It had always made T.J. feel like a better person when he hung around Frankie. He’d never told him that, and this he regretted. Maybe someday he’d tell Frankie’s daughter. Probably would never tell Shannon.
An hour went by. He was surprised at himself for being patient, waiting. He didn’t mind it. Was going to be his last time with Frankie, in a way. That box was up there, like Frankie was in heaven, and he, T.J., was here sitting in the front seat of a truck. Waiting for what? Well, to be honest, he was waiting for the rest of his life, and eventually for the end of it.
But he knew it wouldn’t be for a while. Another one of his sixth senses.
He thought about the promise he’d made Frankie. Wasn’t like he’d agreed to go chase Shannon and get her to marry him, which would be the biggest mistake of both their lives. But he’d find a way to secretly help the little girl, and yeah, he’d kick the first guy who tried to get fresh with her. Would be creepy for the kid, though, having an old, gnarled SEAL shadowing her while she was trying to survive high school. Have this dark shadow around every corner, ready to pop out and defend her. She probably wouldn’t like that. And in another sixteen or seventeen years his capacity for stealth would be seriously compromised. Hell, he might even be using a cane, like Tyler had to occasionally.
He was sharing this chuckle with Frankie, really feeling him sitting in the box with the little mouse chuckle Tom Thumb would have given him, when Shannon arrived. Before she drove into the garage, she rolled down her window, and he did the same. They were heading in different directions.
“Left everything on the porch. Just wanted to make sure no one messed with it,” he said in his softest, most compassionate tone. She did a quick inhale and ripped her eyes from his face, looking out through her dirty windshield.
“Thank you,” she said over the top of her steering wheel. But she didn’t gun it, like he’d expected. She was thinking, and then she tilted her head. “You want to come in for a drink?” she said, still looking straight ahead.
“I don’t think so, Shannon. You’d probably prefer to be alone, and I only came to bring you his things.” That got her to look at him, and he could see the red puffiness around her eyes. Part of him wanted to say he was sorry, but that would have earned him a rebuff. She kept watching him, like she expected Frankie to materialize if she stared at him long enough.
It gave him the creeps, so he looked down at his hands in his lap. “Well, I’ll be going, then.”
As he drove away, he heard her say, faintly, “Thank you.”
But it was probably his imagination.
Chapter Six
‡
IT WAS JUST your basic plain brown box. Didn’t identify itself as military, except for the sticker on the front. When she picked it up, it was very light. Much lighter than a box holding all the personal effects of a man, her husband, the father of the baby she was carrying should be. She’d expected it to be heavy, like lead or gold bricks. Because the stuff of a man’s life was heavy, dense, not simple and lightweight. Not something that could be tipped over to blown away in a gentle wind. It should be heavy enough that, if you threw it, the box would go straight to the bottom of the ocean.
She set the box on the coffee table Frankie’s dad had made years ago, when he’d gotten his woodworking tools. She went back outside and got the duffel, which was heavy.
Laundry.
Probably dirty laundry, she thought, like he always lugged home in this same bag she’d seen dozens of times. He’d walk into the house with the Cheshire cat grin and the gentle eagerness she loved about her Frankie, even though he was a piece of work. She suddenly wished she hadn’t been so hard on him. On those days, soon as he got home, all he wanted to do was take her to the bedroom, and she usually held out for getting her “stuff” done. Today, her “stuff” wasn’t that important.
She sat on the edge of the couch with the duffel bag propped between her knees. This was going to be hard. She’d always been a self-starter. Could handle any crisis, even when everyone else was freaking out. Right now she felt on the edge instead of in the eye of the storm. Things were buffeting and blowing around her, and she wished she could dance in the wind. She wished she could be scared, wished she could be angry, anything but morose. Dead. She felt dead.
