While I wait to find out if I get chicken pox (long story short, my friend got chicken pox from her mother I was with her for an entire weekend when she was in what her doctor informs her was part of her contagious period) I thought I'd update you all on the situation down at the Manoso residence...

Chapter 8

I opened my eyes the next morning to find the kitten sharing my pillow – and by pillow I mean Carlos's bare, tanned, smooth, drool-worthy chest. Smiling lightly, I extended a hand to rub her ears. The blissful look on her face as she began to purr warmed my heart, the vibrations travelled up my arm.

"Babe," Carlos uttered softly, bringing his hand up to caress the back of my head and tuck a few stray curls behind my ear. The irony of his actions caused me to stifle a laugh, instead opting to let out my attempt at a purr, while rubbing my cheek against his chest. A coarser vibration ran through me as Carlos let out a low, rumbling laugh.

Startled, the kitten scrambled from his chest, eliciting a sharp groan as her little claws sank into his flesh involuntarily. She leaped rather clumsily from the side of the bed, her legs flailing in the air the moment she was fully suspended in the air. As soon as she hit the floor she was running and I sat up a little to watch as she squeeze out through the gap in the door we habitually left ajar at the night.

"I thought you locked her in the laundry," I mentioned, stretching my back.

"I did," Carlos confirmed, sitting up to examine the scratch mark on his abdomen. As he swiped the small beads of blood away, I shuffled my way across the large expanse of bed to grab him a tissue from the box on my bedside table. I held it out to him and he took it, even though he didn't really need it.

"How did she end up in here?" I asked.

Carlos stood and rounded the bed to stand before me as I manually swung my legs off the bed. He leaned down in front of me, moving my hands so that they were positioned on each of his shoulders, and wrapped his arms around my waist to assist in standing me up. It wasn't my intention to find an upright position so soon after waking up, but once my hands were in place I knew that Carlos wanted me to do so. We stood there a moment, just staring into each other's eyes. There was a familiar intensity in his that made me think that I probably wasn't going to like what came next.

"I'm going to step back," he informed me softly. "I'm not leaving you, I just want to see if you can stand unsupported."

My eyes widened. I'd been right. I didn't like what came next. My legs were still aching from yesterday's extended session with Bobby, and the extra ache in my arms told me that that particular effort had been largely thanks to my arms anyway. I wasn't sure I was ready for this. Probably, I would drop to the floor like a sack of potatoes the moment he let go.

"I would never let you fall, Babe," Carlos reminded me. I guess my thoughts had slipped out into the open due to my internal panic taking up so much brain space. He ran his thumb along my brow, smoothing out the wrinkles that had formed there. "I believe in you," he whispered.

I sucking in a shaky breath and met his eyes once more, trying to absorb his confidence and serenity. Finally, when I thought I had my heart under control, I gave a slight nod and Carlos took a step back away from me. For the moment his hands were still on my waist and mine on his shoulders, as if we were simply holding each other at arms' length. My fingertips reflexively curled into the corded muscles of his shoulders.

"Relax," he coaxed. "You'll be fine. Baby steps. Let go of my shoulders and lower your hands. I'll keep hold of your waist until you're ready."

I tried to relax my fingers and let go, but I couldn't. It was as if my hands had frozen solid with fear.

"That's okay," Carlos assured me. "Don't worry. We'll go one finger at a time if we have to. It's fine."

A tear of frustration and self betrayal leaked from my eye and I swiped it away angrily with my left hand. As I went to return it to his shoulder I paused, clenching the hand to a fist about an inch from its intended destination. Breathing out slowly, I lowered my arm so that it hung stiffly by my side.

"Good, Babe," he encouraged. "You can do this. I know you can. Think of the pride on your sons' faces when they see you walking again."

Picturing my curly headed boys grinning up at me as we walked hand in hand in hand, I took another slow breath and let it out as I removed my other hand from his shoulder.

Carlos was smiling when I raised my head to look at him, for some reason, seeking approval that I had achieved what I set out to do. "That's it," he said warmly. "I'm not going to move my hands until you tell me to."

Looking directly into his dark brown eyes, I informed him in the shakiest voice I had mustered in a long time, "I hate you."

The corners of his eyes crinkled to show he didn't believe me as his thumbs stroked my rib cage tenderly. "I love you, too," he replied.

"Why are you making me do this?" I asked.

He leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine in a brief kiss. "Because I love you and I want you to be able to live your life to its fullest again," he said, gently squeezing my waist.

"You never explained the kitten's presence in our bed," I prompted trying to distract myself as I placed my hands on top of his, slowly prising his fingers off my waist.

He kept his gaze locked on mine, not acknowledge what our hands were doing. I was thankful for this action since I wasn't sure I had the courage to continue if he was watching me. "The door mustn't have closed properly," he mentioned.

I didn't believe him for a moment. The great Carlos 'Ranger' Manodo would never lock up a prisoner and forget to close the door properly, even if the prisoner was a small animal. Narrowing my eyes at him, I questioned, "Then why didn't you just take her back when she climbed into bed with us?" It seemed ridiculous that he refused to let the boys sleep with us even if they were sick, but one tiny kitten could crawl in and he did nothing about it.

His eyes flickered to the side and back to me so fast I almost missed it. "You were sleeping on top of me," he pointed out.

I rolled my eyes. He had to realise how feeble that excuse was. When Mat and Edi were younger and would wake up in the night he would slip out of bed, tend to their needs and sneak back in. For about a week I was under the blissful delusion that they had begun sleeping through the night, until Ranger explained that he hated waking me, so he just didn't.

Carlos glanced down at our hands, which now hung between us like teenagers saying goodbye, and grinned. Carefully, he slipped his fingers from mine and took another step back. I could feel my knees shaking, but was determined to stay up for my kind-hearted macho man.

"Perfect," he said, looking me up and down reverently. I stood before him in nothing but my panties and camisole, no wonder he had a lingering eye this morning. "Let's get you dressed." I started to protest as he took another step backwards, widening the space between us, but he held up a hand to stop me. "Count to ten and I'll be back before you know it."

"One," I said aloud. "Two, three, four."

"Slow down, Babe," he called from inside the wardrobe.

"Five." I recalled telling the boys to slow their counting by saying Mississipi in between each number. They'd had trouble with the word at the time – they were only three and a half at the time – so we ended up changing it to elephants. "Six elephants," I said, making sure I was counting loud enough for me to hear. "Seven elephants."

Before I got to eight he was out of the wardrobe and standing in front of me. "See?" he said. "Six seconds."

"Eight," I corrected as he knelt in front of me. A million things he could do to me in that position sprinted through my head so fast I only had time to acknowledge them before the next in line pushed them out of the way."

"Six," he said firmly, "Your counting was too fast to start with. Lift your foot."

"I counted up to eight," I pointed out. "That means eight seconds regardless of how fast I count."

He shook his head and I watched his hair, which was always loose first thing in the morning, float back and forth with the movement. "You're as bad as Eduardo and Matias," he chuckled. "Lift your foot," he added, tapping my ankle.

Realising what he was doing, I looked down to find him holding my jeans, all bunched up and ready to slide over my foot. I don't know whether it was my sudden tilt forward to look down, or the sudden internal need to and want to do as my husband asked, but I lost my balance, catching myself on his shoulders. "I can't," I gasped, gripping his shoulders tightly.

"Yes you can," Carlos urged. "Hold on to me if you have to, but just try to lift your foot off the ground."

Eventually he managed to get me dressed, though for all the effort I put it, I could only manage to lift my foot about a quarter of an inch off the floor. He beamed up at me as he pulled my jeans up my legs, his face full of pride. "Good job, Babe," he praised, nipping at my inner thighs as he continued to pull my pants up. My fingertips dug into his shoulders as a shot of pleasure raced through me.

"Carlos, you just got my pants on," I pointed out. "Don't make me wish they were off."

"We don't need to take them off," he mentioned. "We've worked around them before."

At that moment there was a small chirrup from near the door and we both looked over to find the kitten looking up at us with that hungry look in her eyes. We knew hungry eyes when we saw them; after all, we were raising two boys that were directly related to me. If they weren't hungry, they were sleeping.

"I think she's hungry," I chuckled as Carlos sat back on his heels.

"I'll get dressed then feed her," he said, ensuring I was still stable as he stood. I buttoned the fly on my jeans and he turned me so that all I had to do was sit down in the wheelchair. He set my bra and a flowy peasant top on the bed for me to put on before disappearing once more into the wardrobe. I pulled on the clothes and wheeled over to the doorway he'd gone through. "Boots?" he asked with his back to me as he pulled on a form fitting button through shirt of incredibly pale blue.

