Hiram Coffey balanced himself precariously in the narrow stairwell leading down into the cabin of Glory Daze. He found himself thinking, not for the first time, that the twenty-year-old, 12-foot sailing sloop had seen the years referred to by its name long ago. With a determined sigh, he surveyed the expanse of painted wood flooring before him.
"Don't worry old girl, I figure we both got a few good years left."
"Yeah, T-Bag, sure." He could almost here his best friend saying, sarcastically. "Talking to yourself, is a sure sign that you've still got a few years."
"Screw you, Brigman," he said aloud even though the words had really been supplied by his own psyche. "Of course, given that this is supposed to be a romantic weekend for him and Lindsey, down in Cozumel, that's probably exactly what's happening anyway. The lucky bastard." It wasn't that he was truly jealous of the other man.
Hell, the last thing he wanted was a woman like Lindsey Brigman. However, a woman might be nice. One who's interested in more than a one-night stand.
That thought brought a grin to the surface as he remembered his night of admittedly drunken passion with Lisa 'One Night' Standing. The next morning while he was still reeling from the experience she'd thanked him for the ride and set off for home with a cheery wave wearing one of his US Navy T-shirts. Bud and Linds had laughed later as they informed him he was now officially a member of the little band of friends made up of Bud's old drilling team. All of them had been bedded by the only female member of the group at least once, thus the nickname.
"Yeah, well, in my case, it will stay just once," he said aloud, accepting the need to hear a human voice, even if it was just his own. Before he could come up with a response to that, he suddenly felt the rail he was hanging onto give way with a popping of screws from wood and he felt himself tumble head first out across the deck of the cabin. His hip landed hard on the bottom step and then thudded to the deck as his upper body slid on the wet paint.
"Damn, damn, damn! That hurt."
With a groan he slid his hands underneath him and pulled his legs up under him to stand. Paint's already ruined here anyway, he thought to himself as he stood then reached up to brush at the wet paint on the left side of his face before realizing the 'Burnt Sienna' covered his hands as well, and that all he succeeded in doing was smearing it more. Looking down his body, he discovered that his bare chest was almost completely covered in the reddish brown enamel coating, as were his BDU cutoffs and his long, lean legs beneath them.
"Great, just friggin' great, Hiram! So now you get to bathe in turpentine instead of just dabbing at yourself with it. You just had to buy this beat up piece of junk, didn't you," he railed at himself as he debated repainting the now ruined portion of decking or calling it quits for the night. Might as well finish it, he decided, hating to leave any job half done.
Once the decision was made, he set about completing the task with a single-minded determination that had gotten him through SEAL training and through all but the last few months of his former life in the teams. Less than a half hour later, the task was complete and he was cleaning up the brushes and paints he'd use to do the job. Once everything was cleaned and put away, he grabbed the can of turpentine, and a beer from the cooler to drink on the way up to Bud and Lindsey's. Least I get to take a real shower and sleep in a honest to goodness bed afterwards, he thought tiredly, glad he'd accepted Bud's offer for use of the house while the couple was gone.
At the foot of the stairs leading from the beach up to the deck, he took off his paint-splattered old sneakers and made the ascent barefoot, enjoying the feel of the cool planks against the bottoms of his feet and inhaling deeply of the salt-tinged air. He could still smell paint fumes but they weren't as strong away from the boat, even if he was covered in the stuff. Upon reaching the top, he finished the last of the beer and tossed the can toward a bin placed in the corner of the large weather-worn deck.
"He shoots. He scores!" Coffey mumbled sarcastically, at the sound of the tin striking plastic and dropping to the deck.
As he caught sight of his reflection in the sliding glass door, Coffey forgot all about the tin. Something in the shadowy half lit image turned the paint on his body to blood as the long-buried memory of his first mission with the teams surfaced.
"Chief!"
The warning came too late and Lieutenant Hiram Coffey could only watch helplessly as Senior Chief Becker was brought down by the sudden barrage of gunfire. He fired his own weapon, bringing down the sniper that had appeared out of the rubble of a bombed-out hotel and opened fire less than half a second before the newest member of the United States Navy's SEAL Team Seven spotted him.
Coffey was at the Chief's side seconds later.
"How you doing, sir?" he asked calmly as he tore open the med-kit strapped to his pack.
"Don't waste that stuff," Becker ordered gruffly. "Ain't gonna help me none." There was no fear in the black man's eyes as he laid a steadying hand on Coffey's. "We both know it. Not you're fault son, just the way the cards fell. Now you get moving - you got a rendezvous to make."
"No, sir," Coffey shook his head. "We got a rendezvous to make."
"I told you–"
"I know what you told me, chief, and I also know that we're SEALS and we don't leave anyone behind - not even our dead. And you ain't dead yet."
"You really think you can carry me and that warhead out of here, son."
"Sir, yes, sir!" The grin that accompanied the smart salute was determined, and just a touch cocky. "Now how about you shut up and let me secure a compress, so we can get a move-on."
"Skip the compress, you don't have time." Becker's voice was growing weaker as he lost more blood and his breathing became more labored. He'd be dead from blood loss soon and didn't want to worry that his lieutenant would lose valuable time trying to win a battle already lost. "Let's just get moving."
To his credit, the kid kept any more arguments to himself. After slinging his pack - which was largely empty except for the re-appropriated warhead and the med-kit - across his back, the tall, whipcord-lean man reached down and pulled the shorter, but much heavier-built chief across his shoulder and stood with a strangled groan. He hitched the man up high in a fireman's carry and set off.
