guess I’ve named the house-sitter Gary. That’s not how you tell someone something like that. You ease into it, over the course of several days. Like when I call and say ‘How’s it going?’ you say, ‘Well, not great. The cat’s on the roof. I’m trying to get him down.’ And the next day, I call and you’re like, ‘Cat’s in the tree, now. I’m sorry, man, it’s looking bad.’ And only then, when I’m psychologically prepared for it, you drop the bomb and tell me the truth.”
The snow was coming down even harder now, and together they moved toward the main shelter where, yes, they’d be spending the night.
Oh, joy.
“Coupla days later,” Jules continued, “guy calls back, and Gary answers the phone, and the guy says, How’s it going? and Gary says, Not great. Your grandmother’s on the roof. Bah dump bump.”
“That,” Alec said, chuckling, “is awesome. And you are completely right. Helo’s delayed? The cat is, without a doubt, on the roof—because that helo’s not coming. Not today. And? FYI? Last time I was out here at this time of year, and we got weather like this …?”
“This is going to be great,” Jules told Alyssa, who actually laughed.
“It started as an ice storm, which knocked out all power and communications,” the SEAL informed them. “And then we got about three feet of snow on top of it. Total charlie-foxtrot. We were stuck here for nearly two weeks. They had to airlift in supplies.”
“Fantastic,” Jules said, as the skies opened up, not just with more snow, but with a very definite wintery-mix of icy rain.
They all ran the last few yards to the shelter, which was warmish and more dry, but smelled like summer camp: a cross between a wet yak and a boys’ locker room that hadn’t been aired out in a decade or two.
But it could’ve been worse.
There was coffee brewing, and as Jules pulled Alyssa with him toward the pot and collection of chipped mugs, Alec followed.
“How is Sam?” the SEAL asked.
CHAPTER FIVE
Tarafashir
Sam was asleep.
The former SEAL was sprawled out on one of the two rather ratty mattresses that lay directly on the worn hotel room floor, both baby boys fast asleep beside him.
Robin sighed as he did another silent inventory of their bottled water. No matter how many times he counted, he came up with the same number—not enough.
Right about now, they were supposed to have been checked in to their suite at Chez Bella, a lovely, gay-friendly resort in the Greek Isles.
Right about now, Robin was supposed to have helped Sam and Gina get the little ones into their rented cribs, so that the grown-ups could enjoy a lovely room-service dinner on their lovely private balcony that overlooked the very lovely Aegean Sea.
Instead, they were crammed into two dimly lit, seedy adjoining rooms in a run-down fleabag hotel in a third world country that, while pro-American, was extremely anti-woman and decidedly anti-gay.
“One room for the contagious,” Sam had announced when they’d checked in at a front desk in a lobby that also apparently served as the local brothel, “and one for the rest of us.”
Although, really, the logistics of that were challenged when both Gina and Emma needed access to a bathroom at the exact same time.
Robin had played nursemaid while Sam had kept himself and the babies properly distracted. And, eventually, the fireworks had stopped, and their two casualties fell asleep, exhausted, on the ratty mattress in the adjoining dimly lit, seedy room.
Sam then spent the best part of an hour cleaning the bejesus out of both bathrooms and washing out his jeans and Emma’s clothes while Robin sang songs and played peek-a-boo with Ash and Mikey.
But now all three were asleep, leaving Robin as last man standing, which meant …
“Don’t even think about it.”
Robin turned to find the former SEAL watching him, apparently not-so-much asleep after all.
“Don’t think about what?” Robin asked, injecting a whole load of innocence into his voice. He may have been a crappy liar when talking to Jules, but he was a very good actor, so he now acted like he didn’t know what Sam was talking about.
But Sam wasn’t fooled. “Leaving the hotel to get supplies,” he said, his voice low so as not to wake the babies.
“We’re almost out of disposable diapers, we definitely need more bottled water …” The front desk only offered beverage choices of beer, wine, and whiskey, along with their main menu consisting of women and children of all ages. “And