“I usually stick to cleaning out closets.” Savannah was impressed. “I’ve never tried anything that involves an ax.”
“I have,” Meg said dryly. “Don’t bother. It doesn’t help.”
Nothing helped.
“If you want,” Savannah suggested, “we could help you organize your closets. It’ll keep you busy. And you’ll also win big bonus points when Alyssa comes back.”
When Alyssa comes back. They were sitting there, all three of them, pretending that if Alyssa comes back wasn’t what she really meant.
God, he hated this. But the alternative was sitting in his kitchen by himself. Or trying to fool Haley into thinking everything was all right, and sneaking into the bedroom every ten minutes to turn on CNN, see if there was any new information that made it to the cable news station first.
So he told Savannah, “I did the closets on the second night. It took a while, but I wasn’t going to sleep, so …”
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Meg asked, clearly working to keep the conversation going. “Just how much junk two people can accumulate in a short amount of time …?”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I found this old hat—a baseball cap—that I thought I lost years ago and—” He broke off. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry, I can’t stand it. I’m just sitting here, so freaking helpless—I can’t do a thing to help her. Even if I got on a plane …” It would take him at least forty-eight hours to get to Ikrimah. He closed his eyes. “Right now, she could be dying. Right now. Right now. And I can’t help her.”
Meg took his hand. “I know,” she said quietly. “It’s hard, isn’t it?”
Sam looked at her, and he knew that she knew exactly what he was feeling. “How many times have you done this?” he asked.
“Thought John might not be coming home?” she clarified. She didn’t wait for him to respond. “There’ve been, oh, I guess three or four times somewhat similar to this situation. But, you know, every time he’s out there and there’s some news report about a helicopter crash or a suicide bomber or …” She laughed as she shook her head. “Believe me, there’s a lot of prayer involved when you’re married to a SEAL.”
“And a lot of really clean refrigerators,” Savannah added.
“Pristine closets.”
“Well gardened yards.”
“You see, John knows where he is when he’s on an op,” Meg told Sam. “He knows when he’s safe and when he’s at risk. But all I know is he’s somewhere dangerous and …” She shrugged. “It sucks.”
No kidding. “I had no idea,” Sam admitted. “Before this, I just …” He shook his head. When he’d gone wheels up with the team he’d understood that it was no picnic for the wives, girlfriends, and significant others they left behind. But he’d had no clue just how awful it could be.
Joan appeared in the doorway, cordless phone in her hands. “That was Mike,” she told them. “The team’s training exercise’ll be over in an hour. He and John and Ken’ll bring dinner when they come.”
The phone rang again, and Joan retreated toward the living room. “Starrett and Locke residence,” Sam heard her say. But then she gasped. “Oh, my God!”
Sam was up and out of his chair, and he nearly collided with her as she came racing back into the kitchen, thrusting the phone at him.
“Jules,” he said as he clasped it to his ear. Please God, let this be good news. “What’s the word?”
“It’s not Jules,” Joan said, but he waved for her to be quiet, because all he could hear was static, and then …
“Sam, it’s me. I’m all right,” Alyssa said—beautiful, wonderful, vibrant, and so-very-alive Alyssa—her voice suddenly clear as day.
“It’s Lys,” Joan announced, which was good because try as he might, Sam couldn’t get the words out.
“Ah, Jesus, thank you, God” was all he could manage, and even that was little more than a whisper.
Meg and Savannah both leapt to their feet. Meg pulled one of the kitchen chairs behind him, and Savannah tugged him back into it, Joan pushing his head down between his knees—as if they thought he might actually faint.
“Hey!” But, shit, he was dizzy and on the verge of falling out of the chair, so maybe they were onto something there. But before he could thank them, they all left, hurrying out into the backyard to give him privacy.
“The SAS came in and … Gordon MacKenzie, remember him?” Alyssa asked. “His team pulled us out. He remembers you. He wants to know what you think of his SAS boys now.”
Gordon MacKenzie …?
