The Arrangement Ch. 01

Putting her brush back into her bag, Jill pulled the clear plastic case from its pocket. Bank cards, phone numbers and cash; it was her back up plan. It looked like she was going to need it.

She was not certain what she was going to do now, but she had options, she reminded herself. She had not come all this way without at least considering this possibility. She still had family in Houston. She would Facebook her cousins as soon as she got to a computer. Perhaps one of them had a couch for a couple of weeks. There was her AmeriCorps application too. She had for some time considered utilising her skills to help others.

And of course, there was always the possibility of just traveling. It was a journey she had begun twenty-six years ago as a fool-hardy teenager, but she could purchase a bus or train ticket and just go. See America. She could always find work in cafes and restaurants. A good chef was never without a job for long.

Staring at her reflection in the mirror, she straightened her shoulders and smiled. "The important thing, my girl, is that you are home," she said to the empty bathroom. "The rest will take care of itself."

With one final inspection, she turned towards the door. She would handle this with calm and composure; a stiff upper lip that would do David, her husband, proud. Then, whatever happened, happened.

***

Daniel watched the woman finish off the plate of tamales. She had practically squealed when they found the Tex-Mex restaurant hidden in the corner of terminal. She loved her food that was certain.

Rachel had always picked at everything; afraid that it all went straight to her petite figure. Looking back, he suspected that his wife may have suffered an eating disorder as well as the depression that led to her suicide. But he had been too busy with his work to notice he supposed.

The words of her note echoed in his mind, "I always came last with you. Your country, the Navy and your daughters left no room for me. You were a lousy husband and I hate you."

"Wow that was good. You can't get good Mexican food in England. Hell, you can't even find the right ingredients to make it," the woman explained.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it." He inhaled and leaned back in the booth. "Jill, there's something I need to tell you," he searched for words.

"There's no easy way to say this, but this whole thing has been a mistake. Well, not a mistake. A lie. Not a lie exactly either. I am Daniel Monroe. I am a widow with four daughters and a SEAL."

He could tell from the cold and confused look on the woman's face that he was screwing things up. He had practiced this speech over and over in the car on the drive up, as they waited for his mother's plane, even as he raced across the airport to meet her. He knew what he wanted to say, but none of it was coming out right. He supposed it was just another example of how inadequate he was with women.

Drawing a deep breath, he stared at his hands folded in front of him on the table and tried again. "I didn't write those emails. In fact, I did not even know you existed until a few hours ago. My mother wrote them." He explained unable to look at her.

"I'm sorry about you coming all this way, but I don't need...I don't want a wife."

Silence hung about them. The air seemed to actually chill. He waited. And waited. He was not sure how long, but it seemed too long. For a man accustomed to passing long stretches of time while on reconnaissance, it was hell.

"I don't know what I expected. But that was a shitty excuse, bud. Alright, so I'm not some slim, trim beauty queen after four kids. But I deserve better than that," she said as she stood.

Daniel was right behind her, throwing a wad of bills on the table as they left. "Honest, it isn't an excuse. I didn't have any part in this."

The woman stopped outside the restaurant. She glanced from side to side as if looking for the quickest exit. It was a feeling he could understand.

"Jill, I understand. I was as shocked by this as you are. Why don't we talk about this on the way back to Virginia Beach?"

"If you think, I'm going anywhere with you, buddy, you're crazy," she exclaimed as she pushed past him. She grabbed the cart and began pushing it the wrong way, back towards the arrivals hall.

Daniel tried to wrestle the cart from her grip, but noticed a TSA guard watching them closely. He did not want to attract more attention.

"Please, my mother left you a letter. Just read it," he pleaded as he held out an envelope with a distinctly feminine scrawl across it.

"Please," he begged.

"What will a letter prove? Anyone could have written it for you," she argued.

Daniel knew they were at a stalemate in their negotiations. He changed tactics. It was a strategy that had served him well on the battlefield and one he hoped would prove useful in this battle of wills.

"So where will you go now? There isn't another plane back to London until tomorrow. I checked. I suppose you could get a cab to a hotel, but that costs money. How much did you bring with you? I don't imagine a chef in a mental health day center makes all that much. Would you rather spend a couple of days in a safe, relatively clean house with people you know a lot about or alone in some grimy hotel room with cable TV and not much else?" he reasoned.

He could see the dejection his strong words caused. The proud woman's shoulders slumped at their harshness.

