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“What you need is to get on with your life.”
“My life requires an ability to run,” Frisco said hotly. “I don’t know too many active-duty SEALs hobbling around with a cane. Do you?”
Dr. Horowitz shook his head, looking to Joe for help.
But Joe didn’t say a word.
“You’ve been in and out of hospitals and PT centers for five years,” the doctor told Frisco. “You’re not a kid in your twenties anymore, Alan. The truth is, the SEALs don’t need you. They’ve got kids coming up from BUD/S training who could run circles around you even if you could run. Do you really think the top brass are going to want some old guy with a bum knee to come back?”
Frisco carefully kept his face expressionless. “Thanks a lot, man,” he said tightly as he gazed sightlessly out of the window. “I appreciate your vote of confidence.”
Joe shifted in his seat. “What Steve’s saying is harsh—and not entirely true,” he said. “Us ‘old guys’ in our thirties have experience that the new kids lack, and that usually makes us better SEALs. But he’s right about something—you have been out of the picture for half a decade. You’ve got more to overcome than the physical challenge—as if that weren’t enough. You’ve got to catch up with the technology, relearn changed policies….”
“Give yourself a break,” Dr. Horowitz urged again.
Frisco turned his head and looked directly at the doctor. “No,” he said. He looked at Joe, too. “No breaks. Not until I can walk without this cane. Not until I can run a six-minute mile again.”
The doctor rolled his eyes in exasperation, standing up and starting for the door. “A six-minute mile? Forget it. It’s not going to happen.”
Frisco looked out the window again. “Captain, you also said I’d never walk again.”
Horowitz turned back. “This is different, Lieutenant. The truth—whether you believe it or not—is that the kind of physical exertion you’ve been up to is now doing your knee more damage than good.”
Frisco didn’t turn around. He stood silently, watching bright pink flowers move gently in the breeze.
“There are other things you can do as a SEAL,” the doctor said more gently. “There are office jobs—”
Frisco spun around, his temper exploding. “I’m an expert in ten different fields of warfare, and you want me to be some kind of damn pencil pusher?”
“Alan—”
Joe stood up. “You’ve at least got to take some time and think about your options,” he said. “Don’t say no until you think it through.”
Frisco gazed at Joe in barely disguised horror. Five years ago they’d joked about getting injured and being sucked into the administrative staff. It was a fate worse than death, or so they’d agreed. “You want me to think about jockeying a desk?” he said.
“You could teach.”
Frisco shook his head in disbelief. “That’s just perfect, man. Can’t you just see me writing on a blackboard…?” He shook his head in disgust. “I would’ve expected you of all people to understand why I could never do that.”
“You’d still be a SEAL,” Joe persisted. “It’s that or accept your retirement as permanent. Someone’s got to teach these new kids how to survive. Why can’t you do it?”
“Because I’ve been in the middle of action,” Frisco nearly shouted. “I know what it’s like. I want to go back there, I want to be there. I want to be doing, not…teaching. Damn!”
“The Navy doesn’t want to lose you,” Joe said, his voice low and intense. “It’s been five years, and there’s still been nobody in the units who can touch you when it comes to strategic warfare. Sure, you can quit. You can spend the rest of your life trying to get back what you once had. You can lock yourself away and feel sorry for yourself. Or you can help pass your knowledge on to the next generation of SEALs.”
“Quit?” Frisco said. He laughed, but there was no humor in it at all. “I can’t quit—because I’ve already been kicked out. Right, Captain Horowitz? As of fourteen hundred hours, I’m outta here.”
There was silence then—silence that settled around them all, heavy and still and thick.
“I’m sorry,” the doctor finally said. “I’ve got to do what is best for you and for this facility. We need to use your bed for someone who really could use it. You need to give your knee a rest before you damage it further. The obvious solution was to send you home. Someday you’ll thank me for this.” The door clicked as it closed behind him.
Frisco looked at Joe. “You can tell the Navy that I’m not going to accept anything short of active duty,” he said bluntly. “I’m not going to teach.”
There was compassion and regret in the bigger man’s dark eyes. “I’m sorry,” Joe said quietly.
