As he drove away, he heard her say, faintly, “Thank you.”
But it was probably his imagination.
Chapter Six
‡
It was just your basic plain brown box. Didn’t identify itself as military, except for the sticker on the front. When she picked it up, it was very light. Much lighter than a box holding all the personal effects of a man, her husband, the father of the baby she was carrying. She’d expected it to be heavy, like lead or gold bricks. Because the stuff of a man’s life was heavy, dense, not simple and lightweight. Not something that could be tipped over to blow away in a gentle wind. It should be heavy enough that, if you threw it, would go straight to the bottom of the ocean.
She set the box on the coffee table Frankie’s dad had made years ago, when he’d gotten his woodworking tools. She went back outside and got the duffel. Now that was heavy. Laundry. Probably dirty laundry, she thought, like he always lugged home. In this same bag she’d seen dozens of times. He’d walk into the house with the Cheshire cat grin and the gentle eagerness she loved about her Frankie, even though he was a piece of work. She suddenly wished she hadn’t been so hard on him. On those days, soon as he got home, all he wanted to do was take her to the bedroom, and she usually held out for getting her “stuff” done. Today, her “stuff” wasn’t that important.
She sat on the edge of the couch with the duffel bag propped between her knees. This was going to be hard. She’d always been the kind of person who was a self-starter. Could handle any crisis, even when everyone else was freaking out. Now she was on the edge instead of the eye of the storm, things were buffeting and blowing around her, and she wished she could dance in the wind. She wished she could be scared, wished she could get angry, anything but morose. Dead. She’d have to say she was feeling dead.
Little Courtney stirred, reminding her that she was soon to be a mother. She’d throw everything into raising her. Everything. Her life depended on it. It was the one thing left she’d accomplished with Frankie, one thing they’d shared that would hopefully outlive them both. Courtney would be the best of him, and the best of her. It was a miracle the way it had happened. Now she was pregnant, she wanted this baby more than life itself.
She picked up the duffel and lugged it to the laundry room. Near the top were neatly folded and ironed shirts, under his dress uniform, including his pork pie on top. She took the uniform into their bedroom, setting and, the shirts, and the hat on the bed, like he was going to put them on next, soon as he got back from wherever he’d been.
Back in the laundry room, she pulled out camo shirts that hadn’t been well laundered. Holding them up to her nose to determine if they were clean or not, she was filled with the glorious man-scent that was uniquely Frankie’s, and she lost it.
She ran down the hallway to the bedroom, crashing down onto the mattress, she held the shirt to her chest and cried like she hadn’t been able to do till now. She let it fly. She told little Courtney it would be over soon and not to worry.
“Mommy just has to have a good girl’s cry, and some day you’ll understand.” She closed her eyes and she saw him bending over her, leaning into her body with his hips, reaching for her lips to kiss while he ground into her.
“Love you, Shannon, baby doll.”
He’d been the only man to ever call her baby doll. Never felt anything like a baby doll before. She hated that name at first, but today she missed it. “Love you too, Frankie,” she whispered, keeping her eyes closed. “Missing you, baby.”
Of course the sobs involuntarily spasming her chest made it impossible to hear his response.
“I’m trying, Frankie. How long will I miss you?”
She thought maybe she heard him answer, “Don’t miss me, baby, love me.”
“I do, Frankie. Trust me, if you ever doubted me, I do. Courtney will be my witness. I do love you still. You won’t ever be gone for me, baby.”
She saw his smiling face as she fell asleep.
The phone rang in the late afternoon, waking her. Gloria, Frankie’s mom, was calling.
“We’ve been notified as well. I’m so sorry, Shannon. I can only imagine what you must be feeling.”
“Oh, Gloria. He was your boy. I can’t imagine how it must feel to lose the boy you raised, the boy who turned out to be a fine and lovable man.” She wiped the tears from her eyes, giving Gloria time to compose herself.
