The Unsung Hero (56 page)
He could see understanding in Joe’s eyes. “I’ll come with you.”
“Why should we both go?” he said as gently as he could.
“No one’s going anywhere.” Tom’s voice rang over their headsets. “Just wait for me to get down there.”
“I got it,” Jazz’s voice was thick with relief. “Timer’s stopped running, L.T.”
Joe swung himself down below. “This timer’s still going. Four minutes and counting.”
“Is someone going to help me out of the water and back onto that boat?” Alyssa called.
They were out of time. If Charles was going to do this, he had to do it now.
“Kelly, you made me proud this morning,” he said into his microphone. “I love you. I’m glad you found Tom, glad you recognized what you found.”
Joe had tears in his eyes. “I’m coming with you,” he said again.
“You can’t,” Charles said, and for the first time in nearly six decades, he embraced his best friend. “Tell the truth to that writer—that Cybele was the real hero of Baldwin’s Bridge.”
He’d caught Joe completely off guard with his embrace, and when he finally pulled back, he was able to push his friend neatly over the side and into the water.
Charles started the motor with a roar, and the boat didn’t blow up. That was good.
“Daddy, I love you!” Kelly had gotten herself to a headset with a microphone.
“I know,” he told her. “That’s the one thing I never doubted ever in my life, Kelly. You loved me, and Cybele loved me. It was more than I deserved.”
He backed out of the slip, and he could see Alyssa and Joe, still there in the water.
He could see Joe’s face, Joe’s eyes, Joe’s anguish.
And Charles touched his right ear, giving Joe his sign.
He was ready to go.
Tom turned to see Kelly running toward him across the lawn.
Out in the harbor, Charles had opened up the throttle, breaking all the posted speed limits as he headed for the open sea, moving quickly out of radio range.
Kelly slowed, her chest heaving as she cried.
Tom reached for her, and she went into his arms.
Down on the dock, Locke helped Joe out of the water.
In the hotel, Jazz sat with Starrett, eyes closed as he waited for the ambulance.
Mallory and David stood at the window, watching the Sea Breeze grow smaller and smaller.
And there, on the deck of that boat, Charles finally knew. He finally understood why Cybele gave her life for him and for Joe and for the Fighting Fifty-fifth.
And he finally forgave her.
She had been in pain, and weary of life. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him, because she did, oh, he knew that she did. But unless she’d acted when she had, Charles would have sacrificed himself to save her. And then, once again, Cybele would have been left with her heart turned to ashes. She loved him so much that she didn’t want to live without him.
She was an amazing woman. She saw in him a hero, and when he was with her, he was one.
Charles aimed the bow of the boat toward the distant horizon, at peace with himself for the first time in years, knowing that he’d managed, one last time before he died, to once again become the man that Cybele Desjardins had loved.
On the lawn between the Baldwin’s Bridge Hotel and the marina, near the statue honoring the men who gave their lives in the Second World War, Tom held Kelly close.
On the dock, a bedraggled Joe saluted the far-off boat as beside him, Lt. Alyssa Locke bowed her head.
The explosion was distant, but still loud enough to make everyone in the harbor and on the hotel lawn look up and out to sea.
For several seconds, there was a hush. A moment of silence.
But then life resumed.
Laughter.
Children shouting.
An ice cream truck approached, its bell ringing.
Tom stood there with Kelly for a good long time, letting her look into the faces of the many people whose lives her father had saved that day.
________________________________________
Twenty-two
15 August
TOM LEFT THE debriefing in Washington with just enough time to catch the tail end of the ceremony honoring the Fifty-fifth.
The celebration had gone on as scheduled—with heightened security, and with nearly everyone in attendance unaware of the previous day’s drama.
The United States’ government’s counterterrorist policies included keeping attempted terrorist attacks low profile. Since terrorists tended to be after media coverage even in failed missions, it was U.S. policy to try to give them none.
But Tom didn’t care if no one ever knew—no one except for Adm. Chip Crowley. And Rear Admiral Tucker, who ground out a not very sincere-sounding apology to Tom in front of Crowley’s staff.
As Tom watched from the edge of the crowd, Kelly took the stage to graciously accept a special medal from the French, British, and U.S. governments for her father’s part in the war.
The ceremony ended shortly after that.
He tried to fight his way through the crowd to Kelly, but succeeded only in finding Mallory and David.
“How’s Sam?” Mal asked.
“Already out of ICU and annoying the hell out of the nurses,” Tom told her. “How are you doing? It’s not everyday someone holds a gun to your head and threatens to kill you.”
“I’m okay,” she said. “Still a little shaky.” She laughed. “Still a lot shaky. When you see Locke, thank her for saving my life.”
“Yes,” David said. “Please.” As Tom watched, David pulled her into his arms, as if he couldn’t bear not to hold her.
And Tom had to ask. “What happens with you guys in September?”
“I’m going to go to school part-time,” Mal told him. “I’m not going to do the Navy thing—no offense, Tommy, but it’s not my speed.”
“We were thinking Mal could try to get a job in Boston as a photographer’s assistant,” David added.
“David lives in this big place, a six-bedroom apartment, and they nearly always need housemates, so I wouldn’t really be living with him. And I’ll be close enough to home, in case Angela needs me.”
“In three or four years, we’ll think about getting married,” David said.
