SEAL's Promise - Bad Boys of SEAL Team 3, Book 01 (23 page)

His father looked back at him like he was the crazy one in the bed. “
Who?”

We’re losing time.

“My
sister
. What’s my sister’s name?”

“You have a sister?” his dad asked. “Congratulations. Wonder why they never told me!”

He had that far away look again.

“Hey, son, you taking me home? I’m ready anytime you are.”

He could see his father’s body shutting down by the minute. His speech was starting to slur. T.J. reached out and touched the old man for the first time in his life, placing a gentle palm on his frail shoulder which felt like all bone and very little flesh. “Dad. You
are
home. Remember what Travis said? You can close your eyes and go there anytime you want.”

His father seemed to get half of what he said. “They’re really good here, you know. Take such good care of us. Really topnotch place. I’d come back here anytime.”

Great. Dad thinks he’s in a vacation resort or something.
It was funny, if it wasn’t so sad. His father didn’t register in the slightest that he’d been physically touched by his own son for the first time ever. “Tell me her name, Dad,” he asked softly. “Tell me my sister’s last name.”

But his dad had checked out of the resort and was on his new adventure.

“
G
LAD YOU GOT
to see him,” Travis said as they traveled down the highway toward the town of Dover. The reverend managed to do a little digging and had found the address of one Connie Fallon through an ancestry.com account, checked the phone book and found she had a listed phone number as well as her address. Dover was only about twenty miles from Travis’s church and parsonage, so he agreed to accompany T.J. on the trip. They’d tried to call ahead, without luck.

Next, T.J. called the hospital, reaching the nurse’s station to check on Shannon.

“I don’t want to talk to her if she’s sleeping.”

The nurse checked and confirmed she was asleep.

“Wonderful. How’s she doing?”

The nurse was shuffling through some paperwork, probably checking the permission slips Shannon signed on admittance. “Everything’s going in the right direction, sir. I’d let her sleep.”

“How’s little Courtney doing?”

“I understand there is an update, but not until the patient has been informed.”

“Good news or bad news?”

“You’re going to have to get that from your wife.”

My wife.
He liked the sound of that. He wanted to celebrate, but there were too many unknowns and he wouldn’t let his heart go there. He told himself it would be easier when he had an update on Courtney. That was, if it was good news. Something in his gut told him it was.

“Would you ask her to give me a call when she awakens?” He gave his cell phone. “Tell her I will be coming home tomorrow, okay?”

“I’ll do that. She’s had a lot of visitors. She really needs to rest right now, so I’ll give it to her when she awakens.”

T.J. wondered who would be pestering her so much, when most of their platoon on Team 3 were in Las Vegas.

“Can we cut out the visitors?” he asked.

“Sure, but the police have been in several times. And a newspaper reporter. We got rid of
him
.”

“Police?”

“We didn’t know you knew the Marine whose wife was injured.”

“Okay, I’m going to get someone to come stay with her. Her parents been by much?”

“Oh yes. Both sets, yours and hers.”

T.J. didn’t correct her. Frankie’s parents had every right to see their new grandchild. He was going to make sure that always was allowed.

Next he called Shannon’s parents and got her mother on the phone. T.J. and Mrs. Moore had a difficult relationship going back to Shannon and Frankie’s wedding. He guessed his taking off for Tennessee was just another example to Mrs. Moore of a lack of good judgment. She was frosty, more so than usual.

“You kids are in the middle of all this media circus, and Shannon needs to get her rest while you’re streaking all over the countryside searching after lost relatives.”

“My father died this morning.”

“Okay. You sound
devastated
,” she said mockingly.

He was wondering if he’d ever have a normal relationship with her. Probably not. “I’ll be home tomorrow. Turns out I have a sister I didn’t know about, so I’ll be stopping by to see her if I can, and then I’ll come home.”

“How nice for you.”

“Look, the reason for the call, although I
always
enjoy our calls, Mrs. Moore, is that there have been some police and other people bothering Shannon. And there has been a reporter snooping around. I need her left alone as much as possible.”

