Chapter 20 #2
He staggered to the bedroom and stripped to his boxers.
He didn’t realize how tired he was until he crawled into bed and spooned his wife.
He snuggled into her neck and inhaled deeply.
The sweet-spice scent of her shampoo and body wash mixed with something that was uniquely Ashlin relaxed every muscle in his body.
She was in bed with him. Safe. Not thousands of miles away on a mission. He could relax and go to sleep.
The smell of bacon frying tickled his sleeping brain. With his eyes still closed, he reached across the sheets, intending on to pull her close to him. He wanted to put a smile on her face before they got up.
But she wasn’t there.
He slid out of bed and wandered into the kitchen. The sight of Ashlin cooking, with several pans on the stove in their home, albeit temporary, was burned into his brain. He wanted this forever.
“You’d better get dressed,” she warned. “The car will be here in fifteen minutes.”
Only then did he notice that she was fully dressed in jeans and a light green blouse that softly hugged her breasts.
“Breakfast will be ready in five minutes.” She turned and gave him a peck on the cheek. “The clock is ticking.”
Like most men, Clint could get dressed in less than a minute. Two minutes, including boots. They had just enough time to eat in the breakfast nook, rinse the dishes, and put them in the dishwasher before Boomer and Coyote pulled into the driveway.
An hour later, the three men and Ashlin pulled into Theodora’s driveway, followed by the Ladies of Black Swan Team 2.
Theodora was on the porch before the team was out of the vehicles. “Clint, you really didn’t have to come all the way here to do this. I could have hired someone.”
He shook his head. “If you want a job done right, you do it yourself.” He looked around at his mostly new teammates. “With a little help from your friends.” The whole group walked up the sidewalk to the small porch.
“Theodora, this is my wife, Ashlin.” She held out her hand and shook.
“This is who you bought—”
Clint vigorously shook his head from side to side and placed his index finger over his lips. Thankfully, she stopped before she blurted out anymore.
He quickly added, “And you may remember Chester from Ethiopia. We call him Coyote.”
“I remember that name. Javier…” She rolled her lips in as though she were fighting back memories. “He used to talk about several of the men who served with him both back in the Army and in Ethiopia.”
“My condolences, again, ma’am. He was a great leader.” Coyote held her hand and clasped it in both of his.
The other women were right behind him, so he needed to move this along.
Besides, this would allow him to breeze over Boomer and the fact that he was there to replace Javier.
“This is Shawn Beck, Kayla Scarlatto, Kira Frost, Mia McCormick, and Piper Knight. These women all work with my wife. And speaking of work, we need to get at it. Where are the boxes that arrived last night?”
“They’re right here in the house.” Theodora opened the front door.
Boomer and Coyote followed Clint into her home and picked up the packages. They took them outside and started putting parts together. Before they had the last box open, a large truck from Lowe’s stopped in front of the house. The driver unloaded two ladders and a few boxes before pulling away.
Theodora came out to watch.
“We don’t have anything to do until they get everything unpacked,” Ashlin announced. “So, tell me exactly what happened.”
The very pregnant woman looked relieved to be able to answer the question.
“Shortly after midnight, it sounded like someone was trying to get in the front door.” She pointed over her shoulder.
“Then he started yelling, ‘Clara, open the fucking door. My goddamned key isn’t working.’ That’s when I knew he had the wrong house.
So, I called 9-1-1. At first, they didn’t seem very eager to help me.
The pounding got louder because he moved around the house, banging on the windows.
That’s when I got really scared. I told the emergency operator that I was the new owner, a recent widow, living here alone, and six months pregnant.
After that, they were anxious about calling police cars to come here.
Thankfully, they arrived seconds after he broke a window and was trying to climb in. ”
Theodora took a deep breath and let it out slowly as though to calm her nerves.
“The detective who took my statement told me that patrol cars had been called to this address almost every week in the past year or two. But it seems the wife wouldn’t press charges.
He finally got caught doing something other than beating on her and was put in jail.
