Grissom (In the Company of Snipers #26)

Chapter Twenty-One

Tuesday woke slowly, comfortably sore and astonishingly mellow after last night’s adventure with Grissom. This morning was the beginning of Christmas Eve. She’d originally planned to be gone, but then last night happened, and there she was. In Grissom’s house and not going anywhere. The bed beneath her was comfy and soft, and her entire body still thrilled at the seductive brush of what had to be expensive bedsheets over her Grissom-sensitized skin.

He wasn’t there snuggling with her, yet he was. She could smell him in the masculine, smoky, cedar scent caught between the sheets. In the tingles of pleasure still rippling over her bare skin. At her wicked thoughts of him. In the marks they’d stamped onto each other. In just thinking how his big hands had gripped her backside, when she’d come her very first time. The weight of his magnificent body pressing her into the mattress, anchoring her for another spine-tingling attack. The roughness of his chest hairs against her sensitized breasts and nipples. His confidence. His strength. But he’d never lost his underwear. That had to change.

Pulling to the side of the bed, Tuesday wiggled her toes into the plush silvery-gray bedroom carpet and let a few happy tears fall. That grumpy, brooding male with the tender heart loved her, and he’d spent most of the night proving it, well, not proving it per se. She wasn’t sure what the juvenile slang was for how far they’d gone. Second base? Third? Couldn’t be a home run. That was reserved for ‘doing it.’ ‘Going all the way.’ And a bunch of disgusting descriptors for what Grissom called a sacred thing between a man and a woman.

How had he become the honorable, caring, and insightful male he was today, especially after living through a mother like Vivian and a wife like Pam? Somewhere along the line, Grissom had to have been exposed to at least one honorable, honest male who’d made an impression on him. She knew from experience it only took one good person to reach out and save a lost child, to change that child’s entire world. To make a difference. Freddie had saved her. Who’d saved Grissom?

Alex surely fit the bill, but so did most men on The TEAM. Maybe Murphy? That made better sense. Mr. Finnegan had hired Grissom and introduced him to the tightly-knit band of former warriors, The TEAM family. The simple tag, The TEAM, made Tuesday smile. Instead of the lackluster, totally generic moniker, Alex should’ve called his business The FAMILY. Might’ve made it sound like part of the Mafia, but it’d be a better fit for what Alex had created. Tuesday saw the results in both Shane and Heston. In handsome Mark Houston. Even Alex. They were family, and their wives were the glue that made that family work.

But enough of that. Tuesday needed to get moving. She’d promised Grissom she’d stay one day and she had, but it’d soon be time to get back to reality.

Her clothes were somewhere in the room. She hadn’t cared where they landed last night, wasn’t sure she cared now. If not for Tanner and Luke, she’d be brave and march up to Grissom in her birthday suit, and she’d tempt that handsome Grizzly Bear back into her bed. As it was, she was afraid Tanner and Luke might’ve heard too much last night. She doubted Grissom had females sleep over. Darn, she should’ve been quiet. But honestly? She’d lost her mind once he’d taken over. Her, a virgin with no experience. Wiping her tears, Tuesday giggled. Freddie’d always urged her to tackle whatever scared her the most. But holy cow, she might’ve scared Grissom last night.

Oh, that man. That big, warm, hairy, wonderful man. She couldn’t believe the emotions being with him like that stirred in her brain and heart, and okay, her body and soul, too. They’d been frantic heathens last night, and she’d loved every minute of it. Okay, so maybe she might need to stay another night, you know, just to tempt the beast again. To make sure Grissom taught her everything. How many stayovers would it take to learn all there was to know about biology?

“He loves me,” she whispered, reaching behind, intending to wrap the Grissom-scented bedsheet around her. To pull the masculine-scented sheet to her nose and inhale every last scintillating male pheromone he’d left behind. As if there could ever be enough.

