The SEAL's Second Chance Baby (9 page)

Chapter Nine

The day of the first grade bank field trip, Effie put extra effort into packing the boys' lunches. After the behind-the-scenes bank tour, the plan was to walk the children to the city park playground where they'd eat and work off excess energy before heading back to school.

She was midway through making her third ham sandwich when Colt asked, “Mom, in case there's robbers, I'm gonna bring my gun, okay?”

“Sweetie, I appreciate that you want to help keep everyone safe, but I don't think that's a good idea.”

“Can I at least wear my cowboy hat and gun holster?” His pout showed that to his way of thinking, her verdict was far from acceptable.

“Sweetie...” She sighed. How had she gotten lucky enough to have the most precocious first grader on the planet? “How about if you just wear one of your best superhero T-shirts? That way, if there's any trouble, you'll be ready to call Batman or Superman or Hulk—whoever you think would be best for the job.”

“I guess that would work. But it's not the same.”

“I know.” She kissed the crown of his head. “But banks are pretty serious places. Promise you'll be on your very best behavior? No fooling around.”

When she hugged him, he squirmed free.

Typical of the men in her life.

Her mind's eye flashed to Marsh. How long before he was gone? He couldn't be on leave from the Navy forever. Eventually, they'd expect him back. Already, she felt an odd kinship with him—all the more so since their chat in the park. She'd been touched when he opened up to her about his failed marriage.

As much as her own failed marriage hurt, she found an odd comfort in knowing she wasn't the only one who had questions about how loves that had started out good and pure could turn wrong on a dime. In Marsh's case, the loss of a son had been an understandable stress on his marriage, but in her case, she'd always wondered what she'd done wrong. If she'd supported Moody's bull riding instead of nagging him about settling down to start a cozy home, would they still be together?

After a quick thanks and hug to Mabel for watching Cassidy, Effie loaded the boys and was off. She used the thirty-minute drive to town to go over basic rules and manners. No running inside. Please and thank you. Use inside voices. Etc., etc.

She'd been over each item a zillion times, but a bank was hardly the place for one of the boys to forget.

By the time Effie found a parking space in the school's undersized lot, then got both boys to class, they were seconds from being tardy. She was out of breath when she made it to the back of the room to join the five other moms going on the outing.

“Hey, you.” Scotty's mom, Patricia, greeted Effie with a hug. “I was worried you had a crisis crop up.”

“No.” Effie set her purse on the bookshelf lining the classroom's rear wall. “It's just tough getting my rowdy crew out of the house. Fingers crossed we have no surprises.”

“Amen to that.”

The teacher took roll and the children stood for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Hearing so many voices united in patriotism tightened Effie's throat. It made her think of Marsh's service to their country, and what he must have been like when he was on active duty. She pictured him as a good soldier. Strong, yet compassionate.

When her mind's eye got around to picturing him in uniform, she blushed. The man was already too handsome. Toss Navy dress whites on him, and the poor ladies wouldn't stand a chance.

The notion of him having his pick from a bevy of Virginia Beach beauties didn't set well. Not that she was in the position to stake a claim on him, but for some unfathomable reason, she didn't want anyone else to, either.

What did she want? She thought of their shared laughs in his grandfather's kitchen and the way when he'd leaned against her car, if they hadn't had an audience, she might have been sorely tempted to kiss him. But what good would that have done other than making her all the more confused? What man in his right mind would want anything to do with a single mom with three kids? After the wedding, he'd no doubt see her boys, but not her.

Which made her sad.

But that was the way it had to be.

“Effie? Everything okay?” Patricia touched her arm. “We're passing the volunteer sign-up sheet for the school's Thanksgiving dinner, and you seemed a million miles away.”

“Sorry. I don't think we've talked since my grandmother got engaged. The wedding is the third week in October, and the planning is making me nuts.”

“Wait—we're talking about sweet Mabel?”

“Yep.” Effie grinned, glad for the distraction from Marsh. “Hard to believe, right?”

