Suzanne Brockmann - Tall, Dark and Fearless

FRISCO WOKE TO the sound of a blood-chilling scream.

He was rolling out of bed, onto the floor, reaching, searching for his weapon, even before he was fully awake. But he had no firearm hidden underneath his pillow or down alongside his bed—he’d locked them all up in a trunk in his closet. He wasn’t in the jungle on some dangerous mission, catching a combat nap. He was in his bedroom, in San Felipe, California, and the noise that had kicked him out of bed came from the powerful vocal cords of his five-year-old niece, who was supposed to be sound asleep on the couch in the living room.

Frisco stumbled to the wall and flipped on the light. Reaching this time for his cane, he opened his bedroom door and staggered down the hallway toward the living room.

He could see Natasha in the dim light that streamed down the hallway from his bedroom. She was crying, sitting up in a tangle of sheets on the couch, sweat matting her hair.

“Hey,” Frisco said. “What the h…uh… What’s going on, Tash?”

The kid didn’t answer. She just kept on crying.

Frisco sat down next to her, but all she did was cry.

“You want a hug or something?” he asked, and she shook her head no and kept on crying.

“Um,” Frisco said, uncertain of what to do, or what to say.

There was a tap on the door.

“You want to get that?” Frisco asked Natasha.

She didn’t respond.

“I guess I’ll get it then,” he said, unlocking the bolt and opening the heavy wooden door.

Mia stood on the other side of the screen. She was wearing a white bathrobe and her hair was down loose around her shoulders. “Is everything all right?”

“No, I’m not murdering or torturing my niece,” Frisco said flatly and closed the door. But he opened it again right away and pushed open the screen. “You wouldn’t happen to know where Tash’s On/Off switch is, would you?”

“It’s dark in here,” Mia said, stepping inside. “Maybe you should turn on all the lights so that she can see where she is.”

Frisco turned on the bright overhead light—and realized he was standing in front of his neighbor and his niece in nothing but the new, tight-fitting, utilitarian white briefs he’d bought during yesterday’s second trip to the grocery store. Good thing he’d bought them, or he quite possibly would have been standing there buck naked.

Whether it was the sudden light or the sight of him in his underwear, Frisco didn’t know, but Natasha stopped crying, just like that. She still sniffled, and tears still flooded her eyes, but her sirenlike wail was silenced.

Mia was clearly thrown by the sight of him—and determined to act as if visiting with a neighbor who was in his underwear was the most normal thing in the world. She sat down on the couch next to Tasha and gave her a hug. Frisco excused himself and headed down the hall toward his bedroom and a pair of shorts.

It wasn’t really that big a deal—Lucky O’Donlon, Frisco’s swim buddy and best friend in the SEAL unit, had bought Frisco a tan-through French bathing suit from the Riviera that covered far less of him than these briefs. Of course, the minuscule suit wasn’t something he’d ever be caught dead in….

He threw on his shorts and came back out into the living room.

“It must’ve been a pretty bad nightmare,” he heard Mia saying to Tasha.

“I fell into a big, dark hole,” Tash said in a tiny voice in between a very major case of hiccups. “And I was screaming and screaming and screaming, and I could see Mommy way, way up at the top, but she didn’t hear me. She had on her mad face, and she just walked away. And then water went up and over my head, and I knew I was gonna drownd.”

Frisco swore silently. He wasn’t sure he could relieve Natasha’s fears of abandonment, but he would do his best to make sure she didn’t fear the ocean. He sat down next to her on the couch and she climbed into his lap. His heart lurched as she locked her little arms around his neck.

“Tomorrow morning we’ll start your swimming lessons, okay?” he said gruffly, trying to keep the emotion that had suddenly clogged his throat from sounding in his voice.

Natasha nodded. “When I woke up, it was so dark. And someone turned off the TV.”

“I turned it off when I went to bed,” Frisco told her.

She lifted her head and gazed up at him. The tip of her nose was pink and her face was streaked and still wet from her tears. “Mommy always sleeps with it on. So she won’t feel lonely.”

Mia was looking at him over the top of Tasha’s red curls. She was holding her tongue, but it was clear that she had something to say.

“Why don’t you make a quick trip to the head?” he said to Tasha.

She nodded and climbed off his lap. “The head is the bathroom on a boat,” she told Mia, wiping her runny nose on her hand. “Before bedtime, me and Frisco pretended we were on a pirate boat. He was the cap’n.”

Mia tried to hide her smile. So that was the cause of the odd sounds she’d heard from Frisco’s apartment at around eight o’clock.

“We also played Russian Princess,” the little girl added.

Frisco actually blushed—his rugged cheekbones were tinged with a delicate shade of pink. “It’s after 0200, Tash. Get moving. And wash your face and blow your nose while you’re in there.”

“Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum,” Mia said to him as the little girl disappeared down the hallway.

The pink tinge didn’t disappear, but Frisco met her gaze steadily. “I’m doomed, aren’t I?” he said, resignation in his voice. “You’re going to tease me about this until the end of time.”

Mia grinned. “I do feel as if I’ve been armed with a powerful weapon,” she admitted, adding, “Your Majesty. Oh, or did you let Natasha take a turn and be the princess?”

“Very funny.”

“What I would give to have been a fly on the wall….”

“She’s five years old,” he tried to explain, running his hand through his disheveled blond hair. “I don’t have a single toy in the house. Or any books besides the ones I’m reading—which are definitely inappropriate. I don’t even have paper and pencils to draw with—”

She’d gone too far with her teasing. “You don’t have to explain. Actually, I think it’s incredibly sweet. It’s just…surprising. You don’t really strike me as the make-believe type.”

Frisco leaned forward.

“Look, Tash is gonna come back out soon. If there’s something you want to tell me without her overhearing, you better say it now.”

Mia was surprised again. He hadn’t struck her as being extremely perceptive. In fact, he always seemed to be a touch self-absorbed and tightly wrapped up in his anger. But he was right. There was something that she wanted to ask him about the little girl.

“I was just wondering,” she said, “if you’ve talked to Natasha about exactly where her mother is right now.”

He shook his head.

“Maybe you should.”

He shifted his position, obviously uncomfortable. “How do you talk about things like addiction and alcoholism to a five-year-old?”

“She probably knows more about it than you’d believe,” Mia said quietly.

“Yeah, I guess she would,” he said.

“It might make her feel a little bit less as if she’s been deserted.”

He looked up at her, meeting her eyes. Even now, in this moment of quiet, serious conversation, when Mia’s eyes met his, there was a powerful burst of heat.

His gaze slipped down to the open neckline of her bathrobe, and she could see him looking at the tiny piece of her nightgown that was exposed. It was white, with a narrow white eyelet ruffle.

He wanted to see the rest of it—she knew that from the hunger in his eyes. Would he be disappointed if he knew that her nightgown was simple and functional? It was plain, not sexy, made from lightweight cotton.