by Winters, KB
I didn’t know where Jace was—if he was still alive—but I did know one thing, and that was that I would be forever grateful to him, because without his help, there would be no way that things would have worked out so well for Jax and me. In some ways, he’d been like a guardian angel, sweeping into my life at the perfect moment to help.
I smiled sadly to myself, thinking that if that was the case—heaven had truly broken the mold with him. Half devil, half angel.
Before I could linger on thoughts of Jace, I forced myself to finish getting ready for work, and hurried next door to drop Jax off.
Work was the same as always, it didn’t seem to matter what was going on in the world outside the diner, life inside was evergreen. But, just like everything else in the small town, it was haunted with the memory of Jace. My eyes stuck every time they passed over his booth, or out the window to where his tattoo shop stood vacant, and I couldn’t breathe anytime I went into the storage room.
He was gone, but he was still very much with me. And in some ways, I’d decided I preferred it that way.
After my shift, I was walking around the diner to the small lot out back where my car was parked, but remembered back to my conversation with Hilda, and at the last minute, crossed the street instead. I peeked into the windows of the tattoo shop, studying every inch with a narrowed eye, wondering what I was missing. Surely there had to be some kind of clue. If only I could get inside, then I could get access to his personal contacts and track down someone who would have the answers. The whole thing was too weird—there were too many unsolved pieces.
If he had died overseas, why didn’t the media know about it? Surely a story like that would be splashed over the news, celebrity and otherwise. And, if something had happened, why hadn’t someone come to collect his things? Who was paying the lease to keep the building rented out? Wasn’t there anyone in charge of his finances in case of the worst?
The little bud of hope in my chest grew, warming me from the inside out.
I was still standing there, turning over each question, when a light flickered on in the back of the shop.
Someone was inside!
Before I could stop myself, I lunged for the front door, shocked out of my skin, when I twisted and the door popped open. I froze in place for a moment. What if it was a burglary? Whoever was inside, had gone to some effort to keep the front of the shop dark, so no one would know there was someone inside, unless pressed up against the glass as I’d been.
I shook my hair back, squared my shoulders, and pushed inside. If there was even a chance that I could find Jace, it was worth the risk that whoever was poking around was there under evil pretenses.
The shop was dim, the only light coming from the sky outside, which was rapidly darkening as dusk transitioned to night. I saw the flicker of light again, like someone was using a flashlight, and my heart raced in my chest, thumping inside me a little harder with each step I made.
A crash sounded seconds later and I jumped so high, I was surprised I didn’t hit the ceiling. I froze in place, my heart even more frantic, and was about to back away, when a loud voice called out, “Shit!”
My heart screeched to a halt, and I sucked in a breath so hard and fast that my lungs burned, feeling like a crunched up juice box.
Jace.
The light flashed again, and footsteps were coming my direction. I couldn’t move, still too shocked to think straight, and when the light beam hit my face, Jace’s voice said, “What the—Kat, what the hell are you doing here?”
I flinched, as though he’d smashed me across the face with the silver flashlight in his hand. His voice was icy, his question callous—and hard. There was no trace of a smile, or light in his face as he stared at me, the beam of light between us, bouncing off the polished floor.
“You’re here?” I gasped. “It’s really you!”
Jace straightened and looked at me, his face unchanged, showing no sign of emotion. “What’s left of me…” he replied.
Only then, did I take in the rest of him and noticed that he had pink scars all along his right hand and up his arm. He shifted his weight, and I noticed pain in his eyes, as though just that small movement made him ache.
“What—what happened?” I asked, unable to peel my eyes from what was left of his hand.
“I fucked up, Kat.”
Continued in SEAL’d Perfection Book 5!
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More from KB Winters
Plush A Billionaire Romance
What The Luck
Fate Interrupted
Timeless Passion
Hooked (Get it free!)
SEAL’d Perfection
Temporary Assignment
Acknowledgements
First of all, I’d like to thank all my readers. Without you, my books wouldn’t need to exist. I truly appreciate each and every one of you.
Thanks to all of my beta readers, street team, ARC readers and Facebook fans. You girls are the best!
And a huge very special thanks to my PA, Shannon Hunt and Once Upon an Alpha. Without you, I’d be a hot mess! Thank you!
And a very special thanks to my editor, Tina. Thank you for making my words make sense.
About The Author
KB Winters has an addiction to caffeine, tattoos and hard-bodied alpha males. The men in her books are very sexy, protective and sometimes bossy, her ladies are…well…bossier!
Living in sunny Southern California, the embarrassingly hopeless romantic writes every chance she gets!
You can connect with KB on Facebook and Twitter!
Or stop by her website at KBWinters.com!
