Ex Marks the Spot (Harlequin Next)

by Merline Lovelace

  THAT WAS THE IMAGE Dave took into the shower with him: his wife with her head back and her throat arched.

  Ex-wife, he corrected, his belly clenching.

  It still hit him like that every time he thought of the divorce. Andi was the one who’d insisted they legalize the separation. Dave would’ve hung in there, toughed it out until they’d come up with a workable compromise. Problem was, they were never in the same place at the same time long enough to hammer one out. So he’d packed his hurt along with his bruised pride, accepted another overseas assignment and left Andi to find someone new.

  She’d had four years to accomplish that.

  Four friggin’ years.

  She almost found him. The news she was engaged had hit Dave like a runaway Abrams tank. He’d sucked it up, told himself that Andi deserved days filled with happiness, hoped she’d found it with this guy. He’d even sent her an e-mail spouting some drivel like that.

  He hadn’t meant a word of it. Every pound of the keyboard had torqued his jaw tighter and tighter. He would rather have used pliers to tear off his own fingernails one by one than type that damned e-mail. He never heard why the engagement fizzled, and didn’t care. All that mattered was Andi was here, back in his life.

  “No more e-mails, Andrea Joyce. You’re on my turf now.”

  FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS Andi made it a point to take her walks later in morning, when she was sure Dave would have already left for work.

  She’d enjoyed those quiet moments with him more than she should have. For that brief interval they’d put the old hurts aside. She didn’t want to risk new ones, however. Not with everything else she had to sort through right now.

  The first critical sorting came with her doctor’s appointment the following Thursday. She’d done her blood work the day before. Now she faced the verdict as delivered by the cardiologist. Her appointment was at fifteen-twenty.

  She’d written 3:20 p.m. on her calendar in an effort to force herself to think civilian, but driving across the Navarre Bridge and through the front gates of Hurlburt Field plunged her right back into the military.

  Security-force personnel bristling with SAWs and sidearms guarded the front gate. Troops in desert BDUs hurried about their business. Low-flying C-130 gunships buzzed in for landing on the runway that bisected the base.

  Once an auxiliary field to sprawling Eglin Air Force Base just twelve miles away, Hurlburt had always been considered a sort of stepchild. The base had come into its own with the emergence of Special Ops as a major arm of force employment. Modern buildings had replaced the old clapboard structures. New facilities had sprung up everywhere. HQ, USAF Special Operations Command occupied a gleaming steel-and-glass high-rise.

  The runway was now crowded with Pavehawk and Pavelow helicopters and every configuration of the workhorse of the Air Force—the fixed-wing four-engine C-130 Hercules. As Andi circled the end of the runway and headed for the east side of the base, another heavily armed gunship lifted off and seemed to skim right over her head.

  With a regional hospital so close by at Eglin, Hurlburt was served by a walk-in clinic staffed with medical personnel trained to go into the field with the combat-hardened troops they served. Active-duty military received first priority. Their families, although vital, had to come second. Retirees ranked third on the list and often received care on a space-available basis only.

  Still struggling to get used to her new status, Andi had prepared herself for a long wait. The clinic’s prompt efficiency was a pleasant surprise. A corpsman in sharp-creased BDUs called her for her appointment right on time.

  “We haven’t had a cardiologist on staff for almost a year,” he told Andi as he escorted her down a tiled hall smelling of antiseptic and pine cleaner. “We’re lucky Dr. Ramirez just rotated back from Korea. If you’ll have a seat on the exam table, Colonel, I’ll take your vitals.”

  After recording the results on a chart, he left her to swing her legs and wait for the doc. Ramirez entered a few moments later, carrying a thick file. Her subdued rank insignia identified her as a lieutenant colonel. The wreathed star on her flight surgeon’s wings indicated she’d racked up a good number of years’ experience in the highly specialized field of aviation medicine.

  “Hello, Colonel Armstrong. I’m Dr. Ramirez. I know your husband. Excuse me—former husband.”

