At the Brink (36 page)

I realized that Josh had tackled me with the same zeal he’d used to heal himself. That’s because he was still healing and, for a brief moment in time, I’d been part of that process. He’d cared for me from the very beginning, showing his affection in the only way he knew, passionately, single-mindedly, compulsively, with sex and gifts, because he didn’t know how to do it any other way. I’d missed the weakness in his strength and the care in his compulsion.

I hadn’t been able to recognize his caring because I’d come of age believing that affection between two people was improbable and dangerous. Moreover, I hadn’t recognized the depth of his affection, because I didn’t feel worthy of anyone’s love, let alone someone as brilliant and successful as Josh Lane.

My eyes fell on a pair of crutches neatly stored in the wardrobe. These had provided the only assistance he would accept, and only in the privacy of his sanctuary, where no one could see him struggle. I envied the crutches, because they’d been the support that Josh needed, whereas I’d just pushed him away.

“Miss Lily?” Amman stood by the door.

“Amman,” I said. “I think I’ve known it all along but I had to get answers for myself, confirmation, you know?”

“I know, Miss Lily.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“Riker has the house under surveillance,” Amman said. “He dispatched me as soon as he realized it was you.”

“I guess he wants me to leave?”

“No, Miss Lily, you can stay as long as you like. When you’re done, I’ll take you home.”

I don’t know why, but their generosity brought tears to my eyes.

“I guess I’ve found the answer I came looking for.” I got up slowly from the floor. “I just wished he could have told me himself.”

“He would have, Miss Lily.” Amman helped me up. “If he’d been able to.”

I steadied myself against him. My fingers tripped on the dog tags hidden beneath his shirt. I held on to his hand and, for the first time ever, noticed that although it looked exactly like a hand, it was cold and stiff. I looked into Amman’s eyes. Like Josh, he too had lost a part of himself while serving our country.

“You were always one of his.” I hugged him, dampening his shirt with my tears. “Thank you. For standing by him. For serving our country. I’m sorry.” I hiccupped. “I’m a little emotional these days.”

“Come on, Miss Lily.” Amman offered me his arm for support. “Let’s take you home.”

“No, not home,” I said. “We’re going for a drive.”

* * *

Thursday night was crowded at the bowling alley in Conway, New Hampshire. The General sat on a podium monitoring the games under his jurisdiction like God watching over his angels.

“I’ll be right back,” I said to Amman at the door, praying for courage.

I walked up to The General’s podium. It was a full thirty seconds before he deigned to look up from his tally sheets. At that point, he did a double take.

“Boswell?” he said. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I came to see you.” I sat on the empty chair next to his. “We need to talk.”

“Talk my ass,” the man said. “What are we supposed to talk about?”

“Amman, Riker, Mac, Baez, they’re Josh’s friends. They’re too loyal and I won’t ask them to break Josh’s trust.”

He fixed his eyes on my face. “What makes you think I’ll talk?”

“I might not be the one for your son.” I spoke over the rumble of the bowling balls and the strike of the pins. “But someone has to try and break through or he’ll never have a chance, and I’ve got zero prospects without your help.”

The General stared at his pencil. “Are you sure this is the only way, Boswell?”

“Sure as shit, sir.”

He let out a long breath. “What do you need to know?”

“What happened?” I said.

“The details are classified, you understand, but unofficially, I found out a few things. Word is that during the war, Josh’s team identified, tracked and neutralized more terrorists than any other team in the SEAL’s history.”

“Is that what they were doing when it happened?”

The General nodded. “They were in Afghanistan, Helmand province, where terrorists finance their dirty work with opium trafficking. The mission was almost complete, but one of the fuckers managed to detonate a grenade inside a walled compound loaded with explosives. The hellhole went up like fireworks on the Fourth of July. Josh saved most of his guys, including Elton Chavez. Petty Officer Santos and Lieutenant Junior Grade Roberts were killed. And Josh—well—he was hit pretty bad, blown to pieces. He was in a coma for thirty-seven days.”

Holy Mother.

