Her One and Only Hero

by Sharon Hartley

  “I’m sorry, Fran.”

  “I know I should have been stronger, but I was not. I got tired of fighting them.”

  “Shhh,” he murmured. “It’s okay.”

  “After Bella was born, I retreated into a world of beauty and art,” she said, needing to get all of her painful truth out. “I thought I was happy in that world, but perhaps I ignored Bella. Paolo bought a villa in the country and met his lovers there. But then he fell in love, and that man did not like our arrangement. How could I fault either of them?”

  After a moment or two of safety in Dale’s protective arms, she became aware of the sun beating down on her shoulders, of a salty, fecund odor blowing off the wild land around them, of the steady beating of his heart beneath her cheek.

  Why did she feel as if she had come home? She was thousands and thousands of miles away from her home in the middle of a wilderness. And her daughter was lost.

  Dale made soothing noises as he stroked her head. She longed to remain in his embrace forever, but she could not. Her weakness, her preference to hide from the harsh realities of life had driven Bella away. To find her daughter, she needed to regain the spirit that Dale remembered.

  Fran stepped away. “We are wasting time that we do not have,” she said. “That Bella does not have.”

  Dale cupped her cheeks and looked into her face. “Are you okay?”

  She stared into his eyes, Bella’s eyes. “I will be okay when we find Bella.”

  Looking uncertain, he stroked her cheeks with his thumbs.

  “I am all right.” She managed a smile. “Perhaps a trifle exhausted from that outburst.”

  He nodded, although he still appeared worried. “Let’s use the facilities while we’re here.”

  “Good idea,” she murmured, looking away from the sympathy she read in his face. Now he felt sorry for her. Perhaps it was better when he hated her. She did not want his pity. She wanted his help.

  Oh, yes, and his love. But that could never be. His life, his work was here in America. Her work, the independence which she had fought to achieve for so long, was in Italy. She was nothing without her work. She was nothing without Bella.

  As they moved side by side toward the picnic tables and a concrete bathroom, he reached for her hand and interlocked their fingers, his gaze focused straight ahead. He didn’t speak.

  She had never stopped loving Dale. Even after that sad excuse for a wedding, she had prayed he would show up on her doorstep to rescue her and Bella from the pathetic life arranged for them. For years she held on to that dream. Oh, and how she grew to hate him when he did not come for them.

  Love and hate were good emotions, strong emotions, closely related. These were the feelings she displayed in her work. They created interest, excitement in the viewer.

  Pity did not. Pity was weak, useless. Bella had no time for weakness.

  * * *

  “ARE YOU HUNGRY?” Dale asked Fran.

  She’d remained subdued as they drove the rest of the way across the Everglades. Although he hadn’t had much to say either. His thoughts had tumbled as he went over and over her story, digesting what a bad hand Francesca had been dealt.

  But they’d reached the west coast of Florida. They were back to civilization and services like food and gas. Signage indicated four different fast-food restaurants at the next exit.

  “No,” she said. “I could not eat.”

  “Let me know if you want to get something,” he said.

  “If you are hungry, we can stop.”

  “I’m fine. I’ll stop if I need to.”

  God, they were being polite with each other now. The revelations had rubbed her raw, and he felt like crap for the harsh things he’d said to her when she’d first arrived. Yeah, his heart may have been shattered into a million pieces, but he’d gone to war and started a new life. She didn’t have that opportunity because she’d been carrying his child.

  How did Fran feel now that she’d revealed the real reason for her marriage? Telling him must have been hard. He wished she’d been honest with him from the get-go, but the whole nightmare was such a shock he might not have believed her.

  He believed her now. His gut told him her story had been the truth.

  “How much farther to Tampa?” she asked.

  “Two to three hours. Depends on traffic.”

  She nodded. “Will we make it before the FBI offices close?”

  “It’ll be tight. Javi is reaching out to a colleague. Someone might meet us after hours.”

  “I am surprised by how cooperative the FBI has been,” she said. “They were not that way with me in New York until the Italian state department intervened and brought pressure on my behalf.”

  “I’m a fellow law enforcement officer looking for his lost kid. That warrants another level of attention.”

  “I see.”

  “Plus, I’ve worked with Javi before.” And hope to again, but may have screwed that plan.

  She lapsed into silence. Dale searched for a safe topic, one not fraught with emotion. They needed to talk about something normal, but what the hell was normal for them these days?

  “Mio Dio,” Fran murmured. “Taco Jack.”

  “What?” Dale asked. He shot her a glance. She was staring out the side window.

  “There’s a Taco Jack at the next exit.”

  “Do you want to grab a taco?”

  She shook her head. “I had forgotten all about Taco Jack.”

  “I’m sure there’s one or two in Rome.”

  She turned in the seat to face him and smiled. “We used to eat there every day on our lunch break from class.”

  “That’s right. I remember we’d walk across Sunset Drive. We had to hurry to make it back on time, but, man, you loved their bean burritos.”

  “They were so good,” she said. “You preferred the hamburger place, but always gave in and went with me to Taco Jack’s.”

