Joe returned home from work to find the kids at home but his wife gone. The Versa had been gone when he'd pulled in, so already he knew something was up, but for a moment he thought maybe Rachel had taken it.
"What's going on?" he asked Naomi. "Where's Mom?"
Naomi shrugged. "She didn't text you?"
"No. Where could she have gone? Is she with Rachel?" He checked his phone. Rachel wouldn't be home yet if she'd taken the Skytrain, which she'd done lately because Lauren was still on sick leave, supposedly. Did Lauren decide to go into the office? He supposed she could try driving now that her neck brace was off; it might be awkward with one leg in a cast, but with an automatic you only needed one working foot.
"Mom was home when we left for school this morning," Tosh said. "And Rachel left before we did."
Joe sighed and sent Lauren a quick text. I'm home. Where are you?
"Is everything okay, Dad?" Naomi asked.
"I hope so," he replied. "I hope there's a simple explanation for this."
"Don't get mad at her like last time, okay?"
He frowned. "What do you mean, like last time?"
"Like when her car was at Auntie Rachel's that time we went to the beach and Emma forgot her goggles," Naomi clarified. "I don't want you to go away again."
"Oh." He looked over at Emma, who sat watching TV with Naomi on the couch while Tosh sat in the armchair reading. Those goggles of Emma's had been the catalyst for the chain reaction that had nearly destroyed his marriage, and now Naomi was constantly on the watch for any sign of disharmony that could lead to him leaving again.
He said, "I assure you, I'm not mad at her, and I'm not going away again." He knew the only reason for his assurance was because he knew Al was in no condition to threaten his marriage right now, laid up as he was in a hospital bed, but he needed to make his daughter feel secure again in her family's stability; leaving her had nearly killed both of them last time, and he had no desire to do it again. Not that he could, anyway; it appeared Joanie was through with him, having kicked him out of her bed last night after finding out he'd had sex with Rachel that time with the threesome. "I'm just worried about her, that's all."
Suddenly Logan entered from the basement, and when he saw Joe he smiled. "I got a start on the mudding." They'd finished framing and drywalling the rooms in the basement yesterday, and Joe had demonstrated how to apply drywall tape and mud to the seams to make the wall a single, flat wall ready for priming and painting.
"Hey, good stuff," he said. "I'll come have a look in a minute. Now, Logan, I know you like this stuff, but I want you to make sure you're getting your school work done, too; you want to graduate with good grades if you want to go to BCIT to get a trade certificate."
Logan rolled his eyes but nodded. "Yes, I was thinking I'd get on my homework after Rachel gets home and we have dinner."
"Hey, about that. Did Rachel tell you anything about going somewhere with Lauren today?"
He shook his head. "I thought Rachel was just doing the usual today, Skytraining to work and back. Unless she came home early, and she and Lauren went to see Al."
"We saw him yesterday, remember?" Emma said. "You should go see him, you know, he's your dad too."
It was the first time Joe heard Emma refer to Al as her father, and it rattled him; normally she just called him by name, and this acknowledgement of parenthood from the one person no one had any hard feelings toward made it harder for Joe to hate Al. How could he wish him gone and deprive this sweet girl of a father, when her biological father had been so absent from her life and died an ignoble death at the hands of a drug gang?
Logan squirmed, uncomfortable with the declaration too, and unused to being schooled by his younger sister. "I don't like hospitals. Seeing him that time, with the tube in his mouth... I can't go back again."
"He doesn't have the tube anymore. He's awake and talking now."
"Still."
They might have gotten to arguing, if the door hadn't opened and Lauren hobbled in on her crutches. Logan took that as his cue to flee back downstairs.
"There you are!" Joe said. "Where were you?"
"Sorry, I got your text," she said. "I was almost home when you sent it so I didn't bother answering it. I was out for a drive."
Joe blinked in surprise. "On your own?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Aside from your cast leg, you don't have any PTSD from the accident preventing you from being behind the wheel again?"
Lauren shrugged. "I might have been a little nervous at first, but once I was rolling it was fine."
"Where did you go?"
"I'll tell you later, when Rachel's back. That way I don't have to tell it twice."
Joe raised his eyebrows, intrigued, but didn't ask her to elaborate. "Okay. Well, I guess we'll wait for Rachel to get home before we make dinner. I think I have time for a quick shower while we're waiting."
She leaned into him and said, sotto voce, "You haven't bathed me since Saturday. I can use a shower too."
