He nodded, completely agreeing with her. Now if he could find Striker and get him to understand that, he would be golden. He had her after all.
He and Luna joined in so many ways, body, soul, lives, rings, children, work, and love. The forever and ever kind.
EPILOGUE
“Hey there,”Molly called as GQ dropped the last of the junk in the dumpster. The house was fully cleaned out, except for his mom’s closet. He’d left that for last. He turned at the sound of his pseudo-mom’s voice, joy at seeing her filling him up. When he’d gotten back from Bolivia, he’d been tagged for a special sniper mission that took him away from the team for three weeks. But now it was time he tackled this house. He was going to renovate it in between his deployments.
“I didn’t know you were back. Jim and I actually got back from a trip to Cancun late last night.”
“You did get some sun. You look great.” She smiled and waved her hands at him.
“What’s all this?” she asked, going on tiptoe and looking inside, wrinkling her nose. “That woman was a packrat.”
“It’s time to make this into my home.”
“Splendid idea,” she said, smiling broadly and clapping her hands. “Let me know if you need my help.”
“I will.” She hugged him hard. He figured he would need some kind of female advice when it came to the interior, but he had a bunch of home improvements he wanted to do to it before it was livable again.
“So glad you’re back for a bit. I’ve got lunch going. Why don’t you wash up and get changed? Jim is grilling some steaks.”
The smell of the grilled meat made his stomach cramp and he realized he was starving.
“I never turn down food, especially yours. You have some of that delicious potato salad?”
She gave him a wry look. “Of course, I do. What kind of question is that?”
“Molly!” Jim called and she blew him a kiss and rushed off.
He laughed.
He entered the house and went into his old room. He couldn’t bring himself to sleep in his mom’s room until he got rid of all that rose wallpaper. The bed was already gone, given to charity along with every other stick of salvageable furniture in the house. All that was left were dishes and cooking stuff, and his mattress on the floor with a lamp.
He could rough it for a while.
When he finished showering and was dressed, he started down the hall but stopped at his mom’s door. On impulse, he went inside and opened the closet door. His heart lurched at the volume of clothes on the rack, shoes and stuff lodged on the upper shelves. He would ask Molly to help him with all this. His chest felt tight thinking about boxing up his mom’s stuff.
He closed the door, and it must have been too much for the poor shelves. There was a terrible crash against the door, and he reopened it to find a complete and utter mess.
Just when he decided that he would eat and visit with Molly and Jim before he tackled this, he saw an old shoe box on its side. The lid partially opened to reveal…envelopes addressed to him in care of his mom.”
His gut clenched and he bent down and extricated them from the chaos. He blinked a couple of times when he realized what he had in his hands. These were the letters his mom had spoken about. Letters from his dad.
He immediately thought of Mr. Bailey, his heart still hurting for the sweet, old guy. He’d said:I bet your dad is proud of you.
He had felt saddened then, realizing that his dad couldn’t be proud of him because he knew nothing about him. But now he held clues in his hands, and he made up his mind to follow them. No matter how painful or uncomfortable it was, he wanted to know who his dad was and find out what happened to him. Give the man a chance to meet his son and get to know him.
He left her bedroom and set the letters near his bed, his insides a tangle of excitement and apprehension. SEALs never backed down from a fight.
Especially a fight to find out what kind of man he really was.
* * *
Preacher packedthe last of his clothes into the suitcase and zipped it up. Karasu had already packed, and she was a bundle of nerves. They were heading to Japan tomorrow so she could reconnect with her family. She was currently out running off some of that energy. He looked at his watch, realizing that if she didn’t get back soon and shower, they were going to be late for Nancy’s daughter’s birthday party.
Nancy and her family lived in the suburbs of DC now. She had retired from the DEA and was working for Homeland Security, based out of the nation’s capital, an easy drive from Virginia Beach. The agency hadn’t wanted her to leave, but she made the decision after the threat to her family to give up field work. Almost losing them had been her wake-up call.
She’d had some hoops to jump through to satisfy the agency after she went off the rails in Bolivia, but she was still committed to public service and now felt the hard call to do what she could against terrorism.