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Because the more Mia found out about her neighbor, the more she was convinced that they were absolute polar opposites.

CHAPTER SEVEN

IT WAS PINK. It was definitely, undeniably pink. Its back was reminiscent of a scallop shell, and its arms were scrolled. Its cushions were decorated with shiny silver buttons that absolutely, positively could not have been comfortable to sit upon.

It was far too fancy to be called a couch or even a sofa. It was advertised as a “settee.”

For Natasha, it was love at first sight.

Fortunately for Frisco, she didn’t spot it until they were on their way out of the furniture store.

She sat down on it and went into Russian princess mode. Frisco was so tired, and his knee and head ached so badly, he sat down, too.

“Kneel in front of the Russian princess,” Tash commanded him sternly.

Frisco put his head back and closed his eyes. “Not a chance, babe,” he mumbled.

After Tash’s bath at Mia’s place, he’d taken her home, then they’d both suited up and headed to the beach for the kid’s first swimming lesson. The current had still been quite strong, and he’d kept his fingers solidly locked on Tash’s bathing suit the entire time.

The kid was fearless. Considering that she hadn’t even seen the ocean before yesterday, she was entirely enthusiastic about the water. At the end of the week, she’d be well on her way to swimming like a fish.

Frisco shook his head. How on earth had Sharon’s kid managed to live to the ripe old age of five without having even seen the ocean? Historically, the Franciscos were coastline people. His old man had worked on a fishing boat for years. Vacations were spent at the water. Frisco and his two older brothers had loved the beach. But not Sharon, he remembered suddenly. Sharon had damn near drowned when she was hardly any older than Natasha was now. As an adult, Sharon moved inland, spending much of her time in Las Vegas and Reno. Tash had been born in Tucson, Arizona. Not much beachfront property there.

After the swimming lesson and a forty-five-minute lecture on why Tash had to follow Frisco’s rules, they’d dragged themselves home, had lunch, changed and gone shopping for furniture for Frisco’s second bedroom.

They’d found this particular store in the Yellow Pages. It was right around the corner, and—the advertisement boasted—it had free, same-day delivery. Frisco had picked out a simple mattress, box spring and metal-framed bed, and Tash had chosen a pint-size bright yellow chest of drawers. Together, they’d found a small desk and chair and a petite bookshelf.

“Can we get this, Frisco?” Tash now asked hopefully.

He snorted as he opened his eyes. “A pink couch? Man, are you kidding?”

As usual, she answered his rhetorical question as if he’d asked it seriously. “No.”

“Where the hell would we put it?” He glanced at the price tag. It was supposedly on sale, marked down to a mere small fortune.

“We could put it where that other icky one is.”

“Great. Just what that condo needs.” Shaking his head, Frisco pulled himself to his feet. “Come on. If we don’t hurry, the delivery truck is going to beat us home. We don’t want them to deliver your new furniture to some other kid.”

That got Tasha moving, but not without one final lovelorn glance at the pink sofa.

They were only two blocks from home, but Frisco flagged down a cab. The sun was merciless, and his knee was damn near making him scream with pain. His head wasn’t feeling too great, either.

There was no sign of Mia out in her garden in the condo courtyard. Her door was tightly shut, and Frisco found himself wondering where she had gone.

Bad mistake, he told himself. She had been making it clear that she didn’t want to be anything more than a neighbor. She didn’t want the likes of him sniffing around her door.

Mia actually thought he was a drunk, like his old man and his sister. It was entirely possible that if he wasn’t careful, she would be proven right.

No more, he vowed, pulling himself up the stairs. Tonight, if insomnia struck, he’d tough it out. He’d face the demons who were at their ugliest in the wee hours of the morning by spitting in their faces. If he awoke in the middle of the night, he’d spend the time working out, doing exercises that would strengthen his leg and support his injured knee.

He unlocked the door to his condo and Tasha went inside first, dashing through the living room and down the hall to the bedrooms.

Frisco followed more slowly, each painful step making him grit his teeth. He needed to sit down and get his weight off his knee, elevate the damn thing and ice the hell out of it.

Tasha was in her bedroom, lying down on the wall-to-wall carpeting. She was flat on her back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling.

