Just George #1
Summary:George Hunt can think of nothing he’d like more than to skip the high-society fundraiser where he has to guard a precocious seventeen-year-old girl and her judgmental therapist, but there’s no way out of it. If anything bad were to happen and he wasn’t there to stop it, he’d never forgive himself. So even though she’s grilling him about his dating life and the good doctor is psychoanalyzing him, he’s going to soldier on, because protecting his charges is what a knight does.
What he doesn’t count on is having to use both his training and his gun to make it through the night, or finding the last thing he ever expected… someone who actually sees him, not for the man he is, but for the man he could be with just a little bit of love.
Wintering with George #2
Summary:George Hunt is certain that spending time with his boyfriend’s family over the holidays will be a disaster. How can it not? For starters, he knows nothing about families, never having had one, as for the rest…talk about pressure. What if he messes up, says the wrong thing, and ends up losing the most important person in his life? Dr. Kurt Butler is his miracle; George can’t afford any missteps. But if he’s careful and does everything right, perhaps they’ll see his good qualities instead of the lethal ones.
Sometimes, though, fate lets you put your best foot forward, and George gets to show off how handy he is to have around when bullets start flying. If he can keep everyone alive long enough to do some wintering, maybe he’ll discover that a family is something worth having after all.
George's Big Day #3
Summary:George Hunt wants to get married. The fact that he does is utterly amazing and a huge leap of faith for a man who’s always been certain that happily ever afters only happen in fairy tales. The thing is, though, ever since Christmas, when Dr. Kurt Butler, the man he loves, gave him a ring, he’s changed his mind about what’s possible. But between deployments and venues that have to be booked years in advance, matrimonial bliss seems persistently out of reach. Fortunately, George’s friends come through, offering the perfect setting.
Of course, when your life is full of heroes, there are always villains looking to even the score. When the day of the nuptials conflicts with murderous agendas, the only thing that really matters is being married at the end of the day. If George can keep his eye on the prize and everyone does what they do best, it might just all work out.
Just George #1
Original Review September 2023:
I gotta start out by saying: How on God's Green Earth did I not know Hannah Kage's bodyguard had his own short novella until just a couple of weeks ago?!?!?!?! Mary Calmes' Matter of Time series is one of my absolute faves and is on my annual re-read/re-listen list, as a matter of fact a couple of the holiday shorts get multiple re-visits every year so Just George slipping my reading radar has completely left me flummoxed.
*shaking head in shame*
If you are even only a little bit familiar with the world of Jory and Sam Kage then you know their children, Kola and Hannah are very special characters. They have daddy Jory's penchant for danger magnetting and they also have daddy Sam's standup, never back down, protect(rescue) those in danger determination. From both they've inherited the whole speak first, speak second, speak third, then think, and then speak some more approach and like their dads this can go sideways for multiple reasons😉.
I mention the above point because it gives you an idea of the kind of person required to protect the younger Kages. George definitely has his work cut out for him and Hannah just wants to see the man happy, not settled down because let's face it, there is no "settling down" in Jory and Sam's world. Which also means the someone that Hannah has a mind to find for her buddy and bodyguard, George also has to be pretty special.
Okay, that's all you're getting from me as Just George is a short story and I refuse to spoil it for anyone who like me was completely oblivious to it's very existence. If you are a Jory and Sam lover than you can't not read it, we may not see the guys but the presence is definitely felt via their daughter. If you aren't familiar with Matter of Time . . . well what in the world are you waiting for? Seriously though if you are new to that universe Mary Calmes created then Just George will not leave you confused for your lack of Jory/Sam knowledge but I can safely say it will without a shadow of doubt leave you hungry for more.
Wintering with George #2
Original Review March 2024:
George Hunt truly is the star of this holiday novella. Obviously he was the main focus of Just George as well but we also had Hannah Kage and as she is nearly as a big of a trouble magnet as her father, Jory Kage, she has an unwitting tendency to draw the readers attention away from anything else around her😉. That's not a bad thing, as a matter of fact it was a brilliant way for us to get sucked into George's journey.
I got sidetracked there. Let's talk George Hunt and the man who owns his heart, Dr. Kurt Butler in Wintering George . . .
George and Kurt are just as great together in their established relationship as they were when they first were thrown together in Just George. George is returning from an unexpected mission, who am I kidding😉, all his missions are unexpected that just comes with the territory but he does it so well and he has a routine to unwind, to readjust, to regroup his mind and body after the action. Unfortunately as there was the typical SNAFU that comes with his profession he is unable to have his routine and has to fly straight to Kurt's family holiday. Despite not being able to let his mind and body come down as needed he is still the gentleman with the family meets but he also has the presence of mind to spot trouble as they near the family's home.
That's all the details you're getting from me as I don't want to spoil any of the possible mayhem that ensues. I will say it's not the family holiday that Kurt's sister and family planned but in the end it's the holiday they probably all needed the most. I know it sounds cryptic but no spoilers from me so cryptic is what you are getting😉.
George may not be a trouble magnet like the earlier mentioned Jory and Hannah Kage are but he does seem to have a knack of being in the wrong place, wrong time or perhaps more accurately stated: right place, right time considering his expertise in the area of mayhem.
For those who are looking for a heartwarming Xmassy tale, then don't be put off by the mayhem label because Wintering George definitely leaves you full of all the loving holiday feels. For those(like me) who enjoy a little danger to combat all the happy happy, Wintering is perfect for you too because there is a perfect blend of sweet and salty in this novella. If you only like reading about Christmas in December(possibly July for Xmas in July) then be sure and bookmark this tale so it doesn't get lost in 2024's additions to you TBR list.
One last note: if wondering, you don't have to read Just George first, Mary Calmes does a lovely job referencing how George and Kurt met so you won't be lost but I know I'm glad I read it, I just think I have a deeper heartfelt connection to both men having read it but it's not a must.
George's Big Day #3
Original Review March 2025:
RATING:
George's Big Day is such a delight! There may not be the same amount of mayhem(probably more hiccups than mayhem😉) that tends to find it's way into George and Kurt's life but when it does appear it's done in the same way that we've come to love: out of the blue, unexpected, and with snarky knee-slapping humor. I won't go further on that front other than to say a couple of cameo appearances fit the humor, the near-mayhem, and the characters involved.
George and Kurt are just as in love as ever if not moreso. I find there is so little I feel free to comment on here so as not to spoil anything. We get to see "three moments in time" for the pair throughout the year, each one has it's own hiccups to clear up or get through so in a way you could say this entry is a "collection of shorts" more than a "straight through novella". However you label it, George and Kurt are front and center and do what they do best: love each other through it. I can't wait to see what the next leg of their journey has to offer.
Whenever we get to visit Mary Calmes' Matter of Time universe, it's a good day. With George is the newest spin-off series within the universe that started with Jory and Sam and I love each entry. All of the connected series' are on my TBRlist but since Covid my reading mojo has kept me from reading them as I would like but having the inclusion of Hannah Kage in the first With George entry, Just George, made me make time for it and I loved it which makes this a series I do make myself make time for. I wish I could say it pushed me to read the others but unfortunately fate had other ideas but one of these days I will. I will say there are some of the cast that shows up were not familiar to me as I have not read their story/series yet. Now for some that might be confusing and even though I am typically a series/universe-read-in-order kind of gal, with this universe not falling in that category currently, I found no confusion, perhaps leaving a "I gotta get that series read" feeling but not enough effect on George's Big Day to make me say "WTH is going on?"
As so often with short stories & novellas, Big Day may be short on quantity but full to overflowing on quality. Mary Calmes has once again made me smile and chuckle which my real life needs that more than ever.
Just George #1
There were a lot of things I preferred doing other than talking to a seventeen-year-old girl about my love life. I could easily list twelve without even having to think about it. The only thing worse was her trying to talk me into letting her set me up.
