SEAL Endeavor Page 3

  The penguins were playful, dipping in and out of the water and sliding on their bellies over imitation icebergs. Their antics picked up speed as an attendant arrived with a bucket of fish. They attempted to outdo one another for the chance at a tasty sardine. Fredo was busting a gut, guffawing and slapping his knee.

  “Remember, you’re in mixed company,” Cooper leaned over and counseled him. Fredo had a habit of launching into some choice language when he got excited, which was often.

  Fredo didn’t acknowledge Cooper’s comment and continued laughing.

  “I’m heading back downstairs to look at the shark tank.”

  “I’ll find you,” Fredo answered.

  Coop walked down the wide metal stairs, scanning the lobby, the hallways leading off in three directions. Lighting on the ground floor was low and it took him a bit for his eyes to get used to the darkness.

  The shark tank was not quite as big as the Kelp Tank. The massive predators and some smaller fish that were compatible swam in figure eights. Coop watched their powerful movements. The best swimmer on the Team, Cooper had been told if he had started at a younger age, he could have had Olympic prospects. A natural athlete, he hadn’t learned to swim until he decided to go for the Teams. He knew what it felt like to slice through water like that. Just like Cooper, these giant killing machines looked docile, but were ever vigilant.

  A reddish brown glint caught his eye to the right.

  It’s her.

  She was walking with another dark-haired girl. The two of them were chattering, appearing not to notice the number of men whose attention they were getting. Cooper started to get a little jealous.

  Turn around, little one. He spoke to the auburn lady with the long legs and the sweet little ass so tastefully revealed in tight-fitting jeans.

  They turned to the right. The baseball cap shadowed the girl’s face, but he could see those bright red lips, the pouty ones he had seen yesterday. He remembered lips like a savant. Hunger to taste her made his mouth water. Coop could feel how hot and soft they’d be as she brushed against his mouth. The touch of her flesh against his would—

  “Bro, there you are.” Fredo slapped him on the back.

  The brunette swung around with a start and looked from side to side to find Fredo’s voice. Her head remained down and then she returned her attention forward. Her full face was obscured, but what he saw of her profile was pale and smooth like a porcelain statue. Her shiny ponytail kissed the tops of her broad shoulders. Her arms were well-defined, muscular but not overly developed. He wanted them wrapped around his neck, as she pressed her breasts into him. He’d hold her trembling body like the delicate creature she was.

  Fredo was whistling as he stood next to Coop watching the girl. “Nice, bro. You about done?”

  “Not quite. Something over here I want to follow.”

  “I got your drift,” Fredo said as he followed the two lovelies in front of them. He began to speed up and Cooper touched his arm to make him slow down.

  The girls sacheted into an auditorium show arena just as the doors closed behind them. Coop tried to pour on the charm, begging the attendant to squeeze in two more lonely sailors, but she wasn’t having anything to do with it. Her dry face demonstrated how immune she was to anything Cooper could skillfully dish out. The two men were told the show would let out in forty-five minutes.

  “Coop. Can’t we get on the road now?”

  Cooper examined the closed metal doors of the auditorium and knew he wasn’t ever going to see the lovely lady again.

  Timing. Everything’s timing.

  His cell phone went off. The caller I.D. showed it was his mother, calling from Nebraska.

  “Hi, mom.” The connection was poor. Confusing metallic gibberish shouted in his ear. “Hold on, I’m going to go outside.” He headed for the exit, Fredo in tow.

  “That’s better, Mom. What’s up?”

  “Just calling to say hi, and to see if you are going to be able to come home for Thanksgiving.”

  “I’d love to, but we’re going to start working up for our next deployment. I’ll get out there before we leave, but they’re sending us someplace far away to train this time. Not sure we’ll be around.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad.” She paused and then added, “Bay has been howling at the sunsets lately. I think that dog misses you something fierce.”

  A little pang of regret uncoiled in his stomach. His childhood best friend, the mutt who greeted him every day he came home from school as a teen, and who watched the boy become a man, was who he missed seeing the most.