Instead, her fingers tangled with a lump of soft fur that purred. Must be Tanner’s cat. Tuesday had wondered last night where Pixie was. Now, she knew. The chubby black and white cat stopped purring and glared at her with half-shuttered amber eyes daring her to touch it again.

“Hello, Miss Pixie,” she said, letting Pixie sniff her fingertips. “Aren’t you a pretty girl?”

With a stretch of her fluffy neck, Pixie accepted the gesture, then closed her eyes, kicked her internal motorboat into high gear, and resumed purring. Like a pretentious queen on her throne. As if Tuesday were merely staff.

Stroking Pixie’s long, sleek fur was a good way to wake up. Not the best. That would’ve been petting Grissom, but these few minutes alone gave Tuesday time to take stock of her new surroundings.

The room was painted white. The carpet was a muted, silvery gray, same as the headboard, both nightstands, and the six-drawer dresser beside the door to the ensuite bathroom. Twisting around told her the neutral tones throughout the room would make the perfect backdrop to the family portraits she intended to take today. Photos in rustic red, barn wood frames. The largest, a ginormous family shot of the McCoy family would cover the wall facing the foot of the bed. It’d be the perfect thing for anyone to wake up to each morning. Just not her. This wasn’t her home and a guest knew when to leave.

“Sorry, Pixie, but you’ll have to scoot over. I’m getting up,” she said, rolling the chubby cat to the other side of the bed. She got a hiss for that slight, but Madam Pixie stayed put once she was paws down again.

Tuesday spotted her luggage next to the bathroom door. Grissom must’ve found her keys and brought it in for her. Perfect. In no time, she was showered and dressed in fresh clothes that didn’t smell like horses. She’d barely packed her dirty clothes into her suitcase when a quiet knock sent her hurrying to answer. There stood shy Tanner in his stocking feet, clean jeans, a plain white t-shirt, and a timid smile.

“Dad says tell you breakfast is ready. Pixie!” He ran for the unmade bed and scrambled up beside his cat. “You been sleeping with Miss Tuesday all night?”

Tuesday stayed at the door, listening to Luke chattering with Grissom in the kitchen beyond, while she gazed at Tanner. “Do we have enough time to look at your amazing combat jet pictures before breakfast?” She hadn’t forgotten her promise, but suspected he might have with all the commotion last night.

“Sure!” he replied, easily scooping Pixie into his arms and sliding to the floor. “Come on, kitty cat. You come, too.”

Tuesday followed Tanner into the hall leading to the master bedroom at the opposite end. The guest bathroom and a linen closet were on her left. It helped knowing the guest room was far from the master bedroom. His boys might not have heard her after all.

The moment Tanner opened the master bedroom door, Tuesday knew she was finally seeing the real McCoy family room. It was a disaster. She chuckled at the clutter from the night, maybe the week, before. The king size bed didn’t look like it’d ever been made up, not with half its tangled blankets on the floor, the other half balled on the mattress.

Several device chargers decorated both nightstands, along with lamps with mismatched shades. The mirror over the long, twelve-drawer dresser was too foggy to make out her reflection, and dozens of video games and game covers still scattered the floor in front of the big screen over the dresser, where the boys had camped out with their company. Candy wrappers, an empty popcorn tub on its side, half-empty water bottles, and several pairs of boy’s tennis shoes were scattered, well, everywhere. The closed lid of the hamper beside the open bathroom door belied the truth—that no males had ever used them—as did the smelly pile of clothes next to the hamper. The entire place smelled of man and boy, Tuesday’s favorite scents. Yup, this was where the McCoys really lived, all three of them. This was their hole-in-the-wall hideout, and they truly were desperados, apparently on the run from picking up after themselves. What were those tidy but empty hampers in the laundry room for? Show?

Tanner dropped to his knees, opening the lowest center drawers of the dresser. He’d already set Pixie down, and she was peering into the drawer, her ears perked forward like everything Tanner did fascinated her. “This here’s my drawer,” he grunted as it tipped forward onto the carpet. “Just mine. Nobody else can take nothing out of it but me. Dad said.”

