For a man of fifty-seven, her father was still in good shape. Well-defined muscles showed below his short-sleeve safari shirt and matching shorts. He wore a fedora that covered his short, red, wavy hair. Since the last time she’d seen him, he’d grown thick muttonchops that sliced across his ruddy cheeks and almost touched the corners of his mouth. That wasn’t the only change in him. More wrinkles crept out from the corner of his brown eyes, and the freckles on his face had multiplied, unlike her own that only dotted her nose. She stared at the large hands clutching the steering wheel, the veins protruding on his muscular freckled forearms. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt them hug her. Had her father ever hugged her?
“So…”
Lucy almost jumped at the sound of her father’s confident voice. “So,” she parroted back, knowing she must have sounded like a voice recorder.
A pregnant silence hung between them as if neither of them could think of one safe subject.
He shifted in the driver’s seat and stretched out his left leg, rubbing his knee. Was that arthritis bothering him? Somehow he’d aged without her realizing it. God, she wished things were different. She fidgeted in her seat, pulling at the seat belt.
Finally he said, “So, how is this latest venture of yours going?”
His emphasis on the word venture made her grit her teeth. He seemed unable to say the word, so she supplied it for him, “You mean the team?”
“Yes, that.”
“It pays the bills.”
He paused as if trying to control his emotions. It didn’t last long as he said, “You put your life in danger to pay bills?”
“You have a lot of room to reproach me. You work in Third World countries where you need a full-time security force to protect you.”
“I don’t risk my neck like you—”
“Don’t you? The only difference between us is that you blow up mountains. I blow up targets. And have you forgotten you’re the one who got me interested in demolitions?”
“I didn’t know you’d make a career of it.”
“Ah, come on, Dad. You were the one who taught me how to make gunpowder before I was eight. Most girls my age were playing with dolls. I was designing bombs. Admit it. You were grooming me.”
“Not for taking the kind of chances you do.”
“Don’t talk to me about chances.” In her heart Lucy always knew her father had wanted a son. Tough. He’d gotten her.
“I’ll talk all I want. I never thought you’d use that knowledge in a mercenary capacity.” He sighed as if part of his soul was escaping through his lips. “You could have worked with me, done something constructive with your life.”
Here we go. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. Go directly to emotional jail. She forced her voice to stay even. “That’s right, but I’m happy with my life.”
“You should have finished engineering school.”
“Wasn’t for me.” She hadn’t been able to tame the restlessness in her long enough to get an engineering degree.
“Premed didn’t suit you, either. You destroyed your mother’s hopes of you following in her footsteps.”
“It doesn’t bother Mom half as much as it bothers you.”
“And it’ll bother me all my life. If you had—”
“If could’ves and should’ves were candy and gold, yeah, yeah, yeah.” She dug her fingers into the brown leather of her purse.
“You didn’t even stay in the army.”
That one was below the belt. “I chose to leave.”
“Because you’re too damn hardheaded to follow orders.”
“That’s not the reason I left.” Lucy squeezed her purse into her chest, seeing the whole tragedy unfold in her mind. It tore at her insides. She had never told anyone why she left the army.
“So, enlighten me.” He’d raised his voice, his face bloodred.
She blurted out, “I saw a friend get his head blown off, all right?”
The silence of stunned disclosure settled in between them.
Finally her father said, his tone softer, “I’m sorry, but you knew when you joined the army it wasn’t going to be all peaches and cream.”
She and Jack Kane had been good friends. One night in a bar, Jack had come clean about his attraction to her. They had decided to start dating. Two days after their first date, she’d had to watch a forensic team pick up pieces of him off a field. She wrung her hands in the strap of her purse. Her voice shook as she said, “Peaches and cream, Dad? How callous can you be?”
“That’s not callous, that’s practical. He shouldn’t have been in demolitions if he didn’t know what he was doing.”
“He was following orders, going by the book.”
“There’s a right way to do things. Casualties happen. You join a man’s world, you have to take it like a man. I thought I taught you that.”
Lucy’s brows narrowed at her father. She had just poured out the nightmare that had changed her life forever and all he had to say was, “…take it like a man.”
It made her lose control and raise her voice. “Yeah, Dad, there’s the take-it-like-a-man, by-the-book, blow-your-guts-out-way, or the logical way.” The Athena way, she thought. “So you’re right. A soldier’s life may be dispensable to a general sitting two hundred miles away giving orders from some secure command room, but every life in the field counts with me. And if too damn much red tape gets in my way and I see a better way to go about a mission, you better believe I’m taking it.”
“That’s your trouble. You’ve taken your own road your whole life. And look at you, floundering around with a group of mercenaries. The only worthwhile thing you ever did was that Athena Academy. I thought it would turn your life around.”
Lucy wanted to tell him that it had turned her life around, and the irony was she still felt closer to her instructors and Athena classmates than she did to her own father.
She couldn’t stand another moment of this so-called bonding, so she grabbed the door handle. “Let me out. Now.”
Her father jammed his foot on the brake. The Hummer skidded to a halt. He stared straight ahead.
Lucy flung open the door, rolled out of the seat and slammed the door. Trembling all over, she stood firm as the Hummer’s spinning wheels spewed dirt and dust all over her. She watched the white vehicle dripping and running into gray behind her tears. Why was it always like this between them? Why couldn’t he just accept her and be proud of her? Maybe by the time she reached her mother’s home, they both would have calmed down and been able to stay in the same room together. Maybe.
She blinked back the tears, slung her purse over her shoulder and strode down the road. The red clay soil felt like spongy crust beneath her sandals. Afternoon sun beat down on her head. She took off the white scarf from around her neck and tied it around her head. Thank goodness she’d worn a long white linen peasant dress. At least she wouldn’t be so hot.
The morning heat swirled up the inside of her legs as she walked. Her shoulder bag thumped against her right hip, her .45 adding to the weight. Over the years, the sensation of a weapon close at hand made her feel secure. At the moment, it didn’t give her any refuge, her father’s words still smarting.
She grew aware of her lucky charm thumping against her