Sweetheart for the SEAL Read online

  I listen carefully, zoning out all other sounds in the house: the news playing on the television in the den, the children’s animated show playing on the television in the playroom, the rain lightly pattering against the windows and the roof, and the omnipresent hum of kitchen appliances. And through the din, I hear it again.

  “Mommy!” I hear her cry out, this time clear as a whistle. I stride out of the kitchen with a businesslike briskness, clearing the corridor in a few broad steps to poke my head around the corner into the playroom area. My daughter is perched on the arm of the light pink mid-century modern sofa I found at an estate sale a year ago, and she’s got one eyebrow pricked up, her sweet, round little face wearing an expression of pure sass.

  With her pudgy arms folded over her chest, she glances up at me and then pointedly rolls her eyes to stare at the two little boys curled up on the woven rug on the floor. The two of them are coloring with crayons, which is perfectly fine, except that they keep snapping the crayons in half in between inspired scribbles. With every SNAP, I see Dakota wince a little, and even though it’s almost funny enough for me to smile at, I understand her annoyance. The crayons are meant to be shared among all the kids I watch here, but Kota has always been possessive and protective over the toys and playthings I’ve accumulated over the years. She’s like my little deputy, keeping her hawk-eyed focus on preventing theft or vandalism or whatever you might call the very serious and unforgivable crime of breaking crayons in half.

  “Mommy, I’ve been calling you,” my daughter sighs, poking out her plump little bottom lip in a pout. She looks up at me with this big, round green eyes that remind me of the color of the choppy waves of the Atlantic under stormy skies, her halo of curly, wispy blonde hair framing her face perfectly.

  One time, when I was in high school, I went on a class trip to some fancy art museum in Washington, DC, and I can perfectly recall this beautiful painting of some royal princess with a shock of blonde ringlets and an eerily wise, knowing expression on her face. I’ve always thought Dakota looks just like that princess from the painting. Sometimes I just look at her and have to do a double take, thinking about how wild it is that I managed to produce such a lovely, angelic child. Who knew my genetics could ever culminate with a work of art like my little Kota?

  Right now, though, my tiny masterpiece is staring at me expectantly, and I remember that I’ve been summoned into this room to stop the ultimate crime from continuing. So I pat Kota on her chubby cheek and walk over to kneel down on the rug beside the two boys, Grant and Weston. The two of them are so engrossed in their own works of art (a purple rhinoceros or perhaps a dinosaur and a three-story house with what looks like an apple tree out front, respectively), that they don’t even look up at me at first. But then I clear my throat and they seem to be shaken back to reality, blinking up at my face blankly.

  I give them my most charitable smile and say softly, “Could you boys do me a favor?”

  Grant just starts to pick his nose while staring right into my face, but Weston answers in a sweet voice, “Uh-huh. Sure, Miss Crystal. What is it?”

  I pick up the broken crayons and hold them out for them to see. “I would really like it if you would stop snapping the crayons in half. It’s no fun coloring with broken crayons, right?” I suggest. Dakota is leaning over my shoulder now, staring the boys down like she’s the bad cop and I’m the good cop. That’s my girl.

  “But if I break the blue one in half, that means Grant can use blue at the same time as me,” Weston points out. Grant nods.

  “Then there’s two blues,” the other little boy agrees.

  Dakota says, “But...but you can’t break things. It’s against the law.”

  It takes every ounce of my restraint not to burst out laughing at my daughter’s indignation, especially because I can kind of understand the boys’ logic here. They’re not breaking the crayons to be annoying. They’re doing it to be able to share more effectively. This is yet another one of the millions of conundrums I encounter regarding my job every day. Kids are way smarter and more contemplative than anyone seems to suspect from them. Most of the time, it’s my job here to guide them away from the dumb (but logical to them) decisions they make. But then other times, like this, all I can really do is just nod and try to see it their way.

