by Paige Tyler
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Author’s Note:
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
SEAL OF HER DREAMS
SEALs of Coronado
Paige Tyler
Copyright © 2016 by Paige Tyler
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the author.
Cover Design by Gemini Judson, Cover Gems
Editing by Wizards in Publishing and RVP Editing
With special thanks to my extremely patient and understanding husband, without whose help and support I couldn’t have pursued my dream job of becoming a writer. You’re my sounding board, my idea man, my critique partner, and the absolute best research assistant any girl could ask for!
Thank you.
Author’s Note:
This book is a prequel to my SEALs of Coronado Series. If you’ve read the other books in the series, then you already know all about Melissa and Kurt. This is the story of how they met and fell in love back in the early 1990’s. As you read, notice there aren’t any cell phones (which were super expensive and not common back then) but I had fun including pagers, answering machines, and payphones.
CHAPTER ONE
San Diego, California, 1994
PETTY OFFICER KURT Travers had faced some scary shit during his time in the Navy SEALs. He’d been shot at more times than he could count, had vehicles blown out from under him, charged a machine-gun nest on the back of a horse, and had a bull shark take a hunk out of his scuba tank during a nighttime dive. He’d never once been as nervous and tense as he was right now. Given the option, he’d much rather be staring down the barrel of a gun than facing the menacing group eyeballing him.
The Navy might have taught him how to defend himself when in enemy territory, but they’d never gotten around to teaching him how to deal with a classroom full of first graders. Maybe he should talk to someone at Special Operations Command about that.
He’d once been told that kids could smell fear. If that was true, then the boys and girls in front of him must be getting a good whiff right now because he absolutely reeked of it.
“Do you eat raw fish and balance a ball on your nose?” a boy with blond hair and blue eyes seated in the front row asked.
“Do you work in the circus?” a dark-haired girl with glasses wanted to know, completely unconcerned that Kurt hadn’t even answered the first question.
“Why are you wearing a uniform instead of a scuba suit?” an African American boy by the window quipped.
Kurt cursed silently. He was this close to losing control of the group. They knew they had him on the ropes and they were pressing in on all sides. Even the crayon drawings the kids had made sometime during the school year that were now papering the walls seemed to mock him.
He glanced over his shoulder at Joe, the mountain of a man dressed in the dark green uniform of a city sanitation worker, hoping for a little backup, but the big guy simply shook his head as if to say, I just got myself out of that meat grinder. No way in hell I’m going back in there of my own free will. You’re on your own, dude.
In hindsight, maybe coming here hadn’t been such a good idea. But when his neighbor asked if he could fill in at her son’s school’s career day for her Navy husband who was currently on a ship somewhere in the Persian Gulf, he hadn’t had the heart to say no.
Kurt threw a desperate look at the dark-haired, sexy teacher leaning casually with one hip against her neatly organized desk. She might be slender and petite, but she seemed more than capable of handling this daunting crew with ease.
She merely arched a brow at him with a look on her face that said I told you so.
The worst part was that she had told him so, nearly ten minutes before the crowd of terrifying kids had come bounding and swarming into the room like a pack of killer bee kangaroos.
“You can’t stand in front of a classroom of six-year-olds and tell them what a Navy SEAL really does for a living. They’re not going to be able to understand it.”
And she was right. The moment he’d started talking about what the Navy’s premier shadow warriors did for a living, he’d lost them. When he’d told them he was a SEAL, they’d assumed he meant the thing with the cute face, wet fur, and flippers.
It had only gone downhill from there. The more he dug, the deeper the hole got. It was obvious the teacher—Melissa Drake—didn’t think much of him and wasn’t thrilled to have him in her classroom mucking up her carefully orchestrated career day activities. It wasn’t his fault that only two adults had shown up when there were supposed to be a half dozen.
When Kurt had first gotten there, the kids had been at lunch and the city sanitation worker hadn’t arrived yet, which had left him alone with the pretty Ms. Drake. He had to admit he wouldn’t mind spending time with her in a setting that didn’t include twenty-five three-foot-tall germ factories with feet. Unfortunately, Melissa seemed impervious to his charm—and his biceps. Kurt wasn’t a vain guy, but he usually did okay with the ladies. Melissa had shut him down the moment he’d suggested getting together, though. Her complete and total rejection had stung like a son of a bitch, that was for sure. To make matters worse, he had to hang around with a big smile on his face and look like he was having fun.
He was only glad none of his teammates from SEAL Team 5 were around to witness this. They’d probably immortalize the moment on a big plaque and mount it in the Team’s workout facilities for all to see.
In front of him, the kids impatiently fidgeted in their seats, swinging their legs back and forth under their small desks as they pelted him with questions about why the aquarium had let him out on his own and whether he slept in a bathtub full of water.
“You’re not really a seal, are you?” one precocious little girl with pigtails accused in a trembling voice. “If you were a seal, you’d balance a ball on your nose for us.”
