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  Tucker drew his arm around her shoulders. “Are you warm enough?”

  “I am now,” she said as she leaned into his hulking frame.

  “Watching Brawley and Jessica this afternoon, I was thinking about what our beach parties coming up would look like. I think we’re going to have a water baby. We both love to swim so.”

  “I’m going to enroll her in swim classes as soon as her eyes can focus!” Brandy admitted, tugging on his tee shirt.

  “Her, is it? You mean that? You think it’s a girl?”

  “I honestly have no idea. And I don’t care. Maybe we could have a boy. Then he could marry Jessica and our families could be even more close.”

  She giggled as he squeezed her shoulder tight. “Wouldn’t that be something?” he whispered.

  He continued walking, his head now downturned, watching their feet before the night erased them. “Tomorrow I’m going to the flea market with Brawley, and of course you can come too, if you want.”

  “This the big one or the auto one?”

  “It’s the big one.”

  “Of all the things you could do before you go overseas, why do that?”

  He shrugged. “Just something normal.”

  She stopped in her tracks. Brawley and Dorie kept walking ahead. “What?” he asked.

  “And just what is spending time with me, then?”

  “Or,” he began to stumble on his words, “I was about to say we could spend the whole day in bed. If it’s safe for the baby.”

  “You were not going to say that.” She watched him turn, then pull her to him.

  “I just wanted to do something mindless. Our bedtime escapades are anything but mindless. I’m aware of every wiggle, shudder and moan. I am wide awake and loving every second of it, Brandy. You know that.”

  She felt herself blush from the top of her head all the way down to her toes. Her heart skipped a beat, and her palms grew hot. She touched his cheek. “It’s the same for me, Tucker.”

  They ran to catch up to Brawley and Dorie. Jessica had fallen asleep, and her little head was bobbing at an uncomfortable angle, so the four of them said good-night, and they returned to their respective houses.

  It felt like the quiet before the storm.

  Chapter 3

  The large Saturday flea market drew crowds from all over Southern California. It was a mixture of cultures and languages, ages, sizes and personalities. The saying went, “If you can’t find it at the flea market, you don’t need it.” Of course, one person’s junk was another’s treasure, and so the bartering and haggling going on rivaled any good bazaar in Marrakech and some of the open-air fruit and vegetable markets Tucker had visited in Europe.

  Brawley was entranced with piles of slightly used and occasionally broken wooden toys he might be able to fix up for Jessica. That didn’t interest Tucker in the slightest. But he was tempted by several large garden tools, mulchers, and chippers he could tinker with.

  They met up with several other groups of Team guys who acted surprised to find each other but weren’t, really. Wasting the day looking over discarded things was something many of the other brothers liked to do.

  Fredo had bought a bag of flat soccer balls for the playground they were still sponsoring down at the old Catholic school they had converted to a neighborhood center. Cooper was giving him grief for not testing them first with a ball pump.

  “They can be fixed, even if they do leak. Besides, doesn’t make me feel so bad when they get ‘borrowed’, man. Right?” he told his lanky best friend.

  “Still a waste of money,” Cooper mumbled in return as he looked over a plastic bin of electrical cords, cables, and appliance chargers marked “One dollar each.”

  Fredo nodded toward Coop and squawked to Tucker. “You remember, Tuck? This is the guy who doesn’t like to use more than one dryer sheet at a time. Who measures his dishwasher soap with a teaspoon?”

  Tucker remembered their colossal fights back in the days when he was a newbie.

  “It’s not good for the dishwashers to have too much soap. Gunks up everything,” Cooper said in his own defense.

  Fredo couldn’t be silenced. “He has to check his packets of ketchup by their expiration dates he has so many.”

  “I don’t do that anymore. Libby—”

  “Libby has made a regular guy out of him. But she doesn’t know he rents two storage spaces full of junk,” Fredo continued.

  “Like I said, I have enough parts to fix anything. And who is the one who fixed your blender? Who found all the handles Ali was using as projectiles for that sling shot Danny made for him?”

  On and on it went. Tucker and Brawley and several others just fell in line behind them. Brawley found a vendor with handmade drums, and flutes, and crude instruments shaped and pounded out of coke cans. Another vendor was selling hand-loomed rugs from Central America and carved black lava figurines from Mexico.

  At the first sign of a bicycle pump, Tucker sat and quietly demonstrated that about half of the balls did indeed leak. But they still fit into the net ball bag.

  “This bag alone was worth the ten bucks,” Fredo insisted.

  Nearby, their group ran into Jackie Daniels and his two daughters. Jackie had been their Iraqi interpreter on missions Tucker had been on the first time around and over one thousand missions after Tucker had left. He’d fought bravely with the SEAL teams and was responsible for saving many lives, both US and Iraqi. In a narrow escape, he and his family had been allowed to immigrate to the US, and he’d just taken his Citizenship Oath. Jackie’s code name was selected because of his love of whiskey, as well as an easy way to mask his real name to avoid retaliation on him and his family. Some of them still lived there.

  “Jackie! So great to see you!” Tucker said as the two men embraced. Brawley, Fredo, and Coop, as well as several others, followed suit.

