by Hart, Taylor
The Found Warrior
Navy SEAL Romances
Taylor Hart
Copyright
All rights reserved.
© 2018 ArchStone Ink
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. The reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form whether electronic, mechanical or other means, known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written consent of the publisher and/or author. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This edition is published by ArchStone Ink LLC.
First eBook Edition: 2018
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the creation of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Also by Taylor Hart
Texas Titan Romances
The Tough Love Groom
The Second Chance Groom
The Dream Groom
The Fake Fiance Groom
Bachelor Billionaire Romances
The Football Groom
The Country Groom
The Unfinished Groom
The Barefoot Groom
The Masquerading Groom
The Christmas Groom
Rescue Me: Park City Firefighter Romance (A Bachelor Billionaire Companion)
The Lost Groom
The Undercover Groom
The LoneStar Groom
The Redeemed Groom
The Last Play Series
Last Play
The Rookie
Just Play
A Player for Christmas
Second String
End Zone
Hail Mary
Snow Valley Series
A Christmas in Snow Valley: The Christmas Eve Kiss
Summer in Snow Valley: First Love
Spring in Snow Valley: The Bet
A Return to Snow Valley: The Christmas Boyfriend
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
Epilogue
The Broken Warrior: Zane Kent
The Redeemed Groom: Bachelor Billionaire Romances: The Legendary Kent Brothers
Also by Taylor Hart
About the Author
Prologue
When you find that one person who connects you to the world, you become someone different, someone better. When that person is ripped away from you, what happens to you then?
Blaine sat on the beach, gripping his temples, wishing he could take some serum to erase her from his brain. Erase the pain. Erase the way he loved her.
Because not having her was going to kill him.
Chapter 1
4 months earlier
Exhaustion coursed through Elena as she stared up into her mother’s profile. The canvas showed parted lips in streaks of black and blue. Her mother’s red hair was a flame that wound in swirls of reds and yellows and oranges like the sun burning on a hot day. Elena thought of painting this picture and remembered how angry she’d felt in her high-rise studio loft apartment. That was the day her mother had lost the battle with cancer. That day, almost a year ago, Elena had lost her.
Moonlight fell over the image, gently illuminating the artistic rendering of pain. Bizarrely, this piece had been the most sought after tonight, earning the highest bids. Too bad she had refused to sell it. She stared at the way her mother’s brow arched in pain. She’d been trying to capture the horrible agony the cancer had thrust on her beloved mother. Elena would never forget that particular moment in the sterile hospital. Her mother had cried and then yelled out as she was stuck with the long needle. Elena tasted the salty tears on her lips, but she didn’t push the memory away. She let it roll through her. At least now, she could feel the physical heartache the memory provoked. For months, she’d felt numb.
The lights were dimmed. The show was long over. She took a moment to appreciate the space. Her mother had left the gallery to her, but Elena had discovered this past year that it cost a lot of money to pay the bills. This show was supposed to help with that, but Elena knew it wouldn’t be enough. She slipped off her heels and pressed one toe into the wood floor, stretching it like she had in ballet when she was ten. She clutched the open bottle of water in her hand and pressed it to her lips. Even as she guzzled it down, she knew it wouldn’t fill the emptiness inside of her, the gaping hole that had been there for so long. Nothing would.
Her father’s face, framed by the widow’s peak and accented by the dark-rimmed glasses and mustache, flashed into her mind. The senator. He hadn’t come tonight. Of course he hadn’t.
Antonio, his chief of staff, had proposed to her tonight. It hadn’t even fazed her to turn him down when he’d asked. She’d only given him a slight turn of the head, averting her eyes.
Antonio, her father’s lackey. Antonio, the man her father was grooming to follow in his footsteps. Why would he think tonight would be the night to ask her to marry him? Especially after he’d stood right next to her and asked, “Why anyone would want to buy such a disturbing painting?”
Her painting. Hadn’t he noticed her working on said painting?
Smoldering anger burned through her. The truth was, it wasn’t just Antonio and his ridiculous proposal. No. It was the bills piling up for the gallery, the ones Marissa, her manager, kept insisting needed to be paid. It was trying to focus on clients and events and people when all she could feel when she closed her eyes was the cool, gentle way her mother’s hand had fluttered over her own as they’d traced a butterfly onto a paper in this same gallery when she was five.