  Andi smiled and shrugged aside the small awkwardness. Special Ops was a relatively small community. She’d often bumped into friends or associates of Dave’s. Some knew they were divorced, some didn’t.

  “How have you been feeling?”

  “Pretty darn good, actually.”

  “No dizziness? Shortness of breath? Pain in your chest cavity?”

  “No. Well, once. I felt a small ache after I finished unpacking my household goods.”

  “Mmm.” All business now, Ramirez placed the file on the exam room’s counter. “Your physician at the Pentagon faxed me your history. I’ve reviewed your EKGs, nuclear treadmill tests, echocardiograms and MRIs. I’ve also studied the results of your latest blood test. Let me listen to your heart, then we’ll talk.”

  The stethoscope was cool against Andi’s skin, the flight surgeon thorough. She listened intently for long moments before hooking the instrument around her neck again.

  “Your heartbeat sounds good. Very strong and steady.”

  Andi sagged with relief. The docs had warned her the infection she’d picked up could cause an irregular heartbeat. Arrhythmia often caused the heart to pump so fast or so erratically that the chambers didn’t have time to fill. That, in turn, meant insufficient blood pumped to the brain and other organs.

  Arrhythmia could be lethal, especially among athletes and others who regularly stressed their bodies to the max. Just last year Maggie Dixon, the twenty-eight-year-old coach of the Army women’s basketball team, had collapsed and died during a game.

  The military had long recognized the impact of strenuous physical training and combat-related stress on the heart, but advances in electronic record keeping were expanding that knowledge by exponential degrees. Along with almost three hundred thousand other military troops, Andi had participated in the groundbreaking and still ongoing Postdeployment Medical Assessment. She and other military personnel who’d served overseas had been screened for everything from syphilis to post-traumatic stress disorder.

  It was during this postdeployment screening that Andi learned she’d brought an unwanted, unwelcome bug home with her. She was only one of hundreds of American troops now having to deal with the sand-borne bacterium.

  “Your strong, steady heartbeat is the good news,” Dr. Ramirez warned, her dark eyes grave. “The not-so-good news is that your blood work still shows traces of acinetobacter baumannii.”

  “That little sucker is proving to be one tough bastard.”

  “Yes, it is. I’ve consulted with specialists at Bethesda. I want to try you on a different mix of antibiotics. I’ll also schedule you for another MRI. In the meantime, try not to overstress.”

  “What’s to stress, Doc? I’m retired.”

  “I suspect you didn’t make colonel by taking life easy,” the flight surgeon said dryly. “You may have to work at it.”

  “Trust me, I am. I don’t plan anything more strenuous than walks on the beach and catching up on my reading.”

  That was her intent, anyway.

  By the end of her third week in Florida, Andi had discovered that she was constitutionally incapable of a life of ease.

  CHAPTER 4

  “I’m going nutso, Sue Ellen.”

  Grumbling, Andi propped her bottle of iced green tea on her middle and shifted in her lounger. This was the third weekend she and S.E. had lugged chairs, umbrella and a cooler down to the beach. The first had been wonderful, all dazzling sunshine and sparkling waves. The second had drifted by at the same lazy pace. By the third, the novelty was fast wearing off.

  “I’ve read every new release in the library and practically cleaned out that
dingy little bookstore in Navarre. I’ve got to find something to do with my time.”

  Sighing, Sue Ellen pushed up the brim of her floppy hat. The diamond in her belly button shot off a zillion colorful sparks as she angled toward her friend. She and Andi had had this discussion several times. Each time, the options narrowed a little more.

  “We’ve talked about this. Volunteer work at the hospital is out. You can’t risk working around patients and picking up another form of infection.”

  “Ditto volunteering just about everywhere else. You and I and the docs know I’m not contagious, but I wouldn’t blame employers for getting a tad nervous when I tell them I’m on antibiotics.”

  “Nothing says you have to tell them. As you point out, you’re not infectious.”

  “Still, there are things like medical insurance and liability to consider. I wouldn’t want someone working for me who neglected to mention a small thing like ‘the curse.’”

