His brows raised. “But?”

  I sighed. “Let’s keep looking.”

  He nodded, turned to the realtor, and cleared his throat. “We’ll likely make a decision in the next day or so.”

  “Enjoy your stay in Clearwater,” she said. “It’s beautiful weather this time of year.”

  I couldn’t argue her claim. It was nearly December, and the temperature was in the low 80’s, without a cloud in the sky. Homes notwithstanding, Clearwater, Florida seemed to be exactly what I was after. Shorts all year long. Picturesque beaches. The palm tree lined streets were free of clutter and trash.

  In short, the city was exactly what I was hoping to find. The three homes we’d been shown, at least so far, weren’t.

  We looked at two more, neither of which had a view of the ocean. It was something Vincent desperately wanted but had proven to be out of our price range for what was currently on the market. Each of the realtors said the same thing.

  You just missed one that I think would have been perfect.

  Frustrated, but not willing to give up, we searched for a coffeeshop with wi-fi. A few minutes to relax while scouring the internet for any new listings would do both of us good, we thought.

  As I provided guidance from the Google Maps GPS service, Vincent ogled the homes that lined the street on his left.

  “Perfect,” he said dryly as he passed a home that wasn’t for sale. A block later, he said it again, giving a nod toward another home that wasn’t on the market.

  “There’s another,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Perfect.”

  “They’re not for sale,” I complained. “None of the good ones are.”

  The homes on Vincent’s side of the street all backed up to the Gulf of Mexico. The western horizon would provide picturesque sunsets every night. Forgetting our past would be an easy thing to do while walking along the beach at sunset.

  I envisioned opening my own practice, focusing on veterans that needed the assistance of someone who had firsthand information on what was required to survive in the real world. As I daydreamed of such things and gazed blankly at my phone, Vincent slammed on the brakes.

  The seatbelt locked, clamping against my shoulder like a vise. At the same time, Vincent’s hand pressed against my chest, bracing me.

  “What happened?” I screeched, peering beyond my phone, toward the street ahead.

  He shifted the truck into reverse and tilted his head toward his window. “Look.”

  An elderly man stood at the edge of a well-manicured lawn with a hammer clenched in his right hand. With his left hand, he steadied a wooden stake. Affixed to the stake, a homemade “For Sale by Owner” sign was stapled.

  The head of the hammer came down on top of the stake with the force of a butterfly landing.

  Vincent backed the truck beyond the driveway, and then pulled into it and parked. He opened the door and peered over the hood of the truck.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but are you selling the place?” Vincent asked.

  The man glanced over his shoulder. “What?”

  “Selling the place?” Vincent shouted.

  “Plannin’ on it,” the man said, not bothering to smile. “Gal at Sotheby’s wants to charge me six percent. Won’t give a military or senior discount. Told her to go pound sand.” He gripped the stake and swung the hammer against it. “I’ll sell this son-of-a-bitch myself.”

  “You’re a veteran?” Vincent asked.

  The old man hit the stake again before turning around. “3rd Battalion, 5th Marines,” he said proudly. “Cut my teeth at the Battle of Inchon. Korea, 1950. Was seventeen at the time.”

  I rolled down the window and waved. The man smiled and waved in return. Beyond him, a tiny beachfront home with white siding, light blue trim, and a porch barely big enough to stand on was positioned in the center of a grossly oversized lot. The home’s lengthy driveway was made of brick and lined with palm trees.

  I got out of the truck and gazed the length of the lawn. Beyond the home, the ocean glistened the afternoon sun’s reflection. Out of place in the neighborhood that was filled with more modern offerings twice its size, the modest home was perfect in my eyes.

  “Let me give you a hand,” Vincent said. “I’m a bit too young for Inchon, but I served a day or two in the beloved Corps.”

  The old man shot Vincent a look of disbelief.

  A few feet shy of where the old man stood, Vincent paused and rolled up his sleeve. The old man’s eyes shot to the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor tattoo on Vincent’s bicep. After a quick inspection, he extended his hand, offering Vincent the hammer.

