Page 70 of Stella's Christmas Rescue
He grins. “Yeah, it is. Damn copycat.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Proposing on Christmas Eve. Like I did.”
I snort laugh, then pray aloud, “Oh my god, please don’t let their engagement day be as eventful as ours.”
He laughs loudly. “Unless Katie has some dark hidden past, I think they’re safe. And knowing Katie, if she had one, she wouldn’t have been able to keep it a secret, so she definitely does not have a dark hidden past.”
“True. She would have told me on our runs. God, I don’t know how she has her lung capacity. She doesn’t stop talking. Ever.”
“Oh, I know. Michael’s told me all about it, and trust me, sheliterallydoes not stop talking. Ever.”
I’m curious. “What do you mean by that, Jordan? You mean, when they’re…in bed?”
He nods. “Apparently, the chatter turns adult, but yeah, she really doesn’t stop. According to him, she even talks in her sleep.”
“Was she an only child or something?”
“I have no idea, but that would explain a lot.”
“Huh.”
I see him off by ten, then begin to cook for the crowd. It’s been so long since I’ve cooked for so many people, and I’m enjoying myself. We asked Wes to arrive early to have a chance to chat about everything. At two, he pulls up. I’m outside with the dogs. “Hey, you!”
He hugs me, then plays with the dogs for a minute, before we go inside. Wes gestures to all the tables and decorations, “Wow, this is quite a production.”
“Just put the ham in the oven. In a little while, you can help me peel potatoes. “
“Lucky me.”
The last bit of tension I hold forces me to ask, “Are we? Lucky, I mean.”
He nods. “The agent we’ve imbedded with the smuggling ring says there has been no mention of you. When he brought you up, the basic response was, ‘Who?’ They don’t even talk about Riker. It seems he was a bottom tier lowlife, nowhere near as important as we originally thought, but since Quinn knew about the organization, she’s been able to give us insight in return for better living conditions.”
“And she’ll be in prison for life, right? No change there?”
“None. She has four back-to-back lifetime sentences to serve in this country alone. The only thing she gets out of this is a nicer cage.”
I sigh. “It’s a shame she gets that much.”
“I know. But this is how the game is played. And if we can keep hacking away at the smuggling ring, then that’s what we do. We take them down, and that’s thousands of lives around the world that we save.”
I smile. “You’re always a big picture guy, aren’t you?”
“Even if we were just saving one life, Stella, that would be the big picture.” He shrugs, “When I see something wrong, I need to fix it.”
“You know what I see wrong here?”
“What’s that?”
“You need a drink.”
He laughs. “Yes, I do. But I can’t.”
“How come?”
“Jennifer is still breastfeeding.”
