Wet N Wild Navy SEALs

by Tawny Weber

  Tabby was used to it.

  “I don’t want to have this conversation,” she said, gathering shower items and pulling clean civilian clothes from her locker.

  “Then I’ll do all the talking.”

  “That’s the conversation I’m not having. The one where you lecture and I listen.”

  “I don’t lecture.”

  Tabby laid her clothes on her bunk and turned to face him. ‘‘Trust me, Dad, you do.”

  “What good would it do me. You only pretend to listen, then do what you want anyway. Just like your mother.”

  “Don’t blame stubborn on Mom. Those genes come directly from you.” She crossed her arms. “And I do listen. That’s why I’m here. I’ve listened to years of your Navy SEAL adventures. I put up with years of your being gone.”

  “Sea stories, glossed over to make suitable bedtime tales. You have no idea—”

  “And I listened when you told me I could do anything.” She raised her voice to be heard above him. “And the one time you told me I couldn’t. Do you remember that? Why are you surprised I accepted the challenge? That’s the way you raised me—to believe in myself.

  “I always thought you believed in me too. But if it was Zach or Bowie you wouldn’t be lecturing. You’d be patting him on the back. Bravo Zulu, son. Way to go.”

  “Well, guess what, I’m not one of your sons. I’m your daughter. I made it through Hell Week. And I want you to be proud of me! When the boys wouldn’t give me the password to their clubhouse, who told me to break the door down? This conversation is over!”

  “Like hell it is! You don’t know what it is you’re getting yourself into.”

  “I’ll learn. Like you did. You weren’t born a Navy SEAL.”

  “Look at my face! This isn’t pretty. Do you think I want this to happen to you?”

  Tabby had spent her entire life admiring that face. “I don’t see the scar, Dad,” she reached out and touched it, “I see the badge of courage and the man underneath.”

  It was a rare thing to see her father all choked up. Tabby wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. “I may fail, especially if the Commander has anything to say about it. But you didn’t raise a quitter.”

  “Are you sure those stubborn genes are mine and not your mother’s?”

  “I’m fairly sure.”

  “I am proud of you, Tabby. But no man likes to think of his little girl growing up. It’s not just the job. It’s the situations you’ll be put in. The men.”

  “I know. But I am all grown up. I can handle the men. And I’ll handle anything that comes up.”

  “Telling me you can handle men does not make me feel better,” he chuckled. “You’re to remain a virgin until your wedding night. And if you’re not I don’t want to know about it.” Tabby stiffened in her father’s embrace. She hadn’t told him about Marc, and she couldn’t bring herself to do it now.

  “I have to shower. I’m meeting the guys at Manny’s to celebrate.” She pulled out of his arms.

  “I’d almost forgotten how bad Hell Week smelled. You could use a little soap. And I have to get back to the hotel before your mother comes looking for me.”

  She threw a towel over her shoulder and headed to the shower.

  “Tabby,” he called after her. “Hell Week’s only the beginning. Break the door down.”

  1700 Friday

  SEAL BARRACKS

  Coronado, CA

  Carrying fast food for two, Marc knocked softly on Tabitha’s door. No answer. He calmed his rising panic by testing the knob. Finding it unlocked, he stepped inside.

  She lay on her stomach, stretched across her rack. Still in fatigues and boots, she slept covered in five days’ worth of dirt. Hell Week was over.

  She was one of only thirty-six left.

  He stared at her in amazement. She'd made it.

  Pride warred with too many other conflicting emotions for Marc to allow himself to feel it. But it was there just the same, in the tiny part of his heart that hoarded the knowledge he was her husband and remembered how it had felt...once upon a time.

  It wasn’t unusual for trainees to sleep the next day away. And it was his policy to let them. Marc put down the food and checked her pulse anyway. The steady beat and warmth of her skin reassured him. He continued to hold her hand long after it was necessary.

  He’d always react to her physically, he realized, laying her hand gently on her pillow. He almost didn’t have the strength to let go. He brushed her cheek. Touched her hair. It was still beautiful, even shorn and covered in grime. She sighed in her sleep and he pulled back.

