Forever Devoted

by Kathleen Brooks

  Miles was quiet for a moment along with everyone else.

  “Unless Jud finds Walker first,” Layne said quietly.

  “What do you mean, finds him? They all think he’s dead.” Miles turned from Walker to look at his daughter. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  13

  “Mom, can you stop pushing Walker’s blanket aside?” Layne asked with a sigh. “Let him get dressed, and we’ll tell you everything.”

  Her dad looked conflicted as her mother stopped trying to examine Walker’s wound. Finally her father nodded with a grunt. “You’ve earned yourself a stay of execution, boy.”

  “Yes, sir,” Walker said as if it were every day a dad threatened his life.

  FP danced around Walker until he picked him up and headed back into the bathroom. Layne’s mom rushed forward, “Oh, Layne. I had hoped you’d come back with a doctor, but he’s much better. Even FP likes him, and FP doesn’t like anyone except you, your father, and a cousin or two.”

  “Morgan,” her dad said through clenched teeth. He was clearly unhappy. “She’d not dating him. She’s saving him. Right?”

  “Uh . . .” Layne didn’t really know how to answer.

  “Uh? What the hell does ‘uh’ mean?”

  “Miles, dear, it’s perfectly clear they like each other. A SEAL! Isn’t that great? Someone you can relate to.”

  “No, it’s not great. He’s a frogman. And virgin, my ass. How could you think he was a virgin? Has he touched you? I’ll kill him!”

  “Uh,” Layne managed to get out as her dad was reaching for a gun she didn’t know he had on him.

  “This will only take a second,” he said, turning toward the bathroom.

  “Dad,” Layne said with a roll of her eyes. “I like this one. Don’t shoot him.”

  Her mom clapped her hands happily together and then snapped her fingers at her husband before pointing to the chair in the living room. He thought twice about it, but then her mother narrowed her eyes and Miles sulked over to the chair.

  “So, you like him?” Morgan asked, sitting in the other chair.

  “I do. But I’m his doctor, so nothing more can happen until he’s released.”

  “Nothing more?” Miles couldn’t restrain himself.

  Layne knew better. She should have kept her mouth shut. “Obviously we haven’t done much since I thought he was a virgin. Now calm down and listen to what happened.”

  Her dad didn’t look calm. In fact, he looked like a volcano ready to explode from the seat. Luckily, or not so luckily, Walker stepped into the living room with FP held like a football under one arm.

  “You look as handsome in clothes as you do out of them,” her mother quipped, and Layne about died of embarrassment on the spot.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Walker said, taking a seat on the couch next to Layne.

  “Call me Morgan. And this is my husband, Miles.” Layne’s father glared at him as her mom smiled as if she were in a meeting bringing in a new client. “Why don’t you tell us how all of this happened?”

  Walker looked at Layne, and she nodded. As he spoke of the mission, the days at sea, and his time on the Greek ship, she saw her dad change from glaring at Walker to considering what he was saying.

  “When I made it to Shadows Landing, I snuck into my best friend’s house to get the remainder of the treatment I needed on my leg. My friend is a doctor, Gavin Faulkner.” Walker paused, and when Miles didn’t say anything, he continued. “Gavin told me someone had been around town since I disappeared, asking questions about me. He told Gavin they had to make sure I really was dead to close the file on me. However, this man was pushy so Gavin wanted me out of Shadows Landing and someplace safe to recover.”

  “That’s where I come in,” Layne said, explaining how Gavin had approached her and how they had a run-in with the man at Gavin’s cousin’s office. “So, I pickpocketed him. His name is Darrel Snyder, and he works private security.”

  Her father was nodding now. “Cade and Nabi can look into him.”

  “Cade was Special Forces with my dad. They’re brothers. And Nabi took over the security for the Ali Rahman family after Ahmed retired,” Layne explained to Walker.

  “But then this morning, Gavin called Layne to tell her his office had been broken into. This guy was trying to get into his medical waste receptacle and declared he knew I was alive. Gavin and his cousin fought the man off so he didn’t get the evidence he was trying to find. Then Darrel disappeared. Gavin wanted to warn us that this other doctor had been talking to Darrel. The link between Gavin and Layne is the doctor who had the hots for her.”

