by Hill, Teresa
Entrusted To The SEAL: The Inheritance (The McRaes — Book 6)
Teresa Hill
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Excerpt: Hero Of My Heart
Dear Readers,
Also by Teresa Hill
About The Author
ENTRUSTED TO THE SEAL
Teresa Hill
Copyright © 2016 by Teresa Hill
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Published by Teresa Hill.
All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Bits and pieces get stuck in my head, and I can’t let them go.
They’re the things of which my stories are made. I let them sit in the back of my mind where they slowly twist and turn, then grow into my own characters with stories of their own.
This book grew out of a blog and a photograph.
Just guts you, doesn’t it? It was being passed around Facebook one Memorial Day. I can not find the original source or the photographer’s name. (Please tell me if it’s yours, so I can credit you.)
I don’t know who this woman is, but I think she just needed to spend the day with her husband. She wanted her family to be together, and the closest place she and the baby could get to him was his grave.
The blog that stuck with me was Wife of a Wounded Marine by Karie Fugett. I stumbled upon it while researching my book Five Days Grace, and did something I’ve only done a couple of times in my life. I went back to the beginning and read the whole thing.
It was that compelling, that real, raw with the grief and bewilderment of being thrust into a new world — that of a very young wife of a gravely wounded young American soldier. She spent months with him in the giant Veteran’s Administration hospital Walter Reed and still more months fighting to try to get her husband all the care he needed.
Karie, I’m proud to say, is now working on a master’s in fine art and turning her experiences as a wounded soldier’s wife into a book called American April. I know it’s going to be amazing. She has taken down her original blog, but you can read a bit of her story here.
So, my book is dedicated to the Wife of a Wounded Marine and the young mother at the grave in the photo, both of whom paid a tremendous price for our country’s wars.
Prologue
Dani
“Marry me.”
She laughed when Aaron said it.
Because the rising sun was putting on a show over his left shoulder. It was a giant orange ball against streaks of yellow and purple, low on the horizon, half-in, half-out of the water, still black ink in the dim light.
They were sitting on a tiny balcony, in front of their tiny but perfect cave-house — a bedroom, bathroom, sitting area and kitchen, literally carved out of the white volcanic stone of a mountain on a tiny Greek island.
The village — other houses carved into same mountainside — stretched out behind them, below and to either side of them. Narrow, curving stone stairs led down to the beach and the sea. She couldn’t remember the name of the place. It was their fifth or sixth island in nineteen days, and she didn’t speak Greek. The names were odd jumbles that all sounded the same to her, and besides, it didn’t matter.
What did? That no man could pick a more perfect spot or more perfect moment to propose, and, most of all, that Navy Lt. Aaron Carson was perfect.
At her laughter, he looked insulted, maybe even a little hurt. “You think it’s funny? Me asking you to marry me?”
“No.” She used her hands to smooth out the frown now marring his beautiful face. “I didn’t think you were serious.”
“Well, I am. Absolutely serious.”
“Aaron,” she protested. “We’re leaving today. We’re supposed to catch the ferry in a few hours, to take us to the mainland, so we can catch the train to get us to the airport in time to fly home and for you to get back to your post in Saudi Arabia.”
“So, we’ll do it today. Here. Just you and me. I don’t want to wait.”
“God, you really mean it.” She nearly choked getting out the words, a little fissure of nerves and excitement zinging through her.
He nodded, then gave her one of those grins that made her want to agree to anything he wanted.
She usually did, from soon after she’d drawn his name out of a pencil holder in an adopt-a-soldier program at the school where she’d done her student teaching the past semester. They wrote actual letters back and forth for a month, but it wasn’t enough for him.
Give me your e-mail address, he’d said. The packages of cookies, gum and baby wipes she’d sent were great, but he didn’t want to wait so long to get her letters.
Give me your phone number, he’d said two weeks later, because he wanted to hear her voice.
Skype with me, he’d said a week later, because he wanted to see her.
She’d done it all, happily, in a crazy rush of excitement and disbelief. She was an ordinary girl. Things like this did not happen to her. Guys like Aaron did not go crazy over her.
His tour was supposed to end in June. She’d been counting down the days until she could finally be on the same continent with him, same country, same state, same town. Same room. Hold him. Kiss him like crazy and … Other things. So many other things.
It was scary and unsettling, falling so hard and so fast for a guy she’d never met in person.
She was not a crier, but she’d wept when he’d told her that his tour had been extended for four months. It had seemed like an eternity, a cruel twist of fate when she’d thought that kind of terrible thing was over for her since she’d found him.
