Lea Overstreet Krimm lay in bed awake, admiring the profile of her handsome husband Wendell as he slept beside her. She smiled, unseen, as she contemplated the friendship that now existed between him and her cousin Buddy. Wendell and Harry had taken Buddy to a carnival. The three had been attacked on the way home by hit-men from a rival gang. Wendell had taken a bullet, which had then impaired his ability to shoot back at the Lassiter gang. Buddy had reluctantly accepted Wendell’s gun, and he and Harry had eliminated the attackers. Her cousin had saved her husband’s life. Wendell’s arm was long since completely healed. But his unwavering gratitude and friendship toward Lea’s cousin had continued faithfully ever since.
She well remembered the rambunctious return of the three from their escapade that night. Buddy had run in hysterically from the car, yelling for the doctor, and shouting that Wendell had been hurt. Fully alarmed, Lea had raced to the car, only to see Wendell emerging apparently normally, seemingly unharmed, and certainly unruffled. The shot had hit him in the upper arm, and he’d been quite nonchalant about it. Only Buddy had been panicked, which Wendell and Harry had clearly regarded as “cute.” It had taken Harry and Mr. Devere together to calm Buddy, while the company doctor had removed the bullet from Wendell.
As Wendell had later told Lea, Buddy had been frantically solicitous over his condition from the moment that the bad guys’ threat had been abolished. He’d kept asking if he could do anything for him, for which Wendell had gently declined. When Harry had begun to work to change the tire that had been shot out, he’d had to order Buddy to leave Wendell’s side long enough to help. Harry hadn’t needed much assistance; he’d just wanted Buddy to pull out of the way the stuffed animals that they’d won at the carnival for the children so that the fabric wouldn’t get ruined by the greasy jack, as Harry’d pulled it out of the trunk. Buddy had obeyed, but had then instantly run back to sit beside Wendell, seemingly afraid to leave him alone. Once the tire had been replaced, Buddy’d even insisted on helping Wendell into the front passenger seat, and that only after inquiring if Wendell wouldn’t like to lie down in the back seat instead, which the slightly-injured man had politely declined. Only when the self-appointed “mother hen” had the patient seated in the front and his door closed for him, did Buddy get back into his place in the backseat, Harry amusedly shaking his head all the while.
Remembering the mental image that Wendell’s narrative had inspired, Lea almost giggled, but quickly suppressed the urge to avoid waking her husband. Thinking about how pleased their daughters Wanda and Wendy, and even their sons Warren and Willis, had been with the furry prizes, and tenderly exploring her own again-pregnant abdomen, Lea gradually fell asleep.
Mere months later, Lea was performing her usual job (nowadays) of caring for her now four-year-old quadruplets. She happily recalled Mr. Devere long since saying to her, “My dear, how would you like it if I radically altered your job-description? Not that we don’t appreciate the work that you have done as a file clerk, alongside your cousin, but we recognize the all-important task that you have of raising our next generation of Devere Enterprises authorities. When I retire, I know that my corporation will be in good hands with your husband Wendell at the helm, and with his partner Harry as his right-hand man. Then, by the time that the two of them step down, your and Wendell’s sons Warren and Willis will be ready to take over the firm. You have an awesome responsibility in raising them, and I feel that it should be your full-time occupation.”
“I’d love to. But sir,” she had posed, “I’ve always wondered how we’d send the kids to school when they turn six, since I’m not allowed out of the building, and especially since one never knows what injudicious things kids might blurt in front of others, out in the world at large.”
“Both legitimate concerns. Quite simply: they’re not going to school. You will home-school them, and it will be your full-time job. As of now, you are released from your customary duties, and will spend full-time caring for and educating your children, our replacements.”
“Yes, sir. Gladly.” Lea had beamed at him. “And I’ll be relieved not to have to worry about the negative influence of bullies, and other badly-raised classmates.”
“Quite right,” the boss had concurred.
So now Lea sat with her four children on the softly-carpeted floor of the cheerfully colorful room, already beginning to teach them to count and to read. The instructions were low-key since the children were so young, with an eye toward playing as much as teaching at this stage, but Wendell and Lea had agreed that an early start would be good for the kids.