“You have lost your mind,” I pronounced, glaring into the rearview mirror.
“I don’t care what you say. I will save you from loneliness,” she declared dramatically and with grave conviction.
“You weren’t that big a help the last time,” I pointed out. “Your track record is crap.”
She gasped loudly, clearly deeply affronted. “That’s not fair!”
“And I’m not lonely,” I growled, which probably didn’t help. I might have come off as defensive.
“This fellow doth protest too much, methinks,” she said, murdering the Bard and confirming how I sounded at the same time.
I shot her another death glare, which hardly mattered since the first one hadn’t put the fear of God in her even a little.
“You have to be happy.”
“Who says?”
“Don’t be difficult, simply agree.”
“I’m not lonely,” I repeated.
“Yes, you are. There’s been no one since Cynthia.”
My mistake was talking to her that very first time I picked her up for an event. I should have kept things professional and stayed with “Ms. Kage” the whole time rather than taking her suggestion to call her Hannah. It was all downhill from there.
“Are you listening to me?”
Sadly, yes, but what she didn’t know was that there had been many people since Cynthia, both women and men, though no one who I exchanged last names or phone numbers with. I never slept over; I was the guy who left right after the deed was done, which was just fine with most of them. No one I’d ever had a one-night stand with expected a lifetime commitment. Some of them did expect snuggling, however, and I was shit at that. Being held in bed felt like being suffocated. Cynthia often said that it was like trying to hug an eel.
I yawned loudly.
“Oh, is that how you’re going to play this?” Hannah goaded me.
“You need to respect me and my boundaries,” I scolded her. “I’m your elder.”
Her snort of laughter let me know that me being thirty was not what she considered an elder to her seventeen. At least not where being set up on blind dates was concerned.
“Listen,” I said, pulling over and parking in front of a random house in Elk Grove Village. We were on our way to pick up a friend of hers who was her plus-one for a fundraiser she was going to. Normally, she took her boyfriend, Jake, but he was off the hook tonight. If I were him, I too would have taken every opportunity imaginable to not have to attend another auction for another cause that she and her uncle, billionaire real-estate mogul Aaron Sutter, were hosting. As it was, Hannah had asked the boy she was crazy about—I wasn’t sure if it was love or years of infatuation that had culminated in a relationship—to stay home. When I had picked her up, he already had a headset on and was starting Call of Duty with his two best friends, one of whom was Hannah’s brother. “I will die before I let you set me up on a blind date, do you understand me?”
“Mmmm-hmmm,” she agreed, nodding, eyes big, all fake innocence.
“Can we drop it?”
“Consider it dropped,” she assured me.
It was sooooo not dropped. I knew her better than that.
Wintering with George #2
ONE
It was a mistake.
From the jump, I should have said no.
The first year we were together, I wasn’t ready, and I had assured him, no worries. You go ahead with your plans for the holidays. Go see your sister and her family in Portland. Take the dogs. I would be fine. My little black cat and I could do Christmas alone. And it would be good. Beelzebub—Bubs, for short—and I would be just great.
Kurt Butler, the man I was crazy about, laughed at me, then took my face in his hands and kissed me until I couldn’t think about anything but getting him into bed. “No, baby. I would never leave you.”
I loved that he put me first. It said a lot.
It didn’t end up mattering, though, because right before Christmas, I was deployed. So he took the dogs and my cat to Portland with him because clearly, he was a glutton for punishment. I told him he could leave Bubs and I’d send Hannah, my minion, over to watch him, but he wasn’t having that. He took the demon with him because he loved my stupid cat too.
So this year, there was no question. Of course I would go. I had to go even if it was going to give me hives. I had to go even if just thinking about it was making me nauseous. I really hoped that whatever I did, or whatever way I acted, wouldn’t be the end of us.
That was what scared me the most. I didn’t want to push him away, but I feared that him seeing me through the lens of his family would only be bad for me.
Family.
The hell did I know about family? The closest I ever came were the guys in my unit. It was why I was still a reservist. I would not, could not, let them go into combat situations without me. And I wasn’t the best at my job, but I was better than others I currently knew would take my place if I took myself off the board. The difference being, the men I went into life-and-death situations with knew and trusted me. Kurt’s family didn’t know me, and the worst thing I could think of was that they’d find me lacking. The problem was, there were more things wrong with me than right, and I could own that.
I didn’t share easily. I had to trust you before I gave up anything remotely close to my heart. I could be stoically quiet for no good reason other than I had nothing substantive to add to a conversation, and I wasn’t great about change. Like, at all. And while those things didn’t sound so horrible in my head when I listed them, in real life, not talking, not sharing anecdotes or wanting to “go with the flow” were not great things to be. I was not an easy person to love, but Kurt hadn’t noticed yet. He didn’t see my many flaws. What if being with the people who loved him opened his eyes? Suddenly he’d realize I wasn’t much of a catch. I couldn’t have that. My only recourse was to make sure they adored me. The inherent problem there being that whatever the opposite of a people person was, that was me.
“Stop worrying,” Kurt told me over the phone. “My sister’s going to love you.”
I scoffed. “Why would I be worried?”
He chuckled, not buying it at all. “I adore you, and so will my family.”
The thing was, when he used that word—family—I wanted to be what he thought of first. And that was ridiculous. How was he supposed to know that when I’d never said anything like that to him? Ever.
This was what came from being a total shit at communication.
Kurt’s sister, Thomasin—a name I’d never heard before in my life—and her husband and two kids were the only real family Kurt had. Their mother had walked out on them when Kurt was seven and Thomasin five, leaving them with an abusive, alcoholic father. Now, as an adult, Kurt understood why she had to leave—or said he did—but at the time, the abandonment cut deep. He and his sister navigated violence and uncertainty for years until Kurt got a job at fifteen at a grocery store, stocking on the overnight shift. Thomasin was allowed to stay in the manager’s office while he worked. She got snacks, could sleep on the couch, and most importantly, it was warm and safe. When she was old enough, she got a job there as well, and the two of them got a miracle when Kurt was a junior and his boss helped him file paperwork to become an emancipated minor. Then at eighteen, Kurt received a full ride to Emerson College in Texas, and Thomasin got a scholarship to finish her high school at a boarding school in New York. It changed the lives of the two St. Paul, Minnesota, teenagers, and they both made the best of their opportunities.
In Texas, Kurt smoked a lot of weed, slept with a lot of girls, talked to his little sister every Saturday, and brought her to live with him each summer in the house he shared with his roommate. Along the way, after an unrequited crush on a friend opened his eyes to the fact that he was bisexual, Kurt got to sleep with even more people. He enjoyed that quite a bit. He always said he was an aimless whore in college, but he took care of his sister, so I always stuck up for his younger self. When Thomasin got a full ride to Brown, no one was prouder than Kurt.
Now, his sister was a celebrity life coach, had one of the top podcasts in the country, and had three bestselling books to her name that told people how to overcome demons. Not the fire-and-brimstone kind, but personal ones that stunted growth, triggered pain and depression, kept you from goals, and lied to you about your own value. I thought it was all stupid, and because I’d promised never to lie to Kurt, I said nothing. Better to keep my feelings to myself.
With Thomasin becoming wildly successful and Kurt himself an in-demand psychiatrist, both had enough money to fund their dream homes. For Kurt, it was an open-concept, airy-but-cozy, three-bedroom, two-bathroom house with lots of windows on a beautiful, secluded street in Chicago, where his backyard backed up to a nature preserve. For Thomasin, it was a mansion with spectacular mountain views down a private drive in Portland, Oregon. The place had five bedrooms and six bathrooms, so there was more than enough room for us to spend our holidays there. No Airbnb needed.
We had plans to fly out together on a chartered plane, with his two dogs and my cat—the jet being yet another perk their wealth afforded them. But then I was deployed after Thanksgiving.
