He nodded, backing away without the kiss. She should have known he wouldn’t actually risk her reputation with any outright display. Gracious, his words had bolstered her when she needed it. More of that friendship-knowledge of each other coming into play, she imagined.
Shoulders braced, Ginger swung open the door to find her four sons waiting. Matthew paced. Kyle sprawled. Sebastian tended the fire while Jonah sent text messages on his cell phone.
Her boys. Grown up, but still her babies, each with a wicked little one-sided dimple. She opened her arms. “I can’t believe you’re all here.”
She fell into the familiarity of their boisterous hugs.
Matthew pulled back first, her oldest taking charge as usual, so far keeping his eyes solidly off Hank. “Once we learned of the attempt on your life, nothing would keep us away. Then we got here and found out you were missing…holy hell, Mom.”
She should have realized it wouldn’t matter whether or not her boys knew she was missing. The shooting incident alone would bring them to her.
Ginger moved deeper into the room with them, toward the sofa. “I thought for sure they would keep this silent for at least a couple of days.”
“Mother,” Matthew shook his head with an unshakable self-confidence he’d inherited from his father. “I won my seat in the House of Representatives, in case you’ve forgotten. I have access to information.”
And a forceful, no-backing-down determination she suspected he’d made full use of.
“Thank you for worrying, son, but as you can see, my security detail is working overtime.” She sank onto the sofa, her boys sitting around her. “I’m in capable hands.”
Kyle quirked a brow. “I can certainly see you’re in someone’s hands.”
Leave it to her outspoken Kyle to address the issue first. She could already feel Hank advancing farther into the room with powerful strides. Ginger held up her palm to stall him. She and Hank might not have had time to determine where things were headed between them yet, but without question, they had something special.
She wanted this settled without contention between these important males in her life.
“Excuse me, young man?” Ginger tipped her chin and stared him down. “I’m still your mother.”
Sebastian, her middle-child peacemaker, interjected, with both hands raised between them, “You know he’s not being disrespectful to you, Ma, or to the General. Kyle simply wants to make sure you’re all right in every sense of the word.”
Her baby, Jonah, reclined in the wingback, laughing. “Like we have anything to worry about. The General would kick his own ass if he hurt Ma.”
A cleared throat reminded them all of Hank hovering behind her. “Damn straight.”
Heat crawled up her face.
Good Lord, she wasn’t in high school, caught talking about a boy in the lunchroom. Still, these feelings she had felt were just as fresh and new as anything she’d experienced then, combined with the maturity to know how very rare and valuable such emotions were.
Hank put his hands on her shoulders. “However, boys, if you know the first thing about your mother, you understand she can kick my butt all on her own if the need arises. And if you know me at all, you realize the last thing I would ever do is let anybody harm one hair on this lady’s head. Are we on the same page here?”
They all nodded, although she noticed that Matthew was a hint slower than the rest to accede.
Hank nodded in return. “Fair enough. Now, as much as I would like to catch up on old times with you four, your mother has some official business to attend to outside.” He extended his elbow. “Ginger.”
She thought of the gun he always carried. A skitter of unease iced up her spine. They’d caught the confessed perpetrators. Still, security would always be an issue in her job and she hated that she put Hank in harm’s way.
She could almost hear him gruffing that he had his own job to perform as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, so get off her haughty high horse.
A smile trembled at her lips as she wondered why she couldn’t simply grab hold of this happiness. Oh, how she wished she could spend more time with them since she’d only just darted into the room a minute ago, but she truly did have obligations waiting and she needed to change for her final appearance.
“Mom?” Sebastian’s hand came to rest on her shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Ginger gave her grown-up child a quick hug and blinked away the sting of tears. “Of course. I’m just sentimental at the holidays.”
But as she and Hank both left to get ready for her final appearance on this Christmas tour, she couldn’t stop the fear that happiness would be snatched from her once again.
Hank didn’t care that they had an entire flipping courtyard littered with security, even a sniper perched on two parapets. He still had what his youngest daughter would have called the heebie-jeebies.
He tried not to fidget while he sat next to Ginger in the front row of chairs set up in the chapel ruins, but there were just too many people at this sunset dedication ceremony. Dignitaries, locals, media, the military aircrewmen who’d flown him and Ginger around from the start. Not to mention an orchestra, all bundled in jackets under tents erected around the chapel remains.