Sam Starrett opened the door of his hotel room to see John Nilsson and WildCard Karmody standing there, looking like someone had died.
“Oh, shit,” he said. “Don’t tell me the senior chief—”
“No,” WildCard interrupted. “Senior’s fine. Well, considering he took a round to the chest and spent three hours in surgery ...”
“L.T. just got a call,” Nils told him. “The senior chief’s still in intensive care, but he’s looking strong.”
WildCard grinned. “If Teri Howe were holding my hand, I’d get well soon, too. Damn, this op has been like a fucking Love Boat episode.”
Nils gave WildCard a look that Sam didn’t like the looks of.
“So then what’s the bad news?” Sam said.
“Can we come in?” Nils asked, way too seriously.
“Is something wrong with Meg?” Sam asked about Nils’s wife as he let them into his room. “Some problem with the baby?”
Nils closed the door behind them. “No, Meg’s fine. In fact, I just called home and spoke to her. She’s great, the baby’s—everything’s great. Right on schedule. She had another ultrasound, and ... But she told me that Mary Lou called, looking for you.”
Mary Lou Morrison? “She’s got to stop calling,” Sam said. “I haven’t seen her in months. In fact, I’m having dinner tonight with—”
“You better sit your ass down and cancel your dinner plans, Sammy boy,” WildCard said. “We’ve got some extremely intense news. Mary Lou’s preggo, my friend, and she says you’re the father—and that she’s already had the tests done that prove it.”
Sam didn’t sit down. “What?”
Nils looked at WildCard in disgust. “You sure broke it to him gently.” He sighed. “Sam, you really better sit down. Mary Lou’s got a friend who works in some medical lab. She had tests done. It wasn’t legal, she didn’t have your permission, but that doesn’t change the results. She used some old T-shirt that you got blood on when you cut yourself fixing her car and ... Meg’s seen the results, man. Mary Lou’s pregnant, and the baby’s definitely yours.”
Sam sat down.
Gina awoke to find Trent Engelman sitting by the side of her hospital bed.
She’d been flown out of Kazbekistan, here to London, last night.
Her one eye was bandaged, and the other was swollen and her vision still blurred. She’d been stitched and X-rayed and examined, her broken wrist set. She’d had an IV started, and a doctor from the U.S. embassy who’d taken one look at her and had been quite liberal with the dosage of painkillers.
And she’d floated. Out of Kazbekistan, aboard some kind of special hospital plane. She’d floated through the night, but she could have sworn that it had been Max sitting by her bed, holding her hand.
Not Trent Engelman.
He stood up when he saw that she was awake.
Her mouth was fuzzy, and he helped her take a sip from a cup of water, his mouth tightening sympathetically as he put the straw to her swollen lips.
There were coffee cups all around the chair he’d been sitting in.
Imagine that—Trent Engelman sitting by her bed all night.
“Your parents are on their way,” he told her. “They should be here in a few hours.”
“Oh, God.” They were going to take one look at her and ... Her mother would be so angry. Not at her. But she’d want to get a gun and kill Bob and Al all over again.
Her father would cry.
“You know, Gina, I, uh, just came by to thank you, you know, for saving my life,” Trent told her. “If you hadn’t stood up the way you did ...” He cleared his throat. “I know you must think I’m a coward because I just sat there when they were, you know, and I heard you screaming, but ... Shit, Gina, they had those guns. They killed the pilot.”
“Yeah,” she said sharply. “I know. I was there.”
He looked at the floor.
“I don’t think you’re a coward, Trent,” she told him, knowing that he’d come here not to comfort her, but to comfort himself. God, had she dreamed Max? Was he ever really here with her? “Would you mind going, because I kind of want to be alone right now?”
He inched toward the door. “I promised that guy I’d stay until your parents came.”
She looked at him. “What guy?”
“The guy that was sitting here when I got here this morning. He was holding your hand,” Trent said. “Some old guy. He left a note for you.”
Sure enough, there was a folded piece of paper on the rolling table right beside the bed.
“Gina.” It was from Max. He’d signed it at the bottom just Max. His handwriting was as clean and clear as his voice. Or maybe he’d just taken care when writing this note because he knew she’d have trouble reading with her eyes all messed up.
I can’t meet you for coffee. I know I promised I would, but ... The counselors and therapists who are going to be working with you will tell you that you need to move ahead with your life, to let the traumatic events of the past few days fade away. Meeting me for coffee will only make it that much harder for you to forget and move on.
