CHAPTER 2
Two Months Ago
The ring box in the cargo pocket of Thom Grande’s tactical pants pressed against his leg. The hard square shape of the jewelers box served as a constant reminder as to why his chest felt tight and his gut twisted.
Not that he needed the reminder. There was no way he could forget what he’d decided to do.
He hadn’t stopped second guessing the idea since the moment the crazy notion had crossed his mind. He certainly hadn’t forgotten since he’d made the final payment when he’d picked up the ring this morning.
Sweating in spite of the A/C blowing on high in the chilled theater filled with SEALs, Thom plucked the neck of his T-shirt away from his skin.
How the hell long was this briefing going to last? He blew out a huff and flopped against the padded back of the seat.
If attendance at this thing weren’t required he’d totally—a boot stomped down on top of Thom’s foot, cutting off that thought and focusing all his attention on the source of the attack.
“Ow.” Frowning, Thom swiveled to glare at his teammate Brody Cassidy. He whispered, “What the hell? What’s wrong with you?”
“Me?” Brody opened his eyes wide in a pointed stare. “You’re the one who’s been tapping your damn foot on the floor like a jackhammer for the past half hour. What’s wrong with you?”
Brody was usually a pretty laid back type of guy, but something had obviously annoyed him today. Apparently—judging by the assault on his foot—that something had been Thom.
He hadn’t even realized he’d been tapping his foot but he believed Brody. The man had no reason to lie and Thom certainly was distracted enough to have been doing what Brody had accused him of.
“Sorry.” Thom drew in a breath. “I guess I’m a little antsy.”
Brody let out a snort. “No shit.”
Thom supposed that between his fidgeting in his seat and the racket his boot must have been making on the floor, his agitation was pretty obvious to Brody and anyone else seated nearby.
“So what’s wrong? Ain’t none of us happy to sit here all damn day for this briefing, but nobody else is crawling out of their skin about it like you are,” Brody pointed out in his distinctive slow southern drawl.
Thom leaned far to one side to get his hand into his pocket. He emerged with the small square box. The kind of jewelers box that usually contained one thing—a ring.
“Holy shit,” Brody hissed as he obviously figured out Thom’s intentions just from the telltale size and shape of the small black velvet box in his hand.
His friend’s reaction had Thom’s pulse pounding as his thoughts reeled. “I know. I’m crazy, right? I shouldn’t do this. I can’t do this.”
Since theirs had become quite a conversation it was a good thing they were seated in the way back, and that they’d all been there too long to care much about what the speaker up front was saying or if they missed hearing some of it.
“Whoa, there.” Brody held up both hands palm forward. “Now wait a minute, bro. Step on back. I didn’t say that.”
“No, you’re right.” Thom shoved the ring box back into one of the gusseted leg pockets in his pants, as if putting it away could or would save him from himself and his bad decisions when it came to women.
Shit. How could one comment from Brody have Thom ready to completely change the direction of his own future? Not just his future, but Ginny’s too.
The answer was, it hadn’t been Brody. Thom had been having some pretty serious second thoughts about this decision in the first place.
No, that wasn’t exactly accurate. He had no doubts that he loved Ginny. What he couldn’t stomp down were his fears. Mainly, the fear the relationship would implode, just like his first marriage had.
Was it better to leave things as they were rather than try to move forward and mess it up?
No. He wanted her. Wanted to be with her. So why was he feeling more trepidation at the idea of proposing to Ginny than he felt during a firefight?
He truly loved Ginny. He had since that fateful winter he’d literally crashed into her life during a Christmas Eve snowstorm.
It physically hurt him to be away from her. He counted the days, and then the hours, until they could see each other again.
It made no sense for him to be nearly paralyzed with fear now that he had the engagement ring in his possession. Ginny was nothing like his ex-wife. Just as his relationship with Ginny was nothing like that with his ex had been.
There was no doubt in his mind that he wanted to be with Ginny until the day he died. But unlike his military career, in which he’d steadily attained the advancements he’d worked for, marriage was the one area in his life where he’d tried and failed—and failed in a spectacularly miserable way. Or was it a miserably spectacular way?
However he thought of it, it had been bad. Epically bad.
Even so, it wasn’t as if SEALs didn’t get married. Plenty operators he knew did. A few even stayed married. But Thom and Debbie’s divorce had been particularly nasty.
His ex-wife had left him so penniless the only real surprise here was that he’d saved enough money to buy an engagement ring for Ginny.
It wasn’t just himself and his own feelings factoring into the decision. There were his kids to consider and his ex-wife’s overbearing control over his visitation with them.
Then there was his schedule, which sent him all over the world at the whim of the military.
And there was Ginny and the hurdles on her end of this long distance relationship. She had a life in Connecticut, far away from Virginia. Her family was up north and from what he’d learned over the years they’d been dating, her mother was not going to be at all happy at the thought of her only child moving away to be with him.
He was away a lot. To ask Ginny to wait for him, alone in base housing, wondering where he was and when he’d be back, didn’t seem fair to her. Or to her family who was used to having her close by.
In light of all that, why he was nervous was no longer the question. What had made him even think he could make this work? That was the question.
He glanced toward the front of the theater. This thing had to be over soon.
Checking the time on his cell, he discovered that it wasn’t as late as he’d assumed. It only felt as if they’d been there forever.
Sighing, Thom slumped in his seat.
Leaning closer, Brody said, “Hey, listen to me. When we get the hell out of here you and I are gonna go somewhere and talk this through. A’ight?”
Thom nodded, giving in. “Okay. Thanks.”
He didn’t know how talking to Brody could help, but it certainly couldn’t hurt.
