Chapter 33
Three months later
Glenna knew Kelsey was up to something when she realized the compound had gone quiet, although quiet at Mason del Tempio was a relative term that mostly meant nobody was currently shouting, swearing, or arguing loudly enough for the sound to carry through two-foot-thick stone walls.
The morning had settled into the familiar chaos that had somehow become normal over the last three months.
Someone had music playing in the garage, one of the women was laughing somewhere beyond the kitchen doors, and Zombie lay stretched across a patch of sunshine near the courtyard with the long-suffering patience of a dog who had spent the better part of twelve weeks being stalked by an orange kitten with no respect for size, rank, or species.
Pumpkin had grown since Kelsey carried him out of that warehouse, although not enough to support the enormous personality he’d developed somewhere between France and Italy.
He was currently crouched behind a stone planter with his ass in the air and his tail twitching while he prepared to launch himself at a Belgian Malinois who could probably swallow him whole if Zombie possessed anything except bewildering tolerance for the small animal Kelsey had brought home.
Glenna had been watching the impending ambush over the rim of her coffee when she realized she hadn’t heard her daughter for several minutes. Three months ago, that silence would have stopped her heart.
The fear still came, because apparently there were some things a mother’s body remembered long after her mind understood the danger had passed, but it no longer owned her.
She set her cup down and looked across the courtyard instead of immediately reaching for her phone to check the cameras, and when she didn’t see Kelsey anywhere near Zombie or the increasingly suicidal kitten, she walked toward the side of the building where she’d last seen her.
She found her standing at the pedestrian gate.
Glenna stopped before Kelsey noticed her.
Her daughter had her back to the courtyard, feet planted apart and shoulders squared with the grim concentration of someone facing an opponent she intended to defeat through sheer determination.
Kelsey looked left, and then right. Glenna leaned against the stone wall and waited.
Apparently satisfied nobody was watching, Kelsey reached for the green release button that had once possessed the magical ability to open the gate.
When she pressed it and nothing happened, her forehead wrinkled.
She pressed it again, holding her finger there longer this time.
Still nothing happened. She looked at the tip of her finger as though considering whether it had somehow stopped working, wiped it against her shorts, and gave the button another determined shove, and the gate, thankfully, remained exactly where it was.
“It’s broken.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Kelsey spun around and glared at Gunnar, who stood several feet behind her with a mug in one hand, sunglasses covering his eyes, and the deeply satisfied expression of a man who had been waiting for this exact moment since Remi finished the upgrades.
Kelsey pointed accusingly at the button. “It doesn’t work.”
“It works.”
“It didn’t open.”
“Exactly.”
Glenna pressed her lips together.
Kelsey turned back toward the gate and pressed the button again, then looked at Gunnar as though presenting evidence to a jury. “See?”
“I see.”
“So it’s broken.”
“Nope.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I paid a freaking fortune to make sure it does exactly what it’s doing.”
The betrayal on Kelsey’s face was spectacular. “Nothing?”
“Nothing when you press it.”
“You made it not know me?”
Gunnar took a leisurely drink of coffee. “It knows exactly who you are. That’s why it isn’t opening.”
“That’s mean.”
“That’s security.”
“I live here.”
“Correct.”
“I should get to go out.”
“With an adult.”
“But the green button is magic.”
“The green button has been demoted.”
Kelsey’s gasp finished Glenna, and her laugh escaped before she could stop it, and both of them turned toward her.
“Mommy.”
“Sorry, baby.”
“You’re not.”
“No.” Glenna pushed away from the wall. “I’m really not.”
Kelsey folded her arms and glared at Gunnar. “You broke the magic button.”
“I childproofed the gate.”
“You can’t childproof me.”
Something about the absolute confidence with which her six-year-old delivered that statement made Glenna laugh again.
Gunnar slowly lowered his sunglasses and looked at Kelsey over the top of them. “Kid, I’ve breached hardened compounds in countries where people actively wanted me dead. I can childproof you.”
Kelsey considered him for several seconds before turning back to the gate and pressing the green button one more time, and still nothing happened. “Okay.”
Gunnar’s smile was immediate. Glenna knew that smile. It meant he thought he’d won. Kelsey walked toward Glenna without another word, and Glenna waited until her daughter was out of earshot before looking at Gunnar.
“You’re an idiot.”
His head turned. “Excuse me?”
“She said ‘okay.’”
“So?”
“My daughter has never said ‘okay’ to anything she actually accepted in her life.”
The smile disappeared, and Gunnar looked toward Kelsey.
Glenna patted his arm as she passed. “Good luck.”
“Fuck.”
