All Through the Night: A Troubleshooter Christmas (32 page)

Adam looked at him, and the kid held his gaze. And held his gaze. He had blue eyes. Very,
very
blue eyes. But, shit, he was young.

“I'm Tony,” he said.

“Yeah, well, I'm trouble,” Adam told him.

Tony laughed at that. He actually had dimples. “I'm a SEAL,” he said to Adam with a shrug. “I like trouble.”

Hey now, as Robin would've said.

“It's Adam, right?” Tony remembered his name. “Wyndham.”

Adam nodded. “I'm kind of…nursing a broken heart,” he admitted.

Tony nodded. But he took a pen out of his pocket, took Adam's hand, and actually wrote his phone number on it, right on the palm. “Give me a call if it mends.” He pocketed his pen, flashing another of those killer smiles. “And in case you had any doubt just how much I like trouble, I'm pretty sure I just came out to my teammates.”

He walked backward, moving toward those very teammates, facing Adam and smiling all the while.

It was hard not to smile back, and as Adam finally headed for the T station, he even managed to laugh.

What was it Cowboy Sam had said? Time to move on.

Yeah. If he put his mind to it, he could maybe imagine doing just that.

PART SEVEN

joyful noise

S
ATURDAY
, D
ECEMBER
15
B
OSTON
, M
ASSACHUSETTS

R
OBIN WAS FEELING A LITTLE LIGHTHEADED
.

He and Jules had gotten up early enough to eat breakfast, but he'd had only a few bites of his English muffin. All he'd wanted to do was to fast-forward to eleven o'clock, to that moment when they would stand at the altar of the church and say their vows.

He probably should have had more to eat.

“You okay?” Jules asked as they rode to the church in the limousine, his hand warm as he interlaced Robin's fingers with his.

“Yeah,” Robin said. “I'm just…marveling at the fact that it's finally today, you know?”

Jules smiled. “Yeah. This is it.”

“Do you…”
have any doubts?
Robin was about to ask but, crap, Jules's cell phone began to ring.

Jules looked at him, waiting to answer it, but Robin shook his head. “You better…”

They were way wicked early, but Jules had wanted to make sure he was on hand to talk to the head of the Secret Service. And sure enough there was a potential problem with the President and Mrs. Bryant's seating.

“We've just pulled up at the church,” Jules said into his phone. “I'll be inside in thirty seconds.”

“You
are
going to turn that off during the ceremony,” Robin said. “Please say yes.”

“Oh, yeah.” Jules laughed. “It'll not just be off, but it will be off my person. I don't want Mario tackling me on my way down the aisle.”

Art Urban's costume designer had gifted them with hand-tailored tuxedos. Robin had never worn a tux that fit as well or looked as sinfully good. But, “No wallets, no cell phones,” Mario had sternly ordered them before going off on a rant about how American men loaded their pockets and then were surprised when their suits didn't have clean lines.

“You can put it in my bag.” Robin had already put his own phone in his bag, since he needed to bring it anyway, to carry the…“Crap.”

“What?” Jules asked.

“Nothing. It's okay.” He couldn't believe it. He'd left part of his present for Jules at home. But then he
could
believe it, because he always forgot things when he skipped breakfast.

“I've got to run in,” Jules told him, giving him a swift kiss.

Robin caught him by the arm, and kissed him more thoroughly because once they got inside, Sam and Alyssa were going to grab Jules, and Janey and Cos were going to grab Robin. They'd drag them into separate rooms to wait, out of sight, for the guests to arrive.

Robin wasn't going to see Jules again until they met at the back of the church, to walk Jules's mom down the aisle.

But then he had to smile, because it was really just a matter of minutes now. Less than an hour until the majestic organ music began to play.

He'd once gone two years without seeing Jules, because of his own foolishness and fear. In hindsight, it didn't seem possible that he'd survived two, long, dreary, Jules-less years…Especially when, these days, too many hours apart from Jules made him antsy.

Robin kissed him again, and Jules smiled back at him, his heart in his eyes.

“Go,” Robin told his partner. “I'll be right behind you.”

He watched Jules dash up the steps into the church, and then he pressed the intercom button that allowed him to speak to the driver.

“Hey, Pete, do you need to pick up anyone else?” Robin asked.

He could hear the sound of paper—pages being turned—as the driver checked his schedule. “No, sir,” he reported. “I'm supposed to be on hand for emergencies, but other than that, I'm to sit and wait until you and Mr. Cassidy come out of the church, after the ceremony.”

Robin looked at his watch. It was two minutes after ten. “I left something at home,” he said. “How long do you think a round trip, there and back, would take?”

“This time a day? Twelve minutes,” Pete said. “Fifteen, tops.”

“Let's do it,” Robin decided. He'd be back before anyone even knew he was gone.

Maggie didn't want to go to the wedding.

Will had spoken to her on the phone, and she was adamant about coming to the hospital and staying with him, instead.

Dolphina, who'd sat with him for the entire night, holding his hand, was dropping her off.

Dolphina, who'd cried—or so the nurses said—when she was finally allowed to see him, after surgery…

Christ, he was nervous about seeing her. Last night, he'd been too out of it to talk, and when he woke up this morning, she'd been asleep, curled up in the chair beside his bed. He'd fallen back into a kind of crazy, drug-dream state, and when he woke up again, less cloudy-headed, she was getting ready to leave.

