Next to Die (9 page)

“How many more men vill come around askink me that question?” the woman groused, rolling her eyes.

Vinny didn’t like the way that sounded.

“She don’t vant no strange men comink after her,” she insisted, hunching her rounded shoulders.

“I’m not a stranger, ma’am; I’m a friend. I just want to give her this ring back.” He pulled it from his pocket and crossed the breezeway to show it to her.

The frau seemed to recognize the ring. “Vell, you don’t seem like a bat man,” she allowed. “Vat do you do?” She gestured at his uniform.

“I’m a Navy SEAL.” He was also a student, taking classes at the local community college, and this was his first night off in a week.

“Oh,
ja?
My son is in the Navy.” Her frown grew more relaxed. “Ophelia vent to stay vith her sister,” she suddenly divulged.

Her sister! Vinny’s heart faltered. “Where does she live?” he asked. Not far away, he hoped.

“Just a minute,” she said, disappearing into her apartment.

Vinny waited, his blood thrumming impatiently. Thoughts of the copper-haired beauty who’d crushed in his taillight had obsessed him all week. Her feisty tongue and slippery tactics had amused him. She was about to find out that Navy SEALs were tenacious sons-of-bitches and they didn’t like being stood up.

“I forward her mail to her,” admitted the frau, coming out again. She had an index card, which she handed to him.

Vinny glanced at the Virginia Beach address and nearly let loose a war cry. He bestowed the woman his best Boy Scout smile. Of course, he’d never been a Boy Scout. “Thank you so much, ma’am,” he said, slipping the card into his pocket as he turned away. “She’ll be grateful to you.”

“I hope so,” said the woman. “You’re not like the other man.”

Vinny turned slowly back around. “What was he like?” he inquired blandly.

“Older,” she said. “Quiet and . . . creepy.”

Vinny nodded. He’d already guessed, given Lia’s apparent driving history, that she had some serious skeletons in her closet. “You have a good day, ma’am,” he called, turning away.

He wondered how she handled surprises.

“The therapist will be in shortly,” smiled the petty officer who’d taken Joe’s pulse and blood pressure and left him to change into a patient’s gown.

Once changed, Joe eased onto the hip-high table, grimacing at the pain that simple act caused him. The room was chilly, and the gown barely reached the tops of his thighs. A draft blew down the back where the ties failed to meet.

He hadn’t wanted to seek medical help, but the spasms in his back had prompted an appointment with a doctor, who’d subjected him to an MRI, informed him that his serratus posterior inferior was strained, and written him a prescription for physical therapy. Joe didn’t know what the future held for him beyond his R&R, but if he wanted to continue as a SEAL—and there wasn’t any question about that—he needed to recover fully.

Light footfalls approached the closed door. He pictured the therapist, Lieutenant Sparks by name, pulling his chart from the holder. She gave a knock and stepped in briskly. Only total mastery of his facial muscles prevented Joe from revealing his dismay as his neighbor stepped into the room.

“Lieutenant Commander,” she greeted him with poise, having had the advantage of seeing his name on the chart. “Lieutenant Sparks had her baby early,” she explained, “and I’ll be standing in for her.”

Her tone was so impersonal, so professional, that it threw Joe even more off balance. “I’d like to be seen by another therapist,” he croaked.

With the slightest firming of her lips, she answered coolly, “I’m the only therapist available until Lieutenant Sparks comes back. If you’d like to wait three months . . . ?” She shrugged to convey that was his choice.

Joe hunched his shoulders, thinking hard. He could go to a civilian therapist and pay out of pocket, or he could suck it up and keep their exchange impersonal.

He cut a critical glance at her khaki uniform. She wore standard work attire for officers: a tan-colored blouse and skirt. Her hair was in a tidy bun. Navy-issue pumps made her look a little taller. Aside from those eyes, and that soft mouth, she was unremarkable. So why did she rattle him so much? “I’ll stay,” he muttered.

“Let’s talk about your back,” she invited, frowning down at the referral sheet his physician had given him. “It says here that you’ve strained an intermediary muscle, the serratus posterior inferior. How’d you do that?”

“I hurt it in a fall,” he admitted.

She laid the chart down and walked around the table. Stepping onto a stool, she unlaced the ties at the back of his gown and slipped a cool hand to through the opening. “How far was this fall?” she asked.

Her touch made him jumpy. “I don’t know. A long way.”

“You don’t remember?”

He ground his molars together. “No,” he said shortly.

She pressed her thumb into muscle, making him flinch. “I’d say you’ve gotten an accurate diagnosis. Here’s what we’re going to do,” she said, stepping off her stool. “We’ll start with moist heat packs on the affected area for twenty minutes, followed by a brief ultrasound treatment, then a fifteen-minute massage to increase blood flow and relaxation.”

She was going to massage him? Joe’s mouth went dry. His heart palpitated.

“Have you been taking the meds you were prescribed in Afghanistan?” she asked, picking up his chart again.

“No.”

“Good,” she said with a quick, pitying look, “because you’re not supposed to mix that stuff with alcohol.”

A humiliated flush heated Joe’s face. He looked down at his healing hands, clenched and unfurled them.

“I’ll send in a corpsman to set you up with those heat packs. See you in twenty minutes,” said Lieutenant Price, snapping the file shut and heading for the door. It closed quietly behind her.

Joe glowered, cursing his luck. Of all the therapists in the Navy, his had to be his next-door-neighbor. The corpsman burst into the room with his arms full of steaming packs but drew up warily. “Sir,” he hedged. “Can I get you to lie on your stomach?”

