“Take as long as you need,” Frisco told him.
It seemed to take an eternity, but Frisco finally heard Cat report, “In place.”
He and Lucky were outside the upstairs bathroom door. That was Blue’s signal to move.
Frisco heard the flurry of movement and the sound of four automatic weapons being locked and loaded. That was when the noise started.
“Hands up,” Blue shouted, his normally smooth voice hard and clipped. “Come on—let me see ’em. Hands on your heads!”
“Come on, get ’em up!” It was Cowboy. “Come on—move!”
“What the…” Frisco could faintly hear Dwayne’s voice as he was picked up over all four microphones.
“Move it! Down on the floor, faces against the rug. Let’s go.” That was Bobby, along with an accompanying crash as he helped someone down there.
“Who the hell are you?” Dwayne kept asking. “Who the hell are you guys?”
“We’re your worst nightmare,” Cowboy told him, and then laughed. “Hell, you don’t know how many years I’ve been waiting to say that line!”
“We’re Alan Francisco’s friends,” Frisco heard Blue tell Dwayne. “Okay, Frisco, Mr. Bell and his associates have all been relieved of their weapons.”
“Take ’em out into the front yard and tie ’em up, Blue,” Frisco ordered. He had already moved across the yard and was nearly inside the house. “H., use that fancy equipment of yours to dial 911. Let’s get the police garbage removal squad to take away the trash. Cat, this is my official all clear. Let’s get Mia and Tasha out of there.”
THE BATHROOM DOOR swung open, and Mia stared up into the face of an enormous dark-haired stranger carrying an equally enormous gun.
He must’ve seen the surge of panic in her eyes because he quickly aimed the gun down toward the floor. “Lt. Commander Joe Catalanotto of the Alpha Squad.” He identified himself in a rather unmistakable New York accent. “It’s all right now, ma’am, you’re safe.”
“Dwayne’s been detained—permanently.” Another man poked his head in the door. It was Lucky O’Donlon. Both men were wearing army fatigues and some kind of black vest.
“Are you okay?” the dark-haired man—Joe—asked.
Mia nodded, still holding Tasha close. In the distance, she could hear the sound of sirens. “Where’s Alan? Is he all right?”
Lucky smiled, coming forward to give them both a hand out of the bathtub. “He’s downstairs, waiting for the police to arrive. They’re not going to be real happy to see us here, doing their job for them, so to speak.”
“I pretended to throw up so the bad man would lock us in the bathroom,” Natasha told Lucky proudly.
“That’s very cool,” he told her, perfectly straight-faced. But when he looked up at Mia, there was a glint of amusement in his eyes. “Barfing kid as weapon,” he said to her under his breath. “The thought makes the strongest man tremble with fear. Good thinking.”
“I want to see Alan,” she said.
The man named Joe nodded. “I know he wants to see you, too. Come on, let’s go downstairs.”
“How many SEALs are here?” she asked Joe as Lucky, Tasha in his arms, led the way down the stairs.
“All of Alpha Squad,” he told her.
“How did you ever get him to agree to let you help?”
“He asked us.”
Mia stared at Joe. Alan asked them for help? They didn’t volunteer and he grudgingly accept? God, she’d been so afraid he’d come here on his own and get himself killed….
“It’s hard for him, but he’s learning,” Joe said quietly. “Give him time. He’s gonna be okay.”
“Frisco!” Tasha shouted.
Mia stopped halfway down the stairs, watching as the little girl wriggled free from Lucky’s arms and launched herself at Alan Francisco.
He was dressed similarly to the other SEALs, complete with black vest and some kind of headphone thing. His crutches clattered to the living room floor as he caught Tasha in his arms.
From across the room, over the top of Tasha’s head, Alan looked up at Mia. Their eyes met and he smiled one of his sad, crooked, perfect smiles.
Then, God help her, she was rushing toward him, too—as shamelessly as Natasha had.
And then she was in his arms. He held her as tightly as he could with Tasha still clinging to him, too.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her ear. “Mia, I’m so sorry.”
Mia wasn’t sure if he was apologizing for his angry words or Dwayne’s abducting them. It didn’t matter. What mattered was they were safe and he was safe and he had actually asked for help….