“Not at all. She's a firecracker.” Patricia nudged Effie's shoulder. “Now, we need to work on finding you a man. Roy has a super-cute single friend in his office, and we were actually just talking about fixing you two up. Want to double-date?”

“Oh—I couldn't.” The mere thought of a formal date had Effie fishing through her purse for antacids.

“Of course, you could. Nothing fancy. Just dinner with friends. I'm setting it up fast—before you have a chance to say no.”

“Thought I just did? Say no?”

Patricia laughed. “I didn't hear you.”

Thankfully, the teacher, Mrs. Logan, broke up the conversation with instructions and a last-minute flurry of gathering stray permission slips before lining up the kids.

The day was beautiful with a hint of a nip in the air to give hope that cooler fall temps would soon come.

While paused at a street crossing, Effie tipped her head back to drink in the sun. It was the kind of day so beautiful that nothing could dare go wrong. Now that Patricia had abandoned talk of a double date in favor of chatting with another mom about a newly forming peewee basketball league, Effie was apparently off the proverbial hook.

Someday, once the kids were old enough to spend a few hours on their own, she might welcome dating. But for now, most days she didn't just have her hands full, but hog-tied with caring for Cassidy and the twins.

At this time of the morning, the bank wasn't busy, and the manager took the children into a back room. After they'd all assumed their crisscross-applesauce positions on the carpeted floor, he delivered an entertaining history lesson about famous bank robbers who once prowled the Old West.

Usually fidgety Colt hung on the man's every word, as did Remington.

Effie beamed with pride. She'd been silly to worry. Colt might act out with her and even Marsh, but at least on an important day like this, he'd remembered his manners.

The manager finished his stories, then showed the children the safety deposit boxes and gave them a peek inside the main vault.

They were getting a last look behind the tellers' cages when Colt took not one of the plastic pistols his father had gifted him, but two, from his backpack, ran up to a teller and shouted, “
Bang! Bang!
Give me all your money or you're dead!”

“Colt, no!” Beyond mortified, Effie shot into action, but not before her little outlaw snatched a wad of hundreds the startled woman had been counting, then ran out the front door.

Effie chased after her son.

The bank manager and security guard chased after them both.

“Colt, stop!
Stop!
”

“
Bang! Bang!
I'm Jesse James!” Hundred-dollar bills floated behind him.

Out of breath and horrified by the morning's turn of events, when Effie couldn't run farther, she paused to let the two men pass her.

By the time the security guard caught up with Colt, sirens could be heard.

While the bank manager plucked hundreds of dollars from neighboring lawns, Colt struggled with the security guard.

“Leave me alone! I'm Jesse James!”

Effie found her second wind and ran in her son's direction.

“In all my days—” the security guard held firm to Colt's shoulders “—I've never seen anything quite like this.”

“I'm so sorry,” Effie said. “Colt, what's wrong with you? I told you to leave your guns at home!”

“It's okay, Mom. We're rich!” He flapped his stack of hundreds.

Effie had never despised her ex more—or herself. How had Colt gotten so out of control that he thought this kind of behavior was okay?

Once the police realized their bank robber was shorter than a broomstick, the sirens and lights went off, and Effie caught a few of the guys chuckling.

But to the irate bank manager, this was no laughing matter.

While Effie held back to give the police an official report—they actually asked if she'd put Colt up to his shenanigans—Patricia was kind enough to take Remington to the park with the other children. She said if Effie wasn't back to school in time to pick him up, she would ensure he got on the school bus.

Mrs. Logan suggested it would be best for Colt to not return to school that afternoon, but that she would make an appointment for Effie and him to speak with the principal first thing in the morning.

When a policeman told her and Colt to get in the back of his car for a trip to the station, Effie's heart felt dangerously close to pounding out of her chest.

“Sorry, Mommy,” Colt said from beside her.

Sorry?
The apology didn't quite cover all that had transpired. Still, Effie loved her son, and when silent tears streamed down his cheeks, she pulled him into a hug.

“What were you thinking?”

