Page 4 of Troubled Water
“Yes. From high school. Do you know when it is?”
“A few weeks. Make certain I don’t forget it.” His trembling hand reaches for mine. Again, I step away. He frowns. “What’s your problem, Bethany? I won’t miss it.”
I catch sight of Dr. Powell over his shoulder. Hoping, praying the renowned psychologist can get through to him even if I can’t, I allow my agony to show. “You already did, Dad. It was a year ago. Now, I have to get the kids to school before I go to work.”
He’s a statue, but Dr. Powell asks me, “Work, Bethany?”
“Yes. I’ve been working at McCallister Construction since I graduated. I take night classes at a local branch of UT.”
My father, shaken, snaps, “What the hell happened to your grades, young lady?”
I fling a cold glare in his direction. “Nothing. I got accepted at every school I applied to.”
“Then why the hell aren’t you there?”
“Because I couldn’t trust you to be present for my brothers and sister. Just the fact you didn’t even recall that I graduated last year is proof enough I was right.” With that, I sidestep him and make my way back inside to wrap up our part in this little farce.
3
“So, you actually knew your wife from a young age.”
I correct Agent Fox, “No.”
“What would you call it then?”
“I knew of her existence due to a mission brief.”
“Can you expand on that?”
I fling a filthy look in Fox’s direction because it’s not as if what we’re discussing wasn’t mentioned all over the news in interview after interview for years. “When I was a SEAL commander, I was on the team that helped take out a group of terrorists on board the passenger cruise liner, theSea Force.”
“Ah, yes. TheSea Force.Isn’t that why you resigned your commission?”
“Yes.”
“Why’s that?”
I think back to the woman I met on board theSea Forceand how her fears changed the course of my life. With a deep breath, I admit, “I met Libby Sullivan.”
4
THIRTEEN YEARS AGO— AGE 30
“What do you mean, you resigned your commission, Thorn? Being a SEAL meant everything to you,” Libby asks me with a concerned frown. She rocks back and forth, rubbing her hand over her protruding stomach. A blind idiot can see the bliss that’s imprinted on her features.
And I’m certainly not that.
Even though her marriage was rocky when I first met her on the deck of theUSS Lassenafter being rescued from her solo vacation on theSea Force, Elizabeth “Libby” Akin Sullivan obviously took my words to heart. She took the card I handed her with our personal SEAL team psychiatrist’s information, thanked me, and proceeded to navigate past the boulders in her life.
Now, she’s even more beautiful than I remember, with love lighting up her features—a deep and endless love for her husband, Calhoun. Not for the first time since I met her, I wonder what it would be like to have Libby’s strength and devotion to protect. “Not everything.”
“Close,” she fires back.
“I got a different job offer. It’s…intriguing.”
Libby straightens in her rocker. “Really?”
“Yes.”
