Waiting... On You (Force Recon Marines) (42 page)

His brother looked up from his
preoccupation with his coffee and nodded. “I’d like to know what’s going on
between the two of you this time.”

Nick shook his head tiredly. “I’m
really not ready to discuss this now, bro.”

“So you said the other day. But I want
to know, nevertheless. Mom says the two of you have been pretty tight for four
weeks. Are you going to stick around this time? You’ve put your twenty years
in. Do you intend to retire and come home? We’d all like you to, you know.”

Nick met his brother’s eyes solemnly.
“I would prefer not to retire. I’m not ready yet. The Corps is my life. It’s
all I know, and I’ve got a lot of good years left.” He grinned to ease the
tension between them and the disappointment that settled over Lance’s face.
“Hell, I might even make general someday.”

Lance didn’t laugh with him. “I
believe you will, big brother. And I’ll be damn proud of you, too. I’m glad
you’re happy, Nick, although I would have loved to run Sean’s business with
you.”

“Aw, hell, Lance, I’d make a lousy
businessman.”

“I doubt that. But what are you going
to do about Hanna?”

Nick sighed. He’d known he’d have to
tell his brother sooner or later. He hadn’t looked forward to it, knowing how
Lance had always felt about Hanna. “I’ve been thinking about asking her to
marry me.”

“Marry her!” His brother’s eyes
widened in surprise. “And?”

“Take her with me to wherever I’m
stationed next. We might be base hopping for a while. I’ve got a couple of duty
assignments coming up. At least they’re in the U.S.” He didn’t add that they
would be short-lived.

“Christ, Nick! Do you even know where
you’re going next?”

Nick raked one hand through the longer
hair on top of his head. “I’ll be in Virginia, then Florida for eight weeks,
then I’ll be in San Diego for a month. After that...” He
really
didn’t
want to tell Lance about the possibility of returning to the Middle East. Besides
a lot could happen in three months. General Tyler could change his mind about
sending him back there. Peace could settle over the Middle East.

“And after that, what? Back to
Afghanistan?” Lance astutely guessed. “Or maybe now Syria or Iran or Korea or
some other hot spot? You never draw any lengthy stateside deployments, for
christsakes! What do you expect Hanna to do? Sit in God- knows-where while she
waits for you? Worrying about you?”

Nick looked away mutely and scrubbed a
hand over his face. Everything his brother said was true, and he heard the
resentment in Lance’s voice. His family had missed him the past twenty years.
Hell, he had missed them, too. But this was his life. The real question was,
Did
it have to be for the next twenty years?

“Have you asked her to marry you yet?”

“No. Not yet. Hell, she just came out
of her coma.”

“Yeah, and what about her recovery?
You gonna marry her in a hospital bed?”

“Lance....” Nick shot him a look that
said back off, but his brother seemed oblivious to the entreaty.

“And what about her career?” His
brother was building steam, becoming angrier by the moment. “She’s head of ER
here, for crying out loud. That’s a damn prestigious position. And she teaches
at the University Medical School in Seattle. Are you going to ask her to give
all that up for the life of a military wife?”

“They’ve got hospitals and medical
schools in other places in the country. There’s a great one in San Diego, for
christsakes!”

“Maybe, if you end up in San Diego for
more than a month. Then there’s your lifestyle to consider. You lead a
dangerous life— more so than most military men. You’re part of MARSOC; Special
Forces for heaven’s sake!” he stated as if Nick didn’t already know that. “Are
you going to put her through what Mom went through with Dad? You, of all
people, should remember what that was like; how much pain she suffered when he
died; how long it took her to get past it.” Lance sent Nick a hard, accusing
stare. “How can you ask Hanna to live like that, to risk that? Just waiting to
hear if you died on one of your covert missions halfway around the world? Hell,
some of them are so secret, the military probably wouldn’t even tell her how
and where you died.”

Nick knew his brother was correct, but
he also had to ask, “You wouldn’t have an ulterior motive for all this, would
you?”

Lance looked away guiltily. “You know
I care about Hanna. But I’m thinking about her welfare, not my feelings for
her. I don’t want to see her get hurt.”

“Well, hell, I don’t want that either.
I already feel guilty as hell about letting her come along to rescue you and
not being able to keep her safe.”

Lance nodded. “I know you tried to
protect her, and hell, I can’t grumble too much. The two of you risked a lot to
find and rescue me. I can’t thank you enough for that, Nick. I was afraid I was
never going to see my son again.” He was quiet for a long moment, then took a
long drink of his coffee.

“He’s one great kid, Lance. You’ve
done a great job raising him, especially since you’re doing it without his
mother.”

