"Jones. Welcome back."
Cowboy turned to see Joe Cat coming toward him. He shook his captain's hand. "Thank you, sir."
Wes hung up the phone with a crash. "No go, Skipper. Apparently, there's no other location for us on the entire base."
Bobby joined them, bristling. "This place is huge. That's a load of—"
"Hey, I'm just saying what they told me." Wes shrugged. "We can request repairs, but it's got to go through channels and you know what that means. We'll still be able to stargaze from our desks three weeks from now."
"I say we forget about channels and fix this place ourselves," Lucky called down from his perch on the roof.
"I'm for that, too, Cat," Harvard chimed in. "We can get the job done better in a fraction of the time."
Cowboy squinted up at the roof. "Can we patch it, or will we have to replace the whole damn thing?" This was good. He could get into the distraction of creative problem solving. It would take his mind off the woman he'd left behind in Appleton, Massachusetts.
Melody hadn't thrown herself at his feet and begged him not to go. She'd only taken a few minutes away from the frantic housecleaning she was helping Brittany do in anticipation of a visit from Social Services. Britt's request to adopt Andy Marshall was actually being considered. Melody had been so focused on Britt's need to make everything as perfect as possible, she'd barely noticed when he left.
She'd kissed him goodbye and told him to be careful. And then she'd gone back to work.
Cowboy had passed a billboard advertising Ted Shepherd's candidacy for state representative on his way out of town. The man's pasty face, enlarged to a giant size, made him feel sick with jealousy. He'd had to look away, unable to gaze into the man's average brown eyes, unable to deal with the thought that this could well be the man Melody would spend her life with. This could be the man who would raise Cowboy's child as his own.
If he'd had a grenade launcher in his luggage, he would have blown the damn billboard to bits.
"Jones, I understand congratulations are in order." Joe Cat slapped Cowboy's back, bringing him abruptly back to the present. "When's the big day?"
The big...?
"Yeah, you gonna invite us to the wedding?" Lucky asked. "Damn, I feel like singing a verse of 'Sunrise, Sunset.' I can't believe our little Cowboy is actually old enough to tie the knot."
"You want us to wear dress whites, or should we cammy up?" Wes asked. "Dress whites are more traditional, but the camouflage gear would probably go better with the shotgun accessories.".
Beside him, Bobby broke into a chorus of "Love Child."
Cowboy shook his head. "You guys are wrong—"
"Yeah, you know, that's probably the only way I'm going to go," Lucky said. "Trapped in the corner with no way out."
"Yo, Diana Ross," Harvard called from the roof. "S-squared."
Bobby obediently sat down and shut up.
"The rest of you guys back off," Harvard continued. "Junior's doing the right thing here. Maybe if you pay attention, you might actually learn something from his fine example."
Cowboy looked up at Harvard through the hole in the roof. "But I'm not marrying her, H." He looked around at the other guys. "I'm going to be a father in a few weeks, but I'm not getting married."
Blue McCoy, a man of few words, was the first to break the silence. He looked around at the rest of Alpha Squad. "This just goes to show we should learn to mind our own business." He turned to Cowboy. "I'm sorry, Jones," he said quietly.
But Wes couldn't keep his mouth shut. "Sorry?" he squeaked. "How could you be sorry? Jones's luck is rocketing off the scale. In fact, the way I see it, O'Donlon's just lost the right to his nickname. From now on, I'm calling Jones Lucky."
Cowboy shook his head, unable to respond, unable even to force a smile. By all rights, he should have been agreeing with them and celebrating his freedom, but instead he felt as if part of him would never feel like celebrating again. "I'm gonna go check out this roof," he told Joe Cat.
The captain had a way of looking at a man that made you feel as if he could see clear through all the bull and camouflage to the heart and soul that lay beneath. He was looking at Cowboy that way right now.
"I'm sorry, too, kid," he said before nodding and dismissing him.
Cowboy escaped out the door, searching for the easiest way up to the curving metal roof. There was a drainpipe on the southwest corner of the building that looked pretty solid. In fact, as he approached, Lucky was using it to climb down.
