The Admiral glanced into the heavens for a moment and his lips parted, taking a breath, then he took the few steps to stand before Marg. She sat noble and beautiful, looking straight ahead. The Admiral kneeled before her and they stared into each other’s eyes for the longest moment. Before the Admiral said a word, Marg’s strength broke and tears slipped over her lashes and down her cheeks. She rested a hand over his as if seeking courage and giving it.
“On behalf of the President of the United States and the Chief of Naval Operations, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved one’s service to this Country and a grateful Navy,” the Admiral said. His eyes snapped shut and his jaw went rigid.
“Uncle Thane?” Kelsey slipped off her chair and the Admiral’s brow wrinkled tight.
“Yes, Kelsey,” he uttered, resting his gaze on her concerned six-year-old expression.
“Daddy still loves us, right?”
She placed her little hand on his cheek and a deep breath escaped him. The innocent touch of her hand depleted his reserve and a ragged cry escaped his throat. “Yes, baby girl, he does.”
He swept her into his arms and a harsh sob escaped him. The powerful legend known as Ghost, who led men into battle, broke with a little girl’s words. Lumin’s heart pained for Kelsey who would have to walk through the milestones of her life without her father beside her. Ceremony, pomp, expectations of what a military service meant, didn’t mean a thing to a little girl who needed reassurance from the man she’d known as her uncle. Ghost buried his face in her hair and reached his muscled arm to encompass Marg in a moment of grief and loss so strong no man or woman present that day would ever forget. No one breathed or uttered a word to break the moment, until the moment had had its say.
The Admiral gently put Kelsey back in her chair. The priest gave his final words to bless Patrick Cobbs’ body and affirm his soul to heaven. There was silence, then the priest moved back and Lumin waited. She expected the crowd around her to fall out, but they didn’t. In unison, Alpha Squad reached to their pockets and unhooked something. She watched with rapt attention and her insides froze as Master Chief Mason Briggs stepped up to the coffin and pounded the pin he’d taken from his uniform into the glossy wood of the casket. Mace, Ditz, Ed, Stitch, and Nathan each did the same. With each pin hammered into the wood, Lumin jumped. They all watched as Tony stepped up. He stared down at the line of pins, his brow furrowed. “You are my mentor. My Captain. It will always be that way,” He paused as his eyes filled with tears and he bit down hard to hold them back. His powerful hand came down and sunk the pin to the hilt, then he joined his squad who lined the foot of the casket.
Admiral Austen was the last in line. He palmed the beautiful wood, deep in reflection. “I will take care of them as long I have breath. I vow to you, my best friend, they are my family as are you. Till we meet again, brother.” The last pin dug into the wood and the Admiral took his position at the far left of the line. The squad, in unison, saluted as Admiral Austen gave the command to the honor guard, who stood fifty feet away, to fire. Three rounds broke the silence. A final salute for a warrior who protected his nation, and his team, to the end.
* * * *
Lumin sat under the sun. The brisk wind filled with the scent of the sea lifted her hair. She wiggled her toes in the warm sand. The wake for Captain Cobbs wasn’t what she expected. They gathered on the shore in front of the Hotel Del Coronado, hundreds of people, all from the base. Accompanied by their families, the children played with each other in the surf. The gathering looked more like a beach party. Kayla and Nina’s words sprang to mind. ‘Life goes on’.
Moira and Steven Porter had come and brought the twins. “Lumin, will you help us build a sand castle?” they asked, a plastic shovel in one hand and a bucket in the other.
“Take your pails down to the water. I want to talk with Lumin for a moment,” Moira said, and watched them run toward the wet sand. “Steven spoke to your mom and dad last night.”
“I did too,” Lumin said, tucking her knees to her chest and watching Tony talk with Steven a little ways down the beach. “I told them everything.”
Moira’s concern was evident. “Are you sure, Lumin? You’re only twenty-four. There’s a lot of life you could live before all the responsibilities of marriage.”
