She grinned. “No. That’s why I asked you to pick me up at the airport.”
Chapter 17
You need to get in shape. If you were murdered right now, your chalk outline would be a circle.
-Things you shouldn’t tell your pregnant sister
Hoax
Two weeks later
“Yo,” Carl called.
I looked up just in time to see a box the size of a twin-size mattress coming directly at my face. Okay, technically it wasn’t really all that big. More the size of a shoebox, but it was still pretty big when it was coming directly at your head.
I caught it and managed not to get hit, but barely.
“Thanks,” I said dryly.
“Welcome,” he sat down next to me. “What’d we get?”
I laughed.
In the sixteen weeks that we’d been here, the men of my team had come to love mail day almost as much as I did.
Pru sent each of the men a little something, learning their likes and dislikes almost as easily as she’d learned mine.
I handed out the boxes as fast as I could, and each man ripped into them.
“Why is my woman having to send us stuff when y’all have women at home?” I accused, looking at both Treat, who didn’t give a single damn, and Carl.
Carl shrugged. “My wife only sends me letters. They’re sweet and all, but damn I wish she’d send me some fuckin’ food.”
I grunted in reply and pulled the box closer to me. The rest of the stuff was mine.
Grinning, I reached for the fortune cookies first.
Lately, I’d had one in each box.
They were getting increasingly weird.
Last time I’d gotten one, it’d said ‘soon to be three peas in our crazy pod.’
This week’s was no different.
“And then there were three,” I read aloud. “Boring.”
I tossed the fortune into the box and reached for the sticks of beef jerky that she always sent that I only ever got one or two pieces of if I wasn’t fast enough.
“What’s up with those fortunes?” Carl mumbled around a mouth full of powdered donuts.
I leaned back in my chair and popped the top on the hot Dr. Pepper.
It wasn’t cold, but goddamn was it still good.
“I have no fuckin’ clue,” I admitted. “I’ll have to ask her next time I talk to her if she’s started going to a different Chinese restaurant.”
“Maybe we’ll get to go home soon and you can ask the Chinese place if they started buying from a new supplier.” Treat popped a handful of M&Ms into his mouth.
“Fuck you,” I grumbled.
I was sitting down on my ass when we should be doing something, and honestly, there were about five thousand things that I could think of to do instead of sitting here twiddling my thumbs.
If we’d just get our shit together, we could get the fuck out of here, and I could get home to where I needed to be.
Unfortunately, we were playing a hurry up and wait game, and that game was one that couldn’t be rushed—at least according to the commander.
“If the surveillance comes back tonight indicating our target is in the area, we’ll move on him,” Treat said. “I know y’all are getting restless, but hopefully the end is in sight.”
The end was in sight.
Goddamn, but that had been the exact same thing on the fortune cookie Pru had sent me in her package of random shit that she thought I might like.
Grinning when I thought about it and how accurate that fortune was, I found myself thinking about the other fortunes I’d gotten while I’d been home with her.
The first one: A short stranger will soon enter your life with many blessings to share.
That one, at least, wasn’t true. Not unless a ‘short stranger’ was indicating Pru, but I’d already met her at the time.
The second fortune that I’d gotten: Patience may not be your virtue, but you must learn to embrace it or you’ll kill your friends.
That one, I hoped, was one I was following.
Patience was indeed a virtue. One that I very rarely possessed.
“All right, y’all have until eighteen hundred hours. I want you back in here not a minute late.” Treat stood up and started to shut down his computer.
We all stood with him and started to file out of the room.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t made it more than a step toward the door before Treat stopped me.
“Not you, Hoax. I have someone that wants to speak with you.”
I frowned. “What?”
“Someone that wants to speak with you,” he repeated. “That was what that call was about. Take a seat right there and I’ll give him a call back.”
What I hadn’t expected was for the ‘call’ to actually be a video chat through Skype.
What else I didn’t expect? Pru’s father’s face to fill up the screen.
Oh, and his next words? Definitely never saw those coming, either.
“I have some information for you that you might find interesting.” He paused. “I’m also fairly positive that what I say won’t leave this room. My contacts know that I’m retired, but from time to time they still come to me with problems hoping that I’ll pass them along to the correct people.”
Sam went on to blow our worlds, spouting out top-secret information even Treat hadn’t been privy to.
At the end of his explanation, we were both sitting there flabbergasted.
Treat blinked. “That completely changes our entire operation.”
