Breaking Through (Book 2 of the SEAL TEAM Heartbreakers) (18 page)

“Just take a few minutes to adjust to being up.”

Crowes’ knuckles were white with tension. Was he holding on so tightly because of pain, or was it anxiety?

“This is going to be an easy exercise, Corporal. All I want you to do is keep your spine straight and just shift your weight back and forth. Like this.” She stood in front of him, and resting her hands on the bars, demonstrated. “This will help you grow used to the feel of the prosthetic and teach you how to adjust your balance.”

“Yeah, right,” he breathed sarcastically. The anger behind the words was part of the grieving process. The man had lost his leg. Right now he felt as though his life was never going to be the same. Zoe ignored the attitude and watched as he shifted his weight gingerly from his sound leg to the prosthetic, then back again.

“How does that feel?” she asked.

“Like there’s nothing there to catch me, yet there is.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?” There was a challenge in his gaze and tone.

“Yes, I do.”

She tugged up the leg of her pants, exposing the partially missing calf muscle of her left leg. “I have a rod, a plate, and several screws holding things together. Enough to set off airport security. There are times I have to wear a brace. Since I’ve been on my feet pretty much all day today, you’ll probably see me in it tomorrow.”

“At least your leg’s still there,” he said his tone husky with pain.

“Yes.” And so were the scars from the skin grafts and other injuries. And the muscle pain that persisted.

She took him through several weight shift exercises, with just one hand gripping the bar and then just his fingertips. Though he did what she asked, he remained sullen.

What could she do to break through this? He needed to take his anger and use it.  She bent to place two scales in front of him. “Now I’m going to monitor how much pressure you’re putting on the prosthetic when you shift your weight by using these scales. We’re working on balance first. Then we’ll work on getting you ready for some dance moves.”

“I don’t dance.” Crowes stepped up on the scale, his knuckles growing white as he gripped the parallel bars.

“Well, you will after I’m through with you.”

“I have two left feet.”

“That can be arranged,” Zoe shot back before he could dwell on what he’d just said.

After a brief look of surprise, he laughed. “What’s your name again?”

“Zoe Weaver.”

“If we’re going to be working together, I’m going to call you Zoe. You can call me Cal.”

Now that she’d finally gotten him to smile, she hoped she’d be around to see him walk, too. “All right.” She smiled.

“Maybe we could go out to dinner sometime,” he said.

She’d just been asked out for the sixth time in one day. A personal record, since she hadn’t dated for nearly two years before she met Hawk. “I appreciate the invite, Cal, but I’m involved with someone.”

“Involved or
involved?
” he asked, stressing the latter word.

“
Really involved,”
she said, emphasizing both.

“Is he military?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And if he had a leg blown off?”

Her stomach roiled. Just the thought gave her heart a violent squeeze. She looked up from the needle on the scale and focused on his face. Though he had a little scruff of beard on his chin, he cheeks were smooth. He looked so young and vulnerable.

“He loves me despite my leg problems. I’d have to love him despite his.”

“My girl bailed on me. She couldn’t deal with this.” Cal motioned to the prosthesis.

Ah, shit. The memory, like a shadow pain, rose up to give her a small pinch. “I’m sorry. I’ve been down that road myself, and it sucks.”

He nodded.

“There’s someone out there for you who won’t care about your leg. Your leg isn’t what defines you as a man. It’s what’s inside that does.” She tapped her chest over her heart. “You can let what’s happened make you bitter, or you can use it to come back even stronger than before.”

When he remained silent, she went into the next exercise, weight shift without hands.

“Is that what you did?” he asked, his eyes focused on the bars.

“Yes. It took me over a year to learn to walk again. I had to have several surgeries.” Her experience in college had stopped her progress. But she wasn’t sharing that with him. “My boyfriend showed me that my leg was a very small part of the whole picture. That’s how I feel about it, too.”

“He sounds like a good guy. What branch is he in?”

“The Navy.”

“A swabbie. I won’t hold that against him.”

“My dad was a jarhead like you.”

“Semper Fi,” He extended his fist.