But the extension of his tour also meant a generous three weeks of leave in June, right after she finished her student teaching and graduated with a master’s in elementary ed. She had two months before she had to report for work at her first real job, teaching second grade.
Meet me in Greece when I get leave, he’d said, so I can show the most beautiful girl in the world the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.
Greece?
She’d never been anyplace like Greece. She’d never been outside the U.S., never been to the West Coast or even the Mid-West. She was a small-town girl from Virginia, still living in the same town where she’d grown up, an hour and a half from where Aaron was based, in Virginia Beach. The farthest she’d ever been from home was a quick trip to Florida three years ago.
I love you, he’d said, playing his trump card. I can’t wait any longer to see you. Get your passport. I’ll send y
ou a plane ticket.
She’d gotten her passport, paying extra to get it so fast, and cringed as she’d put the outrageous plane ticket on one of the new credit cards companies were eager to give new graduates. No way she was letting him pay for it.
She’d suspected he’d grown up with money. She hadn’t. He’d never said anything, but the subtle clues had been there. The places he’d traveled before joining the Navy. The college he’d attended. The way he spoke and carried himself when he slipped out of soldier mode.
And the whole meet-me-in-Greece thing?
Who does that?
No one she’d ever known before him.
But she’d gone. Really, was there ever any doubt?
He’d turned out to be everything she’d ever imagined and more. Sweeter, sillier, happier. Even more irresistible in person than he was by e-mail or phone or Skype. She hadn’t stood a chance. They’d had nineteen perfect, amazing days, had planned to leave today and spend their final night in Athens near the airport, before he put her on a plane for the U.S..
Her heart felt wretched as she thought of being apart for another four months.
And now he wanted to get married?
“We’ve only known each other for six months. We haven’t even spent three weeks together,” she said.
“I know, and they’ve been perfect. I’ve never been this happy. Have you?”
“No, but — ”
He pressed his finger to her lips, cutting off her words. “No buts. I love you. Do you love me?”
“Yes.”
She’d told him that her first day here, wrapped up in his arms after they’d kissed until they were breathless and more than a little bit crazy, right before he’d taken her to bed for the first time. Which had also been scarily perfect.
“Then marry me. Go find a dress. I’ll find a minister or justice of the peace and a place. We’ll have our wedding night right here, tonight.”
“So fast?” she asked. “What about your family? Your mother. Won’t she be disappointed to not be at your wedding?”
“She’ll get over it.”
“Aaron, what aren’t you telling me? That she won’t like me? She’ll think I’m not the right girl for you? That we’re too young and haven’t known each other long enough?”
He looked away for a moment that really scared Dani, then faced her again. “She can be a little overbearing. If she put on a wedding for us, it would be a big, complicated thing. Not for us. For herself, because that’s what she’d want. But it’s not her wedding. It’s ours.”
“I really don’t like the idea of making her mad before I even meet her for the first time. I want her to like me.”
“She will. She loves me, and I love you. You’ve made me happier than I’ve ever been, so she’ll love you, just like I do. But I want today for us, and I want it here. It’s so beautiful. We’ve been so happy here. This would be the perfect end to our trip, a perfect beginning for the rest of our lives, which will also be perfect. I promise.”
They had been deliriously happy. She’d felt a connection to him from his first letter. It had only grown stronger every time they’d talked, every day they’d spent getting to know each other, every day they’d been here together. They’d barely slept the previous night, knowing they had only hours left, which was why they’d been up to watch the sunrise.
Aaron pulled her close, cupped her face in his hands and gave her a blinding smile. “I know what I want. You. Now. I need to know you’re mine before I put you back on that plane.”
How could a girl turn down a guy who said things like that?
His words seemed to have an odd urgency, but they were also so like him — crazy, romantic, impulsive. All along, she’d given him everything he’d wanted, given it happily, eagerly, pushing aside all the little nagging doubts that said this was all too good to be true and that it happened too fast.
He kissed her, hard and full of need, and whispered against her lips, “Dani, please. Marry me.”
That was it. She said yes.
It made her head spin, even before he gave a roar of happiness, picked her up and swung her around. They got dressed, walked to town, had breakfast as they waited for shops to open. She went off to find a dress, and he said he’d handle everything else.
That evening, as the sun set, they stood on a rock plateau above the Mediterranean Sea as a weathered old man, speaking more Greek than English, married them. She wore a simple, long, loose, milky dress gathered at the top of each shoulder and her waist, sandals and a gold coin taped to the bottom of her right foot — for luck, she’d been told — and a crown of orange blossoms and white ribbon — tradition here.