It wasn’t as if he had a better idea. Or something better to do. Not with Ginny four hundred miles away. Four hundred and four to be exact. He’d counted each and every mile the too few times he’d driven to be with her.
Before he talked himself out of this proposal, abandoned his plan and had to ask the jeweler about his return policy, Thom figured he should at least be open to reasoning things out, rationally, possibly over a drink since he sure felt as if he could use one.
Hell after his flipping out on his teammate, on top of the boredom of the past few hours, Thom was pretty sure Brody could use a beer too . . . or something stronger.
Given how crazed Thom felt at the moment, bourbon straight up definitely wasn’t out of the question.
The cell, still in his hand so he could obsess about the time, vibrated.
There was a rustling of motion and the glow of blue light around him as other men checked their own phones. Next to him, Brody reached for his pocket too.
Thom didn’t need to look at the display to know what was happening. All the signs were there. A platoon’s worth of SEALs getting simultaneous texts in the middle of an all-hands briefing could mean only one thing. They were getting called in for something.
So much for his planned visit with Ginny.
“Shit.” Thom breathed out the curse, low and mostly to himself.
“Yup.” Brody’s agreement as he bent over the cell in his hand told Thom his teammate had heard him and agreed with the sentiment. The cell’s display illuminated Brody’s face in the dim theater before he clicked it off. “Time to go.”
Brody stood. Thom and about a dozen other guys did the same.
This was clearly one of those good news, bad news kinds of situations. The good news was they got to leave this eternally long required briefing. The bad news was there was no telling what they were being recalled for or what they were about to walk into.
This—getting yanked away on next to no notice to travel God only knew where for an assignment of indeterminate danger for an undisclosed amount of time if he came home at all—was exactly why Thom shouldn’t even think about proposing to Ginny.
It was also exactly why he wanted to. Why he had to.
If this morning were to be the last day he woke on this earth, he would have wanted to wake next to her.
As he walked shoulder to shoulder with Brody toward the meeting room, he felt calmer about his decision to propose than he had all day.
That considering his own death had settled his restless mind was pretty screwed up. But then again, the men who opted for a career in Naval Special Warfare didn’t tend to think the same as others.
Of course, his calm could also stem from knowing that thanks to getting recalled he had a temporary reprieve from having to do anything regarding the ring in his pocket.
Now that he wasn’t a nervous wreck and his obsessing was done—for the time being—he turned his mind to possible reasons for the summons from command.
“What do you think this is about?” Thom asked Brody, even though they’d all know soon enough anyway.
Brody blew out a loud, lip-flapping breath. “The way things have been lately, there ain’t no telling.”
Thom sniffed in agreement. “That’s the truth.”
They’d all been on high alert and told to expect the possibility of more high profile terrorist attacks in larger cities since Ramadan was about to begin.
Besides that, any number of things could have happened anywhere in the world while they’d been in the briefing. Or nothing had happened but some politician had decided that now was the time to call on them for a showy mission to grab some press.
In spite of the need for secrecy, the media loved to report on SEAL Team 6, and the politicians taking credit for the team’s successes didn’t hate the public exposure.
It didn’t take long to cover the distance from the theater to the meeting room. When Thom walked through the door he could see his commander, Grant Milton, was already in the front of the room flipping through some papers in a file folder.
Grant glanced up as operators filed into the room. He looked like he was in a hurry to get started, which gave Thom a clue as to the urgency of the situation. Luckily, everyone called in should have been on base for the all-hands meeting so they wouldn’t have to wait long for anyone.
The room filled quickly, if not quietly, and soon Grant had signaled for attention. Silence—save for the scrape of a chair or the shuffle of a boot against the floor—fell upon the group.
Grant began, “At zero-three-hundred hours, Kabul time, insurgents attacked a compound run by a Swedish aid group. They beheaded the Afghan guard and proceeded to the second floor where they shot and killed one German female. A second female, an American citizen residing with her husband in Finland, was at the compound and has been reported missing.”
As Thom sat and listened to Grant, the reason for the recall and the urgency became apparent. There was nothing they could do for the two victims who’d been killed, but they could hope to find the American woman who’d been taken.
The stress was clear on Grant’s face as he spoke and Thom could guess why. It was only recently that the team had gone in to rescue a female US aid worker being held for ransom in Somalia.
That had been a tough one. After months of captivity, the American woman had been underweight, dehydrated and in imminent danger from a raging fever and infection left untreated. Not to mention the emotional damage done to her in addition to the physical.
Thom suspected that it was memories of that mission that had Grant wearing such a grave expression now. Because though the commander was a private man and had kept it surprisingly quiet, the team knew Grant was now in a romantic relationship with the woman they’d rescued.
How would Thom feel if Ginny was ever taken or in danger? He could only imagine. Actually, he didn’t want to even do that. He’d lose his mind.
“At this time, no group has claimed responsibility, however, we have our suspicions.”
Next to Thom, Brody said under his breath, “Me too.”
“Mm, hm,” Thom agreed.
The Afghan Taliban wasn’t typically known for beheadings but ISIS, aka Daesh, sure was. This event had all the markers of the Islamic State.
“Officials in country are working on some leads. They should have more by the time we land. We go wheels up in an hour.”
The general noise in the room increased exponentially after Grant dismissed them to get ready for departure.
“Looks like our talk about that,” Brody glanced down at Thom’s pocket where the ring still resided, “is gonna have to wait.”
Thom’s thoughts exactly as they walked toward the cages to grab their shit. Given he wouldn’t be proposing because he was about to fly off to Afghanistan to chase after a group of jihadists who’d gladly kill or die for their cause he wasn’t sure if he felt grateful or terrified over the delay.