Dex,

So, you don’t think that SailorBoy and Poppy would make a cute couple, huh?  I don’t know, think about it.  We could get matching tattoos.  We could get license plates with each other’s handles.  I really think you should consider it. 

No? 

Okay.  But if you insist on daring me, then expect to get every single piece of Popeye or Aqua man memorabilia that I can find on E-Bay.

I didn’t realize you were cocky.  I’m not sure how I feel about that.  It’s kind of like arrogant, which can be a turn-off.  But you were so darned amusing, and nice, so here I am drinking a glass of wine and typing.  Yep, almost as bad as drinking and texting. 

Damn! I think I’m in over my head. 

Look, I appreciate hearing that you have friends who’ve made it for the long haul despite the time apart, but they must have something really special.  I don’t think I’m built for special.  I’m ordinary and complicated.  Mundane even.

Don’t take this as a challenge, just as the truth.  Didn’t other women respond to you?  I’m sure there are far more suitable matches.

-Poppy

It had taken five days to get home after the mission was completed.  Five days where Dex had the dichotomy of Noreen Anders and Poppy rolling around in his head.  Thank God, she had responded, it helped wash out the vile memories of the repugnant mother.

After thirty, he had lost count of how many times he read Poppy’s response.  It had helped to soothe him when he remembered the look on little Clara Anders’ face when she had sought comfort from her mother and gotten slapped in return.

Even now, it enraged him to think about it, and was why concentrating on Poppy and the here and now was so important.

As soon as they’d docked, he’d gotten the hell out of there damn near as quickly as Aiden and Griff. Hell, Dalton still had his mouth open to give him shit about his abrupt departure, but the door had closed too fast. 

He’d composed his response to Poppy while he’d been on the carrier, but he wanted to be in the right headspace so that he could handle her next reply.  What’s more, if she didn’t send an e-mail, he wanted to be in San Diego so he could accidentally ‘run into her.’  He’d prefer not to have to hack the dating site, but he’d be damned if he wouldn’t meet this woman.

It was nine o’clock in the evening when he hit his townhome.  As soon as he turned on the lights, he chuckled.  Not only had Andrea watered his plants, he saw that she had added new ones to his ever-expanding greenhouse.  It was her way of making sure that she had reasons to drop by.  He prayed that none of them were ‘killing plants.’  Sometimes she would purchase exotics that he couldn’t keep alive if his life depended on it.  Those she would take home and triage and not bring back.  However, a couple she’d told him never did come back to life.

He dumped his duffle in the living room and pulled out his laptop and booted it up.  He went to the fridge to see what else Andrea might have waiting for him. 

Score! 

There was some Yoo-hoo that wasn’t expired.  Seriously, the girl spoiled him.  He knew the money came from Gramps, but the thought was from his young cousin.

What a gem.

He opened one yellow bottle and took a swig, and snagged a second to take to the couch. 

Now. 

Finally. 

At last. 

“Let’s hope this does this trick,” he said to himself.

Poppy,

I’m thirty-two years old.  You know that from my profile.  I’m old enough to know my own mind and know what and who is suitable.  I think you’re funny, complex, and a little bit neurotic.  Sorry, Poppy, it fits, and on you Baby, it’s sexy as hell.

All in all, I would say you suit me down to my bones.

Tell me what you need from me to keep this correspondence going.  What do I have to say?  What do I have to do, to make you take a chance on meeting me?  I can e-mail over my Navy performance evaluations.  Would you like my grandmother to send a letter of recommendation?  It might be a little bit biased.  What do I need to do, because Poppy, you need to know, I’m interested in the long game.

Fuck!  He sure as hell hoped he was reading her right.  But every instinct told him that he needed to keep pushing.  That if he backed down, she would just stop responding.  Pray God he was right.

He sucked down the second bottle of Yoo-hoo, and put his laptop on the coffee table and headed for the shower.  He needed one. 

***

“Get a move on!” Kenna shouted up the stairs.  Seriously, that boy had only two speeds lightning or dawdle.  Mornings were always dawdle.

“I can’t find my socks.”

“Austin, there are eighteen pairs of socks in your drawer, what are you talking about?” Kenna demanded as she headed up the stairs. 

“They’re my lucky socks.” She heard him say from his room.  “I have a wrestling match today.  I need my lucky socks.”

“No such thing.  You win or lose based on your performance,” she said as she rounded the corner into his room where he was pawing through his sock drawer.

“Found ‘em,” he grinned up at her as he waved them up in triumph, before shoving them into his gym bag.  Kenna shook her head.  As he passed her in the doorway, Austin brushed the charm bracelet on her wrist.  The one that had the gold four leaf clover charm her dad had given her on her sixteenth birthday.  She wore it every day and even tucked it into her pants pocket when she was working.

