Reckless Endangerment (33 page)

“—how sweet and completely unlike you.”

“—so meet us at City Park as soon as you find anything out.  I’m going to trash my phone and pick up a new one on the way. Maybe I’ll smash this one...something’s off.”

“You’re going to do what?”

Without answering, she ended the call, took out the battery from the back of her phone and slid it into the top drawer on her desk. 

“I see you have a crowded house,” McGee said from behind her.  “I came by to see if you needed anything, welcome the Colonel home for good.”

She jumped back and squinted at him.  “What are you doing here?”

“I’m going to stick around here for awhile.  Help.”  His gaze moved toward the drawer where she’d stashed the phone.  “You don’t look like you’re in party mode.  Everything okay?”

Now she understood why Michael hated that question. 

“Only six people knew about the marriage...three are dead...” she whispered without taking her eyes off of him.  “When did you get back from Afghanistan? Why are you in Denver?  How did you happen to be here exactly when he arrived?”

He leaned against the doorframe, effectively blocking the exit.  “A lucky coincidence.”

“Lucky.  Right.”  She rocked back on her heels and forced a smile. Her paranoia shouldn’t extend to McGee.  He was one of the good guys.  She needed to remember that.  “Well, we should join the party.”

He didn’t move.  His gaze moved from the desk to her face.  “Maybe I should stay with you guys for awhile, crash on the couch...at least until this story is finished.  Sounds like you’re getting in over your head again.”

She dropped the fake smile and remembered her strong urge to smack the man when he’d shown up at the station on Monday. 

“I’ve got it handled.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you do.”  He turned on his heel and left her alone.

She wondered why she suddenly felt like everyone in this house could become collateral damage.

* * * *

“You look distracted.”  He knew that look and it usually meant trouble.  Well, not for him, but whoever she was going after. 

“The zoo wasn’t exactly on my to-do list today,” she said without looking away from the sea lion who played with a red football.  She’d been a good sport with her weekend being thrown into upheaval.  Hell, she’d been as close to a saint as he’d ever thought her capable of being throughout this entire ordeal.  She’d only asked for one thing work related...swinging by the mall for a new cell phone.  Other than that, she was completely present. 

“I heard you on the phone...Devon and Marshall are meeting us for the picnic?” He grinned when she sighed.  He knew she hated explaining herself to anyone, especially when she was in the middle of a story.  Man, he was having a good time taunting her. 

“Yep, they’re bringing a macaroni salad.”  She shook her head and forced a grin when her nephew, Nathan, ran up to her to show off his face painting.  His face now looked like a tiger.  He growled at her and held his sticky fingers up like paws.  “Wow, you’re pretty scary,” she said, her grin softening to an authentic smile. “I should get my face painted.”

“Will you really, Aunt Hope?” Nathan grabbed her hand.  “That’d be so cool.”

“Yeah, babe, that’d be really cool,” he said to push her into doing it.  “Go on. Get a tiger face, too, so you all match.”

Nathan’s eyes lit up at the idea.  “Yeah, we can be like a pack of tigers.”

“Yeah, like a pack,” he agreed with the boy.  “That would be the best thing ever.”

Nathan nodded at him, suddenly his biggest ally.  “Dalton’s getting a tiger face, too.  We’re all going to be tigers. Rawwwwr.”

“I’m not going to be a tiger, but I’ll do something if it makes you all happy.”  She pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head and glared at him before standing to go with the boy.  She tossed her precious messenger bag onto his lap before following Nathan to where the other boys sat patiently becoming tigers. 

He finished the last bite of his chocolate ice cream cone before smiling.  This might not be what either of them had enjoyed for a long time, but he felt like he’d just won the lottery. 

“Amazing what a week can do,” his father took Hope’s place on the bench, his gaze locked on her back. 

“An understatement,” he agreed.  “Hope has a desk ready for me, keeps reminding me of my degrees, has big plans for us.”

His father looked satisfied at that idea.  “We need to have to have a party of some kind to celebrate your homecoming, not to mention the wedding.  So many people want to see you, Mike.  It’ll be good.  We’ll have to talk to Hope, see what she wants to do.  I’d like a copy of that wedding picture of yours, too.  Gwen is so thrilled to have a famous daughter-in-law, especially one who seems to be so good for you.”

“Don’t tell Hope she’s famous, it’ll piss her off.”  He watched her take a seat at the face painting station with three little tiger-faced boys laughing at her side and her sister taking pictures.  “I can’t really believe I’m here.”

“I can’t believe you’re smiling.  I’d begun to wonder if you ever would again.”  His father laughed and smacked him on the shoulder.  “Don’t get mad that I said that...but it’s true. There’s a lot of adjustment ahead for all of you, including Dalton, you know.  He’ll have a new school to start, a new place to live, a new family dynamic.  I think it’ll be good, though.  I do.”

He tossed his napkin into the trash next to them while absorbing the enormity of his new reality.  Not his...theirs.  None of this felt real yet.  Even though he knew it would take time, he still hated the uncertainty of it all. 

When Hope returned with her hair pulled back and face fully painted like a tiger, he burst out laughing.  Never in a million years would he have imagined this sight. 

“Shut-up, don’t you dare comment,” she said as she grabbed the messenger bag from his lap. “C’mon, everyone, we have a picnic to get to.” 

“What would I say?  I love it.”  He snagged her hand and looked up at her.  “Please tell me there’s a group shot of all of you.”

“Oh, there are many,” Becky replied with a smile as sarcastic as his.  “It’s already been uploaded to Facebook, too.”

“Rawwwwr.”  Dalton leapt onto his lap, his smile looking like tiny fangs with the tiger paint.  “Scared you, dad.” 