You are without a doubt one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met in my life. Your inner strength awes and inspires me. I have no doubt that you will come through this.
I’m so sorry for not being there when you needed me the most.
“Trent,” Gina said. “When did you get here? When did Max leave?”
“Just a few minutes before you woke up.”
“Go out into the hall,” she said. “Run down to the lobby. See if he’s still here.”
Trent made that sound he made that was almost a laugh, but not quite. He made it whenever he was being put out. “Gina ...”
“Please.”
Trent went.
He was gone for close to forever. Gina had nearly given up on both him and Max when he came back. “I didn’t see him,” he reported. “Who is this guy anyway?”
He was gone. Max was gone. Gina closed her good eye. Even with Trent standing right there, she’d never in her life felt more dreadfully alone.
“Thank you,” she said. “I need you to go now.”
She didn’t hear him leave, but she didn’t hear him breathing anymore either.
She kept her eyes closed, feeling sick to her stomach. Her parents were going to be here in a few hours. She had to figure out what she was going to tell them. It wasn’t that bad.
It was a lie, but she suspected it was a lie she was going to have to get used to telling. People were going to know. Back at school, wherever she went, everyone she met was going to have gotten the scoop. Have you heard about Gina Vitagliano? She was on that hijacked plane. She was beaten and gang raped. Poor thing.
Maybe if she just said it—it wasn’t that bad—first thing. She could make it her version of hello. “How are you? Yes, I know you’ve heard all about me. You don’t have to spend another minute thinking about it—it wasn’t that bad.”
God, she’d survived the hijacking. Now she had to survive being a survivor. It had almost been easier back when she was so certain she was going to die. Now she had to live as a victim, and she already hated that.
She heard a sound by the door. “Trent, I asked you to leave.”
“Yeah, he already did.”
Max.
Gina opened her good eye. And there he was. His suit was even more rumpled than it had been back when he’d come onto the plane. And he’d taken off his shirt and tie. God, she must’ve bled on him.
He was standing there in a T-shirt and a suit jacket.
“Going for the Miami Vice look today?” she asked him.
He laughed and came farther into the room. “Yeah, you know I normally have about seven assistants all ready to run and get me a clean shirt or even a fresh suit. But I seem to have lost them somewhere between here and Kazbekistan.”
“Please stay with me.” She couldn’t stop herself from saying it.
He sat down. Pulled the chair even closer to her side. Took her good hand in both of his.
“Yeah,” he said. “You know, I was out in the parking lot. And I’m standing there and I’m thinking, I don’t even have a car here. What the hell am I doing? And I realized that wasn’t the only mistake I’d made. I realized—it just kind of occurred to me—that right now was probably when you needed me the most.”
His eyes were brown. Dark, deep, warm brown.
And Gina knew as she looked at him, looked into his eyes, that with his help, she was going to survive.
Stan woke up.
He hated hospitals, but even he had to admit that he wasn’t ready yet to go home.
And as far as hospitals went, this one here in London was okay.
Especially since his room seemed to be equipped with the most beautiful, sexiest, sweetest woman he’d ever met, sitting in a chair by his bedside.
Teri was sleeping, and Stan just watched her, aware as hell that she was the one who had made this entire experience bearable.
She’d found him—somehow—a real blanket for his hospital bed. She’d brought in not just flowers but living plants. Books to read. A real lamp that wasn’t glaringly fluorescent. Frickin’ aromatherapy—that one had made him laugh, and Christ, that had hurt. A white-noise maker that shut out the sounds of the busy hospital and actually made it possible for him to sleep.
She’d set it to “mountain stream,” and it murmured soothingly even now.
She’d held his hand more hours than he could count. Run her fingers through his hair, giving him just a little bit of pleasure in a world that had become ruled by pain.
But every day hurt a little bit less, and it wasn’t going to be long before he could go home.
He wanted to go home.
And he wanted Teri to go home with him.
His father had come to see him. He’d been that badly injured; the old man had left Chicago and come all the way to London. And apparently the son of a bitch had spoken to Tom Paoletti—whose ass Stan was going to kick the moment he was able to lift his foot more than a few inches off the bed—who’d told him about Teri.
And his father had jumped the gun just a little by dipping into the Wolchonok family safe-deposit box and bringing along the beautiful diamond ring Aunt Anna had bequeathed to Stan upon her death.
“Thought you might want this,” Stan Senior had said when Teri was out of the room. “I like her.”
