Protected by a Hero
Page 56
Book 2: Garrison’s Creed
Book 3: Westin’s Chase
Book 4: Gambled
Book 5: Chased
Book 6: Savage Secrets
Book 7: Hart Attack
Book 7.5: Sweet One
Book 8: Black Dawn
Book 8.5: Live Wire
Book 9: Bishop’s Queen
Book 10: Locke and Key
Book 11: Jax
The Delta Series:
Book 1: Delta: Retribution
Book 2: Delta: Revenge
Book 3: Delta: Redemption
Book 4: Delta: Ricochet
The Delta Novella in Liliana Hart’s MacKenzie Family Collection:
Delta: Rescue
The Only Series:
Book 1: Only for Him
Book 2: Only for Her
Book 3: Only for Us
Book 4: Only Forever
The ACES Series:
Book 1: TBD
The Mayhem Series:
Book 1: TBD
If you need more Titan men, jump into the Titan World books! Cristin Harber kicks off a spin off series with Doctor Tuska in Déjà Vu, and other authors join their series/world and hers in the Titan World series.
The Titan World Series:
Déjà Vu by Cristin Harber
Each Titan and Delta book can be read as a standalone (except for Sweet Girl), but readers will likely best enjoy the series in order. The Only series must be read in order.
7 Brides for 7 Soldiers:
Ryder (#1) – Barbara Freethy
Adam (#2) – Roxanne St. Claire
Zane (#3) – Christie Ridgway
Wyatt (#4) – Lynn Raye Harris
Jack (#5) – Julia London
Noah (#6) – Cristin Harber
Ford (#7) – Samantha Chase
Each book in the 7 Brides for 7 Soldiers series can be read as a standalone, but readers will likely best enjoy the series in order.
www.CristinHarber.com
ISSUED TO THE BRIDE:
ONE NAVY SEAL
Cora Seton
Author’s Note
Issued to the Bride One Navy SEAL is the first volume in the Brides of Chance Creek series, set in the fictional town of Chance Creek, Montana. To find out more about Brian, Cass, Connor, Sadie, Jack, Logan and Hunter, look for the rest of the books in the series, including:
Issued to the Bride One Airman
Issued to the Bride One Sniper
Issued to the Bride One Marine
Issued to the Bride One Soldier
Also, don’t miss Cora Seton’s other Chance Creek series, the Cowboys of Chance Creek, the Heroes of Chance Creek, and the SEALs of Chance Creek
The Cowboys of Chance Creek Series:
The Cowboy Inherits a Bride (Volume 0)
The Cowboy’s E-Mail Order Bride (Volume 1)
The Cowboy Wins a Bride (Volume 2)
The Cowboy Imports a Bride (Volume 3)
The Cowgirl Ropes a Billionaire (Volume 4)
The Sheriff Catches a Bride (Volume 5)
The Cowboy Lassos a Bride (Volume 6)
The Cowboy Rescues a Bride (Volume 7)
The Cowboy Earns a Bride (Volume 8)
The Cowboy’s Christmas Bride (Volume 9)
The Heroes of Chance Creek Series:
The Navy SEAL’s E-Mail Order Bride (Volume 1)
The Soldier’s E-Mail Order Bride (Volume 2)
The Marine’s E-Mail Order Bride (Volume 3)
The Navy SEAL’s Christmas Bride (Volume 4)
The Airman’s E-Mail Order Bride (Volume 5)
The SEALs of Chance Creek Series:
A SEAL’s Oath
A SEAL’s Vow
A SEAL’s Pledge
A SEAL’s Consent
A SEAL’s Purpose
A SEAL’s Resolve
A SEAL’s Devotion
A SEAL’s Desire
A SEAL’s Struggle
A SEAL’s Triumph
Visit Cora’s website at www.coraseton.com
Find Cora on Facebook at facebook.com/CoraSeton
Sign up for my newsletter HERE.
PROLOGUE
Four months ago
On the first of February, General Augustus Reed entered his office at USSOCOM at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, placed his battered leather briefcase on the floor, sat down at his wide, wooden desk and pulled a sealed envelope from a drawer. It bore the date written in his wife’s beautiful script, and the General ran his thumb over the words before turning it over and opening the flap.
