Keeping Watch (9781460341285)

by Choate, Jane M.

  “Once my ego got over being trampled into the ground, I figured I’d had a lucky break. We would have made each other miserable if she’d said yes.”

  As if to emphasize that it was no big deal, Jake picked up a bag of peanuts, paid for it and then held it out to Dani. “Want some?”

  She couldn’t repress a shudder. “No. Thanks. I’m allergic.”

  Immediately, he tossed the bag of peanuts into the trash. “I’m sorry.” He slanted her a curious look. “Just how allergic are you?”

  “Enough that I almost died when I was ten years old. It was at my grandmother’s house. The cook had made brownies as a treat for me and put peanuts in them, not knowing I was allergic. I was rushed to the hospital, had my stomach pumped and was given a massive dose of epinephrine.

  “I recovered, but I still remember my mother crying and praying over me. She wanted her mother to fire the cook, but Dad persuaded her it wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

  “I’m glad you told me.” He checked his watch. “Time we got you back to the office and me back to my research.”

  “Is this what bodyguards commonly do? Research?”

  “That and throwing ourselves in front of our clients and taking a bullet for them if necessary. All in the name of duty, of course.”

  He was teasing, but she didn’t want to think of Jake being shot—for her or anyone else. The direction of her thoughts pulled her up short. She didn’t care about him other than as another human being. That settled, she felt better.

  “Hey, it’s all right,” he said quickly. “I was only joking.”

  “I know.” But her voice came out very small.

  Jake reached for her hand. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “I won’t have you risking your life for me.”

  “I don’t take unnecessary risks.”

  “I don’t want you taking any risks,” she said fiercely. “Not for me.”

  “I’ll do my job...whatever it takes.” The last was said with a quiet inflexibility that expressed more than the words themselves.

  She knew better than to argue. Jake was an honorable man, one who did what he promised and didn’t make excuses.

  Again she was grateful to her father for hiring Jake. She thought of putting her feelings into words, then thought better of it. She was a job to him. Nothing more.

  Her earlier pleasure in the outing evaporated. She threw the rest of her hot dog in the trash. “You’re right. It’s time to get back.”

  Their trip back to the office was subdued.

  They worked through the afternoon with minimal conversation. The case against Jerry Brooks was coming together, if only his wife stuck to her guns. Stephanie Brooks had been beaten over and over by her husband, and each time she’d refused to press charges.

  This time was different.

  “You can do it,” Dani urged the woman over the phone. “You can’t go on as you have been.”

  “I know,” Stephanie said. “I’m not letting him get away with it. Not this time. I’m so ashamed that I’ve let it go on as long as it has.”

  “You have nothing to be ashamed about. It’s Jerry who should be ashamed.”

  “I keep thinking if I had done something different, he wouldn’t have hurt me like he did. He kept telling me that it was my fault, that I made him do it.”

  “That’s nonsense, and you know it.” Urgency roughened Dani’s voice. She had seen it too often, the wife embarrassed, ashamed of her husband’s abuse and taking the blame. She couldn’t allow Stephanie to heap guilt upon her shoulders. The woman deserved a chance at happiness.

  “You’re right, of course. I just never thought it would come to this.” Tears turned Stephanie’s voice husky. “When I took my marriage vows, I believed they were forever. My parents told me that it was a wife’s duty to stand by her husband. When I left him, they said I’d failed.”

  Dani bit her lip, stilling the angry words that wanted to spill out. How many times had she heard similar things from other women, browbeaten into staying with an abusive husband by family members who should have known better? “You didn’t fail. You did the best you could, stuck it out far longer than you should have.”

  “Thank you for that.” Stephanie’s voice took on new strength. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”

  “You’d have done it. If not now, then at a different time. You’re a strong woman. You deserve to be happy.”

  “I’m beginning to believe you.”

  “Believe in yourself,” Dani urged. “Believe in the Lord.”

  They talked a few minutes longer before Dani reminded Stephanie of the court date.

  “You were good with her,” Jake said after Dani hung up.

  Dani took a deep breath, exhaled it slowly. “Stephanie’s been through so much. I’ve been close before in convincing her to press charges against Jerry, but she couldn’t bring herself to follow through. Now she’s doing it.”

  “Brooks has a nasty streak to him. Even if he isn’t behind the stalking, he could still make trouble for you.”

  She wasn’t afraid for herself. She could handle Brooks. No, her fear was for Stephanie, who had suffered at his hands. Instinctively, she said a silent prayer that she could be there for Stephanie as the Lord was always there for her.

  * * *

  Jake recognized the quietness that had stolen over her as she prayed, the peace that appeared on her face. He understood that prayer was an integral part of her life and respected her for it. At one time, it had been for him, as well. He knew a momentary pang of regret that prayer had no place in his life. Not any longer.

  Abruptly, she stood, placed her hands on her desk. Authority suited her, Jake thought. She wore it easily but never lightly. “Brooks doesn’t scare me. When someone stands up to him, he runs. Like all men who abuse women, he’s a coward at heart.”

