19 Headed for Trouble by Suzanne Brockmann Read Free Book Online Page A

married the ski bum instead of the businessman. I actually pictured her with Hathaway in some little house with awhite picket fence, living happily ever after.” Instead, he’d probably made a necklace with her teeth. “God.”
    She looked up at Sam and told Jules, “Two months of marriage to Pollyanna here, and I’ve already moved into Sunnybrook Farm.”
    Jules didn’t laugh. Instead, he sounded wistful. “That must be nice.”
    “Yeah, it is,” Alyssa said. Sam was shaking his head over his new nickname. “It’s scary, though. The potential for disappointment can be pretty high.” As opposed to always expecting to be disappointed. “Look, Jules, I have to go. Thanks for calling.”
    “Anytime, sweets. Give Pollyanna a big, wet, sloppy kiss for me.”
    “I will.” She hung up the phone.
    “You know he’s going to call me that from now on,” Sam said. “For the rest of my life. And, by the way, it’s Rebecca who lives at Sunnybrook Farm. As opposed to Laura Ingalls Wilder, who lives in that little house on the prairie. Pollyanna lives … Shit, I have no idea where Pollyanna lives.”
    “Come here,” Alyssa said, moving toward him, meeting him halfway, in the middle of the couch. He put his arms around her, so that she was leaning back against him, her head beneath his chin.
    Outside the window, dawn was putting on quite a show.
    “Are you going to be able to sleep?” he asked. “Ever?” She laughed, except it came out sounding like a sob, and his arms tightened around her. “I keep thinking, if only …”
    “Don’t,” he said. He kissed the top of her head. “Just don’t.”
    “I can’t help it,” she said. “I hate it when the bad guy wins.”
    “I know. But they’re going to catch this one now,” Sam said. “I hope so.”
    “They will.” He kissed her again. The way he put it, it was a
when
, not an
if
. He had no doubts whatsoever. For Sam, the future was filled with possibilities, not possible disappointments.
    “Nice, huh?” he said as, outside the window, the brilliant colors of dawn—a new day—streaked the sky.
    “Yeah,” Alyssa said, loving the feeling of his arms around her. It was very nice, indeed.

W AITING
2005
This story takes place sometime after Flashpoint and before Breaking Point .
    Sam Starrett’s daughter had finally surrendered and fallen asleep when the telephone rang.
    He closed her bedroom door as silently as possible and raced down the hall toward the living room, where he’d last seen the cordless phone.
    Yesterday, three-and-a-half-year-old Haley had missed her nap, and their dinner had been loud and far more tearful than dinosaur-shaped mac-and-cheese warranted. Apparently, without an afternoon rest, having to choose between green beans and peas as a side dish was a tragic dilemma of astronomical proportions.
    Sam, always good at creative solutions, thought he’d solved the problem by heating up both vegetables.
    At which point Haley wept because the spoon she wanted to use was in the dishwasher.
    It was then that Sam understood. As a former Navy SEAL and one of the top counterterrorism experts currently working in the private sector, he recognized that he was caught in the dread no-win scenario. He realized that even if he hand-washed the spoon, there would be something wrong with the fork, or the color of the napkin, or maybe even the brand of Parmesan cheese he and his wife, Alyssa, kept in their fridge.
    It was obvious that the real problem wasn’t with thepeas or the spoon or the cheese. Haley missed her mother—Sam’s ex-wife, Mary Lou—and that, plus lack of nap, had locked them into orbit around the Planet of Inconsolable Unhappiness.
    Sam could totally relate. He, himself, was struggling hard to keep from joining his daughter there because Mary Lou wasn’t the only one out of town. Just over a week ago, Alyssa had gone OCONUS.
    A diplomat on a peacekeeping mission to Kazbekistan—a third world terrorist hotbed nicknamed