Page 20 of Shane
“Any-damned-where,” Mark added gruffly. “That’s the best part of working here, Shane. Alex might’ve started off with a rag-tag bunch of misfits, but he—”
“I ended with a damned good family,” Alex interrupted evenly. “Do what Beau said. Climb off that cross you’ve been dragging and don’t think you’re the only one who’s got demons. I’d be surprised if you didn’t. Now get the hell to work, people. I’m not paying you to stand” —his blue eyes zeroed in on Shane— “or lay around. You are coming to dinner, right?”
“Right. Me and my girls,” he answered without hesitation this time.
“And me!” Everlee piped up.
That earned her a spiked brow from Alex. “Please don’t hurt Shane. We just hired him. We need him.”
Her pretty face split into a grin. “Copy that, Boss. Might as well get the good stuff out for us tonight, cuz we’ll be there.”
“Always do,” Alex said as he latched onto Kelsey’s hand and headed back down the hall with her. “Later, people,” he called out as he lifted a hand over his shoulder and gave them a thumbs up.
“If you can’t come see me tomorrow, at least make an appointment,” Doc Fitz told him.
“I will, thank you,” he replied.
Shit, this might be hard, being part of a civilian team instead of the military. Shane hadn’t belonged anywhere for years, not since he’d let the lease on his mom’s—on their—apartment go. For a change, he was looking forward to dinner. Kind of.
Chapter Seven
Everlee kept an eye on Shane from her corner of the Stewarts’ massive stone patio, where she sat enjoying her second helping of Kelsey’s decadent chocolate mousse dessert. He’d thrown back two shots of Jameson when they’d first arrived after Alex and the guys cornered him. But he’d switched to ice-water during Kelsey’s magnificent feast, what she’d called just another ‘family’ dinner. She must have an in with some pretty good local caterers because this impromptu meal included not only huge slabs of tender, juicy roast beef, a ton of buttery mashed potatoes, and buckets of rich, brown gravy, but enough yeast rolls, spicy hot wings, fries, pizza, and coleslaw to feed an army. Kelsey sure knew how to take care of her guys. What man didn’t like hot wings?
Shane seemed to fit right in with this hardcore, former military group. He’d sure made a statement after everyone sat down to eat when he bowed his head, though. Everlee had stopped talking, hell, everyone had, even Alex, when Shane offered a short, but unexpected blessing over the food. Nothing fancy, just a quick‘thank you, Heavenly Father for this food. May it strengthen our bodies and refresh our spirits.’
But no one had ever done that before, and Everlee knew for a fact that most of these guys went to one church or the other. Dayum, that fierce looking man might be fighting PTSD, but he had one helluva backbone, to pray in front of everyone like that, even his boss.
She’d worried about him after the episode in the lobby. It had been frightening to see a man as hefty and muscled as Shane collapse. But it had also brought everyone together, including Shane, in a way he hadn’t seemed to realize. Yes, falling made him look weak, but once Beau showed up, Shane seemed to connect with his new team in a deeper way than most agents. That was what every veteran needed, to fit back into the America they’d fought for once they returned home. Better yet, in Beau, Shane found a fellow warrior suffering with his own boatload of PTSD demons.
At the moment, he, Connor Maher, and Maverick Carson, all with mugs of after-dinner coffee in their hands, were discussing the latest football scores over by Alex’s dogs’ kennel, which was empty. The spring sun was setting. Pretty soon everyone would leave or migrate inside. Both Whisper and Smoke, Alex’s former EOD dogs, were prowling between chairs, around people, and under tables. Like the Stewarts’ personal clean-up crew, they snarfed tidbits that had fallen, as well as helped themselves to low-lying goodies in any unwary child’s hands.
Harley Mortimer, one of Alex’s four senior agents, was seated on a barstool at the outside kitchenette, joking as he fixed root beer floats in fancy, frosted mugs for the kids, and there were dozens of them. Lexie Stewart, Alex’s oldest, was somewhere inside with the younger set, while Alex had his baby boy, Bradley, on his hip while they made rounds and chatted with everyone.
Everlee guessed Harley’s wife Judy must be inside too, which stood to reason. Her twin boys—well, Georgie anyway, not so much Little A—was a holy terror. At last summer’s TEAM picnic, the one Alex threw together to welcome the Seattle agents moving to Virginia, Georgie faked drowning. No kidding!
At first, he’d played at spraying everyone with the hose he’d found near the deep end of the pool. Then, after he’d ditched the hose and was horsing around with Little A back at the shallow end, everyone stopped paying attention. That was when, with all the noise and activity, Georgie had snuck along the wall of the pool, then ducked underwater and out of sight, and made it back to the deep end beneath the diving board. There, he’d dived down, then sat cross-legged on the pool’s floor, unseen and breathing from the same hose, waiting to be noticed. The little shit. No one realized he’d unhooked the hose and left it dangling a few inches in the water.