  “He’s on his way here to kill you,” Miles said casually, leaning back in his chair.

  “That’s what we think,” Walker answered as Layne put a reassuring hand on his knee. Her dad’s lip snarled and she rolled her eyes at him.

  “At least it sounds like you have good friends,” Miles said with a grimace. “But you’ve put my daughter in danger.”

  Layne cleared her throat. “Uh.”

  “Dammit, Layne. What more can there be?” Miles asked with a huff.

  “I’m glad you think Gavin is a good friend because that’s not all he is,” Layne said, trying to ease into the fact she was helping the other side of the family.

  “He’s Walker’s boyfriend?” Miles asked with a hopeful smile.

  “Uh, no.” Layne said and her dad’s smile fell. “Gavin Faulkner is your cousin.”

  Miles was up and out of his chair. “You’re helping them? The same family who broke my mother’s heart by exiling her?”

  Layne held up her hands to stop him. “Funny thing is, he was told it was Grandma Marcy who did the leaving and wanted nothing to do with them. Obviously Great-Grandma—”

  “Was a bitch,” Morgan said angrily as Miles nodded.

  “They really think we’re the bad part of the family cutting them off?” Miles asked, sitting back down.

  “Yup. Gavin’s grandfather and great-uncle are in a retirement home. They both have congestive heart failure. He’s going to speak with them now that we’ve met and he discovered we’re not the ones who wanted the estrangement. He’s trying to get to the truth.”

  Miles was quiet for a moment. “Mom will be very happy to hear this. Losing that connection to her brothers and having her mother cut her off was very hard on her, even if she rarely talks about it.”

  “Well,” Morgan said cheerfully, “now that we know Walker is a respectable man and not a deserter, we better get to your mom’s. It’s after six.”

  “Crap, she’ll tan my hide for being late. Let’s go,” Miles said, ordering everyone out and into his SUV.

  “I still haven’t decided if I like you or not. And I sure as hell don’t like you even looking at my daughter,” Miles said from the front seat as they sped down the winding, narrow country roads leading out to the Davies family farm, “but if you thought Hell Week during BUD/S training was bad, you might as well jump from the car right now.”

  Walker took Layne’s hand in his and smiled at her. “I think I can handle it, sir.”

  Miles snorted. “At least this will be amusing,” he told Morgan, who smacked him in return.

  Layne hadn’t prepared for this. She wasn’t expecting to take Walker to a family dinner. This was a dinner where her uncles delighted in scaring off every date she or her cousins had ever brought. Most of the time they left before food was set out. And now she had a man most thought was dead or a deserter, and she wasn’t really sure where they stood with each other. Amusing wasn’t the word she’d use to describe it. More like terrifying.

  The white farmhouse came into view, and she still wasn’t prepared for it. Cars were parked everywhere. The uncles and some of her male cousins were sitting on the porch along with her grandfather when they pulled to a stop.

  Her father turned and smiled at Walker. Although it wasn’t the kind smile he always gave her. It was more a look of feral violence. “Let’s see what you’re
really made of, Froggy.”

  Walker looked to her with confusion. “Is family dinner really that bad?”

  “Uh,” Layne said, trying to smile reassuringly even though she was pretty sure it came out as grimace. “Stay strong,” Layne finally said, patting his arm before opening her door.

  “Hey, Layne! Welcome back. How was the conference?” Jackson Parker, the middle child of Aunt Paige and Uncle Cole, asked. Jackson was with the FBI Hostage Rescue team and made it home occasionally. He was due to leave again in the morning.

  “Good.” She smiled. “Where’s your brother?”

  “Ryan’s inside acting like a mother hen over Sienna. Apparently, there are dangers all around for a pregnant woman,” Jackson teased, making his cousins and uncles laugh. That is, until the other door opened and Walker stepped out. Then there was silence, except for the scraping noise of chairs being pushed back as the Davies men all stood at once.

  “Who’s the grunt?” Uncle Marshall asked as his son, Wyatt, shook his head.

  “I’m Wyatt. One of the many cousins,” Wyatt said nicely with a wave as his dad smacked him.