"Please, Jill, I promised Mama that I would take care of you. She would box my ears if you went to some flea bitten hotel room."

"Always honor with you guys, isn't it? Is it some kind of a god complex?"

Daniel laughed, "We live by a code, ma'am. You know the officer and the gentleman thing."

Jill chuckled weakly, "Yes, I know it. Better than you think. Remember my husband was one too."

"Then please, for his memory, allow me to offer our hospitality. Would he want you alone in some questionable hotel? Let me do this, one officer and gentleman to another."

He watched the play of emotions across the woman's face. He could see the uncertainty still in her rich green eyes, but he knew that he had won the battle even before she nodded her blond head.

What he did not want to face was why that victory felt so damned good? He could have and probably should have purchased her return ticket before he even picked her up. It would have been simple to book and pre-pay for a decent hotel until her flight. But he had not.

"Alright. But just until I figure out what I want to do now," she whispered.

"Yes, ma'am," he smiled as he took the baggage cart from her once more and turned it in the other direction. "The exit is this way," he pronounced.

***

Jill stretched as she looked around at the quiet, non-descript neighborhood. She had fallen asleep before they reached the highway. She woke up when Daniel had shaken her gently. They had stopped by his friend's house to pick up his daughters.

She fought back curiosity. She reminded herself that she would not be staying. That whatever Jessie, Bel, Ashley and Britney were like, it was none of her business. She was just an unwanted houseguest for a couple of nights.

But it seemed a futile battle. She careened her neck to watch as Daniel took the two sleepy babies from the arms of a dark skinned, stout woman. She could not hear what they said, but she could see from the scowl on the man's face that he did not like it. A tall, black man joined them in the doorway. He held an equally sleepy little girl with an array of thick blond curls that spread across his shoulder.

The two men headed towards the parked car with their bundles.

***

Daniel was in no mood for chit chat with Simone Jackson. She might be his best friend's wife, but he knew deep in his gut that she was deep in this mess with his mother. Suddenly, all those computer lessons and hours spent laughing made perfect sense. What would his mother know about Internet dating sites, let alone ones that catered to lonely service men and women? No, this little trick had Simone's fingerprints all over it.

The woman smiled as she carried his sleeping twins down the hall towards him. "You could have left them all for the night, you know."

Daniel stared at her. A look that had sent enemy combatants scurrying and his own men into immediate action. "Why would I want to do that, Simone?" he challenged.

"Well, if you have female company..." the woman offered in her thick Caribbean accent.

"I know that you know damned well who that woman is and why she is here. And I swear, woman, if you meddle in this any further, I am going straight to Samuel with your part in all this. Do you hear me?"

The short and round woman had the affront to laugh at him. "Daniel, my friend, de stars be favourable to ye. Don't you be messin' wid things dats bigger dan you."

Before Daniel could respond, his lieutenant appeared carrying his Bel. "Jessie insists she has to stay, something she and Althea are up to on the computer. You know those two, my friend? I'll bring her home tomorrow, right after soccer practice."

Daniel simply nodded his dark head before glaring once more at the woman who wrapped herself like a cat around her husband. "Of course, we'll bring the girl home tomorrow. It will give me a chance to talk to your new friend."

Both men stared at her coldly. "What? Us, girlies, have to hang together against you big bad wolves."

It was her husband's turn to stare. "Simone, I swear I'll turn that sweet chocolate backside of yours red if you be messing in people's lives again."

"Well, now dat's reason enough for me meddlin'. But don't you be makin' no promises you ain't gonna keep big boy."

Both men shook their heads and laughed at her words as they turned towards the car parked in the driveway.

"I'm sorry, man. I'll talk to Simone tonight. But you know she never means any harm when she gets these ideas," Samuel said.

"This isn't talisman for us to wear that itch and burn and smell worse than your god damned socks after two days of hiking through the damned jungle. This is a woman, who came three thousand miles thinking I was going to marry her so she could be a mother to my poor orphans. Sam, this isn't harmless fun."

"But you got to admit buddy, this will make a damned funny story in a few years."

"I give up. You are as bad as she is. No wonder you two been so damned happily married that it makes the rest of us sick for twenty years. You are just alike."

"Thank you, commander. That is quite a compliment," his friend smiled.

"Just open the damned door," Daniel said as he stepped aside.

