Page 48 of Grissom
Luke finally made it on top of Tanner’s back, making this a three-layer McCoy sandwich with Tuesday pressed beneath them. “Yeah, Daddy, can we keep her?”
Grissom flexed his arms to keep the additional weight from crushing her. “What say you?” he asked the lady with shimmering green pools for eyes. “May we keep you, at least a while longer, Miss Tuesday Smart? Will you stay with us guys?”
The room stilled as if everyone was holding their breath, well, except for Luke who had a case of giggles. “Say yes, Miss Tuesday!” he yelled like everyone was deaf. “Hurry up! You gotta say yes! Me and Tanner wub you and we want you to stay!”
That kid.
“Inside voice,” Grissom growled.
But Tanner wasn’t breathing, and that was concerning. As much as Luke was jittery with excitement, Tanner had gone stock still.
Grissom studied his most traumatized child. “You okay, Scooter?”
Tanner’s gaze zeroed past Grissom, his hazel eyes riveted on Tuesday. “You said you were gonna stay. Did you change your mind?” he asked quietly, his lower lip quivering.
Damn. Tanner had just made it intensely personal. Now Grissom’s eyes were betraying him.
Reaching past him, Tuesday cupped the trembling boy’s chin, like a real mother who loved her children would. “I’ll stay as long as I can, as long as it’s okay with your dad.”
“It’s okay,” Grissom answered quickly.
“I got a ring!”Jesus, did that boy only know how to yell?
After Luke ran off to who knew where, Tanner whispered, “We don’t need a ring if you say yes, Miss Tuesday. Dad says we only need to love each other and never be mean to each other and… and…”
Tuesday pulled Tanner over Grissom’s shoulder and into her arms. Her eyes welled with tears as she covered his pale face with tiny kisses. “I loved you the second I saw you. You made my heart sing, sweet baby of mine.”
Grissom lay there beside the tender scene, wiping his face with his free hand and so damned proud of the woman holding his firstborn like a treasure instead of a weapon to be used against him. Tanner needed Tuesday in his life as much as Grissom did. He wiped his face again. Damned tears! They kept running down his face. Which didn’t really matter, not as hard as Tanner and Tuesday were crying all over each other. She kept murmuring sweet nothings into his face and hair, her hands smoothing over his head and shoulders, his back, then over his dripping wet face again. And like the selfish, spoiled brat he’d never been in his life, Grissom wanted her hands and every one of her kisses on him.
“I love you, Tanner,” she murmured, her voice soft and sweet and so damned motherly. “I will always love you.”
Grissom lifted an arm over his eyes to hide his tears. “Merry Christmas,” he whispered, hoping he hadn’t sabotaged the day and the rest of his boys’ lives by being so damned emotional and asking that particular question. Tuesday wasn’t ready to move in with him, much less marry him. They’d only met, really met, a couple days ago. They didn’t know each other well enough to commit to each other. What the hell was wrong with him, putting the moves on her like he had? Normal people dated. They courted. They grew together. Over. Time. Significant amounts of time, not just twenty-four or forty-eight hours or however long it’d been.
When would he learn? He’d damned near asked Tuesday to marry him, to spend the rest of her extraordinary life with a loser like him. Did he want her to stay? Absolutely, but he needed to take it slow. To at least give her enough time to understand what she’d be getting into if she stayed more than one or two nights. Not scare the bejesus out of her.
Asking her to stay like he had, in front of his boys, was one for the books—the psycho books. He couldn’t help wondering what his counselor would say about what he’d done. That he had no impulse control?Well, duh.He hadn’t always been this impetuous, had accomplished a string of successful missions while active duty. Had he hit his head so hard in the crash that he could no longer control his big mouth?
Sure seemed like it. Lost in the dismal swamp he’d made of his life, he didn’t see Luke running at him until…Ooomph!His wild child landed square in the middle of his chest with a breathless, “I got it, Daddy!”
Grissom coughed out a grumpy, “Got what?”
Luke pushed a circular, shiny thing into his face. “A ring, Daddy! I got a ring so you and Miss Tuesday can get married now!”
Tanner lifted up from Tuesday’s chest long enough to say, “That ain’t a ring. It’s a nut.”
“It ain’t a nut. You are!” Luke tossed back, defiant to the end.
Tuesday diffused the squabble by singing, “Silent night. Holy night,” which was all it took to get the boys singing along.
Marriage proposal disaster averted. Adding his voice to the age-old song, Grissom reached across the space between them and intertwined his fingers with Tuesday’s. Tanner still hugged her like he’d never let her go, and Luke had settled flat on Grissom’s chest, that shiny silver nut tight between his pudgy fingers.
“Thanks for finding the ring, Short Stack,” he told his youngest quietly.
“It’ll fit. I just know it,” Luke stage-whispered back.
“It might,” Grissom murmured, his lips against Luke’s ear to keep Tuesday from overhearing. Nuts and bolts were made of stainless steel and polymers that, combined, resisted chemicals and corrosion. “But if it doesn’t fit, I know a guy who can make it the right size.”
“You do?” Luke asked with bright-eyed innocence. “Wow. That’s really nice.”
