Undetected

  “He asked me to wait for him to get back from patrol. That’s months away, Daniel. And I was flustered enough in the moment that I agreed to it.”

  His hand wrapped around hers. “I’m going to be deployed too, Gina, and it’s not like a few months’ wait is going to disrupt what else might be. You aren’t ready for me to propose—you and I both know that from Georgia. We still need some time, and this turn of events doesn’t change that. All it does is change the order in which things are going to happen. Bishop deserves a considered answer from you, a thoughtful and prayerful one. The man asked you to marry him. I respect that. Even if he is stepping hard on my toes. I’ll wait until you decide what you will do with his proposal before I’ll consider making one of my own.”

  “I’m telling him no.”

  “I hope you do,” Daniel said. “And I hope you leave the door open for me to make the next proposal. But I won’t let you make a mistake by rushing an answer to Bishop that you haven’t handled with the respect it deserves.”

  Gina slipped her hands out of his to wipe her eyes.

  “Do you love him?” Daniel asked softly.

  “I’ve been on all of two official dates with him, and the second barely constituted a date. I like the guy, Daniel, but he’s miles ahead of me, proposing out of the blue like that.” She pushed away more tears.

  “Was it a good proposal?” Daniel asked, using a tissue to dry her cheeks.

  She remembered the words and cried even harder. “It was beautiful.”

  Daniel wrapped her in a hug and rocked her. “Face it, kiddo, you’ve got two men who really, really like you.”

  She half laughed at his words. The tears finally eased even if the pressure in her chest didn’t.

  “You were always going to have to say no to one of us,” Daniel pointed out. “You just assumed it would be Bishop. Now maybe it is Bishop, or maybe it’s me. Trust us to be men about this, Gina, that we’ll handle it with grace. It’s not going to come back at you with more pain because you have to make a decision. We know you have to make a decision. And right now you owe Bishop an answer to his proposal that comes from your heart, not your panicked emotions. You can’t do that without giving him the time he’s asked for.”

  He gently lifted her chin and looked her in the eyes. “I’m not going anywhere, Gina. All that’s changed is that the timing has shifted around, and now you need to consider Bishop first. That’s not such a bad thing from my point of view. We’re different guys, Gina. Take your time. There’s no need for this to end with regrets.

  “Nevada blew a missile tube and is back early. It touched the pier four hours ago. Bishop is three days away from hand-over and command of the boat. The man will have the world on his shoulders getting the Nevada ready to go back to sea by the first of the month. Even working 24/7, gold crew is going to have its hands full making that date. Do the wise thing here, Gina. Go back to Chicago and enjoy some rest, or work on something that isn’t sonar-related. And wait. Let the decision about Bishop be made after he’s back from patrol, after you’ve had more time with him.”

  She wiped her eyes again. “I can’t believe you’re saying that, Daniel. You’re sure?”

  “I know it sounds crazy, but I’m trying to act in your best interests. He asked you to marry him. That’s not a simple statement, not from him, and it won’t be from me. Though I still hope you choose me, you can’t make this decision quickly. He’s too good a man. I deeply respect him, and he deserves your full consideration. Otherwise I might always wonder, and maybe you would too.”

  He was calming her down and talking sense into her, and she forced herself to accept that, to take a deep breath and nod. He’d just cancelled her plans, and she was going to let him. “Thank you, Daniel.”

  “You can call me anytime. I’m still planning to send you music tapes and try out jokes and be in your life until I head to sea myself in mid-November. I might even hop on a red-eye to Chicago before I ship out. Nothing’s changed with us, Gina. We’re still in the days after Georgia. As difficult as this is to sort out, Bishop and I really are different sides of the same coin. You want to get married. One of us will likely be the guy. That’s still the reality. Okay?”

  She nodded.

  He gently kissed her. “We’re good. Now let’s get you on a flight back to Chicago.”

  Bishop saw Daniel Field waiting on the pier side of the Nevada walkway. He pushed his notes into his pocket, left the Nevada deck, and headed across to meet him.

