Mended Hearts (New Beginnings Series) (2 page)

He blinked at the screen. This was a new one. What kind of huge favor could Sonny do for him from all the way across the country? He noticed the email had been sent late last night. He looked at the clock and calculated the time difference. It was the middle of the afternoon in Atlanta. Hoping Mathias wasn’t in some kind of high
-powered executive meeting, Sonny dialed his number.

Mathias picked up on the second ring. “Hey!
Luca! You must be home, huh?”

“Yeah . . . shouldn’t be, but here I am,” he replied

“What do you mean ‘shouldn’t be’?”

“The team’s deployed, but I was injured, so they shipped me back for treatment.”

“Oh my G . . . Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Nothing to worry about.”

“Are you in the hospital?”

“No, they released me almost a week ago. It’s just going to be a long recovery time. It’s really no big deal.” He was starting to get embarrassed by the fuss.

“What’s going on, Matty?” Sonny asked, calling him by his childhood nickname.

“Don’t worry about it, Luca. You’ve got your own set of problems to deal with.
I’ll figure something else out.”

Sonny chuckled. “You can’t leave me hanging like this. You have to tell me about this favor. If I’m not physically able to do it, I’ll let you know.”

“Well . . . It’s about my little sister, Gracie. Do you remember her?”

Sonny had a vague
memory of a scrawny little girl with huge brown eyes and dark hair. It seemed like she was four or five years younger than him and Mathias, so he didn’t remember ever really interacting with her. He had an odd recollection of her always humming. She’d walk around humming or singing under her breath all the time, but he couldn’t remember her really saying anything. And one summer it seemed she always had a harmonica with her. Weird the things you remember from childhood and the impressions you got from people.

“Sort of, I guess,” Sonny answered.

“Well . . . without really getting into a lot of details . . . she’s been through a rough couple of years. I mean
really
rough. The family has kind of closed ranks around her. Maybe we’ve been too protective—I don’t know . . .” Mathias kind of trailed off as if deep in thought. “Anyway, she’s moved to San Diego. She’d been living near Mom and Dad, but it was getting to her. I tried to get her to move out here, but she said I would just smother her too.”

“Okay . . .” Sonny was starting to get a picture of where this was going.

“She has an old friend from San Francisco—Colby something-or-other—who plays in a bar band in San Diego. He called her to ask if she’d be interested in singing lead for them. They lost their lead singer.”

“Uh huh . . .”

“Needless to say, she took the gig. We couldn’t convince her not to. It’s not that we don’t support her music—she’s really great—it’s just that we don’t like the idea of her being so far from anyone in the family right now. And the fact that she’ll be playing in some bar four nights a week . . . with all those military guys hanging around her . . .” He quickly added, “No offense!”

Sonny laughed. “None taken.”

“I’m really referring to the Marines,” Mathias joked.

“Yeah, right. I know
,” he said drily.

“Anyway . . . We just wondered if you would mind going into the bar and checking in on her periodically. Make sure she seems okay and that she knows she has someone
local to call on if she needed anything.” He took a breath. “But, it’s a bad time for you and I completely understand that. We’ll just have to keep in close contact with Colby. He knows what’s up with her and I’m sure he’d let us know if she needs us.”

“I can go in and see what’s up. I’m hobbling on crutches, but I
am
ambulatory.”

“No, really, Luca. Don’t
worry about it. I can get a few days off in a couple of weeks too, and come out to see the lay of the land. I’d like to see you too, while I’m there.”

“That would be great, but I’ll still go in and check on her. It’ll give me something to think about instead of sitting here feeling sorry for myself and wishing I
were back on the job with the team. I’ll consider it a mission,” he chuckled.

“Really? It’s not too much to ask?”

“It
is
a lot to ask. I mean . . . you expect me to go hang out in a bar and listen to good music. You’re going to owe me big.”

“It’s a lot more than that, and we both know it.”

Sonny got down to business. “Okay . . . what’s the game plan? Do I go in and let her know you called me? Or do I play it off like it’s a chance meeting?”

“
She’s really smart. If you go in all innocent and
‘Hey! Fancy meeting you here!’
she’s going to see right through it. Just tell her I mentioned in passing that she was singing there and you decided to go in and check out the band. She’ll probably see through that too, but at least it’s a
little
less deceiving.”

“Okay. You said
they play four nights a week. When and where would I find her?” Sonny asked.

“She
’s at a country bar called Savannah’s. The house band is Sugar Creek and they play Wednesday through Saturday nights. I don’t have the address, but I think it’s near Balboa Park.”

“That’ll work. The medical center is in Balboa Park, so I could always just say I was in the neighborhood and decided to drop by.”

Mathias breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you so much, Luca. You don’t know what a load off my mind this is. I
do
owe you big.”

“Don’t worry about it. Like I said, I need something to think about besides my pitiful self,” Sonny laughed.
“I’ll call and let you know when I make contact.”

Mathias chuckled. “Is that a Navy SEAL term?”

“Not really. It sounds more like a 007 term to me. Which fits, because this is sounding a lot like a spy mission.”

The two old friends finished their conversation and signed off, one headed to that high-powered executive meeting and the other to putter around his tiny apartment, killing time until he was to go to Trace and Meg’s
little beach house for dinner—and baseball.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Later that evening, Sonny was stretched out in Trace’s living room, in Trace’s recliner, with his throbbing knee elevated—and feeling kind of guilty about it. He, Scott and Declan—teaching assistants and friends of Meg’s from the SDDI—were engrossed in a Padres game while Meg and Tobi were chatting out on the deck—like they didn’t work together and talk to each other all day every day. What did women find to talk about
all
the time?

