SEAL The Deal (7 page)

The meandering roadway on Bennett Valley was always a pleasant drive. Turning up Sophie’s drive, she was disappointed to note Nick’s Hummer was not in the lot. But Sophie’s car was.

The sign read ‘closed’, which was odd. The door to the office was locked, so she went around the back. The house was also locked up.

She dialed Sophie’s cell phone and got voicemail. Thirty seconds later, Nick returned her call.

“We’re at her oncologist’s office.”

“What’s going on?”

“She hasn’t stopped vomiting since last night. They’re giving her fluids and sending her home with some pain meds, but he thinks we need to call hospice.”

“Oh, no! Already?”

“He said he was trying to get her to do it a month ago.”

“That’s our Sophie.” She waited for tears in her eyes to subside so her voice wouldn’t wobble. “So, should I get anything for her, or just wait here?”

“You’re at the house?”

“Yes.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. Finally, Nick said, “I’m glad. Sophie will be relieved.”

Devon walked down the rows of gallon cans set on black plastic cloth. She knew Sophie had started most of the plants either from graft or seed.  At one time they had been lush and green. Now the lack of attention had created a slew of yellowed leaves and dried flowers that needed deadheading.

She wandered into the greenhouse where Nick had soaked her with the hose. There was a small wooden sign that read “Sophie’s Specials” posted over a variety of unusual plants on wooden benches. Sophie told her she had collected heirloom seeds of all sorts from local organic growers, and exchanged them for grape cuttings or fruit trees she’d multi-grafted. Devon had sometimes accompanied her on her bi-weekly trips to the local farmer’s market, where she always found something interesting or new. All the farmers shared a common bond: they did what they did because they loved it, not because it made any of them rich.

Devon wished one of them would be able to buy the nursery. That way, ‘Sophie’s Specials’ would survive a few years longer.

Will anyone care about it half as much as Sophie does?

Big tires on the gravel driveway signaled Nick’s return with his precious cargo. She saw Sophie in the front seat, looking even smaller than before, dwarfed by the huge roaring, snorting beast of a vehicle. She would never understand why men liked big trucks. They were expensive to maintain, she’d heard, and, like equally expensive and frivolous racehorses, broke down frequently.

Devon was smiling at Sophie through the passenger window when Nick came up behind her, put his hands on her waist and moved her aside. “Excuse me, pretty, lady, but Marc’s gotta carry her.”

He’d dropped his hands immediately. Marc wiggled his eyebrows and opened the passenger door. He carefully extracted Sophie, who looked a pale shade of green. Holding her under the knees and around the waist, he carried her to the back.

“Nick, I’m gonna need you to unlock the door, please, so don’t get in any water fights yet,” he yelled over his shoulder.

Sophie had laid her head against Marc’s chest in an uncharacteristic move. Devon’s eyes immediately began to water.

“Oh, God, Nick. I’m going to lose her.”

He wrapped an arm around her and gave her a safe squeeze. “I’ll be right back.”

Devon had known this day was coming, but it was happening so fast. She thought she’d have time to prepare, to get used to the idea that Sophie was leaving this world forever. What had she been thinking? She was filled with regret for all the times she hadn’t called her friend right back, for the lunches she’d cancelled because of clients. She wished she’d helped her paint or weed or run the shop, or just do
some
thing to help out. And now it was all too little too late.

Nick returned, his white T-shirt glowing in the late afternoon sun. “We’ve got someone from hospice coming over tonight for the initial interview. They send a caseworker first. I wish they’d just send a nurse.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Devon said.

“Unfortunately, Devon, I do. I’ve done a lot of it. Except this time it will be my sister.” He abruptly turned his back to her. Their shared pain was becoming unbearable, but there was also something good about being there. She could feel it, as she stood beside him looking out at the golden peaks of the surrounding hills and the big cloudless sky above. She understood she was standing in the doorway of the end of things. And the beginning of something else.

A new adventure. But this time, without Sophie.

Marc stayed with Sophie while Devon changed into her grubbies and went out to the nursery to help Nick. He had a clipboard and was making notes.