Kurt was miserable, thinking we were having a repeat of the year prior. I had just gotten back in mid-October from a short stint, so the fact that I was going again so soon was a surprise.
“I do like my alone time,” he told me the night before as he watched me pack with hungry eyes, “but this is getting ridiculous.”
Having been briefed on the op, I assured him I would be home for the holidays.
He didn’t look convinced, and really, there was nothing I could say to convince him. The mission was classified. I couldn’t share that my unit was off to extract a Polish journalist working in Belarus, who’d been illegally detained. If I had told him, Kurt—who was a smart man—would’ve known we had no right to be in Minsk. He’d be terrified for me and rightly so. A Black Ops team was not supposed to be there, and if caught, we were all dead. It was one of those times where if we were captured, our government would deny any knowledge of us and claim we were mercenaries and acting on our own, perhaps hired by the family of the reporter we were there to save. If I had related a word of what I knew, Kurt would have begged me not to go. But I had no choice. My team needed me, and I would not, under any circumstances, have him worry while I was gone. So I did the only thing I could, which was assure him my op would be a quick one.
Technically, that part was true. On paper, it was a simple extraction. Pick up target, get target out of country. Snatch and grab that I could do in my sleep. Of course, our intel was for shit, everything from the maps to the checkpoints were compromised, and only because I had my own network and knew some good people in Lubelskie, which was where we crossed into Poland, did we make it out. The thing was, it took longer than it was supposed to, three weeks in total. Kurt ended up having to fly out without me.
But now, getting off the plane in Portland two days before Christmas, from how excited he was on the phone the night before, I knew I’d made him happy. It was all that mattered.
As Poznan, where I’d flown out of, was nine hours ahead, by the time I was walking through the terminal toward the arrival area, I was dead on my feet. The thing was, I’d had to get a military transport out of Poznan to New York, and when you flew that way, you caught whatever flight was available. It was their timetable, not yours. I really wanted to make a good impression on his family, but I was both sleep-deprived and starving, not at all a winning combination.
As I had no luggage, just my Army duffel, I headed toward where it said ground transport was and called Kurt.
“Hey,” he greeted me, answering on the second ring. “We parked, and we’re on the way to baggage claim to meet you.”
First off, we? I hadn’t slept in four days, I was bruised—nothing broken though it felt like it—and with no food, greeting others was a mistake. Of course, since this was the first time I’d spoken to him, other than the quick I’m on my way when I called earlier, there was no way for him to know I wasn’t ready for a meet-and-greet. But what annoyed me was that he knew better. He knew me. And he certainly understood that when I’d just gotten off a plane after a mission was not the time for introductions of any kind.
“Well, I’m headed to where all the taxis are because I don’t have anything but my duffel, so there’s no baggage to get.”
“Oh, that’s right,” he groaned. “Crap.”
Immediately, I felt bad because Kurt running himself down, for any reason, bothered me. He was such a kind man, and I told him that often. “It’s fine. I’ll wait inside. Just come back up the stairs; I’ll be right there.”
“Okay, perfect,” he said with a sigh. “I can’t wait to see you.”
I wished I looked a bit better, but I was in my ACUs, my Army Combat Uniform, and my field jacket that was not as clean as I would have liked it to be. Seemed like good first impressions were out the window, and I felt bad about that. I hoped they weren’t huggers either, because yes, I’d been medically cleared at the base in Poznan once the op was done, but I had fresh stitches and bruises. Being squeezed, by anyone but Kurt, could be uncomfortable.
Standing there, waiting, I thought of all the times no one had been there to get me, and reminded myself that this was a blessing, having someone like Kurt in my life, someone who showed up. I had to stop being a prick, being selfish, just thinking about myself. And I could. I would. Because he was worth it.
“George!”
Turning, I saw Kurt rushing through the crowd—or trying to, with so many people blocking his way. He stopped moving, lifted his finger to signal for me to wait a moment, and then finally threw up his arms in frustration. I couldn’t help smiling. The second there was an opening in the crowd, he bolted toward me.
It hurt a little when he collided with me, but it was worth it to feel his warm, muscular frame wedged close, his lips on the side of my neck, then my cheek, and finally, his mouth on mine as he kissed me once and then again.
“You missed me,” I whispered against his mouth when he leaned back with a whimper. Clearly, he wanted to go right on kissing me.
“I always miss you,” he replied hoarsely. “Are you hurt?”
“Do I look hurt?”
“It’s hard to tell,” he said before kissing me again.
“Let the man breathe, K,” a woman said with a laugh. She was a stunning blonde with the same gunmetal-gray eyes her brother had.
“Breathing isn’t necessary,” he assured her. “George, this is my sister, Thomasin, but you can call her Sin.”
Her smile was big as she stepped in close and offered me her hand. “Please don’t call me Sin. Thom is great, or Tommy as my friends do.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” I said softly, shaking her hand.
“This is my husband, Brad.” She let go of my hand so her handsome husband, who looked like the investment banker he was, leaned in to shake.
He was wearing a puffer vest, and so was she. They looked adorable, like they belonged in Town & Country Magazine, both crisp and polished, she in her brushed-leather Prada loafers, he in his Ferragamo driving ones. And as a rule, I didn’t know one pair of shoes from another, but Kurt was a brand-conscious guy and was slowly adding to my wardrobe from the shoes up. I now had both of those in my own closet and so recognized them. He liked me to have nice things, and I appreciated that. I’d been wary at first, thinking he needed a far richer partner than me, but it came down to him loving spoiling me, and that was all. But his sister and her husband were definitely in a different tax bracket than me, and it was more than evident in everything, from their shoes to his massive watch to her jewelry—an enormous diamond ring and several gold and precious-stone bracelets on her wrist. Neither was shopping at Target with me, that’s for sure. And that wasn’t a judgment, just an observation. And because of how those things would have sounded if I said them out loud, as a rule I made comments like that to very few people. Kurt and I weren’t there yet, even after two years. I didn’t want to lose him, so I was careful about everything I said.
But I shouldn’t have been, and I knew that. Beyond not saying anything unkind, I should have been able to speak my mind about anything I was thinking, especially since Kurt truly wanted to know. He wanted to learn everything about me.
“I worry about that,” I told him once.
“What?”
“Me telling you what’s in my head.”
“Why?”
Hard to explain that I worried about the fact that how I saw things wasn’t how other people did. And if Kurt and I weren’t aligned, was that it for us? Would he throw me away? “What if you disagree with me, or worse, think I’m psychotic or something?”
He chuckled. “I see.”
“Don’t laugh. I worry about this. I’m desensitized to some things, and I know that. I might not react how you think I should, and what if that’s a deal breaker?”
He nodded. “Maybe let’s wait and worry about that when the time comes.”
But what would happen if that time came?
Fears like that, and others, kept me from just blurting out my thoughts. I could, and did, with the guys in my unit. I never worried they’d think I was wired wrong. It was the same with my boss in the private sector where I worked now. I didn’t worry that if I responded differently than expected, I’d be ridiculed or second-guessed. It never occurred to me that a disagreement could lead to dismissal.
But with Kurt, I could mess up, and that might be the end of us. If I said something about his sister or her kids that he disagreed with, I had no safety net. The best thing, the smart thing, was to simply be better than myself. Be Stepford George. Just smile and be agreeable.
“George, you must be exhausted,” Thomasin said, smiling. “We should get you home and get some food in you, then let you rest before the festivities begin.”
I didn’t react, which I was very proud of myself for, since, again, no food plus no sleep normally equaled no filter.
“Let’s go,” Kurt said, lacing his fingers with mine, tugging gently to get me moving.
The car we walked to, a white Lexus SUV, had all the bells and whistles and was comfortable inside.
“Sin made her world-famous pot roast for you,” Kurt informed me, “which is much better than mine.”
“I dunno,” I said, grinning at him. “Yours is pretty good.”