Joe felt himself getting hard and cleared his throat. "Lauren, the kids are right over there."
"You'll just be bathing me as you've done this whole time I've been healing up, only you'd be naked too. I promise to be quiet."
She bit her lower lip, and he could feel her thrumming with need. He looked to the living room, where the kids were blissfully unaware of their pre-conjugal negotiations. "We'll need the grocery bag," he said.
"It's still in the bathroom from the other times."
He might have said no. He might have been too embarrassed to take the risk while the kids were still awake, but there was a floor between the kids and the upstairs bathroom, plus two locking doors. Also, he didn't even have Lauren's delicate state to consider, as her neck brace was now off, and he could hold her up to make up for her cast leg.
Wordlessly, he picked her up bride-style and carried her and her crutches up the stairs. She tittered quietly and kissed his neck the whole time, tickling him and threatening his hold on her.
Before, when her neck brace was still on, they'd used the bathtub to bathe her, better able to keep the water off the neck brace and the cast, and the sling when she was wearing it for the dislocated shoulder, which had since healed. She didn't take many baths except for the rare time she wanted a romantic evening in there with him and some champagne, preferring the shower for a quick cleaning. Everything about Lauren was wash and wear, convenience over glamour, mostly because of her job, but also because her tomboyish ways from childhood never really left her.
This was the first time they'd showered together since he moved out back in August, and he didn't realize how much he'd missed having her small, wet, lathered body in his arms until it was in them now. Some of their wildest sex had been in here, and while her cast leg, wrapped in its bag, limited their antics, it was still hot and, with the added frisson of being discovered by the kids, inordinately thrilling.
Lauren kept her promise and, to prevent herself from crying out with him inside her, bit into his shoulder, making him nearly cry out in pain, but the sensation only increased his arousal, and he might have come quicker than he wanted, but she didn't mind, finishing herself off by grinding herself against him.
"Stay inside me," she said, gasping, "and keep holding me up. I want to stay like this for a while."
It was no great effort to keep doing so. Lauren was light enough. "Thanks for suggesting this," he said. "You've lifted my spirits a little."
"Oh?" she asked. "I didn't know they needed lifting."
He nodded. "Joanie and I might be over."
She frowned. "Don't get me wrong, I'm pleased at the thought of having you all to myself, but I think I need to ask why."
"I slipped and confessed to her about that time we were with Rachel."
She grimaced. "Yikes. What'd you go and do that for?"
"I can't even remember now, it just slipped out while we were talking about her possibly becoming media relations officer for her detachment."
Her eyebrows rose. "She never told me she was offered that job. Sounds exciting."
"She's nervous about it, actually. Stage fright."
"I get that," she said, nodding. "You know, I thought I smelled her on you last night; you normally shower there before coming home, and you'd returned earlier than usual. I should have figured something was up."
"Yeah. She was pissed, so she sent me home early, but I understand. Oddly enough, she's not pissed at you, but at Rachel."
She huffed. "Rachel is the least to blame for what happened."
"I know, but for some reason Joanie's threatened by her. She thinks we have some kind of special relationship."
Lauren's eyebrows rose. "I don't blame her. I've wondered that myself sometimes."
He groaned and said, "It's because I told her about when we were seven... this is before you came along... and I kissed Rachel on the cheek because she was sad. Rachel then swore she'd marry me one day, and I didn't really disabuse her of that notion."
Lauren burst out laughing and shimmied her hips to stay clung to him, which made him start to get hard again. "Oh, my God!" she squealed. "That's adorable! You never told me this, you know."
"I didn't?"
"No."
"I didn't tell you when we first got together because I thought you'd be jealous."
"You'd have been right, but at thirteen something like that would have made me jealous. At our age, it's a cute bit of nostalgia. Now I have to talk to Rachel about it."
"Please don't."
"Nope, sorry, you're not getting off that easy."
He cleared his throat. "You keep shimmying like that and you're going to get me off in a different way."
She kissed him hard on the mouth, then said, "As much as I'd like to, I bet Rachel will be home by now and we should start dinner. Rain check for tonight, maybe?"
"Deal. I love you, Lauren, now more than ever."
She squeezed him tight and said, "I love you too."
Clean, dry and in fresh clothes, they descended the stairs, Joe helping Lauren hobble down this time. Rachel was in the kitchen with Naomi and Emma, the two girls helping her prepare something. She saw them, assessed their still wet hair and smirked knowingly. "Logan told me you were supposed to review his work downstairs, but you never materialized."