At the moment, Willis was frustrated, having found a certain concept just a bit more difficult to grasp than Warren, Wanda, or Wendy had. Lea sat with him in her lap, patiently giving him the needed one-on-one help, allowing the other three to entertain themselves with various toys for the time being. She became sufficiently absorbed in helping him that it was some time before she again looked up from her task with her struggling son. And when she did, a gasp froze in her throat. An apparently bored Wendy had toddled out of the door and across the hall, and, as a horrified Lea watched, had entered the open elevator. In the time that it took for Lea to scoot Willis from her lap and rise to her feet, the elevator doors had closed with her daughter inside of it.
Lea dashed to the descending elevator and uselessly pounded on it. She turned back just long enough to close and lock the door to keep the other three children safely inside of the pretty room in her absence, and then she hit the button to call the other elevator to her. Its arrival took long moments, moments that she couldn’t afford. When it finally came, she darted in and hit the button for the ground floor.
The elevator deposited Lea on the main floor barely in time to let her see little Wendy bound out through the front entrance of Devere Enterprises. Even knowing that she was not allowed out of the building, Lea scarcely hesitated an instant before she charged out after her.
Barely out of the door, her head whipped frantically from side to side as she looked both up and down the sidewalk, failing to catch a glimpse of Wendy amid the crowd in either direction. Desperately knowing that she had to choose a direction, and that each second counted, Lea randomly turned to the right. She had taken hardly a step when she was seized by strong arms that came seemingly out of nowhere. She was whirled to face a very angry Harry.
“Now just where do you think you’re going?!” he demanded.
“Wendy wandered away! She’s loose out here! I have to get her! Help me, Harry! Let me go!” Lea fought to break free of his grip.
“I’ll get her! You get back inside!” he ordered.
“We don’t know which way she went! One of us should take each direction!”
“No way! You’re not going anywhere but back in the building!”
“Where’s Wendell???”
“Parking the car; we just got back. Now get in there, and I’ll find Wendy!” Harry shoved her through the front door.
Peering through the window, Lea watched him depart to the left to search for her missing daughter. Panicked, she muttered aloud, “But what if Wendy went right??” Knowing that she was getting herself deeper into trouble, but too upset to care, Lea ran out of the door to the right.
Lea hunted and searched and gazed and peered, frantically yelling “Wendy!!” all the while, one hand protectively holding her now quite pregnant abdomen. She was terrified that her little girl would be run over or stepped upon or even abducted by some unstable type. It seemed to Lea that she’d gone farther than the little one’s steps could possibly have taken her, even with the head start that the child had gotten through elevator delays and Harry’s having waylaid her.
Her pursuit came to a very abrupt halt when those same strong hands grabbed her again. This time he spun her more roughly. “What did I tell you?!!” he shouted into her face.
“Harry, I had to search for her!! I couldn’t just stand there!!” She squirmed, trying to pull out of his grasp. “Come on; help me look!”
“Stop it!!” He shook her. With visible effort, Harry lowered his volume. “I found her.”
Nonsensically, Lea’s eyes desperately searched his empty arms. “Where is she???”
“Pipe down!” He struggled to lower his voice again. “She’s safe. Which is possibly more than I can say for you. Now come on back with me, and don’t make me tell you again.” Harry let go with one hand and reached suggestively toward the gun hidden under his jacket. “Move.”
Immediately rendered placid by Harry’s frightening gesture, as well as by the happy prospect of soon holding her little girl, Lea obeyed without another word.
Upon reentering through the main door of Devere Enterprises, Lea saw little Wendy being held in the arms of one of Devere’s armed guards. Lea squealed with relief, and then relieved the man of the little girl. Whereupon Harry renewed his possessive grip on Lea’s upper arm and escorted her into the elevator, up to their floor, and straight into Mr. Devere’s office.
