Chapter 20

AT 2315, TOM gave up and dialed Kelly’s private line. He knew she was still up. He could see the light on in her bedroom window.

“Ashton.”

“It’s only me. It’s not about Betsy.”

“Oh, thank God.” Relief was thick in her voice.

“I’m sorry.” Tom felt like a complete ass. “I didn’t want to call on the house line and risk waking your father, but I . . . How is Betsy?”

“Much better,” Kelly said. “She’s been doing much better with this new antinausea drug that Dr. Martin’s trying. I mean, her long-term outlook is still touch and go, but . . .” She laughed softly and he clung to the sound. “Is this really why you called me at quarter after eleven at night?”

He’d called because he’d wanted to talk to her, had to talk to her. But he didn’t just want to show up in her room. They’d restructured all their boundaries this evening out by the swing, and he no longer had a clue about what she wanted or expected from him. But God, he was desperate. His hands were shaking.

“No.” He had to clear his throat. “Look, I know I’ve been a complete bastard, but I . . .” He managed to stop before his voice shook. Shit.

“Tom, are you all right?”

The silence stretched on as Tom fought his tears, fought even to say one word. Fought and lost. No. Dammit, no, he wasn’t all right. “I’m sorry,” he said, and hung up the phone.

Kelly carried her medical bag as she ran across the driveway in her nightgown and a pair of her father’s old boots that had been sitting in the mudroom off the kitchen.

Joe’s house was dark, but the front door was unlocked. Nothing to steal, Joe always claimed. Besides, who’d rob his little house when there was that great big treasure-filled Ashton estate right next door?

She’d thought the rain had let up, and it had, but it was still coming down enough to make her drip as she stepped into Joe’s living room. She pushed her wet hair back from her face, kicked off her father’s boots, and took the stairs to Tom’s room two at a time.

His door was tightly shut, and she stopped outside of it, suddenly scared to death.

She leaned her forehead against it, just listening, clutching her bag to her chest.

She heard what she was afraid of hearing, what she’d dreaded hearing. Choked sobs. Ragged breathing.

Tom was crying.

Oh, God. Oh, God. What should she do? She had to go in there, to make sure he wasn’t physically hurt. The doctor in her wouldn’t let her walk away.

But the woman in her knew that the last thing Tom would want was for her to see him cry.

Still, she’d been reading about head injuries. Even though his CAT scan had come back looking good, there could well have been a blood vessel in his brain weakened by the injury or the operation. She needed to talk to him, to look into his eyes, to take his blood pressure. To make sure his very life wasn’t suddenly in danger.

And she needed that more than he needed her not to see him cry.

She knocked on his door.

There was dead silence from inside the room.

She knocked again. “Tom?”

“Don’t come in.” His voice sounded raw.

It was all she could do to keep from crying, too. “I have to.”

“Just go home.”

“I can’t.” She tried the knob. His door was unlocked.

His room was dark, but she could see him sitting on his bed. He stood as he realized she was coming in, tried to wipe his face. “Jesus! Do you mind? Get the fuck out!”

Her voice shook. “You can’t call me, asking for help, and then expect me to ignore you.”

“I didn’t ask you for help!”

“Then why did you call me?”

“Kelly, please, just leave.”

She went into the room, closed the door behind her.

“Oh, Christ!”

“Tom, I have to make sure you’re all right.” She set her bag down at the end of his bed. “Are you dizzy? Is—”

“It’s not my head. It’s my fucking life, all right? Everything I’ve worked so hard for—and tomorrow I’m going to flush it down the fucking toilet! But I don’t have a choice!” His voice cracked. “I don’t have a goddamned choice!”

He broke down, and Kelly’s heart broke for him. She pulled him into her arms, holding him close.

“I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “Oh, Christ, I’m sorry.”

“Oh, Tom.” She was crying, too. “I wish I could make it right.”

Mallory woke up alone in David’s bed.

It was still raining. She could hear it coming down on the roof directly overhead.

The lamp was on in the corner, by David’s drawing table. He was sitting there, leaning over his work, his left hand holding his hair back from his face.

He’d put on a pair of boxers, but that was it, and the muscles in his shoulders and back gleamed in the light.

Mallory could feel her heart. It seemed to fill her chest with a calm warmth even while it sent her blood surging through her veins. Desire and peace. How could one person make her feel both of those things, both at the same time?

Angela hadn’t understood. After she’d met David, she’d had only two things to say. Mallory’s babies would have slanted eyes. And at least this one—meaning David—would never leave her, implying that he was a loser.

