Sin (The Waite Family) (5 page)

Her men…well
,
the men bantered around for another twenty minutes or so until the nurses ran them off. They’d been getting progressively
louder as they stood there.
And while she was used to their language she was sure that others were not.

“You gonna be all right, Capt?
I can still take you back to Ohio with me.
Can’t say there’s anything keeping me here anymore.”
Shipley sat backwards on the only chair in the room and leaned against the back of it
,
his massive arms crossed.

He’d told her yesterday that he was out too.
Roger Shipley said he couldn’t go back. Not now.
He wouldn’t trust them anyways and he
,
too
,
had taken the retirement just like she had. The only difference was she was forced to and he wasn’t.

“Nah, I’ll be fine.
I’m going to go and stay with my brother and his wife for a little while before I move on.
He ha
s
this cabin thing he said I could stay in for as long as I want.
He and his wife have a kid about nine months old now.
Might not be too bad.”

Shipley snorted.
He knew she didn’t know squat about rug rats.
He’d told her once she went from infant to adult in a matter of hours. Said he’d never met anyone as young as her that was as mature.
She had never been sure if he was having fun with her or not.
She’d let it go without asking.

“They’ll have you changing diapers in a heartbeat, Capt. I think I’d pay good money to see that
, y
ou with poop on your clothes and up-chuck on your face.”

She smiled.
Not going to happen. She knew that Shipley was going to go and visit his family in Canada. He had a kid or two up there.
He’d been divorced for so long that he’d told her once he couldn’t remember what they looked like. But he’d give it a go. Then he was going to go home to his place in the Bayou.
He had a big house down there that he’d had built when he’d gotten his second bonus a few years ago.

After a few minutes more he left.
He’d wanted something from her…she had no idea what
,
but she could tell.
He’d never been a very talkative
man;
none of them had
been
really
,
especially when they were out in the field. But they’d been together for the better part of ten years, fifty if you counted service time the way it felt.
But they had to move on from here.
So with a h
earty
handshake, he left.

Sin had joined the Army just before her senior year in high school.
She’d been sixteen when she’d signed up. She hadn’t even had to forge her father’s signature. He’d been more than willing to have her gone from the house sooner than necessary.
She’d not been able to afford college and
,
unlike her brother Cain, her grades were never good enough for anything other than community college anyway.
She knew she couldn’t live at home anymore so she had
Roscoe sign her paperwork and
,
the day she’d turned eighteen, she’d left on a bus to Texas without a backward glance.

She
loved the
rigid
rules and the tight way things were done.
It was organized with a defined set of regulations that she followed to the letter.
Well, most of the time. She’d moved up the ranks quickly until she reached
c
aptain and since she’d loved that so much, she’d stayed there.

Sin could fire her weapon and just about anything else they’d put before her
with superior skills
.
She’d been excellent as an officer and she knew that in the past few years she’d managed to not step on too many toes.
She hoped.

Once out of boot camp she excelled in military training, beating every other team out on drills. That was where she’d met most of her team
,
during one of those first drills. They’d made her the leader and had followed her all the way, making them the
most winning
team in all the Army.
She’d also met David Patterson.

He’d been married then. His wife, Charlotte Patterson
,
had been a quiet and reserved woman who would only need to frown a bit to have either of them scra
m
bling to do whatever it took to make her smile.
Sin had spent plenty of Friday nights at their house, eating dinner and
arguing
over something stupid.
Mrs. Patterson had been more a mother to her than her own had ever been.
She missed the woman a great deal.

“Well
,
kid
.
” David had been her drill
sergeant then
. “Looks like I’ve been assigned to make a man outta you. What do you think about that?”

“I think my tits might get in the way, but hey, who knows
?
”
She could still remember the
shocked look on his face then the bright redness.
S
he’d
thought
she’d gone too far
,
but he proved to be just as lippy as she was.

“Might,” he said as he glanced down at her large boobs.
“But maybe
we can get
‘
em strapped down with some duct tape. If that don’t fix it that just means we haven’t used enough.”

Sin simply stared at him.
She’d never heard that expression before and wasn’t sure if he had meant to actually do it.
When he burst out laughing she joined him
. That had earned her two hundred push-ups and a week on KP duty.
It didn’t curb her tongue, but it did make her respect him more.
And
they became good friends.
And
every
time David got a promotion he
took Sin right along with him
,
kicking and screaming all the way.
Up until the last time.

When Charlotte was ill, Sin had just been promoted to captain. David had decided to retire. They offered him the position of
l
ieutenant
c
olonel and his wife told him to take it. Sin was sure that was the only thing that had kept him from going off the deep end and eating a bullet when she finally succumbed to cancer.

And now she was headed home and he had another year to go on his twenty-five years before he would retire with full honor.
Sin thought she just might miss him most of all.
She laid her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes.

In five days she would be home.
She was going straight to her
brother’s
house for a few days then to the house where she would live
until
she figured out what to do with herself.
She was twenty-seven years old, single and
,
thanks to a bunch of metal holding her together, she could set off metal detectors all over the place.
Opening her eyes, she decided that she couldn’t feel sorry for herself here and moved to the edge of the bed.

Sin got up slowl
y,
moved over
to
the chair that Shipley had been sitting in
,
and sat down gingerly.
The wheel chair was there for her to use.
But
she had been
determined
to get around on her own without it since she’d ridden down the halls the first time five weeks ago.
It made her feel
ridicul
ous
and stupid.
The next day she was at the PT room three times. And more
every day
until she could walk
on her own.

When the door opened behind her she didn’t even bother turning around. She just knew it was one of the MP’s again
,
asking her if she needed anything.
She decided to cut him off before she murdered him.

“No. I do not need you to pick me up anything from the mess hall, nor do I require you to get me anything from the store. I’m perfectly fine just the way I am. If you do happen to run
into
a male stripper or two,
now
that
I could use.”

“
I wouldn’t bring you a stripper if I could, you’re much too young.
I know you’re fine, you’re too fucking stubborn to be otherwise and
,
w
ell, I guess you don’t want us to give you a lift home then
,
huh?”

She turned and looked at her brother and promptly burst into tears.

~Chapter 4~

Payton Cooperider knew he was going to die if he didn’t get help soon.
He never expected things to go so badly as quickly as they had today.
He was on a filthy back all
e
y in the worst part of town. He looked down at the blood pouring from the wound in his leg. He supposed that was nothing compared to the one in his gut.

Coop laid his head back and tried to remember what the hell he’d been thinking in becoming a cop
t
hen moving up the slippery ladder until he made detective.
He’d never been one for rules and wondered how he’d taken a job where he’d had to enforce them. Dumbass
,
was all he could think.
Coop coughed hard and blood splattered on his chest.

“Not good, Coop, not good at all.” He didn’t realize he’d spoken out loud until the rat across the way from him sat up and glared at him. “Fuck!
My last confession is gonna be heard by a rat. Well…guess that’s about like anyone else I know.”
The rat scurried off. “Tra
itor
,” Coop said softly as his radio squawked.

“Dead yet
,
Cooperider?
You could certainly do us all a big favor if you just stop breathing.”

Coop froze at the voice at the other end of his radio.
“
Captain
?”

Laughter erupted from the ear piece.
“Course if you die in the next twenty minutes then you’ll still be on duty.
Nice to die with full honors, even for a putz like you.”