Chapter 12

The gun pack for his chair was finished, except for a final fitting, and it took most of the day to get that done. It came with a stand that he could park in his closet. He would simply back up to the box, hit a locking lever, and it would connect to his chair. Reversing that would disconnect the box so it would sit on the stand when not in use. It also made it a bit easier to load and unload at home.

It did change the center of gravity for the chair, something he would have to remember. It limited his ability to climb stairs because it changed the overall length, shortening his angle of attack and departure on an obstacle. Last, but certainly not least, he could not go vertical with the pack in place, the gyro setup not able to handle the change in weight distribution correctly.

All in all, it would be very useful for a limited set of circumstances, but he wouldn’t want it in place very often.

His meeting with the decorators took up the balance of the day. He wanted a general overhaul, making the place brighter and more welcoming. He also asked for a refresh of one of the guest bedrooms. He wanted to turn one into a room that Lane could call her own. She wouldn’t be living here, not any time soon, but he wanted her to have a place she could store her stuff, have some privacy. He wasn’t sure when he would spring that on her, but he wanted it to be ready when he did.

Lane had a lot of paperwork to catch up on, so she was spending the next few nights at her house. She wasn’t scheduled for further travel any time soon, but they both knew that could change in a moment.

“As much fun as it was ... and it was Oh. My. God. Fun, I have a lot to catch up on. Besides, I think we both have some thinking to do, and I wouldn’t be able to be objective if I was within reach of you.” She said, desire evident in her voice.

“Not a problem, baby, you take whatever time you need, and just call me if you need anything at all. Hell, call me even if you don’t need anything!” He’d meant it when he told her that he would accept whatever time she was willing to spend with him.

Dinner that night was with Christine and JJ, and Doug wanted to talk to them about Lane. He was certain that they already knew something was up, and he wanted to be sure that Christine would not interfere, thinking she was helping by cutting back on her trips or assigning her elsewhere. That would not be the way to make Lane happy!

“Oh my god, you are in love!” was Christine’s reaction when he broached the subject at dinner.

Doug blushed furiously, shrugging his shoulders but unable to keep from smiling.

“She’s fantastic, Chris. Unlike anyone I ever met before,” he admitted.

“Holy crap, Doug. I thought you were going to end up single forever, pining after my wife,” she joked, giving him a big hug.

“There’s a thought. I wonder if she ever experimented with that in college. Maybe I could use her to lure JJ away from you.” He joked, winking at JJ.

“She is kinda cute, in a little spinner sort of way,” JJ remarked, snickering from her spot at the table. “Wait, does this mean you aren’t going to lust after me anymore? Not going to sneak looks at my ass? What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

Christine just rolled her eyes. “I always figured that Doug would catch you one day, when you were feeling vulnerable.”

JJ just laughed. “If he asked me a month sooner, I might have taken him for a spin, just for curiosity sake. But you found me sunbathing topless on the roof, offered to spread some sun block on my back and the rest is sweaty, scissoring, rug-munching, libidinous history.” She was leaning over the table towards Christine, licking her lips, and running a finger over a very erect nipple that was tenting the fabric of her shirt.

Christine got a far-away look on her face followed by a smile and a blush. “Yeah ... that was a good day.”

“Anyway...” Doug interrupted, trying not to picture the scene for himself. “We are working things out. I just wanted to make sure my loving sister didn’t get involved. You know, like cutting the number of trips, giving her a desk job, that kind of thing. She loves what she does, and any good-intentioned meddling would make her think I was trying to control things. You know what I mean?”

“Hmm. It may just be a good thing we talked. I mean, she is my best trouble-shooter, and I really don’t want to lose her, but you are my brother, and I could see myself easing her schedule, offering her a position ... Yeah, okay. I’ll behave, and no special treatment, right?”

“Right, and thanks Chris. This is important to her so it is important to me. Oh, and if you could keep this to yourself?” he looked a little sheepish, causing Christine to raise an eyebrow.

“Maybe, what’s in it for me?” she asked slyly.

“What do you want?” he asked with a grin, sure that anything his sister actually wanted; she already had.

