Boomtown (27 page)

  Jon laughed too.

  Jon knew that she was mine.  We had spoken at least four times since I had met her, and I had told them all about her.  I’m sure they were surprised to hear that I was going to have a baby though.

  “Tell her its twins.” I said happily.

  “Oh, fuck.  Leslie, calm the fuck down!”  Jon said to my mom. 

  My mom quieted down, but started right back up again when he told her that it was twins.  Apparently thirty two years old was too long to wait to have kids, and she was happy that I was finally giving her grandchildren, or at least that is what I got from the screaming and shrieking she was doing.

  I smiled at the memory now. I loved having my mom around and seeing her so happy. There was a time when I was younger that her smiles were rare and fleeting.  I had seen her smile more in this last week than I have since I was a young boy. 

  I walked up to my mom and enveloped her in a big bear hug, and she hugged me right back.  We stayed like that for a long while, and she pulled back and looked at me, then reached forward and straightened the bars on my chest, even though they were perfect.

  “You look very handsome!” she said.

  I smiled and said “Yeah yeah, you can thank Cheyenne for this.  This is itchy.  I do not miss this part of the military.  These uniforms make me hot and sweaty.”

  Cheyenne begged me to wear my uniform.  She also begged the other guys as well.  So we were all decked out in our dress uniforms, medals, bars and all.  We had worn them for Dougie’s funeral, and Cheyenne said we looked handsome, so here we were.

  My mom led me to a room off the side of the hall, told me I had about an hour, and left.  I raised my eyebrows as she closed the door, and left me in here alone.  Well, she never used to act like this.  Jon was good for her.

  Elliott, Jack, and Jon arrived within minutes of each other all of them decked out in uniforms.  James came to check in, but turned right around and left so he could be with Cheyenne.  Gabriel came in and went to the bathroom with a zippered bag that held his uniform and returned about five minutes later dressed except for his shoes.

 “You have got some balls marrying that woman.”  Gabe said.  “They are fucking nuts.  There wasn’t a minute today that they weren’t joking around, or playing pranks, or teasing each other.  Are you sure you want to do this for the rest of your life?”

  I smiled and said “Yep.”

  We joked around for another hour until Blaine came to tell us to take our places.  Elliott practically drooled when he saw her dress, so we left him to it and headed out into the main hall.  I stood at the front with the preacher. The guys all went and took a seat, except for Jack who stood up with me.

  “You ready for this?” he asked me.

  “She was made for me.  I’d kill for her.  I’d die for her.” I said simply.

  Meet in the Middle by Diamond Rio started playing and I started laughing.  Only her. 

  The doors opened and my breath stalled.  She was beautiful.  There were no words to describe how heart stropping beautiful. She was wearing a white strapless dress that had some sort of crystal beading all over it, the cups were molded to her breasts and perked them up perfectly.  The bottom half reminded me of Cinderella, it was so poofy.  Her hair was up in some sort of torture looking up do with little ringlets coming out here and there.  She had one single necklace on, one that her mom had explained that her husband had given her before he died in combat.

  She made it about five steps in when I decided I couldn’t wait any longer.  I took off down the aisle, looking only at her.  People started laughing, but I didn’t take my eyes off of her face.

  I got to her once she was about a quarter of the way down the aisle and grabbed her around the waist.  She wrapped her arms around me, and then went a bit further and wrapped her legs around me as well. James had let go of her or he would have been brought along for the ride.  He shook his head, laughed walked to his seat and sat down.

  “You look exquisite.” I whispered to her.

  “You look mighty handsome yourself.”  She said back to me.  “That uniform does things for me.”

  I laughed, and turned and walked her down to the preacher, noticing smiles as I went.  Once there, I sat her back down on her feet, and the preacher proceeded with the service.  Luckily it was short and quick, because all I could think about was getting Cheyenne out of that dress.

  ∞

  I snapped out of my head with a start when the ambulance came to a halt outside of the ER.  I hopped out and headed around the ambulance to watch the medics lower her down from the back and wheel her through the automatic doors.  I held Cheyenne’s hand the whole way, only letting go when we had to pass through the narrow door way of the hospital room.

