Next To Die

by Marliss Melton

  A humiliated flush heated Joe’s face. He looked down at his healing hands, clenched and unfurled them.

  “I’ll send in a corpsman to set you up with those heat packs. See you in twenty minutes,” said Lieutenant Price, snapping the file shut and heading for the door. It closed quietly behind her.

  Joe glowered, cursing his luck. Of all the therapists in the Navy, his had to be his next-door-neighbor. The corpsman burst into the room with his arms full of steaming packs but drew up warily. “Sir,” he hedged. “Can I get you to lie on your stomach?”

  Joe was left alone, weighted down by lovely warm, moist packs that put him instantly to sleep. He was jarred awake by Penny’s entrance. She wordlessly removed the heat packs and wheeled the ultrasound machine closer. To Joe’s consternation, she rolled the elastic of his boxer-briefs down past his butt crack, then squirted warm gel all over his back.

  She had to be humiliating him on purpose.

  The machine buzzed and crackled as she sent healing sound waves deep into his tender muscles. She didn’t speak but worked the handheld device in a circular motion over his back. Remembering the threats he’d practically hurled at her, Joe wrestled with his conscience. Maybe she’d done all the right things because it was her nature to be helpful. In that case, he’d stepped over the line by threatening her. But he had to be sure first. “Lieutenant,” he interjected, making her pause.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “How much did I tell you the other night?” He had to know.

  She moved the device again, in a slow, circular motion. “You said that you were hit with shrapnel,” she replied, her tone sympathetic. “One of your men died, presumably in the same incident. At first I thought it was a car accident, but given the fall you don’t remember, I would also have to consider a helicopter crash.” She waited for him to deny or confirm her guess.

  He did neither. Her assumptions were amazingly astute. He needed to tread with caution, or she’d come up with the truth on her own, if she hadn’t already.

  “What I do is classified,” he said, guarding his secret.

  He thought that would be the end of it, but then she added, “The only recent downing that I’ve heard of didn’t have any survivors, though,” she added. “A helo was blown up while rescuing four SEALs on the ground. Three of them died and only one came back alive.”

  He tried not to tense, but every muscle in his body flinched.

  “You knew those men,” she guessed, her tone filled with compassion.

  He stayed quiet. To his relief, she didn’t press him for an answer.

  Instead, she turned off the machine, mounted a stool for some much needed height, and commenced with the soft-tissue massage, her hands cool and remarkably efficient.

  He didn’t want to enjoy her touch, but he did. The pressure she placed on his tender muscles was exquisite.

  Aw, man. He’d gladly put up with her nosy questions if he got a massage like this every time. Oh, yeah, right there. Ahhh.

  And yet, for some reason, her touch stirred memories he wanted to forget.

  He remembered plummeting backward, falling slow-motion through space while the fireball of helicopter chased him. The torso of one of his comrades issued from the explosion—no legs, just the trunk and head.

  Joe silently cursed, wishing the vision had stayed where it was, repressed in his subconscious mind.

  But Penny had brought up the crash. She’d brought it right into this room.

  He didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed when she removed her hand and wiped his back with warmed wet wipes. “How do you feel?” she asked, dusting his back with powder, massaging it in, quickly and lightly.

  He shivered at the pleasant, almost sensual caress. “Good,” he admitted. “Relaxed.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. I want you to use a cool pack every night, when you’re watching television or as you go to sleep.”

  He was wriggling in an attempt to unfurl the elastic of his boxer-briefs.

  “Do you need help turning over?” she asked.

  “No, I got it.” The last thing he wanted was to humiliate himself by revealing a semi-aroused state. It wasn’t his fault that a woman’s hands on his body did that to him.

  Using the gown as a shield, he rolled over and swung his feet over the side. Not a twinge, he marveled. She’d really loosened him up. “Wow,” he murmured, thinking she was quite talented.

  “I’d like to see you again on Thursday,” she said. “We’ll run through the same treatment.”

  He looked forward to it. Maybe then he’d even be able to look her in the eye and not feel like a loser.

