“You know I had—had an accident. Head trauma. I was in a coma for a while. The reason I lost my sight is that I have a micro-hematoma pressing down on the main optic nerve. A hematoma is a swelling—”
“I know what a hematoma is. Go on.”
“Okay.” She drew in a deep breath. This is the part that was so scary to tell because it was so tenuous. Based on hope and prayers. “The hematoma is stable. It’s not growing but by the same token it’s not getting smaller. The CAT scan taken when I was first hospitalized shows the exact same shape and size as the last CAT scan I had about three weeks ago. So there’s good news and bad news and bad news. The good news is that it isn’t life-threatening. I could live forever with this—this thing in my head.” Allegra tried to keep the loathing out of her voice, tried to make this a mere medical report—there’s a clot of blood pressing down on the nerves I need to be able to see, but hey, no big deal, I’m not going to die from that—when what she wanted to do was scream. “The bad news is that it isn’t going down, either. I will be—be blind for as long as the clot is in there. The other bad news is that the clot is in an almost inaccessible place in terms of surgical removal. The doctors have explained it all to me in technical terms I can’t possibly repeat, but the gist is that to get to where it is, they’d have to cut through so much tissue I’d essentially end up a vegetable with excellent eyesight.”
Douglas’ hand tightened so much it almost crushed hers.
“But? There’s a ‘but’ in there somewhere, I can tell.”
“Yes, there is. There’s a surgical technique. It’s, ah, experi—” she stopped. “It’s—it’s new,” she faltered. “But they think they can get close enough to the swelling itself surgically to use a new instrument that eliminates only special types of tissues. Blood clots are one. The doctors snowed me with science, but essentially it’s a new type of focused microwave beam that will burn the hematoma without affecting the tissue the beam goes through. And then—voilà!” she finished brightly. “Goodbye blood clot and I can—” Her voice shook and she swallowed convulsively, though there was no moisture whatsoever in her mouth. “I can see again.”
Please, please, God.
Every time Allegra thought about recovering her sight, she trembled. It was such a huge, scary idea. She wanted it so much she sometimes thought her head would explode from the force of it. The yearning ate into her until it hollowed her out, leaving her a thin shell surrounding an empty hole of want.
Tears sprang to her eyes and she shifted her face away from him. From where she thought he was. A blind person could never hide, wasn’t ever granted the dignity of sighted people who could turn away, run away. She felt stripped of everything, all her emotions raw and on display.
Her fear, her wild hopes, her vulnerability—all were right out there, for Douglas to see.
“They’re going to nuke your brain?” There was incredulity and disapproval in his voice. It got her dander up.
“Microwaves are used in medicine. So is radiation. When controlled, they can be beneficial.”
“Uh-huh.” The chair scraped as he moved even closer to her. “So just how new is this operation? How many people have had it?”
Allegra was silent.
“Honey?” A large, heavy hand cupped her shoulder. “How new is it?”
“New. I told you that.” She shrugged his hand away.
“Okay, it’s new. So…how many people have had this operation?”
Allegra turned her head away from him and bit her lips closed. Silence. Total, complete silence, except for the sound of her own breathing. She couldn’t hear him breathe. But she could hear him think.
“O-kay. I’m going to take a wild guess here. I’ll just run a little scenario by you and if I’m wrong, you tell me where I’m wrong. How does that sound?”
Allegra shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t want to be having this conversation. There was absolutely nothing he could do or say that would make her change her mind.
“What I’m guessing right now is that this operation you’re talking about isn’t just new, it’s still in the experimental stage. Now, I’m not a doctor, but I’ve had training as a medic and medicine interests me. We get serious injuries in the Teams and I always follow what’s happened to my men after they’ve been wounded. We get pretty good medical care, some of the best available. I think I know a lot about leading-edge medical treatment, but I’ve never heard of a microwave beam that can target specific tissue and spare intermediate tissue. So what I’m thinking is that they’ve done some animal studies and they’re trolling for human volunteers. Which, as you know, is insane for elective surgery.”
