by Joey W. Hill
“I get it. She’s your girl, and you’re going to kick my ass if I don’t treat her right. Good. She deserves that. Though if I tell her you think she needs defending, she’s going to kick your ass. Keep that in mind.”
With a wink, Ben got into the car.
* * * * *
Yes, she’d completely lost her mind. Camping. Showing the depths of her insanity, she would have given him the whole week if he wanted it, but she understood now that five or six days was as long as he could be away before Amanda had problems with his absence. She took Monday and Tuesday off, with the plan being they’d return on Tuesday night and he’d go see Amanda on Wednesday.
They were headed for the Rio Grande area, but as he’d indicated, they broke up the trip with an overnight in Houston to visit with Gayle Kirby and do some chores around the house for her. Gayle’s husband Charles was currently deployed. As a matter of course, SEALs like Max or Dale, as well as SEALs not currently on active missions, tended to keep tabs on SEAL families when their men were gone, to help out where needed.
It made her think again about Eric, the SEAL who’d hoped to get Max’s mother and sister to move into a duplex. If all SEALs had the same commitment to personal responsibility, she imagined the guilt had weighed heavily on the man’s mind, likely as much as Max’s. But from what Max had said, Janet expected her SEAL had helped Eric accept that some things were beyond a man’s control, no matter how bitter a pill that was to swallow.
Her SEAL. She liked the sound of that.
Gayle had three rambunctious boys, ages four to nine. Max quickly employed them in the yard work, telling Gayle to take a couple hours to rest her feet. Watching from the front bay window, Janet smiled at the sight of the four-year-old carrying small, mostly ineffectual handfuls of leaves to the wheelbarrow while Max pruned, trimmed, mowed and had the two older boys weeding and dragging cut limbs. He had an easy way with children, direct and not patronizing. His authoritative, no-nonsense attitude commanded the children’s respect and attention.
She could have watched him all day, but she turned her attention to giving Gayle a hand with the breakfast dishes and getting some laundry started so the mother could have a portion of those couple of hours Max had indicated.
Gayle was also watching over another SEAL wife, Jenny Reid. Jenny lived up the road, but she was seven months pregnant with her first child, so she was now staying with Gayle until the baby came. She was a baby herself, barely twenty years old, and though she smiled and shook Janet’s hand, and was cordial to Max, Janet could tell the pregnancy was putting her through a rough time. After she and Gayle got the mother-to-be settled for a nap on the patio lounge chair in the back, they sat down to share an iced tea on the sun porch, where they could watch over her. Max and the boys occasionally came into view as they dumped bagged leaves in a compost heap in the side yard. Gayle’s property seemed to encompass a couple acres.
“It’s a blessing and a curse,” Gayle noted, watching the boys wrestle with Max. He picked up the oldest one, tossed him into the leaves, then had to do it to all of them, though he was of course far more gentle about it with the four-year-old. “They never stop missing their dad, and when any of these guys come through, it gives them that sense of him. Which is wonderful, but it makes me miss Charles all the more.”
“I can’t imagine how difficult that is.” Janet thought about Max’s text from the other day. I miss you already. She knew it was the stage of their relationship, that heady, falling-in-love feeling where no amount of time was enough, but even so, she wondered if, for a couple truly in love, that feeling ever went away.
She’d never considered herself such a romantic, but the feeling hadn’t waned in the slightest between Matt and Savannah, and they’d been married the longest of the K&A team. Not so long really, but she’d seen the same thing between elderly couples sitting together in the park. Perhaps time and maturity taught a couple how to manage it, tone it down in public, but they couldn’t hide the fact they felt complete only when they were with one another.
At least, she hoped and suspected that was the way love was. The kind of love she might be willing to consider with Max in the long term. That was an even scarier thought than camping.
“No, it’s not easy, but you figure it out.” Gayle sobered, glancing toward the lounge chair. Jenny shifted, but from the slackness of her wrist, the fact the book she’d been reading was now pressed to her belly, it appeared she’d drifted off into a doze. “I’ll have to have Max take care of her swollen ankles. He gives a hell of a foot massage.”