He pulled out a single page and began to read.
Dear Augustus,
It’s time to think of our daughters’ future, beginning with Cass.
The General nodded. Spot on, as usual; he’d been thinking about Cass a lot these days. Thinking about all the girls. They’d run yet another of his overseers off Two Willows, his wife’s Montana ranch, several months ago, and he’d been forced to replace him with a man he didn’t know. There was a long-standing feud between him and the girls over who should run the place, and the truth was, they were wearing him down. Ten overseers in eleven years; that had to be some kind of a record, and no ranch could function well under those circumstances. Still, he’d be damned if he was going to put a passel of rebellious daughters in charge, even if they were adults now. It took a man’s steady hand to run such a large spread.
Unfortunately, it was beginning to come clear that Bob Finchley didn’t possess that steady hand. Winter in Chance Creek was always a tricky time, but in the months since Finchley had taken the helm, they’d lost far too many cattle. The General’s spies in the area reported the ranch was looking run-down, and his daughters hadn’t been seen much in town. The worst were the rumors about Cass and Finchley—that they were dating. The General didn’t like that at all—not if the man couldn’t run the ranch competently—and he’d asked for confirmation, but so far it hadn’t come. Finchley always had a rational explanation for the loss of cattle, and he never said a word about Cass, but the General knew something wasn’t right and he was already looking for the man’s replacement.
Our daughter runs a tight ship, and I’m sure she’s been invaluable on the ranch.
He had to admit what Amelia wrote was true. Cass was an organizational wizard. She kept her sisters, the house and the family accounts in line, and not for the first time he wondered if he should have encouraged Cass to join the Army back when she had expressed interest. She’d mentioned the possibility once or twice as a teenager, but he’d discouraged her. Not that he didn’t think she’d make a good soldier; she’d have made a fine one. It was the thought of his five daughters scattered to the wind that had guided his hand. He couldn’t stomach that. He needed his family in one place, and he’d done what it took to keep her home. That wasn’t much: a suggestion her sisters needed her to watch over them until they were of age, a mention of tasks undone on the ranch, a hint she and the others would inherit one day and shouldn’t she watch over her inheritance? It had done the trick.
Maybe he’d been wrong.
But if Cass had gone, wouldn’t the rest of them have followed her?
He’d been able to stop sending guardians for the girls when Cass turned twenty-one five years ago, much to everyone’s relief. His daughters had liked those about as little as they liked the overseers. He’d hoped when he dispensed of the guardians, the girls would feel they had enough independence, but that wasn’t the case; they still wanted control of the ranch.
Cass is a loving soul with a heart as big as Montana, but she’s cautious, too. I’ll wager she’s beginning to think there isn’t a man alive she can trust with it.
The General sighed. His girls hadn’t confided in him in years—especially about matters of the heart—something he was glad Amelia couldn’t know. The truth was his daughters had spent far too much time as teenagers hatching plots to cast off guardians and overseers to have much of a social life. They’d been obsessed with b
eing independent, and there were stretches of time when they’d managed it—and managed to run the show with no one the wiser for months. In order to pull that off, they’d kept to themselves as much as possible. He’d only recently begun to hear rumblings about men and boyfriends. Unfortunately, none of the girls were picking hardworking men who might make a future at Two Willows; they were picking flashy, fly-by-night troublemakers.
Like Bob Finchley.
He couldn’t understand it. He wanted that man out of there. Now. Trouble was, when your daughters ran off so many overseers it made it hard to get a new one to sign on. He had yet to find a suitable replacement.
Without a career off the ranch, Cass won’t get out much. She might not ever meet the man who’s right for her. I want you to step in. Send her a man, Augustus. A good man.
A good man. Those weren’t easy to come by in this world. The right man for Cass would need to be strong to hold his own in a relationship with her. He’d need to be fair and true, or he wouldn’t be worthy of her. He’d need some experience ranching.
A lot of experience ranching.