  “Check with the receptionist on your way out,” she added with a small, professional smile. Her skirt swished and her heels tapped, and she was gone.

  Joe heaved a sigh of self-recrimination. Maybe little sister was right. Penelope Price didn’t seem like the type to expose him. She had integrity. And given the magic in her fingers, he was probably lucky to have her as his neighbor, not to mention his physical therapist.

  Penny shut herself up in her office and dropped into her desk chair. Bringing her aching fingers to her nose, she savored the scent of clean male and fresh laundry. The feel of his hot, smooth skin replayed itself in her kinetic memory. His densely powerful muscles were a playground to her tutored hands. She could have spent hours massaging his body, starting with those perfectly toned butt muscles peeking out of his boxer briefs.

  With a sigh, she released such unprofessional thoughts. Her infatuation with Joe was pointless. He’d made it clear that he resented her meddling. And yet, his visit today had only stoked her fascination. There was something going on with him that she couldn’t put her finger on . . .

  She tapped her chin, thinking.

  He refused to talk about the accident that had left him scarred and another SEAL dead. When she’d mentioned the downing of the helicopter filled with men, he’d gone rigid, almost like he’d witnessed it. But he couldn’t have. He was a commander.

  And yet, there was one lone SEAL who’d survived that fiasco. He’d been chased for days by Taliban insurgents, only to be later found and rescued. That could not have been Joe.

  Or could it?

  Penny glanced questioningly at her computer. She swiveled in her chair and jiggled the mouse, performing an online search for articles regarding the recent disaster. While skimming one article, she read, “Military officials said the survivor was knocked off his feet by the blast of a rocket detonation during fighting with insurgents and slid down a mountainside in the steep terrain.”

  Penny’s ears started ringing. She skimmed the rest of the article, her certainty growing with each printed word. Joe was the survivor. Everything in print dovetailed with his circumstances: his sudden arrival at home, his physical condition, his refusal to talk about what had happened.

  “Oh, my God,” she breathed, understanding why he was so vehement about protecting his privacy. The last thing he would want was publicity. “Oh, Joe.”

  She leaned back in her chair, envisioning the hell he’d been through and reeling at the heartache she knew he was left with.

  The urge to comfort him was overwhelming. It was also futile. She had no desire to join the ranks of women he’d loved and left, nor could he have made his desire for privacy any clearer. Her only option was to give him physical relief. She could help to heal his body. But who would heal his broken heart?

  Chapter Six

  “You must be Monty.”

  Joe lifted a startled gaze from the magazine he was reading in the clinic’s waiting area. He’d been well aware of the older man standing immediately in front of him, clutching a cane and watching everything Joe did. But he’d assumed the man was either senile or lost in his own thoughts, not that he was pondering Joe’s identity. “Yes, sir,” He set the magazine aside, thinking, Do I know this guy?

  “I’m Admiral Jacobs,” divulged the stranger. He wore civilian clothing and sported sparse silver hai
r atop his egg-shaped head.

  An admiral. Joe rocketed to his feet. “Sir, nice to meet you, sir.” He snapped off a salute, which the admiral half-heartedly returned.

  “At ease, there, Commander,” the old man growled. “We’re all in civilian clothes, here.”

  “Would you like to sit, sir?” Joe asked, offering his chair, though there were several empty seats in the waiting area.

  “Oh, no. Sitting makes me feel confined. Brings back memories of ’Nam.”

  “You were a POW, sir?”

  “Yes, I was. Spent a hundred and three days in a South Vietnamese jungle camp with two shattered kneecaps. Enemy shot down my parachute,” he added.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, sir,” said Joe, who remained standing. “If you don’t mind my asking, how is it that you know me?”

  For several seconds, Admiral Jacobs just looked at him with pale blue eyes. “I’ve done my research, son,” he finally answered. “When any of my boys get lost, I take it personal.”

  Joe swallowed against a dry throat. It unsettled him a bit that this man knew him, but he’d never heard of Admiral Jacobs.