Immediately upon observing Lea’s tear-streaked, disheveled state and Harry’s evident simmering anger, Devere called his secretary to come and remove Wendy, so as to spare the child being witness to any traumatic scene. Within a short period of listening to the two bicker, the boss gathered the gist of the conflict, and interrupted only to ask after the safety of the other three children. Then Wendell came in, obliging Lea and Harry to go through it all again, while her husband sat looking dismayed and disappointed. Disappointed in her specifically, Lea wasn’t so sure, but he was at least disappointed in these new developments.
After a momentary pause, Lea asked plaintively, “Mr. D., sir, I understand that the reason for me not being allowed out is to prevent me from telling your secrets, but surely you don’t believe that, with my little girl missing, I really would have taken the time to go up to strangers to say, ‘Hey, want to hear some weird secrets about the people in that building?’”
“No.” Devere shook his head firmly, suppressing a slight smile. “I don’t.”
“I don’t either,” Harry agreed. “But the fact remains that you disobeyed the rules: Mr. D.’s rules for you and your cousin, which you’ve known about for years!”
Lea sagged in her chair. “Mr. Devere, I apologize. Harry, do you want to shoot me?” She looked nearly too exhausted to care. But she noticed Wendell’s somewhat uneasy restless shuffle in his seat out of the corner of her eye.
“No!” Harry sounded exasperated. “I want you to obey the rules!”
“And I always have. Except when one of my children was at stake.”
Devere cleared his throat. “I think that the important thing here is to make sure that this will never happen again. To that end….”
He once more pressed the button to connect him with his secretary, and requested, “Send in Buddy Overstreet.”
Lea, Wendell, and Harry all exchanged baffled gazes for the short time that it took for the young man to arrive.
The latter obeyed, trying not to look too disconcerted by Lea’s evidently bedraggled state.
Devere sat back in a relaxed manner. “My boy, as of now, I’m changing your job assignment.”
Buddy blinked.
“Lea needs help. Four kids are a lot for one adult to keep track of, full-time. Starting now, you are assigned to her, all day every day. You can help her to educate the children if you like, but your primary responsibility will be to keep them safe. Don’t let any one of them wander away, while Lea’s busy teaching another one of them. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Buddy was grinning. “I’ll love that! Not that my regular job wasn’t perfectly fine,” he hastened to add.
Devere was nodding. “And you can always go back to it if something else changes. But for the foreseeable future, you’ll help with the kids.”
He nodded enthusiastically. He and his cousin were then dismissed.
Later that evening, alone in their apartment, Lea told her husband, “Wendell, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fight with Harry.”
“It’s not that. Lea, come sit down on the sofa. We need to talk.”
“Uh oh. Am I still in trouble?” She sat.
He waved it away with a careless hand. “Lea, after we sent you and Buddy out, Mr. D. and Harry and I spent some time discussing the possibility of telling you…well, what we haven’t been telling you.” He looked reluctant to do so now, as well.
“Sounds serious.”
“It is. Lea, you weren’t just disobedient today, and Harry wasn’t just overreacting. You were in grave danger.” He eyed her, and she waited for him to go on with his explanation. “Outside of this building, we can’t guarantee your safety, yours or the kids’, especially alone. You’re aware that we’ve been having quite a bit of difficulty with the Lassiter gang.”
“How could I forget? Two of their hit-men jumped us at that fancy dinner-dance business-meeting that was otherwise so enchanting. And then two more went after you and Buddy and Harry when you went to that carnival, and one even shot you!”
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg. They’ve been waylaying our shipments. They’ve been spying on and following our people. And they only tried to kill us, but they have killed a number of our other operatives.”
“Oh my!” She looked wary. “Are there a lot of other syndicate gangs besides this one and the Lassiter gang?”
“Oh sure. It’s just that the Lassiter mob is the only one giving us serious trouble these days.”
“But why? Why are they giving you problems?”
He eyed her. “Because we’re the biggest and the best. And they want to be.”
“Oh. Competition.”
“That’s the name of the game. And I can’t stress enough how dangerous this other group is.”
Lea sighed, and leaned her head on Wendell’s shoulder.
“I’ve regretted ever since that we took you along to that otherwise elegant meeting that night, and let them see you there on my arm. We should have kept them in the dark about you. Lea, if any of the Lassiter gang had been nearby today, and seen you, and recognized you, they would’ve grabbed you for sure.”