Sam nodded once. “I thought it might.”
“Fuck me.” Treat groaned, his big hands going over his face as he growled. “This is fucking bullshit. I can’t believe we fell for that bullshit!”
Bullshit indeed.
We’d been sitting on our hands for the last four months, and we had nothing to show for it but an empty goddamn village that wasn’t the least bit under threat.
“No wonder the other team couldn’t find anything, and they were made.” He shook his head. “They had to be feeding them false information for a while. They likely knew they were plants, too.”
Sam nodded once. “If I get anything more, I’ll tell you.” His eyes shifted from Treat’s to mine. “You, I just wanted to talk to you and tell you that…”
“Surprise!”
***
Pru
“I’m so glad that you’re home for a little bit,” I told Piper. “It feels like you were away forever.”
She grinned. “Six months isn’t forever.”
She took her hat off as we entered the building that my dad used for his offices. I’d asked her if she wanted to go change first, but she’d declined.
Piper and I were both daddy’s girls, and she’d missed him. I didn’t blame her for not wanting to change out of her military uniform.
“Six months is forever when you’re used to seeing your twin every single day,” I felt it prudent to point out.
“Thanks for picking me up from the airport. I wanted to surprise Dad. Mom’s face was priceless when she saw me at work. I had to threaten her not to call Dad and tell him I was here.” She grinned happily.
Our first stop that morning had been the hospital.
I normally didn’t like going in on my days off because I didn’t like dealing with Kelley and his never-ending bullshit, but today was a special circumstance.
And the look on my mother’s face when she saw Piper had been worth it. Even if I had to deal with Kelley and his bitching that we were being too loud.
Why he’d been back in his old office, I didn’t know, but I knew that I’d be telling my dad about it once the excitement died down.
“Jesus, you look really pregnant.” She laughed.
I looked down at my tank top and jeans. My jeans were being held up by an elastic hair tie around the button, and I knew it wouldn’t be much longer and they wouldn’t fit at all.
“It’s the shirt,” I plucked it from my stomach and showed her how tight it fit. “It’s awesome. And long so I’m not showing half my ass every time I raise my arms in the air.”
“It’s not the shirt,” she disagreed. “It’s the fact that you’re pregnant.”
Chapter 17
You need to get in shape. If you were murdered right now, your chalk outline would be a circle.
-Things you shouldn’t tell your pregnant sister
Hoax
Two weeks later
“Yo,” Carl called.
I looked up just in time to see a box the size of a twin-size mattress coming directly at my face. Okay, technically it wasn’t really all that big. More the size of a shoebox, but it was still pretty big when it was coming directly at your head.
I caught it and managed not to get hit, but barely.
“Thanks,” I said dryly.
“Welcome,” he sat down next to me. “What’d we get?”
I laughed.
In the sixteen weeks that we’d been here, the men of my team had come to love mail day almost as much as I did.
Pru sent each of the men a little something, learning their likes and dislikes almost as easily as she’d learned mine.
I handed out the boxes as fast as I could, and each man ripped into them.
“Why is my woman having to send us stuff when y’all have women at home?” I accused, looking at both Treat, who didn’t give a single damn, and Carl.
Carl shrugged. “My wife only sends me letters. They’re sweet and all, but damn I wish she’d send me some fuckin’ food.”
I grunted in reply and pulled the box closer to me. The rest of the stuff was mine.
Grinning, I reached for the fortune cookies first.
Lately, I’d had one in each box.
They were getting increasingly weird.
Last time I’d gotten one, it’d said ‘soon to be three peas in our crazy pod.’
This week’s was no different.
“And then there were three,” I read aloud. “Boring.”
I tossed the fortune into the box and reached for the sticks of beef jerky that she always sent that I only ever got one or two pieces of if I wasn’t fast enough.
“What’s up with those fortunes?” Carl mumbled around a mouth full of powdered donuts.
I leaned back in my chair and popped the top on the hot Dr. Pepper.
It wasn’t cold, but goddamn was it still good.
“I have no fuckin’ clue,” I admitted. “I’ll have to ask her next time I talk to her if she’s started going to a different Chinese restaurant.”
“Maybe we’ll get to go home soon and you can ask the Chinese place if they started buying from a new supplier.” Treat popped a handful of M&Ms into his mouth.
“Fuck you,” I grumbled.