"Kudos to you, Jones," he said, wiping the remnants of rust from his hands onto his pants. "How about getting together tonight over a cold beer? You could share the secrets of your success." His smile turned knowing. "I remember that girl, Melody. She was something else. And she was on top of you like a dog in heat right from the word go, wasn't she?"
Something inside Cowboy snapped, and snapped hard. He knocked Lucky down into the dust. "Just shut the hell up!"
Lucky was instantly on his feet, crouched and ready in a combat stance. "What the—"
Cowboy rushed him again, and this time Lucky was ready for his attack. They landed together, hard, in the dirt. Cowboy's elbow hit a rock and he welcomed the pain that shot through him. It was sharp and sweet, and it masked the pain in his heart.
But Lucky didn't want to fight. He kneed Cowboy hard in the stomach. While Cowboy was struggling to regain his breath, Lucky scrambled free. "You crazy bastard! What the hell's wrong with you?"
Cowboy pulled himself to his feet, breathing hard, moving menacingly toward the other SEAL. "I warned you if you bad-mouthed her again, I'd kill you."
Wes had stuck his head out the door to see what was causing the commotion. "Senior Chief!" he bellowed after taking one quick look.
Harvard was across the roof and down that drainpipe in a flash. "Back off," he shouted to Cowboy, stepping directly between the two men. "Just back off! Do you hear me, Jones? You hit him again, and your butt is going to be in deep trouble!"
Cowboy stood, bent over, hands on his knees, still catching his breath.
Harvard turned and glared at Wesley and Bobby, who both stood watching by the door. "This doesn't concern you!"
They disappeared back inside.
"What the hell is this about?" Harvard asked, looking from Cowboy to Lucky.
"Beats me, H." Lucky brushed dirt from his shoulder. "The psycho here jumped me."
Harvard fixed his obsidian glare on Cowboy. "Junior, you have something to say?"
Cowboy lifted his head. "Only that if O'Donlon so much as breathes Melody's name again, I'll put him in the hospital."
"Damn, I feel like a kindergarten teacher," Harvard muttered, turning back to Lucky. "O'Donlon, were you really stupid enough to be dissing his woman?"
"His woman...?" Lucky was genuinely confused and not entirely unamused. "Jones, you just got through telling us that you're not going to marry...the one who shall remain nameless because I don't want to have to put you in the hospital."
Harvard swore pungently. "It's obvious that right here we've got a live showing of Dumb and Dumber, Part Two."
"I don't get it," Lucky said to Cowboy. "If you're so hot for this girl, why the hell aren't you marrying her?"
Cowboy straightened up. "Because she doesn't want me," he said quietly, all of his anger and frustration stripped away, leaving only the hurt behind. God, it hurt. He looked at Harvard. "H., I tried, but...she doesn't want me." To his absolute horror, tears filled his eyes.
And for maybe the first time in his entire life, Lucky was silent. He didn't try to make a joke. Harvard looked at the blond-haired SEAL. "Jones and I are going take a walk. That okay with you, O'Donlon?"
Lucky nodded. "Yeah, that's uh... Yeah, Senior Chief."
Harvard didn't say another word until they'd walked halfway across the exercise field. By then, thank God, Cowboy had regained his composure.
"Jones, I have to start by apologizing to you," Harvard told him. "This whole snafu's my
fault. I told the guys you were going to marry this girl. I guess I just assumed you'd do whatever you had to, to convince her that marrying you is the right thing. Which leads me to my main point. I'm honestly surprised at you, Junior. I've never known you to quit."
Cowboy stopped walking. "Bottom line, what do I really have to offer her? Thirty days of leave a year." He swore. "I grew up with a father who was never there. With only thirty days each year, there's no use pretending I could be any kind of a real father to my kid—or a real husband to Melody. This way, we're all being honest. I'll be the guy who comes to visit a few times a year. And Mel will hook up with someone else. Someone who'll be there for her all the time."
