Page 120 of Her Unflinching Warrior (Omega Sky)
EPILOGUE
Jada lookedaround her small apartment. It looked so empty with all the pictures off the walls, and the rugs gone. Then there were all her plants that she’d given away. Her friends damn well better take care of them!
God, the pictures, the rugs, the plants, they’d really covered up a lot of cracks, water stains and…
“Oh. My. God. Is that mold?” She shouted as she ran up to look at the corner of her kitchen where she’d always had plants sitting. She relaxed when she saw it was just ants.
Okay, maybe her place had been a bit of a dump.
Her door opened and her brother Ricky and her mother walked in. Both of them were grinning ear to ear.
“Hey, what’s the deal? You’re supposed to be all sad and stuff that I’m moving out of state.”
Ricky came over and picked her up and spun her around in the empty space. “No way, Baby Sister. The fact that somebody actually found a way to get you to move out of this dump, I don’t care if you’re moving back to California, I am just that damned happy that he’s getting you somewhere safe.”
“Put me down, you big oaf,” Jada slapped at her brother’s shoulder.
She was laughing when he put her down on the ground.
“Mom, how do you put up with him living so close to you?” Jada griped.
The door opened again and her oldest brother walked in. Jada couldn’t believe her eyes. She whirled around to look at her mother. “Did you know about this?” she squealed.
Her mother’s smile was incandescent. Jada hadn’t seen Arturo for three years. He was currently stationed at Camp Pendleton in California. She threw herself at her big brother and he caught her in a bear hug. Arturo gave great hugs. Behind her, she heard the door opening again, but she ignored it.
“Hey, do we get hugs?”
Jada recognized her brother Ben’s voice. Wasn’t he supposed to be on vacation with his wife? She turned around and saw that it wasn’t just Ben, it was Luis and Raymundo too.
“What in the hell is going on?” she demanded to know. Again, she turned to look at her mother. “We haven’t had the whole family together for two years, and now these idiots show up too late to pack a box? What gives?” She was really ready to burst into tears, so pretending to be mad was the best way to cover it up.
“Same little brat,” Arturo said as he enveloped her in a huge hug again.
Jada hated it, but she couldn’t stop the tears. She loved getting a hug from Arturo. He was eighteen years older than her, and when he had come home on his leaves, he’d always seemed bigger than life.
She took a step back and looked around in wonder at her five older brothers. Could anything be better than this?
Yes
Having Gideon here.
It was too bad that Gideon was out on a training mission right now. That was the reason he hadn’t been here when she had filled only fourteen paltry boxes into a moving van and donated the rest of the furniture to St. Vincent de Paul. Last night when she’d been without furniture, she’d intended to stay at her mother’s place, but she’d ended up staying at Darlene’s apartment instead because her mother said she was having plumbing issues. So it was nice that everybody was here today.
“You guys should have told me you were all going to be here, then I wouldn’t have booked my ticket to fly to Virginia this afternoon.”
The door opened again.
Now who?
“You should cancel your flight to Virginia, stay another night, little sister,” Raymundo, the retired Marine said.
“I can’t,” Jada said.
“Yes, you can,” Gideon said.
She peaked around Ben and Luiz and saw that Gideon was the last person who had entered the apartment.
“In the name of all that is holy, can somebody please tell me what is going on?” Jada demanded. It had been great when all of her brothers had gotten together to see her off, but now Gideon was here, and not out training? What the hell was going on?
