Love of a Marine (The Wounded Warriors Series Book 2) (23 page)

“Don’t worry about her. She loves attention, especially from Santos. She might get the idea she’s a pet and forget what her real job is.”

Graciella sat back. “We’re almost there. I’ll just answer his questions as honestly as possible.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Dwayne’s house was quiet. Nobody answered when Cluny knocked on the door. “Looks like nobody’s home. Let’s go around the house to the backyard to make sure.” He opened the gate and knocked again, then took his keys from his pocket and found the one to his buddy’s back door and opened it.

“Anybody home?” he called as they went inside.

“Where do you suppose they could be?”

He pointed to the table. “There’s a note.” He read it and handed it to Graciella. “They went to the grocery store.” He turned on the light over the sink and opened the refrigerator.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for orange juice.” He reached in and pulled out a half-gallon jug and set it on the sink. “Want some?”

“Cluny, this isn’t your house. Should you be helping yourself?”

He was surprised by her reaction. “Dempsey and I are like brothers. He wouldn’t think anything of it.”

“But it’s Marla’s house too. I’m not comfortable coming in here and making myself at home when they’re not here.”

“Marla knows how it is with me and Gunny. As long as I don’t leave a mess for her to clean up, she’s cool.”

“I don’t know, Cluny…it…” The sound of the garage door interrupted her.

“They’re home. I’ll put it back if it makes you feel better. Then I’ll ask Marla’s permission.” He regretted the sharp edge to his comment.

She sniffed. “You don’t have to sound so grumpy about it.”

Marla walked in carrying a couple of bags of groceries. Santos and Amber followed, carrying loaded plastic sacks. “Hi, Graciella, Cluny, when did you get here?”

“Just now, gorgeous.” Cluny kissed her on the mouth. “Let me help with that stuff.” He took Marla’s bags and set them on the kitchen counter. “I was on the receiving end of a lecture from Mrs. Jefferson about making myself too comfortable in your house when you’re not here.”

Marla gave Graciella a hug. “It’s so nice to meet someone with manners. But, don’t worry about Cluny. The way I look at it, he’s just another one of my kids. I’m about to make tuna sandwiches for lunch. Have you eaten?”

“Hi, Mama.” Santos hugged her. “I had so much fun last night at the campout. Were you lonesome without me?”

She took a breath. “Um, no, Cluny stayed at our apartment with me.” Wincing, she glanced at Marla and Cluny. He put a reassuring smile on his lips and nodded.

Santos nodded and smiled at her. “That’s nice. Come on, Amber; let’s let DD out of her carrier. She loves to play with Queen.”

The kids ran from the room, and Graciella crossed her arms and slumped down on one of the kitchen chairs. “I don’t know what I was agonizing over.” She glared at Cluny. “Don’t laugh if you know what’s good for you.”

He laughed anyway. “Oh, I know what’s good for me, baby, but I’ll try to behave.” He turned to Marla. “Where’s Gunny?”

“He’s looking at the engine. He thought he heard something funny and wanted to check it out. Would you bring Declan in? I left him sleeping in his car seat.”

“I’m on it.”

* * *

Graciella joined Marla at the counter and helped unload the groceries.

“My word, Graciella, Dwayne told me what happened last night. Are you OK?”

“It was frightening. I thought Cluny was going to kill Krystal’s boyfriend. If the police hadn’t been there so quick, I don’t know what I would have done.”

“I know what you mean. There’s no doubt in my mind Dwayne would beat the living daylights out of anyone who harmed me or our kids. Cluny and Dwayne are warfighters, natural-born protectors and defenders. It’s in the DNA. I don’t know if it’s possible to turn it off just because they’re not active duty Marines any longer. Fortunately Dwayne does a good job keeping it under control.”

Graciella opened her mouth to say something and stopped abruptly when Cluny returned with the sleeping infant in his carrier. He held a finger to his lips, but the silence was shattered when Santos and Amber ran shrieking past them with DD on their heels barking her little head off. She skidded to a stop in front of Queen, paws on the floor, her furry butt in the air, and barked in the face of the much larger dog. Queen stood, shook herself with ennui, and followed them out the door.

“Look at that,” Graciella said. “Declan slept through the whole thing.”

