Page 109 of Christmas in Coconut Creek

I’d seen his scars, he had to know that, and it wouldn’t take a professional to ascertain that they were surgical. Even if I played dumb, I could see in the change of his posture across from me that Frankie knew the truth.

His arms folded anxiously over his chest, as if guarding the very heart beating behind it. There was nothing outwardly fragile about him, and Frankie did well to protect that image. We were similar in so many ways, great at shoving our grief into boxes without considering first that the walls are glass. You can watch it fester from afar, taking it on in other ways, or the feeling itself gets so violent the containment shatters.

“Don’t be angry with Mateo,” I said.

Frankie’s eyes fell closed transiently, but reopened with a glimmer of relief. Like I’d pulled out a splinter and he could put pressure on that part of himself again.

“I should have expected it,” Frankie said. “Cap’s got the biggest mouth, and he also holds the longest grudges.”

“Is this why you’re so cynical about the job in Colorado? The pressure? You’re worried about not meeting their standards?”

“No, Ophelia. I’m worried about not meetingmystandards.” He let out a heavy exhale. “How much did he say?”

“I know you weren’t at work this morning,” I admitted, picking at my softened cuticles under the water. “You were at PT because you were in some kind of crash in Central America that got you medically discharged from Delta.”

Frankie worried his bottom lip between his teeth. “What else?”

I didn’t want to say her name, because I didn’t want to give credence to it. Mateo’s warning that Frankie would never speak maliciously about the woman who broke his heart did something like driving a nail into mine.

But, we wereso closeto everything that had been willingly left unsaid.

Frankie and I were never meant to be more than placeholders to one another, but the time we spent together had changed that. The boundary that had been drawn like a curtain between heedless enjoyment and a deeper connection thinned to a translucent veil.

“Your ex,” I muttered.

His disposition softened. “I already told you I would tell you anything you wanted to know.”

“I want to know everything,” I confessed before I could stop the words from tripping out of me.

Frankie took another long sip of his beer and discarded the empty bottle. “This is your one chance to tap out,” he offered lightly. “We can shelf this and just go back to doing what we do best.”

“I think I can handle it,” I assured him. “But it’s up to you.”

His body shifted, making me bob in the short wake of waves. “The crash happened on one of our last ops in Costa Rica, right before we were set to ship back home. Great timing,” he added sarcastically. “The whole thing was routine. Our unit was going in to clear what was tipped off to us as a link in a chain of illegal arms checkpoints, those of which were funneling into the states. Cap led, Wink…” He paused, then clarified, “Sam Swan, you’ll meet him, is a sniper. His brother Tyler, who we call Echo, was the muscle behind the two of them and at least four more guys filing in together. My job was extraction.”

A twist of unease whirled in my stomach like windswept leaves.

“Like I said, easy peasy. The boys drop in, hike the distance through the canopy to the house, and make quick work. But when they got there it was apparent the place had been abandoned. Whoever tipped us off, word got back to the dealers we were on the way and they’d taken off into the village at the base of the valley. Turns out it was a complete guerrilla coup there—nothing like we were prepared for. So my order was to land, pull the guys out, and head back to base to regroup.”

“You didn’t,” I guessed.

Frankie’s head shook languidly back and forth. “I should have done what I was told, but there werekidsthere. Their mothers were basically throwing them at the chopper when I landed, Ophelia. It’s hard to describe how helpless I felt, howwrongit felt to look at them and say no. If we left and came back and they were gone, that's blood on my hands. It’s a battle I have to have every night with my own conscience.”

I pictured my own students home safe right then, naive to how lucky they were. My throat swelled painfully with a spindle of emotion I tried with fervor to unthread while Frankie continued.

“I started taking people on, and Cap followedmy leadfor once.” He said deprecatingly. “He’ll never make that mistake again. We pulled as many kids as we could onto the helicopter. The whole time I knew in my gut I was pushing the limit too far and putting us in danger. But I fucking did it anyway.”

Frankie’s knee bounced beneath the water and I reached over to calm it.

“I was halfway to altitude when the first engine went. There was too much weight, but we were too high to drop safely and going back wasn’t an option. Military choppers can handle an engine going, but that’s only with the right amount of bodies on board. Suddenly, it was like I was playing God.

“The choice wasn’t between flying or crashing. It was crashing on the next sliver of flat open land, or taking my chances on the emergency rafts and crashing in the ravine. I figured at least with flat land, no one’s going to have to know how to swim.”

I was chewing a hole in my cheek so deep I tasted iron on my tongue. Frankie gave me the chance to back away from the details, and I understood why. No part of this could be easy to reflect on again. I was grateful he trusted me enough to drum it back up, and I would make damn sure he didn’t regret it.

“I accepted that I made a mistake,” he stressed. “It was my burden to bear, and the best chance of the passengers surviving meant I needed to take the brunt of the impact at the nose and pray I’d done enough good in my life to come out of it.”

“I’m so glad that you did,” I muttered.

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