A Matter of Time 06 - But For You (MM)

by Mary Calmes

  He came over the seats, stepping on the armrests. He had to duck down, and really, for a man Sam’s size, it was impressive. And so fast.

  The guy was on his feet one minute; the next on the floor, face pressed to the carpet, his neck under Sam’s boot. Before the flight attendant could even get back, before anyone else came to my aid, my man was there. When the air marshal arrived, Sam had his badge out for him before he could even get a word out.

  The applause was instant.

  “What the hell?” Sam barked at me.

  “I—”

  “Daddy, that man pushed Papa and wanted to hurt Pa,” Hannah told her father.

  The guy groaned from the floor as Sam looked down at him.

  “Oh God, somebody hurry and get him off the plane,” I almost whined. The guy was dead if they didn’t move.

  Policemen came and took the guy off. They exchanged cards with Sam. All in all, the delay only cost us maybe twenty minutes. What was nice was that Sam was golden after that, and since the kids and I were in his reflected glow, we got the star treatment as well.

  Thomas was very impressed with his son and had Regina trade places with Sam for a while so they could talk. I gave Thomas the antacids I got for him, and he gave me a pat on the cheek for being such a good boy. Having never had a father of my own, I was always thrilled when I made him happy. Kola showed his grandmother how to play Fruit Ninja on my iPad and read her all the fun facts. Hannah leaned against me, using Kola’s DS since they had switched diversions two hours into the four-hour flight.

  I had passed the cards to Jen and Rachel, who ended up sitting together, with Doug passed out beside his wife. We were a low-key group, and when we landed in Phoenix at eleven in the morning, Kola thought that was the coolest thing ever.

  “We time traveled,” he told me.

  I agreed that we had.

  Even though we had sat in economy plus class on the 747 because Sam’s legs were just too long for us to sit in coach, he was still complaining when we walked to the baggage terminal.

  “You should have asked the pilot for an upgrade for the ride home,” I teased him.

  “You’re funny,” he groused at me.

  But I knew that. It was a gift.

  KOLA was sick of sitting by the time the shuttle got us from the airport to the hotel in Scottsdale. The driver talked as he drove, explaining about the two hundred acres the boutique hotel sat on, the amenities, the dessert bar that the kids would enjoy, the waterslides, the pools, the horseback riding, and so on. Even the drive in to the hotel was amazing. The grounds were gorgeous, beautifully landscaped, and a staff member greeted us and walked us to the front desk.

  Hannah loved the fountain in the lobby; looking at it reminded Kola that he had to pee. And then Hannah had to go too. I excused us and went to take my kids to find a bathroom. Another nice person walked us there, and once you went inside, there were individual rooms with sinks inside the bathroom, plus a place to sit down and relax when you came out. I had never seen five different kinds of hand soap and lotions and towels and pitchers of ice water with lemon in a bathroom before in my life. I had a feeling that we were swimming in the deep end of money. I wondered briefly how much we were shelling out for the weekend. Sam and I normally did our finances together, but Sam’s father was taking care of this and then we were paying him when we got back. I started to worry because we had to make payments for the school as well, and between this and our regular bills, I saw dipping into savings in our future.

  I was okay to take money out, but we needed a new water heater, and we were paying Aaron back for a minivan that was more than we would have spent, and we didn’t have to pay him back, but it would be weird if we didn’t—

  “Pa?”

  Hannah was finished, smiling, looking up at me like she was worried.

  “This is nicer than my first apartment,” I told her.

  “You lived in a potty?”

  “Yeah.”

  She found that hysterical. After we all washed our hands and Hannah used the rose soap and the aloe-and-clover-scented lotion, we made our way back to the front desk.

  Apparently we had suites and not rooms, and my anxiety rose as we traveled up the elevators. While I appreciated the suite, because sleeping in the same room with my kids meant that I would be celibate Thursday through Saturday, the cost looked staggering.

  “It’ll be okay,” Sam whispered close to my ear.