It wasn’t quite the complete acceptance Mallory had wished for, but she was glad her mother had waited to make the crack about the eyes until David was in the bathroom. He’d find out about Angela’s ignorance at some point, but now was just a little too soon.

As for her mother’s other comment, Mal hoped with all her heart that it was true, that David would never leave her.

Angela looked at him and saw a guy with bad hair who was uncomfortable and awkward inside his own body. Mallory saw a beautiful man who loved her.

She didn’t think she’d moved, but he glanced up from his drawing. “I’m sorry, is this light bothering you?”

“No.” Mallory got up, wrapping the sheet around her, still uncomfortable with the idea of walking around naked the way David did so easily. “What are you doing?”

He sat back to let her look, reaching for her, pulling her close to him, his hands warm and gentle.

She felt him watching her as she looked at the still-rough sketches he’d done. It was Nightshade, and she was in superhero mode, scowling at the leader of a mangy, cyber-looking gang.

“If I turn out to be wrong about you,” Nightshade was saying in David’s perfect block letters, “I will kick you so hard your balls will come out your nose. Do you understand?”

Mallory laughed as she looked at David. “That sounds very familiar.”

He smiled back at her. “It was too good not to use.”

There was heat in his eyes, but he didn’t move, didn’t kiss her. He just looked at her.

And Mallory looked back, losing herself in that falling elevator feeling that took her breath away.

She wanted him again. Wanted to make love. But . . . “The box of condoms says they’re not one hundred percent effective. But it doesn’t say how effective they are. I mean, God, are they ninety-nine percent effective or ten percent or—”

“I think it depends,” David told her. “I think I remember reading that it varies from somewhere in the high eighties—”

“Eighty percent? Holy shit. That means that twenty percent of the time . . .”

“That’s if you use them the wrong way,” he added quickly, “or if they break.”

“Break.” Oh, God. She hadn’t thought about that. Condoms could break. It was true. She’d learned that in health class.

“But if you use them correctly, they’re close to ninety-eight percent effective.”

Mallory looked at him. That meant best case scenario, two percent of the time . . .

“You know, if I get you pregnant, I won’t leave you the way your father left your mother.” David kissed her. “If I get you pregnant, I’ll marry you.”

“I don’t want you to have to marry me. I don’t want to do it that way.” She kissed him, too. “I want to make love to you all the time, except that two percent scares me. Because that means for every hundred times we make love, then at least two times I’ll be at risk to get pregnant, right? And all you really need is one time—I’m living proof of that. And if we make love three hundred times, then that’s six times, and—”

David laughed.

“It’s not funny. I’m serious!” But it was hard to keep a straight face, his laughter was so infectious.

“I’m not laughing at you,” he told her with a kiss. “I’m laughing because you told me you want to make love to me three hundred times—which is really great news. It does things to me you can’t even imagine. But right after telling me that, I’m supposed to try to explain percentages and probability to you?”

He kissed her again, longer this time, lingeringly. “I can’t get enough of you, either, Nightshade. I’m willing to take the risk—even if that box said fifty percent effective. But this isn’t just about me, it’s about you, too, and if you don’t want to . . .”

Don’t want to wasn’t even close.

Mallory let the sheet drop.

Tom lay on his back on his bed, one arm around Kelly, the other up, elbow bent, over his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this tired.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d broken down and cried. When he was fourteen, and his soon-to-be stepfather had beaten the shit out of him for something ridiculous, like a glass of spilled root beer at dinner, and his mother hadn’t said a word in his defense?

When he was fifteen, and his mother had packed up all his things and told him to move into Joe’s house for good, when she’d chosen that vicious bastard she’d married over her own flesh and blood?

When he’d found out that Angela had gotten pregnant and would probably never escape from this soul-sucking town?

When not-even-sixteen-year-old Kelly had whispered for him to meet her later, in her tree house, when she’d turned and looked back at him, letting him see in her eyes that she wanted him to kiss her again, that she wanted him, and he knew like a rock in his gut that he had to leave town as quickly as possible, or else he’d never leave at all?

Because that was really why he’d left. He’d told himself it was about her not being old enough. But he could have waited until she was old enough. He could’ve done it. For Kelly, he would have waited forever. He could have slowed things down, kept them both from going too far until she was ready.

She’d been in love with him. He knew she’d been in love with him. And if he’d stayed, they would’ve had what Mallory and David had found.

