"No. Go away. Please."
Like hell he would leave her crying over him. "Not a chance. Cover yourself, or whatever you need to do, because I'm coming in." He gave her a five count and hoped the door wasn't locked so he wouldn't have to pull some lame John Wayne stunt. "Now."
He pushed the door open and found Lori sitting on the bathroom floor swaddled in a bulky white bathrobe. Her green pallor answered his question before he could even ask.
Lori blanched. "Stomach flu."
* * *
Gray stretched out on Lori's sofa and channel surfed. She had been too incapacitated to turn down his offer to watch Magda for the afternoon. Lori had started to protest. Then her face had turned seaweed green and all arguments died as she'd shoved him out of the bathroom and slammed the door in his face.
For the best, since he still wasn't all that steady after their near miss earlier, and he needed time away from her to regain his footing. Taking care of Magda offered a perfect distraction until he could leave. After an hour he and Magda had arrived at an armed truce. As long as he didn't pick her up, she was fine.
They'd had breakfast, Magda's a bland diet of dry toast in accordance with her own stomach flu recovery. She'd eyed the cow cookie jar with longing as if to say "Yori" would have given her one. He'd held strong. Not too difficult since he didn't relish the idea of mopping up that cookie later.
Now Magda played quietly on the rug while Lori slept the day away. He'd hauled the Barbie house into the living room so he could catch the ball games.
Not a bad gig.
Magda seemed to be a low-maintenance kid, and she didn't want his attention anyway. Which stung a little more than it should have. Kids always liked him. He was the favorite uncle. The Disney dude. King of Barbies and Tonkas.
Gray thumbed the button until he found the cartoon channel and pitched aside the remote. Good thing Lori was totally out of it. Memories of her passion-dazed eyes, her playful touch swirled through his mind. He didn't have much left in the way of reserve ammunition around her.
So much for his clean break.
When he'd checked on her earlier, her weak smile of appreciation had slathered on the guilt. Who'd have thought she would turn weepy over a pack of crackers and a cup of tea? Weren't women supposed to want roses and Godiva chocolates?
Of course he'd given her those a year ago, for all the good it had done them.
Lori was grateful for such damned unpredictable little things. That stabbed at him. She deserved more. She deserved everything. The house, the kids and a husband who could commit to something more than the next piece of rank on his shoulder.
He thought of the next assignment and its assurance of his promotion to lieutenant colonel within a year. Tomorrow would start his last week of work at Charleston Air Force Base, his final flight scheduled for Friday, his party at his folks' condo on Saturday.
His parents. Damn. Gray sat up. He'd promised his mother he would stop in over the weekend.
Gray snagged the phone from the end table and punched in the number. Listening to the call go through, he watched Magda march her Barbies in front of the dollhouse.
The ringing stopped.
"Sergeant Clark's quarters," his father's clipped voice answered. Even retired and living off base, the old Chief Master Sergeant never shed his military routines.
"Hey, ol' man, it's me. Could you put Mom on?"
"Sure, son." The phone clattered to rest. "Angela…"
And that was it. The standard conversation he could expect with his dad. He wasn't sure anymore if it was his fault or his father's but didn't much care, other than it seemed to bother his mother.
The phone crackled with muffled sounds of his parents talking while he waited, watching Magda. She mumbled in her own language, and he resolved to find a translation dictionary. Some familiar words flowed through the gibberish, like "Mama" and "Papa."
Could she still have memories of her real parents? Her file hadn't held much information, except that her mother and father, both local schoolteachers, had died about eighteen months ago in a village raid. With no other living relatives, Magda had been placed in the orphanage.
She slid a smaller doll into the swing, the "Papa" doll behind pushing. A fist tightened around Gray's heart.
Of course she would have memories, spotty but real. His nephew remembered the color of a car they'd sold when he was two. Gray remembered his father—
"Grayson?" His mother's voice jolted him back to the present. "Where are you, sweetie?"
"Hi, Mom, still in Charleston. Sorry, but I'm not going to be able to make it out there this weekend. I'm, uh, with a patient today." Not a lie, but good thing his mom couldn't pin him with those laser, lie-detector eyes or he'd be busted for sure. If he didn't keep her diverted, she'd be talking about his sex life again. "And I'm on call tomorrow."