  Moving to the end of the bed, he unlaced her boots and tugged them off, placing them side by side beneath her rack. Blood had seeped through one of her socks at the heel. It was already dry, and he pulled off the sock as gently as he could, knowing he’d start the bleeding again. She didn’t so much as stir.

  He managed to find an antiseptic swab and a bandage among her personal items and doctored her foot. Then he examined the other. There was visible bruising and swelling at her ankle. Marc poured out a soda in a nearby potted plant and used the ice to make a cold pack with her sock.

  She jumped at the contact with the cold. “Leave me alone,” she mumbled, kicking at him. Then she promptly fell back asleep. Marc finished and settled in a chair next to her rack with his half of the food.

  For six weeks he’d stayed away.

  He craved her company. Even if she slept through his visit. Thoughts of crawling in beside her and just holding her close crept into his head.

  She’d chosen. Instructor over husband.

  He couldn’t be both. There were three more weeks in Phase One. Phase Two and Phase Three lay ahead. Failure was still possible. There’d be other tests of endurance, but none that required the same mental stamina as Hell Week.

  Hell Week was meant to weed out the weak. And Tabitha had proved herself. Both mentally and physically. But the question most prevalent on his mind these days was not whether she would pass or fail. But how her passing or failing would affect their marriage.

  The bite of burger lodged in his throat and he swallowed with difficulty, forcing down the food along with his feelings.

  “Commander?” Perry’s voice echoed through the barracks, followed by the sound of the screen door slamming closed behind him.

  Putting down his burger, Marc rose to his feet and left the converted office that served as Tabitha’s room. He spotted Perry walking up the aisle between two rows of empty bunk beds.

  “A Captain Prince is waiting in your office,” he said.

  “Tad Prince? Facial scar?”

  “Yes.”

  Tabitha’s father. His father-in-law. Though he suspected the man didn’t know it. This should be interesting.

  Marc took a shortcut, cutting across the grinder to HQ, then through his locker room to his office. The move would put him immediately behind his desk. In his office. And in control.

  “Captain,” he said as he entered, capturing the attention of the man on the other side of the desk.

  The Toad stopped pacing. “Do you always sneak into your own office, Miller?”

  “Only when the visitor is unexpected,” Marc replied, calling the retired frogman on his own sudden appearance. “Captain, it’s been a while.” He didn’t bother to extend his hand.

  Prince nodded. “I think you can guess why I’m here.”

  “Have a seat,” Marc offered, sitting himself.

  “I prefer to stand. Let me get straight to the point, Miller.” The Toad leaned over the desk. “I would have been here sooner, but it seems I’m the last to know my daughter volunteered for the SEAL program. It’s not bad enough no one bothered to tell me. No, I have to find out from the front page of a newspaper.” He slapped the paper down, face up.

  Hell and back. Marc read the headline. He remembered the interview. He just hadn’t realized it was syndicated.

  “I don’t know who’s crazier,” the Toad continued. �
��Congress, the Chief of SEALs, or you for not booting her butt right out the door.”

  “I would’ve, if I could’ve.”

  “I don’t want my daughter rolling around in the mud with some dick-for-brains SEAL instructor. You got that? I want her out of here, now!”

  Now was probably not the time to tell Prince he’d done more than roll in the mud with his daughter. It was obvious he didn’t know Marc had married Tabitha. Marc was more than a little disappointed that she hadn’t told her parents. He’d phoned his family.

  While the man blew off steam, Marc realized the Toad didn’t have the power to intimidate him anymore. He was still formidable. But Marc was all that and younger. And he didn’t like the man in his face.

  He stood and leaned across his desk, meeting Prince in the middle. “I can’t do that.”

  “Don’t give me shit, Miller! I know you can. Wave your magic pen across the page and write fail, and she’s out of here. F-A-I-L, in case you forgot how to spell it.”

