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Three weeks ago…
“Why are you waving that thing at me?” Sandor huffed at his beautiful wife who stood beside the kitchen counter by the stove, one dainty hand resting on said counter while her other hand dangled in the air a completely empty glass jar.
Smiling widely at her husband as he shirked off his heavy winter coat and scarf, hanging them on the coat hook by the door leading from the garage into their house, she simply chirped, “It’s a swear jar, dear.” With that short statement, Sansa wagged the jar at him a few more times for good measure before she sat it down on the counter, twirling on her sock-covered feet, and resumed the chore of portioning out onto plates the casserole she had pulled together for their dinner.
“What in the hell is a ‘swear jar?’” he asked with a snort, eyeballing the jar momentarily while stooping down to plant a fast kiss on her grinning lips just as their thirteen-month old son crawled over to pull himself up on his enormous father’s black dress slacks.
“Every time you curse, you put money in the jar,” she replied nonchalantly, grinning as she watched Sandor out of the corner of her eye as he hoisted Rickard into the air and cuddled the boy close to his chest. “And for the record, that little question of yours right there would’ve cost you one dollar.”
“One dollar?” Sandor questioned, cocking his head to the side in confusion while Rickard cooed and gurgled at his father, rubbing his drool-soaked fingers across his daddy’s scarred cheek and dark beard.
Finished with her task, Sansa plopped the serving spoon into the casserole dish, grabbing two dinner plates and exiting the kitchen toward the dining room in a flurry of ginger locks and saucy attitude, replying to her unsuspecting husband’s query over her shoulder, “That’s right.”
“Are you telling me that I have to cough up a dollar and give it to you every time I curse?” Sandor gaped at her disappearing backside. He was so not on board with her little diabolical plot. This was highway robbery in the making, that’s what it was. Just as Sandor was about to come up with a fabulously witty retort, he was interrupted by his other two children charging full-steam into the kitchen, clamoring to be the first to climb Mount Sandor like one of the enormous oak trees out in their backyard.
Entering the kitchen once again, Sansa shot her husband a wink, grinning at him as he tried to juggle all three kids in his arms at the same time, “Yup. Every. Time.”
“You’re trying to bleed me dry,” Sandor laughed thunderously, partly at her little scheme but mostly because Brandon, his preschooler, managed to climb onto his father’s back, spurring Sandor with his bony heels while yelling for a piggyback ride.
“Well, maybe, but that’s not the point,” Sansa giggled, squatting to the kitchen floor littered with various toys and crumbs. Diligently, the tired redheaded mom retracted a mummified scrap of peanut butter and jelly sandwich from the hand of her shrieking toddler, Minisa, who had opted to cease her attempt to climb Sandor’s leg in lieu of sampling the remnants of her lunch that she had discovered hidden under her seat at the kitchen table.
“What is the bloody point, then?” Sandor snarked, lowering Brandon to the floor and smiling at him as the young boy raced out of the kitchen with his little sister hot on his heels. Returning baby Rickard to his exersaucer stationed by the sliding glass door leading to the deck, Sandor turned to face his wife.
“The point is to train you to stop cursing all the time,” Sansa insisted, motioning for Sandor to grab the small plastic glasses of milk still sitting on the counter and to follow her as she carried the two older children’s plates into the dining room.
Sandor knew that in his checkered past, he once possessed quite the colorful language. Back in the day, he had been nothing short of a maestro, able to connect sounds in space and time like he was composing the grandest of symphonies. Truly, he had been an artist, skillfully using his array of profanities as his medium, weaving a tapestry of obscenities that probably still floated somewhere over Winterfell to this day.
But that was then. This was now.
And nowadays, Sandor tried his damnedest (pun absolutely intended) to keep his salty tongue in check. Yeah, sure, he was a human being who was quite proficient at making mistakes. For the life of him, however, he didn’t believe that he had a problem controlling his mouth anymore.
Most of the time, anyway.
So, sue him; he wasn’t a saint. And Sansa damn well knew that when she agreed to marry his giant ass.
