He’d been offered a slot as a SEAL instructor but turned it down. Too many memories. Too many friends dead. Too many sleepless nights because of nightmares. He looked at those young, fatigued warriors who were trying to survive the almost unsurvivable SEAL training and he saw the faces of his dead teammates. He didn’t have the heart to drive the candidates to be what you had to be to win the coveted trident, the SEAL symbol.
Problem was he didn’t have the heart for anything. He looked down at the glass of whiskey. The Jameson was a reminder of other days when he and his team members had splurged after a successful mission. A last salute to a life he was leaving. If there had been ice, it would have made a merry noise from the shaking of his hand.
He looked back at the letter from Clint Morgan, a helicopter pilot who had once rescued his team from one hell of a bad situation. They had gotten very drunk together that night with Jameson, and although they rarely saw each other after that, they’d stayed in touch. When they did manage to meet, it was usually a boisterous celebration with a lot of drinking. Their last meeting was three months before his last mission...
He picked up Clint’s letter again.
Hey, cannot tell you how happy I am to hear you’re still among the living. I’d heard you were missing, presumed dead, then a few weeks ago heard you’d turned up. I toasted you in absentia with our favorite whiskey. I should have known no mere terrorist could keep you down. David Turner told me you were leaving the navy but he wasn’t sure what you planned to do.
Don’t know if you heard, probably not, but I left the army because of a head injury. I was in limbo until I ended up in a small Colorado town called Covenant Falls, and believe it or not, I’m now its police chief. I’m also a married man as of a month ago. I can hear you laughing now.
In case you’re at loose ends as I was, there’s a cabin available here that is handed down from vet to vet who’s leaving the service and trying to figure out what’s next. It’s on a lake and backs up to the mountains. Fishing and hiking are great. The town is full of veterans and there’s a weekly poker game along with a fine watering hole that caters to us. What more could you want? The cabin, by the way, would be all yours. I lived there for several months and can vouch for its comfort.
The town itself is small, rather quirky, but it has good people. The last three vets who used the cabin decided to stay here, including the former Ranger I mentioned, a battlefield military nurse and yours truly. Anyway, come for a few days at least so we can tell lies, toast friends and drink a bottle of Jameson.
Jubal put the letter down. He’d changed a lot since the last time he’d seen Clint. He hadn’t gained back all his weight and he often woke in a cold sweat. After all the isolation, he was uncomfortable in crowds and had difficulty carrying a conversation. He was mentally adrift.
And then there were the nightmares. He relived the ambush over and over again. He wondered why he lived and those who’d been with him didn’t. One of the things he needed to do was visit the families of his teammates who’d died in Nigeria. He hadn’t been mentally able to do that yet. Maybe visiting Clint could be the beginning of that journey.
No one had loved flying more than Clint, and he’d planned, like Jubal, to be a lifer in the service. If he could make a successful transition, maybe Jubal could, as well. He heard Clint’s humor in his letter. There would be no pity. No sympathy. No expectations. No questions.
No reliving hell.
He picked up his cell and punched in the number Clint had provided...
* * *
EIGHTEEN DAYS LATER, Jubal stuffed some clothes in his duffel along with several books. He drove straight through from San Diego to Covenant Falls, Colorado, stopping only long enough for coffee, hamburgers and gas. He had no trouble staying awake. Sleep never came without nightmares, so he tended to avoid it, anyway.
A little more than a thousand miles and twenty hours later, he reached his destination midmorning.
He followed Clint’s instructions through a small town to a road that ran beside a lake. Clint hadn’t been kidding when he said the town was small. He couldn’t imagine Clint, who was always the life of the party, being happy here. Even less could he imagine his friend as its police chief. That must have been one of Clint’s jokes. He’d been a full-blown hell-raiser back in the day, made even Jubal look like a saint.
