It was the same one LT had used the time their extraction site had been compromised after they’d carried out a surprise dawn attack on the AQAP headquarters in Yemen’s Bayda Province. They’d been stuck behind enemy lines for sixteen hours with gun-toting tangos hot on their trail before a gutsy SH-60 Seahawk helicopter pilot had flown through hostile airspace to pull them out. It was the same tone LT had used numerous times when they’d found themselves all the way in harm’s way, in the place where the metal meets the meat. And hearing that tone now made Doc’s stomach sink.
Of their own accord, his eyes tracked over to Cami. She, too, had picked up on the ominous ring in LT’s voice, and the expression on her face pretty much mirrored everything Doc was feeling. He was hit by the oddest urge to throw a comforting arm around her shoulders and assure her that no matter what, everything would be okay.
Then again, maybe the urge wasn’t all that odd. The truth was, as much as she riled him, he liked her.
Liked her swift mind and her sharp tongue. Liked the ornery sparkle in her eyes that always made him smile. Liked the way her laugh sounded like pure delight. Liked the graceful determination in her step that spoke of a woman who knew who she was, where she was going, and how she was going to get there all on her own, thank you very much.
In fact, were it not for her chosen profession, he could’ve imagined them becoming friends. The kind of friends to feed each other heaping helpings of shit on the reg, of course. But friends all the same.
And in the eternal words of OMC, he thought, how bizarre.
With the exception of the wives and girlfriends of his teammates and partners—who didn’t really count because they were the wives and girlfriends of his teammate and partners, and therefore off-limits—he’d only ever been friends with one other woman.
The woman.
His woman.
And Jesus hopscotching Christ, what did it mean that he found himself thinking that, if things were different, Cami could hold a similar title?
Thankfully, he didn’t have time to answer that question before the computer room began to fill with people.
LT’s wife, Olivia, was still wearing the apron LT had gotten her for her birthday. Considering she was a former CIA agent, as comfortable carrying a loaded weapon as she was wearing a wire to a meeting with international weapons dealers, to say it was incongruous to see her looking like Betty Crocker was an understatement. But ever since Oliva had bugged out of the Agency, married LT, and joined them on their hunt for the Santa Cristina, she’d embraced domesticity.
Bran’s wife, the miniscule Maddy, looped an arm around Bran’s waist and smiled up at him radiantly when he bent to drop a loud, smacking kiss on her temple.
Chrissy and Wolf found a spot beside Uncle John at the emerald table. Chrissy’s diving skills were as good as any Navy SEAL’s. So she’d been helping the others haul up the treasure. Her ponytail was still wet from being down at the dive site, and Doc watched as Wolf absently twisted the damp, blond rope around his fingers.
Mia Ennis, the brilliant marine archeologist they’d brought on to oversee the excavation of the ship and the treasure, went to sit on Romeo’s lap. The couple was still in the honeymoon phase of their relationship, and Doc had to refrain from groaning when they made googly eyes at each other.
Alexandra Merriweather, the historian they’d hired to study the old documents relating to the Spanish fleet, broke a strawberry Pop-Tart in two and handed half to Mason. The only person Doc had ever met who snacked more than Mason was Alex. And considering the woman was only five feet tall and barely weighed a buck ten soaking wet, he couldn’t help but wonder where she put all those calories.
Peas in a pod, he thought as he watched Alex shove her tortoiseshell glasses higher on the bridge of her nose so she could grin up at her fiancé. Or maybe it was more apt to say Mason and Alex were two sides of the same coin. Because as chatty as Alex was, that’s how closed-mouthed Mason was.
Glancing around the room then, Doc came to a startling realization.
I’m the last man standing. The only member of my former SEAL Team who isn’t head over heels in L.O.V.E.
Of course, that was because he’d been there, done that.
And lost it all.
As happened anytime his past reared its ugly head, he felt the terrible void that lived in the center of chest yawn wide. Felt himself falling into it, traveling back in time to a dirt road. To a pair of wide blue eyes. To the girl he’d loved since the eighth grade.
Lifting his right arm, he ran a reverent finger over the delicate flower tattooed on the inside of his wrist. He’d gotten the ink when he was eighteen years old, the day after he proposed. The day after she said yes.
But just like his memories of her, the tattoo was beginning to fade. The flower growing fuzzy around the edges. No longer bright and pure.
And that hurts worst of all.
It made him feel untrue. Unfaithful.
“Sorry! I got stuck in the bathroom. That door lock is like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces that don’t quite fit.” The last and newest member of their merry band of misfits burst into the computer room, the sides of her windbreaker flapping like a drunken bird.
Her name was Dana Levine and she worked for the FMC—the Federal Maritime Commission. Cami had insisted on bringing Dana on to bear witness to the salvage since, according to Cami, “We need a Fed who will swear under oath that you guys didn’t touch so much as a single coin of that treasure while the top of the reef was exposed.”
Glad for the distraction from the melancholy turn of his thoughts, Doc watched Dana hastily slip past LT and plop into a chair next to the table that held the conglomerates. She’d been on the deck all day and her wild, windblown hair and slightly sunburned nose attested to the diligence with which she’d taken on the role of witness.
Doc would guess her to be somewhere in her mid-fifties. Her bouncy blond curls were interspersed with threads of gray, and there were laugh lines at the corners of her cornflower-blue eyes.
He’d taken an instant liking to Dana. Not only because she was the ticket to him and his partners keeping the treasure, but also because her sweet, ready smile and the gentle way she had of talking reminded him of Lily. Just a little.
Lily…
His wife’s name echoed inside the confines of his skull and caused the chasm inside him to fill with a familiar ache.
“Okay. Now that everyone’s here, it’s time to talk turkey.” LT’s voice rang with military authority even though they’d waved their goodbyes to the Navy more than two years earlier. “We thought we were gonna be able to finish this evenin’, but that didn’t happen.”
Doc had pulled the early morning shift at the dive site, so he knew just how much work was involved in bringing up the treasure. Knew all about spending hours waving a handheld metal detector over the seabed, waiting for the blinking light to indicate whether he’d found ferrous or non-ferrous metals. Knew how tedious the sectioning off and gridding of the area could be, because even though the treasure had been removed from the Santa Cristina, it still had to be excavated in an archeological manner. Knew how slow and painstaking the process was of carefully attaching the treasure to lift bags—the vinyl-coated nylon satchels—that did the hard work of floating the riches to the surface.