Chapter 6
Come, fly away with me...
Zach was cruising along in his mint-condition, red Firebird convertible.
The car had been a gift from his dad seven years ago when he’d gotten his Budweiser, the trident pin denoting his acceptance into the hallowed ranks of Navy SEALs.
An expensive gift, yeah, but then his father had just renewed his contract with the soap opera Light in the Storm for big bucks.
In fact, he’d bought his brother Danny a frickin’ plane and his then girlfriend a diamond the size of a golf ball.
His dad had many faults, but stinginess was not one of them.
When Zach had come in third in the first race of his short-lived NASCAR career, before becoming a SEAL, the old man had given him a custom motorcycle that once belonged to Evel Knievel.
His grandfather, on the other hand, who preferred to be called “General” and not grandfather, was not miserly, but he believed in a much more austere, military lifestyle.
His gift had been an antique gun. Then there was his grandmother, who considered herself the D.C.
military hostess equivalent of Martha Stewart.
She’d once given him, when he was in college, a set of Egyptian cotton sheets that he was afraid to sleep on because they cost as much as all the secondhand furniture in his apartment.
He still had the blasted things. His ever-stylish mother gave him silk underwear and designer T-shirts and gift certificates for facials and pedicures.
He’d like to see the day he showed up for a live op smelling of a strawberry facial peel and wearing clear polish on his toenails.
When he’d told his mother just that, she’d shot back, “Your pores need a good cleaning, son, and your toenails are disgusting.”
Okaaaay! His mother never was one to be subtle.
But all that was beside the point.
He was driving in his spiffy Firebird, over the Silver Strand that connected San Diego with the Coronado peninsula. The weather was balmy on this early evening in September. The view was spectacular. It was Friday...enough said! Life should have been good.
But riding in back was a sulking He-Who-Thinks-He’s-Too-Big-For-A-Car-Seat, flanked by two laughing SEALs, Cage and JAM, who were egging the snot on. They were all packing heat, just in case Arsallah sent any goons their way.
“Why are you guys tagging along with me? Why aren’t you down at the Wet and Wild celebrating ‘Wet T-shirt Friday’?”
“We thought you’d get lonely without us,” JAM replied.
“I see you every day.”
“Besides, I’m lookin’ fer new blood to f...” Cage glanced at the kid and saved his butt by quickly amending, “flirt with.”
“Any more ‘blood’ and they’re gonna put your you-know-what in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.”
“You should talk!” JAM remarked.
“Do y’all have a girlfriend yet, Sammy boy?” This from Cage, of course.
“Girls suck,” Sammy snarled.
“Mais, oui,” Cage drawled, “but thass the bes’ part.”
“Cage!” Zach cautioned. God, he hated that he had turned prig, but someone had to rein in the guys’ language. The kid already knew more blue words than any five-year-old should.
“Ya know what my mawmaw allus says, Sammy.” Someday someone was going to clobber Cage over his cornball Cajun sayings. “Maybe the girls you’ve met so far ain’t spicy enough yet.”
“Cage, you are an idiot,” JAM said.
Great! Now the kid will be calling everyone an idiot.
“I’m jist sayin’.” Cage shrugged and winked at JAM. “A girl without spice is like a gator without a snout.”
“Do alligators have snot?” Sammy asked.
“Not snot, kid. Snout,” Cage explained, patting Sammy on the knees.
Sammy tried to kick his hand.
“Stop the car. I hafta poop,” Sammy announced.
At least he didn’t say shit this time. Maybe I’m actually making some progress. “You do not,” Zach said, studying him in the rearview mirror. “You went to the bathroom before we left the house. Just cut it out, Sammy. We’re not stopping again.”
“I don’t wanna go to any farty party.”
Zach rolled his eyes. “We’re going to Madrene’s damn...uh, I mean, darn...party whether you like it or not, big shot. And you better behave, or Madrene might just put you over her knee and spank you.” She’d threatened it enough times. “Or maybe she’ll hug you and kiss you.”
Sammy appeared horrified at the latter prospect. “Yeech!”
Another glance in the rearview mirror showed his buddies grinning from ear to ear. The guys were getting a huge kick over his being a father. Who knew he would ever be keeping track of a kid’s bathroom habits, or watching his language?
He slowed down through the security gate, waiting for the signal to pass through onto the base. Soon he was in front of the women’s quarters. “I’ll be back in a sec with Britta.”
“Is she expecting you?” JAM asked.
“No, but she’ll come.”
JAM grinned.