  “We need a new water heater,” I reminded him.

  “I know,” he said, pressing a kiss to the side of my neck.

  As the elevator slid open and we got out with Jen and Doug and their two kids, Regina reminded us to all meet in the lobby in twenty minutes so we could be in time for the reunion to kick off on the west lawn.

  “Absolutely.” Jen gave her mother the thumbs-up before the doors swooshed closed. “Ohmygod, I need a drink.”

  “It’s not even noon,” Doug chuckled.

  She pointed back at the elevator. “We can go right back down to the bar.”

  “We’ll get mai tais right after we unpack,” I promised her.

  “Oh God, thank you.” She beamed at me.

  Our suite was fantastic. It had a living room and two bedrooms—one for the kids with two beds in it and the other with a king-size bed for me and Sam. There were two bathrooms, a guest toilet, and both bedrooms had their own balconies. It was easily 1,800 square feet, 1,300 square feet bigger than my first apartment. There was Italian marble and a gorgeous view, fresh-cut flowers—birds of paradise and dragon lilies—on the table, and a fruit basket.

  I took Kola and Hannah to their room and showed them how to unpack while Sam took care of our stuff in the other room. Once I had the kids situated, I led them back to our room.

  We all lay down on the bed and watched Sam work.

  “Daddy?”

  “Yes, B?”

  “Do we hafta go to church on Sunday when we get home?”

  “No, we’ll miss church.”

  “But I was gonna ask Miss Ginny about Cain again.”

  He turned from hanging up his suit beside mine to look at her.

  “What about him?”

  “Well, last week I asked Miss Ginny who Cain had babies with when he had to go away, and she said she’d tell me this week.”

  “Why did you have to wait a whole week?”

  “Because she was gonna look it up,” Kola chimed in. “I told her it was the evolution people, but she didn’t like that answer.”

  Sam squinted and looked at his son. “The evolution people?”

  He nodded. “In school we learned about Neanderthal man and Cro-Magnon man, and so I told Miss Ginny that even though Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel lived in the Garden of Eden, that outside there, evolution was going on.”

  “I see.”

  “And I told her that’s where Cain got his wife from.”

  “But she said you were wrong.”

  “Yeah, so I told her she needed to show me.”

  Sam sighed. “You know, some things you have to take on faith, buddy.”

  “Like God.”

  “Yes, like God.”

  “Yeah, but maybe God made the evolution people too, to see which one would work out better. Maybe the evolution people didn’t kill their brothers.”

  “I would never kill Kola,” Hannah told Sam. “Maybe I’m a—”

  She looked over at her brother. “—emolution people?”

  “Evolution.”

  “Evolution,” she parroted.

  Sam looked at me.

  “What?”

  “Can you help me with this so we can go downstairs? I’m starving.”

  “Me too!” Hannah said. “I want ice cream.”

  “I want Honey Comb,” Kola informed me.

  “You can have something much better than that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like fruit and an omelet or—”

  The retching noise he made cut me off.


  Back down in the lobby, everyone else was there so we could walk to the west lawn. It turned out to be a lot closer than we thought, and there were white tents set up everywhere with a banner that read Miller/Kage Family Reunion.

  Thomas’s oldest brother, Frank, who had planned the whole thing and was much wealthier than his other three brothers and two sisters, came barreling up to us to say hello. A representative from the hotel went to the podium on the dais and welcomed the families to a great time in the valley of the sun. It was assigned seating, because people were supposed to mix up and mingle and not just stick to their own family clusters. I walked around looking for our names until I found them at a table with an older couple and two beautiful women who had to be their daughters.

  Once we sat, I introduced myself, Kola, and Hannah to Jim and his wife, Anita, and their two daughters, Renee and Joyce. When I saw Sam cutting across the tent—he had been waylaid a couple of times by his cousin Levi and others—I waved so he’d see where we were.