And that was it, thank God. His father had said nothing more, and Stan had locked the ring in his cabinet drawer and let the entire subject drop.
But he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it.
He’d fallen in love with Teri that day she’d first come to his house. Before that, he’d been in lust with her, but on that day ... He’d liked the way she needed him, he realized now. More than liked it. All his life, he’d been waiting to be needed like that. And all his life, he’d desperately wanted to be loved—he’d had no idea how much he wanted that, too.
And she loved him. There was no doubt about it. It wasn’t just loyalty that kept her by his side all these days. Although she had plenty of that inside her, too.
No, the woman loved him.
But he still couldn’t see it. Teri Howe—happy with him for the rest of her life?
And even though he had that ring and plenty of opportunities, he couldn’t bring himself to ask her to marry him.
She woke up, saw that his eyes were open, and smiled. “Can I get you anything?”
“I’d like a hot tub, please,” he said. “With you in it—naked.”
She laughed. “Feeling better?”
“More and more every minute.”
“Tom Paoletti came by while you were sleeping,” she told him.
“You should have woken me.”
“He came to see me,” Teri said. She was still sitting back in the chair, her position relaxed, but he knew her too well. She was tense.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I got into a little bit of trouble for, well, unauthorized use of a U.S. Navy helicopter, for one thing. He’s been helping me get that ironed out.”
“Teri, you should have told me.”
“I was waiting until you were feeling a little better.”
“And until it all got straightened out,” he guessed.
“Lieutenant Paoletti’s pretty good at fixing things, too,” she told him. “Everything’s fine.”
But her shoulders were still tight. “What else?” he asked.
She wet her lips. “Tom’s been helping me look into, um, a lateral move. San Diego Coast Guard needs a helo pilot. I was looking to get back into the service full-time, but if I stay in the Navy ...”
If she were regular Navy instead of Reserve, suddenly there’d be fraternizing issues. Shit.
“I didn’t realize you were hoping to get back in full-time,” he said. Suddenly he didn’t feel too good. “Teri, I don’t want you to screw up your career because of me.”
“I want to fly,” she said. “I’ll actually do more flying for the Coast Guard. I’m excited about it.” She paused. “It’ll keep me in San Diego.”
There it was. Another perfect opportunity to ask her to stay in San Diego with him forever. Stan nodded, his mouth suddenly dry. “Well, if it’s something you really want to—”
“It is,” she said, absolutely. “I’ve been thinking about it, and it is.”
When had he become such a coward?
Teri stood up. Stretched. “I’m going to get some coffee. Do you want anything before I go?”
“You,” he managed to say. “I want you.”
She laughed. “Yeah, in a hot tub, naked. I know. Just keep getting better and I’ll deliver.”
She went out the door and he nearly stopped her. That’s not what he’d meant. But instead he let her go.
Alyssa rarely wore more than just a touch of makeup. She rarely dressed up, and even more rarely went out of her way to look good.
But when she did, look out.
She stood in front of the mirror on the back of her closet door in her Washington, DC, apartment and was glad she’d borrowed this dress and these shoes from her sister.
“Keep the dress,” Tyra had said, claiming it was from her pre-pregnancy wardrobe and therefore something she’d never fit into ever again.
It was outrageously clingy. And short. With the heels and the makeup, and her hair down loose around her shoulders instead of pulled back tight in her usual ponytail, it made her look like ...
Like a woman who was finally getting together with the man she wanted to get together with, in the euphemistic sense of the phrase.
Like a woman who wanted to make damn sure she was going to catch and keep that man’s attention, and not just for one night either.
God, was she trying too hard? Would he take one look at her and know she’d been thinking about him nonstop ever since he’d called her in K-stan and told her he had a family emergency. He had to fly back to San Diego, he told her, and that the flight was literally leaving in minutes. He’d said he’d call her in a few days to explain.
It had been weeks since she’d seen him, but he’d called. Repeatedly. Nearly a dozen different times—and always when she was out. He couldn’t have done a better job at missing her if he’d tried. He left short messages on her answering machine, telling her he’d call back.
He never left his phone number, but she was in the FBI after all, so she tried calling him and got his machine, too.
Forty minutes ago, that had all changed.
The phone had rung, she’d picked it up, and there Sam Starrett was, live and in person on the other end. The news just kept getting better, too. He was in town. At the airport. Could he come by?
She’d hopped into the shower. Put on this dress.
Alyssa looked at herself in the mirror again. She was breaking every one of her personal rules by doing this. But, hell, she’d started breaking her rules back in K-stan by asking Starrett to dinner in front of his team.