  Marc barely contained his anger at the insult. “Don’t you think I would if I could? It’s not that simple.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “It’s just a matter of time. When she fails or quits, she’s out of here.” If she fails. Where had that thought come from? Of course Tabitha would quit or fail.

  “If you can’t or won’t fail her, I know you sure as hell can make her quit!”

  “I’m trying my damnedest!”

  “Try harder!”

  “Look I don’t want her here any more than you—”

  The locker room door opened behind him, and the Toad’s face registered shock. Marc sucked in his breath. Slowly, he straightened and turned to face his bedraggled and barefoot wife.

  Her mouth was a tight thin line. “I’m not going to fail. And I’m not going to quit,” Tabitha said with quiet dignity. “Who the hell gave either of you the right to decide my future?”

  She turned and headed back the direction she’d come.

  2000 Friday

  RARE ROSE TATTOO PARLOR

  Coronado, CA

  Laying on her stomach with her jeans down around her hips, Tabby threw back another shot of tequila while the tattoo artist did her job. Well on her way to intoxication, Tabby had a hard time staying awake and even drifted off a couple of times. The past week had desensitized her. And the liquor didn’t help much either.

  Physically she was beyond pain. But emotionally was another matter. She knew Marc didn’t want her to be a SEAL so why did hearing him side with her father hurt? Couldn’t one of them be on her side? She thought she’d seen pride in Marc’s eyes when he’d dismissed her from Hell Week, but it had been so fleeting, now she wasn’t sure.

  Having the SEAL Trident tattooed on her butt was the act of a rule-breaker, she knew that. But no matter what happened after this, no one could take away the fact she’d made it through Hell Week. She had a right to feel proud of herself, even if no one else did.

  Besides, all the guys were getting tattooed.

  Chapter 23

  2200 Friday

  HOTEL DEL CORONADO, POINT LOMA

  Coronado, CA

  Bright white lights dotted the terrace of the Hotel del Coronado where Marc lingered over his after dinner Corona. He stared out at the black sky, listening to the waves as they swelled, then crashed against the rocks in a crescendo of salt spray.

  “I used to celebrate the end of Hell Week the same way,” Tad Prince said, pulling up a chair uninvited. A waiter immediately took his drink order. “I was out here this afternoon, watching Tabby’s crew land their boat. Tell me, Miller, do you think she has what it takes?”

  Marc leaned forward in his seat. “I think she’s determined to prove she does.”

  The waiter reappeared with two beers, setting one in front of each of them. ‘‘Would you want to take her into combat with you?” Prince asked.

  ‘‘No.” Marc didn’t even have to think about that answer.

  ‘‘I don’t like the idea either.” He took a drink from his beer then pointed the bottle at Marc. ‘‘But I don’t have a say in the matter. You teach my daughter what she needs to know to stay safe.”

  Marc nodded. ‘‘Will do.” What he wanted slipped away as they spoke. Getting her to quit, was now secondary to keeping her safe.

  “That’s all I ask, son.”

  Son. Marc studied his father-in-law. Did he know? Had Tabby told her parents about their marriage? Their all-too-brief marriage. And current separation. He didn’t think so. But he liked the sound of the word.

  “I never thanked you for hauling my ass off to the bamboo brig,” Marc said, dredging up the past. “You turned my life around.”

  Prince looked him over long and hard. ‘‘You’re welcome. I knew you were trouble the day you walked in the door.”

  ‘‘Sounds like me. You told me I’d never amount to anything.” But I love your daughter.

  ‘‘What makes you think I ever believed that? I know Tabby’s in good hands.”

  Marc tried to decide whether to tell the man he’d married his daughter. Tabby hadn’t done it so it looked as if it was up to him.

  Marc’s cell phone rang. He picked up before the second ring, checking his watch, 2219. “Miller.”

  “You’d better get down here.” Urgency marked Manny’s normally carefree tone. “Your wife’s causing trouble.”

  “I’ll be right there.” Marc disconnected and pushed to his feet. He’d have to break the news some other time.

  “Trouble?”

