Lindsay McKenna - Risk Taker

“I don’t get over here too often, but when I do, this is my order.”

Sarah placed the pickles, onions, tomatoes and lettuce on the huge half-pound hamburger. “I don’t get over here too often, either. Heavy flight demands.”

Picking up his burger in both hands, Ethan grunted. “I must have gotten lucky seeing you the other day then.”

They ate in companionable silence. Ethan was always aware of the space around him. More than a few dudes looked longingly toward Blue Eyes and then scowled, jealousy written on their faces because she was allowing him to sit with her. He had to keep himself in tight check; he had a hundred questions for her.

“I imagine being back home on such a short rotation plays hell on your family demands?” he asked. Another way to find out if she was married, engaged or single.

Shrugging, Sarah said, “My foster parents love to have me at home. They live in Dallas, Texas, and I’m always sent to an Army base elsewhere. I do take my thirty days of leave to be with them.”

“No other family?” he wondered.

Sarah hesitated. Should she get personal with Ethan? There was something about him that inspired her confidence. Stiffly, she said, “No. I was given up at birth. I’m sure I have family, but I don’t know who they are. My foster parents, Hank and Mary Benson, adopted me when I was twelve years old. They’re my life. They took me in and I’ll always be grateful.”

Ethan heard the tension and emotions behind her husky voice and saw pain as well as fondness in her eyes as she spoke. “That had to be tough. I mean, being given up at birth.” Ethan couldn’t wrap his head around that one. There was momentary anguish in her eyes, and then she quickly hid it from him.

“I’m okay with it. Hank and Mary made up for it. They gave me love and stability and supported me.”

“What happened the first twelve years of your life?”

Her mouth crooked, as if to avoid answering his question. “It wasn’t pretty,” was all she said, her voice clipped and growing hard. “I am who I am today because of Mary and Hank. That’s all that counts.”

Ethan tried to translate what he saw in her dark glance, but he couldn’t. There were a lot of layers to Sarah, a complexity, and he wanted to figure it out. His nature was to delve, understand and see the larger picture. It certainly served him well as a SEAL in black ops.

She finished her hamburger and picked at her fries. “Are you an officer?”

Ethan knew where this conversation was going. Warrant officers in the Army lived in a netherworld between officers and enlisted people. The Army considered them officers, higher in rank than any enlisted person. And he was enlisted. What was Sarah thinking? Was she interested in him personally? Checking out his rank or rate status to ensure the fraternization order wasn’t broken? Officers and warrants were not allowed by UCMJ law to fraternize with enlisted people. There was to be no affair, no personal relationship between the two parties.

He squirmed. “I’m a petty officer first class.”

“I see,” she murmured. In a way, Sarah was relieved he was enlisted. It would make it easier to stop the burning connection between them. Sarah wasn’t going to risk her career on an affair with an enlisted man. And yet, as she studied Ethan’s somber expression, that was exactly what she wanted to do. He had a kindness to him, a curiosity and intelligence. They all appealed strongly to her, but she couldn’t get beyond that wall of distrust she had toward all men.

Ethan continued eating his French fries, no longer tasting them. He could see Sarah had already made her decision about him. She was single; that much he knew. Was she available, though? In his SEAL world, which blurred the lines between enlisted men and their officers, he didn’t see this as a deal killer even if Sarah did.

Over the years, Ethan had seen plenty of officer-and-enlisted romances. If the two people involved were discreet, no one said anything. Only those stupid enough to flaunt their affair brazenly out in front of their commanding officers got the order to stop it or else. He’d seen, in some instances, the woman renouncing her military career in order to marry the officer she’d fallen in love with. And sometimes not. He understood what Sarah was thinking about. Weighing and measuring him because she was attracted to him or she wouldn’t have asked the question at all. He could sense her considering the costs to her career and to herself if she allowed their attraction to grow.

“Do you have a wife and kids?” Sarah asked him.

Ethan felt himself smile. “No, I’m not married.” He pushed the empty plate away and picked up his beer.

“Do SEALs replace the need for a woman in their life with their team family instead?”

He chuckled. “No way. About half the guys in our platoon are married and have kids. The rest of us are alpha male wolves without a partner yet.”

She smiled at his description, pushing a few of the last French fries around with her index finger. “Maybe your job, the black ops part of it, stops you from having a serious relationship?” she wondered.

Ethan could feel her trying to grasp the world he lived in. Was this a personal question? Or just a more generalized question about the SEAL community because Sarah knew little about them? He wished it was personal, but he didn’t think it was. “I don’t think most women can take the nature of our business,” he told her seriously. “There’s a ninety percent divorce rate among SEALs. Most marriages last only ten years. It’s like a disease.”

Her brows flew up. “Ninety? My God, that’s high!”

“Can’t disagree with you.” Ethan opened his hands. “Put yourself in a wife’s place, one who is married to a SEAL operator. She will never know where he’s sent, the danger he’s in, whether he’s coming back or not. She has to take care of everything stateside, the house, the kids, and he’s not there to support or help her do it. It’s a pretty daunting task when a husband is sent overseas for six months and you, as the wife, only get emails and maybe a Skype call monthly, if that.”

Nodding, Sarah whispered, “That would be really rough.” And then she looked at him. “Is that why you never married?” Because Ethan struck her as a man any woman would stumble all over herself to be with. He wasn’t like those ego-busting Delta operators. He was settled, mature, intelligent, and all those things appealed strongly to her whether she wanted them to or not.

“Just haven’t run into the right woman yet, I guess,” Ethan said, giving her a good-humored look. “Have you run into the right man?”

Sarah frowned. Her voice grew terse. “No.” Sarah rubbed her brow, and he could see her weighing whether or not she wanted to reveal any more of herself to him. Desperate, Ethan waited, wanting to know.

She shook her head and gave Ethan a confused look. “I’ll bet a lot of people confide in you....”

“I’m trustworthy,” he assured her. And he was. Ethan didn’t spread gossip around, and he held every relationship as sacred. Sarah was staring at him, unsure. His mouth pursed as he waited. This was a key to Sarah.

“I don’t have a very good track record, so let’s leave it at that.”

Ethan felt sadness blanketing her. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business,” he rasped. And he was sorry because he saw moisture come to her eyes and it tore at his heavily guarded heart. A woman’s or child’s tears ripped him wide-open and he had absolutely no defense against them. Ethan wanted to touch her but stopped himself.

God help him, he wanted to gather Sarah into his arms and hold her. She needed that right now, judging by the stark look in her eyes. He could feel how alone she was in this male world. In one aspect, Sarah looked fragile and too vulnerable to be a Black Hawk pilot. In other ways, Ethan sensed her steel backbone. She was complex. And that is what drove him to know her on a personal level. What moved her? What passion directed her life? Why was she in the military? There was so much more to Blue Eyes.