“Well, well, we finally agree.”

T.J. was so glad Shannon hadn’t gone through with her plans to raise little Courtney on her own in the Bay Area where her parents lived. Her whole life would have been changed by the proximity to this woman. But she was Shannon’s mother, and he wasn’t going to interfere, especially when he needed her keen eyes doing a stealth mission to order people around, which was exactly what she was well suited for. She could have run a whole platoon.

“We want to cooperate with the police. But in light of what happened to Magnus’ wife, and that hospital area not being that secure—”

“Yes, we were told you actually saw one of the terrorists.”

“One
of the terrorists?”

“Apparently small cell, they’ve taken responsibility.”

“All the more reason. I need you to stand guard over Shannon and be extremely picky about who she talks to. Be rude if you have to.

“I can do that.”

T.J. knew she definitely could.

Chapter Thirty

‡

C
OURTNEY WAS RESTING
comfortably in Shannon’s arms when Shannon’s mother and father arrived. The baby had been transferred to a regular nursery crib, which was sitting nearby.

“Oh, hi, guys,” Shannon called out to them. She hadn’t expected them until this evening.

Her mom gave her a hug and kiss, and sat for a minute on the edge of the bed, brushing her fingers over her granddaughter’s pink fuzzy head. “She’s really beautiful, Shannon. Ears are a little big.”

This tickled her. Long past caring about this little feature of her anatomy, Shannon was happy the baby was going to be allowed to go home with her today. When she told her mother, they were thrilled.

One of the nurses came in after Shannon buzzed her.

“Yes?”

“Say, I’m wondering how soon before we are allowed to leave?”

“Leave?”

“Well, the doctor said he was going to release me. My parents are here to help me. We’re ready now if everything is okay.”

“Let me check. Is she nursing or just sleeping?”

“Mostly sleeping.”

“You want her to nurse, honey. She’ll get comfortable and all warm and snuggly, but she needs to eat so you keep your milk in. You’ll have problems when you get home if not.”

“I think she’s getting plenty. But this is my first.”

“All right.” The nurse came over to the bed and addressed Mrs. Moore, “Excuse me, honey.” When Shannon’s mother stood next to Mr. Moore, the nurse leaned in. “I’m gonna take the baby, get her weighed, take a final blood test and get her cleaned up for you. Then I’ll bring her back. She’ll be good and fussy when I get done poking around with her.”

“That woman is rude,” said Mrs. Moore.

Nothing could dampen her mood, except she hadn’t heard from T.J. She’d gotten the message he’d landed safely while she was resting. But his call was overdue, and she needed to hear his voice, curious how the meeting with his dad went.

“I wish T.J. would call,” she said to her mother.

“He didn’t call you? That’s why we came right over. He’s coming home tomorrow, he said.”

She wondered why he’d not called her directly, but instead called her mother. “Hope everything went well.”

Mrs. Moore glanced at her husband, and then added, “Honey, I’m afraid his father passed away this morning.”

“All the more reason—”

“He should be home with you and the baby,” Mr. Moore asserted. “You are unprotected here. and I don’t like that. With that reporter yesterday and all the questions the police are asking. T.J. felt it too, asked your mother and me to come over and stand guard. We’re not leaving until they release you, Shannon.”

An attractive male intern in scrubs, a stethoscope draped across his neck, popped his head inside. “Can I have a word for a second?”

“They can stay here,” she answered.

“Sorry, confidentiality rules. I’m really sorry.” He smiled at her parents who looked at Shannon for direction and when she shrugged, they exited to the hall.

As the door to her room closed, he came over to Shannon’s bedside and sat down, which alarmed her.

“So, where’s your husband?”

“You guys know he’s—” All of a sudden it began to dawn on her there was something wrong about this man. He had a faint accent, which normally wouldn’t bother her, but the nametag on the scrubs identified him as being with housekeeping. Why would he need a stethoscope?