Thank God that I’m thinking this and not saying this…
“I don’t swear all the time,” Sandor countered as Sansa stuffed a handful of utensils into his obedient hands, urging him to finish helping her set the dinner table, “Right?”
“No, not all the time,” Sansa replied as she poured water into the adults’ glasses, not making eye contact with him on purpose for added emphasis, “Just when you’re mad. Or sad. Or happy. Or curious. Or horny. Or - ”
“Alright, alright,” Sandor sniffed, rolling his gray eyes upon hearing her little dig, pausing his chore just long enough to shoot her a dirty look.
Finished with her pre-dinner duties, Sansa brushed her hands onto her black leggings, looking up into her husband’s irritated gray eyes. “Sweetie, I know you’re trying, I really do. It’s just that with the kids in the house, we really need to be more careful of what comes out of our mouths.”
“We?”
“Yes, we.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Good. I’m glad you agree, because I’m instituting the swear jar effective immediately.”
“Seriously?” Sandor guffawed, waiving his large hand still holding the blue and red plastic toddler spork, “Now, c’mon, you gotta give a man warning before you go and start something like that!”
Not deterred by her husband’s lack of enthusiasm for her plan, Sansa sauntered over to Sandor, gently removing the spork from his hand and placing it beside Minisa’s virtually indestructible, divided princess-themed plate, “I just did.”
“Damn, it woman, you’re not listening,” Sandor countered feebly, allowing her to wrap her well-manicured hands around his waist and pull him into a snug embrace. He knew he was powerless to tell her no. Always had been, come to think of it.
“Actually, I am. I heard you loudly and clearly,” Sansa smiled at him as he stared into her mischievous blue eyes, “And that’ll be one dollar, sir.” Without warning, she raised up onto her tiptoes, nibbling slightly at the barely tangible demilitarized zone that existed between Sandor’s neck beard and chest hair.
“Fuck…” he groaned, biting his lip to muffle any further words from escaping his mouth.
Pausing her efforts, lifting her head just enough for him to be able to look down into her playful face, Sansa purred at him as the sounds of their two older kids wrestling together echoed from the playroom upstairs, “Make that two dollars, if you please.”
_______________________________
Two weeks ago…
Sighing for the third time in five minutes flat, Sansa rolled her blue eyes yet again as Sandor gritted his teeth, his oversized hands gripping the black minivan’s steering wheel so tightly that she wondered if he would actually snap it off the base, “You should’ve taken River Road. It would have been much faster.”
“Yes, dear,” Sandor replied tersely, taking a deep breath to keep his frustration level at bay just a little longer as they sat stuck bumper-to-bumper in the holiday weekend traffic.
“Really, Sandor, I wish you would’ve listened to me,” Sansa added with yet another sigh, rubbing her temple with her right hand as the three young kids sequestered into their car seats continued to shout and to argue boisterously from the two rows behind her.
On the verge of snapping at his haggard wife, Sandor swallowed hard before replying with the mantra, “Yes, dear.”
“I guess I’ll call mother and tell her that we’re going to be late for brunch,” Sansa grumbled, digging around in the baby bag for her cell phone, unable to find it at the moment.
“We won’t be late,” Sandor stated defiantly, pointing vigorously to the digital clock on the dashboard as if to prove his theory, “We’ll be there in plenty of time.”
Sandor knew that his wife relished spending time with her family, both her immediate one and her extended one. Having grown up in his hell hole of a home, though, Sandor was less inclined to feel all warm and gooey on the inside when it came to the whole affair, even if the Starks were good people and were accepting of Sansa’s decision to marry him. Not every father would have agreed to allow their precious, beautiful daughter to lay with the likes of Sandor Clegane, but for whatever reason, Ned Stark had done just that. Sandor felt like he owed the man at least for that.
So, come hell or highwater, Sandor was going to make goddamn sure that his little bird arrived at the parental nest on time for Thanksgiving brunch or go down in flames trying. And that was saying a lot for man who feared fire like Sandor did.