  That’s what they’d taken to calling the persistent little bug. The curse. Andi had other names for it, but none she could repeat in public.

  “What about your idea for an Internet-based bookstore?” Sue Ellen asked.

  S.E. knew she wouldn’t be able to rein her friend in much longer. She’d used up almost all her wheedling and cajoling skills to sit on the woman for this long. Of all the schemes Andi had come up with as an outlet for her restless energy, Sue Ellen figured running an Internet-based business from a beach home might be the least stressful.

  “Have you given that any more thought?”

  “Matter of fact, I’ve done more than just think about it.”

  Sue Ellen slid her sunglasses to the tip of her nose. “Is that so?”

  “I’ve been researching what it would take to establish an account with several major book distributors. I’ve also analyzed the profitability of selling via the Internet, with its associated shipping costs, versus in-store sales.”

  “In-store? You mean like a bookshop?”

  “Right. I could reach a much larger customer base through the Internet, but the profit margin is greater with in-store sales. Plus, a shop would get me out of the house.”

  Sue Ellen didn’t like the sound of this. She suspected Dave Armstrong would like it even less. Before he’d departed for his deployment, the colonel had issued strict orders to his reluctant coconspirator: S.E. was to keep Andi relaxed and stress free until his return. Frowning, she peered at her friend over the rims of her sunglasses.

  “You’re not thinking of opening an actual store, are you?”

  “Well…”

  “You don’t know how long you’ll remain on the retired list, Andi. Why would you want to invest time, energy and money in a business you might have to abandon?”

  “Because I don’t know how long I’ll remain on the list. It could be a year. It could be forever. I can’t just sit here and twiddle my thumbs.”

  “But a shop,” Sue Ellen protested. “You’d have to deal with employees and set hours and cranky customers. You don’t need that kind of hassle.”

  “It doesn’t have to be a hassle.”

  Dislodging the bottle of green tea, Andi wiggled upright in her beach chair. The ideas that had been swirling around in her head for the past week spilled out, taking shape and color as she spoke.

  “I’d take a short-term lease and apply for a small-business loan instead of investing my own savings. It would be a small store selling the latest bestsellers, with an associated online order business. Customers could walk in and browse the shelves. If they didn’t find what they wanted, they could sit down at a computer terminal, place an order right then and there and have the books shipped directly to their home.”

  “Combining the best of both worlds,” Sue Ellen murmured. “The pleasure of leafing through bookshelves and the instant gratification of ordering exactly what you want online.”

  “Precisely! I’ve checked into bar-code-scanning equipment and software. With minor modifications, I could use the same software for ordering and controlling inventory.”

  “Good grief! You really have been thinking about this.”

  “I have. And the more I think, the more excited I get.”

  “I just can’t see you stuck behind a counter all day, every day.”

  “It wouldn’t be every day. I’d hire someone to work it for me. As a matter of fact, I’ve already got an employee lined up.”

  “Who?”

  “The woman who works in that bookstore in Navarre. She wants out of there in the worst way.”

  “But—but…you’d have to obtain business permits and a sales tax permit and liability insurance and God knows what else.”

  “Figuring all that out will be half the fun.”

  “You say that now. You might feel differently six months from now.”

  “I might. Then again, I might be having the time of my life.”

  Andi could see from the expression on Sue Ellen’s face that her friend was fast running out of arguments. In desperation, S.E. pulled out one more.

  “What about the stress?”

  “Come on, S.E. What stress? Compared to the job I just left at the Pentagon, the book business will be a piece of cake.”

  “You think?”

  “I know.” Lifting her hand, Andi ticked off her rationale finger by finger. “First, my decisions won’t impact thousands of troops worldwide. Only me and maybe a part-time helper. Second, I’ll be my own boss for the first time in my life. I can set my own hours, work as little or as long as I want. Third, I can diddly-bop into work wearing jeans or shorts or whatever instead of Class A’s or BDUs. Best of all,” she concluded with a grin, “I’ll be up to my ears in books. Talk about a chocoholic turned loose in a candy store.”