“But he survived,” The General said. “When he came to, he was a doctor’s wet dream. He’d suffered a traumatic brain injury, a bruised heart, a collapsed lung and a shattered kidney. He lost a chunk of his liver in addition to his foot and part of his leg. He spent a month in the intensive care unit and then three months in the hospital. He was unrecognizable. And boy, he was pissed, angry and bitter at having lost two of his men.”

I could only begin to imagine what it must have been like for Josh. His injuries explained a lot, including why he didn’t drink alcohol. “How did he get better?”

“The first few months were hell,” The General said. “He was just too angry to heal, not sure if he wanted to live or not. He was fucked up, Boswell. I won’t lie to you. Seizures, nightmares, flashbacks, I thought the kid’s brain was fried. He couldn’t even take a piss by himself. He was the kind of sight that could kill a parent. It almost did Evelyn in.”

“What did you do?”

“We brought him home, and we dealt with him as best we could. I think the idea of being a cripple terrified him. The medications didn’t help. They made him crazy, or groggy, or both. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did.”

“What happened?”

“Gloria Renez quit on him.”

“You mean his fiancée?”

“First she went missing in action, no visits, no calls, nothing. Then she called off the engagement. She found herself another SEAL, a whole one, she told Josh.”

Talk about a bruised heart. She had blown Josh to pieces all over again. The breakup would’ve been another hit to a man who was down, grieving and broken. The anger coursing through me took me by surprise. I had a dark impulse to look up Gloria Renez and give her a piece of my mind.

“Don’t judge her too harshly,” The General said. “She’d signed up for a different kind of life. And Josh was a mess, no doubt about it. Who knows what you would have done in her place?”

“The right thing, I hope.”

“The right thing for whom?” He tapped his pencil on the table. “It’s an awful business when you have to choose between your life and someone else’s.”

“At least she had a choice,” I said. “Josh had none.”

I realized that’s why he’d been so compulsive about knowing my whereabouts. It was also why he got mad at me when I didn’t answer the phone, why he hated when I disappeared from his radar, and why he had been so mad about me trying to run away. Gloria Renez had left him when he needed her most, and beneath the bluster, he was afraid of being abandoned again.

I couldn’t blame him and yet the irony wasn’t lost on me. Gloria had left him when he was sick. In turn, he’d left me. I had to set my anger aside and remind myself it wasn’t nearly the same thing. He’d left after I got better. As to his motives, well, I was still trying to work that out.

“What happened after she left?” I asked.

“He spiraled down, physically and emotionally,” The General said. “Then one day, when he was beyond rock bottom, he disappeared. We were afraid he’d swallowed a bullet. Next I know he calls his mother. He’s down in the Virgin Islands living like a castaway, building a house.”

“The cove?”

“The cove,” The General said. “He healed himself through work, a whole year of hard, physical labor. He wouldn’t let his injuries slow him down. He built Lieutenant Junior Grade Robert’s mother a house too.”

“Is her name Rosa?”

“That’s her,” The General said. “Josh also takes care of Santos’s wife and children, not an easy feat since he had five.”

“Is one of them called Monique?”

“Monique, yes, I think so.”

I had been jealous of a child.

“Before Helmand province,” The General said, “Josh didn’t give a shit about money. But after he lost his men and got injured, he decided that he needed a lot of money to be able to take care of his people.”

My God. “What did he do?”

“He’d been competitive before, but now he pushed himself even harder. He had to be the fittest, the toughest, the smartest. He re-learned to walk alone on the island. Then he started running, taking on marathon distances, even if it hurt like hell. When the best prostheses in the world didn’t give him the gait, speed and endurance he wanted, he designed and manufactured his own. He started his own company, which today outfits vets with cutting edge mobility technology.”

“Dynamics in Motion.” I remembered the schematics I’d spotted on his computer. “It’s such an inspirational story. Why doesn’t he want anyone else to know?”

The General stared me in the eye. “What do you think?”

Because he was an extraordinary man who’d overcome the odds to live beyond the point where he felt he should have died. Because talking about his losses could destroy him. Because he could suffer war, pain, guilt, regret and everything else, but pity he couldn’t stand.

