August 2, 1999

Dan hadn’t been in bed long after his overnight shift ended when he heard the front door of the apartment creak open and the tags on Penny’s collar jangle as she rushed to greet the new arrival.  He knew it was Trixie by the beagle’s anxious whimper of excitement, but instead of going to greet her, he closed his eyes and grinned mischievously.  Stretching his arm across to her side of the bed, he let his hand fall open, wondering what part of her body he might be privileged to latch onto first.

He heard her come into the bedroom and with a murmured admonishment, shut the dog out.  Penny whimpered once or twice before a quiet thump on the carpet told him she had taken up a post outside the bedroom door until her people were finished doing whatever it was they did behind closed doors.

The noisy old air conditioner clicked on and he had to strain his ears to figure out where she was and what she was doing.  A crackle of static electricity as she pulled her blouse over her sure-to-be-tousled curls sent a wave of anticipation surging through his body.  Cracking one eye half open, he saw her hopping first on one foot and then the other as she took her slacks off, mumbling a mild curse when she almost fell over backward.  He sucked his cheeks in to hold back his laughter and quickly shut his eye again as she turned back to face him, clad now only in her underclothes.

He felt the bed shift as she crawled in and over his still form.  Twining her fingers with his, she leaned down until he could feel her breath against his face.  She smelled like airplane peanuts and he had no idea why he found that so alluring at the moment.  Absently, he twisted her rings around her finger, and she whispered in pleasant surprise, “You’re awake.”

He didn’t speak, but shook his head and pursed his lips in askance for her kiss.

Chuckling dryly, she asked, “Are you waiting for Prince Charming to come and awaken you with a kiss, Sleeping Beauty?”

Releasing her hand, he reached up and spanked her bottom.  “Sass,” he growled as he opened his eyes.  “I haven’t seen you in three days and the first thing you do when you get home is give me sass.”  Quickly rolling over and pinning her underneath him, he added, “Lucky for you, I love sass,” before claiming her lips with his own.

Her hands reached up into his hair, seeking a hold in the short regulation cut.  He had no such problems, threading his fingers through her most definitely tangled curls and winding the sandy blond locks around them.

They broke off their kiss and Trixie asked, as she always did when she came home, “Tell me about my family.”  It had become a routine for them from the first time she had asked the question, back at Christmastime.  Whether she was home from a three-day business trip or simply a typical working day at the Treasury’s midtown office, it always made his heart swell with a homey warmth.

With a casual shrug that was countered by a smile he couldn’t at all contain, he said, “I got a promotion.”

“What?”  Trixie’s blue eyes widened and twinkled with adoration.  “You’ve been here three months and you already got a promotion?  Are you a detective?  Chief of police?”

Dan laughed.  “Not quite.  In fact, I don’t have a new rank, just a higher pay grade.  But it’s a step in the right direction.”

“I’ll say!” Trixie agreed with a proud gleam in her eye.  “At this rate, you’ll make detective by next spring!”

Dan laughed again, delighted with Trixie’s enthusiasm.  “What about you?  You make head of the FBI yet?”

“The FBI isn’t part of the Treasury Department,” she said with disdain.

“CIA?”

Giving him a light punch on the shoulder, she grinned and said, “Try again.”

But instead he turned his attention to her bra, knowing he’d need to direct complete focus there in order to get the damnable thing off of her.  As he fumbled with the front clasp, she gently laid her fingers over his to stop him.  Raising his eyes back up, he couldn’t miss the eager sparkle in her eyes.  It was the same sparkle she had when she was on the trail of a mystery.  She had something to tell him and wanted him to be focused on her and not her undergarments.

“What?” he asked.  His tone was slightly suspicious, but a smile curled tentatively around his lips.

“I’m going to Beijing.”

“China?”

With a disgruntled look, she replied, “No.  Beijing, Montana.  Yes, China, you doofus.”

“Why are you going to China?”

Propping herself up on her elbows—Dan suspected only his weight on top of her kept her from leaping out of the bed in her excitement—she answered, “Vice President Hoynes is going to be there at the end of the month.”

“End of the month?  Are you forgetting we’re getting married—again—at the end of the month?”

She waved a hand impatiently.  “No, of course not.  I’m going with the advance team.  I’ll be back way before the wedding.”

