Troubleshooters - Into The Night Part 3

Sooner or later, she'd lose the weight and make Sam happy again. He'd admit that he loved her, and maybe then the rest of her life would turn around, too. She'd finally be accepted by the other wives of the SEALs in Team Sixteen.

They were polite to her, sure. But she couldn't call a single one of them friend.

It wasn't faira"the wives' club was supposed to be part of the package, one of the perks of marrying an officer in the U.S. Navy SEALs. Her life was supposed to be glorious now, filled with wonderful girlfriends with sweet little babies like her own Haley, with Sam hurrying home to her every night after his training missions here in Coronado.

He was supposed to look at her with the same keen hunger in his blue eyes that had made her weak in the knees when she'd first laid eyes on him in the Ladybug Lounge nearly two years ago. He was supposed to make jokes and then they would laugh the way they'd laughed back then.

Of course, back then they'd both been drunk off then- a.s.ses pretty much all the time they were together. They'd make plans to meet at the bar, and she'd arrive early and get warmed up. He'd come in, pound down a few, and then they'd stagger back to her place and get naked and laugh some more.

'Course back then she usually ended up drinking until she puked or pa.s.sed out.

But she'd grown up with a drunk for a mother. And she was good and G.o.dd.a.m.n sure that wasn't going to be the case for her little Haley.

"Mary Lou!"

s.h.i.+t. Aaron was going to ask her to clean the fry machine. She just knew it.

But, "Counter," he said instead. She had customers. Glory be to G.o.d. She turned with relief at the reprieve and froze.

It was Alyssa Locke. Standing in front of Mary Lou's counter, intently gazing up at the menu as if it had radically changed in the past few years. Her FBI partner was with her. Jules Something. Sam had told her he was actually gay.

He was even prettier than Alyssa, and that was saying something, because Alyssa Locke was beautiful.

She was slender, with slim hips and thighs. Of course, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were barely there. Mary Lou probably wore a larger bra size at age eleven.

Her dark hair was cut boyishly short, accenting her exotic green eyes, her mocha-colored skin, her high cheekbones, and her full lips. Making her look extremely non-boyish.

They hadn't noticed her, hadn't recognized her. Please G.o.d, don't let them recognize her.

"What was it I swore I'd never order again?" Alyssa asked her partner, her eyes still firmly on the menu.

"That was at the other place," he said. "Burger h.e.l.l."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. What's today's special?" Jules asked, giving Mary Lou a wink.

Didn't it figure? The one man who flirted with her today was gay.

Mary Lou didn't pretend to laugh at his joke. She couldn't. She couldn't so much as smile.

She just stared at the cash register as she took their order, praying they wouldn't recognize her, praying they would just take their lunch and leave.

"My turn to pay," Alyssa said to Jules in a husky voice that didn't have a trace of the deep south's honey and syrup. Everything about her was all business. Efficient and precise. Except for that lush mouth.

As Mary Lou watched, she opened her f.a.n.n.y pack and got out her wallet.

And it was then, while Mary Lou was giving her change, that Alyssa's gaze flickered down to her name badge.

And then up directly into Mary Lou's eyes.

And there it was. Recognition. Realization of who was waiting on her dawned in Alyssa's eyes. And Mary Lou couldn't hide the fact that she knew d.a.m.n well who Alyssa was, either.

For about seven seconds, no one spoke. Mary Lou actually dared to hope that Alyssa would turn away, pretend that flash of recognition had never happened. After all, there had to be at least several thousand women named Mary Lou in San Diego.

But no. Alyssa had to open her perfect mouth. "I didn't realize you worked here."

No s.h.i.+t, Sherlock. Mary Lou didn't doubt for one second that Alyssa wanted to avoid her as much as she wanted to avoid seeing Alyssa. If Alyssa had known, she wouldn't have come within two miles of this place.

"Yeah," Mary Lou said instead. "I've been here for about three months now." And just so that Alyssa wouldn't think she had to work, that somehow Sam wasn't providing for her, she added, "Three four-hour s.h.i.+fts a week. Just enough to get out of the house for a while. See a few people who don't have diaper rash for a change."

Jules was looking back and forth between Alyssa and Mary Lou as if he were mystified.

"This is Lieutenant Starrett's wife," Alyssa told him.

He instantly became expressionless and bland. "Oh, right. Of course. Mary Lou. We met at your house about six months ago."

Yes, they did. Right before Sam left for Indonesia. Mary Lou certainly remembered. It was right before Alyssa Locke left for Indonesia, too.

Are you in town to f.u.c.k my husband? The words were on the tip of her tongue, but she choked them back. She didn't have to ask. She already knew. Sam still mumbled Alyssa's name in his sleep.

He sworea"repeatedlya"that he hadn't been with her since he and Mary Lou got married, that whatever had been between him and Alyssa was over and done with, a thing of the past. But it had been well over a year since Sam and Mary Lou got married. There was no way he'd still be dreaming about Alyssa if he wasn't still seeing her.

No way.

Sam wasn't the kind of man to go for months on end without s.e.x. And he sure as h.e.l.l wasn't getting any from Mary Lou.

Jealousy clogged her throat and angry tears threatened to escape.

"It's nice seeing you," Alyssa said insincerely.

Mary Lou just stood there as they took their food and pushed through the doors, out into the heat of the sunny afternoon.

"Earth to Mary Lou!"

She turned to find Aaron the a.s.shole standing right next to her. "Where the heck did you go?" he asked, laughing as if he'd made a huge joke. "Standing there, s.p.a.cing out, like someone came and vacuumed out your brain."

It took everything in her to keep from slapping him, simply for being a fool.

"Your husband called a while ago," Aaron told her. "It was before you got here. I forgot to tell you. He said he'd try to make it in during lunch."