Tears formed in the little girl’s enormous blue eyes, threatening to spill out over cheeks already starting to quiver.
Kurt groaned inwardly. Oh God, not tears. Bamboo slivers under the fingernails, but not a little girl’s tears. He couldn’t handle that.
He threw another beseeching glance in the teacher’s direction. Melissa had straightened up, concern in her dark eyes, but she didn’t look like she was ready to bail him out yet. He was on his own here.
Crap. If he didn’t do something in the next ten seconds, little pigtail girl was going to start crying and that would get the rest of the kids rolling. In thirty seconds, he’d be looking at a complete meltdown of Three Mile Island proportions. Even his next door neighbor’s little boy looked on the verge of tears.
Kurt took a deep breath. He was a Navy SEAL, dammit. He needed to do something. Now.
So he turned to the little girl with the pigtails and did the only thing he could think of—he lied.
“I promise you that I really am a seal. And I balance a ball on my nose all the time.” He smiled. “What kind of seal would I be if I couldn’t do something as simple as that, right?”
The girl’s eyes grew huge. “Really?”
He heard a sharp intake of breath behind him. Melissa must have just figured out that he was about to throw himself on a hand grenade to save everyone.
“Really,” he assured her.
“Show us!”
“We wanna see!”
&nbs
p; “Yeah!”
Kurt chuckled. “I would, but I didn’t bring a ball with me.”
“We have lots of them!” a kid in the back of the room practically shouted.
Before Kurt could say anything, the little rug rat jumped out of his seat and ran over to a brightly painted toy chest near the wall. Lifting the lid, he scooped out a red rubber ball and raced up to the front of the room.
He held out the ball to Kurt, an expectant look on his face. Behind the little boy, his classmates seemed just as eager.
Over by the desk, Melissa was regarding him curiously.
Kurt sighed. Ah, hell. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Keenly aware of Melissa’s dark gaze on him, Kurt took the ball from the kid, then got down on his knees and proved that he could indeed balance a ball on his nose—something even he wasn’t sure he could do until that moment. Behind their little desks, the boys and girls gasped, oohed and aahed.
From the corner of his eye, Kurt saw that even Melissa looked captivated. He didn’t know why—maybe it was his inner jock showing off —but when he’d mastered balancing the ball on his nose that way, he lay back on the floor and did it again, this time while doing crunches. Unfortunately, in this position he couldn’t see if Melissa was impressed, but the kids giggled like crazy.
Moments later, they were out of their seats and converging on him, shouting that they wanted to be seals, too.
Kurt sat up, his gaze going to Melissa to see what she’d think about that, and found her smiling. Damn, she had a beautiful smile. He was so mesmerized, he almost forgot he was sitting on the floor surrounded by a whole class of screaming first-graders until one of the kids tugged at his sleeve with a small hand.
With Melissa and Joe’s assistance, Kurt spent the next hour teaching each child how to steady a ball on the top of their heads until they were good enough to balance it on the tip of their noses. It turned out to be way more fun that he’d thought. Even Melissa was laughing and having a good time. In fact, if he didn’t mistake his guess, she was looking at him completely differently than she had an hour ago.
A little while later, Melissa announced that seal training was over for now, but that all the kids could practice to their heart’s content outside during recess. Joe bailed then but Kurt hung around, standing by Melissa at the back door of the school and watching the first-graders run wild on the school playground. When kids were like this, he could imagine himself having a few of his own someday. They were pretty cool.
“Thanks for stepping up and making this career day thing work,” Melissa said quietly. “It wasn’t the way I’d planned it, but the kids loved it.”
Kurt glanced at her. The breeze coming off the ocean had pulled some of her long hair free from its bun and he had to resist the urge to tuck it behind her ear.
“You’re welcome. I had a good time,” he said.
On the playground, cheers went up as a little boy balanced a ball on his nose while running in circles.
Kurt turned to Melissa. “Since I was so helpful in there, I don’t suppose you’d reconsider my invitation to have dinner, would you?” When she hesitated, he added, “I promise to bring a beach ball to balance on my nose, if that will help.”
Melissa laughed. Damn, she even had a great laugh.
“You don’t give up, do you?” She sighed, then nodded. “Okay, I’ll go out to dinner with you. But just so you know, I have no intention of getting involved with a Navy guy. Even one who can balance a ball on his nose.”
Kurt smiled as she focused her attention on the playground again. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Melissa Drake had just issued him a challenge. And if there was one thing a SEAL took seriously, it was a challenge.
CHAPTER TWO
YOU’RE SERIOUSLY GOING out with a Navy guy?” From where she was leaning back on her hands on the flower-print comforter covering the bed, Melissa’s neighbor-slash-best-friend Veronica Cartwright eyed her dubiously. “I thought you had a strict no-sailor policy when it came to potential boyfriend material?”
