Page 66 of Forged By Sacrifice

“What did you do at the Pentagon?” she asked.

For the first time, I found myself shutting down a little. My time at the Pentagon was classified. Top-secret stuff that I could barely breathe a word about, and then, to only a handful of people who were already in the know. My dad was pretty much on that list with not many other people.

“I can’t really talk about a lot of it,” I told her truthfully.

“It really was spy stuff?” she asked, humor in her voice.

I chuckled. “Yes and no. I fielded a lot of intelligence reports and liaised with JSOC for S.E.A.L. team operations.”

“Wow,” she breathed out, and I didn’t want her to get the wrong impression, so I added on quickly.

“Not really. The wow are the guys who put their life on the line to make the plans happen.” Because it was true. The guys who were in the field were the impressive ones. Lives on the line day in and day out. I just sat back and helped decide which missions had the best chance of success. Which ones needed to be done. It was hardly glorious work.

“You never wanted to be a S.E.A.L. yourself?” she asked.

I thought about Darren and Nash and the lives they led. They were tough. Almost too tough. It was hard on Darren’s wife—the things Darren saw and did that he couldn’t talk about but came home with him anyway. Darren and Nash were both good men. I just didn’t want their life. I wasn’t afraid of giving my life for something I believed in as much as I believed in America—screwed up and all—but I didn’t want a life spent away from those I loved either. I would dedicate my life to this country in a different way.

“No. S.E.A.L.s are almost always lifers, or at least until they can’t make the physical requirements anymore. I knew from the time I was a kid that I wanted to go into politics,” I said.

“Your dad’s a lifer. Vice Admiral has to have come with a lot of sacrifices.”

I nodded. It was part of the reason I hadn’t wanted to try for S.E.A.L.s or any of the more coveted positions in the Navy. Dad’s life had been a series of sacrifices. “He moved around a lot when we were younger.”

“You didn’t go with him?”

“He and Mom didn’t want that for us. They wanted us to grow up in the same house, and at the same schools, and just be regular American kids.” It was something my sisters and I were very grateful for, that our parents had given us a normal life instead of the life of military brats.

“Must have been really hard on their relationship,” Georgie said.

I’d never really thought about what it must have been like for my parents, who I knew loved each other, to be away from each other for so long. Mom had been sad when he was gone but also busy with us kids and her life at the club and her social groups. “You know, I’ve never really thought of it that way. They still live apart a lot. Dad has an apartment near the Pentagon because he’s there so much. Mostly home on the weekends.”

“I’m not sure I could live that way with the person I’d agreed to marry,” Georgie responded.

And before I could reconsider, I’d slipped out, “Good thing I’ve given it up then.”

When she snorted, I winked to lessen the seriousness of my words.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Mac-Macauley.”

“Don’t read too much into it, Georgie-Girl.”

“You have to come up with better nicknames than that,” Dani said from the backseat, and we both jumped, having forgotten she was even with us. It had been a little bubble of time that we’d shared, getting to know each other a little more. Like a first date, but with a history already tying us together.

Thinking about relationships and the toll the military took on them reminded me that Nash and Darren were coming to the house on Saturday. I turned to Georgie. “You’ll get to meet a couple of my S.E.A.L. buddies this weekend. Darren’s wife’s family lives not far from us, and I invited them to the house for the barbecue. Nash is staying with them, so he’ll be there, too.”

“I’ll finally get to see how the duo bested you at poker,” Dani said from the backseat.

“They didn’t best me. They cheated to win; there’s a difference,” I said.

“Is Georgie fully prepared for the competitive nature of our family and friends?”

I grinned at Georgie and shrugged. “I guess we’ll have to see.”

But I couldn’t help a secret desire for her to love everything about our family as much as I did, because my family was everything to me.

Georgie

MAKE ME LIKE YOU

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