Thinking of the back massage he’d given her in the shower, Janet shivered. Catching it, Gayle nodded. “Yep, you can thank me for that, sister. I taught him how to give a proper massage when I was pregnant with my second one, but you can’t train anyone to have those kinds of hands. A strong man massaging your feet… Oh my God, there’s nothing like it.” She took a bracing swig of tea. “And getting one when he’s not expecting sex out of it—or rushing it so he can get sex out of it—that’s pretty much God’s miracle, right there.”
She gave Janet a devilish grin. “Of course, I sort of had the opposite problem with Max. I was in my second trimester, when all you want to do is have sex all the time, and here’s this gorgeous guy with a body like they all have. I wanted to stick my husband’s face on him and have my way with him. Poor Max is lucky he made it out with his virtue intact.”
It startled a laugh out of Janet. Gayle grinned even wider. “I don’t usually talk so plain, but you seem the type to appreciate it.”
“I do.”
The women glanced back toward the patio as Jenny turned away from them, put a pillow between her knees. Her book had been set aside.
“I’m not sure if she’s going to make it.” Gayle shook her head. “SEALs have a pretty high divorce rate.”
“Eighty percent,” Janet recalled Max’s words.
Gayle lifted a shoulder. “The reasons are kind of obvious. But when you’re so young, like Jenny, it’s hard to put it together in that first phase. You’ve met this alpha, no-holds-barred, high-testosterone guy who can face down anything. The swooning damsel inside all of us just melts. What you don’t realize until you’re in it is your alpha hero is going to be out saving the world most of the time. He’s going to be gone for months at a time, leaving at the drop of a hat, returning God-knows-when, so he’s only going to get to be your hero for limited periods of time.
“While he’s off somewhere, you have to become the hero of your own life—handling all the crises with kids, bills, family, the car breaking down. On a good day, you get really mad about it, thinking he’s out there playing with his guns while you’re sorting laundry and dealing with colic. On a bad day, you think he might be shot, captured…that you may never see him again. Each of those reactions comes with their own kind of stress. But then you see him standing in the door, and you have this little good death, seeing him there. When you have your arms wrapped around him and the kids are grabbing hold of any part you don’t already have, you want to hold on to that one moment forever.”
Gayle blinked, laughed as Janet handed her a tissue. “Yeah, thanks. Don’t tell Max I welled up. I’m the supreme SEAL wife, the example for all the others. But I get what Jenny’s dealing with. At a certain point you pass the ‘all clear’ sign, so to speak. You’ve figured it out, intuitively, and you know the two of you will make it, because you’ve worked it out in your head, accepted what is. But until you reach that point, it can be a tough road. I’ve told Charles it’s the wives’ version of BUD/S, only it can go on for years for us, rather than just a few months. Even now, I sleep on his side of the bed when he’s gone, as if it’s how I can be the closest to him.”
She pursed her lips. “Sorry. God, listen to me. I’m talking too much.”
Janet shook her head. “If you’re the supreme SEAL wife, I’m thinking you don’t get to talk about the way you feel too often. Beyond using it as a tool, an example to help other women.�
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Gayle’s expression shifted from mild embarrassment to a warm gratitude, and she touched Janet’s hand in simple solidarity. “In my own defense, you have a great listening ear. Not to mention an obvious strength to you. It’s nice to be around.”
Given the fact Gayle was dealing with Jenny’s fragile state and three demanding children, Janet expected being around another independent woman was like a bracing shot of whisky. Like Gayle, Janet was viewed as a mentor by most of her women friends, probably because she had no patience for the self-pitying, wallow-in-trumped-up-personal-baggage that seemed to be the norm these days. She was usually quick to shut down any female who was carping about issues that any woman could handle if she’d merely stop whining incessantly about it and take responsibility for her own life.