“I just wanted to play cops and robbers. And when that old guy was talking about Jesse James, I wanted to be cool like him, too.”

“But, honey, it's not
cool
to rob banks or anything else. Most of those Wild West bank robbers got shot or went to jail. I love you and want a way better life for you.”

“Am I going to jail?”

“Honestly, sweetie—” fear knotted her stomach “—I don't know.”

Chapter Ten

After sleeping too late, that afternoon, Marsh rode Whiskey out to check his grandfather's livestock.

Wallace had fifty-three head of buffalo. They were ornery and pretty much did what they wanted, but the old coot seemed to love them, so Marsh put up with their cantankerous ways. Honestly, they were more like pets to his grandfather than a means for profit. As far as Marsh knew, Wallace hadn't sold a single one, and his herd started years earlier with twenty.

The day hadn't gotten as warm as expected, and the air smelled loamy and clean. Blue sky rose clear to heaven and for once made him smile when he thought of his boy.

Lord, he missed him.

Wonder what Tucker would think of the twins?

Had he still been alive, he would be older than them. The notion raised a swell of pain that Marsh tamped down by squeezing his eyes shut tight, then opening them to drown in the sky's healing infinity.

He forced deep breaths, focusing on the task at hand of counting the herd and making sure they all looked healthy.

Finished, he took his time getting back to the house.

Rather than dwelling on the son he no longer had, he focused on Effie and her twins, and the way if both of their lives had been less complicated, he might have acted on urges to kiss her. She was pretty and wholesome and uncomplicated in a world that seemed to grow increasingly more tangled. Being with her brought a curious calm, but at the same time, the sort of anticipation he remembered feeling as a kid right before Halloween or Christmas, only in an adult version.

Before he'd met her and her brood, his days had been an endless succession of marathon rides and even longer lonely nights. Now he looked forward to planning activities for her boys. It lightened his spirit to find himself in the position of being able to—in some small way—lighten her load.

He didn't know her ex, but Marsh found himself hating him. What kind of man left a woman who'd had three of his kids? It was unconscionable.

Marsh had ridden within a quarter mile of the barn when his cell vibrated. Out here, service was sketchy. Since his run-in with the rattler, he carried his phone with him more because his grandfather had asked him to than out of any belief that it might one day save his life.

Expecting to have to perform a wedding errand, he took the electronic nuisance from the back pocket of his Wranglers, only to find it hadn't been Wallace calling, but the Maysville Police Department.

Concerned, he reined Whiskey to a stop, afraid that just as they'd moseyed into cell range, they could mosey right back out.

The caller had been Effie. She'd left a voice mail. “Marsh—I'm so sorry to bother you, but I've run into a situation with Colt. I honestly don't know what to do and can't trouble Mabel with this. Since you're busy, I'm sorry. I'll figure something out.”

Her tone sounded almost frantic.

He called back, but the call went straight to departmental voice mail.

Stomach clenched with dread for fear her son might have been hurt, Marsh worked Whiskey from a dead stop to a gallop.

“Sorry, bud. Duty calls.”

As fast as possible between calls to the station, Marsh brushed Whiskey and made sure he'd cooled and rehydrated in the barn's shade before letting him join his friends in the pasture nearest the house.

Finished, he searched out his grandfather and found him changing his truck's oil in the outbuilding that doubled as a garage.

“Mind handing me that wrench?” Wallace asked from beneath the red Ford.

Marsh did, then hiked himself up to sit on a workbench. “Have you heard from Mabel today?”

“A while back. She said Effie needed your cell number. She's babysitting Effie's youngest all day while the boys take their field trip.”

I surmised all that.
What Marsh needed to know without alerting Mabel was what had happened on that field trip. Were Effie and the twins in an accident?

“Need anything else?” Marsh asked before heading outside to try reaching her again.

“I'm good. Just about done.” The stubborn old man had more money than he knew what to do with but refused to let anyone else change his oil.

On edge and not sure what to do with himself, Marsh reached the station's voice mail once more, then scooped manure from the ponies' stall. He'd let them out to the pasture when he'd first come outside, and they seemed to be getting along fine.

