“Thanks for cooking,” Mitchell said.
“I’m not sure I’d call it cooking exactly.” She poured cherry Kool-Aid for the boys.
“Bread is overrated, and everything else is perfect.” His gaze swept over her, and so did a flush of heat. “Boys, doesn’t your mom look nice?” He forked up a mouthful of lasagna.
“Why are you dressed up, Mom?” Jaycee asked. “Are you going out?”
“Well, no.” She stumbled over the words. “I wanted to spend the evening with you guys.”
“But you never dress up when we eat at home.”
“We’re celebrating,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Is that why the table is so fancy?” Jaycee asked. “Because we never use the fancy stuff either.”
“Of course we do. You must not remember.” Lorenda plastered on a smile and leveled it at Jaycee. Who promptly got the message and clamped his mouth shut.
Mitchell looked up at her from under hooded lids, and a hint of a smile settled onto one corner of his mouth.
Hell. Forget code. She wanted to rattle off real cuss words because she was so busted.
“Uncle Mitch,” Trevor said. “Could you come to my class for parent career day and talk about being a war hero?”
Wait. Trevor hadn’t asked her to come talk about being a realtor. And Mitchell wasn’t a parent.
Mitchell’s expression darkened at Trevor’s request, and he stared at his plate.
“Guys, it’s not fair to ask Uncle Mitch to do that.”
“I’m not a hero.” Mitchell picked at his food. “I was just a guy doing my job.”
Obviously, he didn’t want to talk about the war. Cameron certainly hadn’t. They’d had a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy in their marriage.
“Uncle Mitch isn’t your parent. I am, so I’ll do it.” She reached over and ruffled Trevor’s hair, but he pulled away. His face fell in disappointment.
Gee. Lorenda felt so special. But having Mitchell around had obviously made their lack of a father figure glaringly apparent to the boys. Probably why Trevor was acting up at school.
Jaycee spoke up. “When I was in Trevor’s grade, Grandpa Lawson came and talked about being the sheriff. It was so cool, and he wasn’t our father either.”
Mitchell kept moving food around on his plate.
“Why can’t you be our dad?” Trevor asked. “You live with us, and your last name is the same as ours.”
Lorenda’s stomach did a flip.
Mitchell’s head popped up to study the boys, his expression unreadable. “I could never take your dad’s place.”
Lorenda had never expected Mitchell to take Cameron’s place. So why did his words knock the air from her lungs and make her want to double over?
“Guys, Uncle Mitch is just staying here for a little while until the guy from the park is . . .” She didn’t really know. “Until we’re sure he won’t cause any more trouble.”
“And then you’re going to leave?” Jaycee asked.
Mitchell slid a look at Lorenda. “I’ll have to go eventually.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “There aren’t any jobs here in Red River for me.”
Lorenda fought off the urge to plant a hand on her forehead. Of course he needed to go back to work. He couldn’t hang around Red River forever just to be her bodyguard. A man who had lived the kind of life Mitchell had, never putting down roots, living off the adrenaline rush from missions and combat training and war, would get bored in Red River.
And he’s not my husband. Not my boyfriend. Not even my friend with benefits. But guarding her body is exactly what she wanted him to stay here and do. Even though she knew it was foolish, she couldn’t control the way the body in question responded to him. Couldn’t stop it. It was like a locomotive steaming down the tracks at full throttle, and there was no way to put on the brakes.
“You could still be our dad,” Trevor said, all innocence and naiveté.
Jaycee nodded. “Our real dad was never home either.”
Lorenda dropped her fork, and it clattered against her plate. “Boys. Eat.”
She shouldn’t be doing this. Setting her kids up for disappointment. Setting herself up for more pain. Yet here she was, dressing up and messing up over a man who could never be hers.
The squeal of sirens pierced through Mitchell’s sleep. He rolled over in bed and tried to push the misty dream of Lorenda’s smoke alarm out of his brain. His mind searched through the foggy blast of deafening sound, trying to reclaim the dream he’d had earlier of her in that flowing skirt that teased him by revealing just enough thigh to make his imagination go wild.