Frisco glared up at the clock that was set into the wall. It was nearly noon. Two more hours, and he’d have to pack up his things and leave. Two more hours, and he wouldn’t be a Navy SEAL, temporarily off the active duty list, recovering from a serious injury. In two hours he’d be former Navy SEAL Lt. Alan Francisco. In two hours, he’d be a civilian, with nowhere to go, nothing to do.
Anger hit him hard in the gut. Five years ago, it was a sensation he’d rarely felt. He’d been calm, he’d been cool. But nowadays, he rarely felt anything besides anger.
But wait. He did have somewhere to go. The anger eased up a bit. Frisco had kept up the payments on his little condo in San Felipe, the low-rent town outside of the naval base. But…once he arrived in San Felipe, then what? He would, indeed, have nothing to do.
Nothing to do was worse than nowhere to go. What was he going to do? Sit around all day, watching TV and collecting disability checks? The anger was back, this time lodging in his throat, choking him.
“I can’t afford to continue the kind of physical therapy I’ve been doing here at the hospital,” Frisco said, trying to keep his desperation from sounding in his voice.
“Maybe you should listen to Steve,” Joe said, “and give your leg a rest.”
Easy for Joe to say. Joe was going to stand up and walk out of this hospital without a cane, without a limp, without his entire life shattered. Joe was going to go back to the home he shared with his beautiful wife—who was pregnant with their first child. He was going to have dinner with Veronica, and later he’d probably make love to her and fall asleep with her in his arms. And in the morning, Joe was going to get up, go for a run, shower, shave and get dressed, and go into work as the commanding officer of SEAL Team Ten’s Alpha Squad.
Joe had everything.
Frisco had an empty condo in a bad part of town.
“Congratulations about the baby, man,” Frisco said, trying as hard as he could to actually mean it. Then he limped out of the room.
CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_93e5495b-d5d1-5503-9847-dde8adbc31e3)
There was a light on in condo 2C.
Mia Summerton stopped in the parking lot, her arms straining from the weight of her grocery bags, and looked up at the window of the second-floor condo that was next to her own. Apartment 2C had remained empty and dark for so many years, Mia had started to believe that its owner would never come home.
But that owner—whoever he was—was home tonight.
Mia knew that the owner of 2C was, indeed, a “he.” She got a better grip on the handles of her cloth bags and started for the outside cement stairs that led up to the second story and her own condo. His name was Lt. Alan Francisco, U.S.N., Ret. She’d seen his name in the condo association owner’s directory, and on the scattered pieces of junk mail that made it past the post office’s forwarding system.
As far as Mia could figure out, her closest neighbor was a retired naval officer. With no more than his name and rank to go on, she had left the rest to her imagination. He was probably an older man, maybe even elderly. He had possibly served during the Second World War. Or perhaps he’d seen action in Korea or Vietnam.
Whatever the case, Mia was eager to meet him. Next September, her tenth graders were going to be studying American history, from the stock market crash through to the end of the Vietnam conflict. With any luck, Lt. Alan Francisco, U.S.N., Ret., would be willing to come in and talk to her class, tell his story, bring the war he’d served in down to a personal level.
And that was the problem with studying war. Until it could be understood on a personal level, it couldn’t be understood at all.
Mia unlocked her own condo and carried her groceries inside, closing the door behind her with her foot. She quickly put the food away and stored her cloth grocery bags in the tiny broom closet. She glanced at herself in the mirror and adjusted and straightened the high ponytail that held her long, dark hair off her neck.
Then she went back outside, onto the open-air corridor that connected all of the second-floor units in the complex.
The figures on the door, 2C, were slightly rusted, but they still managed to reflect the floodlights from the courtyard, even through the screen. Not allowing herself time to feel nervous or shy, Mia pressed the doorbell.
She heard the buzzer inside of the apartment. The living room curtains were open and the light was on inside, so she peeked in.
Architecturally, it was the mirror image of her own unit. A small living room connected to a tiny dining area, which turned a corner and connected to a galley kitchen. Another short hallway led back from the living room to two small bedrooms and a bath. It was exactly the same as her place, except the layout of the rooms faced the opposite direction.
His furniture was an exact opposite of Mia’s, too. Mia had decorated her living room with bamboo and airy, light colors. Lieutenant Francisco’s was filled with faintly shabby-looking mismatched pieces of dark furniture. His couch was a dark green plaid, and the slipcovers were fraying badly. His carpeting was the same forest green that Mia’s had been when she’d first moved in, three years ago. She’d replaced hers immediately.