She divorced him while he was incarcerated, quit making payments on the house, and moved away.
This house had just gone into foreclosure when I came along and bought it.
” She looked at her small ranch-style home and smiled.
It’s really a great house. It doesn’t have much for landscaping, but I’ll eventually get around to that. ”
“Landscaping can be passive security.” Kayla pointed to the bare spots under the windows.
“Absolutely,” Mia agreed, looking up from one of the boxes where she was assembling a camera. “Bushes with long thorns and stiff pokey leaves are the best. We put holly bushes and roses underneath my sister’s windows.”
The Ladies exchanged a glance.
“Theodora, put on your shoes,” Ashlin ordered. “We’re going to buy you some bushes.”
Clint and his crew had just finished attaching the cameras to the porch and auto-lighting across the front when Ashlin and her friends pulled into the driveway, followed by a pickup truck filled with plants.
Two high-school-aged boys bounced out of the front seat and started unloading rather large plants.
After a brief discussion, Theodora began instructing the boys and the Ladies as to where to put each shrub.
Clint had to smile when the women put on brand-new leather gloves that almost came up to their elbows.
He was very familiar with Firethorn and Prickly Pear.
When he’d been stationed in Texas, one of his married teammates bought a house and wanted to make sure his wife was as safe as possible during their many deployments.
“Can you start planting in the front, please?” Clint asked as he came down the ladder. “We’re finished up there, and it will only take another hour to complete the rest. I’d rather not fall off this ladder into one of those yucca plants. They cut like a son of a bitch.”
“That sounds like the voice of experience,” Kayla teased.
“It is.” Clint moved the ladder to the back corner.
Boomer and Mia were finishing on the other side.
Their plan was to meet in the back. On Mia’s suggestion, they had decided to place several auto-lights on the fenced-in back yard and patio.
He was surprised at how quickly Mia had placed the other cameras and got them focused so every portion of the yard was covered.
She’d worked incredibly efficiently with Dell.
They’d often wandered into computer geek speak.
“You three men can complete this back side. I’m going to set it up on Theodora’s phone,” Mia announced as she climbed down the ladder and handed her tools to Boomer.
It took them almost forty-five minutes before the last security camera was hung. Clint knocked on the back sliding door when he saw Theodora walk into the kitchen.
“You almost scared this baby out of me,” she chastised as she unlocked and opened the door.
“Sorry,” he said halfheartedly. “These are now all your tools. Where do you want them?”
“No, no. You keep them,” Theodora insisted.
He chuckled. “We’re working missions here in the States right now. I’m not going to carry a heavy drill in my backpack. Or any of this other equipment.”
“I don’t even know how to use a drill,” she confessed.
For possibly the first time, Clint really looked at Theodora.
He could see her watching YouTube videos, then fixing something in her house.
“This house isn’t a fixer-upper, but every home needs maintenance.
Even though I know you can afford it, I can see you doing a lot of this work yourself.
I’ll bet you use every one of these tools within the next five years. ”
“If you insist on me owning these tools, let’s put them in here.
” She opened a random drawer, glanced at the tools, then opened a deeper one.
They were all empty. “This is such a great kitchen, but I figure it will take me at least a year, or maybe two, to fill it. Living in base housing all those years with tiny kitchens, I never kept many cooking utensils. When we moved to Ethiopia, I didn’t have many.
The cooks were smart enough to bring their own.
Moving back to Texas, I didn’t bring hardly anything with me. ”
“You’ll do just fine here.” Clint looked around the house that she had already started to make into a home with shelves of knick-knacks and accent pillows.
“You have all worked so hard this morning, can I make you lunch?” Theodora offered.
“No.” There were eight of them, and that would take quite a toll on her food budget. “But you can suggest someplace to eat and join us.” Clint remembered the town being rather small.
Theodora smiled and her face lit up. “Do you guys like Cuban food? I found this great little hole-in-the-wall place, but the food is so good.”
“Sold.”