by CP Smith
***
With a cold beer in hand, Jack, Max, and Shane sat on the front porch at Jack’s house and watched the sunset. Jenn, Mia, and Sage were at the hospital fussing over Maxine while the men recovered from having to rescue their women once again. It had been less than twenty-four hours since their ordeal had begun with Heller, and all three were exhausted.
“I’m gettin’ too old for this shit,” Jack sighed, stretching his head from side to side. “I should have kept her barefoot and pregnant until she was too exhausted to gallivant around causing trouble.”
Max grunted. “Jenn’s like Maxine. You’d have had a houseful of kids to feed and still had a wife who got into trouble.”
Jack turned and grinned at Max. “Predictable is boring,” he finally admitted.
“True enough,” Max agreed, raising his beer in salute.
“I don’t know about you two, but I could use some boring for a day or two,” Shane threw in.
Leaning forward, Max looked at Shane and asked, “Speaking of predictable, now that your life is settled and you got a good woman at your side, does this mean you’re gonna head to medical school?”
Shane took a pull from his beer and thought for a moment. As a young boy, he was fascinated with medicine, was certain he wanted to become a doctor, so he’d joined the Army to accomplish just that through their GI bill. However, treating the wounded while overseas had stolen his passion. He had seen enough death for ten lifetimes and now knew that being a doctor wasn’t where his future lay. Surprisingly, he found his calling while avoiding life for the past year.
“Nope.”
“No?” Max questioned.
“You got a hearing problem?” Shane asked.
“Then what the fuck are you gonna do?”
“Well,” Shane said, stretching out his legs. “I was considering partnering with a certain lumberjack I know and building luxury cabins for all the slick city folk that seem to be coming in droves to our neck of the woods.”
Max turned and looked at Shane, raising a brow. “Stacked Log, Post and Beam, or Timber Frame?”
“Stacked Log. I’m not building anything but authentic cabins.”
A slow grin pulled across Max’s mouth.
“Works for me,” he stated, then reached out his bottle and clinked it to Shane’s. “We can start with yours and see how it goes.”
“You’re lucky you can go home at all,” Jack stated, looking at Max. “It’s hard to plead self-defense like you did with Stetson when you broke Heller’s neck without him even looking in your direction.”
Parker and Jack had to bend the truth in their report so Max could avoid prosecution. All witness statements, including Barry’s, said Heller turned and pointed his gun at Max before he broke his neck. It was a small lie; one Jack didn’t lose sleep over. Not after he found Jenn bleeding in the waiting room. He’d have shot Heller and killed him himself if he’d had a clear shot. The man would have been dead either way that night when the smoke had cleared.
A cab pulled into the drive and all three men turned and looked at it. When the passenger door opened, Max asked, “What the fuck is he doin’ here?”
Gregor waved as he pulled a bag from the backseat. After tossing money to the cab driver, he turned and headed in their direction with concern etched across his ruddy face.
“How’s Maxie?” he asked Max when he reached the front porch.
“Recovering,” Max bit out. “You wanna tell me how you knew about my mother and why you hauled your ass all the way down here?”
“Mia called me. As for why I’m here, that should be obvious.”
“Enlighten me.” Max ordered.
Gregor looked to Shane then back at Max. His spine straightened and his chin came up, then he looked Max straight in the eyes and announced, “Cause I’m in love with your mother.”
Jack stood immediately and put himself between Gregor and Max while Gregor’s announcement slowly sunk into Max’s exhausted brain.
“You wanna repeat that?” Max asked in an icy calm as he rose from his seat.
Shane stood as well and mumbled, “Easy, Max.”
“I’m in love with Maxine,” Gregor stated again. “I have been for a while, but I held back out of respect for your father. But no more. She could have died last night and it took almost losing her for me to realize I’m done being respectful when it’s what we both want.”
“What you both want?” Max returned, still calm, still coolly regarding the old man.
“It is. But she doesn’t want to upset you.”
Jack had placed a hand on Max’s chest to keep him where he was. Max shoved it off and took a step forward, sizing Gregor up.
“You’re not good enough for my mother,” Max returned calmly.
“I know I’m not,” Gregor agreed.
“She deserves a better man than you; she deserves a man like my father.”
“No man is good enough for Maxie,” Gregor responded.
Max grunted, “Damn straight,” then looked Gregor over from head to toe as if seeing him for the first time.
“If you break my mother’s heart, I’ll beat the shit out of you without a second thought. Old man or not.”
Gregor relaxed a fraction and nodded once. “I’d expect nothin’ less.”
A slow feral grin marked Max’s face, then he put out his hand. “I give you a week before you’re pullin’ your hair out.”
“You’d lose that bet,” Gregor scoffed. “I’ve been pulling my hair out for six months.”
On a bark, Max threw back his head and roared with laughter.
Epilogue
Six weeks later . . .
