As Kelly sat at her desk, the paperwork in front of her seemed stupid and unimportant.
She rested her head on a pile of files. Yes, that was definitely a far better use for them.
Her phone rang, and she jerked upright. It was her private line. She picked it up apprehensively. “Dad?”
“Uh, no, actually, it’s Tom.”
“Oh, God, what happened? Is my father—”
“Whoa, wait, everything’s okay . . . Jeez, I’m sorry, Kel, it didn’t even occur to me that you’d assume there was some kind of trouble if I called.”
Kelly had been holding her breath but now exhaled in a burst. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. My fault for overreacting.”
It was Tom Paoletti. He’d called her on the phone—but not because her father was ill and needed her. Her pulse began to race for an entirely new reason.
“Actually,” he said with a soft laugh, “now I feel really stupid because this is not an important phone call. I mean, it really could have waited until after you got home. I just wanted to find out . . .”
Time hung for a split second as countless possibilities spun out enticingly around her.
“. . . if I could use your computer to sign on to the Internet,” Tom finished.
“Oh,” Kelly said, as disappointment settled down around her like a damp blanket. He only wanted to use her computer. He didn’t want to take her dancing, to see a movie, to go to dinner. To have wild sex all night long. “Well, sure. Yeah. That’s no problem.”
“I’ll sign on as a guest, use my own account, of course.”
“Of course,” she echoed. “Use it for as long as you like, whenever you like.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I really appreciate it.”
“Actually,” she said, “I’m not sure when I’m going to be home. I’ve got a meeting at six that could run for a while. I can call Mrs. Lerner and see if—”
“Don’t sweat it. I’ll hang with your father for as long as you need me to.”
Kelly closed her eyes. “Thanks.”
There was the slightest of pauses, and then he said, “Well, I won’t keep you. . . .” at the exact same moment that she opened her mouth and said, “You know, Tom, I was wondering . . .”
This was it. She was going to do it. She was going to ask him to have dinner with her. She was going to ask him out on a date.
“Whoops,” he said with a laugh. “Sorry. What’s up?”
Ice. Her entire cardiovascular system was suddenly filled with ice.
“Um, I was wondering if you knew that my computer’s in my bedroom,” she told him. Chicken. God, she was such a chicken. “I figured I better tell you where it is so you don’t have to search the whole house.” She closed her eyes, wincing silently. Not only was she a chicken, but she sounded like an idiot. An idiot chicken. “My room’s on the second floor, west wing. White walls, blue curtains . . .” Big sign on the wall saying IDIOT LIVES HERE.
It was the same bedroom she’d used as a child—a spacious room with a private bath and French doors connecting to a balcony that looked out over the backyard and the pool. From her second-floor vantage point, she’d been able to see Tom wherever he was working in the yard. Between the balcony and her tree house, she’d pretty much had him covered.
Perverted idiot chicken.
“Oops,” he said. “I didn’t realize you kept your computer in your bedroom. I don’t want to invade your privacy or—”
“Do you smoke?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then no problem,” she said. “It’s just a room I happen to sleep in. Brace yourself, though. It’s a mess. Just kick aside the dirty laundry and ignore the fact that the bed’s not made.”
He laughed again at that. He had an incredibly sexy laugh, low and husky and intimate. He could have made a fortune on one of those 900-number phone sex lines. “I thought the cleaning lady was just in.”
“Mrs. Lerner’s under strict orders to stay out of my room,” Kelly told him. “I happen to like my mess.”
“And you’re sure you want me going in there?”
He didn’t know the half of it. “It’s really okay.” Kelly flipped through her calendar, searching for the next evening she was available and . . . “You wouldn’t happen to be free Thursday—tomorrow—night?”
Dear God. She did it. She’d actually said the words.
“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Why? You need me to stay with your father again? No problem. I’m there.”
Words he’d completely misunderstood. How on earth did men live through this time and time again? It was a wonder more of them hadn’t simply given up and become monks.