Quickly calculating his next move, Sandor pondered how he could get out of the traffic jam. It may be a long-shot, but if he could just manage to get to the next exit, Sandor could haul ass down the much-less-frequented backroads, and then boom – he’d circumvent the extremely clogged interstate and still make it to the Starks uppity, up-town neighborhood full of massive McMansions with time to kill.
Getting to that necessary exit, however, proved to be increasingly difficult since no one on the damn interstate was moving at the moment.
“And how is that, hmm?” Sansa tittered as she gave up on finding her phone, letting out an exasperated whoosh of air as she narrowed her eyes in frustration, “We left late, and we still have over twenty minutes to go. How is that possible?”
“Are we there yet?” Brandon called out from his car seat in the back row, interrupting Sandor’s attempt to argue his position on the status of their travel progress.
“No, not yet, honey,” Sansa chirped cheerfully at her son before glancing with daggered eyes at her husband.
“I saw that,” Sandor seethed, quickly turning his head toward his angry wife before returning his eyes to the road.
“Saw what?” Sansa sniffed haughtily, rummaging around in the baby bag once again to unearth some fishy crackers to keep Minisa from whining any more about being hungry.
“The ‘look.’”
“What look?”
“The look that you give me when you think I’m being an idiot.”
“I have a look?” Sansa replied innocently, handing the sippy cup and snack to their daughter.
“Stop kicking my seat!” Minisa suddenly shouted at the top of her lungs at her chuckling older brother.
“I’m not kicking your seat,” Brandon denied, sticking out his pink tongue at her to add insult to injury.
“You two; knock it off,” Sansa commanded flatly, angling herself in the front row passenger seat to properly chastise her offspring.
Barely able to keep his tongue in check, Sandor decided to ignore Sansa’s rising ire and to focus on formulating an escape route. Looking into his rear-view mirror and then out the side windows, he began to gage the series of moves that he would need to execute in order to successfully make his way to that exit.
Game on.
“What in the world are you doing?” Sansa gasped as her half-crazed husband suddenly shoved the minivan into drive, spinning the steering wheel like a NASCAR all-star, and slammed the gas as he furiously pulled into the emergency lane.
“Getting us to your parents’ house,” Sandor replied dryly, accelerating rapidly.
“Sandor, you’re going to get us killed!” Sansa shrieked in horror, watching the long line of cars and the guard rail preventing them from sliding downhill whizzing by her as Sandor raced toward the exit.
“I know what I’m doing!” he shouted in return, grinning maniacally as the van crested the hill, mere feet away from freedom.
And just as Sandor could taste said freedom, a massive eighteen-wheeler merged into the emergency lane as well, either in an attempt to try the same plan of action or in an effort to thwart Sandor’s diabolical decision (it was a toss-up, really), literally cutting Sandor off at the pass.
“Shit!” Sandor yelled, slamming on the brakes as forcefully as he could muster while his freaked-out wife screamed in terror, clutching the armrests of her seat. Screeching the van to a total halt, he slammed his palms into the steering wheel twice in total frustration.
“Swear jar, Daddy,” Minisa babbled through her mouth all stuffed full of fishy crackers, apparently unfazed by the whole hair-raising incident.
Now stuck in the emergency lane behind the clueless eighteen-wheeler, Sandor drooped his head to the steering wheel, banging it twice on the top for good measure, as Sansa silently stuck out her hand to collect her earnings.
_______________________________
One week ago…
“Can I, Daddy?” Minisa begged feverishly, dancing around in circles like a trained circus dog as she clutched the talking, robotic baby doll to her chest. “Can I have it, pretty please?”
Sandor took one look at that chubby doll with the great big eyes and the creepy automated voice and shook his head on the spot. “No, Minisa, not today.”
“But Daaaaddddy,” his little girl with the coal-black curls whined, “I love her!”
“Christmas is just around the corner, sweetheart,” Sandor tried in vain, hoping to rationalize his decision to a human being that completely disregarded rational behavior on any given day. “You need to be patient and wait to see what Santa Claus brings you.”