“Yeah, you did.”  He buried his hands into his son’s hair.  “Are you having fun?”

“This is the best day
ever
,” Dalton said before sliding off his lap to catch up to his newfound cousins. 

He glanced at Becky who watched him closely...always.  “Maybe holiday dinners won’t be so bad after all.”

She shrugged and fell into step next to him.  “Jury’s still out on that, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.  For now.”

“We were talking about a party...” his father slowed so he could walk with Becky.  

He ignored them and caught up to Hope and the boys.  Dalton moved onto his lap and, for once, he didn’t mind the wheelchair when it gave him a chance to give his son--cub--a ride. 

“Have you seen McGee?  We seem to have lost him.”  Hope scanned the crowd as they moved toward the exit. 

“Nope.  What’s your sudden fascination with McGee?  Should I be jealous?” he asked.

“God, no.  If we weren’t in mixed company, I’d remind you of how much I love you and only you.”  It was difficult to take her seriously between the face paint, the sunglasses, haphazard ponytail and the tight jeans she wore. 

Illicit thoughts filled with mature content slammed into his consciousness.  He gulped back the extra saliva and followed her out of the exit, thankful for his own sunglasses as his gaze focused intently on her ass. 

“Picnic time!” Dalton slipped from his lap and ran to join up with Gwen and Miles. 

“We’ll meet you there,” Becky said as she fumbled in her bag for the keys to their mini-van.  “Want us to take Dalton?  He and the boys are really hitting it off.”

“No, it looks like he’s going with grandma and grandpa.”  He waved at his parents who already had Dalton in the back of their sedan. 

“Where’d your friend go?  We lost him somewhere near the elephants.” Becky grinned, looking less like a tyrant and more like an easy-going mom. 

Hope stuffed her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, once again looking around the crowd.  “Well, he’s a grown man.  I say we let him figure it out.  He knows the plan for the day.” 

He and Hope moved down the sidewalk toward her Jeep.  He laughed because it felt good to finally laugh so often and easily.  The day was a perfect late spring day in Colorado.  Blue skies covered tall trees with budding leaves with just enough bite in the air for a sweatshirt but warm enough to be outside. 

“So you’ve had a good day?” she asked once he was settled into the passenger seat and she’d tossed his chair into the back.  “Feel good?”

He reached over and framed her face, careful not to smudge her tiger paint. “I feel amazing, thanks to you and your bullying.  I love you.”

She grinned, the sight making him laugh again.  “I have a feeling you like me painted up like an animal.  Is this gonna be a fetish of yours?”

“Oh yeah.  Definitely.”  He kissed her gently, still smiling.  “I thought you weren’t going to be a part of the pack.”

“Those boys are convincing.”  She laughed and pulled away to start the car.  “I can’t figure out where McGee disappeared to, though.  Strange.”

“Like you said, he’ll figure it out.  Don’t worry about him.” He adjusted his seatbelt, a perpetual grin plastered on his face. “I don’t remember the zoo ever being this much fun.”

“Yeah, well, it was a unique experience, no doubt.”  She smiled as she drove from the lot.  “We probably should have all ridden with Becky in her van.  I feel like we’re part of some caravan.”

“It’s all good.  I figured you wanted an escape route after meeting with Becky for whatever shenanigans you’ve got planned later.”  He leaned his head back and grinned at the sunshine hitting his face.  “That’s your plan, right?  She and Marshall are coming to the picnic with more than potato salad.”

“Macaroni salad,” she corrected him. 

“Am I right?”  He smiled at her profile.  “I really missed this, you know. I forgot how fun you are.”

She looked at him, the painted whiskers rising with her sly grin.  “You like that I’m a little bit bad, don’t you?”

“It’s very hard to take you seriously when you look like that.”  He laughed again. 

His parents drove two cars ahead of them, Becky’s van further up in the traffic leading to the playground portion of City Park.  Briefly, he remembered her attack from less than a week ago and thought of the bruises that still marred her skin.  It had happened here, yet she seemed not to think about it at all.  His smile slipped a little at the knowledge of all that she suppressed for the sake of public appearances. 

A loud screeching of brakes and the crashing of metal pierced the air.  Hope slammed to a stop just like everyone else in the line of traffic. 

“Oh my God,” she said under her breath as she frantically undid her seatbelt and stepped from the car.

“Hope, don’t get out.  What’s going on?” He struggled to see around the line of cars, but she was already running down the middle of the road.

That’s when he saw what she and everyone else did.  Becky’s van lay on it’s top, the driver’s side caved in from where it’d been hit.  Glass littered the road.  The car that had slammed into it seemed to have driven off, from what he could determine from his limited vantage point.  Other people rushed from their cars, some on their cell phones frantically calling 9-1-1.  His mother exited their car and stood on the side of the road with her hands covering her mouth. 

Hope’s cell phone rang from where she’d placed it in the cup holder.  He glanced at it once...then twice.  A text message from a blocked number simply read,
“my condolences at the loss of your sister.”

New cell phone.  No one had this number.
 

He hesitated only a minute before deleting it.  She carried enough guilt and, now that he could shield her from more, he would.  No matter what.   

Chapter Twenty

Shaking from head to toe with the effort of remaining in control, she walked back to the Jeep where Michael waited in a tangle of traffic.  The ambulance had arrived in record time, police interviewed witnesses, her in-laws walked by her side. 

Becky and Nathan were both unconscious...Tom had lacerations from flying glass and would be taken to the hospital with them.  That’s all she knew. 

Dalton had ran back to the Jeep where he now sat with his dad.  She glanced at him briefly as she opened the door. 

“Traffic’s going to start moving,” she muttered.  “I need to call Warren.  It’s good that he decided to skip the zoo.  He’s probably on his way to the park.”