The sky was orange as the sun set. There were so many things like Florida, and so many things that were completely different.
“Do you know whipped cream tastes different here?” he said to Renny.
“You guys broke up. She’s not coming back. That’s what happened.”
“I can always tell when I’m being lied to. It’s one thing to have a woman lie to you about your performance. I don’t mind that kind of lie because they just want to make you feel special and all. But when they say they want to be a part of your life and then hide something really big, that kind of a lie makes me feel like I’ve been stupid.”
“Are you sure you’re not overreacting? Maybe you should talk to Kyle, or Coop or one of the other guys. Just how do you know she’s not leveling with you?
“I don’t know, but I just know. I’ll find out, eventually. Ten years from now, I’ll be at some second or third wedding for you or one of the other guys, and she’ll just walk into the room. We’ll stand there, sniff the air, and test our ability to make each other miserable.”
“Holy shit, Damon. This scares me. That’s it. I’m staying over tonight. We’re going to get some movies and we’re going to get you so fuckin’ drunk you’ll think you were back in Florida.”
“You know what, Renny? Maybe I am. Maybe I am.”
They’d stopped by to buy some snacks and beers. Damon bought just about every kind of chocolate bar he could find in the liquor store. The Indian clerk squinted at him, lowering his forehead in disapproval.
“What? I have a sweet tooth,” Damon said. Renny was still cruising for the perfect bag of chips.
“No man, you have a death wish. That stuff’ll kill you, my man,” he said in his clipped Indian accent.
“It’s chocolate!”
“Yes, and a whole lot of other things too. But it’s your life, my man.”
Yes, it is my life. The clerk had been exactly right. This was his way of dealing because he didn’t want to think too hard on two things: what he was missing, and how to fix it.
Back at Damon’s place, Renny started straightening up the dishes left with cereal and milk stuck to the sides of the bowl. He picked up a pair of jeans and a shirt, moved his shoes to the side where they wouldn’t trip on them, and then walked into the bedroom.
“Come on, Damon, let’s wash your sheets. That will help you sleep better. That’s what you need.”
“I thought we were going to watch movies tonight,” Damon said as he began stripping off the blanket and the top sheet then the bottom sheet.
“We will. We put these into the wash, and then we settle down and watch some serious porn. This way, when you wake up with a headache, at least your sheets will smell nice. Unlike the rest of you.”
Renny was right. Damon picked up the bundle and walked to the bathroom where his stacking washer-dryer was. He stuffed the sheets and blanket into the front loader. As he swung the door closed, a leather folder, like ones that hold pictures, fell to the ground. He picked it up and sat on the bed.
They were pictures of Martel when she was much younger. The photo was taken from the side, so that in each one, her belly got bigger and bigger.
These are pictures of Martel being pregnant.
He let the photos drop to the floor as he braced his forehead in his hand.
So that’s where she’s gone. She’s had a baby with someone. She’s gone to see her child and to be with the man who gave her that child. That’s the secret she didn’t want to tell him. It wasn’t a woman she was visiting. It was a man.
Her lover.
Renny didn’t ask anything when he saw Damon sitting on the bare mattress. Instead he knelt, picking up the photos and one by one examined them, and then put them into the leather pouch.
“I don’t understand, Damon. What are these?”
“It’s the reason she isn’t coming back.”
“But what does it mean?” Renny asked.
“What do you think it means? That’s Martel, goddammit.”
“But how—?”
Just then, they heard Damon’s door open. Renny stood, but Damon remained seated. Martel appeared in the entrance, righting her suitcase. She saw the folder in Renny’s hands, walked over and took the package from him.
Renny looked between Martel and Damon and back again. “Sh-Sh-should I leave?”
No one said a word, so Renny slipped on his jacket, stepped into his canvas slip-ons and did just that.
Damon couldn’t look at her. Once again, he felt cold. He had no way to put all this together. He wanted information but he didn’t want to ask.
She walked in front of him and sat down on the bed beside him. Her pretty pink nails opened the pouch, worn and scuffed, opening the flap enclosed with a Velcro tab. She pulled out the pictures, neatly tucked into plastic sleeves, and placed the stack on her knees.
Martel put her arm around Damon’s shoulder. At first he wanted to pull away, but she held him, then pressed her forehead against his, with her right hand holding the pictures in her lap. She held up one, searching his eyes for any expression.
“This picture was taken about four months after you left Santa Rosa.”
She wasn’t smiling.
He looked at it again, and then took it in his fingers, squinting to see it more clearly.
“This picture,” she said as she held a second one up, “was taken a month later.”
Damon added it to the other one.
“And this one the month after that.”
He took the picture from her hand again and stacked it with the other two.
