That’s when he’d gotten a look at her torso. There was a deep purple bruise in a line across her chest, right beneath her breasts. She’d explained that it had come from hitting the edge of the helicopter she’d jumped into. She’d downplayed the incident, but Frankie knew what she was describing had been ten times scarier in reality.
He also knew without her having to admit it that she’d come close to dying on the side of whatever mountain she’d been on.
That bruise scared him to death. It looked painful as hell, and her broken ribs indicated just how hard she’d hit when she’d landed.
Frankie wouldn’t insist Annie quit doing what she loved. She’d worked her ass off to get to where she was, in charge of her own Green Beret team. And she was obviously damn good at it. But if she gave him the slightest indication that she wanted to do something different with her life, he’d encourage her without reservations.
A little bit of Frankie died inside every time she came back to him bruised and battered.
He wasn’t a very dominant person in general. With his disability and the way he was made fun of while growing up, he’d learned to fade into the background. But that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t protect Annie with everything he had in him. She was literally the only person who’d never judged him. From the first moment they’d met, she hadn’t hesitated to befriend him and do her best to learn to communicate. No one else had ever done that. He was one hundred percent loyal to her. If he could, he’d use his bare hands to kill anyone who dared try to hurt her. She meant that much to him.
But at the moment, Frankie felt helpless. He could see Annie was struggling with something she wasn’t ready to talk about. He would give her as much time and space as she needed to work through whatever it was. He had no doubt she’d eventually talk to him. In the meantime, he’d do what he’d always done—make sure she knew how much he loved her. It wasn’t exactly a hardship.
Making love was out of the question for at least a few weeks until her ribs healed. He knew his Annie. She’d pretend she wasn’t hurting, even if she was screaming in pain inside. So it would be up to him to be strong enough not to give in to their desire. It wouldn’t be easy, but Frankie wouldn’t hurt her. Not ever.
Reaching out, he put his palm over the bruise on Annie’s chest. He gently rubbed his thumb back and forth on her sleep shirt, as if that could erase the horridness underneath the cloth.
“Frankie?” she mumbled.
He’d already taken off the speech processor component of his hearing device but could read her lips easily. “Shhhh,” he murmured. “Go to sleep.”
She shifted as if to roll toward him, but winced in pain at the movement.
Frankie moved his hand to her belly and pressed down lightly. “Stay still, love.”
She nodded, then reached for his hand. She covered it with her own and sighed in contentment as she fell asleep once more.
Frankie wasn’t sure how long he lay awake watching his fiancée sleep, but eventually he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. Moving closer so he’d feel if she got restless in the middle of the night and needed another painkiller, Frankie eventually fell asleep.
Chapter Four
“Are you as excited as I am for this month of leave?” Annie asked Frankie a few weeks later, when they were on a plane headed for Texas.
“Yes,” Frankie said simply.
The bruise on Annie’s forehead had disappeared and the scar over her eye would eventually fade so it wasn’t noticeable at all. The guys on her Green Beret team were all in various stages of healing. Green and Bell wouldn’t be back. Their injuries were too intensive for them to be able to be on the teams anymore. Shef was iffy, and regardless, he and Mack were being moved to another duty station, and thus another team.
Annie wasn’t as close with her team as her dad had been with his, because the Army hadn’t given her a chance to have that super-close bond. They kept moving her, or members of her team, to different stations.
Her own reenlistment date was quickly approaching. Annie had completed her initial six-year commitment—and was seriously considering calling it quits.
Instead of dissipating, those feelings on the helicopter had stayed with her for weeks, only getting stronger. Reminding her of what could happen the next time she was deployed. How she might not be so lucky again. But every time she thought about bringing it up with Frankie or her dad, panic and dread set in. Especially where Frankie was concerned. He’d given up so much for her to fulfill her dream. How could she just up and quit now?
Though, the fact that she was looking forward to this vacation as much as she was…it made her more and more certain that she didn’t want to re-up. She couldn’t remember when they’d spent an entire month together without having to worry about the phone ringing and her being called up for a mission.
They were headed to Killeen first, where Annie’s brother Doug was graduating from high school. Even Ethan was coming home from the University of Boulder in Colorado for the occasion. It had been a long time since the entire family had been together. Her three brothers were crazy busy, even John, who was thirteen, seemed to be gone more than he was home.
After the graduation ceremony, she and Frankie were headed out on the trip of a lifetime, spending two weeks on a four-masted sailboat. It was a large ship, holding around sixty guests and thirty crew. The itinerary was taking them to some of the smaller islands in the Caribbean, many of which Annie had never heard of.
This was more Frankie’s dream vacation than Annie’s, as he was somewhat of a boat nut. There weren’t many of the huge sailboats still operating today, and she knew he couldn’t wait to watch the crew put up and take in the sails each day. They did it the old fashioned way, climbing up the masts and unfurling the sails by hand.
Because Annie worked so much, and rarely took time off, they had plenty of money saved up. Enough to splurge on the trip.
“What are you thinking about so hard?” Frankie asked.
Annie glanced at him. Her man looked exceptionally good today. He was wearing a pair of khaki pants and a polo shirt, filling out both perfectly. He’d finally gotten a haircut, and she’d noticed various women in the airport checking him out. Sometimes Annie had to pinch herself that he was hers. She knew she was hardly hideous, but she was a little too muscular, too assertive, cared too little about wearing makeup and girly clothes to appeal to a vast majority of the men she met. Frankie didn’t give a damn about any of that. He loved her exactly as she was.
“I’m just so ready for this vacation,” she told him.
Frankie took her hand in his and lifted it to his lips, kissing the back. “Me too. You gonna talk to your dad about your reenlistment?”
Annie blinked in surprise, then quickly tried to cover her reaction. “Why would I do that?”
Frankie looked at her with such gentleness and love, it made Annie want to weep.
“Because you’re stressed out. And because you’re thinking about not re-upping.”
This time, she was genuinely shocked. She hadn’t said a word to Frankie about her misgivings. Though she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that he could read her so well.