about. I’m asking you to talk to me about anything that might help you cope with the loss of two of your friends. The way I see it, you haven’t done much talking to anybody about it.”
She was perceptive, he could tell that from the first day he met her, but he was getting an up close and personal view of that perceptive side of her now. She was right; he hadn’t talked to anybody about it. He didn’t have anybody he could talk to. “Our team started off with just four of us. We were all told we would be on an elite team. None of us knew each other before that day, but there we were, sitting there and being given a chance to do something great for our country. We even got to pick the name.” He laughed. “I can tell you we came up with a lot of crazy things, but then Vicki Sky, the lone female on the team, said since we were keeping peace maybe we should come up with something that resembled that peace instead of something that was a frat boy’s dream.” He laughed hard. “Jeeze, we were all so young when our team started. We all had experience for sure, but we were young and cocky and mostly SEALs. Vicki was an Army soldier—the only person on the team not in the Navy at the time. She suggested the name Dove Team, because doves represented peace.” They had all laughed at the name, but their commanding officer loved it and went with it. “My little girl loves doves,” he had said, and so they had adapted the name and it stuck. “Our numbers grew. We gained some, lost some. Vicki was killed on a mission. Sweet woman, skilled, funny, you would have liked her,” he smiled. “She could make any situation seem like a walk in the park. When she died it hit us all hard—especially the original team members because we knew her the longest; the deepest. Anyway, the Dove Team numbers had risen and we were being broken up into smaller teams. We went from four to forty, and then they—our superiors—decided to break us all up and put us in small groups. Four to a team, except my team. We stayed with our original commander and there was about eight of us by that point on our team. Guess they didn’t want to break up their best covert ops. A couple of us retired, and the rest have stayed in—some because they’re not at their twenty years plus one day yet, and others are still in because they love the job. They wear it as if it were a second skin for them.”
“And you; why did you leave?”
“I was just ready,” he said. “I went into the military right after high school. The ink hadn’t even dried on my diploma, at least that’s what my mother had said, before I hit the road. I didn’t even stay to walk in the ceremony. I just wanted out of there. And since I didn’t really have much to go back to New Mexico for I didn’t see a reason to get out of service once my first tour was up. Then, I was in so long. I felt like I was making a difference and I wanted to keep making sure the home I would come back to would still be safe. I wanted to keep my country safe. My last mission took me to Hawaii. I can’t tell you about it.”
“I know.”
“Anyway, after that I just wanted out. I wanted normal. I’m still available should a situation arise, but for the most part, I’m out. That’s what I wanted. I made some good friends,” he sighed as he looked up at the stars twinkling high above. “Some great friends,” he rephrased his words. “Lucky Leo’s one of them. He’s going to be out here in a couple weeks. Something about the Mainland having some beautiful women.” He laughed. “I think the man is ready to settle down and get married. I’ll introduce you when he gets here; just don’t let him try to take you away from me.” He saw the smile on her lips. Whether she knew it or not, this was serious for him—it wasn’t just a fling. He wanted a relationship, and he wanted that relationship to be long-term.
“Wait…Lucky Leo…Valencia Dugan-Mishoto’s brother?”
“Yeah. You know him?”
“No. I’ve never met him, but I’ve heard Thomas mention him before.