With a laugh, Zoe bumped knuckles with him.

She took Cal through several more balance exercises. He was beginning to tire when the aide, a huge man at least six foot six and two hundred plus pounds, appeared and pushed the wheelchair forward. “Dr. Hanson wants to speak to you, Ms. Weaver.”

“Thanks, Tank.”

She spoke with Cal a few minutes about the possible swelling of his stump, since he was unused to the pressure put on it, and parted with, “You did great today. I’ll see you in a couple of days.” She hoped.

“Later,” he said.

She wandered across the open space of the physical therapy room to the hallway. A hollow feeling invaded her stomach. She’d had to tell Dr. Hanson she was pregnant. They’d given her the job, and in a little over seven months she’d have to go on maternity leave. It wouldn’t be fair to her patients.

She’d have to explain to Hawk how she got the job one day and lost it the next. But maybe the news about the baby would wipe out his disappointment. Of course it would. He’d be great with it.

Maybe they’d let her sub for the other therapists when they needed to be off. Or take on a part-time position until she found something else.

Zoe tapped on the door. At Dr. Hanson’s, “Come in,” she opened it.

She eyed his serious expression and tried to fight off the disappointment that lodged like a brick in her chest.

After greeting her, he got down to business. “I’d like to go over what you did with each one of your patients today, Zoe.” He pointed to a seat in front of his desk.

Of course, whoever took over her job would want to know about what she’d covered today.

They went through each file. He asked about her impressions of the patients and what outcome she projected for them.

“What did you do to get Corporal Crowes to laugh?”

Had he been observing her? He must have been. “I told him I’d teach him how to dance once he mastered retaining his balance. He said he had two left feet. And I said we could arrange that.”

“We couldn’t really.”

Zoe’s cheeks heated. “No, of course not. It was just a joke.”

“He wouldn’t even get out of the chair for the last therapist who worked with him.”

“He’d just been dumped by his girl because of his injury. He may not have felt like working with anyone at that particular time.”

Dr. Hanson shut the file in front of him, shoved it aside, and leaned his elbows on his desk. “You’re an excellent therapist, Zoe.”

He was letting her go. She pressed her hand to her midriff where an ache had started. “Thank you, sir.”

“I wish you had told me of your situation before we hired you.”

Her throat tightened around the tears. And she looked down at her hand fisted in her lap. “I should have told you at the interview, but I’d just found out that morning, and the job wasn’t a sure thing. That’s why I told you first thing this morning. In case you decided you couldn’t keep me on, you could possibly get one of the other applicants.”

“I see.”

She’d burned through her savings soon after Brett recovered. And because they weren’t married, she didn’t feel it was Hawk’s responsibility to support her. She’d have to find another job somewhere. She shoved to her feet.

Hanson remained silent for a moment when he rose to his feet. “There may be some difficulties with your health insurance. The pregnancy could be considered a pre-existing condition.”

“What?”  She jerked her head up to look at him.

“I said there could be some difficulty with your health care coverage since you became pregnant before we hired you.”

“I haven’t canceled my other coverage, yet.”

“I’d be certain to keep it until we sort it out.”

She drew a relieved breath and fought back tears. She offered him a shaky smile. “Thank you, Dr. Hanson. I really appreciate your keeping me on.”

He nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Her steps were much lighter as she walked back to the storage lockers and got her purse. She’d have a job to support herself and fill her days while Hawk was gone. And just maybe she’d get used to being separated from him. Maybe, in a hundred years or so.

CHAPTER 16

Yasin
al-Yussuf stood at the window of the cinderblock building the soldiers used as an office and barracks. Humvees rolled out in a wave of activity, kicking up dust and exhaust. His driver, Aban, stood next to his car waiting and watching. He fanned the particles away.

“We have not given up searching for Sanjay, Yasin. He is out there somewhere.”

Yasin turned from the window to face Captain Morrow. The man was similar in age and height to him, but his hair was already graying at the temples and appeared very white against the darkness of his tan. “Have you found the record of his delivery home?” Yasin asked.