“No.” She closed her eyes, braced herself. “I was hoping you’d have dinner with me.”
There was complete silence for at least a solid second. But it was a very, very long second.
“Well,” he said. “Wow. Yeah, that would be . . .”
Kelly waited.
“Nice,” he finished.
It wasn’t quite the word she was hoping for. But it was far better than a lot of words he might’ve come up with.
“Okay, good,” she said. God, that had been easier than she’d imagined.
There was another brief moment of silence, during which she realized he could well have accepted her invitation simply because he was kind and he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Maybe even right now he was trying to figure out how he could get out of it. Maybe . . .
She started to stammer. “Because, you know, I just thought it would be nice—” Oh, crap, there was that awful word again. “—to go someplace that isn’t work or home with someone who . . .” Looks like you. No, wrong thing to say. “Someone who . . .” Has a penis. Oh, God . . . “Someone who . . .”
“Isn’t eighty years old?” he suggested.
“Well,” she said, “yeah. Sort of. God, that sounds awful.”
“It’s not,” he said. “Everyone needs a break. A little distraction.”
God, yes. “Although, to be honest, there’s a chance I might have to cancel at the last minute. One of my patients . . .” She had to clear her throat, glad she was talking to him over the phone, glad he couldn’t see the sudden very unprofessional tears that welled in her eyes at the thought of sweet little Betsy McKenna and what she was faced with simply to survive. “She’s starting chemotherapy, and she and her parents might need a little extra attention.” Her voice wobbled slightly, and she coughed to cover it. “Excuse me.”
“Oh, man, that must be hard as hell,” Tom said softly.
Kelly closed her eyes, wanting nothing more than to lose herself in her nearly lifelong attraction to this man. She didn’t want to have dinner with him tomorrow night. She wanted him to take her for a ride on his old motorcycle, the one that was still carefully kept under that drop cloth in the garage. She wanted to go fast, fast enough to blot out all her pain and anger and fear.
It was the fear that hurt the worst. Fear that Betsy McKenna would die despite the advances of modern medicine, despite the care of one of the best children’s hospital staffs in the world. Fear that her father would go to his grave without reconciling with Joe, fear that Joe would never recover from such a terrible blow. Fear that she’d live the rest of her life wishing she’d had just a few more months with her father, wishing she’d had the nerve to look him in the eye and tell him that she’d loved him—even when he drank, even when he was cruel—and to ask him if maybe there wasn’t a time when he’d loved her back, just a little bit.
Fear that she would die just as angry and just as tragically alone.
She needed a distraction, all right, but she wanted something a little more high octane than dinner and conversation. She wanted full body contact and hot, deep kisses. She wanted wild abandon, total, breathtaking full penetration. She wanted to feel nothing but pleasure, nothing but heat. And wild Tom Paoletti was just the man for the job.
She’d spent the past sixteen years waiting for a chance to kiss him aga
in. Wondering if the reality could stand up to the perfection of the memory. Maybe tomorrow night she’d find out.
“How old is she?” Tom asked, his husky voice like velvet against her ear.
“Just turned six.” Her lower lip trembled as if she were no older than that herself. Come on, Ashton, get a grip.
“Damn.”
“Tom . . .” Kelly clamped her mouth shut. What was she going to do, just ask him to have sex with her? A dinner invitation was one thing, but, God . . . She could imagine his surprised response, his attempt to be polite. Well, sure, that would be nice, but . . . “I’m sorry,” she said instead. “I really have to go.”
“Kelly, I’m . . . here if you need anything.”
“Thanks,” she managed to choke out before she dropped the phone back into its cradle.
And then, although she wanted nothing more than to drop her head onto her paperwork-laden desk and cry, she steeled herself the way she’d done so many times before and got to work.
Her father would have been proud.
