Fredo’s Secret
A Novella
Sharon Hamilton
Copyright © 2015 by Sharon Hamilton
Kindle Edition
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, 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 of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. In many cases, liberties and intentional inaccuracies have been taken with rank, description of duties, locations and aspects of the SEAL community.
License Notes
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Author’s Note and Dedication
Ever since I wrote the character Fredo into my Accidental SEAL, Book 1 of the SEAL Brotherhood Series, fans have loved him. I’ve probably gotten more emails asking when Fredo would have his own book, than any other character.
I generally know what next book I’m going to write as I’m finishing the one before. But today, because it’s approaching Christmas, I decided to write something you readers have been wanting. So, it is my gift to you this holiday season.
Christmas is about sharing, and caring for others, about your heart being fully open. This is the miracle of the season. It’s more about the giving, than the getting.
Fredo demonstrates the power of his unrelenting belief in true love, probably more so than any other SEAL hero I’ve written. As I’ve said many times, it’s what’s on the inside of a person that counts more than the outside.
So this, then, is from my heart, to yours this time of year. Let’s make it last forever, because the miracle of a romance novel is that it truly does live forever.
Christmas, 2015
I’d also like to point out that I support two main charities: Navy SEAL/UDT Museum in Ft. Pierce, Florida. Please learn about this wonderful museum, all run by active and former SEALs and their friends and families, and who rely on public support, not that of the U.S. Government.
www.navysealmuseum.org
I also support Wounded Warriors, who tirelessly bring together the warrior as well as the family members who are just learning to deal with their soldier’s condition and have nowhere to turn. It is a long path to becoming well, but I’ve seen first-hand what this organization does for its warriors and the families who love them. Please give what your heart tells you is right. If you cannot give, volunteer at one of the many service centers all over the United States. Get involved. Do something meaningful for someone who gave so much of themselves, to families who have paid the price for your freedom. You’ll find a family there unlike any other on the planet.
www.woundedwarriorproject.org
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Author’s Note and Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
About the Author
The SEAL Brotherhood Series
Other Books by Sharon Hamilton
Chapter 1
‡
Fredo was not sure how Mia would take the results of his doctor visit, but his training taught him to just be direct with it, tell her that he could not father children. They had little Ricardo, who was not his biological son, but the son of a lowlife now in prison. Fredo and some of his team buddies had rescued Mia from this evil man and his gang. So, Fredo told himself he already had a son. Ricardo would grow up thinking of Fredo as his father in every important sense of the word. But he wanted to give Mia more sons, and perhaps a daughter or two.
God had other plans.
An inner city kid growing up, Fredo had been like a lucky penny, associating with both street kids and gang members, as well as the pretty girls who played volleyball and went out for cheerleading in high school. After high school, he escaped being caught, unlike some of his friends; not for doing bad things, but for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was the custom that once a youth got into the system, they rarely escaped. Fredo was sharp and lucky enough to never get into the system in the first place.
He thought Cooper would have some solid advice on his parenting situation since he and Coop were still two of the tightest buddies on SEAL Team 3. Cooper now had two children, a boy and a girl.
The Scupper was nearly empty, but that was probably because it was barely three o’clock in the afternoon.
He found his old friend sitting at a long table, as if they were expecting their usual cadre of regulars from Kyle’s Team. Fredo hoped Coop hadn’t invited anyone today.
“How’s it hanging, Fredo?” Coop asked as they fist-bumped.
“Not complaining.” Fredo motioned to their usual waitress, and she acknowledged his need for a beer. Cooper sat behind his mineral water, chewing on ice, and making his usual noise.
“You know, Coop, I’m not sure your dentist is very happy with you. You gonna crack all your teeth.”
“Nothin’ wrong with my teeth, Fredo. My great-grandfather was a horse. We got great teeth.”
“I’m not talking about how well you are endowed. I was talking—”
“Well, that, too, if you must know. But then you seen me in the shower, so this should be no surprise. So you wanna tell me why we’re talking about my dick?”
Fredo adjusted his defense mechanism. He was going to spout off something offensive in response to Coop’s remark, as was their pattern, but he reeled himself in. Part of him was so angry, he wanted to punch something. If Cooper got in the way, it wouldn’t be good.
“Okay, well, I just came from the doctor, and he told me I’m sterile. I’m fuckin’ shootin’ blanks. No little zarapes or baby sombreros in my future, Coop. No father of the bride walking down the aisle shit for me.”
“Borrow one.”
“Borrow a sperm? You mean let Mia get a sperm from someone else?”
“No, asshole, that wouldn’t be borrowing one. That would be making one a part of your family.” Cooper’s half smile and partial frown were hard to read. “Borrow a kid,” he said, nodding.
