The SEAL's Second Chance: An Alpha Ops Novella (11 page)

“How’s it going?” Jack asked, holding hands with a woman sporting a serious case of road rash under her fancy wrap. Jamie blinked. He’d never seen Jack hold hands with a woman before.

“Fine. You?”

“Great,” Jack said, beaming. “Couldn’t be better. This is Erin Kent.”

“Ma’am,” Jamie said.

Keenan Parker appeared with his fingers wrapped around four bottles of beer, which he distributed to Jack, Erin, and a woman who could only be Jack’s sister and Helen’s granddaughter. Keenan wore a navy suit and a tie. He draped his arm around Rose’s shoulders and gave her a quick kiss. Jamie raised an eyebrow.

“Turkey,” Keenan said succinctly. “I’ll tell you about it later. Take this,” he added, offering Jamie his bottle of beer.

“Thanks, but keep it. I’ll get one of my own,” Jamie said, scanning the crowd. The average height of females in attendance skewed to the tall side, thanks to the current and former basketball players, but none of them were wearing a standout shade of fuchsia. He turned to scan the far end of the party, stretching through the flower beds and tulle-draped trellises, and saw most of Charlie’s players, but not Charlie.

“Looking for someone?” Jack asked.

“Yeah,” he said, then turned back to the entrance again.

His heart stopped. Charlie stood on the wide-plank patio stretching the length of the building. Her hair, normally a pretty blonde, caught the sun like someone had streaked gold along the strands, and hung in tousled sexy waves around her face. She’d done her makeup, too, a little more mysterious than he’d seen back at the high school, something with her eyes that turned them violet, a barely there shade of pink on her lips.

Jack was talking, then Keenan, and he knew from the tone whatever they were saying was at his expense, but he was out of fucks to give because a big, powerful fist had reached into his chest and squeezed, heart and lungs and diaphragm and stomach all crammed together, none of them working the way they were supposed to. He loved her so goddamn much. If this month didn’t work, then he’d come at it again, come home every leave he had, even if the travel time left him with twenty-four of a forty-eight with her. He wasn’t quitting until she was his, forever.

“Who’s that?” Keenan asked.

“That’s Charlie Stannard. She was a starting point guard on the championship team, and coaches the Lady Knights now,” Jack’s sister, Rose, said.

“Hm,” Keenan responded politely.

“Starting power forward,” Jamie corrected absently. “She could clear space under the basket like nobody’s business, and holds the school record for rebounds, boys or girls. She won the NCAA championship her junior and senior year in college, and started on the French team that won the European championship a couple of years ago.”

“Hm,” Keenan repeated, this time with the respect Charlie deserved.

Making his rounds of the assembled local dignitaries, retired teachers, administrators, and coaches, Jamie snagged a couple of glasses of champagne from a passing server and found Charlie under a rose trellis, Grace and the tall, silent Lyssa at her side. Grace tugged Lyssa away, leaving Charlie and Jamie alone.

In place of the kiss he wanted to give her, he handed her a glass of champagne.

“Thanks,” she said.

“You look amazing.”

“I
can
do makeup and hair,” she replied. “I just don’t usually do it. Have you been catching up with the guys?”

“Yeah,” he said, distracted by the novelty of looking up into a woman’s face. “I lost touch with most of them after we all graduated.”

“I stayed in touch,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “It’s easy to keep friendships going with Skype, Facebook, text.”

“But it’s like the last ten years never happened.”

“This is true.”

“Got a second? I want you to meet some friends of mine.”

“Sure,” she said, and followed him back to the loose cluster of people.

He introduced her to Keenan and Rose, then to Jack and his date, Erin, and from there to Jack’s grandmother and a whole subset of Lancaster society. He watched her, knowing the strong lift of her chin hid her lifelong awareness of being from the East Side rather than from the Hill. But when he saw her step back and gesture for Lyssa and Grace to join them, then introduce them to Helen, he knew what she was doing. She carried deeply rooted shame that made walking through the Garden Club’s pristine white doors so hard for her, but she never stopped setting an example for her players. They had earned the right to be here, regardless of their families’ lives, their poverty, their uncertain futures. If she could do it, so could they.

