The nine months pregnant part of her was a hormonal mess she barely recognized, waiting for her Navy SEAL husband to come home. Nick, also a Navy SEAL, as was Jake, had been home with her for the past week, treating her like a live grenade. If one pregnant woman could bring terror to a SEAL, why weren’t they put to better use during wartime? She contemplated this as she heard Jake continue to mutter to himself as he walked through the house.
Earlier, she’d spoken with Jake’s wife, Isabelle, who was headed back to Virginia from visiting her mother in DC. Nick’s girlfriend, Kaylee would be there shortly as well, along with Jamie’s sister, PJ and Kenny, who was the father of the three SEALs. They would all be together for Christmas—the baby’s due date—except for the possibility of Saint and one other extremely important person.
Her husband. Her midwife. Legally bound and all that crap.
She was getting cranky again. As if Nick’s radar was in tune with her mood, he called from the kitchen, “Do you want more of that soothing tea stuff?”
“No,” she snapped. Never wanted tea again in her life. “Ice cream?”
“It’s ten in the morning.”
“Never stopped you before,” he murmured.
“I heard that.”
“Meant you to.”
“Whoa.” Jake stopped in the doorway and gaped at her. “You’re goddamned huge.”
“Not smart,” Nick told him over his shoulder.
“It’s the truth,” she groaned. Her belly stuck out precariously from her slim frame. “Have you heard anything?”
Jake stared at her, his gray eyes stormy. Even if he had, he technically couldn’t share. Wouldn’t. She had to trust that everything was good and that she was in the more than capable hands of Chris’s brothers and the rest of the crew.
Since marrying Chris months earlier, she’d moved into the big house that had once been Kenny’s, where the men had grown up. There was plenty of space and it was rare that more than two of them were home at the same time.
That would change in a few hours.
“We all set for the storm?” Jake asked Nick now.
“Put in the generator last week,” Nick said.
“Going to be worse than they thought,” Jake continued.
“Hadn’t told her about that yet,” Nick muttered.
“Is that why you wouldn’t let me turn on the TV?” she asked him.
“Reading’s good for the baby,” Nick said.
She threw the book at his head and both men ducked.
“Not so good for you, brother,” Jake said. “Jamie, let’s go for a walk.”
She struggled up, refusing the men’s offers of help. Maybe Jake would tell her something about Chris outside. He kept a hand on her lower back as they walked. The streets were clear, the air cold—snow was a given.
They talked for a few minutes about the storm. Isabelle. Anything and everything but the topic she wanted to know most about.
“Somalia’s really a hot zone again,” Jake said and she froze for a second, but Jake’s hand pressed her and she kept moving.
Somalia. Of all places. But somewhere inside, she’d known, had watched the beginnings of the new uprising on the news with dread in her throat, had been aware of Nick steering the conversation—and the television stations—to happier things. Chick flicks.
She should’ve been suspicious when he didn’t bitch and moan about watching reruns of bad reality TV on a continuous loop over the past few days. But when it came right down to it, she was grateful for Chris’s brothers. She’d hold herself together—for Chris and for the baby.
Now, she paused against to look up at the sky, Jake at her side. She put her hands on the swell of her belly, remembering how Chris knelt and kissed it before he left that morning, two months earlier. How she’d prayed it was a training mission but knowing in her heart it wasn’t.
“It’s okay, baby boy. Daddy’s going to be here in time,” she whispered to the bump. “You just hang in there.”
Somali Republic, East Africa
Chief Petty Officer Chris Waldron waited, belly down on the top of a low-lying building in a decidedly unsafe zone. Keeping his eye on the goddamned prize. The doorway of the windowless dwelling where one of east Africa’s most wanted al Qaeda militants the SEALs had been sent to take out had hunkered down to wait out the latest U.S. Troop invasion.
They’d been in country for sixty-seven days and thirty-six hours on this particular op at last count. His CO, John ‘Saint’ St. James was next to him, taking his rest. They’d been spelling each other the entire time. Chris was the sniper, Saint his spotter, although either man was fully prepped to take this shot.