They’d have children by now, because he would have married Kelly. He’d be lying here on this bed with his wife, instead of his sometimes, almost lover.

Sure, he probably wouldn’t be a SEAL, but hey, in a few weeks, he wasn’t going to be a SEAL anymore, anyway.

If he had known then what he knew now, would he have left?

“The what ifs can really kill you,” he said.

Kelly lifted her head slightly to look at him. “Don’t play that game,” she said. “You can’t win.”

But he had to. “What if I hadn’t left that summer, Kel? What if I’d met you in the tree house that night?”

She laughed softly, lowering her head back to his shoulder. Her hand was warm against his chest, against his heart. “I would’ve lost my virginity a lot earlier than nineteen.”

“I’m in love with you.”

He felt her freeze. It was funny, because she wasn’t moving to start with. But he felt her get even more still.

Not a good sign.

“I didn’t say that expecting any kind of response,” he told her. “It was just something I had to, you know, say.” Definitely time to change the subject. “I went back to room 104 tonight, and I dusted for fingerprints. You know what I found?”

“No,” she said faintly.

“I found prints for Maria Consuela, Ginny Tipten, Gloria Haynes, and Erique Romano—all employees of the Baldwin’s Bridge Hotel. I found some old, smudged prints for George and Helena Waters and Mr. Ernest Roddiman, all previous patrons of the hotel. But I did not find one single other print for Richard Rakowski. There was nothing on the outside or inside of his suitcase, nothing on the buckle of a belt that was packed with a pair of plaid golf pants in that suitcase, nothing on the closet door or the TV or the telephone. Nothing.”

It had taken him hours to dust, hours to clean it up, all the while aware that the man calling himself Richard Rakowski could return any moment. His team was watching, and Tom was wired with a radio so he could talk to them. But their heads-up wouldn’t give him much time to get out or even hide.

He pushed the pillows behind him, pushed himself so that he was sitting up. Kelly sat up, too. “Yes, that’s very suspicious—no other prints of his in the room except the ones that probably were planted on that bottle,” he continued. “I know exactly what you’re dying to ask. You’re also dying to find out what the hell aka Richard Rakowski is doing away from his two hundred and eighty dollar a night hotel room at nine o’clock at night. Right?”

Kelly nodded. Her hair had gotten wet in the rain, and it was curling around her face as it dried. Combined with the white cotton nightgown, it made her look impossibly young.

Tom reached for the alarm clock on his bedside table, turning it to face them. “You’re wondering why at nearly midnight I still haven’t received a call from my team telling me our man’s back in his room. And you’re right to wonder. It’s some kind of decoy room, some kind of . . . hell, I don’t know. Maybe he’s going to bring the bomb there at the last minute. Maybe it’s a precaution designed to throw people like me off his track. Maybe he’s the goddamned paranoid one.”

He gazed into her eyes. “It’s him, Kelly, I know it’s him. I have these moments where I’m so completely convinced, I can taste it. And I know the celebration for the Fifty-fifth is his target. I know I have to tell someone. Only they’re not going to believe me. I have no proof, I have nothing but an empty hotel room without any fingerprints, a set of pictures of a man who’s basically got the same shape skull as the Merchant did.” His voice shook. God, don’t let him start crying again. “And then I start to wonder. Maybe I am nuts. Maybe it’s the injury that makes me so blindingly certain it’s him. But I’ve decided . . .” He had to stop and clear his throat. “I have to call Admiral Crowley.”

He’d made up his mind tonight. Or rather, he’d resigned himself to making the call first thing in the morning. There really wasn’t a decision to be made. There was only one right thing to do in this situation, and he had to do it.

Even if it meant giving up his career, his entire life.

“If I’m wrong about this . . .” He had to stop for a second because his goddamned lip was trembling. “If I’m wrong, if I’m seeing dead terrorists when I shouldn’t be, then I don’t deserve the command of SEAL Team Sixteen. If I’m wrong, I should accept a medical discharge. It’s not what I hoped for, but there’s no shame in it.”

“There’s not.” She moved to push herself even farther up, to kneel beside him on the bed. “But there’s also a chance, with a few more months of rest, you’ll be—”

“No,” he said. “Once I call Admiral Crowley in the morning, once I sound the alarm, I’m not going to be given a few more months. My doctor’s a captain who’s wearing a choke collar—and Rear Admiral Tucker’s on the end of his leash. I’ll go before a medical board almost immediately, I can guarantee it. And seeing dead terrorists in Massachusetts isn’t something even a bipartisan board is going to take lightly. If I do this—when I do this—there’s a good chance that not only will I be discharged, but I’ll be psych evaled to death—and confined for the duration.”

