Marine for Hire (18 page)

Sheri sighed. “I know I did.”

“Not to blow the nanny ’til you’ve frisked him for firearms?”

“Make that two lessons.”

Kelli smiled and patted her on the shoulder. “You’ll be okay, Sher. You’re a great mom, a great friend, and if the look on Sam’s face as he was leaving was any indication, a great lay.”

“Thanks, Kelli. And thanks for bringing lunch.”

Kelli stepped close and pulled her into a warm embrace that smelled like jasmine and puppy breath. “I’ll be at the clinic late tonight doing lab work on a bunch of endangered tortoises we seized from a private collection. Call if you need anything.”

Sheri nodded against her friend’s shoulder, trying not to get snot on her. She’d been holding back the tears all day, but as Kelli rocked her back and forth in a supportive hug, she felt them prick the corners of her eyes again.

“You’d better get going,” she said, pulling back and moving toward the kitchen with the teacups. “Thanks again, Kel.”

“My pleasure. Be strong, babe.”

Kelli stooped down and picked up the beanie peacock, setting it gently on the accent table beside the door. She turned one last time and blew Sheri a kiss before walking out into the bright sunlight.

Sheri took a steadying breath as the door closed behind her best friend. She scrubbed her hands over her face and wondered for the hundredth time where Sam had gone.

“Enough,” she ordered herself, and went to take a shower.

Her visions of a long, leisurely cry beneath the hot spray were cut short by the boys wailing over the baby monitor, which was just as well. The last thing she needed was the opportunity to picture every nook and cranny of the shower where Sam had explored every nook and cranny of her body.

With her hair still unwashed and her body wrapped in hastily donned jersey shorts and a button-up tank top she was pretty sure she’d buttoned crookedly, Sheri bounced Jackson in her arms while gently rocking Jeffrey’s little carrier with her bare foot.

“Shhhh,” she whispered, bouncing harder. “Mommy’s here.”

Jackson wailed harder, and Sheri wondered if he was thinking about Sam. He screwed up his tiny face and made a loud
pfft
noise, then crapped his pants.

“My thoughts exactly,” Sheri said, and bent to the task of changing him.

The day dragged on, with Sheri growing increasingly despondent and exhausted. The boys fluctuated wildly between exuberant joy and tired crankiness, yanking Sheri’s mood along with them. While Jackson gummed his beanie peacock, Jeffrey sneezed a mixture of rice cereal and carrot all over her hair.

She didn’t bother to clean it off.

By the time she had both boys latched into their car seats, it was already getting dark. She drove to the grocery store with her iPod playing the dirty, raw Southern rock of Kings of Leon, singing along to “The End” while she blinked back stupid tears.

“It won’t be long before you guys are going to understand lyrics, and then we’ll have to play ‘Wheels on the Bus’ on an endless loop,” she called into the backseat.

Jackson hiccupped and threw his teething ring on the floor. Jeffrey blew a snot bubble.

“God, I love you guys,” she sniffed, and parked the car in front of Safeway. She turned around to look at them, her heart ripping in half as she took in their chubby cheeks and bare baby toes. “Look, I know I’m not the best mom in the world, and you guys kinda got the short end of the stick here. But you know I’d do anything for you, right?”

Jackson hooted and smacked his hand on the arm of his car seat. Jeffrey stuck his fist in his mouth and kicked his little bare legs.

“And you know Sam is crazy about you, too,” she said. “It’s just that sometimes, people lie, and they aren’t who they say they are, and they have to go away.”

Bored with his fist, Jeffrey attempted to shove his foot in his mouth, while Jackson threw his pacifier on the floor.

“Good talk, guys,” Sheri said, and picked up the pacifier.

The grocery shopping took her three times longer than she’d hoped, and she was drained by the time she hauled four big sacks of groceries, packed tightly in the shopping cart around the boys’ carriers, back to the car.

“This was easier with another set of hands,” she muttered, and tried not to think of Sam’s hands.

She latched the boys back in their seats, loaded the groceries into the trunk, and drove slowly back home with the stereo at a slightly more soothing volume and her headlights slicing through the darkness.