Joe was left alone, weighted down by lovely warm, moist packs that put him instantly to sleep. He was jarred awake by Penny’s entrance. She wordlessly removed the heat packs and wheeled the ultrasound machine closer. To Joe’s consternation, she rolled the elastic of his boxer-briefs down past his butt crack, then squirted warm gel all over his back.

She had to be humiliating him on purpose.

The machine buzzed and crackled as she sent healing sound waves deep into his tender muscles. She didn’t speak but worked the handheld device in a circular motion over his back. Remembering the threats he’d practically hurled at her, Joe wrestled with his conscience. Maybe she’d done all the right things because it was her nature to be helpful. In that case, he’d stepped over the line by threatening her. But he had to be sure first. “Lieutenant,” he interjected, making her pause.

“Yes, sir?”

“How much did I tell you the other night?” He had to know.

She moved the device again, in a slow, circular motion. “You said that you were hit with shrapnel,” she replied, her tone sympathetic. “One of your men died, presumably in the same incident. At first I thought it was a car accident, but given the fall you don’t remember, I would also have to consider a helicopter crash.” She waited for him to deny or confirm her guess.

He did neither. Her assumptions were amazingly astute. He needed to tread with caution, or she’d come up with the truth on her own, if she hadn’t already.

“What I do is classified,” he said, guarding his secret.

He thought that would be the end of it, but then she added, “The only recent downing that I’ve heard of didn’t have any survivors, though,” she added. “A helo was blown up while rescuing four SEALs on the ground. Three of them died and only one came back alive.”

He tried not to tense, but every muscle in his body flinched.

“You knew those men,” she guessed, her tone filled with compassion.

He stayed quiet. To his relief, she didn’t press him for an answer.

Instead, she turned off the machine, mounted a stool for some much needed height, and commenced with the soft-tissue massage, her hands cool and remarkably efficient.

He didn’t want to enjoy her touch, but he did. The pressure she placed on his tender muscles was exquisite.

Aw, man.
He’d gladly put up with her nosy questions if he got a massage like this every time.
Oh, yeah, right there. Ahhh.

And yet, for some reason, her touch stirred memories he wanted to forget.

He remembered plummeting backward, falling slow-motion through space while the fireball of helicopter chased him. The torso of one of his comrades issued from the explosion—no legs, just the trunk and head.

Joe silently cursed, wishing the vision had stayed where it was, repressed in his subconscious mind.

But Penny had brought up the crash. She’d brought it right into this room.

He didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed when she removed her hand and wiped his back with warmed wet wipes. “How do you feel?” she asked, dusting his back with powder, massaging it in, quickly and lightly.

He shivered at the pleasant, almost sensual caress. “Good,” he admitted. “Relaxed.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I want you to use a cool pack every night, when you’re watching television or as you go to sleep.”

He was wriggling in an attempt to unfurl the elastic of his boxer-briefs.

“Do you need help turning over?” she asked.

“No, I got it.” The last thing he wanted was to humiliate himself by revealing a semi-aroused state. It wasn’t his fault that a woman’s hands on his body did that to him.

Using the gown as a shield, he rolled over and swung his feet over the side.
Not a twinge
, he marveled. She’d really loosened him up. “Wow,” he murmured, thinking she was quite talented.

“I’d like to see you again on Thursday,” she said. “We’ll run through the same treatment.”

He looked forward to it. Maybe then he’d even be able to look her in the eye and not feel like a loser.

“Check with the receptionist on your way out,” she added with a small, professional smile. Her skirt swished and her heels tapped, and she was gone.

Joe heaved a sigh of self-recrimination. Maybe little sister was right. Penelope Price didn’t seem like the type to expose him. She had integrity. And given the magic in her fingers, he was probably lucky to have her as his neighbor, not to mention his physical therapist.

Penny shut herself up in her office and dropped into her desk chair. Bringing her aching fingers to her nose, she savored the scent of clean male and fresh laundry. The feel of his hot, smooth skin replayed itself in her kinetic memory. His densely powerful muscles were a playground to her tutored hands. She could have spent hours massaging his body, starting with those perfectly toned butt muscles peeking out of his boxer briefs.

With a sigh, she released such unprofessional thoughts. Her infatuation with Joe was pointless. He’d made it clear that he resented her meddling. And yet, his visit today had only stoked her fascination. There was something going on with him that she couldn’t put her finger on . . .

She tapped her chin, thinking.

He refused to talk about the accident that had left him scarred and another SEAL dead. When she’d mentioned the downing of the helicopter filled with men, he’d gone rigid, almost like he’d witnessed it. But he couldn’t have. He was a commander.

And yet, there
was
one lone SEAL who’d survived that fiasco. He’d been chased for days by Taliban insurgents, only to be later found and rescued. That could not have been Joe.

Or could it?

Penny glanced questioningly at her computer. She swiveled in her chair and jiggled the mouse, performing an online search for articles regarding the recent disaster. While skimming one article, she read, “Military officials said the survivor was knocked off his feet by the blast of a rocket detonation during fighting with insurgents and slid down a mountainside in the steep terrain.”

Penny’s ears started ringing. She skimmed the rest of the article, her certainty growing with each printed word.
Joe was the survivor
. Everything in print dovetailed with his circumstances: his sudden arrival at home, his physical condition, his refusal to talk about what had happened.

“Oh, my God,” she breathed, understanding why he was so vehement about protecting his privacy. The last thing he would want was publicity. “Oh, Joe.”

She leaned back in her chair, envisioning the hell he’d been through and reeling at the heartache she knew he was left with.

The urge to comfort him was overwhelming. It was also futile. She had no desire to join the ranks of women he’d loved and left, nor could he have made his desire for privacy any clearer. Her only option was to give him physical relief. She could help to heal his body. But who would heal his broken heart?

Chapter Six

“You must be Monty.”