Harvard was shaking his head. "You've talked yourself into believing this is a lose-lose situation, haven't you? Open your eyes and look around you, boy. Your captain's in the exact same boat. It's true Veronica and his kid miss him when he's gone, but with a little effort, they're making the situation work."
"Yeah, but Veronica is willing to travel. I couldn't ask Melody to leave Appleton. It's her home. She loves it there."
"Junior, you can't afford not to ask."
Cowboy shook his head. "She doesn't want me," he said again. "She wants an average guy, not a SEAL."
"Well, there I can't help you," Harvard said. "Because even if you quit the units tomorrow, you're never going to be mistaken for an average guy."
Quit the units tomorrow...
He could do that. He could quit. He could move to Massachusetts, set up permanent residence in that tent outside Melody's house....
But he didn't want to quit. Except that was exactly what he'd done. Harvard was right. In what could possibly be the most important fight of his life—the fight to win Melody—he'd surrendered far too easily.
He should have told her he loved her before he left. He should be there right now, down on his knees, still telling her that he loved her, telling her that this time it was real. No matter what she said, he knew it was real. And she loved him, too. He'd seen it in her eyes, tasted it in her kisses, heard it in her laughter.
Yeah, she might not know it yet, but she definitely loved him. He should have realized it a full day ago, from the way she'd held him so tightly up at the quarry.
Cowboy looked at Harvard. "I've got to go back to Massachusetts right away. A weekend. That's all I need. Just two and a half days."
Harvard laughed. "Come on. I'll go with you. We'll go talk to Joe."
"Thank you, Senior Chief."
"Don't thank me yet, Junior."
Joe Catalanotto sighed. "I can't do it, Jones. It's going to have to wait a week or so." He gestured to the television in the corner of his office. "I've been monitoring a situation in South America for the past day and a half. A plane's been hijacked. Two hundred forty-seven people on board." Sure enough, the TV was tuned to CNN. "Any minute now, this phone's gonna ring, and Alpha Squad's going to be ordered over to Venezuela to help create order out of chaos." He shook his head. "I'm sorry, kid. I need you with the team. Best I can tell you is to let your fingers do the walking. Make a phone visit, but do it now. Get your gear ready to go, too. Because once we get the word to move, there won't be time."
Cowboy nodded. "And if you're wrong, sir?"
Cat laughed. "If I'm wrong, I'll give you an entire week. But I'm not wrong."
As if to prove his point, the telephone rang.
Cowboy scrambled for the door. He threw it open and made a dash for the nearest telephone. He punched in his calling-card number and then Melody's number. Please, God, let her be home. Please, God...
The phone rang once, twice, three times. All around him, he could hear the sounds of Alpha Squad getting ready to move. On the fourth ring, the answering machine picked up.
"Come on, Cowboy!" Wes shouted. "You don't even have your gear together yet!"
Brittany's recorded voice came on, followed by the beep.
"Melody, it's me, Jones." God, he had no clue what to say. ' 'I just wanted to tell you—''
Beep. Damn, he paused too long and the answering machine, mistaking his silence for a disconnected line, had cut him off.
"Come on, Cowboy! Move!"
"I love you!" he shouted into the receiver. That was what he should have said. KISS. Keep it simple. Bottom line. But it was too late to call her back.
Cowboy hung up the phone with a curse.
Melody was dreaming. She knew she was dreaming because Jones was with her, and they were back in the Middle East, hiding from the soldiers who were patrolling the city.
"Close your eyes," Jones told her. "Keep breathing, shallowly, softly. They won't see us. I promise."
Her heart was pounding, but his arm was around her, and she knew at the very least, if she died, she wouldn't die alone.
"I love you," she whispered, afraid if she didn't say it now, she'd never get the chance.
He motioned for her to be silent, but it was too late. One of the soldiers had heard her, then turned and fired his gun. The bullet slammed into her with wrenching force. Pain exploded in her abdomen.
The baby! Dear God, she'd been shot, and they'd hit the baby.
Her legs felt wet with blood, but Jones was fighting the enemy soldiers. He was firing his own gun, driving them away.
Another knife blade of pain seared through her, and she cried out.
Jones turned toward her, touching her, and his hands came away red with her blood.