“Oh dear God,” he groaned, leaning in close, his fingers brushing over the side of my neck. “You have bruises all over—”
“It’s fine,” I soothed him.
His sigh was heavy. “Do you have stitches?”
My gaze met his. “Don’t make a big—”
“It is a big deal,” he stated, and I saw Brad, who was driving, look at me in the rearview mirror before Thomasin turned around in her seat.
“My understanding is that you’re a sniper?”
“Yes.”
“I suspect, then, that my brother wonders how you got hurt.”
“No,” Kurt snapped at her, which surprised me. “I know how. He has to go in just like everyone else, and there’s always hand-to-hand combat at some—” He took a deep breath, visibly trying to calm himself. “I would just like to know how many new stitches.”
I grinned at him. “I dunno, honey, but you can count ’em later.”
Kurt’s breath caught, and those expressive eyes of his went dark and liquid, pupils blown that quickly with lust.
Thomasin’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, I wasn’t sure over what, but perhaps she wasn’t used to seeing her brother react physically to his partner.
Kurt watched me, eyes locked on my face as I lifted his hand, kissed the back of his knuckles, then lowered it back down to the seat, never once letting go of him.
“Everything is going to be fine,” I promised him.
From the way he was looking at me, he believed me.
George's Big Day #3
Chapter One
SPRING EPIPHANY
Sitting in a T-shirt and mostly clean fatigues—they had been laundered at the hospital—watching my fiancé bustle around the kitchen, I had a revelation.
“Hey,” I croaked out, my voice still trying to come back from yelling over gunfire and explosions for a week straight, “I don’t think we’re gonna make it to the altar.”
“Oh yes we are,” he corrected me quickly, smiling as he put down in front of me a big bowl of tomato bisque and a large grilled-cheese sandwich on sourdough. “Now eat.”
He had watched me moments before stagger and hop to the sink to wash my hands—my ankle had been crushed under rubble and now had four pins in it—and he’d decided right then that I needed to eat first and then take a shower. Normally I got under the hot water first, and then, clean, let him feed me. But he was right. Today I might not have made it back out. I was dead on my feet. And I didn’t come home bloody or dirty, which had happened more than once, as I’d spent the last two weeks in a hospital in Balad, fifty miles out of Baghdad, but to be in my own shower under endless hot water with strong pressure that wouldn’t run out, that would be a treat. Of course, I hadn’t told him anything about a hospital stay. All he knew was that I arrived home with a broken ankle, nothing more. He didn’t need to know how touch and go it had been.
“No,” I said, my chin resting on my palm, my elbow the only thing keeping my face out of the soup. “I don’t mean never. I mean sometime in the next few months.”
Dr. Kurt Butler, the man I loved, chuckled. “Yes, dear, I know that.”
I squinted at him. “You do?”
He scoffed. “It makes sense. You’ve had back-to-back deployments, and then you went out with that FBI hurt team—”
“HRT team,” I corrected him.
“Which stands for what, so I can store that away in my brain?”
I didn’t like the idea of him having to memorize anything that wasn’t good in relation to me. I worried about that. Like one day he’d wake up and think how much easier it would be if he married a pharmacist. “Why would you need to—”
“Just tell me,” he coaxed, cutting my sandwich into strips because he knew I liked to dip things. It also made it easier to eat.
“Hostage Rescue Team,” I clarified, picking up one of the pieces of sandwich oozing with cheesy goodness. He made it with smoky gouda, Gruyère, provolone, and sharp cheddar. I’d have thought the sharp kind wouldn’t be good, but it was amazing. Added to that, he made tomato bisque, not soup, but bisque, and now, starving and bruised, I was more than thankful.
“Okay, got it.” He leaned on the counter of the kitchen island. “But as I was saying, after this last mission you were sent on, I knew that a spring wedding was not in our future. But a fall wedding sounds lovely as well.”
“I don’t want you to think…”
He reached for me, but his hand stopped before he made contact.
“What’s with that?” I growled at him. “You don’t wanna touch me?”
On cue, I got the head tip, the bored look, and the huff of breath.
“Yeah, all right,” I muttered. “I heard how stupid that was.”
“Did you? Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Quick grimace from him. “Love, I don’t think you realize how bruised your face looks, and there are cuts everywhere. I don’t know where to touch and not hurt you.”
“I promise, anything you do could never hurt me,” I said with an exaggerated wink.
“Easy, tiger. Why don’t you eat and take a shower and a nap. I’ll cancel the get-together I was having tonight.”
“No, don’t cancel anything. I can come down if I want, or veg upstairs, and you can check on me. It’s not a big deal.”
“No, I—”
“C’mon. It’s fine. I promise.”
“I would much rather get some work done while you recuperate.”
“Do me a favor and have your friends over, all right? It’ll be fine. You work really hard. You deserve a nice night.”
“First off, they’re our friends, not—what was that for?”
“What?”
“Don’t do that,” he warned me. “You said your friends, and I was correcting you, and you made a face.”
“That’s because they’re yours. I bleed with mine.”
His groan was loud.
“Now look who’s making a face,” I deadpanned.
“All my friends think you’re amazing by yourself and for me, so knock it off. You just need to spend more time with them. Never in my life have I seen a group of people more interested in getting to know someone.”
I grunted.
“It’s true.” He was adamant. “And for your information, I’m already going to have a nice night, a great one, actually, now that you’re home and I don’t—” He stopped abruptly, pressing his lush lips together.
“You don’t what?”
He shook his head.
I grinned at him. “I know, yeah? So you should probably just g’head and say it.”
Long exhale. “I worry when you’re gone. I can’t help it. And I know you’re terribly capable, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Okay,” I husked.
“It’s not like I can change how I feel.”
“I’m aware.”
After a moment, he tipped his head as he continued to look at me. “I appreciate you not asking me a stupid question like if this is what I want my life to be.”
I shrugged. “You’re a smart man. You knew who I was when you brought me home the first time. If I were different, you might not have wanted me.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “This is what I signed up for.”
“But you’re still going to worry, aren’t you.”
He nodded. “Yes. And I can’t help that, and I refuse to try and change that any more than I would ask you to change for me.”
There was no arguing with that. “Okay, then,” I said with a smile.
“I love you dearly.”
It was so easy for him to speak from his heart. I had not mastered that quite yet. “So then, you’re not looking to cut me loose.”
“No,” he husked. “I’m keeping you.”
It was good to hear.
The food was the best thing I’d had in two months—he made me a fruit salad too—and then he sent me upstairs while he cleaned, promising he was right behind me with a garbage bag and painter’s tape.
“Kinky,” I teased him.
He shook his head. “I want to keep the cast dry.”
“That’s unnecessary. This is fiberglass, that’s why it’s blue.”
After a moment he said, “None of that made sense.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re saying I was supposed to know it’s fiberglass because it’s blue?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” he said like I was nuts.
“You’re placating me.”
His grin was adorable. “I am. Yes. Now tell me from the beginning.”
I pointed at the cast on my leg. “This is fiberglass. It’s much lighter weight than plaster, and it can get wet. Also, it comes in all these groovy colors.”
He nodded. “You were misinformed, my love.”
“How?”
“The shell is okay to get wet, but think about the inside and––”
“No. It has a waterproof liner.”
“Fancy.”
“I’m a sniper. You think those come along every day?” I was indignant.
Quick chuckle. “My mistake.”
“That’s right.”
“But still, liner or not, extra fancy fiberglass or not, water in between your skin and the cast will be irritating, so we’re going to wrap it.”
“Whatever you want.” I gave up. “You’re the doctor.”
“Thank you. Now how long will you be on the crutches?”
“Apparently in two weeks”—which would make a month total, but he didn’t need to know that—“I will transition into one of those air-cast walking boots, and the doctor who fixed me up didn’t say how long I’d have to wear that.”