Taking a deep breath to steady his already frazzled nerves, Sandor sighed heavily. Minisa’s bright blue eyes instantly locked and loaded into that confounded pitiful expression that she tried to pull on him each and every time he refused her requests. Undaunted, though, Sandor forged ahead. There was no way in hell that baby doll was going home with a Clegane child today. Uh-uh. The last thing Sandor needed to deal with was having some scary as shite toy going off in the middle of the night and then waking up with a stiff neck in the morning because he had to spend the rest of said night with his ass hanging off the side of the bed so he wouldn’t roll over and crush his daughter as she slept all wedged between his massive frame and his dead-to-the-world sleeping wife.
Raising himself to his full, impressive height, Sandor hoped that Minisa would back down without a fight, but of course, as always, nothing about Sandor scared his kids. Grimacing at his beautiful little girl’s masterful pout, he steeled himself for the inevitable.
“No, I said, and that’s final,” Sandor grumbled as he gently pried the baby doll from his daughter’s death-grip, rolling his exasperated gray eyes as Minisa, who had instantly hit the floor of the department store upon his refusal, kicked and screamed as she whipped up one first-class tantrum. Gritting his teeth, Sandor gently lifted his raging child, stuffing her under one arm, and began to push the double-stroller in which his oldest son was still seated.
“Shut up, Minisa,” Brandon groused, covering his ears and wrinkling his lightly freckled nose at his younger sister’s antics.
“Don’t tell your sister to ‘shut up,’ Bran. We use nice words,” Sandor corrected, parroting the phrase that Sansa used all the time when teaching their redheaded preschooler to mind his manners. As they rounded the corner of the toy department, all Sandor wanted to do was crawl into a hole and hide from all of the gawking, disapproving strangers circulating about the department store as his daughter shrieked like a fucking banshee.
“You don’t use nice words,” Brandon huffed, folding his skinny arms in front of his chest.
“No sass from you, sir,” Sandor snorted at his boy, shifting a still-upset Minisa slightly as they made their way out of the department store and into the main area of the shopping mall.
“I’m no sir,” Brandon deadpanned, looking up defiantly into his father’s face. When Sandor’s irritated eyes snapped downward, he was met with one jaw-dropping, ice-cold stare from his own flesh and blood. Brandon’s steely eyes were narrowed, his face contorted into that same disapproving scowl his beautiful mother shot Sandor’s direction whenever Sandor fucked up.
Where in the hell did these kids come from, anyway?
Sandor loved his family. He loved them with his body and soul. He would lay down his life to protect them. But right here, right now, as Sandor walked helplessly toward the fountains in hopes of distracting his hungry, grumpy kids as their mother shopped for Christmas gifts, he would gladly give his left nut for an hour of peace and quiet.
Thankfully, Sandor’s plan worked without having to actually remove a testicle. As they approached the huge fountains, Bran immediately perked up and launched out of his jump seat in the back of the stroller, darting all around the tiled wall of the waterfall, leaning as far as he could to catch some of the spray from the gushing flow of water. Minisa, who turned off the tears the very instant that she spotted where they were headed, wriggled and writhed until Sandor plopped her down onto her sneaker-clad feet so she could join her older brother in his merriment. Now seating himself in one of the empty benches by the fountains, Sandor took a deep, slow breath, whipping out his cell phone to snap a candid of his children as they laughed and played. Just as he was about to text a copy of the photo to Sansa, she texted him first. Hallelujah.
Sansa: Hey! I’m all done. Where are you?
Sandor: By the fountains.
Sansa: Great! Headed that way. Be there in 5 minutes or less!
Content to sit and wait for Sansa as she made her way from that discount shoe store which played that God-awful pop music so damn loud that a man earned himself one righteous headache in two minutes flat, Sandor stretched out his long, muscular legs and casually leaned back on the bench, enjoying how his two oldest kids were having a blast as they chased and danced about the fountains.
