Mended Hearts (New Beginnings Series)

by Mandie Tepe

  The woman winced. “Drake! Don’t! Remember Sonny has a hurt knee. Be careful.”

  Gracie was confused. Sonny? About that time the woman noticed Gracie sitting on the sofa and studied her curiously.

  At the mention of Sonny’s knee, Drake had glanced down to look at it, worry lines between his little brows. “But not shot with a gun . . . right, Sonny?” It was obvious he was thinking about his daddy.

  Sonny pulled the little boy up next to him on the sofa and tenderly smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “That’s right, Drake . . . not shot. I just fell into a rock. I can be pretty clumsy sometimes.” When he saw the worry leave Drake’s eyes, he changed the subject. “So, tell me . . . how did the Scorpions do this afternoon?”

  Drake grinned a gap-toothed grin. “We lost, but I almost scored a goal.”

  “Well, you can’t ask for more than that. Next time it’ll go in. I just know it.”

  The woman looked a little uncertain as she observed the cozy pair on the couch. She glanced toward Gracie, noticing her bare feet and her glass sitting on the table next to his. “Sorry for not calling, Sonny, but Drake wanted to come by and show you his model.”

  “That’s okay. Jenna, this is my friend, Gracie. We knew each other as kids. Gracie, this is my XO’s wife, Jenna, and her son, Drake. He’s my friend who had the off the chain birthday party yesterday.”

  Drake giggled as Gracie wished him a happy birthday and greeted Jenna.

  Drake pulled a model car from under his arm to show Sonny. It was obviously a very simple snap-together model for very young children. “Look, Sonny! I already finished it.”

  “Wow! You must have stayed up all night to get it done,” Sonny exclaimed, as he took it from the boy and studied it carefully, then handed it back.

  Drake giggled again. “No-o-o . . . Mommy wouldn’t let me do that. I had to rest up for my game.”

  “Well then, I guess you’re just a genius model builder.” He ruffled Drake’s sweat-tousled hair. “Hey, Mom, see that bag over there beside the door? That’s a model I bought to do myself, but I think I need to have this highly gifted engineer do it for me.”

  Drake ran over to pull a box out of the toy store bag. “Wow! Can I, Mommy?”

  Jenna shook her head at Sonny. “Sure, honey. You build it for Sonny and we’ll bring it back to him when you’re finished.”

  “No, you need to keep it at your house, so I have one to play with next time I come over,” Sonny said.

  Jenna looked tenderly at Sonny, and Gracie could tell this was family. She felt a little uncomfortable, as if she were an intruder.

  Jenna said with a smile, “Well, I was going to ask if you needed anything, but I can see everything is under control here. It’s nice to meet you, Gracie.”

  “Nice to meet you too, Jenna. And Drake, good job on the car!”

  “Thank you,” the little boy said politely.

  “Come on, Drake . . . we have to go. Let’s let Sonny get some rest now.”

  “No! Maybe Sonny can help with the model,” Drake wheedled.

  “No, honey . . . we have to go pick up Mikey and the baby from Grandma’s. We’re already running late and Grandma has bingo tonight.” She rolled her eyes at Sonny and Gracie.

  “Okay.” Drake dragged his feet toward the door.

  Sonny called out, “Maybe my knee will be better next week and I can come to your game. Okay?”

  That perked the little boy up. “Okay!”

  Jenna walked over and brushed her lips across his cheek. “Thanks, Sonny,” she said softly.

  Sonny looked into her eyes and answered, just as softly, “I know it’s not the same.”

  “It means a lot, though.” She straightened up, winked at Gracie and followed Drake toward the door. “You know you can call if you need anything, Sonny.”

  He laughed. “I know. But I won’t have to call, because you and the others are just going to show up anyway.”

  “This is true,” Jenna replied as she shut the door behind her.

  “Wow. That’s your family, huh?” Gracie asked.

  He smiled tenderly. “Yeah. For someone with no family, I sure have a big family. They’ve all been great.”

  “I think they’d say you’ve been great to them too.” She twisted around, turning toward him as the curiosity got the best of her. “So ‘Sonny,’ huh? Who’s Sonny?”