Mia rang the bell again. Still no answer. She opened the screen and knocked loudly on the door, thinking if Lieutenant Francisco was an elderly man, he might be hard of hearing….
“Looking for someone in particular?”
Mia spun around, startled, and the screen door banged shut, but there was no one behind her.
“I’m down here.”
The voice carried up from the courtyard, and sure enough, there was a man standing in the shadows. Mia moved to the railing.
“I’m looking for Lieutenant Francisco,” she said.
He stepped forward, into the light. “Well, aren’t you lucky? You found him.”
Mia was staring. She knew she was staring, but she couldn’t help herself.
Lt. Alan Francisco, U.S.N., Ret., was no elderly, little man. He was only slightly older than she was—in his early thirties at the most. He was young and tall and built like a tank. The sleeveless shirt he was wearing revealed muscular shoulders and arms, and did very little to cover his powerful-looking chest.
His hair was dark blond and cut short, in an almost boxlike military style. His jaw was square, too, his features rugged and harshly, commandingly handsome. Mia couldn’t see what color his eyes were—only that they were intense, and that he examined her as carefully as she studied him.
He took another step forward, and Mia realized he limped and leaned heavily on a cane.
“Did you want something besides a look at me?’ he asked.
His legs were still in the shadows, but his arms were in the light. And he had tattoos. One on each arm. An anchor on one arm, and something that looked like it might be a mermaid on the other. Mia pulled her gaze back to his face.
“I, um…’ she said. “I just…wanted to say…hi. I’m Mia Summerton. We’re next-door neighbors,” she added lamely. Wow, she sounded like one of her teenage students, tongue-tied and shy.
It was more than his rugged good looks that was making her sound like a space cadet. It was because Lt. Alan Francisco was a career military man. Despite his lack of uniform, he was standing there in front of her, shoulders back, head held high—the Navy version of G.I. Joe. He was a warrior not by draft but by choice. He’d chosen to enlist. He’d chosen to perpetuate everything Mia’s antiwar parents had taught her to believe was wrong.
He was still watching her as closely as she’d looked at him. “You were curious,” he said. His voice was deep and accentless. He didn’t speak particularly loudly, but his words carried up to her quite clearly.
Mia forced a smile. “Of course.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. He didn’t smile back. In fact, he hadn’t smiled once since she’d turned to look over the railing at him. “I’m not loud. I don’t throw wild parties. I won’t disturb you. I’ll stay out of your way and I hope you’ll have the courtesy to do the same.”
He nodded at her, just once, and Mia realized that she’d been dismissed. With a single nod, he’d just dismissed her as if she were one of his enlisted troops.
As Mia watched, the former Navy lieutenant headed toward the stairs. He used his cane, supporting much of his weight with it. And every step he took looked to be filled with pain. Was he honestly going to climb those stairs…?
But of course he was. This condo complex wasn’t equipped with elevators or escalators or anything that would provide second-floor accessibility to the physically challenged. And this man was clearly challenged.
But Lieutenant Francisco pulled himself up, one painful step at a time. He used the cast-iron railing and his upper-body strength to support his bad leg, virtually hopping up the stairs. Still, Mia could tell that each jarring movement caused him no little amount of pain. When he got to the top, he was breathing hard, and there was a sheen of sweat on his face.
Mia spoke from her heart as usual, not stopping to think first. “There’s a condo for sale on the ground floor,” she said. “Maybe the association office can arrange for you to exchange your unit for the…one on the…”
The look he gave her was withering. “You still here?” His voice was rough and his words rude. But as he looked up again, as for one brief moment he glanced into her eyes, Mia could see myriad emotions in his gaze. Anger. Despair. Shame. An incredible amount of shame.
Mia’s heart was in her throat. “I’m sorry,” she said, her gaze dropping almost involuntarily to his injured leg. “I didn’t mean to—”
He moved directly underneath one of the corridor lights, and held up his right leg slightly. “Pretty, huh?” he said.
His knee was a virtual railroad switching track of scars. The joint itself looked swollen and sore. Mia swallowed. “What—” she said, then cleared her throat. “What…happened…?”