“I do.” Melissa turned this way and that in front of the mirror mounted on the back of the door to the closet, checking out her reflection. She wanted to look nice for Kurt, but not so nice that he’d think she was interested in him. So while the little black dress hugged her curves, it didn’t show too much leg or too much cleavage, and the platform sandals didn’t scream, come and get me. “Though, to be honest, there’s absolutely no boyfriend potential here. I’m only going out with Kurt because he helped me out with my career day fiasco at school. I had twelve parents lined up for today and ten of them canceled at the last minute. If Kurt hadn’t stepped in and spent an hour playing with the kids, the entire event would have been a train wreck.”
Veronica shrugged her slim shoulders. “He sounds like a pretty good guy to me. Is there anything wrong with him other than the Navy thing? I mean, is he hideously ugly or something?”
Hideously ugly? Melissa’s lips curved. That would be a definite no. In fact, Kurt Travers was extremely attractive. Heck, she might go so far as to say he was gorgeous. There was even a part of her that was kind of psyched a guy this hot wanted to go out with her. But it was a small part, and she was smart enough to push those silly thoughts aside and forget about them. She came from a Navy family, and had seen firsthand what a woman had to deal with if she wanted to be involved with a man whose job required him to be away from home more than he was there. It had taken a toll on her mom and the family. Melissa had no desire to walk down that road again.
This date was a one-time thing. A thank-you for a man who’d helped her out of a tight spot. That was it—period, end of sentence.
Still, Kurt was freaking hot. There was no denying that. And when she’d stood close to him while they’d watched the kids run around the playground at recess, she couldn’t help but notice he smelled yummy, too. Then there was the obvious fact that the guy had a totally awesome body. Even the blue camouflage uniform he’d been wearing couldn’t hide that.
“Should I assume from the dreamy look on your face that Kurt isn’t ugly?” Veronica asked.
Melissa frowned at the interruption, then realized it was probably for the best, since her mind had started wandering off into dangerous territory, such as exactly what Kurt looked like underneath his uniform.
“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked, turning to face her friend so she wouldn’t have to keep looking at Veronica in the mirror.
Veronica lifted a brow, her smoky blue eyes skeptical. “Seriously, you don’t think I know your facial expressions after living right next door to you all this time? You think this guy is hot. That’s why you’re going out with him, not that crud about being appreciative he helped you out at school.”
Melissa shook her head. Veronica was about as different from Melissa as two women could get, but they’d hit it off within moments of meeting each other the first day Melissa had moved into the apartment building after graduating from college almost two years ago. While Melissa was a school teacher and considered herself a nurturer, Veronica was an accountant-slash-tax advisor, and as linear as some men Melissa had met. Whereas Melissa usually went with her instincts when it came to dealing with problems, Veronica considered things from every angle. The two of them were so different in how they looked at the world, it was crazy to think they’d become friends, but in reality, Melissa appreciated having someone like Veronica in her life. They were like their own version of yin-yang.
On the downside, having a girlfriend who wasn’t scared to call you out if she thought you were full of it could also sometimes be a pain, especially since Veronica forced Melissa to face situations a little more directly than she liked.
Melissa grabbed her dangling gold earrings off the dresser with an awkward shrug. “Yeah, there’s a little bit of that too, I guess. Kurt is attractive. And while that probably had something to do with why I said yes when he asked me out, I honestly don’t think it’s enough to get me to overlook the
fact that he’s in the Navy. That typically comes with more baggage than I’m willing to handle.”
“I don’t know about that,” Veronica said. “If a guy comes with baggage, you can always get a damn luggage cart to help carry everything, but if he’s ugly, there’s absolutely nothing you can do for him.”
Melissa laughed and immediately felt bad about it. She liked to think of herself as a little deeper than that. She put in one earring, then the other. “Don’t you think there has to be something more to a guy than his good looks to make a relationship work?”
Veronica sat up and flicked her black curls over her shoulder with a slender, light brown hand. “Relationship? Crap girl, you haven’t even gone out on the first date yet! Maybe you should wait to see if you two like each other enough to eat dinner at the same table and swap a little DNA on the doorstep before you worry about if he’s relationship material.”
Melissa rolled her eyes. “Okay. I don’t necessarily agree with you, but I see your point. I promise not to think of this as anything more than a simple date with a hot guy. Relationship potential isn’t even on the table.”
Veronica grinned. “Good girl! Now you’re learning. Just remember—there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a relationship that never moves beyond the horizontal stage. Sometimes, those are the best kind. Not that there aren’t other positions besides horizontal that work equally well.”
Melissa opened her mouth to tell her friend how absolutely horrible she was when the doorbell rang. She waggled a finger at Veronica. “Don’t say anything to embarrass me.”
Veronica put on a hurt look. “Moi?”
Rolling her eyes, Melissa hurried out of the bedroom and through the cozy living room to the door, checking through the peephole to be sure it was in fact her date on the other side.
