o he comes to, in ICU,” Annie told Robin, talking into the phone that sat next to Martell’s hospital bed. “He’s post-op, right? He’s hooked up to every machine in the world, but he tries to get out of bed. He’s, like, ripping the IV out of his hand—”

“For the record,” Martell shouted over her, “I don’t remember any of that.”

“—and insisting that they call Yashi, at the FBI,” Annie told Robin.

Martell was looking much better today—as was she. The swelling around her eye had finally gone down. Now it just featured the colors of the rainbow. Her mouth wasn’t quite so sore, either.

Still, she looked pretty battered, and with her wrist in a cast, people had looked at Ric askance the few times they’d left his condo. But then they saw that he, too, was bruised and limping, and they relaxed, probably imagining a car accident.

They had no idea.

“Can you put Martell on?” Robin asked her now. He had, after all, called Martell’s hospital room from the pay phone in the rehab center, where he’d been for nearly a week now. Jules had helped him find a facility in the D.C. area, near where he lived and worked. They’d probably hoped that having Robin in a program outside of Hollywood would reduce the paparazzi factor, but they were wrong.

Robin had stopped and given an impromptu interview to a crowd of reporters on his way to checking himself in. Even after all this time, his statement was still getting a lot of airplay. Annie had seen it at least half a dozen times on various TV news programs.

“I’m an alcoholic,” Robin had said right into the camera, putting his cards out on the table. “I learned to drink because it numbed what I was feeling—it took the edge off the fear. Fear of who I was, fear that someone would find out. Alcoholism has always been a huge problem in the gay community. It’s easier to drink than to be honest about who we really are—honest to others and to ourselves. But this weekend, I made the decision both to stop hiding and to stop drinking. To stop being afraid.” He turned away, but then turned back. “Oh, and for those of you—like my former agent—who think that a gay man can’t play an action hero in a movie? You really need to meet my partner. This past weekend, he helped save the world. Again.”

“I’ll put Martell on in a sec,” Annie told Robin now. “I just…wanted to tell you—”

“Please don’t,” he said. He sounded tired, but good. Apparently he was done with the detox part of the program, and was on to the learning-to-live-sober, one-day-at-a-time part.

“You and Jules left so soon, and I didn’t get to—”

“Yeah, yeah.” He brushed it all off. “I saved your life. Get over it.”

“I don’t think so.” Annie looked up to find Ric watching her from his seat over by the windows. He did that a lot these days. Just sat and watched her, as if, if he weren’t vigilant, she might vanish. “You’re a hero. You can pretend you’re not, that it was all Jules and Ric. But I wouldn’t be here right now if it weren’t for you. And when we were in the water? When you wouldn’t leave me…? I just wanted to say…ditto. You need me? Just call.”

Robin was silent for a moment. “You shouldn’t feel indebted,” he said.

“I don’t,” she countered. “That’s not—”

“Because really what happened out there is that you saved my life,” Robin told her quietly.

“I just told you the truth,” Annie said. “The way any friend would. You’re the one who chose to listen.”

“I’m glad I have friends like you,” Robin said, “and okay, pass the phone to Martell now. If this Hallmark Moment goes on much longer, I’m going to start sobbing, and since I’m out here in the common room—”

“I’m really proud of you, Robin,” she told him.

“Thanks,” he said. “Some friend. Goddamn it…”

“He wants to talk to you.” Laughing, Annie gave the handset to Martell.

“Dude!” Martell said into the phone. “All I do in here is watch TV, and all I see on the entertainment news is your incredibly gay face. Congrats on Riptide opening huge. Your agent come crawling back yet?”

Annie went to sit next to Ric. “You’ve got to stop doing that,” she told him quietly.

“Doing what?” He honestly didn’t know.

“Staring at me.” She lowered her voice even more. “Without thinking about sex.”

Ric laughed as he glanced over to make sure Martell was focused on his phone call. “How do you know—”

“I can tell,” she said. “This is different from your I wonder if she would be into trying the Kama Sutra Flying Squirrel position look.”

He took her hand. Kissed her palm. “Oh, really?”

“Very different.”

“Maybe it’s because I’m currently getting some whenever I want it.” He lifted his eyebrow at her, that familiar heat now simmering in his eyes.

“You’re thinking about sex now,” she said. “See how I can tell?”

“Flying squirrel,” he said. “I’m intrigued.”

