Waiting... On You (Force Recon Marines) (12 page)

Hanna turned to smile at her friend,
and saw Nick, then his trailing shadow, Christopher, come through the back
porch door. Dear lord, she hoped he’d been too far away to hear her comment to
his mother!

“Smells good in here, ladies,’ he
greeted them, grinning and sniffing. “How long before dinner?”

“Half an hour,” his mother supplied. 
“Just waiting on the chicken in the oven. Colleen, Christine, and the baby are
on their way over.”

“Good. Then we have time for your
first self-defense class.” When both women just stared at him with matching
expressions of disbelief and skepticism, he laughed, motioning them outside.
“Since we don’t have pads, let’s go over to the grass.”

Christopher was jumping up and down
with glee, holding Nick’s hand while he kicked this way and that. It was
obvious to Hanna that Nick had already taught his nephew something.

Both women followed reluctantly. “If
you think you’re going to throw me on the ground, son, think again,” Jessie
warned her son.

Colleen and Christine met them on the
lawn. “What’s going on?” Hanna’s grandmother asked.

“Uncle Nick’s gonna do karate with all
us,” Christopher answered excitedly, then gave his version of a side kick,
which backfired and caused him to land on his bottom. Nick reached down
immediately to pull him to his feet, but the ten-year-old was laughing, unfazed
by his fall. He seemed to be the only one who thought this looked like fun. The
women were giving Nick very dubious stares.

He sent Christopher to sit on the
grass a few feet away. “Okay, ladies, I’m going to show you a few simple moves
that you could use to deal with an attacker,” he started. “Christine, give the
baby to Mom, and I’ll start with you.”

Christine stepped up to him without
hesitation.

“Suppose you’re alone at night, on the
street or even in your house, and you’re confronted by someone who is intent on
stealing your purse or worse.”

“That’s why I keep a shotgun in the
house,” Colleen interjected.

“Well, if you get caught by surprise,
then,” Nick relented, giving the grandmother a reproachful look. “If he comes
at you from the front, take the heel of your hand,” he stated as he moved
Christine into position in front of him. “Like this.” He demonstrated by taking
the heel of Christine’s hand and pulling it up under his nose. Then he stepped
back. “Now pretend to hit me like that.” When she did, mimicking his previous
demonstration, without actually hitting him, he grinned in approval. “Let me
tell you, if she had connected, it would have hurt like hell.”

He motioned to his mother. “Mom,
you’re next.”

“You toss me on my backside, and I’ll
disown you.”

“Mom, I wouldn’t do that to an old
lady like you.” He laughed, and she jabbed him in the ribs. “Okay, that might
work, too,” he choked as he moved in front of her. “The other thing you could
do to ward off an attacker from the front is this.” Using his first two
fingers, he opened them and thrust them toward Jessie’s eyes. “Now, you try,”
he urged her. She did, again without actually coming into contact with his
eyes. “If he’s blinded, he can’t come after you, giving you a chance to get
away. Just keep those hands, arms, and fingers stiff.”

“Okay, your turn, Colleen.”

“I don’t know about this, Nicholas.
I’m too old for this martial arts stuff,” she protested, moving to stand in
front of him anyway.

“Not martial arts, Colleen,
self-defense,” he corrected, taking her gently by the elbow. “Even this much
might save your life or your virtue.”

“I’m too old to run, young man,” she
reminded him sternly. “The culprit would catch an old lady like me in no time.”

“Not if you did this.” Nick brought
his knee up. “Use a knee or a foot or even a fist to his groin, and he’ll be
bent over in pain long enough for even an old lady to get away.” He gave her a
wary grin. “Try it— carefully, of course.”

Colleen did. She actually got her knee
up far enough, too, though she didn’t make contact with Nick’s groin. “Now try
the balled fist.” She did, and again she didn’t touch him with it.

Colleen beamed with pleasure, stepped
back, and nodded to Hanna. “Your turn, sweetie.”

Hanna rolled her eyes. She was trying
to hide behind the others, for once hoping Nick would ignore her.

“I wanna try!” Christopher called out,
giving her a reprieve.

“Later, sport,” Nick promised him. “Right
now I need your Auntie Hanna to come out from hiding and give this a shot.”

“No fair, Uncle Nick!”

He smiled patiently at his nephew. “I
promise I’ll teach you some more moves later.”

Christopher wasn’t too happy about it,
but nodded okay. Nick ruffled his hair, then reached behind Colleen to catch
Hanna by the wrist. “Come on, Doctor. Your turn.”

With extreme reluctance, she stepped
to the spot on the grass where he directed her.

