Loved by a SEAL

by Cat Johnson

  “We going to the strip club?” Rocky asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe just the bar. That okay?” Brody glanced at Rocky in time to see the man’s dark brows shoot high.

  It seemed like all it took was a couple of days home with Ashley and Brody had lost his taste for strippers. He tried not to dig too deeply into why that was true.

  After an odd and unnecessary pause, Rocky nodded. “Sure, Brody. No problem. Whatever you want. The bar it is.”

  Brody had to think that was a hell of a lot of words out of Rocky when a simple okay would have worked, but he wasn’t in the mood to press it. Instead he glanced in his pack one more time to be sure he’d stowed the last of what he needed before he shut it and shoved it onto the shelf.

  Satisfied he’d be ready to go when the time came to move out, he locked the cage and turned toward Rocky. “Ready?”

  “Yup. Let’s go.”

  Grant was in the hallway as Rocky and Brody headed for the exit. He asked, “You two heading out?”

  “Yup.” Brody nodded.

  “Heading to the bar.” Rocky offered up their destination when Brody specifically had not.

  Grant might not technically be the commander on this op but he was close enough Brody had thought it best to keep their plans to go out drinking hours before deploying to themselves.

  Even though they had been out at the strip club with Grant just days ago, Brody shot his teammate a glare and tried to cover by saying, “Just to grab one last burger before we ship out.”

  Grant grinned. “Yeah, okay. See you back here tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir.” Rocky finally stepped it up and acted like Grant was an officer and not a drinking buddy, much to Brody’s relief.

  When they were outside and in the parking lot, Brody shot Rocky a glance. “We’re going to the bar? You don’t tell an officer shit like that.”

  Rocky rolled his eyes. “So what? It wasn’t like I told him we’re planning on doing shots until we pass out, which we’re not. We’re allowed to go wherever the hell we want. Jeez. Chill, dude.”

  Jaw clenched, Brody drew in a breath through his nose.

  Rocky stopped dead in his tracks. When Brody kept walking, Rocky said, “Cassidy.”

  Brody stopped and turned back. “What?”

  “I don’t know what the fuck crawled up your ass during your leave that put you in this piss poor mood, but you’d better get over it before we hit the ground.”

  Brody didn’t need to be told that, even if it was true. “I know. I’ll be fine.”

  Rocky watched him for a beat, before nodding and taking the few steps to close the distance between them. “So you’re really not gonna tell me what happened on your leave?”

  Brody laughed, the tension broken by Rocky’s ridiculous question. “No. I’m really not.”

  This was how it was between teammates. Guys could go from arguing, even nearly coming to blows, one moment and then be joking with one another the next.

  Rocky shook his head. “Damn. You’re no fun. I was stuck here in boring old Virginia Beach for the whole week we got to be stateside. Meanwhile you got to go to Alabama and you won’t tell me shit. How am I supposed to live vicariously through you?”

  Brody let out a snort. “Spoken like a Yankee who’s never been to Alabama. Believe me. You’re not missing anything.”

  “Yeah, yeah. So you say.” Rocky shot him a sideways glance. “I’ll tell you all about the new stripper they hired at the club. Jasmine, and believe me she is as sweet as her name.”

  “Her fake name, I’m sure.” Brody shook his head, smiling at Rocky’s enthusiasm.

  Rocky waved away the comment. “So what? Hell, like Rocky’s my real name?”

  “It’s not?” Brody feigned shock. “You’ve been lying to me all this time? I feel so used.”

  Grinning, Rocky shook his head as he stopped next to the door of his truck. “Get in. I’ll drive. You know, in case you’re feeling a little tipsy after your hamburger and don’t want to drive.”

  “Eh, it could happen.” Brody bobbed his head and moved to the other side of Rocky’s truck.

  Brody wasn’t worried about keeping his head in the game once they landed. He was feeling better already.

  It would be even easier to remain on task once in Africa with the whole team, their singular focus the mission.

