Tall, Dark and Dangerous Vol 1: Tall, Dark and FearlessTall, Dark and Devastating
Page 51
“No, I mean, are you sure you want to marry me?”
Blue laughed in surprise. “I guess you really didn’t hear me the first time—or the second time, either. I love you.”
He cupped her chin in his hand, leaned forward and kissed her. His mouth was warm and sweet, his lips as soft as she remembered.
“It wasn’t love at first sight,” he told her in his black velvet Southern voice, kissing her again. “It took longer than that. I can’t tell you when I knew for certain. All I know is little by little, bit by bit, I realized I want you next to me, Lucy. I realized that I love you. I want you wearing my ring, taking my name, having my babies. I want you to be my friend and my lover for the rest of our lives. So please, marry me.”
Lucy’s heart was in her throat, so she opened her mouth and gave it to Blue. “Yes,” she said.
Blue smiled and kissed her.
* * *
Blue sat down next to Lucy on the porch swing. “I spoke to Joe Cat,” he told her. “I caught him before his plane left Kansas City. As long as I’m out of trouble, he’s just going to turn around and head back home to Veronica.”
Lucy leaned back against him, looking out at the deepening twilight. He smelled sweet and clean from his shower. He’d shaved, too, and she rubbed her own cheek against the smoothness of his face.
“One of the FInCOM agents stopped by while you were getting cleaned up,” she told him. “Travis signed a full confession. Apparently he was there—along with Fisher and Frank Redfield—on the night Gerry died.”
Blue nodded, just waiting for her to tell him more.
“According to Travis,” Lucy continued, “Gerry was involved with some kind of money-laundering scheme. R. W. Fisher apparently knew some mob boss from New York who convinced him Hatboro Creek was the perfect sleepy little town to launder drug money. Fisher got Gerry into the deal, along with the Southeby brothers and Frank Redfield. Everything was moving along smoothly until Gerry started going to Jenny Lee’s church. When Gerry got God, his conscience started bothering him, and he told Fisher and the others he wanted out of the deal.
“They threatened him and he was running scared, trying to figure out what to do. When you showed up, Fisher was afraid Gerry would go to you for help, so he told Gerry if he as much as spoke to you, they’d bring this hired gun from New York—a man named ‘Snake’—to kill you. Instead, Snake killed Gerry.”
Blue swore quietly.
“Travis said that Gerry wasn’t drunk that night. He was sober. The drunkenness was just an act. Gerry was trying to make you leave town.”
“He was trying to protect me,” Blue said.
Lucy nodded. “Yeah. All those awful things he said to you weren’t true. He cared about you—he didn’t want you to be hurt.”
“I could’ve helped him,” Blue said.
“I know.”
They sat in silence for a moment, just listening to the sound of the crickets whirring and chirping in the early evening.
“I told Joe Cat about you,” Blue said.
She turned and looked at him. “Really? What did you say?”
“That I fell in love with a friend of mine. He seemed to understand.” Blue leaned forward and kissed her. It was a slow, deep, lazy kiss that promised forever—a sweet, dizzying happiness for all time.
“I can’t wait to meet him,” Lucy said, settling back against Blue again, shifting so that her head was in his lap, so she was gazing up at him. He pushed the swing and they rocked gently. “Tell me more about him. Tell me about all the guys in Alpha Squad, and about California….”
Blue smiled down at her as he began to talk.
Smiling into Lucy’s eyes was easy. Telling her that he loved her was easy, too. Asking her to marry him had been a breeze. Kissing her and making love to her were as easy and as natural as breathing. But sitting here on the porch swing, swaying gently as the evening descended upon them, Blue knew that talking to Lucy—his friend, his lover, soon to be his wife—was easiest of all.
EPILOGUE
LUCY STOOD IN the back room of the naval-base chapel as Sarah adjusted her veil.
“I feel stupid,” Lucy grumbled. “What is this thing hanging in front of my face? Is it supposed to hide me? Do I look that hideous? Why do I have to wear this anyway?”
“Because it’s traditional,” Sarah said calmly. Nora, her baby, now three months old, smiled happily at Lucy from the backpack Sarah wore. “You look beautiful, and you know it.”
“It’s not very traditional for the bride to be given away by her best friend and her godchild,” Lucy commented.
Sarah gazed at her for a moment, then took out the pins that held the veil in place and tossed both pins and veil aside. “Fair enough,” she said.
“I wish I were wearing my jeans,” Lucy said wistfully.
Sarah shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “Nice try, but I draw the line at the veil. No way am I letting you march down that aisle in blue jeans.”
“I just feel so…not me,” Lucy said. The dress was cut low, off her shoulders, with tiny cap sleeves, a tailored bodice and a long, full skirt, complete with a train.
“You look incredible,” Sarah said. Nora gurgled and chewed on her mother’s hair in agreement.