Christine was silent for a long moment, her eyes locked on JJ’s. There was a whole conversation going on there without a word being spoken.

“Doug, I’ve been wanting ... we’ve been ... I mean, we were thinking. Oh fuck.” She blushed, unable to get a coherent sentence out.

“Doug, we want your swimmers. Your juice. Your sperm.” JJ said with a grin.

“Um ... what?”

“We want a baby. I want a baby. We both love you; we both admire you, and when we talked about getting a sperm donor, and I told Christine that I wanted yours. She was a little squicked about it at first, but she came around.” JJ said, all joking aside.

Doug looked back and forth between the two women; JJ was staring at him, waiting for an answer, but Christine was staring at JJ, the love in her eyes shining out for all to see.

He was tempted to make a smart-assed remark, offering to inject it himself, but he could see that both of them were very serious. This whole thing was very serious and deserved a real answer.

Could he do that? He wouldn’t be the father, not in the traditional sense. He could be part of the child’s life though, as Uncle Doug, so it wasn’t like it would be a stranger raising a child of his.

He met JJ’s eyes and nodded. “I would be honored.”

In the blink of an eye, he had a lap full of crying, squirming, celebrating JJ, and a second set of arms, and lips, kissing him when Christine joined her wife.

Dinner that night turned into a mini celebration, all of them drinking a bit more than was probably wise for a week night, but a situation like that called for champagne.

The logistics were a bit more impersonal than he would have preferred, an appointment would be made for him to donate his sperm at a clinic. He’d managed to get his little jab in after a few glasses of champagne, offering just to deliver it personally, but got shot down as he knew he would, though JJ used it as another reason to tease him for the rest of the night. He didn’t mind at all.

His only concern was how, or if, it would affect his brand-new relationship with Lane, knowing he would have to discuss it with her. He was in love with the woman, but Christine was his sister and JJ was his first love, his lifetime friend and his sister’s wife.

The next day, the range trip was postponed until after lunch, the champagne having taken a toll from the night before, but by one in the afternoon, he was at the range and ready to practice.

There was a contest of wills with the range owner at first. He wasn’t comfortable with Doug practicing one-handed reloads and tap-rack-bang drills on his range. It wasn’t until Doug offered to pay for every lane, so he could have privacy that the owner relented. Instead of the ten dollars an hour, he was paying a hundred for the ten lanes, but it was worth it for now. He made a mental note to make sure the property he looked at later in the week had enough room for him to set up his own range.

A one-handed reload is not all that difficult, but it does take a lot more time than doing it with two.

It would normally consist of simply hitting the magazine release with his gun hand, letting the empty magazine fall free, while grabbing a new magazine with his off hand and slotting it home. He would pull the slide back and let it slam home, stripping the first round of the magazine into the chamber while the slide returned to battery, ready to fire. The entire evolution would take less than two seconds from start to finish, with a little practice.

Instead, he would have to drop the magazine, wedge the handgun between his torso and the seat, retrieve a new magazine, and slot it in place. Then he would have to grab the handgun grip again, press the leading edge of the slide against the chair frame, a pants seam, or another relatively solid object. This would force the slide all the way to the rear and off the slide stop. Pulling the handgun quickly away from the object while the slide was to the rear would allow the springs to bring it back into battery, stripping the new round from the magazine along the way.

Even with practice, this took as long as five seconds. Don’t think that is long? Hold your hand over a lit candle for a single second. Not too bad, right? Now do that for five seconds ... it is a whole different ball game. The same was true with a high-stress, or combat situation.

The rules of almost any range were the same. Handguns would be pointed downrange at all times. At no time was a gun, loaded or unloaded, allowed to be pointed anywhere else with the single exception of unpacking or packing a handgun into a storage case. This was to keep someone from shooting the guy in the next lane by accident.

One-handed reloads, by necessity, violated that rule. So did tap-rack-bang drills.

A tap-rack-bang drill is just like it sounds. If a shooter has a problem, the gun not going bang when it should, it is the first and the most basic trouble-shooting effort you should do.

Tap on the magazine to make sure it is fully seated into the weapon.