  “Can the tube be repaired?” Daniel called.

  “No. It took out the venting stack when it failed. Tube four is now the red-line item for the coming refit. If we’re lucky the repressure coils are intact, but we won’t know until the missile is out. Blue crew wants the last days before hand-over to solve what failed. I’d want to know the same. Irish is moving the boat to the explosive wharf within the hour to start getting some answers.”

  Bishop knew Daniel wasn’t here for news about the Nevada. He would have heard by now, either from Jeff or from Gina herself. And whatever Daniel wanted to say, Bishop was braced to accept it. He was well aware of how this whole thing looked.

  “Gina was here,” Daniel told him, his voice lowered as the two drew closer together. “I convinced her to take the afternoon flight back to Chicago. You might want to have some flowers or something waiting for her when she gets home.”

  Bishop felt his heart stop. “She flew—”

  “She was here to tell you no. And I don’t want her no to you to be some spur-of-the-moment panic.”

  “Security was with her? She’s okay getting home?”

  “Yes. We had a long conversation. I got her calmed down before she left. She’ll be fine. And she’s not going to want you to know she was here. You pushed too hard, Mark. She had a night to think about it, and she panicked.”

  Bishop struggled to get his mind around the news. “Thank you, Daniel.”

  “I still want to be the one who wins the girl,” Daniel said, “but I can play it fair.” He met Bishop’s gaze. “I find it interesting she called me to meet her at the airport, not Jeff.”

  “You matter to her. We both know that.”

  Daniel offered his hand. “No hard feelings, whatever comes?”

  Bishop felt like he was getting a break he didn’t deserve. He took the handshake. “Never let it be said we couldn’t handle matters with some class and honor.”

  “I’ll settle for not having fists thrown when she chooses me.”

  Bishop had to laugh in spite of the difficult subject.

  “Kittens, Bishop?” Daniel shook his head. “You really are playing hardball, sir. She said she left them for a temporary 24 hours back with your sister. Gina likes your sister, by the way. The kittens are now named Pocket and Pages. I hope you like cats. I was a dog guy, so this is going to take some recalibration.”

  Bishop heard the warning and winced. “So was I.”

  Daniel laughed. “I’ll pray you get through refit in one piece. I don’t envy you the next three weeks. Or the 90-day patrol coming after that. If for some reason I don’t see you again before Nevada departs, good sailing, Commander.”

  “Same to you and the Nebraska, Daniel.”

  Gina had been back at her Chicago home less than an hour, trying to settle the kittens and unpack her carry-on bag, when the doorbell rang and she reversed course to answer it. She opened the door to a deliveryman.

  “Miss Gray?”

  “Yes.”

  “These are for you.” He carefully handed over a bouquet of roses and a gift-wrapped package.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’d say someone likes you,” he replied with a smile before turning back toward his van.

  She carried the flowers into the dining room, gently set the vase on the table. A dozen roses in all different colors, beautifully displayed. She searched but found no card, leaving her to wonder if they were from Daniel or Mark. She opened the package. A book about kitten care, with
an envelope on top. She opened the envelope and slipped out a page. It was the printout of an email from Mark.

  Gina, I mentioned I was a letter writer. Technology has let me get this one to you in faster fashion than with a stamp.

  I thought it might be easier for you to read these words than answer the phone and hear my voice for our first conversation after I shook up your life. I meant what I said. I would love to be your husband. I would love for you to be my wife.

  Refit is going to be time-stressed. And unfortunately, phone reception within a sub is poor. Phone before five a.m. or after midnight and I’ll probably be at the house and able to catch the call. I have no expectations that you’ll call, no expectations you might come to Bangor before I depart, as I know you need time to think. I just wanted to say I’m ready to listen, and I look forward to the day I’m back with you. I already miss you, Gina.

  God’s honest truth, with all the emotion and decisions of the heart and mind and will these words mean, I love you. Give me a chance to show you I can be the husband you deserve and need.