  Sue Ellen chewed on her lower lip. “Sounds like you’ve made up your mind.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Have you talked to Dave about this?”

  That threw Andi a curveball. Blinking, she tossed it right back. “Why would I?”

  “I just thought since the two of you are on speaking terms again, you might, you know…discuss things.”

  “I’ve seen Dave exactly three times since I arrived in Florida. That first night, the next morning here on the beach and when he was loading his gear into the trunk of his car to leave for a joint exercise.”

  Andi refused to admit she missed him. Although they’d crossed paths only a few times, knowing he lived right next door gave her a crazy sense of security.

  Nor could she admit she’d lain awake a few nights thinking about the hard, hot press of his mouth on hers. Sue Ellen would pounce on that like a rat on a chunk of cheddar.

  “This is my decision. When and if I see any reason to tell Dave, I will.”

  Squirming, her friend slid her glasses back up and took refuge behind them. Andi plucked them off her nose.

  “Don’t make me hurt you, girl. Promise you’ll keep this between us.”

  “Okay, okay. Just be prepared for some heavy-duty explaining when Dave finds out. He’s not going to be happy.”

  “So he’s not happy.” Exasperated, Andi pushed out of her beach chair. “Last I heard, Dave Armstrong and I were divorced.”

  “In your mind, maybe,” Sue Ellen muttered under her breath as she rose and gathered her things.

  ANDI TRIED TO PACE herself over the next few weeks. She honestly tried.

  She took her time devising a strategic plan with an associated checklist of items to be accomplished. When she finished, the plan filled a three-ring binder and included detailed spreadsheets, timelines and color-coded tabs for each phase of activity.

  Phase one involved investigating start-up costs for the type of business she had in mind. Andi soon had a working estimate that included shop rental, utilities and purchase of her initial inventory. Her next step was to contact various banks to inquire about possible loans. The low interest rates for female-owned small businesses made a loan a very attractive alternative to sinking her own
savings into the shop.

  Phase two called for her to research the population base in her proposed Area of Operations. Since the AO incorporated the fifty-mile stretch between Pensacola and Fort Walton Beach, Andi visited a half dozen chambers of commerce. Those helpful agencies provided a wealth of data, as did the retail merchants’ associations. Andi then hit the Public Affairs folks at Eglin Air Force Base, Hurlburt Field, Pensacola Naval Air Station and nearby Whiting Field for a detailed breakdown on the ratio of military to civilian.

  By the time she moved into phase three, Operation Bookstore had taken on a life of its own. Caught up in the fun and wealth of data she was amassing, Andi scoped out the local booksellers. The town of Mary Esther, adjacent to Hurlburt Field, had a small Borders Express and several used bookstores, but the closest major chain was more than thirty miles away, in Sandestin. Confident she could attract a customer base, she plunged into phase four.

  As August rolled into September, she investigated what she would need in terms of business permits and tax ID numbers. That done, she checked out every strip mall in her AO.

  She didn’t intend to commit to a shop. Not for some time yet. But she found the perfect location less than five miles from her rented house, right there in Gulf Springs. A scuba-and-dive operation was moving to a larger facility and would vacate its present premises at the end of the week.

  “I’ve had several inquiries about this property,” the leasing agent told her as they strolled down aisles of tanks, fins and snorkel masks. “It won’t remain vacant for long.”

  Andi knew a sales pitch when she heard one, but her gut told her the man was right. Gulf Springs occupied the westernmost tip of Santa Rosa Island, just across the Inland Waterway from Hurlburt, and had retained its small-town feel despite developers’ efforts to turn it into the next hot vacation spot. Condos were springing up like sea oats along the beach east of town, along with restaurants and touristy souvenir shops.

  The dive shop sat amid a cluster of oceanfront businesses. Two restaurants and several beach-type shops drew the vacation crowd. The deli, drugstore and busy video rental pulled in the locals.