Chapter One
Silver Island – Four years later
“It’s a beautiful mornin’.” John Cabelly turned his words into a rendition of the old Rascals song. He grinned when it garnered him chuckles and smiles from the island visitors waiting for the excursion boat that would return them to the mainland to arrive.
“Even if it wasn’t, I bet you’d have a song for that, too, Sheriff,” Kimberly Bevel called out from her place behind the podium at the Welcome Center.
John detoured and headed her way, nodding at the visitors he passed. “Aww, I’m sure I’d think of a good tune for the occasion.”
Kimberly laughed, her bronze face glowing and flirtatious amusement dancing in her greenish-brown eyes. “You don’t usually come to the docks yourself. Did you forget to delegate the task to one of your deputies today or are you waiting on a personal visitor to arrive?”
John propped a forearm on the edge of the podium, knowing Kimberly’s question was her way of setting sail to a different kind of excursion boat than the one that ferried people to and from Silver Springs on the mainland. Hers was the fishing kind of expedition and, though he didn’t want to hurt her feelings, he didn’t want to encourage her either. Not that she wasn’t a looker. At five foot seven, roughly a hundred and twenty pounds, deeply tanned flesh, and straight, long ebony hair, she was a very attractive woman. For any other man but him. He didn’t doubt she’d knock some guy off his feet one day and have him eating out of the palm of her hand.
Some guy or even two, he reminded himself seeing as she did live on Silver Island, a private piece of land nestled in the waters of the Gulf where ménage relationships and even polygamous marriages were the norm.
“Mr. Winters, Kenneth,” John clarified since there were two Mr. Winters on the island, “is expecting a visitor.” The Winters family—particularly brothers Kenneth and Marcus Winters and their wife, Charlotte—were the owners, developers, and all-around bosses of the island. They were filthy rich, the nicest people John had ever met, and descendants of a ménage relationship that had been kept secret until their parents’ dying days. Even their own ménage relationship had been kept mostly hush-hush for nearly twenty some odd years until they took over the island.
John lifted his sunglasses off his nose with the tip of a finger as he looked toward the water. He could barely make out the excursion boat coming into view. He let his glasses fall back to his nose as he returned his attention to Kimberly. “He got hung up in town and asked me if I minded doing the first meet and greet for him.”
Kimberly pursed her lips. “Must be some visitor if Mr. Winters planned on being here himself when they arrived.”
Some visitor indeed. Lara Hampton was the visitor in question. She was the daughter of US Senator Lawrence Hampton and the one woman in John’s thirty-one years of life he’d never been able to get out of his mind.
Kimberly made a worried face. “Is he expecting trouble to come out of this visit?”
John nearly barked a laugh before he caught himself. Trouble? If he looked up the word in the dictionary, he was pretty damn certain he’d find a picture of Lara Hampton’s gorgeous face in lieu of the definition.
He shook his head and kept his thoughts to himself. “No, he’s just looking to woo her with island hospitality.”
Kimberly nodded slowly, her gaze a mix of heat and promises John refused to take her up on. “By sending the island’s hunkiest sheriff to meet her at the boat. Yeah, that’ll woo her, all right.”
I sure as hell hope so. Not that one look at him had wooed Lara Hampton four years ago. Neither had sitting so close to him in the helo on the way out of Cambodia. She’d appeared to only have eyes for Ryan Magee. Although, John hadn’t missed the way she’d shivered every time Brandon “Ace” McCormick had touched her with his too gentle hands. John hadn’t missed the way she’d called the man sweet so many times during the chopper ride either. Nor had he missed the way she’d sucked in quick breaths and stiffened her shoulders the few times John had dared to touch her, as if she were stilling herself for the contact or she’d burst into hormonal flames.
Give it up, Cabelly. You’re remembering what you want to, not how it really happened.
Maybe. Maybe not. But one thing was for certain, his old teammate, Ryan Magee, was married and living on the mainland in Silver Springs now. As for Brandon McCormick, John still kept in touch with his closest friend, but it had been nearly a year since he’d seen the man.