This gallery had meant everything to her mother. Elena couldn’t lose it, but it felt like the more she tried to keep it, the more things there were to do and manage and be. If she asked her father for a check, she found herself committed to events he claimed he needed her at to support him. Elena felt her life spiraling out of control.
Her shoulders shook as she stifled a sob. She focused again on the painting of her mother. Why did her grief put her in a space of numbness one minute and complete insanity in the next? There was no middle ground.
She could still smell the faint smell of turpentine that her mother had used to clean her brushes. It had clung to her. A shudder went through Elena’s body. She could still feel the way her mother’s soul had slipped out of her body on the night she’d died. Anger surged within her, singeing the inside of her heart. Her hand trembled, and she looked at it with curiosity, like it was detached from her body.
She needed her! She needed her mother here to help her and be with her and show her the way. She thought of standing next to her father in the pouring rain at the funeral almost a year ago. His gloved hand hovered near hers, but never took it. H
ow come he was always on the edges of her life? Never a part of it, just on the edge; never real, but almost a ghost.
“No!” She hurled the bottle of water at the painting. She would not marry Antonio. “No!” she yelled, feeling like she was losing her mother all over again. “No!”
“Hey!” someone shouted. “You can’t do that!”
Elena jerked back. No one was supposed to be in the gallery. It was late, and it wasn’t the best part of town.
A man stepped out from the shadows. He was tall, and his blond hair made him stand out in the dimly lit gallery. It reminded of her a child’s pure, tow-headed hair. He wore some kind of military uniform. He looked angry, like he was about to fight, but his next words were calm. “Let me help you.”
She didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t acknowledge him. Distantly, she found his words amusing. He thought he could help her? It was like he’d just appeared out of thin air. Her brain shifted gears as she assessed his clothes. Navy, maybe?
Slowly, carefully, he began walking toward her, the way someone might approach a terrorist who was about to pull a ripcord on a bomb. “Just hold tight, okay? Let’s talk about this.”
“Why are you here?” Her poise was back, her manic episode forgotten as she focused on this stranger.
He continued moving like he was preventing a nuclear disaster. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”
“I’m fine,” she insisted, in the tone she used when answering a professional phone call from someone buying her paintings. She maintained the controlled, tempered facade as she added, “You’re the one acting completely asinine. Stay back.” She flicked her fingers at him as if he couldn’t overpower her if he chose to.
He paused within an arm’s length of her.
She couldn’t help noticing he was glorious—spectacular, really. His jaw was firm. His high cheekbones looked sharp, and his blue eyes pierced right through her. An archangel, that’s how she might describe him. Or a Greek god. Yes. Hercules. She sized him up: six-three, six-four, maybe. It was clear he was muscular, even under his uniform. She could feel his strength radiating off of him.
His eyes narrowed into laser-like focus that would have been terrifying if she were a terrorist. He offered her his hand. “Look, I can help you.”
Did he think she had lost her mind? A bitter smile played at her lips. Maybe she had. “Why are you in here?” she asked sharply.
“Look, I don’t care for art, but there’s no reason for you to wreck any more paintings.”
“Actually, I can wreck anything in here. It’s all mine.”
He tilted his chin up, uncertain. “Really?”
“It’s my gallery.” She waved a hand at the paintings, feeling ridiculous for explaining herself to a stranger. “This was my show.”
“Oh.” The guy still looked skeptical, and he crossed his arms as he looked around.
“What are you doing here?” she scolded. “Everything should be locked up.”
“The door was open.” He cocked an eyebrow. “You should be more careful, especially this late at night with a bunch of weirdos out there.”
“Yes,” she said calmly. “There are a lot of weirdos out there and sometimes they walk right in.”
The guy squinted at her as if sizing her up, then put his hands up as if to surrender. “You got me.”
Their gazes locked in a standoff. “We’re closed,” she said tartly.
He took a step back and brushed his hand over his five-o’clock shadow. “Of course you are.” He blinked and held up his wrist, staring at a large watch. “Sorry, time got away from me.”
Unable to tell if something was wrong with him, she was nevertheless intrigued by this military man who had stumbled into her gallery and acted like he could stop her from burning the place down. Well, technically, he had. She wasn’t thinking about her problems any longer, wasn’t throwing any more bottles of water at anything.
He stumbled again, looking puzzled. “I didn’t realize. I … I don’t even know what I’m doing here.” He looked around with widening eyes. “Where am I, exactly?”
Their eyes connected, and she saw that he really was lost.