It was a huge mistake to become intimately involved with anyone she worked with, let alone an alpha male cowboy like Roger Starrett. It was a human tendency to define women by the men they were with, and she didn’t want her coworkers and her boss to start seeing her as the woman Lieutenant Starrett was screwing.
But maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to be defined as the woman Lieutenant Starrett loved.
Still, she was about to take off the dress and put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt when the doorbell rang.
She nearly tripped in the heels on her way to the door. She caught her breath and composed herself while she buzzed him in.
She heard his footsteps on the stairs, but she waited until he knocked before she opened the door.
And then there he was. Sam Starrett.
Dressed way down in torn jeans and a grease-stained T-shirt, at least three days of beard glistening on his chin, baseball cap on his head, looking as if he’d just climbed out from working underneath his pickup truck.
“Oh, Jesus,” he breathed when he saw her. But he didn’t smile the way she’d imagined he’d smile. Instead he looked as if he might break down and cry. Or faint.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “You got some coffee? I could use some coffee.”
“Come in,” she said. “I’ll make a pot.”
He followed her silently into the kitchen. He didn’t say a word about her apartment. No “nice place” or other comments. It was almost as if he didn’t see it. What was going on?
“Are you sick?” she asked. Maybe that was the family emergency. Or maybe his father had died. She remembered he’d mentioned once that he and his father had never gotten along.
“No.”
He just stood there in the middle of her kitchen, taller and broader than she’d remembered, making what had always seemed to be a good-sized room feel small. She glanced at him as she got the coffee beans from the freezer. “Why don’t you sit?”
He sat.
And Alyssa measured out the water, turned on the coffeemaker. This was a strange experience even without his odd behavior—Sam Starrett sitting in her kitchen, because she’d invited him to her apartment. Who would’ve thought that would ever happen?
She got two mugs down from the cabinet and set them on the counter. And turned around to find him looking at her as if he wanted to eat her alive.
It took her breath away, that look in his eyes.
“You look amazing,” he said.
“I thought you might want to go out to dinner,” she said. “I guess I jumped the gun.”
“I’m getting married,” he said. “Probably on Sunday.”
She heard the words. They just didn’t make any sense. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re getting married?”
He nodded, pure misery in his eyes. “Her name’s Mary Lou Morrison. I went out with her for a couple of weeks, back about four months ago. She’s pregnant, Lys. And the baby’s mine.”
Oh, God, he was serious. Alyssa sat down across from him at the table. “Are you sure?”
“The test results just came back positive—for the second time.” His voice broke. “Jesus, I’ve got to do the right thing. She’s already more than three months pregnant—I mean, she’s got to be. It’s been at least that long since I’ve seen her.” He leaned toward her, his eyes actually filled with tears. “I swear to you, Alyssa, I broke it off with her months ago. I had no idea she was pregnant. If I knew, I wouldn’t have let you into my room back in Kazbekistan.”
She nodded. “I believe you.”
“You have no idea how sorry I am,” he whispered.
“Actually,” she said, “I think I might, because I’m pretty sorry, too.”
“I have to do right by her,” he said, as if, like Alyssa, he wished they weren’t separated by the wide expanse of the table. As if he wanted her in his arms as much as she wanted to be there. “I have to do this.”
“Do you?” she asked, and then hated herself for asking it. God, she was shocked by her reaction to this news, by how badly she wanted to fall to her knees and ask him—no, beg him—not to marry this other woman.
Sam wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands, and she knew if he hadn’t, his tears would’ve escaped. He was crying. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I was working on my truck when the lab called. And they said it was positive. And then, Jesus, I was at the airport, because I knew I had to tell you and I didn’t want to do it over the phone and I’m sorry I didn’t even shower or change my clothes. I just got on the next flight. And all the way out here I was thinking maybe I shouldn’t say anything. Maybe I should just get you drunk and take you to Las Vegas and marry you.”
Great. Now she was crying. But she could pretend she wasn’t as well as any man. She wiped her eyes. “God knows I could use a drink.”
“I used protection,” he told her. “I know you probably think I’m always careless because I was that one time with you, but I did it right. I didn’t lose my head over her, not ever. Nothing broke. Nothing leaked. She shouldn’t be pregnant—but she is. And now I have to do what’s right.”
The coffee was ready, and Alyssa stood up and poured them each a mug, wishing she had something stronger to add to hers.