Lumin wasn’t bothered by Moira’s comment because it came from the heart. “And I will live it.” She turned a smile on Moira. “With Tony.”
The man she knew more and more as the days passed convinced her he was the man she would live her life with. She watched as Tony’s strong, muscled legs striding toward her sparked lustful thoughts in her mind. The white shirt he wore open billowed out around him. Steven walked beside him and she and Moira looked up when they stopped in front of them. Steven knelt on one knee.
“Tony asked me, since your parents can’t be here, for your hand in marriage.” He grinned. “He’s a good man, Lumin, and I gave him our blessing, but I’m concerned, as your father is, about your future.”
She peeked a look at Tony, and he winked at her. His tanned skin accentuated his hazel eyes and she had begun to learn to read them, but the easiest to see was how much he loved her. Doubt had nowhere to settle in her thoughts. She reached out a hand and Tony pulled her to her feet. “My future isn’t set in stone, but I know it’s with Tony.”
Tony’s cheek brushed against hers, and he whispered. “I love you, my lady.”
“Lumin’s parents will arrange to return in seven months for the wedding,” Moira said, pushing herself to her feet and giving her husband a sign they should give Lumin some space.
Lumin sighed. “I wish you didn’t have to do this last deployment,” she said.
“I offered him a job any time he wants one,” Steven said, as his youngsters tackled him from behind. A huge laugh broke from the man, and he swept one under each arm and stood up.
“Maybe you should consider it, Tony?” Moira suggested.
“Thank you,” Tony said as he wrapped his arms around Lumin, “But I’m not leaving the Navy. I have a position in the training department waiting for me, and I’m going to finish this part of my combat service as promised.” He tilted his head and his gaze fluttered across her face. “I’m coming home, Lumin. I promise that too.”
Moira and Steven took their little ones down to the water to give them some privacy and Tony urged her to sit down in the sand beside him. “You okay?” he asked with concern.
She held her hair out of her face and smiled at him. “I’ve never seen such a big family,” she remarked, looking at all the people scattered about them.
He nodded. “I guess we are a family,” he said, gazing over the hundreds of people on the beach and in the water.
“How is Marg?”
Tony turned and put a finger to her chin, raising it so she’d look at him. “Kayla and the Admiral are with her and she has all of us.” He pulled a strand from her mouth. “You have them too. If anything ever happens to me, they’ll stand beside you.”
She flung her arms around Tony’s neck and squeezed him tight. “I’m scared.”
“I know you are, but I’m coming home, Lumin. Nothing will stop me from coming home to you.”
He kissed her sweetly, and she burned the moment into her mind. Tomorrow he would be gone, and she would remind herself every time fear threatened her that the grace of God would protect him. Tony was strong. Smart and courageous enough, he would look death in the eye and order it to go elsewhere. He told her every day, she was his center. Her light would always show him the way home—and she believed him.
*The End*
A Warrior’s Challenge Book Five
Code Name: Forever and Ever
Excerpt
July 2nd, 1992
“Margaret Celeste, where are you going with that bag of clothes?”
Marg turned to see her mother fuming on the other side of the ballroom-sized entryway of their mansion. “To the Veteran’s Service Center, Mo
ther.”
“Those clothes are worth thousands of dollars,” Claire Stines declared.
“Laurene will certainly never wear my hand-me-downs and someone can put them to good use. Women who leave the service need clothes for job interviews.”
Her mother marched across the entry, grilling her with an angry stare. “Then they can buy their own.”
Heat stroked up Marg’s neck. “If they don’t have a job, they can’t buy clothes, Mother. You and Father support causes all the time. Is there a difference?”
Her mother huffed. “There is! We don’t support war or those who participate in it. You’re nineteen years old and easily influenced. I was dead against your school allowing the military to lecture the students with false propaganda about fighting for this country. We are not at war. This family supports organizations with worthy causes. War is not one of them.” Claire’s gaze fell to the bag and she gripped a dress that had slipped from the opening. “This is your debutante ball gown,” she said with a shrill pitch. “What’s it doing in here?”