Lea felt herself go pale. “Why…? What…?” She sat up straight.
His gaze met hers. “They could have used you to extort money or favors from us. To hold you over our heads.”
“Or Wendy, too,” she found herself whispering in horror.
“Or Wendy, too,” he agreed, “if they’d seen her in your arms, and connected her to us.”
“As it turns out, they could only have seen her in Harry’s arms; Wendy and I were both back inside by the time that we were reunited. But Wendell, …I need for you to tell me: what would they ultimately have done if they’d caught me???”
He looked very reluctant, but slowly replied, “They might have killed you, might have raped you, might have tried to force information about us from you. And they wouldn’t necessarily have believed that you wouldn’t’ve known the answers to most of their questions; they’d’ve just kept after you.”
Lea sagged deeper into the sofa cushion. “And Harry knew that. And that’s why he was so angry.”
“Sure.” Wendell shifted in his seat. “They also might have…sold you to a white-slavery ring in the Orient.”
Lea sat up abruptly in startlement. “Like that movie!”
“Yes, just like in that movie.”
A few months previously, Lea and Wendell had watched the musical “Thoroughly Modern Millie” together. Lea had liked its amusing love story, but she had remarked that it had otherwise had such a grim plot for a Broadway musical. And she had asked Wendell if selling young white women into far-east sex-slavery ever really happened. He’d seemed uncomfortable with the question, though he’d responded in the affirmative. But when, in response to his discomfort, she’d further inquired whether Devere Enterprises was into that form of crime, he’d left the room without answering.
“Lassiter’s gang is into it.” She made it a statement.
Wendell nodded.
“And so are you.”
He hesitated only minutely, and ruefully nodded again.
Following a long moment of awkward silence, Lea turned to him and demanded, “Did you guys ever consider doing that to me??”
Wendell looked startled.
“I mean, before you and I got together.”
“Oh, maybe briefly. You were certainly pretty enough.”
“Wendell, I’m not fishing for compliments here; I really want to know just how much at-risk of that I was, in the beginning?”
“As I recall, we barely mentioned it, and decided no. Getting rid of you would’ve made Buddy impossible to handle or to trust, so it just wouldn’t’ve been worth it. We’d’ve ended up having to kill him after all. And besides, why waste you; it’s not as if we didn’t have enough access to plenty of others to sell that way.”
Despite the seriousness of the discussion, Lea couldn’t help but yield to her sudden playful thought. “If I hadn’t…accidentally…let you know that I was interested in you, would you ever have gotten around to making a move on me?”
A sly sparkle entered his own eyes then, and he admitted, “Probably eventually. Harry and I had casually discussed it, how pretty you were. But we were cautious about doing anything about it, because if we’d set Buddy off, we might’ve negated the whole point of letting him come to work here. And though we may seem blasé about having to kill people, we don’t deliberately set situations up so that we’ll have to.”
“Wait a minute. You and Harry had discussed me in that way??”
“Sure. Why not? He’d noticed that you were pretty.”
“He said that I wasn’t his type!”
“That didn’t mean that he was blind.”
“He didn’t like me!!”
“No no, he just knew that I liked you better than he did.”
Her jaw dropped. “Oh god, I’m going to be so embarrassed around him now!”
“No need for that.”
“You think this is funny!”
“You’re cute when you’re embarrassed.”
“Oh jeez, Wendell!”
He regained some seriousness. “Anyhow, honey, we just want you to be safe.”
Unexpectedly, she suddenly teared. “I’m sorry I let Wendy get away from me!”
“No, relax, anyone can get distracted, especially when you’re at it all day like that. Watching this many kids is a handful. But you and Buddy together’ll be able to control them. Also, from now on, we’d like for you to keep that door shut and locked, so that they can’t get out of the room in any case.”
Lea nodded her solemn promise.
Wendell’s expression lightened. “And before you know it, you’ll have, not just four, but also this little stranger.” His eyes twinkled as he gently patted her tummy. “You and Buddy will have him to watch, too.”
“You’re counting on this being a boy.”
“Well, Mr. D. is! For me, I don’t care which it is.”
