Instead, he focused on the source of the noise. Same as the last time. Bobkowski had dropped his pack on the room floor.

Nothing to kill here. Just the noisy guy he shared a tent with—one he wouldn’t have to put up with for much longer. He hadn’t re-upped, so he only had a couple of weeks left on his deployment.

His father, whose former constituents and sons alike still called him The Admiral, had decided that Josh completing a heroic mission that made the international news was service enough to their country. The Admiral had pulled him aside after the Navy Cross ceremony and ordered him back stateside to move on to the next phase of The Plan.

The Plan was basically service, then law school, then the founding of his own firm.

After that, Josh would be expected to make the right connections to better support his younger brother, Sawyer’s eventual bid for their father’s congressional seat. Then he’d lobby on his brother’s behalf until Sawyer made it to the ultimate seat of American power, President of the United States.

Somewhere between law school and founding his own firm, Josh would also have to acquire a wife and children. Then his life’s mission would be complete. Good dog.

“You got mail.” Bobkowski’s announcement ripped Josh from his cynical thoughts. The other SEAL held up a red card envelope. “Smells like a good-looking female with an even better-looking rack.”

Bobkowski was always saying weird stuff like that. Even stranger, he often turned out to be right. That’s why everybody in their unit except for Josh called him The Nose.

So even though it annoyed him that Bobkowski had literally been sniffing his mail, he sat up in bed and took the envelope with a polite enough, “Thanks.”

A Christmas Card…

And unlike all the fan mail he’d gotten after the orphan hostage story broke, no perfume clung to the paper. There was no address at all—not even on the back flap.

Josh tensed. The only mail he’d received without a return address had been from crazies and sickos.”

Bobkowski had been right a lot, but maybe he was wrong about this.

He opened the envelope carefully and read the card inside.

Dearest Josh,

You don’t know me, but I fear I’m in love with you.

I met you before…. before all the hero stuff, and even though I knew there was no way you could ever like a girl like me, I fell in love with you anyway.