Sea of Dreams (The American Heroes Series Book 2) (23 page)

“Beck is away for a few days so it’s probably best if you leave Lizzie with us until he gets back,” she said calmly. “She’s in good hands. We’ll take good care of her.”

That didn’t ease Lizzie’s mother in the least. “Who in the hell are you?” she demanded. “I don’t know you. I’m not leaving my daughter with a stranger.”

Blakesley understood that, somewhat. “My name is Blakesley Thorne and I’m Beck’s girlfriend,” she said evenly. “I have three small daughters and they’ll get along just fine with Lizzie. We’ll have a good time at the zoo and Sea World until Beck gets back. I just wanted you to know that your daughter was safe because I’m sure you’re very worried about her.”

Lizzie’s mother wouldn’t be soothed in the least. She was furious. “Listen to me, bitch,” she snarled. “I don’t know who you are and I don’t care, but you’d better put my daughter on the next plane home or I’m calling the cops.”

The woman’s attitude had Blakesley’s dander up. “I would encourage you to call them,” she said. “Then we can also tell them about your husband who jacks off outside the bedroom of your fourteen year old daughter and apparently has sex with underage girls.  I’ll be happy to tell them all of that and I’m sure Lizzie will, too.  So bring it on if you think you can.”

On the other end of the line, Lizzie’s mom was so angry that she was starting to screech.

“I’m coming down there and get her myself,” she spat. “You’d better be….”

Blakesley cut the phone off and very calmly handed it back to Lizzie. “Does that phone have a GPS device on it?”

Lizzie looked at her phone, confused. “I… I don’t think so.”

Blakesley shook her head. “Just to be safe, you’d better turn it off,” she said. “I’ll take you to the store tomorrow and we’ll get you a brand new one with a new number. You can pick out any phone you want.”

Lizzie looked at her, shocked. “Any phone?”

Blakesley smiled. “Any phone.”

Lizzie’s shock grew. “Wow,” she exclaimed softly. “I don’t even know what to say.  That’s really nice of you.”

Blakesley just smiled and stood up. “Well,” she said. “Maybe we should head back and let Gina get some sleep.  Do you have any luggage?”

Lizzie stood up, shaking her head. “Just a bag,” she said, going to pick up the big purple canvas bag next to the couch. “I just grabbed what I could and left.”

Blakesley picked up her purse from the coffee table. “No problem,” she said. “We’ll pick up some stuff for you tomorrow if you need it.”

Lizzie seemed a little stunned at the generosity of her dad’s girlfriend. She eyed the woman closely. “Are you sure you don’t mind me staying with you?” she asked. “I mean, it could be weeks or months until my dad gets back.  I know how long he can be gone.”

Blakesley waved her off, studying the tall, beautiful blond. “I’m looking forward to getting to know you.  I’m honored to have you stay with us. I have three daughters – Cadee, Crosby and Charlotte – who are absolutely going to love you. I hope you like little kids.”

Lizzie sighed faintly, adjusting the bag on her shoulder. “I love kids,” she lifted her pensive gaze to Blakesley. “Uh… my mom… she’s kind of like that with everybody, you know, the way she talked to you. She used to talk to my dad like that all of the time. She wasn’t very nice to him.  I… I’m sorry that she was such a bitch.”

Blakesley just smiled. “Trust me,” she said, “she can’t out-bitch me.  I wasn’t offended but it’s sweet of you to apologize.”

Lizzie just nodded as Blakesley called for Gina and somewhere in the back of the house, a response came.

“Wait,” Lizzie said before Gina came out.  “Are you really sure you want me to come with you?”

“Of course. Unless you don’t want to. If you don’t want to, then we need to figure out what to do.”

Lizzie shook her head quickly. “I want to,” she assured her. “I just don’t want to be a pain.”

“You won’t be.”

Gina started to come out from the kitchen but Lizzie was still focused on Blakesley. “Gina told me that you’ve been really good for my dad,” she said softly. “I think that’s really great because, you know, my mom and dad weren’t happy when they were married. I’ve never seen my dad really happy or anything.  I heard him tell my mom once that all he really ever wanted was a family and a good woman to come home to.”

Blakesley couldn’t help but feel saddened. “What did your mom say to that?” she asked softly.

Lizzie shrugged. “What she always says. She was mean. She just laughed at him.”

