The Commander

Jeff stared at him, then nodded his head with a slow thoughtful movement. The Spanish needed no translation.

THE SURGEON came out moments later. She was a handsome woman, in her fifties, with graying hair and dark blue eyes that looked both kind and exhausted. She wore a set of green scrubs with her name embroidered on the left side. Laura Edward-son, M.D. Obviously recognizing Phillip as he held out his hand, she greeted him then nodded toward the rest of the group.

Her eyes stopped on Andres when she saw his bandaged hand. “You were the one who was with her?”

“That’s right.”

“She kept asking about you. Fought the anesthetic so hard I didn’t think we’d ever get her out.” Before he could reply, she continued. “She’s in stable condition right now. The bullet clipped the lower lobe of her lung. We sutured that as best we could and put in a chest tube, but we’re going to have to watch that area very closely. Infection can be a big problem in the lungs. So can pneumonia.”

“We need a specialist.”

She glanced at Phillip as he spoke. “That’s exactly what I recommend,” she said calmly. “In fact, I’ve already called in our thoracic man and our pulmonary man as well. Dr. Weingarten, the thoracic surgeon, assisted me in the operation, and he’ll be monitoring her closely.” She stood wearily. “She’ll be out of the recovery unit in an hour. After that, she’ll be in intensive care until we know we’re clear on that lung. Once she’s settled into ICU, one of you can see her then. One of you.” She paused until all eyes were on her. “It’s none of my business, but since she asked for Mr. Casimiro, I suggest it be him.”

SHE WAS COLD, colder than she’d ever been in her entire life, and nothing but a jumble of sounds and impressions made their way through the bone-chilling numbness. Lena lay perfectly still and let the sounds wash over her. Eventually one stood out—a bubbling noise. She had no idea what it was or where it came from, but strangely enough she was breathing in rhythm with it. Other than that, she felt little. It was like being suspended in midair, as if nothing were touching her, nothing holding her down, nothing holding her up. She wanted to open her eyes but she couldn’t. Her lids were too heavy and when she tried to speak, her tongue felt the same way. Someone had attached weights to it.

Out of the confusion another detail started to register. It was minor, but she concentrated on it and tried to magnify the feeling. After a moment, she put a name to it. Touch. Someone was touching her. It took another second to understand where the connection was being made and another second after that to name it. Her hand. Someone was touching her hand. She strained to respond, but her fingers wouldn’t move, the command never making it out from her brain.

“Lena…querida… Can you hear me?”

The words were soft in her ear, soft and loving. They brushed her cheek with a feathery touch and a warmth she craved. For some unexplained reason, the Spanish made her feel good, too, made her feel as though whoever had spoken cared deeply, cared passionately. Who was talking to her like this? She could hear the emotion in his voice and the coldness faded, if only for a moment. When he spoke again, she fought the cloud of confusion that surrounded her, but it was too strong. It picked her up and carried her off.

The last word she heard was querida. The last thing she felt was a kiss.

CHAPTER FOUR

HER SKIN WAS the color of pearls, a luminescent ivory so pale and bloodless Andres felt as if he were looking through Lena instead of at her. Even her hair seemed to have lost its hue, the blond-streaked strands limp and dull on the pillow beneath her head. Only hours ago, he realized with a start, she’d stood before him on the plane, vital and beautiful. Now she appeared as if all the energy in her body had drained out, and with it, her life.

He knew this wasn’t the case. The doctor had reassured him that Lena would be fine. Her wounds seemed grievous, but she’d recover; they weren’t fatal. Andres couldn’t help himself, though. Myriad tubes and lines snaked from her body to the control panel above her bed, and his eyes darted to the monitor situated there. Along with other functions he knew nothing about, the apparatus apparently tracked her heartbeat, a path of peaks and valleys being traced on the amber-colored screen. Each time the red line dipped, he held himself still until it jerked back up.

He’d thought she was awake at first, when he’d spoken in her ear, but now he wasn’t sure. She lay motionless under the cotton blanket. All he could do was stare helplessly at her and feel his rage growing. It should have been him lying there.

Without warning, he thought of the night before the wedding, the last time they’d been together while she’d still loved him. He could even remember what she’d worn that evening. A dark-blue dress, clingy, sexy, with tiny sparkles all over it. She’d had sandals that matched, two straps of navy leather and little else. The shoes and the short hem had shown off her tanned legs and the color had deepened the gray in her eyes. The outfit wasn’t her usual style, but she’d told him she’d seen it in a shop window in Pensacola and it’d made her think of him and of the Caribbean. She’d been so excited about the honeymoon she’d talked about it more than the wedding.

Lena moaned softly, a painful sound that sliced right into his heart. Andres leaned over the bed, taking her hand in his. Her fingers felt like ice and he rubbed them gently to warm them, wishing he could do more, but knowing he couldn’t.

“I’m here, querida… I’m here.”

FROM THE HALLWAY, there were windows into the patients’ rooms and during visiting hours, the blinds were pulled back. Anyone passing by could see inside. Carmen watched carefully as Andres took Lena’s hand. His movement was filled with emotion, his entire body straining with the effort of caring for her, listening to her…loving her.