When the cocktail hour wound down, people started splitting up to drive over to the Met. “I’ll catch up with you,” Jamie said to his parents. A minute later, Charlie strolled out of the koi carp garden. “Can I get a ride to the Met?” he asked.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Your parents, your brother, and eight of your former teammates were here, and you’re asking me for a ride?”

“They left me,” he said, grinning shamelessly at her.

“What about your SEAL teammates? What happened to no man left behind?”

“The motto doesn’t cover cocktail parties at garden clubs,” he said seriously. “Then it’s every man for himself.”

“I’d think that’s the most important place it covers,” she muttered, and fished her keys from her tiny purse. “Come on.”

The Garden Club covered twenty acres of land north of the railroad’s former headquarters. To get to the Met they had to drive through the East Side, right past the basketball court. “Pull in for a second,” Jamie said.

Her forehead wrinkled, but she obediently steered into the parking lot. A few kids were shooting around, too focused on their pickup game to pay much attention to them, even in uniform and fuchsia. “What are we doing here?” Charlie asked. “You have to be at the Met in fifteen minutes. I know this because I looked over the schedule Grace and Lyssa put together.”

Jamie ignored her, just took her hand and led her into the trees, consciously slowing his pace to respect her heels. When they reached a secluded glade, he turned to her. “Do you have your lipstick with you?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Because I’m going to kiss that right off your mouth,” he said.

He did just that, pressing her back against a tree, one arm braced on the trunk beside her head, the other wrapped around her waist to hold her close. The heat of his body quickly seeped through his uniform and her dress. In her mind’s eye she pictured them, dress white uniform against fuchsia cocktail dress, her hair spilling forward to hide their faces. She kept trying to bend her knees and get their faces on a more even level, but every time she did, he shoved into her, pushing her upright.

“You’re a fucking goddess. A warrior queen,” he growled against her throat. “I’ve wanted to do this for so goddamn long.”

She pushed away, blinking, and said, “Jamie, I can’t. Not … now. Or here.”

“I know,” he said, tone laden with regret and desire and controlled frustration. “Consider this,” he murmured as he pressed a kiss to the swell of each breast, then tipped his head up to slip his tongue between her lips, hot and slick and teasing, “a prelude to what’s going to happen later.”

She stared at him, then took a deep breath. “Come on. You’re going to be late.”

Chapter Seven

Charlie resisted the urge to touch her fingertips to her lips. A quick reapplication of lipstick before she got out of the car told her everything she needed to know. Her lips were swollen, her eyes glowing, and Jamie looked like the cat that swallowed the canary as he walked into the Metropolitan Club like he owned the place. People were streaming in, the valet parking attendants catching tossed keys and helping elegantly dressed women from cars.

Grace, Lyssa, and most of the rest of the team stood in a cluster outside the tall double doors thrown open to admit people into the elegantly appointed foyer. They caught sight of Jamie and Charlie together. Eyes widened, mouths opened, and Charlie heard a soft
ooooh
that ranged up and down the scale.

“Go on ahead,” she said to Jamie. “You’re the keynote speaker. They’re going to be worried until you’ve checked in.”

She managed to hold them off for a little while by admiring dresses and updos—this first team of girls would stay in her memory for a very long time—but finally Grace asked the question everyone on the team wanted answered. “Coach, are you going out with him?”

“No, I’m not,” she said, knowing it was a lie even as she spoke. Teenagers could sniff out lies without even looking up from their cell phones. “It’s just … we’ve known each other a long time. We were … we are friends. That’s all.”

“It doesn’t look like that to me,” Grace said. The rest of the team nodded along. “He’s very, very fine in that uniform.”

And out of it,
Charlie thought with a mild hysteria, then seized on the teaching opportunity here with Grace, all but joined at the hip to Bryce, who was now considering a career in the military. “He’s an active-duty Navy SEAL. He’s gone for weeks, even months at a stretch, with no contact with friends and family. Long-distance relationships are very, very hard. I’ve tried them before, and they don’t work. It’s better to just cut your ties so you can both get on with your lives.”

Grace’s and Lyssa’s disbelieving gazes flicked from Charlie’s face to a spot just over her shoulder. She turned to find Jamie standing there, his face a mask. “Ms. Webber said I should check in with you, Grace,” he said.

