Holding Out For A Hero: SEALs, Soldiers, Spies, Cops, FBI Agents and Rangers (15 page)

“The girls you will meet will want to learn things about you. You can smile and pretend to be shy. American girls love that. And let’s face it,” he said with a shrug, “it’s true. You
will
be shy. You will see and hear things you’ve been told you are not allowed to see and hear. It will be difficult for you to sit next to all the pretty girls in their halter tops and skin-tight short pants. Their parents allow them to look like prostitutes. Even the nice girls do it. Some of them are embarrassed by what they wear, yet they do it anyway.”

The boys whispered amongst themselves, adjusting their prayer robes.

“So you pretend you are a shy boy from Syria. That there was no future for you there and you must come to the States to live with relatives. You will read them these love poems.” He held up the little book. “And they will fall all over you for them.”

The consensus of agreement was there. The school uniforms had been purchased; not real uniforms, but jeans and American Keds, sweatshirts, plain tee shirts, and even black hoodies for each boy to help them fit in. They weren’t allowed logos at the school, so Fatima and the ladies had been careful to take along one of the mothers who volunteered at the school and was their liaison.

“Teacher, I wish to ask a question.”

“Okay. What’s up? Please stand and face me when you ask a question.”

Young Sami scrambled to stand. “If it is wrong to read Rumi back home, why isn’t it wrong to read Rumi here? And wasn’t Rumi a believer? My sister told me—”

“Your sister? Your sister reads Rumi?”

“No, Teacher, but she told me Rumi lived nearly a thousand years ago. At one time, it was considered scholarly to read Rumi.”

Assad held up his book. “You think this is scholarly?”

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,

Absentminded. Someone sober

Will worry about things going badly.

Let the lover be.

“You think it is responsible to let yourself go like that? To fall into the clutches of a woman who lets you fuck her, over and over again, until you are crazy? That is the stuff of whores, Sami. That is an addiction to the flesh. You must be addicted to God and to his people. There is no greater good.”

“But we are to break the teachings here. You are instructing us to do something we could not do at home.”

“Correct. Because these girls you’ll be meeting are not worthy of the air they breathe. In that sense, Sami, you are allowed to cull them from the population of this land so we can claim it for our kingdom. That makes all the difference.”

Nashville Seal: Chapter Ten

Jameson rode behind Lizzie’s car outside the Nashville city limits until they came to a modest neighborhood of smaller homes on average-sized lots. It was a blue collar neighborhood with an assortment of toys in the front yards like an occasional motorcycle or older RV. The yards were fenced and generally kept simple, but nice. He imagined that most of the people who lived here were at work.

She stopped in front of a yellow home with off-white trim. A pink plastic trike with pink and purple streamers and yellow foot pedals was parked just inside the fencing. A pile of shoes, adult sizes and a few child’s sizes, including crocs, were scattered over the doorstep. Lizzie rang the doorbell, and he heard “Mommy” from behind the door. The window beside the front door was covered by narrow mini blinds with several of the slats twisted, leaving gaps. Jameson saw a pair of brown eyes examine him from one of those gaps.

When the door opened, Jameson came face-to-face with a little angel. Her nearly white-blonde hair was floating out of braids that had ceased to hold the hair at bay. But her eyes were unmistakable. They were his eyes. The same color of aqua, clear and almost backlit. She quickly refocused on her mother.

“Mommy,” she shouted, as she leaned forward, nearly leaping from a young woman’s arms into Lizzie’s. She buried her head in Lizzie’s neck and gave her a hug, all the while staring up at him.

Lizzie’s friend was eyeing Jameson like he was a rare and lethal bug, her arms now crossed. At her side, a brown-eyed toddler of about Charlotte’s age, with chocolate brown eyes and a coffee and cream complexion, gripped her thigh and waited.

“Kendra, this is Jameson Daniels. Jameson, this is my best friend, Kendra.”

Lizzie’s friend didn’t offer her hand when Jameson stuck his out. She scowled at Lizzie. “You comin’ or goin?” she asked, as she ignored Jameson without any acknowledgement. He wasn’t used to the frosty reception; but then, under the circumstances, he gave her the benefit of the doubt.

“I’ll be taking her and heading back to North Carolina tonight. Thanks, Kendra,” Lizzie answered her.