“Good. Because we can’t place an order; it doesn’t work that way.” She grinned faintly. “But I’m not surprised about Mr. D. He wants me to have as many boys as possible so that he can be sure to get somebody who can run this company, after he and you guys are done with it.”
“Have you thought about names?”
“Well, I still want to stick with Ws, to name them sort of after you.”
“And?”
“Wade, Wesley….”
“Now who’s planning for boys?”
She feigned a glare, and emphatically went on, “Whitney, Willow….” Then she shrugged.
“Four??” he emphasized. “You’re planning for four???”
She shrugged again, harder. “Well, we didn’t last time, and look what happened!”
He chuckled and then patted her hand. “Speaking of the kids, let’s go look in on them, in their beds, one last time tonight.”
The next morning, as Wendell and Lea left their apartment, they promptly encountered Harry on his way to Mr. D.’s office.
At first, Lea didn’t know whether she wanted to turn and retreat back into the apartment. But then she turned toward him. “Harry. I’m sorry.” Her voice broke slightly, and Wendell could feel that she was trembling. Not knowing which specific she was going to apologize for, Wendell gave her a cautioning look. Harry was giving her his undivided attention.
“I’m sorry for giving you a tough time yesterday. I didn’t know….”
Wendell appeared relieved.
“Of course you didn’t,” Harry hastened. “We knew you didn’t, and that was the problem. I just didn’t have time to stand there explaining it to you while we were all in jeopardy.”
“I know, I know.”
“That’s why I resorted to my customary threat as the fastest way to move you along.” He patted his jacket over his gun in demonstration.
Wendell looked mildly surprised; she hadn’t told him that part.
“And it worked,” she quipped feebly.
“But I didn’t want to get heavy-handed.”
“It’s okay,” she assured him.
“We should have told you what was going on lately. We didn’t want to worry you with it. We just didn’t anticipate….”
“It was my fault.”
“Nobody’s blaming you.”
“But I’m sure you were furious when you got back to the building with Wendy, and saw that I was gone again.”
“I…wanted to throttle you. But, yeah, I do understand about that maternal instinct stuff, though…. I guess.”
“Anyway, you saved us. You saved Wendy. And you saved me. And this little one.” Her hand went to her belly. Hesitantly, Lea moved closer, stood on tiptoes, and gave Harry a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.” She wasn’t sure who looked more embarrassed, Harry or Wendell. Suddenly self-conscious, Lea quickly retreated to her colorful “duty station,” kids trailing her like a row of ducklings after the mama duck.
Several months later, Lea and Buddy were called into the main office to meet with Devere, Wendell, Harry, Junior Devere, and the company doctor.
Without preamble, Devere announced, “It’s soon time for the meeting of the Commission: the gathering of the ruling heads of the various mobs.” He sighed grimly. “And it’s our turn to host it.”
Harry muttered unintelligibly in disgust and Wendell looked rueful but resigned.
“Wait a minute.” Buddy leaned forward on the table. “Are you saying that the head members of all of the other mobs, even of the Lassiter gang, will be here??”
“That’s right,” said Devere. “And on that day, we are definitely going to hide Lea and the children. Buddy, Junior, and Doc will be in there with you. And Lea, I’m going to want you to lock that door, and don’t open it, until Wendell or Harry or I come to tell you that all of the other mob rulers are gone. Also, keep the kids quiet; I don’t want our enemies to even suspect that we have children here.”
Lea was nodding, but Doc said, “Why will I be in there with them?”
Devere explained, “I realize how unlikely it is that Lea will pick that very day to go into labor, but we must be prepared. And if that should happen, Doc, your sole responsibility is to Lea. No excuses this time; you weren’t with her last time, and that is not to ever happen again. Besides, you won’t be able to call on us for help, not that day. Buddy and Junior, your responsibility is to the four kids that we already have. Understand?”
Lea, Junior, and Doc were all nodding, but Buddy again demanded, “Wait a minute! You said that you’ll come and tell us when the other mob rulers are all gone: do you mean that you’re just going to let Lassiter and his right-hand men just walk safely back out of here???”
