Six Minutes To Midnight. Elle James
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One
“Four days and a wakeup,” Trace McGuire, T-Mac to his friends, said as he sat across the table in the chow hall on Camp Lemonnier. They’d returned from their last mission in Niger with news they were scheduled to redeploy back to the States.
He glanced around the table at his friends. When they were deployed, they spent practically every waking hour together. In the past, being stateside was about the same. They’d go to work, train, get briefed, work out and then go back to their apartments. Most of the time, they’d end up at one of the team members’ places to watch football, cook out or just lounge around and shoot the crap with each other. They were like family and never seemed to get tired of each other’s company.
T-Mac suspected all that was about to change. All of his closest SEAL buddies had women in their lives now. All except him. Suddenly, going back to Virginia wasn’t quite as appealing as it had been in the past. T-Mac sighed and drank his lukewarm coffee.
“I can’t wait to see Reese.” Diesel tapped a finger against the rim of his coffee cup. “I promised to take her on a real date when I get back to civilization.”
“What? You’re not going to take her swinging through the jungle, communing with the gorillas?” Buck teased.
Petty Officer Dalton Samuel Landon, otherwise known as Diesel, shook his head. “Nope. Been there, done that. I think I’ll take her to a restaurant where we don’t have to forage for food. Then maybe we’ll go out to a nightclub.” He tipped his head to the side. “I wonder if she likes to dance.”
“You mean you don’t know?” Big Jake Schuler, the tallest man on the team, rolled his eyes. “I would have thought that in the time you two spent traipsing along the Congo River, you would know everything there was to know about each other.”
Diesel frowned. “I know what’s important. She’s not fragile, she can climb a tree when she needs to, she doesn’t fall apart when someone’s shooting at her and she can kiss like nobody’s business.” Diesel shrugged. “In fact, I’m looking forward to learning more. She’s amazing. How many female bodyguards do you know?”
Big Jake held up his hands in surrender. “You got me there. None.”
“I can’t wait to see Angela.” Corpsman Graham “Buck” Buckner, the team medic, smiled. “She’s interviewing for positions around Little Creek.”
“With her doctor credentials, and the work she did with Doctors Without Borders, she’s sure to get on pretty quickly,” Big Jake said. “If not one of the military hospitals, there are lots of civilian hospitals and clinics in the area.”
Buck nodded. “I can’t believe after all these years, she’d want to be close to me.” He smiled. “I’m one lucky guy.”
“Yeah, and maybe she’ll talk you into going back to school to finish your medical degree.” Built solid like a tank, Percy Taylor had the tenacity of a pit bull, thus his nickname, Pitbull. He gave Buck a chin lift. “You’d make a good doc.”
“What?” Buck spread his arms wide. “And give up all this?”
T-Mac chuckled. “I know. It’s hard to believe anyone would want to stop being on call at all hours of the day and night, deploying to some of the worst hellholes on the planet and not getting back to see your family for months on end. Who would want to give up all that?”
“Hey, are we getting cynical in our old age?” Harmon Payne clapped a hand on T-Mac’s back. “We’re the ones who are going to suffer. We all have women to come home to now.”
“All except T-Mac,” Buck pointed out. “Maybe we should fix him up with someone? You think one of our women knows someone who could put up with his being a computer nerd and all?”
T-Mac shook his head. “I don’t need help getting a date, thank you very much.”
“I’ll bet Reese has met some pretty hot chicks in the DC area through her work as a bodyguard,” Diesel said. “Or maybe she still has some connections in the mixed-martial-arts community. One of those women are bound to be able to stand toe-to-toe with our guy.”
“Seriously.” T-Mac pushed to his feet. “I don’t need a woman in my life. You all know how hard our lives are without relationships. I’m surprised all you self-confirmed bachelors broke the cardinal rule.”
Pitbull stabbed the mystery meat on his tray with his fork and held it in the air, inspecting it with a frown. “What cardinal rule?”
T-Mac pounded his fist on the table. “Don’t get into a permanent relationship as long as you’re a full-time SEAL.”
“Nope.” Harm’s eyes narrowed and his lips twisted. “I don’t remember that line in the BUD/S training manual.”
“Before we came to Africa,” T-Mac reminded them, “we were drinking beer and talking about how we didn’t have wives and kids—”
“Ha!” Pitbull held up a finger. “We were drinking beer. That’s where we got off track.”
Swallowing his irritation, T-Mac continued. “We all agreed that relationships were doomed to failure as long as we were doing the jobs we do. No woman will be satisfied being on a part-time status, what with us shipping out as often as we do to fight some battle nobody else wants.”
“Then I found Marly,” Pitbull said. “She can stand on her own two feet. And we get along pretty well.” He smiled, his rugged face softening. “She’s even getting me to like flying in crop dusters. And she’s found a charter company in Virginia that wants her to pilot for them. She won’t be waiting around for me to come home. Hell, we’ll be lucky to be home at the same time.”
“Exactly,” T-Mac said. “And how’s that going to work for you? You won’t see each other.”
Pitbull frowned. “We’ll find time.” His frown turned upside down. “And when we do...yup.” He nodded. “We’ll find time. I’m not ready to give up on her, and I don’t think she’ll give up on me.”
“The point you’re missing, T-Mac, is that we found women who can stand on their own,” Harm said. “They don’t need us any more than we need them. We want to be together. And that makes all the difference.”
“Uh-huh.” T-Mac knew they wouldn’t listen. His five friends were so besotted by their women, they couldn’t see past the rose-colored glasses to reality. He might as well save his breath.
“Guys.” Buck stared around the table at everyone but T-Mac and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “We’ve got to get T-Mac laid. He’s strung way too tight. He’s likely to blow a gasket soon.”
“What’s the use?” T-Mac pushed to his feet. “We’re headed home in four days. Let’s not screw anything up between now and then.”
“What could possibly go wrong?” Buck asked with a grin and then ducked as everyone else threw their napkins and food at him.
Pitbull snorted. “Thanks for jinxing us, dirtbag.”
“You guys can hang around talking about your women you’ll rarely see. I’m going for a run.” T-Mac walked out of the chow hall to the laughter of his friends.
“Gotta get him a girl,” Buck said.
As T-Mac rounded the corner of one of the stacks of shipping containers that had been outfitted to become sleeping quarters, a hard object landed at his feet.
He jumped back, his heart racing, his first thought Grenade! Then a hair missile barreled toward him, all four legs moving like a blur.
T-Mac braced himself for impact.
The black-faced, sable German shepherd skidded to a stop, pushing up a cloud of dust in the process. He grabbed the object in his teeth and raced back the way he’d come.
“Agar,