Rack the slide to clear any malfunction, like a mis-fed round or a dud.

Bang. Pull the trigger and see if you fixed it with the previous two steps.

Doing this one handed presented the same issue as the one-handed reload; Doug had to move the muzzle of his weapon off the line.

On the plus side, spending the money to rent all the lanes at the range for two hours, two hundred dollars in rental fees, meant that he could practice without any gawkers. In his mind, it was worth the price.

After two hours, his hand and arm were aching from the practice, using muscles that had not been stressed in that manner in a long, long time. He was happy with his progress and even Carol had given him the nod.

Before he left, he made sure to set a time and day the following week where he could reserve the entire range again, though he vowed to find somewhere a little less restrictive to practice long term.

When he got home, he put off cleaning the Glock until the next day, his fine motor control shot by the long practice. Stripping a Glock is child’s play with two hands, a real pain in the ass with only one. He could have asked Carol to disassemble it for him, but he was determined to be self-sufficient whenever possible. His recent injuries had just driven that desire home. Besides, Glocks were tanks and a day without cleaning wouldn’t hurt the handgun.

His last task of the day was to meet with a real estate agent, but that was painless. He gave her a list of things he was looking for and cut her loose to do her job. He primarily wanted space, ten acres or more in an unincorporated area that would allow a personally owned shooting range.

If the property had a house, it needed to be a single story in the 3k-4k size range, a pool, or space for one, and a garage, preferably attached. The kicker in all of this is he would prefer to find a place no more than an hour from Miami.

The real estate agent was skeptical, but willing to give it a shot for what promised to be a hefty commission.

“Doug,” something in Carol’s voice got his immediate attention. “Blue Toyota, three cars back, been back there a while, at least three turns.”

Doug scanned his mirrors, catching sight of the car, but not able to make out any detail on the occupant(s) at this distance.

A phone call from Hank had gotten them out of the house before eight that morning, a cryptic message to meet at the same place they had met before, the Versailles restaurant. Doug had no doubt that it had actually been Hank, but with a car following them, he wasn’t sure if Hank was still on the right side.

“Next left, pull wide like you are going to make a U-turn.” Carol ordered; steel in her voice as her professional persona weighed options, determined risk levels, and created a plan of action. Doug realized that turning wide like that, and having to wait for traffic to clear for a U-turn, would effectively make the right side of the van a blind spot to the car following.

When he pulled to a stop, waiting for oncoming traffic to clear, Carol slid out the passenger door and stood by the side of the van. Doug could see that she’d drawn her sidearm and was holding it close to her leg.

When a spot opened up, he completed the turn, shuffling to the right lane and up onto the curb. His own gun in his hand, he watched the action in the middle of busy Calle Ocho, Eighth street.

Carol had become visible again when the van moved, but she pretended to be a pedestrian, obviously craning her neck to watch the traffic flow by. When the blue Toyota was only two cars away, the occupant must have recognized her. He floored the gas pedal, smashing into the car ahead of him, then put it into reverse and did the same to the car behind.

This maneuver, while hell on resale value, had created enough space for the driver to bump the car over the center divider and floor it, almost causing a four-car pileup on the other side. Carol, her gun out and tracking, was smoothly side-stepping to try to get an open lane of fire, but to no avail. Realizing that she wasn’t going to get a clean shot, she holstered her pistol and then, standing there in the middle of the lane, she calmly pulled out a notebook and a pen.

Doug waited in the van, knowing that by the time he actually got out, she would be long done. When Carol climbed back in and nodded, he put the van in gear and pulled out onto the street again. No traffic to worry about since the vehicles that had slammed to a stop to avoid the Toyota, were still sprawled across all lanes of traffic.

Carol was on her phone, and the conversation amused Doug.

“Ranger one, sitrep. One tail, blue, late model Toyota Camry, plate November seven eight eight Bravo Yankee. No shots, no injuries. Send two more to the residence, two to the brokerage firm and one to...” Carol paused, looking for a location. “To Un Limon, 8th and Southwest 29th court.” She pointed ahead and across the street to a red, two-story building.