Light Up the Night (16 page)

“Couldn't you have flown to Burlington or Montreal or something and rented your car there? Why did you have to fly into Boston?”

“C'mon, O'Malley. What are you griping about? It's the USS
Constitution
.” Billy waved at the masts and ropes and hull like it was something too incredible for words. “I've always wanted to see her. What'syour problem?”

“Don't like Boston. And never was much of a history buff.” Though Trisha had to admit to herself that “Old Ironsides” was a pretty amazing ship. The thing that was really incredible was that George Washington had commissioned her and mostly likely walked her decks while president, and she was still in incredible shape. The black-and-white-painted hull was immaculate. Even the curlicue numbers climbing up her sides to show the keel depth were shining white.

Trisha had wandered all over it as a kid, though she'd be the last to admit that to Billy. Street kids didn't care about such things or waste money on touring a big, old ship. Coming to the ship was one of the few tolerable family outings they'd ever had, perhaps the only one she ever looked forward to.

She and Billy climbed the gangplank together. The deck was burnished within an inch of its life. Fresh-painted cannon lined either gunwale, each with its rope harness in perfect shape. All image-perfect right down to a small pile of cannonballs and a tamping stick. Such a show for the tourists.

“O'Malley, even an Army grunt like you has to appreciate this boat. She's the third vessel ever specifically built for the U.S. Navy. She defeated four different British ships of the line during the War of 1812. No one had ever done that. It was a massive blow to the ego of the British Navy, who ruled the world at that time. For the first time in their navy's history, they were vulnerable, and this ship is the one who proved that to the world. It was the beginning of the end of the British Empire, which claimed a full third of the world's landmass at its peak.”

He led her back among the moseying tourists and covered hatchways to the big, spoked double-wheel of the ship. The wheels were as tall as she was and would allow four men to simultaneously steer the ship if a storm or combat maneuvering required it.

Billy placed his hands on the wheel for a moment, and she could see him belonging there. One of the great white masts, bigger around than he was, soared toward the blue sky. Twenty different hanks of big hemp rope, prickly on the hands, dangled from the pin rail and led up to adjust the dozens of sails the crew could place aloft on that one mast alone.

The air would be so thick with gunpowder smoke that he wouldn't be able to see a ship that was close alongside and would have to rely on shouts from the lone sailor in the crow's nest high above. The shattering roar of fusillades of the
Constitution
's monstrous thirty-two pounders, ginormous for the time. The enemy's twenty-fours bouncing off the two-foot-thick oaken sides of Old Ironsides. And Captain Billy ordering men aloft to swing down on boarding ropes to attack the British cads.

She pulled his face down to kiss him because he was just too damned handsome. He actually made her toes curl inside her sneakers. Who knew such a thing was possible? Then she let him go back to his dreams of steering a ship almost as old as their country.

***

Bill stared forward in wonder. This was the original ship of the line. In many ways she and her deeds were the start of the United States Navy.

“Do you know they had more crew on this little four-deck boat than we have on the
Peleliu
right now?”

Trisha looked up at the rigging high above them. “Wouldn't want to try landing a helicopter here.”

God, she made him laugh.

Without really thinking about it, he saluted a woman in period garb with the rank of lieutenant commander on her collar. The salute came right back with a trained snap. Billy straightened up in shock.

“Sorry, sir. I thought it was a costume.” She was a tall black woman. She wore a long black coat with tails, doubled brass buttons down the front, and gold piping. White pants, buffed boots, and one of those cocked bicorne hats that stuck out fore and aft.

“At ease, sailor. We get that all the time. LC Deborah Reynolds at your service.” Her voice was rich with Alabama.

“Lieutenant William Bruce of SEAL Team Nine at yours. And this interloper is Lieutenant Patricia O'Malley of the Army's 160th SOAR.”

Trisha snapped a sharp salute and then grimaced at him. “Trisha. And this one is called Billy the SEAL by those who know him and Mud by everyone else. What is a real officer doing here?”

“Welcome aboard. Well, Trisha of the Army…” She had a good smile to go with her pleasant attitude. “This ship is still on the active-duty roster, and as long as she is, she'll have a professional crew to see that she's in top form. That's how we do it here in the Navy anyway.”

Bill loved the way they were teasing each other.

“When our stuff gets old, we throw it out.”

