How does Lieutenant Colonel Franklin Clay convince a woman to marry him? To be honest, I haven't a single fucking clue. Not because he left me or because he gave up, or at least I don't think he gave up, he just kept being Clay. Strong, hot, sexy Clay.
After our bath, which he begrudgingly allowed me to reciprocate the pampering, he wrapped me in one of my huge bath sheets and carefully detangled my hair completely. My scalp was still sore, but he could run his fingers through my hair without them catching on a snag and that was a relief for us both. Once we were dry, we managed to leave the bedroom to relax in the living room, and I found out who he'd been talking to when I woke up.
Dinner had been delivered. My favorites, made by George and put carefully away in the fridge with sticky notes to tell Clay how to reheat each one. "Your uncles are amazing men, Char." He was moving around my kitchen like he cooked more frequently than he admitted to, and I thought he might have, given his time in the field. "George didn't just write notes, he also went over them when they dropped everything off. Davey wanted me to know what your favorite bath things were, so he told me what to use to help with that." They ganged up on me, not that I minded. "I told them we'd call when you were feeling up for a LONG chat."
"Later," I promised, smiling when he brought me a glass of wine. "You look hot as hell in my kitchen, sir." His smile made my heart stutter and his white button down over those boxers of his was doing a few things to other parts of my anatomy. "Do I get dessert?"
"Let's see how tired dinner makes you." He countered, and I made a promise to myself that I was saving room for a shit ton of dessert.
"I don't know how I'm going to stay in shape in this town," Clay groaned, putting his empty plate on the coffee table and sitting back. "Between Enzo's, your cooking, and George's-" I was watching him relax, his body a work of art, not a complaint to be had from my lips. In fact- "You look like you might be ready for dessert, sweetheart." His eyes were dark and his teeth were worrying his lower lip.
"Oh, I'm more than ready," I crawled over his lap, thankful he hadn't bothered to button his shirt, thankful he hadn't bothered with his pants, and thankful he'd only dried me off and wrapped me in a blanket. "I don't care if my lip opens wide, Clay," I murmured as I was pulling his shirt off his shoulders. "I don't care if I hiss when your fingers scrape my skin," his mouth attached itself to my neck and I sighed. "Don't fucking stop until-" And he didn't. Not this time.
When morning dawned again, after another night wrapped up in one another, this time the way we had before MAX had made a mess of things again, I remembered that I could get up and do the baking for the shop again. Even if it was later than usual, even if Clay couldn't have his breakfast on the island while customers were mingling and sipping coffee through the swinging doors, I could recapture some of my routine.
I could visit Carrie too, Clay told me after we got ready and were heading downstairs. He was off to meet with the team, sans Jensen since he was still at his girl's beck and call, but Carrie was allowed more visitors and feeling slightly better. George and Davey got a call while I had the first round of pastries in the oven, Keli hip checking me in the kitchen on her way to the office to get change.
"I'm fine, even if my face looks like-" I was saying, as Keli came back through with a laugh.
"Like a fucking riot of bruises, looks like she went ten rounds with a heavyweight, but she also looks like she won, so there's that." She offered, since I had the phone on speaker as I mixed another batch.
"Such a poet," George offered with his own snicker, and Davey sighed loudly, done with all of our shit. "At least you came out on top, sweetie."
"She survived," Davey snarled, and I felt the same protective bubble around me that I felt when Mom died. "That's it, not because she's superhuman, but because she managed to keep herself alive. Clay told us that they'll be tried at the highest level, but I'd rather they end up-"
"Castrated and eaten by piranhas, I know," I sighed while Keli rolled her eyes and left through the way she came. "The law doesn't really allow it, but I do love your zest for it."
"I heard Walter came to check on you," George's voice came out in the same tone he'd used when I tried to convince him that EVERYONE wore pajamas to their morning classes in college. It still felt weird seeing him in my apartment, looking like hell and concerned.
"Yeah, he did. He was freaked out, probably afraid it ruined his chances of reelection." I shrugged and went back to the task at hand, adding more flavored chips to another scone recipe. Neither uncle chimed in to agree with me and I stopped in my tracks. "That has to be why good old Walt came pounding on my door, right?"
"Listen, sweetheart," Davey sounded resigned and somewhat timid, two words I'd never consider using to describe my uncle. "When we realized you went out on your own, then Clay gave us a minor cardiac infraction by telling us that he assumed that you were taken by those asshole twins, we-" I heard George making some unattractive noises of dissent in the background and a sigh from Davey before he went on. "I decided that maybe Walter would know where they had you."
It took me a few beats to process the fact that my uncle had swallowed his own distrust and dislike for my father to call him and ask for any help in finding me and Carrie. "YOU called Walter?" It came out far quieter and calmer than I'd assumed I had within my entire person. "Why would you think he'd care or help?"
George made a noise that I'd need the rest of my life to come up with a description to do justice. "Because he's been their asshole buddy since their mothers' squatted in whichever gutter they shat them out in?" My eyes went wide, not due to the crudeness, but because George was being more like Davey and me than he usually allowed himself to go. "I have to admit, I didn't think he'd react the way he did when Dave made that call."
Before I could ask, Davey chimed back in. Now that they were telling the full story, both were willing to go full disclosure. While he talked, I pulled the pans of fresh pastries out of the oven and put them on the first racks to cool. Prepared racks ready to go in the oven were put in and I did it all while listening to the bizarrest fucking thing I'd ever heard.
"At first I thought he was going to hang up, Charlotte. It's not as if we're on the best terms." Understatement of the fucking decade. "I managed to get out that you were missing, that his idiot friends were the culprits, and that we worried that you weren't going to come out unscathed-"
"He barely finished before we heard the knock on our front door," George offered, I could almost hear him shaking his head in the disbelief that I felt. "Standing there looking like he just yanked on sweats over his PJs, his wife beside him looking like she'd seen a ghost-"
"Gays, sweetheart, she saw gays," I nearly snorted, but I didn't have time to appreciate the joke because they were on a roll. "Anyway, Walter asked to come in and he brainstormed about the properties that he knew for certain the twins owned, I thought he was going to yank his hair out at the roots. The wife was looking around the house like she was on a tour to a museum of the strange, but she wasn't rude or out of line so we mostly ignored her."
"He kept muttering about how he couldn't understand not seeing how dangerous they were," George piped in. "When Clay checked back in to tell us they'd found you and Carrie, I thought he was going to faint. He was so relieved. Told us that he planned on checking in with the ER to see how you were doing and that he'd be visiting you to make certain, but I think we both assumed that was just talk."
"It wasn't," I was sitting at the island, having managed to prep a few more pans of scones to keep from freaking out at the knowledge that my sperm donor wasn't a complete dickhead. "He seriously looked like he was concerned."
"I think he IS concerned," George said. Our perpetual sweetness tried to convince me. "Charlotte, you were in real danger, from HIS friends. That's more than concerning."
"Clay asked me to marry him." It slipped out, I swear, but the gasps from their end nearly made me go deaf. "Calm your asses down," I think my brain was trying to change the subject from Walter to less traumatic territory, but failed miserably. "I haven't said yes."
"Not YET, I hope you mean," George sounded completely appalled by the news that I wasn't studying bridal magazines and hiring wedding planners. "Do not make me disown you for letting a man like Clay go, Charlotte Ramble."
I snorted then, real and true hilarity at the thought that my uncle would disown me for losing a man. But then I sobered up real quick at the thought of LOSING CLAY. Shit. Would I lose Clay if I didn't say yes eventually?
