Troubleshooters 05 Into The Night

by Suzanne Brockmann

  "I remember everything important," he said. "Finding the perfect house was always up there in importance. I wanted..." He cleared his throat. He'd wanted to make her happy. Why was it so hard to say these things aloud?

  Because if he said it, then she'd say, "You made me very happy." It was an expected response like, "I love you, too." But happiness, like love, couldn't be measured. Vince knew Charlie loved him. Of course she loved him. She loved him— enough. Enough to marry him and spend sixty years with him, which was a whole hell of a lot of enough. And yes, she'd been happy—happy enough. But what did that mean, really? He'd never truly know if she'd really been happy, or if she'd simply been content.

  "Remember that day you showed up in Fort Pierce?" he asked her.

  "Yes, that one I remember, thank you very much," she said tartly. "Just because / don't have a superhuman, freakish ability to remember houses that we went inside of once a million years ago, doesn't mean I can't remember days like that one."

  He'd been exhausted that day, down to his very bones. Training around the clock, swimming miles every day, and spending hours and hours learning about explosives and detonators and wires and the best way to rig an obstacle to blow while standing in the pounding surf.

  But it wouldn't be any easier on the beach, under enemy fire. So each day they pushed themselves to the limit and beyond.

  Each night, he fell into bed and dreamed about sweet Charlie Fletcher.

  And then one day there she was. Standing by the barracks as if she were waiting for him.

  He was cross-eyed from fatigue and overexposure. The Atlantic ocean was cold this time of year and he'd been shivering for hours. His teeth felt as if they were about to rattle right out of his head.

  "I had to ask Jerry Parks if he saw you standing there, too," Vince told Charlie now. "I thought maybe I was hallucinating."

  "I was terrified," she said. "Traveling all that way on the train. Not writing to tell you I was coming was quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever done. And then you looked at me as if you were horrified to see me there. I almost turned and ran."

  "I thought I was cracking up."

  But Jerry had seen her, too. And it was all Vince could do not to cry. "What are you doing here?" he asked, hardly daring to hope.

  "I came to see you," she whispered. "Do you mind?"

  Vince started to laugh. At least he thought he was laughing. It was hard to tell because he had to keep wiping his eyes. "No," he said. "No, I don't mind."

  He pulled her into his arms, and she came willingly, eagerly even. Her mouth was warm and sweet and God, he kissed her for about twelve minutes straight and for that entire time, she kissed him back and ran her fingers through his hair and pressed herself against him and damn near heated his formerly frozen body to a boiling point.

  "Marry me," he said at his first opportunity.

  "Yes," she said, and he kissed her again. "Except," she said, and he stopped kissing her. There was a catch.

  "Except what?"

  "Don't look so worried," she said, smiling up at him. "I just ... I told your commanding officer that I was already your wife. I got his permission to, well, to take you back to my hotel room with me." She suddenly got shy. "That is, if you don't mind."

  "You are going to marry me." He tried to make it into a joke. "You're not going to just use me for sex and ditch me, are you?"

  "I'm definitely going to marry you," she said. "But since we can't do it tonight..."

  They got a ride into town with a truckload of Marines, one of whom gave up his seat so Vince could sit and hold "his wife" on his lap.

  It was the sweetest night of his life. He learned a heck of a lot. He learned that there were vast amounts of information he'd yet to learn about lovemaking—so much so that he could probably spend his entire life doing it and still get surprised on a regular basis. He learned that nice women like Charlie Fletcher—Charlie DaCosta, in a matter of hours—liked sex as much as men did.

  And he learned possibly more than he'd wanted to know when he woke up in the night to find Charlie crying.

  She was in the bathroom and the door was closed. It was a long, long time before she came out. And when she did, she slipped back into bed, telling him, "Shhh. I'm all right. Go back to sleep."

  "I can't believe you lied to my CO," he told her, almost sixty years later.

  "It wasn't a lie," Charlie said, the way she always did when they reminisced. "It was a pre-truth. I was going to marry you. It seemed crazy not to grab every second together that we possibly could."