It couldn’t have been more obvious had he stood up and shouted it to the world, she thought. He still loved Lena McKinney. The part he held back from everyone else, including her, he gave to Lena and probably always had. Carmen felt a wave of anger and resentment wash over her. He’d taken advantage of her and she’d let him.

She stared, her bitterness etching its way deeper inside her psyche, then she turned away from the glass and walked down the hall.

TUESDAY MORNING, Lena woke up slowly. Her mouth was dry, her throat parched, but for the first time, her mind felt clear. Even though the nurses had already gotten her up and forced her to walk, for some reason, she was more aware of her surroundings than she had been previously. They’d pulled the chest tube, too, an unpleasant experience to say the least. She’d drifted through most of that, wishing she were somewhere else.

Her eyes followed the lines of the room until they came to the chair in the corner. She wasn’t sure why, but she’d expected to see Andres. Instead, her father was dozing in the wingback, his head tilted against the padded side.

She studied him for a moment. She’d never noticed that his hair was so thin or his wrists so bony and white. Had her accident affected him that much or had she simply never taken the time to truly look? Shaken, she started to sit up, then gasped as a lightning strike of pain hit her lower chest.

The sound woke him, and Phillip rose immediately, his eyes widening as he saw her pain-etched face. He was at her bedside in a heartbeat. “Lena? Baby? What’s wrong? Do you need the doctor?”

He hadn’t used that term of endearment in years, and the sound of it now made her grin weakly. “Hey, Daddy…” she croaked. Each word was painful, each breath torture…but not as much as it had been. “Could I just have some water?”

He reached for a nearby pitcher and poured her a glass, then helped her drink through the straw. “You look better,” he said, staring down at her with a critical eye. “Are you sore? How’s the incision?” The questions came as rapidly as a cross-examination. “Can you breathe all right?”

“Don’t you have something better to do than sit here and bother me?” she asked hoarsely.

“Not at the moment, no.”

After the death of Dorothea McKinney, Lena’s mother, Lena and her father had become very close, each depending on the other for love and support. They’d grown apart through the years as Phillip had become too controlling, and the relationship had changed into a seesaw of love and manipulation. His violent opposition to Andres had pushed Lena away even more. But seeing him here now, sitting in her hospital room when she knew he had work to do made Lena feel like a little girl again, loved and protected.

The emotion lasted only a second. Sensing her regained strength, he spoiled the moment with his very next words.

“What in the hell did you think you were doing, Lena?” He knit his eyebrows together in one angry line as he set her cup back down. “You could have gotten yourself killed out there! And for what? I can’t believe you let yourself do this—”

Lena tuned the words out, just as she did each time her father acted this way. He was the only person on the planet she let talk to her so disrespectfully. She would have crucified any of her team if they’d dared do the same.

After he ran out of steam, Lena defended herself. “I was doing the job I’m paid to do,” she answered. “I’m a cop, Daddy. And I’ll always be a cop.”

His lips were a firm line, and she knew what part of the argument was coming next. He had begged her to go to law school, to join her brothers at the firm, but she’d wanted to be a policewoman. “Nonsense! There’s plenty of time for you to go back to school. You could walk into the firm and be a partner in no time.”

“Daddy…”

He ignored her warning tones. “You’re too damned bright to waste your talents on that rinky-dink police force. You could do so much better. If I’ve told you once—”

“You’ve told me a thousand times,” she interrupted, “and you don’t need to tell me again. I know how you feel about it.”

Her impudence brought out his old trump card. “Your mother would not have liked this.”

The words usually wearied Lena, but somehow this time they did just the opposite. She pursed her mouth tightly, her lips the only part of her body she could move without causing pain.

“Then consider that your fault,” she answered sharply. “You taught me there were things worth fighting for. You taught me the difference between right and wrong.”

“The difference between right and wrong…” His stare was blue and piercing—Dorothea had been the one to give Lena the granite-gray eyes—and suddenly Lena understood they’d come to the heart of the argument. “Is that what you think you were doing when you saved Casimiro’s life?”

He said the Spanish surname incorrectly. Time and time again, she’d told Phillip how to say Andres’s last name, but he insisted on his way. Finally she’d realized he was deliberately trying to denigrate Andres by mispronouncing his name, and she’d given up trying to rectify the mistake.

He spoke in a biting voice. “If that’s what you think you were doing—”

“I was doing my job,” she reiterated.

Not that she’d done it very well, she thought to herself. Each time she’d woken, that had been her only coherent thought. She’d screwed up. Big time. No unauthorized person should have been anywhere near that airport, and if she had been paying attention to her work instead of Andres, she wouldn’t be in a hospital bed now.

“Well, I can’t believe you almost got yourself killed for the likes of him. He isn’t worth the time of day, much less your life. I don’t want you having anything to do with him, Lena.” His voice rose stridently, as if he were winding up a case. “You can’t trust him and he’ll hurt you again. Do you hear me?”

“Everyone can hear you. But it doesn’t matter one way or the other. I have no intentions in that direction, I can assure you.”

“I’m glad to see you’ve finally gotten some sense about the son of a bitch because I don’t care how important he is, the man’s still a worthless bastard.”