“Making a list. The guys are coming tomorrow to help get everything ready for a big sale this weekend.”

“Guys?”

“From my team.”

“Oh. How many?”

“Six, I think. Maybe more later.”

“They’ll just come up here like that?” she asked.

“Sure. It’s what we do. We’re family. We take care of our own. Someone leaves us, we take care of their family. Any one of us needs someone, someone is provided. We work as a team both on and off the battlefield.”

“The Navy trains all that into you?”

Nick lowered the clipboard and stared off in the distance. “I don’t think so. I think we were always this way, just found out after we became teammates. We have this bond, this brotherhood. We never leave each other behind. We never forget. We never stop grieving for the things we lose and we never stop rejoicing for the things we have.”

“So no one’s alone.”

“That’s right. No one gets left behind.”

Nick was serious, focused on the task at hand. Devon wondered if he was annoyed with her. She followed him around, asking about what they would do with this or that. He had answers for some of her questions, but mostly he said he didn’t know and he’d think of something. He kept writing, as if the writing were a mission unto itself.

She began to feel like a fifth wheel. She missed the close, intimate lunch they’d had, the way he’d looked at her and whispered his questions, the way he was careful around her. Now she was feeling ignored.

She tried to engage him one more time. “So do you want me to start picking through the flats and throwing out the dead stuff, Nick?”

He dropped his clipboard again and sighed. “Devon, you’re gonna have to leave me alone for a while. I’m trying to figure it all out, and I can’t think straight with you standing there so close to me.”

He didn’t look at her. He swore and walked away, shaking his head.

Dinner was awkward. Devon could see Marc had been greatly affected by Sophie’s condition. “Can’t wait for Coop to get up here and take a look at her. I think she’s going to need more pain meds,” he said.

The social worker arrived in the evening for a brief visit. Sophie dozed in and out of consciousness during the discussion. Marc finally went over to the couch and picked her up and held her on his lap. The social worker explained the hospice procedure.

“We want to keep her calm. No big drama. Keep things little, simple, small. Less is better.”

Devon saw the two men look at each other. There was about to be an explosion of activity and a whole lot of big guys hanging around. Things would be far from quiet or small.

“She needs to eat, but of course she doesn’t want to.”

That got to Sophie and she sat up. “You talk as if I’m already dead. I’m right here. My name is Sophie and I can hear everything you’re saying about me.”

The heavyset social worker appeared rattled, but gave a syrupy smile and continued. “Well now, Sophie, I’m glad to see your spunk. You have some awfully nice friends here.”

They made arrangements for two nurses to start working the late night shift on alternating days so Devon, Nick and Marc could get some proper rest, starting right away.

Marc put Sophie to bed after the lady from hospice left.

“I’m sorry I was short with you today,” Nick said. “I’m expected to have a full plan lined out when the guys get here tomorrow. “

“I understand,” she whispered. “Thought maybe I’d said something wrong.”

“You could never do anything wrong,” he replied.

Chapter 8

The weight of all the fast-moving decisions was pressing on Nick, which was unusual, since that’s what he did every day on the battlefield. But today, it was giving him a headache. He was in an unpredictable mood, one that he didn’t often let civilians see, let alone his sister’s best friend. Maybe it was because, for all his training, he couldn’t control the outcome of Sophie’s cancer. All his equipment was of no use when it came to dealing with his sister and her final affairs.

He decided to rummage in Sophie’s kitchen for something to put him at ease.

“You want some tequila?” he asked Devon.

“I’ve never tried it.”

Of course, Nick thought. “Well then, you should have just one with me. Would you do that?” He held the bottle in his right hand and two shot glasses in his left.

“I’ll watch.”

“Nope. Gotta participate to be on this team, Devon.”

“Excuse me? You’re going to
make
me have a drink? Don’t you think that’s a little dangerous? People can be allergic to alcohol.”

He could see he’d picked a scab. “But you’re forgetting. I have medic training. We all do. I can quickly assess the signs.” She was getting back some of that edge, but he’d defused it a bit.