  The doctor agreed with the paramedic’s assessment, and only covered the cut with a liquid bandage.  They told us to watch the cut and make sure it didn’t become infected, and then did a sonogram just to make sure everything looked alright with the babies.

  It was amazing how much different they look now compared to how I first remember seeing them at only three months.  They were perfect little babies who had chubby cheeks and cute little smiles on their faces.  The doctor stopped on a shot of their nether regions and I was stunned to see that it was a girl.

  “It’s a girl?”  I asked. 

  “You didn’t get my message?” Cheyenne asked.

 “No.  What message was that?” I asked.

  “Umm.  Right before, ya know, I was sending you pictures of the ultrasound.  They are both girls.” She said.  “My phone, purse, and pictures are gone!

  “Max has them.  That is how he knew something was wrong and you were gone.” I said quietly.

  Other than my jaw clenching at her ya know, I was extremely happy.  Two girls.  They weren’t dating until they were thirty.  I was going to be that dad that met them at the door with the shotgun.  Is it legal to but a GPS chip in your kids?  God, just thinking about what could happen to them in this fucked up world made me break out in a cold sweat. I vowed to myself that I wasn’t going to sleep until I found that little prick, but off his arms and beat him to death with them.  He was as good as dead.

CHEYENNE

  “I want a hamburger.” I said to Sam.  “Wendy’s” 

  Sam just smiled and pulled up at the little speaker box and ordered me a number one with a large chocolate frosty, and a bowl of chili.

  “Tomorrow I want pancakes and French fries.” I declared.

  “What?” he asked. “Why would you want those two things together?”

  “How is that any different from hash browns and pancakes?” I queried.

  “Well not much I suppose, you just don’t hear that of kind of combination.” He explained.

  Our order was handed to us, and we pulled back into traffic heading back home.  I had my entire order eaten before we pulled into Free five minutes later.  I was just sucking down the dregs of my Dr. Pepper when I let out a little tiny belch.

  “Three.” Sam said.

  “No way.  That was at least a five.” I teased.

  “No.  That was pitiful.  You could have done way better.  Even Kayla and Janie could do better than that.” He laughed out. 

  I handed him my trash, and opened the door and slid out of the truck.   

  “I would kill for a ride on your motorcycle right now.  I miss it.” I said to him as we walked to the door. 

  He chuckled, opened the door and said “That would look really funny.  I think it’s against a biker code somewhere to do that.”

  “I’m sure it is.  I don’t think I would even be able to hold on.” I said to him turning sideways to slip past him into the house. My belly rubbed against him as I went and he laughed.

  “Sorry.  I forget how far I stick out sometimes.” I said

  “It’s okay, baby.  I like it when you touch me.” He said huskily.

  I smiled over my shoulder and went to the bathroom to pee.  Once that was done I walked into the bedroom stripping all of my clothes off as I went. 

  Sam was already on his back in the bed, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling.  He was wearing a pair of red boxer briefs that cupped his package beautifully.  The muscles in his arms stood out because of how he was holding his arms.  The v of his abs looked more prominent as well.  I licked my lips, and let out a breath.  His face looked like stone however.

  “Are you okay, honey?” I asked him as I sat on the bed.

  He turned his head my way, then let his eyes trail down my naked body.  I was over being self-conscious about my body in front of him.  Once the belly started poking out I went out of my way to hide it, and he called me out on it. 

  I had just stepped out of the shower when he walked in to shave his face.  I normally was pretty open about letting him see me, but this time I went out of my way to hide my body from him.

  “Don’t.”  He said to me.

  I looked up and met his eyes in the mirror, towel clutched to my chest.

  “Don’t what?” I feigned ignorance.

  “Don’t hide your body from me.  There is nothing sexier than seeing my baby growing in you.  Nothing.  All I have to do is think about it, and I get an instant hard-on, let alone look at you.  You are beautiful.  Don’t take it from me.” Sam said.

  I gave him a small smile, and dropped the towel on the floor and walked up to him and hugged him from behind. 