  “You had your ways,” Dale said, remembering days when he wanted to spend every second of his life with Frannie. Time away from her had been torture. Maybe because he’d known she had to go back to Italy at the end of the school year.

  “I’d have done anything you asked me to do.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “You were sweet.”

  Sweet? Dale shook his head. I was putty in your hands.

  “My parents disapproved of fast food,” Fran said. “That’s probably why I liked it so much.”

  “That settles it.” Dale put on his blinker and moved into the exit lane. He hadn’t seen Fran this animated since their reunion. If a bean burrito would keep that smile in place, he’d buy her a dozen. Make that two dozen.

  “Settles what?” she asked.

  “Now I have to have a spicy chicken taco.”

  “Do we have time?”

  “We’ll use the drive-through.”

  “The drive-through! Mio Dio, I had forgotten about those, too.”

  “Are you telling me they don’t have drive-throughs in Rome?” he asked in mock horror.

  She laughed, the sound filling the interior of the vehicle, filling him with emotions he couldn’t name. He hadn’t heard that carefree laugh in thirteen years. Her giggles used to delight him, that silly sound one of the things he’d missed about her the most.

  “Maybe Rome has drive-throughs, but I do not use them. I seldom drive.”

  “Public transportation is great,” Dale said.

  “I suppose.”

  She didn’t elaborate, making Dale frown. But she leaned forward as he drove into the parking lot of Taco Jack’s, excited about visiting her old hangout again. The logo on the signage appeared exactly the same: a Chihuahua holding a taco instead of a bone in his grinning mouth.

  Dale stopped next to the speaker and turned to Fran. Her eyes dancing, she bent low to study
the huge menu out the driver window.

  “How many?” he asked.

  “Two.” She bit her bottom lip. “Do they still have those little packets of hot sauce?”

  “I’m sure they do.”

  “A couple of extra of those, please. And a diet soda.”

  “A diet soda?” He glared at her. “You could use a few extra calories.”

  “But I want the full experience,” she protested. “Exactly as it was.”

  Yeah, and she hadn’t needed to lose weight in high school either. But he said, “You got it, babe,” and placed their order.

  In less than five minutes, with the fragrance of chili pepper and onions floating through the vehicle, they were back on I-75 driving toward Tampa. Dale sucked on his icy cola. Watching Fran eat had been an erotic experience in high school, but he’d only be able to steal the occasional glance unless he wanted to crash his SUV.

  She partially unwrapped his taco for him and handed it to him—just like she’d done in high school when they ate on the move. Which was often. They’d always had somewhere to go, something fun planned. Hell, being with Fran made everything they did fun.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Non e niente, amore mio.”

  Dale froze. Amore mio. She’d called him her love.

  He released a breath. She didn’t mean anything by that endearment. That’s just what she’d always said in the past. Fran was merely recreating her full Taco Jack experience.

  A quick glance her way confirmed his assumption. Fran had unwrapped one of her bean burritos and studied the food as if it were a laboratory experiment.

  “How strange,” she murmured.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It smells the same.”

  “Shouldn’t it?”

  “I guess, but it’s so weird. Suddenly I’m seventeen years old again.”

  He nodded. “I read an article once about how our sense of smell is hotwired directly to the brain. Nothing can evoke a memory better than a familiar fragrance.”

  In his peripheral vision, he saw Fran take her first bite. She made an approving noise, added some more hot sauce, and quickly demolished the first burrito.

  “Mio Dio,” she muttered, fanning her mouth with her hand.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I forgot how spicy their hot sauce is.” She grabbed her own drink and took a long sip through the straw.

  Dale grinned and took a bite out of his taco. He’d quit frequenting Taco Jack a long time ago. Was it the memories or the greasy nature of the food? Hardly the best Mexican fast food in his opinion. But whatever Fran wants, Fran gets.

  “Do you know what happened to Jody Idyll?” Fran asked.

  “Jody Idyll?”

  “She was the daughter of the family I lived with as an exchange student. She was younger than us.”

  “Oh, right. The Idylls.” He finished his taco and placed the wrapper in the console.

  “I meant to stay in touch, but—” Fran shrugged. “Things changed.”

  “I talked to Mrs. Idyll when you disappeared,” Dale said. “She told me they hadn’t heard from you.”

  “So you don’t know how they are?”

  “Sorry. After I got back from Iraq, I didn’t get back in touch with any of the old crowd.” Forgetting high school had been the point of going to war.

  “You were in Iraq?”

  Fran sounded surprised. No, shocked.

  “Two tours. I enlisted in the army.”

  “The army? But you had planned to go to the community college—what was the name? Miami-Dade?”

  “After I got back, I got a degree attending class part-time.”

  “But why did you join the army?” she asked. “I never heard you talk about a military career, or a career in law enforcement for that matter.”

  “Things changed,” Dale said, mimicking her earlier statement.

  “What do you mean?” She turned in the seat to face him.

