A SEAL to Save Christmas (5 page)

Jason picked the lock on the cuffs that held the boy and the man, and he stepped back as the family was finally reunited again.
 

Well look at that. He’d done something right.
 

*
*
*

Helen entered his office a few days later with an envelope of money. “I can’t thank you enough,” she said as she hugged him. “You gave me my son and my husband. This is the best Christmas present ever.”
 

“Call me Santa Clause,” he said with a wry smile. “I’m glad it worked out for you.”
 

“Those things I said,” she said as she dropped her gaze. “I wish I could take them back. I don’t know what Clare found, but it doesn’t matter. You’re doing good now.”

Jason stepped back and held her at arms length. “I did good then, too. At least, I tried to do good. I don’t want you to think that I took advantage of my station or...”
 

“It doesn’t matter,” she said as she held up her hands to stop him. “What matters is the person that you are now. And I think that person is pretty great. I doubled the salary that you asked for. Frankly, you’re charging too little. I paid you to bring home my son, and you did one better. You brought home my son and my husband. You deserved to be compensated.”

He knew that she was good for it, and he needed the money, so he didn’t protest. “Don’t be too rough on Timothy. Now that you know his secret, he’s going to need your support. He hid it from you because he couldn’t bear to think of how you would look at him.”

“My husband is not a bad person. What Harland did is unforgivable, but it is not Timothy’s fault. He’s going to see a therapist, and we’re going to work through it. Trust me, Jason. I only look at my husband with love.”
 

Jason. Go figure that now she had her husband back, she’d finally call him Jason.
 

Helen was hell of a woman. She gave him one last hug and left. Jason tossed the envelope idly aside and opened the drawer that held his whiskey. Maybe if he’d had a woman that believed in him, he’d still be a Seal. He’d be able to look at his reflection and not feel disgust.
 

It was an interesting case, and it distracted him for a while. And maybe the next case would be just as interesting.
 

But until then, that money would buy him quite a bit of whiskey.
 

His phone rang, and he looked down. Unknown caller. “I don’t need you anymore, Boy Genius.”
 

“Jason Leonard. Seven years of excellent service to the Navy Seals. Most recently stationed in Benghazi before his term was up, and he walked away. No explanation,” Tallyhouse said in a quiet voice. “A lot of your files are blocked, and the ones that are available are marked with a ton of black. So why are you working for yourself?”

“Be very careful with what you try to dig up,” Jason warned in a cold voice. “I may not be a Seal, but that doesn’t mean that others won’t come for you.”
 

“I’m not digging. I just want you to know what I can do. I get bored from time to time. Call me when you need my help again.” The phone went dead, and Jason stared at it in a puzzle.
 

Did he just make a friend?

Outside his door, he heard the sounds of giggling children. Quietly, he made his way to the door and threw it open.
 

There, hanging back on his door was the same Christmas wreath. It looked like it had been run over by a truck, but still glittered with holiday cheer.
 

With a shrug, Jason smiled at it. It looked like Christmas had finally found him whether he liked it or not.
 

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Trish Adams writes clean military romance books with a slight christian edge. She lives with her dogs Laddie and Lady in the beautiful state of New York. Her husband, Brian, was a veteran, leaving the services after the first gulf war. He passed three years ago.
 

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A SEAL to protect the Billionaire’s Daughter
 

Karl had never really been a fan of bluegrass. Or any form of country music at all, for that matter. It probably had something to do with an unfortunate incident in his childhood with a banjo and a cat. But he had never gone so far as to actually punch a singer of that particular genre in the face.

“So tell me exactly what happened again, Mr. Jonstone?” said Tony Gibson, manager of aforementioned offended singer. The two were sitting across from each other in the impersonal luxury of a recording label office.
 

Karl suppressed a sigh. He was really beginning to regret thumping the bratty kid, however much he deserved it. Things like this were always more trouble than they were worth. He looked up at stuccoed office ceiling and briefly prayed for patience.