Bill spotted the light of combat growing in O'Malley's eyes and interrupted the next round. “Please forgive her, Commander, she's in heli-aviation. They barely go back to World War II and have no sense of history. They're all absolute heathens with no sense of tradition or propriety.”

The two women laughed together and shook hands, the tiny redhead in a tight T-shirt from a Styx concert and an elegant officer in clothes and on a ship two hundred years behind the times.

The Lieutenant Commander offered another salute and Bill returned it smartly.

“Just let me know if there's anything you want to see that's roped off. We'll be glad to take a SEAL anywhere they want to go, whether or not their name is Mud. Can even bring along this Army brat if you feel so inclined.”

She turned to leave, then paused and looked back at them.

“Patricia O'Malley?”

“Trisha.”

“You're the spitting image of Shawna O'Malley. Are you her daughter?”

Bill didn't miss how impossibly still Trisha became, though the Lieutenant Commander appeared not to catch it.

“Yes.” The word was bitten off hard.

“Oh splendid.” Deborah rolled right on, missing the warning signs that Bill didn't know how to interpret. “We were so sorry that you couldn't be here for the ceremony. It's a pleasure to meet you at last. You're just the spitting image of her.”

There was an awkward silence that Bill quickly filled with, “Ceremony?”

LC Reynolds had now caught the note that something was off. Bill hadn't filled in fast enough, and his own voice had been rough with surprise.

“Yes.” She glanced at Trisha and then, picking a safer target, answered Bill instead. “The O'Malley family just sponsored a major fundraiser for improvements to the Museum.” She indicated the big, two-story stone building at the head of the pier. “Shawna O'Malley joined the Board of Trustees of the Museum as well. We're, ah, very honored to have you both aboard.” Again they saluted, and like a wise commander, the LC retired rapidly from the field of pending battle.

Bill turned very slowly to face Trisha.

She appeared to be studying the deck.

“Shawna O'Malley.”

“Yeah.”

“Board of Trustees.”

She shrugged but didn't look up.

He reached out and took her chin to make her look at him.

She slapped his hand aside but did glare up at him. “So?”

So? Well, that explained her upper-crust accent, but it sure didn't explain anything else. All her talk about “the street” and her pals in Southie.

“Is any of it true?”

“How can you ask that?”

“How can I—” He started as a roar, but managed to pull it back under control when several tourists edged abruptly away in alarm. He grabbed her arm and dragged her down the ship to the stern. She struggled against him, but he didn't care. She should just be damn glad he didn't toss her overboard. He stepped over the sign that said something about “No Tourists” and hauled her right along with him. At the aft rail he let her go, shoving her a couple steps away.

She reached for him, but he raised his palms to fend her off. She dropped her arms to her sides and hung her head once more.

“Is. Any. Of. It. True?” He had to grind through it word by word to get it out.

“I never told a lie.”

“You never—” “Not a li—” What the hell was he supposed to do with that? He crashed a fist down on the polished taffrail so that he didn't hit anything else, like himself for being stupid enough to buy her whole act.

“I didn't tell the whole truth, but I never told you a lie, Billy.” Now she was looking up at him and pleading.

“Like growing up living on the street?”

“I never said that.” When he went to protest, she held up a hand to stop him. “Your childhood sucked. I have no idea how bad. Mine wasn't any joyride. Living with my parents was a kind of extreme hell that you'd never believe because it is just too damn foreign to your experiences.

“Your mother loved you. Mine?” She flapped a hand clearly unable to find the words. “My father checked out and my mother saw me as a carbon copy of herself who would never be good enough. I ran on the street for years because I had friends there. My friends. Real friends.”

A fire came back into her eyes, and she crowded him back against one of the cannons until he was trapped in the corner between the barrel and the rail.

“They were friends
I
made, that
I
earned.” She thumped bunched fingers against the center of her chest hard enough for him to wince in empathy. “Not ones bought and paid for by my family's status or money. I could have officered in. I could have stayed out and married Mister Easy-and-rich. God knows my sainted mother wanted to sell me off at the first chance. ‘Go to Smith, dear. That will help you find the right sort of man.' Shit! I earned every penny to take myself to NYU. I enlisted, and I fought for every goddamn thing I ever got. It didn't come from Mommy or Daddy, and it didn't come from you.”

He watched her cheeks flaming as hot as her hair. Her finger stabbing toward his chest. He cocked one eyebrow at the finger and she lowered it.

