Clean Lines (Cedar Tree #4) (33 page)

After Arlene's own initial rocky start with Clint, she appears to have grown quite fond of the big lug. Has to be said though, the man does have a way of getting off on the wrong foot with just about every female he encounters. Once people realize the words out of his mouth aren’t intended to be as offensive to the recipient as they might initially sound when they leave his mouth—being the true tender-heart that he is—it's easy to recognize the good man underneath. Well. For everyone except Beth, around who he seems to get so rattled, the holes he digs himself with his 'Southern charm' just keep getting deeper and deeper. Curious that she'd be the one sitting by his bedside, holding his hand and almost willing him to pull through this.

"Your man is already in the kitchen having a chat with Seb if you want to go in. I'll just clean off that booth by the window and you guys can sit when you're done."

I find the guys chatting by the big industrial stove where Seb is cooking something that smells absolutely amazing.

"What'ya making?" I ask leaning over his shoulder to peek in the pan. Seb turns around to give me a hug and kiss, and shakes his head with a chuckle when a low growl can be heard from Joe's direction.

"Jambalaya, with freshly ground spices, mango, chicken and spicy sausage. No shrimp in this one," he responds grabbing a tasting spoon from the drawer in his work-station, scoops some up and holds it out for me to try. "Here, have a taste."

The flavors burst out over my tongue; a sharp bite of the sausage and what I'm sure is hot pepper, the juicy morsels of chicken, the tang of the mango and the fragrance of the cumin and cloves I can detect, have me ordering a big bowl for lunch. Delicious. Joe follows suit and we find our booth, each carrying our own food to the table.

"What did you need to talk to me about?" I ask Joe, when both of us sit back with an after-lunch coffee.

"Gus offered me a place with GFI last night. I won't say this hasn't crossed my mind before, or is an idea that is entirely new, but with this suspension and the way the brass is dragging their heels to get it resolved, I'm getting tired of the political manoeuvring. Pissed that I'd have to be worried about placing my family's safety before everything else, knowing it could come back to bite me. It's no way to build a future. Be putting a serious kink in the pleasure I used to take in working. The thought of being able to continue in the law-enforcement field, with a company I know will always have not only my, but my family's back, is very appealing. I'm thinking about it, but didn't want to make any decisions without you." With a creased brow and pensive eyes he looks at me, as if to gage my reaction. So I grab his hand over the table and hold on while I seriously consider my words.

"I hate the thought that I may have been cause for the problems they've been giving you, but—" I hold up my hand when he opens his mouth to protest, "I realize it isn't much different from what I've just done with the hospital myself. I think you'll love working with Gus and the boys and though I'm sure you'll miss certain parts of the job you’d leave behind, you'll get so much more in return. You need to know that I've never felt safer, even with everything we've just been through, with you by my side. I'm so grateful for the promise of a future full of that security."

Joe reaches over with his free hand to wipe at the tears that have started trickling down my face.

"Happy tears then?" he asks smiling, cocking his head to the side.

"Extremely," I tell him.

After a productive meeting with Kendra in the afternoon, where we manage to create a long list of needs, wants and dreams for the future in terms of the clinic, I roll into bed that night wrapped around Joe's large protective frame, exhausted but excited by all the upcoming changes.

Around two in the morning though, I wake up screaming from a nightmare featuring a green Toyota.

"
It's okay, beautiful. I've got you."

I wake up with Naomi screaming and thrashing in the bed beside me, but before I can grab hold of her, she bolts out of the bed and climbs in the bathtub where she sits curled up and shaking, looking at me like I'm the boogeyman. Fox comes flying in from the living room, his hair all askew from sleep.

"What's wrong? Why's Mom screaming?"

"Bad dream, Bud. Go back to bed. We have a big moving day tomorrow and we're getting up early. I'll take care of your mom. Don't worry."

I watch him shuffle back to the couch before closing the door and stepping into the bathtub to gather Naomi up and wrap myself around her. The whimpers from her lips gut me. She hasn't had an attack in weeks and I'm not sure where this one comes from. Out of the blue.

It's not that long before her breathing returns to normal and her eyes become clearer, and she lifts her face to me for a kiss.

"What happened, babe? One minute you’re in the middle of what looked like a nightmare, and the next, you're in a full-fledged attack."

"I remember only bits and pieces of the dream, but I think I know what triggered it. With all the distractions yesterday, I forgot to mention the green Toyota."

"What green Toyota? Like the one that cut us off a while back?" I'm a little surprised something like that would be cause for a nightmare, but her next words send a cold chill through me.

"Looked like the same one. I actually had an incident with one just like it at the first intersection in town. It just blew through the stop sign and I barely managed to avoid being broadsided."

I grab hold of her shoulders and sit her back so I can look at her. "Why didn't you call?"

"I was going to as soon as I got to Katie's but then she was waiting with Mattias and I got busy examining him. It slipped my mind until I was on my way to the diner and meant to tell you then, but we got to talking about other things and it disappeared into the background."

"Naomi," I growl, angry at her for not contacting me immediately. "Something like this happens, you stop and call right away. Understood?"

"Whatever," she says turning away and making moves to get out of the tub, but I hold her pulling her back against my front.