Flashing lights marked the arrival of police squad cars, and Frisco loosened his hold on Mia and let Tasha slide down to the floor.
“Can we talk later?” Frisco asked.
Mia nodded. “I was coming back, you know,” she told him. “To the cabin. To talk to you—talk, not fight. That was when Dwayne nearly ran me off the road.”
Her beautiful hazel eyes were shining with unshed tears. She had been coming back to the cabin. She loved him enough to swallow her pride.
And suddenly later wasn’t good enough. Suddenly there were things he had to tell her, things that couldn’t wait.
Frisco knew in that moment that even if right then and there, in a miraculous act of God, he suddenly regained full use of his injured leg, he would still be less than whole.
He knew with a certainty that took his breath away that it was only when he was with this incredible woman that he was truly complete.
Oh, he knew he could live without her—the same way he knew he could live without ever running again. It would be hard, but he could do it. It wasn’t as if she’d saved him. She hadn’t—he’d done that himself. With a little help. It had taken Natasha to nudge him back to the world of the living. And once there, Mia’s warmth and joy had lit his path, helping him out of his darkness.
Frisco knew he’d probably never run again. But he also knew that he didn’t have to live without Mia.
That was something he had at least a small amount of control over.
And he could start by telling her how he felt.
But there wasn’t any time. The police had arrived, and the uniformed officers were less than pleased that the SEALs had taken matters into their own hands. Joe Cat had intercepted the officer in charge and was trying to calm him down, but back-up had to be called along with the police captain.
And instead of telling Mia that he loved her, Frisco turned to Lucky. “Do me a favor, man, and walk Mia and Tash out to Harvard’s van. I want to get them out of here, but I’ve got to set one thing straight with the police before we leave.”
“Absolutely.”
Frisco picked up his crutches, positioning them under his arms as he looked back at Mia. “I’ll try not to take too long.”
She gave him a tremulous smile that added so much weight and meaning to her words. “That’s okay. We’ll wait.”
Frisco smiled back at her, suddenly almost ridiculously happy. “Yeah,” he said. “I know. But I don’t want to keep you waiting any longer.”
“I TOLD THE police captain that Sharon was willing to testify against Bell,” Frisco told Harvard and Mia as they climbed out of the van and started toward the condo courtyard. “With her help, they can ID Bell as the perpetrator in a number of unsolved robberies and possibly even a murder.”
“Sharon saw Dwayne kill someone?” Mia asked Frisco in a low voice.
He nodded, glancing at Harvard who was carrying a drowsy Tasha. But her five-year-old ears were as sharp as ever and she lifted her head. “I saw Dwayne kill someone, too,” Tasha told them, her eyes filling with tears. “I saw him kill Thomas.”
“Thomas isn’t dead,” Frisco said.
“Yes, he is,” Tasha insisted. “Dwayne hit him and made him bloody, and he didn’t get back up.”
“Thomas is waiting for you, princess, up in the condo.”
“Oh, thank God,” Mia sa
id. “Is he really all right?”
“A little shaky, maybe,” Frisco said, “but, yeah. He’s okay.”
All signs of her drowsiness gone, Tasha squirmed free from Harvard’s arms. Like a flash, she ran up the stairs. But the condo door was locked, and she pounded on it.
As Mia watched, it swung open, and sure enough, there was Thomas King, looking a little worse for wear. Tasha launched herself at him, and nearly knocked the teenager over.
“Hey, Martian girl,” Thomas said casually and matter-of-factly, as if they’d run into each other on the street. But he held the child tightly. That and the sudden sheen of tears in his eyes gave him away.
“I thought you were dead,” she told him, giving him a resounding kiss on the cheek. “And if you were dead, then you couldn’t marry me.”
“Marry you?” Thomas’s voice slipped up an octave. “Whoa, wait a minute, I—”
“A Russian princess has to marry a king,” Tasha told him seriously.
“You’re kind of short,” Thomas told her. “I’m not so sure I want a wife who’s that short.”
Tasha giggled. “I’ll be taller, silly,” she told him. “I’ll be sixteen.”
