Squared Away (Out of Uniform 5)

“Do you want to dress Zoe? I’ve still got to get Liam changed and ready.”

“I can dress me self,” Zoe protested.

“Supervise. Closely,” Isaiah amended. “Her clothes should be on the floor in there. I’ve already dressed her once.”

“Okay. I’m on it.” Mark scooped her up, too-large tutu and all. “What time does school start? We’re cutting it close for the lawyer.”

“Aware of that.” Isaiah headed back to Liam’s room. “Move fast. And Daphne, you’re going. So get clothes on.”

Isaiah made another executive decision—he was getting good at those—that Liam could go in his sleeper with a fresh diaper. He tossed a spare outfit in the diaper bag. He’d just change him into clothes at the next diaper change. But judging by Mark’s frown when he emerged from the room with Liam and the diaper bag, he didn’t agree with Isaiah’s streamlined approach. He had Zoe by the hand. Her T-shirt was on backward, and she was dragging her blanket.

“He’s going in pajamas?”

“You want to change him?” He headed for the stairs because he knew Mark didn’t. Mark had yet to change a diaper, and this was Mark’s first time in the girls’ room. He’d been pretty much leaving the kid care up to Isaiah. And he was nice—he wasn’t going to point out the backward shirt or how Zoe’s hair was now sticking up at alarming angles. They were going to be late—there wasn’t time for perfection, no matter what Chief Stick-in-the-mud wanted.

“No.” Mark let out a long-suffering sigh as he followed Isaiah down the stairs. “But I better drive. We’re cutting it close.”

Blinking, Isaiah swiveled around at the bottom of the stairs. “You get some sort of transporter powers at SEAL training? Because I think I probably know how to get to the preschool and downtown faster than you.”

“Don’t argue.” Mark sounded a billion years older than Isaiah. Pompous ass. “We don’t have time for that.”

“Okay, fine. But only because I’ll have to hop out and sign the girls into school.” Isaiah tossed him the car keys. They were having words, big ones as soon as the little ears were safely stowed at school.

He got the kids buckled, then slid into the passenger seat. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been in his passenger seat before, wasn’t sure he cared for it. Mark was fast, faster than Isaiah would have liked, frankly, but they got the girls into school right before the morning circle time started, which Isaiah counted as a win. But then they hit big-time bridge traffic on the way downtown and ended up pretty much running from the parking garage to the high rise that housed the lawyer’s office.

And through it all, Isaiah’s ire at Mark’s clipped commands grew. He was not some newbie SEAL on Mark’s team. He was an adult now, and why the hell couldn’t Mark see that?

“Oh there’s the precious.” Aunt Louise took the car-seat carrier from Isaiah the second she spotted them in the lobby. She’d brought Aunt Cecily for the meeting, and damn if Aunt Cecily didn’t look twenty years older in just two weeks. Fuck. Cal. Why’d you do it? The rage Isaiah worked hard to tamp down built up again. He gave Aunt Cecily a hard hug.

His father was back on a plane bound for Santiago, not even sticking around for this meeting. Not that Isaiah had expected him to. The research always came first. Mark’s uncle and wife who had come from Ohio were there too, but other than that, it was a small crowd that entered the large conference room, a reminder of how precious little family they had now.

Tom Yates was a tall man with silver hair who had apparently been Mark’s family’s attorney since his parents had moved to San Diego thirty-odd years ago, and he had hearty handshakes for everyone. His assistant offered coffee and tea around.

Like Aunt Cecily, Isaiah gratefully accepted a cup of tea. He’d made a pot of coffee at home that morning, but that was for Mark who drank the stuff black and strong and seemed to get marginally more human with each cup.

The first part of the meeting was some legalese about the family trust and Danielle’s shares in it. Other than noting that the kids wouldn’t have to worry about money for things like college, Isaiah didn’t really follow all the technical terms that underscored how loaded Mark’s family really was. Apparently, the family back in Ohio had been big into steel. His own family was comfortably middle class thanks to his father’s career, and he had a small nest egg of his own from his mother’s life insurance policy, but Mark’s family was a whole different level of well off.

“Now, we turn our attention to the real property and the wills, most specifically the children—”

“I’ve been talking to my daughter back in Cleveland.” The uncle spoke up, wiping at his balding head. “She and her husband are considering taking the baby. They can’t do the older two, of course.”