“We have the record of the radio transmission from the SEALs and their cover that he was dropped at your house and went inside.”

“What kind of record is it?”

“It is a transcription of their radio message to base. The detail returned immediately to base afterwards.” Morrow picked up a sheet of paper from his desk and read from it. “This is Alpha-five-zero. The package has been delivered. He is inside and secure. Out.” He looked up a moment. “That transmission came in at thirteen-fifty. That’s one-fifty. At exactly fourteen-fifteen, two-fifteen, the cover detail radioed their ETA of fourteen-twenty back to base. The SEALs were on a strict timeline.”

Yasin already knew that. It had taken some doing, but he had gotten the information about their next mission. “How can you be sure Sanjay went into the house?”

“The radio transmission says he did.” Morrow set aside the paper.

The man did not understand what he was saying.

“In order to protect themselves and your son, they would have taken a roundabout route there and back. It took them fifty minutes to deliver Sanjay and thirty for them to return to base.”

“Have you spoken to the men in this cover detail?” Yasin asked.

“Four were killed the next day when their vehicle hit an IED. The others were killed in action a few days later.”

Was the man telling him the truth? He read the Captain’s somber expression. Morrow had never had any reason to lie to him. Yasin tried to dredge up a small particle of sympathy about the American deaths, but his own loss was too raw. He settled for a frown.

“Why has it taken four months to find this transmission?” he asked.

“We already knew the timeline of the detail, and his approximate arrival. We thought our first priority was to question people in the neighborhood and physically search for your son.” Morrow drew a deep breath and hiked a hip onto his gray metal desk. “We’ve worked hard to improve relations between your people and ours, Yasin. But we can’t be sure your neighbors didn’t lie to us.”

“What do you mean?”

“When we questioned them the day after Sanjay disappeared, they said our military vehicles were the only ones they saw. But when an Iraqi team went in and asked the same questions a few days later, they reported another vehicle cruising the neighborhood just hours before Sanjay disappeared.”

Morrow eyed him with a frown. “I know there are several factions who disagree with your support of our being here. That opens the investigation to many other possibilities. We are utilizing the Iraqi military and police as much as possible, hoping to uncover what happened between the time our men dropped Sanjay at your home and when he was discovered missing.”

“There is just one problem with that, Captain,” Yasin said, fighting to keep his tone even. “If your men brought Sanjay home, and he entered the house, why is it neither my wife nor the servants saw him?”

“I don’t know, Yasin. Maybe they were in a different part of the house. When we questioned the servants, they all said they didn’t see him or hear him come in. Your wife was too distraught for us to question. If it would help, do you think she would be open to us questioning her now?”

Yasin shook his head. Levla rarely spoke and only ate when he was there to urge her to. “She is not doing well.”

“Can you think of any reason why Sanjay would wait for the men to leave, and then exit the house again? Does he associate with anyone in the neighborhood?”

The man truly believed Sanjay was still alive. How could a total stranger have hope when he had lost his?

Because the man still believed in his men.

The SEALs had killed Sanjay. Otherwise, it would not have taken nearly an hour to deliver him home and half that time for them to return to base.

He looked up to find Morrow waiting for his reply. “Because of the fighting, Sanjay had remained close to his home.”

“Yasin. I have children of my own. I know how I would feel if something like this happened to one of them.” Morrow rested a hand on his shoulder. Yasin fought not to flinch away from the man’s touch. “I swear to you, I will do everything in my power to find your son.”

And what if your men were responsible for killing him?
The words were there inside his mouth, waiting to be spoken. But with Morrow standing over him, his expression so earnest, so sympathetic, Yasin’s grief rose up to strangle them.

“I must go,” he managed though his throat ached with the effort.

“Don’t give up, Yasin.”

I already have.
His feet felt heavy as blocks of cement when he trudged down the hall and escaped the building. He flinched from the heat after the air conditioning inside of Morrow’s office. Aban held the car door until he slid inside. Though the windows had remained down, the heat absorbed by the seats burned through his pants. Sweat broke out across his brow and along his sides.