by Mary Calmes
“Oh shit,” I said before I thought about it.
“Daddy! Pa said a bad word!”
“You’re such a narc,” I told my daughter, pinching her butt through her leggings and underwear. It was nice that even at night now she wore panties—her potty training was finally and completely done.
We still had the occasional accident, but that was to be expected, especially if she was overtired.
“Daddy!”
I heard Kola before I saw him, and he was charging though the living room to reach Sam. He dived at him, and Sam caught him the same way he had Hannah. He didn’t lift him, though, because Kola was too old for that now. He had announced that since he would be seven soon—four months away—he had to get used to doing grown-up things. I loved it when his brows furrowed and he got serious.
Once we were all sitting down, after grace was spoken, Sam asked his son to tell Uncle Michael about the report he’d given last Friday.
“Oh.” Kola’s face lit up. “I did my report on the weapons that a US Marshal carries.”
Noah blanched.
I kicked Sam under the table. His smile in return was evil.
“Marshals carry a Glock 22 as their main gun, and a backup one that they get to pick.”
“Why are we talking about guns at the dinner table?” Regina asked.
“Shhh,” Thomas hushed his wife. “Kola’s talking about his report.”
“Oh, Kola’s talking about more than his report,” Jen assured everyone.
Michael’s eyes flicked to Sam. “Is that right?”
“Yes,” Kola told him. “Do you want to know what Daddy has?”
“I can’t wait to hear.”
“Daddy has a ten millimeter Smith & Wesson that’s this big,” he said, the space between his hands far too wide. “And if you got shot with it, it would make your whole head explode.”
“Ewww.” Riley, Rachel’s daughter, made a face. “That’s disgusting.”
“That’s so awesome,” Peter, Rachel’s son, chimed in, which was the first time I had heard him engaged in any conversation in quite a while. Both kids, now teenagers, were taking their parents’ divorce and their father’s recent nuptials very hard.
“But guns are only to be used after you are trained to fire one,”
Kola cautioned us all. “A gun is not a toy.”
“That’s right,” Sam agreed.
“I would love to learn how to use one correctly,” Peter said hopefully.
“Maybe I can take you out to the gun range sometime if you want, Pete,” Sam offered.
“No, Sam,” Rachel said firmly. “I don’t want Peter to learn that guns are—”
“Learning to respect a firearm is the first step to the prevention of accidents,” Sam assured her. “Now that you live alone, what is your protection in case of a break-in?”
“I have a bat, Sam,” she said, and I could tell how close she was to exploding. They had been waging this debate since Dean moved out.
He wanted her to have a gun, and she was having no part of it.
I was actually with her. I hated guns. Sam being in law enforcement was the only reason there were three under my roof.
Sam slept with a Sig Sauer in the nightstand drawer on his side, and every morning he replaced it in the combination safe built into the wall in our closet. It was a whole ritual when he came home at night.
Kiss the kids, kiss me, pet the cat, and put his two work guns away in the safe. And then, before bed, he’d go back to the safe and remove the Sig and place it at the front of the drawer before he got into bed.
There had not been a gun in the nightstand when it had just been him and me; he’d never slept with a gun close except for a long time ago, when I was being hunted by a serial killer. But once he had his life how he wanted it, had his own family, a house, and became a father, things changed. Now there was not just me right there beside him, the only thing to protect; now there was his son and his daughter and the cat sleeping in one of his children’s beds. He needed the certainty that he could guard us all, and the gun gave him that.
I hated having a gun that was not locked away at night. I was not crazy about a gun period, but the man was a US Marshal. There was no way around it. But the firearm in the nightstand had been a problem. I told him one of those badass ASP batons would be better. He disagreed. A handgun wielded by someone trained to use it was the best defense.
“Sam, I don’t want to—”
“Mom, can I go to the gun range with Uncle Sammy? Please?”
The eyes she turned on Sam were hard. He looked bored, not flustered even one little bit.