“Okay, it’s possible your attacker
could come up to you from behind. If that happens, I’ll show you how to flip
the guy on his back using his own momentum. I wouldn’t recommend this to you,
though, Colleen.” Nick moved behind Hanna. “If someone comes up and grabs you
from the back, immediately drop to one knee and use the momentum of his body to
throw him over your shoulder. Try it on me for real, Hanna.” She shot him a
skeptical look over her shoulder. “Go on,” he encouraged her. “It’s okay. I
know how to roll with it.”

She was thinking it would be amazing
if it worked since he outweighed her by well over a hundred pounds. But she did
as he’d instructed, dropping to one knee, then reaching back with a hand to
grab his forearm and throw him over her shoulder.

Dropping her center of gravity threw
him off balance enough that she was actually able to use his momentum to get
him over her shoulder. He rolled, then landed on the grass, in front of her,
with a loud thud.

Hanna was amazed, then horrified. He
lay on his back, his eyes closed, looking like she’d knocked the wind out of him.
With a little cry of dismay, she immediately crawled over to kneel at his side.
His eyes snapped open. Cursing, he grabbed her by the shoulders and rolled her
under him, pinning her to the ground with his big hard body.

“You never try to help the attacker,
Doctor!” he growled at her, rising onto his hands and knees above her, but
still so close that she could see the dark stubble of beard emerging as a five
o’clock shadow along his jaw. His gray eyes were fiercely narrowed on her. “You
knock the guy on his ass, then run like hell! Okay?” His unrelenting expression
demanded her response.

“Okay.”

After her initial shock, Hanna was
mortified, especially when she saw everyone intently watching the two of them.

Nick finally smiled at her, pushed to
his feet, then reached a hand down to pull her to hers. She pretended to dust
grass off her bottom while her face cooled.

Jessie shooed everyone into the house,
mumbling something about dinner being almost ready. Christopher followed the
women reluctantly, still grumbling about not getting a turn.

Not daring to look up, Hanna started
for the back door.

Nick caught her hand in his. “I’m
sorry I embarrassed you in front of everyone,” he murmured softly, giving her a
slow half grin when she finally looked up at him. “But you can’t always be
compassionate and concerned with everyone, Hanna.”

For a heartbeat too long, she stared
into his thickly lashed eyes. Being this close to him, having him look at her
in such a tender way was way too dangerous. When he released her, his hand rose
to caress her flushed cheek. It took all of her willpower not to turn her lips
into his calloused palm and kiss it. She thought of it, envisioned it, even
felt it, then stepped away before her resistance failed her.

Dizzy from the effort and the moment,
she faltered a little as she took a step toward the house. Nick hooked his arm
around her waist and gave her a quick squeeze as he bent to whisper, “You
should have done it, Doctor.”

CHAPTER 9

“HANNA SHOULD BE DOWN IN A FEW
MINUTES.” Colleen McHenry eyed the man coming in through the back door of her
kitchen. “So, how’s it going Colonel? Getting anywhere with your
investigation?”

“I am, but it’s slow— a piece here,
one there— like putting together a puzzle. Investigations are always like that,
some more complicated than others.”

“And this one? Is it complicated?”
Colleen got up from the table to pour a cup of coffee for her early morning
guest.

“In the beginning, they are all, but I
have a feeling this one is going to get straight forward pretty soon.”

Hanna’s grandmother sat back down and passed
the cream and sugar to Nick. “Why is that?”

“Because things are beginning to line
up.” He laughed at Colleen’s confused frown. “I know I sound oblique, but
that’s because all I have are hunches right now. We’ll see where they lead.”

Colleen grinned at him. “And my
granddaughter? How are things going between you two?”

Nick chuckled. “Better today than
yesterday.” He and Hanna had planned to take the Zodiac down the coastline to
Discovery Cove today to talk to Nat Simms and some of his neighbors, then they
were going to dive parts of Discovery Bay.

“She didn’t take well to your date
with Ashley Davis, I imagine.”

“I never could hide a thing from you,
Colleen.”

“Hanna’s just protecting her heart, Nicholas.”

“She is, huh?”

“She may have the IQ of a genius, but
she has an amazingly fragile side to her.”

“She’s always been shy and
self-conscious.”

Colleen nodded. “She also has this
very crazy notion that she’s not pretty, just ordinary.” Nick raised an amazed
eyebrow. “Silly, isn’t it?”

“Extremely.”

“Guess we’ll have to help her get over
that nonsense, won’t we?”

“Absolutely.”

They were both laughing when Hanna
came into the kitchen. “What’s so funny, you two?”

Colleen smiled at her granddaughter tenderly.
“Just a little private humor.” She looked Hanna over with a close eye. “Where
are your glasses? Did you forget them again? And how did you get down the
stairway without them?” Everyone knew that without her eye glasses, Hanna
couldn’t see a foot in front of her.

She took a couple of sips of her
grandmother’s coffee, and grabbed half a piece of toast off of a plate set in
the middle of the table, then spread a little marmalade on it. “When I dive, I
wear my contacts.”