He looked at her and his eyes were so green, even in the darkness. "Wake up," he said. "Honey, you've got to wake up."
Melody opened her eyes to see the first dim light of dawn creeping in through her windows. She'd been so tired last night, she hadn't even taken the time to draw the curtains.
Pain knifed through her, real pain, the same pain she'd dreamed. She gasped, turning to reach for the lamp on her bedside table. She switched it on, and with shock realized that her hands had left behind a smear of blood.
She was bleeding.
She pulled back the covers to see that her nightgown and the sheets below were stained bright red.
Brittany was still at work. She wouldn't be home until after seven.
Pain made the room spin.
"Jones!"
But Jones wasn't there to help her, either. Melody didn't know where Jones was. He'd called and left a message on the machine over two weeks ago. She'd tried to call him back, but was told he was unavailable and would remain that way for an undetermined amount of time.
He was out of touch on some mission, risking his life doing God knows what. She'd spent the past two weeks scared to death and kicking herself for not being honest with him. She should have told him that she loved him while she had the chance.
Please, God, keep him safe. Every time Melody thought about him, she said that silent prayer.
The pain gripped her again, and she cried out. God, what was happening? This wasn't labour. She wasn't supposed to bleed when she went into labour...
Her door was pushed open. "Mel?"
Brittany. Thank God, she'd gotten home from work early.
"Oh, dear Lord!" Brittany saw the blood on the sheets. She picked up the phone, dialed 911, smoothed back Melody's hair, feeling her forehead, checking her eyes. "Sweetie, when did the bleeding start?"
"I don't know. I was sleeping...God!" The pain made her see stars. "Britt, the baby! What's happening with the baby?"
But Brittany spoke into the phone, rattling off their address. "We need an ambulance here stat. I've got a twenty-five-year-old woman in the ninth month of her first pregnancy, experiencing severe abdominal pain and haemorrhaging."
Melody closed her eyes. Please, God, keep both Jones and her baby safe and alive...
"Yes, I'm a nurse," Brittany responded. "I suspect placental abruption. We'll need foetal monitors and an ultrasound ready and waiting at the hospital. Yes. I'll have the door open. Just get here!"
"Jones, you better get down here." Harvard's voice sounded tight and grim over the telepho
ne line. "There's a stack of messages for you that's four inches high."
Cowboy's heart leaped. "From Melody?"
"Junior, just get down here."
Fear flickered inside him. "H., what's the deal? Is Mel all right? Did she have the baby?"
"I don't know for sure. It looks as if the first few messages are from Melody, but the rest... Jones, Mel's sister has been calling nearly every hour for the past two days. I recommend you get down here and call her back ASAP. She's left a number at the hospital."
A number at the hospital. Cowboy didn't even say goodbye. He hung up the phone and ran.
The temporary barracks he was sharing with the other unmarried members of the team were a good half mile from the leaky-roofed Quonset hut that housed Alpha Squad's office. Cowboy was still wearing his clunky leather boots and his heavy camouflage gear, but he covered the distance in a small handful of minutes.
As he burst through the door, Harvard handed him both the pile of messages and a telephone. The sheer number of message slips was enough to terrify him. Brittany had, literally, called every hour on the hour since early Monday morning.
Cowboy's hands were shaking so badly, he had to dial the number twice. Harvard had backed away, giving him privacy. He sat down at the desk, shuffling through the pile of messages as, up in the County Hospital in Appleton, Massachusetts, the phone was ringing.
"Hello?"
It was Brittany's voice. She sounded hoarse and worn-out.
"Britt, it's Jones,"
"Thank God."
"Please tell me she's safe." Cowboy closed his eyes.
"She's safe." Brittany's voice broke. "For now. Jones, you've got to come up here and talk her into having a C-section. I think one of the reasons she's refusing to do it is because she promised you that you could be here when the baby was born."
"But she's not due for another two and a half weeks."
"She had a partial placental abruption," Brittany told him.
"That's when the placenta becomes partially separated from the uterus—"
Everyday, Average Jones Page 24
