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“Go away!” he shouted. He realized his mistake when the echo of his words reverberated throughout his aching head.
The pounding persisted. He could hear doors opening and closing up and down the breezeway as neighbors added their complaints. Great. Just great.
“Keep your socks on,” he grumbled, searching for something to cover his bare butt. “I’m coming!”
Zach found a pair of boxer briefs, discarded near the foot of the bed and stepped into them. He needed a shave. He needed a shower. And he had no idea where the rest of his clothes were until he tripped over them on the way to answer the door.
Wanting to connect his fist with whomever waited on the other side, Zach flung open the door. A naval officer stood on the stoop.
“Shit!” Zach eyeballed his brother-in-law, Marc Miller, with the shiny new rank of captain pinned to the collar points of his khaki uniform. “What do you want?”
Zach turned his back on the other man and headed straight for the waiting bottle. He’d managed to avoid his family for the better part of the past month. He’d even unplugged his phone.
But they must have decided to send in reinforcements. The last thing he wanted or needed right now was his family descending on him. When Miller didn’t speak, Zach was forced to turn around and look at him.
“You didn’t show up for rehab,” Miller said at last, closing the door behind him.
Zach tipped the bottle to the glass. “So I’m a couple hours late. Can you blame a guy for one last binge?”
“Must have been one hell of a party.” Miller scowled at the pizza boxes and other remnants of fast-food trash scattered around the place. “You’re two days late. You were supposed to report to the naval hospital in San Diego on Wednesday. It’s Friday.”
“Hours, days. So I’m late. Is that what you came to tell me? Message delivered.” Zach offered a mock salute with the bottle.
Miller didn’t look the least bit amused. “The thing is…you’re all out of chances, Prince. Those billets in rehab are reserved for personnel who really want them.”
“What the hell. It doesn’t matter.” He set the bottle aside and clung to the glass.
“Probably not,” Miller agreed. “But by not showing up you’re UA—unauthorized absence, in case you forgot. Good thing for you you’ve got friends in high places. If it was up to me, I’d leave you to wallow in your self-pity. But you’re right, I’m just the messenger. So here it is.” Miller handed him a folded piece of paper. “Orders to SEAL training starting Monday, 0700.”
Zach took the orders, but didn’t bother to read them. He’d forgotten about submitting the request. It didn’t matter now, anyway. He had no intention of falling back on the family tradition of becoming a Navy SEAL, commando of sea, air and land. His father had been a notorious Navy SEAL frogman before his retirement. His sister, Tabby, had become the very first female SEAL. And his brother-in-law was the commanding officer in charge of SEAL training.
No way in hell would he subject himself to that.
He was already in hell. And like Miller said, he was out of options. He’d sabotaged rehab because he couldn’t stand the thought of opening a vein and bleeding his emotions in front of fellow substance abusers.
Zach unfolded the orders with more curiosity than enthusiasm. Any blood he might shed in SEAL training would likely be real. There’d be blisters. And punishing endurance tests metered out to make his body stronger—physical pain to mask the raw emotional pain in a way that alcohol couldn’t.
And rehab wouldn’t.
Besides, he could quit drinking any time he wanted to. He just didn’t want to.
Famous last words. He set down the glass of bourbon with disgust. Actions spoke volumes.
He didn’t want to drink his life away.
He didn’t think Michelle would want that for him, either. He felt the all-too-familiar stabs of pain.
Zach gave the paper in his hand a cursory glance, looking for the signature he knew he’d find. “Why’s he doing this?”
“Maybe he thinks you deserve one more chance.” Miller stalked over to the window and mercilessly drew back the curtains, letting in the blinding light of day. He threw open the sash, a cool California breeze diffusing the stench. “The family’s expecting you for a late dinner tonight at the Hotel Del Coronado, 2100 sharp.” Marc completed his circle of Zach’s small one-room apartment. “This place stinks. Think about picking up after yourself once in a while.” He stopped on his way to the door and looked Zach up and down. “A shower wouldn’t hurt, either.”
Put on the defensive, Zach scoffed at the suggestion, even though he intended to shower. Most days it was all he managed.
“Don’t let the admiral down, Prince. Or the next time someone comes knocking at your door, it’ll be the shore patrol.” With that parting shot, Miller left.
Zach sank onto the mattress, all the wind knocked out of his sails. The Chief of SEALs, Admiral Mitchell Dann, had stepped in to keep him from going back to the brig where he’d spent the better part of the past four weeks. And now the man had pushed through his request for SEAL training.
Michelle’s father.
His godfather.
A man whose grief probably equaled Zach’s own, yet the admiral managed to put on a better face for the world. How could Admiral Dann be so forgiving of the one person who didn’t deserve it?
Zach threw the glass of bourbon. It smashed against the wall and shattered. Shards of glass fell to the carpet. Amber liquid rolled down the wall-paper like the tears he wouldn’t allow himself to shed.
Moving to his dresser, he pushed aside his wallet with the paltry sum of forty-two dollars—all that was left of his military paycheck after drinking most of it away. He touched his lieutenant’s bars and tried not to think.
He’d been reduced to the rank of lieutenant junior grade right after he’d punched Captain Greene. That incident had landed him in the brig the first time. The hard drinking that followed had taken its toll, too, costing him his flight qualifications until he got his act together. Hence rehab. His one and only chance to do that.
A formal inquiry into the incident over Iraq had absolved him of any responsibility. The Navy had gone over everything with a fine-tooth comb. From cockpit banter to maintenance logs. And found nothing. In the end, top brass had determined enemy fire responsible.
He and Steve could have told them as much from their eyewitness accounts.
But he couldn’t let himself off the hook that easily.
He picked up the gold wings he was no longer allowed to pin to his uniform. Closing his hand over them, he stared at the stranger in the mirror.
Miller was wrong.
Zach couldn’t even muster pity for the poor bastard with the empty eyes. He shifted his gaze to the snapshot tucked into the corner of the frame, the same photo he’d once carried in the cockpit of his fighter. Now water-stained and tattered, the picture hadn’t fared any better than he had.
Zach stared at it, at Michelle’s achingly familiar smile. When was the last time he’d even seen her smile?
That day in the shower? In the briefing room?
Across the flight deck the corner of her mouth had turned up in a sort of sad smile. He’d wondered what she was thinking.
Now he’d never know.
As much as he blamed Greene for not letting him take that shot, he blamed himself even more. If only…
If only he’d taken it, anyway.
In one angry swoop he cleared the dresser and laid his head down. Every night Michelle called to him to come fly with her. And every morning he awoke from the nightmare of losing her all over again.
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