“We’ll get through this, Shannon. We’ll do it together. Your baby will want for nothing, sweetheart. Of that you never have to worry.”
“I know it, Mom.” Using the term “Mom” must have touched Gloria, and she sobbed, handing the phone over to Shannon’s father-in-law.
“Hey, sweetheart. Only thing I’m thinking about is that Frankie was doing what he always wanted to do. And doing it with the guys he loved so much, his brothers, Shannon. God help me, I’d rather go out that way. Not stuck in a nursing home that smells of piss or alone in a hospital ward. They told us T.J. held him at the very end.”
There was T.J. again, inserting himself in her life like he had a right to. Her second thought was more compassionate as she realized he was grieving, too. How would he show his grief? How would he deal with it? He had no family, at least no one who wanted him, anyhow. Which was one of the things Frankie could never understand. How anyone could throw away a little boy’s life like that.
T.J. was hard as nails because he’d had to leave behind his childhood before he was old enough to know how else to deal with it. She had to admit she felt a tinge of sorrow for him. A carefully guarded tinge, wrapped in camo duct tape. Something private, like the things in Frankie’s box.
Shannon made herself busy by finishing up Courtney’s room, finally removing the newspaper and tape from the window. She’d found the crib she wanted on sale and bought it. They were out of the pink camo sheets, bumper and curtains, so she ordered them. The changing table would arrive next week, so she’d paid for that as well.
The doctor had been doing all his normal things, and she hadn’t planned to tell him about Frankie’s death until he began to stress the importance of having father at the visits. Which he did at her next visit.
“I’m a widow as of two days ago, doc. I’m afraid I’ll be bringing my mom at the end. And probably my mother-in-law.”
He was moved, of course, and began treating her in a different way. “You sleeping well, Shannon?”
“Yessir. I’ve been fine. Feeling the energy I was hoping I’d feel at this point. Reading my books. Getting the room ready before I get too big.”
“Take it easy, too. Don’t push yourself. You’ve gone through a terrible experience, one which affects people’s bodies in different ways. Get more rest than you think you need. Spend more time with friends. Don’t be alone, Shannon.”
“I hear you. Not quite yet, but I’ll come out of my cave sooner or later. Don’t worry about me.” All her life, it had always been what she told grownups. No one ever had to worry about Shannon. It was the rest of the world, the part of the world unlucky enough to not have Shannon around to run it, that needed help.
Frankie’s favorite place to go on Sundays was Duckies, the frozen yogurt place where a lot of the Team guys hung out. She saw them, with their dark glasses and cargo pants, their canvas slip-ons or rubber sandals. And once in a while the sandals were made in Mexico out of old tires.
She was a dark chocolate girl at heart. But today she ordered Frankie’s favorite, strawberry. He liked the fresh chunks of fruit they put into their cones.
She added a few white chocolate chips and sat at the little yellow-topped table in the corner, out of the wind, and where she could watch people walking down the Strand. She watched couples, fingers entwined, older couples walking their little dogs, retired Navy, and new recruits. Everyone walked the Strand, and looked into shop windows, and simply enjoyed being alive.
That sent a silent tear down her cheek. Maybe the strawberry was too sweet.
A couple of groups of older
Team guys were walking back to their cars from a swim at the beach. Their crab-like walk pegged them. The sand going halfway to their knees told her they’d done a timed swim like Frankie used to do. Someone honked. Someone gave the finger to a pickup truck filled with rowdy young guys.
Being part of the things Frankie had liked didn’t help, though. Her thoughts got sadder. She had to dump the rest of her yogurt and put her own sunglasses on so people wouldn’t see how hard she’d been crying. She found her car and drove herself home.
Setting out the packages, she hung the two little frilly pink dresses in Courtney’s closet. The first two things there. They were small, almost like they’d been made for a doll. But no question about it. They belonged to Courtney.
