A SEAL at Heart Read Free Page A

you, Commander,” replied Jack, already proffering his hand to greet his former BUD/S Instructor, now mentor. With a grin on his lips that spoke volumes of the man’s capacity for jocularity, Commander Gich didn’t appear to be the kind of guy who could teach you fifty different ways to kill with a knife.
    His gaze connected with the Commander’s. Jack took comfort in the stare. Emotion hung like a bad painting just behind his own eyeballs, but he pushed past the weight of it. “Sir, it’s great to see you.”
    Jack stood and the men embraced, slapping hands on each other’s backs in heavy smacks and then briskly separating. There was a tremendous sense of the familial. Jack needed that right now.
    “You too!” said the Commander. “How’s the brain? Is it still swelling? I can think of better things to make swell.”
    “Christ! They’re not sure. You know docs. Though, I’m pretty sure the fracture’s better.” Jack reseated himself, eager to change the subject. “I was thinking about my first drink here, and then there was the Hell Week celebration, when you and I drank until the kitchen opened for the early birds’ lunch the next morning.” He could practically taste the stale alcohol. Bile threatened to rise, but he shoved it down. Yep, that memory was definitely intact! Why couldn’t he have lost that day, instead of the events from the last Op? He needed those memories.
    “No shit! You were so hungover from those shots that you puked your guts out in the back of my car.” Gich signaled the waitress for a beer. “Still doesn’t smell right. But it’s easy to find Blue Betty in the dark.” His grin could have lit up the darkest depths. “So, how’s it going, Jack? What’s with the shrink-wrap therapy? I may be retired, but I’m still in the loop.”
    Shaking his head, Jack said, “I don’t know. It’s been…” He searched his mind for the word, but he couldn’t even find that. Who really wanted to know the inner workings of a SEAL? They might not like what they find in there, and then what? SEALs had more layers than an artichoke.
    “Hard, complicated, and disillusioning to come back from a mission that’s seriously goat-fucked. You’re not the first, Roaker, and unfortunately, you won’t be the last. Just don’t become a poster boy, it’s not your gig.”
    “Yeah, me a poster boy! Could you see me in Ronald McDonald hair?” cracked Jack without missing a beat. It felt good to have someone giving him shit. Everyone had been so “nice” to him lately that it creeped him out. “Sure I can pull off the look, but all those hands to shake, personal appearances, and then there goes your private life.”
    “Wiseass!” A shapely blond waitress who could easily be a modern-day Marilyn Monroe placed an icy beer in front of Gich. “Thanks, Betsy. I knew you’d remember how I liked it.”
    “Anything for you, Gich.” She winked at him and headed back inside. The bar was pretty empty for a Tuesday afternoon, but it’d pick up tonight and be packed with military personnel on the hunt for hook-ups and single ladies on the quest for the golden ring. That was old hat for him, and he’d rather work out, clean his guns, anything…
    “I can make a few recommendations. There are a couple of medical professionals who use unconventional methods. Alternative healing… it might help.” Gich looked at him over the top of his beer as he drank. “The person I’m thinking of does acupressure. Did wonders for my knees and lower back.”
    “Doctors aren’t my preference.” Jack contemplated getting a pain pill out of his pocket, but he knew it’d be a dicey mix with the alcohol. He preferred to drink, so he left it in his pocket and took another sip.
    “Roaker, you can talk to me,” said Gich, drawing on his cigar and puffing out a long thin stream of smoke.
    Jack sat silently, briefly weighing his thoughts before he shared them. “Six weeks ago when I left here, I was ready for the