by Tawny Weber
And then—holy shit—he could see almost every bit of her perfect breasts pushing against the rope mesh, her nipples bunched up and popping out through the holes in the cover-up.
His mouth found one, then the other, stroking with his tongue and then sucking hard. When he couldn't stand it anymore, he lifted her again, pulling the strings on the bikini bottoms, and then they were gone, too. As he eased her back down on the vanity, he was sinking deep inside of her, watching her face as he did it, so trusting, that little smile, the way her breath came out in a rush.
"Mmm," she said, wrapping her arms tightly around him. "Welcome home, sailor."
He still had to be careful with her. She still had nightmares, but not as often. He tried to always sleep on his side, facing away from her, not wanting to risk pinning her down and scaring her.
But that was fine, because she loved to sleep curled up to his back, most nights naked with her breasts pressed against his shoulders and her arm around his waist, while he held her hand against his abdomen.
And if he wanted to hold her, he'd just stay awake while he did it, and look at her and stroke her gently until she woke up,
He hadn't done that this time. He was just awake watching her, thinking about how perfect she was, how amazing, how different his life was with her in it, how happy he was.
She woke up and caught him looking, gave him a slow, sleepy smile and then a little kiss.
"Is it morning?"
"Not yet. Almost." A soft pink light was starting to come through the blinds on the window facing the beach.
"Hungry?" she asked.
"No, baby. I'm fine."
"Will?"
She knew him too well.
"Want to go out to the balcony and watch the sun come up?"
She agreed, stealing his white T-shirt—and nothing else—to put on. It hung halfway down her thighs. He pulled on his boxers. The balcony was high enough off the ground that no one could see what they were wearing below waist-level, anyway.
He pulled the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around her, not wanting her to be cold in the wind coming off the bay this early in the morning. They went out onto the balcony.
It was a beautiful morning. The stars were still out, and it was quiet save for the birds calling to each other and the roar of the tide coming in. No sun yet, just a narrow band of pink light extending across the horizon where the sun would pop up before long.
He'd had two chairs out here, but Amanda wanted to be closer to him, so she'd bought a little outdoor love seat. He sat at one end, and she snuggled up against him, wrapped in her blanket, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her.
He tried to imagine the luxury of being able to greet every new day like this with her, and knew exactly what he wanted to do this morning, what he wanted to ask her.
"I missed you," he said. "I miss feeling you curled up asleep against my back and being able to roll over and see you, hold you, kiss you."
"I missed you, too."
"This is going well, right? You and me? You're happy?"
She smiled. "Yes, I'm very happy."
"And that you-loving-mething? That's good for you? Because it's amazing for me. Best thing I've ever had. I hope I make you feel that way, as good as you make me feel. I hope you're as happy as I am."
"I think I'm every bit as happy as you are, Will."
Good. All good so far.
"Did I tell you I joined the Navy right after I turned twenty?"
She shook her head.
"Which means that, in another couple of months, I'll have twenty years in. I don't like being away from you, Amanda. Grace's husband died, and I thought, that's wrong. The guy was a painter. There's no risk in that. And he was so much younger than I am. No way anybody would ever expect that guy to be gone so soon. You just never know how long you're ever going to have with anybody."
"I know. He was just driving home in his car. Most people are in cars every day. And he's gone."
"They had so little time together. It's been eating at me ever since it happened. Every day away from you feels like a day wasted. I want every day we can have together. I'm thinking about putting in my papers. Retiring."
"What would you do then?"
"I don't know exactly. A lot of guys are getting out and going into private security work, contract stuff. The money's great, but it means being gone, three months, six months. You pick the place and how long you're willing to be there, but it's often the same places I've been lately, the dangerous ones on the other side of the world."
"Is that what you want?" she asked carefully.
"No. Like I said, it feels like every day away from you is one I just threw away. I don't want to do that anymore. I want to be with you."
"I want to be with you, too."
"Remember, back in Djibouti, that motorcycle trip I told you about? Up the California coast into Oregon, Washington state. We could go on into Canada if you wanted. I've always heard British Columbia is gorgeous."
"I remember."
"It's not a fancy trip, but it's beautiful. What do you think? Want to do that?"
"Will, I don't need fancy, and I'll go anywhere with you."
"But do you think you'd like it? A trip like that?"
"Hanging onto you, on the back of a bike with beautiful scenery? Yes."
"I was thinking... what about that trip as a honeymoon?" He finally got the real question out. Kind of.
She went still. "A honeymoon?"
"Yes."
She raised her head enough that she could see his face. "Will, a honeymoon is a trip two people take after they get married."