“So you won’t actually be seeing the Vice President then?”

“Are you trying to bust my bubble, Mangan?”

Grinning, he lowered his head for a kiss and said, “Not at all.  The truth is I’m very proud, and very jealous.  Do you know I’ve never been out of the country?”

“You haven’t?  Then why didn’t we go to Niagara Falls last summer instead of Atlantic City?”

“And miss the opportunity to get married by His Holiness, the Right Reverend Rajeeb Gunther O’Konski?”

Trixie giggled as she charitably unclasped her bra for him and saved him the agony.  “Well, we should definitely go out of the country for our honeymoon then ... right?”

“Nice try,” he mumbled, as he trailed his lips down her throat.

“What?”

“I’m not telling you where we’re going on our honeymoon.”

Trixie pretended to pout, which Dan noticed wasn’t very effective in their current, mostly naked, situation.  “You’re a brat.”

“My wife is a government agent and by nature, nosy and prying.  Let me have a few surprises when I can get them, okay?”

The pout disappeared in a flash, as two pretty dimples punctured her cheeks.  “Okay, but then maybe I’ll just have to surprise you, too.”

Dan couldn’t help the shiver that ran down his spine, and it wasn’t from the blast of cold air that shot out of the a/c window unit onto his bare back.  “I’ll look forward to it,” he promised, as he pulled the sheets over their heads.

***

August 6, 1999

“Surprise!”  The large clan of family and friends gathered in the Lynches’ expansive walk-out basement family room clapped and cheered and threw handfuls of glittery confetti over the two women who had just walked in.

Trixie and Honey, rather than looking shocked, both had a broad smile of smug satisfaction spread across their glowing faces.  Each of them was fully convinced she had pulled the wool over her best friend’s eyes.  Then, with increasing astonishment, they both took in not one, not two, but three festive banners that stretched across the wide back wall above the fireplace.  “Happy Birthday, Honey!” said one.  “Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Mangan!” said the second.  And “Baby Belden on the Way!” read the third.

Turning to stare at one another with eyes wide, they both blurted simultaneously, “But I—.  But you—.  Diana!”

Their dark-haired friend was jumping up and down, clapping her hands as gleefully as a child at Disneyland.  “I can’t believe I pulled it off!” she squealed.  “I actually fooled both of you!”

“This was supposed to be Honey’s baby shower,” Trixie accused Diana.

“No,” Honey interrupted.  “It’s your bridal shower.”

“It’s both,” Diana said, her smile bright enough to light up New York City.  “And it’s Honey’s birthday party too, which is the only party really timed properly.  The wedding shower’s a little later than normal because we had a devil of a time planning around your work schedule, Trix.  And the baby shower’s a little earlier than normal because of the wedding and everything, Honey.”

“So … you told me I had to get Honey here to surprise her for her baby shower,” Trixie said, as the plan started to clear itself in her mind, “then you told Honey to get me here for my surprise bridal shower?”

Diana nodded her head, her violet eyes twinkling merrily.

“And she threw in Honey’s birthday party as her sly way of tricking the men into suffering through two traditionally feminine festivities,” Mart griped good-naturedly, earning an affectionate smack from Sally.

“Is there food at this party, my love?” she asked in a dry tone.

“Yes.  That’s why I allowed you to drag me to it,” he answered, leaning over to give her a kiss.

“Why weren’t you and Brian part of the surprise?” Trixie asked Dan as he came over to greet her.

“We were.  We thought this was Honey’s birthday party.  It was only when we got here and saw pale pink and baby blue balloons and several stacks of gifts with frilly bows that we realized we had been duped.  But let me say this for the record.  I’m not playing any dumb shower games.”

“Don’t be too hasty, Dan-o,” chimed in Tad. “We’ve got some pretty nice prizes here.”  He held up a package of edible underwear and waggled his eyebrows.

Trixie’s face went bright red.  “Where’s my mother?” she mumbled, darting her eyes frantically around the room.

Dan chuckled, positioning his body as an effective blockade against her parents’ line of sight.  Taking the package from Tad’s hand, he swatted him over the head with it and tossed it back into the prize bag.