  When he joined us, of course, the women sat up straight and leaned forward, both very happy to meet him. I understood. If a big, strapping, virile alpha male was your wet dream, you needed to look no further than Sam Kage. The dimples were on display, as was the stubble over his square jaw and under his lip; he had laugh lines in the corners of his eyes and bulging muscles. Power rippled off the man, combined with dominance and strength. I would have creamed my jeans too if he weren’t already mine.

  “So how are we related?” Sam smiled at Anita, the mother.

  “We’re not really.” She smiled at him. “Frank married my mother, Donna, after his first wife passed away, and she already had me and my brother Paul.”

  “Got it. Is your mother here?”

  “Yes, she’s at the table with Frank and a lot of other people I don’t know.”

  “This is huge.” Sam grinned as Hannah reached up and touched his chin. “Yes, B?”

  “Daddy, I’m hungry.”

  “I know, love. We just have to wait until they call our section to go up.”

  “Where’s your Mommy, bunny?” Anita’s daughter Renee asked Hannah.

  Now, maybe she asked because there were two more free chairs at our table—it was supposed to seat ten. Maybe she thought Sam and I were cousins and we were waiting for our wives since we were both wearing wedding rings. Who knew? It still happened sometimes when we went out, and normally I wouldn’t have cared, but this was a family reunion, and I wanted people to know that the big guy was with me. I opened my mouth to set her straight.

  “I don’t have a Mommy, I have Pa and Daddy. Do you have a mommy and daddy?” Hannah chimed in cheerfully, taking advantage of the moment between the end of her question and me deciding what to say to take control of the conversation.

  Renee flushed beet red and her eyes got huge. “Yes, I—”

  “Do you have a big house, ’cause I do, and I have a cat named Chilly. Do you have a cat?”

  “No, I—”

  “Chilly’s all white except he has black on his ears and his nose and his paws. I can draw you a picture of him if you want. Do you have dog since you don’t have a cat?”

  “No, I—”

  “Kola was born in Neverland, but not like where Peter Pan lives.

  It’s a different place,” she said authoritatively. “Do you know where that is? I know where that is. I know where Uglay is too. That’s where I was born. Do you know why I have a Daddy and a Pa? Because where Kola was born, Pa means Daddy. So that’s why Pa is Pa.”

  “I—”

  “Where’s your mommy?”

  “R-r-right… there…,” she stammered, pointing at her mother.

  “You’re her mommy?” Hannah asked Anita brightly.

  “Yes, darling.”

  “How come she doesn’t have a cat?” My daughter was very concerned about this development.

  “She’s allergic to them.”

  The piece of information floored my daughter. Hannah scrunched up her nose like that was the worst thing she’d ever heard in her whole life before she whispered for Sam. “Daddy.”

  “Yes, B?” He chuckled.

  “She’s allergic so she can’t come to our house.”

  “Okay.”

  “Tell her, ’kay?”

  “I will.”

  Hannah’s eyes flicked to the woman suspiciously.

  Renee leaned forward, eyes on me. “Forgive me, I meant no offense.”

  “Yeah, open mouth, insert foot, Renee.” Her sister rolled her eyes before she turned and smiled at me. “So, Jory, what do you do?”

  I explained about my graphic design business and then asked her what it was that she did. Interesting to learn that she was a public defender in Miami, where she lived. Of course, Sam telling her he was a US Marshal was the high point. Big, beautiful man and he worked a sexy-sounding job on top of it? Game over.

  Once we were called up, I walked with Hannah and Sam with Kola. We were on opposite sides of the buffet table, so of course Kola and Hannah talked over it.

  “How do you think you get allergic to a cat?” Hannah asked her brother when she was sure Renee couldn’t overhear her. I had wondered why she had hung back enough to let a few people in front of us.

  “I think it’s made up.” He was adamant. “How do you get allergic to a cat? You’re not supposed to put them in your mouth, Daddy said.”

  Hannah’s mouth made a perfect little O. “That’s right, huh?”

  “Yep,” he insisted. “It’s not a real thing.”