“He’s better off without her,” Lance
replied bitterly. “But Hanna’s helped fill her shoes. Christopher loves her
like a mother.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen that. And now little
Katie needs her. She plays a pretty significant role in those kids’ lives.”

“Both the families are pretty tight,
and now she’s all Colleen has left.” Lance gave him another direct look. “Come
home and be part of it again.”

Nick raked his fingers through his
hair, then rubbed the back of his neck. “I can’t, Lance, not yet anyway.”

“Then leave Hanna here to her life and
her career. What can you give her but long absences and anxious days alone?”

NICK THOUGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING his
brother said to him all that night as he sat by Hanna’s bedside and watched her
sleep. In his heart, he knew Lance was right. He didn’t have anything to give
her, except months at a time of separation and loneliness. She’d be away from
her friends and family. Colleen was eighty-one years old. Now that Dylan was
dead, Hanna was all she had left. Nick knew how much Colleen needed and loved
her granddaughter.

And Hanna would have to start all over
at another hospital if she moved to southern California or anywhere else with
him. She might not get another teaching job. And was it really possible for him
to get safely stationed somewhere stateside like he’d been hoping? Hell, after
hearing from his CO, it didn’t look like it.

The longer he stared at Hanna, the
more he also knew, though, how much it was going to cost him to leave her. He
had come to realize how very much he loved her and needed her. He’d almost died
when she had. They’d gone too far together this time.

When he left her, he wouldn’t be able
to simply resume a close friendship with her. He couldn’t write to her like he
had before. He couldn’t call her, send her gifts. If he was going to do this,
it had to be a total break. He couldn’t come back in the future and expect to
resume anything with her. He had to let her get on with her life. To maybe find
someone else, someone more stable, more reliable.

The thought of her falling in love
with and marrying someone else someday tore him apart. He knew it might even be
his brother. She could end up being his sister-in-law. Heaven help him! He
couldn’t even begin to deal with that possibility! He might never come home
again if he had to watch the two of them together.

It was past midnight when he wearily
lifted himself out of the chair beside her bed. Leaning over her as she slept,
he gave her one last gentle kiss. Afraid his resolve would falter if he stayed
longer, he brought the kiss to a halt before it awakened her, then turned and
walked out of her room, absolutely certain it was the hardest thing he’d ever
done or would do, knowing he’d be dealing with the pain and loss a long, long
time.

CHAPTER
29

“WELL, DOCTOR WALLACE, HOW’S MY
PATIENT TODAY?”

The familiar booming voice brought
Hanna out of a fitful sleep. She’d been dreaming about.... No, she wasn’t going
to make it painfully real by recalling it. She tried to sit up, but it hurt.
She groaned. The surgeon in front of her, holding her chart, immediately
hurried to raise her bed.

“Take it easy, lady, or you’ll rupture
my fantastic stitching job.”

Hanna smiled grimly at Doctor Bill
Hurley. He had been one of her favorite teachers in medical school and a
faithful mentor ever since. He’d helped her get through all the long grueling
hours of residency, and taught with her at the University of Washington Medical
School. He was a brilliant surgeon. He practiced out of Seattle, but she saw
him fairly regularly. Twenty years older than her, he was also a close friend.
He had come over to be part of her trauma team, then had returned twice since
surgery to check on her.

“Why don’t you just give me my chart,
Bill, and let me read my prognosis?”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, God save me!
Doctors make the worst patients. No confidence in anyone but themselves. Think
they know it all,” he grumbled, but it was a good-natured complaint.

Hanna smiled. She couldn’t laugh yet,
for a lot of reasons. “Okay,” she said, throwing up her hands. “Tell me how I
am.”

“Well, to start with, you lost one kidney,
but I suppose you’ve heard that.”

She nodded. “I’ve got a spare,” she
reminded him nonchalantly. What did a kidney matter? It was her heart that was
beyond repair.

“That’s right. Your second kidney will
enlarge itself and take over for the lost one.” He studied her for a moment,
noting her half-hearted interest. “Your renal vein was ruptured, as well as
your upper femoral vein. You lost one hell of a lot of blood, Hanna.” He gave
her a long penetrating look. “You would have died long before you got to a
hospital if it hadn’t been for Colonel Kelly’s quick intervention. He knew
where to stem the blood loss, and getting the Coast Guard’s fastest medevac
helicopter to transport you here made all the difference. You were a long way
from a trauma center.”

“I know.” He’d saved her life, then
killed her soul. “And my shoulder?” She didn’t mean to sound so flippant, but
she hurt— everywhere, damn it!

“The bullet that struck you there
chipped a piece out of your collar bone and tore some muscle, nothing too serious.
You’ll have full movement of your shoulder in a couple of weeks.”

“So when can I go home, then get back
to work?”