  Dale shrugged. There’d been a time—what? Two days ago—that he’d have gladly rubbed Fran’s nose in the fact that she’d broken his heart so badly that he hadn’t given a damn whether he lived or died. He’d been lucky—especially on his first tour—not to wind up dead. A lot of buddies hadn’t been so lucky, which had sparked his desire to stop terrorism.

  But he’d made it home alive and found a life he loved.

  She’d been punished enough for their mistakes. And the fact that they’d created a child was as much his fault as hers. Maybe more.

  “Mio Dio,” she murmured. “You joined the army—you went to war to forget me?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  FRAN BLINKED. FIVE years ago, when she finally found the courage to look for Dale on the internet, she had not researched what he had been doing all those years. She only wanted to know what his life was like right now. She wanted to know if he was married. If Bella had any brothers or sisters.

  The search had not been easy. Because he was a police officer, not a lot of his information existed in cyberspace. When she hired someone to help her, she’d been shocked to learn that Dale had gone into law enforcement. She didn’t know what she thought he should be doing, but definitely not chasing after criminals.

  And the army? A soldier? She pictured the videos she’d seen of soldiers with huge backpacks tromping through the desert in sweat-stained camouflage uniforms cradling wicked-looking weapons in their arms.

  She shook her head. Hard to imagine her sweet Dale shooting a gun at his enemy.

  “You could have been killed,” she said.

  “Almost was a few times.”

  She lapsed into silence and sipped her soda. Yes, her life had been miserable after they had parted, but the fates had also treated Dale badly. He went to war. He could have died because of her.

  “I am glad you were spared,” she said.

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Was it bad?” she asked. “I mean, your time in Iraq.”

  “It wasn’t exactly a party. When my squad got hit by an improvised bomb, I realized I didn’t want to die after all. That was when I took the training to become an MP.”

  “What is that?

  “Military police. At the time, it seemed safer.”

  “That explains why you became a police officer when you got home.”

  He laughed. “Hell of a way to find a career, huh?”

  “Do you like being a police officer?”

  “Very much.” Dale remained quiet for a moment and then said, “I lost a lot of friends during that IED attack, good men and women. Because of that, I want to stop random acts of terror that kill people who have done nothing wrong.”

  She reached out and squeezed his hand.

  “I like the idea of providing order to the world,” he added. “Civilization needs rules, and if everyone follows them, life flows a lot smoother.”

  “I used to hate rules,” Fran said. “I broke them whenever possible.”

  “Those aren’t the kind of rules I’m talking about. You didn’t rob a bank. You skipped school, you missed curfew. Your actions never hurt anybody.”

  “Only myself.” She sighed. “And you.”

  “Oh,” Dale said. “Those rules.”

  He grinned at her, and she couldn’t help but smile.

  “Some rules are meant to be broken,” he said.

  “But look at the misery we caused.”

  “We were kids, Fran. And we were in love. Or at least I was.”

  “So was I. You know I was.”

  He released a sigh. “But that was all a long time ago.”

  “I try not to break rules anymore,” she said. “You are right. Life flows much smoother.”

  After a moment he asked, “You going to eat your second burrito?”

  She sw
iveled her head to gaze at him. This was part of their Taco Jack routine. She had forgotten, but Dale had not.

  “No,” she said. “I am full.”

  “Be a shame for that food to go to waste. You know what my mother says.”

  “That there are children starving in China.” Fran peeled the wrapper halfway for him and handed over the still-warm burrito.

  He took a huge bite. “Thanks.”

  “How is your mother? She was always so nice to me.”

  “My mom is now a doting grandmother,” Dale said. “My sister Ruth had a son last year and Mom spoils him to death.”

  “How nice for Ruth.” Fran tried, but wasn’t able to keep all the bitterness out of her tone.

  He sucked in an audible breath. “That was thoughtless. I didn’t mean to—”

  She held up a hand. “It’s okay.”

  “I take it your mother didn’t dote on Bella.”

  “No.”

  “I thought you told me Bella loved her grandparents.”

  “Bella loved my father and was crushed by his death. She and my mother tolerate each other.” Fran closed her eyes. “I should have seen it sooner. The way my mother behaved toward Bella probably added to her sense that something was not quite right in our family.”

  “Surely your mother wasn’t mean to Bella.”

  “Distant. Cold. But honestly, my mother is that way with everyone.”

  “She sounds like a lovely lady.”

  “I think every time she looked at Bella, she was reminded of my shame.”

  “Your shame? Jeez, Fran. Come on. What kind of medieval nonsense is that?”

  “Perhaps my mother would have been more comfortable in the Middle Ages. I can visualize her plotting to overthrow a king.”

  “Does she know about Bella’s disappearance?”

  Fran nodded, remembering the conversation, the last time she had spoken to her mother. “Her reaction was typical, all about how Bella’s behavior would reflect negatively upon her if it became public knowledge that her granddaughter had run away.”

  Dale shook his head. “Damn.”

  Yeah, damn. Fran sighed. “I have no intentions of ever speaking to my mother again.”