I Do! by Rachel Gibson Page B

been SEALs, people would have just naturally compared their service. They would have compared numbers and missions and ranks. While the brothers were extremely proud of their service, and the American lives they’d saved with their deadly shots, a man’s death, even that of an insurgent hell-bent on killing Americans, just wasn’t something they felt the need to compete over. Neither had crouched in the shadows of a shithole hut or rocky crag, alternately sweating like whores in church or freezing his nuts off, thinking he needed to compete. Both knew that numbers were more a matter of opportunity than skill, although neither would ever confess that out loud.
    Since Beau’s retirement from the Marines, he’d started a personal security company. Beau was the successful one. The settled one. The one getting married. Beau was the one who’d used his skills to create opportunity for fellow retired military personnel.
    And Blake was the drunk. Since his retirement from the Navy a year ago, he was the one who’d used his skills to make money as a hired gun. He worked for a private military security firm, and he was the one who’d hopped from hot spot to hostage situation. From country to open seas, living a seemly unsettled life.
    And Blake was the one who’d needed rehab to face his biggest demon. Like all enemies, he’d faced it head-on, only to discover that the consequence of sobriety was that at any moment, a flash or smell or sound could spin his clear and sober head around. That a flash in sunlight, or the smell of dust and sweat, or a high-pitched whistle could crawl up his spine and stop him in his tracks. Could make him drop and look for something that wasn’t there. The flashbacks didn’t happen often and didn’t last more than a few seconds, but they always left him disoriented and edgy. Angry at his loss of control.
    He looked at the bottle of Johnnie. At the blue and gold label and sun filtering through the rare scotch whisky. He’d paid three hundred dollars for the bottle of booze, and he craved it in the pit of his stomach. It tugged and pulled at his insides, and the sharp edge of need cut across his skin.
    One drink. Calm the craving. Dull the sharp edges.
    Blake’s knuckle popped as he tightened his grasp on the chair.
    Just one more. You can stop tomorrow .
    The craving grew stronger, pinching his skull. Wasn’t day sixty-two supposed to be easier than day one? His stomach rolled and his ears buzzed in his head. He picked up the camera by his hip and stood. He wrapped the black and yellow strap around his forearm and pointed his Nikon SLR at Johnnie. Six months ago, he’d stared down the scope of a bolt-action TAC–338 in Mexico City with two corrupt Mexican police officers sharing his crosshairs. These days, he shot his enemy with a camera. He looked through the viewfinder and dialed up the bottle. His hands shook and he tightened his grasp.
    “What are you doing?”
    Blake spun around and almost dropped the camera. “Holy fuck!” A little girl in a pink shirt and long blond ponytail stood behind his chair. “Where in the hell did you come from?” He’d lost his touch if a little kid could sneak up on him.
    With her thumb she pointed next door. “You said two bad words.”
    He scrubbed his face with one hand and lowered the camera by the strap to his chair. She’d scared the shit out of him, and that wasn’t easy to do. “And you’re trespassing.”
    She scrunched up her nose. “What’s that mean?”
    He’d never been around kids and couldn’t even guess her age. She was about as tall as his navel and had big blue eyes. “Trespass?”
    “Yeah.”
    “It means you’re in my yard.”
    “I know it’s your yard.” She actually rolled those blue eyes at him. “I saw you move in.”
    A five-foot stretch of pine and underbrush separated the two properties, and he glanced at the neighboring yard through the trees. The woman living there was working in the flower garden that she