Little Courtney stirred, reminding her that she was soon to be a mother. She’d throw everything into raising her. Everything. Her life depended on it. It was the one thing left she’d accomplished with Frankie, one thing they’d shared that would hopefully outlive them both. Courtney would be the best of him and the best of her. It was a miracle the way it had happened. She wanted this baby more than life itself.
She picked up the duffel and lugged it to the laundry room. Near the top his pork pie was laid to rest on Frankie’s neatly folded and ironed shirts with his dress uniform underneath. She took the uniform into their bedroom, setting it, the shirts, and the hat on the bed, like he was going to put them on as soon as he got back from wherever he’d been.
Back in the laundry room, she pulled out camo shirts that hadn’t been well laundered. Holding them up to her nose to determine if they were clean or not, she was filled with the glorious man-scent that was uniquely Frankie’s, and she lost it.
She ran down the hallway to the bedroom. Crashing down onto the mattress, she held the shirt to her chest and cried like she hadn’t been able to do before. She let it fly. She told little Courtney it would be over soon and not to worry.
“Some day you’ll understand, sweetheart.” She closed her eyes and she saw him bending over her, leaning into her body with his hips, reaching for her lips to kiss while he ground into her. He was always tender, caring more about what she was feeling than himself. Unselfish.
“Love you, Shannon, baby doll.”
He’d been the only man ever to call her baby doll. “Love you too, Frankie,” she whispered, keeping her eyes closed. “Missing you, baby.”
Of course, the sobs involuntarily spasming her chest made it impossible to hear his response.
“I’m trying, Frankie. How am I going to do this without you?”
She thought maybe she heard him answer, “Don’t miss me, baby, love me.”
“I do, Frankie. Trust me, if you ever doubted me, I do” A new wave of tears began when she couldn’t remember if she told him she loved him during the last Skype call. She wished she’d told him more often. “Courtney will be my witness. I do love you still. You won’t ever be gone for me, baby.”
She saw his smiling face as she fell asleep.
OVER THE NEXT few days, Shannon made herself busy by finishing up Courtney’s room, finally removing the newspaper and tape from the window. She’d found the crib she wanted on sale and bought it. They were out of the pink camo sheets, bumper and curtains, so she ordered them. The changing table would arrive next week, so she’d paid for that as well.
The doctor had wanted her to come in to discuss some lab work that was spilling outside the ranges of normal. He made some changes to her diet and recommended she drink more water. She hadn’t planned to tell him about Frankie’s death until he began to stress the importance of having father at the visits.
“I’m a widow as of a few days ago, doc. I’m afraid I’ll be bringing my mom at the end. And probably my mother-in-law.”
He was moved, of course. With added concern, he asked, “You sleeping well, Shannon?”
“Yessir. I’ve been fine. Feeling the energy I was hoping I’d feel at this point. Reading my books. Getting the room ready before I get too big.”
“Take it easy too. Don’t push yourself. You’ve gone through a terrible experience, one which affects people’s bodies in different ways. Get more rest than you think you need. Spend more time with friends. Don’t be alone, Shannon.”
“I hear you. Not quite yet, but I’ll come out of my cave sooner or later. Don’t worry about me.” All her life, this had always been what she told grownups. No one ever had to worry about Shannon. It had been drumm
ed into her to be self-reliant. She was determined to use that strength to forge a new path, alone, now that Frankie was gone. Last thing in the world she wanted was to depend on her parents or anyone else. She told herself over and over again she was fine. She could do this.
Frankie’s favorite place to go on Sundays was Duckies, the frozen yogurt place where a lot of the Team guys hung out. She saw them, with their dark glasses and cargo pants, their canvas slip-ons or rubber sandals made from old tire treads.
She was a dark chocolate girl at heart. But that day she ordered Frankie’s favorite, strawberry. He liked the fresh chunks of fruit they put into their cones.
She added a few white chocolate chips and sat at the little yellow-topped table in the corner, out of the wind, and where she could watch people walking down the Strand. She watched young couples, fingers entwined, older couples walking their little dogs, retired Navy, and new recruits. Everyone walked the Strand, looked into shop windows, and simply enjoyed being alive.