"Right. That's the way it works." He grinned, not so nervous anymore. "I'm looking for a way that you're legally obligated to spend the rest of your life with me. Granted, I don't know a lot about that, but it's a marriage, right?"
She nodded. "There's something in the marriage vows about that—being together for life."
"Think you could show me how to do that, too? Be married?"
She grinned. "I don't know. I've never been married. I'm not sure I know how to do it."
"Think we could figure it out together?"
"I'm not sure what you're asking," she said, but she couldn't wipe the grin off her face.
"You're right. I need to ask. Want me to get down on one knee here on the balcony?"
"No, I don't want you to move." She had her head on his shoulder, and he was kissing her cheek, whispering into her ear.
"Amanda, I think you're amazing and perfect. I can't believe how happy my life is with you, better than anything I ever imagined it would be, and I would be the luckiest, happiest man in the world if you would marry me. Will you do that? Will you marry me?"
She started crying, her pretty eyes flooding with tears, and she was laughing at the same time, kissing him, too, holding his face to hers. "Yes. Yes, I'll marry you."
Acknowledgements
So many people and events swirled through my mind in forming this story.
First, retired U.S. Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods. When the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, came under attack on Sept. 11, 2012, they were among a number of private security contractors working for the CIA and members of the Joint Special Operations Command who were already in Libya.
Woods was a few minutes away at the CIA safe house in Benghazi, while Doherty was more than six hundred miles away in Tripoli.
It wasn't the job of either man to protect the consulate. Still, when they heard Americans were under attack, Doherty and Woods, who were friends from their days in the SEAL teams, and other fellow security operatives rushed in, without regard to their own safety, to try to help the Americans in danger.
Both men died the next morning in a firefight at the CIA annex while helping fight off the attackers and save the lives of about thirty Americans in Benghazi.
What really brought them to life for me was "A Letter to My Friend Glen Doherty" by Brandon Webb.
Will, my her
o, is another guy who rushes toward trouble, not away from it.
U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens also died in the attack on the Consulate in Benghazi. As he introduced himself to the people of Libya in this short video, I was struck by his enthusiasm for and excitement about his job.
Obviously, he believed in public service and diplomacy. He gave his life in support of those ideals and of a free and democratic Libya.
My heroine's father, I decided, might be a diplomat, an ambassador who raised her to believe that one person truly can make a difference in the world. I knew that much Amanda, but I needed more.
On Dec. 14, 2012, I realized my heroine was a teacher. That was the horrible day of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.
I feel guilty merely acknowledging such a terrible event helped me figure out a fictional character, but she came to life in my head because I was in awe of the courage shown by teachers and school staffers that day.
My editor urged me not to name the specific event, to just say a school shooting. It was so awful a thing, too shocking, too painful. I understood her reasons, but at the same time, we all felt it. Not as strongly as the students, the teachers and the parents in that community, I know, but it affected us all. Especially those of us who have children, and those whose loved ones are teachers.
I tried using another state, another town, the name of a made-up school, but to me that felt like I was putting a horrible target on some other school or place. I couldn't do it.
So, I just said a school in Connecticut. We all know where it was. We all remember that horrible day.
We all think people like Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods are brave. But they're trained to handle horrible, frightening, deadly situations. They signed up for it, knowing the dangers. I don't say that to in any way diminish what they did. Clearly, they are heroes.
But when we see ordinary people showing the courage displayed at the school in Connecticut, it seems so extraordinary. We start to think. Could I do that? Could I be that brave? A friend of mine argued that of course, we could. Children's lives were on the line. We would all do whatever we could to save them. And I argued that we all wish we would be that brave, but we'd never really know unless faced with a situation like that.
The teachers and staff at Sandy Hook don't need to wonder. They know. They put their bodies between their students and that gunman. As horrified as we all were by what happened that day, I think we were all equally in awe of their courage.
The names of the adults who gave their lives that day are principal Dawn Hochsprung, school psychologist Mary Sherlach, teachers Lauren Rousseau and Victoria Soto, and teacher's aides Rachel D'Avino and Anne Marie Murphy.
I won't list the children's names here. It's too painful. But I do want to say to those children's parents that I'm in awe of your courage, too, as you fight in their names to make all our children safer. May you find some peace and a sense of purpose in that fight and still feel your children's loving presence in your hearts.
In the days that followed that awful shooting, I read something that stayed with me, a diary by "bkamr" called "What Would You Do, Mom?"
The author is a teacher. She came home the day of the Sandy Hook shooting to her teenage son, who was upset and scared for her, and asked what she would do if something like that ever happened in her school.
Her answer was basically that to be a teacher today in America is to have a plan for what you would do if something so terrible ever happened in your school.
