Free Hunter's Heart by Rita Henuber Page B

shit. And…as everyone knows, shit rolls downhill. That night Army was in a piss-poor mood and taking it out on everybody in the bar. Even the bar bunnies, women who hung around for free drinks and for the vertical and horizontal dancing, had enough and left.
    Hunter’s tolerance meter went into the red when one asswipe leaned across the bar and pinched Sherrie, the middle-aged barkeep’s, ample breast. Even though she brought out a wooden paddle and wacked him a good one, Hunter had seen enough. He was ready to put these guys in their place…on their ass, in the dust, outside. He wasn’t alone.
    Bug, a twisted smile on his face, shoved past him, with Hobbit close behind. Those two had an informed fight alliance, a SEAL tag team, and were generally first in the fray. He’d never seen them start a fight. He’d seen them finish plenty.
    “Nope. Not tonight,” LT said, laying a firm hand on Bug’s arm, effectively stopping him and everyone else from pounding the crap out of the low-life motherfuckers. “Not when I’m here.” He tipped his head the direction of the10th and SOAR guys. “Or any of our buddies,” he added.
    Hunter liked the LT. He was one of the best officers he’d worked with. When he came into the unit, he’d been prepared to hate him. Solely because he’d come to take the place of his friend and best officer he’d worked for, LT Mercer, who was killed during an op. eHWhen LT ‘Zoom’ Zunno came into the team, he asked for two things, do their best and never, never get into trouble—as in with the law—when he was around.
    LT had no aversion to joining them in a brawl, but someone would have to bail them out of jail and talk the CO out of disciplinary actions. He also knew and acknowledged who ran the SEALs. The senior enlisted. Zoom was a respected leader who took care of them.
    “Come on LT,” Bambi protested. “These assholes are begging for it.”
    “Not tonight,” LT said. “Last call, frogs.”
    LT was calling an end to the night. It was only ten-twenty and it took some effort not to wade into the group, fists flying. But, if they did that it would be their Army buds, not them, taking the brunt of the discipline tomorrow. The Colonel, whoever he was, may know people in the Army, maybe even the Navy, but his reach ended when it came to the SEALs.
    Grumbling, they piled into the fifteen-person van they’d been assigned and went back.

    Hunter’s room was uncomfortably warm. The rooms were plywood partitions, hastily erected twenty years ago in the abandoned Quonset huts. Tiny window-unit air conditioners, almost as ancient, did nothing more than stir around the day’s leftover heat.
    Hunter dropped onto his cot and thought of Celia. Conflicting emotions nagging him. They had a scrambled sat phone the guys used to call their families and he could probably use it to call her. But he’d been gone more than a week. “Shit.” He swung his feet to the floor and padded to the head. On the way back he stopped at Bug’s door and knocked.
    “Yeah.”
    Hunter poked his head in. “Talk?”
    “Yeah. Let’s go outside. Hot in here,” Bug said, slipping on his flip flops.
    Outside, they lit up the cigars Bug brought out with him. The Herrera Finos were a gift to the team from a diplomat whose ass they’d saved on a South American deployment. The man never failed to keep them supplied with a variety of quality cigars.
    Hunter drew in, savored the complex flavor of the tobacco, and exhaled.
    “Ya gonna tell me or not?” Bug said as the smoke drifted away.
    “A woman. She’s in here.” Hunter tapped his forehead.
    Bug leaned against the building. “Not the worst thing that can happen.”
    Part of him thought it could be. When he was working or training, he was one hundred percent into the work, the training, being with the men. “How do you keep it from creeping into your thoughts?”
    “Has it while you’re working?” Bud asked.
    He thought about it. “No.”
    “Then