The music started, and Sarah took Lucy’s arm. “Come on.” Sarah smiled. “Wait till you see what’s waiting for you at the other end of this church.”
Self-consciously, Lucy let Sarah lead her out into the church. And then she stopped feeling self-conscious at all. Because standing there in the front of the church was Blue. Next to him stood the six other members of Alpha Squad. All seven men were wearing white dress uniforms and the effect was nearly blinding.
Lucy’s gaze ran across their now-familiar faces. Joe Cat’s smile was genuine and warm, but he couldn’t keep himself from glancing across the chapel to smile at his wife, Ronnie. Lucy’s first impression of Ronnie had been that she was an ice queen—until Lucy had walked into the Outback Bar to find the usually proper, English-accented woman cutting loose, dirty-dancing with her handsome husband.
And then there was Harvard. Daryl Becker. Along with his Ivy League education, Harvard possessed a first-class sense of humor. His shaved head gleamed almost as much as the diamond he wore in his left ear.
Cowboy, Wesley and Bob all grinned at Lucy. Cowboy winked. He was the youngest member of the squad and he did his best to live up to his reputation as a hothead.
Lucky O’Donlon was smiling, too—and oh, my God, standing next to him was none other than Frisco. There weren’t seven men up there—there were eight. Alan Francisco was standing with the rest of Alpha Squad. Blue had taken Lucy to meet him at the rehab center several months ago, and Frisco had been in a wheelchair. It had been years since he was injured, and all the doctors had sworn he would never walk again. But today he was standing. He had a cane, but he was standing. Lucy looked around, but she didn’t see any sign of a wheelchair. Had he actually walked to the front of the church?
And Lucky—Frisco’s best friend and swim buddy—looked happier than she’d ever seen him. The two men were almost the exact same height and build. Lucky’s hair was blond, while Frisco’s was darker, but other than that, even their faces were similar enough that they might have been brothers.
Except Frisco couldn’t hide the lines of pain around his eyes. He may have been standing, but it was hurting him to do so.
“Thank you so much for coming, Alan,” Lucy said to him, emotion breaking her voice.
Frisco nodded. “I wouldn’t have missed it for anything,” he said.
And then, suddenly they reached the front of the church. Sarah kissed her on the cheek, and then Lucy was face-to-face with Blue.
Blue McCoy.
He looked incredible in his white dress uniform. Lucy hadn’t seen him dressed up since Gerry’s funeral, and before that at the party at the country club. Today, like that night, she was wearing a dress that made her feel peculiar, as if she were masquerading as someone else.
Who was this stranger, this sailor she was marrying? For one heart-stopping moment, Lucy wasn’t sure she knew.
Then she looked down and caught sight of Blue’s feet. He wasn’t wearing dress shoes like the rest of Alpha Squad. He was wearing his old, familiar leather sandals.
He was wearing his sandals, and she was wearing her cotton underwear. It was fancier than usual, but it was cotton. She’d insisted. They both had their hair combed differently, and both of them were dressed differently, but deep down inside they knew exactly what they were getting—exactly who they were going to spend the rest of their lives with.
Lucy smiled.
Blue smiled, too. And then he kissed the bride.
* * * * *
Tall, Dark and Fearless
Suzanne Brockman
Dear Reader,
I’m always glad when one of my older romances get reissued—those books are out of print, and tend to be very hard to find. In fact, I frequently get e-mail from readers telling me they’ve bought one of these books at auction online—for four or five times the original cover price! (With someone’s ancient lunch glued between pages 23 and 24…)
So I really love it when my books are reissued—I’m twice as happy when they’re packaged, like this, in a fabulous 2-in-1 format!
The book you’re holding includes two stories from my Tall, Dark and Dangerous series about U.S. Navy SEAL Team Ten. I originally conceived of this series as a trilogy, but it quickly grew to eleven installments—all first published by Silhouette Books.
The stories in Tall, Dark and Fearless are two of my favorites—Frisco’s Kid and Everyday, Average Jones.
Two more of my favorites—Harvard’s Education and Hawken’s Heart—will be available next month in Tall, Dark and Devastating. (And okay, let’s face it—all of the books in my Tall, Dark and Dangerous series are personal faves! I just love those Navy SEALs….)
Visit www.eHarlequin.com or my Web site, www.SuzanneBrockmann.com, for more information about upcoming releases and reissues!
Happy reading,
Suz Brockmann
Praise for the novels of New York Times bestselling author
SUZANNE BROCKMANN
“Zingy dialogue, a great sense of drama and a pair of lovers who generate enough steam heat to power a whole city.”
—RT Book Reviews on Hero Under Cover
“Brockmann deftly delivers another testosterone-drenched, adrenaline-fueled tale of danger and desire that brilliantly combines superbly crafted, realistically complex characters with white-knuckle plotting.”
—Booklist on Force of Nature
“Readers will be on the edge of their seats.”
