Mended Hearts (New Beginnings Series) Read online

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  How do you rebuild your life when you refuse to be a victim anymore?

  Gracie Laurent had gone from happy-ever-after, with her childhood sweetheart, to a nightmare. In the blink of an eye, her world had crumbled and she’d retreated to the bosom of her family. After letting them care for her, she realized she didn’t want to be the weak person she’d become any longer. Deciding to go out on her own and start a whole new life, she rediscovered the music she’d missed and found a love she never dreamed possible . . . with someone from her past she never expected to find.

  A hero at a crossroads . . . looking at an uncertain future . . .

  Luca “Sonny” Ionescu loved his life as a Navy SEAL. After being injured in Afghanistan, he’d been shipped home and was facing the biggest challenge of his life. What would he do if he weren’t able to recover enough to rejoin his SEAL team? How could he rebuild his life into one as satisfying as the one he’d been living? A phone call from a childhood friend out of the blue gives him a mission and a new purpose—a reason to focus on someone other than himself. It also leads to a brand new love and a life

  An old threat resurfaces putting their future at risk. Is their love a strong enough

  foundation to hold up the new life they’re building?

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  Also by Mandie Tepe

  – Evolving Dreams (New Beginnings Series – Book 1)

  – Tangled Affections (New Beginnings Series – Book 3)

  – Armored Soul (New Beginnings Series – Book 4)

  – Shattered Destiny (New Beginnings Series – Book 5)

  MENDED HEARTS

  Copyright 2009 by Amanda M. Tepe

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Mended Hearts

  CHAPTER 1

  Luca Ionescu—known as “Sonny” to his SEAL team and friends—squinted as the Bob Wilson Naval Hospital doors slid open, and the bright sunlight sparked off the cars in the full parking lot. He slid his sunglasses on and, leaning heavily on his crutches, hobbled toward his truck. Maybe he should have parked in handicapped parking—but no—his pride just hadn’t let him do it.

  Sonny was trying really hard not to feel sorry for himself. He’d been discharged from the hospital the week before—a few days after a second surgery on his knee. He’d hoped the doctors would clear him for physical rehab, but they were advising him to wait at least a couple more weeks. He knew they were concerned about him doing too much too soon, but he was scared to death that his knee would never get up to full strength. As crazy as he knew it sounded, he felt like the longer he waited, the worse his chances were. What if he never got it back and he was forced to leave the SEAL teams? What else did he have? Nothing really.

  He made it to the truck and painfully hoisted himself into the cab. At least it was his left knee so he could still drive. That was something. He was basically a glass-is-half-full kind of guy, so he could usually see the positives in pretty bad situations. His teammates usually appreciated that trait in him . . . when it didn’t make them crazy.

  Thinking of the guys was one of the things bringing him down. They were still over there . . . in that God-forsaken country—Afghanistan—and he should be there with them. Three weeks before, they had been on reconnaissance up in the mountains, trying to verify intelligence on a particularly heinous Taliban leader, when they’d been found by a small group of terrorists. They’d fought their way out and headed up the mountain to the landing zone, still miles away. But apparently the word was out on them, and they had a few more scuffles—to put it very mildly—right up to the LZ. Sonny was covering the team and drawing fire, as they ran for and jumped onto the helicopter, when he was caught by a nearby RPG explosion and blown into a boulder. His left knee was shattered, but he’d still made it to the helo just as it was starting to lift off. He knew as soon as Titus, the team’s medic, looked at his knee on the helo, that it was bad. They’d shipped him out for medical treatment, and eventually back to San Diego. Leaving his friends—his family—behind.

  He really had no other family. He’d been raised by his grandparents and they were both gone now. He had no wife—not even a girlfriend—to fuss over him when he got back. Well, he thought with a smile as his cell phone vibrated and he pulled it out of his pocket, maybe he did have family. It was Meg, his best friend and teammate, Trace’s wife.

  “Hey, Meg! What’s up?” he asked.

  “Sonny! Well? Have you seen the doctors yet? What did they say?”

  “Gotta wait a couple more weeks for rehab,” he sighed.

  “I know you’re disappointed, Sonny, but I’m sure it’s for the best. You don’t want to rush an injury like that.”

  Sonny knew Meg understood these orthopedic injuries better than most people. She was a professional dancer and had dealt with injuries of her own—as well as been around a lot of colleagues who had been through physical therapy too. He’d come to respect her and her friends as serious athletes who pushed their bodies to the limit.

  “I guess.” He really didn’t know what to say.

  Though he didn’t have any family—or even his teammates—to get him through, the wives of his friends had really stepped up. They seemed to be taking turns visiting, calling and bringing food over. While he was in the hospital his first couple of weeks back, there was a steady rotation of visitors. Then, when he was released, he had a visit each day from one or the other of them bearing casseroles, fried chicken, or other home-cooked meals and offering to do laundry, dishes, or clean his small apartment. He also got daily phone calls from the others.