It was just after ten in the morning when he found the place, the last one on Lake Road. He drove down a gravel lane to a cedar-sided cabin with a large screen porch stretching across the entire front of the structure. He stepped out of his car, a dark blue Mazda, and took a deep breath. The air was scented by the giant pines that surrounded the cabin. The clear blue lake was visible through the trees.
Clint had told him the cabin would be unlocked, the keys inside on the kitchen counter. Jubal grabbed his duffel from the backseat of the car and took the three steps up to the porch. He opened the screen door, then the door to the interior of the cabin, and looked inside.
As Clint promised, it was cozy. A stone fireplace filled one side of the main room and a wall of windows another. He looked outside. There was a rock grill surrounded by several comfortable-looking lounge chairs. Then the yard ended in what appeared to be forest stretching upward.
He checked out each room, then retreated to the kitchen where there was a thermos of coffee and a plate of cinnamon rolls waiting for him, along with a note.
Tradition dictates the cabin comes with fridge full of food. I added some beer and, knowing you, some damn good whiskey. Help yourself. Call me when you’re settled.
Jubal didn’t call. Instead, he took the thermos of coffee and rolls and headed toward the front porch. He sipped the coffee, which was still hot, and ate two rolls, then decided to explore further. He walked out to the road, glanced at a dock, which looked new. To his right, he noticed a path winding up a mountain. He took the path and climbed up to a spot where he had a good visual of the land around him.
Habits die hard. It was still part of him, this reconnaissance of his immediate environment, a suspicion of strangers, a springboard reaction to the slightest noise.
He was tired. It had been an exhausting drive from San Diego, and he hadn’t slept in more than forty-eight hours. There had been a time when he would still be going strong, but he hadn’t regained the stamina he once had. It had been one reason he’d rejected the job of trainer. He couldn’t imagine driving candidates to do something he could no longer do himself.
He was working on that stamina. His weight had gone from two hundred and ten pounds on a six-foot-three frame to little more than half that during his long months of captivity. It was up to a hundred and seventy-five now, all of it hard muscle after a strict exercise regime, but there had been enough permanent nerve and joint damage to end his career as an operating SEAL.
After returning to the cabin, he relaxed in one of the lounge chairs outside and watched as the sun reached its zenith and started back down again. He appreciated the fact trees shielded the cabin from the dwelling next to his. He was used to isolation.
At least this isolation was of his choosing.
His mind flipped back to Africa as it did too often. He’d been left alone for long periods of time, unless one of his guards came into whatever cave or hut they kept him in. And then it was only to beat, taunt, threaten or sometimes do all three. A gun was held against his head or a knife across his throat. He had scars all over his body from repeated torture.
The only thing that kept his captors from killing him was their belief he was a doctor and could be of use to them. He advised them on what medical supplies to take from the clinic before they burned it, to reinforce his lie.
Jubal took a deep breath. He was in the States again, the master of his own fate once more. Problem was, he had no idea what he wanted that fate to be. That was a first for him and he didn’t like it.
&
nbsp; He knew he should call Clint, but he kept putting it off. He didn’t want to answer questions. He didn’t want to deal with small talk. He certainly didn’t want to talk about the last two years.
As a SEAL, he never thought about the next week or the next month, just the next mission. It was better that way. Think about the future and you start making mistakes.
Now he had to consider it.
He heard a car pull into the drive. He looked at his watch. It was nearly six. Clint, most likely. He’d probably been waiting all day for his call.
Still, he didn’t move as Clint appeared from around the cabin. A scarred pit bull was at his heels.
“Hey, Reb.” Clint used the nickname Jubal’s fellow SEALs had given him when he joined his first team. His grin was wide as ever.
Jubal looked at him. Clint wore a tan uniform and carried a sidearm, but he looked relaxed. The exhausted lines Jubal remembered around his eyes were gone. He turned his gaze to Clint’s scarred companion.
“Who’s your friend?” Jubal asked without moving.