“Just how the fuck do I borrow a kid? Besides, Mia wants her own kid. She wants my kid.”
“No, she doesn’t. She wants you, and if she doesn’t, she’s hopelessly crazy.”
“I think I know my Mia.”
“Sure you do. What I’m sayin’ is you adopt. Nothing wrong with that. Hell, I’d have done that if it happened to us.”
“But I want my own.”
“You honestly think you could tell which fuckin’ sperm was yours if you looked at them under a microscope? What the hell difference does it make? That’s like saying you could never love a woman because some other man got there first. That makes no sense at all.”
Cooper did have a point. “I think, in th
is case, I would be able to tell mine from others. Mine would be with dented heads and wouldn’t move.”
“Dented heads, huh? What kind of a doctor showed you what your sperm looked like? That does no fuckin’ good. I’d have nightmares if they showed me that shit. Like a science fiction freak show or something.”
“I wanted him to prove it to me.”
“Oh. Well, then, that explains it. You dumb shit. You didn’t need to see that.”
Cooper nearly finished his mineral water, sucked on the lime until his cheeks caved in, and then chewed on ice. He looked at Fredo like a cow chewing hay, watching the cars go by and not keeping up with the movement. “I don’t care what mine look like.”
“Yeah, well, yours swim.”
“Apparently.” Cooper swallowed and went for the last gulp of ice. Before he could set his plastic glass down, the waitress brought him another mineral water and lime with tons of ice.
“I don’t know what to say to Mia.” Fredo wanted to be honest with his best friend. He was still trying to reconcile the fact that beautiful Mia, who could have been a model or a beauty queen if she’d chosen that path, and was the most stunning of all the SEAL wives, had chosen him. And Fredo knew he was generally thought of as the least handsome of the bunch. He’d had to work long and hard to win her love. He worried that perhaps this would disappoint her. Ever at the back of his mind was the concern that she would one day leave him.
“I can hear all that Mariachi music rolling around in your head, Fredo. Don’t get your cart before the horse. You’re worrying about something that might not exist.”
“But what if it does? What if she’s angry? Coop, what if she thinks I’m not right for her?”
“Fredo, you dumb shit. How can you say that? You think she’s that shallow? Mia’s a strong and beautiful woman, inside and out. She loves you, Fredo. When she finally got it, she was hooked, man.” Cooper nodded to a couple of young tadpoles who had entered the bar. “God almighty, they make ’em younger every year. Did we ever look like that?” He nodded to the new recruits.
“I think I was born with hair all over my body. Someone who knew my mom said she called me a little gorilla. Not sure I ever looked like a little boy.”
Cooper was laughing. “That’s a visual I need eye bleach to get rid of, Fredo. Why did you have to go tell me that? Now I won’t be able to think, seeing this little gorilla boy running around the streets of LA.”
Fredo began to get steamed. “Okay, asshole. I can see this was a big mistake. I come to you with something serious, and you get me all talking about my childhood and sperm and stuff.” Fredo knew it was an unfair argument, but he couldn’t hold it back.
“Okay. Calm down. Seriously, Fredo. You just tell her the truth. You ask her what she wants to do, okay? And then you do whatever she wants. If she wants to adopt, you adopt. If not, you stay good with that. If she needs to think it over, you give her space, let her know you’re here to discuss it if she wants. But let her decide. We don’t make those decisions, they do.”
Fredo figured it was probably the best advice he’d get tonight, or any night. He did dangerous things every day, especially when he was overseas. But today, this sitting down and talking to Mia about the doctor visit was the hardest thing he’d have done in over a year.
“You guys have plans for Christmas?” Coop asked.
“Getting together with her mom and Mayfield. What about you?”
“We’re going up for a couple of days to Libby’s folks’ cabin at Big Bear. You should come up.”
“I’ll ask her.”
On the way home, Fredo stopped to buy Mia’s mother some items he knew she’d want for her Puerto Rican traditional Thanksgiving feast. The little supermercado was in a seedy part of town where every bar, restaurant, house, and school had bars on the windows. Even the windows at the public park were barred and locked at night with large iron grates.
Fredo only knew the shop owner as Jose, since that’s what Mia’s mother called him. Recently, Mayfield had insisted on accompanying her. Fredo knew some of the gangs in the area were not opposed to robbing an older military type, even a retired cop, which Mayfield was. So, Fredo tried to do the shopping for her mother as much as he could. Mia almost never cooked. Mama Guzman insisted on doing all of it, so there was no arguing with that. Ever.
He picked up some corn husks and specialty tomatillo sauce, the hot sauce she liked that was made in her hometown in Puerto Rico, and some good rum that Felicia loved to mix with her coconut milk to celebrate anything that required alcohol.