A soft breeze swirled around my head as I looked down at Emma Jane’s grave. So much had happened in the month and a half since I’d last been here that I didn’t know where to start.
After placing fresh flowers next to her headstone, I brushed fallen leaves from the top, then raised my hand and traced the outline of her face etched in the granite.
“Hey, pipsqueak. Sorry it took me so long to visit you, but my life has been a whirlwind the past month or so.”
A strong hand curled around my shoulder, so I raised my left hand and took hold. The sunlight reflected off my princess cut diamond as I squeezed Shane’s hand, bouncing off the headstone in a kaleidoscope of crystalline color.
“I brought someone with me,” I whispered. “Someone I know you’d approve of.”
Glancing up at Shane, I caught the far-off look on his face and knew he was remembering the day she died. I whispered, “Shane?” and his eyes cleared, then he looked down at me. With a deep breath, he sank to his knees and took in Emma’s face carved in the granite.
“She was a good kid,” he mumbled.
“Yes, she was . . . Thank you for being her friend and looking out for her.”
He closed his eyes for a brief moment, then opened them and nodded his head. “It was my honor,” he murmured softly.
It was time for a less serious mood, so I turned to Emma and giggled, “Shane’s going to be your brother-in-law. He somehow convinced me I’d be nuts if I didn’t marry him.”
Shane scoffed. “Didn’t take much convincin’. As I recall, your knees hit the floor and my hand was guidin’ your—”
I threw my hand over his mouth. “Emma doesn’t need the details.”
Lines crinkled at the corner of his eyes and he kissed my hand, nipping my fingers. “Pretty sure you were moaning too,” he continued with a smirk.
“Arrogant,” I gasped.
“Still right,” he returned, then grabbed my neck and kissed me.
The wind kicked up as he broke the kiss and placed his forehead on mine. I could feel Emma smiling down on us.
“I love you,” I said, cupping his face and running my thumb across his cheek. “Thank you for loving me and giving me a reason to live.”
Intensity clouded his gaze and he crushed me to his chest. “I can’t not love you,” he whispered. “It’s wr
itten in my DNA.”
We both turned our heads and looked at Emma’s smiling eyes. Eyes that laughed at us both, that held secrets and were full of love. They no longer haunted Shane’s dreams, and with each day, he spoke more and more of his time in Afghanistan. He’d been broken, but now he was pieced back together and moving forward. We both were. And that was the best way to honor Emma Jane.
***
Two months later . . .
Sitting at a table in Last Call, Mia and I stared at Max and Shane, biting our lips to keep from laughing. Neither man thought there was anything funny. In fact, they looked downright ill.
“Should we tell them you took me out on a raft today?” Mia asked out loud to take Max’s mind off the fact they’d walked into his mother’s house and found Gregor and Maxine using the kitchen counter for something other than food preparation.
According to Shane, there was a kilt involved and the words, “What’cha wearin’ under that kilt?” followed by Gregor showing, in great detail, what was underneath as Max walked in and caught the show. Also, according to Shane, there may or may not have been bleach involved and a phone call to a local psychiatrist for counseling.
“You could tell me you took on Cowboy with your bare hands and it wouldn’t top that shit,” Max answered.
“I bet I could tell you something that would top seeing your mother naked on her kitchen counter.”
“Babe, you could try, but this shit’s burned into my retinas.”
Shane turned to the bar, mumbling, “Gregor’s ass blowin’ in the wind requires whiskey,” and whistled through his teeth, holding up four fingers and grunting, “Whiskey.”
“I’m not drinking,” Mia said to Shane. “I won’t be able to for the next eight months.”
It took a moment for what she said to register, but Shane caught on quicker than Max. I knew, of course. I’d gone with her to Smith’s to get a pregnancy test.
Shane froze, then his lips curled into a smile.
“God save us all,” he chuckled. “Max’ll be a madman by the end.”
Mia didn’t respond, she was staring at Max.
It had finally sunk in what she’d said and his eyes were glittering with emotion.
“You’re carryin’ my child?”
“I am. Though I can’t guarantee it’ll be a girl like Maxine wants,” Mia choked out.
Max rose from his chair and rounded the table, plucking Mia gently from her chair and then crushing her to his chest. I felt my bottom lip tremble, watching how happy they were.
After kissing her soundly, Max bent at the waist and picked Mia up, heading for the door without looking back at Shane and me.
Shane rose and moved around the table, sitting in Mia’s vacated seat, smiling as he watched Max and Mia exit the bar. Curling his arm around my shoulder, he said in all seriousness, “I better get our cabin built. Peyton Hunter is gonna need a protector in this world, and who better than our son to take on female Hunter?”
I snuggled into his side and smiled.
“You assume we’ll have a boy.”
Shane gruffed, “Damn straight, we will.”
He was right, of course.
***
Two years later . . .
