Monica waved her sister by without answering. Yasmine walked past, so damned quietly it was spooky sometimes. The tail end of her turquoise scarf fluttered gently.
Memories, unwelcome but persistent, nudged through of Yasmine as a child running down the airplane gangplank, whipping off her scarf and trailing it behind her like a kite.
"Yasmine?"
Her half sister turned. Waited. The scarf settled along with memories. "Yes?"
"I want to believe you about why you're here. Really I do." God, she was already in danger of losing one sister and Sydney would tell her to be kinder. Of course, Sydney always had been the bleeding heart in their family. "But I don't want it bad enough to close my eyes."
"Is that supposed to frighten me?''
Regret nicked that walls were so high between them. Yet as much as she wished they could be closer, wished they could cry together for Sydney, Monica couldn't risk doing anything that might expose the rescue mission. "It's not like we have that much history for some deep bond or sisterly trust. I don't know you. You don't know me. As long as you're straight up, there's not a problem."
Yasmine tucked the bag and shirt closer to her chest. "I guess that means I will not be bunking at your place when I get to the United States."
A scary thought. Regret scratched deeper. "Did you plan to?"
"No. After I arrive, I will call Sydney." Yasmine turned and left, scarf fluttering defiantly behind her.
Monica accepted the emotional stab delivered with Sydney's name as a reminder of priorities. And dealing with emotional baggage from Yasmine just couldn't be a priority with life-and-death stakes in the balance.
Blake drew heavy hits off the oxygen mask plugged into the C-17 cruising at high altitude out over the gulf. Chuted up and ready to roll, he regulated his breathing in time with the steady drone of engines. His fifteen SEAL buddies sat in file beside him.
Red lights bathed the metal tunnel with a hellish glow. Figures blotted the image. Dark. Moldy. Like in the countless caves in Afghanistan where he'd worked SSE—sensitive site exploitation. Then the endless tunnels under Baghdad. Constant risk of cave-ins and booby traps whittled away at nerves until a man finally figured out how to shut down feeling altogether.
A skill he longed for now.
The metal walls threatened to close in on him, to fill his brain and nose with cobwebs until it shut off air. He forced oxygen in. Out. Routine.
How many times had he done this? Flown in countless cargo holds of C-17s, C-130s, even dropping out of the bomb bay of a B-52 once for a HALO.
Today's agenda: a HAHO—high altitude, high opening, on oxygen while they cruised. Guide the chute for over an hour for a covert insertion. Land a couple miles shy of the terrorist compound.
He breathed. In. Out. Always remembering their axiom.
Quitting is not an option.
His head fell back and he stared up at the tangle of cables and wires tracking the ceiling. If only he could recapture the numbness. Instead, memories stalked him, slipping past his defenses...
He didn't want much from the afternoon at Virginia Beach. Some beer. Sun. Maybe luck into a woman's smile directed his way.
After five months of no sex, no alcohol and a belly full of MREs mixed with SSE cave crawling in Afghanistan, he was due a little R and R during his two weeks of leave. And Virginia Beach's annual Neptune Festival seemed the perfect place to start.
Weaving through the crush of tourists at the outdoor booths, Blake walked silently alongside two of his team buddies while Carlos talked and scoped babes in bikinis. Silence suited him fine. Alwayshad. Sometimes he and his uncle could go days without saying a word during the summer. Work on the farm. Eat. Read. Go to sleep.
No need for conversation.
Sex, on the other hand. He sure as hell wouldn't mind some of that in the near future.
Twins with matching belly button rings glided by on Rollerblades. Hoo-ya.
And apparently, from his buddies' conversation, they wouldn't 't mind, either—both recently divorced. Military deployments wreaked hell on relationships. A guy was better off not expecting the sex to turn into anything more, only to find out he'd been dumped while deployed and didn't even know it until port call.
He wasn't in a hurry to settle down, and when he did it would be for keeps. White picket fence, wife, kids, a forever haven.
Blake fished in his front pocket for more tickets to buy another beer, and came up short. "Be back in a minute,'' he called as he tugged his wallet out of the back pocket of his jean shorts.
Pulling out a twenty, he tucked sideways past a family, sidestepping back to avoid being hit by their wagon with a toddler inside.