Days strung together, and soon another month had gone by. SEAL wives and girlfriends were at her house constantly. They held a shower for her, and both Frankie’s mom and her own mother came. It was fortunate the two women got along so well, and Shannon understood they’d started phoning each other on a regular basis. One mother helping the other mother. Gloria was right, “We’ll all get through this together somehow.”
And then one day Shannon laughed again.
Chapter Seven
‡
T.J. had been spending a lot of time at Gunny’s gym. Timmons was practically living there as well. He’d sold his house, moved into an apartment nearby, and became a permanent fixture there.
The older man had dropped a bit of weigh, lost most of his potbelly, and was developing definition in his arms. The frog statue was safe, braced to the wall but standing on a glass shelf with a light shining down on it from recessed cans. On that shelf were several pictures, including one of Frankie’s smiling face, taken on his wedding day. T.J. looked at that picture every time he came into Gunny’s. He recalled the promise he’d made, and the look of the beautiful girl on Frankie’s left. He knew time was running out on his conscience, and he’d have to act soon or the mission would be labeled a failure due to abandonment.
Timmons had brought in several of his older friends, and soon a white-haired group was assembled there regularly. Detective Mayfield had retired from the San Diego P.D. and was now living with Armando’s mother, and he and Clark Riverton, another San Diego policeman soon to retire, dropped by for that group. Sanouk called them the “Silver Senior Running Shoe Circle.” But there wasn’t anything senior about them, other than the fact T.J. occasionally heard discussions of Viagra and special hair products.
Amornpan took care of the older gentlemen’s club like they were her boys and she was a Southeast Asian lounge singer. She was beautiful and ageless. She was a lady, and was gracious. She made Timmons a better man simply because he walked in and greeted her every day. T.J. doubted they were lovers yet, but their paths were definitely heading in that direction, and the Team Guys talked about it all the time.
Good for him.
T.J. was finished early, and said his goodbyes. He always gave his final goodbye to Frankie with a kiss to his forefinger and then a point straight at the guy. Increasingly he also pointed one at Shannon. He began to be more comfortable with the idea that he needed to take care of the one thing Frankie had asked for before he passed over. No matter how uncomfortable it made him.
“I know, I know. You asked me to look in on her, watch out for her, and I haven’t done that. Sorry, man. But, jeez, you know about the picture I look at every morning in my shaving drawer. You want me to get rid of it? If I give it back to her, she’ll have a fit.”
That gave him an idea. He had a feeling Shannon needed a little silliness in her life.
He stopped by a toy store and inquired about playhouses. They happened to have a pink gingerbread house in the back that had been returned last Christmas, since it was missing parts.
It was T.J.’s kind of gift. He bought it at a huge discount, threw it in the second seat of his truck, and, without calling Shannon first, headed over to her place.
He pulled out the partially opened carton, taking what he could manage without dropping pieces. A bag of screws fell at his feet, and he cursed but picked them up without dropping the wooden panels of the playhouse.
Shannon had already opened the front door when he got there. Her eyebrows were knitted into a frown. She inspected the pieces of wood under his arm and then looked up at him with questions she seemed unable to verbalize.
“Every princess deserves her own house. A play house,” T.J. said as he lifted his shoulder to draw attention to the playhouse pieces.
“This is a play house or a doll house?”
“I think it’s a play house.”
“You are aware she won’t be able to play with dolls for probably at least two years.”
“So, it will wait for her, then. Maybe in the meantime you can use it.” He tried to smile, but the blush on her face and the fullness of her belly was too powerfully distracting. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was the first pregnant woman he’d been within ten feet of.
Ribbons of jazz came from the house.
“I can just put this in the back yard, if today isn’t a good day. I can come back another time to put this together, but I have time to get it done today, if you’re willing.”
“I hadn’t even gotten to thinking about what she would play with once she’s walking. You do know they have to be born first, start crawling, and then walk, in order to use an outside playhouse?” Her frown marks were easing, and a small, a very tiny smile formed on her lips as she told him non-verbally she appreciated that he’d thought of the baby. He liked that he’d been able think of something she hadn’t yet.
