She frowned and reached for his left arm. “How is that wrist? Is it healing properly?”
“Medics said so an hour ago.” He laughed. “Is there anything you don’t know about our work down in Colombia?”
“Only that my dad called the White House twice when they were trying to figure out if they could do another flyover of Colombia to bring you out in a Sea Knight.”
He stared at her in delighted surprise. “Lady, you might as well be in my hip pocket.” He stood and held out his hand. She came up from the couch with the grace of a coiled mountain cat. When the blanket slipped off her, he saw that she was delightfully naked.
“Enough of this foreplay. Now I want you in my bed. Unless you know about our next mission and I have to fly out in less than two hours.”
“No mission. I never know about them before they happen. Can’t help you there. I could brief you on the trouble spots of the world and the ones that the President and the Joint Chiefs and the CIA are the most concerned about.”
“Don’t you dare. There have to be some surprises in life.”
They didn’t get to sleep for almost two hours.
When morning came, Senior Chief Dobler rolled out of the bunk at Third Platoon HQ and shaved carefully. Then he put on his civvies, backed his four-year-old Honda out of the lot in front of the quarterdeck, and headed home.
It was nearly 0730. The kids would be off to school, and he should be able to have a long talk with Nancy. He didn’t know what to expect. He’d sent her an E-mail after they returned to the carrier. She knew how to receive them, but wasn’t sure about sending them.
When he left, she was just out of the hospital with bandages on both wrists. If anything bad had happened, he would have heard on the Jefferson. Master Chief MacKenzie would have tracked him down. He pulled the Honda into his parking space and looked at their ground-floor apartment. No activity. Good.
Dobler hurried to the door, tried the handle, and found it unlocked. Yes. Kids were gone. He pulled the door open and stepped inside.
Nancy came from the hall toward the kitchen. She saw him and gave a little cry of joy as she rushed forward and threw her arms around him. Tears welled in her eyes.
“So glad… so glad to have you home, baby. So damn glad.”
“Good to be here. Kids in school?”
“Just left. You’ve got a good pair of offspring there, sailor.”
“Should be, my beautiful wife did most of the raising of them while I played in the deep blue sea.”
They walked arm in arm into the living room and settled on the sofa. It was a long, demanding kiss, and Nancy fell backward on the couch and pulled him down on top of her.
“I just want to feel you crushing me into the couch. Oh, my, yes.”
Dobler was encouraged. Nancy had put on her at-home makeup. Her hair was neatly done. He figured she’d had it washed and set recently. Her blouse and slacks were ones that she liked.
“Ask me how I’m doing. Go ahead.”
“Baby, how are you doing?”
“Oh, Dobe, better than I expected. The girls and I get together almost every day. We have coffee or go shopping. That Maria is a gem. Such a wonderful lady, and so good with the kids. I love her. We talk late at night sometimes on the phone.”
She went to the kitchen and started coffee. He followed her.
“I said we’d talk about the Navy when I came home. Is now a good time?”
“No. I want to feed you breakfast. Bet you haven’t had any. You look like you had about three hours of sleep last night. Right?”
He nodded.
“Do you know Milly, JG DeWitt’s live-in? She is a marvel. So smart and classy. She works full-time, but she came over three or four times while you were gone. She had some tough things to say to me about being a SEAL’s woman. Really tough. What it came down to was as women, we couldn’t change a SEAL. What we had to do was try to moderate and soften some of his life. To be the one to give and bend and accommodate, so the relationship could last. That Milly is one strong woman, and I’ve learned a lot from her.”
Nancy stood at the stove, tall and straight, her chin up and her eyes glistening. “So, swabby, some coffee, eggs, bacon, and some French toast, then it’s off to bed with you for at least ten hours. After that, I have another idea what we might do in that same bed.”
She grinned and turned to the stove. Senior Chief Dobler gave a short sigh. He was a lucky man. Nancy was going to do fine. They would still have the talk. He had decided right after he was shot that he was going to do what was best for his family. If Nancy wanted him out of SEALs action platoons, he would quit the next day. He could stay on the team, maybe in one of the specialty platoons. Hell, he could do two years without Third Platoon.
If she wanted him out of the Navy, he could do that and give up the retirement. Twenty years wasn’t a big bunch of retirement pay, anyway. He’d see. What was best for his family was what he would do.
Family had to come first. He remembered a star baseball player who had finished his contract with the San Diego Padres. Six other teams bid for him as a free agent. He turned down a $21.5 million contract with one team to sign for $9.5 million with the team where his family lived. He said he wanted to be closer to his family, to watch his kids grow up. Yeah, what a man. Family came first with Dobler, too.
He didn’t realize how hungry he was until Nancy put down the platter in front of him with the eggs, French toast, bacon, and hash browns. Dobler ate it all.
Back in the Third Platoon office, Murdock stared at his roster. Damn, he needed another replacement. He’d been averaging one man lost to the platoon on each mission. Fernandez would be back. He’d hold the spot open for him through another mission if he had to. He liked the man, wanted him on board for a little more stability. Come to think of it, he hadn’t had to bail any of his men out of jail recently. There would come a time. Getting them bone weary on missions like this past one helped drain off the excess energy.
Don Stroh. That was another matter. He had considered asking to be out from under the direct thumb of the CIA. He could ask but not necessarily get away. Stroh had set up the return transport, phoned Murdock on the carrier with the particulars, and that was the last Murdock had seen or heard from him.
He didn’t fly back with them as he sometimes did. It must have been partly due to being embarrassed because he had to pull the plug on the chopper. It wasn’t his decision, but he had to deliver the message. By now Murdock had cooled down enough to realize Stroh’s position. He was a conduit, a lead wire, an input source. He didn’t make the regs or the rules or give the orders, he just transmitted them to the SEALs.
Most of the SEALs showed up at the platoon quarters by noon. They stowed their gear and sat around talking.
Ostercamp had a race to run that night at the El Cajon Speedway. A stock car. He had three wins so far this season.
Ron Holt, Jaybird Sterling, and Paul Jefferson were going to a party that night out in Santee, a slightly rural area east of San Diego.
“Hell, there’s more horses and rednecks in Santee than anywhere in the country,” Holt said. “I used to sleep with a broad out there last year until I got run out of town by some dude with a shotgun who claimed he was her common-law husband.”
“That’s when he killed you,” Bradford jibed.
“Hell no. I took the shotgun away from him, fired both rounds into the air, and then broke the damn gun in half. He came at me, so I broke his arm. Last I ever saw of him.”
They all laughed. “Chances are as soon as you saw the shotgun you shit your pants and ran for your car.”