  “I’m Walker. Nice to meet you.” Walker made his way around the car. He’d refused to bring his crutches so he limped slightly as he stood next to Layne. “And I’m not a grunt. I’m a Navy man.”

  “Ugh!” Uncle Cade groaned. “A squid. How could you tolerate that, Miles?” Cade and Annie’s two sons, Colton and Landon, smirked as Walker took a deep breath.

  “He’s a froggy,” Miles said as he walked up to join the other men. “At least he’s not a squid.”

  “A SEAL? I thought you weren’t supposed to tell anyone that.”

  “That’s Uncle Cy. You met his daughter, Reagan,” Layne told Walker.

  “What the—Reagan!” Cy yelled as his daughter came walking out with her twin sister, Riley, and their cousin Sophie.

  “What, Dad?” Reagan asked before looking up and smiling. “Oh hey, Layne. Owen.”

  “It’s Walker, actually. Sorry for the fib,” Walker grimaced.

  “That’s what. You know better than to withhold information. Wait, he was there yesterday when I stopped by, wasn’t he?”

  “Unlike those ground pounders in the Army, I know how to be quiet,” Walker smirked.

  “I like him.” Sophie chuckled as her dad, Cade, gave her a look.

  “Walker, this is Sophie. She made the gun I gave you.”

  “Well then, it is a pleasure to meet you. That’s a great weapon,” Walker said, stepping forward and meeting Sophie at the bottom of the stairs to shake her hand.

  “And she’s taken,” her husband, Nash, said coldly from the top of the stairs.

  “Bad ass,” Cade whispered about his son-in-law to Miles with a smile.

  Nash was a badass, but Uncle Cade’s obsession with his son-in-law being the biggest badass of all the sons-in-law was something his brothers groaned about.

  “And I’m not interested,” Walker said, reaching back to grab Layne’s hand. Nash looked between them and to the ribbing Miles was getting and smiled then.

  “You have balls of steel for walking into a family dinner this early on. Good luck. Sophie, Piper wants—”

  “Seriously?” Piper yelled as she pushed past the group standing on the stairs. “You didn’t tell me he was the one I was getting Dylan’s clothes for. And you didn’t introduce me.” Piper put her hands on her hips and tried to glare, but she didn’t have a mean bone in her body.

  “Whoa, what’s this?” Uncle Pierce, Piper’s dad, asked.

  “I should have recognized that shirt,” Jace, Piper’s brother, said. “But why did you need Dylan’s clothes to begin with?”

  “I’d like to know that too. It sounds juicy.” Aunt Tammy came out of the house with Layne’s mom and the rest of the aunts.

  “Honey, should you be so near the stairs? You’re not as strong as you used to be and—”

  Pierce didn’t get a chance to finish as his brother Marshall punched him in the arm. “Ow. What did you do that for?” Marshall just shook his head.

  “Goodness, you weren’t lying about him being good lookin’,” Grandma Marcy said to Morgan in what was supposed to be a whisper but wasn’t.

  “When you said you had a lot of family, I pictured lots of people, but this seems like so much more,” Walker whispered into her ear as everyone began talking at once.

  “And some aren’t even here.” Layne smiled back to him as the men hurried down the stairs to surround them.

  “I think I need to introduce Walker to the family. Why don’t you go inside and help Grandma with dinner?” Miles asked nicely, although she knew better.

  Riley Davies Walz snaked through the crowd, closing in on them, and grabbed Layne’s hand. “Come on. If Matt survived, then surely a SEAL can. Well, maybe.”

  “Traitors, all of you,” Layne said, pointing to Nash, Riley’s husband, Matt, and Sydney’s husband, Deacon.

  “We’ve been on the other side and this is the reward for surviving.” Deacon grinned as he, Matt, and Nash joined in the interrogation that may or may not involve outlawed torture techniques.

  “Come on in and tell us all about him,” Sydney said, meeting them on the porch. “He’ll be fine.” Sydney caught sight of Colton on one side of Walker and Miles on the other as they corralled him out back. “Maybe.”

  “Why is he limping or is my eyesight going bad?” Grandma Marcy asked.

  “He was shot,” Layne said as they walked inside. Grandma didn’t seem fazed. After raising five sons and a daughter, nothing really surprised her anymore.