Kelly had tears in her eyes.

“But I can’t not tell anyone,” Tom said softly. “I can’t just ignore it. And I’m running out of time.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked. “To make it any easier? Is there someone I can talk to, or call for you, or . . . ?”

He shook his head, afraid to reach for her, especially after she’d pulled back, after she’d almost seemed to make a point not to touch him.

I’m in love with you. It was a stupid-ass thing to have said. He’d scared the hell out of her, even more than he’d done with his crazy talk about terrorists. It should have scared the hell out of him, too, but tonight he’d gone out to a point way beyond fear.

“Tom.” She was going to talk about it. She was going to let him down gently. She was going to try to explain everything that he knew was crazy about him loving her. “About what you said—”

“No.” He stopped her. “I can’t talk about that. Can we please not talk about that right now?”

She nodded, silent. She wanted to go, she wanted to stay—he didn’t know. He couldn’t read her body language at all.

“Do you want me to stay for a while?” she asked, exactly as he said, “You probably need to get back to the house.”

“Yes,” he said, while she said, “Oh.”

“No,” she added. “My father has Joe’s phone number, so . . .”

“Just . . . For God’s sake, don’t stay out of pity,” he told her roughly.

Kelly leaned forward and kissed him. And when he reached for her, she slipped into his arms, as if she knew that was where he wanted her, where she belonged.

What if she never left him? What if he’d cut her off too soon and she’d actually been about to tell him that she loved him, too? What if he awoke in the morning to find her in bed, beside him?

She pulled her nightgown up and over her head, and then she was naked, his hands skimming the softness of her skin.

The what ifs could really kill you. He wouldn’t play that game. He couldn’t win. The future would play itself out. There was no way to know for sure what was to come.

Tom helped Kelly help him out of his shorts.

And then he lost himself in the here and now.

13 August

Charles stopped just inside the sliders that led from the living room to the deck. Kelly was already up and out there, sitting on the railing, her knees pulled up to her chest.

She was dressed oddly—in her white cotton nightgown and . . . his old boots?

She was gazing out at the ocean, watching the sun rise.

It was still windy from the storm that had blown through last night, and the skirt of her nightgown flapped. She looked tired. Dark circles beneath her eyes. Her normally healthy cheeks slightly pale. The boots didn’t help.

He tried to turn around quietly. He knew the haunted look of a person who wanted to be alone. He’d encountered it often enough in his own mirror.

But quiet wasn’t an option that came with his walker. The metal frame hit God knows what, and Kelly looked up.

She tried to smile. It didn’t work. “You’re up early. Couldn’t you sleep?”

She wanted to play it normal. She’d been sitting there looking despondent, as if she were about to break into some operatic aria of doom and despair. But now she was playing the “Fine” game.

He tested her. “Are you all right?”

“Sure. I’m fine.” She forced another ghastly smile.

“Right,” he said. “Me, too. I’m just fine.” Dying, but doing it just fine.

Truth was, he’d been up for quite a while in the night, with the pain. His new bedfellow.

She looked at him closely. “Are you sure? You look . . .”

She was too polite to finish the sentence. Like hell. Like pig crap. Like an eighty-year-old man who had cancer of the everything.

Now was not the time to tell her he needed to get his medication upgraded to first class. She was strung pretty tightly, as if she were about to burst into tears any minute.

“I’m fine,” he told her. He was good at it, too.

“Listen to us,” she said. “My God, would you listen to us? Neither of us are goddamn fine.”

Uh-oh.

She slid down from the railing—a good way to get splinters in her butt. But she didn’t seem to care. She’d snapped. If he knew his daughter, full detonation was imminent.

“You’re dying,” she told him, “and I’m . . .” Her lip trembled, just the way it had when she was a little girl. “I’m scared to death of living.”

“That doesn’t sound so fine,” he agreed.

“No. It’s not. Tom loves me.” Her tears overflowed, just the way they had when she was a little girl. “But I don’t love him. I don’t want to love him. I refuse to love him again.”

She ran from the deck, just the way she had when she was a little girl.

“Well, that’s stupid,” Charles said even though she was already gone. “I didn’t realize I raised you to be stupid. You can’t choose who you love. Where the hell did you get that idea?”

