February Suprise

Conversation at the end of “Manhunt.”

“Hey,” Frank said over the phone lines when the woman on the other line picked up.

“Frank,” she said with true joy, “how was work?”

“Hard day, but I’m okay,” he assured her.

“When will you be home?” Leigh asked over the phone.

“I have about an hour’s worth of paperwork. And I’m going to have to make a short stop on the way. Half hour tops,” Frank answered her with a slight smile on his lips.

“Don’t be too long. I’m dying to see you,” she told him.

“Yeah, me too,” he returned.

“You’ll stay there all night too if I don’t prod you along,” she teased. “You work too hard.”

“I know.”

“Well, hurry,” she said lightly. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” Frank replied before hanging up.

He smiled to himself again, something he found himself doing a lot of. Despite the fact that the last two weeks had been hell, hunting down four ruthless prison escapees, Frank could not hide the smile the sound of Leigh’s sweet voice brought to his lips. She was an angel, his angel, and she was waiting for him at home.

It wasn’t very often he had someone to return home to after along and tiring day. But Leigh was up for a visit, a rare visit, and he was going to rush through his paperwork and stop by for only a short drink with his squad and then take advantage of having her waiting for him at home.

They’d been together now for four months. It had been more than five months since he’d first met her and four months since he’d first taken a chance and flown down to New Mexico to visit her unexpectedly. During that time, their relationship had grown easily and steadily through emails, telephone calls and short visits. Frank found himself down in New Mexico more and more, for it was difficult for Leigh to leave her ranch unattended and fly to Chicago to see him. But she had made it up finally and he was so very glad to have her here. Though the timing of the visit had come in the middle of a huge manhunt for escaped convicts and he’d been away from her more than he’d seen her, he was still thankful for the time they had together, brief as it may be.

He smiled again and then was sorry he was acting so giddy when a voice inquired from the doorway to his office, “Who is she?”

Frank quickly looked up, shocked that he had been unaware of his visitor. It wasn’t like him to let his guard down yet the stress of the past two weeks was wearing on his nerves and he knew he had to let it down once in a while to avoid insanity.

“Monica,” Frank said with forced ease, “I thought you left with the rest of the squad?”

“I did. Forgot my purse and came back to get it. Heard you on the phone and saw you grinning like the Cheshire Cat, so I figured I’d inquired,” she explained in her no-nonsense manner. “So, who is she?”

Frank hesitated for the longest of moments because his personal life had never been mentioned at work before. He figured his squad either knew the story about his wife and kid and were tactful enough to keep it quiet, or had no care about his personal life. Monica’s inquiry now had him wondering just what his squad actually did know about him.

“She,” he finally began, “is a good friend of mine who’s in town for a visit.”

“Friend, huh?” Monica asked in disbelief. “I’ve seen your friends before and they’ve never had you grinning like that.”

“She’s a good friend,” he reiterated.

Monica threw him one of those looks she was master of. The one where her eyes shot a person a shuttering glance and she raised one finely sculpted eyebrow. It was a look that said she saw through all the bull and wanted the truth.

“Okay, she’s my girlfriend,” Frank finally admitted, though he knew he was under no obligation to do so. Yet over the past year he’d grown very close to his squad and sharing a little intel on Leigh would do no harm.

“I was wondering why you kept taking these weekend jaunts down to New Mexico,” Monica said.

He nodded.

“So, is she worth it?” Monica then inquired.

Frank hesitated only a moment before nodding again.

“And the past?” Monica then broached in her professional “psychoanalysis” mode. “Are you over all of that, Frank?”

It wasn’t often his squad addressed him by his first name. And when Monica did, Frank knew she was concerned. Yet she had nothing to be concerned about. Frank had gotten over his past a long while ago. He just hadn’t realized it until he’d met Leigh. In fact, during this present visit, he’d actually shown Leigh the pictures of his wife and son and explained to her exactly what had happened. She’d taken it all in stride, like she did with everything else, and listened intently.

Leigh’s strength lay in her ability to listen and understand. He’d discovered that the first weekend he’d spent with her. His visit back in February had been a surprise for both of them and when he’d found himself standing on the porch to her modest ranch home, he hadn’t know how to begin. She’d made it easy for him, invited him in, and then they’d spent the night talking. It wasn’t until he was ready to leave two days later that he kissed her and it was another two months before he took her to bed. They had eased into the relationship, setting no time period or schedule and making no plans, and Frank was glad for that because it made it that much easier for him to adjust.