“Uh, sorry about that last comment. You didn't deserve that. You've been one of the best things to happen to me in a long time. I was just kind of on a roll. Sorry.” She turned to face the Charles River, rested her folded hands on the taffrail, and rested her forehead on those.

He let his breath out slowly. This would take some thinking to readjust. O'Malley with the high-and-mighty Boston breeding, which finally fit her accent and the smooth efficiency with all things bureaucratic she'd shown in Vermont. Who'd also fought on the streets of Southie, which fit her fighting skills and general battering of the English language.

He wondered if Michael knew this about his friend, but Bill would guess that he didn't. That no one did, just as he'd never told anyone of the sad, quiet woman who was his mother. All Trisha ever showed anyone was the cocky outer bravado. That slap-you-in-your-face power she carried, all of that energy and heart and hurt.

But she'd showed him more. He'd seen the woman who'd been shot for the first time. She'd helped him bury his mother more assuredly than the ladies of the Congregational Church. And he'd seen her when they made love. Trisha O'Malley couldn't fake any of that. All those myriad facets of this woman came straight out of her with no games. At long last, all of the pieces of her fit together. Now she made sense to him.

The one thing they could never teach a SEAL team was the absolute trust learned in your first battle together. Not even BUD/S or Hell Week did that. Lieutenant Patricia O'Malley had stood right beside him through his own personal battle. He couldn't help but trust her because he knew all the way to his core that he could.

The problem, he decided, was that she couldn't trust herself.

Well, he straightened up, that was a battle he knew how to fight.

“Where are your parents?”

“Milton,” was the mumbled response. She waved vaguely southwest without looking up. “About half an hour that way. Why?”

And he'd stand right beside her until she could trust him.

“This is so stupid!”

“We're here now.” Billy sounded so damn calm that Trisha could hit him.

“I don't want to be here now.”

“But you should be.”

This time she did hit him.

He didn't even have the decency to blink when her fist bounced off his arm.

“But why?”

“Because I'm smarter than you, at least at the moment.”

She'd give him “smart” right between the eyes. He'd stopped at the head of the O'Malley estate driveway to give her a moment, though she'd had an hour of rush-hour traffic to bitch about it on the way fromthe
Constitution.

“Maybe they're not home. You said they have a place in Boston too, right?”

“They're home. The condo is only for when they're in the city late for the symphony or something. I used it way more than they did.” This was like a death sentence.

The long stone wall had been erected by the first O'Malley who homesteaded here back in the 1700s. What had started as a cow fence was now a privacy bastion eight feet high, covered in ivy and overshadowed by tall trees. The iron gate that now stood open had showed up in the early 1800s, along with the massive Tudor-style house that had grown through the 1900s with additions here and a guest cottage there. It was now one of those places that lead the list on annual home and garden tours.

Trisha could see her dad's Jaguar pulled into the old carriage house. Definitely home.

“Do we have to?”

“They're your parents. Flight back isn't until day after tomorrow.”

“We could just go to an airport motel and have sex for two days?” Trisha didn't bother to listen for a reply. She'd gotten nowhere with that offer several times on the drive out.

She glared up at the big house almost lost among the towering oaks and white pines that masked much of it from the road. Lights were on in the living room, kitchen, and study. Dad, senior partner of a major law firm, would be in his home office, Mom harassing the kitchen help, and the living room lit so they could pretend they were together there.

“If you tell me what nice people they are, I'm going to have to kill you.” It had been a disease of her youth. She'd tell stories about how horrid her parents were, then she'd bring home a friend and her parents would flip into host and hostess mode and charm them no end. She'd stopped bringing friends home before she was out of junior high.

“Why? Are they that nasty?” Billy was eyeing her curiously. He'd just buried his mother, who sounded great, and Trisha wished she'd met the woman. Hers was alive and well, and Trisha didn't want to see her for a single, solitary second. She still wasn't sure quite how this was happening. It was as if Billy had slipped her a Mickey Finn and she'd woken up in Hell, with the capital
H
.

“Nasty? Oh no.” Trisha held up her hands to fend off the possibility that anything she said could be taken wrong. “Not ever. They would never give offense. Especially never to a house guest, nor to their only daughter who”—she folded her hands neatly in her lap and fluttered her eyelids as if fighting off tears—“had so much potential, but…” Then she released a tiny sigh with a little shrug of her shoulders.

Billy laughed.

It was only years of training in restraint that kept her from cleaning his clock.

He put the car back in gear, drove up the circular gravel drive, and parked in front of the double front door with stained-glass upper panels installed in God-only-knew which century.

