by Naomi Niles
“You and the girls are heading out tonight, huh?” Sam asked Renni.
“Yup,” she nodded.
“Well, there’s one more person that’s going to be joining you girls tonight,” he said.
Vanessa stood from the bed and adjusted her dress. “Who is that?” she asked.
“Jessica.”
“Jessica?” I asked startled. “She and Alan are on their honeymoon. I thought they were coming down next week.”
Sam smiled. “That’s just what they told us. I think they wanted to surprise everyone.”
“Yea,” Renni crowed. “Did they bring presents from Paris?”
“I’m pretty sure they did,” Sam nodded and Renni beamed with anticipation. “Aunt Jessica said she had something special for you.”
I shook my head at her. “It seems everyone’s spoiling you.”
“I agree,” Vanessa said, putting her hands on her hips. “And to be frank, I resent the competition. I used to be your number one favorite aunt.”
“You still are,” Renni insisted.
Vanessa threw her a shrewd look. “And where are your other aunts on the list?”
She smiled. “They’re number one, too.”
“You’re a cheeky little girl,” Vanessa said as she grabbed Renni from Sam’s arms, threw her down on the bed, and started tickling her. As Renni screamed with laughter, Sam turned to me and pulled me into his arms.
“Are you ready for our romantic night?”
“All set,” I nodded. “I should go and say hi to Jessica and Alan first, though… I know it’s only been a month since the wedding, but I feel as though I haven’t spoken to them in ages.”
“You’ll see them tomorrow,” he said dismissively. “Tonight is our night.”
I smiled and nodded, allowing him to lead me to the door. We blew Renni kisses and then we were off to start our romantic night together. The atmosphere in Vegas was electric, or maybe it was just my mood. Either way, it was great to be out and about in a new dress with a handsome man on my arm. I noticed the appreciative looks Sam and I got, and it made me feel young and beautiful.
The restaurant we were heading towards resided in one of Vegas’ oldest and most beautiful hotels. And it was just a stone’s throw away from our own hotel. We walked hand in hand, enjoying the cool night air before we stepped into the beautiful lobby of the Charlton. It was a smaller hotel, but its interior was spectacular, and I had no doubts it’s restaurant would be, too.
“The restaurant we want is on the third floor,” Sam told me.
I followed him without question as he led me through the third floor. “Hold on,” I said, as I pulled Sam to a stop in front of a huge area of floor to ceiling glass windows. “Let’s take a moment to appreciate that view.”
The city was lit up like a gem. It was so bright and bursting with color that I had to avert my eyes after a moment. I found my gaze shifting to Sam’s perfect profile. He noticed me watching him after a moment and he smiled.
“Like what you see?” he teased.
“Always,” I nodded.
He turned to me and kissed me slowly, passionately. I felt my right leg flick up in an old world gesture of romance. “I didn’t expect to like Vegas this much,” I admitted, when we broke apart at last.
Sam smiled. “It’s not Vegas,” he said.
“It’s not?” I asked, with a raised eyebrow.
“Of course not,” he replied. “It’s us… It’s being with each other that makes the magic. I feel this way every single day I’m with you and Renni. We take the magic with us wherever we go.”
“Wow,” I smiled. “You could have been a poet.”
“I can take up poetry when I retire from fire fighting,” he laughed.
“I look forward to that day,” I said, joining in his laughter.
“Hey,” he said, his eyes falling on a point passed me.
“What?”
“A ballroom,” he said, taking me hand and pulled me along behind him.
“A ballroom?” I repeated. “What about it?”
Sam pushed open the huge brass doors and peeked in. “Wow… It’s amazing in there. Let’s sneak in.”
Before I could protest, he had pulled me through the doors and into the breathtaking ballroom. It was lit up as though in anticipation of some special event. Dainty arrangements of flowers lined the circular tilt of the room and the chandelier above us glittered with the strength of a million diamonds.
“Wow,” I said, staring up at the ceiling.
The ceiling was filled with paintings of angels, cherubs, and a number of other fantastical creatures. I was so caught up in the stories on the ceiling that I didn’t even notice the music start to play until Sam had pulled me into his arms for a dance.
“We’re dancing,” I said, looking at him in surprise.
“We’re dancing,” he nodded, twirling me underneath his arm. “This is practically a scene from Beauty and the Beast.”
I laughed at that. “Renni would love to see this,” I said. “She would have really appreciated the similarities.”
“Hmm…maybe we should go and get her then,” Sam suggested.
“I thought this night was just about us?”
“Since when has ‘us’ not included Renni? She is a part of us.”
I smiled. “I love how much you love her,” I said as we danced around the empty ballroom.
“I love her like she’s my own,” he said sincerely, and I saw the truth of that in her eyes.
“I know you do,” I said. “You can’t know how much that means to me.”
“I think I have an idea,” Sam replied.
Then he stopped abruptly and dropped his hands from my waist. I frowned, wondering what had happened. Then I saw him nod at someone behind me and I whirled around to see who he was looking at.