  “Veteran of war?” the old man asked.

  “Half a dozen tours in Iraq, and a few more than that in Afghanistan. War’s all I’ve ever known.” Vincent hammered the stake into the ground, checked it, and peered toward the house. “Just drove down from Quantico. We’re looking to move somewhere peaceful. I’d like to put that life behind me and begin a new one.”

  The old man waved his weathered hand toward the home. “I built this when I got home. 1953.”

  Vincent offered his hand. “Vincent Briggs.”

  “Herb Kramer,” the old man said. “Friends call me Mickey.”

  Vincent gestured to me. “This is Valerie. Her friends call her Val.”

  Mickey shuffled to where I stood and offered his weathered hand. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Val.”

  He was adorable. Three inches shorter than me, and weighing all of a hundred and thirty pounds, his sun-spotted scalp was visible through his thin white crewcut.

  Mickey studied me for a moment, smiling the entire time. “Remind me of Marge. She did her hair like that. Was brown, too, when it wasn’t white. She passed year before last, in June.” He looked at Vincent. “If you’re looking to move somewhere peaceful, it don’t get any more peaceful than this.”

  “Mind if we have a look?” Vincent asked.

  Mickey looked at me and winked. “I’d be insulted if you didn’t.”

  The home was little less than 1,000 square feet, with two bedrooms and one bathroom. It was much smaller than what we hoped for and in desperate need of being updated, despite its perfect condition. The one car garage was undersized, and far too small to park Vincent’s truck in.

  The bedrooms were small, neither being large enough for our king size bed.

  Everything about the home, kitchen included, was just like Mickey.

  Small.

  We stepped through the sliding doors and onto the back deck. Beyond the tall palms and tropical shrubs that bordered the property, the Gulf of Mexico went on for as far as the eye could see.

  “Where are you going, Mickey?” Vincent asked, peering toward the ocean as he spoke. “When you sell this place?”

  “Frank Farmer moved over off of 13th, to the retirement village,” Mickey said, as if we knew where he spoke of. “Said he loves it there. They’ve got cards on Friday. Said they let him play poker.”

  Vincent grinned. “Sounds like a good time.”

  “So says Frank,” Mickey said with a smile.

  “What’s it going to take to buy this place?” Vincent asked.

  Mickey tapped his fingertip against the edge of the whitewashed handrail. “This one?”

  Vincent nodded.

  “Four hundred and fifty if you want to bicker. Four twenty-five if you’re paying cash. Somewhere in between if you’re looking to finance and want to wait past the new year to close. I priced it for a quick sale.”

  My heart raced. It may have been small, but it was in the perfect location and priced at half of what we’d looked at so far. Granted, it was half the home, but it was exactly what we both wanted.

  Vincent looked at me.

  I nodded eagerly and mouthed the words, I love it.

  “We’ll take it,” Vincent said.

  Mickey gripped the handrail with each hand, gazed out at the ocean for a moment, and then met Vincent’s gaze. “Which of those categories do you fall into?”

  “We’d be the category that pays cash.”

  Mickey grinned. “Care to stay for dinner? Haven’t had a dinner guest since Frank went to the village.”

  “We’d love to,” Vincent responded.

  We enjoyed dinner together, staying long enough to watch the sunset from the back deck. When the night ended, we shook Herb “Mickey” Kramer’s hand, and bid farewell.

  Two days later, the three of us began our new lives.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Vincent

  The avocado-colored sinks, toilets, and draperies hinted that it had been 50 years since Mickey last remodeled the home. The pale-yellow kitchen cabinets reminded me of Boyle’s west Texas interrogation room.

  I carried the empty box to the garage, using caution not to trip on the blue shag carpet’s long piles. I added it to the massive pile of flattened cardboard and gazed into the front yard. Mickey’s landscaping would be a highlight by anyone’s standards.