“Mommy, Uncle Gunnar said fuck.”
“I heard him.”
“You say it, too.” Kelsey reminded her. There was no way she was going under that bus without bringing someone with her. “So does Uncle Zorro.”
Glenna glanced down at her. “Yes, he does.”
Kelsey considered that for another few steps. “Is fuck a Marine word?”
Glenna almost walked into one of the trees at the side of the drive. “What?”
“Because Uncle Zorro says it a lot.”
Before Glenna could decide how the hell to answer that, the man himself came through the open doors carrying a toolbox.
Tyrone took one look at her face and slowed. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
Kelsey abandoned Glenna immediately. “Uncle Zorro.”
“Yeah, Kels-Bells?”
She stared at him, and he stared back. Glenna saw the exact moment Kelsey’s previous question collided with something else she’d apparently been carrying around in her head.
“Have you been eating crayons?”
Tyrone stopped dead.
Oh no.
“What?”
“Crayons.”
His gaze shifted slowly to Glenna.
She lifted both hands. “This one wasn’t me.”
He looked back at Kelsey. “Why the hell would I eat crayons?”
“Jules’s daddy told Jules that Marines like to chew on them.”
Silence settled across the courtyard, and somewhere behind Glenna, somebody made a strangled noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.
Tyrone’s expression went blank in a way Glenna had learned was far more dangerous than anger. “Did he now?”
Kelsey nodded. “She said you probably like the red ones.”
“Why red?”
“Maybe they’re strawberry?”
Glenna lost it. She tried not to. She genuinely did, but the image of Tyrone sitting somewhere chewing thoughtfully on a red Crayola while insisting it tasted like strawberry broke whatever restraint she’d managed to summon.
He pointed at her. “Not one fucking word.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re laughing.”
Yes, yes, I am.
“I can’t help it.”
“Try harder.”
Kelsey was still studying him. “So you don’t eat them?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I'm fucking sure.”
“Maybe when you were a Marine.”
“I was a Marine, not a freaking goat.”
Glenna turned away because looking at him made it worse.
Tyrone muttered something under his breath before crouching so he was level with Kelsey. “Listen to me, Kels-Bels. There is a longstanding campaign of misinformation being spread about the United States Marine Corps by people who are jealous of our superior fighting abilities.”
Glenna choked.
Kelsey frowned. “What’s misinformation?”
“Bullshit.”
“Tyrone.”
“What? It is.”
“Try again.”
He sighed. “Stuff people say that isn’t true.”
“Oh.” Kelsey nodded, then thought about it. “Jules’s daddy was a Ranger.”
“Exactly. They are the dumb ones.”
Glenna covered her mouth.
Tyrone looked at her. “You see what I’m dealing with?”
“A vicious interservice propaganda campaign?”
“Damn right.”
Kelsey cocked her head to one side, “Jules said her daddy says Marines are really tough but they aren’t allowed near the good art supplies.”
A laugh erupted from somewhere behind them, and Tyrone glared over his shoulder. Glenna looked past him and found Marco halfway through the doors with a plate in one hand, making absolutely no attempt to hide his amusement.
“Don’t,” Tyrone warned.
Marco raised the plate in surrender and kept walking, although his shoulders were shaking.
Tyrone turned back to Kelsey. “Where is Jules’s daddy?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find out.”
Glenna caught his forearm. “Leave the man alone.”
“He’s telling our kid I eat art supplies.”
The laughter still sat in Glenna’s chest, but those two words slipped underneath it so quietly that for a moment she forgot what they were talking about.
Our kid.
Tyrone didn’t notice. He was too busy threatening some future reckoning with a former Ranger who wasn’t even there, but Kelsey noticed. Her gaze moved from Tyrone to Glenna, and the little smile that appeared on her face told Glenna she’d heard exactly the same thing.
Glenna didn’t underline it, or look at Tyrone and ask whether he knew what he’d said, because there had been a time when she would have needed the reassurance of making him repeat it. She didn’t anymore. Kelsey had been theirs in every way that mattered for months.
“Can I go play?” Kelsey asked.
“Where?”
“With Pumpkin.”
“That cat doesn’t play. He commits crimes.”
“He likes you.”
“He bit my toe this morning.”
“You moved it.”
Glenna watched the battle of wills for several seconds before Tyrone pointed toward the courtyard. “Stay where somebody can see you.”
“Okay.”
Tyrone watched her go.
Glenna slid an arm around his waist. “Our kid. I get goosebumps when you say that.”
His attention came back to her. For a second he looked confused. Then he remembered he’d said it in front of Kelsey. Something softened in his face.
“Yeah. Do you think she noticed?”