elizabeth said.

  “Well, I’m going to call her and beg. I need my wing woman here!” Kaylee said. She stepped into the entry and placed the call.

  Diana was surprised to hear the big, black man was a professed man of God. He struck her as intimidating. She’d have to ask Sam more about that later. There were quite a few things mentioned already during the conversation that she would ask him about. She kept a mental list. She sipped the sangria. “Wow, this is good,” she said with a smile to Madison.

  “My secret recipe,” Madison said proudly.

  Diana looked back at Sam. The baby was handed to its father and Sam had a beer in his hand. He talked to Olivia and then placed a kiss on the baby’s head. His gentle and affectionate nature with the kids surprised her. Her gaze then shifted to the tough, intense looking man, and she took in the sight of him comfortably cradling his son with one arm. He had a beer in his other hand, and she noticed a gun on his hip beneath a t-shirt that was worn untucked, but she saw the bulge and knew what it was.

  Sam wore his gun today too. He had a t-shirt on with a short-sleeved button-down shirt untucked and unbuttoned. She glanced at the other men and made out guns worn on each of them that were concealed beneath their clothing.

  She felt arms wrap around her shoulders, which startled her. It was Brielle. “Seriously, how are you? That had to be pretty scary last night.”

  Diana forc
ed a smile. “It was, but I’m okay.”

  “Thank God they do what they do. They saved me twice. It’s a long story, but please know that every one of us has been where you were last night, Angel, Sienna, Elizabeth, Kaylee, Annaka, and me.”

  “You have?” She asked.

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said, stepping over to join them. Her baby was still on her hip. “We are all members of the club.”