Well, he hadn't. And Mary Lou didn't know whether to be upset about that or relieved. The only thing worse than seeing Alyssa would have been seeing Alyssa and Sam in the same room.

"He said to say he's going out with the team tonight," Aaron continued. "He won't be back until tomorrow, probably in the evening."

Of course Sam wouldn't make it home tonight. That was no real surprise.

Alyssa Locke was in town.

Mary Lou took off her hat. She had to get out of there.

Now.

"Where are you going?" Aaron asked.

"I told Matt last tune I was in," Mary Lou lied. "I have to leave early today. Haley's baby-sitter has a doctor's appointment. I would've tried to get a replacement, but Matt said it was okaya""

"Go," Aaron said. "See you next week."

Mary Lou went.

Chapter 2.

"I work for the President," Joan told the junior lieutenant named Muldoon as they stood outside the Team Sixteen building on the U.S. Naval Base. "In the White House. I probably have a higher security clearance than you do."

He nodded expressionlessly. "Yes, ma'am."

Ma 'am. Ouch.

On closer examination, it was clear that Junior was older than twenty. He was easily twenty-one.

"I'm not very happy about this," she told him.

"I'm sorry about that, ma'am."

"Yeah, I can tella"you're really weeping."

He glanced at her. "We're encouraged not to cry in public, ma'am. Ruins the warrior image."

Joan laughed. Well, what do you know? Perfect Boy had a sense of humor. Yet he still didn't even crack a smile.

"Shall we start the tour, ma'am?"

"Yeah, sure. Why the heck not?"

"You've seen the SpecWar and the Team Sixteen buildings," he said as he started to walk, slipping right into tour guide mode, automaton style. "Why don't we start with the BUD/S area? This is the grindera"it's called that for obvious reasons. It's where most of the physical training or PT starts. BUD/S stands for Basic Underwater Demolition/SEALsa" it's the intensive training we all go through. It's the toughest training program in the entire U.S. military. SEAL candidates enter in cla.s.ses of about a hundred and forty men, most of whom don't complete the program. They ring outa"quit. When all is said and done, most graduating cla.s.ses have only about twenty percent of the men they started with still standing."

On the flight from D.C., Joan had read about BUD/S in a packet of info Meredith had dug up. It included something called h.e.l.l Week, which was five days of grueling physical activity in which the SEAL candidates got only a few hours of sleep in very short bursts. Junior wasn't kidding when he called the program tough. It was very impressive, but...

"You're one of the ones who made it through, huh?"

She'd gotten the impression that only the toughest and meanest actually went on to become SEALs. And while Junior was handsome and gleaming, he seemed neither of those other things. If he heard the skepticism in her voice, his mild glance in her direction was the only sign he gave that it bothered him. "Yes, ma'am."

"Congratulations."

"It was quite some time ago, but thank you, ma'am."

Ma'am, ma'am, ma'am. Grrr. Was it possible that he was saying it now because he knew that it bugged her?

He led her through a gate. "Since most SEAL operations involve water, a great deal of our training takes place in the ocean or here in the pool."

"Where are you from?" she interrupted, wanting this tour to be given by the real, living person inside that sparkling uniforma"the guy who got a bad case of gas when he ate beans with his burritosa"rather than this information-spouting, picture-perfect Navy robot.

"Ohio, Maine, and Florida."

"Is that supposed to be multiple choice, or is the answer all of the above?"

A smile. Alleluia. Although it was painfully polite. "All of the above."

"Was your father in the military, too?"

"No, ma'am. He was a college professor," Junior told her. "He taught physics."

"Yikes. No wonder you ran off and joined the Navy."

Nothing. No real reaction to the fact that she'd just made a joke other than another polite smile.

It was a lame joke, sure, but still... Joan resisted the urge to take the kid's pulse. Maybe that joke he'd made about crying hadn't really been a joke. Maybe he'd been serious.

"Here we have a cla.s.s going through drown proofing," Muldoon said, and she focused on the enormous pool in front of them.

And on the fact thata""Holy s.h.i.+t!"a"a young man, clad only in bathing trunks, was being thrown into the deep end with his hands tied behind his back. ''''What are they doing!"

The pool was filled with similarly tied young men. Others stood along the side, patiently waiting their turn to be bound and thrown into the water. Still other men, wearing T-s.h.i.+rts, floppy hats, and boots with their swim shorts, either tied up the younger men or prowled the edge of the pool, watching the ones in the water.

"This is training?" Joan asked Muldoon. "Training for what? Capture by an evil overlord?"

Junior's smile seemed far more real this time, but she might've been imagining that.

"SEALs have to be completely comfortable in the water," he told her. "These men are learning what it feels like to be in the water under, shall we say, less than perfect circ.u.mstances."

"Shall we say ... ? I'd say, yeah, Junior, this is a teeny bit less than perfect."

He cleared his throat. "To successfully complete this exercise, they need to sink to the bottom, then use their feet to push off to get back to the surface. Once there, they can take a breath, then hold it as they again sink to the bottom, exhale on their way back up, take another breath... It's not that hard to do once you get into the rhythma"you can keep it going for hours as long as you don't panic."

Hours. Holy cow. "You really did this?"

He actually gazed at her for several long seconds before answering this time. "I am a SEAL, ma'am. I've really gone through BUD/S. I've done it all. And then some. Ma'am."

Well, well. A trace of an edge was in his voice. A spark of life. Maybe there was a real boy hidden inside this perfect, wooden one after all. And it was true. She'd guessed correctly. He was attempting to ma 'am her to death.

"Will you please call me Joan or even Ms. DaCostaa" instead of ma'am?" she asked. "Every time you call me that, I feel as if I should rush out and buy a cane and support hose."