Frontline

by Alexandra Richland

  I wait a few more moments to make sure he’s resting comfortably before I continue my journey down the hall. It’s not hard to guess which room belongs to the illustrious Trenton Merrick. Two Tin Men I’ve never seen before stand at attention outside the door.

  Chris and Sean guarded my room from the moment I was admitted. It took some major pleading with them to let me visit with my father alone. They’re waiting for me at my final destination, though. We agreed upon that.

  “Like, who does he think he is?” says a voice from behind the nurses’ station in a stern whisper. It comes from a short, middle-aged nurse, rifling through paperwork, but keeping both eyes on Trenton’s door and the two Tin Men outside of it. “In my entire professional career, I’ve never been talked to like that.”

  A younger nurse, dressed in loose-fitting powder blue scrubs, sits in a chair next to her, eating a sandwich. “Shut up, they’ll hear you. Remember what we were told this morning—he gets what he wants. He’s rich. And if anyone at the hospital discloses he’s here, or the woman and two injured men he came in with, they’ll get canned.”

  I can’t help but sympathize with the staff, knowing firsthand how testy their VIP patient can be.

  “They don’t pay me enough to put up with him,” replies the older nurse. “Thankfully, he’s insisting on signing himself out AMA and into the care of his private physician, which is why he hasn’t been transferred upstairs to an inpatient unit yet. And the plan is to move his friend in surgery to a New York hospital for post-operative recovery. They won’t be bothering us here much longer.”

  One of the Tin Men takes notice of me approaching Trenton’s room and hurries over. “Miss Peters, allow me to help.”

  There existed a time in the very recent past when I’d consider it odd if a man I’d never met before not only knows my name, but also offers to assist me. Surviving the sharp learning curve of Merrick Industries has taught me to tolerate a whole new level of weird. Now I take it for granted. It must be how the First Lady feels around secret service agents.

  Each step makes my twisted ankle feel like a nail is being driven into it. I take his outstretched hand and lean into him as he helps me the final few paces to the door.

  “Thank you,” I say as he pushes it open and guides me a further few steps inside.

  Sunlight streams through the floor-to-ceiling windows, igniting the room in a hot, white light.

  Trenton lies on the bed, covered only to the waist by a blanket. Square white gauze taped to his shoulder staunches the gunshot wound, which has opened again and leaked a small circle of blood onto the dressing.

  The same pale yellow that colored his complexion at the cabin has returned. Sweat soaks his forehead and chest. His head is bandaged on account of the beating he took from Kedrov. No concussion, apparently. I’m not surprised. Thick skull and all . . .

  Chris and Sean sit in two visitor chairs near Trenton’s bed, their backs to the door.

  “The Feds aren’t saying what types of weapons and explosives were in the crates,” Chris says to Trenton. “They’ve got their recovery team in the bay right now. I don’t know if we’ll ever know.”

  “Sara,” Trenton says with sweet satisfaction as he notices me hobbling toward his bed. Then his face sours. “You are not to bargain with Chris and Sean to give you time alone, nor will you walk around unaccompanied again. They will escort you from now on, do you understand?”

  “You may be able to order the staff around here, Mr. Merrick, but I’m not so easily commanded.” My tone is stern, but I smile.

  It takes a few seconds, but Trenton’s face finally breaks into a grin, too.

  Sean and Chris rise from their chairs and hold their hands out to help me the last few feet.

  “May I?” I motion to the edge of Trenton’s bed.

  “Please.” He turns to Chris and Sean. “Could you . . .?”

  “We can continue this later,” Sean says. “While Sara is with you, we should probably go check on the girls. You know, back at the hotel.”

  Trenton smirks. “Take your time.”

  Bold grins chased with a hint of mischievousness light Chris and Sean’s faces as they hurry from the room.

  “How are you feeling, Sara?”

  Trenton takes my hand and guides me down onto the mattress beside him. His naked torso is so unexpected, I’m suddenly very conscious of the way I look: bare beneath a thin hospital gown tied securely in the back, scarred arms and face pocked with cuts and scrapes from flying shrapnel, my hair a bird’s nest of frayed strands and tangles. However, the heat I feel in my cheeks is the one sensation I’m attuned to and it supersedes the rest.