As Frisco stood in the doorway and watched, she scrambled to her feet and then lay down on the floor in another part of the room.

“What are you doing?” he asked as she did the exact same thing yet a third time.

“I’m picking where to put the bed,” Tash told him from her position on the floor.

Frisco couldn’t hide his smile. “Good idea,” he said. “Why don’t you work on that for a while? I’m gonna chill for a few minutes before the delivery truck comes, okay?”

“’Kay.”

He headed back into the kitchen and grabbed an ice pack from the freezer. He moved into the living room and sat on his old plaid couch, swinging his injured leg up and onto the cushions. The ice felt good, and he put his head back and closed his eyes.

He had to figure out a way to move those boxes out of Tash’s room. There were a half a dozen of them, and they were all too ungainly for him to carry with only one arm. But he could drag ’em, though. That would work. He could use a blanket or sheet, and wrestle the boxes on top of it, one at a time. With the box firmly trapped in the sheet like a fish in a fishing net, he could pull the sheet, sliding the box along the rug out of Tash’s room and into his own and…

Frisco held his breath. He’d sensed more than heard the movement of Tasha crossing the living room floor, but now he heard the telltale squeak of the front door being opened.

He opened his eyes and sat up, but she was already out the door.

“Natasha! Damn it!”

His cane had slipped underneath the couch and he scrambled for it, grabbing it and moving quickly to the door.

“Tash!”

He supported himself on the railing near his rope and pulley setup. Natasha looked up at him from the courtyard, eyes wide. “Where the hell are you going?” he growled.

“To see if Thomas is home.”

She didn’t get it. Frisco could tell just from looking at the little girl that she honestly didn’t understand why he was upset with her.

He took a deep breath and forced his racing pulse to slow. “You forgot to tell me where you were going.”

“You were asleep.”

“No, I wasn’t. And even if I was, that doesn’t mean you can just break the rules.”

She was silent, gazing up at him.

Frisco went down the stairs. “Come here.” He gestured with his head toward one of the courtyard benches. He sat down and she sat next to him. Her feet didn’t touch the ground, and she swung them back and forth. “Do you know what a rule is?” he asked.

Tasha chewed on her lower lip. She shook her head.

“Take a guess,” Frisco told her. “What’s a rule?”

“Something you want me to do that I don’t want to do?” she asked.

It took all that he had in him not to laugh. “It’s more than that,” he said. “It’s something that you have to do, whether or not you want to. And it’s always the same, whether I’m asleep or awake.”

She didn’t get it. He could see her confusion and disbelief written clearly on her face.

He ran one hand down his face, trying to clear his cobweb-encrusted mind. He was tired. He couldn’t think how to explain to Natasha that she had to follow his rules all of the time. He couldn’t figure out how to get through to her.

“Hi, guys.”

Frisco looked up to see Mia Summerton walking toward them. She was wearing a summery, sleeveless, flower-print dress with a long, sweeping skirt that reached almost all the way to the ground. She had sandals on her feet and a large-brimmed straw hat on her head and a friendly smile on her pretty face. She looked cool and fresh, like a long-awaited evening breeze in the suffocating late-afternoon heat.

Where had she been, all dressed up like that? On a lunch date with some boyfriend? Or maybe she wasn’t coming, maybe she was going. Maybe she was waiting for her dinner date to arrive. Lucky bastard. Frisco scowled, letting himself hate the guy, allowing himself that small luxury.

“There’s a furniture truck unloading in the driveway,” Mia said, ignoring his dark look. In fact, she was ignoring him completely. She spoke directly to Tash. “Does that pretty yellow dresser belong to you, by any chance?”

Natasha jumped up, their conversation all but forgotten. “Me,” she said, dashing toward the parking lot. “It belongs to me!”

“Don’t run too far ahead,” Frisco called out warningly, pulling himself to his feet. He tightened his mouth as he put his weight on his knee, resisting the urge to wince, not wanting to show Mia how much he was hurting. “And do not step off that sidewalk.”

But Mia somehow knew. “Are you all right?” she asked him, no longer ignoring him, her eyes filled with concern. She followed him after Natasha, back toward the parking lot.

