Special Forces: Operation Alpha: December Chill (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Sealed With A Kiss Series Book 4)

by Margaret Madigan

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Text copyright ©2018 by the Author.

  This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Stoker Aces Production, LLC. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original Special Forces: Operation Alpha remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Stoker Aces Production, LLC, or their affiliates or licensors.

  For more information on Kindle Worlds: http://www.amazon.com/kindleworlds

  December Chill

  A Special Forces: Operation Alpha and Sealed With A Kiss Crossover Novella

  Margaret Madigan

  Sealed With a Kiss Series, Book 4

  Contents

  About the Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books by Margaret

  About the Author

  For the Readers

  About the Book

  Dante “Chill” Winters is the medic on his SEAL team, and has a reputation for staying cool under pressure. But when his brother dies and leaves his only daughter in Dante’s care, requiring him to leave the job he loves to move back to Chicago, it puts his chill to the test.

  December McKay is a cake decorator by day, and roller derby girl by night. She lives with her sister and her dog, and loves her career and sport. Would it be nice to have love in her life? Sure. But she doesn’t need a man to be complete. That is, until a sexy paramedic responds when her van is t-boned as she’s delivering a wedding cake.

  Dante tries to settle into life as a paramedic and family man, supporting his grandmother and niece, but chafes at leaving his SEAL career behind. Then he meets a quirky cake decorator at the scene of an accident and suddenly civilian life looks a lot better. But when his brother’s crazy ex starts threatening him, his family, and his new girlfriend before the court can rule on permanent custody, Dante uses his military skill to protect those he loves and neutralize the threat once and for all.

  Chapter One

  Dante “Chill” Winters tucked his paramedic uniform shirt into the uniform pants, grabbed his wallet from the dresser and shoved it into his pocket, and reached for the KA-BAR knife he still wasn’t used to not carrying with him.

  “Uncle Chill?”

  His ten-year old niece popped her head into his bedroom. Once she’d learned his SEAL nickname she thought it was funny because their last name was Winters and she insisted on calling him only by that name. Outside of his team, she was the only one he allowed to do that.

  Now he curled his fingers and tucked his hand into his pocket, rather than grabbing the knife. He eyed it with longing. Carrying the weapon was a hard-to-break habit from his years as a SEAL, so hard that at first he’d taken it with him on his paramedic shifts because he felt naked without at least something to defend himself. The irony wasn’t lost on him that as a paramedic his job was to save lives—put bodies back together long enough to get them to the hospital—not add new injuries, even if a lot of patients were combative or flat out violent. He’d been his unit’s medic, so combative patients were nothing new. Still, he kept the knife close as a reminder of who he was. Like a safety line that kept him connected to his real life, and to his brothers.

  “What is it, Tamera?”

  She grinned when she saw him, her blue eyes so similar to his, but her darker skin and smile exactly like her father Dwayne—Dante’s brother.

  “I’m gonna be late for school. Hurry up.”

  Dante missed his team, and missed his job, but when his brother had died, assigning guardianship of Tamera to Dante in his will, Dante had come home on extended leave to sort out a new life as father to his niece. He missed his brother, too. Dwayne the firefighter had died in a car accident a month after being granted full custody of his daughter, following an ugly divorce. Dante suspected foul play, but the police disagreed. Maybe it was just Dante’s overactive SEAL senses, but things didn’t add up. Unfortunately, he had so much on his plate adjusting to civilian life, a new job, and fatherhood, that he hadn’t looked into it yet, which added guilt to his plate for not doing his older brother justice.

  So much for living up to his nickname. He hadn’t been so un-chill, ever.

  But one look at Tamera’s gorgeous little smile and he could hardly regret being back in Chicago to take care of her. What she’d been through losing her father and dealing with her crazy mother and still thriving put all his own problems in perspective. She deserved his love and attention. The responsibility of raising a strong, responsible young woman was just as important as traipsing all over the world with his brothers-in-arms.

  “I’m coming,” he said.

  “Grammy Lanore made egg-n-cheese sandwiches for us to eat while you drive.”

  Tamera grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the kitchen, her pink and green backpack bumping against her butt as she bounced on her toes.

  Dante chuckled. Sharing an apartment with a ten-year-old girl and his own seventy-five-year-old grandmother was so far from his recent experience of living and working with a bunch of big, mean, tough SEALs, he’d struggled to adjust at first. But every day brought something new, and he could hardly resist either of them. They had him wrapped around their little fingers.

  “As long as there’s coffee to go with it,” he said, finding Grammy Lanore wiping her hands on her apron in the tiny kitchen.

  “Of course there is,” she said. “But you better hurry or Tamera’ll be late for school and you’ll be late for work.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Dante said.