Allegra closed her eyes and bowed her head.
His voice was steady, even, reasonable. “You know that, don’t you, honey? You don’t have a life-threatening disease—”
“Not true!” she said suddenly. “This is life-threatening! I don’t have a life anymore, not in any sense of the word! I might as well be dead!”
“No, that’s where you’re wrong.” He took both her hands in his and continued in that slow, deep voice of his. “You have a wonderful life. You’re healthy, you’re incredibly talented, you’re beautiful, you have friends who love you, you have—” He stopped, as if biting back a thought. “You have everything to live for. And in a few years’ time, when they’ve perfected the technique, when it’s routine, then you can think of having the operation.”
Douglas had That Tone in his voice. How many times had she heard it?
Ms. Ennis, I don’t want you to get your hopes up too much. Maybe you should start preparing yourself to live with your condition. And then in a few years’ time, when the technique has been perfected, we can talk again.
She didn’t want to listen to the voice of reason. She knew exactly what she wanted, and it was to see again—now! She wanted that so fiercely that not even the thought of dying under the surgeon’s scalpel put her off.
It was no one’s decision but hers to make. She didn’t want to discuss it and she didn’t want any interference.
“You know what? I’m really hungry now,” she said brightly. “Really, really hungry, and since you don’t want me to cook, I guess that makes you Chef in Chief. A Senior Chief Chef in Chief.” She smiled, her brilliant fake stage smile, the one she could put on at any time of the day or night. Performers learn the trick early and well. “So get cracking, Senior Chief.”
Silence, then an exhalation of air, which in a lesser man would have been a sigh. “Okay. Lunch it is.” She could hear him rising, the freezer door opening. A little swirl of frozen air curled across the room.
“You’ve got an amazing amount of food in here,” he rumbled. “You could keep a SEAL team well-fed for a month with what’s here, and that’s saying a lot. Let’s see,” the sound of plastic containers scraping across the ice, “we have, hmmm, looks like minestrone. And here—wow, one of my favorites—eggplant parmesan. Frozen sourdough bread, apple pie. This is amazing stuff. I hope it tastes as good as it looks. Do you have a secret fairy who sneaks great food in during the night or something?”
Better than a secret fairy. “The Mancinos,” Allegra smiled.
“The what?”
“Claire’s housekeeper’s name is Rosa Mancino and she comes from this huge, wonderful family. For years, I’ve sung at their weddings and funerals and christenings and graduation parties.” Not to mention the wild, women-only divorce party Rosa’s niece had thrown after getting rid of “the bum,” as she’d called her ex. “Since, um, the accident, I’ve had to beat them off with a stick. The women come in turns to clean for me and they always leave cooked food in the freezer. Francesca, Rosa’s sister, is coming in on Monday, as a matter of fact. All the Mancino women are great cooks, I’m really lucky. And the men look after me, too, helping with repairs and things. As soon as the snow stops, a Mancino will come around to shovel my sidewalk, you just wait and see.”
“I’ll shovel your sidewalk and take care of repairs f
or you from now on, you don’t need them,” Douglas said. “Let the Mancino men know I’m around now.”
“Oh. Right.”
Allegra had no idea if she would actually do that. Would she? The Mancino men made her feel safe, one or another stopping by every two or three days to see if she needed something. And she always did. It seemed that when she became blind, her house decided to fall down around her ears. There was always something that needed fixing. Telling the Mancinos to stay away when she didn’t know how long Douglas would be around was crazy.
He was here now. They’d had wonderful sex, and maybe he wanted to stick around for some more. But in the long run—what would such a vital man want with someone like her?
The microwave dinged and two seconds later a bowl was set in front of her. She didn’t need to see to know what it was. It practically announced itself. “Mmm.” She breathed the fragrance in deeply. “Rosa’s minestrone. Heaven. Did you get yourself some?”