Driving Lizzie back to the Extended Stay, they passed the freeway that she and Beck had taken when they had looked at the old Victorian. She kept seeing Beck’s face when she told him she had to think about moving in with him, seeing the disappointment on his handsome features.  She was disappointed, too. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so hard on him. Maybe she was just over-thinking the whole thing. They loved each other and that was never going to change, wedding ring or no.

Lizzie had assimilated quite easily into the family. From the second Cadee, Crosby and Charlotte met her, they attached themselves to her.  Cadee, ever stoic and sensible, liked the fact that she now had an older girl to talk to, but Crosby and Cadee hung all over her just like they had with Beck.  The second night Lizzie spent with them on the fold-out couch in the living room, Crosby and Charlotte climbed out of bed and went to go sleep with her.  Blakesley woke up the next morning to all three girls sleeping soundly on the fold-out.

After that, Lizzie and the girls were inseparable. More than that, it was increasingly apparent that the Extended Stay was just too small for Blakesley, her three girls, Lizzie and Nikki. They needed more space, and more bathrooms, and Blakesley kept rolling thoughts of Beck through her head, his wish to buy the old Victorian for all of them, and her resistance to the idea was waning. 

The truth was that she wanted to be with him, too, forever, and maybe it was a foolish thought to dream of them all together living in that big old Victorian house, but it was a dream she was quickly succumbing to.  She just couldn’t help it.  Beck wanted a family to come home to and she wanted the same thing.  She wanted it with him. Almost four weeks after Beck’s departure, Blakesley broke down and gave the real estate agent a call.  Kevin Robinson was very glad to hear from her.

A month to the day after Beck’s deployment, Blakesley took the girls up to the Earp homestead with her so she could meet with the people from the State of California and the City of San Diego.  It had been a meeting to review the findings of the archaeologists about the pit and tunnel, among other things, but it turned into an argument over who had historical jurisdiction.  As Lizzie and Nikki watched the girls play in the massive front yard, Blakesley grew increasingly disgusted with the bureaucratic rhetoric about her house, frustrated to the point of walking out on the meeting.  She would let them hash it out without her.

So she and the girls returned to the Extended Stay and settled in for the evening.  There were coloring books, Barbies and toys all over the living room as she prepared dinner, watching the news as she baked a pasta dish and cut up vegetables for the salad.  Lizzie was trying to get Crosby and Charlotte to pick up their junk, helping them carry it into their bedroom, but Crosby just wanted to hang on to Lizzie’s leg.  Giggling, Lizzie struggled to walk as Crosby clung, dragging the little girl back into the bedroom.

Blakesley grinned at the antics, cutting up cucumbers, hearing her girls in the bedroom with Lizzie and half-heartedly watching the news.  As she put salad in the bowl, she watched a story about a police chase and an illegal immigrant who was run over at the border crossing.  Then came a story with a military helicopter as a graphic.  Blakesley was putting the salad on the table and happened to be close enough to actually hear what they were saying.

“… and crashed into the sea.  Early reports say that the helicopter, a CH 47 Chinook model like the one shown here, lost its rear rotor and crashed into the sea off the coast of Panama.  NBC news has learned that a Navy Special Warfare team detachment, or S.E.A.L.s, out of Coronado in San Diego was aboard the helicopter and all hands were lost when the helicopter sank in two hundred feet of water.  The Navy, however, has no comment at this time.  Moving onto the other top stories, Bank of America has….”

Blakesley didn’t hear any more after that.  She had accidentally knocked the salad bowl over on the table and she scrambled with shaking hands to collect the vegetables and toss them back in the bowl.  As she grabbed for pieces of cucumber and tomato, it began to occur to her that fearful little sobs were escaping her lips.  She tried to stop them but she couldn’t.  As she tossed the last cucumber back  in the bowl, she hung her head and wept, trying very hard not to utter a sound.

She was so shaken that she could hardly breathe.  She could hear the little girls making noise in the bedroom and Lizzie’s laughter, struggling with every breath to stop crying.  All she could see was Beck’s face and feel his strong yet tender touch.  She could hear his voice, deep and sexy, and she was shattered to think she might never hear it again.  She had no way of knowing and the mere thought was killing her.

Hand over her mouth, she went from the table back to the oven, trying desperately to stop her tears. She didn’t want her girls to hear her, or worse, Lizzie to hear her. She turned the water on full blast in case any sounds escaped her lips as she forced herself to calm. It wasn’t easy. 