  The man narrowed his eyes, “You ever ask yourself if someone’s to blame for the hell you’ve been through?”

  Joe wavered on his feet. “Yes, sir,” he admitted, realizing with sudden clarity that he blamed himself. If he’d let Harley go in or waited another few days, there might have been no casualties.

  “Where was that AC-130 when you needed it?” continued the admiral in a hushed voice. “And who in his right mind would send a Chinook into compromised airspace?” A vein appeared on the man’s wrinkled forehead. “That’s like standing in an open field flailing your arms and yelling, ‘Here I am! Shoot me down!’” A fleck of spittle appeared on one corner of the admiral’s mouth.

  The possibility that someone else was to blame left Joe light-headed with mixed shock and relief.

  “My only son was a marine with the Third MEF,” the admiral volunteered unexpectedly.

  It took Joe a second to remember that the Third Marine Expeditionary Force had been wiped out by friendly fire at the start of the war. “The incident outside of Nasiriyah,” he remembered. “I’m sorry to hear that, sir.”

  With a nod and wetness in his eyes, the old man looked away.

  An aide leaned out of the door to call the next patient “Admiral Jacobs? Your turn, sir.” Without a glance back at Joe, the admiral hobbled toward her.

  Joe waited for him to disappear before sinking back into his seat. Could someone other than himself be blamed for the clusterfuck that had killed so many?

  Closing his eyes, he dared to think back. He was belted into the belly of the UH-60, awaiting that fateful jump that would place him and his men on the LZ. The thrumming of the rotors, the thinness of the air, grains of sand stuck in his teeth. He remembered as if it were yesterday.

  As operations officer, he’d pored over maps with the original four SEALs and talked with intel operators. They’d assured him that there were no rebels on the mountaintop, and even if there were, the AC-130 would be right there on call to take them out. Nothing should have gone wrong.

  Joe’s eyes sprang open. For a second there, he’d teetered toward the trap of cynicism that Admiral Jacobs tried to set in his mind. God, it was tempting to blame someone else for a night gone wrong.

  Only Joe couldn’t do that. His colleagues at JSOTF were thorough. His superiors had served in the Gulf War and knew the cost of self-inflicted casualties.

  It was bad luck, pure and simple, that those insurgents had been hiding in caves. Bad luck that the AC-130 had been summoned elsewhere, that they couldn’t get a Blackhawk in the air instead of a Chinook.

  The only person who could have altered the events of that night was himself. A different day, a different OIC, and the tragedy might have been avoided.

  Admiral Jacobs’s cell phone gave a shrill ring. Penny, who was about to remind him that cell phones weren’t permitted in the hospital, kept her mouth shut. Who was she to tell an admiral what to do?

  “Jacobs,” he growled, wincing as Penny bent his knee and put her weight into the joint, forcing it to stretch beyond the comfort zone.

  As the caller identified himself, Penny felt the admiral stiffen. “What the hell do you want?” he growled.

  Mercy, thought Penny, releasing pressure to extend his leg fully. She’d never seen this gruff side to the admiral, who was always sweetly affable during his biweekly appointments. She moved to his left leg.

  “I thought this matter was settled,” the old man blustered.

  “Bend your leg, sir,” Penny reminded him.

  He did so, distracted by whatever it was that the caller was telling him. The news was bad enough to make him put a death grip on the phone. “Are you certain?” he demanded.

  The reply made the admiral’s jowls quiver. “Fine, then. Do whatever it takes,” he acceded. With a sad shake of his head, he severed the call and fell back, clutching a hand to his heart.

  Penny sent him a look of concern. “Is everything all right, sir?” she inquired, applying more pressure to his bent leg.

  “Oh, as all right as it can be, I suppose,” he replied, his eyes still closed. He sounded so weary.

  She felt sorry for him. Poor man, he’d lost his son early in the war and never quite got over it.

  Penny couldn’t fathom losing a child to war, let alone to blue-on-blue engagement. “That’s it for today, sir,” she told him gently. “I’ll see you next week at the same time. Keep up the exercises,” she added, placing her hand briefly over his.