  “Tucker, you’re a braver man than I. No more for me.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “You can’t get enough of all that shit over there?” Jackie said in his heavily accented but perfect English.

  Tucker always admired Jackie most for his fondness for American swear words. He’d taught many of the men on Kyle’s team how to swear in Pashtu during his early rites of diplomacy.

  “Not over there. Hope we don’t have to go back there. But yeah. I guess I just wasn’t done. I’ll know when that time comes.”

  “Yes, you will, my friend.” He placed his arm on Tucker’s shoulder then introduced the men to his two daughters, who dutifully looked downcast and wouldn’t touch any of the Americans. Both wore their headscarves, an odd addition to their over-worn faded jeans and high-top tennis shoes in red, white, and blue. Tucker guessed if Jackie wore shorts, his would also be with stars and stripes, just like the ones most guys on Team 3 donned every day.

  “Got myself married and a little one on the way, too,” Tucker informed him, holding his belly as if he was the pregnant one.

  “That will make a real man out of you, Tucker.”

  “She’s trying real hard.”

  Brawley barked the understatement, addressing Jackie’s daughters. “Your dad’s a hero, ladies. You gotta know that.”

  The group burst out in Hooyahs like a colony of sea lions, attracting attention from the flea market crowd surrounding them. The girls shyly tucked behind Jackie but smiled. Tucker knew Jackie was too high profile to continue with the adulation in public, for his own safety.

  “So what brings you out here? What could you possibly need in all this junk?” asked Fredo, who scowled when Cooper pointed to his bag of soccer balls. The Latino SEAL leaned in. “Coop wants to find a good deal on another Babemobile,” he finished off with a whisper, which earned him a major punch in the arm from his Nebraska best bud.

  Jackie laughed at all of them. “You guys never change, do you?” He turned to his girls. “Hands.” He demonstrated by cupping his hands over his own ears and watched his daughters mimic the motion. He addressed the men, “I miss all the shit-talk. I�
��ve almost forgotten how to swear.” He grinned, showing off his white teeth. “It does my heart fuckin’ good!”

  Jackie nodded to the girls, who removed their hands.

  “Heard you took the Oath. Welcome to the good old US of A,” said Coop as he shook Jackie’s hand.

  “You bet. Very proud. A very proud day for me, indeed.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question,” asked Fredo.

  Jackie gave a respectful gaze around the open-air market, examining faces, stalls, piles of goods, and plastic bins full of everything imaginable. He nodded and then gave his answer. “The first thing I did when I came to America was to take the girls to go buy a hamburger and milkshake with my crisp new American dollars. I’d dreamt about doing this my whole life.”

  The group around him remained silent. Even his girls listened with rapt attention.

  “The next thing I did was to come here, to these bazaars. I wanted to see what you Americans discard. Many of these things that are being sold off or given away I’d never seen before. I know some people think I’m crazy. I ask them, ‘What’s this?’ and they look at me like I’m from Mars. I’ve learned so much about your country by looking at flea markets and the people who come here.”

  Tucker examined his shoes. Several other men cleared their throats or adjusted their shirts.

  Jackie added, “I first learned about your culture from you SEALs. You guys did a terrible thing, igniting the fires of freedom in my soul but giving me a very warped sense of what it’s like to live here. Thought I’d get a little more perspective. Get the whole picture.”

  No one seemed to have an answer to Jackie’s heartfelt comments. Tucker knew the rest of the team felt just like he did. The cost of freedom was very dear. But looking into the face of this brave Iraqi man and his beautiful family, Tucker knew the price was worth every drop of shed blood. They’d all do it over and over again, until they couldn’t. But they’d never forget what they’d tried to do and how they served.

  Chapter 4

  The call came in at midnight. Late night interruptions were always jarring, but Brandy was adjusting to the unexpected, and this call wasn’t exactly a surprise. She’d been in a deep sleep when she heard Tucker’s whispers as he cupped the cell to his ear and tried to get out of bed without disturbing her.

  Tucker confirmed what she already knew. They were going to deploy in two days. At least she had two days with him. It wasn’t enough, but she’d make it stretch just like the rest of the month felt when Tucker’s check had been nearly spent.

  “So it’s back to Nigeria, then?” she dared to ask as Tucker slipped in to spoon behind her.

  “Mrs. Hudson, that’s on a need to know basis,” he said as he kissed her shoulder and then settled back into the pillows. “But the answer to that question is yes and no.”

  She pondered this briefly then fell asleep with Tucker’s oversized hand palming her belly.

  Next morning, Tucker took them down to the harbor to have breakfast and walk along the pier, examining the boats, both large and small. Crews who took tourists out on the water were at work early washing and polishing their crafts. A variety of music blended in the early morning moist air—classical, reggae, and some oldies rock.

  “Maybe we should take your dad’s money and just buy a boat and sail away, never come back, Brandy,” Tucker said as he pulled her jacket collar up around her ears.

  “I’m not going to have a baby on a deserted island somewhere or on a boat in the middle of the Pacific without good medical equipment and staff.”

  “Hey? What am I?”