“About double what I gave you.” Douglas’ voice sounded amused. “Plus I heated up the eggplant parmesan, maybe I’ll even leave some for you if you ask nicely. By the way, I opened a beer for myself, what will you have to drink?”
“I save alcohol for the evenings. Water is fine, thanks.” Luckily, alcohol wasn’t a temptation. If she were a drinker, if she’d inherited the Ennis drinking gene instead of her mom’s temperate nature, she’d have disappeared into a bottle after the accident and never emerged. A glass of wine in the evening was more than enough. “If you look carefully you’ll find a bowl of tiramisu—the real kind, not the faux-Italian restaurant pap—and some homemade ice cream in there somewhere.”
“Yeah, I went on a little scouting expedition, found those items and more. You’ve got an interesting selection in there. You eat better than anyone I know.”
“The Mancinos are really sweet people.”
“They seem to be. They seem to care for you a lot. They’re going out of their way for you. I’ll bet they’d love to do more than etch a B, L or D into the tops. If you learned to read Braille, I’ll bet they’d take the trouble to get a machine that can punch the contents of the containers on the tops in Braille, so you know what you’re picking to eat for dinner, instead of guessing.”
He’d turned that right around on her. Well, two could play at that game.
Allegra angled her chin upwards. “Were you blowing smoke when you said you’d take me for a walk? Or are you too tired after your run? What’s the weather like outside?”
Another exhalation of breath. A slow drumming of fingernails on the tabletop. Tension she could actually feel.
She was exasperating him. Well, she exasperated a lot of people. Tough. He was a big boy—a really big boy—he could take it.
There was silence again in the kitchen as Douglas’ gears worked in his head.
Suddenly, the skin on her right side felt different. She turned and felt light on her face. It was an unmistakable feeling. “The sun’s come out,” she said.
He finally spoke. “That’s right. The snow has stopped and there’s some sun now. If you want to go for a walk, now would be the time for it. It’ll probably start snowing again in the evening when the temperature drops. Do you have cold-weather clothes? And rubber-soled boots?”
“Yes. To everything. And just because I wore inappropriate footwear last night doesn’t mean I’m a ditz, Senior Chief Kowalski. I’ll have you know—”
“Okay, okay.” Allegra didn’t have to see him to know he had his big hands up, palms out.
The quality of the air around her changed, became dense, and she realized he was standing beside her. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, Allegra held out her hand and was unsurprised to find it resting on his strong forearm.
“I’ll walk you to your room and we’ll get those boots and your cold-weather gear.”
“Whah thank you, Senior Chief,” she said, in her best honeyed Scarlett-O’Hara-in-Tara imitation of a Southern belle. She fluttered both her lashes and an imaginary crinoline skirt. “That’s raht kahnd of you. Ah can tell you’re a gentleman of the old school.”
There was a little snort high above her head, either laughter or exasperation. Either one, it didn’t matter. This was so exciting. She was going to go out for a walk for the first time in what felt like forever.
Chapter Eleven
It had never happened to him before, but Kowalski was no dummy. He recognized it for what it was. He was falling in love with Allegra Ennis. Hell, belay that. He was in love with her already and had been since the instant he heard her sing that first note. It was easy at first to mistake it for lust because his body had been in lust before, many times. His head was only now catching up with what was really going on.
What a joke. Here he’d spent thirty-eight years without any serious emotional involvement, not even close, and now he’d fallen for a woman who had trouble written all over her beautiful face.
What they had here wasn’t exactly a match made in heaven. Any self-respecting dating service would freak at the thought of them together—their files would be cancelled on the spot.
They had exactly zero in common.
Allegra was ten years younger than he was in human years, and about a zillion years younger in SEAL years. He’d seen and done things she couldn’t ever know about without running away screaming.
She was so stunningly beautiful heads turned when she walked by.
Heads turned when he walked by, too, only the other way.
She came from a happy family and had an easy way with people. She had a gift for friendship and her life seemed filled with people who cared about her.
