He scowled at her. She sent him a look that said Little help, please?
“Right-oh.” Christian nodded, pretending to gobble the sticky, sauce-covered finger that JJ tried to poke into his mouth. For all his dandyish ways, Christian didn’t seem to mind when one of the children got him dirty. In fact, he hadn’t said a word last week when Penni’s son’s diaper failed and Christian’s favorite cashmere sweater got doused with sticky, green baby poo. “Take advantage of your guest status while you can, luv. Becky tends to put newcomers to work on day three. More wine, yeah?”
“Oh…uh, sure,” Samantha said, still looking bewildered as Christian refilled her glass.
“Back in a sec,” Michelle said. “And you.” She pointed a finger at Ozzie.
“Me?” He blinked innocently.
“Yes, you. I don’t see another wonder boy around here.” It was Michelle’s pet name for Ozzie. “Don’t think I don’t realize you were saved by the bell.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ozzie feigned innocence.
Michelle made a mom-like tsking sound before turning to follow Becky inside. The call usually only lasted a couple of minutes, and it was up to Emily, Ozzie, and Christian to distract the kids and Samantha during that time.
“So what’s this I hear about you turning down a little jiggery-pokery last night?” Christian asked Ozzie, bouncing JJ on his knee until the baby burbled with delight.
Okay, so not necessarily the tack I would have taken, but… Emily popped a crust of bread into her mouth and settled in to watch the show. There were two things she’d quickly learned after joining the Blacks Knights. The first was that the idea of privacy was pretty much a joke. And the second was that everything and anything was fair game.
“Excuse me?” Ozzie sputtered. Then he turned to glare at Samantha. “You told him?”
“Well…” The look on Samantha’s face said she was praying for the patio pavers to open up so the ground could swallow her whole. “He thought we had, and I…I thought it was better if I set the record…uh…straight.”
“So what’s the issue?” Christian asked. “Your knob stop working?”
“My knob works just fine!”
When Samantha said, “It does. I can vouch,” Ozzie choked. “What?” Samantha blinked. “I’m just setting the—”
“Record straight,” Ozzie finished for her. “You seem to be obsessed with that, don’t you?”
Samantha pointed to herself. “Hello? Reporter?”
This is better than reality TV. Emily happily sloshed another splash of pinot noir into her glass.
“What’s jiggery-pokery?” Franklin asked. Now that his mother was gone, he was no longer trying to hide the fact that he was feeding all his salad to the dog. He shoved a huge handful of the dressing-covered stuff beneath the table, giggling when Fido licked his fingers clean.
“Ohhhh!” Ozzie crowed with delight, pointing a finger at Christian. “Michelle is going to kill you!”
It occurred to Emily then and there that with these people, and for the first time in a long time, she felt like she belonged.
*
Ozzie wasn’t sure how much time had passed since Becky and Michelle disappeared inside the warehouse, but it felt like an eternity. Christian was still doing a bang-up job of distracting Samantha and Franklin by telling Samantha she should ask Franklin to recite the alphabet. Thank heavens they’ve moved on from the subject of my knob.
As Franklin singsonged the letters while Samantha and Emily kept the beat by clapping their hands, Ozzie surreptitiously glanced at his watch. Oh-nineteen-hundred-and-five. Exactly five minutes since his brothers-in-arms should have made the call back to home base.
His stomach clenched around the lasagna, and he immediately regretted his third helping. Of course, that wasn’t his only regret. Not by far.
It should be me out there. I don’t have a wife. I don’t have kids. I should be the one risking it all. Not them.
It was the same thought he had every night at this time. The same thought that brought with it the terrible spiral of what-ifs. What if he never healed enough to go back into the field? What if he became a burden to those around him, good for nothing but a joke and smile? What if they asked him to leave, to move on, to find a place that better suited his limitations?
And right behind all those what-ifs rolled the twin wonders of self-pity and remorse. He hated himself for…so much. For precipitating his mother’s mental illness. For not pulling Julia Ledbetter out of that deadly bed in an attempt to change her mind about letting him stay. For not being with the Knights on this mission, letting them down when they needed him most. For feeling sorry for himself and turning into his father, a man who hadn’t been able to move on after all his dreams were shattered.
The screen door creaked on its hinges, the ladies backlit by the interior light so that all he could see were their silhouettes.
Finally, he thought, the nerve endings in his neck and shoulders firing, making his muscles twitch. To keep from jumping up to demand a situation report, he pressed a thumb into a spot on his thigh that was particularly sensitive. The bright flare of pain kept him seated and reminded him of his place in all this.
He might love the men of Black Knights Inc. like family, but he wasn’t their family. The women were. The women and the children. And right now, the women’s worries, their fears, their daily struggle to keep it together took precedence over his.
Michelle was the first to push through the door. But her back was to him, which meant he couldn’t see her expression. His heart hammered in his chest. Becky appeared next, arms laden with plates piled high with Michelle’s famous tiramisu. But she was watching her feet on the uneven flagstones. He couldn’t see her eyes, and his breath burned through his lungs. Then—bless her—she was kind enough to lift her head and zero in on him, shooting him a quick wink.
Fuckin’ A. He blew out a ragged breath and stopped applying pressure to his wounded thigh. The pain ratcheted down from sharp agony to a dull throb.
Everyone’s okay. Everyone made it through another day.
“You okay?” Samantha whispered.
“Fine. Leg cramp.” And that wasn’t totally a lie. He just left out the part about having done it to himself.
Samantha reached beneath the table and placed her hand atop his thigh. Her fingers were cool, even through the denim of his jeans, but her touch sent heat racing through his blood. “Should I massage it?” she asked, completely innocently.
Dear God, yes. She should massage it. And then work her way up to massaging—