I stopped short when I saw Renni standing there, only a few feet from us. “Renni?”
The smile on her face was huge. She took a step forward and drew out a little box from the pocket of her dress. “Hi, Mommy,” she said. “I have something for you.”
I stared at the box in her hand. “Renni…what is that?”
Her answer was to open the box and reveal the small but beautiful diamond sitting in the center of a midnight blue cushion. I sucked in my breath and turned towards Sam. I stopped short when I realized he was on one knee, staring up at me with stars in his eyes.
“Sam…”
“Mia,” he whispered. “I’ve thought about a million ways to do this over the past few months. I knew I had to do it someplace special, with Renni at my side.”
Renni came to stand by Sam’s shoulder. He gave her a small wink, took the ring from her hands and then turned back to me. “Mia, you are the first woman I’ve ever loved ,and I want you to be the last. I want you to be my wife, and I want your daughter to be my daughter. Will you marry me?”
I could only stare at him for a moment, completely taken back, completely touched and completely overwhelmed by the unexpected moment.
“Say yes, Mommy,” Renni prompted, her little earnest voice cutting through my emotional thoughts.
And really, that was all the encouragement I needed. A tear slipped from my eye as I laughed. “Yes,” I said. “Of course, I’ll marry you.”
Renni gave a scream of delight as Sam rose to his feet and lifted me off mine. I felt Renni barrel into us, and I reached down to touch the silky softness of her hair. Just at that moment, the door to the ballroom opened and Sam’s family trooped in, screaming and cheering and yelling their congratulations.
“You planned this,” I breathed, looking into Sam’s hazel eyes.
“I did,” he nodded, smiling hugely.
He took my hand and we turned together to our bright new future.
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SEAL’D BY HIM
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sp; By Naomi Niles
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 Naomi Niles
Chapter One
Dwayne
I knew that we were flying through the air, but I couldn’t fully convince myself that I was in a plane. The light hit the seat in front of me and took on an elusive quality as if it were a mirage reflecting off of the Afghani sands below us.
Thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack.
The sound seemed to rise up out of nowhere, almost like I had been dreaming and now I was waking up.
Thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack.
I was dreaming. I couldn’t imagine how it happened. The sound of the helicopter rotors drowned out everything, even my thoughts. I had to focus. There was a group of children holed up in a school less than a hundred miles from where we were flying now. It was my job to go in and take out the Taliban operatives holding them prisoner before they killed the kids.
I tensed up and waited, watching as the Afghani desert passed below us. “Go! Go! Go!”
I jumped out of the helicopter, my body suspended in that split second before gravity caught me and pulled me back down to the ground. I was staring at a patchy, yellow canvas with jagged gray lines etched in the sand. They called it Allah’s cat box, the place that he forgot.
I could believe that. Nothing had changed there since Biblical times. The people still dressed in long pieces of cloth draped around their body. Their houses were crumbling mud brick, and they survived off of nothing but opium, wilted pot, and bread so tough it scraped against your throat going down. Life was cheap and fragile, not something to be cherished because it wasn’t worth living.
It was no wonder the Taliban didn’t have a problem using children as human shields. Everyone was disposable.
The next thing I knew, I was leaning against the back wall of a crumbling school, a concrete building with barred windows and a caved-in roof that’d long since been abandoned. I could hear the sounds of children, running around in the room on the other side, laughing and playing.
No, I couldn’t think of the children. I was in the plane. I told myself that over and over. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. I tried to see the rows of seats in front of me as part of the material universe. They existed. I could touch them, and I could smell the air around me – but I could also feel the dust blowing into my eyes as I loaded my weapon.
I couldn’t do this. I reached out to touch the headrest in front of me. Instead, I realized I was reaching out to the Afghani children staring at me, all lined up in a row, their eyes wide, like they thought I was going to shoot them.
I shouldn’t have burst in. That was stupid. The children were meant to be a deterrent. The Taliban knew we couldn’t bomb the base and risk losing our rapport with their villages. We had to go in after the kids and hope that we didn’t get killed in doing so.
The room was dark, save for the light coming in from a hole in the concrete roof. Behind the children, a tall shape was leaning against the back wall, like a pillar, black, save for the sheer fabric around her eyes allowing the woman to see through her costume.
“Are you really going to kill these children?” I asked her in broken Pashto.
My response was a hairy hand reaching out from under the burka holding an armed grenade. I looked at it, weighed my options, and decided to run, all in the time span of less than two seconds. I barely managed to get behind a crumbling, mud brick wall before I heard the crack, like the earth itself had been split in two.
“No!” My throat still hurt from the force of that scream.
“Howell!” I was back on the plane, and my commanding officer Jacobs was sitting next to me. “Get it together, soldier. You can’t let that happen.”
“What are you talking about?” I never told anyone that I was shell-shocked.
“You just yelled.” Everyone was looking at me. My head fell into my hands. “You’re going to need to learn how to stay in the moment if you want to make it on the outs.”