“I’m fine,” he said brusquely.

“Have you been chasing around after her all day?”

“I’m fine,” he repeated.

“You’re allowed to be tired,” she said with a musical laugh. “I babysat a friend’s four-year-old last week, and I practically had to be carried out on a stretcher afterward.”

Frisco glanced at her. She gazed back at him innocently. She was giving him an out, pretending that the lines of pain and fatigue on his face were due to the fact that he wasn’t used to keeping up with the high energy of a young child, rather than the result of his old injury. “Yeah, right.”

Mia knew better than to show her disappointment at Frisco’s terse reply. She wanted to be this man’s friend, and she’d assumed they’d continue to build a friendship on the shaky foundation they’d recently established. But whatever understanding they’d reached this morning seemed to have been forgotten. The old, angry, tight-lipped Frisco had returned with a vengeance.

Unless…

It was possible his knee was hurting worse than she thought.

A delivery man approached. “You Alan Francisco?” he asked, not waiting for a reply before he held out his clipboard. “Sign at the X.”

Frisco signed. “It’s going up to Unit 2C. It’s right at the top of the stairs—”

“Sorry, pal, this is as far as I go.” The man didn’t sound even remotely apologetic. “My instructions are to get it off the truck. You’ve got to take it from here.”

“You’re kidding.” Frisco’s voice was flat, unbelieving. The furniture was standing there on the asphalt, next to the delivery vehicle.

The man closed the sliding back door of his truck with a crash. “Read the small print on your receipt. It’s free delivery—and you got exactly what you paid for.”

How was Frisco supposed to get all this up a flight of stairs? Mia saw the frustration and anger in his eyes and in the tight set of his mouth.

The man climbed into the cab and closed the door behind him.

“I bought this stuff from your store because you advertise a free delivery,” Frisco said roughly. “If you’re not going to deliver it, you can damn well load it up and take it back.”

“First of all, it’s not my store,” the man told him, starting the engine with a roar and grinding the gears as he put it into first, “and secondly, you already signed for it.”

It was all Frisco could do to keep himself from pulling himself up on the running board and slamming his fist into the man’s surly face. But Tash and Mia were watching him. So he did nothing. He stood there like a damned idiot as the truck pulled away.

He stared after it, feeling helpless and impotent and frustrated beyond belief.

And then Mia touched his arm. Her fingers felt cool against his hot skin. Her touch was hesitant and light, but she didn’t pull away even when he turned to glare down at her.

“I sent Tasha to see if Thomas is home,” she said quietly. “We’ll get this upstairs.”

“I hate this,” he said. The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. They were dripping with despair and shame. He hadn’t meant to say it aloud, to reveal so much of himself to her. It wasn’t a complaint, or even self-pity. It was a fact. He hated his limitations.

Her brown-green eyes grew warmer, more liquid. She slid her hand all the way down to his, and intertwined their fingers. “I know,” she said huskily. “I’m so sorry.”

He turned to look at her then, to really look at her. “You don’t even like me,” he said. “How can you stand to be so nice?”

“I do like you,” she said, trying to step back, away from the intensity of his gaze. But he wouldn’t let go of her hand. “I want to be your friend.”

Friend. She tugged again, and this time he released her. She wanted to be his friend. He wanted so much more….

“Yo, Frisco!”

Frisco turned. The voice was as familiar to him as breathing. It was Lucky O’Donlon. He’d parked his motorcycle in one of the visitor’s spaces, and now sauntered toward them. He was wearing his blue dress uniform and looked to be one hundred percent spit and polish. Frisco knew better.

“Hey, guy, having a tag sale or something?” Lucky’s wide smile and warm blue eyes traveled lazily over the furniture, Frisco’s damned cane, and Mia. He took an especially long time taking in Mia. “You gonna introduce me to your friend?”

“Do I have a choice?”

Lucky held out his hand to Mia. “I’m Lt. Luke O’Donlon, U.S. Navy SEALs. And you are…?”

Mia smiled. Of course she would smile. No one could resist Lucky. “Mia Summerton. I’m Frisco’s neighbor.”