The General stopped to ponder that. He’d read something recently about a man with a lot of experience ranching. A good man who’d gotten into a spot of trouble. He remembered thinking he ought to get a second chance—with a stern warning not to screw up again. A Navy SEAL, wasn’t it? He’d look up the document when he was done.
He returned to the letter.
Now here’s the hard part, darling. You can’t order him to marry Cass any more than you can order Cass to marry him. You’re a cunning old codger when you want to be, and it’ll take all your deviousness to pull this off. Set the stage. Introduce the players.
Let fate do the rest.
I love you and I always will,
Amelia
Set the stage. Introduce the players.
The General read through the letter a second time, folded it carefully, slid it back into the envelope and added it to the stack in his deep, right-hand bottom drawer. He steepled his hands and considered his options. Amelia was right; he needed to do something to make sure his daughters married well. But they’d rebelled against him for years, so he couldn’t simply assign them husbands, as much as he’d like to. They’d never allow the interference.
But if he made them think they’d chosen the right men themselves…
He nodded. That was the way to go about it.
In fact…
The General chuckled. Sometime in the next six months, his daughters would stage another rebellion and evict Bob Finchley from the ranch. He could just about guarantee it, even if Cass was currently dating the man. Sooner or later he’d go too far trying to boss them around, and Cass and the others would flip their lids.
When they did, he’d be ready for them with a replacement they’d never be able to shake. One trained to combat enemy forces by good ol’ Uncle Sam himself. A soldier in the Special Forces might do it. Or maybe even a Navy SEAL…
This wasn’t the work of a moment, though. He’d need time to put the players in place. Cass wasn’t the only one who’d need a man—a good man—to share her life.
Five daughters.
Five husbands.
Amelia would approve.
The General opened the bottom left-hand drawer of his desk, and mentally counted the remaining envelopes that sat unopened in another stack, all dated in his wife’s beautiful script. Ten years ago, after Amelia passed away, Cass had forwarded him a plain brown box filled with envelopes she’d received from the family lawyer. The stack in this drawer had dwindled compared to the opened ones in the other drawer.
What on earth would he do when there were none left?
CHAPTER ONE
Present day
Navy SEAL Brian Lake was already at work in the large square office he shared with four other men at USSOCOM when Logan Hughes walked in whistling, plunked himself down at his desk and set a tall takeout cup of coffee near the monitor of his computer. A barrel of a man from Idaho, with biceps as big as cantaloupes, the marine was the type to act first and never ask questions later.
“Hello, baby girl!” Logan kissed the palm of his hand with a loud smack and slapped it against the photograph of a dark-haired young woman with blue eyes that hung on the wall nearby. Then he pulled a breakfast sandwich out of a paper bag and began to eat.
“Don’t ever let the General see you do that,” Brian warned him. He could only imagine the highly decorated officer’s reaction to the gesture. General Augustus Reed—or the General, as everyone called him, as if he was the only one there’d ever been—oversaw the Joint Special Task Force for Inter-Branch Communication Clarity, which comprised the five men who worked in this office, representing four branches of the military.
The room was filled with desks and a large central table, and the General had decorated its walls with a strange mixture of military and personal items. There were charts, graphs, print-outs and maps, as you’d expect, but the General had also seen fit to hang a multitude of framed photographs of Two Willows—his Montana cattle ranch—and his family.
This wasn’t completely surprising. In the month since he’d been here, Brian had noticed that all of the rooms the General spent time in contained mementos of his home. No one doubted he loved his family’s ranch—and his deceased wife, whose gentle visage stared out of innumerable photographs in the General’s office and quarters. There was far more speculation about his daughters, however, all five of whom figured prominently in photographs hung around this room—including Lena Reed, who had the misfortune to hang next to Logan’s desk. Everyone at USSOCOM knew about the rift between the General and his daughters. None of the girls—women now—had been seen on the base for years, since Cass Reed, the eldest—and most beautiful in Brian’s opinion, with her long, thick waves of blond hair and wide-set blue eyes—had pitched a fit at a military function nine years ago.
Brian and the others had discussed where the General got his photographs, since rumor had it he seldom went home, either. Spies, they’d concluded, only half joking. The General might not be father material, but he was excellent at marshaling his forces and collecting intelligence.