  Among all of the things that made it possible to do this job, compartmentalizing was one of the most valuable.

  It’s what allowed him to move between normal life and military life with the flick of an internal switch. To act like a normal human one day and turn into an analytical trained warrior another.

  Civilians didn’t get it. Ashley for sure wouldn’t understand it, but Brody had already stowed his emotions about her and their situation. Those feelings would remain locked away until it was convenient and safe for him to deal with it all.

  Compartmentalizing was not just instinct. It was a necessary protocol, as much as locking up his kit between ops was.

  It meant survival for not only him but for the entire team—but there was a price to pay. Men who could do what he did didn’t make for great boyfriends or husbands or fathers, either, he supposed.

  That thought was one more thing he’d have to put away to deal with later.

  CHAPTER 14

  “We’re here. Who called in the cavalry?” Brody made the general announcement to the men in the room, grinning as he did so.

  His brother Chris turned, scowl firmly in place. “Pfft. Not fucking me. I didn’t even find out they were sending the team here until yesterday.”

  Brody clutched his hand to his chest over his heart and gasped. “I’m hurt. Is that any way to treat your brother?”

  Chris came forward and pulled Brody into a one-armed hug. “As your brother, I’m happy to see you. But that these assholes think GAPS needs reinforcements is more than a little insulting, if you ask me.”

  Jon Rudnick came up beside Chris and shook Brody’s hand. “Good to see you, Brody. And don’t listen to your brother. I’m happy to have the help. Especially since it’s from guys I know are qualified and I trust. The more boots on the ground, the better.”

  “Shh. No one authorized boots on the ground, remember? The team’s here as ‘consultants’.” Brody couldn’t help his grin over that bullshit. Chris let out a snort at it too.

  Brody looked around them. “Nice digs you got here.”

  “Eh, could be worse.” Chris lifted one shoulder.

  “True that.” As far as training camps went, Brody had been in worse. They all had.

  And he couldn’t complain about the company. It would be great to kick some Boko Haram ass alongside Jon and Zane, like they had done when the two men had still been on the team.

  That thought had Brody asking, “Where’s Zane at?”

  “He’s on the sat phone again.” Chris’s eye roll had Brody wondering if civilian life had made Zane soft in the field.

  “Girlfriend?” Brody asked.

  “Worse. Senator Greenwood. The man recommended us for this job and he funded us back when his money meant life or death for our idea to open GAPS to begin with, so don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful—”

  “But,” Chris interrupted Jon, “the good senator has been up our ass since we got here, wanting to know every move before we make it.”

  “So far Zane’s been handling him fine so I’m gonna let him continue.” Jon held up his hands, symbolically surrendering control of the senator to his partner in GAPS.

  “Sounds like a good plan to me.” Brody couldn’t blame Jon one bit for his hands-off approach with Senator Greenwood.

  Politics and bullshit were the things Brody didn’t like about his job, but there was no getting away from them. Apparently not even after separating from the military as Jon and Zane had.

  Besides, against all odds Zane, the former playboy, had been dating Missy Greenwood. They’d been serious and, amazingly enough, monogamous for a long while now.r />
  Since it looked like Zane was only one gold band away from becoming the senator’s son-in-law, the job of handling the man clearly belonged to him.

  “So what do you and the senator have planned for us?” Brody grinned as his brother scowled at his question.

  “We have a meeting set with your team and the command at sixteen-hundred.” Jon glanced at the watch on his wrist.

  Brody cocked a brow. “A’ight and what’s the plan?”

  He was in a room alone with his brother and one of his good friends with the door closed. He’d be damned if he waited until sixteen-hundred to hear the official company line about why they were here and what was going to happen.

  His brother shot Jon a look before motioning for Brody to come closer.

  “You flew into here. N’Djamena.” Chris poked a finger at a spot on the map spread out on the large table dominating the space. “We’re currently set up in the command post here. The target’s stronghold is here, in the middle of the Sambisa Forest. The sheer density of that forest has been their best protection so far.”

