Chapter 28

Tuesday Morning

Lee sauntered into the bullpen and quickly noticed Amanda already at her desk, busy at work. He shook his head in amazement and went to his desk to get his day started. After spending about thirty minutes going through messages and making a few phone calls, he suddenly stood and strode directly to Amanda's desk. "Good Morning, Amanda. I was just wondering what was on your schedule for today?"

She glanced up into his sparkling eyes and answered, "Oh, not much. Just some filing and a few reports Billy asked me to type up. Why?"

"Well, I have to run down to see Leatherneck for a while, but I was wondering if you wanted to join me for lunch today?" He proposed with a slight wink hidden from everyone but her.

Her mouth opened as she realized what he was asking, "Oh! Yeah, lunch would be great. What time do you want to leave?"

Lee glimpsed at his watch. "I should be done with everything around eleven-thirty. Will that work for you?"

"Yes, that should be fine."

He smiled brightly and followed it up with another wink. "I'm going to head down to see Leatherneck now. I'll come back and get you when I'm done."

"Okay. See you then."

Lee did an about-face and started towards the Quartermaster's office. He grinned and nodded politely at everyone along the way. As he approached the door, another agent walked out and held open the door for him as they exchanged pleasantries.

"Murphy."

"Scarecrow."

Lee continued into the office to find Leatherneck working on some kind of gadget. "Hey there, Leatherneck. Are you busy?"

"Never too busy for you, Ace. What's up?"

"I need your help with something." Lee scanned the office. "Do you have somewhere we can talk?"

Leatherneck nodded, then pulled his head to the side. "Yeah, we can go in here."

Lee glanced again to make sure no one was watching as he followed him inside. Leatherneck leaned against the desk and queried, "What do you need from me?"

"You don't have an insect problem here, do you?"

Leatherneck caught on quickly, "Ah, no. We sprayed just this morning."

Lee sighed while his shoulders relaxed. "I need help with a personal issue and your security expertise. I'm looking at buying a house, and I want to set up some security and add a secure and fortified office space."

"Wow, Ace! That's the last thing I expected you to tell me. May I ask why you are thinking about buying a house?"

"What I'm about to tell is highly classified, and the only other person who knows is Billy. I can trust you to keep a secret, right?" Leatherneck nodded in agreement. Lee smirked and continued, "I'm getting married!"

Leatherneck choked out his response, "Married! Did you say married?"

"Yes, I did. We found a house we will be putting an offer in on, and if our offer is accepted, we want to make a few changes before moving in. We want to put an office and a panic room in the basement. If I give you the address, can you find a copy of the blueprints, so we can go over our ideas and tell us if they will work?" Leatherneck took a while to answer, still reeling from the fact, Scarecrow was getting married. After he didn't answer him, Lee inquired again, "Leatherneck, can you help us out?"

Leatherneck was brought out of his trance and indicated, "Oh, yeah. I can take a look right now." He quickly made his way around the desk, sat down at the computer, and made a few keystrokes. "Okay, Ace. Give me the address."

Lee beamed with excitement. "Thanks, Leatherneck. It's right here."

Lee handed him a small piece of paper. Leatherneck snatched the paper and proceeded to punch in the address and responded, "Ace, that address isn't coming up in the DC area. Are you sure you gave me the right address?"

"Um, yeah. It's the correct address. Only it's not in DC. It's in Arlington."

Leatherneck raised his head quickly and stared at Lee. "Arlington, huh?"

"Yeah, Arlington."

Leatherneck again punched in the address, this time in Arlington. "Here it is." He let out a long whistle. "Wow, Ace! This is a huge house! What do you need this much space for…" His question fell off as he shot a look over at Lee and saw him shrug his shoulders and smirk. "Ahhh. You and Amanda, huh?" Lee just nodded back at him. "That's the classified part?" Lee nodded again as Leatherneck acknowledged with a huge smile. "Okay, Ace. Let's get to work."

A few hours later, Lee practically skipped back to the bullpen. He stopped at his desk, quickly grabbed his keys, and made his way to Amanda. "Are you ready to go?"

She raised her head to gaze at Lee. Her eyes sparkled with love. "Let me finish this paragraph, and then I'm all yours."

Lee leaned his hands on her desk and softly spoke, "I thought I already was."

She smirked but didn't look up from her typewriter and responded, "You are." She pulled the paper out of the typewriter, placed it in a folder, and gathered her things. "I need to turn these into Billy before we can go." She grabbed her purse, stood, and walked over to Billy's office with Lee right behind her. She stopped in the open doorway and announced, "Here are the reports you needed, sir."