She has a detailed plan. She practices her plan. She knows where in her classroom students can hide. She knows all the ways they can get out. She knows what she has in her classroom that she can use to slow a gunman down.
As horrible as that is, that's where we are.
In my book, Amanda's plan was inspired by the plan of this teacher. As Amanda says, sometimes now, the whole world seems scary.
I also want to acknowledge first grade teacher Kaitlin Roig, who survived that day in Sandy Hook with her fifteen students by hiding them in a small bathroom. She talks about her experience here.
The part that had me in tears was when she explained that while hiding in the bathroom, she told them she loved them, because she thought they were all going to die, and she wanted that to be the last thing they heard. That they were loved.
That's exactly what we'd all want our children to hear in such a moment. It's what I had Amanda say to her students.
I also need to thank writer CJ Hale for her frank and honest piece, "12 Things No One Told Me About Sex after Rape," for helping me better understand Amanda.
And the brave women of the DK sexual assault survivors' community and a private Facebook group of survivors who talked to me about their experiences.
I hope this book isn't too dark. It's the first question I asked everyone who read it before publication. I write about life, and sometimes life is really, really hard. But I hope what readers take from my work is how we survive, how we move on, how we still love and trust and depend on each other, because that makes life so much better.
I am blessed to have the love of a very good man and of my two children, John and Laura, who both found wonderful people to marry this year, making Lisa and Nate part of our family; the support and wisdom of my wonderful editor Ali Cunliffe; the publishing and marketing expertise of Nina Paules and everyone at www.epublishingworks.com; insightful writer friends and early readers Pam Baker and Hannah Rowan; and early readers Bretta, Bridget and Jules.
Special thanks to JD, who would tell you he has the best job in the world, that he never really thought he was going to die, and that he is absolutely not a hero.
Thank you all for helping me do what I do and putting up with me while I do it. I whined a lot while writing this book. Will won't talk me. He's so stubborn. The story's really dark. It's too long. It's not working. Do I really want to write a book about a school shooting and a woman who's raped? What is wrong with me? I think I need to try that flash forward/flash back thing I've always been too intimidated to try. Maybe that will fix it. And it's still too long.
You get the idea. It's not easy being friends with a writer.
With love,
Teresa
Dear Readers,
Will and Amanda’s story is part of the McRaes Series. If you’d like more books like this, the series starts with Twelve Days, which is free. Click here to view the series.
If you’d like to know when I have a new book for sale, please sign up for my mailing list at my website or follow me on Facebook or Twitter. I play on Pinterest with image boards to help me plan my books.
As a reader, I know what it’s like to get so drawn into a book that the whole world falls away. You care so much about the characters that you find yourself crying over them, and feel like you’re saying good-bye to old friends once the story’s done.
My best hope as a writer is to create that kind of experience for you, to help you know that you’re not alone, that you’re not the only person who’s ever felt the way you do, and that it’s possible to overcome really awful things in life and become happy. I also hope to show everything is better with someone you love beside you.
Much love to all of you,
Teresa
SEEKING BLISS by Barbara Raffin
Bliss O'Hara poured all her love into raising her orphaned brother and the romance novels she wrote. Now that her brother's an adult and gone, why isn't she looking for Mr. Right? Because the perfect man for her might just be a creation of her imagination, the hero she penned to life in her crossover action-adventure series. He's not real…until the flesh and blood image of her fictional hero strides off the pages of her novel and onto a television talk show set during an interview.
Former Navy SEAL Jake St. John, the eldest of the St. John family, runs a high risk security firm out of Mexico. He's livid someone is putting him and his men at risk by detailing their missions in a novel. Searching out the author leads him to Bliss O'Hara. Turns out
the source of Bliss' research has been her brother…who works for Jake. But now he's missing.
Naturally Bliss wants to find her brother. Jake has his own reasons to hunt down the kid. As the security firm's computer guru, the kid knows way too much about Saint Security. But it isn't a simple case of missing persons. Her brother is mixed up in something that endangers them all. To solve the mystery Jake must work with Bliss. And working with Bliss forces Jake to face he's more than the weapon SEAL training has made of him.
Dedication
Thank you to Rogenna Brewer for all her help with my SEAL research and for creating GREAT covers for the St. John Sibling Series and St. John Sibling: FRIENDS series.
Thank you to S.C. Mitchell for being my go-to person for all things related to on-line, interactive gaming.
Chapter 1
"This interview is going to make you a media sensation," Bliss O'Hara's publicist, Lu, said, flinging her arm heavenwards.
"Your book sales will go through the roof," her agent Vi said, squeezing her hand.