Married. The kid said the word in a sentence including the word we, and he didn’t faint or make the sign of the cross or show any kind of fear at all. In fact, he smiled.
“You really think you’ll still be together in three or four years?” Tom asked.
Both David and Mallory nodded.
“Absolutely.”
“Definitely.”
Their confidence awed him. Still, he had to ask. “And if you’re not? . . .”
David looked at Mallory and smiled. It was loaded with meaning, laced with a healthy dose of “can you believe how stupid this guy is?”
“If we’re not still together,” David told him, “it won’t be from lack of trying.”
Kelly waited for Tom in the dark.
She heard him come home, saw the light go on in his bedroom as he changed out of his dress uniform.
She saw, through the cottage’s living room window, that he also stopped to talk to Joe.
And then he headed out across the driveway.
She closed her eyes, picturing him using the kitchen door to get inside the big house, picturing him finding the note she’d left for him in her bedroom.
“Meet me in the tree house.”
She couldn’t bear to be in the house alone. It seemed so empty and quiet without her father. Yet at the same time, she could feel Charles’s presence. In the living room. In the kitchen. On the deck.
Particularly on the deck, where he’d sat day after day, just watching the ocean. Loving a woman who had preferred death to living without him.
The ladder creaked under Tom’s weight. He knocked on the door before he came in, which was absurd, considering this was a tree house.
“How’s Joe?” she asked, suddenly nervous about everything she’d said to him yesterday, wishing he hadn’t had to leave right away for those meetings in Washington, D.C.
“He’s feeling pretty lost,” Tom admitted. “You don’t spend nearly sixty years as someone’s best friend and then not notice when he’s gone.”
“Best friends for nearly sixty years.” Kelly shook her head. “It seems as if it should be some kind of world record.”
“Yeah. He feels good about talking to that writer, though.”
“That’s good.”
There was silence for a moment, and then he spoke again.
“You know, I got another thirty days of convalescent leave,” he told her. “This time I’m really supposed to rest. Actually, I don’t think I’ll need a full thirty, because the dizziness isn’t happening so often anymore.”
“You were dizzy yesterday,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, but it didn’t leave me unable to function. I didn’t black out. I’m taking that as a good sign. And now with this extra time . . . I’m going to be okay. I know it.”
“I’m glad.” She could feel him watching her in the darkness. “I used to come out here to spy on you,” she told him. “There’s a clear shot from here into your bedroom window. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched you walk around in your underwear. Or in less.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Tonight your boxers are blue.”
Tom laughed. “Holy God, you’re a degenerate.”
Kelly nodded, pleased he should think so. “That’s right.” But then she sighed. “Actually, I’m not. If I were a real degenerate, I’d go around looking into everyone’s window. Frankly, the only window—and the only underwear—that interests me is yours.”
“Still, you get extra depravity credits for longevity.”
“Good,” she said. “Yeah, I’ll take ’em. At the very least, they’ll help counteract my damned good-girl image.”
“Personally, I find it intensely fascinating—your combination of good and, well, evil, for lack of a better word.” His voice was like velvet in the darkness, surrounding her. He moved closer, and she could feel his body heat.
“Do you love me?” she asked, needing to know, and dammit, asking was the only way she’d ever truly find out. “I mean, the real me? Not the me you want me to be, but the one who says bad words and likes having sex in closets?”
He laughed softly. “How could I not?”
“I’m not trying to make a joke. I’m serious. Bad example.”
“Good example.” He kissed her, pulling her close. “How are you with tree houses?”
“Tom—”
He kissed her throat, his hands already beneath her shirt. “Because, you know, it’s already been five minutes, and—”
“Oh, God, you’re never going to let me live that down!”
“That’s right,” he said. “Until the end of time, I’m going to give you only five minutes of conversation, then I’m going to be all over you.”
Oh, God. “It’s going to be interesting when we meet in a restaurant.”
His laughter was soft and very dangerous. “You bet.”
“Or on the beach . . .”
“Uh-huh.”
“Or an airport. I have a feeling we’re both going to be seeing a lot of airports.”
He lifted his head. “Unless you come to California with me.”
Kelly was silent. Was he asking her? . . .
He cleared his throat. “I was thinking we could, you know, try to break Charles and Joe’s record. Go for sixty-five years . . .”
Oh, God. “You mean, as best friends?”
Tom nodded. “I know the M-word makes you nervous, but yeah. I’m talking about the big, permanent friendship. A little different from what Joe and Charles had, though. See, I want to be the kind of best friends who make love every night, who share all their darkest secrets and favorite jokes, and maybe even someday make babies together. I know that kind of friendship requires hard work, but you know, I’m pretty good at hard work.”
Kelly laughed. “My God, this is like getting propositioned by Mister Rogers. But then again, you always were a good neighbor. You’re much more like Mister Rogers than, say . . . Satan. Wasn’t that your nickname in town for a few years?”
“So ten thousand people were wrong about me. It happens.” He pulled her with him onto the blankets she’d spread on the plywood floor. “Ten thousand people were wrong about you, too,” he said as he kissed her again. “You’re nowhere near as nice as they all thought. Most of them have absolutely no clue that you can do that amazing thing with your mouth.” He smiled. “But I do.”
Kelly smiled as she looked up at him.
Despite the shadows of the night, she knew he saw her clearly. And in the same way, she saw through all the labels and facades and the pretense to the real man that was Tom Paoletti.
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