Tall, Dark and Dangerous Vol 1: Tall, Dark and FearlessTall, Dark and Devastating

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Cowboy rushed him again, and this time Lucky was ready for his attack. They landed together, hard, in the dirt. Cowboy’s elbow hit a rock and he welcomed the pain that shot through him. It was sharp and sweet, and it masked the pain in his heart.

  But Lucky didn’t want to fight. He kneed Cowboy hard in the stomach. While Cowboy was struggling to regain his breath, Lucky scrambled free. “You crazy bastard! What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  Cowboy pulled himself to his feet, breathing hard, moving menacingly toward the other SEAL. “I warned you if you bad-mouthed her again, I’d kill you.”

  Wes had stuck his head out the door to see what was causing the commotion. “Senior Chief!” he bellowed after taking one quick look.

  Harvard was across the roof and down that drainpipe in a flash. “Back off,” he shouted to Cowboy, stepping directly between the two men. “Just back off! Do you hear me, Jones? You hit him again, and your butt is going to be in deep trouble!”

  Cowboy stood, bent over, hands on his knees, still catching his breath.

  Harvard turned and glared at Wesley and Bobby, who both stood watching by the door. “This doesn’t concern you!”

  They disappeared back inside.

  “What the hell is this about?” Harvard asked, looking from Cowboy to Lucky.

  “Beats me, H.” Lucky brushed dirt from his shoulder. “The psycho here jumped me.”

  Harvard fixed his obsidian glare on Cowboy. “Junior, you have something to say?”

  Cowboy lifted his head. “Only that if O’Donlon so much as breathes Melody’s name again, I’ll put him in the hospital.”

  “Damn, I feel like a kindergarten teacher,” Harvard muttered, turning back to Lucky. “O’Donlon, were you really stupid enough to be dissing his woman?”

  “His woman…?” Lucky was genuinely confused and not entirely unamused. “Jones, you just got through telling us that you’re not going to marry…the one who shall remain nameless because I don’t want to have to put you in the hospital.”

  Harvard swore pungently. “It’s obvious that right here we’ve got a live showing of Dumb and Dumber, Part Two.”

  “I don’t get it,” Lucky said to Cowboy. “If you’re so hot for this girl, why the hell aren’t you marrying her?”

  Cowboy straightened up. “Because she doesn’t want me,” he said quietly, all of his anger and frustration stripped away, leaving only the hurt behind. God, it hurt. He looked at Harvard. “H., I tried, but…she doesn’t want me.” To his absolute horror, tears filled his eyes.

  And for maybe the first time in his entire life, Lucky was silent. He didn’t try to make a joke. Harvard looked at the blond-haired SEAL. “Jones and I are going take a walk. That okay with you, O’Donlon?”

  Lucky nodded. “Yeah, that’s uh… Yeah, Senior Chief.”

  Harvard didn’t say another word until they’d walked halfway across the exercise field. By then, thank God, Cowboy had regained his composure.

  “Jones, I have to start by apologizing to you,” Harvard told him. “This whole snafu’s my fault. I told the guys you were going to marry this girl. I guess I just assumed you’d do whatever you had to, to convince her that marrying you is the right thing. Which leads me to my main point. I’m honestly surprised at you, Junior. I’ve never known you to quit.”

  Cowboy stopped walking. “Bottom line, what do I really have to offer her? Thirty days of leave a year.” He swore. “I grew up with a father who was never there. With only thirty days each year, there’s no use pretending I could be any kind of a real father to my kid—or a real husband to Melody. This way, we’re all being honest. I’ll be the guy who comes to visit a few times a year. And Mel will hook up with someone else. Someone who’ll be there for her all the time.”

  Harvard was shaking his head. “You’ve talked yourself into believing this is a lose-lose situation, haven’t you? Open your eyes and look around you, boy. Your captain’s in the exact same boat. It’s true Veronica and his kid miss him when he’s gone, but with a little effort, they’re making the situation work.”

  “Yeah, but Veronica is willing to travel. I couldn’t ask Melody to leave Appleton. It’s her home. She loves it there.”

