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And they were damned impressed.
Tango showed up, showed off, and aced her assessment day.
When Tango’s acceptance letter hit his mailbox, Ethan was one proud daddy.
He was a proud dad every day. But that one was icing on the cake.
Creed turned Ethan’s way, lifting a hand to signal him over.
“Yo.” Ethan strode forward. “What’s up? Where’s Tango?”
“The dogs are off on a tear around the back field for a bit to work off their zoomies,” Creed said. “They’ve been in their crates for a couple of days while we were flying home. They’d had about enough.”
“Understood.” Ethan looked down at the blonde woman standing at the fence, recognizing her as Gator’s sister, Auralia. He’d seen her in pictures back when he ran missions with Creed and Gator’s Marine Raider unit. From stories he’d heard at the time, Ethan wasn’t at all surprised when he learned that Auralia and Creed had tied the knot.
“Hey, Auralia.” He held his hand out for a shake. “I’m Tango’s dad, Ethan.”
She slipped her hand in his. Her fingers were cold, but the handshake was firm.
“I feel like I’ve known you for years from the stories I’ve heard around the campfire over in the sandbox.”
Auralia shot Gator a look that Ethan read as, “What the hell have you been telling strangers about me?”
Ethan had a policy against using that kind of phrase. He’d learned his lesson once when he’d texted a friend. “I was just telling someone a story about you and thought I’d touch base. It’s been a while.”
The message came back, “Funny, I was just telling someone about you, too.”
The unknowns made him feel slightly unsettled: who was his friend talking to? What story was he sharing? It wasn’t a big deal, but that unease sat with him, and he’d promised himself he’d delete that phrase from his conversations.
Yet, there he did it.
It was a terrible way to meet someone, putting them on their back foot.
“Gator and Creed were sharing stories about growing up in Louisiana,” Ethan reassured her. “If you’d like, I have plenty of stories to tell about Gator and Creed. These two, with their Bayou-woo-woo—whatever you want to call it—were the magic sauce that got us out of some hairy situations back in the day.”
“You were out with the Raiders? You don’t seem very Marine-like.” Auralia said with conviction, sugar-coated with a smile that seemed to say he shouldn’t take offense at not living up to the standard set by Creed and Gator.
Ethan wondered how she’d come to that conclusion.
And, as if he’d asked that out loud, Auralia responded, “Sorry, but you have too much of a geek-veneer to let me believe you were a Marine Raider.”
Yup, just like Creed and Gator, Auralia seemed able to pull thoughts from the wind.
Ethan wouldn’t just watch his tongue; he’d keep a tight rein on his inner monologue as well.
Lifting a booted foot to rest on the fence rail, Gator tipped his head in Ethan’s direction. “Nerd or not, Ethan there, saved our hides. He’s from a Tier One Special Operations Unit, but I bet you’ve never heard word one about them.”
“I bet I have.” Auralia looked from Gator to Ethan. “Unless it’s super-secret and requires a decoder ring.”
“A proud member of the fierce and the few,” Ethan chuckled. “I was with the Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron. 24th STS for short. Knobs and gadgets, yes, but no decoder ring, unfortunately.”
“Gator’s right, I’ve never heard of them.” Auralia tucked up under Creed’s arm.
Creed swiveled her around in front of him to rub her arms, then wrapped her tight. “It’s gettin’ chilly with night comin’ in.”
“Airforce?” Auralia tipped her head. “Gator’s wife, Christen, is a Night Stalker; is your group something like that?”
“Yeah, I know Christen,” Ethan said. “She and I go way back. But she’s in the sky, and my place is in the dirt since I don’t have the eye-hand coordination to fly like Night Stalkers do. I was a simple dial guy and calculations geek. STS is involved with expeditionary and tactical air traffic control in hostile, denied, and austere environments, which is where Marine Raiders like to play. If I was going to make Marine friends, I needed to go to their sandbox.”
