Rescue Me

all their lives.”
    Luraleen sounded bitter so he didn’t mention that he’d been invited. “If you aren’t invited, how do you know so much about it?” He took another bite.
    “People tell me everything. I’m like a hairdresser and bartender all rolled into one.”
    More likely she pried a lot. He swallowed and took a long drink of his beer. The door chimed, indicating a customer, and Luraleen snubbed out her smoke. She placed her hand on the desk and rose.
    “I’m gettin’ old.” She moved toward the door and said over her shoulder, “Sit tight and enjoy your dinner. When I get back, we’ll talk about that business proposition I have for you.”
    Which was why he’d driven to Texas. She’d called him a few weeks ago when he’d been in New Orleans, helping a buddy re-side his house. She hadn’t told him anything else, just that she had a proposition for him and that he wouldn’t be sorry. He figured he knew what the proposition was, though. For the past five years, he’d worked a regular job in security, and on the side, he’d bought a run-down Laundromat. He’d fixed it up and turned it into a real cash-rich business. No matter the dip in the economy, people washed their clothes. With the money he’d made, he’d invested in a recession-proof pharmaceutical company. While others saw their stocks wiped out, his were up twenty-seven percent from when he’d bought in. And six months ago, he’d sold the Laundromat for a nice profit. Now he was taking his time, looking at other recession-proof stocks and cash-rich businesses in which to invest.
    Before joining the Navy, he’d taken a few business classes in college, which came in handy. A few classes weren’t a business degree, but he didn’t need a degree to look at a situation, run a cost-benefit analysis in his head, and see how to make money.
    Since Luraleen didn’t seem to need highly trained security, he figured she had some sort of fixing-up job for him.
    Vince took a bite and washed it down. He glanced about the office, at the old microwave and refrigerator and the boxes of cleaning products and Solo cups. The old olive-colored counters and ancient cabinets. The place was run-down, that was for sure. It could use a coat of paint and new ceramic floor tiles. The counters here and in the store needed a sledgehammer.
    He polished off a Wound Hound and balled the foil hot dog wrapper in his hand. At the moment, he had the time to help out his aunt. Since leaving his security job in Seattle a few months ago, he had some time on his hands. Since leaving the teams a little over five years ago, his future was pretty much wide open. A little too wide open.
    A few months after he’d been medically retired from the SEALs, his sister gave birth to his nephew. She’d been alone and scared, and she’d needed him. He’d owed her for taking care of their terminally ill mother while he’d been gone, down range in Iraq. So he’d been living and working in Washington State, looking after his little sister and helping her raise her son, Conner. There were only a few things in Vince’s life that caused him guilt; his baby sister taking care of their mother, who could be difficult at the best of times, was one of them.
    That first year out had been a tough one, for him and Conner. Conner screaming from bellyaches, and Vince wanting to scream from the damn ringing in his head. He could have stayed in the teams. He’d always planned to do his full twenty. Could have waited it out until things got better, but his hearing would never be what it had been before the accident. A SEAL with hearing loss was a liability. No matter his expertise in armed and unarmed combat, his mastery of everything from his Sig to a machine gun. No matter his underwater demolitions skills nor that he was the best insertions guy in the teams, he was a liability to himself and the rest of the guys.
    He’d missed that adrenaline-fueled, testosterone-driven life. Still did. But when he’d left, he took on a new mission. He’d been away for ten years. His sister, Autumn, had dealt with their mother all alone, and it had been his turn to take care of her and his nephew. But neither of them needed him now, and after a particularly bad bar brawl at the beginning of the year that had left Vince bruised and bloody and in lock-up, he had needed a change of scenery. He hadn’t felt that kind of rage in a long time. The pent-up kind just beneath the surface of his flesh, like a