“Sure,” she said softly.
“Thanks.” Peter smiled at her, and for a second I saw how happy she was to be getting anything but snarling anger or cold apathy from her kid.
It went in waves. Sometimes it was Dean’s fault and the kids hated him and loved her, and sometimes it was her fault and the reverse was true. I felt so bad for her and wished for the hundredth time that Dean had not been out looking for a new woman and had instead invested time finding fresh ways to love the one he had.
“I’d love to go to the gun range too,” Doug, Jen’s husband, chimed in. He was Jen’s second husband, her first one having left her for his accountant. They had not had any children together, but Doug had three—Ben, Todd, and Melissa—from a previous marriage of his own, and along with Jen’s daughters—Ally and Carla—they had five children they shared with exes. The choice to have no more kids had been made because Doug wanted to travel and take the kids they already had to see the world. Jen had agreed, and they had taken their tribe on many adventures. I was looking forward to going out of the country with my own brood someday, it just hadn’t happened yet.
“You got a gun?” Rachel asked her sister.
“Yes,” she told her. “Doug thought it was a good idea.”
“What’d you get?” Sam asked Doug.
“The Sig SP, like you suggested. You were right. I tried the Glock and the sort of stiff mechanics of it, I didn’t like at all. The smoothness of the Sig was much better.”
Sam was nodding. “Yes.”
“So why do you guys still carry the Glocks, then?”
“Really?” Regina said. “This is dinner conversation?”
“Mother,” Jen shushed her. “Doug’s asking a question.”
And heaven forbid we interrupt! It was sweet how Jen catered to him, but after seven years, you’d think she would be over the honeymoon stage already.
Rachel rolled her eyes, and her daughter, Riley, caught the look and giggled. It was nice to see, and when Rachel’s eyes flicked to mine, I saw the happiness there.
“The good thing about a Glock,” Sam began, “is that even though it jams sometimes, it never needs to be taken apart, you don’t have to clean it or oil it, and you can fall into water wearing it and it will still fire.”
“Okay, that’s cool,” Peter chimed in.
“Yeah, see.” Sam shrugged. “So the good outweighs the bad, but I just don’t like it. That’s why I have the Sig for home protection. If I aim at something, I wanna hit it.”
And the last part he said while looking at Noah, and I thought the poor guy was gonna throw up right there.
I put my hand on Sam’s thigh under the table and patted gently.
“My daddy was a Marine,” Kola told the stranger. “He was a sniper. Do you know what that is?”
“Yes,” Regina asked the guest, “do you know what that is?”
Poor bastard, but really, what had he been thinking with that comment? Gay equaled good dresser, good dancer, and good decorator? Really? I was sure that Michael had mentioned it in passing to his friend, like “I have two sisters and one brother, one of my sisters is divorced, the other’s married, and my brother’s gay.” It would have been nothing, a throwaway comment that his buddy had pulled out for no good reason. But it was offensive, and Sam had been annoyed and then made sure the guy knew it. Sam and subtlety
had never met.
“Yeah,” Sam told Doug. “I’ll take both you and Pete out. It would be my pleasure.”
“Great.” Doug smiled at him. “I can’t wait.”
“Pass the potatoes,” Ally, Jen’s daughter, asked her mother. “And I wanna learn to shoot too, okay, Mom? I’m thinking about joining ROTC next year in high school.”
“Oh, that’s great,” Sam told her.
She beamed back at him, and Kola told her that since Sam was an expert marksman—he had explained in his report how Sam had to take a test every six months to keep that status current—there was nobody better for her to learn to shoot from.
“So you see,” Regina commented, arching one eyebrow at Michael, “dancing is not the only thing Hannah’s fathers know how to do well.”
Michael threw up his hands in defeat. I doubted his friend, whom I didn’t even get a proper introduction to, would be back.