“You have to stop worrying about me,” Annie said.

He shook his head. “I don’t want to drive you crazy, but…You’re going to have to give me time.”

The big irony here was that Annie had been kept in the hospital for observation for several extra days. One of the doctors’ concerns was that she’d been peeing blood. Foley had kicked her in the kidneys, and there’d been a little damage. But it was nothing that couldn’t heal itself over time. Kind of the way Ric’s kidneys had.

Her head injury had been superficial, too. Slight bruising, nothing more.

“I guess,” Annie said, “I’m a little worried that you’re going to start wrapping me in gauze.”

“Only if the gauze is part of the flying squirrel thing.” Ric stood up. “In which case, I think we have to go now.”

Laughing, she tugged him back down. “I’m being serious.”

“So am I.” But he sat. “So I talked to my mother this morning.”

Typical Ric. Changing the subject. She sighed and went with him. “How’s your dad?”

“He hates his new diet,” Ric told her as he played with her fingers. “That’s not a big surprise. Anyway, Mom’s willing to take Pierre.”

Annie stared at him. “Why do we want to give my dog to your mother?”

“While we’re in California. We can’t take Pierre to a job interview.” He snapped his fingers. “Come on. Keep up.”

“You seriously want to…” They hadn’t spoken about Sam Starrett’s attempt to recruit them for Troubleshooters Incorporated since…Before Foley.

“I had a chance to speak to Jules about the Troubleshooters,” Ric told her. “He thinks we’d like working for Sam—and for Tom Paoletti. He’s the commanding officer—most of them are former military, which’ll be weird, but interesting.”

“And you honestly want to go talk to them?” Annie asked.

“I do,” Ric said. He smiled. “See? No gauze.”

She would have kissed him, but he looked up—a woman was knocking on the open door.

“Whoa,” Ric said.

“I must be in the right place,” the woman said. “How are you, Alvarado?”

She was wearing a police badge and her hair was up in a tight bun atop her head. She was pretty in a scary kind of way. Clearly she wasn’t here to arrest anyone because she was carrying a stack of paperbacks.

Over in his hospital bed, Martell quickly ended his phone conversation. “Yeah, Rob, look, I gotta go, too. Right. Okay. Later, man.” Annie got up to help him hang up the phone as he greeted the woman. “Hey. Lieutenant. This is a…surprise.”

“I was in the neighborhood,” the woman said. She, too, was ill at ease. “I thought you might want something to read.”

“Thanks,” Martell said.

“I can’t stay.” The lieutenant handed the books to Annie, as if afraid to get too close. “I just wanted to…see how you were doing.”

“Better,” Martell told her.

“Good. Okay, then…” She vanished as quickly as she appeared, leaving Ric and Martell looking at each other, exchanging an entire encyclopedia of information with nary a spoken word.

“Hello,” Annie interrupted them. “Introductions much?”

“That was the lieutenant,” Ric said, shooting Martell another cryptic look.

“Yeah, I got that,” Annie said. She turned to Martell. “Is she your…special lieutenant?”

She was ready to go into full tease mode, but Martell shut her down.

“She’s married.”

Oops. “Sorry,” Annie said. “I didn’t mean to…”

“Don’t worry about it.” He cleared his throat. “So, rumor has it Junior cut a deal. What’s up with that?”

“It’s good news,” Ric said, apparently as eager as Martell to change the subject. “Burns Senior got a deal, too. Junior gave up the info the FBI needed to apprehend Yazid al-Hasan in exchange for life sentences for both Burnses. In regular maximum-security prison—not Gitmo—lucky for them. Junior claimed he didn’t know al-Hasan was al Qaeda. He thought he was helping to smuggle in a drug runner. Or so he says.”

Annie didn’t believe that for a second. Due to his father’s unwillingness to fund his porn schemes, Junior had been forced to look outside of the United States for potential investors. He’d found the money he’d needed through a pair of Saudi businessmen—provided he help them handle an “immigration” issue.

Yeah, Junior didn’t know. Right.

“Burns Senior being charged as an accessory?” Martell asked.

“In the death of Peggy Ryan,” Ric confirmed. “Jules got a warrant, and went into Burns Point. He’s got the yacht in dry dock, too, looking for more DNA evidence, although the message in blood on the window frame in Peggy’s former room was pretty damning.”