“Don’t let him see me eat?” Logan asked, eyes wide with mock confusion.
“For fuck’s sake,” Lieutenant Jack Sanders said from his desk across the room. “Do you two have to do the same damn routine every morning?”
Jack was in the Special Forces, and a cagier man Brian had never met. As far as he could tell, Sanders had dropped fully grown out of the sky. Brian had looked up all of the other men in the task force when he first arrived, and while several had done what they could to keep a low profile, it was as if Sanders simply didn’t exist outside the military. He spoke without a discernible accent, seemed to carry an encyclopedia in his head and never lost his cool. Brian wasn’t a man who spooked easily, but when Sanders was around, he kept an eye on him.
“It’s tradition,” Logan said. “And now that you’ve interrupted us, we’ll have to do it all over again.” He turned to the photograph. “Hello, baby girl!” He kissed the palm of his hand and slapped it up against Lena’s cheek. “Anyway, don’t tell me you’ve never thought about it.”
“About making an ass out of myself? Sure, I’ve thought about it,” Jack said. “I’ve just managed to restrain myself.”
Brian noticed he was staring at the photograph nearest to his own desk, though. Alice Reed, the third-oldest of the General’s daughters, stared back at him, her mouth curved into an enigmatic smile, her high cheekbones, crystalline blue eyes and the slight quirk of one eyebrow making her look like an otherworldly creature caught just before she slipped away into the ether. Brian could see the attraction. He had no doubt Alice was stunning in person, but he didn’t go for otherworldly or enigmatic. Cass’s frank, slightly challenging air as she faced the camera in the photo nearest to him drew his gaze over and over again each day he spent here. The General’s oldest daughter was… hot.
&
nbsp; More than hot. Sweet, sexy… luscious…
She was as all-American as apple pie, with a mass of wavy blond hair, a sweet, heart-shaped face and a trim body, but it was her mouth that caught Brian’s attention. That was a mouth made for kissing—for taking your time with on the way to even better things.
But that didn’t make her any more available to him than Lena was to Logan.
“Time to get to work,” he said, wanting to distract himself from thoughts of what could never be. Maybe someday he’d find himself a woman like Cass to marry, but first he’d have to get out of the mess he’d gotten himself into. That meant making a good impression here at USSOCOM.
“But so much nicer to stare at the young lassies—not to mention that grand green ranch the General has surrounded us with,” Connor O’Riley said in a fake, lilting Irish accent. With hair so dark it was almost black, blue eyes and a healthy sense of humor, Connor was a pararescueman in the Air Force and always had a woman or two on the back burner. “Not sure which I’m more in love with—those thousand head of cattle or little Sadie Reed, here.” He did Logan one better and kissed Sadie, an auburn-haired young woman with green eyes, who looked about as Irish as Connor claimed he was, full on her photographed lips. To Brian, Sadie Reed seemed more cautious than her sisters. Wise and innocent all at once, in a way he couldn’t make out. Presented with Connor in real life, he had a feeling she might run in the other direction.
Connor, who’d spent as much time around horses as Brian had when he was young, had grown up on a Texas spread so big it could have been its own state. But he wasn’t a son of the family who owned it, and wouldn’t inherit any part of it. His father had been a foreman, and wanted him to be the same. Connor wanted to be his own man, so he’d joined the Air Force. Like Brian, he dreamed of saving enough money to buy his own spread.
“Two Willows is a sexy bit of property,” Logan agreed, taking another large bite of his sandwich.
“Two Willows is a ranch a man could be proud to own.”
They all fell silent at Hunter Powell’s pronouncement. Another Navy SEAL—and sniper—who outranked Brian and had served longer than he had, Powell came across as a laid-back Southern boy from Louisiana, who spoke in an accent so thick it made up for Sanders’s lack of one. Hunter liked to play the good ’ol boy, but he was whip smart and an uncanny shot. Brian wondered how he’d ended up here. Hunter could get downright talkative about military equipment, tactics and so on, but he didn’t talk much about his hopes and dreams. Like the rest of them, he’d grown up on a ranch.