“I’m his swim buddy.”

“Former swim buddy.”

Lucky shook his head. “No such thing.” He looped his arm around Frisco’s neck and smiled at Mia. “We went through BUD/S together. That makes you swim buddies for life.”

“BUD/S is basic training for SEALs,” Frisco translated for her, pushing Lucky away from him. “Where are you going, dressed like that?”

“Some kind of semiformal affair at the OC. A shindig for some top brass pencil pusher who’s being promoted.” He grinned at Frisco, but his gaze kept returning to Mia. “I thought maybe you’d want to come along.”

Frisco snorted. “Dream on, man. I hated those parties when I was required to go.”

“Please?” Lucky begged. “I need someone to keep me company or I’ll spend all night dancing with the admiral’s wife, trying to keep her from grabbing my butt.” He smiled at Mia and winked.

“Even if I wanted to,” Frisco told him, “which I don’t, I couldn’t. I’m taking care of my sister’s kid for the next six weeks.” He gestured to the furniture. “This is supposed to be for her bedroom.”

“The kid’s either fond of the outdoors, or you got yourself some kind of snafu here.”

“Number two,” Frisco said.

“Yo, neighbor babe,” Lucky said, picking up one end of the mattress. “You look healthy. Grab the other end.”

“Her name is Mia,” Frisco said.

“Excuse me,” Lucky said. “Mia babe, grab the other end.”

Mia was laughing, thank God. As Frisco watched, she and Lucky carried the mattress into the courtyard. He could hear Mia’s laughter long after they moved out of sight.

As Frisco picked up the lightweight bookcase and carried it slowly toward the courtyard, he could also hear Tasha’s excited chirping, and Thomas King’s rich voice coming toward him.

“Hey, Navy.” Thomas nodded a greeting as he passed. He knew better than to offer to take the bookcase from Frisco on his way out to the parking lot.

“Thanks for helping out, man,” Frisco said to him.

“No problem,” the teenager replied.

No problem. It was possible that this whole deal wasn’t a problem for anybody—except Frisco.

He set the bookcase down at the bottom of the stairs, and looked up to see Lucky come out of his condo, with Tasha in his arms. He was tickling the little girl, and she was giggling. Mia was right behind them, and she was laughing, too.

He’d never seen Mia look so beautiful or relaxed. Lucky leaned toward her and said something into her ear, and she laughed again. She started down the stairs, and Lucky watched her go, his eyes following the movement of her hips.

Frisco had to look away. He couldn’t blame Lucky. At one time, the two of them had been so much alike. They still were alike in so many ways. It didn’t surprise him that his best friend would be attracted to Mia, too.

It took all of ten minutes to transport Tasha’s furniture into her bedroom and to move the boxes that were in there into Frisco’s room.

Thomas headed off to work, and Mia made her excuses and disappeared into her condo—after smiling at the big deal Lucky made out of shaking her hand once again.

“She, uh, said you guys were just friends, huh?” Lucky said much too casually as Frisco walked him to his bike.

Frisco was silent, wondering what he could possibly say to that statement. If he agreed, then Lucky would be dropping by all the time, asking Mia out, working his famous O’Donlon charm and persistence until she gave in. And she would give in. No one could resist Lucky. And then Frisco would have to watch as his best friend dated and probably seduced this woman that he wanted so badly.

It was true. He wanted Mia. And dammit, he was going to do everything in his power to get her.

“She’s wrong,” he told Lucky. “We’re more than friends. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

If Lucky was disappointed, he hid it well. And it didn’t take long for his disappointment to turn into genuine pleasure. “This is great. This means you’re coming back,” he said.

“To the SEALs?” Frisco shook his head. “Man, haven’t you heard, I’m—”

“No,” Lucky interrupted. “I meant to the world of the living.”

Frisco gazed at his friend. He didn’t understand. He was alive. He’d had five years of pain and frustration to prove that.

“Call me sometime,” Lucky said, strapping on his motorcycle helmet. “I miss you, man.”

FRISCO AWOKE TO the sound of an electronic buzzer. It was loud as hell and it was right in his ear and…

He sat up, wide-awake.