  “Tell him I’ll be home before we take off. May not be for Thanksgiving, though.”

  “You tell him yourself,” his mother said.

  “Hey there, Bay. You being a good boy?” Cooper knew she’d put the phone down into the dog’s ear. He heard a whine and a bark, as Bay understood whose voice he was hearing on the other end.

  “He sits out on the kitchen stoop, watching the bus stop like you’ll be coming home one of these days. Kinda breaks my heart,” she said. Her words trailed off and Coop knew from the waiver in her voice she had teared up.

  “It’s okay, Mom. I miss you guys too. Maybe after the next deployment, if I get a house or apartment, maybe I can take Bay out to San Diego.” He knew Bay’s advanced age was a factor.

  “He’s no problem, Coop. But his whole day is focused on your return.”

  Coop could hear the subtle inference that Bay wasn’t the only one concerned about Coop’s return. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll be around for a long time. You’ll see. Bay will be living the life of Reilly out here very soon. He’ll love the beach, and the water. Just be patient.”

  She brought him briefly up to date on what his sister and brother-in-law were up to, and their little daughter, Camilla, who’d just had her three-year-old birthday party. She agreed to send him pictures by email.

  Fredo was making crazy cross-eyes and Coop frowned, pushing him away. “Mom, I’ve gotta go. I’m looking forward to those pictures, though. Don’t forget to send them, okay?”

  “I will, son.” She hesitated and he heard a sigh. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. Coop, met anyone special?”

  “Only in my dreams, Mom. Just in my dreams.”

  He had never lied to his mother.

  Chapter 4

  Libby exited the auditorium before the program had ended, and squinted at the bright natural light in the three story glass and chrome lobby entrance. Libby quickly put on her sunglasses. Megan dug through her purse and found hers as well.

  “I’m pretty much done. How about you, Meg?” Libby asked.

  “There are maybe better shows this afternoon.” Megan was scanning a printed guide.

  “What, the mating life of jellyfish? I think I’d rather watch couples in the library,”

  “You know, I think I’d like just to have a light lunch, and go tool around some of the shops downtown. What do you say? Maybe find a beach for an hour or so?”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Megan agreed.

  Once outside, they walked up several steps to the parking lot. A line of cars, waiting for a stoplight, stretched in front of them. The girls walked around the rear of an old green pickup truck. The light changed and the line of vehicles began to pour out onto the main drag.

  A muscled arm, attached to an enormous hand, was tapping on the passenger side door of the old truck, country music blaring from the open passenger window. Black marks on the underside below his elbow, looked like muddy bicycle tire prints. They ran down between his elbow and wrist. Squinting in the sunlight, Libby realized the marks were an odd-shaped tattoo, like animal tracks.

  The truck turned uphill and to the right. From the side view, Libby noted the gentleman’s massive and very well developed chest. His torso turned, but his face above his nose was hidden in shadow. His full lips barely moved. She watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down beneath his clean shaven and square jaw. He was singing.

  Me
gan had seen him too. “I’m in lust,” she said as the truck disappeared from view.

  No kidding.

  Libby and Megan ate lunch and then pulled up to the Sea Cove beach parking lot, which was luckily nestled under the shade of striated and twisted cypress trees nearly two stories tall. Deformed branches, bare patches and outcroppings of greenery made the trees look like giant molting birds. The two friends meandered down to the beach through the twisted forest.

  Waves crashing and the smells of salty surf settled her nerves. Something about her dinner last night with Dr. Gerhardt didn’t sit right. She replayed the scene, and the way his actions seemed to signal a shift in their relationship. Or, maybe it was just her imagination?

  She smiled. There was that tall hunk at the restaurant. If she’d been with Meg, perhaps her evening would have been different.

  “You okay, Libby?”

  “Just day dreaming.”

  “Oh, I’d like some of that, whatever you’re having, gladly, “ Meg said.