He was drawing something from his pocket. She saw the flash of a syringe containing a light yellow liquid. Adjusting her weight, she pushed back away from him just before he lunged forward attempting to inject something into her neck. She wanted to scream but his hand covered her mouth. With a quick kick to his hip, he was thrown off balance and fell to the floor, scattering her IV and several other items, including a plastic water pitcher on a nearby stainless steel tray, all over the ground.

But the kick had had also thrown off her balance, and she found herself reaching for anything to avoid falling from the hospital bed onto the other side. She clutched the air, knocking over a vase filled with flowers, sending it shattering to the floor as she fell hard. She tried to scream but found the air had been knocked out of her. Pain seared her abdominal area.

At last she found her voice and screamed.

The next instant, he was around the end of the bed and, reaching over her, attempted to grab her hair. Her hands swept the floor. She felt the wetness of the broken vase as well as the sting of a piece of broken glass that had gotten stuck in the palm of her hand.

In the meantime, something was happening outside the door. She could hear her mother shouting for help. Sounds of a struggle, with something heavy being thrown against the door. Was there someone else outside? She remembered the warning T.J. had given her mother.

Hopefully Courtney is safe. Please, let her be safe. She has to be safe.

She heard a definite gunshot sound and screaming. Her assailant yanked her hair, pulling her head up like a rag doll with a jerk. Now he wasn’t holding a syringe any longer. He held a heavy knife like T.J.’s KA-BAR, the one she had looked at several times. She knew where his intended trajectory was. Her legs flopped and scraped on the wet, slippery floor as she tried to throw his balance off from the lethal crouch position, a tight tripod. His center of gravity was too low, she realized.

This is not acceptable. This is not going to happen. Never. Not at any time.
She was not going to die, wind up another statistic on the evening news.

He was twisting her head to get a lethal angle at her neck. She knew what he was after. She remembered something T.J. had explained to her.

Sometimes when you’re in a struggle, best to stop fighting. Go in the same direction as the attacker, because if you resist, you cause them to use deadly force to restrain you.

Instead of pulling back, trying to avoid his body and the knife that was gripped in his right hand, she leaned forward into him. He lost his balance for just a second, enough time for her to bring up her palm, drawing her arm over and outside his left. The glass wedged there hurt like a son of a gun, but as her fingers gripped it tightly, cutting her further, she drew strength from the pain. She hoped it was big enough to do what she needed it to do. Using her own fist as the hilt of the glass blade, she swung upward and rammed it into the assailant’s neck, remembering to throw whatever weight she could muster from her own body following behind, and then pulled down.

She felt the satisfying crunch of cartilage and muscle tissue being sliced open, followed by a warm spray of his blood, covering her face and chest. He tried to adjust, dropping his knife in order to hold onto his neck, but his knees slipped in the pool of blood. Shannon seized another opportunity, drew one knee up to her chest and then pushed with everything she had, her bare foot landing square in the middle of his chest, sending his body backward.

He was skidding across the bloody floor when the heavy door swung open and knocked him solidly in his head.

Seeing her parents in the hallway, worried but apparently unharmed, the bevy of staffers behind them and the two uniformed guards hauling up the unconscious assailant by his armpits, she allowed herself to collapse and breathe. Other than the pain in her palm, and something intense burning in her lower belly, she felt pretty good, considering.

She looked at her bloody hands, the sloppiness of the mortal combat she’d just engaged in, her heart pounding so hard it nearly exploded her chest, and she discovered something.

It felt damn good to be alive.

Chapter Thirty-One

‡

“Y
OU LIKE LIVING
out here, don’t you?” T.J. asked Travis.

“Yessir, I used to. It does me good to be in this beautiful part of the world. And the cost of living is a lot less than other places. I won’t lie, part of the charm, part of the charm.”

Travis’ gold tooth was glinting in the sunlight. “So you gonna tell me about that tooth?”

This gave the big man a belly laugh. “You’re gonna think me quite insane. Maybe a bit more eccentric than you like.”

“But you forget. I’m in the military, and let me tell you, I see stuff all the time on deployment that is pretty fuckin’—sorry, man, just force of habit.”