It was the sound of the booby trap he’d rigged to the front door last night before he went to bed. Tasha was AWOL again, dammit.

He pulled on a pair of shorts as he rolled out of bed, and grabbed his cane from the floor.

Oh, Lord, he was tired. He may have gone to bed last night, but he hadn’t gone to sleep. It couldn’t have been more than two hours ago that he’d finally closed his eyes. But he’d done it. He’d stared down the night without even a sip of whiskey to help him along.

He may have been exhausted, but he wasn’t hung over.

And that was damn good, because if he had been, the sound of this blasted buzzer would have taken the top of his head clear off.

He quickly disconnected it. It was a simple system, designed for the circuit to break if the door was open. If the circuit was broken, the buzzer would sound.

He pulled the door the rest of the way open and…

Tasha, with Mia directly behind her, stood on the other side of the screen door.

Tash was still wearing her pajamas. Mia was wearing her bathing suit underneath a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. Frisco could see the brightly colored strap that tied up and around her neck.

“Good morning,” she said.

Frisco glared at Tash. “Where the h—”

Mia cut him off. “Tasha was coming over to visit me,” she told Frisco, “but she remembered that she was supposed to tell you first where she was going.” She looked down at the little girl. “Right, Tash?” Tasha nodded.

Tasha remembered? Mia remembered was more like it.

Mia mouthed “Positive reinforcement” over Tasha’s head.

Frisco swallowed his frustration. All right. If Mia thought he could get through to Tasha this way, he’d give it a shot. Somehow he mustered up far more enthusiasm than he felt. “Excellent job remembering,” he said to the little girl, opening the screen door and letting both Tasha and Mia inside.

He forced himself to smile, and Natasha visibly brightened. Jeez, maybe there was something to this.

He scooped the little girl into his arms and awkwardly spun her around until she began to giggle, then collapsed with her onto the couch. “In fact,” he continued, “you are so amazingly excellent, I think you should probably get a medal. Don’t you?”

She nodded, her eyes wide. “What’s a medal?”

“It’s a very special pin that you get for doing something really great—like remembering my rules,” Frisco told her. He dumped her off his lap and onto the soft cushions of the couch. “Wait right here—I’ll get it.”

Mia was standing near the door, and as she watched, Frisco pushed himself off the couch and headed down the hall to his bedroom.

“Getting a medal is a really big deal.” Frisco raised his voice so they could hear him in the living room. “It requires a very special ceremony.”

Tasha was bouncing up and down on the couch, barely able to contain her excitement. Mia had to smile. It seemed that Frisco understood the concept of positive reinforcement.

“Here we go,” he said, coming back into the living room. He caught Mia’s eye and smiled. He looked like hell this morning. He looked more exhausted than she’d ever seen him. He’d clearly been sound asleep mere moments ago. But somehow he seemed more vibrant, his eyes more clear. And the smile that he’d sent her was remarkably sweet, almost shy.

Mia’s heart was in her throat as she watched him with his little niece.

“For the remarkable remembering of my rules and regs, including rule number one—‘Tell Frisco where you’re going before you leave the condo,’” he intoned, “I award Natasha Francisco this medal of honor.”

He pinned one of the colorful bars Mia had seen attached to his dress uniform onto Tasha’s pajama shirt.

“Now I salute you and you salute me,” he whispered to the little girl after he attached the pin.

He stood at sharp attention, and snapped a salute. Tasha imitated him remarkably well.

“The only time SEALs ever salute is when someone gets a medal,” Frisco said with another glance in Mia’s direction. He pulled Tasha back to the couch with him. “Here’s the deal,” he told her. “In order to keep this medal, you have to remember my rules all day today. Do you remember the rules?”

“Tell you when I want to go outside….”

“Even when I’m asleep. You have to wake me up, okay? And what else?”

“Stay here….”

“In the courtyard, right. And…?”

“No swimming without my buddy.”

“Absolutely, incredibly correct. Gimme a high five.”

Natasha giggled, slapping hands with her uncle.

“Here’s the rest of the deal,” he said. “Are you listening, Tash?”

She nodded.

“When you get enough of these medals, you know what happens?”