  “Alright. You have a good point, boys. I guess you can break them once in half. But don’t break the halves into smaller pieces, okay? Because then it will be too hard to hold, and what’s the use of a crayon you can’t even hold onto?” I tell them, smiling warmly.

  Grant and Weston look pleased that I’ve approved their system, but I can feel Kota positively squirming with annoyance, so I pre-emptively take her by the hand and lead her out of the room and toward the kitchen, hoping to distract her by asking her to help me out with breakfast for the group.

  Apart from the two boys who are both five years old and will be starting kindergarten in a few weeks, there’s also another little girl named Hailey who is three. She’s currently conked out on the pink sofa, her arms wrapped around her favorite stuffed whale toy she lovingly refers to as “Whailey.” Hailey and Whailey are virtually inseparable. One time, her mother, who is a single parent with a demanding paralegal job, accidentally forgot to bring Whailey with them to drop Hailey off here and the little girl screamed for approximately two straight hours because it upset her so much. So nowadays, we kind of treat Whailey like a VIP. As long as she’s got him to snuggle, Hailey is perfectly well-behaved, even when she gets cranky at nap time.

  And when there are anywhere from four to eight small children in my house at any given time during the work day, I’ll take whatever possible forms of relief I can get. If that means treating a stuffed animal like it’s a human person who gets to sit in a high chair at the table with the rest of the actual living, breathing kids, then so be it.

  “Why you let them keep breakin’ my colors?” asks Dakota as we walk into the kitchen together. She’s blinking up at me, those green eyes etched with confusion and a hint of betrayal. Poor kid. I hate seeing that look on her face, like I’ve let her down. But I try to remind myself that part of being a mom is just that: teaching the tiny person you love more than anything else in the world that sometimes, life is not totally fair, and sometimes you have to put up with crap you don’t like. So I scoop her up into my arms and hoist her onto the kitchen counter, leaning in to kiss her on the forehead. She blanches and giggles, trying to squirm away unsuccessfully.

  “I mean it, Mommy. Why?” she persists.

  “Boy, you’re one stubborn little girl, aren’t you?” I laugh, shaking my head. “They were trying to share better, and you know that sharing is very important. They weren’t doing it to hurt you, but to help each other. Do you understand?”

  “But they’ll be too tiny to color with!”

  “Well, don’t worry about the crayons, sweetheart. If they get too broken up to use, I’ll buy you some more. I promise I will.”

  “Pinky promise?” she pipes up, defiantly sticking out her little chin. I grin at her, my heart near to exploding with pure love for this pint-sized negotiator.

  I hold out my pinky for her to link up with her own tiny pinky finger. I raise our laced fingers to my lips for a kiss and declare, “Pinky promise.”

  Kota smiles broadly, showing the first loose tooth she’s ever had, the center bottom left. At first, when she started noticing how wobbly it was, I panicked, thinking that kids who weren’t even four years old is way too young for a loose tooth. It seems like just yesterday that she grew all those cute little baby teeth to begin with. But after several frantic calls to the pediatrician and the dentist (and my mom, who lives across town), I have been assured that it’s within normal age range for a loose tooth. A little early, but nothing to worry about.

  Of course, that doesn’t do much to stop me from worrying anyway. That’s kind of part and parcel of being a mother: you worry. All the time. About everything. Whether it’s warranted or not. But by n
ow, I’ve kind of learned how to just cope with the constant concern. It’s mostly just background noise in my brain at this point, and it rarely keeps me from fully enjoying myself in the moment.

  Like right now, as I hand Kota a jar of peanut butter and a spoon. Watching her carefully, I let her help make the sandwiches by globbing a spoonful of creamy peanut butter onto each pair of bread slices. I use a butter knife to spread it, of course, but I like giving her the opportunity to feel helpful, even if I don’t feel safe letting her handle the knife herself just yet.

  “Good job, Kota,” I tell her. “That’s a pretty even distribution of PB you got there.”

