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