The surgeon’s frown disappeared, and
he threw his head back and laughed. “Now that sounds like a normal patient
question!” Clearing his throat, he continued. “Because you lost so much blood
and then that kidney, we need to monitor you for a while. You also need to
regain your strength. Knowing you, if I let you go too early, you’ll be right
back to working twelve hour days. So....” He gave her a long, no-nonsense
stare. “I’m keeping you here another week, then ordering a month’s recuperation
at home. I will not release you to resume work until then, Doctor Wallace. And
I’ve talked to your boss, so don’t try to go around me. You’re too good of a
doctor and teacher to risk losing you. Get well, then resume your life,” he
ordered sternly.

Resume what life? The same old lonely
one she’d had for years? Hard work was all she had left. It was once again the
only cure for Nick and her lost dreams.

As he turned to leave, Doctor Hurley
noticed the huge bouquet of flowers beside her bed. There were flowers all over
her room, in fact. But the ones on the table beside her were spectacular.

“You must have one very ardent
admirer, Doctor,” he noted with a smile as he bent to smell the roses. “About
time someone snatched you up. It wouldn’t happen to be that big good-looking
Marine you grew up with, would it? Colonel Nick Kelly, isn’t it? He looked like
he might strangle me if I didn’t keep you breathing.”

Hanna couldn’t answer him. She let her
head fall back against the pillows and closed her eyes, avoiding a response.
She could barely hold back the tears. Luckily, Bill Hurley left without waiting
for her response. As soon as the door closed behind him, she pulled one of the
long stemmed roses out of its vase and brought it to her nose.

It was among two dozen red and pink
others, placed in a gorgeous cut crystal vase. They were the only thing left of
Nick Kelly. The flowers had been delivered yesterday, the day after he’d left.
The card he’d signed was sweet and final. “
Get Well and Live Well, My
Beautiful Hanna. Love, Nick.
”

She knew what it meant— goodbye.
Whatever else he might have meant wasn’t important. Only the goodbye. Tears
streamed down her cheeks and over the velvety petals of her single red rose.
Well, hell! What did she think had been going to happen? He hadn’t said he
loved her. She’d known all along he wouldn’t put aside his career and return
home to be with her. She might have hoped for more, but he’d never fed those
hopes.

And she had a feeling that she had
lost his friendship, too. Live well sounded so final, she doubted she’d hear
from him again. And it might be a long, long time before she saw him again.
She’d lost it all— the past and the future. The dream of Nick Kelly she had
carried in her heart all her life was over. Her physical wounds hurt every time
she moved, but the wounds to her heart and soul would bleed for a lifetime.

The anguish of it made her recovery
slow and miserable. For the next week, she got up and walked a bit every day,
but never enough to satisfy the nurse on duty. Her strength felt drained,
almost nonexistent. The painkillers she took eased the ache of her body, but
not of her heart.

There were always lots of visitors.
Jessie, Lance, Christine, and Colleen came every day. Once in the while
Christopher and Katie were allowed in for a brief visit. Their bright little
spirits always lifted hers a bit. Except for the fact that Christopher kept
asking when his Uncle Nick was coming home again. The mere mention of his name rekindled
Hanna’s anguish.

Kurt and his wife, Trisha, came to
visit her a couple of times, as well. Since they were unaware that Nick and she
were a thing of the past, they talked about him a lot.

Kurt told her that Nick had called him
from Virginia to check on the Chen case. Thankfully, the FBI agent assumed she
talked to Nick fairly regularly. Hanna wasn’t about to tell him and Trisha it
was over between them, which meant she couldn’t ask them how Nick was doing or
even what exactly he was doing. All she knew was that he had flown to Virginia
for several weeks to conduct some special training, and then he was off to
Florida to do the same.

Kurt also updated her on the status of
the case against Li Chen and his drug cartel. The Canadians were still haggling
over jurisdiction with the United States. As a result, it would be a while
before the man went to trial, but he was out of business and his operation shut
down.

She learned that Sheriff Thomas and
three men with him had been found dead inside a demolished elevator at the
bottom of the shaft at the compound. Phillip Douglas had been arrested and was
being prosecuted for his involvement in the drug ring. The police chief was
working with the prosecuting attorney, so he was being promised some kind of
deal for his cooperation.

Hanna had read the local papers from
her hospital bed. She knew Douglas had told the police that Thomas had killed
Yancy Masters. That had, of course, cleared Nick’s name. And Douglas had stated
publicly that Deputy Sheriff Dylan Wallace had really been killed in the line
of duty. Her brother’s name had been cleared, and he had been belatedly and
publically honored for his bravery. Many of his friends on the force came by to
thank her for that.

