“You didn’t!” Her dark-haired friend eyed her with dismay.
“I did. And all I can think about is kissing him again.”
“Ugh!” Nina rang up the leggings on her cash register, even as she shook her head in disapproval. “Why, why?” she demanded. “You know once you give yourself to him, you’re going to want to recommit.”
“I know, but you should have seen what I saw today.”
“It’s $24.50. What did you see?”
Eden swiped her card, completing the transaction.
“His chest and his back. Dear God, Nina. He was brutalized!” Tears surged to her eyes as she pictured what she’d seen. “I felt so bad for him.”
Nina put a hand over her heart. She was still wearing one of the leotards she commonly wore while teaching her ballet classes. “It must have been awful to look at.”
Eden shook her head. “Not really. I mean, yes, the scars are hideous, but they hardly detract from his overall attractiveness. It’s not the scars that bother me. It’s the idea that, while I was celebrating Jonah’s absence, he was being hideously tortured. I feel so low, so selfish for ever being glad he was gone.”
Nina shuddered. “That’s why I could never marry a SEAL.”
“And the strangest thing,” Eden added, noting Nina’s comment, “is all those scars make him even more noble somehow. It’s like…he suffered all of that just so he could come home to me. I know it’s ridiculous.”
“It is ridiculous,” Nina agreed. “He loved heading out on missions. He could hardly wait to get away, remember?”
“I remember. But he’s not the same anymore.”
Nina leveled an admonishing look at her. “Don’t you realize when Jonah gets his memories back, he’ll be all about his work again, and he’ll forget you even exist?”
“Will he?” Eden wasn’t so sure. “I don’t know. I think his captivity has changed him—for the better.”
“How can that be? Being brutalized doesn’t make people better. It freaks them out.”
Eden considered how Jonah had reacted when his buddies showed up at midnight.
“That’s true in some ways,” she admitted. “Last night, some guys from his troop showed up to paper our house, and Jonah thought they were terrorists or something. He told me to hide in the attic.”
“Did you?”
“No.” She huffed a little laugh. “Can you imagine if I had awakened Miriam and told her we needed to hide? She would think Jonah’s crazy.”
“Is he?”
The question gave Eden pause. She thought of the article on PTSD describing associations between traumatic experiences, paranoia, and hallucinations.
“Of course not,” she muttered. “He’s still getting over what happened to him. I mean, can you blame him?”
Nina blew out a breath. “Girl, I can’t believe you’re letting yourself fall in love with him again.”
“I am not! Trust me, my eyes are wide open. It’s just that—Ugh!” she released the moan of frustration she’d been holding in all night. “I want to be with him. I miss the way it feels to be held by him and kissed by him. Don’t you ever just ache for that?”
Nina looked off to one side and didn’t answer.
“Have you ever been with someone who made you feel like you have to be with them again or you’re depriving yourself?”
“Almost,” Nina said on a forlorn note.
“Who?” Eden immediately demanded. As far as she knew, Nina had only ever been with the husband who’d cheated on her and abandoned her. Had she indulged in a relationship Eden didn’t know about?
Nina looked back at her. “I can’t tell you. You know him.”
“It’s Master Chief Rivera,” Eden guessed.
Nina gasped. “How do you know?”
“By the way you reacted the last time I mentioned his name. Oh, my gosh, what happened with you two? You’re perfect for each other.”
“Don’t say that,” Nina scolded as she moved from behind the counter to turn off the lights in her studio. “He’s a SEAL. I could never be with a man who disappears at a moment’s notice possibly never to return again.”
Compassion blew through Eden as she recalled that was what Nina’s ex-husband had done. “But Rivera is so handsome and sweet! Jonah says he’s a wonderful man.”
“And he can dance,” Nina added, turning back to face her.
“You danced with him?”
“Salsa night at the brewery,” Nina replied. “He asked me to marry him.”