Cluny grinned at the sleeping infant. His tenderness to the baby was in sharp contrast to his fierceness with Jamal. “I’ll put him in his crib. By the way, that’s some watchdog you’ve got there. She didn’t make a peep when Graciella and I came in.” He took the baby and left them alone.

“Marla, you said something to me at the party, about Cluny and the baby, but never finished your thought.”

“Oh, that’s right. Dwayne said when Amber was an infant he discovered she had a very soothing influence on Cluny whenever he held her. If he became agitated or restless, Dwayne would ask him to care for her, and it calmed him right down. I’m just speculating, but because he’s an orphan I suspect he has a very special place in his heart for children.”

Graciella thought about this. “He is very good with kids. That’s one of the first things I liked about him, the way he is with Santos. I do wonder what he must have gone through in those foster homes after his parents died.”

“He told me a while back that it wasn’t so bad. Most of the foster parents were kind, if not very physically loving, to their charges. Mostly he missed the kind of love he got from his natural parents. He made up for it by holding the babies and hugging the younger ones.”

“He is a hugger. I think every woman at your party yesterday managed to get a hug and a kiss from him. They acted like he was a long-lost boyfriend they were thrilled to see again.”

“There’s no denying it, women and kids do love him, Graciella.”

“He’s very special, isn’t he?” She couldn’t imagine what it was like for him to lose both parents at such a tender age. What would happen to Santos if he were suddenly left alone in the world without her love and care? At least he had grandparents who loved him.

“Yes. It’s easy to love Cluny. He and Dwayne became fast friends when they both attended the same junior high school in Buffalo, Wyoming. Dwayne’s two brothers lived with their dad here in Southern California, while he stayed with his mother at the family ranch after their parents divorced. He adopted Cluny as another brother. Kathleen welcomed him to the ranch with open arms when he aged out of foster care. They’re family, however you look at it.”

“I guess that’s why he thinks he can just walk right into your house and help himself to whatever’s in the refrigerator?”

Marla laughed. “It took some getting used to, but then I realized my sister and brothers behaved the same way at my place, and it didn’t bother me a bit. Did I tell you I have identical twin brothers, and my twin sister is married to Dwayne’s little brother, Donovan?”

“Oh, my word no!” Graciella put a hand to her chest. “I’m surprised you didn’t have twins.”

Marla rolled her eyes. “I worried about that when I first got pregnant, but lucky for me it didn’t happen. I gained a whole lot of respect for my mother after I had him. I thought I knew it all when I was a kid, but I didn’t have a clue.” She laughed and shrugged her shoulders.

Cluny re-entered the kitchen and embraced both of them. “I love being surrounded by beautiful, sexy women. I’m gonna go out and supervise Gunny while he repairs that engine.” His knuckles grazed Graciella’s bottom as he stepped away.

Graciella held up two cans of tuna. “Shall we make sandwiches, Marla?”

Fifteen minutes later they carried a tray heaped with sandwiches out to the patio. Marla went back for a pitcher of lemonade and a king-size bag of chips. “Lunch!”

Amber and Santos ran and reached for a sandwich.

Graciella intercepted them. “Go to the hose and rinse the dog off your hands first.”

She overheard Amber tell Santos, “Your mom is rill strict, isn’t she?”

Dwayne and Cluny joined them. Dwayne held up greasy hands. “How about a kiss from my beautiful wife first?”

Marla pointed a finger at his nose and scowled. “Not unless you want it to be the last one of your life, Dempsey.”

Dwayne growled and made a fake charge. Marla screamed, and then when he turned away she laid a hard whack on his butt. Shoulders shaking with chuckles, he pulled a rag out of his back pocket and wiped his hands on the way to the garage.

Laughing at their antics, Cluny hugged Graciella from behind and nuzzled her neck. “My hands are clean. I’d like a kiss from my beautiful girlfriend.”

She gave him a sidewise glance. “Santos will see us.”

“I don’t care. Do you?”

Did she care if Santos saw her kissing Cluny? Yes, of course she did, but what was the harm? He’d been witness to most of those goodnight kisses for a while now. She tilted her head up and gave him a light kiss on the mouth. “No, I guess not, amor. We’ll just have to see how he takes it in. Now, take a sandwich and sit. It’s been hours since breakfast. You’ll need your strength to help us move.”

He waggled his eyebrows. “And for other activities.”

“How do you plan to manage that?”

“Where there’s a will, baby.” He winked, grabbed a sandwich, and headed for the picnic table.