She decided she liked Gayle immensely. “Same goes,” she said, winning a warm smile, another press of that chapped hand.
It was like her feelings toward what had happened with Jorge. She’d done it, she couldn’t take it back, and she couldn’t make herself regret it. So she’d moved forward with her life. She refused to stay in that blood-soaked room in her mind when her body hadn’t been able to get out of there fast enough.
“Max seems to appreciate strong women,” she observed. “I like that about him.”
“Me too.” Gayle beamed at her, poured her more tea. “As they mature, a lot of the SEALs realize it’s the strong women who can handle a relationship with them for the long haul. Because reconciling yourself to his absences is only part of it. You also have to understand his bond with other SEALs.”
She shook her head. “It’s indescribable. Impenetrable. Did you know, when one of them falls, his fellow SEALs will each hammer their Trident into the top of his coffin, signifying he’s taking a part of them with him? I’ve had to see Charles do that twice, and both times, I prayed I’d never have to see them do it for him. But that’s the terrible, beautiful part of their connection. The other side of it is the one that can really test a marriage.
“If he’s just gotten home from a thirteen-month absence, but something comes up with one of them, he’s going to invite his buddy over, or take him a six-pack to help him out. That’s pretty tough. It makes a wife feel like she’s less important to her man than those guys, but if she pays close attention to the way he looks at her as he comes through the door, that hunger in his eyes, that sense that yes, there is something in the world worth fighting for, she’ll get it. He doesn’t look at anyone else the way he looks at you or his kids. You’re his anchor, you’re what he fights for, what he lives for. They may be adrenaline junkies, but they’re also human beings. When they’re in the thick of horrible violent stuff, the one thing they hold in their heads is getting back home. And you’re home.”
She looked over her shoulder at the young pregnant woman. “The problem is, that’s not always enough for a woman. I hope they make it. We try to help each other through. But that’s what we all do with those we love, right?”
“You aren’t in here telling her bad stuff, are you, Gayle?” Max opened the screen door, stepped onto the porch. “I’m counting on you to be my wingman, convince Janet how lucky she is to have me and all that.”
“I’m just astounded someone’s putting up with you. If she’s hit the two-week point, she deserves a medal.”
“No doubt.” He picked up Janet’s half-full glass of tea and drained it. He’d stripped off the shirt and had been sweating. He also had a leaf stuck to his lower back. Janet plucked it free, twirled it by the stem so he could see it. He grinned. “We had a wrestling match in the leaf piles. The boys are now re-raking what we messed up. I’ll go get you some more tea.”
He moved into the kitchen area, raising his voice as he disappeared around the corner. “Gayle, I took care of the stopped drain upstairs, but is there anything else you need me to handle while I’m here? I don’t want Chuckles to think I’m slacking off.”
“Well, I need to be serviced sexually, if you can work that in. And I’m sure Jenny wouldn’t mind a go if you could handle her as well.” Gayle winked at Janet at the sound of the glass hitting the sink. “He wasn’t expecting me to tease him like that in front of you,” she murmured. Janet bit back a smile as Max returned, shooting them both a narrow glance.
“Women,” he pronounced, putting a full glass down for Janet and topping off Gayle’s. “One is trouble enough. Get a pack of them together, and a smart man steers clear.”
“Damn straight.” Gayle toasted him. “If you can come back in a couple weeks, I’m going to have a barbecue for all of you guys that have been helping us out so much. Bring Janet, if she’s still putting up with you.”
“Absolutely,” he said. His gaze moved to Janet, a warm, lingering look that made her want to take her tea glass and slide it along the slick ridges of muscle on his abdomen, down to those belted jeans. She’d hook her fingers there and feel the intimate flesh beneath. Giving her a slow grin, he bent to brush his lips over hers, a promise.
“Got to finish the job,” he said. “Don’t believe any terrible things Gayle says about me.”
As he left the sun porch and headed back toward the front, they heard him roar. The boys had apparently planned an ambush, if the stray leaves that spun by on the light wind were any indication.
