CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER
TWO
Looking down at her sleeping twins, she couldn’t help the sadness that started to overwhelm her. She placed a quick kiss on their foreheads and quietly backed out of the room.
“Littles still out?” Sunny asked as she stretched on the couch she and Rocky were sitting on.
“Yeah. Didn’t wake up at all. I envy that shit.” Lana laughed as she sat on the love seat and stretched her arms and legs out.
“Me too. Hell, I’m lucky if I can get three to four hours uninterrupted sleep.” Rocky smiled absent-mindedly.
Lana listened to Sunny and Rocky talking about their sleep patterns with half an ear. Looking around, she saw that not much had changed through the years.
The living room set was the same one her father had bought when they had moved to the area in her senior year of high school.
There were no photos of her, the kids, or her late mother on the living room walls. While she knew her father loved her mother, considering he never dated, much less remarried, he took her death hard.
Her mother had been Army Intelligence, one of their best. She spoke six different languages and was a kick ass in the field thanks to her martial arts skills.
It was how her parents had met years ago. Her mother had been assigned to her father’s Green Beret unit as an interrogator and Intelligence collector. As her father once told her, it had been love at first sight for both of them.
When they had married, her mother took a desk position, analyzing data and doing what needed to be done to help the Special Forces teams. After Lana had been born, due to the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, due to her mother’s skills, she was back on the teams and being deployed like her father.
Lana had been blessed with thirteen years with her mother before a roadside ambush took out her mother and four of the six-man Green Beret team she was assigned to. Her father became a broken man after that.
His team had been tasked to assist in their rescue but got there too late. When the Army had advised her father of the Medal of Honor her mother would receive for her actions that saved two of the men that survived the ambush when she did what she did, he lost it.
She’d never seen her father scream, cry, rage, or angry in her thirteen years. After that day, she’d never seen him like that again, except where she was concerned or if he was blackout drunk, which was only on the anniversary of her mother’s death.
She had to take that back. The day she told her father she had joined the Army and passed her ASVAB and was going into Human Intelligence, like her mother, was the first time in her life she’d ever been afraid of her father in her entire life.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Rocky asked Lana softly.
Lana looked over and saw that Sunny and Rocky were looking at her worriedly. She hadn’t realized how far down the rabbit hole of memory lane she’d gone.
“Yeah. I got lost in the memories. Dad hasn’t changed a thing here.”
“We’ve got you. Whatever you need.” Rocky smiled over at her.
She couldn’t help but return the smile. She knew without a shadow of a doubt these two women had her back, just like she had theirs.
“Thanks. Hopefully we only have to be here for a couple of days. Most of what needs to be done can be done in Houston. The only thing I need to do in person is deal with his body, grab his ashes, and find a realtor that can help me deal with the house and get it sold. I’ll box up what I want and go through things to get rid of. But that’s really it.”
“I agree with Rocky. Rent the house out. You may want to eventually move back here. I mean, you’d have me and Rocky following you eventually,” Sunny suggested.
“Thanks, but there’s nothing for me here,” Lana answered quickly and to the point.
“Mommy.”
All three women looked toward the little girl at the hallway entrance, rubbing her sleepy eyes. Lana got up and rushed over to the little girl.
“Hey sweetie, were we too loud?”
“No, Mommy. I can’t find Mr. Snuggles. He wasn’t in bed with us. I had him in the car with me.”
“Okay, sweetie. Mommy will go check the car. You get back in bed with Jay.”
Lana stood up and headed out of the front door toward the SUV. She’d just found Mr. Snuggles when she heard feet shuffling behind her.
“Don’t you dare move. I’ve called the cops, and they will be here in a minute. Shame on you for breaking into a dead man’s home. The man hasn’t even been gone two days and you hoodlums are breaking in.”
Lana’s heart stopped for several seconds. She recognized that voice.
“Mrs. B? It’s me, Lana Pennington. I’m going to turn around slowly with my hands in the air, so that you can see my face. Okay?”
Lana slowly turned around, her hands in the air, her daughter’s teddy bear in one hand. She about shit her pants when she turned around and saw that Mrs. B had a shotgun aimed at her face.
“Why Lana! I didn’t know you were coming home.”
“I just got here, Mrs. B. Came home to take care of my dad’s arrangements before going back to Houston.”
“Drop the gun, lady! I won’t hesitate to blow you away!”
“Rocky, she’s good. She didn’t know it was me. She’s my dad’s next-door neighbor. Rocky, this is Mrs. B. Mrs. B., this is Rocky, my best friend and partner.”
“Your daddy never said you were a lesbian. Hell, I never would have thought that with the way you and that Kenwood boy was hot and heavy back in the day.”
Lana’s head fell back on her shoulders as she let out a heavy sigh. “I’m a cop in Texas, Mrs. B. Rocky is my work partner. Not my significant other type of partner.”
“Well, I’ll be damned! If it isn’t lil Miss Lana Pennington in the flesh!”