So far so good.
She opened the door, gesturing him inside. He knew where the door to the back yard was, through the master bedroom at the back of the house. Once inside, he saw her unmade bed, the glass of water by the nightstand. A book was lying facedown on the table.
“Did I wake you from a nap?” he asked as he walked past the bed.
“No. I was up getting a snack and heard your truck pull up.” She opened the sliding glass door and allowed him to walk in front of her into the yard.
She’d planted flowers along the edge of the lawn, ones which had not been there when he visited Frankie before their last deployment. The day of the funeral, he hadn’t followed the others to her house for the reception, preferring to linger a little longer at the cemetery. He’d had private thoughts he wanted to share with his Team buddy.
The yard looked happier than he remembered. He was glad to see Shannon had maintained everything like before Frankie was gone. He’d seen a number of wives fall to pieces, not that he blamed them. But Shannon had moved forward, and seemed steady.
He knew she was still hurting inside, but she didn’t let one ounce of it show. He figured it was probably since she had made no secret of her dislike for him. Well, maybe he could change that a bit. Maybe it could bring her a bit of relief.
He laid out the pieces, putting the screws and washers on a corner of the box it came in. He was crosschecking the parts to the manifest. He discovered there were several bags of screws missing.
He began tracing his footsteps across the lawn.
“What are you looking for?”
“I think I may have dropped a few things. Any tiny bags of screws or wooden dowels?”
“I’ll go look, but didn’t notice any.” She disappeared from the screen door, returning a few minutes later carrying a glass of ice water. “Nope. Not a thing.” She slipped out through the slider and stepped down onto the concrete patio in her bare feet…with those hot pink toes he was having such a hard time ignoring.
“Here,” she said holding out the glass.
“Thanks.” He drank the whole thing, a bit of the cooling water sluicing down his neck and into the ribbing at the top of his T-shirt. He took a mouthful of ice and began crunching it as he handed the glass back to her.
Shannon watched him, expressionless, and said nothing.
He put together what he
could, and figured he’d find the fasteners for the rest later. A couple of times he’d put the wrong side out. He cursed at the instructions, and decided they’d probably been translated from Chinese. At one point he discovered there was an important triangular-shaped piece missing, one supposed to hold up parts of the roof. Just gone. He had one side, but not the other.
A couple of times the angle of two panels he’d screwed together was compromised, and collapsed. If he’d been home, he’d had destroyed the whole thing, kicked it around, bent and broken it further, and tossed it in the garbage. But this was Shannon and Frankie’s house, and this was for their baby, and dammit, he was going to get this done.
So much for playing hero. The pieces were so messed up he didn’t know where to start. He sat down and concentrated on them, hoping a solution would present itself, like magic.
Fuck it.
When he was about to give up, he heard the sliding glass door pull open again, and this time out walked Frankie’s dad, with his tool belt on, and a red canvas hand tools caddy in his left hand.
“Shannon said I should come and do a rescue on this mission,” Joe Benson said flatly.
T.J. winced, but it was the truth. “Yup. I do believe we have a problem, Houston.”
“Well I’m good at fixin’ problems. Let’s see what you got there,” Benson said as he squatted down to peer at the roof and corners.
T.J. turned his back to the house and began showing Joe what he’d figured out, but he felt Shannon’s eyes on him.
He kind of liked it.
Chapter Eight
‡
Shannon had watched her husband’s hard-bodied friend while he worked outside, struggling to wrestle pieces of pink and light green plywood, painted to look like the sides of a gingerbread house. He first read the instructions, and then quietly aligned the pieces, searching for fasteners, which, all too often, seemed to be missing. He looked for holes that weren’t drilled.
Hot Alpha SEALs: Military Romance Megaset Page 96