  He grabbed his travel coffee mug and filled it with strong, black coffee, snagged his sandwich, then kissed his grandmother on the forehead. She practically glowed from the attention. She’d been a saint taking him and Tamera into her home since Dwayne’s death, and he couldn’t ask for a better setup. He had no other sibs, and both his parents were gone—his mother from cancer, his father from abandonment—and Tamera’s mother wasn’t an option.

  Grammy crossed her arms and smiled a satisfied smile. At first, Dante had felt guilty saddling her with houseguests and all the work involved, in her retirement. He imagined that they stole peace from her. He’d come to realize though, that Grammy had been bored out of her head and having them there gave her purpose again. Lanore loved taking care of her family, though from the way she fussed, nobody’d guess. Dante was onto her though, and honestly, he didn’t know how he’d manage without her.

  A sudden knock at the front door stopped him from saying so, though. Instead, both he and Grammy frowned.

  “Who could that be this early?” Grammy asked, heading for the door.

  Their neighborhood wasn’t ghetto projects dangerous, but it wasn’t white suburbia, either, and 7:30 in the morning was early for visitors of any kind.

&
nbsp; “Let me,” Dante said.

  Grammy waved him off, scoffing at him. “I can answer my own door, Dante.”

  Maybe, but Dante stayed close to her side as backup. His inner SEAL itched for a weapon.

  Grammy opened the door on the kind of trouble that knocks at 7:30 in the morning.

  “Good morning, Lanore.” Tamera’s mother Shonda stood in the hall with a tall, muscled black man standing behind her.

  So she brought back-up.

  Lanore just sighed and shook her head. She’d seen a thing or two in her life and it took more than a deadbeat and a thug to intimidate her. “You’re not welcome here, Shonda.”

  “I just want to see my daughter.”

  “I have custody of her now,” Dante said.

  “Temporary custody,” Shonda said. “There’s a big difference. And she’s still my daughter.”

  Dante glanced back to where Tamera stood near the kitchen. Her sparkle had disappeared and she looked scared. He didn’t know what had gone on between Dwayne and Shonda to cause their divorce, or what kind of shit Shonda had been up to, but given the company she kept now, and that she looked three-sheets-deep into whatever her drug of choice was, he couldn’t blame Tamera for being scared. Now his brother’s choice to transfer custody to Dante made perfect sense. Dwayne trusted Dante from beyond the grave to protect his little girl.

  “Custody will be permanent once we get our day in court,” Dante said.

  “Well, if it isn’t Dante, the trained attack dog,” Shonda said, her voice dripping with contempt. “I’ve got one of those, too, so you don’t scare me.”

  He doubted that was true, or she wouldn’t have brought a body guard in the first place. Dante gave the guy an uninterested once-over. He was big, but Dante doubted he knew how to fight, and he sure as hell didn’t have the extensive training Dante had. He wondered what the guy got in return for protecting Shonda—then decided he didn’t want to know—and if Shonda needed protection for anything other than show, no court would ever give her custody of a ten-year-old child.

  “Hmph,” Lanore said. “Just more trash on my doorstep.”

  Dante bit his tongue to avoid ruining his SEAL glare with a smile. Grammy was just wicked.

  “You’ll eat those words when the court gives me custody. With Dwayne dead, they have to give her to me. I’m her mother. You’re just an absent uncle.”

  Her smug smile gave Dante his first hint of doubt. Courts were well known for keeping children with their mothers, and the fact that Dwayne had won custody in the first place was a rare miracle. Would fate be so generous twice? For Tamera’s sake, Dante sure hoped so. He’d do everything he could to make sure of it. Maybe it was time to look into the circumstances surrounding his brother’s death.

  “Get your trashy ass outta my building. This poor girl don’t need the likes of you in her life,” Grammy Lanore said, shutting the door.

  But Shonda’s boyfriend thug moved fast, smacking his hand on the door before it closed all the way, and shoving it back open.

  Lanore gasped and stepped back, and Tamera whimpered. But Dante stepped up.

  “Friend, I don’t know how you got mixed up with this bitch, but if you don’t take your hand off my grandmother’s door I’ll remove it for you. That is your one and only warning,” Dante said.

  He wished he had his knife now, but enough adrenaline coursed through him he could probably tear the guy’s hand clean off if he wanted to.

  His rage must have spoken for itself because Shonda’s bitch mask cracked a bit before she managed to rearrange her features back into superior self-importance. More importantly, the thug—whose expression had remained impressively grim and yet still blank through the entire exchange—registered a flicker of fear.

  “Come on, Andre,” Shonda said. “We’re done here. Dante, don’t think for one minute your bullying will stop me. I want my daughter. She’s mine.”

  “Girl, you’ll get Tamera over my dead body,” Lanore said.