Tom took a gamble. He bypassed Admiral Crowley’s office and called the FBI directly. He’d worked with Special Agent Duncan Lund a few years ago. And although they hadn’t kept in close touch, he knew Dunk wouldn’t have forgotten him.

He called the man at home and he spelled it out in detail—head injury, paranoia, doubt. It was two days to the ceremony and he was out of time. But Tom knew, from the way Dunk got more and more quiet, that he’d lost before he’d even begun.

Dunk had listened to all of it, though. And when he’d signed off, he’d told Tom he’d see what he could do to get people out there for Tuesday’s ceremony.

But Tom didn’t need a tracer on Dunk’s phone to know the next number the FBI agent dialed was that of the U.S. Navy.

He was screwed. But what had he expected? His entire day had started badly right when he had woken up alone in his bed.

Kelly had been long gone. He’d told her he loved her, but she hadn’t even stayed until dawn.

Tom punched in Chip Crowley’s home number, hoping he’d connect with the admiral first.

But he was put on hold for an awfully long time.

“Well, you fucked yourself good this time,” the admiral said in the form of a greeting as he came onto the line. “I just spoke to Larry Tucker, who wants to send the shore patrol out to bring you in. Seems he just got off the phone with the head of the FBI’s counterterrorist division, who told him—”

“Sir, this threat’s real,” Tom interrupted Crowley. “This celebration is going to start with a high profile ceremony in two days, and I’m alone out here. I need help.”

“That, Lieutenant, is God’s truth. You do need help. But right now, I fear you have put yourself in a position where you are beyond any help I can give you.”

“What can it hurt,” Tom argued, “to bring in the FBI? There are going to be U.S. senators here. Representatives from England and France. If this bomb goes off—no, Admiral, when this bomb goes off—”

Crowley spoke through gritted teeth. “God damn it, Tom. Haven’t you had enough? Can’t you hear how crazy this sounds?”

“Sir, what if I’m right?”

“Son, you’ve had a serious injury that’s affecting your judgment. What I want you to do is check yourself into the nearest military hospital.”

“Yes, sir,” Tom said. “I will do that, sir. Next week, after this celebration is over, if I’m wrong about this, I’ll go. But until then . . . Well, sir, there are people in this town I care a great deal about, and I’m not leaving them until I’m dead certain the threat has been neutralized or proven nonexistent.”

Mallory was still in bed when Brandon unlocked the door of David’s apartment.

“Wow,” he said, as clearly surprised to see her as she was to see him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were here.”

He pocketed his key, but didn’t turn to leave. Instead, he went into the kitchen. “I came to steal some of Sully’s milk.”

“There isn’t any,” Mallory told him, hiding the note David had left her on his pillow.

“Damn,” Brandon said.

The sheet was up to her chin, but she was naked beneath it. She pulled her arms under, too, hoping he wouldn’t notice, hoping he would leave as quickly as he came.

But he didn’t. Instead, he sat on the edge of the bed.

“Who would’ve guessed?” he said with one of his stupid-ass smiles that she’d once thought made him look so handsome. He may have been good-looking, but it was so superficial. His eyes were rimmed with red, as if he’d been out too late, drinking and partying. “Gorgeous Mallory in our little Sully’s bed.”

“He’s not little,” she said coldly. “Do you mind? I was sleeping.”

He didn’t move. “You know, Sul’s been in love with his Nightshade character for years,” he said. “Now that he’s given her a face, it’s only appropriate he should live out the complete fantasy and get to sleep with her, too.” He laughed. “So tell me honestly, babe. Does he make you put on tights and pretend to fly around the room when you get it on?”

Mallory didn’t laugh. She didn’t even smile. “Very funny, Bran. Go away.”

“You sure?” Bran winked. She couldn’t believe she’d once liked the way that he winked. What had she been thinking? “He’s not going to be back for another few hours. And it looks awfully comfortable in there. . . .”

He tugged at the sheet.

Mallory gripped it more tightly to her. “Don’t!”

“Whoa, hey, relax, I was only kidding.” He stood up, headed toward the door, thank God. But he turned back to look at her. “Sully’s a lucky dude—living out that fantasy, you know? Kind of like getting a chance to sleep with Princess Leia or Counselor Troi. Yow! See you later, Nightshade.”

As he shut the door behind him, Mallory pulled the note David had left her up from under the sheet.

He’d drawn a picture of her, asleep in his bed, drawn himself leaning over to kiss her good-bye. And in a thought bubble over his head, he’d written, “Can’t wait to get back from work to make love to Nightshade again. . . .”