  “’Sonny’ is Luca Ionescu’s SEAL nickname,” he laughed.

  “And why ‘Sonny’?” she asked.

  “Well . . . that’s not really important . . .”

  “Oh no,” she laughed. “You can’t get away with that. Why ‘Sonny’?”

  “I can’t really recall. I got it so long ago . . . way back during BUD/S.” He tried to look baffled, but he could tell she wasn’t buying it.

  “Yeah, and that’s been what? Three or four years ago?” she prodded.

  “Almost five.”

  “Well, that’s a lifetime!” she joked. “Come on. Spill it. You know you want to get it off your chest. It’ll be like therapy.”

  “Okay, fine. When I got to BUD/S all the guys thought I looked too young. They said I was a pretty boy, like I should just ring out and join some boy band or something. Which is totally not true. Apparently the nickname ‘Junior’ was taken and I ended up with ‘Sonny.’ After about a week, I just quit fighting it. I’ve been Sonny ever since. And I worked my butt off to dispel my pretty boy image.”

  Gracie studied his face for a long time, making him uncomfortable. “I can see the boy band thing. Kind of dreamy, actually.”

  “Stop it,” he snorted.

  She laughed. “So what am I supposed to call you? Luca or Sonny?”

  He quirked his eyebrow at her. “You can call me whatever you want to.” Then he laughed along with her.

  “You’re not flirting with me, are you?” she giggled.

  “Maybe.”

  Her smile faded and he felt the temperature between them drop a few degrees. She looked away and he wondered what he’d done wrong, but was afraid to ask.

  He cleared his throat—then changed the subject. “We never picked a movie.” He reached for the TV remote.

  “Maybe I should go and let you rest.” She glanced at him uncertainly.

  “No! Come on . . . we’re going to pick out a movie and then you’re going to help me get rid of some of these leftovers.” He decided to play dumb, as if he didn’t notice her discomfort. “I have a huge hunk of Drake’s birthday cake in there. Don’t you want birthday cake?”

  “Well . . . I do love birthday cake. There’s something about that overly sweet frosting.”

  “Okay then . . .” Sonny turned on the TV and scrolled through the guide to the pay-per-view channels. “Now I told you that you could pick and everything, but remember, I’m a sick man and I just don’t know if I could handle a chick flick.”

  Gracie snickered. “I can’t believe you just played the ‘sick man’ card. So much for letting me decide. Here . . . give me that.” She snatched the remote out of his hand. “Oh, look! Bride Wars!”

  Sonny made a choking sound as she smiled serenely at him.

  “Let’s see what’s on the classic movie channels first. No extra charge to watch those. Ooh! Gaslight. Have you seen it?” He shook his head. “You’ll like it. Charles Boyer tries to make Ingrid Bergman think she’s crazy. But why? That’s the question,” she teased. “It starts in thirty minutes.”

  Sonny took the remote back from her. “You and Meg would get along great. She loves classic movies.”

  Gracie stood up. “This gives us plenty of time to get our dinner heated up.” She walked around the corner and started piling containers from the refrigerator onto the dining table. As she opened them, she called out the contents . . . “Lasagna—oh my gosh, that looks good . . . meatloaf . . . Ooh—fried chicken . . . homemade deep dish pizza . . . this is—oh! Breakfast casserole . . . green bean casserole . . . mashed potatoes . . . oh, here’s the birthday cake—h
ow cute . . . dinner rolls . . . gravy . . .” She took a deep breath and looked over at him as she finished. “What sounds good, Luca?”

  “It’s all good. What do you want? You get first dibs.”

  “I’m thinking I’ll go for the lasagna,” she answered. “But there’s plenty for both us, if you want some too.”

  “An excellent choice. There should still be some salad in a bag in the crisper too.”

  “Oh! Thanks. What’ll you have?”

  “I think I feel like a meatloaf sandwich. The bread box is on the far end of the kitchen counter.”

  “That’s all? You need more than a sandwich.”