Devere blinked at him. “That’s how it’s done. ‘Family’ values. We’re all ‘made’ men: loyal. It’s considered a day of truce.”
“After what Lassiter’s bunch has been doing to you?? After they shot Wendell??? And killed some of your lesser operatives??? And played havoc with your business???”
Devere was growing amused. “What would you have us do?”
Buddy barely hesitated. “Shoot them.”
Lea stared at him.
Harry laughed aloud. “Now who’s getting vicious?”
“Well, I don’t care. They haven’t behaved honorably with you; so why should you be honorable with them? Besides, it’s not as if you guys haven’t been sneaky before; what about the time, back when I was still running, when you guys faked Mr. Devere’s death to lure me here, and got the drop on me? I barely got out of here alive! You can let the others leave, and then you rub out the heads of the Lassiter gang!”
Wendell wore a Cheshire-cat grin. “Buddy, I think you need have no further fear of not fitting in around here.”
“It’s different now,” Buddy replied flatly.
“Why?” Devere demanded challengingly, as if to see if Buddy knew the right answer.
“The kids,” he responded instantly. Then, he looked at Wendell. “And also, …I didn’t expect to be family…and I am.”
“Congratulations my boy,” said Devere. “You figured it out all on your own.”
When the day came, Devere, Wendell, and Harry had a surprise for Buddy. Before the arrival of their rival “guests,” the three dropped into the child-care room to make sure that Lea, Buddy, Junior, Doc, and all four kids were in there and properly situated for the hours-long stay.
Wordlessly, Harry held out a gun for Buddy to take.
Devere said, “Just in the unlikely event that they break in here somehow.”
Buddy didn’t even hesitate. He accepted it.
The three mobsters looked approving. Wendell winked at him.
Then, Lea provided the next surprise. She requested, “Wendell, may I also…have one?”
He was clearly proud of her as he handed her a gun.
Lea turned to the kids. “Listen to me: these are not toys, and you’re not to touch them. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Mama,” various little voices murmured.
Lea turned back to the men. “I said that just as a precaution; we’ll keep them on us at all times anyway.” So saying, she tucked hers into the belt of her skirt.
Devere challenged wishfully, but clearly without much hope, “Junior, will you take one as well?”
The boss’ son looked uncomfortable, but evidently didn’t want to be the only one to decline. “Yeah, Dad, okay.” He took it gingerly, but at least he took it.
“That’s my boy,” Devere mumbled, with forced enthusiasm.
Hearing strange men’s voices, lots of them, pass by in the hall just outside, Lea pulled Wanda and Wendy close to her on either side, and whispered a reminder about the need to be very quiet, especially right now. Similarly, Buddy pulled Warren into his lap, and Junior did the same with Willis.
After the voices receded down the hall, Junior asked Buddy very softly, “Why do the kids call you ‘Uncle’ Buddy? You’re not their uncle. You’re their…second cousin?”
He answered just as quietly, “Lea thinks it’s more respectful than just first-naming me.”
“But Buddy’s not your first name.”
“And Junior’s not yours.” Realizing that this conversation was way overdue, the former runner formally stuck out his hand and said, “Norman Overstreet.”
The boss’ son shook it. “Gordon Devere, Junior.”
Buddy frowned thoughtfully. “Gordon doesn’t suit you. It suits your father.”
“Nothing about this whole place suits me. Or hadn’t you noticed?”
Buddy indicated the gun in Junior’s belt. “You made your dad really proud today. Or hadn’t you noticed?”
Junior rewarded him with a wide smile.
Thinking aloud, Buddy mumbled, “I wonder whether they’ll take my advice, and get rid of the heads of the Lassiter gang.”
“I hope so,” Lea murmured back to him.
“I’m glad you agree. I wasn’t sure if you did.”
“I was just surprised that you were the one who suggested it. If anything ever happened to Wendell, or Harry, or Mr. D. because of those jerks, we’d sure wish that they had followed your advice.”
Three hours later, the tension in the playroom had risen drastically, as concern turned to worry, and worry evolved into serious uneasiness.
“How long does it take to have these meetings?” Buddy fretted.
“Oh, I’ve known them to go on longer than this,” Junior commented.