“What if you lose them?”

“They usually don’t come out when I’m
diving. Maybe it’s the pressure.”

Colleen looked to Nick. “You better
keep an eye out for her, Nicholas. She’s blind without her glasses, you know.”

“Grandma!”

Nick laughed. “I plan to keep a close
eye on her. Did you bring your eyeglasses, just in case?” he asked Hanna.

“Yes, I did.” She patted her beach
bag. “And an extra towel for you because you always forgot yours.”

“Well, you look very lovely this
morning, dear,” Colleen complimented her.

“Grandma,” she chided her. “Shorts and
an old ratty sweatshirt do not add up to very lovely.”

“They do in my book,” Nick corrected
her. “Especially on a woman with such good looking legs.”

Hanna blushed to the newly highlighted
roots of her uncurled hair. “Okay, you two, quit this,” she chastised them.
“Are you ready to go, Colonel?”

He nodded and rose from his chair.
“Thanks for the coffee and the conversation, Colleen.”

“See you this afternoon, Grandma.”

Colleen waved them off. “Have fun.
Don’t be too good.”

Outside Hanna stopped to look at Nick,
who was chuckling to himself. “What’s with Grandma this morning?”

“She’s probably glad to see you do
something besides work.”

“It is nice to have some time off. I
know I work too hard. I really need to take more time to relax before I wear myself
out.”

“It’s hard when you’re dedicated to
the job.”

They were walking towards Jessie’s
house. “You should know.”

“I do. After twenty years of rigorous
training cycles and deployments, I need to back off a little, too. I’m ready to
change my life patterns some. How about you?”

“I’d like to. I know we’ve got work to
do, but I’m looking forward to doing some diving and sailing while we’re at
it.”

They stopped in front of the two-story
Craftsman-style house that Nick had come to live in as a boy. “Other than
relaxing and enjoying life more, what kind of changes have you thought about
making in your life?” he asked.

She studied him curiously. He was
trying to get at something, but she wasn’t sure what. “I don’t know. It would
have to depend on circumstances, I guess.”

“What kind of circumstances?” he
persisted.

“I’m not sure.”

“Someone special?”

She laughed, staring at him,
bewildered. “What are you getting at, Nick? First, my grandmother. Now you.
What was in that coffee?”

He ran a hand through his hair and shrugged.
“I don’t know. Forget it.”

“Okay.” She headed toward her car,
which was parked in Jessie’s driveway because Nick was still tinkering with it.
“I need to get my wet suit and diving gear out of my trunk. I left it there after
the last time I went diving.”

From the pocket of her white shorts,
she pulled out her car keys and opened the trunk, then began extracting her wet
suit, fins, diving mask, and air tank.

Nick put his hand over hers to stop
her from dragging out her tank of compressed air. “You won’t need that. I have
a new model you might like to try.” His hand moved to a battered, partially
rusted, fishing rod tube lying in her trunk, next to her tank. “What’s this?”
he asked, picking it up to examine it.

“I don’t know. After Lance
disappeared, I went diving near Discovery Junction. I found this next to the
crab pots Nat Simms claimed had been tampered with. Some fisherman probably
lost it while he was out there. I haven’t even tried to open it, but it feels
empty.”

Nick fiddled with the lids at either
end of the tube. They were too rusted to unscrew easily, but he finally got one
off. He turned the tube to the sunlight so he could see inside better. His
brows drew together in a frown.

“What’s wrong? Something bothering
you?”

“Maybe. We’ll see. I’m going to put
this in the house. Be back in a minute.”

While she waited for him, Hanna moved
to Jessie’s wide covered porch, where she sat down on the top step. Tipping her
head back, she closed her eyes and soaked up the warm rays of the morning sun.
The salt-scented breeze coming off the ocean swept over her upturned face like
a lover’s caress, and she smiled.

It was the way Nick found her when he
returned. The picture she presented was too lovely to ignore. Quietly, he
watched her for a few stolen moments. When she finally opened her eyes, he
chuckled. “I caught you with that secret smile again.”

The next smile she gave him made his
heart skip several beats. Picking up her diving gear, they walked back to
Colleen’s, then down to the beach, past the wind-swept grasses, over the rocky
outcroppings, and around the shallow tide pools, to the long wooden pier
Hanna’s grandfather had built before she and Dylan had come to live with them.
It extended into a small cove that was partially protected by a narrow spit. A
big black rubber boat gently bobbed at the pier. It was the Zodiac Nick had
requisitioned for them to use for a week or so.

Hanna tossed her beach bag and scuba
gear inside. He took her by the elbow and helped her step up over the high
inflated side, then hopped in after her and untied the ropes from the pier’s
cleats.

“This is a lot larger than Lance’s
rubber dinghy,” she observed as she sat on the floor of the boat and drew her
legs up to her chest to wrap her arms around them.