Unfortunately for Sandor, his young daughter, who apparently decided to emulate Black Widow somewhere during her impromptu playtime with her big brother, hopped onto the tile wall that ran the perimeter of said fountains without realizing just how goddamn slippery tile can be when it’s wet.
“Minisa!” Sandor bellowed, witnessing his precious girl fall sideways into the rushing water. Sandor all but levitated as he sprinted the few feet to the edge of the fountains. His heart rate skyrocketing as his overactive imagination scurried down sundry rabbit holes all the while playing out various scenes of dismemberment and mayhem, Sandor reached the edge of the wall and peered over the side.
Giggling like she was at a water park, Minisa sat on her ass, splashing and swimming in the cool water as if nothing in the world could be more fun.
“Bloody hell,” Sandor breathed in relief as he scooped his soaked little girl into his arms, not giving one fuck at how utterly drenched her wet little body was. Sitting down on the edge of the fountain, Sandor removed his black hoodie and wrapped it around his now shivering child. “You gave me a fuck – I mean, a serious heart attack just now, girl!”
“Told you, Daddy,” Brandon snarked as he tapped his father’s shoulder, one first-class, smug-as-shite grin on his face, “You don’t use nice words, either.”
With his shoulder-length black hair whipping in the air as he swiveled his head to glare at his boy, Sandor’s irritation flitted away upon seeing Bran’s stern look of disapproval mutate into a cheesy grin. God save him but his boy looked just like his mother sometimes, both when pissed or happy.
“You’re right, son,” Sandor chuckled as he shook his head in defeat, snatching up his son with one arm and pulling him tightly into his embrace, “Just don’t tell your mother, yeah?”
And just as Sansa approached her family, hauling several shopping bags in her hands and Rickard in his baby backpack, Bran leaned close to his father’s good ear, shoving the long hair aside as he whispered to Sandor, “It’ll cost you a dollar.”
“Deal,” Sandor said with a wink, just as his smiling wife reached the lot them.
_______________________________
Today…
Sandor hated attending parties of any sort, but office Christmas parties had to be just about the worst possible use of a man’s time. Although he was not known among the staff at Baratheon, Lannister and Lannister as the friendliest of attorneys, Sandor’s reputation as a ruthless litigator as well as the only undefeated defense attorney in a courtroom within a 100-mile radius made him quite the valuable asset to his boss, Robert, and his two partners/brothers-in-law, Tyrion and Jaime. Having spent far too many years defending the scum of the earth, Sandor had all but decided to give up his law career until Sansa had suggested last spring that maybe he just needed to get on the other side of it. So, taking her advice to heart, Sandor applied for a position as a Federal Prosecutor.
And just three days ago, Sandor had received notice that he had been accepted.
After talking over his course of action with his beautiful, highly intelligent wife, who had also been a lawyer before they married and started producing a litter of pups, Sandor decided that he would wait until after the law firm’s annual Christmas party to notify his superiors of his intent to jump ship and switch teams. She had warned him that it was best to wait to break the news until after folks were high on their orgy of eggnog and cheap secret Santa gifts.
Standing by the buffet of sweets and other goodies parked in the main reception area of the law office, listening to Robert and his hateful wife prattle on incessantly about their hateful cunt-of-a-son, Joffrey, Sandor wished that he had turned in his notice effective immediately the minute that he had received the job offer.
“Joffrey’s professors all comment on how astute his research is,” Cersei said haughtily, pausing to take a sip off her umpteenth glass of Dornish red, “The talk on campus is that Joffrey will be asked to present his dissertation next year at the annual conference his department holds at Oxford every summer.”
Sandor snorted at that statement. Everyone in the whole fucking office knew that Robert paid other graduate students to write Joffrey’s papers and to conduct his research. It figured.
“Excuse me, will you?” Sandor asked Cersei and Robert without waiting for an answer, firmly shoving his way through the throng of colleagues and their spouses milling about the office. Without further ado, Sandor bolted for the corridor that led to the bathrooms. He wanted to find his beautiful wife, wherever the hell she had disappeared to several minutes ago while he stood next to his employer and half-ass listened to the conversation at hand.