“And this one, and this one, and finally this one. I took this one when I was living up in Oregon by the ocean. I stayed there while I had the baby, Damon. Your baby. Our baby. Our little girl. And I made sure she got a chance at life. I interviewed and found the perfect parents for her. That’s what I did ten years ago while you were off being a Boy Scout.”
Damon’s finger rubbed the last photo, tracing the outline of Martel’s belly over and over again.
She leaned into him and whispered in his ear, “I found her, Damon. She’s beautiful.”
He searched her eyes, streaming tears. He was a jumble of emotions. Part of him was angry, part was scared, and there was a huge part that loved this woman and what she had done. She’d taken care of his little girl when he wasn’t capable of being there for either one of them. He didn’t deserve her. He really didn’t.
“Say something, Damon.”
“I’m ashamed.”
She adjusted his hand so he could look at the pictures again. “No, we made a mistake. But she wasn’t one of them.”
“So this is what you were doing?”
“Yes. I haven’t spoken to her yet. I met with her parents. I asked, and they agreed to meet with me. I wanted to see her, Damon, and they’ve agreed.”
“But why? I mean, why would they let you come in and upset everything?”
“Because I’m not. She belongs to them now, not to me, or us. They are her parents and always will be. I just wanted to see her happy and tell her that I love her, that she’s always been loved. Not abandoned. Loved. Wouldn’t you want to know that if it was you?”
“But what about us?”
“This changes nothing, Damon. This was the one thing I needed to do, to clear up on my own. It was that hole in my soul nothing or no one in this world could fill.”
She reached down into her purse and brought out the picture.
“This is Ainsley, your daughter.”
His eyes filled with tears as she held him. He swallowed hard, unable to speak, overcome with the miracle presented to him. Finally, he found his courage. “Do I get to meet her?” he asked.
“If you want to. If she wants to. If we get permission. But some day, Damon, I’m sure you will. Can you be patient?”
He dropped the pictures and pulled her close to him. It all came into focus now. He’d left. He went off, running from the only miracle in his life. But Martel never did. She never le
ft. She kept the dream and the flame alive.
As long as she was beside him, he’d let her teach him that. As long as they were together, anything was possible.
Epilogue
One of the first things Martel did when she returned to Florida was to visit Phyllis at the cemetery. She sat on the cold stone bench nearby, contemplating the headstone engraved with the face of an angel and Phyllis’ dates. She had been buried beside her late husband.
“You’re going to have to give me a sign, tell me what he thought of your red dress and your choice of reading material. I hope you didn’t get into too much trouble about your evenings dancing under the stars with that handsome Jamaican fellow. Did he sing to you, I wonder?”
She could see it all clearly. Phyllis, young and healthy, smiling and showing everyone around her how fearless she was.
She listened to sounds of an ordinary day. Phyllis didn’t respond.
“I found her, Phyllis. Her name is Ainsley, and she’s a doll. We’re arranging a meet and greet right around Valentine’s day. Her mother says she’s gifted in sports. Who knew, right?”
She drove back toward the coast and north, passing the ice cream shops and fish places along the two-lane highway, driving through towns so small that if she blinked, she’d miss them completely. Here it was January, and people waded around in their bathing suits and flip-flops, carrying beach chairs, dragging wheeled coolers behind them—stopping traffic—headed for the beach. There were no freeways, very few high-rises, and everyone was from someplace else.
Martel was coming full circle. She’d been drawn here by a friend on vacation. Her friend went back to California, and Martel stayed. She found her little beach bungalow, where she could wake up late at night and see the glistening waves in the moonlight. She loved the power of the orange and purple hues at Sunset—that time of day when the sky seemed to fall and cover everyone in gold.
Walking back inside her rented place, she knew she was going to miss how safe she’d felt here, how her discarded fears and new dreams adorned the walls, like a spell, keeping all the good inside and shedding off the bad.
Her journey had been rocky, but she’d managed to finish on her feet, fate having brought the man she’d always loved back into her life. In June, she’d be moving out of this little place. Someone else would call it home, and she hoped for them it would bring all the magic and happiness she felt while living here.
She and Damon compromised on the wedding. She had people in Florida who would want to attend. He had friends in San Diego who wanted the party. So, they planned a small early June wedding and reception at the gazebo at the beach and the audience would sit facing the ocean. Martel and Damon would take their vows at sunset and watch until the sun dropped into the water.
Then they’d leave for their honeymoon in San Diego, starting with a reception for all of Damon’s Team buddies and family in California, on to her new life with her SEAL husband. There was an adventure there, for sure, but she’d miss this place.
Her landlady said she hoped Martel and Damon would return and gave them two free weeks of their choosing as a wedding present. It was their first one.
