Stricken Resolve (11 page)

Reeling in my thoughts, I make my way to the
side of her bed, lean down and place a sweet kiss on her forehead.
A small grin perks up at the corner of her mouth, along with a soft
sigh. Causing my heart to swell. I love this woman.

Turning to leave, I kiss both of my kids and
send a two fingered wave toward Stace. My other hand on knob.

“I’ll be in touch.”

Nodding, he says, “And I’ll get back to
work,” and he leans down and picks up a black laptop from the
floor, next to his chair.

That’s my cue to exit, which I do. But not
before I soak in another heart swelling glimpse of my baby,
peacefully asleep in her hospital bed, wisps of her curly red hair
trailing down her forehead. Damn, how’d I ever get so lucky to
knock up a chick that amazing?

Chapter Nine

~James~

“James?” Sergeant Gonzales calls, breaking me
from my reverie. I’ve been doing this a lot lately. Spending more
time submerged in my memories with my Mama Bear, than anything
else. It sure beats my painful reality, of her being two thousand
miles away.

“Yes…Sergeant?” I reply, blatant irritability
easily felt in my response.

“Would. You. Please. Call me Penelope.”

A demand, not a question. Still not going to
happen — or should I rephrase that ‘over my rotted corpse'?

“No,” suffices more tactfully, and my thick
arms fold over my chest, leaving me to feel completely naked
without my guns. They’re sitting on a black box they call a
nightstand in my bedroom. I’ll reiterate to emphasize it again,
‘They’re in
my
room.’ Not Gonzales’s.

Three days I’ve been shacked up, rather
unhappily with her in a suburban soccer moms dream of a home. White
two-story colonial, blue shutters, pristine lawn, white picket
fence. Tall hedges encase the backyard that has a hot tub and a
rather manly sized stainless state-of-the-art grill sitting on the
classic grey paver patio, along with a four person outdoor
furniture set.

All of this is sitting in a suburb right on
the outskirts of DC. Evenly spaced next to a cookie cutter house of
the same style and shape. Except it has green shutters and a rather
large Maple tree in the front yard.

Even if Mama Bear and I lived together in our
own space, it would never — I mean never— be as sterile and fake as
this place. Where the rich with no imagination come to live.
Spending months in a hospital gave me enough sterile environment
and this is a hundred times worse. All because Emily’s not here.
And I’m stuck living with Gonzales, an attractive Spanish woman
that think’s it’s acceptable to wear shorts that show the bottom
half of her butt cheeks when I’m in the house. Always fully clothed
myself; mind you.

You’d think with her apparent ‘skillset,’
she’d possess proper civilian attire to be worn in the presence of
company. Even if I’m supposed to be her for the lack of a better
term—husband. I don’t have any want nor desire to know a thing
about her.

“James?” She loudly huffs, standing in front
of me, her stringy arms frustratingly taut and flexing at her
sides. Wearing a black skintight dress and sparkly shoes only
working girls should dress up in. Soaking in the sight of her sets
my stomach off kilter and queasiness wracks my body.

“Yes? Gonzales,” I heatedly growl, swallowing
hard to make the sour stomach feeling disperse. Pursing my lips, I
glower at her.

“Are you going to go have dinner with me like
we were ordered to do? Or do you not remember our assignment?” She
stares down at me, sitting on the boring blue couch, her pretty
eyes throwing out anger in shockwaves.

Good, maybe if she doesn’t like me, she'll
learn to wear clothes meant for adult women and not prepubescent
ten year olds.

Abruptly, I stand up and she tumbles
backward. My arm instinctively shoots out and I grab her arm to
steady her from falling in those ridiculous heels.

“Thank you,” she whispers, her eyes locked on
my hand that’s still grasping her arm. So I remove it.

“Don’t mention it,” I shrug and push past her
out of the living room and into the foyer to the front door.

“You coming?” I don’t even care to look back,
as I sling the door open and pound my shit kickers down the steps
of my own version of Stepford.

I pull the keys from my black dress pants.
Yes, you heard me correctly. I said black dress pants. Yuck.

