The Woman Left Behind: A Novel Read online

  The ridiculousness of that thought so entertained her that she chuckled out loud in the darkness. Ah, hell; she wasn’t sleeping, at least not until she calmed down some, so she might as well get up and do what she could to get ready for the taco bar tomorrow. She checked the time, saw it was almost one-thirty a.m., and changed that “tomorrow” to “today!” What on earth had possessed her to invite everyone to her little condo?

  Oh, well; she’d get to know the wives, mainly because everyone would practically be sitting on top of each other. And as her mom always said, it wasn’t the surroundings, it was the company. And the food. She couldn’t stretch her condo and make it bigger, but she could make sure the food was both fun and good.

  And thank God, because the event was right on top of her, and that gave her something else to focus on; otherwise, she’d have lain in bed and wallowed in fury and self-pity all night long. As it was, she got up and muttered irritably to herself the whole time she cleaned the condo. After all, it was one-freaking-thirty in the morning—now two in the morning—and she was cleaning instead of sleeping, and it was all Levi Butcher’s fault, damn his black heart and eyes and every other part.

  She wanted everyone who came to have a great time and spend the next day telling Levi all about it. And she might even indulge in a little PDA with Donnelly . . . Brian . . . no, that wouldn’t be fair to him, not when she knew there’d be no romantic relationship with him, ever. Damn.

  She went back to bed at four and was so tired she slept like a rock for all of three hours. After months of getting up early, her body evidently thought that was what it was supposed to do. Supposedly the guys had perfected what they called the “combat nap,” so they could grab a quick nap whenever they needed it, but that wasn’t something they’d taught her yet.

  Because there would be kids—and men, even if the kids were left with babysitters—she made a big sheet cake with her mother’s special chocolate frosting. She got fancy and made another batch of frosting, colored some of it red and some green, and piped some roses and leaves onto the cake. Baking was something she enjoyed, and she was the only one of three daughters to have inherited her mother’s touch with cakes. Then to make the kids laugh, she piped some big red lips and a tongue sticking out, right in the middle of the cake. There—something for everyone. She would have added teeth, but she didn’t know the ages of the kids and she didn’t want to scare them.

  She’d told everyone to be there at six, but she was dressed—such as it was, in jeans and sneakers and a lightweight sweatshirt—at five-thirty, because she didn’t trust the guys not to show up early. They were guys, after all. “I must be psychic,” she said smugly, when the doorbell rang at exactly five-thirty-eight.

  After a peek through the peephole, she opened the door to Jelly and Crutch. “Hi. Did y’all come together?”

  “Naw, we stopped dating a year ago,” Crutch said, then laughed at his own joke. “We always have our own wheels, and our gear, in case we get called out on a mission.”

  “I’ll have to do that, too,” she said in dawning realization. She was on the brink of full membership on the team. She’d been so engrossed in training she hadn’t thought it through to all the ways, big and small, that her life would change.

  “Yep.” Jelly put his hands on his hips and looked around. “Nice place.”

  It wasn’t, not really. For starters, it was an upstairs unit, which wasn’t ideal. It was on the small side. Her furniture tended more toward comfy than stylish. But they were bachelors, so what did they know? Some framed prints on the walls, a rug or two, window treatments other than plain blinds, and the place likely seemed almost luxurious to them. Oh—and clean. Clean went a long way.

  “Glad y’all come could. Can I get you something to drink?”

  “You have any beer?” Crutch asked, looking less than hopeful.

  “Beer, soft drinks, bottled water, fruit juice for the kids. Come on into the kitchen.” She’d stocked some popular brands—Bud, Coors, Corona—and had them all iced down in a cooler. She’d barely gotten the beers opened and in their hands before the doorbell rang again. Donnelly stood in the small entrance alcove, a six-pack of beer in his hand.

  “I didn’t know if you’d have enough,” he said, holding up the beer.

  “Thanks. Want to take it to the kitchen and put it on ice? Crutch and Jelly are already here.”

  “Cool.” From his eager look, she thought he was looking forward to hanging with some of the team guys. None of the other team leaders had followed Levi’s lead and involved themselves in their training, so she was the only one who so far had had any real interaction with them.

  Only a minute behind Donnelly was Snake, with Ailani and their three kids, ages seven, five, and two—boy, girl, boy. Ailani held a dripping umbrella, and Snake held the two-year-old with a firm grip around the kid’s legs, which was a good thing because the toddler had thrown himself backward and was hanging head down, shrieking. Jina laughed; all of a sudden, the noise felt like home.

  “Ailani, Jina,” Snake said in brief introduction. The decibel level from the upside-down kid went up ten points, and he shifted his grip until he was holding his son by both ankles.

  “Don’t drop him,” Ailani warned and gave Jina a polite smile. “It’s nice to meet you. Thanks for inviting us, though I’m not sure you knew what you were getting into.”

  “I did,” Jina reassured her. “I’m the middle one of five kids, so to me family means a lot of people and noise.” Ailani struck her as somewhat reserved, maybe a little tired and not exactly pleased to be there, so she didn’t overdo the friendliness. “Let me take everyone’s coats, and the umbrella. Drinks in the kitchen, Crutch and Jelly and Brian are already in there.”

  “Who’s Brian?” Snake asked as he passed her.

  “My date. He’s assigned to Kodak’s team.”

  “He is? I can tell him a thing or three about Kodak.”

  Next was Trapper, then Voodoo, who for some reason seemed to be wildly popular with Snake’s two oldest kids. There was no accounting for taste, especially at their ages. Boom and his wife, Terisa, were last, with a gap-toothed eight-year-old boy and a big-eyed three-year-old girl who was so cute as she clutched Boom’s leg and peeped around it that Jina couldn’t help squatting down and trying to entice her to talk—a useless effort, because she merely shook her head and clutched Boom’s leg even tighter.

  “Her name is Mia. She’ll warm up in a while, and then you’ll regret trying to get her to talk.” Terisa smiled, but her eyes were even more tired than Ailani’s and she was in scrubs, which meant she’d either met Boom and the kids here or they’d been so pressed for time she hadn’t taken the time to change. “Thanks for inviting us; saved me from ordering another pizza.”

  Jina couldn’t help shooting a quick look at Boom, who narrowed his eyes at her in warning. Terisa caught the look. “What?” she demanded suspiciously, sending her own narrow-eyed look at Boom. “Have you been throwing off on my cooking again?”

  “No,” he said with absolute honesty and beat a path for the kitchen, ignoring the snorting noise Terisa made at his back.

  With two tired wives and a bunch of men who were attacking the beer, Jina deemed that the sooner she got food in everyone, the better. She had the taco beef keeping warm in two slow-cookers, and all the other components had been chopped and diced and were ready to set out. Within fifteen minutes, everyone had tacos except the two youngest kids, and she’d had the foresight to get chicken nuggets for them.

  Snake’s toddler had stopped shrieking to run around the condo with a chicken nugget clutched in each hand, yelling, “Chee! Chee!” at his mother.

  Ailani gave Jina a harassed look. “Sorry. Do you have any cheese other than the shredded? He’s a cheese hound.”

  “I do,” Jina said, and got a bag of cubed cheese from the fridge. The cubed cheese evidently called to all the kids, and before she knew it the bag was empty, but the toddler was quiet and happy.