Suzanne Brockmann - Forever Blue

Apparently Jenny Lee had.

Lucy found a parking place a block down from the Grill and turned off the patrol car’s powerful engine. On second thought, she turned the key again and pushed the buttons to raise the power windows. The summer sky looked threatening. Lucy was willing to bet it was going to pour before she finished her lunch.

She checked to make sure her sidearm was secured in her belt holster as she hurried down the sidewalk. She was already ten minutes late, and her friend Sarah’s self-imposed work schedule didn’t allow her to take more than a hour for lunch.

The Grill was crowded, as usual, but Sarah was saving a table. Lucy slid into the booth, across from her friend.

“I’m sorry I’m late.”

Sarah just smiled. “I would have ordered lunch,” she said. “But Iris hasn’t worked her way around to this part of the room.”

Lucy leaned back against the plastic cushion of the bench seat. She let out a burst of air that lifted her bangs up off her forehead. “I haven’t stopped running since 7 a.m.” She eyed her friend. Sarah looked tired and hot, her dark hair pulled back from her face in a ponytail, dark circles under her hazel eyes. “How are you?”

“I’m nine months pregnant with a child that has obviously decided not to be born until he’s old enough to vote,” Sarah said dryly. “It’s ninety-seven degrees in the shade, my back hurts when I lie down, my sciatic nerve acts up when I sit, I have a review deadline that I can’t possibly make because I’ve spent the past three days cooking instead of writing, my husband has been home from his shift at the hospital four hours in the past forty-eight, my mother-in-law calls every five minutes to see if my water has broken, I miss living in Boston and this is the first chance I’ve had in nearly a week to complain.”

Lucy grinned. “Then don’t stop now.”

“No, no, I’m done,” Sarah said, fanning herself with her napkin.

“Afternoon, ladies.” Iris took her pen from behind her ear and held it poised over her ordering pad. “What can I get you today?”

“I’d like some marzipan,” Sarah said.

Iris sighed good-naturedly, pushing a stray red curl back up into her bun. “Honey, I told you before, if it’s not on the menu…”

“I need some marzipan,” Sarah said almost desperately. “Almond paste. Or maybe a piece of my mother’s fruitcake. I haven’t been able to think about anything else for days….”

“We’ll both take a turkey club,” Lucy said smoothly, “on whole wheat, mustard, no mayo, extra pickles.”

“Sorry, hon,” Iris murmured to Sarah as she moved on to the next table.

“My life,” Sarah intoned dramatically, “is an endless string of disappointments.”

Lucy had to laugh. “You’re married to the nicest guy in town, you’re about to have a baby, you just won a prize for your music and you’re disappointed?”

Sarah leaned forward. “I’m insanely jealous of you,” she said. “You still have a waistline. You can see your feet without craning your neck. You—” She broke off, staring across the room toward the door. “Don’t look now, but I think we’re being invaded.”

Lucy turned around as the glass door to the grill swung open and a man in green army fatigues, carrying a heavy-looking green duffel bag casually over one shoulder, came inside.

He was clearly a soldier, except on second glance his uniform wasn’t quite inspection ready. The first thing Lucy noticed was his arms. The sleeves had been torn from his green shirt at the shoulders and his arms were muscular and strong. He looked as if he could easily bench-press three times his body weight. He wore his shirt open at the collar and unbuttoned halfway down his broad chest. His fatigue pants fit him comfortably, but instead of clunky black army boots, he wore only sandals on his feet.

He had sunglasses on, but his gaze swept quickly around the room and Lucy imagined that he didn’t miss much.

His hair was thick and a dark, sandy blond.

And his face was one she recognized.

Lucy would have known Blue McCoy anywhere. That strong chin, his firm, unsmiling mouth, those rugged cheekbones and straight nose. Twelve years of living had added power and strength to his already strong face. The lines around his eyes and mouth had deepened, adding a sense of compassion or wisdom to his unforgivingly stern features.

He had been good-looking as a teenaged boy. As a man, he was impossibly handsome.

Lucy was staring. She couldn’t help herself. Blue McCoy was back in town, larger than life.

He finished his quick inspection of the room and his eyes returned to her. As Lucy watched, Blue took off his sunglasses. His eyes were still the brightest shade of blue she’d ever seen in her life, and as he met her gaze she felt frozen in place, hypnotized.

He nodded at her, just once, still unsmiling, and then Iris breezed past him.

“Sit anywhere, hon!” she called out to him.

The spell was broken. Blue looked away from Lucy and she turned back to the table and Sarah.

“Do you know him?” Sarah asked, her sharp eyes missing nothing—particularly not the blush that was heating Lucy’s cheeks. “You do, don’t you?”

“Not really, no,” Lucy said, then admitted, “I mean, I know who he is, but…” She shook her head.

“Who is he?”

Lucy glanced up again, but Blue was busy stashing his duffel bag underneath a table on the far side of the room. “Blue McCoy.” Lucy spoke softly, as if he might overhear even from across the noisy restaurant.

“That’s Gerry McCoy’s brother? He looks nothing like him.”

“They’re stepbrothers,” Lucy explained. “Blue’s mother married Gerry’s father, only she died about five months after the wedding. Mr. McCoy adopted Blue shortly after that. The way I hear it, neither Mr. McCoy nor Blue was happy with that arrangement. Apparently they didn’t get along too well, but Blue had nowhere else to go.”

“I guess not, since he didn’t make it back into town when Mr. McCoy died a few years ago,” Sarah commented.

“Gerry told me Blue was part of Desert Storm,” Lucy said. “He couldn’t get leave, not then, and Gerry didn’t want to hold up the funeral, not indefinitely like that.”

“Gerry’s brother is in the army?”

“Navy,” Lucy corrected her. “He’s Special Operations—a Navy SEAL.”

“A what?”

“SEAL,” Lucy said. “It stands for Sea, Air and Land. SEALs are like super commandos. They’re experts in everything from…I don’t know…underwater demolition to parachute assaults to…piloting state-of-the-art jets. They have these insane training sessions where they learn to work as a team under incredible stress. There’s this one week—Hell Week—where they’re allowed only four hours of sleep all week. They have to sleep in fifteen-minute segments, while air-raid sirens are wailing. If they quit, they’re out of the program. It’s pretty scary stuff. Only the toughest and most determined men make the grade and become SEALs. It’s a real status symbol—for obvious reasons.”

Sarah was gazing across the room, a speculative light in her eyes. “You seem to have acquired an awful lot of information about a man you claim you don’t know.”

“I’ve read about SEALs and the training they go through. That’s all.”

“Hmm.” Sarah lifted one delicate eyebrow. “Before or after Gerry’s brother joined the Navy?”

Lucy shrugged, trying hard to look casual. “So I had a crush on the guy in high school. Big deal.”

Sarah rested her chin in her hand. “Out of all the people in this place, he nods at you,” she remarked. “Did you date him?”

Lucy couldn’t help laughing. “Not a chance. I was three years younger, and he was…”