“I see that,” Tiana said as she took Ian from Mickie’s arms. She motioned at the couch with her chin. “Go. Sit. Begin drinking wine.” She produced a sippy cup and handed it to Ian. “Let’s get you off to bed, little one. It’s way past your bedtime.”
Mickie curled up in the corner of the couch and grabbed the glass of wine waiting for her. She wiped at her eyes. She was here and safe and Ian was being taken care of by someone she trusted. Now that she knew it was really over forever and that Josh would be okay, the tears stopped and the shaking began. It started in her legs and spread to her arms.
Tiana came back in the room and after taking one look at her, spun on her heel and went back the way she’d come. A moment later, she reappeared with a blanket and tucked it around Mickie. She sat down and pulled Mickie into her arms. “You’re safe now,” she whispered.
Mickie snuggled down into the blanket and the embrace. Tiana didn’t ask any questions. Just held her. Slowly, the shaking stopped and she sat up.
“Rough night?” Tiana asked archly as Mickie reached for the wine.
“You could say that,” Mickie replied. And laughed. Not the good laughter but the bordering-on-hysterical kind. Tiana got up without a word. When she returned, she held a pill bottle in front of Mickie’s face.
“This what you take?”
“Right now, I don’t care. What is it?”
“Xanax. Point two five milligrams.”
Mickie held her hand out and Tiana placed a pill in her palm. Swallowing it with a healthy swig of wine, Mickie looked up and smiled at Tiana’s expression.
“I know, but screw my liver tonight. It’ll regenerate. Eventually.”
“It’s your liver,” Tiana said as she sat down. “What’s going on?”
“Keith’s dead. Josh is in surgery.”
“Hold up. What? Who’s Keith?”
Mickie filled her in on the details. She felt detached from the story now. Maybe it was the Xanax kicking in or maybe it was because it was about the tenth time she’d had to tell it.
“Lord,” Tiana said as Mickie finished. “Now I need wine.” She took the glass from Mickie’s hand and drained it.
“Hey.”
“I don’t even know what to say to you. I can’t be happy a person is dead, but I’m glad you’re permanently rid of him and the shadow he cast across your life. Josh is going to be okay?”
“Yeah. The doctor said there could be nerve damage, but Josh could move and feel his fingers, so that was a good sign. Time will tell.”
“You can see your family again.”
Mickie smiled. “Yes. That’s the best thing to come out of all this mess. Ian can have grandparents.” The pill and the wine were kicking in. She was exhausted.
“Come on, let’s get you to bed,” Tiana said. “I put Ian to sleep. You go sleep with him and I’ll take the couch.”
Mickie pulled Tiana close for a tight hug. “Thank you for picking my name.”
“Still mad you ain’t a man.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“SADIE?”
She looked up from the paperwork spread out on Mickie’s desk. Mickie’s desk. He had to stop thinking like that. “Yeah? Whatcha need?”
“I need you to go home.”
A frown crossed her face. Josh had long grown immune to that glower that worked so well with some of the Crew members. “What?”
“Go home. You’re annoying me. You’re scaring the new guys. I’m fine.”
Her eyes swept down the cast that encased his arm from shoulder to elbow. “You don’t look that fine to me, Josh.”
He pulled out a chair and sat across from her. “Sadie. Go home. Really. I’m good. I’m off the narcotics. Tylenol and Motrin are all I need for the pain. It’s my left arm and I’m right-handed. I can’t sit around all day doing nothing. I can do the paperwork. I can do the phone work.”
Sadie pushed back in the chair. “You’re serious.”
“Yes, I am. Thank you. Thank you for coming to stay with me. I really needed you last week. But I’ve got it.” He held up his left hand and wiggled his fingers. Rotated his wrist. “The docs are saying no nerve damage. All I have to do is wait for the cast to come off. Some PT to rebuild the muscle. Go home, Sades. Go back to Wyatt and Jules. I know they miss you.”
She nodded. “Okay. I get it. I know you’re okay. But when I think that we could have lost you...”
“Stop it. No what-ifs, okay? He missed. The cops didn’t. Mickie is free. She and Ian are safe now. I’d take another bullet for that.”
“Have you told her that?”
He stared hard at her. But she was as immune to his glares as he was to hers. “You are in love with her, Josh. Admit it.”
“Listen. Sadie. I hear what you’re saying. Yes, I get it now. I’m not my father. I never will be. That thing with Ruby, you’re right. I was in control. I didn’t let the rage take over. I was able to stop myself. And I knew I had some growing to do. I had to leave that anger and pain behind me. But Mickie needs one hundred percent certainty that it will never happen again.”
“Josh,” Sadie said her voice softened. She leaned across the table and held out her hand. He took it in his. “There is never one hundred percent of anything in any relationship. All you can do is wake up every morning and try to do your best.”