"Not whatever, Doc. I mean it. The thought of something happening to you is enough to give me a heart attack. My job’s to look after you and I can't do that if you don't let me know. I could've done more at that moment than I'll be able to do now."

"Fine, Joe. I get your point already. It wasn't intentional and it obviously was enough to worm its way into my subconscious and set off a panic attack. No need to treat me like a child." She is still stiff in my arms, so I get up out of the tub and carry her to the bed where I lay her down.

"Trust me, beautiful. Last thing I see you as is a child, but give me a break. Seeing you go through one of these attacks is hard enough when there is nothing I can do to make it better, but at least I'm here to hold you. Knowing that something might've happened when I wasn't around or even aware? That's the cherry on top."

I crawl in beside her and am pleased as fuck when she turns to wrap herself around me.

"Sorry," she mumbles in my chest.

"Sleep, babe. Big day tomorrow remember?"

Within minutes I hear her breathing even out, but I lay awake until morning—thinking about that damn Toyota.

"Where do you want me to put this?"

"Bring that one to the basement. I'm gonna buy a smaller one for the living room," Naomi answers Neil, who walks in carrying a large flat screen TV.

Naomi is standing in the hallway of the new place directing where everything that comes in the house should be taken. I have to smile, because my girl has exposed a side to her I haven't had an opportunity to see in action before. She is bossing around six big men, plus Fox who's also a fair bit taller than his mom, like the dictator of a small country. She’s organized. I mean organized with a capital O.

When all our friends started gathering in Emma's kitchen this morning for her move—even Seb who had committed to helping for a few hours—she had a script ready to go in each truck with detailed instructions on what to load first and who would take responsibility for each individual room in her house. She claims it's because she can't be two places at once, and this is the only way for her to make sure everything gets here and is placed where she wants it. Not that we'd have a chance to miss that, ‘cause every box and large item in her old place is labeled with its origin and its 'new home.' Standing in the hallway, she checks every item and each box against her own list, and when an item is missing from the load, she insists it be first to come in on the next load.

"Fuck, she's scary," Caleb mumbles to me under his breath after she catches him accidentally putting a box intended for the basement down in the mudroom for a minute to grab a quick drink of water.  "You'd think she caught me stealing the silver or something, the way she just stared from the doorway with her hands on her hips. Like Mother Superior at a convent school. I swear my dick has been left a stump and my balls are shriveled to raisins."

Mal, who overhears his brother and I, bends over laughing. Little Naomi putting the fear of God into the six-foot-five ex-ranger is funny as fuck. When I look over Mal's shoulder, I see her standing in the doorway directing poor Neil with another box and Fox won't even come near her.

I walk over to her and she throws me a pointed look when she sees my hands empty. Without a word I pick her up over her protests and walk her into the mudroom where I set her on the washer, inserting myself between her legs and kiss the indignant protest right out of her. When I finally pull back I keep her from moving by resting my hands on either side of her hips to box her in.

"Joe. I've gotta get out there, things will go wrong if I'm not there to make sure they put stuff in the right place."

"Doc, you think maybe you're overdoing it a bit? Hell, you scared the shit out of Caleb. Maybe let up a little? They're grown-ass men, beautiful, and with the detailed instructions you provided everyone with, there's no way something could go wrong. A little faith, okay?"

Naomi's eyes have gone big and are starting to water. Damn, don't want to make her cry.

"Did he say something? Is he mad?" she asks in a little voice, no sign of the slightly tyrannical Naomi we've seen all morning.

"No babe, but you can relax a little. I promise we'll get everything out of the old house and in here. On the off chance something ends up in the wrong spot, it won't be the end of the world. We'll come across it eventually, right?" I try. "What is it that has you so tightly wound today?"

"I don't know. I...I guess...I keep expecting something to go wrong, you know? Like this past week has been the quiet before the storm? I just want to make sure at least the move would go off without any surprises." She drops her head to my shoulder and I pull her into a tight hug.

"I've talked to the guys and put a call in to Dooley to keep an eye out for that green Toyota. Neil did a bit of a trace on the partial number you remembered but had gotten no hits before we left. He'll check again when he's done. Can't tell you to stop worrying, but we're on it."

A knock on the mudroom door is Neil asking where to put a ratty old club chair.

"Sorry, Doc, but that thing is butt-ugly," I tell her when we walk into the hallway and see the lime-green stained chair sitting in the hallway.

"I know, but Fox loves it. He says it's comfy for gaming. I didn't tag it, hoping that by some miracle it'd be left behind, ‘cause Fox won't let me throw it out, but I see you guys are diligent," she says with something near disappointment on her face.

"I can see why he likes it," Neil says, earning a snort from Naomi. "It's one of those chairs you can hang in all day; lay back with your legs over the side. By the way, when I pulled off the seat cushion, I spotted this sticking out between the armrest and the springs." He pulls a disc case out of his pocket and hands it to Naomi. "
Mario Brothers
. It's an old one. Haven't checked if the actual game is in there."

Naomi opens the case and her mouth drops open. Looking over her shoulder I see the disc inside.
'For Mom'
is written in permanent marker right on it.