  I’m definitely feeling better.

  “Isn’t it my job to ask you that question?”

  “It’s about time I got some decent medical care from an accredited professional.” Trenton scowls. “The nurses here couldn’t treat a hangnail.”

  “Be nice.” I lean over him to take a closer look at the superficial cuts on his face. “I can’t believe there’s nothing else seriously wrong with you. That was quite a fall you took from the container, not to mention the gunshot. You’re very lucky.”

  “We make our own luck in life, Sara.”

  “Not when we fall from flying sea containers that, seconds later, fall on us.”

  Trenton beckons me to lie down next to him. I pull my matted hair behind my shoulders, snuggle close to his burning body, and rest my head on the pillow. His right arm wraps around my shoulders.

  I prop myself up so I can look him straight in the eye. “What happens now? Are we safe?”

  “Kedrov’s dead, his operation has been exposed. I’m cooperating with the FBI on my end. I don’t think we have anything else to fear.”

  “Don’t think?”

  “Kedrov was already on thin ice with his backers. This incident will have them washing their hands of him and lying low to avoid investigation. Sean essentially did their dirty work for them.”

  “It all seems too easy.”

  “You think jumping with a sprained ankle into a sea container dangling in mid-air is easy?” Trenton’s grin looks so wide and bright it’s hard not to feel entirely assured.

  “And my Dad?”

  His smile eases, but doesn’t disappear. “Chris had no choice but to tell the Feds what happened—it seems we left too big of a trail at the port. But the local police and media are none the wiser. It’s being labeled a Russian counterfeit smuggling operation gone wrong. Knockoff designer goods aren’t big news compared to weapons and explosives. Kedrov has been named publicly, but no one else.”

  “So my dad is going to prison?”

  “No. I told the Feds he was working with me undercover. They’re mad, but I’m taking all the blame. Ultimately, they’re just glad Kedrov’s operation is finished—at least with Kedrov at the helm.”

  After my recent behavior toward Trenton, this outcome is far more than I deserve. He deserves something from me, too. “Trenton, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  “What?” His tone still sounds casual, but he can’t hide the hint of concern on his face.

  “My father took you to the wrong container on purpose. He knew it would be empty.”

  Deep wrinkles furrow Trenton’s brow. “So I’ve gathered. But why?”

  “On the plane to San Francisco, he asked me if we could trust you. I told him no. That was when he gave me the information on where the real container was hidden.”

  Trenton turns his head slowly toward the windows. “I see.”

  “I don’t have a good excuse. These last weeks have been a whirlwind for me. I can barely think straight now, let alone when everything was hitting the fan yesterday. All I can tell you is that for the first time in my life, I saw my father scared out of his wits, trying to come up with a plan and not knowing who he could count on. With all the ups and downs you and I have been through, all the times I thought you weren’t being honest with me . . . I couldn’t see where it all w
as leading and that the whole time you were always on our side.”

  My parched voice cracks under the weight of the confession. I take a deep breath and try to continue, but Trenton interrupts.

  “I didn’t make it easy,” he says. “I offered no explanations. It was foolish of me to insist that you trust me wholeheartedly.”

  “Please don’t be nice about this and just let me off the hook. I almost lost you so many times, and most of those times, I would’ve been solely to blame. Then at the cabin, you made love to me—gave me everything you had, despite your injury—even though you knew as soon as I returned to your room that I’d leave you again afterward. I’m sorry. I’m sorry it all came to this.”

  Trenton rubs my leg. “There’s a set of principles my parents raised me with. Four of them, to be exact: no shame, no blame, no apologies, no excuses—just fix it.”

  “How on earth do we fix this?”

  Trenton stretches his right arm, inviting me to lie down again. I accept.

  “This is a good start,” he says as I nestle in beside him.