Annie had spoken to Jules about that, too. He desperately wanted to provide closure for Peggy’s family. He’d told Annie that if Junior had made a habit of steering the yacht through the water where he’d just made his victims vanish, there could be DNA in the propeller system or God knows where. If it was there, they’d find it.

Jules was amazing. On the day of the explosion, he’d gone with them to the hospital, had a cursory check, and then he’d gone back to work.

Over the course of the next forty-eight hours, Jules and his team successfully apprehended al-Hasan, and verified that the bomb Robin and Annie had seen on the fishing boat was not any kind of nuclear device but rather conventional explosives.

What really cheesed Annie off was the lack of attention given to al-Hasan’s capture. Sure, The New York Times and USA Today had run front-page stories, but only for a single day.

Unlike the ongoing feeding frenzy surrounding the outing of a certain movie star…

Ric broke the silence they’d all fallen into. “You look tired, man.”

“No,” Martell said. “I’m okay.”

But Ric was giving Annie a look that was…

“Well, I could use a nap,” she said, and Ric stood up.

“Let’s get you home, then,” he told her, trying to give her his concerned look. It wasn’t a bad effort, but flying squirrels were definitely leaking out around the edges.

“We’ll be back tonight,” Annie told their friend.

“With real food?” Martell asked hopefully.

“Take-out from Mediterraneo.” Annie kissed him goodbye. “We’ll call in a few hours to get your order.”

“You better,” Martell said. His voice followed them into the hall. “And if you guys think for one second that I don’t know you’re heading home to get your freak on, you’re completely deluded.”

Robin stood respectfully, about twenty feet back, as Jules approached Ben’s grave.

His marker was standard issue—white with a rounded top. Inscribed upon it were Ben’s name and rank. His birth date and the date he’d been killed. And the words Semper fidelis.

That was Ben. Always faithful.

It had been Robin’s idea to come out here to Arlington while on his first six-hour pass from the rehab center.

The pass was part of the reintegration process. It gave the recovering substance abusers a chance to slowly reenter a world that was filled with bars and liquor stores. Six hours for the first pass. Nine for the next. Then Robin would be given a full overnight.

Jules was looking forward to that.

And okay, so here he was, standing at Ben’s grave, thinking about spending the night with Robin. That seemed wrong. But at the same time, Jules knew that Ben would’ve understood. It was a topic they’d discussed frequently via e-mail—the importance of physical attraction in a relationship. It was, to Ben, the most important part of a romantic pairing.

But attraction, Jules had argued, was also cerebral. He’d had friends who dated men who looked like Chippendale dancers, but who were dumb as stones. Jules had never understood that. Stupidity was, for him, a total turnoff.

I hear you, Ben had written back, but don’t you want the total package?

And it was then that Jules had known that, for Ben, he was that package. He should have had the courage right then to confront that unspoken message. He should have admitted that he just didn’t feel the same way about Ben.

Because for Jules, it wasn’t just about finding a guy who was both smart and cute.

It was about…connection.

He put the flowers that he and Robin had brought in the vase that sat next to Ben’s gravestone, and turned back to Robin.

Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, with his hair growing in, dark roots showing beneath the still-blond ends like some intentionally crazy yet eye-catching dye job, he looked much younger than he was.

He looked like some piece of candy Jules had picked up for a pleasant afternoon of no-strings sex.

Except for his eyes. His eyes were anxious as he searched Jules’s face. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah.” Together they walked toward Jules’s car through the warmth of the early afternoon. “Thanks for suggesting we do this. I’ve been meaning to come out here for a while.”

“I know.” Robin took his hand. “I’m glad you waited. I wanted to come, too. Ben was…an inspiration. And not just the way you think, either.”

Jules laughed. “What way do I think?”

“You know. He was ready to give up everything for love. If he could do it, yada yada. I mean, sure, that was inspiring,” Robin told him. “But you know when I think of him most?” He didn’t wait for Jules to answer. “When it’s the middle of the night and I can’t sleep and no one else is awake. And I get scared because of what I’ve done. I can’t go back—I don’t want to go back, but it’s dark and I’m alone so I start to doubt myself. And you. I even start to doubt you, and…that’s when I think of Ben.”

Jules stopped walking. “You know, you can call me,” he said. “Anytime. Day or night.”