It was a tradition she wanted to keep, once a year coming back to this place that meant so much to her. A place she ran to when she needed it, the place that healed her and brought her the man she loved and much more.
There was a lot to look forward to between now and June. Top of her list was her Valentine’s trip to California where she’d get to meet Ainsley for the first time. She had feelers out at several schools in the San Diego area, and she hoped to interview.
But mostly, she planned on enjoying the peace and calm, living alone, and preparing for the rest of her life. When she closed that door for the last time, she didn’t want any regrets. After all, her adventure was only beginning.
And no matter where she was, her heart would always be here, on the white sugary sand and clear blue waters at Sunset Beach.
Did you enjoy Second Chance SEAL? Stay tuned for my next book, Treasure Island SEAL, where a pirate SEAL rescues his mermaid—diving deep for dangerous love, coming this summer. Watch for the announcement of the release dates.
And if Book 2 is the first book you’ve read in the Sunset SEALs series, then won’t you try SEALed At Sunset, Book 1? It’s available in print and audio versions as well.
If you want the whole over-arching series, beginning with my very first SEAL Brotherhood book, Accidental SEAL, you can get the entire first four books plus two novellas in my Ultimate SEAL Collection No. 1. You’ll be introduced to Kyle, Coop, Fredo, Armando and others as they begin their journey together into your hearts. You can also get the bundle in audio format as well. This was the start of the whole series, hatched when I was bumped from a United flight home to San Francisco and stayed in a place called Lansdowne Resort. Kyle Lansdowne was created that night!
As in all my books, many of the stories are my fictional and romantic adaptations of events that actually occurred, either in my life or those I’ve had the pleasure to meet. Not everyone comes home from their missions in real life. I like to think I save a few of them and as long as you read, they will live forever.
About the Author
Sharon Hamilton
NYT and USA Today best-selling author Sharon Hamilton’s award-winning Navy SEAL Brotherhood series have been a fan favorite from the day the first one was released. They’ve earned her the coveted Amazon author ranking of #1 in Romantic Suspense, Military Romance and Contemporary Romance categories, as well as in Gothic Romance for her Vampires of Tuscany and Guardian Angels. Her characters follow a sometimes rocky road to redemption through passion and true love.
Now that he’s out of the Navy, Sharon can share with her readers that her son spent a decade as a Navy SEAL, and he’s the inspiration for her books.
Her Golden Vampires of Tuscany are not like any vamps you’ve read about before, since they don’t go to ground and can walk around in the full light of the sun.
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 her Doberman, Tucker. A lifelong organic gardener, when she’s not writing, she’s getting verra verra dirty in the mud, or wandering Farmers Markets looking for new Heirloom varieties of vegetables and flowers. She and her husband plan to cure their wanderlust (or make it worse) by traveling in their Diesel Class A Pusher, Romance Rider. Starting with this book, all her writing will be done on the road.
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Life is one fool thing after another
.
Love is two fool things after each other.
Reviews
PRAISE FOR THE
GOLDEN VAMPIRES OF TUSCANY SERIES
“Well to say the least I was thoroughly surprise. I have read many Vampire books, from Ann Rice to Kym Grosso and few other Authors, so yes I do like Vampires, not the super scary ones from the old days, but the new ones are far more interesting far more human than one can remember. I found Honeymoon Bite a totally engrossing book, I was not able to put it down, page after page I found delight, love, understanding, well that is until the bad bad Vamp started being really bad. But seeing someone love another person so much that they would do anything to protect them, well that had me going, then well there was more and for a while I thought it was the end of a beautiful love story that spanned not only time but, spanned Italy and California. Won’t divulge how it ended, but I did shed a few tears after screaming but Sharon Hamilton did not let me down, she took me on amazing trip that I loved, look forward to reading another Vampire book of hers.”
“An excellent paranormal romance that was exciting, romantic, entertaining and very satisfying to read. It had me anticipating what would happen next many times over, so much so I could not put it down and even finished it up in a day. The vampires in this book were different from your average vampire, but I enjoy different variations and changes to the same old stuff. It made for a more unpredictable read and more adventurous to explore! Vampire lovers, any paranormal readers and even those who love the romance genre will enjoy Honeymoon Bite.”
“This is the first non-Seal book of this author’s I have read and I loved it. There is a cast-like hierarchy in this vampire community with humans at the very bottom and Golden vampires at the top. Lionel is a dark vampire who are servants of the Goldens. Phoebe is a Golden who has not decided if she will remain human or accept the turning to become a vampire. Either way she and Lionel can never be together since it is forbidden.
I enjoyed this story and I am looking forward to the next installment.”
Second Chance SEAL: The Girl He Left Behind (Sunset SEALs Book 2) Page 15