  “Junior, you can’t afford not to ask.”

  Cowboy shook his head. “She doesn’t want me,” he said again. “She wants an average guy, not a SEAL.”

  “Well, there I can’t help you,” Harvard said. “Because even if you quit the units tomorrow, you’re never going to be mistaken for an average guy.”

  Quit the units tomorrow…

  He could do that. He could quit. He could move to Massachusetts, set up permanent residence in that tent outside Melody’s house….

  But he didn’t want to quit. Except that was exactly what he’d done. Harvard was right. In what could possibly be the most important fight of his life—the fight to win Melody—he’d surrendered far too easily.

  He should have told her he loved her before he left. He should be there right now, down on his knees, still telling her that he loved her, telling her that this time it was real. No matter what she said, he knew it was real. And she loved him, too. He’d seen it in her eyes, tasted it in her kisses, heard it in her laughter.

  Yeah, she might not know it yet, but she definitely loved him. He should have realized it a full day ago, from the way she’d held him so tightly up at the quarry.

  Cowboy looked at Harvard. “I’ve got to go back to Massachusetts right away. A weekend. That’s all I need. Just two and a half days.”

  Harvard laughed. “Come on. I’ll go with you. We’ll go talk to Joe.”

  “Thank you, Senior Chief.”

  “Don’t thank me yet, Junior.”

  JOE CATALANOTTO SIGHED. “I can’t do it, Jones. It’s going to have to wait a week or so.” He gestured to the television in the corner of his office. “I’ve been monitoring a situation in South America for the past day and a half. A plane’s been hijacked. Two hundred forty-seven people on board.” Sure enough, the TV was tuned to CNN. “Any minute now, this phone’s gonna ring, and Alpha Squad’s going to be ordered over to Venezuela to help create order out of chaos.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, kid. I need you with the team. Best I can tell you is to let your fingers do the walking. Make a phone visit, but do it now. Get your gear ready to go, too. Because once we get the word to move, there won’t be time.”

  Cowboy nodded. “And if you’re wrong, sir?”

  Cat laughed. “If I’m wrong, I’ll give you an entire week. But I’m not wrong.”

  As if to prove his point, the telephone rang.

  Cowboy scrambled for the door. He threw it open and made a dash for the nearest telephone. He punched in his calling-card number and then Melody’s number. Please, God, let her be home. Please, God…

  The phone rang once, twice, three times. All around him, he could hear the sounds of Alpha Squad getting ready to move. On the fourth ring, the answering machine picked up.

  “Come on, Cowboy!” Wes shouted. “You don’t even have your gear together yet!”

  Brittany’s recorded voice came on, followed by the beep.

  “Melody, it’s me, Jones.” God, he had no clue what to say. “I just wanted to tell you—”

  Beep. Damn, he paused too long and the answering machine, mistaking his silence for a disconnected line, had cut him off.

  “Come on, Cowboy! Move!”

  “I love you!” he shouted into the receiver. That was what he should have said. KISS. Keep it simple. Bottom line. But it was too late to call her back.

  Cowboy hung up the phone with a curse.

  MELODY WAS DREAMING. She knew she was dreaming because Jones was with her, and they were back in the Middle East, hiding from the soldiers who were patrolling the city.

  “Close your eyes,” Jones told her. “Keep breathing, shallowly, softly. They won’t see us. I promise.”

  Her heart was pounding, but his arm was around her, and she knew at the very least, i
f she died, she wouldn’t die alone.

  “I love you,” she whispered, afraid if she didn’t say it now, she’d never get the chance.

  He motioned for her to be silent, but it was too late. One of the soldiers had heard her, then turned and fired his gun. The bullet slammed into her with wrenching force. Pain exploded in her abdomen.

  The baby! Dear God, she’d been shot, and they’d hit the baby.

  Her legs felt wet with blood, but Jones was fighting the enemy soldiers. He was firing his own gun, driving them away.

  Another knife blade of pain seared through her, and she cried out.

  Jones turned toward her, touching her, and his hands came away red with her blood.

  He looked at her and his eyes were so green, even in the darkness. “Wake up,” he said. “Honey, you’ve got to wake up.”