  Jon stepped closer and pointed to a place not far from where Chris had indicated the target was. “There’s a road running just to the south of the forest. Given the terrain, that would be the easiest way to approach the camp.”

  Brody considered the area and the scenario. “Which is why they’ll likely be watching for anyone to approach from that direction.”

  “Yup. That’s why we’re going to have a decoy unit approach from that direction. Once the target has taken the bait and their attention is diverted by Alpha unit to the south, we’ll drop Bravo and Charlie units into the forest by helo north of the camp.” Chris tapped an area on the opposite side of the camp from the road.

  Brody raised his gaze from the map to look at Jon. “We were in that forest. A unit patrolling in is not going to be quiet enough to avoid notice.”

  Especially if they were planning on using the newly trained local forces. Experienced DEVGRU operatives were silent and deadly, but Brody could easily imagine how much noise troops not trained to be covert could make while crashing through the forest.

  “We plan on Bravo and Charlie fast-roping in. We’ve got the Marines periodically flying the CH-53s we’ll be using over the area to get the target used to hearing helicopters overhead.”

  Brody snorted. “That’s good, because there ain’t no hiding one of those Super Stallions.”

  The massive helicopters Jon was talking about using to drop troops into the middle of the Sambisa Forest were nearly three stories high.

  Jon continued, “While Bravo unit camps out at a far enough distance away to avoid detection by the target and waits, Charlie unit—Brody, that’ll be you and your team—is going to move in close enough to observe the target. Now, besides just using the density of the forest for protection, Boko Haram has also set up mines and booby traps in the area.”

  “So my team will have to clear a path for Bravo unit.”

  “Yes.” Jon nodded in response to Brody. “But that’s not your only purpose. We have bigger plans for you than mine sweeping. We know from satellite images the target travels in and out of the forest fairly often by truck. Your goal will be to liberate one of those trucks for our use.”

  Brody laughed, since he’d liberated a truck or two during the mission to rescue Missy Greenwood from that same forest. “One of my favorite things to do.”

  Jon smiled. “Yes, I remember. Once we have possession of the vehicle, we’ll move quickly into a three-pronged attack. Bravo unit will move in from the north, while at the same time Alpha unit will make their move from the south.”

  Chris continued where Jon left off, “And by then the camp will be so crazy, who’s going to pay any attention to one of their own trucks driving in? That is, until Charlie unit pops out of the back and rains hellfire on them.”

  Brody nodded. “So we’d be driving a Trojan Horse right into the middle of their camp.”

  “Yup.” Chris looked very pleased with the plan, leading Brody to believe his brother had some hand in coming up with it.

  Brody glanced from one man to another. “It’s crazy enough, it might just work.”

  “That, my brother, was my thought exactly.” Chris grinned.

  CHAPTER 15

  The evening game show on television wasn’t holding Ashley’s attention. She couldn’t muster the energy to care if the family guessed the most popular answer to the survey question or not. How could she care when she was creeping up on forty-eight hours with no contact from Brody?

  Yes, she’d been angry when he’d said they’d talk after she’d calmed down, or felt better, or whatever his ridiculous words had been. But that was back when she believed they actually would talk again.

  Now, a full two days later, she was beginning to wonder.

  She drew in a deep breath and let it out louder than she intended.

  “What’s wrong, baby girl?”

  “Nothing, Nana.” Ashley didn’t even have to look directly at her grandmother. In her peripheral vision Ashley saw the movement clearly as the woman’s dark brows shot high.

  “Child, I raised you from the moment you came out of your momma. Don’t you think you can lie to me.” The tone was one Nana had used on Ashley as a child.

  That only made Ashley scowl and probably look like a child as she said, “I’m not lying. There’s nothing wrong.”

