Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
I’d been standing in the kitchen, trying to focus on prepping dinner, when Joy’s voice cut through the house like a blade. I hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but when someone’s yelling about ripping off nuts, you tend to pay attention.
I walked out into the living room and stood against the wall. I wanted her to know that I had her back, but she was so intent on her conversation that she didn’t notice me at first.
Seth said something, then she fired back.
“I don’t care if he has three eyes and is homeless. He’s the man I want, so shut the hell up!”
Shit, this was about me. I felt all my muscles lock up.
Fuck!
Her back was to me as she paced the living room, her phone clutched tightly in her hand.
I watched as her ponytail bounced with each step she took.
I’d been halfway through prepping the salmon for the grill, but now all I could do was stand there and force myself not to snatch the phone from her hand and yell at her brother.
She stopped moving and took in a long breath. Then she started talking again in a soft voice. “Seth. I’m twenty-four. You’ve always said I had a good head on my shoulders. You’ve got to trust me on this. Graham is a straight-up good guy. Have you even bothered to talk to Simon or Roan?”
I waited to see how he would respond. If he was a prick, I damn well would grab the phone and give him a piece of my mind. There was no way I was going to let this asshole treat Joy like this, even if he was her brother.
Still, I should have seen this coming. It was obvious that Joy came from a perfect family, and she was probably the apple of everyone’s eye.
Of course, they would be uber protective.
Wait until they found out I was thirty-two, with only a high school degree.
Yeah, they’d sure be impressed with that.
Yeah, I might have been an E-9 and a Team Chief, but I was a fucking failure at that.
Shit, I couldn’t even look my dad in the face.
Joy laughed, then said, “I did. I told you about Graham. He’s the guy who buys Miss Laverne’s groceries and painted her house.”
At least things with her brother were getting resolved, but that still didn’t fix the real problem, which was me. There was no way I was good enough for the Magill family’s little girl.
Her laugh turned up a notch as they started talking about her college-level vocabulary. Just another thing that separated us.
She spun around and looked me dead in the eye. Apparently, she had been aware of my presence the entire time.
“You okay?” I asked.
She shook her head and gave me a half grin. “My brother is an idiot.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” I disagreed.
She came and stood in front of me, her hands resting on my chest. “You haven’t met him. Trust me, I know of what I speak.” I gripped her hands to stop them from going any farther and twining around my neck.
“Graham, what’s wrong?”
“I left the salmon on the counter. I either need to start the grill or put it back in the fridge.” I turned to head back into the kitchen, needing just a little bit of space from blue eyes that seemed to see right into my soul.
“I’ll help you.” Joy followed me into the kitchen, which wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t say anything as she pulled the makings for the salad together. I could tell she was giving me mental space. It wasn’t doing much good. All I could think of was how much of a failure I was. How undeserving I was.
It’d been a while since my thoughts had been this bad. Most of the time, I could bury the parts of me that didn’t fit into civilian life, but damn if they didn’t claw their way back up at moments like this.
I grabbed the platter with the marinated salmon and headed to the deck, saying nothing. Joy didn’t follow.
Good.
I hated it when I was like this. I turned on the grill, needing something to do with my hands before I let the tightness in my chest turn into something worse.
Joy left me alone until the grilled salmon was almost done. I appreciated it. I’d heard her making the table behind me, but she finally set down an open beer beside me at the grill.
“Are you mad at me?” she asked.
“Why would I be mad at you?” I was confused.
“Because of what Seth was saying. I guessed you’d figured it out.”
I took the salmon off the grill, and she handed me clean plates to put the fish on. I turned off the grill, and we went to the table.
I dished out salad onto both of our plates, making sure she got a lot of the bacon bits and cheese. “I caught onto the fact that Seth has a problem with me.”
“Not after he heard you were the one who bought groceries for Miss Laverne and organized her house being painted.”
“Yeah, that’s just one part of who I am. I could tell they weren’t happy about me being only part-time with Onyx.”
“I get the feeling that’s your choice at this point, am I right?”
I nodded reluctantly. She gave a half smile which I didn’t understand.
“But Joy, they also don’t know about my time in the service. Hell, neither do you.”