“I'll be back later,” she said, and after checking with the nurse, to be sure that he truly
was
improving, she went out the door.

Now, as he waited for her to return with Maggie, Will used the remote to flip on the TV and channel surf, stopping on a news program that was doing a celebrity news feature on Robin and Jules's wedding.

They played the famous footage called “the kiss heard 'round the world”—taken from a newscopter after the movie star had helped Jules thwart a terrorist plot down in Sarasota, Florida. As far as coming out went, that kiss pretty much blew the doors off Robin's closet. It was clear, too, that both Robin and Jules knew the copter was filming them. Robin grinned at the camera, signaled a thumbs-up, and then kissed Jules again.

They showed the other famous footage, too: Robin's interview outside of the rehab facility where he was checking himself in. The YouTube clip, taken before Robin's twenty-eight-day program, in which, blind drunk, he did a balance-beam routine on the rail of an open balcony, twelve stories above the ground…

Dolphina came in while that classic was playing. Will turned the TV off, but not before she looked up, saw it, and winced.

“They're showing it again, huh?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. She was dressed for the wedding, and with her hair up off her graceful neck, she looked like some kind of fairy-tale princess. A very tired princess. “How
are
you?”

“How are
you
?” she countered.

“Rumor has it I'm going to live,” Will said. “But the doctor won't let me leave until tomorrow. I've got a team from the
Globe
setting up a webcam so I can watch the wedding from here. Did Maggie bring my laptop?” Where
was
Mags?

“She did,” Dolphina told him. “She, uh…I asked her to hang back at the nurses' station so I could tell you…” She stopped. Cleared her throat.

Here it came. The happy ending he'd been praying for. Getting shot had hurt like hell, but if it meant that he now would get a second chance with this incredible woman, then hallelujah and thank you, Jim Jessop.

“I'm so relieved that you're all right,” Dolphina said, tearing up. “I thought you were going to bleed to death, right there, and I wasn't going to be able to help you—”

“Hey,” Will said. She was standing too far from his bed for him to reach for her, so he kind of flapped his arm ineffectually. But she didn't move any closer, so he stopped flapping. “I'm okay. And you did help. Just knowing you were there with me was huge.”

“I just wanted to make sure you understood,” Dolphina told him, as a tear escaped and rolled down her face, “that as glad as I am that you're all right? This doesn't change anything between us.”

What?

Will turned and looked out the window, because he was so surprised. And disappointed. And, frankly, stunned.

“Oh,” he said, because someone had to say something. And saying,
No fair. This isn't the way it happens in the movies—when I almost die, you're supposed to realize how much you love me,
no doubt would not go over well.

“I'm sorry,” she said quietly.

“Yeah,” he said. “Me, too.”

“We're too different,” she told him.

“I disagree. I think—”

She cut him off, finishing for him. “That I'm scared. Yes. I am. You're right. I'll admit it. I gave my heart away once, and…I'm not going to let myself get hurt like that again. I can't do it.”

“So…you just sit up all night, in the hospital, with people you don't particularly give a damn about?” Will asked.

Dolphina had no response to that. She just turned away. “I have to go.”

Great. Run away.

He watched as she went to the door, calling for Maggie. “Oh. You're right here. Thank you for…You can go in now.”

“Congratulate Robin and Jules for me,” Will said, and Dolphina turned to look at him. She had the strangest expression on her face, as if she hadn't understood him.

He tried again. “Tell Robin and Jules—”

“Right,” she said. “I will.”

Will couldn't bring himself to look at Maggie, as Dolphina vanished into the hall.

His niece was uncharacteristically silent for several long moments, but then she said, “Do you want me to, like, leave so you can cry?”

Will forced a laugh. “You heard that, huh?”

She nodded, her eyes sympathetic. “I'm sorry. She was nice.”

“Yeah,” Will said. “She was.”

Maggie kissed him on the top of his head as she moved the little box of tissues onto his tray.

“I'm not going to cry,” he told her, and yet there he was, looking out the window, having to blink a lot.

“Okay.” She pretended to believe him as she headed for the door. “I'll just…go get us a snack from the vending machine.”

“Thanks, kid,” Will said.

She stopped and looked back at him from the doorway, and in that moment, she looked exactly like his sister, back when Arlene was Maggie's age. “Mom says it's okay to cry,” she told him. “But if you really want something, then you need to blow your nose and pick yourself back up and be ready to work for it—you've got to want it, and you've got to earn it.”

She disappeared down the hall and Will looked at the tissues she'd left for him.

He could sit here, crying.

Or he could get to work.

He blew his nose, then pulled back his covers and swung his legs out of bed.

Jules first became aware that there was a problem when he came out of the men's room to find that Cosmo had pulled Sam aside.

The two men were talking quietly, and while they weren't exactly frowning, they weren't smiling, either.

“What's up?” Jules asked.

“I'm sure Robin's here somewhere,” Cosmo said. “We're just…having a little trouble locating him.”

“He came with me,” Jules told them. “In the limo.” He took out his phone and speed-dialed Robin, even as he looked at his watch. “We got here thirty minutes ago.”