Lexie smiled gently. “I don’t think that Derick considers you to be just a neighbor. If that were the case, we wouldn’t be here.”
“Lexie is right,” Abby added. “Derick asked us to come over and check on you.”
Carrie stiffened slightly, hurt. “I don’t need pity,” she told the ladies, setting her glass of wine down.
“If we pitied you, then you’d be in your house with Zeke’s cookies, all alone. The cookies would have been enough. The wine is from us. It’s our offer of friendship,” Abby explained.
Carrie eyed them carefully, their smiles seemed to be genuine. “Thank you,” she replied. “I’m a little…wary.”
Lexie grinned and the expression transformed her features. “We understand. We’ve both been through trials and tribulations with life. But…” she paused, shooting a meaningful look at Carrie. “I doubt that the issues we struggled with were as painful as yours.”
Carrie didn’t reply. Instead, she took a long sip of her wine, not sure how to respond.
“Those are your secrets,” Abby said into the silence. “But know that we’re here if you need someone to talk to. And if you’re leaving soon, we’re a good ear for venting, since you’ll never see us again.”
Lexie leaned forward. “I hope that’s not the case though.”
After that, the conversation changed and Carrie was able to relax. Abby told stories about life in the Army, who was a captain and a medical doctor. And life with military husbands, since they were each married to one. Lexie regaled them with the plot to her next romance novel, which Carrie thought was thrilling! And they laughed about everything! It was one of the nicest evenings she’d had with women in a long, long time!
“When did Derick install a watering system?” Abby asked, her eyes narrowing on the sprinklers that had just turned on throughout the huge garden area.
Carrie jumped up and turned around since her back had been to the yard. “Shoot! I need to fix the timers,” she said and walked over to the faucet that she’d installed earlier today. With a few twists, she changed the timing system and the sprinklers slowly shut down.
Wiping her hands on her thighs, she nodded with satisfaction, and returned to the porch. “What?” she said when she realized that both Lexie and Abby were staring at her.
“Did you install a sprinkler system for Derick?”
Carrie shrugged awkwardly, not sure what to say. “He’s always moving the sprinklers around. He waters the garden every couple of days and…well, he’s constantly feeding me and giving me loads of vegetables. It’s the least I could do to repay him.”
Abby nodded her head. “Right,” she replied, a knowing grin to her pretty features.
Lexie laughed. “He grumbles about watering all the time. He’s going to love having a sprinkler system!”
Carrie suddenly missed her old friends. She missed talking about girl stuff. It was around eight o’clock when Abby and Lexie bid her goodbye.
“Let’s do this again soon,” Abby said, as she leaned in to hug Carrie. “You’re a lot of fun, Jolene.”
Carrie smiled, warmed by her offer of friendship.
Lexie nodded, and hugged Carrie as well. “I agree. I don’t like it when the guys go out of town, but it’s a good excuse to get together.” She grinned. “It’s also nice to drink in front of Abby. Because I know how much she loves wine!”
Abby groaned. “You’re a cruel woman!” She turned to Carrie. “Lexie already has a little boy who is with a babysitter at the moment.” She then turned back to Lexie. “And your time is coming! I know Mike is trying to knock you up again!”
Lexie laughed, nodding. “Yep. After a blissful, crazy, miserable, magical time with our little boy, we’ve both decided that it’s time to grow our family.”
They shared a laugh, and then both Lexie and Abby leaned forward, hugging Carrie gently one more time.
“Stay in touch,” Lexie urged. “No matter what happens, please stay in touch.”
Abby nodded. “And we’ll call you in a day or two. Or call us if you get bored and need someone to talk with. We never know how long it is before our men come back. So, we need to stick together.”
They climbed into Abby’s sedan and drove away. For a long time, Carrie stood watching the car’s taillights, beaming the whole time.
What a nice evening, she thought as she walked back into the house. That night, before she closed her eyes to sleep, she whispered a prayer. “Please, take care of them!”
A tear slipped out from behind her closed eyes as she repeated the prayer.
It had been so long since she’d prayed. After what she’d gone through, Carrie had assumed that God had abandoned her, leaving her to the pain and humiliation that her life had become.
But now, having spent an enjoyable, relaxing evening with two lovely women, plus her love for Derick, Carrie couldn’t stop her heart from asking for just one more wish. Just one! She’d never ask for anything else again, she promised. “Just take care of the men. Bring them back safely.”
With that, Carrie rolled over and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Chapter 12
Lexie and Abby paced by the door to the warehouse. It was a big, open area with only a few offices on one side and an elaborate conference room at the end of the row of offices. The rest of the space was filled with a work out area in one corner where the teams pushed each other to get bigger and stronger, some massive, tarp-covered lumps along the wall opposite the offices, and the fourth wall held supplies. Neither knew what those boxes of supplies contained, and neither asked.
During the day, Lexie worked as an assistant to the teams, ordering supplies and managing travel and meetings, or doing whatever research was needed. She’d become a research expert since she started working here. She loved every moment of her job…when the guys were here.
When the teams left on one of their super-secret missions, Lexie worked on her books. She was a romance author and loved losing herself in the twists and turns of her plots. When Mike, Colonel Cain to the team members, was in town, he helped her research the sex scenes and the popularity of her books had exploded.
Abby was an emergency room doctor for the Army base hospital. There were numerous training accidents that she treated on a daily basis, plus the normal viruses and bacterial infections when someone didn’t get to the base medical clinic early enough. There were also car accidents and accidental shootings during training and a plethora of issues that a civilian doctor wouldn’t necessarily see. She was also an Army officer, and a captain. That meant that her husband outranked her, an issue that he lorded over her at the most intimate of moments.
They waited for the teams to land on the private airstrip just outside of the warehouse. They’d been informed of the team’s arrival only twenty minutes ago, but Abby had warned the others on the emergency room staff that she’d have to leave as soon as she heard that her husband was coming back.
The doors to the warehouse opened and the men poured in, exhausted, but victorious. Some of them were laughing, others were calling out to meet at one of the local bars as soon as their weapons were cleaned and checked into the armory and their supplies had been stored away.