Rescue Me

bother.”
    Operating?
    Alvin turned red but managed a wink. “You got it, darlin’.”
    What the . . . ? Vince had been exposed to some real disturbing shit in his life, most he stored away in the black locker of his soul, but his wrinkled aunt, heels to Jesus, with Alvin was right near the top of the disturbing shit list.
    Luraleen shoved the cash drawer closed and announced, “We’re closin’ up early. Shut down the hot dog roller, Vince!”
    Less than an hour later, Vince was dropped off at his aunt’s house. She’d slapped some pink, Pepto-colored lipstick on her wrinkly, horsy lips and jumped in Alvin’s truck, off to do things Vince didn’t even want to contemplate.
    Vince was left alone to sit in an old iron chair on the screened porch. He raised a bottle of water to his mouth, then set it on the warped wood by his left foot. He’d never been good at relaxing. He’d always needed something to do. A clarity of purpose.
    He tied the laces on his left running shoe and then switched to his right. When he’d been a member of the teams, there was always something that needed doing. He’d always been downrange or training and preparing for the next mission. When he’d come home, he’d kept himself busy with work and family. His nephew had been only a few months old and his sister had needed a lot of help. His purpose had been clear. There hadn’t been a mental vacuum. Not a lot of time to think. About anything.
    He liked it that way.
    The screen door slammed behind him as he set off into the cool March air. A sliver of a moon hung in the black night crammed with stars. Seattle, New York, and Tokyo had stunning skylines, but none of them could compare with the natural beauty of billions of stars.
    The soles of his running shoes thumped a silent, steady pace against the paved street. Whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, or the deck of an oilrig in the calm waters of the Persian Gulf, Vince had always found a certain peace within the dark blanket of night. Ironic, he supposed, given that, like most Special Forces, he’d often operated in the dead of night, the familiar rat-tat of an AK–47 in the distance, and the reassuring answer of an M4A1. This dichotomy of equal parts comfort and fear of the night was something that men like him understood: taking it to the enemy was much better than waiting around for the enemy to bring it to them.
    In the calm Texas night, the only sound to reach his ears was the sound of his own breathing and a dog barking in the distance. Rottweiler maybe.
    On nights like this, he could fill his head with either the future or the past. With the faces of his buddies. Those who’d made it out and those who hadn’t. He could let his mind recall the guys in Team One, Alpha Platoon. Their fresh faces changed over the years by the things they’d seen and done. He’d grown up in the Navy. Grown into a man, and the things he’d seen and done had changed him, too.
    But tonight he had other things on his mind. Things that had nothing to do with the past. He had to admit the more he thought about buying the Gas and Go from Luraleen, the more the idea appealed to him. He could buy it, fix it up, and sell it in a year. Or hell, he could become the next John Jackson, the owner and founder of about a hundred and fifty convenience stores throughout the Northwest.
    True, he didn’t know shit about convenience stores, but John hadn’t known that much, either. The guy had been a Chevron marketer from a small town in Idaho and was worth millions now. Not that Vince wanted to be a mogul. He just wasn’t a suit-and-tie kind of guy. He didn’t have the temperament for the boardroom. He knew himself well enough to know that he wasn’t very diplomatic, if at all. He liked to cut through the bullshit and get things done. He’d much rather kick a door down than talk his way through, but he was thirty-six and his body was pretty beat up from too many years of kicking down doors, jumping from airplanes, and fighting waves like a bronc rider and dragging his Zodiac up the beach.
    He passed beneath a weak streetlamp and turned north. He’d made it through BUD/S hell week, and served for ten years with SEAL Team One out of Coronado. He’d been deployed around the world, then moved to Seattle to help raise his nephew. A job that had sometimes made him long for the days of relentless sandstorms, putrid swamps, and teeth-rattling cold. He could manage one small convenience store, and truth be told, he