Rescue Me

No, his problem wasn’t anger. It was boredom. He tended to get into trouble if he didn’t have a goal or mission

For the past three months, he’d been traveling a lot, but even after months of reflection, he still wasn’t real clear on why he’d taken on a bar filled with bikers. He wasn’t real clear on who had started it, but he was clear about waking up in jail with a sore face and ribs, and a couple of battery charges. The charges had all been dropped, thanks to a good lawyer and his sparkling military record, but he’d been guilty. As sin. He knew he hadn’t picked the fight, never did. He never went looking for a fight

His sister, Autumn, had dealt with their mother all alone, and it had been his turn to take care of her and his nephew. But neither of them needed him now, and after a particularly bad bar brawl at the beginning of the year that had left Vince bruised and bloody and in lock-up, he had needed a change of scenery. He hadn’t felt that kind of rage in a long time. The pent-up kind just beneath the surface of his flesh, like a pressure cooker. The kind that blew him apart if he let it, which he never did. Or at least hadn’t for a very long time

He’d always planned to do his full twenty. Could have waited it out until things got better, but his hearing would never be what it had been before the accident. A SEAL with hearing loss was a liability. No matter his expertise in armed and unarmed combat, his mastery of everything from his Sig to a machine gun. No matter his underwater demolitions skills nor that he was the best insertions guy in the teams, he was a liability to himself and the rest of the guys

He’d been a tall, proud Texan, a teammate, and a SEAL brother. He’d also been the best and bravest man Vince had ever known, and the accident that had changed Vince’s life had taken Wilson’

u.”
As a kid, he’d always cringed. As a thirty-six-year-old man, and a former Navy SEAL, he’d endured worse than his aunt’s Marlboro breath. He lowered his cheek.

Vince Haven lowered the bill of his ball cap and watched the Saab pull out of the parking lot. Normally he didn’t mind doing a favor for a beautiful woman. Especially one who’d saved him from humping it ten miles into town. Although compared to a thirty-mile jog or a hike in the Afghani mountains with at least sixty pounds on his back and enough ammo in his chest rig to blow up a small village, a ten-mile walk across the Texas panhandle was just a pleasant stroll through the country. Back in the day he’d have packed an M4A1 across his chest, his Sig on his hip, and a .45ACP 1911 custom sidearm strapped to his thigh

As a result of her mashed education, Sadie knew how to waltz, set a table, and converse with governors. She could also swear like a cowboy and spit like a ranch hand

Sorry. People who step on my foot say they’re sorry. You stomped on my heart and that’s all you can say? You’re sorry?”

When you lock everything down tight so that the pain can’t get out, you also keep good stuff from getting in.”