  His skin felt so cold!

  She left the room, dropping off the admiral’s chart, then hurried down the hall to snatch up the chart belonging to her next patient. Recognizing Joe’s name, a flush of anticipation heated her cheeks. All day she’d looked forward to this session.

  With a warning knock, she peeked inside. “Good morning.”

  She drew up short at the sight of Joe propped against the table, wearing nothing but black boxer briefs. Her gaze skittered over his washboard abs to the bulge below, and her skin seemed to shrink.

  “Morning,” he said, clearly unabashed at being caught half-naked.

  “Where’s your, um, gown?” she asked, dragging her gaze upward. Heat rose to her face, no doubt turning her complexion bright red.

  “There wasn’t one in here.” His green gaze mocked her discomfit.

  “I’ll get some more,” she said, fleeing the room.

  When she returned, he was lying facedown on the table, weighted with moist heat packs. The corpsman had gotten his session under way. Penny stowed the gown for later use and left the room.

  Twenty minutes later, she returned. “Do you, uh, want to put the gown on now?” she asked, removing the cooled heat packs.

  “What’s the point?” he asked sleepily.

  “Right.” But with the gown on, she could pretend he was dressed and not practically naked—a circumstance that disturbed her sensibilities. “How’s your back been?” she asked, wheeling the ultrasound closer. She rolled his briefs down, squirted warm gel on his back, and spread it, delighting in the texture of his skin.

  “It was good for a day, and then the spasms came back.”

  “That’s why we need to see you more than once,” she answered, turning the machine on. She applied the wand over the affected muscle group. She gave in to the childish urge to write a cursive L. L for love, lust, and let-me-touch-you-everywhere, lover boy. He couldn’t possibly guess the game she was playing, so why not?

  Precisely seven minutes later, she cut the machine off, eager to get to the part she enjoyed most. She climbed her stool and put her hands on him. Oh, yes.

  The term soft tissue was a misnomer on Joe. There wasn’t anything soft about him. He was all fibrous, toned muscle, the density of which left the joints in her fingers aching, yet she would happily have continued for hours.

  “You think you could work on my shoulders som
e?” Joe’s sleepy voice seemed to echo her own reluctance to bring their session to an end. “They’ve been kind of tight lately.”

  Her impulse was to say, “I’d love to,” but she focused instead on the fact that Joe hadn’t yet apologized for his behavior the other day. From her perspective, he owed her something first. “I don’t know,” she said, holding out. “You might have to do something for me.”

  “Like what?” he countered.

  She rolled her eyes at his obvious consternation. What did he think she was going to ask for, sexual favors? “Like carve those two pumpkins I put on your porch.”

  “Oh,” he said, silent for a moment. “I figured you put them there.”

  “Halloween is a week from today. You carved four jack-o’-lanterns last year. The neighborhood kids will miss it if you don’t make at least two,” she pointed out.

  “I’ll think about it,” he said noncommittally.

  “Not good enough,” she countered, pressing her thumb into a knot to release the tension.

  “Uh!” he groaned, half in pleasure, half in pain.

  “You could also keep an eye on my sister, Ophelia, while I’m at work.” It wasn’t so hard to make demands in this position.

  “Her?” he countered in accents of horror.

  “She’s been getting prank phone calls,” Penny explained, thinking why not give Joe something to do other than brood over what couldn’t be changed. “From a guy who killed our father,” she added.

  “When was this?” came the confused question.

  “About five years ago. My father worked in a biological warfare lab, where they tested ricin, among other things. That’s a toxic biowaste—”

  “I know what it is.”

  “Well, several grams of ricin went missing five years back, and not long after that, my father was killed in a hit-and-run. We think his partner sold the ricin to terrorists, who then killed my father for knowing too much.”

  Joe craned his neck to look over his shoulder at her. “Have you gone to the cops with this?” he asked incredulously.

  “The FBI is looking into it.”