  She smiled, never passing up the opportunity to tease him about his work. “You’re good at removing limbs and stopping the blood spurting everywhere, but have you ever delivered a baby?” She looked up at his expression of surprise.

  “Why yes, I have.”

  “You never told me that.”

  He shrugged. “Part of the medical course at Bragg. And first tour I delivered twins in Afghanistan to one of the village girls. We had to improvise.”

  “I’ll bet. Honestly, I never knew this. Did it make you nervous?”

  “Hell no,” he said as they entered the diner and were shown to their table. “In Oregon, we had animals. I’m actually better at hatching chicks.”

  Brandy frowned as they sat. “Don’t chicks hatch on their own?”

  “Yes, and so do puppies, goats, horses, and little pink Brandy and Tucker babies.”

  “Good to know. Geez, I hope ours isn’t born with a shell.”

  “Very funny.” He grabbed her hands and held them from across the table. “But I agree with you. We want the best. And being alone on a remote island might sound more romantic than it would be. It’s one thing to put myself at risk, but now that someone else is coming to live with us, well, that’s a different story.”

  Tucker dropped his eyes, deep in thought. He watched their fingers entwined on the wooden tabletop, his large thumb rubbing against hers. She waited, now recognizing the signs of something he wanted to say he was having trouble putting into words.

  “When I was on the Teams last time, our deployments were regular. We worked up for it, trained, re-trained, and studied what the job was. Then we went over, and usually, the length of deployment was about equal to the workup. Afterwards, we’d have that amount of time to be at home, or go to a specialty course, or heal, depending on how we came home.”

  His blue eyes stared deep into hers, and for a second, a shudder came over her. It was part excitement and part fear. Her pulse quickened. She loved Tucker’s intensity, even when it was bad news.

  “Now, things have changed. Things are active all over the world. It isn’t in one or two theaters. It’s all over the world. We used to train Special Forces from other countries, kind of the “Show and Tell” brigade. We were supposed to demonstrate why we’re so awesome, and, to be honest, part of it was propaganda so other bad guys wouldn’t fuck with us.”

  “Okay,” she said, drawing it out, answering his focus with a smile. “Where is this going, Tucker?”

  “So now we don’t always get much notice. That means sometimes the training is limited. We go over more often, I’m being told, and this is what I wanted to speak to you about.”

  “About what?”

  “Well, we’ll be going over to those hot spots more frequently. Maybe not staying as long, but more missions. Perhaps more time away from home than I originally thought. I wanted to prepare you for the possibility that you could go into labor when I cannot come home and be with you. They try to work it out, but it might not be possible, honey.”

  Now she understood what he was trying to tell her.

  “I think I understand. What you’re telling me is that the SEAL Teams don’t give you paternity leave.”

  He chuckled. “That would be the day. If I was an officer, perhaps. But not for a regular Joe like me.”

  She leaned across the table and nearly collided with their food and coffee. After the waitress left, she answered him. “Tucker, there isn’t anything regular about you. Everything about you is supersized, including your heart. I’m going along with whatever it is that you want to do. It’s all good.”

  “So you won’t miss me?”

  “I didn’t say that,” she said as she threw a napkin at him which hit him in the face.

  “You’ll pay for that,” he growled.

  “I was counting on it.” She felt her cheeks turn bright red.

  Christy Lansdowne called on their way home, telling Brandy that she found a house she wanted them to look at, if they had the time.

  “How can we buy a house when you’re overseas?” mumbled Brandy, her arms crossed.

  “DocuSign.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “DocuSign. I did it for one of my deployments. I even got a car loan once that way.”

  “You mean electronic signature. Is that safe?”

  “Depends on where we are.”

  “You said yes-or-no
-Africa. I meant to ask you what the heck you meant, Tucker.”

  His GPS directed them to a little green two-story house that was taller than it was wide, tucked behind dense gardens and several brand new or majorly remodeled mansions. The house address was on Flora Avenue. He knew he’d get a load from the Team about that. But then, Cooper lived on Apricot, so what the heck.

  Tucker shut off the truck’s motor and glanced down the street both directions then eyed the home carefully. “Kind of cute. I like that it’s off the road. And only what three blocks to the beach?”

  “Oh, no, you don’t. Tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “You know. The mission.”

  “We’re going to the Canaries off the west coast of Africa. Island cluster that’s part of Spain. Definitely feels more Spanish than African. And it’s a lot safer too.”

  “Wow. Sounds exotic.” Brandy noticed Christy’s car pull up in front of them. She was wearing a light blue suit, which looked stunning with her blonde hair and athletic build. Christy motioned for them to follow her.

  Tucker continued. “It’s nice. Great vacation spot for Brits and others from Europe. I’ve been there once before, briefly. Come on. Let’s go see the house.”

  Tucker helped her from the truck.

  Before they reached Christy, he added, “Mum’s the word, Brandy. We don’t talk about this in front of Christy. I’m not supposed to tell.”

  “Roger that, Mr. Hudson.”

  “Oh, you have a smart mouth today, Mrs. Hudson. I know just what you can do with that mouth a little later.”