Checking his watch as he trucked on down the hallway, Sandor realized that he hadn’t seen or spoken to Sansa since she had softly kissed his bearded cheek right before she had whispered to him that she needed to use the bathroom. Again. It seemed like all she did anymore was use the bathroom, really. But then, what could a man expect when he had knocked up his wife again for the fourth time? Those muscles down below could only can take so much damn stretching before they turned to rubber.
As Sandor approached the cluster of bathrooms near the elevators, he heard the distinctly distressed sound of his wife’s voice floating down the hallway.
“I need to get back to my husband, Petyr, but I’m sure we can talk again later,” Sansa spoke, her voice slightly wavering as if she were either nervous or afraid.
“Nonsense,” Petyr crooned, his raspy voice all but silencing Sansa on the matter, “He hasn’t missed you all night. Surely, he won’t mind you visiting with an old family friend just a bit longer, hmm?”
Of all the men in the office, Petyr Fucking Baelish was the last person that Sandor wanted cornering his wife anywhere at any time. Sandor knew for a fact that Petyr was a snake in the grass. Sandor did not trust that man either inside or outside of the courtroom.
“Really, Petyr, I should be getting back to Sandor,” Sansa replied, the urgency in her wavering voice so obvious that Sandor actually broke into a jog to close the distance between him and his spouse.
Before Petyr could pull another move to thwart Sansa’s retreat, Sandor found the two of them nestled in the corner by the ladies’ room. Petyr was hovering over Sansa, one arm stretched out and braced near her head as he leaned against the wall near the bathroom. He had trapped her, goddamn it, and he had every intention of holding her hostage.
“You heard the lady,” Sandor snarled under his breath just as his hand made contact with Petyr’s designer-label suit jacket, jerking him backward and spinning him slightly on his dress shoes, “Fuck. Off.” Sandor couldn’t help but enjoy the way Petyr almost lost his balance and fell flat on his skinny ass.
“Sandor!” Sansa all but cried out as she threw herself into Sandor’s arms, nuzzling her face against her husband’s impressive chest, grasping the lapels of his blazer as if it were a life jacket. “I’m so glad to see you!”
“I bet,” Sandor hissed at Petyr, narrowing his stormy gray eyes at the predator as he watched Petyr closely. The sinister little man acted as if nothing was wrong, smoothing his graying hair down and adjusting the cuffs of his suit jacket, the smirk playing at the corner of his mustached-mouth right before he shot Sansa a devious look.
“Sandor, it’s a pleasure as always,” Petyr simpered, returning his glare to his giant, self-appointed nemesis, pretending to give a rat’s ass about his number-one rival at the law office, “Sansa and I were just talking about you. How good of you to join us.”
That did it.
Sandor snapped.
He grabbed Petyr’s suit jacket, yanking him so close to his own body that Sandor could literally see the flicker of fear dance across Petyr’s countenance right before Petyr managed to pull his shite together. Everyone in the office new Petyr’s reputation. Sandor wasn’t buying Petyr’s innocent act. Not for a second.
“Corner my wife again, you creepy pervert,” Sandor seethed, lowering his head to the point that he was virtually eyeball-to-eyeball with the much-shorter man, “And I’ll wipe that cunt mouth of yours right off your face. Got it?” Out of the corner of his eyes, Sandor could see Sansa’s own stunned blue eyes widening comically upon witnessing her over-protective husband’s over-the-top display.
“I’ll have your job for this, Clegane,” Petyr retorted, the venom dripping from his voice as Sandor finally released him and gave him a slight shove. “You can’t talk to me that way! You won’t get away with this!”
“I can and I will,” Sandor replied angrily, taking one threatening step forward, jabbing his long finger in Petyr’s shocked face, “And you can shove my job up your arse!”
With that response still hanging in the air, Sandor grabbed Sansa’s hand, tugging her along with him as he bolted for the exit, scurrying down the four flights of stairs to the parking lot where their minivan was situated. All Sandor wanted to do was get his wife as far away from the likes of Baelish et al as fast as his long legs would carry them.
