Thank you all for your reviews and alerts and once again thank you for your patience. I know I see those few of you that are shaking you heads . I know you've heard it all before. But the sentiments are real. I hope you all enjoy this chapter :)

Chapter 39

Harm pursed his lips after he hung up his phone. Mac had called him.

"Which one?" Josh asked. He could tell that one of the girls were in trouble, possibly both.

"We have to go and pick up Chloe. Apparently she's at the movies."

"That answers that question."

"Did you know anything about her sneaking out?"

Josh held up his hands. "Not me. I had NOTHING to do with this."

"Good." Harm said patting the boy's knee.

"Did Mattie?"

Harm didn't answer but pulled into a parking space on the roof of the mall near the movie theatre.

Harm switched on the radio and opened the windows. "I'll only be but a minute." he grumbled.

XXX

He marched up to the ticket counter. "My daughter is in here somewhere." he said "Without permission."

"Yeah?" The girl behind the counter said with a total lack of interest.

Harm sighed. "I'm going to find her. Now you can either give me some kind of idea where to start that'd be great. Otherwise you can bring me the manager and I can tell him how uncooperative you've been and get him to help me."

"The one that opened yesterday is in theatre four. That's where most of the kids are." the girl said with a roll of her eyes.

"Thank you." Harm said. He managed to collect an usher on the way in. The boy shone the torch along each isle until Harm narrowed his eyes and pointed at Chloe.

When the light hit her face Chloe tried to wriggle down into the seat but when Harm clicked his fingers she jumped up, winced at her friend and shuffled along the isle towards him.

XXX

"What were you thinking?" Harm said.

Chloe shrugged. "It was just the movies."

"The movies has nothing to do with it Chloe. You know damn well that the issue is the sneaking out."

"I HAD to sneak out. You won't ever let me go on my own and stupid Mattie was grounded."

"I don't like that word and I don't think you should blame this on Mattie."

Chloe rolled her eyes.

"Hey." Harm said stopping her for a minute. "You're in enough trouble. Don't start giving me attitude."

"Well you would say not to blame it on Mattie."

Harm frowned. "Why would I say that?"

"Because you just would. She's your favourite. She's sort of your first is the boy and I'm the one you got saddled with."

"That's not true Chloe. Why would we stick you with rules if we didn't care about you?"

"I know Mac cares."

"So do I."

"Ok."

"No seriously Chloe. I think of you as one of three of my kids. I love you all."

"Really?"

"Yes really." Harm pulled her into a tight hug.

"It'd be a shame to ruin all these warm fuzzy feelings with punishments now wouldn't it?"

"Nice try Chloe."

XXX

Chloe opened the car door and climbed into the back seat, poking out her tongue at Josh who shook his head.

"Enough." Harm said.

"Chloe why didn't you just ask me to take you?"

"Cos you were taking Josh somewhere."

"We could have gone around that. This is not a safe world anymore Honey and you need to be aware that bad things can happen when you're on your own, especially at night."

"I won't do it again."

"We'll talk about it at home. I'm sure that Mac is going to have plenty to say."

"Does she know?"

"Yes she knows."

"Mattie."

"You don't know that Mattie was how Mac found out. You have to get you facts straight. Even if it was Mattie, telling would have been the right thing to do."

Mattie didn't say anything else but stared blindly out the window and Harm could tell she had already assigned the blame.

XXX

"Come on." Harm said opening the young girl's door and waiting for her to get out.

"You gonna smack me when I walk past?"

"Not if you just get out when you're told."

"Ok." Chloe said eyeing him suspiciously as she got out carefully never letting her eyes leave his face. She scooted out of the car sideways and ran into the house although the thought did occur to her that she was leaping from the frying pan into the fire.

"What on EARTH possessed you to do such an irresponsible thing Chloe?" Mac groused the minute she'd walked almost directly into her arms. She hugged her tightly. "Thank Goodness you're alright."

"Sorry Mac." she said sweetly.

"Don't you sorry Mac me with that sweet vice Miss." Mac said releasing her and smacking her bottom to boot. "I was worried sick about you."

"I was just at the movies."

"How did you get there?"

"I got the bus."

"With a bunch of seedy strangers. At NIGHT!"

"They weren't seedy. At least I don't think they were seedy. What exactly do you mean by seedy?"

"Bad Chloe! Dangerous! People we don't know."

"Geez Mac chill."

"Did you just tell me to chill?" Mac said lunging for Chloe. Harm turned up just in time to catch Mac almost mid air.

"Hey calm down Mac."

"She just told me to chill." Mac said. "Really, chill. First I go upstairs and find Mattie about climb out of their bedroom window. Then I have to listen to a crazy story about a superbug followed by a long and drawn out story about how all this started and when I got to the end of it I STILL didn't know where YOU were." she said pointing to Chloe. I had to spank the answer to the simple question out of Mattie. What IS it with you two with answering questions and windows. Not to mention that sad looking doll she hid in the bed."

"I was trying..."

"I KNOW what you were trying to do and let me tell you YOU DID IT BADLY."

"You want me to learn h..."

"Go upstairs Chloe." Harm said. "I'll be up in a minute." He looked at Josh.

"I'm going." he said.

XXX

"I should push you out of the window myself." Mattie said when Chloe walked sheepishly into the room.

"I didn't mean for you to get into trouble again."

"Well I did and let me tell you, Mac packs a wallop."

"I know."

"She spank you too?"

"Nope not yet."

"She will or Mac will."

"For what it's worth Mattie, I wasn't trying to get you in trouble or anything. I just wanted to go and I didn't think. I did a little about the doll. I thought it looked good."

"It looked like your head was too small and you had no body. Your hair also looked like you'd been dead for three days but then I guess everyone sees things differently son't they?"

"I guess."

"I thought you told on me."

"I did eventually but I was going to try and catch you first so neither of us ended up in trouble."

"That's where it went all wrong?"

"Uh huh."

XXX

Mac sagged into Harm's open arms. "What a day."

"Hmm. Mac, don't take this the wrong way but you don't think you may have over reacted just a little?"

"No." she said. "Do you?"

He tipped his head to the side not really wanting to answer the question.

"YOU do don't you?"

"Maybe, just a bit."

"I guess I did. I just...It's just that just when we think they're getting better they do something like this and it's scary."

"I know but it always turns out alright."

"Will it though Harm? What if it got too complicated?"

"Where's all this coming from?" Mac dug into her pocket and drew out the thing that this morning she thought would be a surprise. Now she felt like it would be a shock.

Harm's eyes were like saucers as she held it up.

She nodded. "Against all odds, we're about to have our fourth child."

TBC