“She’s a senator’s daughter,” John told Kimberly. “Mr. Winters is hoping her influence will shed some more positive light on the island and the liberal thinking it stands for.”
At least that’s what Kenneth claimed. John also knew Lara had managed to find herself the focus of one very determined, very off-his-rockers stalker by the name of Harold Taggart. Which meant that, yes, trouble was likely going to attempt to follow Lara to the island. Trouble John was already heading off with every available means at his disposal.
“That reminds me.” He shifted and pulled a printed photo from his back pocket. “Hold onto this, keep behind your podium or whatever. If you see this guy, I want to know about it immediately.”
Kimberly took the photo, studied it for a moment, and then placed it inside the podium. “So you are expecting trouble. Does this guy have anything to do with Lara Hampton?”
John shook his head. It was better that no one knew Taggart was stalking Lara. “I’m just asking all the business owners and islanders to keep a look out. I’ll handle the rest.”
“I doubt he’ll get on the boat in Silver Springs. Lara Hampton might even have issues with that. The last load of people brought in said there’s still picketers crowding as close as they can get to the docks on the mainland. They said they practically had to fight their way through. I heard the Coast Guard vessels out there earlier warning trespassing boats away from the island.”
“I’ll radio security on the docks and make sure they’re keeping the picketers back as far as they can.” The Winters didn’t own the land on the coast, but they were paying a hefty sum to the city of Silver Springs for the use of the docks. They’d also hired a security team to keep protesters back so impending visitors didn’t have trouble reaching the excursion boat.
“Is it ever going to stop?” Kimberly wanted to know. “I mean, jeez, it’s been nearly a year since visitors started coming to the island to enjoy the freedom we have to offer. We’re not hurting anyone with the way we choose to live. What business is it of those protesters or anyone else if I fall in love with two men?” She paused in her rant to take a breath and angled her head, her greenish-brown eyes taking on heat once more. “Come to think of it, Sheriff. I haven’t seen you palling around with a best bud on the prowl for the woman to share. Surely you’ve got a best friend.”
She made her last words sound like more of a statement than a question, but John knew she had just cast her reel again. “I’ve got plenty of friends off the island and I’ve made quite a few here, too.”
John looked to the water again and noted the excursion boat was mere minutes from the docks. His heart did a ridiculous bump against his ribcage at the realization that he’d soon be face-to-face with Lara Hampton after four very long years.
“But none so close you’d want in bed with you and your woman, huh?” Kimberly continued to prod.
Only one.
Though he and Brandon McCormick had never shared a woman, John wouldn’t balk at the idea. To his way of thinking, they’d made superior teammates when he was a SEAL and they’d make even better partners for a woman. McCormick possessed traits John simply didn’t. The dude was, well, sweet. He was so fucking sweet to women simply listening to the dude talk to them gave John a cavity.
He’s hot on Lara, too.
Yeah, no doubt about them apples. McCormick hadn’t been able to get Lara Hampton out of his mind these last four years any more than John had. So why hadn’t he told McCormick that Lara was coming to the island when t
hey spoke on the phone a few days ago?
Because it would piss you off two ways from Sunday if McCormick showed up on the island, swept Lara off her feet, and you were left high and dry.
Knowing the truth the thought wielded, John ruthlessly pushed it aside and dropped his forearm from the podium as he turned back to Kimberly. “Looks like the boat is about in. I can’t leave the senator’s daughter sitting on the dock of the bay wasting time.”
Kimberly beamed a wide smile at him and put a hand over her heart when he sang the last words in tune with the old Otis Redding song. “Oh, I love that song!”
John chuckled and started to back away. “Of course you do. It’s a classic!”
“Have a good day, Sheriff, and don’t be such a stranger from now on.”
John turned on his heel, but not before he saw her wink at him. Wink! Not that he’d ever considered he’d been reading her signals wrong. He knew he hadn’t been. But, geezus, whatever happened to the man making the moves?