  Libby blushed. She struggled with her breathing. Her nipples were tingling. Pinpricks of pleasure roamed all over her body. Her internal muscles down low began to clench.

  “Been that long, huh?” Megan asked as she plopped down at the top of the small rise overlooking the crashing waves.

  “Unfortunately, yes.” Libby sat next to her. “Now do you believe me about Dr. Gerhardt?”

  “I think sex with an older guy would be hot,” Megan said as she leaned back, her elbows digging into the warm sand behind them. A smug smile tugged on the corners of her friend’s lips. “Think of the places we could go. Beats cheap dates of pizza and a movie anytime.”

  “Not for me. I want a guy more my age. I don’t want to take a number. I want to be first, not second.”

  “See, I told you. You knew he was dirty.” Megan’s eyes sparkled. She looked out towards the ocean and sighed. “How could you stand to be so close to him all the time and not think about having an affair? He’s a damned good looking man.” She drifted off into a fantasy Libby didn’t care to imagine.

  “Hmm.” Libby was feeling the muscle man’s mouth again on her inner thigh this time. She rubbed her knee, crossed her legs and looked around to distract herself.

  Megan added, “When I was a freshman—you must remember him, don’t you, Dr. Curie?”

  “Who could forget? Those eyes,” Libby said. “Chocolate brown.”

  “Made me wet just to look at him. I tried every day I could to get him to notice me, but you remember how big those intro classes were.”

  “Yeah, about 200 students.”

  “Yup, and mostly girls, too.”

  Libby nodded.

  “I tried to go see him with questions, you know. I’d go late in the day, tempt him to ask me out just once even for a coffee.”

  “Megan, he was your professor. Old enough to be your father.”

  “Yeah, only if he was ten when he had me. He’s not that old.”

  It didn’t matter to Libby. Dating a teacher would be crossing the line.

  They watched couples promenade down the beach, hand in hand. Some stopped to hug or kiss. An older couple were laughing and splashing water at each other in the little waves that lapped up on shore. Two teenage boys held a girl in the surf as she screamed and all three of them got soaked with a brisk white foamy wave. Birds flew overhead in the cloudless sky. Libby could smell burning leaves.

  “Really nice fall day here,” Megan said. We should rent a beach house some weekend.”

  “In your dreams.”

  “I have a cousin who has a house in Santa Cruz. Been in the family for a long time.”

  “There you go,” Libby said. “That would make a fun girls weekend.”

  “That it would. Hire some male dancers…”

  “Hey, that almost sounds like a bachelorette party. You hiding something from me, Megan?”

  “Some day.” She sighed.

  A hollow feeling in Libby’s stomach bubbled up to the surface.

  Damn. It has been a long time. She missed feeling like she belonged somewhere. Am I lonely?

  Libby adjusted the baseball cap, pulling down on the ponytail in the back and faced into a light wind that had suddenly picked up. Then she spied two figures in the water beyond the surf, swimming parallel to the beach. “Look at those guys go.”

  The two swimmers were gliding through the bay effortlessly. Libby had never seen anyone so fast, and she could tell it was a race, but the swimmer in front had a longer stroke. Sleek and fluid, long powerful arms came up and ploughed through the water in a sensual rhythm. She could see just part of the swimmer’s side and muscled shoulder. The smooth glide of his body was like a torpedo flying through the bay. She lost them as they rounded a jutted outcropping of boulders.

  “Wish I could swim like that,” Megan mused.

  “No kidding. Most people come here to play in the surf or sunbathe. That looks like training for an ironman or something.” She decided maybe she should spend more time at the pool back at school. She liked men tall, with muscled chests and small hips carrying impossibly long legs.

  She thought about the muscled arm waving to her from the pickup truck and the giant at the restaurant. What would be the odds it could be the same man?

  “You ready?” Megan asked her.

  “Yup.”

  They made their way slowly to the parking lot. She looked over her shoulder just in case the swimmers came back. No luck.