By the time she pulled into the driveway, she was giving serious thought to leaving the food in the trunk and just going straight to bed.

“Not an option in Hawaii,” she muttered, unbuckling her seat belt as she stepped out of the car. “Not unless I want my perishables to perish and my frozen goods to unfreeze.”

She unbuckled Jeffrey first, then Jackson, maneuvering their car seats Transformer-style to become baby carriers. Jackson reached up and grabbed the front of her tank top, his tiny fist fastening on the top button with a viselike grip.

“Honey, no,” she murmured, but she was too late.

She heard the rip of fabric and the skitter of buttons popping off one by one to roll down the concrete driveway. She glanced down, trying to figure out how much boob she was showing and whether the shirt could be salvaged.

Did it matter now? There was no one around to notice, to tease or ogle or offer to fix it while she fought tooth and nail to avoid taking help from anyone.

She sighed and hoisted the baby carriers, one on each arm. They were almost too big for her to lug like this, though Sam had made it look easy. How the hell was she going to manage this as a single mom? She’d done it before, in the six months between Jonathan’s leaving and Sam’s showing up. But things were different now. It was partly that the boys were getting bigger, but that wasn’t all.

There was a Sam-sized hole in her life, and she knew it wasn’t just the child-care help she missed.

She marched up to the front porch gripping a baby carrier in each hand, leaving the groceries for the second run. She set both carriers down on the bottom step and stuck her key in the lock. It turned easily—too easily—and Sheri muttered to herself as she shoved the door open with her hip.

“Gotta get better about making sure that’s locked,” she told the boys as she picked up their carriers and lugged them into the house.

She moved through the foyer in darkness, carting the boys to the center of the living room. She set them down there, then turned back to the entry table to drop her keys in the little dish. She spotted the beanie peacock there and fought the wistful pang that gripped her gut. She thought about throwing it in the trash, but couldn’t bring herself to do it.

She turned to the boys. “I’ll be right back, guys. Gotta grab the groceries. Don’t move.”

Sheri hurried out the door, hating to leave them alone for even an instant, but knowing she didn’t have a choice. She hefted the four bags out of the trunk and hurried back up the walkway, wondering whether she’d be smarter to tackle the groceries or the requisite diaper change for Jeffrey first.

She hustled back into the house and kicked off her shoes at the door, relieved to feel the cool floor under her bare feet. She set the groceries on the floor and turned to find the light switch. She froze with her hand midway to it, her eyes fixing on the stupid peacock.

She reached for it, wanting to touch it one more time, to remember Sam’s kindness and understanding. To recall the look on his face when he’d called her beautiful, smart, funny, a good mother.

A sound snapped her attention back to the moment. She looked up, squinting toward the dark hallway on the other side of the living room.

The figure loomed in the shadows, his face masked in darkness, as he moved slowly, ominously toward her.

Toward her babies.

In a flash of moonlight, she saw the gun glinting in his hand.

Chapter Twenty-One

Sheri gasped as the figure stepped out of the shadows. Her heart pounded in her ears and the familiar scent of his cologne made her stomach churn.

“Jonathan. How the hell did you get in here?”

“Sheridan,” he said, stepping into place behind the boys’ carriers as he held the pistol in one hand like a pageant prop. “Good to see you again. I’ve been getting acquainted with our new home. It’s a nice place.”

She swallowed, tasting bile. How had she ever loved this man? “You’re insane. How did you get in?”

“First thing we’re going to do after I move in is install new locks on the doors. It’s much too easy to break in.” He looked down at the gun in his hand and shook his head. “The second thing we’re going to do is have fewer secrets between us. This gun, for instance.”

“My collection of heirloom firearms was never a secret, you jerk,” she snapped. “You knew about them. They belong to my family.”

“And as your husband,
I’m
your family. Keeping your valuables under lock and key the way you always used to—well, that’s going to change now. So is your repertoire of recipes. You’re not still making that potato flake chicken, are you?”

Sheri took a step forward, her eyes flicking between the baby carriers, the gun, and the menacing look on her ex-husband’s face. “What I do with my personal possessions and what I make for dinner are none of your business. Get away from my babies.”