Aaron had a matching crown. He balked at first, but the minister — well, he might have been a minister — insisted.
They were told the bride and groom did not recite vows in a Greek ceremony. Aaron fed her a cube of sugar — so their marriage would be sweet. She was supposed to carry it in one of her gloves, but didn’t have any, so he carried it in his pocket. They held candles, drank three sips of wine each from a single silver cup. The crowns were passed back and forth on their heads. So were their rings.
His was the only one he had — an antique Navy officer’s crest that had belonged to his grandfather. Hers was a lovely plain old band with a faint impression of a cross. When they’d had no luck finding rings for sale, their landlord’s wife had pulled it out of a little silver box in the back of a drawer and insisted Dani take it.
She didn’t understand much of what was happening, but it was enough to be there with her hands in Aaron’s, him grinning like crazy, the wind coming off the water, colors — mauves to pinks to burnt oranges — streaming across the sky. As he’d promised, it was perfect.
Time seemed to both slow down and speed up to a terrifying pace. They ate a special wedding supper on their balcony. They found rice and coins strewn across their bed, sugared almonds on their pillow — more Greek wedding customs. Aaron made love to her with a sweetness and an intensity that left her shaky and tearful. He thought he’d done something wrong, but she told him it was so right it scared her.
She had an unnatural dread of leaving him.
They hardly slept again that night, watched the sun come up and hurried to catch the early ferry, the first of two they needed to get back to the mainland. A thankfully fast train got them to the Athens airport just in time for her flight.
They sat as close as possible and held hands but barely spoke the whole day on the ferry and the train. When they had to say goodbye at the airport, Aaron tried to tease her about her tears, telling her they’d be together in Virginia before she knew it. He had a ton of paperwork to do before the Navy would officially consider them married, and didn't want to tell his mother until he was home. Otherwise she’d descend upon Dani when Aaron wasn’t there to protect her.
Yes, he said protect. He shrugged sheepishly. He’d probably have to let his mother throw them another wedding later, but he’d gladly marry Dani all over again, because she’d made him the happiest man in the world.
He made her promise to call him or at least text him when she made it home safely and not to worry about him.
No telling how long it could take for the Navy to patch together the flights necessary to get him back to his base in Saudi Arabia. He’d been in combat zones before, but he wouldn’t be in one now, which was a huge relief to her.
He was flying out of the same airport a few hours later, so he got to wait with her at her gate. They sat quietly, holding hands, until her flight number was called. She waited until the last minute to board. He kissed her sweetly and had to push her away.
Going through the gate, she kept turning her head to look back at him. His hair had grown, just in the time they’d been away, and the sun had baked in highlights into his sandy brown hair. He had a glorious tan, and he was so tall and lean and perfect. She held onto the sight of him until the last second, when she’d walked so far down the gateway she couldn’t see int
o the airport waiting area anymore.
Somehow, she held it together until she was in her seat on the plane. Then she wept, biting her lip to try to keep from making a sound, hiding her face against the window of the plane and behind a tiny airplane pillow. A few glasses of wine, and she was asleep nearly until they landed in Toronto for their brief layover before heading onto Washington, DC. She didn’t even know what day it was, much less the time, but her friend and roommate, Betsy, was there, as promised, to drive Dani the two hours home.
She didn’t tell Betsy that she and Aaron had gotten married. It would be a long, emotional conversation, and Dani wasn’t up to it yet. She slept for most of the ride. Betsy had to help her into their apartment and put her to bed. She dreamed of Aaron, sweet, perfect, insistent Aaron. She relived all the best moments of their trip, and then it was like he was with her in her bed in Virginia, so loving, so real she didn't want to wake up.
By the time she finally got out of bed, it was twenty-eight hours since she’d left him and it felt like forever. She missed him so much. She dragged herself out of bed and into the kitchen to find coffee.
Betsy was there, looking tense.
Dani knew something was really wrong, before Betsy said a word, before she asked about how and when Aaron was getting back to his base.
Dani didn’t know for sure because they’d left late. It had taken a high-speed catamaran ferry to Athens so she could make her flight. Aaron was supposed to take a plane to Munich and then a train to the big U.S. base near Landstuhl, where he’d catch another plane to Saudi Arabia. But he might have had to rearrange his trip back because they’d stayed that extra day.
So they could get married.
She whispered it, held out her hand to Betsy — her right hand, because in Greek weddings, the ring went on the right hand. There it was, the plain, worn, rose-gold band that Dani already loved so much.