That sent a silent tear down her cheek. Maybe the strawberry was too sweet.
A couple of groups of older Team guys were walking back to their cars from a swim at the beach. Their crab-like walk pegged them. The sand going halfway to their knees told her they’d done a timed swim like Frankie used to do. Someone honked. Someone gave the finger to a pickup truck filled with rowdy young guys.
Being part of the things Frankie had liked didn’t help. Her thoughts got sadder. She had to dump the rest of her yogurt and put her own sunglasses on so people wouldn’t see how hard she’d been crying. She found her car and drove herself home.
Setting out her purchases, she hung two little frilly pink dresses in Courtney’s closet. The first two things there. They were small, almost like they’d been made for a doll. But no question about it. They belonged to Courtney.
DAYS STRUNG TOGETHER, and soon another month had gone by. SEAL wives and girlfriends were at her house constantly. They held a shower for her, and both Frankie’s mom and her own mother came. It was fortunate the two women got along so well, and Shannon knew they’d started phoning each other on a regular basis. One mother helping the other mother. Gloria was right, “We’ll all get through this together somehow.”
And then one day Shannon laughed again.
Chapter Seven
‡
T.J. HAD BEEN spending a lot of time at Gunny’s gym. Timmons was practically living there as well. He’d sold his house, moved into an apartment nearby, and become a permanent fixture there.
The older man had dropped a bit of weight, lost most of his potbelly, and was developing definition in his arms. The frog statue, their Team mascot replaced some five times in the past, was braced to the wall. It stood on a glass shelf with a recessed light shining down on it. On that shelf were several pictures, including one of Frankie’s smiling face, taken on his wedding day. T.J. looked at that picture every time he came into Gunny’s. He recalled the promise he’d made, and the look of the beautiful girl on Frankie’s left. He knew time was running out on his conscience, and he’d have to act soon or the mission would be labeled a failure due to abandonment.
Timmons had brought in several of his older friends, and soon a white-haired group was assembled there regularly. Detective Mayfield had retired from the San Diego P.D. and was now living with Armando’s mother, and he and Clark Riverton, another San Diego policeman soon to retire, dropped by for the group. Sanouk called them the “Silver Senior Running Shoe Circle.” But there wasn’t anything senior about them, other than the fact that T.J. occasionally heard discussions of Viagra and special hair products.
Amornpan, Sanouk’s Thai mother, took care of the older gentlemen’s club like they were her boys and she was a Southeast Asian lounge singer. She was beautiful and ageless. She was a gracious lady. She made Timmons a better man simply because he walked in and greeted her every day. T.J. doubted they were lovers yet, but their paths were definitely heading in that direction, and the Team Guys talked about it all the time.
Good for him.
T.J. finished early and said his goodbyes. He always gave his final goodbye to Frankie with a kiss to his forefinger and then a point straight at the guy. Increasingly he also pointed one at Shannon. He was more aware that he needed to do the one thing Frankie had asked before he passed over. No matter how uncomfortable it was.
“I know, I know. You asked me to look in on her, watch out for her, and I haven’t done that. Sorry, man. But, jeez, you know about the picture I look at every morning in my shaving drawer. You want me to get rid of it? If I give it back to her, she’ll have a fit.”
He wondered how Shannon was doing. He had a feeling she needed a little silliness in her life and wondered if he could help out with that.
He stopped by a toy store and inquired about playhouses. They happened to have a pink gingerbread house in the back that had been returned last Christmas since it was missing parts.
It was T.J.’s kind of gift. He bought it at a huge discount, threw it in the second seat of his truck, and, without calling Shannon first, headed over to her place.
He pulled out the partially opened carton, trying not to drop pieces. A small plastic bag of screws fell at his feet, and he cursed but picked them up without losing his grip on the wooden panels of the playhouse.
