Charlie Foxtrot (Book 2 of Love is War Series)

Chapter 5

"Aga Jibby booba!"

Or that least that's what it sounded like.

Little Bridgette Wetzel blew a raspberry against her uncle's cheek and jumped down from his arms. Jim wiped his face free of saliva and then stood up. He sighed and looked back at his sister, who was smiling brightly as she watched her daughters retreating back. She was on her way to play with some of her friends from daycare.

"I suppose I deserved that gross amount of slobber." He shook his head at his sister. "You convince her to do that or was it sheer coincidence on her part?"

"You niece is brilliant. She's like a cat. If she was a cat and you were allergic to her, she'd be sitting on your nap right now licking herself clean and rubbing up all over you." She seemed proud of her young daughter, and laughed when the small child almost tripped and then righted herself on her way to the inflatable bounce house in the shape of a castle they had rented for the party.

For a two-year-old, even Jim thought she was smart, but that wasn't surprising since his sister and her husband were both intelligent and hardworking people. His sister, Kate, was a CPA with a large firm who took on many large accounts and did the taxes for a large number of professional athletes living in southern Florida, and his brother-in-law, Bill, was a pediatrician with his own booming practice. He'd worked a few years at another clinic, but then one of his mentors had decided to retire, and he'd bought the business from him with a loan from the credit union they'd had since getting married.

And, yes, Kate did the books—for free—for her husband's business.

Sitting down in a chair, he tipped his bottle of beer up and took a sip. "I'm never having kids. Slobbery and inexplicable language when they're this young. It's like trying to decipher hieroglyphs that flash across your eyeballs too quick to take in."

Kate sat down too, her eyes glued to her husband as he played referee in the bounce house. "You say that now, but when you find the right woman, you'll sing a different tune. No guy I know ever wants to have kids before he suddenly falls in love. Then it's, oh baby I can't wait to get you pregnant, etc., etc. Once they suddenly find what they didn't know they were looking for, they're all for all sex all the time to get their wife pregnant. For some reason, it's like the ultimate possession of their woman. What says that someone belongs to you more than seeing their belly filled with your child?" She fanned herself with a hand-held, battery-powered fan. Even if it was not even mid-January, they were having a heat wave, and it was 92 degrees and as humid as if it was the middle of the rainy season. It wasn't unheard of for this to happen on occasion, but they had been hoping for a milder day for the birthday party.

"Okay, I suppose that's fair. Who are all these rug rats here anyway? You rent out the residents at the local orphanage?"

"Daycare." Kate closed her eyes and waved her hand in the air listlessly. "I invited the whole daycare Bridgette goes to. The lady says all the kids get along pretty well, though I didn't think the babies would be too interested in coming, so I'll wait until they are at least able to walk a bit. It's no fun watching a bounce house when you can't even stand inside one without falling flat on your face."

Pointing over to the bounce house, her brother observed the cache of squealing toddlers. "I don't think they're doing so much bouncing as falling. Kate, these kids can barely walk on a flat surface. They look like the tiniest little drunks on the planet. I predict small concussed children making a trip to the hospital sometime later today."

"They're fine. Besides, anything goes wrong and Bill's there to help with any ouchies. He's a doctor, or did you forget that too?"

The whole week he'd been visiting, she'd sent little jabs at him about forgetting Bridgette's birthday, but the sting had long-since worn away. He still needled her about it, hoping she would quit hassling him already. "How many times do I have to apologize? 100? 5,000? Should I take out a formal apology ad in the paper as well? Weeping Uncle Pleads Forgiveness for Shortcomings. It'll be of real interest to the old folks of Miami. We can place it next to the obits so that all the octogenarians can drink their Metamucil or eat their oatmeal and gossip. I'll be the talk of the bingo parlors on Sunday afternoons. I'll never be able to show my face near the shuffleboard tourneys ever again. I'll be a disgrace and have to be dumped into the Gulf when I finally go toes-up."