SEAL’d Perfection
Book 5
By
KB Winters
Copyright © 2015 BookBoyfriends Publishing LLC
Published By: BookBoyfriends Publishing LLC
Copyright and Disclaimer
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination and have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 BookBoyfriends Publishing LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of the trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Chapter One — Jace
Frost coated the outside of the windows, but through the small patches where my breath had melted it away, I could see across the street, over to the diner where I knew Kat would be arriving soon, to brew the morning coffee, drop place settings at each table, make sure the little wicker baskets had the proper assortment of packaged jams and jellies, and then, after a final sweep, she’d click on the neon Open sign and wait for the crew of regulars to descend. It was the same routine every day. I’d memorized it over the past few weeks. It was a steady constant that had somehow blended into my morning routine too.
Truth was, there wasn’t a lot left to do now that my reality show had come to an end and my business had shut down for good. It was surprising how quickly things had calmed down, leaving me with long, endless days that I struggled to fill. In the mornings I made myself a cup of instant joe, watched from my vantage point at the diner, watching for glimpses of Kat as she buzzed through opening procedures. After that, I’d go upstairs to the small apartment above the abandoned tattoo shop and spend my days alternating between sleeping and watching reruns of 90s sitcoms on various TV channels, counting down the hours until I could take
my next batch of meds and go back to sleep. Eventually, I’d drift off in my reclining chair and transition to my bed when the pain in my hand woke me from a dead sleep somewhere around one in the morning.
I looked down at the useless, mangled appendage and cursed under my breath. God, it was ugly.
Some days I think I’d have been better off if they’d just removed the whole damn thing. Staring at the scarred, twisted flesh was only a greater reminder of how it was supposed to look…and how far it was from normal, despite the half a dozen surgeries to repair it.
I didn’t remember much about the day that it had happened, but I’d heard enough accounts from my fellow SEALs that I had a pretty good grip on what had occurred. I’d gone after a sniper who had already killed one of my men, and stood between the rest of my team and a safe exit from our mission. I’d taken out the shooter, but in the process, found myself on the trigger of an explosive that had damn near killed me. I’d woken up in the medical wing of a palace that the Army had taken over and transformed into a base. I’d suffered a head injury, but thanks to my helmet, it wasn’t serious, but I still cringed to think of the splitting headaches I’d endured over the months that followed. But really, they were the cherry on top of the pile of shit I had to go through to recover. I’d landed wrong on my back, and had damage to some of my disks. My leg had been broken in two places. I’d lost most of two fingers on my right hand, and what was left had been so full of shrapnel that the surgeons had been forced to remove large chunks, leaving deep scars that I was told would never fade. Thanks to all the scar tissue, it was impossible for me to grip anything with that hand, even after months of rehab and physical therapy.
When my back and leg injuries had healed, I’d been shipped stateside, where I’d had one final procedure on my hand, and then discharged, cleared to go home and pick up the pieces of my life. The Navy had discharged me after presenting me with a Purple Heart and a couple of other medals celebrating my so-called valor. I’d smiled and said thank you at the ceremony, saluted my commanders, and walked off the stage, barely getting to the restroom before breaking down in body wracking sobs.
My whole life was fucked and they’d taken the one last thing I had to cling to, my military career.
Everything was gone.
I looked back at the diner, my eye catching on a swirl of chestnut hair that I’d dreamed of so many times.
Kat.
My Kat.
Or, at least, she had been. For a brief, shining moment, I’d had her. We’d exchanged dozens of emails, and had started talking about building a life together when I got home again. She had finally learned to trust me, and even though she hadn’t said it, I knew she felt the same way as I did. I loved her.
Still did.
I turned away from the window, my heart unable to take anymore. I ached for her and it was a deep, hollow longing like nothing I’d ever felt before. When I’d been gone, I’d figured it was just from missing her and that the ache would fade away once we were together again. I’d never anticipated that I could be thirty feet away from her and miss her even more than I had on my worst day in another country.
But it wasn’t that simple. I couldn’t just walk across the street and have things snap back to the way they had been. That Jace had died in Afghanistan. He was buried somewhere at the base of the jagged mountain range that filled my drug induced nightmares. He wasn’t coming back, and that was the version that Kat wanted, that she fell in love with.
The version that she deserved.
Kat had been through more than anyone should have to. She needed someone who could take care of her and her son, who would provide a good life for them. Someone who wasn’t bitter and jaded, mad at the world, and lived just to get through to his next pain pill fix.
I shook my head to myself. No, I refused to burden her with more hardship than she’d already had to endure. It wouldn’t be fair.