—Library Journal on Breaking Point
“Another excellently paced, action-filled read. Brockmann delivers yet again!”
—RT Book Reviews on Into the Storm
“Funny, sexy, suspenseful and superb.”
—Booklist on Hot Target
“Sizzling with military intrigue and sexual tension, with characters so vivid they leap right off the page, Gone Too Far is a bold, brassy read with a momentum that just doesn’t quit.”
—New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen
“An unusual and compelling romance.”
—Affaire de Coeur on No Ordinary Man
“Sensational sizzle, powerful emotion and sheer fun.”
—RT Book Reviews on Body Language
SUZANNE BROCKMANN
TALL, DARK AND FEARLESS
CONTENTS
FRISCO'S KID
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EVERYDAY, AVERAGE JONES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EPILOGUE
FRISCO’S KID
For my cousin, Elise Kramer, who played with and loved my mother, then me and now my children, too, as if we were her own kids.
With all my love, Elise, this one’s for you.
CHAPTER ONE
FRISCO’S KNEE WAS on fire.
He had to lean heavily on his cane to get from the shower to the room he shared with three other vets, and still his leg hurt like hell with every step he took.
But pain was no big deal. Pain had been part of Navy Lt. Alan “Frisco” Francisco’s everyday life since his leg had damn near been blown off more than five years ago during a covert rescue operation. The pain he could handle.
It was this cane that he couldn’t stand.
It was the fact that his knee wouldn’t—couldn’t—support his full weight or fully extend that made him crazy.
It was a warm California day, so he pulled on a pair of shorts, well aware that they wouldn’t hide the raw, ugly scars on his knee.
His latest surgery had been attempted only a few months ago. They’d cut him open all over again, trying, like Humpty Dumpty, to put all the pieces back together. After the required hospital stay, he’d been sent here, to this physical therapy center, to build up strength in his leg, and to see if the operation had worked—to see if he had more flexibility in his injured joint.
But his doctor had been no more successful than the legendary King’s horses and King’s men. The operation hadn’t improved Frisco’s knee. His doctor couldn’t put Frisco together again.
There was a knock on the door, and it opened a crack.
“Yo, Frisco, you in here?”
It was Lt. Joe Catalanotto, the commander of SEAL Team Ten’s Alpha Squad—the squad to which, an aeon of pain and frustration and crushed hopes ago, Frisco had once belonged.
“Where else would I be?” Frisco said.
He saw Joe react to his bitter words, saw the bigger man’s jaw tighten as he came into the room, closing the door behind him. He could see the look in Joe’s dark eyes—a look of wary reserve. Frisco had always been the optimist of Alpha Squad. His attitude had always been upbeat and friendly. Wherever they went, Frisco had been out in the street, making friends with the locals. He’d been the first one smiling, the man who’d make jokes before a high-altitude parachute jump, relieving the tension, making everyone laugh.
But Frisco wasn’t laughing now. He’d stopped laughing five years ago, when the doctors had walked into his hospital room and told him his leg would never be the same. He’d never walk again.
At first he’d approached it with the same upbeat, optimistic attitude he’d always had. He’d never walk again? Wanna make a bet? He was going to do more than walk again. He was going to bring himself back to active duty as a SEAL. He was going to run and jump and dive. No question.
It had taken years of intense focus, operations and physical therapy. He’d been bounced back and forth from hospitals to physical therapy centers to hospitals and back again. He’d fought long and hard, and he could walk again.
But he couldn’t run. He could do little more than limp along with his cane—a
nd his doctors warned him against doing too much of that. His knee couldn’t support his weight, they told him. The pain that he stoically ignored was a warning signal. If he wasn’t careful, he’d lose what little use he did have of his leg.
And that wasn’t good enough.
Because until he could run, he couldn’t be a SEAL again.
Five years of disappointment and frustration and failure had worn at Frisco’s optimism and upbeat attitude. Five years of itching to return to the excitement of his life as a Navy SEAL; of being placed into temporary retirement with no real, honest hope of being put back into active duty; of watching as Alpha Squad replaced him—replaced him; of shuffling along when he burned to run. All those years had worn him down. He wasn’t upbeat anymore. He was depressed. And frustrated. And angry as hell.
Joe Catalanotto didn’t bother to answer Frisco’s question. His hawklike gaze took in Frisco’s well-muscled body, lingering for a moment on the scars on his leg. “You look good,” Joe said. “You’re keeping in shape. That’s good. That’s real good.”
“Is this a social call?” Frisco asked bluntly.
“Partly,” Joe said. His rugged face relaxed into a smile. “I’ve got some good news I wanted to share with you.”
Good news. Damn, when was the last time Frisco had gotten good news?
One of Frisco’s roommates, stretched out on his bed, glanced up from the book he was reading.
Joe didn’t seem to mind. His smile just got broader. “Ronnie’s pregnant,” he said. “We’re going to have a kid.”