  When he was growing up, his grandmother had been on a committee at their small church called a “phone tree.” They were a group of women who, when there were special needs, concerns or prayer requests, would call one another in some kind of complicated pattern to get the word out. He hadn’t yet figured out the SEAL wives’ pattern, but he was enjoying trying to. He’d even tried drawing a little diagram in the margin of his morning paper the day before after getting a call from Trish, his team leader’s wife. Nope, still no clear plan.

  Meg continued, “Do you want to come over to my house for dinner, Sonny? It’ll be good for you to get out of yours for an evening.”

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Meg.”

  “Why not? I can make meatloaf. You love my meatloaf.”

  “I do, but . . .”

  “Surely, you’re not afraid of how it’ll look. You’re Trace’s best friend. He’s not going to think anything of it. I can get a couple of the girls to come too.”

  Sonny laughed. “Sounding more tempting all the time! Really, Meg, you all have been great, but I feel like I’m starting to take advantage.”

  “No, you’re not! Come on!” Sonny heard a rustle and then Meg’s muffled voice, as if she’d put her hand over the phone. �
�Scott . . . Declan . . . meatloaf at my house tonight. I’ll let you watch the baseball game on Trace’s big screen TV.”

  He heard voices, then she was back. “Okay, Sonny! Baseball and meatloaf. Scott and Declan are coming over, so it’ll be very proper. I’ll ask Tobi too.”

  He laughed again. “Fine! Will Tobi be okay with my being there?” He and Meg’s friend and co-worker from the San Diego Dance Institute had dated briefly. They had parted as friends, but hadn’t really spent much time together since.

  “She’ll be fine, don’t worry. Gotta run! My next class is about to start. I’ll see you around six o’clock. Okay?”

  “Okay. Thanks, Meg . . . you’re too good to me. Bye!”

  They disconnected and he started up the truck, pulled out of the parking lot and headed home. When he got there he was flagged down by his landlady, who lived on the first floor of his apartment building nearest the front entrance. She informed him a woman had dropped off a shopping bag containing a small casserole, bread, salad and brownies. She followed him as he struggled up the stairs on his crutches, carrying the bag for him.

  “Lots of women around lately. Huh, Luca?” Mrs. Farraday teased.

  “Yeah. I guess they’re taking care of me in lieu of their husbands,” he chuckled.

  She patted his arm. “You just enjoy it while you can.” She turned and let herself out of the apartment, closing the door behind her.

  Sonny pulled the food out of the bag and read the note tucked inside. Val. He pulled out his cell and gave her a call to thank her. She wanted the whole scoop from the doctors so he filled her in. She told him she had gotten an email from her husband, Javier—“Gomez” to the team—and told him that things seemed to be going well in country. It only made him wish he was out there with them more, but he didn’t let on to her. He heard the baby crying on the other end, so they wrapped up their conversation so Val could go check on her.

  After they had finished chatting he fixed himself a plate of her food for lunch and settled down at the tiny dining table with his laptop. There were several emails from the guys all reassuring him that everything was going well. They had been deployed for almost six months before he’d been injured. It was shaping up to be a long one, with them not expecting to be back for at least another six weeks.

  He clicked through several spam emails and deleted them before he came across one from an old friend he didn’t hear from very often.

  When he was three years old, he’d been taken away from his neglectful, abusive and drug addicted parents and placed with his fraternal grandparents in northern California—in a very small community near Mount Shasta. They lived out in the middle of nowhere and the Laurent family lived on the property that butted up to his grandparents’. He didn’t have any memories of his parents, which he considered was probably a good thing. He also didn’t have any memory of meeting Mathias Laurent. They’d been friends from such an early age, it seemed they’d always known each other. They were joined at the hip, Gran used to say. If they were awake, they were together—running through the woods and finding adventures.

  When Sonny was fourteen, Gran had been diagnosed with cancer so the little family moved to a town closer to San Francisco, where she could get better treatment. He’d said goodbye to Mathias and they lost touch—until he went to college and they just happened to run into each other on campus. They were inseparable again—until Sonny dropped out after his first year to join the Navy.

  The Navy had always been his dream, but his grandmother wanted him to at least try college. Her health hadn’t been good for years, but she was really failing by the time he graduated from high school. He wanted to make her dream come true before she died. His grandparents had immigrated to the United States from Romania and they both appreciated the opportunities all Americans were privileged to—opportunities that were unavailable in their homeland. She wanted to see her grandson go to college—the first member of her family to do so. He iced that particular cake by winning a couple of partial scholarships as well. She was gone by spring break of that year, but she’d been at peace.

  After the funeral, Gramp had sat him down and told him—man-to-man—that a man should live his life to please himself. He’d appreciated Sonny giving Gran her dying wish, but that he should get on with the life he dreamed for himself. So Sonny finished out his freshman year, and went to visit the recruiter.

