Page 10 of A Spark of Luck (The Defenders #2)

Confusion agitated his brain. What did he do with that?

A relationship with a woman could not exist within the parameters of his life.

He’d watched it happen with others and knew firsthand.

He had no positive examples of family connections until Doogie and his mama.

He had no good examples of friendships until the Navy.

He had no good examples of marriage except for the two married men on his team.

Both contradictions. Hernandez. How he stayed married to Rachel was as obvious as one plus one.

Devoted to each other defined right there.

Thompson and his wife, on the other hand, barely talked let alone had a healthy marriage, and why the hell was he even thinking about marriage? Christ!

He hid parts of himself. He knew he did. That he sent Cait food, worried about her, kissed her – and he wasn’t even going to categorize those moments in bed. Fuck. Like taking a spear right down to his soul. Why her?

“If those thoughts get any deeper, you’ll drown.” Doogie pulled up a chair and sat down, a pile of food on two plates.

“SEALs are drown proof.” Pleased he’d found a dry comment that in no way exposed his inner turmoil, he pulled his tray closer.

“Maybe in water, but inside your own head? Doubt it.” The man shoveled in his first bite of macaroni and cheese and kept shoveling like there would be no food tomorrow.

Hunt took a sip of coffee and kept his silence. No way was he admitting to anything. He didn’t need extra eyes on him. “Think they’ve bounced us around enough?”

Doogie wiped his mouth, having cleared one plate. “Heard anything?”

“Nope.” They’d flown out of Afghanistan tracking a most-wanted terrorist and were now grounded in Sri Lanka, with permission of their government, waiting for new information. Sri Lanka sat near one of the world’s busiest shipping routes in the Indian Ocean, and rumor said the country was a target.

Theirs wasn’t the only team in a holding pattern waiting to converge on intelligence.

Defense Department wanted this guy bad. He’d made three deadly strikes in Middle East and one against U.S.

forces in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last six months killing hundreds.

Each one intensifying the effort to find him before he killed again.

Hunt had been at this long enough to know that tracking terrorists took time, but waiting kept his brain on an incessant loop. What was Cait doing now? When did her deployment end? How would he find her when he was free to look? Did he want to find her?

“You’re spinning, man.” Doogie shoved his dessert away. The man always ate dessert between meat and salad.

“Thinking through things that’s all.”

“You did that in BUD/S too. All the thinking and not sharing.”

Hunt groaned inside. It had been the one thing that had come close to derailing SEAL training for him. Not a team player. So, he gave Doogie the partial truth. “You ever feel tired of doing all the violent, bloody, dirty work we do? ”

“And do what else, bro? Oh wait, Professor. You have a side-gig waiting.” Doggie snickered.

Hunt shook his head at the familiar jab. “I never saw myself teaching math.”

“So why get a master’s degree, then?”

“To prove something to myself.” He kept the deeper reasons to himself, hoping to deflect Doogie to avoid confessing that he had been thinking about a life after SEALS.

Most men did this job until their bodies gave out.

But now, he’d developed a thing for the firecracker of a doctor who stitched him up, and his future thoughts were jumbled and yet laser sharp.

“Seems like you proved everything you needed to when you graduated high school and joined the Navy with no help from your family or the people around you.”

“Maybe I did it for me, then.”

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“Nothing to tell that I can articulate in any coherent way at the moment. Only a feeling.” He’d discovered longer answers sidetracked the man. He didn’t use it too often because Doogie was a suspicious son of a bitch.

“Okay. When you get ready to talk about the pretty doctor, let me know.” Doogie took a slow roll to standing and gathered his garbage .

Dammit. Shaking his head, Hunt looked him straight in the eyes. “No room in this job to keep relationships with people outside the loop.”

“I know you believe that, but you do fine with my mama.”

“She’s your mama.”

“She’s claiming you, too, so don’t think you can get away with anything. I’m here when you’re ready to talk about Dr. Michaels.”

For once in his life, Hunt struggled to keep a blush off his face and his eyes blank.

Doogie bent closer. “I know that trick, too. Talk when you’re ready. That’s all I’m saying. I’ll get the team ready for afternoon training.”

He strutted off to the garbage and disappeared out the door.