Things hadn’t been awkward at all with Tobi. She was that kind of girl—easy and drama-free. It was hard to find
a woman like that and he wished, a little regretfully, that he’d had more of a connection with her. They’d had a lot of fun together, but you couldn’t force feelings that weren’t there. He’d learned, from watching Trace fall for Meg, that when it was something special you’d know pretty quickly. He’d always kind of let himself fall in “intense like” easily. When he was with someone, he threw himself in wholeheartedly. But, it had never worked out and he was beginning to wish he’d meet someone who would. It would be nice to have someone to come home to.

It took a special woman to marry into the team, though. He was surrounded by
those kinds of women in his life, right now. They were taking good care of him and he knew they cared about him—but he also knew they were doing it because their husbands were so far away and they had that need to nurture. It didn’t make him any less grateful, though.

Meg came through the sliding door with her phone to her ear. She caught Sonny’s eye. “Sonny! It’s
Trace!” She handed the phone to him.

“
McKenna? Hey, buddy! How’re things going over there?” Sonny asked eagerly.

“A
ccording to plan. How ‘bout you? Meg said a couple more weeks ‘til rehab.”

“Yeah. It’s hard to feel sorry for myself, though, when I’m sitting here in your recliner watching the Padres on your big screen with a belly full of Meg’s meatloaf,” he laughed.
“Wish you were here, dude . . . or I was there, working with you guys.”

“I know. We’re doing okay, but it’s not the same with you gone.” Trace’s voice got real serious. “Dude, when that explosion went off and you went flying
, I thought . . .” He wouldn’t let himself finish that statement. Then he chuckled. “But then you popped up from behind that boulder, like that arcade game—Whack-A-Mole—all covered in soot and debris. The only thing we could see that wasn’t black or mud-splattered was the whites of your eyes and the bursts from your M4 blazing as you gimped over to the helo.”

“Yeah
, wish
I
could have seen it from your vantage point too. Hey, I don’t suppose you guys went back up there to find my sunglasses, did you? Blew right off my face. Man, I hate to think some Taliban scumbag is up there wearing my favorite sunglasses,” Sonny said with a chuckle. “So are you guys headed out today?” He knew they were approximately a half-day ahead of San Diego time, so the team’s day was just beginning, while his was ending. He wanted to ask more questions about the missions he’d missed, but he understood he couldn’t. They couldn’t talk about any of that.

“We’re on standby. Don’t know yet if we’re headed out.” Enough said.

“Well . . . watch your backs and get back safe. I’m putting Meg back on. She’ll be more fun for you talk to than I am,” Sonny added as he glanced at Meg with a twinkle in his eye. She’d been hovering, waiting for her turn again.

After
Sonny handed the cell back off to her, she headed back toward their bedroom so she could talk with Trace more privately. Tobi had come back into the house and sat down on the arm of his chair to catch up with him. He spent the rest of the evening hanging out and visiting with her, Meg and the guys, and by the time he got home and went to bed, he was feeling better about things—and a little less sorry for himself.

CHAPTER 2

Gracie Laurent walked through the front door of Savannah’s and noticed the rest of the band was already there.
The room wasn’t very wide, but was really deep, with the stage all the way at the back end and the hardwood dance floor just in front of it. The bar, made of heavy dark wood and topped with granite, stretched the full length of the room on the right hand side. There were several pool tables on the left hand side with dark wooden tables and chairs of various heights scattered between the bar and pool tables to the edge of the dance floor.

She scurried through the tables toward the stage
, peanut shells crunching beneath her boots. There were a few customers already there. A group of guys sat at a tall table watching two others play pool. There were a couple of other patrons sitting at the bar shooting the breeze with Savannah, bar owner and, apparently, this shift’s bartender. She waved at Gracie as she rushed past.

“Am I late? I could have sworn I was right on schedule,” she said as she got to the stage.

Colby glanced at her as he unwound his amp cord. “No, you’re not late. I got here early, and caught Russ here flirting with Savannah.”

Russ, Sugar Creek’s drummer, didn’t look happy about being busted. “Har, har.”

They all knew he had a huge crush on Savannah, who was a very hot babe, even though she was almost twice his age.

Colby continued, “
Mick, Les and Maggie got here just before you did.”

Mick played bass
; Les guitar—sometimes steel guitar—and back-up vocals; and Maggie the fiddle and back-up vocals. Colby, of course, was lead guitarist, sang some lead and back-up vocals and was the bandleader. Gracie had been a little nervous about fitting into an existing band—especially as lead singer instead of backup. But they had all melded together easily, without a lot of fuss and drama. She was relieved, because she needed a new start so badly and didn’t know where else she would go if it hadn’t worked out.

She’d been in San Diego about a week-and-a-half and was starting to feel settled. It had been a whirlwind of rehearsals
. They had spent every waking hour trying to get her up to speed on their repertoire. She also had to eke out time to find a place to live and a second part-time job.

Gracie spent the first few nights on Colby’s sofa until she found a
place in a large, historic Spanish home that had been renovated into small apartments. It was near Balboa Park and Savannah’s. Her parents had trucked some of her furniture down and helped her move it into her new place the weekend before. Of course it was so tiny, she’d had to leave a lot of her stuff in storage in her northern California hometown.

Finding a second job was another worry. She had strict time constraints, because her first priority had to be the band. She had to be free every evening for rehearsals as well as actual performances.
Retail was out of the question, because they wanted their employees to be available to work evenings and weekends—same with waitressing. She’d scoured the want ads, hoping for a creative solution.