  "Yeah," Vince said. "And it wasn't as if I could get you pregnant. Again."

  No, he'd done that quite effectively the very first time they'd made love.

  Finding out about it had been something of a shock. And a disappointment.

  And suddenly it all made sense. Charlie's swift and sudden change of heart. Her tears at night.

  She was marrying him because she had to. Fate had forced her hand.

  Vince tried not to care. So what—she was marrying him and that was what mattered. From here on in, their lives would be joined. He could—and would—make this work. He'd do everything in his power to make her happy.

  And he had, hadn't he?

  He looked at her now, sitting with him in the yard behind this home they'd made together, and he knew that he'd made her happy—enough.

  James Fletcher's spirit brushed past him. Or maybe it was just the afternoon breeze.

  Chapter 24

  "Do you think I'm too polite?"

  Joan glanced up from her Greek salad and over at Tom Paoletti before looking at Muldoon.

  He was looking at her as if he were remembering—in detail—the third time they'd made love the other night. When she'd... Oh, God. She had to look away.

  This wasn't fair!

  "Do you?" he asked again. "Because recently two different people referred to me as too polite and I don't think it was intended as a compliment."

  "I think there are times when you're too polite," Tom told Muldoon. He looked at Joan. "Don't you?"

  "Uh," she said. Not when Muldoon was looking at her like he wanted to take off her clothes. Oh, crap. This was what it was going to be like for him to be "friends" with her. He wouldn't touch her. He wouldn't say a word about sex. But every time he looked at her, she'd be in danger of going up in flames.

  "You were one of the people who called me that, sir," Muldoon told his CO.

  "Yeah. I remember. It was right after I didn't grant you permission to kiss me. Who else?"

  "What?" Joan said.

  "Izzy Zanella."

  Tom laughed. "Compared to Zanella, Wildcard Karmody is too polite."

  "Wait a minute," Joan said. "I think I missed something."

  Tom looked at her over the top of his sunglasses. His face was perfectly straight, but his eyes were laughing. "Just making sure you're listening. You're awfully quiet over there."

  She was. She risked another glance at Muldoon, who'd stopped smoldering at her, thank God, and was instead frowning slightly.

  "Is it because I don't say fuck every fifth word, like Lieutenant Starrett?" Muldoon asked. "Because I fuckin' suppose I could fuckin' start."

  "Oh, God, please don't," Joan said, laughing.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "That was rude. I won't."

  "I think it's a uniform thing," Tom said between bites of his gyro. "I've noticed that you don't take any crap while you're wearing BDUs. It's only when you're wearing the ice-cream suit that you start saying 'sir' too much." He turned to Joan. "Do you remember what I said when we first got here?"

  "Try the stuffed grape leaves?"

  "Before that. I said, 'Please, call me Tom.' " He gestured to Muldoon with his head. "How many times since we sat down have you heard him call me Tom?"

  She didn't have to think about it. "None."

  "None. Although he does get points for asking if you think he's too polite—initiating conversation by volunteering information about himself
. Ding, ding, ding. Good job, Mike."

  Muldoon laughed. "I didn't bring it up to—"

  "You know, all I really know about you is that your father was a college professor, you lived in Maine for a while as a kid, and you spent some time at MIT in Cambridge. New England stuff, because I'm from New England. That's what you talk about with me."

  Joan looked at Muldoon. "You went to MIT?"

  He shrugged it off. "Only briefly. My father got sick, and I had to leave."

  "That must've sucked."

  "No, it was—" He caught himself. "Well, yeah. It did really suck. For him most of all, I think. He had to stop teaching—and that was his passion."

  Tom gestured at him with his fork. "Did you notice what he just did?"

  "Yup," Joan said.

  "What?" Muldoon asked.

  "We were talking about you," she said." 'Didn't it suck for you to have had to leave MIT?' And all of a sudden the focus of the conversation is on your father." She turned to Tom. "Maybe he's not too polite. Maybe he's really just shy. Shy people hate being the center of attention."

  "Oh, come on," Muldoon said.