  At least nothing that Nana could fix. Ashley had made her bed—and laid in it with Brody—and now she’d have to deal with the aftermath.

  That she certainly couldn’t tell her God-fearing, switch-raised, Southern Baptist grandmother.

  With a huff, Nana hoisted her large frame forward and snatched the remote control from the coffee table. Ashley watched as she smashed the buttons with her thumb until there was no more sound on the television. Only silent moving pictures.

  Ashley sighed, defeated. “I’m upset that Brody said he’d call and he hasn’t.”

  “Girl, he’s a little busy, don’t you think?” Nana asked.

  “But it’s like his job is always more important than his family and his friends.”

  “Maybe it is.”

  “To him, maybe, in his own self-centered little world.”

  “It’s more than just to him.” With the remote still clutched in her hand, Nana tipped her chin toward the television while at the same time pushing the button on the remote to change the channel. When a news station showed on screen, she slowly raised the volume.

  The announcer’s voice rose until Ashley could hear it clearly as it accompanied horrifying images. Bodies of Syrian refugees—some of them young children—washing up on the public beaches in Turkey. People who had risked and lost their lives to flee the horrendous conditions in their own country.

  The story ended and the images changed, switching to Nigeria. There the newly elected president was promising he’d work to defeat the Islamic militant organization who’d kidnapped all those schoolgirls over a year ago. He vowed to do so by the time he took office at the end of the month, a promise the expert interviewed next declared completely unrealistic.

  The images switched one more time to a reporter in the United States speaking about an American arrested after a failed bomb attack. One he’d planned after pledging loyalty to ISIS on Facebook.

  Throughout the news broadcast, which delivered all the horrors happening in the world into their living room with succinct rapid-fire precision, Ashley didn’t know what to say.

  Nana was silent as well, but it was clear she was waiting for Ashley to acknowledge the point—that Brody’s job was important.

  He was responsible to more people than just her and his family. He had to worry about life and death worldwide, not just that his old girlfriend—and current hook-up—was waiting for his call so she could cry some more over him leaving.

  She drew in a breath. “Okay, Nana. I get it. You can change the channel now.”

  “In a minute.” Her eyes staye
d glued to the screen as she shook her head and let out a small tsk-tsk sound over the last story about the homegrown terrorist.

  Ashley didn’t understand it either but she wasn’t as surprised as Nana. After working in the hospital ER, Ashley had witnessed all sorts of crazy.

  Nana didn’t make a move for the remote control again through the next commercial break and Ashley feared she’d be subjected to cable news for the rest of the night.

  Over the depressing news being reported, she’d take watching a silly game show any day.

  Finally the coverage moved on to the current presidential election. One look at Donald Trump on the screen had Nana scowling and fumbling to change the channel.

  Ashley smiled at the speed with which Nana had changed her mind about what they’d been watching. She knew if Obama had come on screen instead, they’d have been glued to the station for the duration.

  She realized she did feel better. It hadn’t been a soul bearing confession to Nana, but just talking about Brody with her grandmother had helped her reason away the anger.

  Nana had lived a long hard life. She’d seen a lot of things. Overcome more than any woman should have to, from losing her husband young to having to raise Ashley when her flighty daughter had taken off and left her with her unplanned granddaughter. Through it all, she’d come out the other side.

  If Ashley had the nerve to confess all that had happened with Brody, she was sure Nana would have a world of wisdom.

  She weighed the ramifications versus the benefits of talking openly with her grandmother. Good girls didn’t do what she’d done with Brody unless they were married. Not as teenagers and, adult or not, not even in their late twenties.

  Surely Ashley was too old now for Nana to take a switch to her bare bottom, right?

  Glancing at the woman, still big and strong at near eighty, Ashley decided she wasn’t willing to test the theory and find out.

  She’d reconcile herself to Brody’s life and career on her own and when he called—God, how she hoped he called—she’d tell him she understood how important it was. Then, together, maybe they could figure out how to make it work.