“Man, I’m glad I came,” Cage remarked to JAM. “This oughta be good. Better even than oglin’ Bawdy Maudy in a wet T-shirt.”
Then they both grinned at him.
Pointing at Sammy, Zach ordered, “Don’t move.”
When he got inside the building, he told the woman sitting at a desk in the entryway, a chief warrant officer, “Can you give Petty Officer Britta Asado a buzz? Tell her Lieutenant Floyd is here to pick her up.”
At first, the woman was all afluster. He had that effect on women sometimes, and he wasn’t above bleeding it for all it was worth. With that in mind, he smiled.
The woman practically swooned and pressed the button on the intercom, relaying his message. Within seconds, her face turned red, and she told him, “Petty Officer Asado says...uh...begone.”
No way was she going to blow him off now. “Give me that phone.”
The woman tried to hold it out of his reach. “Hey, you can’t do that.”
“Wanna bet?” He took the phone, punched in the same number he’d seen the petty officer use and said, “Britta, honey, we’re going to a party. Either you come down or I come up.”
“Go away, lout. I am tired. I am sore. And I am not going anywhere—”
“You’re on liberty for a day and a half, honey. You don’t have to muster till Sunday morning.” This was the only liberty WEALS were going to have for three weeks. “C’mon, take advantage of the little free time you have.”
She said something nasty in Old Norse. He could tell it was nasty by the tone of her voice.
He was already going up the stairs, three steps at a time, with the officer screaming after him, and him yelling “Briiiiita! Where are you?”
Doors were opening. Women half-dressed, many of whom knew him, called out greetings and hoots of encouragement. When he got to Britta’s room, he saw her three roommates—all hottied up for a night on the town, he would guess—but Britta was lying on her cot, propped up on her elbows.
She wore low-riding black jeans which covered about a mile of her legs and exposed a patch of skin around the cutest belly button God ever gifted a female.
On top was a stretchy red tank top which matched her red sandals.
She was wearing a bra—darn it!—and, yeah, he could tell, even from across the room.
He wondered irrelevantly where the modern clothes came from.
She was taller than most of the women, which precluded borrowing.
He shrugged, figuring they were either from the mysterious missing Norse officer, or God, who was surely responsible for this whole time-travel scenario.
But, really, would God dress her in siren red?
Britta had probably intended to join her friends as they went clubbing.
..a prospect he did not like at all for what he considered his Viking babe.
Despite him and the commander being relatively easy on the WEALS this week, compared to first week of BUD/S for regular SEALs, it must have seemed brutal to them.
In fact, there were bruises galore up and down Britta’s arms and a half-healed cut on her chin, all of which went with hard PT.
Five women had rung out already, and he guessed ten times that number would ring out eventually.
The women trainees had no idea how much worse it was going to be next week when the program went into full gear.
Yep, Britta had probably fallen to her bed with exhaustion and couldn’t get back up.
But hey, he was a SEAL, and a SEAL on a mission never failed...or hardly ever. He’d get her up all right.
Her hair, damp from a shower, was twisted into a single braid which hung below her shoulder blades. Even though the women slathered on sunscreen all day long, they all sported suntans. That included Britta whose healthy tan contrasted sharply with her pale blonde hair.
Man, she was so sexy she could jump start a Taliban corpse. If he wasn’t already in full-blown, hot tilt boogie lust with her, he would be now.
“Okay, sweetie,” he said, checking his wrist watch, “you’ve got exactly two minutes to get up and haul ass before the MPs get here.”
“Why me? There are women aplenty smitten with your charms. Ask them.”
“I think you’re smitten, too. You just don’t wanna admit it yet. Playing hard to get, that’s what you’re doing.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
“Methinks you need a good dose of meekness, you misguided clodpole.”
He still stared at his watch. “One minute.”
“Desist!”
The three woman gawked at her as if she was crazy. Usually, he didn’t have to coax women to come with him, let alone order them around.
He sighed dramatically. “Do I have to carry you again, Britta?”
“Oh, please,” Terri said, putting a hand dramatically over her heart, “let me watch you carry her.”
“You would not dare,” Britta seethed.
“Tsk-tsk-tsk! Haven’t you learned not to use that ‘dare’ word with me?”
“Not that it matters, but where do you want me to go?”
“A beach barbecue. Cage and JAM and my...uh, kid are going with us.”
“Bar-be-cue?” Britta frowned her confusion.
“An outdoor feast,” he explained.
“I am not dressed for a feast.”
“You’re dressed fine for this feast. Look at me.”
She did. “You look ridiculous.”