Page 47 of Unintended Love
“Calm down, Clint,” Theodora urged. “I’m fine. The baby is fine. The intruder is in jail. The EMTs made me come to the hospital because I was spotting…just a little. I’m here purely for observation because of the baby.”
“What the fuck happened?” Clint spat out. Ashlin could see his contained fury. She gave him a little hug of support.
Through the phone, Theodora took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “As you know, the house I bought was a foreclosure.”
“Yes,” Clint agreed. “Both the real estate agent and the bank executive assured us that the locks had already been changed.”
“They were,” Theodora reassured him. “But new locks didn’t keep the recently released convict from breaking a window and crawling through it.”
Ashlin heard several gasps from all over the room.
“No worries, he spent last night in jail. According to the detective who took my statement a few hours ago, he’s a frequent flier there. Fortunately, as soon as I heard him pounding on the front door and yelling and screaming to let him in, I called the police. They were much more eager to come when I explained that I had recently purchased and moved into the house and that I was alone and six months pregnant. Today, the detective said patrols used to get calls from my house quite often, and then the woman wouldn’t press charges. I assured him that I intended to press every kind of charge possible.” She took another deep breath before she continued, “Clint, he scared the hell out of me.”
Everyone in the room could hear the tremor in her voice. The Ladies of Black Swan exchanged a glance.
“What can I do to help?” Clint moved as though to start pacing, but sat down and pulled Ashlin onto his lap.
“I obviously need a better security system. Can you recommend one?”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can and install the best security system available. I’ll link it directly to the Riggs Corporation monitoring system. We already have several of our homes in the United States connected.”
“Clint, you don’t have to do that. I have money,” Theodora protested. “I can hire someone to install it.”
Clint bent and whispered into Ashlin’s ear, “I’d like to leave right after lunch. I can meet you and the team in Montana on Monday morning.”
Out loud, Ashlin said, “You’re not going to Texas without me.”
“Me, too,” volunteered several of his men.
“Fuck this shit,” Mia said in her usual foul-mouthed way. “I’m going, too. I can help him install it, and we’ll get it done twice as fast. Besides, I’d like to meet this woman.”
Kayla smiled. “Katlin didn’t say we had to leave from Washington on Sunday night. Our orders say we have to report to Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana before dawn on Monday. Nothing says we can’t go to Texas for R and R this weekend.”
“Are you sure?” Clint asked.
All the Ladies laughed.
“It wouldn’t be the first time we made a stop before leaving on a mission,” Kira blurted out. “Last time, we found you and your Delta team in Las Vegas.”
“That was a great wedding,” Piper noted. “But mine is going to be even better.”
“Speaking of yours, when is it going to be?” Ashlin asked, head tilted.
“As soon as we can get ten days off in a row.” Piper put her hands on her hips and stared at Kayla. “I want a honeymoon after our wedding, and Kenner has promised we’d go diving in Turks and Caicos. LeiLu has offered us a place to stay and free tanks since she and Henry live in the United States most of the time.”
Ashlin looked into Clint’s deep sea-blue eyes. “Where do you want to go on our honeymoon?”
“Anywhere except an African safari.”
The men in the room chuckled.
“Yeah. There are still a few warlords on that continent that would like to see us dead,” Dog announced.
“I don’t ever have to go back to the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Gordon, “Mick” agreed.
“Or Sierra Leone.” Coyote nodded and crossed his powerful arms over his chest.
“But I’ll gladly go back to Texas for the weekend,” Lukas said, changing the subject back to the original.