The words startled a shriek out of Eden. “Seriously, he asked you to marry him? Why have you never told me this?” She thumped an open hand on the countertop.
Nina rolled her eyes and went to collect her belongings from behind the counter. “Because I knew you’re react like you are right now.”
“I’m sorry! I’m calm. I’m calm,” Eden assured her. “It’s just that—Wow, Master Chief is the most eligible bachelor on the planet. Why wouldn’t you at least date him and see how it goes?”
Nina hooked her purse strap on her shoulder. “I already told you. He’s a SEAL.”
“I know, but he’s bound to retire sooner rather than later. He’s got to be close to forty.”
“Forty-two,” Nina informed her.
“Then he’s got over twenty years of service. He can retire and get married. Then you can have the baby you want.”
Nina snorted. “You make it sound so easy. I’m barren, remember?”
“Maybe you are; maybe you’re not. It could’ve been Mehmet who was sterile.”
“He got tested. It’s all me. Trust me, Santiago Rivera isn’t going to want a barren wife.”
Eden opened her mouth to argue with her friend.
“No more on the subject,” Nina warned, holding up a scarlet-tipped finger. “If we talk about him too much, I’m going to get obsessed the way you are. Now run off and get dinner for your family. One of these days, I need to show you how to cook,” she added, heading for the exit.
Eden grabbed her new purchase off the counter and followed her friend to the door.
“I do want to learn,” she admitted, stepping out into the heat. The smell of gyros coming from the Greek restaurant next door caught her notice. “But not tonight. Tonight, I think I’ll duck in here and get takeout.”
Nina turned to her and offered her a hug. “Be strong,” she ordered.
Eden nodded fatalistically. “Okay. But only if you give Master Chief another chance.”
Nina visibly blushed beneath her olive complexion.
“I don’t think so,” she murmured, turning and heading toward her trusty Honda Civic.
Watching her friend duck into her car, Eden contemplated playing Cupid. If she couldn’t have her own happily-ever-after, maybe at least her best friend could. Then Eden could live through Nina vicariously. But she would have to be sneaky about it or her friend would be furious with her.
What could it hurt? she thought with a tingle of excitement.
Chapter 12
Jonah was pleased to recognize a number of people in the congregation of the big non-denominational church they attended the following morning.
“Master Chief’s here,” he whispered to Eden as they stood singing with the praise band.
“He is?” She went up on tiptoes, craning her neck to see over the people in front of them. “I need to talk to him after the service.”
Jonah wondered what Eden had to say to Rivera, but it wasn’t the time to ask. Fixing his gaze on the projector screen, he mouthed the lyrics while listening to Eden’s tuneful alto and Miriam’s warbling soprano. A rich baritone voice drew his gaze over his shoulder, and he was startled to recognize Lucas Strong as the source.
The lieutenant junior grade sat two rows behind them in the company of a dark-haired woman who made a point of catching Jonah’s eye. He sent her a respectful nod, wondering why it was she looked familiar. By the time the congregation sat and the pastor mounted the stage, Jonah had yet to come
up with an answer.
The verses read by Pastor Tom strummed a familiar cord. Jonah knew he’d read them, though he couldn’t remember when.
“So, let’s talk about where to find God and where God finds you.” Pastor Tom tucked the Bible under his arm and paced from one side of the raised platform to the other.
“A lot of people find God in church.” He gestured to encompass the modern sanctuary with its wide stained-glass windows and white-washed walls. “This is a great place to let God into your heart, wouldn’t you agree?”
The congregation murmured their assent.
“On the other hand,” Pastor Tom continued, “I know plenty of people who say the God of Creation found them at their lowest point in life. Some of them were lying flat on their backs, still drunk from the liquor they’d promised never to touch again. I know someone who found God on a park bench where he’d been sitting for hours because his family had washed their hands of him and he had nowhere else to go.”
Jonah’s throat closed up at the sudden recollection of how God had found him in a dank, squalid cell in Carenero.