Seven
“WHAT GOOD IS an apology if you’re not going to stop doing the thing that you’re apologizing for?” Charles’s voice shook with anger. “That’s like saying you’re sorry for hitting me on the head with a two-by-four, while you continue to hit me on the head with a two-by-four!”
“But I’m not hitting you on the head,” Joe countered hotly. “If you want to use that analogy, then you have to picture yourself hitting me over the head with that same two-by-four since 1944! You’re the one who should apologize to me!”
As Tom came into the room, he saw Charles had stuck his fingers in his ears and was singing at the top of his lungs, “La, la, la, la, la!” to block out Joe’s words.
“What the hell is going on in here?” Tom had to raise his voice to a roar to be heard over them.
The two old men both fell silent, although they still stood, facing off like a pair of ancient boxers, in the middle of Charles’s vast living room.
Charles had his oxygen tank at hand, and he took a hit off it, covering his mouth and nose with the face mask, glaring at Joe.
“Why don’t you wear the nose clip?” Joe asked wearily. “If you need the oxygen—”
Charles picked up his walker and flung it as far as he could across the room—which wasn’t very far. “That’s why,” he said bitterly, trembling with anger. “I can’t walk by myself, I can’t breathe by myself. Why doesn’t God just strike me with lightning and kill me now?”
“Because there are things left undone,” Joe countered.
“Like telling stupid stories to stupid interviewers?” Charles had to sit down, and as he lowered himself onto the sofa, Tom stepped forward to help. Instead of a thanks, he got a dark look and a frown. “Stupid stories that mean nothing now? The past is the past, and the dead are dead, Guiseppe. Digging them up—”
“Guys,” Tom said. “Exactly what happened during the war?”
As he’d expected, they both shut up. Dead silence.
Tom waited. He was in no rush. He had Kelly’s permission to use her computer whenever he wanted. He could play referee for hours and still have plenty of time to scan his old files, to read his notes on the Merchant, to wade through his doubt.
Joe was the first to move, the first to speak. “I have to get back to work,” he said, heading for the door. “The roses—”
“Stop. The roses can wait,” Tom ordered in his toughest team-commander voice, and Joe actually obeyed him. What do you know? “Look, gentlemen, I’m not going to pry, so if you don’t want to talk about it—”
“We don’t,” Charles interrupted with another of his potent death-ray glares aimed at Joe.
“Fine,” Tom said easily. “Then I’m not going to ask about it again. But answer this for me instead. Joe, this one’s for you. How many days does Mr. Ashton have left to live?”
It was a cruel question, but letting his uncle walk away, to let the rift between these two old friends continue, would have been even more cruel.
Joe’s shoulders sagged and he turned so that Tom couldn’t see his face, so he could barely hear his reply. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do,” Tom told him. His stomach hurt for both of them, but this had to be said. “Kelly told me the doctors are saying three or four months, tops. I’m sure you both know this. And I’m certain neither of you are so old and decrepit that you can no longer do simple math.” He looked at Charles. “How many days does three months work out to be?”
Charles couldn’t stay angry in the face of Joe’s pain, and he turned his glare on Tom instead. His crackly voice was tinged with ice. “This isn’t necessary.”
“Yes, sir,” Tom said as mildly as he could manage, “I think it is. Please answer the question. How many days?”
Charles looked at Joe again. “Maybe ninety,” he finally said. “But probably fewer.”
“Ninety days,” Tom repeated. “How many perfect summer days like this, with a clear sky and low humidity, do you think we’ll have over the next ninety days?”
Neither of them said a word.
“Probably way fewer than ninety,” Tom answered for them. “In fact, we could well be into the single digits with that one, don’t you agree?”
Silence.
Again Tom answered his own question. “Yes, you agree. So the next obvious question, gentlemen, is: What the fuck are you doing wasting this gorgeous day fighting over some stupid-ass fifty-five-year-old disagreement, when you could be out on Mr. Ashton’s boat, fishing?”
Charles looked at Joe and Joe looked at Charles.