  The relief I feel lightens my whole world, and for the first time since I entered the room, I appreciate the brightness of the sun, the warmth of Trenton’s body, and let all the darkness and worry give way to the first rays of contentment.

  “Trenton, where do we go from here?”

  “Back to New York, I would imagine. Or we could stay here. Or we could go somewhere else. Wherever your heart desires, Sara.”

  “Stop being coy. You know what I mean.”

  “Well, here’s how I see it: I made you an offer several days ago, which you seemed to need some time to think over. Are you ready to give me an answer?”

  I shift my eyes to the ceiling as I think back through the chaos that swirled around us in the past few days. “The last normal moment I remember was in your car on the way to the charity benefit.”

  “Getting warm.”

  “Yes, I remember feeling very warm.” My words are coated with a playful purr.

  Trenton smiles as I glide my hand across his bare chest. I move in small circles over his pectorals and then raise my fingers so only their tips brush his skin. He closes his eyes and bites his lower lip, releasing a deep moan.

  “And what did I ask you on the way to the benefit, Sara?”

  “If I’d spend that night with you.” My yearning for him strengthens with the thought. “Well, not so much asked, but promised.”

  “Yes, which you still owe me. But before that.”

  “You suggested—in quite a roundabout way, mind you—something about leaving my job and coming to work with you for a charity you hope to start. Traveling abroad with you, doing something that will truly help people and make a difference.”

  “And?”

  My hand swirls up his stubbly throat and slips behind his head, tangling in his thick hair. I ease his head off the pillow and bring his face so close to mine, the tips of our noses touch.

  “And nothing would make me happier.”

  Our lips meet again, gently at first, two lost lovers suddenly reacquainted. Familiarity arrives when his tongue pushes into my mouth and our lips press and maneuver together in their accustomed way. But something fresh and new exists in this kiss, beyond the thrill carried from my lips through my body, beyond the wonderment of the whole world outside disappearing until only Trenton and I exist in the tiny space between our two beating hearts.

  The answer comes in the moment I realize that this man is my pain, my pleasure, my present, my future, and by saying the words I feel—the words he’s begged to hear, the words I shared with him at the port—I can have his kiss forever.

  We slow our union to catch our breath.

  “Trenton, I love you.”

  His eyes sparkle and his chest deflates with a grateful sigh. “And I love you, Sara, so much—which is why I want you to marry me.”

  My eyes widen. “Marry you?”

  “Yes. And don’t say it’s too soon or that maybe I have an undiagnosed head injury, which is affecting my judgment. I want you to be my wife. I want you to take my last name. I want the world to know you are mine and I am yours.”

  I bat my eyelashes. “No ring?”

  Trenton smirks. “You’ll get a ring, Sara, believe me—and plenty more.” His face adopts a somber quality, and his voice, a pleading whisper. “Say yes.”

  As I stare back at him, I hope he understands that my actions over recent weeks spoke for my words and feelings; the good, the bad, even the immature temper tantrums. At least I know he’s seen all sides of me now. And if he’s still willing to be with me, I can’t ask for more.

  I throw my arms around him. He grunts from his injuries, but holds on tight.

  “I was just teasing about the ring,” I say, my teary voice muffled by his embrace. “I just want you, only you. Yes, I’ll marry you.”

  Trenton remains quiet, but the breath he releases into my hair is one of relief.

  We lie in the hospital bed, our journey together from nurse and patient to something much more, coming full circle. The end of anything is the beginning of something new, but just what does this new beginning hold for us?

  “What is it?” Trenton asks when apprehension steals across my face.

  “When you say charity, and help people, and make a difference, that doesn’t mean getting shot at or tortured by any more terrorists, does it?”

  “It means for us to go wherever we need to in order for our efforts to have the greatest impact.” Trenton drifts his fingers down my bare arm. “But I’m sure we’ll find that a little further back from the frontline than we’ve been recently.”

  “Good, because I won’t lose you.” I screw my eyes shut, nauseous at the notion. “I’ve come close enough for one lifetime.”

  “We’ll get started soon. But for now, just stay here with me, in my bed.” Trenton’s eyelids slowly droop. “I’m tired, Sara.”