“So, Mom, I wonder where I got my superstitious nature from?”  He smirked.

“What a smartass.”

“Yeah, but I’m your smartass.”

That he was.  What was she going to do with him? 

“Come on, get the lead out.  I’m going to be late for school,” he yelled from the hallway.  She stifled a laugh.  Was it normal for a mother to get such a kick out of their kid?  Kenna shook her head and headed down the stairs where Austin was waiting for her with a grin on his face.  He even knew he was entertaining.  They grinned at one another and headed out to the car. 

She swung by Denny’s house and picked him up, and then dropped the two teenagers off at the high school.  Kenna couldn’t believe that she actually had a son in high school.  How in the hell had that happened?  She was only thirty-two.  Oh yeah, she’d gotten knocked up when she was in high school.  She looked at her son’s broad shoulders and wondered if she needed to have another talk with him about safe sex, or if last week’s talk was enough. 

She had just enough time to drive through Starbucks for a skinny latte before her shift started.  Kenna mentally geared up for the day.  She knew some of the people she would be seeing.  Mr. Renfew, Laurie, and Harold would be in for their chemo treatments today.  She winced when she thought about Harold.  It was Thursday so his son would be bringing him in.  That man couldn’t catch a clue even if Colonel Mustard was helping him.  How in the hell could she convince him she just wasn’t interested in going out?  Just because he drove a Maserati and had more money than a small nation, he thought he was God’s gift to women.  Well, he wasn’t.  He was a jerk.  He treated his dad like crap.

After she parked her Honda in the staff parking lot, Kenna hit the lobby of the hospital and made her way to the elevators.

“Hey, Kenna!  Wait up.”

She held the elevator for her friend.

“Did you get the e-mail I forwarded you?  I think he sounded pretty nice, don’t you?” 

Kenna stopped herself from rolling her eyes.

“I know what you’re thinking, but seriously, this guy is different,” Jean said as she pressed the up button.  “I’ve been e-mailing him on and off for over a month.  I think it’s time to meet him.  I wanted your opinion of the last e-mail.  Didn’t you read it?”

“Last night I was at Rosalie’s house.”

“You’re still doing that gig?”

This time Kenna did roll her eyes.  “Yes, I’m still doing that gig.  I work as Rosalie Randall’s personal assistant twice a week and have been doing it for three years.  You know that, Jean.”

“I thought after your last raise you could quit.”

For a doctor, Jean sure wasn’t very circumspect.  “Lower your voice,” Kenna admonished as they exited the elevator. 

Jean grimaced.  “Sorry.  But seriously.  Why can’t you quit?”

“Two and a half more years and Austin is going to graduate.  College costs money.”

“Yeah, it does.” Jean sighed.  “Well okay, read the e-mail tonight.  Okay?”

“I will,” Kenna promised.

***

This was stupid.  Why should her palms be sweaty?  Kenna stood behind her desk chair, staring at her computer.  Austin was asleep.  She’d watched his wrestling match.  He’d pinned his opponent.  He credited his lucky socks.

She should have gone through her personal e-mail yesterday, but she hadn’t, she was too busy handling Rosalie’s.  The woman was a mess and a half.  So here she was, almost done with her own. 

Almost. 

She’d read the one that Jean had forwarded her.  She understood why Jean liked him.  He said he was an attorney.  Jean wanted a guy who was her professional equal, and this guy said he was a partner in a law firm.  That would appeal to her.  But still, something didn’t ring true.  Maybe it was the way he mentioned what kind of car he drove.  It reminded Kenna too much of Harold’s son.

Then there were the four new e-mails responding to her profile.  Well, two were new, two were repeats, and one was from SailorBoy69.  Jean had questioned why Kenna had even had put herself on CaliSingles, and this was it.  Knowing that out there in the cosmos some men found her attractive used to boost her self-esteem.  She would read the e-mails, and they would make her smile.  SailorBoy69’s was the only one she’d ever responded to, and look at the mess she was in.

Kenna was looking at her e-mail in-box like it was full of snakes.  She’d told him not to respond.  She’d meant it.  Hadn’t she?  Dammit, this panic attack was as bad as the first one she’d had.  Shouldn’t she be past this?

“Suck it up, Wright, if you had really meant for him not to respond, you wouldn’t have sent him an e-mail, let alone two!”

She stomped to her kitchen and opened the top cabinet that housed the wine glasses. 

