Special Operator T.J. Talbot, raised in a string of foster
homes and nearly tossed from the Brotherhood, is forced to make a deathbed
promise to care for his best friend’s wife and baby. At home, Shannon Moore
wants nothing to do with the community or anything that reminds her of her
fallen SEAL husband, until fate steps in to show her she is still connected,
and needs the love of this flawed warrior who shares her grief.
Four other SEALs were in the wedding party, and he had to admit they’d make a wedding portrait which would look good on the cover of any bridal magazine, except for their dark glasses. Only Frankie, the groom, posed without shades. Shannon had wanted them all without the shades, but T.J. smiled at her and put his back on in open defiance, and the others followed his lead.
She’d flounced off
in a huff, a flurry of white organza and chiffon, and her perfume that made him
sneeze. He’d watched that hellcat streak she had, angled his head to the side
and watched her march off to some mythical place brides hide when they go
crazy. Lovely, though. Even he had to admit that.
Frankie was white
as a sheet as they gathered. “I wanna pray first,” he’d said to his best buddies.
Tyler was there, of course, and Kyle, Ollie and Rory were as well. But T.J. was
Frankie’s best friend, and that meant he had to be best man.
“Fuckin’ going to
need a lot more than fuckin’ prayin’. Gonna need a miracle, Frankie. Shannon’s
had the evil eye on me all morning…yesterday, too, and that means I don’t think
you’re getting any tonight, not that you haven’t—”
“Fuck sake, T.J.
It’s my fuckin’ wedding and has nothing to do with how my bride looks at you.
Get that fuckin’ thought out of your head.”
“I was just
sayin’—”
“Not what you’re
sayin’ I have a problem with. It’s what you’re thinking.” Frankie was so nervous he was seeing conspiracies behind
every plant, guest and bouquet.
“Just be glad we
didn’t send you to Alaska,” Tyler said, making it worse. Last year one of the
young recruits had gotten time off from BUD/S to get married—a request which
was almost never granted, and then the boys thought it necessary to save him
from that quickie wedding in Las Vegas, and so got him stinking drunk and put
him on a plane to Alaska so he missed his own wedding. They incurred extra wet
and sandy for that one, and had the toilets cleaned so many times you could eat
out of them.
This had worried
Shannon, and her mother even more. Mrs. “I Want Moore” was one of the hottest
women T.J. had ever seen, all toned and a marathon runner in her fifties. He
had never before had fantasies about the mother of the bride. Mrs. Moore was
twenty-five years his senior, but he knew she could clean his clock. He’d enjoy
chasing her around a few places.
Turning to face
Frankie again, he felt a tad sheepish about his lusty thoughts. He wiped his
mind clean and decided to concentrate harder on Frankie’s day. His buddy was so
crazy in love with Shannon, he needed extra protection to keep him from
stepping out in front of traffic, or bumping into caterers, which he’d already
managed to do several times today.
“Come on, Frankie.
Lighten up.” T.J. slapped his cheeks to redden them up. “You need to stop
looking like a dead man if you’re really gonna do this.”
“Yup. I’m doing
this,” Frankie said to the auditorium full of people, the organ music now
swelling up to the rafters. “I’m fuckin’ doing this.”
T.J. had a hunch
he was looking for his courage and had come up short. He glanced down the
hallway. Cindy was leaning against the wall right outside the bride’s dressing
room, keeping sentry, but also giving him the long vacant look he knew only too
well. He unabashedly scanned her entire body and let her see he couldn’t wait
to get her naked.
She abruptly
turned after blushing.
Perfect.
Several minutes
later T.J. thought he might have to prop Frankie up he was so pale. “You okay?”
“Fuck you,”
Frankie whispered a little too loudly. Mrs. Moore in the front pew frowned. Her
eyes swept over the row of SEALs, but zeroed back in on T.J.’s face with an
admonition he couldn’t mistake. Merely the little tilt of her chin down and the
knotted brow told him he was on probation. Didn’t help he’d given Frankie more
Tequila than he usually drank in a whole month. Right now Frankie was spacing
out and losing track of where they were and what they had to do next. T.J. had
never seen him so fuckin’ scared. Even in firefights overseas.
So he’d screwed
up, been a bad influence on the groom. So
what else is new? With a past of foster care home rejections and
“repositioning” he was used to being on probation. It felt normal. Not until he
got into BUD/S did he feel like he’d found home. A real home. Guys who finally
shared his intensity for life and irreverence for batshit rules that everyone
else thought applied to him. The SEALs ethos were the only rules he wanted to
live by. And the beginning pretty much said it all:
In times
of war or uncertainty there is a special breed of warrior ready to answer our
Nation’s call. A common man with uncommon desire to succeed.
…I am that man.
He thought about
it while he watched Shannon’s white dress fill the aisle as she began her
stately walk along the burgundy carpet to her willing but completely shitfaced
groom. Her father was proud, as any father would be, to have such a radiant
daughter, pink and soft in all the right places, and strong in the way she
walked, her steady gait of a fearless warrior, full of a plan she was going to
fully execute, just like any SEAL, her eyes fixed on Frankie, who didn’t have a
clue what he was getting himself into.
That made T.J.
smile and check out his shoes. She was the kind of woman who would call the
shots, run the household, run Frankie, manage the hell out of his schedule and
get her future soccer players up on time and off to everything moms did with a
house full of hellions. He saw lots of them in their future for some reason.
Kids with snotty noses and hair a bit too long. Band-Aids and skinned knees.
All the things he never had as a child.
But he’d watched
those kids play through chain-link fences. Watched their parents cheer. Watched
the juice breaks and the encouragement he never got from a single coach or
foster mom. He was never noticed. Never special.
And that was just
fine.
On sale in boxset for only 99 CENTS!!!
Sharon’s award-winning almost-erotic Navy SEAL stories of the SEAL Brotherhood, have consistently made best sellers lists and review sites. Her characters follow a spicy road to redemption through passion and true love. Her SEAL Brotherhood Series continues with books 5, 6 and 7 all releasing this year, as well as audio versions currently completed for the first four of the series. She has been an Amazon top 100 author in Romantic Suspense since last fall.
Her Golden Vampires of
Tuscany are not like any vamps you’ve read before, since they don’t have to go
to ground and can walk around in the full light of the sun. Honeymoon Bite,
Book 1 of the Golden Vampires of Tuscany Series was recently named the #1
Gothic Romance by Amazon. It is now available on Audible.
Her Guardian Angels
struggle with the human charges they are sent to save, often escaping their
vanilla world of Heaven for the brief human one. You won’t find any of
these beings in any Sunday school class.
She lives in Sonoma County,
California with her husband, and two Dobermans. A lifelong organic gardener,
when she’s not writing, she’s getting vera vera dirty in the mud, or wandering
Farmer’s Markets looking for new Heirloom varieties of vegetables and flowers..
Thank you for hosting me and the other Anthology authors. Love those gals. Hope everyone loves this book as much as I do.
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