Now she'd look out the security viewer. He squared his shoulders and looked directly back at the little hole in the door.

One lock clicked and then another, and the door swung open.

And holy f.u.c.k.

It wasn't Alyssa, it was Max Bhagat who was standing there, in a T-shirt and jeans that he'd probably just thrown on to answer the door, his usually neatly combed dark hair a total mess. He looked as if he'd spent the past hour or so with it pressed against a pillow. He was squinting slightly, and his chin was covered with stubble, which probably only meant that it had been four or five hours since he'd last shaved, instead of his usual meticulous two to three.

And here was a scenario Sam stupidly hadn't considered. Jesus, he was an idiot. Of course Max would be there.

When he stopped to think about it, the only truly shocking thing about this moment was Sam's realization that Max actually owned a pair of blue jeans.

He 'd known Max and Alyssa had been seeing each othera" okay, skip the euphemisms. They'd been f.u.c.king each other for months now.

He'd just never expected Alyssa would allow Max to be so indiscreet as to share her hotel room while they were on a.s.signment.

"She's okay," Max told him quietly. "She's sleeping now. It's been h.e.l.l for the past twenty-four hours, though. She was with Carla Ramirez and Jules Ca.s.sidy when ..." He shook his head. "It was pretty touch and go for a while, but Ca.s.sidy's going to be fine. I can't say the same for Carla, I'm afraid."

"Yeah, I heard," Sam said. This was unreal. Was he really standing here having a conversation with Max in the doorway of Alyssa's hotel room? Just two guys shooting the s.h.i.t. "What happened?"

Max shook his head. There was no doubt about it, the man was f.u.c.king exhausted. He was completely drained. Sam recognized that look in Max's eyes. He'd seen it more than once in his own bathroom mirror.

"We stopped something very bad from happening today," Max said quietly. "You know I can't tell you more than that. I'm lucky we lost only one agent. The body count could've been much higher. Although try talking about that kind of luck with Darren Ramirez."

Sam was taller than Max, and he could look over the man's shoulder into the hotel room. A dim light was on and he could see Alyssa tightly curled up beneath the covers of one of the two double beds, like a little kid. He could see her face, sweetly relaxed in sleep.

There was a chair next to the bed, as if Max had been sitting beside her, instead of lying with her under the covers.

Yeah, wishful thinking, Starrett. Max and Alyssa had been in that bed together, making love, not too long ago. Count on it. Maybe even just moments before he'd arrived. Maybe while he'd been standing out in the hall.

s.e.x was G.o.d's best medicine for hours of fatigue and anger. It started the healing process. And it sure as h.e.l.l took care of any extra adrenaline that might keep you from being able to fall asleep.

"She's really okay?" he asked, trying not to wonder if Max had ever kissed and licked his way across the curve of her waist. "I heard she needed st.i.tches."

"In her hand," Max said. He ran his own hand through his hair as if just suddenly aware of how disheveled he looked. "Why the h.e.l.l are you here, Starrett?"

"I don't know," Sam said. "I just... I heard about it, and I thought... I had to see her. I'm glad she's okay."

Max nodded. He had eyes that were so dark brown, you couldn't tell the difference between the iris and the pupil. Sam had always thought of Max as calculating. Manipulative. Brilliant. Cold. But right now his eyes were warm and filled with empathy and understanding.

And Sam could imagine it. For the first time, he could actually picture Alyssa falling in love with Max Bhagat. Up to this moment, it had seemed impossible and absurd. How could she be with him? How could she be happy with someone like Max?

But now he could see that they were alike, Alyssa and Max. They were both a curious mix of hot and cool, of hidden emotions and carefully built facades.

s.h.i.t, Max probably understood her in ways that Sam never would have, not if they'd stayed together for a hundred years.

And a hundred-year relationship hadn't exactly been part of Alyssa's agenda, had it now? What was it she'd said to him last time they'd sat down to talk? Even if they'd stayed together, if life and Mary Lou hadn't intervened, their love affair wouldn't have lasted more than a month or two. Yeah, she 'd said, I definitely would have gotten sick of you.

Not so Max, apparently.