“As I explained to you before sir, Evans left the secured area backstage to meet and greet a few fans. Word spread quickly throughout the theatre, and I began to feel the crowd in the back hallway where we were was getting dangerously large. Evans repeatedly ignored my suggestions that it might be wise to return backstage and continued posing for pictures. After a few minutes several impatient people in the back started a fight over an autographed poster. Things quickly turned ugly. I had no choice at that point but to forcibly remove Evans from the area. Once backstage he began cursing and railing at me. I couldn’t have cared less, but he when he saw that, he began disrespecting the military. Particularly Navy Seals,” he felt compelled to add.

“So you punched him,” said Gibson.

“Yep,” said Karl. No malice and not a hint of regret. Just a simple statement of facts.

Gibson creased his brow thoughtfully and clasped his hands together behind his head. There was a tense silence for several moments. Karl wondered if he should ask if he was fired, but at this moment it seemed a rather moot point.

Unexpectedly, Gibson burst into a sharp bark of laughter.

“I’ve been wanting to do that to the little brat for
years
. You have my thanks,” he exclaimed, his hands flying down to smack the table heartily. “Of course this means I’ll have to terminate your contract, but you won’t have to worry about prosecution or your payment. I’ll write you up a check now.”

Gibson pulled open a desk drawer and pulled out a black book and pen. Karl was initially quite surprised, not that anyone could have guessed. His bearded face retained the same neutral and unyielding expression he had when he first walked into the office.

“So what’s next for you?” asked Gibson. “Any plans?”

“I’ll probably head back home to Nevada and start looking for my next contact.”

“No vacation? You certainly deserve one after two months of dealing with Evans.”
 

Karl shook his head slightly in the negative. He only took time off when he was physically unable to continue working. Lounging around his empty house all day held zero appeal.

Gibson shrugged and continued writing. “So how many years have you been in the protection services business?”.

“Two. And eight years with the Navy before that.”

 “Impressive. Do you mind if I ask what got you out?”

The man was just hunting for details. He probably already knew. But Karl had almost gotten used to people’s curiosity when they saw him. He ran a hand over the rough and darkened skin that ran down the left side of his face and into his coat collar. The worst of the scarring remained hidden.
 

“My convoy ran over a couple of IEDs in the road. We took several casualties and I spent four months in the critical burn unit. I was discharged soon after.” Karl didn’t add that it was the truck ahead of him that blew up, not his own. Or that it was climbing into that burning vehicle after two of his mates that nearly got him roasted alive and a six month hospital stay. He didn’t think the resulting Navy Cross worth mentioning either. Non-military types just couldn’t understand, no matter how many books or war documentaries they saw, and Karl preferred not to dwell on details.
 

He could feel the bone-shaking rattle of the dirt road beneath the truck bed and the sweat dripping down the back of his vest. See the sunlight glinting off the tip of his M2 propped up on its tripod. Smell the hot and gasoline-spiked air just before the first explosion went off fifty feet ahead and filled his lungs with choking dust and grit.

Then he was on the ground with the taste of blood in his mouth and heaving chaos all around him. Fire. Burning trucks. The realisation that the flipped Humvee lying in flames in front of him was the one his mates Steve and Carlo had been riding in.
 

Then there was only burning heat and skin melting flame and his own internal screaming. Get them out GET THEM OUT GET THEM-  
   

Karl forcibly seized control of his own mind and forced himself to the present. Already he could feel his throat closing off as if it was still clogged with dust and oxygen-starved from the fire.
Breathe. Relax. Loosen your muscles. Breathe.

 
Thankfully Gibson was still talking and didn’t notice his brief internal fracas.

“A Purple Heart, eh? Well I’m sorry you’ve had to put up with Evans’ idiocy and I hope you get better luck at your next job. Here you go.” Gibson slid the check across the table.