Nightshade.

He called her Nightshade, all the time. I love you, Nightshade.

Oh, God. What if Brandon hadn’t been kidding? What if David wasn’t in love with Mallory? What if he was in love with Nightshade?

And she wasn’t Nightshade, that much was clear. She only shared the character’s face and body.

Nightshade was brave and strong and confident. She was a superhero.

Mallory was the illegitimate child of the town screwup.

And she knew with a sudden flash of fear that while David would never leave Nightshade, he’d probably soon grow tired of Mallory Paoletti.

Tom threw the telephone across the office.

Jazz didn’t look up at him, didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink. He just finished his own phone conversation, ending it more traditionally by dropping the handset into the cradle.

“I got Jenk, Nilsson, and Lopez.” He spun in his chair to face Tom as he reported. His “sir” was silent, but it was there. “However, none of them can get here before early Tuesday morning.”

“Shit.”

“Better we have them then than not at all.”

Tom rubbed his forehead. “I’m not so sure about that anymore. In fact, if this thing goes off without a hitch, if I’ve been wrong about the Merchant from the start, I want you and Starrett and Locke to leave town immediately. I don’t want you getting hammered for helping me.”

“There are worse things, Tom.”

Tom looked into the eyes of the man who’d been at his side for years. A man he’d want beside him if he had to go into hell and back. And there had been times over the years that they’d done just that. “If I’m out, I’m going to push to have you take over the SO squad. You probably won’t be given Team Sixteen. Not yet. But maybe someday—”

“I’m in no hurry for you to leave,” Jazz said evenly.

“Yeah, well, Tucker is.” Tom shook his head. “Wherever I call for help, his staff has been there first. The state police had been warned I might be calling, and were ordered to ignore me. Even the local police don’t want to talk to me. In fact, the Baldwin’s Bridge chief of police had the frigging audacity to order me away from the hotel until the celebration is over. He told me if I’m seen there, his men will pick me up and escort me to the station.”

Jazz lifted an eyebrow. “Gee, I’d almost like to see them try.”

“We’re on our own,” Tom told his XO.

Jazz actually smiled. “More power to us.”

Kelly found her father curled up in his bed, gasping for air.

At first she thought he was having some kind of attack or stroke. And then she realized it was pain. Charles was in awful pain.

She slipped the nosepiece from his oxygen tank over his head to get him breathing easier. And then she opened his bottle of pain pills and . . .

There were only three left.

He must’ve been double and even triple dosing for going on days now.

“How many did you take, Daddy?” she asked. “How long ago?”

“Three,” he told her. “Twenty minutes.”

Twenty minutes he’d been like this, bent in half in agony.

“Why didn’t you call me?” The question was out of her mouth before she realized the answer was unimportant. She was here now. She could help him as best she could now, which, after he’d taken three pills—three!—wasn’t going to be much. She put her arms around him. He was so skinny, so fragile.

But to her surprise, he actually responded. “Didn’t need to call. Knew you’d be down to say good night in a few minutes. Knew you’d come.” He closed his eyes tightly as if a particularly terrible wave of pain washed over him, clutching at her arms with hands that had once been so big and strong, but now were skeletal and gnarled. “Can I . . . Christ, can you call the doctor for me? This stuff isn’t working too well anymore.”

Kelly wanted to cry. “There’s nothing he can give you—not after you took three of these pills. You’re going to have to wait. They may not be working to stop the pain, but if you take too many, they’ll make you stop breathing.”

“Okay,” he said. “Okay, then.” He opened his eyes as he let go of her, pushed her away. “You don’t need to see this. You should go, then—”

“The hell I will. I’m not going to leave you.” Kelly planted herself against the headboard of his bed, holding him close, as if she were the parent and he were the child.

“Cybele wouldn’t, either,” he told her. “You’re a lot like Cybele—so strong and sure of yourself.” He closed his eyes again, his words coming in gasps. “I’m not sure how much longer I can take this, but I just don’t seem to die. Not last night, not today, probably not tonight. I’m not afraid of dying anymore—I’m afraid of this godawful pain.”

Kelly couldn’t help it. She started to cry. “I wish I could help you.”

“You can. You can promise me you’ll look out for Joe.”

“I will,” she promised. “I told you I would. I’ll see he always has a place to live and—”

“Not that way,” he said. “I know he’s not going to be homeless or starving. I’ve left him enough money to take care of that. I mean the other. Take care of him. Try to make him understand that he really was the Hero of Baldwin’s Bridge. He was ten times the man I was, Kelly. A hundred times. I don’t know why Cybele couldn’t love him, why she had to go and fall in love with me instead.”

