was drunk to the eyeballs.
To his dried out, sand-filled, aching eyeballs.
Yeah, but that didn’t stop him from wanting another drink.
Hell, no.
Another shot of Jack was what he needed. Trouble was, he’d emptied the second bottle
to the very last drop and though he wanted to check and see if maybe there was one
more bottle he’d missed finding, he’d have to get up.
And getting up was out of the question.
As it was, he sat with his hands clinging to the arms of his big leather chair . Otherwise,
the chair would spin the way the room was spinning and he’d fall out of it, squarely
onto his ass.
You couldn’t have a four-star general doing that.
Right.
But he had to do something. The housekeeper would be stirring pretty soon. Or one
of the guests tucked away in the ten trillion bedrooms upstairs might come wandering
down for a cup of coffee.
Guests?
The general laughed. Tried to, anyway, but the sound came out a groan.
There were no guests at El Sue ño this weekend. The house was filled with family. His sons. His daughters. Five sons,
five daughters, and half had never known the other half existed until last night.
FUBAR. Old army slang. Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.
Jesus, what a freaking disaster.
Bile rose in his throat.
OK. He had to do something. Get out of this chair. Haul himself to the bathroom. Take
a piss. All that whiskey was having an effect on his bladder. And he had to find a
way to sober up fast. Poke through the medicine cabinet until he found some of those
fizzy antacid tablets. Run some water into a glass, drop one or three or six tablets
in the water and see if he could keep down the resultant brew.
The general leaned hard on the arms of the chair. Tried to stand.
“Shit,” he said, and fell back.
What would his men say if they saw him now? Drunk. Disheveled. He knew what they called
him behind his back. Hard-nosed. Hard-assed. A martinet. Wilde the perfectionist.
His children, too.
He snorted.
They weren’t children anymore. They were all grown up. Jacob, his firstborn with Connie;
Matteo and Luca, his sons by Angelica.
Twins, like Alden and him.
No wonder Angelica’s belly had been so big.
Despite everything, he smiled at the memory.
Then, after Jacob, Connie had borne him Caleb and Travis in quick succession.
That, he’d told himself firmly, would be the end of it…
But it wasn’t.
His mouth thinned.
Connie had died.
Of pneumonia. People didn’t die from pneumonia anymore… Except, it had turned out
that they did.
Pneumonia had killed his Connie.
He’d missed her terribly. So had his three toddler sons. They’d needed a mother—he
was rarely home—and he’d remarried quickly for their sake if not his, taking Eleanor
Halvorson, his old boss’s niece, as his wife.
Eleanor had been a good mother to his three sons, but to no one’s surprise, she’d
wanted kids of her own.
Almost before he’d blinked, she’d given birth to three daughters. Emily, Jaimie and
Lissa.
Beautiful girls, all of them.
And during those same years, Angelica had given birth to Alessandra and Bianca.
Nobody’s doing but his.
Somehow or other, his initial vow not to spend much time with his beautiful Sicilian
spitfire had not quite worked out. Angelica was a seductress. He’d never been able
to keep his hands off her.
His marriage to Eleanor had been good if not great, but he’d lost her to a car accident.
After that, he’d decided enough was enough.
He was done with women, done with marriage, he was tired of juggling an American family
and an Italian family, spending not enough time with either, always afraid he’d use
the wrong name at the wrong moment, awakening sometimes in the dead of night wondering
where he was, in which house, with which woman, with which children, wondering if
he was John or Johnny…
Ridiculous.
He was General John Hamilton Wilde, and all his offspring had better keep that in
mind.
If
To his dried out, sand-filled, aching eyeballs.
Yeah, but that didn’t stop him from wanting another drink.
Hell, no.
Another shot of Jack was what he needed. Trouble was, he’d emptied the second bottle
to the very last drop and though he wanted to check and see if maybe there was one
more bottle he’d missed finding, he’d have to get up.
And getting up was out of the question.
As it was, he sat with his hands clinging to the arms of his big leather chair . Otherwise,
the chair would spin the way the room was spinning and he’d fall out of it, squarely
onto his ass.
You couldn’t have a four-star general doing that.
Right.
But he had to do something. The housekeeper would be stirring pretty soon. Or one
of the guests tucked away in the ten trillion bedrooms upstairs might come wandering
down for a cup of coffee.
Guests?
The general laughed. Tried to, anyway, but the sound came out a groan.
There were no guests at El Sue ño this weekend. The house was filled with family. His sons. His daughters. Five sons,
five daughters, and half had never known the other half existed until last night.
FUBAR. Old army slang. Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.
Jesus, what a freaking disaster.
Bile rose in his throat.
OK. He had to do something. Get out of this chair. Haul himself to the bathroom. Take
a piss. All that whiskey was having an effect on his bladder. And he had to find a
way to sober up fast. Poke through the medicine cabinet until he found some of those
fizzy antacid tablets. Run some water into a glass, drop one or three or six tablets
in the water and see if he could keep down the resultant brew.
The general leaned hard on the arms of the chair. Tried to stand.
“Shit,” he said, and fell back.
What would his men say if they saw him now? Drunk. Disheveled. He knew what they called
him behind his back. Hard-nosed. Hard-assed. A martinet. Wilde the perfectionist.
His children, too.
He snorted.
They weren’t children anymore. They were all grown up. Jacob, his firstborn with Connie;
Matteo and Luca, his sons by Angelica.
Twins, like Alden and him.
No wonder Angelica’s belly had been so big.
Despite everything, he smiled at the memory.
Then, after Jacob, Connie had borne him Caleb and Travis in quick succession.
That, he’d told himself firmly, would be the end of it…
But it wasn’t.
His mouth thinned.
Connie had died.
Of pneumonia. People didn’t die from pneumonia anymore… Except, it had turned out
that they did.
Pneumonia had killed his Connie.
He’d missed her terribly. So had his three toddler sons. They’d needed a mother—he
was rarely home—and he’d remarried quickly for their sake if not his, taking Eleanor
Halvorson, his old boss’s niece, as his wife.
Eleanor had been a good mother to his three sons, but to no one’s surprise, she’d
wanted kids of her own.
Almost before he’d blinked, she’d given birth to three daughters. Emily, Jaimie and
Lissa.
Beautiful girls, all of them.
And during those same years, Angelica had given birth to Alessandra and Bianca.
Nobody’s doing but his.
Somehow or other, his initial vow not to spend much time with his beautiful Sicilian
spitfire had not quite worked out. Angelica was a seductress. He’d never been able
to keep his hands off her.
His marriage to Eleanor had been good if not great, but he’d lost her to a car accident.
After that, he’d decided enough was enough.
He was done with women, done with marriage, he was tired of juggling an American family
and an Italian family, spending not enough time with either, always afraid he’d use
the wrong name at the wrong moment, awakening sometimes in the dead of night wondering
where he was, in which house, with which woman, with which children, wondering if
he was John or Johnny…
Ridiculous.
He was General John Hamilton Wilde, and all his offspring had better keep that in
mind.
If
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