CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER ONE
WAS HE TOO LATE? Navy SEAL Chief Gabe Griffin jogged through Lindbergh International Airport in San Diego, California. He was hurrying to meet his fiancée, Baylee-Ann Thorn, who was supposed to have just landed. Dressed in his desert cammies, dirty and sweaty, he’d just barely made it onto a Black Hawk helicopter to catch a lift directly to the airport. His platoon, part of SEAL Team 3, had been up in the scrub brush of southern California mountains undergoing compass and map training. Lucky for him, Chief Doug Hampton had given him the next seven days off.
Focused and weaving through the crowds, he took the escalator two steps at a time, barely breathing hard. He knew people, civilians, were looking at him, startled as he swiftly and silently moved past them. As a SEAL, he prided himself on the fact that no one, especially not his enemy, would ever hear him coming until it was too late.
His green eyes narrowed as he hit the top of the escalator. He knew which security area Bay would be coming out of, and he slowed his pace, circling to the left of the security departure exit. This was the same one he’d met her at six months earlier when she was coming out of Afghanistan. Bay had been in a firefight three days earlier, taken a bullet to her Kevlar vest and had been injured. As he thought back to last Christmas, he remembered how the airport had been flooded with holiday travelers. Gabe had found an empty wall near the outlet where all departing passengers would walk past. He chose the same spot once again.
Today, June first, the crowds were a lot lighter, less noisy, with less bumping and jostling. Glancing down at his Rolex, he saw her plane should have already landed. It was five in the evening. He took off his black baseball cap and distractedly ran his long fingers though his short, dark hair. His gaze never left the opening.
There were floor to ceiling windows through which he could easily spot Bay. God, had it been three months since he’d seen her. Their last time together, he’d managed a three-day weekend break from his platoon training, hopped a flight out of NAS Coronado to Washington, D.C., where Bay had been anxiously waiting for him.
Now, swallowing hard, Gabe leaned against the wall, his hands resting on his hips, waiting. Just waiting. He was anxious to see Bay, hold her, kiss her, love her until they were both senselessly wrapped in euphoria. It would be heaven and hell. Heaven that she’d be once more in his arms and he could love her. Hell because in ten days he would be saying goodbye to her as she deployed one last time to Afghanistan for six long, dangerous months. There, she’d get ordered into one of the black ops groups.
Gabe was praying it would be a SEAL team, which is where he had met her almost sixteen months earlier. SEALs always took the fight to the enemy. They weren’t like the Army Special Forces guys, who had a very different strategy agenda. Bay would be safer with the SEAL teams. Plus, Gabe would make their engagement known to the platoon over at Camp Bravo, an FOB, forward operating base, so brother SEALs would watch and protect her.
Sweat dribbled down his temples, and he wiped it away with his long, large-knuckled fingers. Where was Bay? Damn, he ached to see her. There was no question their love was strong and steady. It had only gotten better with time.
Gabe anxiously watched the security area. People were starting to filter out from another flight that had just arrived. He felt his cell phone vibrate. His heart leaped as he dug into his cammie pocket for it. Lifting up his iPhone, he saw a text message from Bay. His heart galloped in his chest, and his fingers trembled as he read the words:
I’m home.
God, did Bay realize she was his home? Gabe couldn’t conceive of life without her being in it.
In the thirty years of his life, she was the best thing that had ever happened to him. And in the dark recesses of his mind, Gabe pushed away his fear. After all, Bay was a vaunted 18 Delta medic, the only woman in the military to be given access to that world-class course and who had passed it with flying colors. Bay would give her life for another in a heartbeat. And that worried Gabe.
Wiping his sweaty hands down the sides of his dusty cammies, Gabe felt as if he was going to burst with impatience. The joke was, he was a respected SEAL sniper, who had patience to