Karl picked it up and raised his eyes at the dollar amount. It was more than twice of what he was owed for this month. He looked questioningly at Gibson.
 

“You deserve it,” the man said simply. “Thank you for your service, both here and overseas.”

If only more situations would turn out that way,
reflected Karl as he took the elevator downstairs to the lobby.
A thank you and pay bonus. But you let that get way too close up there, Johnstone. It’s that kind of panicky thinking that got you booted out of the military. If you don’t damn breathe you’re going to pass out on someone’s floor. Focus on the present.

The only trouble with that excellent advice was that every moment of his present, from his work to his very face called up barbed memories from the past. Karl heatedly thrust the lobby door open with a force that startled the receptionist, and headed down the street to his car. He turned up his coat collar against the sub-zero wind and strode along darkly with his hands deep in his pockets.
 

It took him a long seven hours to drive home through the Sierra Nevada mountains. Karl was nearly bowled over by the now-roaring wind when he stepped out of the jeep, sore and stiff, and he instinctively narrowed his eyes and brought his coat up to cover his mouth against blowing sand. The yard around him was utterly dark. He couldn’t even see the house. Not a star twinkled in the black 3am sky above.
 

Karl unclipped a highbeam flashlight from his belt and grimly made his way to the porch. His heavy bag of spare clothes and extra gear bumped against his side in the wind, and already his ears were freezing. He hurried up the front steps and paused by the front door, rummaging through his pack for the keys that were concealed in an inner compartment. But before he unlocked the door, he flipped up the cover of a keypad disguised as an electrical outlet and deactivated his security system.

The air inside the old farmhouse was stale and bone-chillingly cold. Karl slowly proceeded down the hallway and made his way through the empty rooms, flicking on lights and ‘clearing’ each one as he went. One hand gripped the steel flashlight like a club while the other hovered over his holster. He was unsure whether to call the behaviour paranoia or deeply-engrained habit.
 

Only when he was certain that the house was empty and undisturbed did he begin to feel even slightly at home, even if the house hardly deserved the name since he spent so little time there. He cranked up the heat and microwaved a frozen meal, since there wasn’t any fresh food in the place. Then he headed downstairs into the ‘bunker’ he had constructed in the basement to blearily watch the security footage from the last two months on fast forward.
 

His home-coming ritual complete, he collapsed onto a cot on the corner, too exhausted to make his way to a proper bed upstairs.

*

Karl slept long if not deeply that night and into the next day, on account of the lack of windows in the room. He finally awoke around noon. He made himself a pot of coffee and went through another comforting ritual of domestic duties, such as tossing his laundry in the machine and checking on his chicken coop. It was decently clean and the chickens seemed happy enough; the girl next door had done a good job. He had fresh scrambled eggs and frozen toast for lunch.
 

Afterwards he knew he should check his messages and browse for a new job, but first he went into the small gym in the basement beside the bunker and pounded away on the punching bag for a good while. Being vigorously active for several hours a day was the only way he could fall asleep at night without pills. By the end of his impromptu workout, he was dripping with sweat and significantly de-stressed. But it only took one look at his scarred neck and back in the bathroom mirror after he showered for that knot of anxiety in his stomach to come back.
You’d think after two years you’d be used to your own reflection. Get over it.
 

With a growl he tugged on a clean shirt and stomped upstairs to the spare bedroom he had converted into an office, forcing himself to take deep, even breathes each step.
 

His breathing difficulties had started shortly after his discharge from the burn unit, or at least when his other injuries had recovered enough for him to notice them. Each time his heroic rescue of his comrades was brought up, or indeed anything that reminded him of that specific moment had sent his chest heaving and throat closing off. It became so bad that he continued passing out from lack of oxygen even when he had for the most part recovered. He was finally formerly discharged after he toppled over during a routine foot patrol. For a man who prided himself on his ability to get the job done, and one had spent all of his adult life in the military, it was infuriating.