  The home may have been in desperate need of updates but the thought of making them excited me. Deciding the colors to paint the walls, the type of flooring we preferred, and choosing cabinets together would convert Mickey’s house into our home.

  I traipsed through the lush lawn—barefoot—and retrieved a palm frond that had fallen. When I returned to the garage, Val was tossing a flattened box on top of the others.

  “That’s it,” she announced with a clap of her hands.

  “The last one?”

  She chuckled. “It was full of shoes.”

  “I own four pair, total.”

  “You’re a guy. Girls need options.”

  “Apparently.”

  “Can you believe it’s December?” she asked. “It’s eighty-something degrees.”

  “I know.” I gazed at the clear blue sky. “It’s perfect.”

  “I think I’m really going to like it here.”

  “I think I am, too.”

  “What are you going to do?” she asked. “We’ve never discussed it.”

  “I’m going to buy a fishing boat.”

  She belted out a laugh. I put my hands on my hips and glared back at her.

  When she caught her breath, she gave me a look. “You’re serious?”

  “I am.”

  “What do you know about fishing?”

  “Absolutely nothing. That’s what’s attractive about the entire concept. It’ll give me something to focus on. I figured I’d do some studying, take a few chartered tours, and find out what people expect when they pay a guide to take them fishing. Then, I’ll start my own fishing tours.”

  “It should be relaxing.”

  “Relaxing and rewarding.”

  “No more military operations? That desire’s gone?” she asked. “For good?”

  “I’m done saving people for a while,” I responded. “It’s time I focus on saving myself.”

  “Just for a while?”

  “A long while.” I put my arm around her. “What are you going to do with your time?”

  “I haven’t decided. I thought I’d like to open a practice where I focus on veterans and their needs. I don’t know. I need some time to think. I may not want to be exposed to that mindset for a while. For now, I feel like I need to get my head screwed on straight before I can fix anyone else’s.”

  “I can be the boat captain, and you can be the first mate. Until you figure something else out.”

  She chuckled. “I might take you up on that.”

  We’d driven sixteen hours in one day, slept no more than a few hours, and unpacked the following day. Although it was only mid-afternoon, we wandered into the bedroom and flopped onto the bed for just a minute.

  I fixed my eyes on the ceiling. Thoughts of Shephard and Martin faded. Moonlit walks along the beach, fishing expeditions to locations unknown, and learning to cook fresh seafood took occupancy in the vacant space.

  While my mind drifted away, the salt water breeze crept through the open sliding glass doors, bringing a hint of Val’s perfume with it. I rolled to my side. Wearing a slight smile, she, too, gazed blankly at the ceiling.

  I rested my cheek against my open palm. “What are you thinking about?”

  “Progress.”

  “Are you making it?”

  “I think so.” She tilted her head to the side. “This is our first step away from our former lives and into our new ones.”

  I kissed her.

  Her lips were softer.

  Sweeter.

  She returned the kiss, passionately. I eagerly continued, exploring what her intimacy offered my clouded mind. The longer we kissed, the less prominent my past became. In a moment, the thoughts that had littered the forefront of my mind were gone, replaced by the longing for a woman’s touch.

  My hands explored the curves of her body, hungry to convey my mind’s desires without allowing our lips to part.

  Soon, her naked flesh was against mine.

  Neither of us spoke. As if it were as natural as drawing a breath, we continued our sexual journey, each providing the other with exactly what words simply couldn’t convey.

  Her body grinded against mine, and mine hers. The sweetness of her perfume melded with my manly musk, creating one scent that was ours, and ours alone.

  With the aroma of our life’s progress lingering lightly in the room, we reached the pinnacle of bliss, together.

  I collapsed onto the bed. She did the same, nestling into place at my side. I studied her, trying to memorize every curve and line of her body’s perfection. When I was satisfied that I had, my lips parted.

  “I think I’m going to be okay,” I said.