“Gordie told me his SAS team did some training exercises with SEAL Team Sixteen, back a few years,” Alyssa continued as Sam desperately tried to regain his equilibrium. “He said they learned a lot from you—that you used to rate them on a scale from one to ten. But you never gave them anything higher than an eight.”
Yeah, he remembered that. MacKenzie had gotten in his face and accused him of being a hardnosed asshole. Actually arsehole was what he’d said in his quaint Scottish accent. Sam had countered by standing his ground and saying he’d give them a ten when they fucking deserved a ten. And no sooner. Maybe they’d earn it next year, he’d told MacKenzie when the exercise had ended.
“Sam, are you still there? Can you hear me?” Alyssa was saying through the phone.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yes. Lys, are you really all right?” Frickin’ Gordie MacKenzie’s team had helped save Alyssa’s life. Next time he saw the dour bastard, he’d kiss him on the mouth. “Where are you?”
“The helo just landed on an aircraft carrier,” she said. “We’re safe.” She sounded exhausted, and she exhaled hard. “Those of us who made it out alive.”
“Are you hurt?” he asked, heart in his throat.
“Just a little tired,” she told him—she always had been the queen of understatement. “Well, yeah, okay, I could use a few stitches—just a few, don’t get upset, I’m fine. We’re pretty dehydrated, though. They’ve got us all on IV drips.”
“I am so freaking glad to hear your voice,” he told her, and she laughed. “You have no idea.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Actually, I do. Although, don’t be jealous. I have to admit, as glad as I am to talk to you, I was even more glad to hear Gordie MacKenzie’s voice this morning.”
No kidding. “Tell Gordie that I love him,” Sam said.
Alyssa laughed again. “Those aren’t the three little words he’s longing to hear from you, Sam. Seriously, what they did was … It was remarkably courageous. We were trapped and … I honestly didn’t think anyone was coming for us—that anyone would be able to … I thought … It was bad,” she said quietly.
Sam had to put his head back down between his knees. Alyssa, who never gave up, who wouldn’t dream of quitting, had honestly thought she wasn’t going to survive.
“He doesn’t need me to give him a ten,” Sam told her. “He knows.”
“Still …” There was a storm of static. “… ignal’s fading—I have to go. Sam—”
“I love you,” Sam told her. Thank God, thank God, thank God …
“I know.” Alyssa’s voice was fading in and out, but he could still make out her words. “There was a point where it would have been easier to, you know, just … have it over and done, but …”
“Thank you,” he said, hoping she could still hear him. “For not giving up.”
“How could I?” She sounded as if she were a million miles away. “You were with me, you know. Every minute. I could feel you by my side.” Sam could just barely hear her laughter over the static. “Ready to give me shit if I so much as faltered. Gordie told me you have a permanent spot on his shoulder, too—whispering into his ear. And here you thought you were taking it easy, sitting around the kitchen with your feet up.”
Taking it easy. She had no idea.
“I love you,” he heard her say right before his phone beeped.
He looked at it and yeah, the signal was gone.
Sitting around the kitchen
… He’d been on dozens of dangerous missions. He’d risked his life more times than he could count.
None of it had been as hard as the past few hours.
Sam dialed Jules Cassidy’s phone number, left a brief message. “Alyssa called. She’s all right.”
Through the kitchen window he could see Meg and Joan and Savannah out in the backyard with Haley and the other girls.
Sam punched Johnny Nilsson’s cell number into his phone. The SEAL lieutenant was still out on a training exercise, so he left a voice mail. “Alyssa’s safe. I just got off the phone with her. But that’s not the only reason I’m calling. I think it would be smart if you brought your wife an armload of flowers when you came home,” he told his friend. “Tell Mike and Kenny, too. Not just tonight, but every night for the rest of your lives.”
****
It was already a half hour past Haley’s bedtime when Sam sat on the edge of her bed. He’d promised she could watch a little bit of the football game with him, only it had started later than he’d thought.