His eyes were an odd shade of blue, she realized, gazing up into the swirl of color. They were dark blue, almost black. And they were surrounded by the longest, thickest eyelashes she’d ever seen on a man.
Up close, even despite the shine of perspiration on his face, Mia had to believe that Lt. Alan Francisco was the single most attractive man she had ever seen in her entire twenty-seven years.
His hair was dark blond. Not average, dirty blond, but rather a shiny mixture of light brown with streaks and flashes of gold and even hints of red that gleamed in the light. His nose was big, but not too big for his face, and slightly crooked. His mouth was wide. Mia longed to see him smile. What a smile this man would have, with a generous mouth like that. There were laugh lines at the corners of his mouth and his eyes, but they were taut now with pain and anger.
“I was wounded,” he said brusquely. “During a military op.”
He had been drinking. He was close enough for Mia to smell whiskey on his breath. She moved back a step. “Military…op?”
“Operation,” he said.
“That must have been…awful,” she said. “But…I wasn’t aware that the United States has been involved in any naval battles recently. I mean, someone like, oh, say…the President would let us all know if we were at war, wouldn’t he?”
“I was wounded during a search-and-rescue counterterrorist operation in downtown Baghdad,” Francisco said.
“Isn’t Baghdad a little bit inland for a sailor?”
“I’m a Navy SEAL,” he said. Then his lips twisted into a grim version of a smile. “Was a Navy SEAL,” he corrected himself.
Frisco realized that she didn’t know what he meant. She was looking up at him with puzzlement in her odd-colored eyes. They were a light shade of brown and green—hazel, he thought it was called—with a dark brown ring encircling the edges of her irises. Her eyes had a slightly exotic tilt to them, as if somewhere, perhaps back in her grandparents’ generation, there was Asian or Polynesian blood. Hawaiian. That was it. She looked faintly Hawaiian. Her cheekbones were wide and high, adding to the exotic effect. Her nose was small and delicate, as were her graceful-looking lips. Her skin was smooth and clear and a delicious shade of tan. Her long, straight black hair was up in a ponytail, a light fringe of bangs softening her face. Her hair was so long, that if she wore it down, it would hang all the way to her hips.
His next-door neighbor was strikingly beautiful.
She was nearly an entire twelve inches shorter than he was, with a slender build. She was wearing a loose-fitting T-shirt and a pair of baggy shorts. Her shapely legs were that same light shade of brown and her feet were bare. Her figure was slight, almost boyish. Almost. Her breasts may have been small, but they swelled slightly beneath the cotton of her shirt in a way that was decidedly feminine.
At first glance, from the way she dressed and from her clean, fresh beauty, Frisco had thought she was a kid, a teenager. But up close, he could see faint lines of life on her face, along with a confidence and wisdom that no mere teenager could possibly exude. Despite her youthful appearance, this Mia Summerton was probably closer to his own age.
“Navy SEALs,” he explained, still gazing into her remarkable hazel eyes, “are the U.S. military’s most elite special operations group. We operate on sea, in the air and on land. SEa, Air, Land. SEAL.”
“I get it,” she said, with a smile. “Very cute.”
Her smile was crooked and made her look just a little bit goofy. Surely she knew that her smile marred her perfect beauty, but that didn’t keep her from smiling. In fact, Frisco was willing to bet that, goofy or not, a smile was this woman’s default expression. Still, her smile was uncertain, as if she wasn’t quite sure he deserved to be smiled at. She was ill at ease—whether that was caused by his injury or his imposing height, he didn’t know. She was wary of him, however.
“‘Cute’ isn’t a word used often to describe a special operations unit.”
“Special operations,” Mia repeated. “Is that kind of like the Green Berets or the Commandos?”
“Kind of,” Frisco told her, watching her eyes as he spoke. “Only, smarter and stronger and tougher. SEALs are qualified experts in a number of fields. We’re all sharpshooters, we’re all demolitions experts—both underwater and on land—we can fly or drive or sail any jet or plane or tank or boat. We all have expert status in using the latest military technology.”
“It sounds to me as if you’re an expert at making war.” Mia’s goofy smile had faded, taking with it much of the warmth in her eyes. “A professional soldier.”