“Well,” she said, because she knew she had to say something, “we’re just going to have to pretend that night in Kazbekistan never happened. We’ve done it before—pretended it never happened. We can do it again. We’ll just have to ... forget that you ... said what you said to me, forget that I got all dressed up like this because you were coming over, and ...”
She turned to put the mug on the table and found that he’d gotten to his feet. She set it down in front of him, but he didn’t touch it.
He was looking at her, his eyes hungry again. “I love that you got all dressed up for me,” he whispered. “I’m not going to forget that. I’m not going to forget you.”
Alyssa couldn’t stop herself. She took a step toward him and then another, and then, God, she was in his arms and he was kissing her.
He tasted like Sam, like everything she wanted but shouldn’t want.
She knocked his baseball cap to the floor as she kissed him, as she tugged his shirt free from his jeans and ran her hands up the smooth, broad expanse of his back. His skin was hot and he groaned at her touch as he pulled her closer to him, her skirt riding up all the way to the tops of her thighs as she opened herself to him, as she wrapped one leg around him and ...
And he broke away. He stopped kissing her, pulled back, stepped free from her embrace. He was breathing as hard as she was as he held her at arm’s length, but he held her there.
“I can’t do this,” he gasped. “Jesus, I want to. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone. But I’m getting married on Sunday, and I’m not just going to play at it, Lys. I’m marrying her. I’m going to have a family with her.”
Alyssa stepped back from him as she pushed her skirt down, aware that he could see the red silk panties she’d put on just an hour ago with such anticipation and hope in her heart. “Then you better go.”
He went.
But he stopped in the kitchen doorway and turned to look back at her. “Thanks for getting dressed up for me, Lys,” he said quietly.
And then he was gone.
Alyssa heard her apartment door shut.
She’d wanted to get to know him. Well, she’d just gotten to know him a whole hell of a lot better in the past fifteen minutes.
She’d found out he was the kind of man who could resist temptation, the kind of man so intent upon doing what he considered to be the right thing that his own happiness came last. He was a good man. An honorable man.
An amazing man.
Sam hadn’t touched his coffee, and his baseball cap was on the floor. She picked it up, knowing that he wouldn’t come back for it.
Knowing that he wouldn’t ever come back.
She put on his hat and drank his coffee. And then she sat there at her kitchen table, wearing the dress she’d put on for him, for a good long time.
Helga knocked on the hospital room door. “May I come in?”
“What do you know,” said the deep male voice from the room, “someone who actually knocks. Please, by all means, come on in.”
She pushed the door open to find a very large, still young-looking man sitting up in a hospital bed. His hair was blond and his face was that of a man who’d lived hard but well, with a nose that had been broken at least once. His eyes were blue and Annebet’s, and his smile of greeting was pure Marte.
As soon as she saw him, she remembered meeting him, talking to him about Marte and Annebet. And Hershel.
“How are you, Stanley?” she asked. “I’m Helga Rosen Shuler, remember me?”
“Of course,” he said with another of those charming smiles. “Mrs. Shuler. Please come in.”
“I’m glad I caught you,” she said. “I understand you’re getting ready to leave.”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “I’m flying home to San Diego. Not a minute too soon. Please, won’t you sit down?”
Helga sat in a chair by his bedside. He was alone in the room.
“Your young lady’s not with you?” she asked, disappointed. She remembered a pretty, dark-haired young woman, a helicopter pilot who had looked at Stanley with love in her eyes. Funny how she should remember that and have trouble with other things. Ah, well, better to remember love.
“No,” Stan said. “Teri, uh, she went to San Diego—something she said she had to take care of. She’s actually flying back in this afternoon so she can go home with me tomorrow. It seems crazy to come all that way just to go all the way back, but ...”
“It’s not crazy if she loves you,” Helga said.
“That in itself is pretty crazy,” he said, and changed the subject, as men often did when the topic of love came up in a conversation. “I understand I have you to thank for coming through with that information about the bomb.”
“You’re welcome, I’m sure,” she said, “although I have no idea what you’re referring to. And no, don’t explain. I’m sure I have a note about it somewhere here. I came all the way to ... Merde, this is annoying.”
“London,” he supplied.
“Thank you.” For crying out loud. She had to look at her notepad. Thank God for her notepad. Hershel, it said. “Ah. I wanted to finish telling you about my brother.”
“Aunt Anna’s husband.”
“Annebet,” she said. “Yes, that’s right. Hershel used to call her Anna. Oh, he loved her so. And she loved him. How far did I get in the story?”