Outside the mercado, he found a couple of pre-teen boys looking for someone to buy them liquor.
“Jefe, you maybe wanna help us out some?” the kid with the blue eyes said. Fredo remembered seeing him before, since it was so rare to see a Mexican kid with blue eyes.
“I told you boys I wouldn’t do it last time, but what the hell. It’s nearly Christmas. You tell me what good deeds you done this week and I’ll think about it.”
His two friends swore and snuck around the lamppost, walking in the opposite direction, disgusted. But blue eyes stayed behind.
“Punched a kid at school who was being rough on a girl,” the boy blurted out. “That good enough for you, frog-man?”
“Where’d you get that name, son?” Fredo asked.
“Because that’s what you are. You got webbed feet. You got tats, and you’re a fuckin’ swaggering asshole frog-man.”
“Asshole? This the guy you expect to buy you some booze and you call me an asshole?”
The kid grinned. Fredo saw something different about him. It was either something dangerous or dangerous for the environment. He was eager. Maybe too eager. Fredo adjusted his stance, moving his package to his left arm so he could retrieve his gun from the holster in the small of his back with his right.
The boy’s eyes half-lidded. That made Fredo even more nervous.
“I hate you frogs.” He ran off.
Fredo stood for a moment and surveyed the alarmingly calm street. It was always like that overseas, too. When it was quiet, that’s when you had to worry about getting picked off. That’s when the shit hit.
Or maybe he was getting paranoid. Fredo rolled his shoulder, checked both sides of the street again, squinting into the sun and still not seeing anything that gave him a reason for all the hair on the back of his neck to be stuck at full attention.
But something was definitely wrong. He couldn’t find any of the three boys he’d seen. He began getting into his beater four-door truck. He heard the ping of the windshield before he felt the shot to his chest. He was surprised it didn’t hurt more than it did. But he couldn’t breathe. He felt the blackness all around his eyes as he began to lose consciousness. It was fuckin’ hard to breathe. That meant the shot hit a lung, and he was not going to survive if the blood was fast.
The street was a tunnel when he felt the tug at his pants. His wallet was taken. He did hear swearing, an altercation, and some choice words in Spanish. He wanted to get up and stop the fight, but couldn’t move for some reason. Someone was still upset. Then a lady screamed. He slumped over in the front seat, trying to stay on his back so he wouldn’t expose the gun he had at his waist. Just before he passed out, he saw a pair of blue eyes and focused on them until everything was black.
Chapter 2
‡
Fredo awoke and thought he was in heaven. The beautiful angel hovered above him, light all around her, just like the pictures he’d seen at Sunday school when he was a kid. Her long brown hair fell around her face and over her shoulders. Then he realized the angel he was staring at was his wife, Mia.
“Mmm—” He tried to say her name.
“Shhh, Fredo. My love, oh, I’m so hoppy to see you’re awake.”
His eyes must have looked wild.
“You were shot, Fredo. Do you remember who shot you? You were shot doing Mama’s shopping. I’m so sorry. They robbed you, but thank God, they did not rob you of your life.”
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She smelled clean, from fresh soap. Her large almond-shaped eyes were framed with worry lines on her otherwise flawless smooth forehead. He used to think he could see his soul in those eyes when he first fell in love with her, before he heard it in her breath, in the way she talked to him. Her full lips were ripe and did wonderful things to his body. Right now, she was talking to him, and he was only hearing every other word.
“Someone did some quick medical attention on you, Fredo, or you would have died. Oh, God, I couldn’t have taken that!” She threw herself onto his chest, her hair tickling his chin and neck. He looked to the ceiling of what he assumed was the hospital, as if God was leaving him a message in clouds that weren’t there. Her moist tears stained his chest. The vibrations from her sobs gently rocked him. He tried pulling his right arm up and couldn’t, so bent his left arm at the elbow and placed his palm gently at the small of her back. Immediately, her sobbing stopped. She arched up to him, just the way she did when she made love to him, her beautiful face bordered by her wild natural curls. He could never look at her, even after two years of marriage, and not be stunned.
“Mia, I’m glad I didn’t die, too.” It was stupid, and it wasn’t what he really wanted to say, but his words were sparse.
“Oh, my love. You have to promise me you will never go to that supermarket again.”
He smiled. “I promise.” He was rewarded with a relieved smile on her face, just about the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life.
Then he remembered his doctor visit that morning, and sadness fell upon him.
“What’s wrong? Are you in pain?”
“No,” he said, but he avoided eye contact.
She insisted he look at her, holding his jowls between her red fingernails. Her fingernails were always red, and her hands always smelled like the vanilla hand cream she used, just like today. She adjusted his head and peered down at him. “Tell me, Fredo. Tell me.”
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