While Honey and Trixie went off to greet their guests, and Diana dug through the prize bag and pulled out all of Tad’s contributions, Mart took Dan to the kitchenette, presumably to get drinks.  Dan was suspicious of anything Mart said or did these days, with only three weeks left until the wedding, and kept a close eye on him as he pulled soft drinks out of the refrigerator.

“Dan, are you and Mart going to play our game?”

Though Kristy and Kayla Lynch kept their hair cut much shorter than their sister did, and lacked her distinctive violet eyes, there was no doubting the blue-eyed beauties were Diana’s sisters.

“I don’t think so,” he answered politely, casting a wary glance at the small jars of ... he had no idea what ... on the small round table.  “I think I’ll leave the shower games to the women.”

Mart clapped his arm firmly around his friend’s shoulders.  “Aw, come on, Dan.  You don’t want to disappoint such pretty girls, do you?”  Kristy and Kayla giggled coquettishly as Mart winked at them and added, “I’m sure Dan would love to play this game.  And I’ll love to watch him.  Tell us how to play.”

“Well, it’s easy,” Kayla began.  “You just take a taste of the baby food, guess what flavor it is, and write it down on this sheet.”  She held up a handful of pink and blue sheets with a dozen blanks on them, the numbers coordinating with the otherwise unlabeled jars on the table.

“Then you give the sheet to us and we’ll tally the results a little later.  Whoever gets the most right wins a prize from the prize bag,” Kristy finished.

Flashing a charming smile at the twins, which elicited another high-pitched round of teenage girl giggles, Dan said, “If you’ll excuse us for just a minute,” and dragged Mart a few feet away.

“Baby food?” he growled under his breath.  “It’s bad enough you turn me into your personal slave every chance you get, but if you think you can just randomly torture me for no particular reason, you’ve got another think coming.”

“All right,” Mart replied with an unconcerned shrug.  Taking a sweeping glance at the large gathering, he added, “It’s convenient that everybody’ll be here when your secret gets ‘accidentally’ spilled.  Should I tell Trixie privately first, or make an announcement just before she starts opening her gifts?”

“You’re not telling anybody if you want to win the bet,” Dan reminded him.

With calculated dramatics, Mart held out the two unopened soda cans in the palms of his hands and carefully “weighed” his options.  “Winning a motorcycle that Sally probably won’t let me ride anyway ... seeing the look on everybody’s faces when I let the cat out of the bag.  Trixie making you her slave for a whole week—yeah, I don’t even want to know what that will entail ... getting to torture you myself right now.  Hmm...”

“You know I’m going to be your worst nightmare when you and Sally are planning your wedding, right?”

Mart grinned impishly.  “Tad’s going to be my best man, remember?”  He handed Dan one of the cans of soda and prodded him back toward the table.

One of the girls was holding out a plastic spoon for him, but Dan couldn’t tear his horrified gaze—as one might stare at dissected frog innards in biology class—from the jars of what he hoped was actually food.  “Do I have to taste all of them?”

“Of course,” Kristy answered.  “How else can you win?”

“And I know you want to win,” Mart murmured behind him, “if for no other reason than to keep those edible undies out of my father’s hands.”

Dan shuddered.  He held out his hand for a spoon and plunged it into the first jar before he could change his mind.  It looked like applesauce, so maybe it would taste okay.  He sniffed it tentatively.  It smelled like apples.  With a brave grin, he shoved the spoon into his mouth and breathed a sigh of relief.  Applesauce.  He wrote it down, carefully hiding his answers from his nosy friend, and turned the page facedown on the table.  “That wasn’t so bad.”

“That’s because Di and Mummy both said we should put the easy ones first,” Kayla said.

“Great,” he drawled, tossing his used spoon into the small trashcan by the table and taking a new one from Kayla.

Mart picked up a jar much farther down the line.  “Try this one,” he said gleefully.

Dan peeked in, reluctant to put his hands on the jar.  Whatever it was seemed to be green ... sort of.  He had to take a step back as the smell was rather overpowering.  “It’s all actual baby food, right?” he asked doubtfully.  “Because this smells like it might have come out the other end of a baby.”

Mart took a spoon and heaped it full of the pseudo-green concoction.  Making airplane noises and baby talk, he said, “Come on, widdle Danny.  Eat your yum-yums so you can grow up big and strong like Uncle Marty!”