Santos and Amber returned, drying wet hands on the seats of their pants. “I’m starved, Mama. Can I have one too?”

“Take a sandwich and go sit with Macfearsome. I’ll bring cups for the lemonade. Then you can tell us all about your campout.”

Dwayne and Marla joined them. She set the baby monitor on the table. DD and Queen sat in the shade of the big eucalyptus and chewed rawhide strips.

Santos swallowed a gulp of lemonade and regaled them with recounting the scariest ghost story, and how the big kids snuck outside the tent to yell and bang on the sides of the canvas to scare the daylights out of the rest of them. “I was scared, but it was fun! Did you and Mama have fun last night, Macfearsome?”

“It was an adventure, sailor, but not nearly as exciting as yours. Sounds like you’ll be hitting the rack early tonight. I bet you didn’t get much sleep, did you?”

“I don’t know for sure, but we finally fell asleep. Amber did before me because she already knew the ghost story by heart.”

Graciella tipped her head at Amber. “Do you like ghost stories, Amber?”

“Yeah, I guess, but they’re rilly for little kids. I’m getting too big for them.”

“My, aren’t we growing up a little fast?” Marla asked her. “When you tricked me into marrying your dad, you promised me you’d be my little girl for a long time.”

Santos’s eyes got big. He stared at Amber. “Did you trick them?”

“Not rilly. They wanted to get married, but were taking too long to decide. Do you want your mom to get married again?”

Santos shrugged. “I never thought about it.” He turned to his mother. “Do you want to get married again, mama? Get a new dad for me?”

Cluny smacked the table. “Hey, guess what! Baseball practice starts day after tomorrow. You both need to get your paperwork in by Saturday morning. I expect we’re going to get a lot of kids signed up this summer.”

“Do you have the papers, mama?”

Graciella hugged Santos and kissed his cheek. “They’re in the desk at home. You can finish filling them out when Cluny takes us there.” She glanced at the other three adults, and then put her hand on Santos’s shoulder. “We’re going to stay at his house for a little while starting today.”

“We are? Why?”

“I’ll explain on the way home. Now, help clear up the table so we can be on our way. We have a lot to do this afternoon.” She wasn’t sure how she would explain why they were staying with Cluny, but would probably tell him as much of the truth as possible without frightening him.

“Hey, Santos.” Amber followed him to the house. “If you stay at Uncle Cluny’s I can ride my bike over there. It’s not that far. We can practice baseball and go to the park and stuff. And Uncle Cluny promised he’d take some days off to go to the beach again.”

Marla nodded and spoke quietly so the kids wouldn’t overhear. “That’s a good decision, Graciella, especially after what happened. It’s farther for you to go to and from work though.”

Graciella piled plates and cups on the tray. “I’m thinking of closing the samba studio for a few weeks. I did last summer, and it didn’t hurt the bottom line that much. Many of my adult students take time off to travel and vacation with their kids as it is.”

“I hope you do. That’ll give the two us time to get better acquainted,” Marla said. “We can take the kids to the beach if Dwayne and Cluny have a problem taking time off. I’m ready to get my mother to babysit so I can go on a real live shopping spree, and maybe you could join me for a day at the spa for some serious pampering.”

Graciella pressed her lips together to suppress a smile. “Are you by any chance vetting me? Making sure I’m good enough for Cluny?”

“Am I that obvious?” Marla rested her hand on Graciella’s arm.

Dwayne and Cluny exchanged amused looks but didn’t comment. Cluny took the tray from her. “Let me take that, sweetheart. Gunny and I’ll clean up the kitchen while you and Marla visit.”

Marla shifted to the opposite bench directly across from Graciella. “I hope you’re not too worried about moving into Cluny’s place. He’s so easy to get along with and he’s got plenty of room for both of you.”

“I’m very worried, Marla. Moving in together, even temporarily, is a big step. I hope we don’t get off to a bad start. He’ll want us to sleep together, and I told him it wouldn’t be proper with Santos in the house. I’m not at all sure how to handle it.”

“I hear you. It was very tricky for Dwayne and me with Amber underfoot. Fortunately, we had a few weeks by ourselves when she spent time at his mother’s ranch in Wyoming. It worked out because she was scheming the whole time to get us together and thought it was the most natural thing for us to share a bedroom. It’s hard to know what a child is thinking. Sometimes we worry too much.”