His eyes narrowed as he studied me. “Do you have paperwork I can look at?”
“How do you mean?”
“You know what I mean, don’t play dumb.”
“Pardon me?” I hedged.
“I want to see what was done. I want to read it.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know if you have to go to physical therapy? And why a cast and the boot? I want to see what exactly you broke.”
“I broke my ankle,” I said matter-of-factly, pointing at the cast.
“Don’t be funny.”
I smirked at him. “That’s gonna be hard.”
“George Hunt,” he barked, “Produce the paperwork.”
But that would be bad for me, so I went with what always worked from an excuse standpoint. “This is the US military, man, it’s all in my jacket. There is no discharge-from-the-hospital paper trail for a black ops sniper. Gimme a break.”
“I––”
“And c’mon, all these questions are killin’ the mood.”
“There’s no mood, love. You can barely keep your eyes open.”
That was true. If you wanted rest, a hospital, especially a military one, wasn’t the place. But still, when he went to his knees, securing the cast with plastic and tape, I couldn’t help smiling wolfishly and waggling my eyebrows at him.
“Stop,” he said chuckling. “You’re in no condition to flirt with me.”
“I dunno about that.”
“You know, it occurs to me that this cast is really robust. Two weeks in the fiberglass cast and then into the boot—that seems like a long time for a break.”
“I don’t––”
“And why not a boot right away? Why this one first at all?”
What to say. “It might have been all they had at the field hospital,” I said, shrugging, without explaining about the titanium pins keeping my ankle together.
His eyes narrowed. “That makes no sense. You would think the boot would be more readily available.”
“I have no idea,” I lied.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Nothing to tell. I twisted it too far in the wrong direction. You know how it goes.”
He nodded and stood up. “Get in the shower.”
“Yessir.”
Once I was in with the water going, he opened the door. “Do you need me to hold you up in there?”
“Oh yes, please,” I rushed out. “Get in here with me.”
I got the headshaking then.
“Fine,” I grumbled.
“We’ll get you one of those medical stools to put in the shower.”
“Uh—never,” I warned him. “Just seeing that thing will make my dick go soft.”
His laugh tumbled out of him. “That’s ridiculous.”
I shrugged.
“And why don’t you have your crutches in here? You can’t go hopping around everywhere in the house.”
“I made it in here easy.”
“You need to use your crutches,” he replied sternly. “Until you’re out of the cast and into the boot, that means you’re not supposed to put any weight on that ankle.”
The crossed arms were a bad sign, so I promised quickly. I didn’t want him thinking about my ankle too hard, so anything to bring an end to the conversation about it was good. Because I really didn’t want to confess that I was lucky to have a functioning limb. Nothing good could come of telling the whole truth. Reiterating that it was broken was enough. Since the operation had been classified, I figured that not sharing all the pertinent points with him was okay. It was how I rationalized always leaving out all the big life-and-death details. And again, this went back to not wanting him wondering if marrying me was, in fact, the best thing for him. Planting that thought in his head had no upside.
I took a long, hot shower, and though I had plans to ravish him when I got out, instead, he was there to dry my hair, pull the tape and bag off my cast, put something on my face that cooled my wind-chafed, sunburned skin, then steered me to the bed.
“You need to lie down so I can have my wicked way with you,” I mumbled, sounding a bit whiny—which wasn’t surprising, given that my ankle still twinged and I hadn’t slept in over seventy-two hours.
He chuckled, put the covers over me, and kissed my forehead.
“No, really. Been thinkin’ about you.”
“I would hope so,” he soothed, hand in my hair, then rose off the bed.
I was going to get up and grab him, but my cat, Bubs—Beelzebub—flopped down against my back—delicate he was not—and started purring. He sounded like an outboard motor, but it was like a constant hum, and that was it. I was out like a light.
I did not enjoy dreaming, so I was happy I hadn’t. I had been told that everyone dreamed every night, but sometimes when you woke up, you simply didn’t remember them. When I’d asked Kurt, who I figured would know, he couldn’t say for certain whether that was true or not. All I knew was that I went from being dead to the world to awake in seconds and could recall nothing.
What woke me was a weird noise. Not something scary, not someone walking nearby. Not the snap of a twig or a catch of breath, and not the slide of a pistol loading. The noise didn’t scare me, but it concerned me. It was halfway between a whimper and a soft growl. Again, because I was still in deployment mode, not having had enough time to return to home mode yet, my eyes snapped open and I sat up.
I was glad Kurt wasn’t in the room. He didn’t like it when I woke up like that. He called it my vampire rising, and he was not a fan.
Since this was March, and it was dark, and in Chicago we had returned to spring forward with daylight saving time, that meant it was late. Evidently, I’d been comatose for hours. But at the moment, my stomach was trying to eat itself, and the door, strangely, was closed. I didn’t like to be quartered off when I was at home, and Kurt knew that. Even if I got woken up, that was preferable to not being able to hear what was going on around me.
Turning on the light on the nightstand, I found that Bubs was not next to me anymore, but instead at the French doors to the right of the bed, along with the dogs.
“What the hell are you guys doing in here?” I asked them as though they could answer. More importantly, they didn’t turn their heads to me.
That morning, when I’d limped through the door, they’d both been all over me, so happy I had returned, their little nubby tails going a million miles an hour as they whined and licked my face and hands. Now I was being completely ignored, which was weird.
Grabbing my crutches that were beside the bed, I walked over to where they were, looked outside, and after a moment, saw Kurt emerge from beside one of the many enormous oak trees in the backyard, hands flailing, which meant he was yelling, with a man following behind him. From where I was, it didn’t look scary or concerning, but the dogs were laser-focused on the guy, and that worried me. The likely reason for their heightened agitation was that they’d been closed in the room with me. The dogs were always allowed full run of the house. Same with the cat. If you were allergic or afraid or whatever, then you couldn’t come to our house. Those were the rules. So what were they doing sequestered with me? It made no sense.
“You two are freaking me out,” I advised them, grabbing my crutches and crossing over to my Mission Antique chest of drawers Kurt had bought me to match his.
Rummaging, I shed my sleep shorts, pulled on briefs, joggers, and a T-shirt, then ordered the dogs to follow as I grabbed the crutches again and briskly left the room.
We all went downstairs together, and I could see the living room as I slowly descended. Several people were drinking wine and picking at charcuterie boards.
“Hi,” Alice called to me. I liked her and her husband, Derek. Actually, I liked all Kurt’s friends. “You’re up. Should you be up?”
“Shit,” Derek said, sounding worried. “Were we too loud? Did we wake you?”
“Are you okay coming down the stairs on your crutches?” Javier asked.
It was a lot of questions at once.
“I’m really good with crutches,” I responded to Javier, one of Kurt’s oldest friends in Chicago. “Unfortunately, I’ve had a lot of practice.”
“Which is so not great.”
“It happens.”
“We did wake you, didn’t we?” Alice sounded remorseful as she looked at the others. “We’re bad people. Worse—bad friends.”
“No, not at all. The dogs were in the room with me, and they wanted out.”
“See? I told you,” Brian said to the group. “Baylor was being an ass. Why couldn’t he let the dogs go outside with them?”
So some guy named Baylor was the man Kurt was yelling at. “Baylor who?” I asked.
“Baylor Donovan,” Alice advised me.
“And it was stupid that Baylor didn’t want the dogs outside with him and Kurt,” Liz, Brian’s wife, concurred. “We should have insisted he take them, but we were in a fierce game of Uno here, George, and you know how we all hate to lose.”
“I do,” I said, grinning at her. “You people take your games far too seriously.”
“Would we say too seriously?” Brian mused.
“Plus, it was so fast,” Javier commented. “Kurt and Baylor were headed outside before we even knew what was happening.”
“Well, I’m gonna take the dogs out now,” I told him, already on my way to the door.