  “I’m here, Trenton. Always.” I brush the sweaty strands of matted hair from his forehead and place a kiss upon it, then cuddle into the crevice between his arm and torso and lay my head down, lulled to sleep with the gentle rise and fall of his chest.

  The danger that haunted us falls away into the past. With the future that once looked so dark now shining bright and warm, and our arms wrapped around each other, we begin.

  Prologue (Frontline Book #2 – Coming 2014)

  From a small window in a third-floor apartment building, a man looks out over a steaming, bustling street. Midday brings the hottest sun’s rays blazing from a wide-open blue sky. The air conditioning unit, stuffed crookedly in the neighboring window, groans and hums as it sucks in the afternoon’s humidity and blows a freezing draft that stinks of rusted metal. Beads of water rain from the unit’s underside and leave long streaks down the wall, pooling on the edge of the carpet.

  The man wraps his lips around the tip of the last Java Gold in the pack. He pulls the cigarette from its foil wrap, squeezes the cardboard box in his fist, and tosses it into a nearby garbage can. New York has two seasons: frigid and furnace. It reminds him of home. Maybe that’s why he decides, after only a short amount of time in the country, he might be able to stick it out here. Maybe America could be his home after all.

  It has been an easier transition than expected. He arrived at JFK Airport on a false passport, claiming he was a freelance filmmaker with some documentary work lined up for an independent production company. The customs officer looked him over, glanced at his passport, and asked him where he was born. The man answered with the same location printed on the passport. The customs officer stamped it and sent him on his way. It wasn’t supposed to be that simple.

  He arrived in the city by subway, wearing a plaid shirt, leather jacket, denim jeans torn at the knees, fleece-lined rubber boots two sizes too big, and a small canvas satchel slung across his back.

  Hello, America. Nice to meet you, he had thought as he pushed up the stairs to street level.

  After a few bl
ocks, English store signs started sharing their space with Cyrillic script. He felt more at home already.

  An old friend of his father’s from back in the old country gave him a place to sleep for a couple of weeks in exchange for odd jobs: mending a sagging front porch, dishwashing at Tatiana’s Cafe, sweeping floors in the corner store. The man had always been good with his hands. Eventually, his journey led him here, to this street; a third-floor apartment with peeling paint, a leaky air conditioner, moldy carpet, and a kitchen stove with one working electric burner.

  The American dream: still alive and well in Brooklyn, New York.

  The man moves to the kitchen table where a stack of mail sits next to a dinner plate covered in hardened yellow egg yolk and dried ketchup. He slides the plate out of the way and shuffles through the fliers: pizza coupons, an office furniture blowout sale, a photocopied invitation to the seventh annual block party barbecue next weekend to benefit inner-city children.

  The last piece is a small white envelope he found in his satchel the morning he took possession of this apartment. He’d woken at his father’s friend’s house, stripped and folded the sheets off the couch and set them in a pile on the coffee table, packed his few pieces of clothing into the satchel, and walked out the front door. There was no need for any good-byes or thank-yous. He’d worked for his stay and would now make a life for himself a couple of streets away.

  When he arrived at the apartment and unzipped his satchel again, he found the envelope at the very bottom, the name and home address of his father’s friend scrawled across the front in blue ballpoint ink. No return address was written anywhere on the letter, just a bold, red stamp over the flap on the reverse side stating United States Penitentiary, Victorville, Approved.

  It sat on his kitchen table for the few weeks since. Uneasiness tingled in the man’s shoulders each time he looked at it, but today, that tingling feels different, his uneasiness giving way to excitement. The seal peels away easily. The man pulls a small piece of paper from inside and unfolds it.

  Cousin,

  I am overjoyed to hear of your arrival in America. Although I currently find myself a guest of the federal government and way across the country from you, know that even under these circumstances, opportunity exists. If I can earn a place for myself locked away in Uncle Sam’s cellar, I know you can too. You are not a man to take orders from anyone but himself. That is the spirit one needs to thrive in this country. America is a land of opportunity.