  “You’re right about that. All the same, be careful around him. He’s not above trying to get even.”

  “I’m beat,” she said. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to take off.”

  Jake nodded.

  The rest of the week passed uneventfully. No more letters or calls or unpleasant gifts. It was easy to believe that the threat was over.

  Too easy, Jake thought. This type of thing didn’t simply blow over. An awards ceremony scheduled for next Friday still loomed ahead of them. Try as he would, he couldn’t convince Dani to cancel her appearance.

  A week before the event, he tried once more.

  “I don’t care about the award, but I have to be there,” she said. “I promised the mayor as well as the director of the shelter. Plus, it’s for a good cause. Every penny raised goes to the battered women’s shelter.”

  “You could send a donation.”

  “I will. But I still have to be there.” She paused. “Jake?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you have a tux?”

  The hesitancy in her voice had him grinning. “Yes. I have a tux. Does that surprise you?”

  “Frankly, yes.”

  “After I left the service, I had a couple of things I had to go to. Decided it was cheaper to buy a tux than to keep renting one.” He’d deliberately downplayed his reasons for needing a tux. The truth was he’d been summoned to the White House to receive an award for valor. It was the last thing he’d wanted to do, but he’d attended and accepted the award on behalf of those men who had given their lives for their country.

  Once home, he’d tossed the ribbon and medal in the bottom drawer of his dresser and hadn’t looked at them since. A ribbon for losing seven of his men wasn’t something he was proud of. Nor was it something of which he wanted to be reminded.

  “Someday maybe you’ll tell me the real story of how you came to have a tux. In the meantime, it makes thi
ngs easier.”

  “I’ll try not to embarrass you.” He quirked an eyebrow at her. “You’re bound and determined to go to this shindig?”

  “Bound and determined,” she agreed with a smile.

  “You’re a stubborn woman.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  One week before the event, Jake had gone over the blueprints for the Center for the Arts, where the banquet was being held, arranged with Monroe for plainclothes cops to be present and, along with Shelley, had done a background check on the catering staff. He’d covered every base, and still he wished Dani would chuck the whole thing, stay home and split a large pizza with him.

  He couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that he was forgetting something. A soldier quickly learned the art of preparation before battle or he didn’t make it home.

  “You’re obsessing,” Shelley observed in one of their meetings in the office located at the rear of the house. “You’ve done everything you can. Frankly, big brother, I’m impressed.”

  He ignored that and focused on her assertion that he’d done everything he could. “Everything except kidnap her and spirit her away from here.” He wasn’t above doing just that. The grimness in his voice had his sister turning a frown on him.

  “You care about her.”

  “I’m paid to care about her.” The words came out more clipped than he’d intended, but he didn’t apologize. He needed to remind Shelley and himself that Dani was a job. That was all she was, all she could be. A job.

  An inner voice called him a liar. He did his best to ignore it.

  A woman like Dani deserved a whole man, not a broken-down soldier who had seen too many of the world’s atrocities, who had spent too much of his life in the darkness.

  Shelley’s frown deepened. “It’s more than that, and you know it.” She paused. “I know you don’t like remembering Libya, but it might help to talk.” She made a face. “I get it. You’re this big, bad Delta Force soldier who doesn’t like to share his feelings, but it doesn’t hurt to talk about it sometimes.”

  She was wrong. Talking about that time in his life would not help. Jake had long ago accepted the bad and the good and had learned to work with both.

  “It’s my butt on the line if anything happens to her. You said yourself that the senator is an important client. We can’t afford to screw this up.”

  “He is.” Shelley sighed. “I like your Dani very much.”

  “She’s not ‘my Dani.’”

  Shelley only raised a brow. “Are you so sure?”

  He ignored that. Shelley was a great sister, but she had a nosy streak a mile wide when it came to the people she cared about.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “Too bad I won’t get to see you in your tux,” she teased.

  He gave her a gentle poke in the arm. “I’ll fill you in on the evening later. If we’re lucky, there’ll be nothing to tell.”

  “If we’re lucky,” she agreed.

  Jake had a feeling their luck was about to run out. In the army, he’d learned not to ignore the feeling that told him when something bad was coming down. That feeling was screaming now, warning him.

  The only problem was he didn’t know where the trouble was coming from.

  FIVE

  The whir of the ceiling fan disturbed the night air across Jake’s body. Strangled breaths filled his chest.

  Scenes too numerous to sort through flashed across his mind. Iraq. Afghanistan. Libya. The part of the world that had come to be known as the Sandbox by the special-ops community. All-nighters lying as still as death with a sniper rifle at the ready. Where he’d done what he’d been trained to do: stop the enemy in any way possible.

  Somewhere along the way, somewhere between the killing and trying not to be killed, he feared he’d lost his soul.

  He had seen things no man should see, things that had made him retch long after his stomach had emptied. Things like watching men die needlessly. Things like women begging for food to feed children who had gone too long without. He had listened to the dying gurgles of men, had heard the cries of women and children as they ran through streets as bombs exploded nearby.

