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“Damn right,” Lissa Wilde said, chin lifted, eyes flashing as if she were daring anyone to disagree.

Alessandra stirred. Sighed. “Tanner,” she murmured.

Bianca reached for her hand.

“She just said it again. Banner. Hammer. Camera. Something like that. Father? Any idea what she’s saying?”

The general stared down at Alessandra. His precious daughter, who had been given a second chance at life. That meant he also had a second chance. He could provide her with all the things he had not given her in the past.

She, the same as all his children, deserved only the best, and the best did not include a man who fought shadow wars, who was trained to kill, who would surely never be able to give a woman security and comfort and fidelity.

“Tanner,” Alessandra whispered.

“Father?” Bianca asked. “Do you know what she’s trying to say?”

“No,” John Hamilton Wilde replied. “I have no idea at all.”

* * *

Bethesda, Maryland:

Tanner was up and walking.

He was off pain meds, and he’d had enough of being in the hospital. “I’m fine,” he told his doctors. “Or I will be, once I’m out of here.”

The doctors were a little skeptical.

True, his leg was healing well. It was his attitude that worried them. He seemed depressed, but they figured that would be normal for a guy who’d had to give up the career he loved. A couple of his nurses thought it wasn’t the loss of his career he was mourning so much as it was something else. Either way, there really was no reason to keep him hospitalized and they finally discharged him on a crisp fall morning.

He called for a taxi to pick him up. Then he stood outside Walter Reed and felt better just breathing in air that didn’t smell of antiseptic.

The taxi took him to Washington National Airport.

Getting through security took a while. From now on, it probably always would. That was part of the price you paid for having a titanium rod and a bunch of titanium screws in your leg.

Yeah, he thought, as he settled into his seat on the plane, but the good news was that he still had a leg. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he’d told them they’d have to tie him down to so much as try to remove it.

Whatever the reason, he’d kept it.

The bad news was that he’d lost the career he’d loved. His days as a STUD were over.

Blake had been decent about it.

He’d shown up in person to deliver the news, even though Tanner had already figured it out for himself. When you’d not only set off metal detectors and would predict rain as accurately as a barometer, you were no longer of much use to the military.

“What we would like,” Blake had said, “is to work something out so you’d come in a couple of times a year. Speak to new STUD classes. Teach them the skills you have.”

Yeah. Right.

Tanner could just see himself caning it across the floor to a lectern, looking down at a bunch of eager young faces while he droned on and on about the life he’d once led.

“Sounds good,” he’d said, but he and Blake had both known he was lying.

It was time to acknowledge the truth about his moribund career…

And about Alessandra Bellini Wilde.

What they’d had together had not been real.