“Maybe Baylor’s afraid of them,” Claudia offered as she poured herself a glass of wine. “I mean, why else would he insist the dogs stay inside?”
Good question.
“But you can go back to bed,” Alice offered kindly. “Vince and Car are out on the deck. They can let the dogs down into the yard.”
Why were Carson and Vince out there as well instead of inside with everyone else?
I wasn’t actually worried, because if I had been, I would have grabbed one of the two guns I kept in my nightstand before heading downstairs. Kurt was involved in some kind of discussion outside, not fighting for his life.
Crossing to the sliding glass door leading to the patio, I exited fast, the dogs on my heels, and they immediately charged over to the tall gate that, strangely, was closed. Normally, we kept the one on the deck open. If we were going out, we closed it, as it kept the two Dobermans from taking the flight of stairs down to the backyard. The property was not fenced, and we didn’t want them roaming onto the preserve. They probably wouldn’t, but neither of us was taking any chances with their lives.
“Fuck this,” Carson growled, moving around me to reach a tub of sports equipment Kurt kept on the deck for his patients. Sometimes it was easier for kids, and some adults, to talk to him while their hands were engaged.
“Amazing what a kid will tell you while they’re bouncing a basketball,” he’d told me when I’d first inquired about the various items.
When I reached the railing, I could see Kurt pacing as Baylor tried, unsuccessfully, to grab hold of his arms. Whatever the talk was about, Kurt didn’t want to hear it.
“Let the dogs out,” Vince told me, then turned to his husband, who rotated his right arm once, then gripped the ball. One second it was in his hand, and I had a moment to think, Is he going to throw that? before he fired the ball like his arm was a rifle.
I had watched lots of football in my life, seen lots of quarterbacks throw the ball, but I’d never seen anyone I personally knew hurl anything that fast. I barely had enough time to turn my head before there was a scream of pain.
Across the yard, Kurt was now bent over Baylor, who was writhing on the ground, clutching his left shoulder. After a moment, Kurt straightened up. When he did, the dogs, who had been at the gate, dying to get out, suddenly calmed. They could see, as well as I could, that Kurt was fine and the threat had been quashed.
“You’re in trouble.” Vince snickered a second before Kurt yelled.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“What?” Carson volleyed back as though he couldn’t hear him. I knew that ruse; I’d used it many times myself.
“That’s not gonna work,” Vince assured his husband with a soft chuckle.
“I have no control of my arm, you know that.”
Vince scoffed. Loudly. “What I know is that you’ve still got it.”
“Yeah,” Carson agreed, rotating his shoulder. “But it hurt.”
“You could have broken his arm!” Kurt called over.
Vince groaned like that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. I was right there with him.
Did it hurt, getting hit in the arm? Yes, I was sure it did. Had it been absolutely jolting and probably scary? Most likely. Would he have a bruise? Undoubtedly. But broken? Absolutely not.
“Seriously, Carson, have you completely lost your mind?” Kurt sounded really mad.
Carson pointed to his ear. “Still can’t hear you. You need to come inside.”
Vince took that moment to charge over to the gate.
“Don’t let the dogs out,” Kurt bellowed.
“What?” Vince returned, immediately doing just that. The dogs were down the stairs in seconds, and we all watched as the two enormous Dobermans streaked across the lawn toward the man they loved.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Carson told Vince. “You’re gonna get in trouble, and I’m already throwing you under the bus.”
“I figured as much,” Vince said with a sigh as he reached Carson’s side.
“It’s not my fault I don’t like Baylor. The guy’s a tool.”
“Yes, but you used to play on the same team in college.”
“So what? Doesn’t mean he’s not a douchebag.”
It struck me then, and I was surprised I hadn’t made the connection. “You played ball in college at the same place Kurt went? At Emerson?”
“I went there too,” Vince announced, leaning against his husband, who put his left arm around his shoulders and tucked him into his side.
“Yeah,” Carson said. “Me and Vince met there right before I got banged up.”
A couple of beats of time passed before Vince took a step away and looked up into Carson’s face.
“Steady now,” Carson cautioned him.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Vince asked him pointedly.
“Love—”
“Did the words ‘right before I got banged up’ just come out of your mouth?”
His words, banged up, were the understatement of the century. How he could even be so cavalier about it was truly a testament to the healing power of time. Because the injury Carson Cress sustained that night in Phoenix twenty years ago under the bright lights of the Fiesta Bowl was nothing less than devastating.
I could vividly recall the hit that ended his football career in one gruesome moment of perfectly timed, bone-crushing, muscle-and-tendon-snapping disaster. Many experts had debated if his right arm would ever be even remotely functional. Lifting a cup, writing his name, had seemed ridiculously optimistic. Since it was a catastrophic injury, of course the footage had been played over and over on practically every channel. I, along with most people, had been sincerely happy he’d been knocked unconscious by the hit. It was for the best. An arm was not meant to bend like that. It had been horrible to witness. So now, watching him use the arm again was mind-blowing.
“That throw was amazing,” I told him, checking on Kurt, who now had a hand raised to keep the dogs away from Baylor. The guy was finally sitting up but still cradling his left bicep. “But what made you think you had to?”
“I dunno,” Carson admitted, and when I met his gaze, I noted again, as I had on our first meeting, that his indigo eyes were really something. An amazing color I’d never seen on anyone else. “Whatever they were talking about went on too long.”
“You’re the conversation police, are you?”
He shrugged. “You know what I mean. From here it looked uncomfortable.”
It had looked that way from where I was standing as well.
“Kurt kept trying to come back to the house, and Baylor kept getting in his way.”
I nodded, feeling concern, irritation, and anger start to rise in the pit of my stomach.
“Kurt put the dogs in with you,” Vince informed me, “so they could talk out here uninterrupted, which made no sense. Why did Baylor need the dogs locked in the house when they talked privately?”
“I dunno,” I answered, my eyes back on Kurt, who was trying to help Baylor stand. The problem was, whenever he bent over to try and assist his acquaintance—I didn’t want to say friend because they weren’t that; they’d just known each other forever—the dogs went to move in close to guard Kurt. Once he straightened up, they stepped back. It looked like a dance. He kept pointing toward the house, but the dogs weren’t budging, clearly not about to leave him. What was funny was that they always listened to him, always followed his direction except for right this second. To me, it was quite telling. They were not fans of Baylor Donovan, and no way, no how, were they leaving Kurt alone with the man.
“We came out here to check and make sure everything was all right,” Vince explained. “I mean, it’s good to keep an eye on all your friends, but with Kurt, you know, after the attack, I never want him to feel uncomfortable with anyone.”
Neither did I.
“It was different before the incident,” Vince added. “I never worried before then.”
“Sure.”
“It’s not like he’s small, and he can defend himself.”
He could. Even more so now, as he’d been taking Tae Kwon Do classes with my… I had no idea how to classify her. With Hannah. My Hannah. A piece of my civilian job, at Sutter Incorporated, was to protect Aaron Sutter’s goddaughter, Hannah Kage. I was her driver, her bodyguard, basically the guy who kept her safe. But that was such a small part of what she was to me, of what she’d become over the years. It felt more like she was the little sister I never asked for but might have actually wanted.
She taught Tae Kwon Do, and in class she had been giving Kurt, along with the rest of her students, select skills that could help them out of tight spots. Just the very basics. The point was not to stand and fight, but to do quick damage and run. Escape was the point, not winning at hand-to-hand combat. But Kurt had wanted to learn more, so he went further, and was now a blue belt. I was happy for him, and even more so for me. The better he was at defending himself, the less I worried. So I understood what Vince was saying. Kurt was no shrinking violet. He would not fall apart if threatened. Not that he had all those years ago. He’d fought like hell then as well. It was the reason he was still alive.