EVERYONE came outside after dinner, before dessert, to look at the new minivan. Sam explained that the old one was done and would be sold as salvage, and Hannah was sad that she didn’t get to say good-bye to it. He told them that this one was a steal and looked over at me.
“Are you mad?”
“It’s really safe,” he told me. “And we’ll send the insurance money to Aaron when we get it.”
“He called me because he needed a favor, and I explained about the van, and—”
“I already heard all this.” He smiled, hand on the back of my neck, pulling me close, and pressing his lips to my forehead.
“How?”
“He called me,” Sam said, curling a piece of hair behind my ear. I had cut it short for a long time but was back to wearing it long, my dirty-blond hair now falling to my shoulders.
“He did?”
“Yeah, he’s getting smarter in his old age about talking to me, including me. I mean, I know how he works. I know he just does things. I get it.”
“He just sees it as helping.”
“I know. If we end up keeping it, we’ll give him the insurance money and make up the difference. We don’t take charity.”
“I told him that’s what you’d do. What I would do too.”
“It’s better not to argue with him, just go along. When he gets a cashier’s check, he won’t have a choice but to cash it.”
“He’ll just overpay me for the job we’re doing for him,” I sighed.
“Whatever, that’s between his company and yours. That has nothing to do with me or my kids. So I’m good.”
“He’s gonna be pissed,” I chuckled.
“He’s lucky I’m not,” he said, smoothing a hand down my back, pressing me close. “Because he doesn’t provide for you or my kids, only I do.”
“I know.”
“He can’t ever cross the line again, J. You understand?”
I did.
“I already told him.” Sam coughed.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“And what did he say?” I was interested.
“He said okay. We’ll see if he can do it.”
I bit my bottom lip.
“What?”
“I, uhm, cheated.”
Sam let out a breath. “He showed you whatever he had about me and Kevin Dwyer.”
I was stunned. “How did you know?”
“I know you and I know what he wants, and whatever he can do to help you helps him.”
“Sam, he—”
“Oh I’m not saying that Aaron Sutter has been anything but civil to me and not a complete gentleman with you for the past four years, but one of these days, he’s gonna slip up.”
“He’s not in love with me anymore, Sam. Not really.”
“If I died tomorrow, J, he’d be the first guy there to offer condolences.”
“Well then, you better stay alive so the kids and I don’t fall into his clutches.”
“That’s my plan,” he said, dipping his head so he could gently bite down on my earlobe. “It’s always been my plan.”
He was very pleased with the goose bumps that covered my skin.
Chapter Five
HANNAH did not want to walk into the security scanner alone. It was the new one where you stand and lift your arms, and she was having nothing to do with it. She even watched Sam do it first and then Kola, but still, it looked weird to her.
“It only beeps if you have any dog hair on you,” I said, using the last trick in my arsenal. That quickly, I had all her attention.
“I have a cat.”
“I know, so you’ll be okay.”
“I want to call Chilly at Auntie Dylan’s house when we get our shoes back.”
“Okay.”
And with that, she walked through.
I followed her and got picked for the routine search thing and taken to the side and wanded. The woman swiping me for metal told me how cute my kids were. I thanked her, then she thanked me and I was back to my family, pulling on my harness boots. I had to get water to put in the kids’ bottles, plus more snacks for the plane. Sam thought that the feast I had schlepped with us was enough, but I explained that it couldn’t possibly be.
“Daddy, we only have Goldfish and pretzels and grapes and apples and graham crackers and yogurt, cheese and crackers, and pudding.”
Sam gave me a look.
“We don’t have any gum, and Pa said we have to chew it or our ears will explode.”
“Does blood come out when your ears blow up?”
Kola nodded.
“Eww.” Hannah’s face scrunched up as she covered her ears.
“That was a good idea to tell them?” Sam asked me.
“Well, they’re gonna chew the gum now, right?”
“I want the mint Trident.”