Shaking his head, he found an empty space near the rail and waited as the excursion boat settled at the dock. He noted the good turnout of new visitors to the island as the ramp came down and people began filing off. The island opened itself to daily visitors as well as ones there for extended stays during the summer season. With the excursion boat scheduled to run three times a day, some of the people who stepped onto the island would hang around while others would hit the beach, take in a few of the sites, and head back to the mainland before dark. Years of observation training as a SEAL told him Taggart had not made it on board. It also told him which of the new visitors would be sticking around, which ones he might want to keep an eye on, and which ones he could easily dismiss.
His cell phone vibrated in his pocket just as his attention locked on her. He ignored the call, knowing the blonde with the dazzling smile, hour-glass curves, and legs that seemed to reach her ears, was definitely not one that fell into the easily dismissible category.
Lara Hampton. Geezus, she was more beautiful now than she’d been four years ago. He watched her stop at the foot of the ramp, set the two bags she carried on the ground on either side of her feet, and turn her head away from him. His gaze traveled down the slender column of her neck and lingered on her breasts to enjoy the way her bright pink tank top molded the mounds to true perfection. His cock stiffened as he pulled his focus down, skipped over her trim waist and hips made for a man to hold on tight, and followed the amazing legs he’d dreamed of having locked around him as he pistoned his dick in her eager pussy.
His heart rate climbed with his gaze as he dragged his attention back up at the same time she turned her head. He saw her attention pass over him without a hint of recognition on her angelic face and he pushed a hard breath from his lungs. Didn’t it figure? The one woman who’d cemented herself in his mind for years, the one who’d haunted his thoughts no matter how many other women he’d been with, didn’t remember him.
Keen observation wasn’t the only training he’d gotten in the SEALs. He’d learned to persevere, to come out on top no matter the difficulty of the op, and he’d learned to win.
Which you’re not going to do standing here. You’re the man, Cabelly. Time to make your move.
Kenneth Winters hadn’t just asked John to meet Lara at the docks. The boss had asked him to show her around the island, become her tour guide for a while, make sure she stayed safe, and give her directions to anywhere she wanted to go.
As John headed her way the lyrics to Billy Currington’s country song “Good Directions” twanged in his head. Yeah, he’d be more than happy to give her good directions, and he’d make sure they led her right back to him.
* * * *
Butterflies went wild in Lara’s stomach as she squinted her eyes against the bright sunlight and scanned the faces around her in search of Kenneth Winters. She kept her smile in place, refusing to let on that she’d been rattled by the glimpse of the tall man clad in a sheriff’s uniform with a devastatingly handsome angular face topped by white-blond hair cut to military regulation.
Rattled? That was putting it mildly. Her system had instantly kicked into a riot of calisthenics when her gaze had skimmed over his face. Ensign John Cabelly with Team Six of the US Navy SEALs. It had to be him. It might have been four years since she’d looked into those light blue eyes and let her attention travel over his five foot ten inches of solidly toned muscles, but the image of him had stayed with her, returning almost nightly to tease her in her dreams.
Obviously, he wasn’t Ensign John Cabelly any longer, but the island’s sheriff. Christ on a pogo stick. Why hadn’t it occurred to her that she might run into someone she knew besides the Winters family on this island?
Maybe because you don’t live your life expecting to find a super sexy US Navy SEAL around every corner.
She stifled a giggle at the thought. It felt good to laugh, even if it was at herself. She’d been on edge the last several months, always watching her back, scared to open her mailbox or answer the telephone out of fear that Harold Taggart would show up, write, or call again. She’d toned down her escapades since her capture and subsequent rescue in Cambodia, not that it had done her much good. Cambodia hadn’t been her first brush with death, nor had it been her last, but, so far, it had been the last time she’d needed rescuing by a hardened team of warriors, two of which had set her blood pumping and her pussy creaming with a single look.
He can help you now.
Could he or was her father right when he insisted Harold Taggart would soon find a new hobby? Hobby, as if the way the freak had been constantly pursuing her was merely a game in candy land for the creep.