“It has to carry seven men and their
gear,” Nick informed her as he started the motor.

There was an enclosed compartment in
the middle of the boat that could hold gear. It was where Nick indicated he had
stowed his gear. The lid was closed to keep everything inside dry.

They were following the coastal curve
of the western side of Quimper Peninsula. In a slower rubber boat, like
Lance’s, it would have taken them thirty or forty minutes to get to the end of
the bay. In Nick’s faster, rigid-hulled model, it looked like they were going
to get there in half the time.

Stretching out her legs, Hanna watched
Nick with quiet pleasure. His long legs were planted wide to stabilize himself
over the choppy water, while his darkly tanned, long-fingered hands were curled
firmly around the big steering wheel. The breeze ruffled his hair, and the sun
brought out the lighter colorations in it. He was wearing dark sunglasses, too,
so she couldn’t see his eyes, although they appeared steadfastly focused on the
watery path ahead of them. He looked so completely in command, so in control of
his task.

 “It’s such a beautiful day, we should
have packed a picnic lunch,” she commented, as she raised her arms in a
leisurely stretch over her head.

Nick looked toward her and smiled. “I
did. Mom made chicken salad sandwiches.”

“Oh, God love Jessie! They’re my
favorite, and she makes the best.”

He chuckled. “And here I thought Mom
made them because I liked them.” Something caught his eye in the distance. “We
need to make a trip over to Shelter Island tomorrow or the next day. Maybe we
can take another picnic lunch and have a look around.”

“Why do you want to go there? Most of
it’s a bird and wildlife sanctuary.”

“I understand Yancy Masters bought the
old caretaker’s place out there and renovated it. I’m surprised the state let
him buy it. Usually, when the owner of a piece of property on state or federal
parkland dies, the deed goes back to the agency. Where does a bar owner get
that kind of influence and pull?”

“You’re right. It does seem strange
that he was allowed to buy the place as a private residence. Why would he even
want to live in such a remote location? Maybe he bribed some public official to
get permission to buy the place. He has his own security staff to keep boaters
and tourists off his end of the island, and they’re definitely not pleasant to
trespassers. A year ago, there was a tourist who was shot when he went to look
at the house, thinking it was part of the preserve. I removed the bullet from
his shoulder in ER. Yancy came by the hospital, talked to the guy, and promised
to fire the overzealous security guard, so no charges were filed. Personally, I
think he must have paid the man off so he wouldn’t make a fuss.”

“Really?”

Hanna removed her glasses and gave
Nick a thoroughly wicked smile. “See. You didn’t have to pump Ashley Davis for
information. I hear a lot of gossip, too.”

“So, does that mean I can pump....”

Laughing, she held up a hand. “Don’t
go there, Nick Kelly! I don’t want to hear any of your raunchy come backs.”

“Aw, you’re no fun, Doctor Wallace!”

AFTER THEY DOCKED AT NAT SIMMS rickety
wooden pier, they followed the dirt path to his singlewide mobile home. There
were half dozen of his elderly neighbors sitting outside in a cluster of
mismatched patio chairs on his redwood deck.

Hanna knew most of them. She saw them
at the hospital, and a few were friends of her grandmother’s. They greeted her
first. Nat then introduced Nick, using his new military rank. Being an
ex-Marine, he proceeded to tell his neighbors that Nick’s father had been a
decorated Marine hero during the Vietnam War. He also told them that Nick had
grown up in Port George, and had a distinguished military career himself.

Nick took the accolades in quiet
humility, but Hanna could tell he felt uncomfortable being ranked as a hero of
his father’s caliber. She knew he had been awarded a few medals of his own for
his bravery and service over his twenty year career, but he never bragged about
them; never even referred to them, unless asked.

When they were seated, Nat offered
them coffee and donuts. Hanna accepted the coffee, while Nick took both coffee
and donuts. It made her smile because it reminded her he’d always had a sweet
tooth.

For the next hour, Nat and his
neighbors told the two of them why they had made all those complaints to the
sheriff’s office. Their crab pots in Discovery Cove and beyond were being
tampered with on a regular basis. For the most part, even tourists respected
the fishing pots as off limits. The pots were left continually in the water,
periodically checked to see how many of the local specialty, the Dungeness
crab, had been trapped.

Normally, the catch was excellent this
time of the year. Lately, it had been almost non-existent. There were a lot of
small inlets and coves at the lower end of Discovery Bay, and most of the
residents in the region who had some kind of boat placed traps for personal
use. Nat was convinced that someone was poaching. And there had been a lot of unusual
late night marine traffic the past few months. Whenever the sheriff had been
called, his deputies had never arrived until the next day. Dylan had been the
only one who had attempted night surveillance, but nothing had ever come of it.