In silence, Sandor led Sansa out of the back of the building to their vehicle. Just as Sandor was about to let go of her hand and forage for the car keys stuffed inside his pants pocket, he felt Sansa grind her pumps into the asphalt, effectively bringing his march to a halt.
“Sandor Clegane,” she began softly, looking into his tense face as if she were searching for something hidden in the depths of his features, “Stop, please?”
Turning to face her, Sandor assumed that this was the part of the evening when he got his ass handed to him on a silver platter. For a man with his level of intelligence, he did some of the most bass-ackwards things sometimes.
“Look, Sansa, don’t say it,” he began, lowering his head in his growing shame for embarrassing his wife, “I know you can handle yourself. I know I should have kept my mouth shut. I know I overreacted as usual. It’s just that Petyr - ”
“I love you,” Sansa beamed, her bright eyes alight with the deep feelings she had for her beloved spouse. Reaching up, cupping the marred side of Sandor’s face, she all but whispered, “God, do you even know how much I love you?” To punctuate her rhetorical question, Sansa stood on her tiptoes, pulling Sandor downward, meeting his extraordinarily surprised lips with her own. After their brief yet passion-filled kiss, he reared back, leaning his forehead on top of Sansa’s perfectly-straightened ginger locks.
“What was that for?” Sandor panted, his increasingly aroused brain feeling slightly addled from the amount of blood that had rerouted from his head to his crotch the instant that Sansa’s tongue had swept across his lower lip.
“For being my champion,” she smiled widely, carding her long red nails through his black hair, “For being my protector. For being my husband. For being the father of my children.”
“I think I need to threaten to kick some fucker’s ass more often,” Sandor chuckled darkly as he lifted his head, seeing the look of raw lust radiating in his gorgeous wife’s severely dilated eyes.
“Now, take me home,” Sansa grinned mischievously as Sandor jerked open the passenger side door to the minivan, “We have about an hour before Arya and Gendry bring the kids back to the house. And you owe me four dollars, by the way.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sandor smiled as he leaned into the van for a quick kiss, “But couldn’t I just work off my debt?” He waggled his eyebrow at Sansa for added emphasis.
“Perhaps,” she giggled as he slammed the van door shut and dashed around the front bumper like a bat out of hell.
_______________________________
Four weeks later…
“And then, the brave knight hit the evil sorcerer on the leg!” exclaimed Brandon, fiercely bashing his foam sword into his maniacal foe’s huge thigh.
“But then, the sorcerer cast a spell to heal his mortal wound immediately!” Sandor shouted thunderously from where he had collapsed onto the floor, pushing his hands above his shoulders and bounding to his feet in a move straight out of Bruce Lee’s playbook. “And then, he blasted Ser Brandon with a lightening bolt!”
“You’ll never defeat us, Sarumon!” Minisa declared as she brandished her own foam sword, jumping in front of her knightly brother to defend him to the death, shielding herself from the imagined deadly blast emanating from their father-turned-wizard’s long fingers.
“Uck,” Rickard babbled, leaning over the edge of his high chair’s tray, grimacing at the slice of pancake that he accidentally dropped onto the linoleum in the kitchen where he sat finishing his breakfast.
Not paying attention to Rickard at the moment, Sansa blindly handed her growing boy another cut up chunk of plain pancake off his tray, unconsciously rubbing her slightly showing belly bump with her free hand while enjoying the way her ruggedly handsome husband was playing with the kids this blustery, snowy Saturday morning. Smiling at the scene of mayhem unfolding in the living room as her little boy and girl pounced on their laughing father, taking him to the hardwood floor, Sansa felt a slight lump forming in her throat.
Sandor was like a different man these days. Starting his new employment as a federal prosecutor with the Attorney General’s office right after Christmas had done marvelous things for Sandor’s typically grouchy disposition. Sansa knew that for the first time in ages, Sandor had ambition. He wanted to protect the weak and the abused. He wanted to put those who committed heinous crimes away for a long, long time, not to spend hours of his life trying to help the miscreants walk out of the courtroom with a mere slap on the wrist. Since joining forces with Brienne and Beric, two other federal prosecutors who had welcomed Sandor with open arms and had taken him under their wing, Sansa’s uncommonly happy husband was eager to jump out of bed and get to work.
