The medics, who were available for all the evolutions, ran to them and took over.
The kid was coming around. “Where am I? Who are you guys?”
“Coronado Beach, and you’re in violation of about six codes right now.”
“Well, now that I’m alive, you can arrest me,” the kid rasped, and even half-drowned he sounded cheeky.
The medics hovered, running vitals and barking readings, but Cormac barely heard them. The kid, Flynn, was blinking up at him, dazed but grinning through chattering teeth.
Cormac chuckled. “I like this one.”
“We’re Navy SEAL candidates,” Bolt said.
“What’s your name?” Cormac asked.
“Flynn Gallagher.”
Shamrock grinned. “Aye, a fellow Irishman. Cormac Kavanagh.”
He held out a hand, and Flynn’s slick, shaking one met it halfway. Their palms slapped together, water and grit between them, the grip hard and sure despite the tremor. For a second the noise, the medics, the surf all fell away. Just two soaked, stubborn sons of Ireland grinning at each other like they’d finally found the other half of a joke only they understood.
“Glad you made it, lad,” Cormac said softly.
Flynn’s grin widened. “Me too.”
Even as the ambulance rolled up, and they hustled the guy toward the vehicle, Flynn’s questions flew.
The fog burned off as the sun climbed. Across the beach, the bell gleamed bright and clean. The boats lay in crooked rows, the men who’d survived standing like shadows in the light.
Bear watched them from the edge of the surf, water lapping his boots. For the first time in years, he felt it again, the pulse of belonging, the hum of something bigger than silence.
Out in the bay, the ocean rolled on, unbroken, carrying away the night.
Hell Week was over.
8
The room smelled like antiseptic and something metallic under the air-conditioning. The monitor beeped in steady time, a sound too calm for how restless he felt.
Flynn lay propped up in the hospital bed, a bruise blooming across his ribs where the board had slammed into him. Every breath tugged at it, sharp for a moment, then fading to a steady ache, the ocean’s parting gift. When he tried to breathe too deeply, pain bit, but it was a good kind of pain, the kind that meant he was still here.
M&M sat close, her hand wrapped around his, eyes red. Clint stood behind her, arms folded, steady as bedrock. They looked both proud and furious, a combination he knew well.
“You scared the life out of us, Flynn Patrick Gallagher.” M&M’s voice trembled despite the scold. “A call from the Navy saying you near drowned. That’s not something a grandmother ever wants to hear.”
Flynn winced. Clint’s mouth twitched, but his eyes stayed hard. “Boy, don’t make your grandmother bury the only family she has left.”
“I’m sorry,” Flynn said quietly.
M&M squeezed his hand, her thumb brushing the IV tape. “You’re coming home soon as they let you walk. We’ll get you back on the ranch where you belong—warm meals, real work, solid ground under your feet.”
Home. He wanted to tell her it wasn’t enough anymore. The ocean had changed him, shown him something he didn’t have a name for yet.
“I’m sorry. The weather got the best of me.” He had always…always…been honest with her and Clint, and he wasn’t going to back down now. It wasn’t in his nature. He’d left Texas at fifteen, carved a place for himself in California. Now he wanted something that was going to hurt and scare them. That felt like torture, but it also felt like freedom.
M&M reached for his hand again, her fingers warm and trembling. “The weather didn’t drag you out there, boy. What were you chasin’?”
He hesitated, searching for words big enough to hold what he’d felt out on that water. “I was out surfing, trying to find answers,” he said finally. “I feel stuck here, and I’d feel stuck back in Texas. It’s not about running away. It’s about not being caged. Then I met those SEALs.”