  "You're probably right about the uniform thing," she continued. "When he puts on the super-sexy dress uniform, he knows he's going to draw attention. That makes him self-conscious so he gets extra uptight."

  "Now, that's interesting," Tom said. "I think you might be on to something there."

  "Hello," Muldoon said. He was actually blushing. The man who'd just spent the entire first half of lunch boldly looking at her as if he were trying to figure out the best way to pull her under the table and have his way with her was blushing. "I'm sitting right here."

  "What were you like as a kid?" Tom asked

  "Fat."

  "No kidding."

  "No, sir. Tom."

  "Were you shy?" Joan asked.

  "Yeah. Aren't most kids shy?" he countered.

  "I wasn't," she said.

  "Most fat kids," Muldoon corrected himself. "You try to make yourself invisible, which of course you can't be, because you're the fat kid."

  "So how did the fat kid become one of the most promising young officers in all of the SEAL teams?" Tom asked.

  "Is he really?" Joan asked.

  "Oh, yeah. He'll make admiral some day, if he wants to. And I think he wants to."

  "Really?" Joan said. Muldoon had led her to believe otherwise—that he was planning to leave the Navy within the next ten years. Was it possible that he was willing to put a promising career backseat to their relationship? How dare he be so willing to give up his dreams? "Well, God. That's ... quite an impressive future to look forward to."

  She looked over to find him watching her again. He was no longer looking at her as if he were thinking about sliding deep inside of her. Now he was looking at her the way he'd looked at her after they'd made love, with a tenderness that was even harder to bear.

  She pushed her salad aside. She had to get out of here.

  God, she had to get out of California.

  "There's more to life than being in the Navy," Muldoon said quietly. "I love being a SEAL—it's what I always wanted to do—but I'm not sure I want to stay in after my knees give out for good."

  "Ah," Tom said. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize..."

  Joan pushed back her chair. "Thank you so much for lunch, Commander. But I really have to go."

  "Not before you try the baklava. It's unbelievable." Tom stood up before she could. "Sit." It was an order. "I'll get us some coffee, too."

  He didn't wait for an answer. Of course, he hadn't asked a question.

  It was now her big chance to lambaste Muldoon for looking at her the way he had. But what was she supposed to say? Stop thinking about having sex with me!

  "You don't really think I'm shy, do you?" he asked.

  "Well, you sure don't like to talk about yourself."

  "I told you I was a math geek. A fat math geek."

  "Yeah," Joan said. "You went into such depths about it, too."

  "What's there to say?" he countered. "Kids used to make fun of me. I'm sure you remember what it was like back in school."

  "I do, which is why I find it hard to believe you can boil it all down to a single sentence."

  "It doesn't do me any good to talk about all the different ways I was tormented as a kid," Muldoon said. "I mean, what? Is that going to make you like me more? I don't think so. It sucked, all right? I got over it. Next page."

  "Okay," she said, leaning forward to rest her chin in her hand as she gazed at him. Next page indeed. "Why did the fat math geek join the Navy?"

  "To become a SEAL," he answered without hesitation. "I wanted that from the time I was in seventh grade."

  Really? "So what happened in seventh grade?"

  "I almost drowned," he told her. "That was the year we moved to Maine from Ohio. Not much of a need to learn to swim in Ohio. At least not where we lived. I mean I knew the basics, sure, but I really couldn't do more than doggy paddle."

  "So you took one look at the ocean and fell in and... ?"

  He shot her an exasperated look.

  "Tell me the story. I'm dying of curiosity."

  "A couple of kids from school took me out on their father's sailboat," Muldoon said. "And we capsized. I almost drowned, but I didn't."

  "Whoa," she said. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. This is you, right? Fat math geek? And on top of that you're the new kid. I remember the new kids in middle school. They were the lowest of low scum in the pecking order. And suddenly you're getting invited out onto someone's yacht?"

  He laughed, and now she was the one who was having a hard time not thinking about him naked. They'd spent much of their night together laughing.

  "Sailboat, not yacht," he said. "It was a dinghy with a mast—which is way not a yacht. And I wasn't invited. I was dared to go out one afternoon when the winds were pretty high—there was a storm coming. It was crazy."