  “Thanks, Mommy. I’m pretty good at peanut butter,” she agrees proudly.

  I giggle. “Yes, you are. Very talented.”

  I quickly finish making the peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches for the children, plating them up with some sliced peaches and a small handful of graham crackers shaped like bunnies. Some mornings, I’ll test out different recipes like cheesy scrambled eggs with sourdough toast, fruit salad with little triangles of cheddar cheese on the side, or even maybe an eggy, veggie-filled quiche if I’m feeling especially adventurous. But to be honest, the vast majority of the time, these kids would rather just eat something simple and unpretentious. Still, I do my best to introduce new foods to them, partly because I think it broadens their horizons just a pinch and partly because, well, I just really enjoy cooking. And sometimes I want to make something a little less pedestrian than a PB-and-J.

  “You ready to eat?” I ask Dakota. She nods vigorously, her green eyes round with glee. I help her down from the counter and she takes off running full-tilt down the hallway to the playroom while I follow after her, balancing four little plates on my arms.

  I’m thankful to have this skill, which I developed as a teenager when I worked at the golf course across town. I was a waitress at the lounge club back then, and it was a job I continued for a while after Kota was born. Back then, I was desperate for money and stability. I was only eighteen when she was born, and I was in way over my head. The father of my child has never been a part of her life. It’s not his fault. He was destined for greatness, and by the time I found out I was pregnant…

  I shake the thought from my head. I’m grateful for the experience of raising her. It made me learn how to be self-sufficient. Once I saved up enough money from my waitressing tips to move out of my parents’ tiny bungalow and get my own little townhouse just a few miles from the beach, I quit my job at the golf course to start up this daycare instead. I’ve taken a lot of certificate classes on childcare, safety, and first aid, so I’m pretty well-qualified for my current career. It’s not the most lucrative living, of course, and I’m still making a whole lot less money than the big spenders, retired folks, and tourists who blow through the Outer Banks, where I live, all the time. But I get by. And as a middle-class, young, single, unwed mother in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, that’s pretty good.

  I set down the plates for the kids to eat, and they all excitedly dig in. Content that they’ll be safe and well-behaved for a few minutes while they’re stuffing their faces, I duck away to the living room, where the TV is still playing the local news. I sit down on the edge of the couch to nibble some graham cracker bunnies while I catch up on current events. I don’t get a whole lot of time to myself in this job, so I’ve learned to snatch a couple minutes here and there whenever possible. I watch as the newscaster announces that it’s time for the weather.

  “Ugh. The boring part,” I mumble to myself, leaning back against the cushion. “It’s already raining out, I know. What more can you tell me?”

  But to my surprise, the usually-chipper weather guy is wearing more than just his typical brightly-patterned tie (this time, it’s a pink-and-teal flamingo print). There is also a rather wary expression on his handsome face as he explains that perhaps this is more than just your everyday, normal bout of rainfall on the drizzly east coast. He seems to be staring right at me through the TV screen when he explains, “Those of us out here in the Outer Banks— Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills— keep an eye out for a possible heavy rainfall and storm conditions as the newly-christened Tropical Storm Bruno makes its way across the Atlantic. Here at the meteorologists’ station, we are not very concerned at the moment, as it looks like the storm may peter out before landing on our beautiful shores, but stay tuned for updates, just in case.”

  Duncan

  “Can’t believe flights haven’t been cancelled yet,” I hear another passenger say behind me as I make my way off the plane, breathing in the familiar North Carolina air.

  “We got lucky. Bruno is getting stronger out there. Might have landed just in time for a storm party.”

  Bruno is the name of the tropical storm brewing just off the coast. I heard about it before I even got on the plane to head over here. But even if it had been a full-blown hurricane, it couldn’t have stopped me from getting here. Nothing could have.

  I’m home.

