Page 32 of Tate
And he’d lived.
But once again her emotions did an end run around her sanity and took her out at her knees.
She just had to stop caring so much.
Thankfully, her CO had said nothing, even after Ford landed safely on the chopper. Even after she’d slipped off the headset and left the command center, walking through the gangways to the nearest head.
And quietly, violently lost it. Braced her hands against the stall.
Oh, she was pitiful. Because she cared for them all—Nez, the brooding, dark Navajo Master Chief who had tossed his law degree to become a SEAL, following in the heroic military tradition of his great-grandfather Charlie Nez, a code talker.
Sonny, the Italian from Chicago whose real name was Roger or something ordinary. But he’d earned the mafioso moniker with his dark looks and charming ways, and apparently, he’d done a tour in Sicily when he’d been a corpsman, before trying for the SEALs. Which put him as one of the oldest tadpoles in BUD/S but earned him the respect of the team.
Sometimes it just took time to stir up the courage to reach for something else. Or maybe just stand up for what you wanted.
Like Leviticus. Levi. The Rabbi, although the guy didn’t have a hint of Jewish ancestry. A blond Viking, he’d grown up in some religious pocket of conservative Minnesota. But he knew what he believed and managed not to adopt the rather colorful language of the teams. Usually. But maybe that didn’t matter as much asthe fact he didn’t hang out at any of the hot spots to pick up frog hogs.
Although, as far as she knew, Ford also opted out of the late-night adventures of some of the other frogmen from the base, from Teams One, Five, and Seven. No, Ford was quiet and most likely to be found working out or competing in some iron man event or on a forty-mile bike ride.
And then there was Trini. As in Trinidad. As in the big Trinidadian from east Texas who came from a family so large they’d taken up their own section of bleachers when he’d earned his Budweiser. That kind of family love sent her into hives. She’d politely declined the offer to attend their family celebration.
Kenny C was actually named Colton. He hailed from East Tennessee, and about a year after she’d attached to the team, she screwed up the courage to ask.
Kenny Chesney. Right. Because that made sense.
And finally Cruz, aka Fiesta, a name he rightly earned for his love of hosting all the post-deployment bashes, as well as every other team gig.
Like the one tonight, a week after they’d arrived home.
The one she was apparently going to miss because of her stupid rattletrap car, stuck with a flat tire in the driveway of her bungalow in sunny San Diego.
Scarlett stepped on the lug wrench, putting her entire weight on it, bouncing in hopes it would work the nut free.
The wrench jerked away from the nut, spinning out, and of course, she fell, stumbled back, and like the not-Navy-SEAL that she was, she landed in the grass.
Her stiff, dying grass, thanks to the water shortage. Even her palm tree in the front yard drooped, and it was only late April. Overhead, the blue sky was cloudless, and her American flag hung limp and listless.
She lay back in the grass of her tiny, almost ten-by-ten yard and shaded her eyes. Maybe she should stay right here. It wasn’t like she was really on the team. She was an Operations Specialist. Technically, an operations com technician, although she’d trained for her communications position and was one of the few women who was attached to CSST—a Combat Service Support Team.
But the Navy had opened up spec ops positions in the last year, and sure, women had failed BUD/S, but what if she didn’t try out to be a SEAL but Combat-SAR as a rescue swimmer?
She’d go in after the team if and when they ended up in the drink.
Then she wouldn’t have to sit two hundred or more miles away watching through a green screen as her team risked their lives.
She could be the one bringing them home. Actuallybeon their team.
She liked the sound of that.
Anything to stop herself from screaming through the radio.
Liked it so much, she’d put her package in to cross rate. Now she just had to take her PRT—Physical Readiness Test— and qualify.
Fifty push-ups, sixty sit-ups, five pull-ups, five-hundred-yard swim, four twenty-five-yard underwater swims, and a two-hundred-yard buddy tow.
She hadn’t quite figured out how to train for that one. Not without alerting the team to her aspirations.
Maybe she’d tell themaftershe passed her PRT next week.