“You really came from this?”

“Trust me, the street is way more real than this place. Everything here is a sham.”

Billy came around to open her door, like the place was already infecting him. She ignored that, swung herself out before he could get there, almost whacking him with the car door, and stormed up to the front entry. She threw it open and stepped into the main hall.

“Hi, Mom, Dad. I'm home.”

Her shout elicited an oath from the man just exiting his office to see who had driven up, and a loud crash resounded from the kitchen.

She whispered to Billy who stood close behind her, “Sounds like Mom will have to buy a new serving platter.”

***

“Can't we just leave?”

Bill looked down at her sprawled across a twin bed with carved head and foot boards nicer than any he'd seen, even in a hotel. He still couldn't believe it, even if he was seeing it.

Trisha's third-floor childhood bedroom had clearly remained untouched, like a museum or something. And it was as big as his mother's one-bedroom apartment; it even included its own bathroom. Wood paneling that must go back a hundred years was covered with decade-old rock-and-roll posters held up with rammed-in pushpins.

A third-degree tae kwon do black belt and a red kung fu belt with a black band were draped over a brocaded wingback armchair. Several weapons hung from the walls, including a fighting staff, a well-worn set of
tonfa
blocks, and a very battered Japanese
bokken
, the wooden practice sword.

No wonder Michael wasn't worried about O'Malley's ability to protect herself. Martial arts competition awards were piled haphazardly across many surfaces. Only the dresser was clear. The old, oaken six-drawer had a sheet of glass on top. Carefully preserved beneath the glass were O'Malley's first pilot's license, her Army induction form as an E-1—she hadn't even taken advantage of starting three pay grades higher because of a college education—and her chief warrant's commission actually signed by the President. She had worked her way up the hard way before going officer.

“We serve at the pleasure of…” he whispered half to himself. He had a similar letter as an officer ofthe SEALs.

At the very center was a letter signed by Major Emily Beale, inviting her to apply for the 160th SOAR. Damn! He'd heard about Beale; everyone had. The first woman of SOAR was a bloody legend in the Special Operations Forces. She had saved the President's life, stopped a war, and who knew what else. And she had invited Trisha into the reclusive and elite 160th.

No matter what else was going with Trisha O'Malley, Bill knew one thing for certain—she'd earned it the hard way.

“O'Malley.” He turned to face her where she still sprawled on the chenille bedspread like a pouty teenager.

“What?”

“You did all this shit.” He waved a hand to indicate the room's contents. “And you're scared of those two people downstairs? What the hell is up with that?”

She opened her mouth to protest. It hung there a long time. Finally she closed it with a snap and flopped over on her back to stare at the ceiling.

He waited her out.

“That isn't fair,” she finally stated, then tipped her head back to look at him upside down.

“What isn't?”

“A Scotsman being right about things. That's just not supposed to happen.”

“Why not?”

She stuck her tongue out at him and he felt much better. She'd stood for him through three days of hell; now he could give some back.

***

Trisha really did try. Bill could see her doing it. And her parents were desperately struggling to be pleasant about being in the same room with their daughter. But it was as if they were waiting for a bomb to go off but were too polite to say so and too afraid to run in case even that set it off.

Bill allowed himself to be a welcome distraction for all of them at first, answering questions over some of the best roast beef and winter vegetables he'd ever had. He recounted how he'd come to join the Navy and the SEALs and, no, his team wasn't part of the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound. That was now the number one question of anyone to whom he admitted he was a SEAL. He mentioned nothing of his upbringing, other than his father dying in the Army when he was a boy and his mother having just passed from cancer.

By halfway through the dinner, conversation was lagging, and he couldn't recall the last time he'd talked so much. Trisha had settled some, but her parents hadn't.

Dylan O'Malley was a lawyer and clearly a power broker of some sort. Bill had worked with JAG a couple of times, and the Judge Advocate General's office had nothing in common with Trisha's father. He had quickly qualified, then classified Bill as poor background, limited connections, and therefore of little interest.

Trisha's father had then gone on to inform Bill that he'd been an NCAA Division I swimmer in college a couple decades ago and boast about his half-Olympic-sized pool out back, and how he'd still go and turn laps in it every morning before work.

Trisha's one volley about Lieutenant Bruce being a professional U.S. Navy swimmer hadn't even dented Dylan's tales of his final swimming matches. He'd have gladly spent the rest of the evening talking about himself if Shawna O'Malley hadn't been the perfect hostess she was.