Tuesday expected a tablet, maybe a sketch pad. Anything but a professionally bound twelve-by-twelve scrapbook.

Settling to his butt, he flipped past the first few pictures, each preserved in a document protector. “This one’s the best one I ever did. Here, look.”

Dropping to her knees at his other side, Tuesday shifted until she was cross-legged, looking in wonder at a six-year- old’s artwork. It wasn’t what she expected. The eight-by-eleven photograph of a red, white, and blue F-16, one of the famous USAF Thunderbirds demonstration team gracing the left document protector, was good. But the colored-pencil sketch at its right was excellent. Six manly signatures, probably from those F-16 pilots, decorated the photo. Only one decorated the sketch. Tanner McCoy had been carefully penciled lengthwise along the right margin.

“You’re quite the budding artist. How’d you copy it, with onion skin or tracing paper?”

“I don’t know what that stuff is, I just drawed it. With one of these.” Tipping forward, Tanner pulled out a plastic zip-lock bag of stubby, well-used colored pencils, a tiny plastic sharpener, and a white eraser from the drawer. An almost empty, hundred-sheet pack of drawing papers came next.

“You drew this freehand?” Unbelievable.

His shoulders lifted. “Yeah, I guess so. Does that mean I didn’t cheat and copy it?”

She bumped her biceps against his. “No, it means you have a very steady hand if you traced a photo as precisely as you did this. You should be proud.”

“Hmmm. Okay. But I didn’t trace it. I just drawed it.”

Tuesday had to look twice. “By sight?” Seriously?

“Yeah, ’course. Dad got a picture for me and Luke at the air show he took us to. I got to talk to the pilots, Miss Tuesday. The real guys who fly them T-birds. You should see them! Them guys are cool!”

“I’d love to,” she murmured, more excited at the attention to detail revealed in Tanner’s artwork than meeting any pilot. “Have you had classes?” Did six-year-olds even take art classes?

His shoulders lifted like it was no big deal. “No, I just like to draw.” Reaching past her, he flipped back to the beginning page in his scrapbook. “This is the first one I ever did. It’s kinda messy, but Dad fixed it for me.”

“Why’d he have to fix it? From…” Who? Tuesday couldn’t finish the question. She knew what she was looking at, possibly a gifted child’s first foray into the world of art. A beautifully sketched hummingbird in flight, its emerald green throat, its wings a masterful blur of sapphire blues and grays, and a bright white sparkle in its eye. The paper had been torn into eight ragged pieces, those pieces now carefully taped—from the backside—back together. The repair had been done so well, it was difficult to see where it’d been torn. Grissom had carefully matched his son’s pencil strokes, every penciled line, curve, and shadow. He’d even recaptured the iridescence in the tiny bird’s smudged throat.

“He saved it from Mom,” Tanner whispered, as if saying her name could make the witch appear out of nowhere. “She said it was stupid, and I was stupid, too. She always said mean stuff to me, and she’s who teared it up, not Luke. Luke would never do anything like that, cuz, cuz he knows I just like to draw sometimes. It makes me feel good, like on really bad days and…” His shoulders lifted as if his really bad days weren’t worth talking about. “Anyway” —he huffed— “she threw it in the garbage, but I…”

Tanner was breathing hard by then so Tuesday pulled him into her side, angry at Pam all over again. “It’s okay,” she breathed into the side of his sweaty head. “Your mother can’t hurt you anymore, and she isn’t ever coming back. I wouldn’t let her near you if she did.”

“That’s what Dad says, b-but…” Tanner’s skinny little boy body jerked with a hiccup. Tears breached his hazel eyes. “I still have all them bad dreams, Miss Tuesday. She’s screaming and being mean to me, and I can’t make her stop. She just keeps yelling and calling me names.”

“Aw, sweetheart.” Tuesday pulled him onto her lap, scrapbook and all. “Some people are just mean. They get pleasure from hurting others, but just you wait. They’ll all get what’s coming to them.” And Pam surely had, at the hand of the mighty Pacific Ocean.