Kowalski had just about the worst family background you can have and still function. His interpersonal skills were negligible. He had colleagues, not friends, with perhaps the solitary exception of Midnight.
On top of it all, gorgeous, talented Allegra Ennis, who had the power to massively fuck with his head, had a stubborn streak a mile wide—and Kowalski was powerless to deal with it.
Kowalski was a brave man. He’d faced death many times. There wasn’t much that scared him, but he was shit-scared now. When she’d put her cute little chin in the air to say that she was contemplating risky, experimental surgery—some Frankenstein operation that had probably only ever been tried on cocker spaniels and rhesus monkeys—he had to use every single ounce of self-control not to scream and shout and forbid her to even think about it.
Unfortunately, he had no right to forbid her to do anything. He would, though. Oh, yes. He’d stick around until she realized she belonged to him, and then he’d have that right.
As if the surgery wasn’t enough, she was flat-out refusing to deal with her blindness, putting her at risk every fucking second of every day.
He thought he would have a heart attack right there in her kitchen when he realized that she cooked with gas. Someone blind, cooking with gas, was a crispy critter in waiting.
So now he had a nice choice of nightmares—imagining her dead under the knife so some scientist could add her data to his statistics for a paper or—even better—burned to a crisp.
He was feeling shaky and stressed when she came out of her room dressed for the cold, looking happy and beautiful and smiling right up at him. He rubbed his chest, where it hurt.
“Well, Senior Chief?” She twirled like a fashion model. “Do I pass muster?”
Oh, yeah. She had on a long, dark green eiderdown coat with a fur-lined hood framing her heart-shaped face, thick gloves, thermal pants and lined, waterproof boots.
She lifted her face to his, slightly off-kilter. He had to say something so she could orient herself, but the words stuck in his throat.
“Douglas?” she frowned, holding her hand out. When her hand touched his arm, it was as if a switch was thrown, releasing him from a spell.
“Yeah, here I am.” She found the source of his voice, so she turned slightly, face still upturned to his, beaming. He tucked a stray red curl back into her
hood, then kissed the tip of her nose. “You look like a gorgeous Eskimo. We ready to roll here?”
“Absolutely. Oh, Douglas, I can’t wait.” She was quivering with excitement. “Is the sun still out?”
He looked out the window at the blue sky. The pale yellow disk of the sun was just beginning its downward journey toward night. There were a few clouds on the horizon, but they wouldn’t gather until after dark. They had several hours of light and decent weather ahead. “Yep. It’s a good day for a walk, but it’ll be chilly. You sure you’ll be warm enough?”
“Yes. God, yes.” She was practically hopping with repressed energy. “Come on, come on, I can’t wait, let’s go.”
Out on the porch, Allegra lifted her face to the sky. Her eyes were closed, delicate nostrils flared to take in the fresh clean scent of snow. She looked so happy it made him happy. He put his right arm around her, wishing he were touching her skin instead of a gazillion duck feathers.
She fingered his parka. “So you had a cold-weather jacket in your truck, too. I’m impressed. You seem to plan for all contingencies. What else do you have in there? Beach balls and suntan lotion? A business suit?”
Well, let’s see. In his SUV he had his MP-5 9 mm submachine gun with six thirty-round magazines, M24 sniper rifle and ammo, M9 pistol with five magazines, body armor with PASGT helmet, two weeks’ worth of MREs, five gallons of water, GPS receiver, night-vision goggles and a laptop hooked up to SATCOM transmitters.
He had a quarter-pound of perfectly illegal C4 in the false bottom of his tool kit. If there was one thing he knew how to do well, it was blow things up. He subscribed to the SEAL philosophy—there were few problems that couldn’t be solved by judicious application of a properly sized, shaped, timed and detonated explosive.
He had an emergency trauma kit, extra-thin leather shooting gloves, cold weather survival gear, mountaineering equipment, his diving suit, scuba tank and fins.
Midnight Angel Page 15