He got noticed all right. Never before had Everlee seen so many men and women dive into a pool at the same time after Judy screamed, “Harley! He’s drowning!”
Even Alex.
But Harley got to Georgie first. By the time he’d stormed out of the pool with his naughty son laughing hysterically and draped over his arm, Judy was in tears and the picnic was ruined. And right there, in front of everyone, Harley turned Georgie over his knee and spanked the little guy’s bottom. Harley cried while he did it, but with every smack, he explained the spanking was for Georgie scaring his mother to death. Truth was, Georgie had scared the hell out of Harley, too.
After a while, when everyone’s heartrates had settled back to normal sinus rhythm, Harley’d made Georgie go person-to-person and apologize for being thoughtless. By the end of his teary mission, he’d had to face his mom. That ended up being thehardest apology of all. Judy had cried throughout his entire punishment. But when her turn came for an apology, Georgie sobbed in his mother’s arms. Guess he’d never realized how much his death would’ve hurt the people he loved. He’d wanted to leave the picnic then, said his stomach hurt. But Harley’d made him stay for the fireworks show Alex always ended his picnics with. By the time the Mortimers begged off and went home, Georgie was one docile, repentant, little lamb.
So, yeah. Judy had to be inside riding herd on her troublemaking son. Unfortunately, for tonight’s impromptu dinner, many agents were absent. Zack Lennox for one. He was out of the country, along with Persia Judge, David Tao and his wife, plus a couple others. Walker Judge was probably on his way to join them in China again, God bless them all. They were Alex’s Asian Child Smuggling Task Force.
The new guy, Cord Shepherd, was right then tipped back on two legs of his chair across the patio, laughing heartily at something either Seth McCray or his wife Devereaux said. Everlee was pretty sure Cord and Devereaux were brother and sister, just hadn’t confirmed it yet. But they looked so much alike. What else could they be to each other?
Scottie stayed close to his dad, and Everlee noticed how Seth kept one arm on the back of his son’s chair. How he’d reach over and ruffle Scottie’s hair every so often, or lean into Scottie’s ear and say something that made him laugh. Like most of the men here, Seth was a darned good father, the kind of man who made a woman sit up and take notice. Like Deveraux was noticing Seth right then, him whispering in Scottie’s ear, continually drawing him into the conversation. Everlee could swear Dev had stars in her eyes.
Sigh.What woman didn’t want a man like that? Not that Everlee was looking for a man. She most certainly was not. She was good with being alone. In fact, she was better by herself. Less drama. Fewer lame-assed excuses to put up with. No lies to deal with, either. People were wrong, alone did not mean lonely, nope. It meant living her life the way she wanted, without answering to anyone or having to explain her actions. Alone meant she had no one to be afraid of. Not that she was afraid. She wasn’t that woman anymore. And if all else failed, she had Blade. Her pittie might be her very own snuggle bunny, but he was hell on steroids with strangers, even with one particular creep who wasn’t so much a stranger as a persistent stranger-danger.
Forcing those sneaky, uncomfortable thoughts of past dramas out of her head, Everlee looked around, took a deep breath of springtime in Virginia, and allowed herself to savor the moment. Man, there was a lot of handsome male eye-candy to behold in the Stewarts’ backyard, all of it broad-shouldered, tall, tanned, and stand-out-in-a-crowd damned-good-looking. Her tongue ran a quick lap over her top lip, then paused at the corner of her mouth. This rare view of so much masculine beauty in one place at the same time was one of the perks of working for Alex.
There was magic in watching her boss in his natural environment, too. It made Alex a hundred percent more attractive knowing he doted on his kids, how he sprang to attention without being asked whenever Kelsey needed an assist. Even if she didn’t. How those two lovebirds eyed each other and how kindly they treated each other. Men who respected their wives instead of belittling them or using their shortcomings to make themselves look better were few and far between in Everlee’s experience. Who would’ve ever guessed the abrupt, sharp-tongued man Alex was in the office, the guy who could make anyone back down with just a word or one of his famous glares, was a pussycat at home? Didn’t that make him an even hotter commodity, to see him so wrapped around his pretty wife’s pinkie finger?
Sigh.Yeah. It did. Problem was men like him were always married. They’d found their happily-ever-afters. Too bad for Everlee. But that was the breaks, wasn’t it? Bad decisions made in haste led to consequences that lasted years.Drat.Her chocolate mousse was gone and, judging by the happily married couples scattered across the yard, the world had gone on without her. Like always…