“Hershel was shot,” Stanley said, “and taken to Copenhagen Hospital. Annebet came and told you. That’s where we were.”
“After Hershel was shot, the Germans got a tip that we were hiding in the Gunvalds’ house,” Helga told him. “My parents were moved to the neighbors, and then to Copenhagen Hospital, where Hershel was being cared for. But he was dying. Annebet knew that and so did my parents when they saw him.
“Marte and I were with Annebet at the time. We walked to the market, quite literally right out from under the Germans’ noses. It was quite terrifying. I hadn’t been out of your grandparents’ house for weeks, and then there I was in the town square where people might recognize me.
“I remember there were German soldiers marching, and I later found this picture in a book.” Helga pulled it from her purse. She’d had a reprint made of the old black-and-white photo.
A small crowd of civilians had gathered, sullenly watching the Germans goose-step past. Two little girls stood together, their arms around each other. “That’s me—” Helga pointed herself out to Stanley. “—and that’s your mother.” Then she pointed to the older girl, standing several feet away, a solitary figure, all alone. “There’s Annebet.”
“This is a wonderful picture,” Stan told her.
“Yes,” she said. “I was quite pleased to find it. A short while after this must have been taken, Annebet found us a ride into Copenhagen. And we went to the hospital, too.
“The entire place—and it was a rather large facility for the times—was used to hide hundreds of Jews. It was quite miraculous. All those people who believed so completely in saving lives that they felt it was their duty to risk their own. I remember being led down a corridor to Hershel’s ward. They had him hidden in plain sight. ‘Olaf Svensen’ it said on his bed.
“And, oh, I knew when I saw him that he was dying. I may not have wanted to believe it before that, but when I saw him ...” She cleared her throat. It still made her cry to think of him lying there. “Annebet went to him right away. It was so clear to see that she brought him respite from his pain. But he wanted nothing more than for me and my parents to be taken to safety in Sweden.
“I don’t know what Hershel said to my father, but he apparently convinced him to take my mother and me and to leave. Annebet would take us to a contact on the coast and put us aboard a boat that very night.
“It had become quite a dismal day, rainy and dark, and we left the hospital in a funeral procession. Hundreds of Jews were smuggled out of the Copenhagen Hospital in broad daylight either disguised as mourners for real funerals or in completely false processions. It was quite a setup they had going there.
“We left, my parents, Annebet, and me. Marte stayed behind, sitting with Hershel, who lay close to death’s door. I remember riding in the black car, the four of us, tears streaming down our faces. We didn’t have to pretend to be mourners.
“We traveled some distance and had to wait for quite a while in a fisherman’s shack. It was cold. I remember the way the wind blew and the rain came down. And Annebet sat with us, holding my mother’s hand even though her heart was so clearly back in that hospital ward.
“And it was then,” Helga told Stanley, Marte’s precious son, “before we were smuggled into the hold of a fishing boat, on that rainy night in a town called Rungsted, my mother took off her diamond ring. It had been in our family for many years, I heard her tell Annebet. Poppi’s mother had worn it, and had given it to her on the occasion of her marriage to Poppi. It was only fitting, Mother said, that this ring should go to Hershel’s bride.
“And Annebet, she cried,” Helga remembered, “because although she and Hershel weren’t married in the eyes of the church or the state, they were married in their own eyes and in the eyes of God. And this blessing from my mother, this acceptance, made it all the more real to Annebet, who was soon to be left with nothing but a memory of Hershel’s love.
“Mother asked her to come to Sweden with us—on the chance that she was carrying Hershel’s child. And Annebet wept again as she told us she was not so lucky as to have conceived in the short time they’d shared.
“She put on that ring,” Helga told him, “and put us on the fishing boat. I remember watching as she hurried away, as she slipped into the woods to rush back to Copenhagen. I knew she hoped to see Hershel one last time, to kiss him once more, to hold him as he left this world.”
Helga shook her head. “I never knew. Did she tell you? Did she make it in time?”
Stanley had to clear his throat. “Yes,” he said. “She did.” He reached for her hand and held it. He had nice hands, strong and warm. “She told me that she was with him at the end. She said the doctors gave him morphine, that he wasn’t in pain. That he slipped into sleep as she held him. That he went quietly.”
Helga closed her eyes and said a prayer of thanks.
“I have her ring,” Stanley said.