Kristy and Kayla began giggling uncontrollably, which drew the attention of several other party guests who came to observe the fun.  The number included, unfortunately, Brian and his video camera.  With his friend’s attention diverted, Mart took the opportunity to shove the spoon into Dan’s mouth.

“Aw, gross!”

“Green beans?” Mart guessed.

“What’s the matter with green beans?” Tad asked.

“Dan hates green beans.”

“Not as much as I hate pureed baby food,” Dan grumbled.  He took a quick swig of soda to wash down the foul taste and hastily scrawled down his answer.  It was definitely green beans, and if that’s what they looked like going in, he could only imagine what they looked like coming out.

“Try this one,” Tad said, jabbing his finger enthusiastically at something orange.  “Must be oranges.”

“You don’t feed babies oranges, you moron,” Mart said.  “It’s gotta be carrots.”

“Could be squash,” Brian put in helpfully, his broad grin easily discernible, even hidden as it was behind the camera.

“I wouldn’t look too happy if I were you, Belden,” Dan growled.  “You’ll be cleaning this stuff up before too long.”

“Thank goodness for double shifts,” Brian responded, widening his grin.

“Brian!” Honey exclaimed in dismay.

“Just kidding, sweetheart.  I promise not to take any more double shifts than is necessary... ” When she smiled sweetly and turned away, he leaned toward Tad and continued in a whisper, “…to avoid diaper duty.”

Dan fleetingly thought about holding that remark over Brian’s head for future use, but decided that between Trixie and Mart, he had all the Belden secrets he could handle at the moment.

***

August 8, 1999

As Trixie and her mother went to the kitchen to discuss the wedding cake, Peter motioned to Dan to join him in his den.

Taking a deep breath, Dan nodded and followed meekly.  He got along very well with Trixie’s father, but he had a suspicion what this talk would be about and if he had been asked, he wouldn’t hesitate to admit that it scared him right down to the toes of his socks.

Peter shut the door behind them and took a seat in one of the high-backed wing chairs by the window.  Dan took the other chair and wiped his clammy hands against his jeans.  He opted to wait and let Trixie’s father speak his mind first.

“So, you and Trixie are writing your own vows?” he asked, after a suitably dramatic moment of silence.

“Sort of.  I mean, we’re going to use the traditional vows and then just add a few words of our own for each other.”

Peter nodded his approval, reaching his right hand out to grab the pipe that was perpetually waiting for him on the side table.  Dan knew that he rarely smoked it anymore, and yet it was still as much a part of his character as Brian’s medical books or Mart’s … sandwiches.  He didn’t light it now, merely cradling the bowl in his palm as he spoke.  “But you decided against counseling?”

Dan tried hard not to bristle.  It was a fairly common practice for couples to receive marriage counseling prior to their wedding.  He and Trixie had chosen not to get married in a church, but he had still pretty much counted on Trixie’s parents asking about their decision to forego pre-marital counseling.

“We discussed it, but with our work schedules it just didn’t seem feasible.  If Trixie really wanted to, I happily would’ve gone along with it, but neither of us insisted on it.”

He thought he saw the slightest tightening of Peter’s jaw, but maybe he was just imagining it.  He knew Trixie’s father held nothing against him or his past.  So why did he feel so uneasy about this discussion?

“Trixie’s mother and I were married very young.  I still believe if we hadn’t received the proper counseling beforehand, we might not have made our marriage last.  It’s not about anybody being right or wrong, or about digging into one’s past.  It’s about getting common issues that plague young couples out in the open and worked out before they happen.”

He held up his hand as Dan started to protest.  “Let me continue.  I know you love my daughter, and I know she loves you.  But marriage is also about working hard to maintain a healthy relationship.  You’ll have to deal with difficulties regarding money, your careers, children, health, and differences of opinion.  Those things happen to all couples, regardless of the amount of love between them.”

“I know that, sir.  And I agree that talking about those things before we get married is a good idea.  Trixie and I have discussed them already.  We’ve agreed, disagreed, and agreed to disagree.”

Peter nodded his approval once again, but said nothing.  He seemed to know that Dan had more to say and for his part, Dan did his best not to sound defensive as he added, “I can’t help feeling that this is about my past.”