“I like the fruit one,” Hannah told her brother. “The mint one is hot.”
“Not the cinnamon one, stupid.”
“Don’t call your sister stupid,” I told him. “That’s a bad word.”
“But Riley says it about Pete.”
“Well, they’re stupid for saying that,” I said.
“Does earwax come out of your ears before the blood?”
“I dunno.” Kola thought about that. “Probably.”
She nodded.
“Can we go?” Sam asked me irritably. He was already grouchy.
At the store to buy the water, Hannah wanted a stuffed animal, Kola wanted a key chain, and Sam bought three different kinds of gum, water, and magazines for me. I had given both kids Dramamine before we left home, and had it in my laptop bag for the return trip. I grabbed some antacids for Sam’s dad, in case he forgot, and a deck of playing cards, because sometimes you just wanted to do something mindless and talk to someone else.
Once we were at the gate, I called Dylan so Hannah could talk to Chilly. Afterward I thanked her again for keeping the snow demon, since I didn’t want to put him in a kennel and Dane and Aja’s two Dalmatians didn’t much like cats. By the time the airline personnel called for people with small children to go on after the first-class passengers, the rest of the family still wasn’t there. I wasn’t worried, but I was surprised since Regina was normally right on time.
We had nothing to go in any of the overhead bins, and it was nice because we had space in front of both kids’ seats for stuff as well. By the time everyone else started showing up around us—Michael and Beverly, Rachel and her kids, Jen and Doug and their kids—it was getting close to departure time. When Regina and Thomas finally showed up, I saw how flustered she was.
“What happened?” Jen called over to her mother.
“I don’t know, there was trouble with our tickets. They had an itinerary but no flight number.”
“How is that possible?”
“I have no idea,” she breathed out and then tried to take her seat.
The man who was sitting on the aisle was supposed to be sitting by the window, simple as that. He had read the little seating icon thing wrong—everyone knew the curve represented the
window, but he read that as the aisle. Thomas had to sit on the aisle because if his claustrophobia started to kick in, he needed to be able to get up. People thought it was a prostate thing, but it was all about feeling confined.
Unfortunately, it turned out the other passenger was drunk. I got how the flight crew had missed it, because he was quiet the whole time, but once he got belligerent, he got loud, and from the slurring words, you understood that he was sloshed. He was so out of it that he started swearing and then stood up and pushed Thomas.
It was a ballsy thing to do, because Thomas Kage was a big man.
Both Sam and Michael had inherited their height and broad shoulders and heavy muscles from the man, so for the guy to go straight to physicality before anything else was gutsy. There was a flight attendant right there, and Beverly, who had been one herself, immediately stood and explained what had happened.
My seat was next to the aisle; the guy had started out beside me, stood up, gotten in Thomas’s face, and then shoved him down into the seat. I got up to help Thomas because Regina yelled and Doug and Michael were stuck on the other side. The attendant came up behind the drunk man, explained that he was to be escorted off the plane, and he lost it. He shoved her, which meant he was so going to be taken off the plane in handcuffs, and I reached for her. She grabbed hold of my arm so she didn’t fall down.
“Thank you,” she said quickly before turning and bolting down the aisle, calling for security.
When I moved to reach Thomas, who had banged his head hard on the overhead bin, the drunk guy barred my way.
“Please move,” I asked.
Instead, he came at me.
“Pa!” Hannah shrieked.
I never liked her to be scared.
“I’m gonna get Daddy,” Kola yelled, and I saw him scramble out of his seat.
Sam had gone to the bathroom; that was where Kola went, I was certain. But I wasn’t worried about him. He couldn’t go far. I was more worried about the man looming in front of me.
“Just sit down.” I tried to sound soothing. “You’re drunk.”
“Fuck you!”
Thomas would have kept him off me as soon as he got up, I had no doubt, as would the other passengers who were moving in the aisle, but Kola had gone to fetch his father, and Sam had run.