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 unless 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 car rying 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."
"Yeah," he said. "But you only got part of mine. I had literally ten seconds before I had to leave and I blew it. What I meant to say on your answering machine was that I want you to marry me, not for the baby's sake, but for my sake. Purely selfish reasons, Mel. Like, because I love you and I want to spend my life with you."
He cleared his throat. "And I was going to tell you that I knew there was a part of you that could love me, and that I was going to keep coming back to Appleton, that I was going to court you until you did fall in love with me. I was going to tell you that I wasn't going to quit, and that sooner or later, I'd wear you down—even if you only married me to shut me up." He handed her the clipboard. "So sign these release forms, have this baby and marry me."
Melody's heart was in her throat. "Do you really understand what you're asking me to do?"
He looked out the window at the dreary late-afternoon light. "Yeah," he said, "I do. I'm asking you to leave your home and come live with me near naval bases, moving around God only knows how many times in the course of a year. I'm asking you to give up your job, and your garden, and your sister and Andy, just to be with me, even though some of the time—hell, most of the time—I'll be gone. It's a bad deal. I don't recommend you take it. But at the same time, honey, I'm praying that you'll say yes."
Melody looked at the man sitting beside her bed. His hair was long and dirty, as if he hadn't showered in days. He smelled of gasoline and sweat and sunblock. He looked spent, as if he'd run all the way from Virginia just to be here with her.
"Trust me," he whispered, leaning close to kiss her softly. "Trust me with your heart. I'll keep it safe, I swear."
Mel closed her eyes and kissed him. Harlan Jones wasn't the average, run-of-the-mill, home-every-day-at-five-thirty type she would have chosen if the choice could be made with pure intellect. But love wasn't rational. Love didn't stick to a plan. And truth was, she loved him. She had to take the chance.
"You are going to get so sick of me telling you to be careful," she whispered.
"No, I'm not."
Melody signed the medical procedure consent forms. "Do you think Harvard would agree to be our best man?"
Jones took the clipboard from her hands. "I want to hear you say yes."
She gazed up at him. "Yes. I love you," she told him.
Tears filled his eyes, but his smile was pure Jones as he leaned forward and kissed her.
Epilogue
Melody Jones sat in her new backyard, watching her neighbors, her friends and her new family gather to celebrate her wedding.
It was only February, but the South was having a m
ild winter, and the daffodils in her garden were already in bloom.
The growing season in Virginia was at least three months longer than in Massachusetts. She loved that. She loved everything about her new life. She loved this little rented house outside the naval base where Alpha Squad was temporarily stationed. She loved waking up each morning with Jones in her bed. She loved holding their son, Tyler, in her arms as she rocked him to sleep. She even loved the late-night feedings.
Brittany sat down next to her. "The papers came through," she said. "Day before yesterday. Andy's my kid now." She laughed. "God help me."
Melody embraced her sister. "I'm so happy for you."
"And I'm so happy for you." Brittany laughed again. "I'm not sure I've ever been to a party before with so many incredible-looking men. And all those dress uniforms! I nearly fainted when I went into the church. I suppose you get used to it."
Melody grinned. "No," she said, "you don't."
Across the yard, Jones had Tyler on one shoulder. He swayed slightly to keep the baby happy as he stood talking to Harvard and his father, the admiral. As Melody watched, he laughed at something Harvard said and the baby started. Jones gently kissed the baby's head, soothing him back to sleep.
As Melody looked around her yard, she realized that Brittany was right. Nearly all of the men there were SEALs, and they were, indeed, an unusual-looking group.
Jones looked across the yard and met her eyes. The smile he gave her made her heart somersault in her chest. It was his "I love you" smile—the smile he saved for her and her alone. She smiled back at him, knowing he could read her love for him as clearly in her eyes.
Despite her best intentions, she had gone and married the least everyday, ordinary, average man that she'd ever known. No indeed, there was absolutely nothing normal about a man called "Cowboy" Jones. He was one hundred percent out of the ordinary—and so was his incredible love for her.
And she wouldn't have it any other way.
5 - Harvard’s Education (1998)
Special thanks to Candace Irvin—friend, fellow writer and unlimited source of U.S. Navy information—and to my on-line SEAL buddy, Mike—wherever you are. Thanks also to the helpful staff at the UDT-SEAL Museum in Fort Pierce, Florida, and to Vicki Debock, who told me about it.
Chapter 1
This was wrong. It was all wrong. Another few minutes, and this entire combined team of FInCOM agents and Navy SEALs was going to be torn to bits.
There was a small army of terrorists out there in the steamy July night. The Ts—or tangos, as the SEALs were fond of calling them—were waiting on their arrival with assault rifles that were as powerful as the weapon P. J. Richards clutched in her sweating hands.
P.J. tried to slow her pounding heart, tried to make the adrenaline that was streaming through her system work for her rather than against her as she crept through the darkness.
FInCOM Agent Tim Farber was calling the shots, but Far-ber was a city boy—and a fool, to boot. He didn't know squat about moving through the heavy underbrush of this kind of junglelike terrain. Of course, P. J. was a fine one to be calling names. Born in D.C., she'd been raised on concrete and crumbling blacktop—a different kind of jungle altogether.
Still, she knew enough to realize that Farber had to move more slowly to listen to the sounds of the night around him. And as long as she was criticizing, the fact that four FInCOM agents and three SEALs were occupying close to the same amount of real estate along this narrow trail made her feel as if she were part of some great big Christmas package, all wrapped up with a ribbon on top, waiting under some terrorist's tree.