“Dammit.  Now he has me drinking alone again.  Not a good sign.”  She poured a glass of red wine.  Well, at least it wasn’t tequila.  The last time she drank tequila was four months ago when she had gotten a call from the sewer sucking slime ball with his latest excuse as to why he couldn’t pay child support.  Like always, he was out of work, but she would bet any amount of money that he was supporting some stripper’s G-string.  She hoped that was all, and that he hadn’t talked any woman into actually moving in with him because nobody deserved that type of attention.

Great, now she was thinking of Jaden, just the mindset she needed when getting ready to read another e-mail from the first man she’d found attractive since high school.  Please say he hadn’t dared her again. 

“Please, no more dares.” 

Did she just whimper?   

“Pull it together!”  She slugged down a swallow of wine and choked. 

This was not boding well.  It was a sign.  She should probably just delete the damn thing and not bother reading it. 

Well, you can’t very well delete it while you’re standing in the kitchen, now can you?  Get your ass back into the office. 

She started to stomp into the other room, and then remembered that Austin was asleep upstairs.  Normally being a mom was great, but when she felt like throwing a hissy fit, it really put a crimp in her style.  She placed her glass on the desk, took a deep breath, and opened the e-mail.

Oh holy camoly, she was whimpering.  She actually heard a whimper come out of her mouth.  He said she suited him down to his bones.  It made her want to melt.

With trembling fingers, she touched the rim of her wineglass and kept reading. 

“His Grandmother?” she whispered.  “His grandmother could write a letter of recommendation?”

She felt tears forming as she smiled.  It was a lovely e-mail.  It made her feel so warm inside. 

He called you neurotic.

She sat up straighter and read that part of the e-mail again.  Yep, he’d called her neurotic.  But then she smiled.  He said she was sexy.

She took another swallow of wine and found herself choking...again. 

Fuck nugget!

“Dex, you’re a hard man to shake loose.”

But did she want to shake him loose?  That was the question. 

She sat down at the keyboard and started to type.

Dex,

I’m thinking that a letter of recommendation from your grandmother would be soooo slanted in your direction, so I’ll pass.  But it’s good to know she’d write one for you. 

Straight up, you’re scaring the snot out of me by saying we ‘fit.’  You don’t know me.  Okay, the neurotic part is a gimme, but other than that, you don’t know me.  Here’s a little info.  My name is Kenna.  I shouldn’t be telling you that, but you have a grandmother who loves you, so I think I should tell you my name. 

When you said you wanted the correspondence to keep going and you’re interested in the long game, it soothed my soul and scared the crap out of me at the same time.  Can we start as just friends, and see where things lead?  I mean slow.  I mean tortoise slow.  I mean snail’s pace slow.  Can you cope with that?  Hell, what am I thinking?  You probably can’t.  Which is totally fine.  I totally understand.

There is no need for you to respond.

She re-read what she’d typed and bit her nail. 

God, she was talking out of both sides of her mouth.  Did she want him to respond and go slow, or hope she didn’t hear from him again?

“I don’t know!  God, I’m a basket case.”  She looked at her empty glass.  No help there. 

To hell with it.  She was who she was.  Her mother called her a screwball, and she sure was earning her neurotic stripes.  She pressed send, closed her laptop and headed up the stairs.

***

Dex had been disappointed when Poppy hadn’t immediately responded to his e-mail.  Luckily there was more than enough to do to keep him occupied after being gone so long.  But the first thing he did after starting the coffee the next morning, was to check his computer, and he did a fist pump.

This time it didn’t take him any time at all to come up with a reply.  Dex pressed send and then picked up the phone to call his grandfather.

“It’s about time you called.  I heard via the grapevine you got back yesterday.”

Dex shook his head.  The old man was totally in the know.  “You coming over tonight?  Your grandmother misses you.”

“I was calling to see about making up that golf game we missed.  We’ve got some down time coming to us.  We can leave early today, but that would only give us time for nine holes.”

“You going to bring some of your buddies?”

“That was the plan.”

“Excellent.  But my arthritis is acting up so I might need some extra strokes.”

“That’s bullshit.  You just want to win money.  I want to talk to Grandma Helen,” Dex demanded.  He knew that his grandmother would tell him that his grandfather was just fine.

“She’s out in the backyard,” his grandfather immediately lied.  At least, Dex was pretty damn sure it was a lie. 

“See, it’s bullshit.”  Dex loved his grandfather.  The man was wily.

“I’ll set up a tee time.  Is it for four?” Martin asked.

“I’m pretty sure, I’ll let you know if anything changes.” 

He hung up the phone and smiled, then he called Hunter and Gray.

***

“Don’t hit the ball Son, swing through the ball.”  Dex’s lips twitched when he heard his grandfather say those words to Hunter.  How many times had he heard that exact same sentence throughout his adolescence? 