  “Okay, Nurse Gracie,” he grinned at her. “Would you mind heating up some of the green beans and mashed potatoes with gravy?”

  “No problem.”

  She bustled around, fixing their plates, and brought them in just in time for the movie to start. They filled up on the leftovers, then birthday cake. By the time the movie was over she’d cleaned up the dinner mess, switched out his ice pack and it was time to go home.

  Sonny couldn’t believe how empty his apartment felt after she was gone. It had been a good day. Later that night, just before he drifted off to sleep, he realized she’d learned all about his life today—even met some of his friends. And he knew no more about her than he had before she had come over. She seemed to guard herself very closely. What could have happened to her to make her that cautious—even around someone who had known her since they were children?

  CHAPTER 5

  Sonny was getting a little concerned. He looked at his watch—ten o’clock—then picked up his phone and dialed Gracie’s number again. He sighed with relief when she answered on the second ring.

  “Hello?” She sounded a little breathless.

  “Is this a bad time?” Sonny asked.

  “Oh, Luca! No, it’s not a bad time. I was just coming through the door. I’m just noticing I’ve missed a couple of calls from you. Sorry!”

  “That’s okay. I just wanted to hear about your first day at the daycare center. How’d it go?”

  “Good—mostly orientation and getting a feel for things. But it was fun. I think I’m going to like it a lot.”

  “Great! I’m glad to hear it.”

  “Again, I’m sorry I missed your calls. I was over at Colby’s this evening. The band was running me through some more arrangements. It’ll be better when I learn them all so we can expand our play list. I’m trying to get up to speed so I’ll stop holding them back.”

  “From what I heard the other night, you didn’t seem to be holding them back to me.”

  “Well, you may be biased. Tell me what you did today. Were you laid up again?”

  Sonny, stretched out on the couch, muted the television. “I didn’t do too much. Took it easy this morning.” He laughed, “My phone was ringing off the hook. It’s a wonder the batteries didn’t wear completely out.”

  “How come?” Gracie had plopped down in a chair in her living room and kicked off her shoes.

  “Apparently Jenna left here yesterday and burned up the phone lines to all the SEAL wives . . . about you.”

  “No way! Why would she do that?”

  “That’s what they do. I guess a strange woman hanging out at my house was big news.”

  Gracie laughed, “I’m not that strange.”

  “You know what I mean. It was crazy, though. First Trish called—which only makes sense, because she and Jenna are best friends. Then I heard from Meg—because of course, Meg and Trish are close too. Then it was Val, then Beth, and finally Kelli—who isn’t actually a SEAL wife, but the others kind of adopted her when she dated Charley for a while. She’s the one who sent that awesome fried chicken over.”

  “Wow. Well? What did they say?” Gracie was intrigued. And a little scared.

  “It’s not really what they said. It’s more what they asked. Although . . . it’s weird . . . they were kind of asking questions without really asking questions. Does that make sense?”

  “Oh, yeah. That makes perfect sense. I know exactly what you’re talking about. It’s a girl thing. We can feel you out, without you even knowing it’s happening,” Gracie laughed.

  Sonny laughed too. “Well, my head was spinning. I still don’t have any idea what I told them. But it must have been enough information, because the calls finally stopped.”

  Gracie shook her head. “This may be the first time I’ve ever been the subject of this kind of information gathering. My life has always been an open book.”

  He snorted, “Yeah, right. You know, I think we’ve been going about this whole Gitmo interrogation process wrong. Maybe we should put you women in charge. The terrorists wouldn’t even know what hit them.”

  “Yeah, well . . . they wouldn’t even let us in the same room with them. We mere women aren’t fit to breathe the same air. Not to mention we’re American infidel women—scum of the earth.”

  “There is that.” He thought about something she had just said. “So, Gracie . . . you really think your life is an open book, huh?”

  Silence. “Well . . . I guess it used to be.”

  “What happened to make you close the book, honey?” he asked in concern.

  “I’m sorry, Luca. I just really don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  She chuckled humorlessly. “That’s a very insightful question. It’s not you, Luca. It’s me.”