  This airport is small compared to a lot of the ones I’ve flown through over the years, and it’s always strange stepping back into the civilian world. In the military, everything is regimented. That only changed ever so slightly as I climbed my way through the ranks to become a SEAL. With the higher prestige came more freedom when it came to things like this— deciding when I could take some personal time.

  As far as I was concerned, Tropical Storm Bruno was just another excuse to add onto the pile of excuses to suddenly decide to head to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for a few weeks.

  Kitty Hawk is more than just my hometown. Plenty of people I went through training with want nothing to do with their hometown, some for better reasons than others. But me, I’ve always taken pride in the strip of islands off the eastern coast of North Carolina. Having been all over the world, I feel like I can say with some confidence that it’s one of the most beautiful places on earth.

  I’m only a little biased.

  That was more than enough for my executive officer to give me leave. I’m usually a modest man, but I’ve busted my ass the past year, flying from country to country dealing with some of the worst crime lords the world has to offer, and it has paid off with the men who decide where I go and when. In short, I have leverage, and I’m using it for something important to me.

  I head into the bathroom to wash my face off. It’s my ritual when I get off a plane— I have to wash off the stale air and feel fresh, like a new day starting wherever I go. I’d never tell my comrades that’s why I do it, of course. I look myself in the mirror after drying off the cool water and take a deep breath.

  I’m twenty-two and standing in my hometown all over again. I look so different, in my eyes. I’ve seen so much since I left here as a fresh-faced high school graduate four years ago. I’ve saved lives and taken them, usually in the same hour. I’ve diffused bombs and put bullets in the hearts of some of the most evil men I could have dreamed of. Sometimes, it still doesn’t feel real.

  Will she see the same guy she fell for all those years ago?

  Crystal.

  That name has been in the back of my mind ever since I left. Hell, I left so soon after graduating that I’ll be amazed if she even recognizes me.

  Especially since she doesn’t know I’m here.

  A lot of complicated feelings are racing through my heart right now. I head out of the airport and see the gorgeous Carolina skies above me as I head over to the car rental office. Familiar birds soaring overhead, familiar scents in the air, it all comes rushing back to me all at once. It’s like I never left.

  But that’s not the reality. This place has changed since I went away. The people have moved on with their lives, especially the ones I was close to when I graduated high school and signed up for the Navy. Four years is just a flash in the pan for people in their later years, but between now and high school, people can change entirely.

  I wonder how Crystal has changed.

  That thought haunts me. I know I still h
ave to see her, in one capacity or another.

  It was a wild idea that came to me in the jungle that brought me here. Sitting there in a barely-dry shelter in pitch-black night time listening to strange animals rustle around me, I imagined what things might have been like if I’d never left. I pictured Crystal and I driving across the country, maybe a little road trip through the South, hopping from restaurant to restaurant and sightseeing like a couple of tourists.

  Knowing what kind of man I’ve become, that thought is almost funny. But I found myself dwelling on it. So, I decided that if all went well on the last mission, I’d stop by home and check in.

  I just couldn’t leave Crystal with nothing more than the last night we spent together.

  It had been a high school graduation party. It seems so juvenile now, but back then, we were on top of the world, our whole lives ahead of us. It was exciting and terrifying at the same time. I knew what I wanted to do— and I did it. But that didn’t blunt the sting of what it felt like to leave everything behind. Crystal was one of those things that hurt the most to leave.

  The feeling of having her in bed that last night at the party has stuck with me for four long years. It was more than just sex, so much more. I felt closer to her in that moment than ever in my life, with anyone. It was such a strong bond that I almost entertained the idea of backing out of the Navy and taking a job locally for a little while longer to see where things might go.

  Dwelling on one night together wasn’t good, so I didn’t obsess over it, but it was always there for me to think about when the nights were blackest. And out in the wilderness, wherever that may be... God, the nights do get black. Strong as I am, I’m still human.

  A few minutes later, the rental car manager, and older man, is handing me a set of keys to a mid-size SUV and giving me a firm nod.