sheets in four months. Matt closed his eyes for a second and sent up a swift soldier’s prayer— just let me get through this next part and then I’ll be good —and stood up. And fell flat on his face. No matter that he’d locked his knees and had visualized like crazy standing up, his legs simply wouldn’t hold him, not for one second. He went down like a felled tree, and was splayed facedown on the floor.
It hurt, but that was okay. Pain was okay, he’d always had a high tolerance for pain, and, anyway, pain meant you were alive. Pain is your friend was drilled into SEALs daily. So he could deal with the pain. What he couldn’t deal with was the humiliation of being sprawled on the floor with no idea of how to get back up. He turned his head sideways and looked up at his bed. As high as Mount Everest and just as unscalable.
Matt braced his hands beside his head and tried to lift himself up, but he couldn’t do it. Simply couldn’t. He pushed with his arms until they trembled with fatigue, until sweat poured down his face and back, until his breath came in hot, painful pants. He rested for a moment, hands still braced, still in the position for push-ups. Fifteen years ago, a lifetime ago, on his first day of BUD/S, the instructor, a nasty old son of a bitch called Blackie, screamed Drop you motherfuckers! to the recruits so often Matt could still hear him.
That first day on the grinder, he’d cranked out 450 push-ups together with the other recruits. He’d vomited that night, and the palms of his hands were raw and bleeding, but by God he’d done it. He’d been young and healthy and strong, at his own personal peak. Matt could hardly remember that young man, so strong and healthy. Gone, together with his career. What was left was a large husk of a man—no, not a man—a thing . A thing that couldn’t even get itself up off the floor. He burned with humiliation at the knowledge that Nurse Ratched was going to come in and find him on the floor, bare-assed, unable to help himself in any way.
A drop of salty liquid from his face fell to the linoleum with a faint splat . He didn’t know whether it was sweat or tears, and he didn’t care.
CHAPTER THREE
San Luis
Baja Sur, Mexico
March 3
He had died and come back to life. Just like her.
The woman who had once been Charlotte Court watched the big man make his slow way across the beach. Like her, he was a pitiful broken thing. A tall, big-boned man, he was covered in scars and burn marks. He was emaciated, the broad shoulder bones sticking out cruelly, the skin tautly stretched over his big rib cage, the ribs brutally outlined. He limped, each step slow and painful.
She was on her terrace in her own little refuge. She’d arrived three days before and had slept for twenty-four hours straight. Without nightmares for the first time in what felt like forever.
San Luis, Baja Sur. It had found her, she hadn’t found it.
She had run out of gas and steam here at this perfect little town. A cheerful jumble of painted wooden shacks and adobe houses by the sea, populated by friendly Mexicans and enough expatriates so she wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb. The Americans were aging hippies, artists, beach bums, retirees. Laid-back and tolerant. No one asked questions, no one showed any curiosity at all about what she was doing there. It was very possible a few were runaways like herself.
San Luis had several small grocery stores with luscious fruits and vegetables, a number of cantinas serving excellent food, and several art supply stores. Everything she needed. Plus miles and miles of uninterrupted sandy beach.
Get out of the country, had been her first thought that morning in Kansas. Mexico. Or Canada.
The Midwest was in the grip of the coldest winter since 1931, as all the newspapers trumpeted.
Mexico, definitely. She needed sunshine like she needed air. Her very bones were chilled. Easing through the bottleneck at the border crossing had been
It hurt, but that was okay. Pain was okay, he’d always had a high tolerance for pain, and, anyway, pain meant you were alive. Pain is your friend was drilled into SEALs daily. So he could deal with the pain. What he couldn’t deal with was the humiliation of being sprawled on the floor with no idea of how to get back up. He turned his head sideways and looked up at his bed. As high as Mount Everest and just as unscalable.
Matt braced his hands beside his head and tried to lift himself up, but he couldn’t do it. Simply couldn’t. He pushed with his arms until they trembled with fatigue, until sweat poured down his face and back, until his breath came in hot, painful pants. He rested for a moment, hands still braced, still in the position for push-ups. Fifteen years ago, a lifetime ago, on his first day of BUD/S, the instructor, a nasty old son of a bitch called Blackie, screamed Drop you motherfuckers! to the recruits so often Matt could still hear him.
That first day on the grinder, he’d cranked out 450 push-ups together with the other recruits. He’d vomited that night, and the palms of his hands were raw and bleeding, but by God he’d done it. He’d been young and healthy and strong, at his own personal peak. Matt could hardly remember that young man, so strong and healthy. Gone, together with his career. What was left was a large husk of a man—no, not a man—a thing . A thing that couldn’t even get itself up off the floor. He burned with humiliation at the knowledge that Nurse Ratched was going to come in and find him on the floor, bare-assed, unable to help himself in any way.
A drop of salty liquid from his face fell to the linoleum with a faint splat . He didn’t know whether it was sweat or tears, and he didn’t care.
CHAPTER THREE
San Luis
Baja Sur, Mexico
March 3
He had died and come back to life. Just like her.
The woman who had once been Charlotte Court watched the big man make his slow way across the beach. Like her, he was a pitiful broken thing. A tall, big-boned man, he was covered in scars and burn marks. He was emaciated, the broad shoulder bones sticking out cruelly, the skin tautly stretched over his big rib cage, the ribs brutally outlined. He limped, each step slow and painful.
She was on her terrace in her own little refuge. She’d arrived three days before and had slept for twenty-four hours straight. Without nightmares for the first time in what felt like forever.
San Luis, Baja Sur. It had found her, she hadn’t found it.
She had run out of gas and steam here at this perfect little town. A cheerful jumble of painted wooden shacks and adobe houses by the sea, populated by friendly Mexicans and enough expatriates so she wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb. The Americans were aging hippies, artists, beach bums, retirees. Laid-back and tolerant. No one asked questions, no one showed any curiosity at all about what she was doing there. It was very possible a few were runaways like herself.
San Luis had several small grocery stores with luscious fruits and vegetables, a number of cantinas serving excellent food, and several art supply stores. Everything she needed. Plus miles and miles of uninterrupted sandy beach.
Get out of the country, had been her first thought that morning in Kansas. Mexico. Or Canada.
The Midwest was in the grip of the coldest winter since 1931, as all the newspapers trumpeted.
Mexico, definitely. She needed sunshine like she needed air. Her very bones were chilled. Easing through the bottleneck at the border crossing had been
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