Sister Time-Callys War 2 by John Ringo, Julie Cochrane Page B

courier route. She couldn't even ask to keep it. She'd been lucky to get it in the first place. James had been on Earth for conferences twice since Morgan was born. Unfortunately for her love life, she was probably going to have to wait until he could get down here again. Anything less wasn't an option. In forty or so years work for the Bane Sidhe, she'd had enough casual sex to last multiple lifetimes. She'd denied it often enough, even to herself, but she'd been looking for "the real thing." Having found it, she was hardly going to settle for less. Oh, if the fate of humankind was at stake, she wasn't going to be a prude, but she'd also determined to say no to plans that involved her as a honey trap if it was just a matter of getting information faster or cheaper. Sure, sometime faster or cheaper might mean life was on the line. But more frequently than not, it wasn't. Motherhood was an excuse for saying no. It sometimes meant they weren't happy with her, but under the circumstances, she could live with that.

    Still, it was good that Grandpa owned the island free and clear. Before the split, her pay had been enough to keep a footloose single girl in beer and skittles, but hadn't been anything to write home about.
    Since the split, if she hadn't moved back home, she'd be struggling to make ends meet for herself, let alone the girls. It frustrated James that he couldn't help, of course. But in her business, having more money than you ought was dangerous. Bosses were understandably paranoid about who else might be paying their covert operatives, and for what. Fortunately, since the smuggling was almost a public service to the organization, it was honest income. Enough for a bit extra for Christmas and birthdays, anyway.
    Saving the world was great for warm and fuzzy feelings, but the pay sucked.
    She kicked at the sand and a bit of some scrubby creeping plant with one foot, frowning as the sand in her sneaker reminded her of the hole she had worn through the sole. Still, living in the next thing to paradise was a nice compensation on its own, thanks to Grandpa. And if paradise was gritty and placid and boring, those were what made a good place to raise kids. Even if the Bane Sidhe had made her into a thief. At least every mission she went out on to steal something was one mission where she probably could manage not to kill anybody. That was something, wasn't it?
    She shoved her hands in the pockets of the olive drab windbreaker she'd pulled on over a faded red t-shirt and jeans. The fall wind was starting to cut right through the holes at her knees and back pocket.
    Time to patch this pair. She stepped over a dried palmetto frond that had gotten blown together with spanish moss and downed leaves.
    The external walls of the little schoolhouse were plastered with tabby and screened with vegetation, the thin sheet of galplas that surfaced the roof had been tuned to a camouflage pattern Shari had done up on her PDA. The windows, while clear, had been coated with a thin film that kept the sunlight from glaring off of them, although they still admitted daylight and allowed the children to see out. On the side closest to Grandpa's and Shari's was one of the small concessions to color that the teacher and some of the mothers had insisted on—the children's flower garden. Currently, there was a small carpet of pansies peeking mischievously out at the afternoon sunlight. It was another reason Cally picked up the kids herself in the afternoons whenever she could—the flowers were nice.
    Most of the kids were out on the obstacle course by now. Well, okay, there was a seesaw and a rope swing, when somebody wasn't climbing it. The monkey-bars and tower and such were all kid-sized, and the kids tended to attack everything from the cargo nets to the tower in no particular order, substituting random, chaotic enthusiasm for the single-mindedness of adult PT. Still, the O'Neals and Sundays and various children of Bane Sidhe families were the