I finally understood why he’d left me.

“Do you have your answers, Boswell?” The General said. “’Cause I’ve got a tournament to run.”

“One more thing,” I said. “Just a tiny detail. How did he end up heading Phoenix Prime?”

“Oh, that,” he said. “Phoenix Prime was a natural fit for Josh. From the beginning, the company accepted investments from qualified investors only.”

“You mean from rich people?”

“No, I mean from one kind of people only. Military members and their families.”

Wow.

“They fight hard for our freedom and yet their pay doesn’t even begin to cover their sacrifices. We had a solid base, but when Josh took over, he punched it up a few notches.”

“How so?”

“He saw the opportunity to secure the lives and wealth of his guys and he took it. He studied the market, learned the ins and outs of the investment cycles, and refashioned himself into a world class executive. He reinvented himself and learned everything there was to learn about the rich and the wealthy. He launched a major offensive, dressing in the finest designer suits, driving fast cars, expanding his network, frequenting clubs, parties, restaurants in a strategic bid to position Phoenix Prime at the head of the pack.”

“But it would have taken more than a pretty face and a silk suit to achieve success in such a competitive field,” I pointed out.

“You’re right, Boswell. Josh is a strategic master. He understands money. The kid runs his deals like he used to plan and execute his missions. He has a knack for converting cutting-edge, conceptual technology into moneymaking, practical applications. Above all, he’s a hard worker.”

“He works harder than anyone else I know.”

“Riker, Amman, Baez, Mac, the rest of his team, they were all part of Josh’s original core investors,” The General said. “They were his trial run. Josh made them a lot of money, even before I turned Phoenix Prime over to him. Those guys don’t need to work, but they stick with Josh no matter what.”

My God. “I didn’t know any of that.”

“There’s a lot more to Josh than meets the eye,” The General said. “Look, I’m his father. I know he’s not always easy to live with. But however odd, he always has good reason to do whatever he ends up doing.”

I thought about that. We’d gotten together in the wrong way and under a faulty pretext but for the all the right reasons.

Back to The General. “So you brought Josh into Phoenix Prime after he got better?”

“It was time for me to retire.”

“Good timing, don’t you think? Kind of coincidental?”

He gave me a glance askance. “I suppose some might think so.”

“Well, I don’t really believe in coincidences,” I said. “Thank you, General.”

“For what?”

“For giving Josh his life back, for putting your company in his hands when he needed something to build.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” The General said.

“There’s a lot more to you than meets the eye as well,” I said. “You stepped aside so that Josh could thrive. You weren’t ready to go, but you did, not because you were looking forward to growing roses and running bowling tournaments, but because you loved your son.”

“Bullshit,” The General said. “I could have stayed on if I wanted.”

“Two bulls running the china shop?” I shook my head. “You’re far too smart for that. And you know what? You were right, General. Work is good for a man. It helped Josh.” The General startled when I planted a kiss on his cheek. “Thanks for being such an awesome father.”

I was well on my way toward the door when The General called after me. “Boswell?”

I turned around. “Sir?”

“Maybe I was wrong.”

I frowned. “Wrong about what?”

“Your hips,” he said. “They might not be so narrow after all.”

* * *

Riker jumped out of his seat when I marched into his office with Amman at my heels. “Miss Lily?” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“I heard you were working late.”

Riker glared at Amman.

Amman shrugged. “I told her coming here wasn’t such a hot idea, but she insisted.”

“Do you remember when you came to see me at my place?” I said. “You asked me if I had the chance, would I go after Josh.”

“I remember,” Riker said. “You didn’t seem very sure then.”

“Well, I’m sure now,” I said, “and I need to ask you a favor.”

Riker eyed me suspiciously. “What kind of a favor?”

“I need to enlist your support for a very important mission.”

He frowned. “Whose mission?”

“My mission,” I said. “All I need from you is a phone call.”

Riker scratched his head. “A phone call?”

“A phone call.”

“What’s the purpose of this mission of yours?”

“To rescue Josh from himself.”