Mistletoe (K19 Security Solutions 3)

“They’ll be checking out before the end of the week.”

“I’m sure they’ll be able to tack a few extra days on.”

He remembered the look his mother was giving him from when he was a child. It always meant that whatever he’d said was preposterous.

“I guess that look means they won’t be able to.”

His mother shook her head. “Who does that leave? Just Dutch and Alegria? They can stay in the guest house with Odette. There will be plenty of room if Mantis is able to join us, and of course, Striker and Aine can always stay at his place in McLean and drive in if he makes it back before Christmas. They’ll probably want the privacy.”

His mother really wasn’t talking to him; it was more that she was thinking out loud as she scribbled no

tes on a piece of paper.

“Am I forgetting anyone?” she asked.

“First of all, how did you remember that much? How did you know it in the first place?”

“Oh, Gunner, how do you think?”

“Jesus. Will you quit with that look? I’m not ten years old, and I don’t have any idea. That’s why I asked.”

She patted his arm. “Sally and I talk almost every morning—”

“You talk to Razor’s mother every day?”

She patted his arm again. “Yes, but I wasn’t finished, sweetheart. I also talk to Peggy, and Svetlana and I are doing quite well with that translation thing you put on my phone. Although her English is coming along so well, I’m not sure how much longer we’ll even need it.”

Gunner shook his head.

“This is far more practical, Gunner. I’m glad you changed your mind about trying to ferry everyone to the island. Not to mention, the house there really isn’t suitable for a group this large.”

“I didn’t plan for everyone to sleep there,” he mumbled.

“It’ll be so much nicer this way, and we certainly have the room.”

After his father retired and they settled back in Annapolis, they’d had this house built on the ten-acre property he’d inherited from his parents. The original dwelling sat farther back from the bay and was about a quarter of the size of the one they were standing in. Once they finished construction on the new one, they turned the old one into a guest house.

At the time, he’d wondered why his parents needed a house with eight bedrooms plus three more in the original house, but he hadn’t questioned it. His father had worked hard his whole life, as had his mother. She deserved to live wherever and however she wanted after moving more than fifteen times in the course of his dad’s career.

He walked out to the screened porch that overlooked the outdoor kitchen, pool, spa, tennis courts, and the deep-water slip where his beloved Hinckley Bermuda 40, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, usually sat. It had been far too long since he’d had time to sail her. Maybe in the spring, he and Zary would join the yacht club and sail in the summer race series.

“There will come a time you’ll regret that name, Son,” his father had said when he first pulled her into the slip.

“Nah. It’s a great name.”

His father had laughed. “For a single guy like you, sure, but once you have a family and my grandchildren start asking what the name means, I’ll tell them to ask their father.”

Gunner remembered wondering if he’d ever have children that would need explaining to. At the time, he doubted it very much.

“Ahem,” he heard his mother say. “Boxes?”

“On it, Ma.”

—:—

Zary had never felt so tired, even when she’d gone more than forty-eight hours without sleep on one of her assignments.

It was a good thing the vehicle Ava and Aine had picked her and Odette up in was an oversized SUV; otherwise, there wouldn’t have been anywhere to put all the packages.