The siren kept wailing, and Malarkey barked.
Mitchell bolted upright.
He sprung out of bed and snatched his phone off the nightstand. The screen flashed Jaycee’s name. It wasn’t the smoke alarm. Jaycee had hit his panic button.
Wearing nothing but black boxer briefs, he charged to the door that led to Lorenda’s bedroom and pounded on it. She yanked the door open in a panic. Bedhead and all, she looked just as good in lacy panties and a spaghetti-strap tank as he imagined she would.
“What happened?” He hurried into her room without an invitation. If there was an intruder, Mitchell wanted to catch the son of a bitch before they had a chance to escape.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Mitchell headed for the stairs. “Stay here.”
She was right on his heels.
“Lorenda!” he whispered. “I said stay here.”
“No.” She pushed at his shoulder so he would start down the stairs again.
He didn’t have time to argue. When he reached the bottom floor, he said, “Then stay behind me.” He went straight to the boys’ bedroom, pushed it open, and scanned the room. Nothing but darkness.
“Oh my God.” Lorenda’s hushed tone cracked. “They’re gone!”
“Jaycee,” Mitchell said, his voice still low. Malarkey bound into the room and went straight for the closet. He pawed at the closed door.
Whispers came from inside, so Mitchell went to it—Lorenda still at his back—and gently slid the door open. Both boys were huddled at the bottom of the closet.
She sagged against Mitchell. He reached behind to give her hand a reassuring squeeze, but his fingers found the side of her thigh instead. Even better.
“What happened?” She pushed Mitchell out of the way, went to her knees, and gave Jaycee and Trevor hugs, showering their little faces with kisses.
“Someone tried to break our window.” Trevor’s voice wasn’t frantic. Not even all that scared.
Mitchell had seen enough frightened children in the Middle East to know what real fear looked like in a child’s eyes. He wasn’t seeing it in Trevor’s and Jaycee’s.
He snatched a comforter off one of the twin beds and draped it around Lorenda’s shoulders. “Now, stay here.”
He went to the window. It was cracked but not shattered . . . and unlocked. Mitchell was pretty sure he knew the identity of the burglars, and neither had hit puberty.
“I’ll be right back.” Mitchell pulled a flashlight from a kitchen drawer and eased outside. The night air was cool against his skin, since he was nearly buckass naked. The soft grass under his bare feet reminded him of playing outdoors with Cam when they were kids.
Mitchell stood still and listened. Listening was a skill. It was one of the first things he’d learned in the military because it saved lives. As he stood there, the sounds of the night crowded in on him. Crickets, bugs, even an owl hooting from one of the cottonwoods in front of the house. Nothing that didn’t belong.
He had a sixth sense about danger, and there wasn’t a threat on Lorenda’s property. To be safe, he flicked on the flashlight and examined the perimeter of the house to make sure it was secure. All was well, until he got to the boys’ window. The ground was slightly wet, even though everywhere else was dry and Red River hadn’t had rain in weeks.
He bent at the knees and examined the spot
closely. Several footprints were clear and visible. And less than half the size of his. He scooped a little mud onto his finger and sniffed. The sweet scent of cherries tickled his nose. He doubted many criminals drank cherry Kool-Aid while breaking and entering. Just so happened the boys had red Kool-Aid for dinner.
Mitchell rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger.
He didn’t want to get the boys in trouble, but he couldn’t let Lorenda go on thinking that someone had tried to break in either. For the first time, he understood how hard parenting must be. And how frustrating it must be to see your kids mess up. This was a minor thing. Almost funny. He’d get a big laugh out of it if it weren’t for the fact that the boys were obviously trying to find ways to keep him from leaving. If something this small caused his gut to twist with worry over their future, then Mitchell must’ve made his parents’ lives a living hell.
He went back inside. “All clear.” He turned on the lamp. “You guys can get back in bed. No one is out there.” He should tell Lorenda. Out Trevor and Jaycee right then before their shenanigans grew to the point of his and Cameron’s and one or both of them ended up in the military. Or worse.