Yet he and Leigh had fallen into a rhythm so easily, that Frank wondered why he had taken it so slow in the beginning. In fact, even now he was taking things slow. Neither made promises to each other except that they wouldn’t see other people and Frank now found himself wanting to make some promises.

Honestly, Frank answered, “Yes, I am.” Then he stood, deciding the paperwork was better left for later and announced, “Make my apologies to everyone. I think I’ll just go straight home.”

Monica smiled with conspiracy and said, “You do that, Donovan.”

And when he arrived home to his one-bedroom apartment, he was glad he’d left work behind early. Leigh was cooking in the kitchen and the food smelled wonderful.

“Hey, Frank,” she said with a smile as he stepped into the kitchen. She wore soft faded jeans, a white button-up shirt and her hair was pulled back in a simple pony-tale. Her hands were full with a pot and Frank took advantage of her situation to plant a loving kiss on her mouth.

“Hey, yourself,” he said.

“Wow,” she said, smiling radiantly. “What did I do to warrant that greeting?”

Frank saw a bit of breathless wonder in her eyes and answered, “That’s for being so patient. I know I haven’t been around much this week during your visit. I’m sorry.”

Setting the pot down on the stove, Leigh reached up and touched his face with her fingers.

“Don’t apologize for work, Frank,” she insisted. “I know you have a demanding job. There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

He smiled at her and then kissed her forehead. “I love you,” he blurted out before he could halt himself.

Frank froze for a second, wondering just how Leigh would react. They’d never uttered those words before although both knew the other cared. But love was on a completely different playing field and Frank only hoped he hadn’t broken the rules of their relationship.

“Same here,” she said with a crooked grin.

Though her manner was reserved, her blue eyes were beaming with joy.

Frank kissed her again but the union he had wanted to turn into something long and slow ended up behind cut short as Leigh pulled away and placed a hand on his chest.

“You smell like smoke,” she said. “What did you do at work today, put out a fire?”

“Something like that,” he drawled thinking of the man they’d apprehended. He’d lit himself on fire and had tried to do the same to another person.

“Go take a shower while I finish dinner,” she ordered, asking nothing further.

Frank looked at his dinning room table perfectly set with the china and silver, a floral bouquet in the center, and had to wonder why she’d gone through such effort. When he looked down at her with a question in his eyes she answered him, “I have some news for you. Now go get cleaned up.”

He did as instructed but wasn’t given a hint as to what the news entailed. Leigh was good at keeping secrets and good at keeping her cool. He admired that in her, for he himself possessed such qualities. They complimented each other in so many ways, and yet she was so very different from him in her soft, understanding ways as well. She was becoming his shelter from the storm of his uncertain, cruel world that he operated in and he suddenly wondered how he could have made it through this past week without her caring shoulder and tender kiss to greet him every night.

Just as those thoughts entered his mind, Leigh turned the conversation serious. They had just finished eating and sat in their chairs contemplating cleaning up when Leigh began to mention her deceased husband.

“I told you Rob was much older than me,” Leigh began and Frank gave a nod because he remembered that conversation when she’d told him how Rob had died over two years ago in a riding accident. He’d been fifteen years her senior and she’d loved him dearly. Rob sounded like he’d been a good man and Frank felt no jealousy over that, just as Leigh obviously felt no jealousy over the family he once had.

“And as much as I loved Rob and our ranch there was one thing he couldn’t give me and that was a child. We were just beginning to run all the tests to see if anything could be done to remedy that when he died.” She paused and smiled sheepishly. It was an odd look because she always appeared so confident.

“And?” Frank asked, prodding her along as she continued to stare at him with a look that was now becoming apologetic.

“And well, Frank, you’ve given me that gift,” she said slowly.

Frank had to physically snap his mouth shut for he was gaping at her with disbelief. He was literally stunned—and not much stunned him any longer—for he had never planned on being a father again after what had come of his son so many years before.

Leigh contemplated him for a long moment before she explained, “Please don’t think I was using you to make this happen. In fact, I was…”

“No, of course not,” Frank interrupted her to refute.

“And as much as I admire and love you, I don’t expect anything from you,” Leigh added.

When Frank glared at her, for her words stung slightly, Leigh turned her eyes away and said, “This is not turning out the way I had planned. I didn’t mean I want you gone or not a part of this baby’s life. What I meant was, I didn’t want you to feel trapped.”

“I don’t feel trapped,” he said.

