Page 26 of Married to a SEAL

Patrick stowed his gear and grabbed his noise-cancelling headphones as his gaze slid toward Brent.

“Damn, and I forgot my knitting needles,” the medic on their team, Mike “Patch” Hunter quipped, grinning at them from his seat.

“No problem,” Brent said, a wicked gleam in his dark eyes. “Blade can loan you his pair.”

“Sonofbitch,” Christopher muttered.

“Easy fellas,” Matthew “Gator” Murphy said, easing down into his own uncomfortable seat on the C-17. “No need to get your panties in a bunch. I’m sure Cobra has enough extra sets of knitting needles for everyone.”

“Hoorah,” Christopher said as the others chuckled.

“Fucking pansies,” Brent muttered.

Patrick cleared his throat. “After we go wheels up, we’ve got specs to go over. There’s a chance the mission may get moved up since Delta’s going to be there ahead of us.”

“Roger that,” the men grunted in reply.

“Are we taking Humvees to the camp where the woman’s being held?” Evan asked.

“Negative. We’ll be flying in on Black Hawks. Each team to a helo.”

Evan nodded, and Patrick recalled how on their last hostage rescue, Evan’s Humvee had gotten blown into the air after driving over an IED, leaving Evan injured for nearly a month. Hell of a way to conduct a rescue op, he thought, clenching his jaw. They hadn’t sustained any serious injuries since then, and Patrick intended to keep it that way.

He sank down into his own seat and buckled in, pulling his headphones on to drown out the noise in the cargo plane. One non-stop flight to the Afghani desert, coming up.

***

Rebecca took a sip of her decaf tea, pulling up the legal documents she needed on her computer. Juggling multiple clients proved a challenge some days, but with her cases in different stages of divorce proceedings, there was no way to avoid it.

Her gaze was drawn to the sunny blue skies and view of the distant Atlantic Ocean from her office window. The men had probably taken off on a helicopter from Little Creek hours ago. Multiple military jets were always screaming across the Virginia Beach sky on training drills from Naval Air Station Oceana. It usually awed the tourists and provided little more than background noise to the locals, who were used to hearing the sounds of the fighter jets and seeing them fly in formation.

The SEAL team flew out on bigger cargo planes with they deployed, but she wasn’t privy to details aside from that.

There were lots of children with parents in the military around the Virginia Beach and Norfolk areas. Until Patrick retired and got out of the Navy, Logan would have to be used to his frequent deployments. And even then, it was hard for Rebecca to imagine Patrick ever leaving the service.

He’d probably end up the next CO at Little Creek or something—maybe he wouldn’t be deploying on ops, but he’d be down there 24/7 running them. Patrick thrived on adrenaline, was a man who seemed to need the physical nature of his career, and she couldn’t imagine him ever wanting to miss out on all the action.

Her cell phone buzzing on her desk caught her attention, and she glanced down, seeing Alison’s name flash on the screen.

“Hey hun, how are you holding up?” she asked. “It’s never easy when they go, is it?”

“I’m in Labor and Delivery,” Alison said.

“Why’d they send you there when you’re an ER nurse?” Rebecca asked, clicking on her screen to open the newest email from her client.

“They didn’t send me up here to work. I’m in labor!”

“Holy crap,” Rebecca said, nearly dropping the phone. “Early as in the baby is coming now? Or pre-term and they’ll stop it? Does Evan know? You’ve still got another month to go!”

“It’s pre-term labor, so they’re trying to stop my contractions. And no, I can’t get ahold of Evan,” Alison said. “I talked to their CO—Captain Ryan Mitchell. He said he’d try to get word to the team, but honestly, he didn’t sound too hopeful that Evan could be sent back in time if the baby decides to come early. They’re probably halfway over the Atlantic by now.”

“Wow. Yeah, they wouldn’t turn the entire plane around. They can’t. Maybe when they land, Evan can come back?”

“I don’t know,” Alison said with a sigh. “I don’t want to mess up their mission. And I’m not supposed to be in labor right now anyway, so what if he did manage to fly all the way back here for nothing? They’re trying to stop the labor, not let me have the baby today. I’m on steroids to help the baby’s lungs develop in case he does arrive early though.”

“I’ll come to the hospital,” Rebecca said, closing the email that was still open on her screen. “I’m just finishing up some stuff in the office, but I can finish it tonight if need be. Or whenever, if you need me to stay there with you. I’m just doing some paperwork and correspondence—no court cases today, thankfully.”

“What about Abby? And don’t you watch Logan when Patrick is gone?”

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