  All at once, he was in the huge cavity of the C-130 Hercules, stowing away the last of the team’s gear. Dressed in desert cammies, light combat gear and Oakley assault boots, he made himself comfortable, or as comfortable as possible, in a thick mesh hammock.

  Several hours before, his unit had been ordered to join SEAL Team Five for a joint operation. He must have been getting old, for the mission did not fill him with anticipation as it once would have. Instead, he felt only a terrible weariness.

  The more terrorists they rounded up, the more that seemed to take their place. Insurgent groups filled with a fanatic hatred toward Americans and bent on killing American soldiers, no matter how many innocent civilians they wiped out along the way. He would never understand that careless disregard for life, the cavalier way the enemy considered what had been termed collateral damage.

  His unit had been instructed to blow up an insurgent ammo dump. A routine mission. Or it should have been.

  The loading ramp rose as the pilot fired up the mammoth turboprop freighter. The cavity of the beast filled with the rattle of horsepower and steel, making any conversation impossible.

  Jake preferred it that way. The isolation caused by the unceasing noise gave him time for meditation and prayer. He never went on a mission without first praying. He knew the other guys didn’t understand. Sometimes he didn’t himself. When someone had seen as much as he had of men’s depravity toward their fellow beings, it was hard to believe in the Lord and His goodness.

  But despite what he’d seen, or maybe because of it, Jake had never stopped believing. So he uttered a simple prayer.

  “Dear Lord, I know You are watching over Your children. Please bless us as we prepare for battle.”

  After a quiet “Amen,” he let the steady roar of the Hercules’s engine lull him into a light sleep.

  Hours later, he and his men and members of the SEAL Team fast-roped down to their target. There was no reason why they should not secure the ammo dump, just as they had dozens of others in the past. Still, uneasiness filled Jake, making him hypervigilant as he scanned the area.

  Everything looked as reported in the intel he’d read and reread.

  When the first round of mortar hit, he knew his feelings had not been misplaced. Lightninglike streaks filled the sky. And, from the moment of one heartbeat to the next, chaos reigned.

  “No, God. Please, no!”

  Jake was hit, taking a bullet to his upper thigh. The burning pain brought him to his knees. A field dressing consisting of a strip of his undershirt hastily tied around the thigh was all he had been able to manage. He tried to stand, found that he couldn’t, so he got on his belly and crawled.

  The echoes of his men’s screams cut through the night as Jake struggled to get to them. Enemy fire tore up the ground. Still, he tried to crawl over the pockmarked earth, dragging his useless leg behind him.

  His Kevlar helmet, reminiscent of German World War II headgear, trapped the heat with stunning precision. Sweat streamed down his face, his neck. His backpack slowed him. He ignored both. He had to reach his men. Had to save them.

  The distant thump-thump of their own Black Hawks promised help, but it was too late.

  Much too late.

  Artillery fire drowned out the shouts, and then there was nothing save moans and cries. Bile rose in his throat, the nasty taste of it sending waves of sickness through his body.

  The ashen face of his best friend was mute evidence of his failure to protect his men.

  At some point he must have lost consciousness, for when he woke, he was strapped to a gurney, being carried away, away from the destruction and devastation.


  Sounds reached him, a voice begging him to wake up. The air held the stench of cordite and smoke and death. Death, he’d learned, had its own peculiar smell.

  Despair filled him until, mercifully, he blacked out again.

  When he awoke a second time, it was in a makeshift hospital. Supplies were rationed, but he had rated enough morphine to keep the pain at bay. It was more than he’d expected, and he told himself to be grateful.

  Instead, all he could think of was his fallen comrades, their blood spilled for a failed operation that never should have been attempted. Faulty intel had sent them into a war zone, outmanned and outgunned.

  If only he’d listened to his gut. If only. Were there any words more useless in the English language?

  Sweat pearled above his lip, trickled down his back. He thrashed around on the sofa, throwing off the lightweight blanket, then fell to his knees.

  His friend’s face morphed to Dani’s. She lay among the bloodstained rubble, lifeless as a rag doll. Under the surreal and murky light of mortar fire and explosions, it was her eyes that stared at him. Her eyes that asked why he hadn’t saved her.

  A cry ripped from his throat. “No!”

  “Jake!”

  Hands gripped his shoulders, shook him gently.

  He fought them off. Pushing away his attacker, he got to his feet, eyes huge, lungs pulling air like a bellows. The room spun around him. Was he back in Libya?

  With a Herculean effort, he pulled himself from the nightmare. Breathless, dripping sweat, he surfaced. Only then did he recognize where he was. Reality returned in bits and pieces. Dani lay on the floor where he’d shoved her only a moment earlier.

  He tried to answer the voice that called to him, but only a gaspy wheeze came out.

  “Dani?” She didn’t look hurt, only shocked. And no wonder. He had knocked her to the ground. Shame and revulsion at himself washed over him. What else had he done?

  “It’s me, Jake. Dani.” Tentatively, she reached for him, and he automatically pulled her to her feet, drew her to him.