  Oh, God. "And you were stupid enough not to say no. I thought math geeks were smarter than that."

  "I was stupid enough to hope I could gain their respect and maybe actually make a friend. And I wasn't used to the Maine weather patterns yet. I didn't realize it would be that dangerous; it just seemed really windy. So yes. We went out. And, man oh man, Joan, that puppy flew. I mean it soared." He grinned at her, remembering. Even now, all these years later, that boat ride still turned him on. "It was amazing. I loved it—I didn't ever want to stop.

  "Of course, right about then we capsized, and the waves were so high, the dinghy just filled up and sank. They're not supposed to do that, they're designed to turn over and float, but this one went down like a rock. And Wayne was flipping out because Randy got knocked on the head by the boom and he was throwing up, right there in the water. It was all Wayne could do to keep them both afloat. And he was going, 'We're going to die! We're gonna die!' and I thought about this book I'd read about Navy frogmen and SEALs, and it was all about how they didn't panic in the water, about how they didn't fight the currents and waves, but used them to get where they wanted to go.

  "So I grabbed Wayne by the back of his jeans and, well, we made it to shore." He looked up and pushed himself halfway out of his chair as Tom carried three mugs of coffee toward the table. "Let me help you, sir."

  "Sit," Tom ordered. "I've got it."

  "Thank you, sir."

  Tom went back for the dessert.

  "So then what?" Joan asked.

  Muldoon took a sip of coffee and she did, too. It was hot and black with a hint of cinnamon.

  "I ran for the nearest house and pounded on the door. They called 911 and we all went to the hospital. Randy stayed in for a few days. He actually had a hairline fracture of his skull. I remember sitting with Wayne in the waiting room, wrapped in blankets, waiting for our parents to come pick us up."

  "Don't tell me," Joan said. "After that, Wayne and Randy wanted to be your best friends, but you kept your distance, because not only were they cruel, they were stupid. And you were
smart enough to not want to be friends with them. And you always just smiled whenever you saw them because you knew that without you, they would have drowned."

  Muldoon smiled and shook his head very slightly. He started to say something, but then Tom was there, carrying three plates with enormous slices of baklava.

  "I'm going to have to toss this at you and run," he told Joan. "I just got a call from Chip Crowley. I'm needed in his office." He turned to Muldoon. "We're going to get a chance to talk to Max Bhagat. I need you to go over to that restaurant that Larry Tucker likes so much—it's right down here somewhere by the water—"

  "I know where it is," Muldoon said, getting to his feet. "It's that French place where cell phone service doesn't work. You walk in, and you might as well be on the moon."

  "Yeah, and the staff speaks with such strong French accents, you have no idea if they get your message straight if you call on the land line. Although you speak French, don't you, Mike?"

  "I'll go over there, sir. It's just around the corner."

  "Good. Find the senior chief and Jacquette," Tom ordered. "I want them to join me at Crowley's, ASAP. Thank you. And I'm sorry," he added to Joan. He grabbed one of the pieces of baklava before he dashed away.

  "I'll be back in a few minutes," Muldoon said to her. "Can you wait?"

  "I can't," she lied.

  "I guess I'll see you later then," he said.

  "Mike, this friend thing isn't working," she said, but he, too, was already gone.

  Mary Lou knew this was a terrible mistake long before the salads were served.

  Bob looked incredible. He wore a suit with his tie neatly fastened, and his golden hair was slicked back from his face, a style that accentuated his male modelesque cheekbones.

  He kept touching her. Her arm, her hand, her shoulder. And she knew he expected more than an opportunity to share a meal. She was married, but she'd said yes, and he'd thought she'd meant the Big Yes.

  And when he'd called this morning, when she'd said it, maybe she had. It was more than obvious that she had no future with Sam. And it had been her MO in the past to hook up with a new lover before her old one was even out of her bed.

  She'd always thought of it as finding a relationship parachute. The new man might not be perfect, but he'd keep her from spending even a single day alone.