“Sixteen…” Thomas looked as if he were choking. “Look, Martian, if you’re still interested when you’re twenty-six, give me a call, but until then, we’re friends, all right?”
Natasha just smiled.
“All right,” Thomas said. “Now, come on inside and see what Navy bought for you.”
They disappeared inside the house, and Mia could hear Tasha’s excited squealing. She turned to Frisco, who was painstakingly pulling himself up the stairs. “Is it the couch?”
Frisco just shook his head. “Man, I forgot all about it.”
“I didn’t,” Harvard said, laughter in his voice.
Curiosity overcame Mia, and she hurried to Frisco’s door. And laughed out loud. “You got it,” she said. “The couch. Dear Lord, it’s so…”
“Pink?” Frisco volunteered, amusement and chagrin glinting in his eyes as he followed her inside.
Tasha was sitting in the middle of the couch, her ankles delicately crossed—the perfect Russian princess, despite the fact that her hair was tangled and her face dirty and tear streaked.
Harvard started packing up the array of equipment, and Thomas moved to help him.
“This stuff is so cool,” Mia heard Thomas tell Harvard. “What do I have to do to become one of you guys?”
“Well, you start by joining the Navy,” Harvard said. “And you work your butt off for about three years, and maybe, just maybe, then you’ll be accepted into the BUD/S training.”
“Hey,” Frisco said to Natasha. “Don’t I get a hug? Or any thanks?”
Tasha looked at him haughtily. “Russian princesses don’t say thank you or give hugs.”
“Wanna bet?” He sat down on the couch next to the little girl and pulled her into his arms.
She giggled and threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you—”
Frisco laughed. Mia loved the sound of his laughter. “Enough already,” he said. “Go wash your face and get ready for bed.”
Tash stood up, casting a look of longing back at the sofa.
“Don’t worry,” Frisco told her. “It’ll be here in the morning.”
“You bet it will,” Harvard interjected. “And the morning after that, and the morning after that…”
“I don’t know,” Mia said. “It’s starting to grow on me.” She held out her hand to Tasha. “Come on. I’ll help you.”
Frisco watched them disappear into the bathroom. Tasha was dragging, clearly exhausted. It wouldn’t be long before she was sound asleep. He turned back to Harvard. “Need help getting that stuff together?”
Harvard grinned, reading his mind. “All done. We’re out of here. Gee, sorry we can’t stay.”
Frisco held out his hand, and Harvard clasped it. “Thanks, man.”
“It was good seeing you again, Francisco. Don’t be a stranger.”
“I won’t be,” Frisco told his friend. “In fact, I’ll probably be coming over to the base in a few days to talk to Cat.”
Harvard smiled, his powerful biceps flexing as he easily lifted pounds and pounds of heavy equipment. “Good. See you then.”
He followed Thomas outside and closed the door behind them.
The sudden silence and stillness was deafening. Frisco started toward Tasha’s room, but stopped short at the sight of Mia quietly closing the little girl’s door.
“She’s already asleep,” she told him. “She was exhausted.”
Mia looked exhausted, too. Maybe this wasn’t a good time to talk. Maybe she just wanted to go home.
“Do you want a cup of tea?” Frisco asked, suddenly horribly uncertain.
She took a step toward him. “All I want right now is for you to hold me,” she said quietly.
Frisco carefully leaned his crutches against the wall and slowly drew her into his arms. She was trembling as she slipped her arms around his waist. He pulled her closer, held her tighter and she rested her head against his chest and sighed.
“Did you really ask the Alpha Squad for help?” she asked.
“Is that so hard to believe?”
Mia lifted her head. “Yes.”
He laughed. And kissed her. She tasted so sweet, her lips were so soft. He’d been crazy to think he could ever give her up.
“Were you really coming back to the cabin?” he asked her.
She nodded.
“Why? You said damn near all that there was to say pretty concisely. Your vision of the way my future might’ve been was pretty accurate—although I’m willing to bet you didn’t picture me drinking myself to death on a pink couch.”
“The way your future might’ve been…?”
