Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“Anything over fifty bucks is too much.”
I leaned over and kissed him. “I think you’re going to need to wrap your brain around the idea that your daughter thinks you deserve far better.”
“I just realized she got Kola that watch for his birthday. What was that?”
“I don’t know, and now I sort of don’t want to.”
“Oh God,” he groaned, putting the pen down.
“Does it write well?”
“Of course it writes well,” he grumbled at me. “It’s a ten-thousand-dollar pen. It’s the smoothest thing you’ve ever written with in your life.”
I snorted.
He looked exhausted.
“You know, maybe we should go in the other room, get snuggly on the couch and watch some TV. We both were on an emotional roller coaster earlier, worrying about our daughter. Maybe we just veg for the rest of the night.”
“Okay,” he agreed, taking a sip of his hot chocolate. “You know we have candles to pour this weekend.”
“I know. Plus the boys want to have a Halloween party here instead of at their place, and I agreed, of course. They have Hannah thinking up a theme. So far, she has gallant ghouls.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” he grumbled, telling his phone to call Hannah and put her on speaker. That was cool. I didn’t think I could do that with mine.
“Hello?” she answered in a whisper.
“Why are you whispering?” Sam whispered back.
“You don’t have to whisper, weirdo,” she replied, chuckling. “But Uncle Aaron is talking, so I’m trying to be respectful.”
“And look like you’re paying attention,” I teased her.
“I am paying attention,” she grumbled. “Or I was until you called.”
“Well, listen, I want you to have George drop you off here after the ballet thingy. I need to see you,” Sam explained to his daughter.
“Because of the attempt on my life, right?”
“George told you?”
“Of course. He always likes to tell me when he saves me from certain death.”
“As he should.”
She grunted.
“But come over, all right?”
“So you can squeeze me so tight my eyes bug out?”
He used to say that to her and Kola both, all the time when they were little. I got a little misty thinking about it.
“That’s correct,” he agreed, his voice gruff with emotion.
“I was going to come anyway, so there could be hugging.”
“Yeah,” Sam murmured, “there needs to be hugging.”
“Will you be hugging George too?”
He was quiet a moment. “Yeah, I think so. I didn’t do it earlier, but I feel the urge now.”
“I’ll tell him not to make it awkward.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Contrary to popular belief, my husband is a big softie, but only a few of us know.
That’s it. Have a wonderful rest of the glorious month that is October, all. I will regale you with Halloween/Samhain shenanigans in November.
NOVEMBER 2023
Hello, all, and welcome to He Said, he said November 2023 edition.
First, before anything else, I have to tell you that since it is now November, the fifteenth to be exact, I have begun feeding the birds. Just so you all know that it has begun.
Second, I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween. But before I get into what we did and where we went and what everyone dressed up as, I have to tell you about the fallout from what happened last time here at the Harcourt-Kage house. You see, last month we found out that there was an attempt on our daughter’s life by a drug cartel. I know what you’re thinking: is your daughter a DEA operative or something? The answer is no; she is not. She’s a sophomore at the University of Chicago studying business and marketing at the moment, with a minor in folklore. I don’t ask about the folklore part; it’s none of my business. But she got caught in the middle of something a while back. Basically the gist of the situation was that Hannah was supposed to be killed by three men sent by the cartel boss to murder her for her interference. We did not know this. The people who did were the DEA field office in Chicago, the Narcotics division of CPD, and detectives out of the Fourth District. They were actually informed two weeks before they let my husband, Sam Kage, know.
This was poor decision-making on their part.
Back at the beginning of the year, as far as I knew, the marshals service had a good working relationship with the DEA. It was going so well that Ian Doyle, the deputy director of the Northern Division here in Chicago, even loaned two of his marshals, Callahan and Redeker—Josiah Redeker being the one who went with Ian to look at apartments for the boys—out to Agent Corbin Stafford. The first instance was a year ago, right around the time Sam had a shake-up in his office and had to let one of his men go and transfer another out. Recently, Ian had loaned Callahan and Redeker out again back in the spring. Stafford was the guy who was the liaison with the marshals service and apparently, he and Ian were solid. But now, suddenly, there we were in the second week of October, and things took a drastic change.