  After that, he and Mathias had tried to keep in touch, but it was a pretty sporadic thing. They saw each other occasionally—very occasionally. Mathias was living in Atlanta, working as a marketing consultant for several large corporations based there.

  Sonny eagerly opened the email. It started off as a typical newsy email from a friend who hadn’t been in touch for a while. Business is good . . . Traveling a lot . . . Hot, humid summer weather . . . Was able to get out to the lake last weekend . . . When’re you coming out to spend some time on the lake in my boat . . . My folks say “hi” . . . How’ve you been . . . Are you in the states . . . blah, blah, blah . . . Then came the real reason for the email. “If you happen to be in San Diego and not deployed, I have a huge favor to ask. Could you reply to this email if you’re gone to let me know? If not, I’d appreciate a phone call so I could talk to you.” Then he listed his cell phone number in case Sonny had misplaced it.

  He blinked at the screen. This was a new one. What kind of huge favor could Sonny do for him from all the way across the country? He noticed the email had been sent late last night. He looked at the clock and calculated the time difference. It was the middle of the afternoon in Atlanta. Hoping Mathias wasn’t in some kind of high-powered executive meeting, Sonny dialed his number.

  Mathias picked up on the second ring. “Hey! Luca! You must be home, huh?”

  “Yeah . . . shouldn’t be, but here I am,” he replied

  “What do you mean ‘shouldn’t be’?”

  “The team’s deployed, but I was injured, so they shipped me back for treatment.”

  “Oh my G . . . Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Are you in the hospital?”

  “No, they released me almost a week ago. It’s just going to be a long recovery time. It’s really no big deal.” He was starting to get embarrassed by the fuss.

  “What’s going on, Matty?” Sonny asked, calling him by his childhood nickname.

  “Don’t worry about it, Luca. You’ve got your own set of problems to deal with. I’ll figure something else out.”

  Sonny chuckled. “You can’t leave me hanging like this. You have to tell me about this favor. If I’m not physically able to do it, I’ll let you know.”

  “Well . . . It’s about my little sister, Gracie. Do you remember her?”

  Sonny had a vague memory of a scrawny little girl with huge brown eyes and dark hair. It seemed like she was four or five years younger than him and Mathias, so he didn’t remember ever really interacting with her. He had an odd recollection of her always humming. She’d walk around humming or singing under her breath all the time, but he couldn’t remember her really saying anything. And one summer it seemed she always had a harmonica with her. Weird the things you remember from childhood and the impressions you got from people.

  “Sort of, I guess,” Sonny answered.

  “Well . . . without really getting into a lot of details . . . she’s been through a rough couple of years. I mean really rough. The family has kind of closed ranks around her. Maybe we’ve been too protective—I don’t know . . .” Mathias kind of trailed off as if deep in thought. “Anyway, she’s moved to San Diego. She’d been living near Mom and Dad, but it was getting to her. I tried to get her to move out here, but she said I would just smother her too.”

  “Okay . . .” Sonny was starting to get a picture of where this was going.

  “She has an old friend from San Francisco—Colby something-or-other—who plays in a bar band in San Diego. He called her to ask if she’d be interested in singing lead fo
r them. They lost their lead singer.”

  “Uh huh . . .”

  “Needless to say, she took the gig. We couldn’t convince her not to. It’s not that we don’t support her music—she’s really great—it’s just that we don’t like the idea of her being so far from anyone in the family right now. And the fact that she’ll be playing in some bar four nights a week . . . with all those military guys hanging around her . . .” He quickly added, “No offense!”

  Sonny laughed. “None taken.”

  “I’m really referring to the Marines,” Mathias joked.

  “Yeah, right. I know,” he said drily.

  “Anyway . . . We just wondered if you would mind going into the bar and checking in on her periodically. Make sure she seems okay and that she knows she has someone local to call on if she needed anything.” He took a breath. “But, it’s a bad time for you and I completely understand that. We’ll just have to keep in close contact with Colby. He knows what’s up with her and I’m sure he’d let us know if she needs us.”

  “I can go in and see what’s up. I’m hobbling on crutches, but I am ambulatory.”

  “No, really, Luca. Don’t worry about it. I can get a few days off in a couple of weeks too, and come out to see the lay of the land. I’d like to see you too, while I’m there.”

  “That would be great, but I’ll still go in and check on her. It’ll give me something to think about instead of sitting here feeling sorry for myself and wishing I were back on the job with the team. I’ll consider it a mission,” he chuckled.

  “Really? It’s not too much to ask?”

  “It is a lot to ask. I mean . . . you expect me to go hang out in a bar and listen to good music. You’re going to owe me big.”

  “It’s a lot more than that, and we both know it.”

  Sonny got down to business. “Okay . . . what’s the game plan? Do I go in and let her know you called me? Or do I play it off like it’s a chance meeting?”