There was such hope in her eyes, Frisco had to smile. “That’s not my future, Mia,” he told her. “That was my past. It was my father who drank himself into oblivion every night in front of the TV set. But I’m not my old man. I’m a SEAL. You were right. I’m still a SEAL. And it’s only my knee that got busted, not my spirit.”
“Oh, Alan….”
“Yeah, it hurts to know I’m not going to go on the active-duty list, but that’s the hand fate dealt me. I’m done wallowing,” he told her. “Now I’m going to get on with my true future. I’m going to talk to Joe Cat about that instructor position. And I’ve got Tash to think about, because Sharon’s gonna have to do time on those DUI charges even if the man she hit lives….”
Mia was crying. She was crying and she was laughing.
“Hey,” Frisco said. “Are you all right?”
“I’m great,” she told him. “And so are you. You made it, Alan. You’re whole again.” Her eyes filled with a fresh flood of tears. “I’m so happy for you.”
He was whole? Frisco wasn’t quite so sure. “I’m going to look for another place to live,” he told her, searching her eyes. “I figure if I sell this place, I can maybe get something a little closer to the base, maybe something on the water—something on the ground floor. Something big enough for me and Tash and maybe…you, too…?”
“Me?” she whispered.
He nodded. “Yeah, I mean, if you want to….”
“You want me to live with you…?”
“Hell, no. I want you to marry me.”
Mia was silent. Her eyes were wide and her lips slightly parted. She didn’t say a word, she just stared at him.
Frisco shifted his weight nervously. “I know you’re probably speechless with joy at the thought of spending the rest of your life with a man who owns a pink couch and—”
“Do you love me?”
Frisco could see from her eyes that she honestly didn’t know. How could she not know? Well, he realized, because for starters, he’d never actually said the words….
“You know, up at the cabin, when I said all those horrible things…?”
Mia nodded.
“What I really meant to say was that I’d fallen absolutely in love with you, and that I was terrified—both of what I was feeling, and of the thought of you ruining the rest of your life by spending it with me.”
She was indignant. “How could you have thought that?”
He smiled. “I still think it—I just figure I’ll work really hard to keep you happy and smiling, and you won’t even notice. You also won’t notice that when we vote, we cancel each other out.”
“Democracy in action,” Mia said.
“And maybe, someday—if you want—we could add ‘making babies’ to that list you started on my refrigerator,” he told her. “What do you say?”
“Yes,” Mia told him, emotion making her voice tremble. “I say oh, yes.”
Frisco kissed her.
And he was whole.
EVERYDAY, AVERAGE JONES
For my big sister,
Carolee Brockmann.
And for my mom,
Lee Brockmann,
who likes even the ones
that never sell.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Candace Irvin, who helped clear up a great deal of confusion about rank and pay grade and U.S. Navy life in general.
My eternal thanks to my tall, dark and dangerously funny friend Eric Ruben, who called me up one day and said, “Hey, Suz, I just read a great article about Navy SEALs. You should check it out.” (I did, and the rest, as they say, is history.)
Thanks also to the EAJ Project volunteers from the Team Ten list (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/teamten/) for their proofreading skills: Group Captain Rebecca Chappell, Jolene Birum, Joan Detzner, Nancy Fecca, Ginny Ann Jakob, Annie Lewis, Leah Long, Gail Reddin, Vivian L. Weaver and Deborah Wooley.
Special thanks to the Frisco’s Kid Project volunteers, who got left out of the acknowledgments for that book: cocaptains Rebecca Chappell and Agnes Brach, Miriam Caraway, Maureen Cleator, Nicole Ione Cottles, Anne Dierkes, Melody Jacobson, Leah Long, Kelly Ludwig, Nadine Mayhew and Lauri Uzee. Hooyah, gang! Thanks so much to all of you for helping out.
Thanks to the real teams of SEALs, and to all the courageous men and women in the U.S. military who sacrifice so much to keep America the land of the free and the home of the brave. And last but not least, a heartfelt thank-you to the wives, husbands, children and families of these real-life military heroes and heroines. Your sacrifice is deeply appreciated!
Tall, Dark and Dangerous Vol 1: Tall, Dark and FearlessTall, Dark and Devastating Page 75