I nodded my head.
“How are you feeling about the discharge?”
“Jesus,” I leaned back against the headrest. “I’ve been a SEAL since I was eighteen.”
“You’re institutionalized. Reintegrating back into civilian life is a process. It won’t just happen overnight. Now, I need to know that you’re not going to have another flashback and start attacking people or something.”
“What? You’ve known me for years. Have I ever done anything that stupid?”
“No, but I’m not taking any chances. Drink this,” she handed me a shooter of whiskey, “and calm yourself down.”
“Alright.” I downed the shot, ignoring the sickening feeling of the alcohol sliding down my throat.
“What are you planning on doing about work?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I thought so.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a card. “My brother runs a security company in Chattanooga. When I heard that he needed help, your name was the only one that came to mind.” She handed me the card. In the middle, etched in dark green letters were the words, “Granger Security.” I stashed the card in my pocket.
“Sounds like a lot of standing around and doing nothing.”
“It’s something to consider.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s a good job. They pay well, and you’ll be treated with the respect you deserve. If you want, I can call him when we land and set you up right away.”
“I don’t see how I can turn down something like that.”
“Smart boy.” She patted me on the shoulder and walked back to her seat.
I closed my eyes and rested my head back, determined to get some rest. If I could get rid of this panic, slow my breath, and calm my heart, then maybe I could stay in the moment. It’d worked before. I just had to perfect the technique.
I focused straight ahead and tried to get lost in the rhythm of the in and out. I could feel the world sliding away and my muscles relaxing. I smiled. It was working.
I’d learned the trick from one of the other recruits. They were one of those semi-profound eastern philosophy types. They called it mindfulness meditation. It was a way for people to turn their mind away from anything that was distracting them from being fully present in the moment.
I’d focus on my breath for a few seconds, then catch my thoughts drifting. Every time I did that, I thought, Breathe, like a mantra to bring my focus back to my breath and the world around me. I stuck with it until I started to forget where I was and drifted off to sleep.
“Hey.” The sound of Jason’s voice jolted me awake. I opened my eyes. He was standing in the aisle. “Scoot over.”
I did. “I was almost asleep.”
“Sorry, Jesus. Can’t expect me to sit here and twiddle my thumbs the entire flight.”
“You are the worst partner imaginable.”
He laughed. “What’d sour pussy have to say?”
“Her brother owns this security company in Chattanooga. She wants me to go work for him.” I sighed.
“She wants your jock.” He elbowed me, and I scooted to the edge of my seat away from him.
“I’m sure that’s the last thing on her mind.”
“Please, a sour old bat like that — she’s probably got a vibrator stash the size of an armory.” He laughed at his own joke.
I was getting tired of seeing his bald red head. “I don’t know.”
“I can’t wait to leave, man.” He made a sound like his body was deflating. “The second we do, I’m going to find the nearest titty bar and drink until I forget where I am.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“I’ll bet you can’t wait to find something to sink your dick into.”
“Guess so.” I leaned back and closed my eyes.
“Isn’t it crazy? We’re leaving at the same time.”
“Yeah… I’m getting tired, man. I think I’m going to pass out.”
“Ah,” he groaned, “you’re no fun.” He finally got up and walked back to his seat.
Jason had attached himself to me the moment he met me. At first I thought he was just lonely or upset about everything that we’d seen in Afghanistan, so I gave him some slack, but over time my patience started to wear thin. He would keep me up late at night asking about my life. At first, I didn’t tell him much, just quick one or two word responses, but he would keep pushing until I had to answer just to get him to shut up long enough to let me sleep.
That was a mistake. The second I’d opened my mouth, he latched onto me like we were best friends. He followed me around everywhere, constantly yammering about one thing or another. He was vulgar and moody with the sense of humor of a grade schooler, laughing about farts and talking about boobs. I couldn’t respect a man like that.
I was relieved when the Navy announced my discharge. I was certain that I’d finally get a chance to get away from him. That lasted for about three hours. Then he ran into the dorms to tell me that he was getting out the same day. Now, I was stuck listening to him talk about everything he wanted to do and how I should visit and drink with him and all the things that we could do together.
I almost told him to leave me alone when I first met him, but it occurred to me that he would probably be hurt by it. He was sensitive. He internalized everything, and I needed to be able to rely on him when I was in danger. Now that we were leaving and it didn’t matter, I decided to keep quiet to avoid having to hurt his feelings.
I went back to focusing on my breathing again, letting my thoughts pass me by with sense of detachment. I grew more and more distant as the time passed and eventually drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Two
Gillian
It began with a short burst of sound, quick but light, steadily increasing in tempo and magnitude, until it became a fully composed symphony, Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Little Swans.” I reached over and turned off my alarm, smiling. I imagined a troop of little girls spinning across the stage, their arms held high above their heads. It was a beautiful image, one I couldn’t shake. I’d work my whole life trying to perfect it.