"How's your wife?" Max asked. "And it's a daughter you've got, right? What is she now, twelve months old?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah," he said. "I know. I shouldn't have come."

Max nodded, too, and started to close the door. "I won't tell her you were here."

Chapter 23.

It was late in the morning before Ihbraham's truck pulled up in front of the Robinsons' housea"hours later than he usually arrived to start work.

By the time he came, Mary Lou had already brought Donny his mail. She'd gone back and forth to his house about three different times, finding as many excuses as she could, bringing him a book she'd picked up at the library's yearly sale, bringing him the bag of burgers she'd brought home for him from work...

How many days ago had that been? It was back when he wasn't answering his door at all. But she'd put the sack in the refrigerator. Surely it had kept. And h.e.l.l, finally giving it to him was a reason to go over therea"to go back outside and be there when Ihbraham finally showed.

Eventually she ran out of reasons to keep bugging Donny, and she gave up and just brought Haley's playpen out into the front yard.

Maybe it wouldn't seem too obvious that she was waiting for Ihbraham to appear.

Yeah, and maybe Sam would come home from work tonight and announce that he was leaving the SEALs to join the San Diego Ballet.

Mary Lou sat up as Ihbraham got out of the cab of his truck. He looked at hera"he definitely saw her sitting there on her front stepsa"but he didn't even wave. He just went to the back of his truck and lifted a large potted shrubberya"some kind of pretty flowering plant in an ornate clay containera" from the bed. He carried it effortlessly to the Robinsons' front stoop and set it down.

As she watched, he went around to the hose that was attached at the side of the house, turned on the water, brought the hose to the front, watered the plant, brought the hose back, turned off the water, re-coiled the hose.

And then he returned to his truck without another glance in her direction and climbed back behind the wheel.

The engine turned over with a roar, and he drove away.

Mary Lou was up on her feet, heading out to the street before she could stop herself. "Hey!"

He must've been watching her in his rearview mirror, because his brake lights went on, and the truck stopped.

He just sat there for a moment, absolutely still.

And Mary Lou stood there, watching him, her heart in her throat.

His back-up lights came on as he put the truck into reverse. The engine whined as he pulled all the way back, until he was alongside of her.

Mary Lou checked to make sure Haley was still happily engaged with her pile of toys before she moved closer to Ihbrahamas open window.

"I made some iced tea," she told him. "I don't suppose I could talk you into taking a break and having a gla.s.s?"

He shook his head. "Thank you, but no. I can't."

Can't. "Wow," she said. "So that's it, huh? I don't put out, and you don't want to be my friend anymore? Is that what's going on here, Ihbraham?"

' Ihbraham looked out the front windshield of his truck and sighed, no doubt wishing that he hadn't bothered to stop. "You know in your heart that that's not true."

"Well, what am I supposed to think?" She struggled not to cry. "You didn't call me back yesterday. I mean, you completely went off the map. And today, it's like you don't even know me. I don't know about you, but I don't have enough friends to be able to take it lightlya"you know, just go, 'Oh, well'a"when I lose one of them."

"You will never lose me as a friend," he said quietly. He turned and looked at her, his dark eyes intense. "That I can promise you."

"Will you come to a meeting with me tonight, then?" she asked.

"I can't," he said.

"Can't or won't?"

He sighed. "I've agreed to meet with my brothers. At five o'clock. I won't be back in San Diego until late."

"Tomorrow night, then."

Another sigh. "Tomorrow night I can't, either." He paused. "I mean, tomorrow night, I won't."

"Well, there we go," she said. "I won't ever lose you as a friend, except it sure as h.e.l.l seems like you're already gone. Thanks a bunch. Have a nice life." She turned and started walking back toward Haley.

"My feelings for you continue to be inappropriate." He spoke in a low voice, but it was loud enough to carry to her. "I'm struggling to do what I know is right instead of that which I all too humanly want."

Of all the egotistical ... "And, of course, I'm such a pushover that all you have to do is snap your fingers and I'll fall into bed with you. Is that really what you think of me?" She moved back to his track, aware that she wasn't good at keeping her voice down when she was angry, and afraid of being overheard. "It takes two to tango, baby cakes. I want to go to a meeting with you, period, the end. I a.s.sure you, I have no intention of making any side trips to the Sunny Daze hourly rate motel to f.u.c.k you blind."