She crossed her arms and scrunched her eyebrows up into a delicious little frown he wanted to kiss in the worst way.

“I’m telling you there are some things that should just be experienced. Having a shot of tequila is one of them.”

“Name some others.” She was standing with her feet perpendicular, like a sensual dancer in the wings, arms still crossed, and her lips were so scrunched up they were downright hot and begging to be violated.

“Having great freakin’ sex on the beach under the moonlight. Having sex in the back of a pickup truck at a campground. Having sex on a mountaintop in the rain in Hawaii. Having sex in a boat and watching the stars in the biggest sky you’ve ever seen.” He’d forgotten who he was talking to. When he looked up at her, her jaw had dropped a good three inches.

He clicked the two little shot glasses together with his third and fourth fingers. “And having your first shot of tequila. Ready?”

“Oh why the fuck not?”

She stomped over to the table and plopped down with her elbows resting on the table.

“I like that nasty mouth of yours. You should use it more often.”

“Well, I happen to talk that way all the time,” she said. Her chin was raised. She looked back at him with her eyelids nearly closed.

“Well, thank God for small miracles. You looked a little tightly wound yesterday. You can talk dirty with me any time you want, Devon.” He slammed down the glasses and filled them. Picking up a lemon from the fruit bowl, he sliced it into halves and then quarters and placed one piece next to the glass he pushed in her direction.

“We do this together.” He grinned at her. Her scowl looked fake.

He motioned she should pick up the glass, and she followed his lead. He brought his to his lips and he nearly forgot where he was when she did the same.

“You’ll drink the whole shot in one gulp and then bite down on the lemon, agreed? Or are you going to chicken out?”

“I’m not a chicken.”

“I can see that.”

“Ready? Go.”

Devon tossed back the drink and quickly grabbed the lemon with a gasp. She bit down on it and wrinkled her nose.

Nick had gotten so engrossed in her actions he’d forgotten to take his lemon. The woman was dangerous. He could see himself spending a lifetime teaching her everything he knew about everything, especially drinking and sex. But if she didn’t want to drink, well then, just the sex. God, he was easy.

“That was horrible,” she sputtered.

“You did it! You conquered your fears, Devon.” He unscrewed the bottle again. “Another.”

“No!”

He smiled and poured himself another and downed it.

“Okay,” he smacked the table with both hands. “Done. Fixed.”

“You do this sort of thing a lot?” she asked.

He wiped the lemon off his hands with a damp tea towel and then came over to the back of the couch and leaned against it, reveling in her mussed-up hair and her dirty shoes. He knew she’d be a hellcat if she ever got drunk and lost control. Not that she’d be unladylike or anything, but he knew he’d have one great time if she could just loosen up a bit. She looked about as comfortable in her casual jeans and shirt as a buck on opening day of deer season. “No, but ‘desperate times call for desperate measures.’”

He motioned for her to come over to him.

She hesitated at first, then stood up and meandered in his direction, swaying gently from side to side. She was avoiding eye contact.

He motioned for her to give him her hands, and this time she did it without any hesitation.

“You did real good today, Devon. You’ve been holding up like a champ.”

He didn’t want to, but he dropped her hands and placed his palms on his thighs.

He decided to wait out the little silence to see if she would shy away. She stood her ground. He could feel the heat from her body and knew she felt his. Her deep breathing told him she was excited. Maybe a there was some fear, but there was something else there too. Perhaps a tiny crack had developed in the ice queen’s veneer.

The look she gave him next was all longing, pure hunger. He didn’t think she realized how needy she appeared. If she could only see how desirable she was at that very moment. How much he wanted to pull her into his arms and give her a proper kiss. His little head was doing cartwheels in anticipation, but he looked away and tried to think of something besides getting sweaty in a large bed with her. He knew what she’d feel like underneath him. He knew he could awaken the dreams and desires she worked so hard to keep suppressed.

But she would have to ask for it. He was not going to force her.

Well, maybe he could do a little temperature check. He tilted his head to the side. “Can I ask you something?”