CHARACTER INTERVIEW, Part 1: US Navy SEAL Chief Wyatt Lockwood
There’s a wild filly who keeps avoid’n my lasso here at Bagram Army Base. Captain Tal Culver, US Marine Corps, stole my heart from the first time I accidentally ran into her at Ops. My SEAL team and I were coming in off an Op. I didn’t know her at that time, but she was a Marine sniper and was there with her spotter, filling out paperwork at the Ops desk. She had greasepaint all over her face and hands. When I saw her, I realized instantly she wasn’t a man. Not because of her desert cammos and Kevlar vest she was wearing, either. I guess my heart meter detected she was female, was all I can surmise.
Anyway, it was as if we both became aware of one other at the same instant. I wore greasepaint, my cammo clothes filthy dirty and smelling to high heaven after six days out on a mission.
Our eyes met and held. I felt such a bolt of lightning surge through me, that it caught me completely by surprise. I was stunned in place. That had never happened before when I would meet a woman I was drawn to. It was her spring green colored eyes, slightly tilted, that gave her an incredibly beautiful, exotic look. Never mind she had greasepaint on instead of make-up. I’d anchored to the spot and my mouth dropped open. Her black hair was caught in a ponytail that hung between her shoulder blades, mostly hidden beneath the Kevlar vest she wore.
My whole body felt like it was on fire and I knew right then and there, I wanted this warrior woman. There was nothing weak about her from the blazing look of disdain she gave me as I stood there, nonplussed. Sheer, unadulterated confidence poured off her. I saw her sniper rifle in a bag leaning up against the Ops desk. I didn’t know the Marine Corps had ANY female snipers in their ranks, much less at Bagram. How the hell did SHE escape my radar? I think at that point I snapped my mouth closed, still holding her “don’t screw with me” glare in my direction.
She turned away, continuing to fill out the report at the desk, ignoring the hell out of me. Well! Women just did NOT ignore me. Not ever. I had little girls in kindergarten following me around, and then in grade school, high school and then, in the Navy. I never wanted for a woman. My team called me a babe magnet. Yeah, that was pretty accurate. Women have always been drawn to me.
But not THIS woman. She was six feet tall, hard and lean bodied, and probably weighed around a hundred sixty pounds. You couldn’t tell much beneath all the mannish gear she wore. But my imagination filled in all those unknown blank spots beneath her Kevlar vest, two drop holsters on each thigh, a Ka-Bar knife wrapped around her right lower leg, the Camelback and radio equipment in her ear and attached to her left epaulet of her dirt stained blouse.
I WANTED her. ALL of her. She was MINE. I made it my sole purpose in life to lasso this beautiful, proud and confident warrior into my bed. Come hell or high water.
The disdainful look she gave me after she handed in her report to the Ops officer behind the desk was enough to make any man feel like a crispy critter torched in the flames of her narrow-eyed look. And it looked like it would take hell and high water to convince her I was the ONE.
Texans don’t run from a fight; they run toward it. And I knew in that nanosecond that Captain Tal Culver was going to be my ultimate challenge. She threw down an invisible gauntlet between us as we stood there six feet apart, staring one another down like two alpha wolves checking the other out. I wonder if she knew I was from Texas? Then she’d realize the utter futility of saying ‘no’ and turning me down. At that moment I gave her a cocky grin, letting her know I’d picked up that silent challenge. She was mine. She just didn’t know it yet….