  Yours, Mark

  She carefully folded the note and slid it back into the envelope. Her heart felt like it was breaking. She didn’t love him. She had to tell him no. But the man was holding his heart out to her.

  She wiped at tears. The last 24 hours felt like someone had picked her up and shaken everything she knew about herself. “I’m such a fool, God,” she whispered. “Thank you for having Daniel intercept me and turn me around. He saved me from a very bad fumble in how I handled this.”

  She’d been ready to go over a cliff, and she knew God had used Daniel to stop her. She felt ashamed now, replaying mentally the words she’d rehearsed during the flight west. She had gone from being stunned he’d proposed to wishing Mark hadn’t asked her, not when she was seeing Daniel, not when Mark was leaving for patrol, to being upset that he’d proposed. Her words would have carried the emotion of saying no, as well as the added edge of frustration that he’d put her in this position. It would have been wrong on so many levels to reply to his proposal in such an emotional state. And she would have never forgiven herself once she had calmed down and realized what she’d done.

  The first marriage proposal she had ever received, from a man who meant the words I love you, and her heart didn’t know what to feel. She curled up on the couch with the two kittens in her lap, and she let herself cry the tears still held in her heart.

  18

  Bangor was beautiful in the fall, the trees now in the process of casting aside richly colored leaves and preparing for winter. Gina felt a calm that hadn’t been in her life for a long time. Bishop had been at sea for two months, and Daniel would depart on the Nebraska in two weeks.

  Her flight had arrived early. She waited at the parking lot near Delta Pier, leaning against the side of her brother’s car and drinking the coffee she’d brought from his place with her. She didn’t want the coffee, but she needed something in her hands. She saw Daniel coming and straightened as he said a few words to the men with him, then broke away from the group to come over and join her.

  “You had a good flight,” Daniel said, dropping a kiss on her cheek.

  “I did.” She offered Daniel the coffee she had brought for him. It was her first time back in Bangor since her panicked flight months ago, and while she’d talked regularly with Daniel, this was the first time seeing him in person in many weeks. She’d missed him. The smile was still there and quick, but she could see changes too in the months since Jeff had introduced them. There was another year of life and maturity being etched into his face.

  He was studying her with equal attention to detail. “You came to have ‘the talk.’ That solemn expression is a giveaway.”

  “Yes.”

  He reached for her hand. “Let’s take a walk up to our favorite vista point.”

  As they walked, Gina said quietly, “I can’t marry you, Daniel.”

  His hand around hers tightened, but he said nothing.

  “I don’t love you,” she whispered, having to force out the words. “I want to. I wish I did. I’ve spent the last months praying I’d wake up one morning and realize with blinding clarity you’re the one, that I love you. And instead it’s been the certainty that I need to recognize the truth. It isn’t going to be, Daniel. You and I are a good fit, but not the best one, not the one you need, not the one you deserve.”

  His silence continued. She risked a glance at his face. “Mad at me?”

  “No.” He sounded resigned. He glanced over at her, offered a small smile. “It’s been the best summer of my life. I can’t be mad.” His thumb traced the back of her hand, then he released it, and she felt the loss of contact like a rip into her heart.

  “Is it Bishop?” he asked after a moment.

  “No. That is . . . no, at least not yet.” She bit her lip. “I so wanted to fall in love with you, Daniel. You’re an absolutely wonderful man, and everything I hoped for in a husband. It’s not you. It’s me. I’m not the woman who is the right wife for you. I’m so sorry about this, about how long I let it go before I reached that conclusion.”

  “Don’t be. You’ve made a decision, and that’s a good thing. We handled the summer well, Gina. I can’t say I’m not intensely disappointed, but I’ll survive. I do appreciate you telling me before I left for patrol.”

  “I brought you a gift, a handmade ‘joke a day’ for your time at sea. It would mean a lot to me if you’d accept it.”

