Nashville SEAL: SEAL Brotherhood: Nashville SEALs (9 page)

Most the boys had a confused look on their faces. “Sweet cherubs, you have no idea how the pleasures of a woman can turn your heart. Understand some of you have been sent by parents who know you might become martyred. ‘How can this be?’ you say. The woman gives to you the baby you send off to war.”

One of the boys sitting toward the front, his best and brightest pupil, turned around behind him. “Answer the teacher,” he demanded of the crowd. He was the one they all feared. Assad knew he would make a great leader because he did not care for feelings, which helped with some of the difficult decisions.

“So, Ari, you tell them then.” Assad nodded to the pupil.

“I have felt the calling of a woman. What the poem is saying is that as your loins increase, as you swell and ache to join, it is a false sense of duty and loyalty.”

“Exactly! Ari has stated it perfectly. How can a window exist where there are no walls? In other words, they have merged, become one. This is a very dangerous concept.” He held his finger to the air, stressing the point. “There is only one calling. There is only one love greater than all others; it transcends the limits of the flesh.”

Assad walked over to the side, looking out over the green rolling hills of the farm they’d rented. The land in Tennessee was beautiful. Lush and greenish gold this time of year. It was as if Mother Earth, as the hippies in America called it, was ripe with abundance, distracting her people from their true calling. It would be easy to fall into the beauty of this land, to lie in her arms and explore her valleys like he would a lover.

“The temptations are greater here. But so is the opportunity. The Americans are weak people. They trust everybody. They don’t like to ‘make waves’ as they say it.” Assad knew they enjoyed when he spoke English idioms. His eyes rolled as he pretended to be a surfer on a surfboard somewhere in the ocean he’d never seen.

The students chuckled similar to what he’d remembered as a schoolboy at his mother’s skirts. Again, his breath was taken away at the purity of their thoughts in face of the hell he was going to ask them to create. They’d walk into the blast furnace of their cause with a smile on their faces, willingly. And Assad knew that every time they would do this, the Americans would be afraid. They grew weaker with each new bold confrontation. He wanted them not to feel safe in their land of milk and honey, wanted them to think everything was falling apart, as it would one day. They blamed their own police, everyone in charge. Soon, they’d be running in the streets like the band of thieves they really were. Selfish, beaten down by a soft belly and a lifestyle that didn’t prepare them for the blood that was coming.

“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.”

‡

J
ameson 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.