Page 61 of Savage SEAL's Virgin
The sun wasn’t even up and it was already hotter than hell out there. It took an eternity to make the five clicks we needed to go, and when we got there, we found no one waiting for us. With no water, we were dehydrating fast. None of us had been well hydrated in the first place. It was a tactic that was used to ensure that, if prisoners did escape, the elements would end them before help could find them.
We all sat on the hot sand as the wind whipped all around us, stinging any flesh that was showing. I closed my eyes and pictured my girls back home. All I could do was hope I’d get to see them again. I prayed Blyss had become stronger than I thought she was. I’d always thought of her as fragile. She did show me she had more to her when Tatum came to us. I held out hope that she’d stay strong for my daughter and our baby.
Blyss had never wanted what I brought her into. She wanted to be alone. I smiled as I thought about the fact that I’d left her with an entire family. She had people who were her family now. I wasn’t sure if she hated me or loved me for it. It wasn’t a thing she’d ever planned. But it made me feel better that she wasn’t alone somewhere. She was with people who loved her, and she loved them.
If I never made it back to her, at least I knew I’d changed her life for the better. She was going to have a baby and experience that first hand. Mom would be right there by her side if I never made it back. I could count on my family to help Blyss take care of my kids. I knew I could.
But, damn it, I wanted to get back home and experience all that love too!
Blyss
Jerking awake, I found Tatum looking at me. “You were talkin’ in your sleep, Mommy.”
We’d been watching a television show after dinner and it seemed I’d fallen asleep on the sofa. “Was I? I had a dream about your daddy. It seemed so real.”
“Daddy?” Tatum turned her full attention to me, leaving the movie about bees she was watching behind. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. They felt sandy. That was odd, because in my dream, Troy was walking through a bunch of blowing sand, calling out my name.
I wasn’t sure what to say about that. It seemed like a bad omen to me. “I saw your daddy walking through a sandstorm. It’s just because I miss him so much. I dream about him a lot.” I pulled her to me and cuddled her.
“I wish I could dream ‘bout him too.” She laid back on me, then giggled as the baby kicked her. I was six months pregnant. Troy had been missing for four months. Not many had hope his SEAL team would be found alive. The news no longer even reported on the missing men.
But I still held out hope. No bodies, other than the one man they’d found from the team, had been found. Even though I didn’t want to think about him being tortured, I thought it better to be alive than dead.
The dream, though, that scared me.
Why would he come into my dreams like that?
It was as if he was floating in the sandy air, calling my name over and over. But I couldn’t get to him.Was he dead?
Was that his soul coming to say goodbye? Was that one last look at him?
Tatum and I were in the sitting area of my bedroom. The door was unceremoniously thrown open, and Troy’s mother was there, shaking and crying.
I knew it then. I knew the worst had happened. I looked down at Tatum and hugged her tightly. “Oh, God!”
His mother was so distraught all she could do was shake her head. Then his father came up behind her. “They have him! They’re bringing him in!”
Shock took me over. I couldn’t think, breathe—nothing Tatum was climbing away from me, going to her grandparents, and they were all shouting and crying. And all I could do was sit on that sofa and shake as my mind went blank.
“He’s alive?” I mumbled as if asking myself the question. “How? How can he be alive?”
His dad swept into the room, taking my hands to pull me up off the sofa. I was wrapped in his warm embrace as he said, “The men escaped. They got a phone and made a call that got them rescued. They’re on the ship coming back now. As soon as they’re close enough, helicopters are going to be sent out to get them. They’ll be taken to the Naval Hospital, Balboa, in San Diego. We’ll leave in the morning to get there and be waiting for him.”
“Is this real?” I had to ask. “I just had a dream about him. This isn’t a dream, is it?”
He held me by my arms as she looked into my eyes. “This is no dream. He’s coming back to us.”
Tears clouded my vision as I began to cry. I felt feminine hands take me as his hands lifted me. Troy’s mother and I held each other and cried together. Her son and my heart was coming home. It was over. The waiting and wondering were all over.
Troy was coming home!
That night went by so slowly. The ride in the suburban all the way into San Diego that next morning was so excruciatingly slow before getting to the hospital. The nurse told us where to wait for the men to be brought in. We found out they were in choppers only a couple of hours out. In a couple of hours, I’d see the man I loved again. In a couple of hours, I’d feel his hands on mine again. In a couple of hours, I’d be complete for the first time since he left.
Minutes ticked by as we all waited in a waiting room with glass walls that were near the helipad just outside of the emergency room. As soon as the men were brought in, they’d have to pass right by us. In the next hour, that little room filled to capacity as the other men’s families showed up. The SEAL team left with six members, but only came back with five. We all gave that man who wasn’t coming back a moment of silence. It could’ve been ours who’d died out there, and we all knew that.
The sound of helicopters was heard, and the energy inside that room exploded. I’d never been so filled with excitement. The baby was kicking me, as if he could feel it too. We were having a boy. I’d just had the sonogram done the week before. I had all kinds of great news for Troy. The first chopper was unloaded; two men were brought in on stretchers. Neither man was Troy. Nearly half the people went into the hallway to greet their men.
I held hands with Troy’s mom as we waited for our turn. The doors opened and in came two more men on stretchers. Troy wasn’t one of them, and worry began to fill me. “Could something have happened?”