“Should we call the sheriff?” Lorenda asked as the boys scrambled back into their beds.
Mitchell shook his head and gave her a look that communicated, let’s talk in private.
She tucked them in, left the lamp on, and followed Mitchell into the den.
When he turned she was right in front of him, so close he could hear her breaths, still a little heavy from the rush of adrenaline.
“I . . .” He ran a hand through his hair.
“What is it, Mitchell?” Panic rose in her voice again.
“It’s nothing to worry about.” Not true. She’d been right. The bond that had so quickly and naturally formed between him and the boys was going to devastate them when Mitchell left. Him just as much as Trevor and Jaycee. “I think the boys set us up.”
“What? Wait. What?” Her tone was confused.
He explained the whole mess. When her breaths grew heavier and an angry expression replaced the lines of worry, he ran both hands down her arms. “Don’t come down on them. This is my fault.”
She let her eyes slide shut for a moment. “Mitchell, you can’t take the blame for everything. Stop being a martyr.”
“Maybe you were right about me not living here, but I’m not leaving you alone.”
“This whole mugger thing could take months or even years to go to trial. I won’t let this turn my life upside down for that long. I’m staying here where I belong.” She stood her ground, and the look in her eyes said she wasn’t backing down.
Neither was he.
“Then I’m staying too, Sparky.”
But first thing tomorrow he was going to see his dad to find out how long it’d be before the trial took place. The sooner the better—before Mitchell destroyed two little boys in the process. The same two little boys he was trying to protect.
Chapter Nine
Mitchell offered to take the boys by his mom’s house the next morning while Lorenda showed a few properties to a client. Perfect excuse to visit his mom and have a word with his dad to offer an olive branch for Lorenda and the kids’ sakes.
Badass Becky’s pointing finger was smoking when Mitchell got there because his dad was at the office on a Saturday. Had refused to hire a new deputy or two, claiming no one was qualified, and was working twenty-four seven because of it. The one thing that seemed to have his mom blowing off the smoke from the tip of that finger and holstering it was Jaycee and Trevor.
So he left the boys in good hands and headed for the sheriff’s office. A row of small houses lined the road on the other side of the street, and he passed two kids flying a kite in one of the yards. Mitchell looked up.
The bright-red kite and its long colorful tail were stark against the blue sky, and it gave him a sense of comfort. A sense of home. So did the woman, two kids, and ugly dog he was currently living with.
Too bad no one else in this town made him feel so welcomed. If not for his mother, he wouldn’t have come back at all. If not for Lorenda and the kids and the pull they had on him, he wouldn’t be staying.
But Mitchell’s gut wouldn’t stop sending an SOS signal to his brain that something wasn’t right with the whole situation surrounding Lorenda, so he had to stay at least a little while longer. Maybe if he kept approaching his dad with Lorenda and the kids’ safety in mind, the old man would finally listen.
Hell, who was Mitchell kidding? His father—so levelheaded, so fearless, so beloved by the community—had been blind to Mitchell’s strengths and Cameron’s weaknesses since they were little boys. Just because Mitchell wouldn’t walk the sheriff’s rigid chalk line. Cameron had followed all the rules, at least when everyone was watching.
Mitchell pulled up to a four-way stop behind another truck and waited his turn.
Cameron’s good-twin façade was partially Mitchell’s fault. He’d been happy to accept the blame for Cameron’s screwups as soon as Mitchell was old enough to realize that their mischief caused ripples in the nicely starched fabric of their hard-nosed father’s world. His dad’s inability to accept that Mitchell wasn’t his carbon copy, his insistence that Mitchell never quite measured up the way Cameron did, had made Mitchell want to goad his dad all the more during his stupid youth.
Apparently Cameron had used Mitchell as an excuse to stay in the military rather than come home to his family. Which was just one more reason for Dad to resent the less-perfect son. Especially when Cameron finally did come home in a box with a flag draped over it.