  “Yeah, nothing I can’t handle.” Marc headed for the door, grabbing his cover on the way. What had she gotten herself into this time?

  He arrived at Manny’s without any of the speeding tickets he deserved. Inside, the lights were all on. Chairs and tables were turned over. Broken glass was strewn across the floor. The place looked as if it had been hit by a hurricane. Marc knew better; he’d been in a couple of bar fights in this very room. He saw only a few patrons remained. His wife was not among them.

  Peanut shells and glass crunched beneath his feet as he made his way to the bar.

  Manny hung up the phone. “I was just calling you, again. The Shore Patrol hauled the entire training class off to the brig.”

  “What in the hell happened?”

  “Tabby’s a little drunk, I think.”

  Marc glared at him. “How’d she get that way?”

  “Four beers. That’s all I served her.”

  “That doesn’t explain this mess.”

  “A dozen or so Marines walked in itching for a fight. Tabby hopped on a table to show off her new tattoo... Hell, Marc, there’s no easy way to say this—she mooned them.”

  “Tattoo!”

  “Everything after that happened too fast to recount. Needless to say Tabby has a wicked right hook. She threw the first punch and then it was every man for himself.” Manny cleared his throat. “And woman. Afterwards, someone said she’d been tipping tequila before she got here.”

  Marc looked around at the mess left by Tornado Tabby. He pulled a couple of fifties from his wallet and handed them to Manny. “This won’t come close to covering everything. Send me a bill.”

  The wheelchair-bound owner took the money. “They all blow off steam after Hell Week. Don’t be too hard on her.”

  Marc’s gaze narrowed at the advice. “Call Preach. Have him pick up a duty van and meet me at the brig.”

  It was well after 2300 by the time Marc drove up to the front of the brig.

  Perry had just parked the van and walked over to meet him. “Typical Hell Week,” he commented as they strode toward the two-story building surrounded by a twelve-foot fence topped with barbed wire.

  Marc felt like leaving her here overnight. If she woke up hungover, staring at the barbed wire through barred windows, maybe next time she’d think twice before showing off a new tattoo. He frowned.

  That Marine better never cross his path. Hell, the last time he’d seen his wife’s bottom
was six weeks ago and she hadn’t even had a tattoo. He was hotter-than-hell mad at her. And hornier than the devil himself. It probably wasn’t a good idea to spring her tonight.

  They showed their ID and the gate guard let them pass.

  “You have my trainees,” Marc said to the guard behind the desk.

  The Second Class Petty Officer smiled up at him. “Ah, the Hell Week brigade. Sign here, Commander.”

  Marc skimmed over the names on the list. “Where’s Chapel?”

  “She really one of yours? We didn’t believe her. Even with the buzzed hair and all. We put her in a cell all her own.” The petty officer dug out additional paperwork.

  Marc signed and asked Perry to haul the rest back to the barracks. He followed the guard to a corner cell where he found Tabitha sleeping peacefully.

  He dumped the rack over, just like he would for any other trainee. No special treatment. She rolled to the cold floor and opened half-lidded eyes.

  “Hi, Marc,” she slurred, smiling at him. “D’you wanna see my tattoo?”

  “No!”

  “It’s a really nice tattoo,” the guard said.

  Marc growled low in his throat, shutting the petty officer up. Just how many men had seen the damn thing?

  His drunken wife had trouble navigating her way to the door. Tossing her over his shoulder, he exited the cell.

  “Bye,” she said happily to the shore patrol.

  He didn’t trust himself to speak even when they were alone in his car. Back at base he carried her through the empty bay. Eighty bunk beds cried, take her, take her, as he passed.

  He went straight to the showers and turned on the cold spray, holding her under while she sputtered and screamed. When she looked more like a drowned rat than a woman and was sober enough to listen, he turned the knob so hard it came off in his hand. He threw it across the room, and it landed on the tile with a ping.

  “Get a towel and meet me at your rack.” He left her shivering in the bathroom. The smaller office seemed less overwhelming than the room with eighty empty beds. He pulled down the shades on the window and door.