  “Yes it is,” I assured him. “People are allergic to cat dander.”

  “What’s dander?”

  “Like dandruff.”

  “What’s that?” Hannah wanted to know.

  “It’s like little pieces of skin, and sometimes it’s itchy.”

  “Ewww.” She made a face. “Chilly doesn’t have that.”

  I sighed. “Some people are allergic to their hair too.”

  “How?” Kola wanted to know.

  “It makes them sneeze.”

  “Is this in a book?” he wanted to know. Lately everything I said was questioned in this manner.

  “Yes, and you can look it up on the Internet too.”

  He looked skeptical.

  “So is she allergic to all cats?” Hannah wanted to know.

  “I suspect so.”

  “Like lions? She would be allergic to Simba?”

  “Simba’s not a real lion,” Kola reminded her. “He’s a cartoon.”

  “But if he was a real lion he would make her sneeze, huh?”

  Both faces turned up to me, waiting.

  “I think it’s just house cats, but we’ll have to look it up when we get back to the room.”

  My answer seemed to placate them.

  “Kola, look.” Hanna pointed at some kind of casserole. “That looks like monkey brains.”

  “Or like a horse blew up.” He retched, which made the woman behind us gasp.

  “Guys,” I cautioned them.

  “Remember that time Chilly barfed up that hairball with the jelly beans?”

  “Eww, the red ones!”

  She dissolved into her husky laughter.

  He gagged again, which sent his sister into hysterics.

  Sam had to apologize to the people behind us and I noticed that no one even picked up the spoon to put any of the red glop on their plates.

  “Daddy,” Kola began as we moved down the side of the buffet table. “When I get big, I’m gonna be a marshal too.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yeah. I’m not gonna shoot people, though.”

  “No? What’re you gonna do?”

  “I’m just gonna make them sit in a room and talk to Hannah,” he announced with diabolical intent, his voice rising at the end.

  “Kola!”

  He started laughing, and she picked up a roll.

  “Hannah Kage, don’t you dare throw that roll,” I threatened her.

  “Kola is
made of boogers!”

  “Well, Hannah is made of poop!”

  “Guys,” Sam was chuckling so his warning lacked any real power. Stern he was not.

  Once we were sitting, Hannah asked me why a lady hit a girl when we were in line.

  “That was her daughter,” I explained.

  “So why did she hit her?”

  “She probably did something her mother didn’t like.”

  “So she was bad?”

  “Kids aren’t bad. Sometimes they do things that make their parents upset, but it’s not bad. It’s just that the behavior is misguided.”

  She looked at me like I was from another planet.

  I made a noise. “Fine, yeah, she was bad.”

  “How come you don’t hit me when I’m bad?”

  “I don’t think hitting accomplishes anything.”

  “Me neither.” She nodded, patting my arm.

  I started laughing, and when Kola waggled his eyebrows at me, I lost it.

  Sam just shook his head.

  THE day was a whirlwind. There were so many activities and sign-ups, and Sam’s father wanted both his sons with him. I left to take the kids to the playground, let them run around like crazy people for two hours, and then took them for a walk around the lagoon. Hannah started getting whiney and grouchy, and when I picked her up and carried her, she fell asleep in seconds. We went back to the room, and I had Kola do the homework his teacher had given us, and put Hannah down on the couch so she would be out with us instead of in the bedroom alone.

  I got a call around two that reminded us we had horseback rides scheduled for three. Apparently we were already signed up to do lots of things.

  We didn’t see Sam again until after five. We had already showered and changed when he came through the front door. “Hello!”

  “In here!”

  He found all three of us under the covers, watching a movie on my bed with the remainders of room service around us.

  “We have to go to dinner, guys. Are you ready?”

  Kola moaned and burrowed into my side, his arm on my stomach as he hid his face.

  “What happened?” Sam looked at me.

  “Kola got horse sick,” I said with as much of a straight face as I could manage.

  Hannah pretended to puke for Sam, just in case he was confused.