Martin Evans threw another golf ball down on the grass.  “Tee that up and try again.  You’ll hit the green for sure this time.”

“I can’t hit another ball,” Hunter protested.  He looked at Dex and Gray for assistance.  They just grinned at their big friend.

“Suck it up and shoot again,” Dex told his friend.

“It’s called taking a Mulligan,” Martin explained.  “You just start over, instead of trying to hit your other shot that went into the rough.  Now this time don’t try to kill the ball, just swing through it.  You have a natural swing.  You’ll do great.”

Dex wasn’t surprised in the slightest when Hunter’s next ball went straight down the fairway and landed a few feet away from the green.  Martin was a natural born teacher. 

“Don’t get too cocky, you’re still going to end up buying the beer tonight,” Gray warned him.

“Nonsense.  We agreed, Hunter and I would partner against the two of you,” Martin said as he grabbed the handle of his portable golf cart.  “My arthritis is acting up, so you’re going to have to give me two more points for the nine holes.  It should be four, but I’m sure Hunter will be able to make up for it.”

Dex smothered a grin.  His grandfather needed extra handicap points like he needed a hole in the head.  The man could outshoot almost any man at the club on the back nine.  He and Gray were about to get their asses handed to them.

“Mr. Evans, if your arthritis is acting up, maybe we should have gotten an electric cart so you could have ridden,” Hunter suggested.

“Just need to stretch out my muscles, young man.  Let’s move on ahead and talk about what club you should use when you get up toward the green.  Should it be a nine iron, or a wedge?  This will take some thought.”

Dex purposefully walked slower so that he could talk to Gray.  “Have you heard anything about the ambassador’s granddaughters?  How are they doing?”

“I wanted to ask you, how you were doing,” Gray said.  “You and Aiden both seemed to take it pretty hard.  Of course, you two were holding the girls in the helicopter.”

Dex looked down at the green grass under his feet, so different from the sand that he had trekked over just weeks before.  Then he glanced sideways at his friend and boss.  “I’ll be doing better when you answer my question,” he replied.

“I have a friend,” Gray paused.  “Don’t ask me who or how, but suffice it to say they have connections, they told me what is going on.”

Dex stopped in the middle of the fairway, watching as his grandfather took out his pitching wedge to explain something to Hunter.  “Tell me.  Please tell that I’ll get to testify against her.”

Gray gave him a long look, and Dex realized what that meant.  Fuck.  The bitch was going to get away with assisting in her husband’s death.

“If you can’t give me that, at least tell me that she isn’t going to have anything to do with raising her daughters.”

Dex thought about that moment in the desert when little Clara Anders looked at her mother, begging to know where her daddy was, and that crazy blonde bitch had actually slapped her child and told her to shut up.  Before anyone could blink, Dex had picked her up and cuddled her.  But Noreen Anders had still been trying to get at her child, so Gray physically restrained her until the helicopters showed up. 

“Here’s where it stands.  Half of the people working the case still think it was Bill Anders who was doing the selling, but the other half belief it was the bitch from hell.”

“What about our reports?” Dex asked.

“This is the stuff you and I can’t and won’t ever know about, but the CIA bureau chief sat down with the ambassador and laid out all they did have, that wouldn’t necessarily stand up in a court of law, including our reports. The bureau chief even arranged for a child psychologist to meet with the girls.  The ambassador was appalled.  Besides the CIA, her father turned on her.  The girls were taken from her.  Their aunt and uncle will raise them in the US.  I checked they’re good people.”

Of course, Gray checked.

“Tell me something really bad is going to happen to Crazy Noreen,” Dex pleaded.

“Crazy Noreen is going to be working with the bureau chief.  He’s basically turned her into one of his operatives.  He’s using the threat of your testimony as leverage.  He’s got her convinced that she could be up on manslaughter charges for not helping you try to save her husband.”

That gave Dex a small amount of satisfaction, then he thought of something.

“Her first assignment is working in a village in Somalia for a year, gathering intel about pirates.”

“She’s the ambassador’s blood daughter, and he’s okay with this?”  Dex hoped to hell he was. 

“Yep.  He’s a good man.  He wrote letters of condolences to the four marines families.  If she can help stop more of blood-letting, he’s for it.”

Dex looked at his lieutenant.  It was amazing how connected and informed he was.  He opened his mouth.

“I told you,” Gray said.  “Don’t ask any questions of who and how I got this information.”

Dex shut his mouth and nodded.

“Now, just how hard a time are we going to have beating your granddad?” Gray asked.

“Just get your money out now, we’re going down,” Dex said.