I was sitting down on my ass when we should be doing something, and honestly, there were about five thousand things that I could think of to do instead of sitting here twiddling my thumbs.
If we’d just get our shit together, we could get the fuck out of here, and I could get home to where I needed to be.
Unfortunately, we were playing a hurry up and wait game, and that game was one that couldn’t be rushed—at least according to the commander.
“If the surveillance comes back tonight indicating our target is in the area, we’ll move on him,” Treat said. “I know y’all are getting restless, but hopefully the end is in sight.”
The end was in sight.
Goddamn, but that had been the exact same thing on the fortune cookie Pru had sent me in her package of random shit that she thought I might like.
Grinning when I thought about it and how accurate that fortune was, I found myself thinking about the other fortunes I’d gotten while I’d been home with her.
The first one: A short stranger will soon enter your life with many blessings to share.
That one, at least, wasn’t true. Not unless a ‘short stranger’ was indicating Pru, but I’d already met her at the time.
The second fortune that I’d gotten: Patience may not be your virtue, but you must learn to embrace it or you’ll kill your friends.
That one, I hoped, was one I was following.
Patience was indeed a virtue. One that I very rarely possessed.
“All right, y’all have until eighteen hundred hours. I want you back in here not a minute late.” Treat stood up and started to shut down his computer.
We all stood with him and started to file out of the room.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t made it more than a step toward the door before Treat stopped me.
“Not you, Hoax. I have someone that wants to speak with you.”
I frowned. “What?”
“Someone that wants to speak with you,” he repeated. “That was what that call was about. Take a seat right there and I’ll give him a call back.”
What I hadn’t expected was for the ‘call’ to actually be a video chat through Skype.
What else I didn’t expect? Pru’s father’s face to fill up the screen.
Oh, and his next words? Definitely never saw those coming, either.
“I have some information for you that you might find interesting.” He paused. “I’m also fairly positive that what I say won’t leave this room. My contacts know that I’m retired, but from time to time they still come to me with problems hoping that I’ll pass them along to the correct people.”
Sam went on to blow our worlds, spouting out top-secret information even Treat hadn’t been privy to.
At the end of his explanation, we were both sitting there flabbergasted.
Treat blinked. “That completely changes our entire operation.”
Sam nodded once. “I thought it might.”
“Fuck me.” Treat groaned, his big hands going over his face as he growled. “This is fucking bullshit. I can’t believe we fell for that bullshit!”
Bullshit indeed.
We’d been sitting on our hands for the last four months, and we had nothing to show for it but an empty goddamn village that wasn’t the least bit under threat.
“No wonder the other team couldn’t find anything, and they were made.” He shook his head. “They had to be feeding them false information for a while. They likely knew they were plants, too.”
Sam nodded once. “If I get anything more, I’ll tell you.” His eyes shifted from Treat’s to mine. “You, I just wanted to talk to you and tell you that…”
“Surprise!”
***
Pru
“I’m so glad that you’re home for a little bit,” I told Piper. “It feels like you were away forever.”
She grinned. “Six months isn’t forever.”
She took her hat off as we entered the building that my dad used for his offices. I’d asked her if she wanted to go change first, but she’d declined.
Piper and I were both daddy’s girls, and she’d missed him. I didn’t blame her for not wanting to change out of her military uniform.
“Six months is forever when you’re used to seeing your twin every single day,” I felt it prudent to point out.
“Thanks for picking me up from the airport. I wanted to surprise Dad. Mom’s face was priceless when she saw me at work. I had to threaten her not to call Dad and tell him I was here.” She grinned happily.
Our first stop that morning had been the hospital.
I normally didn’t like going in on my days off because I didn’t like dealing with Kelley and his never-ending bullshit, but today was a special circumstance.
And the look on my mother’s face when she saw Piper had been worth it. Even if I had to deal with Kelley and his bitching that we were being too loud.
Why he’d been back in his old office, I didn’t know, but I knew that I’d be telling my dad about it once the excitement died down.
“Jesus, you look really pregnant.” She laughed.
I looked down at my tank top and jeans. My jeans were being held up by an elastic hair tie around the button, and I knew it wouldn’t be much longer and they wouldn’t fit at all.
“It’s the shirt,” I plucked it from my stomach and showed her how tight it fit. “It’s awesome. And long so I’m not showing half my ass every time I raise my arms in the air.”
“It’s not the shirt,” she disagreed. “It’s the fact that you’re pregnant.”