Leigh turned her blue eyes back to meet his and as cool and calm as she appeared in her facial expression, the anxious look of her eyes told Frank a different story.

“Then how do you feel, Frank?” she asked directly.

Frank took a deep breath and forced down the panic that was rising in his gut. That was only an initial reaction and he had much to contemplate about his future life choices before he could assess how this news was going to affect him.

“I don’t know how I feel, Leigh,” he answered honestly. Then when Leigh began to chew nervously on her bottom lip, Frank stood, walked to her side and pulled her to her feet. “What I do know, however,” he began to confess, “is that I’m not angry, only worried. My job killed my last family, and I would never want it to put either you or this child in jeopardy. I couldn’t live with myself if it happened again.”

“Your job killed no one, honey. It was one sick, diabolical man who did. Why do you always take the blame for what happened?”

Frank stroked her hair and pulled her against his chest. “Because I should have saved them.” That past he thought he had left behind suddenly came creeping back.

“You did the best you could,” Leigh argued quietly, her hands clutching the soft material of his gray shirt.

“It still wasn’t enough,” he returned in the same hushed tone. “Leigh, that was my family I failed to save. I should have done more than my best.”

She sighed and then pulled away and looked up at him with a pained expression.

“Frank, I don’t want to create more pain for you. I love you. I’ve loved you from the start but I was never going to say because I knew what you carried around inside of yourself and knew you weren’t ready to hear it. And now…well, I’m still not so sure you’re ready to hear it. And that is of no fault of your own. It’s just the way things are. Until you come full circle in your life, you won’t be ready to have another family.”

She moved toward the phone and said over her shoulder, “I’ll change my flight and leave tonight. You can call me whenever you figure things out. If, you figure things out.”

As she began dialing, Frank said sincerely, “I do love you, Leigh.”

She smiled at him, but it was a sad smile. “I know.”

That last conversation haunted Frank for the rest of the week. He didn’t know if he should rush to New Mexico and declare he was sorry and that he wanted another family or if he should just let things lie. Leigh was a capable woman. She didn’t need him. And he was a capable man. He didn’t need her. Yet they both wanted each other and that was so much more profound and meaningful than being bound by need.

Still torn, Frank was about to pick up the phone to call Leigh and ask if they could talk further when he was hit with the biggest case his unit had seen yet. Sunny Walker, notorious bank robber and all around bad-guy, had turned himself in after his girlfriend had been murdered by a car bomb. This new case kept him busy for another week and he barely had time to think about Leigh.

But when all hell exploded around him and his squad’s headquarters were attacked by crime boss Aristo Patriaka’s henchmen in an attempt to get revenge upon Sonny Walker, Frank was thinking an awful lot about her. His job, he realized, was fraught with danger. Nothing but danger. And though he had thrived on such action for most of his crime-fighting career, as he fought his way across the darkened compound, hoping all his squad and himself survived, he began to wonder just why he continued to do it.

Those thoughts were still with him the next morning as they drove to Patriaka’s country estate, having staved off the danger of his ordered raid, and arrested him. He was a proud, dignified man, yet when the FBI agents pulled him from his tall, black mount, he looked anything but.

After he was led away, Frank hesitated for a moment next to Patriaka’s saddled horse. Suddenly, everything made sense. He knew what he had to do…what he wanted to do. He no longer needed his job. His squad no longer needed him. And he…he wanted Leigh and their child.

His hand caressed the horse’s thick, muscled neck and he smiled slightly as he remembered Leigh and the small horse ranch she owned in New Mexico. It was a place that had brought him much peace and he wanted nothing more than to return there and live with Leigh for the rest of his life. He turned away from the horse and pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket. It was early, too early, in New Mexico and it showed in the sound of Leigh’s tired voice.

“Leigh, honey, its me,” Frank said.

“Frank, is everything all right?” she inquired. “Why are you calling so early?”

“I just wanted to let you know I’m coming down to New Mexico. Permanently,” he announced. “I’m leaving my job.”

There was a pause, then, “What?”

“You heard me,” he said firmly. “I’m ready to move on, Leigh. I don’t want my job or my guilt any longer. I want you. How does that sound to you?”

Her voice contained the smile that was no doubt upon her lips two thousand miles away. “It sounds wonderful.”

Frank grinned and would have said more, but the cars to take Patriaka away were waiting on him. He told her he loved her and would see her soon, then turned off his phone and smiled some more. He had come full circle in his life and could finally release the past.

The End