Page 101 of Her Defiant Warrior

He looked up and saw Amy Linden standing in the doorway, looking mighty fine in a blue one-piece bathing suit. Ryker sure was a lucky man. Amy had worked in the restaurant industry forever, so it made sense that she was tempting the kids into the kitchen so they wouldn’t be pestering everybody to play Gideon’s PG video games.

“Hey Mateo,” Amy waved, as the kids hustled on by her. “Come on inside. We’ve got plenty of towels, and I’ve got a load of clothes in the dryer. I bet Gideon wouldn’t mind if you grabbed one of his t-shirts and wore that until yours was dry.”

She was right, and the idea of getting dry sounded pretty good.

When he stepped into the house, it was the chaos he expected. The TV was turned on at mind-numbing decibels. He didn’t need to look at all the seven-year-old girls dancing around the kitchen with their friendship bracelets, to know it was Taylor Swift singing. Hell, the youngest man on their SEAL team, Landon Kelly, was always playing and singing along to her songs. If he wasn’t such a big bruiser, he probably would have had the shit knocked out of him by now.

“Mateo, I got a hole in one and came in second at putt-putt.” Lachlan told him as Amber handed him a towel.

“You didn’t come in second,” a little, brown-skinned girl stomped over to him with a scowl. “We had to leave because of the rain before I could take my turn. If I would have made a hole-in-one in the clown’s nose, I would have come in second, and you would have come in third.”

Aw, shit.

Lachlan looked over at the girl, who was both mad and hurt. “You’re right, Priya. I shouldn’t have said that. Mom said that the game was called on account of rain. That means there’s no winners or losers. I’m sorry.”

It was like the sun came out with a rainbow the way Priya smiled at Lachlan. “You wanna go see my iPad? My mom let me download a new maze game. It’s really hard.”

“Sure. Let’s go into Mr. Gideon’s game room. Only Roy and Heather are in there. But let’s ask Miss Amy for a soda first. She knows where the grape and orange ones are.”

Now they were both smiling.

He felt someone taller than a kid coming up behind him before he heard Bonnie’s laugh. “Looks like my son has made a friend.”

“It was touch-and-go for a moment, but he pulled it out. He’s a peacemaker at heart.”

“That he is,” Bonnie agreed.

He hadn’t seen her since her and Jase’s big wedding in Springfield, Missouri. Jase had sixteen brothers and sisters, and that was his hometown.

“Married life seems to have agreed with you.” He grinned down at the grown-up version of Amber.

Bonnie blushed.

And isn’t that cute as hell?

“It does. Every day seems to get better and better.”

“Do you need to put me to work? I might not be in a command position at work, but I’ve watched Kostya often enough that I think I can help bring some order to this chaos.”

She gave him an evil grin. “Oh, you do, do you?”

“Well, as long as there’s hazard pay.”

“I’ll get back to you on that. First, I’m going to go get the girls to turn the volume down on the TV. I might be a Swiftie, but even I can only take so much.”

He grinned down at her. “You’ll have my undying gratitude.”

Bonnie winked at him as she headed to the TV room.

“Want some chips and guacamole?” Amy asked as he walked toward the kitchen. Another roll of thunder rumbled, and he saw two girls move closer to the kind woman who was teaching them how to make the dip.

“When is my mom going to come and get me?” A pale little girl wearing a tutu asked him as Amy handed him a plate of chips and guac. He was surprised that such a tiny girl felt comfortable addressing him; usually they shied away because of his size. Maybe her dad was really big. Mateo crouched down, so he was at her eye level.

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Leslie, what’s yours?”

“I’m Mateo.” He held out his empty hand. She put her small hand in his and he gently closed his fingers around it and shook it. “I’ll find out where your mom is, but Leslie, I think with all this rain it would be safer if she didn’t drive for a little bit. It’s really slippery and we want her to be careful, don’t we?”