"Yes please," I responded and scrutinised the shirt as he bent to retrieve my soft brown leather boots from the bottom shelf. "How long have you had that shirt?"

To my surprise, he let out a sigh as he handed me my boots. "Celia sent it about a month ago." I raised my eyebrows at him, silently asking why he was wearing it if didn't like it. He shook his head. "She was hinting that I never used a single gift she's ever given me, and that it'd be nice to see me use at least one."

"That's not true!" I exclaimed. "We use that dish she got us as a wedding gift all the time!"

He smiled, buttoning up the pale shirt. "I don't think she intended it to be a key dish," he said.

I rolled back and started pulling on my boots. "At least we use it," I mumbled.

*o*

Typically, the boys were hiding from us when we arrived at Haywood. Ella informed us that she had taken them down for breakfast with the men on four and hadn't seen them since. We thank her for babysitting, which apparently was a useless gesture because she loved the terrors like grandsons and would die if we didn't let her have them every once in a while, and made our way to the fourth floor to start the investigation.

"And this is why we left early," I muttered, shaking my head. In the last couple of years I'd actually found that I getting better at being on time, to the point where I'd actually started arriving to appointments a few minutes early. "It's a good thing it's your family and not mine," I reminded him. "The whole world would end if turned up late to a meal with my family. Your mother actually knows what the warmer button on the oven is for."

Lester and Bobby were sprawled across a collective of half a dozen office chairs in the middle of the comm. centre, munching on muesli bars while staring at a couple of pieces of paper.

"They split up," Lester said when he saw us. For a moment I thought he was referring to whatever he was reading, until he added, "Mat when left, probably to the general meeting room. Edi went right. Best guess is the supply cupboard."

As Carlos went left, I started to go right, but Bobby spoke, grabbing my attention. "I took the liberty of scanning that crossword into the computer and uploading it to the database," he mentioned. "I also created a forum thread on the internal board for it so we don't waste time puzzling over a clue that someone else has already solved. All the men have been added to the thread so they'll know about it."

I blinked in confusion, finding Eduardo momentarily wiped from my brain. Why would he get the entire company involved in a crossword that had nothing to do with them? "Why?" I simply asked.

Bobby shrugged, "Sometimes we like puzzles that don't rely on dead bodies for clues."

Rolling my eyes at his offhand mention of death, I started rolling again. "I'll keep that in mind," I called over my shoulder as Carlos returned from his end with a squirming Matias tossed over his shoulder. He dumped the kid on Lester with the command to keep a hold on him until he got back and strode past me in the direction of the supply cupboard.

Tank poked his head out of the break room and spotted me straight away, like he was looking for me specifically. "Steph," he called, crossing the floor in large easy steps. "Just the person I need to speak to. That Brodie guy called for you, he'd like his crossword back as soon as you can manage it."

"I don't suppose he sounded like he'd like to wait until Monday?" I asked, knowing that I really shouldn't have kept it from him this long in the first place. It's not like I did it deliberately though. I was just going to keep it long enough to make a copy of it then give it back, and then life happened and it got shoved to the back of my mind.

"If you have it on you, I could have one of the guys run it over for you this morning," Tank offered.

Relief washed over me. I didn't enjoy making people angry, and I had a theory that no matter how nice someone was, they could get ugly if pushed too long. Finding that limit was not high on my list of priorities. "That'd be great," I thanked him. "It's in the blue plastic folder on my desk."

Just then, Carlos came barrelling back into the area with Eduardo tucked under one arm like a football. My boy was giggling profusely, his arms clinging to that of his father. When he reached Lester, he set Eduardo on the man's stomach next to Matias and crouched down in front of them.

"I have a surprise for you," he intoned, looking from one to the other. They bounced up and down excitedly. "You remember when you asked if you could have a pet and I said no?" Matias nodded enthusiastically while Eduardo's eyes got wide. "Well, I talked it over with Mommy and she said that if you're really good you can have a kitten."

"Yeah!" they exclaimed in perfect unison, leaping off their uncle and wrapping their arms around their father in a hug. A moment later, they bounded over to me and climbed onto the footrests of my chair in order to give me my hug as well. "Thank you, Mommy!" Eduardo enthused as they got back down, but I noticed Mat had taken on a very serious expression. It may well be that Carlos's plan was working all ready.


~Insert attempt to encourage readers to become reviewers here, reminding them that words from them usually inspire words from you in the form of a new chapter~