Helga looked at him. “I’m sorry?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I never understood why Aunt Anna gave it to me instead of my sister. But if it went from mother to son ... She wrote me a note—it was part of her will. I can’t remember exactly what she said, but it was something like, ‘If I’d had a son, I would have been proud if he’d been like you,’ or something. It makes sense now. I have it here—the ring. It’s kind of funny, actually. My father came a week or so ago, and he brought it with him. He kind of got it into his head that, I don’t know, that I might want it.”
“You were going to give it to your young lady,” Helga realized.
“Well.” Stanley cleared his throat. He moved carefully, up and out of bed. He held on to the bed railing and moved painfully to the cabinet. “Yeah, I, um, hadn’t really got that far. I think it still might be too soon. And besides, it seems only fair that the ring goes back to you. To your family.”
There was a drawer that was secured with a combination lock. He opened it with a few quick turns, took a deep blue jeweler’s box from inside, and shuffled back to her.
And then Helga was holding it in her hands. Her mother’s diamond ring. Annebet’s ring. Annebet had worn it all her life.
It was as beautiful as she remembered. Beautiful in its elegant simplicity.
“Annebet was my family,” Helga told him. “She was my brother’s wife.” She closed the box, handed it to Stanley, who’d settled himself carefully back in bed. “She gave it in turn to her sister’s son—someone I should like to think of as being part of my family, too.”
She wrote in her notepad. Stanley has Annebet’s diamond ring. “I had a note here,” she said. “I wanted to ask you a question. I don’t remember this, and it’s possible it never happened, but didn’t you say something to me once about Annebet selling an heirloom, a ring, for passage to America?”
“Yeah,” he said. “That was her mother’s ring. It was quite old. My mother was angry with her for selling it because it had been in the family since the time of the Vikings, I think.” He grinned. “Or at least that’s what my mother liked to believe.”
“Tell me about Marte,” Helga said. “And forgive me if I’ve asked this before. Was she happy?”
“She said she was,” Stanley told her. “She first met my father when she was very young, when she and Anna first arrived in Chicago. She met him again when she was eighteen. He was on leave from the Navy. He had three weeks before he had to go back, and it took him only five days to convince her to marry him. She said she never regretted it.”
Helga had to smile. “I, too, married my husband a very short time after we met. I think maybe we both learned a thing or two from watching Hershel and Annebet. We learned never to waste a single moment when it comes to love.”
She sighed as she looked around the room. “Where’s your young lady?”
“She had some business to attend to,” Stanley told her with a patience that told her she’d asked that question before. “I expect her back sometime this afternoon.”
“Is that when you plan to give her Annebet’s ring?”
“Um,” he said.
“Stanley,” she scolded. “What would your mother say?”
He laughed. “She would say, What are you waiting for? A sign from God?”
“What are you waiting for?” Helga said. “A sign from God?”
“I just ...” He shook his head and laughed again. “You remind me so much of her.”
“So what would you say to her?” Helga asked. “You’d say, Mother ... what?”
“I’d say, Ma,” Stanley said, “I’m afraid Teri doesn’t know what it’s really like to be married to a man like me, like Dad. I’m afraid that being with me will make her unhappy in the long run.”
“Shame on you,” Helga said. “Who are you to decide what is or isn’t going to make this young lady happy? Don’t you think enough of her to allow her to make that decision for herself?”
Stanley laughed. “Well, yeah, but—”
“But, but, but! There’s always a but to be found if you want one. Here’s your sign from God,” Helga said, holding out her hands. “I am your sign from God. God is telling you to listen to your aunt Helga and learn from Hershel and Annebet. Seize the day, young Stanley. In matters of love, seize the day!”
The ring box was burning a hole in Stan’s pocket.
It was amazing, though, how ever since Teri had returned to London, he’d had exactly zero time alone with her.
Back in London, whenever he’d thought they finally had some time to themselves, some nurse had come in with some pain in the ass final test. His blood pressure, for God’s sake. How many times did they need to take it to know that yes, he was alive? His temperature, for crying out loud.
Then they needed a urine sample.
Yeah, that one really set the appropriate romantic mood.
It was the same thing on the plane. Nurses checking his pulse. It had been easiest just to close his eyes and go to sleep.
And now he and Teri were being driven to his house from the airport by Mike Muldoon. Yeah, that would be just about perfect. He should ask Teri to marry him in front of Mike Muldoon.
“Need help getting out?” Muldoon asked.
Stan gave him his death glare.
“Right,” Muldoon said.