“I know. But it’s not only her in this situation. I’d be risking her and the baby.”
“You’re so full of it,” Sadie said, pulling her hand from his and standing up. “I’ll go. But you need to stop wallowing around in this crap, Josh. I mean it. You aren’t one bit worried about them. You’re still a scared little boy who doesn’t believe he is worthy of love. I know because until I gave Wyatt a chance, I was exactly the same. Jump, Josh, just jump in. Go tell her.”
He crossed his arms and refused to respond. She brushed past him with a big sisterly pop on the top of his head. He jerked his head away. He hated it when she was right. He hated it more when she knew he knew she was right. He’d spent the week since being released from the hospital listening at walls. The living room and kitchen were the best places to listen in on life next door. He liked to think what he was hearing was a happier Mickie. A Mickie who could pursue all her dreams without fear. And Ian could grow up safe and loved. He couldn’t see how he fit into that picture.
He pulled the company laptop toward him. The screen was open to the scheduling of the next week’s cleaning appointments. It all had to be redone because he was out for at least another two weeks before he could start light duty. He one-finger pecked at it until he felt Sadie’s hand squeeze his shoulder.
“I’m all packed up. I know it’s time to go. But I liked having someone to take care of.”
He stood and gathered her in his arms for a strong hug. “Big sis, I know that. But go take care of Jules and Wyatt. They need you as much as I did.”
She pushed back and looked up at him with a wobbly smile. “And now we’ll have Kim. Do you think I can invite her to the wedding? I know she doesn’t know me, but we’ll be one big weird-ass American family, right?”
“I’ll talk to her about it.”
“And Mickie? You going to talk to Mickie?”
He nodded to appease her. “I’ll think about it.”
She let out a snort laugh. “Dude, that’s all you’ve been thinking about. I can see it in your eyes. Go over there. Tell her you love her.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“Don’t be a whiny baby ass.”
“Just because you’ve gone all soft, doesn’t mean I will.”
She returned his smile. It felt good to fall back into this sibling bickering. “Okay, baby brother. Call me if you need me.”
He helped her carry her suitcase to her car and waved as she dr
ove away. He loved Sadie like the big sister she was to him, but boy did she get on his nerves.
As he walked back up the sidewalk, he saw a flicker of the curtains in Mickie’s living room window. His steps slowed but he walked straight back to his apartment.
Work only partly distracted him. Things had stabilized and the addition of new customers had slowed to a manageable pace. The new guys were doing well. He had DeShawn for a little longer. He needed to keep it all together. He needed to stop thinking about Mickie, standing pale but brave in the ER, her lips on his. Her words. I love you. She didn’t know what she was talking about. She’d suffered a traumatic night. He was the one looking at this clearly. Logically. She needed to go to school. Hell, what she needed was to go back home. To where her family could help her with Ian. She had a family to go home to. A family who loved her.
And yet. And yet. He listened for every rustle, every sound from next door. Hearing the lilt of her voice pierced his soul. The sound of Ian’s laughter made him smile. You want to be a part of it. He shook his head. Finish up this paperwork. Get the guys checked out for the day. Get tomorrow’s schedule firmed up.
He was heating a TV dinner when he heard a sound from next door that he’d never heard before. Music. Loud music. Upbeat. Over the music, he could hear Ian shrieking with laughter. A picture rose in his mind of Mickie and Ian, dancing together. He left the microwave beeping.
She answered his knock, her face flushed and a smile that felt like the warmth of a fire on a cold winter’s night. “Was the music too loud? I’m sorry.”
“No,” he said.
Her smile faltered as she looked at the cast on his arm.
“Don’t,” he said.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t stop smiling, Mickie. Do you know how beautiful you are when you smile?”
She smiled then, but it was shy. That she didn’t know how beautiful she was stabbed at his heart.
“I love you, too.”
She went still. Her ice-blue eyes, wide and wary, met his.
He reached up and traced his fingers along the curve of her cheek. “You should go home, Mickie. To your family.”
She shook her head slowly. “No. I can’t. It’s a small town. Everyone knows what happened to me. There, I will always be poor Samantha, the victim. Here, I can be Mickie, the survivor. Here I can stand on my own two feet. The only thing that’s changed is that my parents can now be a part of our lives. And I’d like that to include you, Josh.”
He stepped across the threshold and shut the door behind him. He pulled her close in a gentle embrace, dipping his face into her hair, taking in her fragrance. “I’d like to be.”
Her hands slid around his shoulders and fisted in his curls. She leaned back to look in his eyes. “You can.”
He wanted to kiss her. Wanted to finally let go and give in. But the doubt lay like a stone at the pit of his stomach. “Can I? Fully? No doubts?”