Clicking the key fob, I unlock the brand new
green Lexus LFA sports car. That has to be worth a couple hundred
grand. And I settle myself behind the sleek black wheel, my butt
comfortably resting in the black leather seats. A moment later,
Gonzales with high glossed lips, super straight hair and a dress no
lady should wear to a fancy restaurant slides into the passenger
seat. Tucking her hand between her legs to keep it from riding up
and tossing her silver clutch onto the floorboard on her side.

Backing out of the driveway, I hit it in high
gear and speedily make our way to ‘Dimitri’s’ a five star French
restaurant that every time I vocalize the name I feel the need to
point my nose to the ceiling and say it like a pompous jackass. Of
the donkey variety.

The smoothness of the Lexus glides us like
soft butter on bread up to the valet right out front of the old
brick building that houses the elegant eatery. Shutting down the
engine, I push open my door as the valet — a boy in his early
twenties — opens Gonzales’s for her. As I stand and make my way to
the curb, I make sure my blue—yes I said it—my blue dress shirt is
tucked in properly. And it’s navy blue. That is the only reason I
agreed to wearing it. And the mention of sporting a tie had me
scoffing an under my breath sarcastic laugh.

Please—I may be a man of few words. But I am
far from a pushover. The words Fuck and You entered into my
thoughts and nearly burst from my lips when Gonzales hustled me to
wear a tie. Needless to say James -1, Gonzales- 0.

Waiting on the curb, I toss the blonde boy
the keys and meet up with Gonzales by the front doors of
snooty-falooty Dimitri’s. Sidling up next to me, her bracelet clad
arm brushes up against mine as she attempts to tuck it through the
bend in my elbow. To escort her into the building.

Ha—sorry, I have other plans, and that’s not
happening lady. I pull away, leaving her to deal and hear a ‘humf’
blow out as she tosses her irritated arms over her chest. I’m not
her play toy she can play dress up with, and cozy up next to. I’m
her co-worker and outranking official. She’d do good to remember
that. Before my normal cool demeanor turns into something of a cold
ruthlessness that I can taste in the back of my mouth. It’s itching
to come out and play. And that man I’ve been before isn’t nice, he
isn’t sweet — and ruthless would be putting the way he is
mildly.

“Mademoiselle and Monsieur Carter, dis way,
s’il vous plait,” the flamboyantly, real and overly friendly French
maître d’ says, menus in hand, escorting us to our table for two,
that’s smack dab in the middle of the joint. Just as I requested
for this assignment.

Courteously, he pulls out Gonzales’s or
Mademoiselle Carter's, for all intents and purposes, chair. I
intentionally take the opportunity to slip past him and find my
own. His eyes frown at me as his mouth is pulled up into his
superficial smile.

I know I was rude, not to have done the chair
thing myself, for my
wife
. I can’t say my manners haven’t
went out the window, making me feel really guilty. But she’s pushy
and I don’t care for her and not even a diminutive amount has a
thing to do with my Emily. It has everything to do with Gonzales.
She may be pretty and have a rather exquisite eyes. Those are all
unimportant parts of a person. At her core, she’s calculating,
forceful, demanding and if I had long enough hair, I would have
pulled it all out by now.

The maître d’ hands us our four choice menu,
littered with pretentious food that even though I do have the
funds, would never eat at an establishment like this. With plates
of food starting at eighty dollars. I'm a pizza, snickers and beer
or OJ kind of guy. Not fancyshmancy.

Fake glancing at the menu, my eyes take in
the room. Precisely picking out the man we came here to spy on.
Doctor Michael Landers; also known as Dr. D—which is short for
doctor drug. He’s been trafficking drugs to and from New York City,
supplying his five known dealers with the purest smack aka heroine
and lightly stepping up his game to X. You name it, though, and he
can supply it. And guess what? The white cookie cutter house beside
mine belongs to him. So now we’re neighbors. All part of my new
job.

Me—Calvin James. Also known as Wade Carter;
investor and freelance financial advisor. Or that’s what my
business cards say. Marie, my wife here, is a housewife, as is
Michael's—who, according to all of the FBI files, he’s faithful to.
And even though he’s about my age, his wife is surprisingly age
appropriate. I’d picture a bigwig drug peddler to have some young
hot babe clinging to his arm. Not that I can talk, I’m old enough
to be Mama Bear's father.