Mitchell dialed his ex-commander’s personal cell number and put the phone to his ear. He’d postponed it long enough, and after last night’s phony break-in, it was time. The car in front of him pulled away. With a wrist flung over the steering wheel, Mitchell rolled forward to the stop sign.
If Mitchell had made Cameron take responsibility for his own crap, he might still be alive to look after Lorenda and the boys.
Then again, maybe Cameron would’ve come up with another excuse to stay away, because he’d made it clear he wasn’t much interested in coming back to Red River or his family. His reasons still had Mitchell stumped. He understood better than anyone that war changed a person, but Cam had become an empty shell. A robot.
Now that Mitchell saw the kind of woman Lorenda had become—so beautiful, so feminine, so different from the callous soldiers Mitchell was used to—he couldn’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else if he’d been the lucky one married to her.
On the fourth ring, Mitchell motioned to the only other vehicle left at the four-way stop. The driver, an older gentleman wearing a camo billed cap, frowned at Mitchell as he meandered past. An older couple, obviously out for a stroll on such a beautiful day, stopped at the intersection and waited. Mitchell waved them through. They studied him for a second, and then one whispered to the other and pointed.
Mitchell smiled at them and waved. They kept the same stony look on their faces and didn’t lift a finger to wave back.
Mitchell pinched the bridge of his nose while the phone kept ringing and snatched his aviators off the dash to hide an eye roll. He doubted giving the locals more attitude, like he had growing up, would help win back their trust. One of them would likely be on the phone to the sheriff before Mitchell hit the next intersection. Or worse. They might call Badass Becky.
Mitchell shook off a shiver and then punched the accelerator.
He’d rather keep driving right through Red River. Right out of town. The job he was about to give up would’ve put him right back in the only profession he was qualified for. A job that would make him top dawg for a change, in charge of his own team. With people who actually liked him. People who didn’t hold mistakes against him but appreciated the years he’d spent serving.
He turned left onto Main Street just as Allen Carson’s voice mail answered. Mitchell waited for the beep.
“Allen, it’s Mitchell. L
isten, buddy.” Mitchell paused. Was he really this stupid? He exhaled. Yep. He really was. “I’ll have to take a rain check on the job. I’ve got family stuff to deal with.”
He scrubbed a hand over his jaw.
Coming back to Red River because his mother asked him to was a good reason, but staying to protect Lorenda and the kids was his duty. Protecting is what he did. The only thing he’d ever done well. And since Cameron hadn’t gotten the job done even when he was still alive, Mitchell couldn’t help but feel responsible, at least on some level.
Wasn’t it in the Man Rules? Or the Bible?
Unfortunately, a rule against coveting another man’s wife was too, and Mitchell was already breaking that one every time he laid eyes on Lorenda.
“Call me when you get the chance, and we’ll talk.” He disconnected before pulling into the sheriff’s office parking lot.
At the front glass doors, Mitchell pulled off his sunglasses and hung them from the front of his shirt. Maureen sat behind the reception desk wearing a red T-shirt that said, “If at first you don’t succeed, reload and try again.” A pencil was inserted into her backcombed hair to rest behind her ear.
“Is my dad in?” Mitchell shoved his hands into his pockets and waited for the usual cold-shoulder response he got from most of the residents of Red River. Especially from those close to his dad.
Maureen studied him like a protective momma bear, and Mitchell had to respect that.
Not one strand of her big hair moved when she finally nodded. “Let me see if he’s available.” Code for I doubt the sheriff wants to see you. She directed him toward the waiting room with a pointy red fingernail. “Have a seat.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Mitchell flashed a smile at her, because it didn’t hurt to score points with the old man’s assistant. During many of their phone conversations, Mom had mentioned how much influence Maureen had over his dad. A fact that Badass Becky worked to her advantage by enlisting Maureen as an ally when it came to his father’s health and stress level.
Maureen’s raised brown eyebrow told him her BS radar had just caught him doing sixty in a thirty-five.
It's In His Arms (A Red River Valley Novel Book 4) Page 9