Tasha shook her head no.

“We trade this thing in,” Frisco told her, smacking the back of the couch they were sitting on with one hand, “for a certain pink sofa.”

Mia thought it was entirely possible that the little girl was going to explode with pleasure.

“You’re going to have to work really hard to follow the rules,” Frisco was telling her. “You’ve got to remember that the reason I want you to obey these rules is because I want you to be safe, and it really gets me upset when I don’t know for certain that you’re safe. You have to think about that and remember that, because I know you don’t want to make me feel upset, right?”

Tasha nodded. “Do you have to follow my rules?”

Frisco was surprised, but he hid it well. “What are your rules?”

“No more bad words,” the little girl said without hesitation.

Frisco glanced up at Mia again, chagrin in his eyes. “Okay,” he said, looking back at Tasha. “That’s a tough one, but I’ll try.”

“More playing with Mia,” Tasha suggested.

He laughed nervously. “I’m not sure we can make that a rule, Tash. I mean, things that concern you and me are fine, but…”

“I’d love to play with you,” Mia murmured.

Frisco glanced up at her. She couldn’t possibly have meant that the way it sounded. No, she was talking to Natasha. Still… He let his imagination run with the scenario. It was a very, very good one.

“But we don’t have to make a rule about it,” Mia added.

“Can you come to the beach with us for my swimming lesson?” Tasha asked her.

Mia hesitated, looking cautiously across the room at Frisco. “I don’t want to get in the way.”

“You’ve already got your bathing suit on,” he pointed out.

She seemed surprised that he’d noticed. “Well, yes, but…”

“Were you planning to go to a different beach?”

“No… I just don’t want to…you know…” She shrugged and smiled apologetically, nervously. “Interfere.”

“It wouldn’t be interfering,” Frisco told her. Man, he felt as nervous as she sounded. When had this gotten so hard? He used to be so good at this sort of thing. “Tasha wants you to come with us.” Perfect. Now he sounded as if he wanted her to come along as a playmate for his niece. That wasn’t it at all. “And I…I do, too,” he added.

Jeez, his heart was in his mouth. He swallowed, trying to make it go back where it belonged as Mia just gazed at him.

“Well, okay,” she finally said. “In that case, I’d love to come. If you want, I could pack a picnic lunch…?”

“Yeah!” Tasha squealed, hopping around the room. “A picnic! A picnic!”

Frisco felt himself smile. A picnic on the beach with Mia. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt such anticipation. And his anticipation was for more than his wanting to see what her bathing suit looked like, although he was feeling plenty of that, too. “I guess that’s a yes. But it shouldn’t be just up to you to bring the food.”

“I’ll make sandwiches,” Mia told him, opening the door. “You guys bring something to drink. Soda. Or beer if you want it.”

“No beer,” Frisco said.

She paused, looking back at him, her hand on the handle of the screen door.

“It’s another one of the rules I’m going to be following from now on,” he said quietly. Natasha had stopped dancing around the room. She was listening, her eyes wide. “No more drinking. Not even beer.”

Mia stepped away from the door, her eyes nearly as wide as Tasha’s. “Um, Tash, why don’t you go put on your bathing suit?”

Silently Tasha vanished down the hallway.

Frisco shook his head. “It’s not that big a deal.”

Mia clearly thought otherwise. She stepped closer to him, lowering her voice for privacy from Tasha’s sensitive ears. “You know, there are support groups all over town. You can find a meeting at virtually any time of day—”

Did she honestly think his drinking was that serious a problem? “Look, I can handle this,” he said gruffly. “I went overboard for a couple of days, but that’s all it was. I didn’t drink at all while I was in the hospital—right up ’til two days ago. These past few days—you haven’t exactly been seeing me at my best.”

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t mean to imply…”

“It’s no big deal.”

She touched his arm, her fingers gentle and cool and so soft against his skin. “Yes, it is,” she told him. “To Natasha, it’s a very big deal.”

“I’m not doing it for Tash,” he said quietly, looking down at her delicate hand resting on the corded muscles of his forearm, wishing she would leave it there, but knowing she was going to pull away. “I’m doing it for myself.”