“They do? P-promise?”

“I promise, sweetheart. We reap what we sow, and if all we sow is hate and cruelty, that’s what the universe sends back to us.”

He snuggled under Tuesday’s chin, his ear against her heart. Right here he belonged. “What’s it mean to sow?”

Of course, a six-year-old wouldn’t understand that little/big word. “Sow means to plant seeds, like the good habits I see your dad planting in you boys. Your mom thought she could plant ugly seeds that would turn you kids into big, mean, thorny thistles like her. But your dad’s planted seeds of honesty, kindness, and love, and you and Luke have grown into perfect little men.”

Carefully, Tanner shoved his open scrapbook to the floor and pointed at the man-size fingerprint in the lower left corner of the hummingbird drawing. “Dad came home early that night, and he saved my picture for me. See? That’s his thumbprint. My picture was wet when he found it cuz Mom threw it in the garbage, and his hands got dirty, but, yeah. Dad’s my best friend. He don’t ever hit me.”

Tuesday couldn’t help the sigh that breathed out of her. “Your dad is the best, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. He never hits me or Luke, not even once. I don’t have to be ascared anymore.”

Tears blurred her eyes. This poor kid was still suffering from his mother’s cruelty. No wonder Grissom hadn’t shown any remorse at his wife’s untimely death. Divorce would’ve kept that awful woman in these boys’ lives forever. Pam might’ve even gotten custody.

“And he bought me this cool book to keep my pictures in, and these plastic sheets keep them safe and dry and clean. Wanna see some more?”

“I sure do,” she replied as Tanner pulled the scrapbook back onto his lap and flipped to the second page.

That was where Grissom found them, looking over Tanner’s collection of jet fighters. Tuesday hadn’t heard him until he sat on the bed behind her and asked, “Are you kids hungry? I made pancakes, bacon, and scrambles.”

Twisting her neck, Tuesday looked up at him through blurry eyes. “How long have you been sitting there?” How much had he heard?

“Not long.” But she could tell he’d heard enough by the sheen in those hazel eyes.

“You have quite a talented young artist on your hands.” She wiped a hand across her face.

Tugging her between his knees, he nodded. “Know that, love. Pastels. That’s what he wants for Christmas. Right, Scooter?”

“Yeah, and maybe an easel, but mostly pastels, cuz they’re cheaper, and Santa can’t afford to bring everything us guys want. Right, Dad?” Tanner answered brightly.

Geez, this kid was killing her. He didn’t ask for much, and he wasn’t as pumped as she’d been as a kid on Christmas Eve. Back then, she would’ve been climbing the walls by now at his age. There was no childish, holiday energy in this house, and that was because of that witch-mother of his. Tuesday brushed a quick hand over her face at the harsh reality she saw in his hazel eyes. All this little guy had ever wanted was his mother’s love. Wasn’t that a desolate thought on the day before the holiest night of the year?

“Right, son. Need a hug?” Grissom asked, his voice so darned tender.

Without a word, Tanner scrambled out of Tuesday’s embrace and fell into his father’s. Grissom’s burly arm wrapped around him, as he extended his other arm for Tuesday to join the huddle. By then, she truly detested Pam for what she’d done to this fragile child. Her first-born son, for the love of God. What made some people so mean?

Grissom murmured into Tanner’s hair, “You’re safe, kiddo. No one can ever hurt you again. They’ll have to go through me and Tuesday first, and that just plain isn’t happening.”

Darned if Tuesday didn’t whisper, “I know,” at the exact same moment Tanner did.

Embarrassed, she leaned away, but Grissom’s grip held her still. “You’re safe, too,” he said. “Now, let’s eat. We’ve got a Christmas tree to chop down today.”

That broke the evil spell that had seeped into the morning. With a mighty sniff, Tanner wiggled out of Grissom’s arms and dropped to the floor. Very carefully, not even the littlest bit excited at the idea of chopping down a tree, he returned his scrapbook and supplies to his drawer. Tuesday would’ve distanced herself from his father while Tanner was occupied, but Grissom pulled her onto his lap by the time Tanner was back on his feet.