  Melody opened her eyes to see the first dim light of dawn creeping in through her windows. She’d been so tired last night, she hadn’t even taken the time to draw the curtains.

  Pain knifed through her, real pain, the same pain she’d dreamed. She gasped, turning to reach for the lamp on her bedside table. She switched it on, and with shock realized that her hands had left behind a smear of blood.

  She was bleeding.

  She pulled back the covers to see that her nightgown and the sheets below were stained bright red.

  Brittany was still at work. She wouldn’t be home until after seven.

  Pain made the room spin.

  “Jones!”

  But Jones wasn’t there to help her, either. Melody didn’t know where Jones was. He’d called and left a message on the machine over two weeks ago. She’d tried to call him back, but was told he was unavailable and would remain that way for an undetermined amount of time.

  He was out of touch on some mission, risking his life doing God knows what. She’d spent the past two weeks scared to death and kicking herself for not being honest with him. She should have told him that she loved him while she had the chance.

  Please, God, keep him safe. Every time Melody thought about him, she said that silent prayer.

  The pain gripped her again, and she cried out. God, what was happening? This wasn’t labor. She wasn’t supposed to bleed when she went into labor….

  Her door was pushed open. “Mel?”

  Brittany. Thank God, she’d gotten home from work early.

  “Oh, dear Lord!” Brittany saw the blood on the sheets. She picked up the phone, dialed 911, smoothed back Melody’s hair, feeling her forehead, checking her eyes. “Sweetie, when did the bleeding start?”

  “I don’t know. I was sleeping…God!” The pain made her see stars. “Britt, the baby! What’s happening with the baby?”

  But Brittany spoke into the phone, rattling off their address. “We need an ambulance here stat. I’ve got a twenty-five-year-old woman in the ninth month of her first pregnancy, experiencing severe abdominal pain and hemorrhaging.”

  Melody closed her eyes. Please, God, keep both Jones and her baby safe and alive…

  “Yes, I’m a nurse,” Brittany responded. “I suspect placental abruption. We’ll need fetal monitors and an ultrasound ready and waiting at the hospital. Yes. I’ll have the door open. Just get here!”

  “JONES, YOU BETTER get down here.” Harvard’s voice sounded tight and grim over the telephone line. “There’s a stack of messages for you that’s four inches high.”

  Cowboy’s heart leaped. “From Melody?”

  “Junior, just get down here.”

  Fear flickered inside him. “H., what’s the deal? Is Mel all right? Did she have the baby?”

  “I don’t know for sure. It looks as if the first few messages are from Melody, but the rest… Jones, Mel’s sister has been calling nearly every hour for the past two days. I recommend you get down here and call her back ASAP. She’s left a number at the hospital.”

  A number at the hospital. Cowboy didn’t even say goodbye. He hung up the phone and ran.

  The temporary barracks he was sharing with the other unmarried members of the team were a good half mile from the leaky-roofed Quonset hut that housed Alpha Squad’s office. Cowboy was still wearing his clunky leather boots and his heavy camouflage gear, but he covered the distance in a small handful of minutes.

  As he burst through the door, Harvard handed him both the pile of messages and a telephone. The sheer number of message slips was enough to terrify him. Brittany had, literally, called every hour on the hour since early Monday morning.

  Cowboy’s hands were shaking so badly, he had to dial the number twice. Harvard had backed away, giving him privacy. He sat down at the desk, shuffling through the pile of messages as, up in the County Hospital in Appleton, Massachusetts, the phone was ringing.

  “Hello?”

  It was Brittany’s voice. She sounded hoarse and worn-out.

  “Britt, it’s Jones.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Please tell me she’s safe.” Cowboy closed his eyes.

  “She’s safe.” Brittany’s voice broke. “For now. Jones, you’ve got to come up here and talk her into having a C-section. I think one of the reasons she’s refusing to do it is because she promised you that you could be here when the baby was born.”

  “But she’s not due for another two and a half weeks.”