“What can they possibly find to talk about all this time?”
“All kinds of boring stuff, like dividing up the city or the types of businesses that each group can get into, how many different ways that each group stepped on the toes of the other groups since the last time that they all met like this, and so on.”
Buddy groaned and Lea rolled her eyes. The three were sitting near the locked door whispering together, while Doc was reading the kids a story on the other side of the room.
Lea remarked, “Well, all I can say is that it’s a darn good thing that this room has its own little kitchenette and bathroom, or we wouldn’t be able to confine the kids in here this long!”
Just as Buddy and Junior nodded at her, gunfire rang out in the hall. Lea slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from yelling. She had just begun to rise from her seat when a voice from just the other side of the door shouted, “Hold it, Krimm! Don’t move or I’ll shoot!” “Wendell!!!” Lea hissed urgently.
Doc’s eyes rose in shock and met Lea’s. In a harsh whisper, she told him, “Keep the kids over there!”
Before Buddy could barely say, “Lea, what…?”, and Junior could scarcely manage, “Lea, don’t…!”, she’d pulled the gun from her belt, yanked open the door right behind the assailant, and shot Wendell’s potential attacker in the back of the head. He crumpled in a spray of blood.
“Ewww!” Lea couldn’t help responding. Then, her eyes met Wendell’s. “Are you all right??”
“Lea! You shouldn’t have risked…! But thanks! And yes, I’m fine!” He rushed toward her.
A quick glance over her shoulder in response to loud footsteps revealed Harry and Mr. D. coming at a run from the opposite direction.
“We got the others,” Harry explained to Lea, Buddy, and Junior, who by now had all emerged from the room. “But this one slipped away from us. We were stalking him…. Wendell, is everyone okay here?”
Wendell was just giving his reassurance, and beginning to express his pride in his wife, when she gasped, paled dramatically, and held her gun out to Wendell with a shaky hand as her other hand went to her abdomen. Her husband deftly caught it, and then with his other arm caught her, as she started to crumple.
“Lea, are you all right??” Buddy was alarmed.
Harry speculated, “She’s probably just reacting to the sight of all of the blood, and the fact that she’s the one who shot the guy. She’s not used to it.” He and the boss were beaming at her, proud of her.
“No!” she managed in a strangled tone. “I mean, that’s not the only reason! Ahh!! It’s time!!”
Wendell quickly passed her gun on to Harry, and scooped her up in his arms.
“Oh my,” said Devere, who immediately began issuing orders. “Doc, go with Wendell and Lea to their apartment. Buddy and Junior, stay here with the kids. Harry, get some of the underlings up here to clean up this mess.”
“Right, boss,” came from several directions, as all scattered to obey.
Mr. Devere stood shaking his head, and muttering, “Never a dull moment.”
Wendell held Lea’s hand as she lay in the bed, struggling.
“I am so proud of you! So is Mr. D.; I could tell from the way he was grinning at you!”
“Even though I disobeyed his previous order to keep that door locked until you-all said it was safe?”
“He won’t hold that against you. It’s the result that counts.”
“I can’t believe I actually killed someone.”
“You’re a member of the family now, for sure.”
“But I wasn’t raised that way.”
“Do you regret it?”
“Of course not! I had to do it! He would’ve killed you!”
“Yes, he would’ve. Wow, first Buddy saved my life, and now you have!”
“Wendell?”
“Yes, honey?”
“I don’t want to go to jail!”
“No, no, no, no, don’t worry about that. We long since have ways of disposing of the bodies that prevent any entanglements. Besides, even if we didn’t, the boss wouldn’t let you take the rap; he’d assign someone else to take the fall for you; he’s counting on you for our replacements!”
“Oh!” she grunted sharply. “Speaking of which…!”
Four hours and four babies later, Lea was exhausted but relieved.
“How did you know?” her husband asked her quizzically. “You planned for four names, and that’s exactly how many we need. How did you do that?”
“I honestly don’t know. But I think we have enough kids now, don’t you?”
“I’m not sure,” he confessed, and then grinned and winked at her. “I’ll ask Mr. D.!”
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