Shannon had already opened the front door when he got there. Her eyebrows were knitted into a frown. She inspected the pieces of wood under his arm and then looked up at him with questions she seemed unable to verbalize.
“Every princess deserves her own house. A playhouse,” T.J. said as he lifted his shoulder to draw attention to the playhouse pieces.
“Is this a playhouse or a dollhouse?”
“I think it’s a playhouse.”
“You are aware she won’t be able to play with dolls for probably at least two years.”
“So, it will wait for her, then. Maybe in the meantime you can use it.” He tried to smile, but the blush on her face and the fullness of her belly were too powerfully distracting. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was the first pregnant woman he’d been within ten feet of.
Ribbons of jazz came from the house.
“I can just put this in the back yard, if today isn’t a good day. I can come back another time to put it together, but I have time to get it done today, if you’re willing.”
“I hadn’t even gotten to thinking about what she would play with once she’s walking. You do know they have to be born first, start crawling, and then walk, in order to use an outside playhouse?” Her frown marks were easing, and a small, very tiny smile formed on her lips as she told him nonverbally she appreciated that he’d thought of the baby. He liked that he’d been able to think of something she hadn’t yet.
So far so good.
She opened the door, gesturing him inside. He knew where the door to the back yard was, through the master bedroom at the back of the house. Once inside, he saw her unmade bed, the glass of water by the nightstand. A book was lying face down on the table.
“Did I wake you from a nap?” he asked as he walked past the bed.
“No. I was getting a snack and heard your truck pull up.” She opened the sliding glass door and allowed him to walk in front of her into the yard.
She’d planted flowers along the edge of the lawn, ones which had not been there when he visited Frankie before their last deployment. The day of the funeral, he hadn’t followed the others to her house for the reception, preferring to linger a little longer at the cemetery. He’d had private thoughts he wanted to share with his Team buddy.
The yard looked happier than he remembered. He was glad to see Shannon had maintained everything like before Frankie was gone. He’d seen a number of wives fall to pieces, not that he blamed them. But Shannon had moved forward and seemed steady.
He knew she must be hurting inside, but because of her dislike for him, hid it well. He decided perhaps he could change that a bit. Maybe he could bring her a bit of relief.
He laid out the pieces, putting the screws and washers on a corner of the box it came in. He crosschecked the parts to the manifest and discovered there were several bags of screws missing.
He began tracing his footsteps across the lawn.
“What are you looking for?”
“I think I may have dropped a few things. Any tiny bags of screws or wooden dowels?”
“I’ll go look, but I didn’t notice any.” She disappeared from the screen door, returning a few minutes later carrying a glass of ice water. “Nope. Not a thing.” She slipped out through the slider and stepped down onto the concrete patio in her bare feet … with those hot pink toes he was having such a hard time ignoring.
“Here,” she said holding out the glass.
“Thanks.” He drank the whole thing, a bit of the cooling water sluicing down his neck and into the ribbing at the top of his T-shirt. He took a mouthful of ice and began crunching it as he handed the glass back to her.
Shannon watched him, expressionless, and said nothing.
He put together what he could, and figured he’d find the fasteners for the rest later. A couple of times he put the wrong side out. He cursed at the instructions, and decided they’d probably been translated from Chinese. At one point he discovered there was an important triangular-shaped piece missing, one supposed to hold up parts of the roof. Just gone. He had one side, but not the other. The clerk at the store said everything was there, even though the box was opened, but now he could see the young man had lied.
A couple of times, the angle of two panels he’d screwed together was compromised, and collapsed. If he’d been home, he’d have destroyed the whole thing, kicked it around, bent and broken it further, and tossed it in the garbage. But this was Shannon and Frankie’s house, and this was for their baby, and dammit, he was going to get this done.
SEAL's Promise - Bad Boys of SEAL Team 3, Book 01 Page 4