  Shonda had made it halfway down the hall toward the stairs when she turned and took a few steps back. The look on her face sent chills skittering over Dante’s skin, it was that cruel, and worse yet, confident.

  “Trust me, Lanore. That can be arranged.” Shonda stabbed her finger in the air, pointing at both of them. “Ya’ll just watch your backs. It’s a long couple of months before court. Anything could happen.”

  Then she turned and marched away, disappearing down the stairs with Andre, her giant shadow.

  Grammy slammed the door with a disgusted grunt.

  “No wonder the court gave custody to Dwayne,” Dante said.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Grammy said. “But I worry she’s right. Now that he’s gone, the court will think just because she’s the child’s mama, Tamera should stay with her.”

  “I don’t want to live with her.” Tamera’s shaky voice drew their attention. She hadn’t moved, but she seemed to have shrunk in on herself, and tears shone in her eyes. Dante’s heart broke seeing that kind of fear on her face.

  “We won’t let that happen,” he said.

  She ran to him, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his work shirt. “You promise?”

  He glanced at Grammy, an ugly sense of foreboding hanging over him. “I promise.”

  December McKay leaned close over the stainless steel table in the Tout de Sweet bakery where she worked as head cake designer, putting the finishing touches on the rustic floral wedding cake she’d been working on for the last couple of days.

  The cake was deceptively simple looking with four tiers of alternating chocolate and white cake, covered in white fondant. The rustic look came with the twigs, berries, leaves, and flowers placed so precisely that they looked casually arbitrary. She’d encircled the layers with a garland of thin sprigs of sage green leaves, small white and purple berries, and little white and pink flowers. Now she was adding the finishing touches of a couple of small sprays of evergreen.

  She reached for the topper of two women and was about to place it when her boss, Kate Weston, walked in.

  “That’s gorgeous, December,” Kate said.

  “Thanks. What’s up?”

  Kate made a show of looking at her watch, then crossed her arms. “Wasn’t that supposed to be out the door a half hour ago?”

  “Yes, but I built some cushion into my schedule. I was just putting the topper on, then I can load it into the van and head out for delivery.”

  “Good. You’re the best designer I’ve ever met, but you’re always running late.”

  December shrugged. “You can’t rush genius.”

  “Cute, but the judges at the National Pastry Design Competition can, and do. You better get your shit together before then or you won’t even get a chance to be judged,” Kate said.

  “I’ll be fine.” December was excited the competition was in Chicago this year, and that she’d been accepted to compete. Sure, she had problems with time management sometimes, but she was an artist and art took the time it took. “Speaking of time, though, I need to get this cake to a wedding.”

  Kate nodded and waved her hand in a ‘get going’ gesture. “Don’t forget to take a picture of it at the venue.”

  As if December would forget that. Another design to add to her portfolio.

  She placed the topper, then slid the cake onto a wheeled cart to take out to the van. Before she did that, she changed her apron, washed her hands, and retied her hair back so she looked presentable. As a designer, she created the cake, but she also represented the bakery, and it wouldn’t do to go into a venue looking like she just climbed from behind a dumpster.

  After loading the cake into the van and stabilizing it with non-slip pads, she climbed into the driver’s seat and headed out.

  Traffic wasn’t too bad for a Saturday morning in May, a shocking development, so she cranked up the satellite radio and sang along with the Bangles and “Walk Like an Egyptian.”

  Her mind wandered while
she danced in her seat. A mental checklist for setting up the cake at the wedding morphed into looking forward to roller derby practice later that evening. The team practiced twice a week, and since they had a bout coming up, they had some strategies to work on.

  She stopped at a red light and drummed the steering wheel through the guitar bridge, then when the light turned green she whistled along as she drove through the intersection.

  Unfortunately, some asshole going the opposite direction took red as a suggestion to stop rather than a requirement, and careened through the light to t-bone her on the passenger’s side of the van.

  As the side of her head whacked the driver’s door window, two thoughts danced in her head: Cara and Diane would have to get married without their cake, and damn, that asshole ruined all her hard work.

  She came to a couple of minutes later to some stranger shaking her by the shoulder.

  “You okay, lady?” The guy asked.

  His face was blurry, and her head ached, but she did a mental inventory and everything seemed to be in place. No excruciating pain, her fingers and toes all wiggled on command, and after some furious blinking her vision cleared.

  “Yeah, I think so. How’s the jerk who ran the light?”

  “Don’t know. I called 9-1-1 then came to check on you. I think someone else is looking in on him. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  December unlatched her seatbelt and slid out of the van to stand next to the guy, testing her legs and bending her neck side to side to be sure it still worked.

  “Seem to be.”

  He pointed at her head. “You’re bleeding.”

  She touched her temple then looked at her fingers. Yep. Blood.