In a meadow high above Trails End, Shane and I watched as Max gave away his mother to Gregor MacGregor. The sun was setting, casting a warm glow on the couple. For once in her life, Maxine seemed demure, shy even, as she took her vows. Gregor was dressed in his kilt, looking every bit the Scotsman he was. Maxine wore an off-white gown covered in lace and a ring of flowers in her long flowing hair.
As promised, Mia and Max had produced a granddaughter and named her Peyton. She was the apple of her father’s eye, but black-haired and clumsy like her mother. Max was wound tight most days because of this and always on alert. He’d demanded sons from here on out to take some of the burdens off his shoulders.
Shane and I got married a year and a half earlier and had a son, as Shane had commanded, three months ago. We named him Hunter in honor of Max, and in tribute to Shane’s connection to his family. I continued to work with Child Protective Services on a part-time basis and Shane was building cabins for the slick city folk that kept coming in droves to our slice of heaven on the Alaskan frontier.
Jack, Jenn, and their boys were in attendance, as well as the whole town. No one had stayed home. They wanted to watch as their Queen took another man’s name. Jenn and I stood side-by-side, holding Peyton and Hunter, giggling at Max as he glared at Gregor. He’d yet to forgive the man for the kitchen fiasco and, no doubt, seeing him in a kilt brought it all back.
Once their vows were taken, the whole town headed back to Last Call for the reception. It was jam-packed, the overflow standing in the parking lot. We had reserved tables, thankfully.
After settling Peyton and Hunter in their fathers’ arms, Jenn, Mia, and I made our way to the ladies’ room to freshen up. There was a line of women waiting to use the facilities. I finished first and stepped into the hall to make room at the sinks. I made it three steps when a strong arm grabbed me around the chest and hauled me into a dark corner.
I giggled, thinking it was Shane, until putrid breath laced thick with alcohol hissed into my ear, “Been waitin’ a long time for payback.”
Turning my head, I looked into the face of Roger Brown, the man from the carnival that had manhandled his son.
He shoved me forward and I hit the wall. Turning so I wasn’t exposed, I put my hands up to block any blows that came my way.
Jenn and Mia walked past as Brown threw a punch. I ducked and landed a kick to his midsection, then tried to run past him. He reached out with an arm and grabbed my hair.
Jenn got in on the action then and jumped on his back, followed by Mia, who kicked his shin.
“What,” Jenn hissed, “is it about us that we attract crazy men?”
Brown tried batting Jenn off his back and he succeeded. She landed with a thud to the floor.
More women exited the ladies’ room and saw the commotion. They took off running into the bar, shouting at the top of their lungs, but I had had enough. Kicking off my heels for traction, I elbowed Brown in the gut, forcing him to let go of my hair, then rounded and shoved him back. I landed a knee to his nuts, and when he started to drop to his knees, I followed with a knee to his chin, knocking him out cold.
I heard Shane roar, “Move!” right before he, Max, and Jack came running down the hall.
I was standing over Brown, panting from exertion, when Shane arrived. He pushed me back and looked down at Brown.
“Jesus, baby, you knocked him out cold.”
“He pissed me off,” I returned with a shrug.
He turned and looked at me, grinning. “Remind me not to piss you off.”
“I’d like to point out,” Jenn said as Jack helped her from the floor. “That I am no longer the only woman in this family that has had two attackers. And I gladly relinquish the crown to Sage.”
Maxine and Gregor pushed through the crowd then, elbowing their way through until they were standing next to me.
“Who has the babies?” I asked.
“Barbie Twins,” she replied, pulling out her phone. Then she snapped a picture of Brown and mumbled, “I’m posting this to Facebook. If you decide to beat the crap out of this asshat, let me know. I’ll record it for you . . .”
***
Shane leaned against the railing on his deck, watching Sage laugh with Mia and Jenn. He chuckled low as he brought a beer to his mouth. Jack and Max joined him with beers in hand, and all three grinned as the women raised the roof as they played with their kids.
“We married nuts,” Max stated.
“We married high-strung, glorious women,” Shane offered.
“Yeah . . . No one ever said I was dumb,” Max pointed out.
“Nor I,” Shane agreed.
Jack turned and looked at both men, then glanced back at Jenn and their wives. He saw beauty, strength, headaches, passion, softness, f
rustration, and love shining brightly within the cabin. But most of all, he saw his reason to breathe.
Looking back at the men at his side, Jack crossed his arms and informed Max and Shane—with the authority of a man who knew the smartest thing he’d ever done in his life was marrying Jenn—that, “Intelligence runs in our family . . . on the male side.”
The End
About the Author
CP Smith resides in Oklahoma with her husband, five children, and four dogs.
You can reach Ms. Smith at:
[email protected]
https://www.facebook.com/Author-CP-Smith-73984223936361uyjh0/timeline/
Books by CP Smith
Reason Series
a reason to breathe
a reason to kill
a reason to live
Standalones
Restoring Hope
Property OF
FRAMED