“We’re not supposed to leave our rooms at night,” Robin said. “If I break the rules, I won’t get these day passes and—It’s okay anyway. I chill out pretty quickly when I think of Ben. I think of that photo you showed me, remember?”

Jules nodded. Ben in his flight suit. It was a nice picture. In it, Ben was laughing, his eyes lit with amusement.

Robin tugged him forward, the last few steps toward the car. “I think of how perfect and smart he was, and then I remember that you didn’t want perfect and smart. You wanted me. So thank you, Ben. What time is it?”

Jules looked at his watch. “We still have almost five hours before you have to go back.”

“Well, come on, then,” Robin said, opening the passenger-side door. “Let’s go find a bar and get shit-faced.”

Jules stared at him.

“What?” Robin teased. “Too soon?”

“Uh, yeah. ” Jules laughed despite himself as he went around to the driver’s side. “I’m definitely not ready to make jokes about that, thanks.”

“Let me know when you are, babe,” Robin said, climbing in. “Because I’ve got a lot of them.” He sobered as Jules closed the car door behind him, too. “Seriously, Jules, I’ve got to be able to laugh about it. It’s…This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And it’s not anywhere near over.”

“It’s never going to end,” Jules told him.

“Promise?” Robin asked, and Jules knew they were both remembering his words when he drove Robin to the rehab facility, weeks ago.

I’m right here. I can’t do this for you, but I’m right beside you, however long it takes.

“Yeah,” Jules told him quietly now. “You fight this battle, I’ll be there. Right beside you.”

Forever. He didn’t have to say it. He knew Robin could see it in his eyes, the same way he could see it in Robin’s. They had that kind of connection.

Jules leaned over and kissed him, and Robin’s mouth was warm and sweet. For the first time, he didn’t taste like rum or whiskey or wine. Jules could have sat right there and kissed him for all five of the hours they had left.

But Robin started to laugh. “I got fucking Julie Andrews in my head,” he said. “That song from Sound of Music. The movie version. The one she sings to the captain with these perfect Julie Andrews vowels. You know, Here you are standing there loving me. Whether or not you should… Except we’re sitting down and I’m not exactly a nun wannabe.”

It was a beautiful song. Sappy, true, but when Julie sang it in the movie, it was heartfelt and almost unbearably romantic.

Unlike “Hooked on a Feeling”—the song that was stuck in Jules’s head. Gee, he couldn’t begin to guess why.

Robin kissed him again. Harder. Hotter. “Oh yeah,” he breathed. “Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I definitely did something mega-good.” He pulled back to look at Jules. “Did you know that I’ve never made love without being at least a little drunk?”

“Really,” Jules said.

“Really.” And there they were, sitting in Jules’s car, staring at each other. “So are you going to invite me back to your place or are we going to waste the rest of this afternoon singing each other songs from The Sound of Music?”

“I can do a mean ‘I Am Sixteen Going on Seventeen,’” Jules said, and as Robin laughed and kissed him again, his stomach did a slow flip. “I just…I wasn’t sure…” Jules started again. “I didn’t want to push you before you were ready—”

Robin pointed to his chest with both hands. “Three very long weeks of ready.”

But unfortunately it wasn’t that simple. “The paparazzi have staked out my condo,” Jules said.

“Since the alternative is getting arrested for jumping you right here in the car, I pretty much don’t care,” Robin told him. “Drive.”

Jules laughed as he put his car in gear. It was nice that Robin knew what he wanted, but still…“We could go to a hotel.”

“No.” Robin was certain. “I didn’t go into rehab to hide from the press.”

Which was what some of the tabloids were saying, despite the statement he’d made before going in.

“I’m out,” Robin continued. “So let’s just…be out. Eventually they’ll get used to seeing us together, right? Might as well start today.”

Jules nodded, unable to squeeze even an okay past the lump in his throat, let alone a full Golly, I love you.

“Can you maybe drive a little faster?” Robin asked. “We only have five hours. Tick tock.”

Jules laughed. Only five hours? But when he glanced at Robin, when their eyes met and heat sparked, he realized just how inadequately short five hours could be.

He turned up the a/c in the car. And burned rubber.

Pierre greeted Ric enthusiastically.

Well, it was enthusiastic, considering it was Pierre, and considering it was Ric that he was greeting. Still Ric got a few whole seconds of tail wag and an actual lick on his hand.

But the kicker was Pierre leaping up onto his office couch to settle beside him, his head on Ric’s thigh.