But Michael's wife, Joanna, is thirty eight,
has short golden brown hair and dark eyes. She’s also plus sized,
in an attractive, bones-are-for-dogs-and-meat-is-for-men kind of
way. And Dr. D looks exactly like his surveillance photos. Early
forties, dark blonde almost brown hair, teal eyes and thin as a
rail with lean muscles. The furthest from looking like me as you
could probably ever get.

Gonzales and I have been ordered during our
painfully dull and mind-numbing downtime to make friends with this
couple and find out as much as we can. And as bad and unpatriotic
this is going to sound, I don’t care one iota what we do or don’t
uncover. Which I’ve sort of expressed rather heatedly to Gonzales
today as she not so delicately tried to dress me by laying out my
clothes like I’m a damn three year old. 'Control freak' should be
tattooed in big black old English lettering on her forehead.

We order, I select the steak tartar and fill
the tension between us with more silence. Her eyes forever glue to
me in one strange way or another. I pay close attention to the drug
doctor eating with his wife. Both of them happily carrying on
without a care in the world. Sipping pink champagne from crystal
flutes, feeding one another. Something couples in love do. Couples
like what I just had a mere four days ago. The love of a good woman
and two beautiful newborns.

We flew to DC. The flight was rather painful
but my old buddy Brewer kept my emotions from combusting. We
relieved the good ol’ times of our time together in the service.
Me; being the constant fly on the wall and him the poster boy for
Bud Light and Astroglide. A forever flirty, horny, mouthy, southern
farm boy who drank copious amounts of alcohol and screwed his way
through life. Joining the military right out of high school to see
the world. A lot of boys do that. Thinking you’ll be stationed in
some beautiful tropical destination. But in reality since 9/11 most
find themselves deployed constantly and living in countries
consisting of dry heat, too much sand and Muslims. It’s no Tokyo or
Pearl Harbor. Trust me; I’ve traveled to over sixty counties and
all of the states, with California and Oregon being my favorites.
Although after spending two glorious weeks with a perfect, pregnant
redhead in Colorado, it’s bound up the list to second place.
Anywhere she is will always remain my number one. Just as she is my
number one. Always and forever.

So after our flight, we were driven by
armored truck to the Pentagon to be briefed, scanned and booked for
my new job and placed in suburban hell, constantly reliving my life
with Emily in my head just to get through my day.

We were given new identities, an assignment
along with the safe link extraction protocol, new government cell
phones and strict unwavering orders not to under any circumstances
contact anyone from our civilian lives or capital punishment would
be swift and relentless, which still left me contemplating whether
or not I should break a rule by contacting Davis to get my love a
message. I can’t send mail, email or snail mail. I can’t call or
order her flowers. Every single part of my life is under strict
surveillance. Although if I play it right, I might be able to get
word to Davis because he’s a part of this same program. Not
technically a civilian. That is my only in. And to be honest, even
if this does make me sound off my rocker, I’d love to see them try
to punish me, when I do contact him.

First off, it won’t be easy. Not only am I a
crack shot with just about every type of gun known to mankind. I’ve
also been trained by the best of the best in military tactical
assault and hand-on-hand combat. Among my childhood survival skills
and my black belt that I earned when I was just sixteen. All of
these things I’ve sort of concealed from Emily. Not because I don’t
want her to know. I’d tell her anything. But I just couldn’t bring
myself to tell her when she was so sore and stressed, lying in that
hospital bed for too long. It wasn’t about me. It was about her and
what made her happiest. Which, for whatever strange reason seemed
to be me, at the time. My guts telling me that the calculating
Johnathan will be making her happy enough, once she gets of the
initial shock of me leaving. He is the twin’s biological father
after all. I’ve always known that her leaving me or in this case,
me leaving her, could be a possibility. This just leaves a huge
opening for Johnathan to swoop in and capture her heart. He’s a sly
devil. And if I was the ruthless man I used to be so many years
ago, I wouldn’t hesitate to murder him and dump his body into the
ocean for the fish to nibble and eat away at. It’s just a good
thing for him that I’m no longer that kind of man. Emily kids that
I scare the bejesus out of people with how big I am and how I
look.