The Last Hour (Thompson Sisters) by Sheehan-Miles, Charles (reading well .txt) 📕

I gasped for air, and wandered down the hall, stopping in front of Lori’s office. About five minutes later, she showed up.

Concern on her face, she said, “He tried to put the squeeze on you, didn’t he?”

I nodded.

“Well, you handled it perfectly. I’m glad you called me ... I’ve already dealt with that once. With him. He should know better. I had a few choice words for him after you left.”

I nodded and said, “Thanks, Lori.”

“Hey, no problem. Just ... be careful, okay? I’ve been following the news ... I’m worried about you.”

I smiled and took her hand. “Don’t worry. We’re going to be fine.”

It’s a secret (Ray)

Dylan wasn’t kidding about a wedding being something like a military operation. I’d never actually been to one where I paid any attention, but this time I didn’t have much choice, because the moment Carrie and I arrived in New York, Alex handed me a lengthy task list with a tight deadline.

Alex is a highly strung person anyway. But on our arrival three days before the wedding, she was running a million miles an hour, eyes wide, cheeks flushed, and giving orders to everyone in sight. Dylan looked like a deer caught in the headlights, and just did what he was told like a good private in the Army. I quickly opted for Dylan’s strategy, because Carrie swooped in to help Alex and they were starting to scare me.

Just getting to New York was a production. Nearly six weeks in advance I asked Dick Elmore to request permission for me to go, because the wedding was being held outside the 50-mile radius of Washington, DC I was allowed. Elmore had to go to Colonel Schwartz, who had to go General Buelles, and then General Buelles called me in for an interview.

I’m not an easily intimidated person, but I’m also a sergeant in the Army, and a Major General is the closest thing to God a US Army Sergeant has in the day to day world. Buelles asked me a lot of inappropriately personal questions, and finally approved my leave request, on the condition that I wear an ankle monitor and carry a GPS, so they could locate me at all times. It was humiliating, but got the job done.

By the end of the first day in New York, I was exhausted. I’d finished Alex’s shopping list, double checked the University Chapel (although I was certain she’d be checking it again), and visited all three hotels where guests would be coming to stay. It was six o’clock, and I was wiped by the time we got back to the suite Carrie had rented. A suite, because Julia and Crank were flying in from LA on Friday, and would be sharing space with us. In the meantime, it was a space quite big enough for Alex and Carrie to carry out their plans with Dylan and me as their manual labor.

Not that I was complaining. Because when I got back to the hotel, I dropped myself into one of the big comfortable chairs, popped open a beer, put my feet up and watched Carrie and Alex, who were smiling and laughing with each other.

“Get over here, soldier,” Carrie said without looking up from whatever the hell it was they were doing. I grinned and walked over to her, then leaned in close and kissed her on her neck. I felt her shiver, and she said something like, “Mmmmm,” and tilted her head.

“Oh, go get a room,” Alex said.

I gave Alex a wicked grin and spread my hands out. We had gotten a room. But I slid into the seat next to Carrie and said, “So what exactly are we doing?”

Carrie handed me some incomprehensibly folded rose-colored silk and said, “Hold this.” So I did, and then she came at me with a plastic hot glue gun and squirted burning liquid, which promptly sank through the silk and into the tips of my fingers.

“Holy shit, that’s like napalm,” I muttered, just as the door to the suite opened and Dylan came in.

Alex snickered, and Carrie said, “You’re tough, you’ll get through it somehow.”

“Hurts like hell,” I said.

Dylan walked over and kissed Alex, then said, “I see they’ve given you the tough job.”

“You try getting flowers melted into your fingers, bud.”

“I think that’s a great idea,” Alex said. She handed Dylan another one of the flowers. “Hold still.”

“You waited to start on this until you knew we were coming, didn’t you?” Dylan asked.

Alex nodded, biting her lower lip as she did it.

“Ow, damn!” Dylan said as she applied the hot glue.

“So, Alex,” Carrie said, leaning forward. “I know you’ve got Ray slated to be a chauffeur tomorrow as people get in town…”

This was news to me, but I was a private in this army, and Carrie and Alex were the generals.

“But ... I need to borrow him in the afternoon.”

Something was off about how she said it. Carrie’s normally so honest, dissembling didn’t really become her. I narrowed my eyes, and my suspicion was verified when Alex said in a completely fake voice, “Oh, sure, no problem.”

“What are you two up to?” I asked.

Carrie just gave me a smug smile and handed me another flower. “Hold still,” she said.

Damn it.

I suppose with a family the size of Carrie’s you would expect anything like a wedding to be a production. But I didn’t realize just how big a production until I saw the airport schedule. Yes. The schedule. Alex had drawn up a chart, with each incoming flight charted, the names of the victims, and who was shacking up with whom. Down the side of the chart, she’d written contingency plans for everything from a late flight to another terrorist attack on New York.

I wasn’t even driving everyone, because I would have had to rent a very large bus. I’d been relegated to picking up several cousins, uncles and aunts, and other people who I had no idea who they were. And those were only the