and then back, hoping for something, anything that would let him see just what Alyssa was up against.
If there were any way to survive this, Lys would find it. Of that Sam had absolutely no doubt. She was strong, she was skilled, and she had the heart of a warrior.
But if her team was badly outnumbered by their attackers, if it was a handful against several hundred, they would soon be overpowered. And all of the skill, strength, and heart in the world wouldn’t keep her alive.
Sam splashed water on his face, then dried it with his towel. It was one of the blue ones that he and Alyssa had picked out when they’d moved into this little house together, a few weeks before their wedding.
“Blue is all about serenity and tranquility,” she’d told him as they stood in the department store, when he’d suggested they get brown because it would hide the dirt and stains.
But she was serious, which had surprised him. And as they’d decorated their house she’d paid a lot of attention, for someone so down to earth and practical, to the mood created by color, as well as to something called feng shui. Which was all about furniture placement and good vibes and all kinds of touchy-feelie New Age voodoo.
Of course, maybe there was something to that feng shui crap, because Sam had never been happier and more at peace in his entire life than he had this past year, living here.
Then again, he’d be beyond ecstatic living in a cardboard box, as long as Alyssa was with him.
Please, God, keep her safe.
Sam took a deep breath, then opened the bathroom door.
The phone rang again, and Joan DaCosta, the wife of SEAL Team Sixteen’s Lieutenant Mike Muldoon, picked it up out in the living room.
As the news of the downed choppers spread, friends and relatives were calling him to find out details and offer their support. But it had quickly gotten overwhelming. “I’m sure Alyssa’s all right. I’m sure she’s fine,” they reassured him. But they wanted him to say it back to them, too.
And truthfully, as optimistic as he usually was, in this case, he wasn’t sure about anything. And no one really wanted to hear how he was scared shitless, and that this sitting still and waiting for news was driving him freaking nuts.
No one, that is, except for Joan and Savannah and Meg, the long-suffering wives of his three best friends from his days as a Navy SEAL.
Meg Nilsson—Johnny’s wife—had been the first to arrive. She’d just opened his front door and walked inside his house, God bless her, announcing, “Hey, it’s only me. I didn’t ring the bell—I didn’t want you to think I was someone bringing you bad news.”
She’d brought her two daughters—Amy, a teenager from her first marriage, and four-year-old Robin, who had Johnny’s eyes.
Amy possessed a maturity and sensitivity far beyond her years. She’d ushered both Robin and Haley outside, where she kept them occupied and entertained. Even now, hours later, Sam could hear their laughter from the backyard.
Shortly after Meg arrived, Chief Ken “WildCard” Karmody’s wife, Savannah, pulled into the driveway. Mikey’s Joan was right behind her.
They’d each given him a hug and told him they weren’t going to let him go through this alone.
“Joan’ll let me know if it’s Jules on the phone, right?” Sam asked now, as he went back into the kitchen, where Meg and Savannah were sitting together at the table.
At first glance they seemed to be unlikely friends.
Savannah was a high-powered attorney who had just made partner and opened a law office in San Diego, after years of a bicoastal marriage. She came from money and worked not because she had to, but because she wanted to. Sam suspected that, if and when the time came to start a family with Kenny, she would throw herself into it with the same wholehearted devotion.
Kind of the way Meg did. A brunette to Savannah’s elf-princess blonde, Meg Nilsson worked part-time from a home office. Her standard uniform was very different from Van’s lawyer clothes—T-shirts and shorts, sneakers on her feet—better for chasing after little Robbie.
And yet Savannah and Meg were friends. They both loved their husbands—who willingly traveled to war zones and other places that were hazardous to one’s health.
They both knew that their husbands might be injured or even killed in the line of duty at any given moment.
They knew what it felt like to carry around that anxiety, to live for those overseas