Joe cleared his throat and said, "I'd just come home from work. I needed a shower first."
"Uh-huh."
"How was work?" Lauren asked to change the subject.
Rachel shrugged. "Sanderson keeps asking when you're coming back. I think Somers isn't around enough for his liking."
Lauren sighed in frustration. "Gary told me he'd carry his share of the load. You know what? I'm going in tomorrow. I found out I can drive just fine today."
Rachel blinked in surprise. "You drove today?"
"Yes. I'll tell you about it after dinner."
"If you're still in the middle of making it," Joe said, "I'll go check on Logan."
He descended the stairs to the basement and took a moment to marvel at how different it looked now. The open floor plan was no longer open. Johnny had taken the pool table for the man cave, so at least that was still in the family. The TV remained on the wall in what was now a small sitting room that led into a corridor with two small bedrooms framed and drywalled on the right side and the bathroom on the left. Rachel had been a trooper for sleeping in a bed that was in a construction zone, but they'd be done very soon, and that was because of Logan. He'd taken to the project with an enthusiasm that reminded him of himself at Logan's age. Even now he was meticulously applying drywall mud over the taped seams, looking about as content as he could be.
"Nice work," he said. "We'll be sanding after anyway, so don't worry about any imperfections. Eventually you'll just find a flow and be mudding like a pro."
Logan turned and smirked at him. "You're a poet, and you didn't even know it."
"Very funny. Hey, look, Logan, about earlier. Don't feel like you have any obligation to visit Al in the hospital if you don't want to. I hate hospitals, too. My dad was sick for months and I was in and out of them; if I never have to go to one again, I'll be happy."
Logan squirm-shrugged that way in which teenagers were expert. "It's just Emma, how she calls Rachel Mum and, well, she hasn't called Al Dad but she just said he was her dad. I like them both, and I appreciate what they've done for us, but I can't do that. I can't think of them that way."
"I understand completely. They never asked you to call them anything, did they?"
"No. That's why I feel so bad about it."
"Don't call them anything you're not comfortable calling them. You had a mother and father, and no one has the right to take those titles from them."
"I wish you were my dad."
He'd said it so quietly that for a moment Joe thought he'd misheard him, and when Joe looked at him, Logan quickly turned away in embarrassment.
Joe cleared his throat and quickly wiped a tear from his eye while Logan's back was turned. "Between you and me, kid," he said huskily, "I wish that too."
To save both of them any more embarrassment, he turned and went back up the stairs, and they said no more to each other until they were around the dinner table later. He never told anyone about what they'd said to save everyone from hurt, his own son most of all, but he treasured Logan's words and resolved to do everything he could to be the father he wanted without being his father in name.
After dinner, Lauren sat with Rachel and Joe at the dining room table after the kids went off to do their homework. "Now, spill," Rachel said. "Where did you drive today?"
"Queensborough."
"What? Why?" Joe asked.
"Sunny called me. He said Tej was showing properties there to a new client. Guess who he is."
"Who?"
"Might as well throw in when," Rachel said, smirking. "Get all the Ws in there."
"The when was this morning. The who is Agnes' estranged husband."
Rachel gasped. "Get out of here!"
"Yup. As soon as I heard that I had to go get a peek at him."
"Jesus, Lauren, you're still injured," Joe said. "Tell me he didn't see you."
"Of course not. He never looked my way, he was in conversation the whole time with Tej, while Birinder followed behind like a fifth wheel. In fact, none of them saw me."
"Birinder was there too?" Rachel asked.
"He was the one who introduced her to him, because Queensborough's more her area. Anyway, they spent a couple of hours down there, and when they were done, the guy took off, and that's when I followed him."
"What?!" Rachel and Joe exclaimed together.
"Relax, he never made me. Nothing really happened, anyway. Turns out he just returned to Langley, and an apartment building that was probably where he was living at the moment. Just for a lark, though, I sat on him, just to see if he'd reemerge and do something else."
"Oh, is that why you're back so late after going out in the morning?" Rachel said.
"Exactly."
"What's he like?" Joe asked.
"Huge. As big as you are."
Joe nodded, now almost certain that this was the same man Joanie had mentioned. "So, did he do something else?"
"Just drove to work, which is the RCMP detachment in Langley. Now, here's where it gets interesting."
Joe leaned in, and was amused to see Rachel doing it too.