  “I will,” he promised. “Don’t be sad. I know you’re worried about how things might unfold with Bishop, but there’s no need for you to be. You reached a decision about me; you’ll reach one with him. If it’s no to both of us, you’ll be okay, Gina. You will find the right one someday.”

  She was rejecting him, and he was comforting her. “Can I hug you without breaking your heart even more?” she whispered.

  He turned her toward him, folded her into his arms. “I’ll hug you,” he said. He sighed. “I appreciate you making a decision about me on its own, not a you-chose-Bishop-over-me one. That helps at the margins.”

  “It was never a choice between you two. I promise you that, Daniel. Never a comparison.”

  “Thank you for that.”

  “I’m going to miss you,” she whispered, her voice wavering as she eased away from the hug, accepting that this goodbye was coming by her hands.

  Daniel shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere. We’re friends, Gina. I want that from you. You aren’t going to change your mind, as you took too much thought to make it. So I’m not going to linger around hoping to hear that you’ve reconsidered. But I will be around when you need a friend. I trust you. And you can trust me when you need an ear to listen, a shoulder to lean on.”

  “I don’t deserve that.”

  “I do. It’s a selfish request, Gina. I need to know you’re okay in the years ahead. We stay friends—that’s my price for accepting your no.”

  She solemnly nodded and took a deep breath, let it out, held out her hand. She’d kissed him for the last time, and those memories were now tucked away in her heart. “Friends.”

  They solemnly shook on it. Daniel turned her back the way they had come. He smiled. “Got a joke for you.”

  She groaned.

  “A walrus went to see the dentist to complain about a toothache.”

  She let herself laugh as she listened to the joke, even as her heart broke under the weight of the first door she’d closed by her own hand. She hoped she hadn’t just walked away from the best guy she would find in her lifetime. But it was the only decision that came along with peace. She wasn’t the right lady for Daniel Field, to her deep regret.

  Her phone beeped as they neared the parking lot. She pulled it from her pocket.

  “Trouble?” Daniel asked.

  “An alert from JPL. A solar flare happened eight minutes ago.” She scanned through the numbers in the initial alert, the first flash readings the sun observatory satellites measured. ??
?One of the largest on record. I’ll be busy when I get back to Chicago.”

  “You like the work?”

  Gina tried to be objective about it. Work had become a place to hide from her tangled personal life, and her emotions about it were complex. “It’s something else to think about. I’m good at the work itself, the large data sets. I’m enjoying the process of it, the distraction. And at least I can’t get myself in trouble with the sun like I can with sonar.”

  “Don’t ever regret what you did for the Navy,” Daniel assured her. “We’ve started using the new capabilities to good advantage. Boomers are now given cleared water to sail in, the area swept by fast-attacks running cross-sonar searches before we arrive. We will meet up now during patrol with one of the modified boomers carrying Tomahawks—either the Ohio or the Michigan—and take another deep look at the waters around our patrol box. The visibility is better, both in accuracy and distance. My job is much safer than it was. It’s an invaluable improvement, Gina.

  “When trouble eventually comes—and it inevitably will, for the world never stays at peace—submariners are going to stay alive because of what you gave us this year,” Daniel added. “Boomers will have what they need to remain well clear of the trouble. And fast-attacks now have the ability to wade into that trouble in more effective ways.

  “We’ve had several meetings working out new tactics. You should see some of the advantages you’ve given fast-attacks when it comes to operational decisions. The U.S. may not even be in the fight; we may simply be trying to keep two other nations’ combatants separated. Fast-attacks are better equipped to do that job now.”

  “Thank you, Daniel. It helps to know you see it that way.”

  They walked in silence for a minute.

  “Bishop is back in another month,” Daniel said.

  She nodded.

  “He’s going to have spent the 90 days wondering what you’re thinking.”

  “I consider matters with Mark suspended, awaiting his arrival. I’ve been deliberately avoiding thinking too much about what I will say. But I’m going to be kind, Daniel. No quick emotional words this time. You were right about what he deserves.”