“This was from our first tree,” she’d told him, as she lifted a tarnished and scratched silver and blue ball carefully out of a box.
She knew where every decoration had come from and how long she’d had it. It was not one of those designer trees he remembered seeing in fancy department stores. She called it her memory tree, because so many of the decorations were homemade, some from when she was a kid and some, like his Scout craft projects, from pine cones.
She was a very special woman, he thought, as he heard the bell ring downstairs signaling that the customer had left. And Ty Brown was a stand-up man. He still couldn’t get over that Brown had volunteered for his rescue mission. But he did understand why Jess might love him.
Telling her about Rabia had been the right thing to do. The relief they’d both felt after their mutual confessions had actually been the catalyst for a special sort of love between them.
It felt good to have someone like Jess on his side. But he couldn’t hold her life up forever.
He heard her walk up the stairs and turned when she opened the door. “You need to tell him, Jess,” he blurted out. “You need to tell Brown. You need to go to him.”
Her brows drew together. “Where’s this coming from?”
“You love him. It’s that simple.”
She smiled sadly and shook her head. “I think we’ve both figured out that nothing in our lives is simple.” She walked over and sat down on the arm of the sofa. “I hurt him. You can understand that. I can’t expect him to forget that I walked away from him. Look. Don’t worry. If things are supposed to work out with Ty and me, it will. Right now, you’re my priority.”
“I think maybe I might be the fool in this mix.” He limped over and drew her to her feet and into his arms. “Our marriage may be too broken to fix, but I do love you, Jess.”
She hugged him back. “I know. I love you, too. And I’ll always be here for you if you need me.”
They were going to get through this, he thought, actually believing it for the first time. Somehow, they were both going to get through this.
Then Jess’s cell phone rang and turned his world upside down again.
“PUT US ON speaker, Jess,” Mike Brown said after saying hello and asking if Jeff was there. “You both need to hear this.”
“What’s wrong?” Jess glanced nervously at J.R.
“Just put us on speaker, sweetie.”
“It’s Mike Brown,” she told J.R., as she switched the phone to speaker mode.
“Jeff,” Mike said by way of greeting. “Look. I’ve got some bad news.”
J.R. frowned at the phone. “How bad?”
“Word just came down that your story’s been leaked.”
J.R. went pale. Jess touched a hand to his shoulder to steady him.
“How much of the story?” she asked, hoping maybe it wasn’t as bad as it sounded.
“More than should have been. Apparently, some genius working in Army’s public relations section ferreted it out, decided it was time a branch of the military other than the SEALs got some glory, and he let it all out.”
“How could that even happen?” Jess asked, as J.R. limped to the sofa and sat down heavily.
“How does any secret get leaked?” Mike said in disgust. “Somebody talked who shouldn’t have, and word spread from there. The only thing that seems to have escaped exposure is the black team’s involvement. The after-action report fudged on our connection and substituted Special Forces.”
“Did they name names?” J.R. wanted to know.
“I’m afraid so, yeah,” Mike said. “It hit the AP wire earlier today. It’s going to hurt, but you’d better turn on the TV. It’s all over the news.”
Jess scrambled toward the TV, turned it on, and switched to a twenty-four-hour news station. She muted the sound and kept one eye on the TV, watching for coverage of the story while Mike talked.
“You’d better be prepared. There’ll be reporters from every local and national outlet clamoring at your door anytime now.”
“Rabia?” J.R. asked, looking ill.
“The press got a hold of her picture, man. I’m sorry. Apparently, they found it in a roster of teachers in her school in Kabul.”
“My God.” Jeff dropped his head into his hands. “She’s dead. Now that the word’s out, the Taliban will find her, and she’s as good as dead.”
“We’re not going to let that happen. Between me and Nate Black, we’ve been on the phone nonstop to the brass at DOD, chewing ass and pointing out the facts. They’re going to have egg all over their collective face if something happens to her and they know it. As news spreads, any American who’s seen and heard about her part in your rescue will call her a national heroine. Hell, if she was a Catholic, she’d be canonized for what she did for one of our own.
“So trust me,” Mike continued emphatically. “Every U.S. asset available in Kabul is currently on the hunt for her. They’ll find her and get her out of the country long before the Taliban can close ranks and get to her. They’ll get her out of there just like we got you out. I want you to believe that, OK? You need to believe that.”
J.R. didn’t look convinced.
Jess sat down beside him and put an arm around his waist. “When will you know something?”
“It doesn’t matter,” J.R. interrupted dismally. “Her father won’t move again, and she won’t go anywhere without him.”
“The old man left before when he thought it would save his daughter’s life, right?” Mike pointed out. “As soon as he knows she’s in danger, he’ll agree to go with her. Look, guys, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go. The minute I hear something, I’ll call, OK? Hang in there.”
The line went dead.
Jess stared at her phone, then at J.R. “Mike won’t let her down, J.R. He’ll do what he said. He’ll get her out.”
But J.R. had tuned out. He had that look in his eyes. The thousand-mile stare. He’d gone to that place in his head where he went sometimes when life became too difficult to deal with.
Only in this case, he was staring thousands of miles away, where the fate of the woman he loved was in the hands of faceless, nameless strangers.
Chapter 32
THE OPEN-AIR MARKET TEEMED WITH life and scents and colors. It was the life that Rabia needed. She had mourned long enough. It was time to renew the process of living again with an open heart and get past the grieving.
She pulled her heavy coat tighter around her to ward off the December chill and, with a small basket handle looped over her arm, browsed through the market. Taking her time, she soaked it all in as she walked among the vendors, searching through racks of dresses and lovely, colorful scarves. She even stopped at the food vendors and bought loaves of fresh-baked bread and tender nut meats. Kabul markets had one hundred times as many vendors as Salawat.
Thoughts of the little village where she had spent time with Jeffery and her father came unbidden, reminding her of what would never be again.
Not only had she lost Jeffery; twenty days ago, she had lost her father.
“It is his heart,” the doctor had said, after her father had collapsed and she had rushed him to a hospital. “His condition has been left untreated for too long. I am sorry. There is nothing we can do but make him more comfortable.”