Still, she knew the occurrences of the last few months didn’t warrant calling upon a team of US Navy SEALs, especially ones who could make her forget her every sense of propriety.
You managed to keep your senses that night in Cambodia.
Yes, she had. She’d managed to hold onto her willpower despite the almost overwhelming urge to give into her desires to offer a very special thank you to Ensign John Cabelly and the SEAL she’d dubbed as far too sweet, whom she’d later learned was really Lieutenant Brandon “Ace” McCormick. A woman in her position couldn’t afford to be labeled a SEAL groupie. God, how awful would that be? And that’s exactly what would’ve happened because no way would anything more have come out of a night between the sheets with either of those two SEALs.
You resisted Ryan Magee, too.
True, but she didn’t give herself as many props for that. Resisting that SEAL lieutenant had been easy simply because he’d obviously expected her to go for him. She’d played it off, too, finding it to be much easier to let the rest of the team believe if she fell into anyone’s bed it would be Magee’s rather than letting on which men had really sent her lust climbing up the scale to want-to-do-them mountain.
“Lara.”
Yikes! She didn’t need to look to know who’d just called out her name. Now what? She couldn’t ignore John. Not that she wanted to ignore him anyway. Except, she should. She should absolutely, positively pretend she didn’t know him from the man in the moon. She should walk away, quick, and act like she hadn’t heard him. Shouldn’t she? On the other hand, he wasn’t a SEAL anymore. That meant associating with him, getting hot and sweaty between the sheets with him, wouldn’t label her a SEAL groupie. But who said he wanted to get hot and heavy between the sheets with her? The man had merely said her name, for crying out loud.
Oh, for Pete’s sake, Lara, you’re thinking yourself right through the door of confusions-r-us.
She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and turned. The smile she hadn’t yet allowed to waver was still plastered on her lips. Good thing, too, because he was headed her way and, the closer he got, the more her jaw wanted to drop. Holy hormones, the John Cabelly who’d visited her dreams had been the man clad in full battle fatigues with streaks of war paint on his face and barely visible in the darkness. By the light of day, the John Cabelly wal
king toward her now looked ten times more dangerous, more forceful and, God help her, more appealing than ever.
The deep breath she had taken a nanosecond before she’d turned stuck in her throat as her gaze took it upon itself to do a leisurely glide down his front. His khaki button-down shirt stuck to his torso like a second skin, delineating every muscle in his shoulders, arms, and abs, and making her head spin. The shirt was tucked into a pair of khaki cargo shorts secured to his waist by a gun belt and riding low on his trim hips. Despite the bagginess of their design, his shorts failed to conceal what was obviously one very impressive male package between his strong-looking legs.
Lara’s girly parts went haywire as her focus slammed into his black ankle boots and did a gradual climb back up. Wetness pooled between her feminine lips, threatening to soak the cotton lining of her panties. Her nipples beaded to hardened points inside the lacy cups of her bra. Lust zinged off every erogenous zone in her body as her gaze finally settled on his face. Dark sunglasses covered eyes she remembered being a potent light blue. Thin lips curved into a drool-worthy smile that rocked her to her toes. Sweat she knew had absolutely nothing to do with the growing temperature of the summer morning and everything to do with the intense heat of this supremely hunky male gathered between her breasts and trickled down her abdomen as she finally expelled the breath that had lodged in her throat.
“John Cabelly.” He extended a hand in greeting. “Island sheriff.”
Lara took his hand, forgetting to brace for the contact, and nearly melted at his feet. Long callused fingers closed around her hand. She stared at her reflection in the lenses of his sunglasses as her head swam. That simple, casual touch made her dizzy, intoxicated, as if his fingers came equipped with tiny needles that penetrated her flesh and injected her with a heavy dose of erotic desire.
“Lara Hampton.” Relief collided with the yearning in her system when her voice came out steady and normal rather than trembling and breathy, which was exactly how she felt. “But, you already know that.” And she’d already known his name. Did he think she didn’t recognize him?
Safe and SEALed with Ecstasy [The Heroes of Silver Island 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 2