  “I hate when women say that,” he said, trying to lighten the mood a little. “I’m here if you ever do want to talk. You know that, right?”

  “Yes. Thanks.” She steered the subject back on track. “So, after the interrogations stopped what did you do?”

  “I drove over to base to talk to my CO. I was hoping they’d give me something to do while I’m recuperating. I’m even willing to ride a desk . . . do paperwork. And I hate that.” He sighed. “I told him just sitting here all day with nothing to do is bad for my mental health. I start feeling sorry for myself and that doesn’t do me any good.”

  “What did he say?”

  “They won’t let me come back to work until the doctors clear me for rehab.”

  This is the first time Gracie had heard him sound really down about his situation. “I’m sorry, Luca,” she said softly. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Well, you can distract me. That’s another reason I called. I know the band has Mondays off and next Monday is Labor Day, so I’m assuming the daycare center will be closed too. Do you have plans?” he asked.

  “I do, actually. Sugar Creek is playing a benefit . . . in your neck of the woods—Coronado.”

  “Not the unified military families support benefit fair?”

  “I think so. It’s a carnival being organized by a group of military family charities here in the San Diego area. Sugar Creek performs there every year.”

  “I was going to ask you to go with me, but it sounds like you’re already going to be there. What time do you sing?”

  “From five to seven o’clock in the big band pavilion.”

  “I’d like to come out and listen. Then we can meet up and hang out if you want to. They always have good food and lots of booths to raise money.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea, Luca? You don’t want to push your knee too much,” Gracie said with concern.

  “I won’t stay too long. Besides, it’s a week away so I’m hoping I’ll be stronger by then. It’s a great cause, so I really want to go. What do you say?”

  “Okay. But I’ll be keeping my eye on you,” she warned.

  Sonny laughed. “Be still my heart.” There were a few seconds of silence. “Are you still there, Gracie?”

  “I never know how to take it when you say things like that,” she admitted.

  “I’m just being silly, honey. Flirting a little. Does it make you uncomfortable?”

  “I guess.”

  “Why? When was the last time someone flirted with you?” He couldn’t
believe it didn’t happen all the time.

  “I can’t remember.”

  He blew out a breath. “That’s hard to believe.”

  “I’ve been a little sheltered lately. And before that . . .” she trailed off.

  “Before that what?” He was shocked that a beautiful, unattached twenty-two year-old woman . . . girl, really . . . wasn’t out there flirting with every man she came into contact with. That’s what they did and, in his opinion, there wasn’t a thing wrong with it. He was a big fan of flirting.

  “Nothing.” The wall went up again. He could feel it from miles away. “So, Luca, when do you start rehab again?”

  Regret seeped through his chest. Why couldn’t she talk to him? He decided to play along and followed her lead. “About a week and a half. If the doctors think I’ve healed up from the surgery enough.”

  “Oh, that’s right.”

  “You sound tired, honey. I’m going to let you go. Are we on for the fair, though—after the band finishes?” He held his breath and mentally crossed his fingers. If he could just spend more time with her, maybe she’d feel comfortable enough with him to confide in him. He sensed she needed to work through some things and knew she couldn’t do that as shut down as she was.

  “Okay.”

  He sighed quietly in relief. “Great! I’ll just meet you at the band pavilion. I’ll be there to listen to the band anyway. Alright?”

  “Yeah, okay. ‘Night, Luca.” She disconnected.

  He lay awake a long time that night. He knew what physical wounds could do to you. He was experiencing it right now. But, what could have happened to her that wounded her emotionally down to her soul? He knew her damage was so much worse than anything he’d ever known. And he’d been through some rough stuff . . . losing Gran, and then Gramp—his only family . . . never really knowing his parents . . . seeing some really ugly things out in the field and still pushing on to do the work his country expected of him and his teammates . . . losing some good friends in war. All of those things left little scars on your psyche.

  But something had happened in her life that was worse. Even with her wonderful family helping her through, she was struggling. Various horrible scenarios flashed through his mind until he forcibly shut them out. He didn’t even want to think about it. Sometimes the things you imagined were a lot worse than what actually took place.