  “Okay.” I whispered, and then placed a kiss to the middle of his back.

  Sam was looking at me now like I had grown even hotter in his eyes.  That made me so very happy, because I would forever have a changed body thanks to my lovely fat babies that were growing inside of me.

  “Yes, baby.  As long as I have you, I am perfect.” He said reaching for me and pulling me down so that I was spooned from behind.  He reached back and turned the lamp off plunging us into darkness.  He grabbed the pillows at the end of the bed, and situated one between my legs, the other went to support my belly.  He dragged the comforter over us, and then wrapped me up in his strong arms. 

  “I love you, Sam.” I whispered into the darkness. 

  “I love you, too.” He said back to me.

  I fell asleep not long after that.  I woke once, my heart pounding and terror running through my veins, but Sam’s husky voice pulled me out of the night mare that I was having.

  “It’s okay, baby. I’m here.  It was just a nightmare.”

  I settled back down, then turned in his arms, getting a more comfortable position, and then fell back asleep. 

  What I didn’t know is that Sam stayed awake the entire night, his hands alternating from my stomach feeling the babies move, and his hand over my heart so he could reassure himself that it was still beating.

Chapter 20

  It was the tenth of December, and Cheyenne made me promise that we would go get a Christmas tree, so here I was after lunch time to go and get one.  It was Friday; six weeks had passed since Cheyenne was kidnapped.  Her stomach was heeled, and only a faint pink line was left of what Malcolm had done to her.

  Surprisingly Cheyenne bounced back with nothing worse for wear.  She didn’t act like anything even happened.  She had told me a couple of days later why she wasn’t more upset. 

  “I knew you would come for me, Sam.  It never crossed my mind that you would be there for me.  Don’t blame yourself, there was nothing you could have done differently that would have changed anything.  Malcolm can’t run our lives.  We have to go about living ours, or he will win.”

  I didn’t question her much after that, I trusted her to let me know if there was anything that I could do.  I accompanied her to every one of her appointments since then to make sure that the same thing would happen again. 

  The plan to capture Malcolm at the warehouse was a go.  All the details were worked out, and we had Malcolm’s usual routine down enough that we could set up the sting without worry.  

  Jack was able to track down his financials, and found that he was transferring a hefty deposit into a local cop’s bank account.  Finding the cop was not hard at all, and with Officer Peterson and Cooper’s help he was found quickly.

  The local cop was just a beat cop, and was only there to inform Malcolm if something was happening in the station.  He was supposed to keep his name from being run as well.  Guess the cop wasn’t doing as good of a job as he should have been.  Malcolm had used the cop’s daughter against him.  She had just been diagnosed with cancer, and wouldn’t have been able to pay for it without Malcolm’s help.

  It was sad, but there was no excuse for it, and the cop flipped extremely fast.  He had already been wavering on whether he actually wanted to continue doing it and with just a little persuasion from us and he told us everything he knew.

  He normally met him at a local abandoned warehouse every other Tuesday, and in an emergency he had a cell phone number he was to use.  Jack was able to put a track on his phone and we followed his movements for the past week to make sure we didn’t have any nasty surprises. 

  The meeting that was supposed to take place this coming Tuesday was when we were going to make our move.  The warehouse has been monitored inside and out since we found out about it.  We didn’t want to make any rookie mistakes by rushing into this.  We were taking our time, watching and waiting until we knew with certainty that we weren’t going into an ambush.

  Cheyenne wasn’t aware of our operation however.  She was blissfully unaware, and I planned to keep it that way.  She was finally starting to get into this baby thing, and I didn’t want to ruin it for her by telling her something that would worry her to death. 

  I walked in through the front door, closing it behind me with a quiet snick.  I followed the sound of the music to the back bedroom that we had just added onto the back of the duplex.

  The house originally had two bedrooms, one being mine, and the other being a home office that housed nearly all of the files and computers that we used for the garage.  Knowing that we didn’t have the room we needed, I called a contractor I knew from the army and he came out and gave me a quote.  Once we discussed the price and details, they started on it the very next day.   They were able to add on the new addition in only three weeks, working overtime to do it.