“You want Duck or Hippo in there with you tonight?” His daughter frowned, and he quickly added, “Or both, on account of it being a special occasion.”
“Because Alyssa’s okay?” Haley asked.
“Yeah,” he said, smiling into her anxious blue eyes. “And because she’ll be home the same day as your momma.”
Haley nodded, taking that in. “Amy said we had to stay outside in case you wanted to cry and say bad words,” she told him. “Did you?”
“I think I said a few,” Sam admitted. “And, yeah, I might’ve cried a little.”
Haley nodded, so seriously. “If you want, I could put my fingers in my ears, like when the fire truck goes by.”
Sam struggled to understand. “You mean … so you won’t have to hear me cry? Hale, I’m not going to—”
“In case you say more bad words,” she explained.
“I won’t,” he told her, struggling now not to laugh. “How about giving me a hug and kiss goodnight, Cookie Monster?”
“Sometimes there’s nothing to do but have a good ol’ cry,” she said, repeating his words from the night before. “If you want, I could cry, too.”
“No.” Sam smoothed back her hair and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you, but no.” He tucked both Duck and Hippo in with her.
“If you want,” Haley suggested, clinging to his fingers, “I could hold your hand. Keep you company until you fall asleep. I’m not very tired.”
But her eyes were all but rolling back in her head. Amy had done quite a job, running Haley back and forth across the yard playing tag and Red Light Green Light and Follow the Leader and other games Sam didn’t even know the names of.
He’d keep that in mind tomorrow. Maybe they’d take a ride over to Coronado, buy a kite, and run up and down the beach a few thousand times.
“I love you, Hale,” he whispered, but she was already asleep.
Sam left her door open a crack and went into the living room, where he turned on the TV and watched the football game right to the bitter end.
He then watched the news, where the anchors solemnly reported that five members of Eugene Ryan’s delegation to Kazbekistan had died when their helo was shot down.
Five families had gotten the kind of phone call he’d been dreading. They had been given the message Meg and Savannah and all of the other wives of the SEALs in Team Sixteen prayed they’d never receive.
Their husband, wife, son, or daughter was never coming home.
It was entirely possible that any tears that Sam may have shed were the result of the Cowboys losing the game.
But probably not.
Sam Takes an Assignment in Italy
2005
This story takes place some time after Breaking Point and before Into the Storm.
“Why,” Sam bitched into his cell phone on Tuesday night, “did Tom have to send me out here?”
His wife Alyssa didn’t answer, because she wasn’t on the other end. She was out handling a real case—an important case—so he was just leaving voice mail.
A known sex offender had gone missing. The man’s sister had hired Troubleshooters Incorporated to find him before he hurt anyone else. Alyssa had taken the assignment and was in Richmond, Virginia, tracking him down.
Meanwhile Sam sat here, halfway around the world, the newest poster child for Murphy’s Law. Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.
And oh, how it had.
And you there, trying to glass-half-full this disaster? It’s obviously not painful enough for you, so let Mr. Murphy supersize it, ’kay?
No doubt about it, Murphy had been riding Sam’s ass from the moment he’d kissed Alyssa goodbye far too many weeks ago. This so-called easy assignment setting up security at a corporate honcho’s big fat Italian wedding had turned into a nightmare. Four days had turned into a week, and then that week had turned into an unbelievable three.
Yeah sure, the little coastal town was beautiful—all blue sky and ocean, gorgeous beaches, bright sunshine. Yeah sure, Sam was making a fortune for Tom Paoletti’s security company—and yeah, all right, he’d earned himself one hell of a bonus for his trouble, too—but come on.
The inefficiency of the honcho’s staff was mind-numbing. Sam could have made bricks by hand and constructed a wall around the wedding chapel himself in the time it took them just to make the decision to set up a temporary chain-link fence and then hide it with a decorative one.
First the ceremony was going to be held indoors. Then out. Then in. Then on the beach. Each time the location shifted, Sam reworked the details that would keep the VIPs safe and the paparazzi at bay. He hadn’t written this many reports since college.
