“I wanna know what’s in that box. From what I’ve heard, it’s enormous.”
“How did you hear about it before me? And how did it get here?”
“I dunno, and you won’t either if you don’t go check it out.”
Stepping into the department’s admin office, there were several people crowded around a rather large box. I wouldn’t call it enormous. Not knowing who could’ve sent it or what was in it, I approached it slowly, flipping the knife open on my multi-tool.
“Who’s it from?” Priest asked.
I ignored him. The return address didn’t look familiar, in the sense I didn’t know anyone who lived there, but I knew the area. The beach there was incredible, and the houses were beautiful. Expensive as fuck, but beautiful.
“Who do you think it’s from? It’s gotta be from the hubby.”
I glared at Priest when a gunnery sergeant, who I hadn’t seen when I came into the room, asked, “Hubby? Which one of you fuckers tricked someone into marrying them?”
“That’d be me, Gunny,” I said hesitantly, although with the heat I felt climbing my face, I was sure it came out much different.
“Hmm. And who is this poor soul?”
Scott deadpanned, “A man he met in a bar.”
“Ten days before we deployed,” Priest cackled.
My head swiveled to my two former friends before turning to look at Gunny. “Well, I guess there are worse ways to meet your spouse. What’s their name?”
When you looked at the man, you’d think there was no fucking way he was as much an ally of the minority communities as he actually was. But I’d seen him tear into sailors and Marines alike for racist, sexist, and homophobic comments. I was fucking proud to serve under the man.
“Declan Holt, Gunny.”
“Holt. I knew a Holt. He was a captain when I served under him. He was a motherfucking asshole if you fucked up, rightly so, but he went to bat for us, and he protected his men. Never once knew him to ask someone to do something he hadn’t done himself. And he did it all. When push came to shove, he was in the trenches with us, whether it was fighting to stay alive or stirring shit.”
“Sounds like a damn fine Marine,” I muttered just loud enough for Gunny to not yell at me to speak up.
“He was. Walker was his first name, I believe? Walker Holt.”
“Holy shit!” Priest crowed, slapping me on the back with an open palm.
Now, I knew I was blushing, and I hadn’t even opened my damn box.
“I believe you’re talking about Declan’s cousin,” I said, pride filling my voice, not that I could explain why. I’d only met the man once, for fuck’s sake.
“Well, if that don’t beat all,” Gunny said as he stood. He patted me on the back before walking out of the office, muttering either to himself or maybe to us about finding the head.
“Marin, open the fucking box,” Lucia growled.
24
DECLAN
The time after boxing up all the things I could stuff in the care package I sent to Hayden dragged on for ages. After getting his contact info from Lincoln, I debated just emailing the man, but I wanted to do something special for him. Plus, I didn’t want to look stalkery. The care package was bad enough, but I worried that dropping into his email that could be read by his superiors, DOD, NSA, and anyone else in the government’s alphabet soup would be pushing the bar.
I still didn’t know if I got it all right. I second-guessed myself so many times and double-checked all the lists with the dos and don’ts of what to and not to mail a deployed service member. He had socks galore, underwear, undershirts, beef jerky, nuts, Heidi’s double chocolate chip cookies, plus a sewing kit. I even racked my brain trying to remember his brand of razors, shaving cream, shampoo, and deodorant. I grabbed what I could remember and what I couldn’t, I substituted. Then, I added drink packets, flip-flops, lip balm, and sunscreen. You name it, if it was on any list online, I bought it and shoved it in the box.
Then, there was something every blog, message board, and social media group recommended but something I didn’t have. Photographs. There was one on my phone. I didn’t even know when we took it, but it was sometime while we were in the club in Vegas. That grainy photo sparked an idea.
I grabbed my laptop, pulled up the number for the marriage license office, and made a call.
“Marriage License Bureau.”