“Am I in Brooklyn still? New York? I think I crossed the big bridge.” He frowned, turning toward the window.
“You’re in Manhattan,” she told him. Was this man okay? All of his certainty and bomb-defusing confidence had vanished.
Raking his hand over his face, he swallowed. “Oh. Okay. Thanks. Sorry to bother you. You’re right. I should go.” He turned toward the gallery stairs.
“What’s your name?” She blurted it out, wanting to stop him.
He did stop, slowly turning back. Gorgeous, she thought. He was worthy of a painting, even as his brows furrowed. “Uh …”
She took a tentative step toward him, feeling the need to defuse something now as he had done a few minutes earlier. “I’m Elena Gates.” She put her hand out.
His eyes locked on hers again. “Oh.”
He wasn’t quick to tell her his name. He wasn’t polished. He wasn’t put together and didn’t know exactly the right words to say like everyone from high society who had traipsed through the gallery tonight. All of these things endeared him to her. “And your name?”
Sucking in a breath, he turned to fully face her. “I guess I could tell you.”
She licked her lips, feeling more like herself than she had all evening. “If it’s not a national secret, soldier, I’d like to hear it.”
For a second, he looked as though it might be. A smile played at his lips, and he closed the gap between them and put out his hand. “I’m Blaine Hammerton.”
Elena wanted to let out a low whistle and comment that his name fit, but she simply took his hand. “Nice to meet you, Blaine Hammerton.”
Their hands held slightly longer than a normal shake would before she pulled hers back.
He held her eyes but didn’t say anything.
Finding that she wanted to make things easier for him, she said, “Clearly, you’re not from here. So what brings you to the big city? And why are you lost?”
“I’m not lost.” He blinked rapidly, looking a bit pale in addition to confused. “I’m never lost,” he said softly.
She was worried as she took a step closer. “It’s okay to be lost sometimes.” Didn’t she know it? Hadn’t she felt that the past year?
He stared at her. His eyes had a faraway look. Still, no answer.
“Blaine, are you okay?”
He slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out something metallic. Holding out his hand palm up, he said, “I got this key today.”
It didn’t make sense. A man she didn’t know wandered into her gallery, acted like he would stop her from imploding on herself, and then held out a random key with a lost expression. “Oh.”
Blaine looked up at her with teary eyes. He closed his hand around the key and pulled it back. “My father died three days ago of a massive heart attack.”
Elena jolted, and she floundered for something to say. “I’m so sorry.”
“We weren’t close. Barely knew the man, really. I mean, I did, but my mother passed when I was young.” He sighed. “Boarding school was my home.” The last word was said with derision. He shifted in place, then met her eyes. “I don’t know why I just told you that.”
The truth was that for the first time in a long time, Elena found herself focusing on someone else’s problems, and she liked it. “Please, continue.”
He raked a hand through his hair. “I … Today was the funeral. I got in late last night. After the funeral, this guy I don’t even know gave me this key. He said my father wanted me to have it, and then he walked away.” Blaine took another step back and let out a humorless laugh. “Why am I telling you this?”
Honestly, Elena couldn’t say. She had no wisdom to offer and even less idea about how he had ended up in her gallery. The whole past year had been a blur for her, including the last week and tonight. The only person she truly
loved was dead, and the man who wanted her to marry him didn’t understand her at all. Was it really so ridiculous to think that maybe she might find comfort in a stranger? That she might be able to comfort a stranger? “Do you want to have pancakes?”
His face wrinkled in confusion. “What?”
Taking a huge breath, she felt better and more determined than she had all night. This guy was clearly a soldier. He had just lost his estranged father, and he’d been wandering around after the funeral. For how long? Even though what she was doing would freak Antonio out, she didn’t care. Warmth filled the center of her chest, and goose bumps took over her arms. This man needed help.
“C’mon,” she said, turning toward the door. “Let’s close up. My place is around the corner. I don’t cook much, but pancakes are my thing. I’ll make you the best ones you’ve ever tasted.” A smile played at her lips. “My mama’s recipe. She used to make me pancakes in the middle of the night if I was upset, and I have to tell you, soldier, they always did the trick. I always felt better.”
Blaine didn’t move at first. He gave her an uncertain look. “I don’t think I should.”
She had already put on her shoes and picked up her purse from behind the podium at the entrance. “Why not?” She winked at him. “I think you could take me if I try any funny business.”
Chapter 2