When his cell rang, the chirpy tone damn near made him jump out of his skin. He glanced at the caller ID—Maysville Police Department.

“Effie?” he answered. “What happened? Are you and the boys okay?”

She broke down.

“Where are you? I'm coming.”

“O-outside the police station.”

“What? Why?”

“I-it's too long to get into over the phone. But we're okay—at least, we will be.” She sniffed.

“Stay put. I'll be right there.”

Marsh ran to the house for his keys and wallet, shouted to Wallace that he was headed to town, then hopped in his truck, taking off with enough force to plume dust far behind him.

The trek to blacktop was a bone rattler with his pulse knocking damn near as much as his tires.

What the hell had happened? How had Effie gone from chaperoning a class field trip to crying at the police station?

He made the normally thirty-minute trip in twenty, slowing only upon reaching the quiet facility's lot.

He killed the engine, then spotted Effie rising from a bench.

Halfway between his ride and the entry, they met and he wrapped her in a fierce hug, beyond relieved to see her in one piece. “Where are the boys? Are they okay?”

She nodded against his chest.

Smoothing her long hair, he said, “Tell me what happened.”

“The short version is that Colt literally robbed First State Bank.”

“Wait—he
what
?” Marsh stepped back. “He was playing, right?”

“Of course, but the offense was apparently so serious that police checked my background to make sure I hadn't put him up to it. The chief is new and seems out to prove himself, so he ordered a battery of psychological tests for Colt—to make sure he's not one of those poor delinquents you hear about on the news. He's stuck in the back room now with a woman from the child welfare agency.”

“Lord...” He sighed, then pulled her back into a hug. “I'm so sorry. How's Colt doing?”

“He's rattled, but thank God, answering questions with respect. Dr. Emily Norris assured me in confidence that this would in all likelihood end with her questions, but I'm still scared.”

“Of course. Where's Remington?”

She checked her watch. “He should be just about home. I sent him back with the rest of the class and my friend Patricia promised to get him on his bus. All I told Mabel was to watch out for him.”

“Good call. No use in both boys being traumatized.”

“Marsh, I feel like the worst mom in the world. Why would Colt pull a stunt like that?”

“He's a kid and acted out.” He led her back to the bench. “Like you surmised, he's probably pissed about your divorce and the fact that the father he loves abandoned him, but he has no way to show it other than through being an occasional hellion.”

“I guess.”

“Any chance of calling your ex? You know, to explain how much his son needs him?”

“I did, but he's at a rodeo in Montana. He said he'd try calling Colt later, but I'm not holding my breath. Besides, he thought it was ‘cool' that his offspring had already ‘fought the law.'”

Marsh cocked his head back and groaned. “Wow. He sounds like a real winner.”

“Yep. I can really pick 'em.” She laughed through a fresh batch of tears. “Moody always was a rebel. When we first got together, that was part of his attraction. Which was exhilarating. A rush, you know? But once we had the boys, everything changed. I wanted us to create a warm and safe and predictable place for us to call home. He'd agree but always ask for one more rodeo season. Just one more, and then he'd retire and settle down.”

“But he never did?”

She shook her head. “The woman he's with now is a pro barrel racer. They have a three-month-old baby girl and take her with them on the road. Not sure what's going to happen once she's old enough for school.”

“Thankfully—” Marsh settled his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close enough to kiss the crown of her head “—that's not your problem.” He'd meant the gesture to be one of casual comfort for a friend, but affection for her eroded a portion of the protective wall he'd constructed around his emotions. After losing the most precious bonds in his life, Marsh had told himself the best way to never hurt again was to never feel again. But he did. He worried for Effie and Colt. He fought a crazy-ass urge to storm inside the station and rescue Effie's boy.

Effie's boy.

Marsh couldn't lose sight of that fact.

“I'm sorry to bother you with all this.” She clung to him, and damn if he didn't automatically tighten his hold, appreciating far more than he'd care to admit—or was even appropriate—the fact that he was once again needed.