“I’m not going, Mother. I told you that.”
Claire’s eye narrowed in anger. “Ungrateful! Do you have any idea how many months it took for me to get you accepted? Only the best are included in L.A.’s premiere ball. Your father expects you there, and so do I. You—will—go.”
Marg thought for the umpteenth time that she must have been adopted. She reached into the bag, snagged the dress and thrust it at her mother. “The rest I’m giving to the center,” she announced, and walked out the front door. Her mother could throw a fit if she wanted, but that wouldn’t stop her.
After tossing the bag onto the passenger seat of her car, she took a deep breath and gazed at the elegant landscaped grounds of her home. She’d known nothing other than her Beverly Hills surroundings. Mansions lined the hills and vied for spectacular gardens and well-heeled parties. She hated the falseness of it all, even though she’d been raised in its claws.
“Marg,” Laurene called, running across the stamped paved driveway to catch her.
“Don’t start,” she said, knowing her mother had sent Laurene to talk to her. She loved her sisters but they did her mother’s bidding with just a shrewd look. Laurene was the closest in age to her, being only a year younger.
“You’re pissing Mom off again,” Laurene said, giving her a pleading look to give in to their mother’s open hatred against anything military.
“She’s going to be even more pissed when she finds out I’m moving.”
“What?” Laurene’s big brown eyes rounded. “Oh, my God.” Her hands covered her cheeks. “You got the modeling contract, didn’t you?”
Marg smiled at her. “I did, and I’m moving to San Diego.”
“San Diego? Why there, of all places? It’s a Navy town. You know what they’ll say.”
“Because it’s two hours farther than Mom or Dad will drive.”
“They are going to freak out.”
“Dad’s withering contempt is because of Grandfather, Laurene. Men die in war. They die to protect us but Dad can’t see past his heart, and it’s riddled with grief even after all these years.”
“You sound like an enlistment poster, Marg. Dad has a point. He lost his father in the Vietnam War. Of course he hates anything military. He was only eight years old.”
Their grandmother had married a wealthy man from L.A. after their grandfather died. She’d had one more son but she never stopped loving Petty Officer Braden Stines. He had enlisted in the Navy and was killed in the last year of the war. Marg, nor her sisters, ever met him but reminders of him sat on her father’s bookshelves in his private office at home.
Marg slid into the white convertible her parents had given her for graduation. She remembered feeling like she’d accepted a deal from the devil when her father handed her the keys. “You’ll look beautiful driving this, darling,” he’d said. “Driving the right car attracts the right men.”
He’d been wrong. Her status, her address and her car attracted nothing but the sons of wealthy families. Most of them were pompous assholes who were looking for trophy wives without a brain. She was born with a good one, and she intended on using it. That, and the long legs and attractive features God had bestowed on her.
“Can I come and visit you in San Diego?” Laurene begged.
Laurene loved her life of pretty things and being surrounded by wealthy friends. She didn’t mind their father bringing home the next “future husband du jour.” Marg was sick of it, and it made her feel like a side of beef for sale to the highest bidder.
“You’re my sister, Laurene. You can come any time you want.”
“When are you going to tell Mom and Dad?”
“Tonight.” Pulling out an envelope from her bag, she turned it in her fingers. “I’m mailing the contract back today.”
Laurene closed the driver’s door and bent over, kissing her cheek. “You’re going to be famous. I know it.”
Marg smiled. “I don’t really care about famous, but I do need a job, and this pays pretty good. I can’t live here under their roof and their rules anymore. Every time Dad brings one of his wanna-bes home from the studio to ogle us like well-groomed chattel, it makes my skin crawl.” Her eyes gazed up toward the mansion, its brilliant front pillars and rounded façade a glorious tribute to her father’s success in Hollywood. “Maybe I’m delusional, Laurene, but I want to marry a man who loves me and respects me. Whether he has money or not doesn’t matter, but I’ll never find him in the hills of Hollywood. There’s a big, undiscovered world out there. I have to leave the protection and façade L.A. offers. I want to prove I can live on my own. San Diego will be a good start.”