Kelly had seen her father’s picture, taken at age twenty-three, right before he’d left to join the U.S. Army, the Fighting Fifty-fifth. He’d smiled into the camera, his eyes dancing with life and amusement. Joe had been a good-looking man, too, but Charles had had a magical air about him. He still had it, even at eighty. Even back when he was drinking and at his most cruel and verbally abusive, even then, the spark didn’t quite go out.

She was not at all surprised that this Cybele would have chosen Charles, even over Joe.

“All I know is this,” he whispered. “Listen. Are you listening?”

“Yeah,” Kelly said. “I’m here.”

“I know you’re here, but are you listening?”

“You don’t need to talk right now.” As much as she wanted to hear what he had to say, she knew it was difficult for him to get these words out.

“It helps,” he said. “Besides, you need to know. Because this is important, Kelly. You can’t choose who you love. You can’t say ‘No, I will not love you; yes, I will love you.’ You can’t do that. When I met Cybele and Joe, I knew he was in love with her. And after about a week, probably even less than that, I was in love with her, too. Only, I was married. I had a kid. I had no business falling in love with Cybele or anyone who wasn’t Jenny. But it happened, and I couldn’t stop it. And Cybele was drawn to me, too—I still don’t know why. I tried so hard to do the right thing, to stay away from her, but in the end I failed. I gave in, and do you know, I would’ve sold my soul to the devil to be free to love her, to spend my life with her. I loved her that much. It was that strong, that powerful.”

He was silent then for a moment, and Kelly prayed the pills he’d taken were starting to work against his pain.

“Only I refused to admit it at first,” Charles said quietly. “For more than a week, I let myself wallow in my failings—the fact that with my embracing this wondrous thing, this love, I hurt my wife, I hurt Joe. But I ended up hurting myself and Cybele even more, because I wasted the precious time we had together.

“Cybele once told me that on the day that her husband and son were killed, she made them breakfast, but she didn’t take the time to sit down at the table and eat with them. She told me she would spend the rest of her life wishing she’d given herself those extra moments with them. She wished she’d watched her boy eat his porridge, wished she’d kissed her husband good-bye. She wished she’d held her son close instead of merely wiping his mouth with a wet cloth. She wished she’d told them she loved them before they left her kitchen and her life for good.

“She told me all that,” Charles said to Kelly, “and I still didn’t understand. It wasn’t until it was too late . . .”

He was starting to relax. Kelly could tell from the way he was leaning against her. She helped him down, into his bed, beneath the covers, but she didn’t leave. She sat with him, gently stroking his hair, holding his hand.

“It was the night we found out about the German plan to crush the Fifty-fifth.” His voice was softer, weaker, but he seemed to want to keep on talking, and God, she wanted to hear this.

Her father, giving her advice of the heart. It was unbelievable. It was more than she’d ever hoped possible.

“I’d hurt my ankle again about a week before, and I was finally strong enough to travel. I was going to leave Ste.-Hélène, cross the line, get back to the Fifty-fifth. Joe was going to take me as far as he could.

“I didn’t say good-bye to Cybele. I think I probably knew if I’d so much as spoken to her, I would’ve admitted how much I loved her. I was afraid of making her promises I wouldn’t be able to keep when sanity somehow returned.” Charles smiled sadly at Kelly. “I fully expected sanity to return, but it never did. Never.

“So we left Ste.-Hélène, Joe and I, just after dark. It was a clear night, a warm night, and we headed north and west along a trail through the woods both Joe and Cybele often used. Each step of the way, I remember thinking, how could I leave? How could I have gone without saying something? How could I return to Baldwin’s Bridge without gazing at least once more upon her face? And I realized then that I must’ve somehow known. I must’ve done it on purpose, left without saying good-bye—so that I’d have to return to Ste.-Hélène before I went back to the United States for good. I would see Cybele again. And I knew right then, at the lightness and joy in my heart at the thought of going back, that I loved her beyond all else. The house in Baldwin’s Bridge—this house—that I’d spoken of and longed to return to so often throughout my ordeal in France, my fortune, my family, my wife, my life. It all meant nothing to me compared to the love I’d found with Cybele.”

He was silent then, his eyes closed, and as much as Kelly wanted him to sleep, she found herself hoping he was only resting.