Charlie could have kicked herself into the kitchen and out the back door. Of course Jamie was going to check in with Grace; she’d organized the schedule. “Um, yes,” Grace said when Charlie didn’t speak. Her voice was thin, hesitant, unfamiliar with the formal phrases she’d probably picked up from Eve or the Met’s caterer. “Thank you, Lieutenant Hawthorn. We should … get our seats. Dinner will be served in five minutes.”

Without meeting her eye, Jamie stepped back and held out his hand for the ladies to precede him into the building. Her girls skittered off in a group, leaving Charlie alone with Jamie.

“You had to know that,” she said, her heart pounding in her chest. “Jamie. You had to know that.”

He didn’t move. “They’re waiting for us,” he said quietly.

*   *   *

According to Grace, the Met served the city’s best banquet food, but Charlie had to force down her mouthfuls of seared salmon with asparagus, and she couldn’t even taste the tiramisu. Seated on the other side of the lectern, Jamie never made eye contact with her, focusing his conversation on his former coach to his left and the superintendent of schools to his right. Charlie kept up with the chatter between her former coach and Principal Belmeister, but deep inside, she felt sick.

Based on the look on Jamie’s face, he’d felt differently about their relationship. She’d blindsided him, but he’d blindsided her. Did he really think they could have something long distance, something real and true, something that would not only survive the test of time apart but would last forever?

When the guests were finishing their dessert and coffee, Principal Belmeister rose to his feet and thanked everyone for coming, then introduced Jamie. Charlie turned in her chair and looked up at him, at the body she knew as well as her own, at his handsome profile. He singled out the district administrators, Coach Gould, and his teammates, then paused, his hands gripping the lectern. Charlie’s heart was pounding in her chest, as she watched him.

“I learned mental toughness and strength on the basketball court when I was in high school,” he said. She froze, somehow knowing he meant more than practices and games, state tournaments. He meant
them,
on the court by the tracks. “I only started when someone had the flu. I was usually the sixth or seventh guy in, riding the bench until someone needed a breather, or was in foul trouble”—he paused to cough “Jonesy” under his breath and the room broke into laughter—“or we needed a different strategy. When you start on the bench, you have a lot of time to watch your teammates, the opposing players. That’s where I learned what I needed to learn to be successful in life: on the bench, and in the stands, watching the girls’ team fight their way to a title. I watched players leave everything they had on the court for their teammates, for their school, for their own honor. When I joined the Navy, that’s the image I carried with me through basic, then into Hell Week in BUD/S when I thought I couldn’t stand in the surf and carry my share of a telephone pole. I held in my mind an image of a basketball player, bruised and scraped and taped and limping but competing so fiercely that everyone else around them upped their game, practiced a little harder, stayed the extra time to shoot more free throws, put in the time in the weight room.”

She stopped breathing, her throat contracting, tears welling in her eyes. There wasn’t a single sound in the room except her heart, thundering in her ears. He wasn’t using notes. No, Jamie’s words were coming straight from his heart.

“This is what I can tell you, as a United States Navy SEAL. That all the example you need to succeed in life, to resist whatever temptation is calling you, to achieve whatever goal you think you can’t possibly achieve, is right here in front of you. When you think you can’t read one more page of Shakespeare or run one more lap, when you can’t say no to that party, know this: the example you need is in the cops and teachers and firefighters, and your parents, as crazy as that sounds right now. Trust me, it’s in your parents. It’s in your coaches. It’s in your teammates. I guarantee it’s in your teammates, the young men and women you compete with to represent East Side High. And you’re
their
example, too. The talent and dedication in this room has the power to shape lives for generations to come. Don’t forget it. Thank you.”

*   *   *

Jamie disappeared into a crush of people wanting to shake his hand, tell stories, and generally rub shoulders with him. Charlie knew exactly how they felt, but every time she tried to get close, he managed to put someone between them. She finally tracked him down standing at the end of the hallway to the kitchen, watching Eve Webber slip through a door marked M
ANAGEMENT
. Keenan, one of Jamie’s SEAL friends, dressed in a quiet navy business suit, was at the other end, by the restrooms. He gave Jamie a nod.