Page 15 of Operation K-9 Brothers
“She is.”
“Dare I ask what she’s made for me this time?”
“Now, Jack, you know I never ruin her surprises.”She grinned.“I will say this one’s a doozy.”
“God help me.”He headed to the craft room, shuddering at the sound of Ursula’s laughter.
Last week his grandmother had painted a picture of what was supposed to be him without a shirt, telling him that he should give it to his girlfriend.She knew damn well that he didn’t have a girlfriend, at least not one he’d told her about.
He wasn’t sure what category to put Nichole in, but she wasn’t girlfriend status.Not yet.Where the devil had that thought come from?
The picture was a hint that he needed to get busy finding and marrying a woman so he could give her great-grandbabies while she was still alive to see them.She was also positive that as soon as he had said wife and babies that he’d stay home where he belonged and not go traipsing off to dangerous places where people blew you up.
He’d downplayed how badly he’d been hurt and always wore a long-sleeve shirt when visiting her, so she’d never seen his scars.He also kept to himself his determination to return to his team.She was his only surviving relative, his father’s mother, and she meant the world to him.If only she’d stop making him embarrassing things.
When he reached the craft room, he paused at the door.His grandmother was sitting at a table with Harold Robinson, her boyfriend.He grinned and shook his head.Harold couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds sopping wet—about forty pounds less than his grandmother—and didn’t have a hair on his head.He was beyond proud of his white handlebar mustache.
“Hey, Grammie.”Jack kissed his grandmother’s cheek.“How’s my favorite girl today?”
“Who the hell are you?”Her gaze slid over him.“You look vaguely familiar, but I could be mistaking you for my grandson, who seems to think he can pop in occasionally and I’ll remember him.”
Jack laughed.“I was here last Saturday morning, as you well know.”Whenever he was home on leave, they had a standing Saturday morning date for pancake breakfast.
“I’m old.I don’t remember yesterday, much less what happened a week ago.”
“Such a little liar.You remember in detail my every misdeed.”He glanced at Harold.“Morning, Harold.You making her behave?”
“Never tried to, son.She’s perfect just like she is.”He stood.“I’ll leave you two to it.Time for my morning bowl of oatmeal and lousy cup of decaf.”
Jack had invited Harold to breakfast with them a few times, but the man always refused, saying it was Lizzy’s special time with her grandson.It really was, and Jack appreciated that Harold understood.
He perched on the edge of the table, glanced down at the knitting bag next to her chair, and stifled a groan.When the purple bag was present, it meant she’d knitted him something.That was never good.“You look very pretty this morning, Grammie.”
She was the quintessential picture of what a grandmother should look like.Short white hair that curled around her ears, kind eyes behind her wire-rimmed glasses, an easy smile, age lines that gave her face character, and the ever-present string of pearls around her neck.
She smiled up at him.“Thank you, Jackie.A woman has to look her best to keep her man.”Her eyes—not as bright a blue as they used to be, but eyes that never missed a thing—danced with laughter as she glanced behind him.“Incoming.”
He groaned.That could only mean one thing.A pinch on his ass from Dirty Mary, his grandmother’s name for Mary Keselowski, her eighty-three-year-old friend who had the filthy mouth of a sailor.She also had a massive crush on Jack, much to his grandmother’s amusement.
“Look who’s here, Mary.Your favorite hottie.”
“You don’t have to encourage her,” he muttered.
“Where would be the fun in that?”
“Hot damn.”The second Mary reached him, her fingers landed on his butt.“Looking good, McHottie.”
He eased off the table to get away from her questing fingers.
She lifted her phone.“Smile, handsome.I need a picture for my spank bank.”
Jack choked.Where did little old ladies learn stuff like that?When his grandmother chuckled, he glared at her.
Mary studied the photo she’d taken.“Not bad.Would be better if you’d take off your shirt.”
“Not happening.”
“Oh, I almost forgot your present.”His grandmother pulled something red out of her knitting bag and handed it to him.