There had also been some interest in
her from some media outlets in Seattle. They had plagued her for days about
giving them an interview. To get rid of them, she had finally acquiesced to a couple
of short ones. She told them what had happened to her brother and Nick’s, and a
little bit about some of the ordeal they had gone through to bring Lance home
again. To her dismay, the interview had not only been carried on the local
television stations, but also on the national ones. In typical feminine fashion,
she had worried about her appearance.

In addition to all that, a steady
stream of her colleagues and medical students visited and phoned. Then there
was Doctor Rick Penman. He came every day to see her. Of course, he was at the
hospital, so he always included her on his rounds. Occasionally, even Ashley
Davis stopped in to say hello. She never failed to ask her if she had heard
anything recently from Nick, either. Hanna dreaded her visits because of it.

After a week of all the commotion and
the confinement, Hanna begged Bill Hurley to let her go home to rest and
recuperate. When she promised not to step back inside the hospital for another
month, he released her.

Jessie, Christine, and Lance came to
take her home at the end of a week. As Hanna rode home from the hospital in the
back seat of Jessie’s car, she stared wistfully out the window at the ocean
beyond and contemplated taking her Emerald Mermaid out soon. Maybe she wasn’t
strong enough yet, but she might be in another week, if she got a lot of rest
and started walking around more.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Lance
said from his position next to her.

“I was just thinking about taking the
Emerald Mermaid out before I have to go back to work. I’ve been wanting to sail
her up through the Strait of Georgia, then Johnstone, through Queen Charlotte
Strait, around the northern end of Vancouver Island, and home, down the western
side.”

Lance stared at her like she’d lost
her mind. “You just got out of the hospital. Doctor Hurley will have a heart
attack! That’s a big trip.”

Hanna raised an eyebrow at him. “It’s
been nearly two weeks since my surgery. If I spend another week recuperating, I
think I’ll be well enough to sail. And we don’t need to say anything to Bill
Hurley. He just told me not to go back to work for a month. Sailing will be
good for me.”

From the front seat, Jessie cast a
quick look over her shoulder, then met Christine’s glance. The discussion in
the back seat had caught both of their attention.

Lance angled his body to look at Hanna
more directly. “Fine. I’ll go with you. I’ll sail. You rest— sunbathe on deck.”

She smiled indulgently at him. “That
sounds nice, Lance, but I want to be alone for a while. I’ve had so many
visitors and phone calls. I need to get away by myself. And I need a vacation,
a real one this time.”

“Hanna....”

She saw he didn’t like that. She
reached over and covered his hand with hers, squeezing it. “I’ll be fine,
Lance,” she reassured him. “You did a fine job on that sloop. She sails like a
dream. I’ve never had the slightest trouble taking her out alone. And you have
a business to get caught up on. The guys at the boat shop have definitely
missed you.”

“Yeah, they told me they tried to get
Nick to do a salvage dive.”

Hanna winced. It still happened every
time someone said his name. Jessie astutely came to her rescue.

“He would have, if he’d had the time.
But his priority was finding you,” she told her younger son.

Colleen was on the front porch, in her
favorite chair, rocking Katie to sleep when they drove up. Christopher was
beside her, playing with some big Tonka trucks. Lance helped Hanna out of the
car and up to the porch, grasping her elbow and taking it slow. Christopher got
up to run to his dad. Hanna moved gingerly around him to sit down in the second
rocking chair, next to her grandmother. She was stiff, sore, and tired. Jessie
noted how pale she was and took her grandson’s hand, then turned to her son,
and suggested they all go home. Lance bid Hanna goodbye reluctantly, promising
to come back later.

Colleen watched them go, while
Christine took the baby into the house to change and feed her. “How are you
really feeling, sweetie?” the older woman asked her granddaughter when they
were alone.

Hanna stared at the woman who had
raised her and loved her for twenty eight years. There were two people on this
earth she could never keep any secrets from. One of them was Jessie Price and
the other was her grandmother.

“My body’s healing, Grandma, but my
heart isn’t. I doubt it ever will.” Against her will, tears filled her eyes. “I
loved him so much.”

“Loved?”

She shrugged, acknowledging the older
woman’s perceptiveness. “Love. I’ll always love him, even if he never wants to
see me again.”

“And what makes you so sure Nicholas
never wants to see you again, my little genius?”

Her grandmother hadn’t called her that
since she was a little girl. It coaxed a watery smile out of her. “He left over
a week ago, and he hasn’t called or written since. You read the card on his
flowers.
Get Well and Live Well
pretty much says it all, don’t you
think? It’s a pretty clear goodbye.”

“I don’t think he wanted to go, baby.
I may be old and half blind, but I’d swear on my bible that Nicholas Kelly
loves you. I saw it on his face every time he looked at you. A man in love
can’t hide it any more than a woman can.”