And then—God please help him—there were the bridesmaids from hell. Four spoiled daughters of either the bride or the groom—this was a third or fourth marriage for the client, Sam had lost count—they all had far too much time on their hands. Ashley, Heather, Sabrina, and Chloe.
Ashley and Chloe were the worst. They followed Sam constantly, refusing to let him be. He’d flashed his wedding ring and mentioned his wife when they were first introduced. When they hadn’t seemed to get the hint, he’d flat-out told them that he loved Alyssa more than life itself. He’d even showed them a photo of her, but they just did not let up.
Which led to tonight’s phone call and Sam’s desperate plea for Alyssa to hurry up and find the man she was looking for, get her butt on a plane, and join him.
“It’s like trying to work in the middle of a Girls Gone Wild video,” he complained, and of course, again, she said nothing because she wasn’t there.
“I miss you, Lys,” he whispered, which was, in fact, his biggest problem. He could handle an entire army of Ashleys and Chloes. He could rewrite a report for the hundredth time if he had to. He could attend dozens more meetings that redefined boring.
What he couldn’t do was survive too many more mornings waking up thousands of miles away from the woman that he loved. And it wasn’t just that he missed her in his bed. He missed her smile, her voice, her very presence in his life.
“Please come and save me,” he begged and cut the connection.
****
Wednesday brought more perfect weather—and another teeth-gritting delay in the impending nuptials. Chloe informed him over breakfast that the wedding had now been moved to Sunday—just a day later than Saturday, but still.
She also told him that her father would be out of touch until Thursday morning—which left Sam with just enough time to not be able to squeeze in a round-trip to Richmond.
Of course, if he’d been told about this yesterday morning, he could have made it there and back.
Sam worked off his frustration—or tried to anyway—with a ten-mile run. It was nearly noon before he returned to the resort.
He was drenched with perspiration, his hair literally dripping with sweat. He would have stuck to the shade and gone straight up to his room without talking to anyone, except there w
as some sort of commotion by the pool.
The hellsmaids—three of them anyway; Chloe was AWOL—were giving their full, shrill attention to a man dressed in a snugly fitting blue T-shirt and linen pants. He was height-challenged, with dark hair and …
“Hey, sweetie,” he said as he spotted Sam dripping on the stone walkway beneath the arches, turning to greet him with a wide smile. “Rumor has it you need some TLC.”
Alyssa apparently couldn’t make it here to Italy, but she’d called their good friend and her former partner in the FBI, Jules Cassidy, as a stand-in.
He came right over and gave Sam a hug, despite the high sweat and slime factor. In fact, Jules gave him a big hug. A much, much, much too long of a hug.
For once, Heather, Ashley, and Sabrina were wide-eyed and silent, staring at them, definitely wondering …
So Sam cleared his throat. “It’s good to see you,” he told Jules. Which was no lie. But when he cleared his throat again and gruffly added, “Sweetie,” it definitely boosted any potential misperceptions.
Jules laughed his ass off, of course. “Alyssa is going to love hearing about this,” he whispered as he hugged Sam again.
Yeah, she would. Provided they would ever be in the same country at the same time again.
****
“I was in Dubai,” Jules said, as Sam pulled two bottles of cold water from his suite’s kitchen fridge. He tossed one to Jules. “Thanks. It’s not quite the same neighborhood, but close enough. Closer than Richmond. I had some time off coming, so … Here I am.”
“Checking up on me.” Sam toasted him then took a long swig from his bottle.
“Absolutely not,” Jules said. Up close, the FBI agent looked tired. His usually bright smile even seemed a touch forced. He sank into one of the leather armchairs in the suite’s sitting area. “Your wife trusts you completely. Although, that Girls Gone Wild comment? It was probably not her most favorite thing she’s ever heard you say.”
“I was trying to get a rise out of her. And no offense,” Sam said, half-sitting on the desk where his laptop was out and open, “but I was kind of hoping she’d be the one to show.”
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