Ten years ago now, Kurt was attacked and nearly killed by a patient. Tobin Wellesley had originally gone to prison, but a year ago, was moved to a psychiatric facility. He was now being treated, and once his doctors were certain he was sane enough to finish serving his sentence, he would be transferred back. From what Kurt told me, Wellesley wanted to return because he didn’t like the drugs and mandatory visits with so many different doctors. He preferred to be left alone. But until he was no longer a danger to himself or others, there was no other option. Kurt, for his part, hoped his former patient received the care he needed. He also preferred him medicated and on the receiving end of mandatory psychiatric therapy. Kurt had hopes that someday Wellesley would fully understand what he’d done. Being a pessimist by nature, I had no such thoughts. I was prepared to disembowel the man if he ever came near the man I loved. And some people said things like that, but when push came to shove, no one could say for certain if they would be able to end another’s life. For me, I didn’t have to guess. I knew. I’d killed men in defense of my country, and in defense of people I was paid to protect. For the man I held in my arms, I wouldn’t even have to think twice.
“Not that Baylor would ever hurt him,” Carson apprised me, returning my focus to him. “But still, whatever he needed to say, like Vince said, why the hell couldn’t the dogs be there? What were they gonna do, come back inside and tap it out for us in Morse code?”
I liked them both, had from the first time I met them.
Kurt had realized after the attack that he needed a complete change of scenery to even begin to heal. Vince had suggested Kurt leave California and move in with him and Carson. They had room in their home in the Gold Coast area of Chicago, and Kurt meant a lot to both of them. After Carson and Vince had changed colleges, Kurt and Vince’s friend Matt Cooksey—who actually worked with Vince now—had been the two people who’d made sure to visit Vince and Carson, and they remained close. I was glad Kurt had people like that in his life.
“It’s funny,” Carson said as we watched Baylor weave toward the house with Kurt beside him. The dogs flanked them, stopping and moving into an alert stance several times, likely concerned with how Baylor was lurching. “When Vince and I first got together and Kurt would visit, I was so jealous because I knew Kurt had a thing for him.”
I glanced at Vince, who shook his head.
“He did,” Carson insisted, slipping a hand around Vince’s neck and drawing him close, tucking him into his side. “But I also quickly put it together that at that time, Kurt had never had sex with a man. It was his interest in Vince, as was mine, that told us both we were bisexual.”
“Wow, Vince,” I teased him. “Turning all the boys on, huh?”
He rolled his eyes. “Ridiculous.”
“Nope,” Carson was adamant. “That’s the God’s honest truth right there.”
“But you got to him first, huh?” I asked Carson.
“No. Kurt knew Vince before I did. I just got lucky that he liked me better.”
Vince was shaking his head again, letting me know that the man he loved was an idiot.
“No?” Carson gave an over-the-top mock gasp, clutching at his heart. “It was Kurt?”
“You’re such an ass.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Once you steamrolled into my life, I couldn’t see anyone but you.”
Carson kissed his husband on the temple. “Yeah, well, what can I say. I knew who I needed to make my life perfect.”
“Perfect is laying it on a bit thick.”
“Not to me,” Carson said sincerely. “I knew you were the one.”
“You’re unbelievable,” Vince muttered, reaching up to take hold of Carson’s face and ease him down for a quick kiss, after which he asked, “May I go and get you some ice for your shoulder? Do we think that would be a good idea?”
“Yes, please. And maybe get some for Baylor as well.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“What?” He cackled. “He’s dyin’ out there.”
“You wait right there!” Kurt threatened him as he and Baylor took the stairs toward us, a dog in front and one behind.
“Can’t,” Vince replied. “My husband needs to ice his shoulder.”
“So do I!” Baylor yelled.
“This is what I said a second ago,” Carson declared innocently.
“Well, he wouldn’t have to ice it if he didn’t throw the goddamn ball.” Kurt sounded both indignant and accusatory.
“C’mon. That was an accident,” Vince deflected. “I dared him to hit the tree, and he missed and hit Baylor.”
“That’s your story?” Kurt thundered at him. “It was unintentional?”
“Of course, that ball wasn’t even traveling that fast. If he’d hit him with his full power from back in the day, that ball would have been moving at between sixty-two and sixty-five miles per hour.” Vince sounded so matter-of-fact. “Now that would have stung a bit.”
“No shit,” I said to Carson.
He waggled his eyebrows at me.
“Stung a bit?” Baylor was still yelling, even though we were all together on the deck now. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me? That, what he did, hurt like a motherfucker, Vince!”
“I could see that if he’d hit you in the head.” Vince shrugged. “But it’s just your bicep, isn’t it?”
“Is there ibuprofen in your medicine cabinet?” Carson asked me.
“Yes, there’s—”
“I’m going to sue you,” Baylor told Carson.
“For what? An accident? A tap with a ball?”
“A tap?” He was incredulous. “You hit me with a football in the arm. I might have nerve damage.”
“From a ball thrown by me?” Carson mocked. “Me?”
“Yes, by you. Are you kidding? I know how hard and fast you—”
“Not anymore,” Carson said with an evil grin. “Not for years. I mean, c’mon, Baylor, every one of my doctors will tell you I can’t possibly throw with any real power. Those days are long gone.”
“You’re insane! I felt how—”
“No, you’re mistaken,” Carson mollified him. “That’s impossible, and everything about my throwing arm is documented.”
“The hell are you talking about?” Baylor sounded worked up now.
“It’s no big deal.”
“No big deal!” His face was getting red.
Before Carson could say anything else, Vince took hold of the arm that was a miracle of modern medicine and rehabilitation, and led him toward the house.
“I think maybe you should be happy it was a tap with a football and not a tap with a bullet,” I warned him.
“What?” Baylor gasped.
“You had to have heard me,” I goaded him.
“Is that a threat?”
“What else could it possibly be?” I sneered at him.
When he took a step toward me, Geri was there so fast, head down, teeth bared, a low warning growl in the back of his throat.
Baylor made the mistake of wheeling on Kurt then, and Freki pushed between them, same stance, unsure of Baylor’s intentions.
“Ohmygod, your dogs are insane! That’s why I told you they had to stay in the house.”
“C’mon let’s—let’s just go in. Javi will check you out.”
“He’s an ear, nose, and throat specialist, Kurt. What the hell is he going to do?”
“He’s still an MD, Bay. He can at least tell you if you should go to the ER.”
Go to the emergency room for what?
Baylor charged toward the sliding glass door that Vince and Carson had purposely not closed, leaving me and Kurt alone on the patio with the dogs.
I squinted at him, and he shook his head.
“Carson overreacted,” Kurt said. “It was nothing.”
“It was obviously something.”
“Baylor and I knew each in college—he actually played on the team with Carson back in the day.”
This was old news I already knew from Vince, but I said nothing.
“We were also in California at the same time, after my run-in with Wellesley.”
I remained quiet, listening.
“He moved here a couple of months ago and was happy to find out I did as well, and—”
“This was before the dogs?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You didn’t have the dogs when you were both in California?”
“No, I had them.”
I nodded. “That’s interesting.”
“How so?”
“The dogs are really smart, yeah? They remember your friends.”
“But it’s been years since I last saw him.”
I shrugged. “Plus, they warm up fast to others.”
“I—”
“Take me, for instance.”
“You’re very—”
“And Vince and Carson.”
Quick huff of air. “I get where you’re going with this.”
“Do you?”
“Listen––”
“So they never warmed to Baylor.” It was a statement. I wasn’t asking a question because I already knew the answer.
“They—no. No, they did not.”
“Which is why he didn’t want them outside with the two of you.”
“Probably.”
“Or maybe,” I said as he stepped in close to me, hands on my hips, “he didn’t want the dogs out there with you for some other reason.”
“There was no nefarious intent,” he said, really looking at my face. “You know, you have bags under your eyes that look like bruises, they’re so dark.”
“Maybe there was flirtatious intent.”
“Stop,” he ordered, far more interested in me than talking about Baylor Donovan.