Teri was carrying his seabag and her own little overnight duffel. She stood back and let him get out by himself. Let him walk up his own goddamn stairs on his own goddamn feet.
Christ, he needed to sit down.
She unlocked the door, but didn’t open it. “Don’t freak,” she said. “If I overstepped the bounds, it can all go back.”
She swung the door open.
And his house had furniture. Holy shit, it was filled with original Stickley pieces. It was gorgeous, and it had to cost at least ...
Now he really had to sit down. And damn, if there wasn’t a turn of the century sofa right there, four steps away.
He sat on it.
He had to ask. “Where did you get the money?”
“I had some left over from my inheritance,” she told him. “You know, from Lenny? I’ve been investing. I had a couple of good years and ...”
“I’ll say. Christ, Teri. This furniture’s almost worth more than the house.”
Teri set his seabag down. Tried to make a joke. “I figured as long as I was planning to spend a lot of time over here ...”
He tried to make a joke out of it, too. “For that kind of money, you better be planning to stay forever.”
“Well,” she said. “Yeah. Actually forever sounds about right.” She looked him in the eye, squared her shoulders, and he realized suddenly that she was forcing herself to confront him. She didn’t realize ...
“I’m giving you another day or two,” she told him staunchly. “But that’s all you’re going to get. After that, I’m just going to go ahead and ask you. You know. To marry me.”
Stan laughed. This must be what Dr. Frankenstein had felt like. Like, holy God, look at this beautiful monster he’d helped create.
His laughter threw her and she looked around the room. “You were right about this furniture,” she told him. “It’s really beautiful. It turns this house into a real home.”
“The furniture’s great,” he said. “Have I said thank you yet?”
Silently she shook her head.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’ve never been given a gift like this before.”
“You really like it?”
He reached for her. Tugged her down so that she was sitting next to him. “I love it,” he said. “But what I really love is you. You make this house a real home. Please, will you stay forever?”
He put the ring box into her hands.
“Oh, my God,” she said. “You already got me a ring?”
“Will you marry me, Teresa?” Stan asked. “I can’t promise you that it’s going to be a constant ball of fun being a senior chief’s wife, but I can promise that I’ll love you and be faithful to you until the end of time.”
Teri was looking at him with so much love in her eyes, he thought he might be the one who was going to start to cry here. “Yes,” she breathed. “I’ll marry you.”
She kissed him and he kissed her, and they both pretended he wasn’t crying.
And then she opened the ring box. Stan told her Hershel and Annebet’s story in between long, slow kisses, and she didn’t bother to pretend not to cry.
And their kisses got longer. Slower. And he pulled her shirt free from her pants. She drew in a long breath as he touched her. “Did the doctor say you could ... ?”
Stan smiled at her. “The doctor said I should listen to my body. My body says oh yeah.”
Teri smiled back at him. “In that case, I have something else to show you.”
She slid out of his arms, unbuttoning her shirt and kicking off her boots. Her pants, underwear, and socks followed in record time.
“Very nice,” Stan said. “I’ve noticed that about you. You’re very good at getting naked. I think that’s an excellent skill for a wife to have.”
She laughed. “This isn’t what I want to show you.”
He laughed, too. “Bad plan, then, because I’m completely unable to look at anything but you. Damn, you’re beautiful.”
“Follow me,” she said.
He stood up. “Is there any doubt in your mind that I won’t?”
She laughed as she disappeared into ... the kitchen?
“Bedroom’s upstairs,” he called. “I was kind of hoping what you wanted to show me was my beautiful new Stickley bed frame... .”
God damn, as he got to the kitchen, Teri opened the back door and walked outside. Naked.
He was moving slowly, but he was definitely moving. He pushed open the back screen and ...
There was a hot tub in his backyard.
Teri’d put up very tall wooden fences on the two sides of his property, providing privacy from his neighbors. The view out to the ocean, however, was still wide open.
“We can probably be seen by someone on the bridge with a telescope,” she told him from her perch on the side of the tub. “I figure if they go to that much trouble, they deserve to see us naked.”
Stan lowered himself into one of the new lounge chairs that had appeared on his patio, courtesy of his fiancée—who clearly had had more than a few good years with her investments. “My body’s telling me no hot tub for me—not yet. But I’m going to sit here and enjoy watching you.”
And he did.
And it wasn’t too much longer before someone—provided they managed to stop their car on the bridge and set up a telescope—would’ve gotten quite an eyeful as the senior chief of SEAL Team Sixteen’s Troubleshooters Squad and his bride-to-be seized the day.