“Bart. He rides along with me.” Clint leaned down and whispered something into the dog’s ear. The dog came over to Jubal and looked at him solemnly with deep brown eyes.
“I told him you’re a friend. He’s saying hello.”
The dog was among the ugliest Jubal had seen. Like himself, the dog had scars all over his body, but the animal waited patiently for a response.
Jubal immediately felt a kinship with the dog’s obvious brutal past. He leaned over and rubbed behind his ears. “Hello, Bart.”
“He adopted me last year,” Clint explained. “I had no choice in the matter, but I thought he would be a good icebreaker today,” Clint said. “I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome since you didn’t call.”
Jubal relaxed slightly. He sounded like the old Clint. “I just needed a few hours’ rest. I drove all night,” Jubal said without elaborating. Then he looked Clint up and down. “You weren’t kidding about being a cop?”
“Nope. Some of those MPs we encountered would have strokes if they knew. Okay if I get a beer?”
Jubal didn’t bother to get up. “Since you supplied them, I’d be a real jerk to say no.”
“Now that’s the wholehearted ‘Hello, great to see you’ that I expected,” Clint groused good-naturedly. “But I accept the invitation.” He headed for the cabin, disappeared inside and reappeared with a beer. He slouched down in the lounge chair next to Jubal. “Like that scruff on your face,” he said. “It’s a hell of a lot more civilized than the last time I saw you in Afghanistan.”
“I didn’t want to scare the natives,” Jubal replied.
“I don’t remember you being that sensitive.”
“It’s only on your account,” Jubal said. “I’m your guest. I wasn’t sure you weren’t kidding when you said you were police chief. Didn’t think it would look so hot if I turned up looking like a biker.”
Clint shrugged. “They’re kind of used to us now. Nothing bothers them much.”
“Us?”
“Vets occupying the cabin. We’ve kinda been adopted by the town folks.”
“What if you don’t want to be adopted?”
“That’s okay with them, too. The people in town don’t ask questions or impose, except maybe to quietly drop off a pan of brownies or cinnamon rolls. That’s rule number one in town.”
“Dropping off brownies or not asking questions?”
“Okay, rule one and two,” Clint corrected himself.
Jubal looked at him curiously. “How did you come here? Doesn’t look like your kind of place. Seem to remember you liked big cities with lots of bars.”
“The shrink at the military hospital where I was treated recommended it,” Clint said. “Dr. Payne. He was Josh Manning’s doctor at Fort Hood, and they became friends.”
Clint hesitated before continuing. “This is Josh’s cabin. He inherited it—along with a traumatized military dog—from his best buddy who died saving his life. He admits to being in pretty bad shape when he arrived with a lot of survivor’s guilt and a bad case of PTSD. All he wanted was to be left alone and wallow in grief and guilt.”
Jubal understood that. He waited for the rest of the story.
“The town mayor somehow lured him out of hermitsville. A very pretty mayor, too. Single mom to a young son. She’s a force of nature in a soft, unassuming way,” Clint said. “Sounds contradictory, but there it is. I’m sure you’ll meet them at some point.
“To make a long story short,” Clint continued, “Josh and Eve married and he moved into her ranch house. He asked Dr. Payne if he knew a vet who needed a temporary place to stay. That was me. Then Andy came through before moving in with her fiancé. She’d been a surgical nurse in a forward base. The cabin was sitting here vacant when I heard you were leaving the navy...”
“I’m not staying,” Jubal broke in. “I thought to be here just long enough for a bit of hell-raising, but I guess that’s out of the question seeing you’re the law these days.”
“The two things are not mutually exclusive,” Clint retorted. “What are your future plans?”
Jubal shrugged. “Haven’t thought much about it.”
“Haven’t wanted to, you mean,” Clint corrected. “Been there, done that.”
Jubal wanted to change the subject away from himself. “You said in the letter you had a head injury. A chopper crash?” The question was out before he could withdraw it. He usually didn’t ask personal questions because he didn’t like them directed at him. He wouldn’t have with anyone other than Clint, but since the day Clint rescued his team, they’d been like brothers.