  “She had a partial placental abruption,” Brittany told him. “That’s when the placenta becomes partially separated from the uterus—”

  “I know what it is,” he said, cutting her off. “Did she hemorrhage?”

  “Yes. Early Monday morning. It wasn’t as bad as I first thought, though. She was taken by ambulance to the hospital and her doctor managed to get her stabilized. Both she and the baby are being monitored. If there’s the slightest change in either of their conditions, they’re going to have to do a C-section. She knows that. But right now, the doctor has told her that the baby’s in no real danger, and she’s determined to hold on as long as possible.”

  Cowboy drew in a deep breath. “May I talk to her?”

  “She’s sleeping right now. Please, Lieutenant, I don’t think she’s going to agree to have this baby until you get up here. But if she starts hemorrhaging again, there’s no guarantee that this time they’ll be able to get her to stop. They’ll be able to save the baby, but they’ll lose the mother.”

  Cowboy looked down at the phone messages in his hand. There were four from Melody, all dated close to the day he’d left for South America. The first three were just notices that said she’d called. The last actually had a message. It was written in quotes, and the receptionist who answered the phone had put a smiley face next to the words, “I love you.”

  Cowboy stood up. “Tell her our deal’s off,” he told Britanny. “Tell her not to wait for me to have the baby. Tell her I’ll be mad as hell if I get up there and that baby’s not hanging out in the hospital nursery. Tell her I’m on my way.”

  He hung up the phone, and Harvard silently appeared. The senior chief handed him papers signed by the captain, granting him as much personal emergency leave as he needed.

  “There’s an air force transport heading up to Boston in twenty minutes,” Harvard told him. “I’ve called in some favors from some people I know—they’re holding the flight for you. Bobby’s out front with a jeep to drive you to the airfield.”

  Cowboy held up the message that Melody had left. “She loves me, H.”

  “This is news to you, Junior?” Harvard laughed. “Damn, I knew that last year in the Middle East.” He followed Cowboy to the door. “Godspeed, Jones. My prayers are with you.”

  Cowboy swung himself up and into the jeep, and with a squeal of tires, he was away.

  “SHE WAS GIVEN an amniocentesis so we could assess the baby’s lung development.” Brittany was talking in a whisper as she came into the room. Melody kept her eyes closed. “All of the tests have indicated that this baby is ready for delivery. His estimated weight clocked in at over eight pounds. But Melody insists that u
nless the baby is in danger, she’s not going to deliver him any earlier than December 1st. You’ve got to convince her that her stubbornness is putting her life in danger.”

  “The worst part about being in the hospital is that everybody always talks about you as if you weren’t in the room.” Melody opened her eyes, expecting to glare up at her sister and some new doctor she’d enlisted.

  Instead, she found herself looking directly at Harlan Jones. He was wearing camouflage pants and a matching shirt, and he looked as if he’d come directly from the jungle.

  “Hey,” he said, smiling at her, “heard you’ve been raising a little too much hell around here.”

  She recognized that smile he was giving her. It was his “I’m going to pretend everything’s all right” smile. In truth, he was scared to death.

  “I’m fine,” she told him. As she watched, Brittany quietly left the room.

  He sat down next to her. “That’s not what I hear.”

  She forced a smile of her own. “Yeah, well, you’ve been talking to Nurse Doom.”

  He laughed. She realized he was carrying a clipboard in his hands, and he held it out to her now. “Sign these forms,” he told her. “Have the C-section. It’s time to stop playing games with your life.”

  Melody lifted her chin. “You think that’s what this is? Some game? Everything I’ve ever read stressed the importance of carrying a baby to term. Or at least carrying for as long as possible. The baby’s not in danger. I’m not in danger. I see no reason to do this.”

  Jones took her hand. “Do this now because until this baby is born, there is a risk that you will bleed to death,” he said. “Do this because although the chances of that happening are very slim, so were the chances of your having a placental separation in the first place. You don’t have high blood pressure. You aren’t a smoker. There’s no real reason why this should have happened. Do this because if you die, a very large part of me will die, too. Do this because I love you.”

  Melody was caught in the hypnotizing intensity of his gaze. “I guess you got my message.”