Ihbraham just looked at her with those eyes that reminded her so much of pictures she'd seen of Jesus. "You misunderstand," he said. "I know you have no intention of ..." He shook his head, with that strange little smile that was both sad and amused curling his lips. "The struggle is mine; I know this to be true. It's a struggle of spirit as well as of flesh. I see you, and I want..." He sighed. "I believe it is wrong to want something so mucha"something that doesn't belong to me, something that belongs to someone else."

"This is America," Mary Lou said. "Women don't belong to men in America."

"Yes," he said, "they do."

"Well, Lord," she said. "If that's what you think, then good riddance to you. You're not someone I want as a friend anyway."

"Are you not Sam's wife?"

"Well, yes, but he's my husband, too."

"That's different," Ihbraham said.

"No, it is not," she argued.

"Yes, it is," he said. "Even here in America, the land of the free. Sam is a little more free than you are. And you are both more free than I am."

He glanced at his wrist.w.a.tch, and Mary Lou knew it was really just a matter of seconds before he left. Lord help her, mad as she was at him, she didn't want him to leave.

"Why don't you come inside and have some iced tea and we can argue about this out of the heat?" she said. "Please?"

He sat there silently for several long moments, just looking at her. "You would invite me into your house?" he finally said.

"Is there a reason I shouldn't?" she countered.

"In some countries, such an offer would be considered an invitation to have s.e.xual relations," he told her. "An offer to enter a woman's home, to be there alone with hera""

"Yeah, and in some countries the penalty for a woman who has s.e.x with a man she's not married to is death. The man gets a rap on the knuckles and the woman is beheaded. I don't Jive in some countries, thank you very much," she said. "And neither do you. My invitation was for iced tea. Don't get weird on me now, Ihbraham."

"You have never invited me inside your home before," he pointed out.

"Okay," she said. "You're right. You're absolutely right. I'm dying to have s.e.x with you. Right on the living room rug. In front of my baby daughter, no less." She rolled her eyes in exasperation. "You know, I'd almost forgotten that you were a man. But apparently you're just as stupid and hormone-crazed as the rest of them. And you've got some really dumb foreign ideas to boot. I thought you were an American."

"I am."

"Then act like one!" She marched away from his truck, to Haley's playpen, scooping up her daughter before she turned back to look at him. "Just out of curiosity, is that really what it would take?" she asked. "For you to be friends with me again? A quickie while my husband's at work and my daughter's down for a nap?"

He shook his head. "Mary Loua""

"Why don't you come back in a couple of hours," she said, "and see just how desperate I am for someone to stick around."

He was looking at her as if he couldn't tell whether or not she was kidding.

Trouble was, Mary Lou wasn't quite sure herself.

"I'm sorry I upset you so much," he said, and put his truck into gear.

She watched as he drove away.

The phone rang, and Mary Lou hurried inside the house out of force of habit.

Except, really, the only person she wanted to talk to had just rolled out of her life. Probably for good.

She would not cry. She would not cry. At least not until Haley took her nap.

Still, she had to take a deep breath before she picked up the phone. She tucked it between her shoulder and ear so she could use her hands to keep Haley from grabbing her earrings. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Hey there, Mary Lou."

G.o.d d.a.m.n it. It was Insurance Bob. His timing stank, as usual. He was the last person she wanted to talk to right now.

"So am I going to be able to talk you into dinner tonight?" he asked. His voice got softer, sweeter. "I'd really love to see you, honey. I can't stop thinking about you."

Dinner with Insurance Bob. Well, why the h.e.l.l not? Mrs. U. was always willing to watch Haley in the evenings. Sam wouldn't be back until late again and even if he did get home before her, he wouldn't give a flying f.u.c.k. And as for Ihbraham...

Shoot, she might as well be with someone who liked her enough to actually do something about it. "Tell me where and when and I'll meet you over there," she told Bob.

"Oh, baby," he said. "You just made my year."

Commander Paoletti had looked hard at Muldoon when he'd first made his request to stand on the dais with the President and other VIPs during the SEAL demo.