Two hours later, when he finally reached the rendezvous with the rest of his team, Senior Chief Becker was dead and Coffey was covered from head to toe in the man's blood.
With a guttural growl, Coffey shook off the past.
"Definitely been breathing too many paint fumes," he said aloud as he reached to open the sliding door.
Walking through the house, he thought about how eerily silent it was with Bud and Lindsey gone. Usually, when he came up in the evening to use the shower, the house was alive with sounds. Sometimes the TV, sometimes the stereo, quite often both. And more often than not, voices. Not just the Brigmans, but whoever else happened to be in the area, too. Someone was always dropping by to say hi or hang out. Virgil Brigman was just the kind of guy people gravitated to. He had a way of making everyone feel welcome, as if they belonged.
And Coffey wasn't ashamed to admit he needed that, had always needed to belong somewhere. First he'd belonged wherever his mom was but, when she'd remarried shortly after his seventeenth birthday, he'd suddenly found himself on the outside looking in. That had sent him scrambling for somewhere, something new to belong to and he'd found the Navy. Life in the Navy had given him a sense of purpose and direction and when he'd volunteered for SEAL training, that sense had multiplied tenfold.
The teams had become his whole life. And he'd been good at it. He'd started BUD/s an ensign and been promoted to Lieutenant, Junior Grade, the moment he graduated. Within a year's time he'd been given his own team, four of his men guys who had been part of his training unit. All had requested the post, for they'd felt certain if ever ordered to insert into Hell itself, he'd find a way to lead them through. He'd given the United States Navy and, more importantly, the Teams nearly every moment of the last eleven years of his life, and they'd cut him lose for succumbing to an illness that could have just as easily stricken any other member of his team. Officially, he'd been honorably discharged for medical reasons.
For the first couple of months after his discharge, Coffey had done nothing but sleep. The meds the docs had him on were only partially responsible. His recovery from the pressure sickness and the injuries he'd received while in its grip, both self-inflicted and from the altercation with Brigman and Catfish, had taken quite sometime, both mentally and physically. When he'd finally felt up to facing the world again, he'd known the first thing he had to do was make some very necessary apologies, before figuring out where to go, what to do next.
Which was how he'd found himself on Virgil Brigman's doorstep. Several beers and a night on the Brigman's couch later he'd had a job offer and a new place to belong. Of course it had taken Lindsey awhile to warm to the idea. But then it took Lindsey Thomas Brigman time to warm to most ideas, unless they were her own.
"Who'd have ever guessed that she and I would wind up so close?" he asked aloud as he entered the guest bedroom.
Not bothering with a light, Coffey headed straight for the door in the far corner of the room, eager for a nice hot shower…once he'd dowsed himself with turpentine. He didn't need to look down at his bare chest to know that the paint was pretty much dry at this point. The tightening of his skin told him that. However, the sight that greeted him when he flipped on the bright fluorescent lighting of the bathroom brought him up short.
"I look like a Nordic version of William Wallace," he said as he studied his reflection in the mirror above the old clawfooted tub. The left side of his body was covered pretty much from top to bottom in the reddish-brown paint and, in addition, the rest of his body held splotches of the stuff, too. The only portion of his six-foot frame to escape uncoated was his feet, since they had been tucked safely inside sneakers when he fell. "Okay, now I'm really, really glad Bud and Lindsey aren't here."
Coffey stepped into the tub still wearing his BDU cutoffs and holding the can of turpentine, and pulled the curtain closed along the circular track suspended from the ceiling. Opening the can, he poured the foul-smelling liquid directly onto his chest, wincing with pain as it flowed across skin that must have been abraded when he fell. Rubbing the stuff in, he felt the paint loosen and moved to repeat the motion on his legs. Next, he grabbed the washcloth that he'd draped over the rod after his morning shower and dowsed it.
Working the material carefully over his face with his eyes tightly closed, he thought about how much easier this would be if there were a woman in his life. He smiled slightly as he rubbed at his reddish-blond hair, allowing himself to imagine a woman's hands caressing his face and hair as she gently stripped the paint away, and felt an instant stirring in his body. Pushing the image aside with a frustrated groan, Coffey reached out blindly to turn on the cold water and activate the shower head. Standing under the pulsing spray, he waited for the paint and turpentine to be rinsed away and for his body to cool down, before adjusting the water temperature to add a relaxing warmth and stripping off the wet BDU's.
It was a full half-hour later when he turned the water off and drew back the curtain. The mirror was fogged over but he didn't really need it. Looking down his body, Coffey could see that the paint was gone. There was an angry red area over his ribs on the left side that was a little tender but would be fine by morning, and the assorted scars that he'd picked up over the years were all - of course - still there. The only ones that truly bothered him were the ones along his forearms. Four neat lines along each arm. He hated the thought of explaining to a woman that he'd inflicted those upon himself.
Rolling his shoulder and stretching his tired body, gracefully, he pushed the unwanted thought aside.
"What's past is past and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it. Besides any woman that you trust enough about to tell the story to will understand."
Stepping out of the tub, he reached for a towel and made a half-hearted attempt at drying his body. Exhaustion was fully upon him and all he wanted was a bed. Stumbling back into the bedroom, he made his way to the bed and simply crawled between the sheets. The feel of the cool cotton sliding against his bare skin pulled a sigh of relief from deep within him as the last of the day's tension drained away and he slipped gently off into dreams.