Billy reached for the reports as Amanda and Lee took the few steps further into his office. Billy took the reports from her and responded, "Thank you, Amanda. I appreciate you doing this for me." His eyes flashed between the two and continued, "You two headed out somewhere?"

Lee answered first, "Yeah, we're headed to a lunch meeting. Then, later this afternoon, we have an appointment with the Credit Union. We were hoping we could knock off a little early. If these two appointments go well, we want to pick the boys up from school and surprise them."

"School!" Billy exclaimed. "I didn't think school started yet."

"Oh, it hasn't, sir. Philip has tryouts for the soccer team, and Jamie needed to sign up for the photography club," Amanda proudly explained.

Billy nodded and questioned, "When did Jamie get involved in photography?"

"We were showing him the pictures from Paris, and he took a picture of Lee and I that night, and it just kind of took off from there. Lee's been helping him a little. The two of them seem to have a lot of fun together."

"It sounds like you are bonding very nicely with the boys." Lee nodded with a smile that reached both ears. "So, you two have a surprise for the boys, huh?" Billy grinned and hinted, "Anything you'd like to share?"

Lee and Amanda shared a look that only the two of them understood. Lee curiously searched around the bullpen to make sure no one was in earshot and turned back to Billy. "We have a meeting with the Agency realtor at lunch. We're putting an offer in on a house. Then we have a meeting with the Credit Union about a home loan."

"Congratulations! I wish you luck. Take all the time you need. Things are pretty quiet around here right now. This means you two need to get all your errands done now while you can. Because the calm isn't going to last too long."

"Thank you, sir."

"Yeah, thanks, Billy. See you later."

Lee and Amanda turned and strolled out of the bullpen. Lee placed his hand in the familiar spot on the small of her back as they made their way through the Agency and out to his car.

Lee pulled the 'Vette into the parking lot at Mikhael's Restaurant about thirty minutes later and parked. He quickly got out and hurried over to open the door for Amanda. He reached for her hand to assist as she stood. Lee leaned down and kissed her cheek as she held up her hand and dangled his keys. "You really need to stop forgetting these."

"Sorry. All I could think about was getting next to you, honey!" He winked and gave her his famous Stetson smile with his dimples prominently on display. Amanda rolled her eyes and smirked as he took his keys from her hand, not letting go until every knuckle had been kissed. They silently walked into the restaurant and scanned around until they spotted John in the back corner, waving at them.

They approached the table and greeted him. Lee pulled out Amanda's chair before he seated himself. "Thanks for meeting us here, John."

"No problem. I assume since we are meeting at this quaint little restaurant away from the Agency, you don't want anyone at the office to know we're meeting." They both nodded in response. "Okay. Well, let's get down to business then. Amanda, Lee has informed me you are interested in purchasing a home with your fiance and wanted my advice. I assumed I would be meeting your fiance as well since Lee asked me to bring the appropriate paperwork to put in an offer. I will need his signature."

Amanda smiled at Lee and remarked, "Yes, John. My fiance and I would like to put an offer in on the house Lee talked to you about, and he will be signing the papers today."

"Great, when will he be getting here?"

"He already is."

John eyed both Lee and Amanda a couple of times, stopping on Lee. Lee proudly grinned back at John and took Amanda's hand, as understanding crossed John's face. "Alright, let's get started, shall we? I have checked into this house more since talking to Lee. I've also talked to the listed realtor, and we had a lengthy conversation. I've prepared the paperwork for your initial offer leaving a few spots blank. I will fill those spots in, once we decide which direction you want to go. Before we get into the numbers, I do need to ask you both a question. Do you want the offer in both your names or only one of you until you're married? Or we can put it in both your names and then change it after you're married."

Lee turned to Amanda and responded first. "We haven't talked about that yet, but I would like it in both our names and then change it after we're married. This is a joint venture. What are your thoughts, Amanda?"

"I agree. We want to do this as a team. Just like we do everything. Does it take a lot of work to change my name after the wedding?"

John shook his head. "No, it doesn't. It just takes a month or so to go through all the approval processes." John made a few notes on his legal pad, so he could make the changes back at his office.

"I just have one more question for you, John, before we go any further. Since you are an Agency realtor, do you have to put this offer in any official reports?"

"Absolutely not, Lee. The Agency may employ us, but we're our own separate company. Nothing gets reported to them. We're just there to help the employees. Just like the Credit Union." Relief passed over both Lee and Amanda's faces. "Now, what do you say we get this offer done, so I can get it turned in?"