“He hit on you, didn’t he?”
“Not really,” he stated, which was an absurd thing to say because he either had or hadn’t made a pass at my fiancé. Not really made no sense.
“Care to elaborate?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Love, it doesn’t even merit a discussion.”
Normally, I would have been incensed that a man had come to my own house to hit on my fiancé, but there was no doubt in my mind that Kurt was treating this like nothing because to him, that’s how insignificant it was. I had all his attention and concern.
“That’s really fuckin’ rude of him, wouldn’t you say?”
“God, why are you even up? You should be upstairs, comatose.” His face crumpled as he looked at me. “I knew I should have canceled this whole thing.”
“No,” I murmured, letting my crutch go and grabbing him tight with my right arm, crushing him against me, liking the sharp gasp I got as I showed him the strength in my body. “I want you to keep all your friends. I don’t want to isolate you in any way.”
“You don’t. You wouldn’t,” he said with a sigh, carefully wrapping his arms around me, both of us enjoying the closeness.
“I’m not going to break.”
“Yes, but when you were in the shower, I saw all the damage…”
“I was cleared to come home,” I reminded him. “Which means you can hold me as tight as you want.”
“I worry about hurting you.”
“Only way you hurt me is by not showing me that I was missed.”
His exhale was long. “You’re always missed.”
“I dunno, maybe you were thinking Baylor would be easier to have around.”
“Honestly, that’s beneath you,” he said flatly.
“Oh, is it?”
“Yes, and you’re insane, and you’re lucky I’m into that.”
I grunted.
“Don’t even kid. You know you’re perfect for me. That’s why I’m marrying you.”
“I need convincing.”
“Annoying man,” he griped before he lifted to kiss me.
I kissed him breathless, and when I finally eased back, he leaned with me, keeping the contact, until I smiled.
“You’re awful,” he pronounced.
“You are less than believable at this moment,” I ribbed him as he slipped his hand up my nape and into my hair.
He suddenly chuckled.
“What?”
Tipping his head, I turned mine so we were both looking at Freki, who was sitting and holding my crutch.
“I wondered why I didn’t hear that hit the ground,” he said smiling. “You’re lucky he caught that.”
“I knew he would,” I told him. “He’s a good boy.”
“Plus you’ve got him trained to catch all kinds of things these days.”
“Yep, Frisbees, tennis balls, cooked spaghetti, French fries––”
“You shouldn’t give him––”
“––an umbrella so he doesn’t get wet if it starts to rain on our walks, the broom when I forget to grab the dust pan, that drone that asshole from three doors down sent into the yard. Big mistake when he flew it too low.”
“Yes, you and your dog are quite ferocious.”
“Hey, don’t forget Geri,” I said, and when I did, I noted Freki’s brother wagging his tail. “He can catch things too. He caught my favorite beer when I accidentally knocked the bottle off the counter. Both of them have amazing reflexes.”
Kurt smiled at me.
“What? They do.”
He sighed deeply. “They do, yes.”
“Then what’s with the smile like I’m crazy?”
“You’re not crazy and I’m so happy you’re home.”
“Me too. Especially since I wasn’t aware that Baylor was on the prowl.”
Huff of breath then. “Listen to me, all kidding aside, Baylor has not made any other advances or––”
“I don’t want him at the wedding.”
“Okay,” he agreed without a moment’s hesitation.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“And I don’t think he should be invited back to game night. Nobody seems to like him.”
Warm chuckle. “Yeah, I’m getting that.”
“I mean, you don’t want Carson to hurt himself throwing footballs at Baylor’s arms or maybe even his legs next time.”
“That’s true, but for the record, I had no idea he could even do that anymore. It was amazing—once I got past the shock.”
“Yeah.”
“And not nice of him.”
Did I agree with that?
“Hey,” Javier said, leaning out onto the deck.
I turned to look at him. Kurt couldn’t be bothered, more interested in gently kissing along my jaw.
“Did that asshat hit on you while you were outside?”
Kurt was too busy slipping his hands up under my shirt to give his friend any attention.
“He’s talking to you,” I told Kurt.
Slowly, with a great deal of effort, he turned to look at Javier. “What?”
“I want to know if Baylor hit on you.”
Kurt grimaced. “Not really.”
Javier shook his head. “The answer can only be yes or no.”
“I second that.”
Kurt shushed me, and then looked back at Javier. “Fine. He did. Yes.”
“Then he’s banned from game night, because that’s a shitty thing to do, and especially not cool in the house you share with your fiancé.”
“I agree,” I muttered. “It’s very poor form.”
“It’s fucked up is what it is,” Javier growled.
Surprising to hear the normally mellow ENT with the kind eyes swear. The surprise must have shown on my face.
“What? It is,” he assured me.
“I’m not arguing with you.”
“No more game nights for him,” Kurt stated. “And he’s not invited to the wedding.”
“Good.” Javier took a breath. “So Claudia put ice on Baylor’s arm, and it’s a little red, but I think that’s gonna be about it. I mean, will it bruise? Possibly. Did I hurt myself more falling off the ladder while cleaning my rain gutters last week? Yes. Yes, I did.”
“You fell off a ladder?” Kurt asked, squinting at him.
“Don’t say it like that. It’s not my fault. We’re not all…” He gestured at me.
“What does George have to do with this?”
He scowled back. “Is there anything George can’t do?”
“I’m not a doctor like you, buddy,” I pointed out.
“Yes, but I’m sure you’ve saved more lives than I have.”
“That’s very nice of you to say.”
“Only stating the obvious. But tell me, have you ever fallen off anything?”
I had to think.
“See?”
“Aw, you sound so sad,” Kurt commiserated.
He got flipped off for that.
“So about Baylor’s arm, will he still have full use of it?” I tried to sound serious.
“Is that an honest-to-God real question?”
“He was pretty upset about getting hit with the ball,” I pointed out.
“If he wants to compare injuries, you’re the one with blood in your right eye and a bruise on your left cheek. I suspect there’s more damage than that, yes?”
I shrugged.
“I don’t suppose you’d let me take a look at you.”
“I thought you were an ear guy,” I teased him. “And I have to tell you, mine are fine.”
“That’s a specialty, you understand? I’m still a doctor.”
“Yes, I know. Kurt vouched for you earlier.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course.” Kurt chuckled.
“But so you know, I was cleared to come home by the US military.”
“That does in no way fill me with confidence.”
“I’m good,” I said as Kurt wrapped his arms around my neck. “He’s got me.”
“Yeah, well, that’s probably for the best. I don’t think any of us can get out there to you anyway.”
“Why not?” Kurt asked.
Javier pointed at Bubs, who was sitting on the deck, a foot from the entrance. He was puffed up and making that low warning noise cats made right before they ripped your face off. “He’s much scarier than the dogs.”
That was probably true.
“I hope Baylor doesn’t keep up the whining, because Claudia is this close to telling him what he can do with his whole I-can’t-move-my-arm bullshit. It’s really ridiculous.”
“Oh?” I asked.
“Yeah. Like Carson can throw a ball hard enough or fast enough to hurt anyone anymore,” he scoffed. “I mean, didn’t Baylor see what happened to him at the Fiesta Bowl all those years ago? No one gets better from something like that.”
“Absolutely not,” Kurt was in total agreement. “That’s crazy.”
It certainly was.
Matter of Time
Saturday Series Spotlight
Re-Readables 2019
With George
Saturday Series Spotlight
Marshals
Saturday Series Spotlight
Mary Calmes lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband and two children and loves all the seasons except summer. She graduated from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, with a bachelor's degree in English literature. Due to the fact that it is English lit and not English grammar, do not ask her to point out a clause for you, as it will so not happen. She loves writing, becoming immersed in the process, and falling into the work. She can even tell you what her characters smell like. She loves buying books and going to conventions to meet her fans.
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Just George #1
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