* * * *
The music in the nightclub thumped with a deafening beat. People yelled at each other just to make out every second word. Bodies ground together and crushed Marg against the bar. The L.A. scene wasn’t very different than this favored San Diego hangout. The only difference was the guys and gals weren’t wearing thousand-dollar outfits.
Tonight was her first night off from a stringent modeling schedule. The hours were long, but she had this weekend all to herself. She gazed over the crowd. There were a lot of short haircuts on the men and since she was in a heavily populated Navy town, she guessed they were sailors. Her parents would shudder at the thought, which made her smile even more.
“A man can’t resist a smile like that,” a low timbre said next to her ear.
She turned. Being six feet, she was surprised to have to raise her gaze, but it walked up the hulk of muscled chest bulging against a white cotton shirt until it reached tropical blue eyes, making her legs weaken.
“Hi.”
He wasn’t just good-looking, he was a fucking god. Her heart turned a triple somersault staring into his face. A wicked little smile graced his full lips and his angular jaw made her heart leave skid marks in her chest. His short blond hair and rugged features left her unable to stop gaping.
He leaned over and brushed her ear with his lips. “Thane Austen, and I am most definitely going to buy you a drink.”
She breathed out a shallow gasp of air as the sexy rumble coursed through her. Thane only leaned back far enough to look into her eyes. The heat in his was her undoing. Whether this man wanted forever or not, she knew they were going to be in each other’s arms before the night was over, and the drum of her pulse told her it couldn’t happen fast enough. Her eyes locked with his and she smiled.
His jaw careened into a tight angle. “Aww man, you are beautiful,” Thane said. “Where did you come from?”
She leaned toward him and said, “It’s where I’m going, not where I’m from that counts. How about you?”
“Short term, I hope it’s making you a satisfied woman. Long term, wherever the Navy sends me.”
“So you are a sailor.”
He gave her grin. “A SEAL, not a sailor. There’s a difference.”
“There is?” She’d read an article in the newspaper once about
SEALs. They were a special fighting force the Navy used on dangerous assignments.
“My swim buddy and I just passed BUD/S. It’s a night for celebration.”
“Where is he?”
Thane’s eyes remained on her, eating every inch up as he watched her. “Zodiak’s on his way. He had some family stuff to take care of.”
Her lips quirked. “Zodiak? That’s a strange name.”
“It’s his team name. Patrick Cobbs is his real name.”
“And do you have a team name?”
“Not yet. And thank God for that, since it usually comes from something stupid we’ve done during training.” He laughed. “So are you here with anyone? Pat’s single, but since I saw you first, he’s just gonna have to deal with it.”
She swallowed her excitement when his finger brushed small circles on her bare shoulder. “I came with some of the modeling crew from my shoot. They’re off having fun. Do you want to wait for your friend?”
“You’re a model?” He nodded. “Not surprised.” Thane’s sexy timbre lowered even further. “Why don’t we get out of here? Wouldn’t want you tempted away from me.”
She doubted that could ever happen. Thane’s confidence and hotness left her in a puddle of lust. Acting like a cheap tramp crossed her mind but not even the A-list guys from her school had Thane’s magnetism. Marg couldn’t control her impatient hand. It had to touch him and she slid it down his powerful arm, coiling her fingers in his. “Sounds like heaven.”
A perfect white smile broke from his full lips and the dimple in his chin deepened. “I promise you heaven, sweetheart. You can count on it.” With the sweep of his powerful arm, he drew her close and pushed through the undulating bodies in the bar. Instinct told her this man was one of a kind. Life had just become very interesting.
Code Name: Luminous Page 29