He’d awakened to a pounding headache, having no idea where he was.
Why am I here? How did I get here?
The answers had never come to him. He remembered being puzzled by the fact that he could recall his childhood, becoming a SEAL, losing a friend in the form of Blake LeMere. But he’d never figured out how he’d fallen into El Jefe’s grasp in the first place.
Caught in a hellish existence, he had survived only because of his prolonged exposure-training. Still, he remembered wishing every time he opened his eyes that death would claim him until, one day, a stranger in uniform slid his daily meal beneath the bars and stood there watching him wolf it down.
“Are you hungry, señor?” the man had asked, his voice gently compassionate.
Jonah barely glanced at him, pretending not to understand.
“I wish I had more beans to give you. But food alone will not save you.” The stranger had reached under his uniform and produced a book hidden at the small of his back. Sliding it through the bars, he’d urged Jonah to take it.
Jonah had regarded him with suspicion. Perhaps it was a trap, and he would be punished for stealing what wasn’t his.
“Take it and read it. Don’t let the others see. This book will save you.”
Some force within him had compelled him to get up, shuffle forward, and take what he recognized as a Bible. “Gracias,” he’d murmured.
“God is with you,” the man said in Spanish, and then he’d disappeared, and Jonah had never seen him again.
Heart pounding, Jonah realized he could recall reading in spindles of sunlight shooting through cracks in the adobe. He had read the Bible from start to finish. The words within had fueled him as surely as manna had fed God’s chosen people in the wilderness. One passage in particular had given him the strength to endure his captivity.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our LORD.
Dumbfounded by the memory, Jonah scarcely registered that the pastor was talking about him until Eden elbowed him.
“…someone in our congregation who deserves to be recognized. A month ago, we memorialized Jonah Mills and commended him to the Father. This morning he sits in our midst, very much alive.”
A wave of love broke over Jonah as the congregation responded with audible amazement and then applause.
“I think you should stand up,” Eden said, her eyes bright with tears.
Jonah was already coming to his feet. Nodding in acknowledgement, he marveled that all these people who were strangers to him seemed so happy about his return.
“We are looking at a miracle, ladies and gentlemen,” said the pastor, who jumped off the podium to approach Jonah and shake his hand. “Jonah, we prayed every week for you.” His handshake was firm and sincere. “You are living testimony to the power of prayer. Welcome home.”
Despite the lump in his throat, Jonah was moved to say something. He held up a hand and the sanctuary fell silent.
“I just want to say thank you to all of you,” he said, projecting so he could be heard. “I don’t know most of you,” he admitted, “but I hope that changes.” He paused to clear his throat and started again. “I want you to know, if God could find me in captivity and turn my heart to Him—if He could rescue me and bring me safely home again—then He can find you, too, no matter where you are in life, no matter how dark a place you might be in.”
He nodded his certainty. “Thanks again.”
As he took his seat, the congregation showered him with more applause. To his deep satisfaction, Eden reached for his hand, interlacing her fingers through his, and gripping him hard. Miriam, he noticed, looked from their hands to their faces and smiled.
Jonah lapsed into a state of contentment. His surroundings turned into a blur as the universe encompassed only him, Eden, and Miriam, smiling her little smile.
He didn’t know what Eden holding his hand meant exactly, but it felt good. Even if she only did it for the benefit of others, her gesture had made him a happy man.
Yet the service eventually ended, and Eden let go of him as they filed out of the sanctuary.
“I need to talk to your master chief,” she said, leading him toward the reception hall.
Spying Rivera on the other side of the big room writing words on a dry-erase board, Jonah watched her make her way over to him.
“Hello, sir,” came a voice at his side.
Turning, he greeted Lucas and the familiar-looking brunette with him.
“You remember Monica Trembley, don’t you?” Lucas asked. “She’s a secretary at Spec Ops Headquarters.”