Hunt grunted in agreement. Training would refocus him, but for once he wasn’t sure he wanted refocused.

He drank cold coffee and stayed put.

Eight Weeks Gone

Hunt kept his eyes focused on the monitors with the operations satellite feeds.

Aboard the USS Carl Vinson, he observed his team race across the choppy surface of the Pacific Ocean east of the Philippines.

He could feel the spray of water across his face even though he wasn’t on board with the team.

He'd stepped back to let Doogie run the mission on orders from the ship’s doctor to give his leg a rest. Yeah, Cait had sewed him up fine, but the stress of constant missions on a man’s body couldn’t be discounted.

That muscle was a weakness now. The thought of Cait sent a pang that he shoved away. No time for that now either.

Running silent through the dark of night, the team flew across the surface of the water to the small yacht of billionaire Darren Drake who had possession of commercial technology used to interfere with satellite communications.

Intelligence chatter also had the man in negotiations to hand off said technology to Ibrahim Qurban Sadozai or IQS as he was known in special operations.

The man was the number four terrorist on the Department of Defense’s most wanted list. The mission comprised one small slice of the battle against the terrorist that included tracking and freezing his assets, identifying his weapon sources, monitoring his travels whenever his image popped, investigating who he interacted with, and locking down his technology access.

Hunt turned to the tech sailor at his side. “The yacht still holding in place? ”

“Yes, sir.” The young woman tapped the screen. “Hasn’t moved.”

He’d been over the plans a dozen times with the team.

A quick board, a search for the tech and the terrorist, and a faster exit.

He’d been all for dragging the billionaire on board, too, for aiding and abetting a terrorist. Except the yacht was currently in international waters, not subject to U.S.

law, and he was no expert on maritime law as related to terrorism.

He could have questioned the legal standing, but it wasn’t in the mission parameters to punish someone for being stupid.

“Eagle One, alongside and ready to board. Going silent.” Doogie’s confirmation agreed with the images.

“Copy. Go.” Hunt kept his eyes on the screen and counted as each man boarded. They split into two-man teams, moved across the deck like lightning, and disappeared below.

At the seventeen-minute mark, Doogie broke silence. “Eagle One, no tech. All on board dead. Drake is not among them. No IQS.”

“Perfect,” Hunt muttered under his breath. “Copy. Exfil.”

The ship’s Executive Officer came to his side. The man was inches shorter than Hunt but wore his uniform with an ease that backed up his authority. “No luck? ”

“No, sir. We’ll check satellite images to see what was missed.”

“Possible he’s dead, too?”

“Maybe. Might have been tossed overboard.”

The men reached the side of the yacht, and he counted as each man went off the side. The boat separated from the yacht and turned a wide arc to come to the carrier.

“We’ll notify the Philippines they have a compromised yacht with dead to pick up.” He left Hunt alone with his thoughts.

This wasn’t the first time intel had led nowhere, but it was a pisser.

Twelve Weeks Gone

Cait looked over the empty room and let the hurt slash through her.

All her gear was on the way back to the states.

She would be on a transport plane in a few more hours.

Deployment number two finished. To look at her room as it was now, she’d tumbled into disbelief that anything earthshattering had ever happened in this room.

Obviously, those moments hadn’t meant anything to him.

No contact was no contact. If he’d wanted to get in touch, he could have.

She was the one at a disadvantage, and it was time to face reality.

War zone flings didn’t last. Jackie disagreed, but she had to drop the hope, or she’d never be able to move forward.

She took deep breaths, banished the memories, and went to the door.

She was going home. It would take time to normalize her routine and to deal with the overwhelming tiredness and depression.

But she’d get in a routine immediately, find some friends, and start dating.

If she’d done that before, none of this would have happened.

Except she’d wanted those moments with Hunt deep down, and that was a fact she couldn’t escape no matter how she tried.

She pulled back her shoulders and lifted her remaining bag sitting by the open door.

Cait shut the door quietly and didn’t look back.

Her progress to boarding was stalled by a stop to navigate exit procedures and the suffering caused by the hurry-up-and-wait process. By the designated flight time, she fastened into a transport plane seat with dreamland beckoning.

Hunt be damned.

Bye, Lieutenant Hunter. Bye, Afghanistan.