His butt bumped a booth. Turning to apologize, he found a woman at a fund-raising table with her head bowed while she cracked open a roll of quarters on her cash tray.
She looked up. "Can I help you?"
And that was it. He fell hard and fast in spite of three seconds earlier being certain happily-ever-after was at least five or more years away once he quit active field ops. He could almost feel the hammer in his hand as he nailed pickets into the ground.
He'd seen prettier. He'd had hotter. But never had he met someone so damned sexy and perfect.
Her short brown hair lifted around her face with the wind blowing in off the ocean. Even sitting, she didn't seem too tall or too short in comparison to the older woman working next to her. Average height, slim body with hints of understated curves in khaki shorts and an Earth-Day
T-shirt. Brown eyes and brown hair.
She was maybe a couple years older than him, with even features in a slim face. Nothing out of the ordinary. Yet, here he stood like an infatuated dork checking out her bare ring finger while sweaty tourists jostled past him.
"Can I help you?" she repeated with a smile.
Her lips weren't particularly sultry, but somehow that just made him want to kiss them until they plumped.
He made his move. "Go to lunch with me—'' he paused to glance down at her name tag "—Sydney."
She blinked fast, startled but not outwardly offended. Hoo-ya. He had enough challenges on the job. For once, he wanted something in his life that was simple. Straightforward. Uncomplicated.
She emptied quarters into the tray. "I don't know your name.''
"Blake Gardner. I'll even leave ID and a blood sample with your friend."
She laughed, a light gliding sound that blew away cobwebs. "I have to work the booth. I only just got here.''
"When does your shift end?''
"At four."
Three hours from now.
The older woman in a soccer-mom shirt next to Sydney leaned closer. "Or when she sells out her roll of tickets."
"Fair enough.'' Blatantly canvassing or not, the woman had offered him a three-hour reprieve.
Blake emptied his wallet of two hundred dollars and thanked the sweet Lord in heaven for credit cards or this would be a bust date from the get-go.
Sydney shoved his money back to him. "This is incredibly generous, but I would feel bad. We can just meet at four."
"What kind of fund-raiser for the—" he glanced down at the plastic drape over the front of her table and read "—National Wildlife Fund are you, lady?"
He turned to his soccer-mom ally and passed his money, garnering himself a roll of tickets that he promptly gave to a young mother standing behind him in line with two children.
Sydney laughed away a few more of his cobwebs. "You're good."
He sure hoped so. "Where do you want to go for lunch?"
She shoved to her feet. Hoo-ya. And snagged up her purse. "How about I treat you to lunch and we can both watch the air show together since you just gave away two hundred dollars' worth of chances to win a new truck?"
A truck? Ouch. But well worth it for a chance with Sydney. "Sounds great.''
Filing in beside her, he knew they wouldn't go home together tonight, but would one day soon once they knew each other better. Something he intended to accelerate as fast as he could.
"Texas?" he asked her as they neared the hot dog vendor's cart.
"Pardon me?"
"Is that Texas I hear in your accent?"
"Red Branch, born and bred.''
"I'm from a small Midwest town too, a little more north. Missouri.''
"Are you vacationing here, then?"
"No. I live here, and I sure as hell hope you do, too."
Again she laughed, filling his brain with a sound he would never forget. "I do. My job's here. And what is it that you do?"
An elbow caught Blake in the belly from his swim buddy. Carlos flashed him a thumbs-up with a questioning look. You ready?
Wordless communication came easily after so many missions together.
Nodding, answers stuck under cobwebs in his throat, Blake shook off the past and stood, the boulder like weight of his gear not nearly as heavy as the weight in his chest. He disconnected from the plane's oxygen and opened his own.
What did he do? she'd asked. He was a Navy SEAL. Always. To the core. Something he should have made clear to Sydney from the start. But mentioning the full extent of his occupation to strangers wasn't safe. He'd simply told her that he was in the Navy and changed the subject while gathering up their food and popping a French fry into her mouth.
Not that he'd wanted to talk about it then, anyway, his brain still cobwebbed full of the intense months in Afghanistan.
