Contract with a SEAL (Special Ops: Homefront Book 3) (16 page)

When the valet popped out of the garage
driving Vi’s car, Vi felt so empty inside she could nearly hear her heart echo inside
her chest each time it beat.

She wasn’t ready to say good-bye. The
idea of never seeing Joe again left her cold, sick, and completely bereft. How
could she have let herself fall so hard, so quickly, for a man who was leaving
the country?

She couldn’t say the word. Wouldn’t. She’d
fall to pieces, right there in front of a handful of other hotel guests waiting
for their cars.

Facing her, he took both her hands,
stroking them gently with his thumbs. “My Change of Command is on Friday.
You’re welcome to come, if you like.”

And prolong this feeling? Never. She
could get the day off work easily enough. But she couldn’t imagine sitting in
an audience, watching him in his last moments of this job, knowing that after
it he would be gone from her life forever.

She knew he wasn’t in a position to keep
in touch while he was away. He had made that clear. His job would require all
his time and energy and focus.

Lives were on the line.

There was a piece of her that wished the
same for herself. If she could just find something all-consuming, to drive out
the thoughts of Joe after he was gone. But there was nothing she knew that could
keep her mind from drifting to him, wondering how he was, where he was, whether
he was safe and alive.

Better she face that feeling now, and get
it over with.

“I don’t know, Joe.”

He nodded. “I understand. Just think
about it.”

“I will,” she lied, if only to use it as
an excuse to not say good-bye to him in person. She would not cry. Not now. If
one tear fell, she swore she’d never stop.

She kissed him lightly. “I won’t say ‘have
a nice life’ this time, I promise,” she said with a forced grin. “You’ve been…”
Her voice trailed. How did she define him in her life? “…really good for me,
Joe.”

He gave a brief nod as he traced his
finger from the cleft in her chin, along her jaw, and to the hair behind her
ear. He wrapped a lock around his finger loosely, and let it fall. “Think about
coming on Friday,” he repeated.

Maybe he was as unwilling to say good-bye
as she was.

Nodding, she lowered herself into the
car, and he shut the door behind her. Now go inside the hotel, she silently
willed him. Only moments from falling apart at the seams, she was determined to
not do it in front of him.

But he stayed there, feet planted in
front of the hotel door, watching her as she pulled away.

Turning into the traffic, she drove down
the road only three blocks, till the hotel was completely blocked from her sight.
And she stopped on the side of the road, the tears in her eyes blurring her
view completely as she sobbed.

***

He should have felt better, climbing into
his car, alone, making the drive up to Walter Reed. But he didn’t. He felt
cold, almost shivering, as though his body was withdrawing from the feel of Vi’s
warmth against him.

Her presence was too soothing. Too
addictive. Too far from what he would experience in the year ahead. As much as
he wanted to see her again at his Change of Command, it might be best if she
chose not to attend.

He just hadn’t wanted to say it. Good-bye
was such a mournful word. So final. Yet it certainly would have fit his mood
right now.

Only days away from facing a new command,
it wasn’t the time for him to be thinking about how comfortable life could be
with a woman like Vi, yet still, her image loomed in his mind.

With women, he had never talked about the
future. The mere idea of sharing his dream of owning a vineyard one day would
have seemed laughable to him only yesterday. He was a SEAL commander, a job
fraught with risks. Why share a dream that may never come true?

Needing a distraction, he dialed his
sister at a stoplight, and pressed the speaker button.

“Happy new year, big brother.” Her voice cheered
him, if only a little bit.

“Hey, Becca. Was Brandon able to make it
till midnight this time?”

“Nope. He got really crabby so I put him
to bed at 10, and then woke him up right before midnight.”

“Do you have fireworks there?”

“I think they had some somewhere around
here. We could hear them, but not see them. I think Brandon was kind of
disappointed.”

“Yeah, there’s really not much of a
thrill to New Year’s for an eight-year-old.”

“How about you? Were you with Vi?”

“Yeah. I got a room in downtown
Annapolis. They had fireworks right outside our window.”

“Nothing compared to the fireworks in
your room, I’ll bet.”

“Becca,” Joe warned.

“I’m just calling it like I see it. You’re
totally in love with that woman.”

He hated even hearing the word, even
though the feelings he had for Vi couldn’t be defined by anything else. Still,
he denied it. “Impossible. We’ve only seen each other a few times, Becca.”

“Joe, when you were out here this
Christmas, you were a different man.”

“I was the same as I always am.”

“Not even close, big brother. You’re usually
brooding. So serious.”

“Comes with the job.”

“But this time, you were—I don’t
know—just more alive than you usually are.”

“More alive,” Joe deadpanned. “Well, good
to know I was the walking dead before I met Violet, then. You sure do boost a
guy’s ego.”

“You’re in love,” she repeated, much to
Joe’s dismay since his stomach churned each time he heard the word.

“Becca, it wouldn’t matter if I was. I’m
gone for a year. This isn’t one of those jobs where I can be in touch with her
much either.”

“So, one year. So what? How does she feel
about vineyards?”

Joe laughed. Did Becca have a bug in the
hotel room, or some spy with an ear pressed to the door last night?

“I don’t really know.”

“Liar. You told her, didn’t you?”

Shaking his head, he exited onto DC’s
beltway, headed toward Bethesda. “Not your business, Becca.”

“Why are you so weird about sharing your
dreams with a woman?”

“Becca, don’t go there.”

“I’m serious, Joe. Do you think that
makes you somehow vulnerable or something?”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“Then what?”