“What happened?” she whispered. “Why didn’t you stay in France, Daddy?”

The pills he’d taken were working now, and working well. As he opened his eyes to look up at her, he seemed to look right through her, as if he could see all those years into his own past.

“We hadn’t gone more than seven miles, Joe and I, when Cybele caught up with us. She’d been running all that way after us, but she still had the energy to slap me, hard, across the face, when she found us. I, of course, kissed her. She was so angry, but I kissed her, and I told her all that I’d realized. That I was coming back to Ste.-Hélène after the war. That I loved her. That I would do anything for her. Even die.”

Her father laughed softly, his eyes still so distant, and Kelly knew he saw her—his Cybele.

“She cried, and told me that was something she never wanted—for me to die for her. She would not allow that. Not ever.” He shook his head. “Poor Joe. It must’ve been torture for him to stand there and listen to us declare our love—he loved her just as much as I did. Probably even more.

“But then Cybele told us why she’d followed. It wasn’t to slap me across the face, although she’d been happy to get a chance to do that. She told us of a coming German counter-offensive. She had papers she’d been given, papers that spelled out the attack, that needed to get into Allied hands before dawn.

“So we went. The three of us. There were Germans everywhere as we moved toward the line. It was impossibly dangerous—I’ve never been that afraid.”

His voice shook. “Then Joe was wounded, and things went from bad to worse. He slowed us down, but we couldn’t leave him. How could we leave him? We were moving through a town—I never even knew its name, but the houses were all rubble, the streets impossible to pass through.

“We were trapped there,” he said flatly. “We were hiding in the debris, hiding from a patrol of Germans. They were coming straight toward us. It was over. I knew it was over. But I had my gun drawn. I was going to take out as many of them as I possibly could, and dammit, at that moment, I could have done it. I could have killed them all, and we could have gotten away. The hell with the fact they had machine guns, and I had only that little Luger. But I didn’t get a chance to try because Cybele, she handed me those papers and her gun, her Walther PPK. I didn’t understand. God, I was so stupid.”

There were tears in his eyes, and Kelly’s heart was in her throat.

“She kissed me,” he whispered. “She looked into my eyes, and she said, ‘I love you.’ And then, before I could stop her, she ran. Back the way we’d come, as fast as she could—and she was fast.”

His lip trembled and a single tear escaped, rolling down his gray cheek. “The Germans chased her. They opened fire. I saw their bullets hit her, I saw her fall. I knew she was dead, just like that, she was dead! But I also knew that unless I moved fast, I wouldn’t get those papers and Joe to safety. She’d died so I could do that, so somehow I did. To this day, I don’t know how I managed it—to evade the Germans and carry Joe across the line. I left him where he would be found, made sure those papers got into the right hands. Then I grabbed a gun and joined the fighting. I think I probably tried to die, but I didn’t. God knows I wanted to. It wasn’t until the war was over that Joe managed to find me. He knew he hadn’t crossed that line on his own, but when they came to talk to me about that Medal of Honor, I denied being there. I didn’t want it. I didn’t deserve it.”

He was silent for a moment, and Kelly was, too. There was nothing she could say.

“For a long time I hated Joe—for having been wounded, for keeping us from moving quickly and being trapped in the first place. I’ve never forgiven him for that. I’ve never forgiven Cybele, either.”

“How about yourself?” Kelly asked softly. “Have you forgiven yourself?”

He shook his head. “Look what I did with this life that Cybele gave me. Fifty-six years, and I failed to live up to what she expected from me. I was her hero. Yet I went home and couldn’t even keep my marriage to Jenny together after little Charlie died. Two more marriages, both total flops. Some hero—sitting on the deck drinking himself to death, lazy son of a bitch.

“Cybele gave me the most precious gift of all, the gift of life. And here I am, lying in this bed, looking at the single good thing I ever did—and it happened by accident. You happened by accident. You’re an amazing woman, Kelly, and I’m deeply proud of you, but who you are is no thanks to me.”

Kelly couldn’t speak, could barely see through the tears in her eyes.

“I love you,” Charles told her. “You and Cybele. All my life. You know, if she’d lived, I would’ve given up my future to be with her. I would have dealt with Jenny’s pain and anger. I would have handled my father’s shame. I would have done anything. I would have faced my biggest fears.

“You can’t choose who you love, Kelly, but you can waste it. Why on earth would anyone want to waste it?”

His eyes closed.

His breathing was slow and steady. He was free from pain—physical pain—at least for now.