“I thought you looked familiar,” Jonah said, shaking Monica’s slim hand. He couldn’t pull up a single coherent memory of her, however.
She flashed her dimples while regarding him quizzically.
“I’m also Lucas’s fiancée,” she added pointedly.
“Oh.” Jonah looked back and forth between the pair, aware that Monica was watching his reaction. “Congratulations. When’s the big day?”
“April 15th,” she said, making a point of showing him her ring.
Jonah masked his astonishment at the size of the diamond solitaire.
“You’ve got a few more months left to plan then,” he said, making small talk. Rumor had it Lucas Strong was loaded from having played professional football. Jonah had forgotten until he saw her ring how wealthy he was purported to be since the man never flaunted his money.
“Sir, the guys and I want to get together with you,” Lucas said, reclaiming his attention. “Any chance you can come by my place this evening?” His gray eyes conveyed a desire to discuss the mission and what went wrong.
Jonah saw an opportunity to fulfill Special Agent Elwood’s request that he feel out his teammates about who might have made a phone call to Carenero while still aboard the Kearsarge.
“Sure, what time?”
“Nineteen hundred hours.”
“Can I bring anything?” Jonah asked.
“Just yourself. Theo, Saul, Master Chief, and I will be there. Bambino’s taking night classes. Maybe you could get a ride with Master Chief since he lives out your way.”
“I’ll go ask him,” Jonah suggested. Monica’s scrutiny was making him uncomfortable. “See you soon,” he said to Lucas, then nodded farewell to his fiancée.
Monica answered with a wave of her fingers, “Toodle-oo.”
Jonah came upon Eden and Master Chief in earnest conversation.
“But she would,” she was insisting, making Jonah wonder whom they were talking about. “You simply have to be persistent. And creative,” she added. “She’s understandably gun-shy.”
Rivera tore his gaze off Eden’s face to acknowledge Jonah’s pre
sence.
“Glad you could make it this morning,” he said, clasping Jonah’s proffered hand and adding, “Your words were very moving.”
“Yes, they were,” Eden agreed, smiling at Jonah.
His hopes ascended another notch. She was praising him in front of his master chief. This had to mean she was giving him another chance. Remembering his purpose, he looked back at Rivera.
“Lucas says some of us are getting together at his house tonight.”
Rivera nodded. “Yes, I got the invitation.”
“Can you give me a ride?” Jonah asked.
“Of course. I’ll pick you up at quarter to seven. Are you all staying for Sunday school? I’m teaching today.” He gestured to the white-erase board.
Eden looked at Jonah. “Actually, we’re headed to lunch. Are you still up for that?”
Weariness hovered on the fringes of his consciousness, but Eden’s seeming change of heart kept it at bay. Going out for lunch gave him the chance to charm her some more.
“Yes, I’m fine.” He nodded at Miriam who was browsing the cookie selection. “We’d better go now, though, before she loses her appetite.”
“Miriam!” Eden hurried off to stop Miriam from snacking.
Rivera waited until she was out of earshot. “I don’t know, Jaguar. She doesn’t strike me as a woman who wants to leave you.” He sent Jonah a knowing look.
Jonah let his private hopes show. “You think?” The memory of Eden kissing him the previous day linked with the memory of her holding his hand.
“I think,” Rivera affirmed, practically winking at him.
They both looked at Eden who was pulling Miriam away from the table. Jonah’s heart swelled with love and desire for her.
Please God, let me keep them both, he prayed.
Watching Jonah head out to lunch with his family, Santiago knew a moment’s envy. Having witnessed first-hand the number of divorces on the Teams, he had avoided romantic entanglements intentionally, though that hadn’t been easy. In his mind, he was married to the Teams. His family were the men of Blue Squadron, most especially men in Alpha Troop with whom he felt the closest.
Returning to Eden (Acts of Valor, Book 1): Christian Military Romantic Suspense Page 17