Unless, of course, Sansa wasn’t in the middle of distracting him, thanks to her surging pregnancy-induced sex drive.
“Uck,” Rickard huffed yet again, this time watching his blue and red sippy cup bounce off the side of his tray and land on the floor smack-dab on top of his formally lost scrap of breakfast.
Turning her head to now focus on Rickard, Sansa grinned at her baby boy, catching his gray eyes with hers. “Does Ricky want to play with his trucks again?” she cooed, wiping his gooey mouth before removing him from his high chair.
“I give up!” Sandor gasped, acting as if he were utterly terrified of the two youths standing above him with their foam weapons pointed at his throat.
“Hey, Sarumon,” Sansa yelled saucily from the kitchen, walking toward the living room with Rickard riding on her hip, “Can you keep an eye on Ricky for a minute while I clean up the mess?”
“Sure thing, love,” Sandor said, his focus shifting to his wife as she rounded the couch, his focus wavering too long to keep him safe. Leading the charge, Brandon decided to attack just then, screaming as he jumped onto his father’s stomach, beckoning Minisa to follow suit.
As Sansa put Rickard down on the floor, she grabbed a toy dump truck laying on the floor next to the sofa, handing it to Rickard as she rose to her full height and watched Sandor concede defeat. She laughed at the terrible sounds of mock pain her husband put forth as Brandon and Minisa pummeled him. “You’re quite the actor, you know that? I think you’re in the wrong line of work.”
“Ha-ha,” Sandor countered with a wink at his redheaded wife as she spun on her heels toward the kitchen, shoving his kids off his lap as he stood, grabbing both Brandon and Minisa by their sweatshirts and sitting them down onto their feet. “Time to include your brother, kids.”
“But, Daddy,” Minisa groaned, rolling her blue eyes in disgust, “He’s just a baby.”
“So?” Brandon snorted in amusement, “You’re one, too!”
“Am not!” she shouted in self-defense, getting all up in her older brother’s personal space.
“Are too!” he hissed in return, slamming his sword into her head as she backed him up toward the fireplace.
“That’s enough, the both of you,” Sandor ordered firmly as he turned his attention toward the potential fist fight that dared to ensue.
Now that no one was watching him, Rickard took the opportunity to crawl toward the sofa table, pulling up on the wooden furniture’s legs to reach for the enormous, gaudy yellow and black ceramic vase that his Granny Catelyn had given to his parents for Christmas. Stretching on his tippy toes, he stuck his tongue out to help him balance while trying to snag the object of his interest, grazing the edge of the brightly colored knick-knack with his fingertips. He grinned widely at the thought that his parents didn’t realize just how damn tall he really was for his age.
Unfortunately, before Rickard knew what happened, the vase toppled over onto the hard wood floor by his green-striped, footie-pajamaed feet, shattering into a thousand pieces and unleashing gallons of water along with the flower arrangement that his mama had purchased at the supermarket just yesterday.
“Ricky!” Sansa shrieked, dashing over to where her now-wet baby boy stood.
“Are you alright, big man?” Sandor asked as he dashed across the living room from where he had been holding Brandon and Minisa at bay.
“Did he get hurt?” the two older kids gasped in unison.
And it was during that fateful, dramatic pause in conversation that Sansa finally realized that Rickard hadn’t been asking for his construction toys all week...
“Uck!” Rickard declared angrily as he stood motionless, still clutching to the table leg, his fuzzy dark eyebrows furrowing together as he assessed the dampness of his wet feet. “Uck! Uck!”
Sansa’s horrified blue eyes raised to meet Sandor’s equally shocked gray ones.
“I’m going,” Sandor sighed, rising to his feet slowly and shuffling to the kitchen to put a dollar – or three, if he were counting – into the swear jar.