“Sure thing. I’ll go gather her stuff. Come on in, but our house rules say take your shoes—holy cow, those are nice boots!” She allowed a sneak of admiration to filter up to him, but then quickly covered it up. “But you still need to take them off, cowboy.”

“No problem.” Jameson sat on the porch bench and began following her instructions. Lizzie slipped her shoes off easily and stepped onto hardwood floors in her bare feet and red painted toes. Jameson placed his boots next to hers and walked in his stockinged feet to the small living room.

“Come on, Charlotte. Let’s find your bags, okay?” Kendra begged, holding out her hands for the toddler.

“I want Mommy to come.”

“Oh, soon you’re gonna have mommy all to yourself. Help me pick up your dolls and things, and then we can visit with mommy’s friend, afterwards, okay?” She shot a pointed look at Lizzie. Charlotte eyed him carefully again as she was led away to gather her things.

Lizzie took Jameson’s hand, and they sat side-by-side on the only couch in the living room. A large toy box in the corner had a lid in the shape of a princess castle. Jameson had never spent much time around children, even less around little girls not yet school age. He squirmed in his seat, crossing and uncrossing his legs.

“You nervous?” she asked him.

“Depends on what you’re gonna tell her.”

“Well, anything I tell Charlotte, she’ll forget. Or is it Kendra you’re more nervous about?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, neither one of them appears to have warmed to me at all.”

Lizzie giggled. “I remember that about you. Always worrying about things. You need time to let it sink in, Jameson. We’ve been here, what, all of one or two minutes?”

“Honey, I’m way out of practice. You forget where I hang out most of the time.”

“Yup. Bars and hotel rooms. Not sure either one of them picked up on that, so just relax and enjoy the tension.”

She gave him a sweet smile, but Jameson wished he could find a really good reason to bolt. He had been the one to insist he meet his daughter, and he wondered now if he should have taken more time to adjust, since it had been less than twenty-four hours since he’d learned about her.

“Don’t mind Kendra. She’s protective, and I do the same for her. We watch each other’s backs, sort of like you and Thomas.”

Before he could object, Charlotte came running into the room in a pink cape that sparkled in the sunlight, wearing a princess crown. Without warning, she jumped into his lap and leaned against his chest as if she’d done it many times before. In her right hand, she held a monster dress-up doll with big tits, wearing red high heels, jamming it up into his face, nearly smashing his nose.

“What’s this?” he asked, as he peeled the doll from her chubby fingers and held it out in front of him. “Holy cow. That’s a strange lookin’ thing, isn’t it? What’s her name?”

Lizzie and Kendra laughed.

The answer wasn’t something he could make out.

“They make these monsters sort of variation on Barbies, except this one is a zombie. See the bloodshot eyes and dark circles under there?” Lizzie was having a ball with his shock.

“And the green face. My mother would have burned this thing after sticking pins in it and decapitating it,” Jameson said, handing the doll back to Charlotte. Lizzie was frowning. “Sorry, Charlotte honey, but I gotta say that’s one ugly woman.”

Charlotte leaned back and did a stare-down. “She’s supposed to be creepy, silly. Don’t you
know
anything?”

Lizzie giggled.

“How old did you say she was?” he asked her.

“Only three, going on eighteen.”

“That’s a fact,” he said, nodding to the top of Charlotte’s head.

Kendra brought them both a sweet tea with lots of ice. Jameson was grateful for the distraction. Charlotte wiggled her way off his lap and onto the floor, yanking her sequined cape behind her. In the process, her crown fell off, but she left it alone.

Jameson leaned over to Lizzie. “She’s beautiful, darlin’. But shouldn’t she be playing with princess dolls and such, not green monsters?”

“Who never die. I can see you didn’t like mystery as a kid.”

“No, ma’am. I can’t sleep if I watch one of those vampire movies. Talk about creepy; now that’s creepy.”

Lizzie leaned against him, wrapping her left arm under his and squeezing herself into him. Less than twenty-four hours ago, he was messing around with his guitar, thinking about his care free single life, getting ready to take a quick nap before heading over to the club. Now, everything had changed. He felt ill-equipped to care for a daughter or a wife. Being on the road performing wasn’t for a married man who wanted to stay married. He hadn’t known anyone who’d been able to do it successfully.

