“Always happy to keep you out of jail for kidnapping,” Ben said dryly.

Matt moved forward then. Lucas withdrew so Matt’s hand could replace his, grip Peter’s shoulder with hard reassurance. “We’ll take care of both of you. Bring her home.”

Six

As individuals, they were relentless. As a team, they couldn’t be stopped. It had taken a few nerve-racking days to get it all together, but if they could pull off an aggressive takeover of a floundering multinational corporation, they could handle the relocation of one female soldier, unwilling or not. Paperwork of course wasn’t a problem for Ben. But then they hit an unexpected snag. A determined, caring woman.

Christina Lawson was a retired RN, a former Vietnam field nurse. Her husband had killed himself years ago, never able to leave Vietnam behind. She was the one who lived in the other side of the duplex, checking in on Dana daily. She rebuffed Ben’s legal bullshit, veiled threats and charming persuasions alike.

So Jon stepped in, because Peter’s impatience made diplomacy impossible. While he didn’t know what Jon had said to her, she at last agreed to their plan to relocate her charge. If she had a face-to-face meeting with Peter first, and if Dana consented to leave with him.

Peter wasn’t going to fault the woman for being protective of Dana. But when he got out of the rental car in front of the small duplex, a nondescript housing unit located adjacent to the hospital acreage, he was vibrating with the need to kick in the door of whichever side held Dana, and say to hell with any more delays. Since Christina Lawson was planted on the porch, arms akimbo, his plan might have to include a wrestling match with a woman his grandmother’s age.

As he came up the walk, the nurse studied him from head to toe, her expression suggesting she was considering whether she needed a broom or a shotgun. He cleared his throat, made a considerable effort to look affable and charming, despite the fact the ache that had been building inside him these interminable five days threatened to hemorrhage.

“Mr. Winston?” Christina offered a hand and he closed his over it, noting fingers swollen with early arthritis, but there was strength there still. She nodded toward the porch swing.

“We can talk here.”

No “Glad to meet you,” or other bland courtesies that would mean nothing to either one of them. He could appreciate that, but the knot in his stomach didn’t loosen.

“Won’t she . . . ?”

Christina shook her head. “I told her I was going to be on the porch, visiting with a friend of mine. She rarely gets out of her day chair, so I knew we’d have enough time for privacy. She wears her hearing aid grudgingly, so she won’t hear us, either. Even if she has it on, she has to concentrate on what’s being said and the person must speak clearly, toward the functioning ear, for her to detect and understand. Unfortunately, visual clues and lip reading are what helps a person with hearing loss the most, and those are aids her blindness denies her.”

“I’ll get her upgraded to a top-of-the-line hearing aid,” he said immediately. Jon had already told him about advances in technology, which he’d heard with only half an ear, but Peter remembered the basics nonetheless.

Christina cocked her head. “The problem isn’t money, Mr. Winston. Money undoubtedly helps, but there are impoverished children blind and deaf as Helen Keller that adapt to their handicaps. The problem is her. I think you already know that, though. Please sit.” He took a seat, bracing the swing when his weight tipped it forward. A tight smile touched Christina’s features, but he wasn’t sure if he could be encouraged by it.

“You are a big man, that’s for certain. Mr. Forte said you were a businessman, but you have military written all over you.”

“I just got back from my Afghanistan tour.”

“I know that. I know a lot more about you than you realize, Mr. Winston.” She was on her hip on the swing, her sneakered feet swaying lightly over the boards as he unconsciously moved the swing in an agitated rhythm. Noticing it, he stopped, but she continued to study him, saying nothing.

Goddamn it, he was going to go insane. “Tell me what you need to know, Mrs. Lawson.” Turning to face her dead-on, he dropped any pretense at hiding how he felt. “How do I get past you? I’ve waited fourteen months to be back with her again. She may not have said a single word about me, but I can tell you, right before I shipped out, she opened her heart to me, and I’m sure she’s as much mine as I’m hers. I won’t do anything to hurt her.

I swear it to you on everything I am. You want blood, a written guarantee—” He stopped, his jaw flexing. “I’m sorry. I know I sound like an obsessive stalker. I’m just

. . . I’m going fu—I’m going insane not being close to her, able to help her. You’ve done a great job; I’m grateful, but—”

“That’s fine, Mr. Winston,” Christina said abruptly. “I’ve seen what I need to know. Here are my terms. You can stay the night here with Dana. In the morning, if she tells me she wants to go with you, she can of course go wherever she wishes.” Now it was his turn to stare at her. “That’s it?”

