Leo looked at the hospital doors one more time before deciding he’d head home. He knew that Shannon was resting and would be for the remainder of the evening. He looked to see two people leaving before he too headed home.
“ Leona I am home.” Leo called into the house. Leona, Grace and James met him at the door.
“ Hey there.” Leona said kissing him.
“ How are you kids tonight?” He asked lifting his daughter into his arms.
“ We are good daddy. How is Aunt Shannon?”
“ She’s going to be fine.” Leo said kissing Grace’s cheek.
“ Good, mommy said she might have to come stay with us.” James said.
“ Could be possible. Would you like that?” He asked looking into the deep yellow brown eyes of his two small children.
“ Yes daddy, it would be fun to have Aunt Shannon around. She always was fun and I like flying with her.” Grace said.
“ Aunt Shannon can’t fly right now honey.” Leo said to her.
“ I know mommy said that someone shot her in the wing. That’s so sad.” Grace said with a pout.
“ She’ll be fine in a few weeks. Might be a little longer before she starts flying though.”
“ Its ok. We will just have fun together.” Grace said. She had always loved having Shannon over, and Leo looked surprised to hear that Shannon had been flying just not around him.
“ What is for dinner?”
“ It’s in the oven. Grace go take your bath.” Leona said looking at the child. Grace pouted again but then skipped down the hallway to the bathroom. Leo walked into the kitchen and removed the warm plate of food from the oven.
“ Looks good. Did the kids eat all right?”
“ Yeah they did. Grace wanted to wait for you, but she caved when she saw that we were having pie for dessert.”
“ Pie huh? What’s the occasion?”
“ Nothing special. Just wanted to make a pie.” Leona said with a smile. Leo shook his head and sat down at the table with his meal. The plate was full of several meats some potatoes and some corn. It looked like she had just made it. Leona sat down next to him with a cup of coffee and waited.
“ What?” He asked looking at her between bites.
“ Is she really that bad?”
“ Not as bad as we had first thought. She’ll survive but she’s going to be so sore for a while.”
“ I can’t believe something like this happened and to someone as nice as Shannon. When Samuel called and told me that Shannon had been shot, I was scared that you had been at the clinic at the time.”
“ I was with Doctor Masters when we got the call about Shannon.”
“ I know the hospital told me.”
“ Samuel said that he’d never seen Shannon so scared.”
“ I would have been to. But as long as your both all right I am glad.”
“ Well I’m fine, but Shannon has a lot of work to get back to what she was before the shooting.”
“ Yeah she does, and she’s welcome to stay here as long as she needs to. We’ve got the huge guest room and the kids love her.” Leona said smiling. Leo knew right then and there why he married her five years before. Her kind heart and wise ways seemed to rub off on anyone that met her. Leona had been the one woman that seemed to capture any mans heart but it was Leo’s heart that she had captured and had kept within her grasp for those years. They had a long relationship and had felt that by the time they had married they had chosen the right person, the one person that meant the most to them. That was before the earthlings had come to their planet, before James was born. Before things had changed.
“ Come on it’s getting late.” Leo said looking at his wife. Leona looked up at him with her deep brown eyes and smiled, her long golden hair seemed to shimmer in the dim lighting of the fireplace. Taking her hand in his own he lead her to the bedroom and closed the door. He needed some time alone with his wife and needed to just hide from the world.