“No way could you ever be a bother.” He kissed her forehead. “Colt's going to be fine. Hopefully, this turns out to be the sort of brush with the bigger world that scares him straight.”

She nodded against him. “When this is over, could you please give us a ride to the school? My van is still there.”

“Of course.”

“Mrs. Washington.” A suit-wearing woman poked her head outside. “We're ready for you.”

Marsh stood, helping Effie to her feet. It killed him to notice her slight tremble. “Hey.” He turned her to face him. “Everything's going to be fine.”

She nodded but didn't look all that sure. “I feel silly for asking, but will you stay with me?”

“Of course.” He clasped her hand, giving her fingers a squeeze.

The counselor led them to a brightly lit room at the back of the station, where they found Colt seated in a chair at what Marsh guessed was typically used as an interrogation table. The former parent in him wanted to snatch Colt and take him far from this awful place. On the flip side, he realized this whole situation held the power to serve as a major life lesson.

“Mommy! Mr. Marsh!” The boy leaped from his chair to crush them both in hugs. “I wanna go home!”

“I know, sweetie.” Effie looked near tears again. “Hopefully, we're almost done.”

“We are,” the woman said. “If you don't mind, I'd like to have a female officer watch Colt for a few minutes while we talk. Would that be all right?”

Effie nodded. The transition was smooth once Effie reassured Colt she'd be near.

The police chief joined them.

Marsh rose. Introductions were made, and he labeled himself as a family friend.

“Mrs. Washington, I'm sure it's been a long day for both you and your son, but I wanted to thank you for your patience. Sadly, the number of crimes committed by children has never been higher, and there are parents out there who would have no moral problem with sending their son or daughter to do an illegal job. I run a tight ship, so please understand that I couldn't take a bank robbery lightly—even one committed by a first grader.”

“Of course.” Effie sat at the table with her hands clasped.

“Your background check came back clear,” the chief droned on, “and of course, your son's did, too. Dr. Norris, I'll turn it over to you for Colt's psychological report.”

“Thank you.” The woman forced a smile. “Obviously, I didn't have time to do more than a surface-level evaluation of your son, but from what I could tell, Colt is a perfectly normal little boy who harbors resentment toward his father. And some toward you, Mrs. Washington, for your divorce. He even feels partially responsible himself. That said, in my opinion, Colt is too young to understand that what he did today had far more serious repercussions than simply playing a game. But honestly? In my professional opinion, what happened was just that—a game to Colt. He struck me as genuinely sorry for causing a fuss. From here on out, you might take special care to reassure him your divorce had nothing to do with him, and that you and his father love and support him.”

Effie nodded. “Thank you, I will.”

Beneath the table, she clasped Marsh's hand so tight that it hurt. He knew what she was thinking. Her ex was a selfish bastard, and odds were against him galloping down here on a white steed to save her—not that a strong woman like Effie needed
saving
, but she sure as hell deserved a break.

Finally, the social worker ended her speech and the chief retrieved Colt and told him he never wanted to see him at the station again.

Finally, mother and son were free to go.

The boy's shoulders slumped and he could hardly keep his eyes open. Acting on pure instinct, Marsh picked him up. He'd halfway expected a protest, but Colt wrapped his slim arms around his neck and rested his head on Marsh's shoulder.

The walk to the truck wasn't long, yet for Marsh, it might as well have taken days. The sensation of once again holding a little boy was heady, forcing him to remind himself this was only a temporary thing.

He gently set Colt on the backseat of his truck's crew cab, then buckled him in.

Behind the wheel with Effie in the passenger seat, Marsh asked, “Need anything at the store before we get your van?”

She shook her head. “I just want to sleep for a week.”

“I'll bet.” A check in the rearview showed Colt already dozing off. “Sorry your big day turned into a huge freaking nightmare.”

“Me, too.” She rested her head against the seat back and closed her eyes. “Thanks again for showing up when you did. I owe you—big-time.”

“We're good. Consider this payback for when you literally saved my life.”