  She looked at me and smiled. A lone tear escaped the corner of her eye. “Me, too.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Val

  I awoke to the smell of freshly-brewed coffee. I rolled to my side and peered through the bedroom’s sliding glass doors. With the setting sun as his backdrop, Vincent’s silhouette was sitting on the deck, drinking a cup of coffee.

  I poured a cup and joined him. “I needed that nap.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “I was exhausted.”

  With my coffee cupped in my hands, I leaned against the handrail and gazed at the watery horizon. “I can’t believe this is our life.”

  “I can’t believe I found what I was after.”

  I tilted my head to the side. “Which was…?”

  “Tranquility.”

  “Oh. That. Yeah.” I sipped my coffee. “We found it, alright.”

  We watched our first sunset as homeowners—and lovers—in silence. Both completely stricken by the beauty of it all, we simply sipped our coffee as the miracle took place before our eyes.

  As the sky darkened from orange to indigo blue, I took a seat at Vincent’s side. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  If we were going to succeed as lovers, I had to be completely honest with him. Doing so was undoubtedly a risk, but it was a risk I knew I had to take.

  With his eyes fixed on the horizon, he let out a sigh. “I’ve got something to tell you, too.”

  “You first,” I said.

  He glanced at me. “I was R.P. McMurphy.”

  I nodded. “I know.”

  He turned to face me. “What do you mean, you know?”

  “I knew.”

  He chuckled. “Bullshit.”

  “I really did.”

  The light from the bedroom cast shadows on his face, but his look was clearly one of disbelief.

  “I tried to hint at it,” I said. “We were talking on that Monday, after Martin read the article about Wallace and Pike. You mentioned McMurphy, so I took the conversation to Jack Nicholson. I told you I’d seen all his movies. I mean, that would include One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. You didn’t bite on my lure, so I just left it.”

  “I’ll be damned,” he said. “You figured it out.”

  “I know everything wasn’t easy for you,” I said. “The dismantling of New Dawn. But I also know it was necessary.”

  “Shep was necessary because of the risk he posed to the program,” he explained. “He was a loose cannon. A broken cog. At that juncture, I wondered just where the killing would start and stop. I hoped the men in New Dawn would deny the order to kill him, and I could continue the program. They proved their allegiance was to killing, not to their fellow Marines. That was the deciding factor for me.”

  “You ordered the men that came to your house?” I asked. “The night Jack kidnapped me?”

  “I ordered one. I knew if anyone accepted the mission that I’d be alerted long before they were a threat to you. That’s why I waited as long as I did to leave. At the time I decided to go get Trevino, I was convinced no one accepted the mission. Then, I found out Trevino decided to send three instead of one.”

  “So, you killed New Dawn’s operators because you felt they couldn’t be trusted?”

  “Correct. After we talked that night about Shep, I worried that they were all as bad as he was. Sociopaths hell bent on killing that lacked the devotion to their fellow Marines, and to the Corps. Men like that have a place on earth, I’m sure, but not in a program where I’m calling the shots.” He looked right at me. “I didn’t kill Martin, though.”

  It was my turn to be truthful. I let out a light sigh. “I know.”

  “Do tell,” he said, his tone slightly sarcastic.

  “I killed him,” I admitted. “I had to. He was onto you, and he was quickly catching up with me. He once told me if he found out who McMurphy was, that he’d kill him himself. I couldn’t take the chance.” I looked him in the eyes. “I was the FBI Intelligence Branch mole.”

  He grinned. “I know.”

  “Bullshit,” I said, mimicking his earlier response.

  “I suspected it but didn’t know. Not until I went to the DNI’s office.”

  “How’d you figure it out?”

  “They said Martin was found with a flash drive in his possession. He was a computer idiot. Everyone knew it. I guess everyone but you and the Director. Based on finding that flash drive, they decided he was the mole. I decided it was you.”

  “The bad dream I had that night? When I jumped up out of bed? In the dream, I was turning in my badge. It didn’t go well. At least not in the dream.”

 

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