Protecting Her: A Romance Bundle

I exploded within seconds and so did she.

And from that moment on we never looked back.

That night still stands as the greatest night of my life.

I have replayed it in my dreams a thousand times.

Annabel was tall for a girl; thin, with pert, firm tits and not much in the way of curves, but she had a beautiful face and a tender way about her that just made me want to be near her. She had this aura, I guess you could say, this chemical magnetism that drew me to her like a moth to a flame or a magnet to steel. Like the moment I first slid inside her, I could still close my eyes and feel the heat coming off her young body as we lay there naked and sweating after our first awkward sex.

I’d known Annabel Lee pretty much my entire life, since first grade probably, but we started hanging out regularly our junior year when the chemistry teacher put us together on a project, probably because Annabel was the smartest kid in the class and I was the dumbest (plus I needed at least a C to keep my spot as quarterback of the junior varsity football team). I guess Coach Hand, the chemistry teacher

who also happened to be an assistant football coach, figured I needed all the help I could get to even get a C in the class. He was right. I would have racked up another in a long line of D’s if it hadn’t been for Annabel’s hard work. We all knew it; her, me, and the coach. She got an A on the project and I got a sympathetic C that allowed me to keep playing football. My mom was proud as punch because she couldn’t remember the last time I’d made a grade above a D.

Me and Annabel hung out a lot after that, then casually became a couple our senior year. We never made it official, I mean, I never gave her my football jacket or a ring, but she had my heart for sure. She was my girl and I was her guy and everybody knew it. I was only happy when I was with Annabel. The rest of my life back then was shit. Pure unadulterated shit.

Then I fucked up big time and she caught me doing it and wouldn’t even talk to me after that. When she saw me coming she’d head in the other direction. She ignored my calls, my notes, the pleas sent through mutual friends, and my late-night visits outside of her bedroom window. Her mom would call the cops and I’d flee when the sirens got close. Once, the sheriff followed me home and told me to keep the fuck away. Fortunately for me, my old man had already passed out or he would have beaten the living shit out of me.

Then my brother Kenny was killed and everything went to shit.

The last time I saw Annabel was 4,103 days and 11 hours ago, the day I climbed onto the Greyhound bus for the long ride from south Texas to northern Michigan, headed to basic training at The Great Lakes Naval Training Center on the western shore of Lake Michigan. I didn’t even know she was there until the bus was pulling out of the terminal. I glanced out the window and there she was, sitting in her old man’s pickup truck watching me through the dirty windshield. She had her thin fingers wrapped tightly around the steering wheel. She didn’t wave. She didn’t blink. She didn’t move. She didn’t open her mouth. She just watched me go with a blank expression on her gorgeous face. I’ll never forget the look of apathy in her eyes. Or the sharp pains in my chest as I mentally ripped out my beating heart and tossed it out the window. It splattered like a ripe melon when it hit the scorching hot blacktop and sizzled like a frying egg. That was fine. I could live without it because I wouldn’t need it anymore. I was leaving it behind forever, along with my Annabel Lee.

I spent eight weeks in basic training, then put in my request to join the SEALS. I was numb back then. I literally felt nothing. No joy, no pain, no fear, no love. Nothing. Not a fucking thing. I wanted to pay for my sins with my flesh, blood, and bones. I wanted to atone for everything I’d done and the things I didn’t do. I wanted to pay for breaking Annabel’s heart, for betraying her trust. I wanted to offer myself as a sacrifice for the death of my little brother. I wanted to make up for all the years of abuse I took from my old man rather than killing him in his sleep when I was old enough to squeeze the trigger on the gun he kept in his nightstand. Dark thoughts, I know. I wanted to pay for just being me. I wanted to put my life on the line every day just so I could feel something. And I knew of no better way to do that than to become a SEAL and volunteer for every dangerous mission that came along. And that’s what I’ve done for the last eleven years.

Honestly, between you and me, the requirements for getting into the SEALs aren’t that stringent. It’s mostly physical stuff—endurance, perseverance, the willingness and ability to follow orders and put your ass on the line time and time again. Thank God, otherwise I never would have been accepted. Like my buddy Troy said, “Getting in was easy. Staying in and staying alive was hard.”

From Michigan, I flew back across country to the Naval Amphibious Base Coronado across the bay from San Diego, California. After twenty-one weeks of SEAL training, they herded my team onto a C-17 troop transport plane and it was off to Iraq for my first mission. And like leaving Gulf Breeze, I never looked back. From there, I have bounced around the globe like a fucking pinball with an assault rifle and enough attitude to fill a tanker truck.

Hoo-fucking-rah, SEALs…

A day hadn’t gone by when I didn’t wonder what became of Annabel.

I still thought about her late at night, when I felt alone even with another woman in my bed.

I wondered if I would ever see her again.

And if I did, I wondered if she would even speak to me.

2

Annabel Lee

Wendy, my receptionist, stuck her head in the operating room door and waited for me to acknowledge her presence with a quick glance. She knew better than to come inside when I had an animal open on the table. One, it wasn’t sanitary, and two, Wendy puked her guts out at the sight of blood.

The operating room was nothing fancy and certainly not as sterile as those found in hospitals for humans. It was just a small room in the back of my practice with a tall table covered in sterile plastic and a large light that loomed above my head like some kind of hovering Martian ship. I was stitching up Dolly the eighty-pound Labrador after spaying her. Dolly was sleeping like a baby on the table.

Without taking my eyes off my work, I barked at Wendy, no pun intended. “Speak, Wendy.”

“Vernon Gibbs is on the phone. He says Buttercup is about to deliver that fold.”

“Fuck. So much for taking off early. Okay, tell him I’ll be out as soon as I’m done here. And please tell Juan to come in and get Dolly.” I tied off the last stitch and clipped the suture short so Dolly couldn’t dig or chew it out before it was healed. I’d spayed and neutered thousands of dogs and cats over my six years as Gulf Breeze’s only veterinarian. I could do it with my eyes closed, but I still made sure things were good to go before calling any operation a success.

Juan came in holding a blue plastic cone that would go around Dolly’s neck to keep her from chewing at the wound on her belly. Juan, a fifty-something Mexican-American who was as round as he was tall, was my lead vet tech and righthand. He was a leftover from old Doc Anderson when I bought the practice and I was glad to have him with me. He pretty much ran the office when I was out in the field. I was a small and large animal vet, which meant that I could be working on a four-pound Chihuahua one minute and a two-thousand pound bull the next. Buttercup was a full-grown mare about to drop her first fold. Horses give birth on their own, but I needed to be there just in case there were complications.

“Okay, Juan, put the cone on her neck and put her in a kennel to sleep it off,” I said, tugging off the latex gloves. “Check her when she wakes up and if everything looks good tell Mrs. Perkins she can take her home in an hour or two.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Juan said formally, giving me a nod as he easily scooped the large dog off the table and cradled her to his chest like an overgrown baby. Dolly slept peacefully with her long tongue hanging out the side. I gave her head a quick scratch and smiled. I envied her. I would have loved to have been passed out in my bed at home, but I knew it would be hours before I had that pleasure.

Juan paused before going through the door. “Do you want me to go with you to Mr. Gibbs’ place?”