Just as she was calming to a manageable level, her cell phone rang and she saw that it was Gina. She wasn’t strong enough to talk to the woman, not at the moment, so she shut the phone off and called the girls to the dinner table.  Cadee and Nikki came out, followed by Lizzie, Crosby and Charlotte.  Blakesley remained stoic as she dished out pasta and salad, but inside, she was dying.  She couldn’t even look at Lizzie, fearful that the young woman would see that something was wrong. 

The truth was that Blakesley didn’t even know if anything was wrong.  She could only hope and pray that it wasn’t.  Later that night, when the girls were asleep and the world was quiet, Blakesley summoned the strength and courage to Gina’s call.

She stayed up all night on the phone with her.

***

“Beck, you okay?”

Beck had his head in his locker, emerging to see Captain Davis addressing him.  He nodded wearily at his captain.

“Fine,” he said, tossing some gear back into the locker. “I’m fine.”

Davis, a youthful looking man in his late fifties, came closer. “I know he was a good friend of yours.”

Beck nodded, struggling against the grief that had been his constant companion for five long days. “He was,” he said. “I’m going to miss him.”

“How’s Gina holding up?”

Beck shrugged and closed the locker.  “As well as can be expected, I guess,” he said. “I spent the past six hours with her, at least until her mother and sister could drive down from Los Angeles.  She’s a basket case, but I guess I would be too if I’d just lost my husband.”

“We almost lost you, too,” Davis said softly.

Beck looked at him.  Then he shook his head wearily. “You know, I always thought I would get it in a firefight or go out in a blaze of glory,” he muttered, leaning heavily against the locker behind him. “It never occurred to me that I’d get it in a helicopter.”

Davis tried to be comforting. “There wasn’t anything anyone could have done,” he said. “That ‘copter tipped off the deck and sank.  You and Solis and the other three were lucky to get out alive. You can’t blame yourself for the other nineteen that went down with it, including Butch.”

Beck nodded his head although it was unconvincing. “I just happened to be in the right place at the right time,” he said. “I was in the rear by the cargo doors. Had the cargo doors not been open, I would have drowned like the rest of them.  As it was, I got sucked out when the chopper went over and started taking on water. Butch was up by the cockpit. He never had a chance.”

David didn’t have an answer to that.  He slapped Beck on the shoulder and turned away. “You’ve got five days off,” he told him. “Go someplace and relax.  We’ll talk about this next week.”

“I just lost half of my team, captain. I’m not sure I can relax anywhere.”

Davis paused by the locker room door. “Try,” he insisted. “I’m going to talk to Command and see what we can do about redistributing the teams for now.  For now, your platoon is on RNR until we can figure this all out.”

Beck just nodded his head, staring off into the darkness as he thought of the men he had lost five days ago in the chopper accident. He still couldn’t believe it.  As Davis left the room, Anthony came in, still wearing the same worn and dirty combat fatigues that Beck was.  They were both oily and grimy, having not changed since the accident, subsequent rescue attempts, and the completed mission before all of that had happened.  All in all, it had been hell.

They looked at each other, all dirty and sweaty and bloodied, reminders of the tragedy they had so deeply suffered.  Nineteen of their forty man team had gone down over the side of a carrier when the rear rotors on the Chinook Helicopter malfunctioned.  The whole thing had spun out, tipped over, and crashed down into the sea just off the coast of Panama.

“How’s Gina?” Anthony wanted to know.

Beck shrugged his big shoulders. “A wreck,” he said honestly. “I’m going to go see Blakesley now.”

Anthony suddenly produced a white envelope and handed it to him. “This was in your mail,” he said. “I saw it on your desk and thought you might want it.”

Beck sighed heavily and took the white envelope. “I haven’t even been to my desk,” he said, looking at the return address.  He just stared at it. “It’s from Blakesley.”

Anthony nodded. “I know,” he said quietly. “That’s why I thought I’d bring it to you.”

Beck continued to stare at the envelope, feeling the emotion he had tried so hard to suppress suddenly bubble up in his chest.  He and Anthony were both thinking the same thing - that it was a Dear John letter from the woman Beck thought of twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.   When he wasn’t talking about her, he was dreaming about her.  After the past three weeks and the hell they had endured, Beck wasn’t sure he could take anymore heartache.  In fact, he knew he couldn’t.  His hands started to shake as he slowly pulled open the envelope.