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“Oh,” Sky said, moving her finger delicately up and down the glass, “I think Cal is more than ready to go there.” So was she.
“Good.”
Just then, the door opened. Sky gasped. It was Dylan McCoy! He was balancing at the entryway on crutches. All the SEALs stood and quickly came over, pounding him hello on the back, shaking his hand and opening the door so he could swing into the condo. Sky said, “I’ll be right back. Dylan is giving me away at the altar…”
“Hey,” Abby murmured, “I need to go call our children. I promised my Ma that I’d do it,” and she looked at her watch.
“Oh,” Sky said, “I understand. We’ll see you later for dinner?”
Abby grinned and finished off her wine in a hurry. “Better believe it. When I come back, I’ll join ya’ll out on the patio.”
The men parted as Abby left the condo, opening the door for her. Sky slipped between them so she could reach Dylan. She laughed and threw her arms around the former SEAL. “How are you?” she asked, kissing his shaven cheek. She saw him blush, his grin lopsided with embarrassment.
“Better, now that I’m here.”
Sky stepped aside, ushering him in, gesturing him to an overstuffed chair. “Come on, sit down. Do you want a beer?”
Cal came to her side, slipping his arm around her waist. “We’ve got this handled,” he told her, kissing her temple. Dylan excused himself and merged with his old SEAL team. Sky noticed he wore a serious external brace on his left thigh. McCoy had been shot in February when Vlad Alexandrov’s men had attacked them at an Indian village in Peru. The bullet had shattered his femur. If not for an Army Special Forces team nearby who had a vaunted 18 Delta combat medic among them, he would have died outright from blood loss. Because of the exemplary skills of Nate, the Delta medic, Dylan hadn’t bled out and he kept his leg. Sky’s smile dissolved as she went back to that day, the screams, the ear-splitting roar of gunfire, the smell of blood, watching Julie, Dylan’s wife, dying as she threw herself like a shield between the Russians shooting at them to protect Dylan, who was already wounded and down. She felt Cal squeeze her shoulders and looked up.
“Okay?” he asked, searching her eyes.
“You’re scary sometimes, Sinclair.” She watched him give her a slow grin.
“No, just attuned to you, is all,” Cal reassured her gently. And then he dug into her gaze, as if silently asking her what she was thinking about.
“Just… memories,” she admitted softly. Forcing them away, Sky whispered, “I want to be with Dylan for a bit at some point. Can you guys go outside to the barbecue sun deck? Joe was firing up the barbecue out there. Maybe help him grill those steaks?”
Cal nodded. “Sure, we can do that.” He dropped a quick kiss to her lips. “Remember? That’s the past. We’re here now. And I love you…”
Dylan McCoy barely touched his beer and Sky felt her heart squeeze in anguish for him. He’d lost his wife, Julie, four months ago and she knew how much he loved her. She sat down on the couch and waited until Abby and Joe had taken the platter of steaks outside to the deck where everyone else was gathered. The condo was quiet, and she tucked her legs beneath her, holding Dylan’s sad gaze.
“How’s physical therapy going for your leg?”
“Painful as hell.” Dylan shrugged, “they said I’d almost lost the leg. And then they told me I’d never walk again.”
Snorting, Sky said, “Good thing you’re a SEAL. You don’t listen to anybody but yourself. You guys are tougher than what the medical field realizes.”
He lightly touched the contraption around his thigh that gave it the continued support it needed. “Mostly, I don’t listen to them,” and he smiled a little. “How are you doing, Sky? You look good. Happy.”
Her heart wrung with grief and pain for Dylan. “I’m very happy,” she admitted. “Happier than I’ve ever been.” Sky opened her hand. “I never thought in my wildest imagination that I’d ever meet someone like Cal.”
“I can see he really loves you. He always did. From the gitgo.”
Nodding, Sky held his warm gaze. “Yeah,” she laughed a little, “I was the last to know it. When Cal showed up in Peru, I was torn. I guess I fell in love with him at Camp Nichols, but I was running scared. When I was hit by a bullet while climbing into my Black Hawk, Cal saved me, and I sort of knew then.”
“Knew what?” Dylan asked softly, taking a sip of his beer.
“That there was something very special, one-of-a-kind, between Cal and me. I was way too scared, though. I’d been running since I was sixteen, trying to hide from Vladimir Alexandrov, and I fled to Peru after I recovered from the bullet wound.”
“See? I never knew any of this about you.” Dylan smiled a little. “You’re black ops, Sky. You say little, listen a lot.”
Flushing, she sipped from her glass of water. “I learned from an early age on not to say much. Listen, watch, and you live. That was my unspoken motto growing up.”
“You and Cal shared similar bad childhoods,” Dylan murmured.
“Sort of.” Sky didn’t want to talk about the past. “So what are your plans, Dylan?”
He gave her a sudden grin. “To hobble down the aisle with you and not fall flat on my face and ruin your wedding.”