They were an interesting counterpoint as a couple. Dylan, at five-ten and weighing around two-ten, showed the evidence of too many power lunches, despite his daily swimming. He showed his fifty-odd years pretty clearly.

Shawna could have been Trisha's older sister who was clearly trying to look like her younger one. It was obvious where Trisha had gotten her size, coloring, and stunning good looks. Her mother's hair was the same rich red, but flowed to her shoulders over the tasteful dark-blue jacket she'd selected for dinner. She wore a dark green stone hanging at her throat from a gold chain that was so elegant, Bill would have to get one for Trisha someday.

He blinked hard at that thought, wondering where the heck it had come from. She'd probably lose it anyway, even if he could afford it.

Trisha, on the other hand, had pulled on a tattered pair of jeans she'd unearthed from the large closet and a T-shirt in black with a painfully bright, orange lightning bolt that said, “Let's Spark It Up.” Maybe some band he'd never heard of, maybe something sexual, but either way, carefully selected to tick off her parents. He'd considered requiring her to change but was afraid that whatever else she unearthed might be even worse.

He'd brought nothing formal except the one suit for his mother's funeral, and that didn't seem appropriate. He wore the white dress shirt open at the collar, but not far enough to show the continuation of his scar, and a pair of clean jeans.

No matter how Bill tried to deflect Shawna O'Malley, she couldn't help picking at her daughter as if she were twelve. It was clearly a knee-jerk reaction to who Shawna thought her daughter still was.

“You know, dear…” Almost every sentence was phrased that way.

“Sit up, dear.” Trisha normally had amazing posture, like a dancer's augmented with military fitness and training, something he'd always enjoyed watching. Clearly she was slouching to piss off her mom. Trisha shrugged at a scowl from Bill, but did sit up straighter after that.

“You remember Zachary Stein, don't you, dear? Well, he just went through this horrible divorce and…”

“I don't want to marry Zachary Stein, Mom. He was a jerk in high school and probably still is. I'm surprised it took Bethany so long to get rid of him.”

Long awkward pause.

“Did you know that Dennis O'Leary still hasn't settled down?”

“That's because he's gay and hasn't admitted it to himself yet.”

Bill wondered if he'd become invisible. Trisha had already made it clear that Bill was staying in her room, which hadn't gone over well. He'd tried to offer to stay in the guest house, but Trisha had shut that down hard. Once he began to understand what was going on, he decided that maybe it would be better if he stayed near Trisha when she was around her parents. If only so that it might give him the opportunity to avert murder, in either direction.

Clearly Lieutenant William Bruce was not a viable candidate for their only daughter. He wondered what precedent he was following, what other men Trisha had brought home in the past, perhaps specifically chosen to tick off her parents. Was he innately unacceptable or merely unworthy because he'd been selected by Trisha herself? He suspected that the answer to both was yes.

And had those men who came before him been as consistently uncomfortable as he was, sitting here trying to pay attention to his slice of apple pie and scoop of vanilla ice cream? Didn't her parents see how far she'd gone to get their attention, until she felt that pissing them off was her only avenue of expression?

“You know, dear, as soon as you're done with that flying nonsense—”

“I am done with it.” Trisha's sudden snarl drew Bill's attention back to the conversation he'd been mostly ignoring as he simply watched the dynamics around him.

“You're what?” Bill managed the words in the sudden silence brought on by Trisha's acid tone.

She shot to her feet, knocking the heavy armchair over backward with a crash that rattled the silverware, and glared across the table at him. She chucked her napkin down onto her food.

“I've been thrown out of SOAR. The only thing I've ever really loved.” Then she turned to face her parents. “Your daughter is a fuckup, just like you've always told her she was. Break out the bubbly. The good stuff. You should be celebrating. Not sitting there with your jaws down like a couple of stuffed sheep.”

He saw the tears streaming down her face as she stood there. He knew she was unaware of them. Then she turned and ran.

He froze.

Bill never froze.

It had been trained out of his brain and out of his reflexes. He never acted rashly, not even under fire, and he never froze. For five beats of his heart after she was gone, Bill simply couldn't move.

By the time he shook loose, her parents had started asking him what all that meant. He didn't bother listening. Instead he replayed the other sounds his brain had recorded during those five slow heartbeats. Running feet. No stairs. A door to the left, another beyond it.