“Son,” he said evenly. “I like Tuesday and I want her to stay with us for Christmas. Is that okay with you?”

The toothy grin on Tanner’s pale face was more than Tuesday expected. But when he squealed, “I love Miss Tuesday, Dad! Please say yes, Miss Tuesday. Say you’ll stay forever. Please!”

Wow. He was excited but—over her? It was all she could do not to bawl her eyes out at all the bleak Christmases he must’ve lived through, to make her staying one more night seem like it was all he’d ever wanted.

She didn’t want to disappoint him, but she hated the holiday. The blessed, infamous day had only ever swamped her with lost, painful memories and the ghosts that went with them. Her mom. Her dad. Her dearest friend, Freddie. The tiny kids Maeve Astor had murdered. Their poor dead father, the unsuspecting man Astor had married solely to give birth to the children she’d intended to murder in order to frame Tuesday. All because Freddie had saved a broken little girl from Duluth, then married her to cement her standing as his sole legal heir. Which seemed totally bizarre, since neither of his sons would’ve contested his will in the first place. But that was a mystery Tuesday suspected would rear its ugly head soon enough. Not today.

Before her heart had time to wander farther down her depressing memory lane, Grissom’s big hand captured her cheek and turned her to face him. “We’ve all got ghosts,” he whispered. “Me. Tanner. You. Luke, too. Help us guys remember what Christmas is supposed to be about. I want this to be their best one ever. Please stay?”

Not fair. How could she refuse these adorable beggars? Tuesday swallowed hard, not sure of anything but the sweet glow in this man’s and his darling boy’s hazel eyes.

Freddie had also taught her the most important rule of negotiation: Always ask for one more thing. So she did. “I’ll stay if I get to pick the tree.”

“Yessssss!” Tanner yelled, jumping up and down as if his legs were made of springs. Then he was out the door, screaming, “Luke! Tuesday’s gonna stay with us! Luke! Luke! Tuesday’s staying for the whole day and then all night!”

She burrowed into Grissom’s arms as Tanner’s voice faded down the hall. “Notice he didn’t say I’m just staying for Christmas? Are you sure about this?” she asked, frightened this was another lapse for Grissom. Worried he’d throw up those prickly fortress walls without warning and block her out, like he had so many times yesterday. “Are we running when we should be walking? Taking it slow? At least, slower? For your boys’ sakes?”

He growled, burying his nose into the sensitive spot behind her ear. “We’re the same, you and me, remember? Both afraid to take chances. Afraid to let ourselves be happy. You had a family once. You actually know what real Christmases are supposed to feel like. I don’t and neither do my boys. Help me make this one a Christmas to remember.”

“And then what?” She could feel his lips curve into a smile against her skin.

“And then, I’ll persuade you to stay and show us how to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Groundhog Day. Valentine’s Day. Saint Patrick’s Day. Umm…”

“Easter?” she asked, suppressing the giggle working its way out of her heart.

Grissom leaned back, his hand smoothing over her backside. “Mardi Gras.”

“That’s not a holiday.”

“It is in New Orleans.” By then that massive hand was in the back of her pants, his callused fingers squeezing her butt.

“Boys. Breakfast,” she reminded him, before they went crazy on each other. Not that she’d mind, but not with his boys waiting for them in the kitchen.

“Ah, yes. Right. Boys.” He pulled his hand out of her pants. “Duty first, huh?”

“Not duty. Love. Your boys will always come first.” She blew into his ear. “Then play.”

Grissom laughed, his heart full of so much joy, that he sounded like Tanner. Guess falling in love was contagious because Tuesday was falling too. For the entire McCoy family. Even the cat. And she was falling hard. But that couldn’t be. It might be time to think about them instead of herself. It might be time to get up, pack up, and leave. For their sakes.