The dark-haired, dark-eyed man could’ve passed for Dan’s own father.  Dan had an uncle, two best friends who were like brothers, and a former guardian who was like a grandfather to him.  But because of his intimate relationship with Trixie, it didn’t feel quite right to treat Peter Belden like a father figure, and that saddened him.  He would be glad when Peter was his father-in-law for real—or rather, knew that he was his official, legal son-in-law, Dan thought with a half-amused, half-guilty grin.

Breaking into his thoughts, Peter cleared his throat and said, “Dan, I’m not going to lie to you.  Your past does worry me.  I know you’re an honorable young man … now, and I know that Trixie loves you regardless.  But you can’t simply pretend that your violent past didn’t exist.  I know my daughter’s been in scrapes that would make grown men quake in their boots, but I would still call her childhood somewhat sheltered.  She doesn’t know or understand the kinds of things you went through.  And should any of it come back to haunt you—emotionally, or even physically, through any connections back to your old gang—I want to know how you’ll handle it and how you’ll keep my daughter safe through it.”

Dan lowered his head to stare at his hands, surprised to find them tightly clenched.  He commanded his fingers to uncurl and laid them flat against his jeans, staring for a moment until the knuckles were no longer white.  Without raising his head, he murmured, “I haven’t shown any violent tendencies since I came to Sleepyside.  What happened in the gang, and what Ray did to me—what we did to each other—will never happen to Trixie or our children.  I swear that to you on my mother’s grave.”

Smiling ruefully, he added, “And if I ever did hurt her, you wouldn’t have anything to worry about, because Brian, Mart, and Jim would kill me before you even caught wind of what had happened.”

Peter allowed a small smile to creep across his face as they both nodded knowingly.  Sobering, Dan went on.  “I can’t promise that my past won’t literally come back to haunt me.  We live in the city now, and I work with the police force trying to bring people like Luke and his gang to justice.  And I’ve wanted to help kids who were in situations like mine for a long time now.  That kind of darkness is probably going to be a part of my life, but it won’t be a part of our life.  I would die before I let anything or anyone hurt Trixie.

“Emotionally … well, we’ll have to let what happens, happen.  I hate to bring this up, because he’s one of my best friends and I know you think very highly of him and thought he’d be your son-in-law someday.  But Jim couldn’t let Trixie into that part of his past and that hurt her—it hurt them both.  I don’t blame him for wanting to keep it all locked up inside, for trying to erase it from his memory by never bringing it up again, but Trixie doesn’t deal well with secrets like that.  She needs to be one hundred percent a part of the man she loves.  No matter how much it might hurt me, I’ll never hide anything Trixie wants to know about my past.  And if it comes back to fight me, it’ll have to fight us both.  I won’t shut her out.  I’m glad to have her on my side, because I know she’s strong enough to face anything that comes at us.”

Despite his attempt to look stern, Dan could see a smile curling around the edges of Peter’s mouth as he asked, “Even an overprotective father and brothers?”

Dan grinned broadly.  “Like I said, I know she’s strong enough for it, and I’m glad to have her by my side.”

***

August 16, 1999

It wasn’t quite dawn when Dan came out of the subway, taking the steps to the street two at a time in his eagerness to get home.  He should have been exhausted after his ten-hour shift—the August heat was a brutal work environment, and the tempers that flared throughout the city created more work for the police department than in more balmy months—but Trixie was home and he was anxious to see her again.  While in China, she had tried to call or email when she could, but the hours were long and the work demanding, and he suspected the excitement was too much for even her to bear.

He reached the top of the concrete stairway and grabbed hold of the railing for support as he made a sharp pivot to head up the street in the opposite direction.  His quick maneuver ran him right into another pedestrian, and he blurted a dismayed apology even as he instinctively reached out to grasp the smaller figure’s shoulders to keep her from falling while she struggled to regain her footing.  “India!” he exclaimed as he recognized the teenager.

She stared at him blankly and he could feel her tense up under his gentle grip.  He immediately let go of her and she took a step back, apparently trying to figure out how she knew him.  He imagined his badge was all she remembered from their first meeting some three months ago.

“It’s Dan Mangan … Brian’s friend?”

She seemed to relax slightly, even as she kept a distrustful eye on him.  She nodded and said, “Dan—Mr. Man—Officer Mang—”