Twenty-four hours ago, he was certainly not thinking of anything permanent, certainly not marriage and raising a family. It was still something he wasn’t sure he was ready to do.

“So, you’re taking off tonight then?” he asked her, while still focused on Charlotte.

“Don’t worry, Jameson. You don’t owe me anything. I set out to do what I intended to do. You’ve met her. Now the ball is in your court. We’ll be fine, either way.”

He wasn’t sure what he should say. He was used to being confident, assured. He was used to going at his pace, which was easy and slow, until some beautiful and exciting creature with ten times the need he did, would drag him into an exciting liaison and love the night away. And then it would start all over the next day.

But for the first time, he didn’t know what to say or what to do. If he left right now, Charlotte would never remember him. But he’d forever feel like a heel, and although he and Lizzie weren’t married, every woman he slept with would make him feel like a cheater. And it wasn’t Lizzie alone he’d be cheating on. It would be Charlotte as well.

Suddenly, his idyllic life didn’t seem so idyllic any longer. He had important decisions to make, decisions that would affect two other people’s lives. There was no question that Charlotte was his daughter, but was he ready to be her father?

Nashville Seal: Chapter Eleven

With the gig at Highway to Heaven over, Reed brought in the girl group he’d bumped Thomas for. He’d heard nothing from the A&R guy or the producer who had initially expressed interest in his new song. He began writing a couple of other songs and considered going down to visit Lizzie, but was waiting to hear about a possible week-long gig in California, close enough to San Diego that he could hang out with the SEALs. He rented a tiny efficiency apartment in Nashville while he waited. He called Lizzie every day.

The California trip finally fell through.

“Fuck it, Jameson. We should just go there and check things out. Spend a couple of weeks in the sun, get out of this rain, see how it goes, and then come back. If something breaks, you can always come right back.”

It hadn’t taken much for Thomas to convince him, so they arranged the trip. Jameson called Kyle, who was excited to hear from him and offered a place to stay, cautioning him to stay away from the bachelor SEALs.

Then Thomas was handed a gig that was too good to pass up. He’d be touring in the Pacific Northwest for a whole month. Jameson was happy for his old friend, and then decided to ask Lizzie to go with him.

“No, Jameson. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“And why not?”

“Charlotte has her routine here. She’s in preschool. She doesn’t know you.”

“Well, how the hell’s she supposed to get to know me if I never see her? I’m not moving to North Carolina.”

“Well, I’m not moving to Nashville or San Diego.”

“Then let’s just take a trial run, a trip out there, and we can explore the area together. Have you ever been?”

“Never.”

“Perfect. Neither have I. Kyle made arrangements for us to stay at his place, and Coop offered his motorhome rigged up down at the beach. We could stay there, if you like. Right on the beach, Lizzie! Charlotte could play in the water. We could take nice walks. We’d have lots of privacy.”

Lizzie’s laughter was full of possibility, he thought. After several more coaxings, she relented.

They started off on a Saturday, stopping twice to overnight. Charlotte took to calling Jameson JJ, which suited him just fine.

Coop’s motorhome down at the beach wasn’t exactly posh accommodations, but it was rigged with a killer stereo system. He’d been told to keep his hands off of the other equipment and to leave the locked metal boxes untampered with. Jameson figured the medic had some secret stuff he didn’t want to share.

The first two days they were there, several of the SEAL team came by for a timed run, then a swim, and a workout on the beach. Jameson watched them, wondering what kind of a man it took to become one of those elite warriors.

Lizzie was quiet as he studied the SEALs and then finally asked him what he thought of them.

“You know, I’ve never been this long from playing clubs before. Funny how, when you throw yourself out into the real world where the drink isn’t flowing and the lights aren’t on your face, your perspective changes.”

They were sitting side by side, toes pushed into the sand.

“Could you do something like that?”

“Maybe. Been thinking about it.”

He felt her stiffen. Even placing his arm around her shoulder didn’t help.

They didn’t talk much during the next two days. Like two ships passing in the night, he’d watch her chatting with the other wives and girlfriends at a couple of get-togethers. The SEALs valued their partying, but rarely with outsiders. Jameson knew they were beginning to consider him part of the family, and it made him proud they thought so highly of him.