Lauren took a deep breath and said, "I didn't know until I started following him from his apartment to his work that there was another car on the street sitting on him."
Rachel gasped. "How do you know?"
"Because as soon as he emerged from the gated parking lot, it pulled out in front of me from where it was parked and followed him all the way there. What are the chances that it was just a coincidence?"
Rachel exchanged a glance with Joe. "I don't know," she said. "Who could it have been? Another P.I.? A cop in Internal Affairs? A criminal with an axe to grind?"
"Did this other car know you were also following?" Joe asked.
Lauren shook her head. "It was completely focused on him. It parked in the lot of the detachment for a while even though the guy went in the back way. I circled around a couple times and saw it was still there. It left after about half an hour; maybe they were just making sure he was starting his shift before leaving."
"Tell me you didn't follow them," Joe pleaded.
"No, I thought at that point that discretion was the better part of valour."
"Thank God."
"Do you think you'd be able to spot the vehicle again?" Rachel asked.
"Oh, yeah, I wrote down the make, model, and plate number."
"So, what do we do with this now?" Joe asked.
Lauren shrugged. "I let Sunny know because he's representing Agnes in her divorce. I'm sure he's told Tej by now."
"Okay, so here's the more delicate question," Rachel said. "Do we let this guy know he's being followed?"
"No, absolutely not. First of all, if it's police Internal Affairs like you suggested, we don't want to get in their way. Second, how would we let him know without revealing we ourselves were following him?"
"Yeah, you're right."
"You know what I could do, though," Joe said, "is I could tell Joanie about it. She could keep an eye out for these guys, and since she works with him she'd have a perfect excuse to be looking out for him."
Lauren smirked at him. "Do you think she'll take your call?"
Rachel frowned. "Why wouldn't she?"
Joe sighed. "We might be on the outs."
Rachel's eyebrows rose. "Why?"
"I let slip about our threesome."
"She's mad at you," Lauren taunted. "Apparently she only wants to share Joe with me."
Rachel rolled her eyes. "Oh my God. Really?" She looked at Joe. "Did you tell her it was one time only, never to be repeated?"
Joe did his best to hide his disappointment. Even though he knew Rachel was right, a small part of him held out hope it might happen again, if only to make up for all the times Lauren was with Al. "I did reiterate it was something we hadn't planned."
"Joe just told me about when you were seven and you proposed marriage to him," Lauren said, grinning goofily.
Rachel groaned and put her face in her hands. "You never knew about that until now? We were just kids! I shouted 'I love you' through his window for five minutes."
Lauren's eyes widened. "Wow, I don't think I've even done that. I can see why Joanie added that to your time in Aldergrove and to the threesome and came up with competition for Joe's affection."
"Oh, fuck off," Rachel said, chuckling. "Do you want me to talk to her, Joe? Reassure her I have no designs on you?"
"I don't think that would be wise," Joe said, still feeling stung. "I don't want you sharing a hospital room with your husband."
Rachel burst out laughing. "No, we wouldn't want that, then Logan and Emma would have nobody."
"Hey, who are we, chopped liver?" Lauren asked, offended.
Joe put his hand on Rachel's and, filled with his new knowledge of Logan's esteem for him, said, "You know we'd take them if anything happened to you, right?"
Rachel looked shell shocked for a moment, then chuckled awkwardly and said, "Wow, this conversation turned grim in a heartbeat." She quickly wiped a tear from her eye and said, "But thanks, that's good to know. Nearly losing Al, and now with the kids, it made me realize it might be time to start a will, and I'd be honoured to list you two as the guardians."
Lauren took her other hand, and her own eyes were wet. The three of them stayed like that for a minute, then Joe cleared his throat and said, "Why don't I just send a text to Joanie about what you discovered and test the waters?"
"That sounds like a great idea," Lauren said a little too brightly in her effort to inject light back into their conversation.
Joe got up and sent the text, including the make, model and plate number of the car from Lauren's notes.
He could tell Joanie read it, because those three little dots were blinking, but he never got a response from her that night. He only discovered later that she happened to be occupied at the time.
Thanks for reading this far! More than one surprising revelation in this chapter, especially of Rachel's childhood romance with Joe, but readers who read "Err on the Side of Violence" would have known that already. If you liked what you just read, hit "Vote" to send this title up the ranks. Leave a comment and let me know what you think!
Now, let's see what Joanie's actually up to by clicking on, "Continue reading."