"Tim." PJ. spoke almost silently into the wireless radio headset she and the rest of the CSF team—the Combined SEAL/FInCOM Antiterrorist team—had been outfitted with. "Spread us out and slow it down."
"Feel free to hang back if we're moving too fast for you." Farber intentionally misunderstood, and PJ. felt a flash of frustration. As the only woman in the group, she was at the receiving end of more than her share of condescending remarks.
But while PJ. stood only five feet two inches and weighed in at barely one hundred pounds, she could run circles around any one of these men—including most of the big, bad Navy SEALs. She could outshoot nearly all of them, too. When it came to sheer, brute force, yes, she'd admit she was at a disadvantage. But that didn't matter. Even though she couldn't pick them up and throw them any farther than she could spit, she could outthink damn near anyone, no sweat.
She sensed more than heard movement to her right and raised her weapon.
But it was only the SEAL called Harvard. The brother. His name was Daryl Becker and he was a senior chief—the naval equivalent of an army sergeant. He cut an imposing enough figure in his street clothes, but dressed in camouflage gear and protective goggles, he looked more dangerous than any man she'd ever met. He'd covered his face and the top of his shaved head with streaks of green and brown greasepaint that blended eerily with his black skin.
He was older than many of the other SEALs in the illustrious Alpha Squad. P J. was willing to bet he had a solid ten years on her at least, making him thirty-five—or maybe even older. This was no green boy. This one was one-hundred-percent-pure grown man—every hard, muscled inch of him.
Rumor had it he'd actually attended Harvard University and graduated cum laude before enlisting in Uncle Sam's Navy.
He hand-signaled a question. "Are you all right?" He mouthed the words as well—as if he thought she'd already forgotten the array of gestures that allowed them to communicate silently. Maybe Greg Greene or Charles Schneider had forgotten, but she remembered every single one.
"I'm okay," she signaled to him as tersely as she could, frowning to emphasize her disapproval.
Damn, Harvard had been babying her from the word go. Ever since the FInCOM agents had first met the SEALs from Alpha Squad, this man in particular had been watching her closely, no doubt ready to catch her when she finally succumbed to the female vapors and fainted.
P.J. used hand signals to tell him what Tim Farber had ignored. Stop. Listen. Silent. Something's wrong.
The woods around them were oddly quiet. All the chirping and squeaking and rustling of God only knows what kinds of creepy crawly insect life had stopped. Someone else was out there, or they themselves were making too much racket. Either possibility was bad news.
Tim Farber's voice sounded over the headphones. "Ra-heem says the campsite is only a quarter mile ahead. Split up into groups."
About time. If she were the AIC—the agent in charge—of the operation, she would have broken the group into pairs right from the start. Not only that, but she would have taken what the informant, Raheem Al Hadi, said with a very large grain of salt instead of hurtling in, ill-informed and half-cocked.
"Belay that." Tim's voice was too loud in her ears. "Raheem advises the best route in is on this path. These woods are booby-trapped. Stay together."
PJ. felt like one of the Redcoats, marching along the trail from Lexington to Concord—the perfect target for the rebel guerrillas.
She had discussed Raheem with Tim Farber before they'd left on this mission. Or rather, she'd posed some thought provoking questions to which he'd responded with off-the-cuff reassurances. Raheem had given information to the SEALs before. His record had proven him to be reliable. Tim had reassured her, all right—he'd reassured her that he was, indeed, a total fool.
She'd found out from the other two FInCOM agents that Farber believed the SEALs were testing him to see if he trusted them. He was intending to prove he did.
Stay close to me, Harvard said with his hands.
P.J. pretended not to see him as she checked her weapon. She didn't need to be baby-sat. Annoyance flooded through her, masking the adrenaline surges and making her feel almost calm.
He got right in her face. Buddy up, he signaled. Follow me.
No. You follow me. She shot the signal back at him. She, for one, was tired of blindly following just
anyone. She'd come out here in these wretched, bug-infested, swampy woods to neutralize terrorists. And that was exactly what she was going to do. If G.I. Joe here wanted to tag along, that was fine by her.
He caught her wrist in his hand—Lord, he had big hands— and shook his head in warning.
He was standing so close she could feel body heat radiating from him. He was much taller than she was, more than twelve inches, and she had to crane her neck to glare at him properly.
He smiled suddenly, as if he found the evil eye she was giving him behind her goggles amusing. He clicked off his lip mike, pushing it slightly aside so that he could lean down to whisper in her ear, "I knew you'd be trouble, first time I saw you."
It was remarkable, really, the way this man's smile transformed his face, changing him from stern, savage warrior to intensely interested and slightly amused potential lover. Or maybe he was just mildly interested and highly amused, and her too vivid imagination had made up the other parts.
P.J. pulled her hand away, and as she did, the world exploded around her, and Harvard fell to the ground.
He'd been shot.
Her mind froze, but her body reacted swiftly as a projectile whistled past her head.
She brought her weapon up as she hit the ground, using her peripheral vision to mark the positions of the tangos who had crept up behind them. She fired in double bursts, hitting one, then two, then three of them in rapid succession.
All around her, weapons were being fired and men were shouting in outrage and in pain. From what she could see, the entire CSF team was completely surrounded—except for the little hole she'd made in the terrorists' line of attack.
"Man down," PJ. rasped, following FInCOM procedure as she crawled on knees and elbows toward Harvard's body. But he'd taken a direct hit. She knew from one glance there was no use pulling him with her as she moved outside the kill zone.
"Backup—we need backup!" She could hear Tim Farber's voice, pitched up an octave, as she moved as silently as possible toward the prone bodies of the terrorists she'd brought down.
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