“At this rate, they’ll be raking for the rest of the day,” Janet observed. Gayle laughed.
“Most likely. But the main point is him spending time with the boys, letting them have male role models in their life as much as possible. For that, I’m happy to let those leaves pile up like snow drifts.”
She sobered then. “In a way, I’m glad you found Max after he was out of the SEALs, because you won’t have to deal with a lot of this, but unfortunately, he’ll figure out a way to find trouble. A lot of them go into law enforcement or related fields. It makes sense, doesn’t it? You don’t train to be a rocket scientist, work for NASA sending up rockets, and then find contentment as a cable guy. They have to live on that edge somehow. Except Max has a different scenario. His sister is his mission now. That helps, having the mission.”
Janet felt an uneasy ripple, once again thinking of her conversation with Dale in Max’s far-too-bare kitchen.
Seeing it, Gayle reached across, covered her hand. “All that aside, here’s what’s important. They’re all infuriating in their own way. They all have their code, their set way of doing things, and that’s pretty immovable, but Max is a very good man, in every sense of the word. If he gives a woman his heart, he’ll treat her right, whether it’s today or fifty years from now. If you realize that’s what matters, that the rest doesn’t, then you’ll find gold.”
Chapter Fourteen
She thought about that, as well as a lot of other things. They left Gayle’s early the next morning. Though Gayle had given them a bedroom to share, Max fell asleep in the living room with two of the boys sprawled on him, having indulged them in a horror-movie marathon. When they left in the morning, both women were up to see them off. Jenny even kissed Janet’s cheek, pressed her hand. The young woman looked in better spirits this morning, but as she gave Janet an intent look, she murmured, “You’re lucky to get one after they’re out of it.”
Max was standing behind Janet, giving Gayle a big hug, but she knew he heard it. When he turned to say his goodbyes to Jenny, he drew her to him for a warm embrace, holding her an extra moment, hand cupped over the back of her head. He said something to her, something that made her fingers tighten on his broad shoulders, then he eased back, touched her nose. “When I come back for that barbecue, you and me will go to the mall. We’ll snag one of those portable wheelchairs so I can zoom you around and your feet won’t get tired. I’m a trained chauffeur, after all.”
“And a combat driver. I have firsthand knowledge,” Janet added helpfully, making Jenny smile.
“Yep.” Gayle linked arms with Jenny. “Then when Lew gets back, you’ll tell him you expect him to do mall shopping just like Max does.”
“No.” Max held her bleak gaze. “As soon as he can be back with the both of you, he will be, no matter how much mall shopping he has to do. I promise you that.”
When they were in the truck and well on their way, Janet looked toward him. He seemed a little tired from his late night with the boys, but otherwise content. He had her hand in his grip, lifting it to his mouth to brush a kiss over her knuckles. “What did you say to her, when you hugged her?” she asked.
“I told her it didn’t matter what corner of the world he’s in right now, all he’s thinking about is being back with her.”
“But don’t you think that raises the question ‘then why does he go away at all?’”
Max glanced at her. “Yeah. It’s a tough one for a lot of the women.”
He didn’t try to explain it. Perhaps he knew it was like what Gayle had implied to her. If a person didn’t intuitively understand it, they never would.
Sliding across the seat, she laid her head on his shoulder. Max shifted his arm around her, driving the deserted two-lane highway one-handed. The sun was rising, and the coffee Gayle had made gave the cab a pleasant aroma.
“Have you ever tried seeing how Amanda reacts to Dale, or one of the other SEALs?”
“Dale’s been to see her, and she likes him well enough. Aaron went with me a couple times as well. He lives up near Baton Rouge, but comes into New Orleans regularly to visit his mom when he’s here.” He squeezed her. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m wondering if you’ve ever tried to let one of them visit her without you, to see if she’d be okay with them as a substitute, if you stayed away for a slightly longer period, like a week or two. That way, if you wanted to go somewhere for a week’s vacation, you could do it.”