Julie Miller - Basic Training

Was he hearing things right? Only the threat of severe weather kept his father on dry land these days. As a family, they’d always loved outdoor sports, but since the death of Travis’s mother nearly a decade ago, spending time on the water—preferably with a fishing rod in his hand—had become a way of life for his father.

After developing a heart condition, forced retirement from his position as a brigadier general in the USMC’s Quartermaster Corps had left widower Hal McCormick with two obsessions. One was his three children, and the other his fishing boat, which seemed to grow larger and newer with each passing year.

Travis tilted his head to spy out the sliding glass doors that faced the presently tranquil waters of Chesapeake Bay. Not a cloud in sight this afternoon. What was his dad up to? Frowning, Travis leaned back toward the archway to the kitchen. He had a bad feeling about this.

“There’s nothing wrong with the trawler, either,” Hal continued. “I would have loved you and the missus to come visit us but, well, it’s Travis. Personally, I’m just grateful he’s alive after that explosion. But he’s having a hard time with his recovery. It’s mental as much as physical if you ask me. You know how hard it is to keep a Marine down when his buddies are in the line of fire. You and I were the same way. A couple decades ago, at any rate.” Hal laughed as guilty bile pooled in the pit of Travis’s stomach. “Trav won’t even consider retirement from Special Ops. If he’s not careful, he’ll permanently cripple himself doing too much too soon. I need to be here to keep an eye on him.”

Well, didn’t that make him feel like he was about five years old again? Apparently, Travis wasn’t the only McCormick whose life had been altered by the accident.

“Ethan and J.C. helped me get him home, but Ethan has to report back to Quantico to prep for his class on Monday.” Travis had thought getting big brother out of the way would mellow out the elevated level of concern around here. Instead, it sounded as if his father was dialing his stress up another notch. “No, Caitlin and her husband couldn’t make it,” Hal went on. “She’s so close to term on her pregnancy, Walter, that I can’t ask her to leave Alexandria to take care of her brother. Maybe if she wasn’t in her ninth month.”

Travis shook his head, cursing silently. He was thirty-three. A grown man. A Marine captain. Not a child. And certainly not a wash-out who needed his daddy or anyone else to babysit him.

He could add guilt to the layers of frustration already weighing him down. Yeah, he had issues. But they were his problems to deal with, not his family’s. His life might have been put on hold for a year. but they weren’t going to suffer the same fate—not on his account.

Travis silently leaned the cane against the wall outside the kitchen. If the Velcro on the brace binding his left leg from thigh to ankle wouldn’t have made such a noise, he would have removed it as well to make the illusion complete. As it was, he tugged the frayed edge of his cut-off denim shorts over the top of the brace, fixed a grin on his face to counter the ache in his bones, and strolled into the kitchen to raid the leftovers from last night’s party.

“What, am I dying?” Travis teased, unwrapping a tray of cookies on the counter and studying them as though choosing between chocolate chip or ginger snap was the biggest challenge he had to face that day. “You aren’t seriously giving up a fishing trip for me, are you?”

Hal covered the receiver with his palm. “You’ve come home for a reason, son. I’m not about to abandon my duty. Walter understands.”

The sweet, spicy cookie he munched on suddenly tasted like sawdust.

Walter. As in General Walter Craddock. One of his father’s military cronies. Travis’s older brother, Ethan, had once reported to Craddock at the DOD—Department of Defense—at the Pentagon. He was one of the chiefs overseeing personnel assignments. An officer whose recommendation—or lack thereof—could make or break Travis’s chances of returning to Special Ops.

Not a man he wanted to appear weak in front of.

Travis swallowed the lump of sawdust and gestured for the phone. “Let me talk to him.”

“It’s General Craddock.”

Travis took heed of both the concern and the warning in his father’s blue eyes. “I’ll make sure I salute.”

“Uh-huh.” Reluctantly, Hal turned his attention back to the phone. “Walter, my son would like to have a few words with you. Go easy on him.”

Go easy? Hell. Why not just tell the general he was a panty-waist who couldn’t cut it in the Corps anymore?

But Travis buried his knee-jerk reaction behind a charming, chilled-out facade. He perched on a barstool at the end of the kitchen counter, taking the weight off his leg so he could concentrate on saying all the right things to reassure both his father and Walter Craddock. “General. Travis McCormick here.”

“Captain. I’m sorry to hear about your relapse. Do they have the proper medical facilities there in Ashton? If there’s anything Millie or I can do to help, let us know.” A touch of something that just might be construed as pity colored the general’s voice.

Convincing the doctors, the Corps, his friends and family that he wasn’t ready to be put out to pasture was going to be an uphill battle all the way. He might as well draw a line in the dirt right now and start the good fight. Forming a vague plan in his head, Travis watched his father cross the room to check the cookie tray for himself. “The rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated, sir. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

“Good to hear. The Corps relies on men like you.”

He hoped so. “Actually, General, I need to ask you a favor. From one Marine to another.”

“Name it. What can I do for you?”

“You can keep your plans with Dad.” Travis let a grin filter into the timbre of his voice. “If you and Mrs. Craddock don’t drive down from D.C. tomorrow and give him a chance to try out his new Mainship Trawler, we’re going to have a national crisis on our hands. Chesapeake Bay could be overrun with striped bass.”

“Travis Harold McCormick…”

Craddock’s laugh drowned out his dad’s reprimand. “Hal’s cramping your style?”

Travis didn’t want to make light of his father’s concerns; he just didn’t want the stress-free retirement his father had earned to be another casualty of Travis’s lengthy recovery. “I know he was looking forward to your visit. And trust me, if I can survive four weeks in a Central American jungle with nothing but MRE’s and a sidearm, then I can manage a couple of days in a well-stocked beach house with satellite TV and a remote control.”

“It’s that bad, eh?”

“Save me, sir.”

Craddock laughed over a rustle of papers at his desk. “Millie and I were looking forward to getting out of the city for a few days.”

“There’s no need for you and Mrs. Craddock to alter your itinerary on my account.”

“I was going to ask your father about bringing along a family friend as well.”

“The more the merrier,” Travis insisted.

“Unfortunately, that could be a problem. I can’t guarantee how merry she’ll be.”

“She?”

“Eileen Ward. She’s my secretary here at the DOD. A civilian.”

Was the general playing match-maker to his dad? From the corner of his eye, Travis watched his father studiously debate between the chocolate chips and ginger snaps, then ultimately choose one of each. Was that the old man’s idea of conflict and excitement these days?

Though he was a little gray on top, and definitely set in his ways, Hal McCormick was still in pretty decent fighting shape. He had pills he took regularly for his heart, but his outdoorsy hobbies and regimented diet—okay, so he still had a weakness for sweets—kept him trim. According to a few articles Travis had read, a sixty-year-old man in his father’s relatively sound health and secure financial position made a pretty good catch. Still, he’d remained steadfastly unattached since being widowed. He didn’t date, didn’t flirt. He just…fished.