  You honestly thinking of stopping to talk to him? Although the idea thrilled her, she knew full well her lack of sexual encounters had affected her better judgment. She wasn’t that desperate, after all.

  Megan was prattling on about how much homework she had back at their apartment. And then she added, “This was just what I needed, Libby. A little girl time, and a break from the studies. I wake up and go to sleep with a textbook on my lap. I know it’s the same for you.”

  “The library has become my lover.”

  “Exactly. Who knew we’d spend more time watching dorky librarians than watching football, or hunky guys swim on the beach?”

  They giggled just like they had that first day they’d met as freshmen. Today had been a good day, but now it was time for Libby to get back to completing her Masters. Love was going to have to go on hold for now.

  Cooper and Fredo dove through the waves on their way back to the beach. They lay flat on the damp sand, their chests heaving, catching their breath. Claps of an appreciative gaggle of mostly high school young girls who surrounded them.

  Fredo grinned and rolled over, bumping into Coop as he began to get up. “Have to do more of this, Coop,” he whispered. Then his smile faded as he studied the group more closely. There were several pre-pubescent thirteen or fourteen year old girls and their mothers. The older women eyed Cooper hungrily, but gave Fredo some scorching looks as well. Cooper figured Fredo saw what he saw. The older women were all wearing suits they might have worn in their 20’s, which revealed more of their bodies than they should have.

  Coop got to his feet. “Thank you ladies,” he said, bending over in a bow. Titters flowed from the crowd as Cooper turned his back on them and started to walk up the beach toward the parking lot. He could feel the eyes roaming all over his backside. Fredo engaged in a bit of conversation, but finally ran up and caught Cooper.

  By the pickup, they toweled off. Cooper carefully stood behind the truck door and slipped off his swim trunks, from beneath his damp towel. He stepped into and pulled up his kakis, Commando style, shook the sand off his feet and lower legs, and started to step into the truck cab.

  “I’m not exposing my bony ass for everyone to see,” Fredo said as he scowled, clutched his clothes and headed off to the bathroom.

  Cooper barked back to him, “I’ve seen your ass too many times, and it sure as hell isn’t bony. But I agree with your decision.” Fredo gave him the finger as Cooper waited by the truck, watching cars leave the parking lot, listening to sounds of the waves
crashing on the shore behind him.

  A blaze of auburn hair passed him as a pair of girls in a compact car headed up the drive out.

  There she is again.

  He swore at the sight of the empty key hole, and realized Fredo had taken the truck keys with him.

  With no way to follow her in the truck, he swung open the door and started jumping up and down, waving his arms above his head. He whistled, which turned several heads in the parking lot, but didn’t catch the brown haired girl’s attention.

  The profile of the young lady in the passenger side didn’t change directions as the car continued up the steep incline to the highway.

  Cooper ran up the bank of iceplant, trying to catch the car. He was hampered by the fact that he hadn’t put his shoes on. He stood at the top of the parking lot, brushing gravel from his insoles, and watched as the little car made its way into the distance. No brake lights. No stops. No one turned around.

  His brush with fate had dealt him a losing hand. Something about the woman with the smooth white skin, the fiery hair and red pouty lips scratched a need deep down in his soul. Like he’d had a date with destiny, but he’d had a flat tire.

  Fredo came running and planted himself next to Cooper.

  “What the hell, Coop? Something wrong?”

  “I don’t know. I just thought I saw—“

  Fredo squinted down the road, and then shrugged. “Sorry, man. Was she nice?”

  Cooper thought about that for a bit. Yes, she was nice. Just like the girl in my dreams.

  They both turned, Cooper checking one last time over his shoulder, before heading back to the truck.

  It was all for the best, really. No need to get hooked up with someone long distance. And in his line of work, as the medic on SEAL Team 3, he had a lot to brush up on before their next deployment. Lives were at stake. He chided himself for almost losing his unwavering focus.

  Of course, it didn’t help that he had a huge piece of granite in his pants.