Blake filed in with the rest of the SEALs, straddle-walk waddling under the weight of their gear. The load ramp lowered, gaped to reveal inky night sky. Four abreast in rows, they stopped at the top of the ramp. Dark sky, roaring wind and turbulence waited to swallow him.
He was a SEAL. Something he still believed in, cobwebs and all, even if somewhere along the line he'd forgotten how to believe in white picket fences.
Jack piloted his empty plane back to base, SEALs offloaded. That much closer to finished. A good thing, but also a reminder time was running out with Monica. He was making progress in getting to her by being patient, keeping some distance.
But would it be enough?
He clenched the stick, easing it forward to descend as they put miles between themselves and the parachuting SEALs. That left another half hour to relax with clear flying into the night sky before strapping on NVGs for the no-lights landing.
Rodeo flipped through pages in his flight data log before finding the correct one and pulling his clipped pen free of the ring. "You okay, man?''
"Yep."
"Uh-huh." Rodeo grunted an unconvinced response while jotting in the book. "I'm here, ya know. If you want to talk."
"You've been watching too much 'Dr. Phil' when you're TDY. There's nothing to talk about." Frustration swelled in the dark cockpit.
"Well, now we both know that's not true. You can't let it weigh you down in the workplace."
"I'm doing my job. Back off."
"Can't do that."
Anger at life overflowed toward Rodeo. "You're a helluva one to talk about spilling my guts here. You wanna talk about screwed-up relationships? Feel free to start."
Rodeo continued to write without looking up. "Since we're friends—and twenty thousand feet in the air—I won't punch you."
"Try later, if you're so moved. I haven't been in a good bar fight for at least seven months." Since Monica came into his life and he had a reason to clean up his act and better things to do with his time.
"You want me to talk first, hell, I'll talk." Rodeo stopped writing, hooked the pen on the edge of his data book. "Thing is, my situation is a no-go. No chance. I think you may have a window to fix this mess you're in if you'll try."
Jack kept eyes front on the opaque sky. "Who says I'm not trying?"
"Is it working? Are you two back together?"
"Hell, no."
"Gotta be tough working in the same place, watching each other move on."
"Like hell," Jack muttered. "She won't be moving on anytime soon."
The plane's rumble filled the silence for a five count before Rodeo said, "Run that by me again."
"Nothing."
"Not gonna wash, man."
Finally, Jack let three and a half months of hell out. "A divorce takes time."
"Divorce?" Rodeo snapped the binder closed. "Good God, Korba, that 'wife' thing back at the Warrior Inn in Nevada was true? Holy crap. You weren't just holding out details on a little argument here. You two eloped and then... What?"
Monica would have his ass if she found out he told, but damn it, he needed a sounding board and his crew mentality rebelled at the whole solo act. A guy had a wingman for a reason. He trusted Rodeo with his life on a regular basis. Why not on this, too? "We didn't exactly elope."
"Exactly what, then?"
His memory of the surroundings might be hazy, but his determination that night to tie himself to Monica before she slipped away remained clear as water. "Downed a bottle of tequila and ended up shit-faced in an Elvis chapel."
Rodeo's cheeks twitched with restrained laughter.
"Go ahead and laugh. Hell, I've laughed at my own dumb-ass self often enough the past three and a half months."
"Three and a half months? You've held out telling me that long?'' Rodeo slapped a hand over his heart. "Man, I think I'm hurt."
"It's easier to talk about crap that doesn't matter."
The copilot's hand slid from his chest along with the humor from his eyes. "That it is, my friend. That it is."
Engines droned. The radio chatter crackled in his helmet. The night sky scrolled ahead and for all the confiding, nothing had changed. No answers, and he couldn't dodge the feeling he'd betrayed Monica.
He switched back to work mentality, instructor mode. Training never ended. Fewer land mines waited there, anyway. "Hey, Rodeo, time for a little training. If we got hit right now, where would we land?"
Thank God Rodeo took the hint, not that he really had a choice as the junior crew member. He twisted in his seat, reaching for a chart. "I'll have the answer for ya in a second."
"A second isn't good enough. You should already know at any given time." He always needed a lock on the best place to land and evade until pickup. Even in "safe" Rubistan, local tribes could still nab them first. "And, Rodeo, the answer is Thumrait. We'd land there."
If only the answers with Monica were as easy to calculate.