Annie wasn’t bitter about that. She’d known how things would work when she’d signed up to become a Green Beret. Yet somehow, every time she’d returned home from overseas, Frankie had been there. Even when she didn’t give him specifics about her arrival time, he always knew. She suspected her dad’s old friend Tex was involved in passing along the intel about her return. But she’d never asked Frankie, and he’d never volunteered the information. She just loved that he was always waiting for her. He was her reward for making it through each deployment.
Today was no different.
Annie walked across the tarmac toward the small building that housed the administrative offices for the airfield. She’d never been so glad to get home. She was still feeling off-kilter and she didn’t know why. This mission wasn’t all that different from a lot of the others she’d been on. This wasn’t the first close call she’d had and it probably wouldn’t be the last.
So why did she feel such a sense of dread weighing her down?
She knew it had everything to do with her thoughts on that helicopter, after her extraction. The thoughts that had dogged her ever since.
When she caught a glimpse of Frankie standing outside waiting for her, the darkness in her soul seemed to lighten. Moving slowly so as not to tweak her ribs, Annie returned the salutes she received from lower-ranking soldiers as she headed for the exit.
“Welcome home,” said the man she loved more than life itself.
Annie walked straight into his embrace, snuggling into him as if it had been years since she’d seen him. Burying her face in the skin of his neck, she inhaled deeply, needing to get his woodsy, musky scent in her nose. God, she’d missed this. Missed him.
His arms closed around her carefully, as if he remembered hugging her tightly would hurt. Of course he remembered. Frankie was the most considerate man she’d ever met in her life.
“I missed you,” Annie mumbled.
“No more than I missed you,” he returned.
The comfort in the familiarity of their banter soothed Annie. She lifted her head and Frankie reached for her duffle bag. She let him take it from her and wrapped an arm around his waist as he turned them to head for the parking lot.
Frankie wasn’t a man of many words. He let his actions speak for him. He’d admitted more than once that he was self-conscious about the way he sounded when he spoke. Because he hadn’t heard sound for years while growing up, his words weren’t always fully formed, sometimes pronounced wrong, and his voice somewhat monotone. But Annie didn’t care. To her, he was simply Frankie.
Lifting her free hand, she signed, “All good?”
Frankie nodded. His hands were full, one around her waist and the other holding her bag, so he responded out loud. “Everything’s fine. I didn’t burn the house down, got the lawn mowed, and even went to the grocery store this morning.”
Annie chuckled. Of course Frankie would keep things running smoothly in her absence. He’d been doing it for years. He’d even had to oversee their move from Colorado to Kentucky alone, when she’d been unexpectedly deployed right before the movers arrived to pack up their stuff.
Guilt hit her once more. Her life in the Army wasn’t anything like her mom and dad’s had been. Most of Fletch’s career, he’d been stationed in Texas. She hadn’t had to move even once after her mom and Fletch had gotten married. Six or so years in, and she and Frankie had already moved three times.
“Stop,” Frankie ordered.
Surprised, Annie looked up at him. “Stop what?” she asked.
“Thinking so hard. I don’t like seeing you so…worried.”
Annie took a deep breath. The last thing she wanted was to put more of a burden on Frankie than she already had.
“And stop that too,” Frankie said.
Annie shook her head and smiled up at him.
“You’re home. We’re together. I made a huge batch of green chile stew yesterday because I know it’s your favorite. We’re gonna relax. Then we’ll talk, you’ll tell me what you can about your mission to get it off your chest. I’ll examine you from head to toe to see for myself where you were hurt, then we’ll go to bed and sleep the night through.”
“You know me so well,” Annie told him as they approached his truck.
“Yup. Just like you know me.”
After putting her bag in the back, Frankie pressed her against the vehicle, his eyes going to the cut on her head. Annie had left off the bandage that morning because it was bothering her. Making the wound itch. She’d gotten off easy with three stitches, but the bruising on her forehead was pretty gnarly.
Frankie lifted a hand and gently brushed his fingers over the injury. He switched to signing instead of speaking and said, Do you have a headache? Is the light bothering you?
I’m okay, Annie signed back. Promise.
Then Frankie leaned forward and kissed the bruise. His lips were as soft as butterfly wings against her skin.
Feeling on the verge of tears, Annie pressed herself against him once more, wanting to hide her vulnerability. She was always happy to be home, but today, she was feeling her mortality more than ever before. She was so damn relieved to be alive and with Frankie that it was almost overwhelming.
As if he knew how on edge she was, Frankie didn’t press her to talk. He simply gathered her against him and held her. His grip was semi-painful, but Annie ignored the twinge. She needed this. Needed him.
“Come on,” Frankie said after a minute. “I’m dying out here. The humidity today is around eighty-two percent and unlike you, I melt in the heat.”
Annie grinned, relieved the funk she’d been feeling finally seemed to be dissipating. Frankie did that for her. He always had.
“Well, let’s get you home before you’re nothing but a pile of sweat with eyes then,” she teased.
When he didn’t immediately move to get in the truck, Annie frowned. “Frankie?”
“I love you,” he said. “So much, you don’t even know.”
“I do know,” she insisted. “Because I love you the same way.”
Frankie nodded. “Come on. Have you called your dad?”
“No. I’ll do it later.”
“Okay. But don’t wait too long. You know Tex’ll have told him you’re home by now.”
It was just one more reason Annie suspected Frankie and Tex were closer than she probably knew. He threw the former SEAL’s name around way too often for them not to be talking on a semi-regular basis. Annie knew she should probably be more irritated that the man was quite the busybody in her life, but she couldn’t. She loved Tex as much as she did her dad’s former teammates. Ghost, Coach, Hollywood, Beatle, Blade, Truck, and even Fish and Chase, were all her unofficial uncles and pain-in-the-butt brothers. They were overprotective and meddlesome, but she knew they behaved that way out of love.
If Tex watching over her gave comfort to everyone she cared about, she was all right with that. Besides, if there was anyone she’d want at her back, it was Tex. He’d proven time after time that he had the connections to get shit done.
“I know,” she told Frankie. “I’ll call Dad after we eat.”
Frankie nodded.
When they were on their way back to the house, Annie asked, “Is my dad still giving you shit about making an honest woman out of me?”