“I did something stupid,” Clint said. “I was at Fort Hood between deployments. I’d practically rebuilt an old Corvette and wanted to try it out on a road a friend said no one used. I was going pretty fast when an old truck pulled onto the road and I had to turn suddenly to miss it. The car went into a ditch and my head hit the side of the interior. I suffered a concussion with brain trauma. I had continuing blackouts and headaches. For a while I couldn’t even drive, much less keep a pilot’s license.”
Clint said, “I haven’t had a blackout in a month and I’m hoping to get a clean bill of health from the doctor to fly again, but this time I’ll be fighting fires. We had a bad one a few months ago. Good news is I can drive. If I do feel a blackout coming on, I can turn off the highway and call a deputy. Can’t do that in the sky.”
Jubal heard the pain in his voice. It hadn’t been as easy as he tried to make it sound.
“I’ll be honest,” Clint said. “It was rough in the beginning. I wasn’t very happy about coming here until I ran into a redheaded veterinarian who almost killed me the day we met, and a mayor that duped me into teaching computers to senior citizens.”
Jubal raised one eyebrow. His mind couldn’t comprehend it. The image of daredevil pilot and woman-magnet Clint teaching elderly women the basics of computers was just too...crazy. Maybe even more crazy than being police chief.
“Don’t you miss—”
“Hell, yes. There’s still those times I hunger for a throttle in my hand, the lift of a chopper. Bringing guys back.” He paused, shrugged. “But I love my fire-breathing wife, and I like this town. We have a lot of veterans here and we help each other.”
“You’re planning to stay here, then?” Jubal asked.
Clint nodded. “Stephanie loves it here, and I have good friends, including Josh and a number of other vets. And dammit, I like my job.”
“What does a cop even do here?” Jubal asked curiously.
“We’ve been having some old-fashioned cattle and horse rustling. That’s keeping me busy now.”
“Rustling? You’re kidding.”
“Nope, but now it’s done by trucks rather than horses. There are petty
robberies, too, bar fights, domestic disputes, accidents. We also assist county and state agencies if needed,” he explained. “It’s a small department of ten. Three dispatchers and seven officers, including me. Mostly, though, it’s being diplomatic.”
“And you don’t get bored?”
“I might if it weren’t for Stephanie. You don’t get bored with Stephanie. I’m working with her now to become qualified in canine search and rescue.” He seemed to notice Jubal’s dubious expression as he glanced down at Bart.
“Not with Bart,” he explained. “He doesn’t qualify. He’s too timid, although he’s getting better. Stephanie has two trained golden retrievers. I’m the one that needs qualifying, not the dogs. It’s embarrassing.” He paused, put his hand down on Bart’s head. “But Bart’s helped me a lot. More than I have him.” He paused, then added, “I know a great dog if—”
“No,” Jubal said. “I’ve been avoiding attachments all my adult life. They don’t go with what we do.”
The answer was automatic. One he’d given many times to avoid any lasting relationships, especially with women. SEALs worked in small teams and often disappeared with an hour’s notice, leaving whoever loved them not knowing where they were going, or when they might be back—if they came back at all. It was hell on marriages.
He was grateful Clint didn’t remind him he wasn’t a SEAL anymore. Jubal still thought like one. Hell, he’d been one for twenty years. He’d learned to close the door on his emotions.
He just didn’t know how to open it again. Wasn’t sure he wanted to. He took another sip of beer only to find it nearly gone. He unwound his body from the chair. “I’m getting another beer. You want one?”
“Sure. I’m off duty.”
Jubal snorted loud enough for Clint to hear. He went inside, pulled two beers from the fridge, opened them and returned to the lounge chair after handing one to Clint. The setting sun was streaming layers of gold and crimson flames across the sky.
The SEAL's Return Page 3