The nurse nodded. He blinked, ran a hand over his face. “Well, I’m sorry, Mrs. Lawson.

The way you were over the phone with Jon . . . Hell, the way you looked when I pulled up, I was expecting a hell of a lot more than that.”

“You expected me to pull out the interrogation techniques I learned in Saigon?” She twinkled at him then, but the humor didn’t reach her eyes.

“Yeah, a little. So do you mind if I ask what miracle changed your mind?”

“It was not so much what you did to change my mind, as what you did to confirm the decision I’d already made. Can I trust you to stay here?” Under that penetrating maternal stare, he was hard-pressed not to squirm, but he nodded.

Pursing her lips together, she rose and disappeared into the right-hand side, taking care not to let the screen door slam. When she returned, she held a decorative photo box. As she opened the top, Peter saw his letters, neatly filed. At his stunned look, Christina nodded.

“I can’t get her to do much. Not even basic navigation of her surroundings, but she always knows where this box is. She shows no interest in anything, but she’ll do almost anything I ask, if I agree to read one to her. Though I don’t know why that matters, because her lips move as I read them. She knows them all by heart.” Peter’s gaze strayed back to the box. There were worn places in the glossy veneer, where it looked as though fingers had gripped the box. Christina watched him. “Some nights, when I’m wandering about out here, smoking a cigarette—a terrible habit I’ve never kicked—I’ll see her sitting in her bedroom, dark but for the television. She’ll be holding that box, or have one of your letters in her hand, stroking her fingers over the words she can’t see.”

Because Peter remembered some of the things he’d put in those letters, it was an effort to hold that knowing gaze, but she was continuing. “I’ve cared for many soldiers since my husband. I have no degree in psychology. Sometimes I think all that learning can interfere with seeing with your heart, using your common sense. But I do know when they lose interest in everything, turn so deep inside themselves that not even the ones who love them most can reach them, they’re already in the grave.” Her voice wavered, old shadows rising in her eyes, but she firmed her chin.

“Dana is like that in so many ways, except for this. You are her one lifeline, Peter. For the chance that it can save her, I will risk throwing that line to you, a man I only know through these letters, but who has come to me and spoken from his heart.” Her green light made him want to leap up, shove through that door, but she was his best key to reaching Dana’s mind. “Why do you think she’s drawn into herself?” She shook her head. “It’s hard enough when you have family to support you. But when you go through this and wake up so alone and isolated . . . Her grandmother was her last living family, and she died three years ago. Dana had two brothers, both killed in gang wars on the streets, though apparently she was the eldest and tried to keep them out of trouble. Her mother ran off on them and she didn’t know her father. A common enough tale for a girl born in bad circumstances. Thanks to her grandmother, she made something of herself.”

The nurse glanced over the quiet neighborhood street again. “Our girl in there protected a fallen comrade under heavy fire. She didn’t have to do it, but she did it anyway. She was given a medal at Walter Reed. The nurses packed it with her belongings, but she hasn’t touched it.” She sighed. “I’d lay money she’s never been a whiner or shirker in her whole life. But a woman who’s had to be so self-reliant can break when she’s pushed hard enough. When she thinks she’s all alone.”

“She had you.”

“There’s a difference between that, and having someone who’s close to her heart, someone who knows her heart, to help her heal. That is what I got from your letters, Captain Winston. I think you know her heart, by instinct if not experience. I honestly feel that all that Dana needs is someone with a key to her. I don’t think she’s in a deep depression, the kind that they treat with chemicals. She’s angry a lot, and anger means passion. Apathy and indifference are much worse signs. If you can get to her, and she puts half the energy to getting out of her chair that she dedicates to staying in it, she’ll do as much as she ever planned to do, and probably more. All she needs is someone to help her find herself again. Once she does that, the rest—learning new skills, rehabilitation—it’s all waiting for her. I expect you’ll help her through that, but if you need guidance, I’m always willing to point you in the right direction.” She rose as abruptly as she’d done everything else, a woman of decisive action. Peter expected she’d been a hell of a field nurse. “All right, then. She’s all yours. Unless you come and get me next door, you won’t be disturbed until tomorrow morning.”