He snorted. “They’re my children, Sheridan. I have every right to take them.”

“
Take
them? Take them where?”

Her voice was practically a shriek, but Jonathan looked unfazed. “You’ve been ignoring and disrespecting me long enough. It’s time I took some action. I want us to be a family again, and the only way you’re going to listen to me is if I have your children.
Our
children.”

She took another step toward him, her gut twisting in fury and disgust. “Get away from them.”

Jonathan raised the pistol. “No, you get away. Don’t come any closer. I’ve already packed a bag for you, Sheridan. You’re going to turn around now and walk back out to the car. And for God’s sake, put down that stupid toy. I already threw some things in a bag for the boys, they’ll be fine.”

Sheri looked down at her own hands, surprised to discover she’d picked up the beanie peacock. She blinked at it as her mind flashed to Sam, wondering where he was and whether she’d ever see him again. She gripped the toy tighter and looked up at her ex. As her eyes locked with his, she took another step toward him.

“You’re crazy,” she hissed. “How did I never see that before?”

His finger touched the trigger on the pistol. “Stay right there, Sheridan.”

Her heart bumped hard against her rib cage as she took a steadying breath and one more step forward. She looked down at her babies. Jackson waved one chubby hand in the air, oblivious to the danger pulsing through the room.

“Don’t come any closer,” he barked. “Turn around and walk to the car.
Now
!”

Disobeying his order, she took another step forward, close enough to stretch out and touch his sleeve if she wanted. She shuddered at the thought of touching him and met his eyes instead.

“I’m warning you, Sheridan,” he shouted.

Jeffrey squawked in alarm. Jackson whimpered, his soft snuffles signaling the start of a full-fledged crying jag. Sheri took another step forward, needing to reach her boys, needing to make sure they were okay—

“Stop right there!” he barked. He held the gun on Sheri for two more beats, then turned and pointed it at the babies.

Sheri lunged, pouncing on him with every ounce of mama-bear fury she never knew she had. She smacked the peacock against the side of his head, remembering what her father had taught her in a self-defense lesson at age eight.
Strike hard and from above
.

Her weapon left something to be desired, but she had the element of surprise on her side. Jonathan stepped back as she hit him across the eyes. His foot tangled with the second peacock lying facedown on the carpet, and he tripped. Staggering, he fell to his knees. She raised the peacock again as Jonathan lifted the pistol.

He blinked at her, dazed. “Drop the—the—what the hell is that?”

She hit him again, once more in the face and then in the arm. He kept his grip on the gun, but he was still on his knees, so she kicked him hard in the ribs. She delivered one more smack with the peacock, throwing every ounce of strength into the blow as he toppled sideways.

“Lesson number one,” she hissed, kicking him in the groin this time. “Don’t ever,
ever
threaten my children.”

He dropped the pistol, and she kicked it away, her fingers still gripping the peacock. “And lesson number two,” she snarled. “If you’re going to point a gun at someone raised in a family of gun nuts, make sure it’s not her grandfather’s blowback-operated, semiautomatic FN Model 1910 pistol that hasn’t worked since World War II. There’s a reason I never let you touch it, asshole—it’s an antique.”

She drew her foot back to kick him again, then stopped herself. He was already down, and her babies were safe. She shook her head in disgust. “Don’t you ever,
ever,
touch me, my children, or my family heirlooms again.”

She dropped to her knees beside him, grabbing his wrists and jerking them behind his back. With one hand, she yanked Sam’s makeshift teething ring holder off the handle of Jeffrey’s carrier. She used it to cinch Jonathan’s wrists behind his back, then leaned over the boys to make sure they were okay.

“Hey, guys,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “Everything’s fine now. Mama’s got you.”

She stroked a finger over Jeffrey’s cheek, and he stopped whimpering at once. She moved to Jackson, wiping his little nose with the back of her hand. “Shhh,” she soothed. “You’re okay now. Everything’s all over.”

“Not entirely,” said a voice in the darkness.

Sheri snapped her head up and blinked.

A man in black stepped through the front door. Shadows fell behind him as he strode slowly toward her.