Troubleshooters - Into The Night Part 60

The doorbell rang again and again and again. Whoever was out there was really leaning on it.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming! Hold on!" he shouted as he headed down the hall, combing his hair out of his face with his fingers.

It made sense that Mary Lou would escape and visit her sister now, when Sam had told her they had to sit down and talk. No doubt she hoped that that impending conversation would be forgotten while she was away.

He opened the front door to find a man standing out there who was broader, taller, and blacker than Jazz Jacquette. He was an enormous man with hands like boxing gloves and a gold front tooth.

"Lieutenant Roger Starrett?" he asked.

"Yeah," Sam said, scratching the stubble on his chin.

The man opened the screen and slapped an envelope into his hands. "You've been served."

"Served?" s.h.i.+t. "Hey!" Sam caught the screen door before it bounced and went outside, but the man was already halfway to his car. "What's this about?"

He didn't even turn around. "Not my business, man."

As he got into his car and pulled away, Sam opened the envelope and...

Holy f.u.c.k. Mary Lou had filed for divorce.

He read the d.a.m.n thing again. Yes, she most certainly had.

He sat down, right on his front steps, even more exhausted than he'd felt last night. It was the strangest thing. This was what he wanted for monthsa"for nearly two yearsa" wasn't it? So why wasn't he dancing? Why wasn't he doing handstands?

Because of that note on the kitchen table.

Because Mary Lou had moveda"that was no short visita" to f.u.c.king Florida.

And Sam was going to be lucky if he saw his daughter once a year.

And he also wasn't dancing because all those last foolish hopes he'd had of being single again and calling Alyssa had been snuffed out when he'd gone to her room and come face-to-face with Max Bhagat.

Sam went inside the house and closed the door. These days even when he won, he lost.

Joan didn't wake up until late in the morning.

Mike was still sleeping, and she lay there for a long time watching the colors and lights from the sun on the ocean play across his face.

"What am I going to do with you?" she whispered.

It was barely loud enough for her to hear, yet he opened his eyes.

Just like that he was awake. One minute, sleeping, the next, alert.

"Are you a morning person?" she asked warily.

His smile was pure sin. "I'm an any time of the day person."

Joan laughed. "That's not what I meant."

He pulled her closer, nuzzling her throat. "Yeah, but it's what I meant."

She kissed him, then pulled back to look searchingly into his eyes. "Are you really all right?"

He released her, lying back on the bed with his hands up underneath his head. "Okay," he said. "Let's have this conversation."

What was he talking about? "Which conversation?"

He sighed. "The one where you tell me that you saw me eliminate that target yesterday."

"Eliminate that target," she repeated. "Yeah, Mike. I did see that."

"And here I am," he said. "No different than I was before. And you don't really understand how that could be, right?"

She sat up, cross-legged. "There's a lot I don't know or understand about you. I'm looking forward to finding out all the little details, but..."

"But... ?" He was watching her with such tenderness in his eyes.

"You told me it was okay to cry," she said. "I just want to make sure that you know those same rules apply to you. I'm here if you need me. Whenever you need me."

His eyes got even softer. "Thank you, baby," he said. "I do know that."

Joan nodded. "Good." Next tough topic. "How are we going to deal with a bicoastal marriage?" she asked. "I mean, how are we really going to make this work?"

"Your grandparents did okay," Mike pointed out. "And they didn't even get to see each other for over a year."

"They were fighting a war," Joan said.

"So are we," he said quietly.

She looked at him and didn't try to hide what she was feeling. She knew he could see fear in her eyes. "I'm afraid that you're going to die."

Mike nodded. "I'm afraid that you're going to die, too," he said. "There's lots of danger in this world. Do you know it's safer to be a SEAL than it is to ride in a car on a highway? More people die each day in traffic accidents than the entire list of SEAL casualties starting with Vietnam."

She had to smile. "Did you, like, look that information up on the Internet because you knew I'd freak out about this?"

"Actually, I was guessing," he said. "But it's got to be true. The number of SEALs who have died in combat and in training combined is very small. We're hard to kill, Joan."

She traced the edge of his bandage with her ringer. "I know for a fact that you're not bulletproof."

"No," he said. "We're not. We're just really good."

"So how do we deal with this marriage thing? And don't say phone s.e.x."

"I know you like things to be planned out," Mike told her, "but yesterday was a cla.s.sic example of the way we're trained to think on our feet. I think we'll be able to do the same with our marriage. If it's working, keep doing it; if it doesn't, we stop and do something else." He reached for her, pulling her on top of him. "And the first thing we should do is make love as often as possible whenever we're together."

She laughed. "I'm serious."

He kissed her. "So am I. We can have all of our conversations on the telephone, so that when we're finally together we don't have to talka"we can just make love nonstop."

She smiled. "Yeah, like I could ever shut you up. You talk more during s.e.x than any other man in the entire world."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"That's ... a new one for me. Am I... Is it obnoxious?" He was actually worried.

Joan had to laugh. "Well, gee, let me think. You tell me how much you love me. You tell me how hot you think I am. You tell me how badly you want me. You ask me to marry you... Nah, it's not obnoxious."

He kissed her again, and she reached for a condom.

"Kind of puts a whole new spin on, 'Baby, we need to talk,' " she said as she handed it to him.

The smile Michael gave her was worth at least a thousand words.

~~ The End ~~

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Kathy Lague, G.o.ddess of Knowledge, for emergency research help. Your a.s.sistance was hugely appreciated.

Thanks to my first draft readers: Deede Bergeron, Lee Brockmann, Patricia MacMahon, and Joan Kuhlman, all of whom bravely volunteered to throw themselves on the first draft of this book and read it (sometimes even twice!) from beginning to end in a very short amount of time.

Warmest thanks to my editor, Shauna Summers, and to my agents, Steve Axelrod and Damans Rowland. Without you, this book would not have been possible.

And thanks, of course, always and forever, to Ed, who gets to live through and clean up after the birth of each book. I love you!

Any mistakes I've made or liberties I've taken are completely my own.