  “Who was shot?” Ryan asked from his place on the couch next to his pregnant wife, Sienna.

  “The new boyfriend she brought to dinner,” Riley answered.

  Ryan shot out of his seat and was halfway across the room before he slid to a stop. “You okay, babe?”

  Sienna rolled her eyes. “I’ve been fine. I am fine. I will be fine. Women have had babies before me, you know.”

  “Okay, just wanted to make sure.” And then Ryan was gone with the slam of the door.

  “Thank goodness you brought a diversion for Pierce and Ryan,” Aunt Tammy said, taking a seat next to Sienna. A little round belly had appeared on her pixie of an aunt recently.

  “I would kill him if he wasn’t the father of my child,” Sienna joked. “Although, it’s sweet . . . in a completely smothering kind of way.”

  “Doesn’t that sound lovely?” Katelyn, Sydney’s mom, nudged.

  “That’s another year I’m waiting to have a child,” Sydney shot back. Katelyn made a face at her daughter but then hugged her.

  “So, tell us about this guy,” Piper said excitedly.

  “I think it’s best to see if he survives first. There’s a lot to tell, and it’ll all be moot if he’s dead.” Layne looked through the living room and tried to see out the kitchen door, but had no luck seeing where the guys took Walker.

  “Pfft, he’ll be fine,” Aunt Paige said with a wave of her hand. “Cole survived my brothers. Although, now there’re cousins and sons-in-law too. Well, I’m sure it’ll all work out . . . maybe.”

  14

  Being hunted by Jud might be preferable to what Walker was going through at that moment. The Davies family was an undeniable unit moving as one. When one applied pressure, another told it would be over sooner if he just talked. Somehow, through the constant questions and the walking over the uneven terrain, which he was sure was done purposely to bring pain to his leg, the casual challenge was issued.

  “I like bows myself,” the one he learned was Landon said. His brother, Colton, however disagreed.

  “Axes.”

  “I think we should make Froggy here jump a little. We all know the Navy has gone soft on their trainees.” Miles grinned. Dear Lord, when he grinned he became even scarier.

  “I like your thinking, brother.” Cade nodded.

  “A decathlon of sorts. If he passes, he can come inside. If not, well, we�
�ll bury his body in Dani’s garden. No one will find him on Rahmi embassy grounds,” Marshall said to his brothers, who all nodded.

  “Good plan. I like it.” Miles ordered his nephews to round up ten weapons and suddenly Walker was left with just Miles and his brothers. “Now that we have the rookies out of the way, start talking.”

  A wall of Davies brothers and their brother-in-law formed shoulder to shoulder in front of him. “I can handle anything you throw at me, so give it to me,” Walker challenged as he stood up straight and refused to give into the pain in his leg.

  “Tell my brothers about Jud Melville,” Miles ordered.

  “I’d rather hear about his intentions with my niece,” Marshall said before stopping and cutting his ice cold glare on Walker. “Damn, I didn’t put it together until now. You’re a dead man.”

  “Dead and buried if the news is correct. Some place in South Carolina. Your sister was on the news declaring that wasn’t your body they buried in your hometown,” Cade said, stepping closer to him. “Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing with Layne?”

  “I’m Chief Petty Officer Walker Greene of the US Navy’s DEVGRU division. And I’m the only survivor who can tell what really happened on the mission that took the lives of my brothers at the hand of our senior chief, Jud Melville,” Walker answered with a challenge in his eye as he looked at each and every one of them.

  “SEAL team six, that’s impressive,” Cade said with a raised eyebrow as Marshall hit him.

  “They’re not called that anymore,” Marshall said with a roll of his eyes. “How far behind the times are you?”

  “Isn’t anyone interested in what happened on the mission and how he ended up here?” Pierce asked. All the brothers returned their focus onto him.

  “Tell them,” Miles ordered. Walker obeyed and retold the entire story for the group.

  “We’re back in business.” Marshall grinned after Walker finished. Walker didn’t show his confusion but let them continue to talk among themselves.

  “Wait a minute, this is my daughter we’re talking about who is now in danger,” Miles pointed out.