“Don’t get up,” his mother said as she followed the dog into Ric’s office. She leaned over to kiss him hello. “How was California?”

“It was great,” he said.

“Where’s Annie? Her car’s not in the drive.”

Nothing got past his mother. “She ran out to the drugstore,” Ric said as she sat down across from him in the new leather chair he’d gotten to replace the one that the forensics squad had drenched with blood. “She needed, you know…Drugstore stuff. Did Pierre behave himself?” he asked.

“He was very good,” she said. “Although I’d prefer babysitting grandchildren without fur.”

“I’m working on it,” he told her, then laughed at the expression on her face. No doubt he’d nearly stopped her heart.

Eyes wide, his mother leaned forward, no doubt intending to grill him further. But Annie came home, opening the outer office door.

“Hi, Karen!” she called to Ric’s mom, and Pierre shot off the couch and scampered out of the room. “Hey, puppy boy.” Annie’s laughter floated in from the other room. She appeared in the door, cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling, Pierre in her arms. “Hey, Ric. Did you tell your mom about the Troubleshooters job offer?”

“Not yet,” he said.

“You were offered the job? In California?” Karen said it with such a mix of pleasure and dread, Ric had to laugh. His mother wanted him to be happy, but she definitely would have preferred he be happy here in Sarasota, twenty minutes from his parents’ house.

“Yes and no.” Annie sat down beside him on the sofa. “Tom Paoletti—he’s this former SEAL who runs Troubleshooters Incorporated out in San Diego—he wants to open a Florida branch, and he wants Ric to run his personal-security division.”

“It’s an excellent opportunity,” Ric said. And it meant no more investigating cheating husbands and wives, although his mother might not have known that that was where he’d gotten the bulk of his income, so he left that part out. “There’ll be some travel involved at first,” he told her, “until the division gets up and running. After that, we’ll be working mostly in Florida.”

“The office will be here in Sarasota,” Annie reassured her.

“Annie’ll be doing some extensive training out in California,” Ric said. “That’ll be one of the longest trips we take. I’ll be going with her.”

“Will that be before or after you’re married?” his mother asked.

The silence that followed was painfully awkward. Ric risked a glance at Annie, who was suddenly preoccupied with Pierre.

Thanks, Mom. Way to go. He was still working out the exact wording of his response—You see, Mom, I told Annie I’d give her some time, so she probably doesn’t appreciate being pressured by my mother—when Annie spoke.

“I don’t know,” Annie said, answering his mother’s question. “That kind of depends on whether Ric’s going to ask me. I mean, he asked me once, but it was…under somewhat…unique circumstances. It seemed almost accidental, so…”

Ric’s mother laughed. And she kicked his foot. Hard.

“Ow!”

“Did you actually ask Annie to marry you while you were having sex?” Disbelief dripped from her voice.

Ric looked at Annie, who looked back at him.

“I was vague,” she said.

Unique circumstances was apparently not vague enough.

Karen was shaking her head in disgust. “And you expected her to take you seriously?” She turned to Annie. “He is so much like his father, it’s as if my genes had had nothing whatsoever to do with it.” She sat back in her seat, crossed her arms, and told Ric, “Try it again.”

“Not with my mother as the audience.” Ric stood up. “Let me walk you to the door.”

Karen gave him heavy attitude as she stayed glued to her seat. “Your mother as the audience is one way to guarantee that you won’t accidentally ask her again while you’re having sex. ”

Annie was laughing, her eyes sparkling with a mix of embarrassment and amusement, and as Ric looked at her, he realized exactly what she’d said to his mother. That kind of depends on whether Ric’s going to ask me…

Was it possible…?

Ric got down on his knees, right there with, yes, his mother as audience. “Marry me, Annie.”

She was already nodding, her smile lighting the room. “Just say where and when, and I’ll be there.”

“That’s a dangerous thing to say in front of my mother.” Ric turned, expecting to see Karen unconscious from glee, but the chair was empty.

She was already gone.

Annie put Pierre down, and as she kissed Ric, he could hear the sound of his mother’s car in the drive as she pulled away. No doubt racing off to buy the latest issue of Mother of the Groom Monthly magazine.

Of course, maybe, just maybe, she knew when it was time to make herself scarce.

But as Ric kissed Annie again, losing himself in her sweetness and heat, all he could think was, Thanks, Mom.