“Here’s the deal,” Tom said. “This thing you’re fighting about? You don’t talk about it, you don’t think about it. You go down to the marina, you pick up some bait, and you spend this day doing something you both love. You sit there in silence if you have to, but you take advantage of this beautiful, precious, God’s gift of a day.”
More silence. But Tom stood there, feigning patience, waiting.
Joe finally cleared his throat. “Shall I call ahead to the harbormaster’s office?” he asked Charles stiffly. “Have them ready the Lady Luck?”
For a minute Tom was afraid Charles was too much of a bastard to make this easy for either of them. He didn’t answer for way too long.
But when Tom raised his eyebrows and said, “Mr. Ashton? . . .” the old man finally gave in.
“Oh, all right.” It was by no means gracious, but it was good enough for now.
“Listen up,” Tom said to the pair of them. “Whatever this problem is, you need to work it out. Not today, but soon.”
“We can solve this in an instant,” Charles said crankily. “Joe just has to promise to keep his big mouth shut.”
Joe’s big mouth was set in a straight, grim line. “So I’m just supposed to stand there on that stage and accept that Medal of Honor all over again?” he asked. “I’m supposed to stand there, in front of national news cameras, and shake the hands of all those dignitaries who’ve come all the way from England and France, and pretend—”
“Whoa,” Tom said. “Wait. Dignitaries from where? What are you talking about?”
“The ceremony honoring the Fighting Fifty-fifth,” Joe told him. “I don’t even want to go.”
“You have to,” Charles said.
Joe bristled. “I don’t have to do anything.”
“Wait,” Tom said. “Rewind. Did you just say there’re going to be dignitaries from England?”
“Some distant cousin of the royal family no one’s ever heard of,” Charles said grumpily. “You’d think they’d send Winston Churchill’s great-grandson. Now there’s someone whose hand I’d be honored to shake.”
“You don’t even know if Churchill had a great-grandson,” Joe countered.
“Well, you’d think the organizers of this celebration would at least try to find that out. And who are they sending from France? Some politicians, probably descended from Nazi collaborators.”
�
�Kelly told me several U.S. senators would be attending, too,” Tom realized. The United States, England, and France. The three countries that had worked together to catch the Merchant back in 1996. The three countries responsible for taking out most of the Merchant’s team—including his beloved wife. Baldwin’s Bridge would be packed with revered war heroes and crowds of spectators. CNN cameras would surely be there.
“Holy shit,” Tom said. “I’ve got to make a phone call.”
“So it’s possible the Merchant’s target isn’t going to be Boston after all,” Tom told Jazz. “It could be right here in Baldwin’s Bridge. If you can believe that.”
“You’re thinking car bomb,” Jazz said.
“You bet. It’s been this bastard’s MO in the past,” Tom told his longtime XO and friend over the phone in the Ashtons’ kitchen.
“What kind of security they gonna have for this shindig?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ve got my uncle making a call to the local police to try to find that out.” Charles and Joe had snapped to. They’d stopped their arguing in the face of this immediate situation.
Tom had told them about spotting the Merchant in the airport, leaving out the part about his recent injury and Admiral Crowley’s intense skepticism. Joe and Charles had gone into Charles’s home office to try to find out as much as they could about the security planned for the celebration’s opening ceremony. It was amazing, actually. As they’d headed down the hall, Tom had heard them speaking entire sentences to each other without flinging a single accusation or petty insult.
“Crowley know yet?” Jazz asked.
“I called, but he wasn’t in,” Tom reported. “I didn’t want to leave a message.” No, this was definitely not the kind of thing he wanted to tell the admiral through voice mail. He took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be easy to say, but Jazz had to be told. “You need to know, he’s not behind me a hundred percent on this one, Jacquette.”
“It does sound nuts, sir.” Jazz laughed, a low rumble of distant thunder.
“He’s not behind me at all,” Tom admitted.
The Unsung Hero Page 11