“So, tell me.”
I pointed to the food on her plate. “Eat up before the food gets cold. Then we can talk.”
Once again, Joy dug into her food. I’d finally figured out how she kept her figure. She went running when she got up. I’d about swallowed my tongue the first time I saw her in bicycle shorts, a sports bra, and a tank. She’d been a lime green goodness.
“Dessert?” I asked when her plate was clean.
“Answers.”
I sighed. “You’re a tough woman. Gonna rip off my nuts?”
She snorted. “Your manly parts are near and dear to me, so they’re safe. But that doesn’t mean I won’t find other ways to torture you, so spit it out.”
I sat back in the chair, stretching out my legs so my bare feet could touch Joy’s. “You know I was a SEAL, right?”
“Yeah, like Simon and Drake. I did some online research. Logistics and training, my ass.”
I winced. “That’s what most of us say. You say you were a SEAL, and a lot of people want to know details. They think it is a glamorous job.”
“Glamorous?! How do they figure that? For God’s sake, Graham. From what I read, it was crazy scary. What’s more, you had to be almost a superhero to accomplish some of the things I read about.”
I shook my head. “See, that’s what I’m talking about.
People have these unrealistic ideas about spec ops operators.
What it really comes down to is training and preparation.
You go into a situation knowing exactly what to expect, and you’ve trained for it, over and over again.
That’s it. You know the job, and you do it. ”
She snorted again. “Yeah, and how often did it go to plan?”
She caused me to choke back a groan. “Most of the time,” I answered weakly. “Most of the time, it went to plan.”
She must have sensed my pain. She came around the table and pushed me around, forcing me to move my chair so she could sit on my lap. “And when it didn’t go to plan?” she asked quietly, looking me straight in the eye.
“Except for one time, we always accomplished our mission.”
“What happened the one time?”
I didn’t answer.
“Dammit, Graham. You’re sitting here blaming yourself for something you had no control over, aren’t you?”
“Of course I had control over it, I was the team leader.”
“Are you saying every time a team loses a football game it’s the coach's fault?”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then make me understand. I want to, but you have to let me in.”
I gave a deep sigh. “It’s tough. I never talk about it.”
“Aw, baby.” She placed her palms on each of my cheeks, then gave me a long, soft kiss. When she was done, she tucked herself back against me, her head resting under my chin, her hands petting my chest.
“I fucked up on our last mission.” Her hands stopped stroking me for a moment, then started up again. “We were in Africa. There were five of us. I was the team leader. Only two of us came back.” Somehow, she was able to cuddle even closer. It was like she was melting into my body.
“It was supposed to be a quick rescue mission. We had all the intel we needed. Turned out it was a set-up. They were waiting for us. They’d already killed the hostage during their interrogation, and they needed a new one.
Or more than one. Turns out, they were the ones who had leaked the intel, and our side bought into it and sent us in. ”
“How do you think this was your screw-up?” she asked. Her words whispered against my heart.
“Three men, who were under my command, are dead.” The words came out like shards of glass. I pulled her closer so I could stop my hands from trembling. Even now, four years later, saying it out loud felt like tearing open a scar that was only partially healed… and it hurt.
I hadn’t realized she’d unbuttoned my shirt until she placed a kiss against the bare skin of my chest. “Wasn’t that always a risk? I mean, didn’t all of you take that risk, being a SEAL and all?”
I froze for long moments but finally nodded.
“Yeah, we did. But it’s different when you’re in charge. Your job is to ensure the safety of those under your command.”
She was quiet for a long time. I could tell she understood what I was saying.
“Tell me what happened, Graham.”
“It’s classified.”
“I’m not going to tell anyone, and you need to tell someone. It’s just you and me and the stars. Tell me, baby.”
“We were dealing with Boko Haram. We had a CIA operative who was acting as an attaché to the consulate in Nigeria. We had the layout of the compound. It really wasn’t much of a compound.
A two-story house, with two outbuildings.
Some goats. We watched it for a day and a half.
Men came; men went. In the end, we counted nine.
We didn’t see a heat signature of someone who was locked up, so we were worried, but we had to find out. ”