SEAL Of My Heart by Sharon Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page B

become, and for the first time felt, as well as saw, her age.
    “You’re getting too skinny, Mom,” he whispered into her hair.
    “Oh stop it, Ty. You know your dad likes me at my dance weight. And you’ll see every pound I’ve lost has gone right to his waistline.”
    Nope, Tyler thought, that would be your blackberry cobblers and homemade vanilla ice cream.
    “Hey, Kenny,” she said as she rubbed her fingers through Kenny’s hair like she was rubbing a charcoal stain from one of her sketches. “How are the folks?”
    Tyler and Kenny’s parents had tried to be friends since the boys were in grammar school, but it never took.
    Kenny shrugged. “Fighting like cats and dogs, making up like rabbits.”
    Tyler saw his mom’s eyes sparkle. “Well, at least they make up.”
    “I think it’s why they fight,” Kenny quipped.
    She hugged Kenny as he said his goodbyes and they made a plan to get together the next day for coffee. The Gremlin took off down the hill in a belch of smoke like its namesake.
    Tyler put his arm around his mom and pulled his wheeling duffel along with the other hand. They walked across the old creaking porch to the front door and into the “cave of bright and light” as he’d once described it to a couple of his friends.
    Funny how he thought about that just now. One time during the BUD/S training he’d been between Jones on one side and Rory on the other, locked arm in arm. The three amigos all graduated in a class that had been another near-washout. They were lying in the surf on the beach in San Diego, their clothes on, including their combat boots, wet and cold as hell. Shivering and talking about stuff just to stay awake, because sure as shit the water wasn’t doing it for them after only ten minutes of sleep in the last three days of training. Someone had started to snore and he and the guys on either side of him had to run five miles while the others lay back and got wet and sandy.
    They’d contemplated pretending to fall asleep, because then at least they could get warm during the run. But a five-mile run at midnight, completely soaked through, with the boots? And besides, the spot between his legs where his wetsuit had chafed would hurt even more. If he took off his clothes—and it would be a full forty-eight hours before he would be able to lose the clothes and take a hot shower—he’d known he’d see blisters the size of his fist, probably good and bloody too.
    So they talked about stuff just to keep each other awake. He described his mother’s house in great detail, with all the huge, colorful, abstract paintings, the way the rain pattered against the stained glass windows his folks had bought from some abbey in France on their honeymoon, the smells of strong coffee and sounds of Joni Mitchell in the background, brightening everything, including his soul…that’s what he talked about. The guys gave him hell for the Joni Mitchell comment, which was well-deserved. He couldn’t understand her much or the words, but he liked her tone and spirit. And the guys hadn’t believed a word of that either.
    He’d have to say his mother was a nester. The opposite of Tyler’s simple life with a definite lack of things to clutter it up. He liked her color and her free spirit, her warmth. It reminded him, every time he walked through the door of this battered eclectic home, why he did what he did. He was fighting to protect this for all the people like his mother, and for Kenny and his donut love, and all the other people who didn’t have to know about the evils out there and the things he and his Team had to do. And because they were so removed from his arena, he hoped they never thought about it either. That was the way it was supposed to be. Make it so safe, people never had to worry about the safety of their ordinary lives.
    He let the colors soak in like sunlight on the beach. He must have sighed, because his mom snuggled against his chest and whispered, “You’ve had a long