Joe’s blood pressure was rising. Not the
best conversation to be having as he sped along the beltway, sharing the road with
countless drivers who were probably still working through their New Years’ hangovers.
“Why do that to a woman?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why share with her a bunch of dreams
that might not come true. I’m a SEAL, Becca. And with what you’ve been through,
I don’t need to remind you of the risks.”

There was silence at the other end, and
Joe was devastated by it. He should have kept his mouth shut. How could he call
forth the memory of her dead husband on New Year’s Day? What kind of an idiot
was he?

“So you think I would have been better
off not dreaming of the future with Brian?” her voice was skeptical, not sad at
all, and Joe breathed a sigh of relief hearing her tone.

“Wouldn’t it have been easier?”

“God, no, Joe. How could you think that? Brian
and I used to talk endlessly about our future after he was going to get out of
the Army. It strengthened us for all the time we spent apart. We were going to
move to Florida, remember? He wanted to start an ice cream shop like his dad
did. We used to try out recipes on the weekends. It was fun, Joe. Do you happen
to remember what fun is?” Her tone was laced with sarcasm.

Joe’s eyes narrowed on the road in front
of him. “But didn’t it hurt more after he died, knowing what you couldn’t have
together?”

“I loved all of him, Joe. It would have
hurt so much more if I had thought he had held back anything from me.”

Joe let the silence prevail in the car
for a moment. “Okay. So yeah, I told her.”

“And didn’t it feel good to share it with
someone you love?”

Joe winced at the word again, but there
would be no stopping his sister. “Maybe. She didn’t laugh, at least.”

“Well, that’s something, anyway. Because
really, Joe. A vineyard? You can’t keep a houseplant alive.” Becca laughed.

***

Joe knocked on Mick’s door, and awaited
an answer. Nothing like being stuck in the hospital to make a man lose any
sense of privacy. Joe sometimes wondered why they even bothered putting doors
on hospital rooms just because everyone was always butting in to take some
vitals.

After two particularly brutal missions,
Joe had spent time in Landstuhl, stretched out on a hard hospital bed, a new
purple heart each time, waiting to heal enough to get back into the action. It
had never been as long as the time that Mick would face in this hospital, he
imagined. TBI treatment could be lengthy, depending on the severity.

“Come in,” Mick called. It might be Joe’s
hopefulness, but it seemed like the words seemed to come quicker now.

Stepping into the room, Joe spotted a
face that looked so much more like the Mick he had once led on missions. “You
look a damn sight better.”

“And you look exhausted, Sir.”

Joe laughed. “I am. Stayed up for the
fireworks last night in Annapolis.”

“God, wish I could have been there.”

“You’ll get to that point soon, from what
I can see. I don’t know if you realize just how far you’ve come in a couple weeks,
Mick.”

“I do.” Mick paused, the sentences still
seeming to form in his mind for a moment before they could actually pass from
his lips. “Lacey told me that I didn’t even recognize her for the first few
days I was here. Strange thing is, I don’t even remember that. All I remember
is having the worst headache of my life.”

“How’s that now?”

“It’s a lot better, but they’ve still got
me on lots of pain medications. I sometimes wonder if my speech is so slurred
because of the TBI or the pain meds I’m on.”

“Probably a combination of both. Is Lacey
coming in today?”

“Already did. I sent her home after a couple
hours. She should be out living her life rather than sitting at my bedside all
the time.”

“Her life is with you.”

“That’s the same thing she said. But it’s
not good for her to be hanging around a hospital too much. Besides, it’s a good
football day and if she’s here, she’ll have me watching those damn real estate
shows again. You know, ‘Sam and Sally are looking for a 4-bedrorom, 3 bath
colonial in Boringsville, Ohio. Sam wants a finished basement for a man cave,
and Barbara wants a fenced in backyard for their two children and their dog,
Scruffy.’”

Joe raised his eyebrows at how easily
that had poured off Mick’s tongue. “You do that really well for a guy who has
TBI.”

 “Yeah, it’s all I’ve been hearing
these days. Walter Reed really needs better cable channels,” Mick replied
gravely. He glanced at the civilian clothing Joe was wearing. “Don’t think I’ve
ever seen you in anything but a uniform, Sir.”

“I wear it every once in a while. For
Halloween, I dress up as a civilian. No one recognizes me,” Joe joked.

“I’ll bet. Makes you look like a normal
guy. Dress that way too much, and I might ask you to join me and the guys for
poker night.” He paused for several seconds, and Joe could tell that changing
topics seemed to be taxing on his brain. “Heard you’re changing commands soon.”

Joe sat down. “Friday. I’m headed to the Philippines.”

Mick nodded sagely. “And then what?”

Joe’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

“Well, that command is one year, right? Then
where will you head?”

“Wherever the Navy needs me.”

Mick tilted his head. “You know, that’s
not really the way it goes, Captain. You’ve got some say in it at your rank. If
you want it, that is. With your track record, you’d have to really piss someone
off to not get promoted in a few years. But what then?”

Leaning back, Joe frowned. “What’s this
conversation really about, Mick?” Was Mick going to get on his case about
Violet, the same as Becca just had?

And wasn’t New Year’s a time when people
were supposed to try to fix themselves? So why was everyone suddenly wanting to
fix
him
?

Mick shook his head slowly, which seemed to
be his normal speed these days. “I’m just saying that one day the Navy’s going
to break your heart, no matter how high up that food chain you are.”

Leaning back, the words seemed to sink into
Joe with a leaden weight. They were words he had heard before, though never
liked to think about them. One day, no matter how hard Joe worked, the Navy
would tell him that he was either too old, or too slow, or too “broke”—the
military’s uncanny word for saying a person was too injured to be of use any
more.