“Josh. There’s no guarantee in life. I love you. I trust you. I want you to be part of my and Ian’s lives. That’s all I can say.”
“That’s what Sadie said.”
“What did she say?”
“There was no one hundred percent.”
Mickie nodded. “Only trust and hope. Trust and hope, baby.”
He kissed her then, pulling her as close as he could. He never wanted to let go, afraid it would all be a dream. Her love. The peacefulness he felt in her embrace. He pulled her lips from his when he felt the wetness on her cheeks. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing is wrong. I’m happy.”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “Me, too,” he whispered.
“Josh!”
They jumped apart and stared at Ian, who stood in the kitchen doorway, dressed in a diaper and holding a sippy cup. He must have thumped his hand on the volume of Mickie’s iPod a few times, because the music was louder and the kid was shaking to it. It was something poppy and sassy. Josh knew he’d heard it a thousand times before, but hadn’t a clue what the song was called or who sang it. Who cared? He was happy right here, right now.
“Baby man!” Mickie cooed. “You did it!”
“Josh! Dance.”
Josh watched as Ian flailed his arms and twisted at the waist. Josh laughed, nodded his head in time with the beat and mirrored the little guy’s movement. “Yeah, little man. I’ll dance with you. And your momma.”
Mickie put her hands over her mouth to hide her laugh, but Josh slid over and bumped her hip with his. “C’mon, Momma, dance,” Josh said.
She smiled, put her arms around his shoulders, looked him in the eyes and began to move. “Yeah,” she said. “Let’s dance.”
* * * * *
Be sure to check out the first book
in Janet Lee Nye’s
THE CLEANING CREW miniseries,
SPYING ON THE BOSS,
available now from
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THE CLEANING CREW
from Janet Lee Nye,
coming in April 2017!
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A Mother’s Claim
by Janice Kay Johnson
CHAPTER ONE
IDIOT BOYS.
Having gotten Christian to the emergency room, Nolan Gregor was trying hard to be mad instead of sick to his stomach and scared out of his skull.
As a former army ranger, Nolan would have felt concern if he’d seen this much blood in the field. Panic—no. But this was Nolan’s eleven-year-old nephew with the ugly ax wound to the shoulder, which made everything different.
Yeah, he’d done his share of idiot things when he was a kid and later put his life at risk for his country. But even with a bullet wound he had never bled like this. Christian’s shirt was saturated by the time the EMT cut it off. Blood continued to flow despite the efforts to stanch it.
It took everything Nolan had to pretend nonchalance, to keep his posture confident and reassuring. A big man, he had retreated to a corner to be out of the way of the medical personnel clustered around Christian. He braced a shoulder against a wall of the emergency room cubicle. Nothing and nobody could have made him leave.
Face taut with pain, Christian kept his gaze fixed on Nolan, who was the clo
sest thing to a father he’d ever had.
The doctor straightened, his eyes sharp above the mask. “Mr. Gregor, do you know Christian’s blood type?”
The question ramped up Nolan’s tension.
He frowned. “No. His mother is AB, but I have no idea about his father.” Or who Christian’s father was, for that matter. Nobody but Marlee knew, and she wasn’t saying.
To one of the nurses, the doctor said, “Let’s go with universal, but type him, too.”
Christian tried to rear up, restrained by the team working on him. “Am I bleeding to death?”
“No, I’m just being cautious.” The doctor laid a gloved hand on the boy’s uninjured shoulder and squeezed. “You’ve learned a good lesson. Chop yourself open, and you might end up needing a transfusion.”
A nurse was already pulling blood to check its type. Someone else was on the phone just outside the room requesting a unit of O neg.
Christian knew the rules: he used an ax only under the direct supervision of his uncle or, on occasion, a friend’s parent. Today, after overhearing Nolan grumble about the cold and whether he’d split enough wood to last until spring, Christian and his buddy Jason had decided to surprise Nolan. They got cocky and did some roughhousing. Somehow, Jason swung an ax that dug into Christian’s shoulder. Blood spurted. Jason ran screaming to the house.
Nolan wouldn’t soon forget his first sight of Christian, crumpled to his knees, his thin shoulder sliced to the bone, blood gushing. He hadn’t felt sickening terror like that since an IED had killed two men in his squad and left three others missing body parts. As he had then, he’d forced himself to calm down and done his damnedest to stop the bleeding while he waited for help.
Now, watching the doctor and nurses work on Christian, he saw that they were finally having success. The strain gradually leached from his muscles.
Sure enough, by the time the unit of O-neg blood arrived, the doc waved it off. He did decide to keep Christian for the night to recover from the blood he’d lost.
Eventually, Nolan and his nephew were left alone while overnight arrangements were being made.
Boss on Notice Page 25