Samuel did as always, following commands. He gently placed the still sleeping little girl into her pink booster seat and fastened the straps that would keep her safe. Turning back to Daniel, he took one of the sleeping toddlers and repeated the action.

Daniel walked around to the other side of the car, his load lightened. He opened that door and placed a sleeping Britney in the seat next to Ashley.

"Howdy, ma'am. I'm Samuel Jackson, his best friend and sometimes lieutenant," he offered to the woman in the front seat, who had turned as they placed the sleeping children into the car seats.

"Hello, Samuel. I'm Jill..." Words hung in the air as she searched for an explanation for her presence.

"Don't worry. He knows the rest and his damned meddling wife has a lot to answer for in this whole damned situation," Daniel responded.

Turning towards Samuel, Jill spoke. "This situation as he calls it isn't anyone's fault except my own. Please don't blame your wife for anything."

Daniel growled as he clicked the seat belt fastened. "Let's get going." Taking his friend's hand in his own, he said "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yes, sir," he joked.

***

Jill tried not to stare at the sleeping heads. Bel with her blond curls and thumb stuck between full pink lips could have been a child model for books and movies. The babies too were beautiful.

It was not the first time in the past couple of years that Jill felt her heart and womb brooding for children. But it was following those feelings that had gotten her into this mess to begin with.

"Where's Jessie?" She asked with familiarity before she could stop herself.

"She's staying the night with Sam and Simone. Their daughter, Althea, is her best friend."

"I know. They have been since they were babies. Born on the same day at the same hospital and inseparable ever since," she practically quoted the emails that she had read time and time again.

She watched a dark scowl form once more across the man's handsome face. "I'm sorry. I keep forgetting that it wasn't you that wrote all those things. It must seem strange for me to know so much about you and the girls while you know practically nothing about me."

She played with her hands in her lap as they pulled into another driveway, a house not that different from the other one. "Can I help?" she asked as he turned off the engine.

"Sure, if you get Bel. Then I can manage Ashley and Britney," he replied palming the keys as he opened the car door.

Jill opened her door and stepped into the night air. "I can smell the beach," she said.

Daniel smiled. "The beach is less than a mile from here," he replied as he unbuckled the babies from their car seats.

Jill breathed deeply as she opened the door on her side of the car and unfastened the complicated mechanism that held the sleeping child safely. Her heart caught in her throat as she lifted the child. "Shhh, baby girl, you'll be in your own bed with the dream fairies soon," she whispered.

The child stirred against her shoulder, cuddling closer against the cool night air. Jill drew her closer to her body and fell in step behind the man. By the time she reached the door, he had unlocked it with a baby in each arm.

"Follow me. We'll put Bel in her bed first. You can sleep in the nursery. I brought a bed in there for my mother. I'm sure she would have changed the sheets and gotten everything ready for you."

Jill simply nodded as she followed him down the dim hallway. He opened a door on the right with a sign that read, 'Secret Ops, Keep Out.' Inside were two twin beds. On the right side of the room, everything was pink and decorated with Barbie's. The centrepiece was the four foot high, three story doll house; pink too, of course.

Daniel did not have to tell her which bed belonged to Bel. The Barbie blanket announced its owner as Jill pulled it back and placed the sleeping little girl beneath its warmth. She pulled the covers up and could not stop herself from bending to place a kiss on the top of soft curls. "Sweet dreams, Bel."

Jill held out her empty arms and took one of the sleeping babies. "Lead the way, commander."

Daniel shook his dark head as he turned and crossed the hall. Inside were two cribs and another twin bed. This one boasted a patchwork quilt with every color in the rainbow.

Daniel placed the sleeping baby in his arms in one crib and motioned for her to do the same in the other. Jill followed his command, although reluctant to release the softness and sweet baby smell.

"I'll get your bags from the car. The bathroom is next door, if you want a shower or anything. The girls will be up early, but we'll try not to wake you. I know you must be exhausted from the flight and jet lag."

"I'll be fine. Thanks," she replied, anxious for the man to leave so she could be alone with her thoughts. She needed to think about what was next for her.

"Alright then. Good night," he said as he made a hasty retreat.

He stopped in the doorway. "Jill, I honestly am sorry about all this. You seem like a really nice lady. I'm sure any man would be lucky as hell to have you as a wife."

Jill simply nodded and turned away before he could see the tears glistening in her eyes. She did not need his sympathy.