So, I stayed on my side of the street, watching her from afar. Besides the day she’d come into the shop and found me rummaging in the backroom, we had only seen each other three times in the past few weeks. Once at the grocery store, I’d been dressed in a dingy sweat suit, halfway dazed from the heavy pain killers. She spotted me, but I turned down an aisle, retreating before she could come talk to me. The other two times had been on the street in front of the shop, she’d either been going into, or leaving, the diner, and had called out to me, but I’d acted like I couldn’t hear, and kept on my way. On the outside, I probably looked like a heartless bastard, not caring that she was trying to get my attention, but inside, every step away from her voice was heavy, as though my shoes were filled with wet cement.
It was for the best, her best.
On that point, I was unwavering.
I took my cup of coffee, unsteady in my left hand, to my desk and sat in my leather chair. I sipped the lukewarm beverage as my computer fired up, and finished off the cup as I scanned through my email. The final contracts from the studio that had produced my show, had been sent over, and I read through them before printing off two copies. It turned out that no one wanted to watch a show about a former tattoo artist, with a fucked up hand, sitting alone in an empty tattoo parlor in the middle of fucking nowhere. So, after filming a final update, explaining what had happened to “give closure to my fans,” the studio had paid off the remainder of my contract, and sent the crew off packing to the next gig.
Since the day of the explosion, I couldn’t remember a happy memory, but watching the asshat director, John walk out of my tattoo shop once and for all had been pretty damn close.
As I was waiting on the printer to finish, a new message popped up. I pulled it open and my heart started racing. It was from my real estate agent. She’d forwarded some listings that were in my price range.
In Chicago.
I glanced to the right, out the front windows, wondering what Kat would say if she knew I was moving away. I knew it was a shit move, to up and leave in the middle of the night, with no warning, no explanation, but I knew it was the only way I’d be able to do it. The few times that I’d seen her since being back in town had damn near killed me, and if I were to have a heartfelt conversation with her…I’d come completely undone.
I couldn’t do it.
I turned my attention back to the listings, and replied back to my agent which ones I’d be interested in seeing. I had enough money in savings, and from the settlement with the show, to buy a house with cash, and still have plenty to live on for the next several years with my basic expenses. I had no idea what I was going to do, all I’d ever known had been the Navy and my tattoo business. With both of those options off my radar forever, it left me reeling with a lack of direction.
My hand started throbbing, and I realized I’d forgotten to take my pills that morning with breakfast. I heaved up from the chair, my back stiff and aching despite the surgeries to repair the damaged disks.
“You’re a fuckin’ disaster, dude,” I muttered to myself as I shuffled towards the stairs, feeling as spry as a ninety-year-old man.
I made it up the stairs, my spine on fire, panting from the exertion, and hobbled into the kitchen to take my pills, resisting the urge to slip an extra one into the stack. I gulped them down with a swig of water, and went to my recliner chair, which was one of the few places I could relax. I lowered myself down, cursing under my breath at the shooting pain up my back, and the way my damaged hand slipped on the leather armrest, still not used to missing the tips of my fingers and my permanently locked up thumb that made me feel as though I had a claw instead of a hand.
I eased back into a reclined position and stared up at the white ceiling, reaffirming my decision to leave Kat out of my life. It didn’t matter how much I missed her, I refused to turn the rest of her life into an endless chore of being my caretaker.
I loved her too much.
Chapter Two — Kat
He probably thought I couldn’t see him, that he was somehow masked behind his windows, hidden from my v
iew in the shadows of his always dark shop. But he was wrong. I saw him nearly every morning, coffee in hand, staring into the space between us. He was too far away for me to see his eyes, but I didn’t have to see them to know what they looked like. I’d seen him around town a handful of times since his silent return, and each time, he had the same lost, distant look. Half the time, I didn’t think he even saw me. And even on the times I’d called out his name, begging him to see me, to talk to me, to touch me, he didn’t hear me, continuing on his way as though I wasn’t there at all.
When he’d been deployed, I’d thought the hardest thing was being separated by thousands of miles. But now, I’d come to realize that there was something that cut even deeper: being right next to each other, breathing the same air, and feeling even more alone.
The pain was suffocating me slowly. As much as I was dying to talk to Jace, to see him and hold him, and kiss away all of the pain that was so evident on his face, I knew there was nothing I could do if he refused to let me in. It had gotten to the point that I was reconsidering my job at the diner. It was too hard to see his shop, to see him, every single day and not have him in my life.
There might not have been a death or even a break-up, but the ache and loneliness in my heart didn’t seem to realize that.
“Kat?” Patrice called for me across the diner. “Damn girl! You got everything done all by yourself?”
I turned to find her surveying the dining room, mentally checking off the usual morning tasks. “I got here early,” I explained, offering a slight smile.
“Nice. Guess I’ll have a cup of coffee before we get started. You want some?”
I shook my head. “No thanks.”
