Operation Family

by Dobson, Marissa

  When Gabriella and Sophia are old enough to understand, I hope they will be told of us, in the meantime I would like if Nicole and Mac raised them as their own. Give them the true family I won’t be able to give them. Don’t misread this. I don’t expect them to have a relationship together. Uncle Mac is far too dedicated to his career for any relationship—but they can become friends just as Nicole and I have, and raise my sweet Gabriella and Sophia together. One day I hope that Nicole will find a man who will make her happy. She will marry and have children of her own, because she’s an amazing mother to the twins. They’ll work out something then, to keep both Mac and Nicole in the girls’ lives.

  If I have to leave my girls, I know I couldn’t leave them in better hands than Nicole and Uncle Mac. They will protect my beautiful girls from everything and everyone. Mac will be the father I would have been when the girls start to date, scaring away the boys until the perfect ones come along. While Nicole will be there to soothe the bumps and bruises along the way, to mend their hearts, have late night chats, and bake her delicious cookies.

  My sweet Gabriella and Sophia, I love you, and I have no doubt you will be in good hands.

  Nicole, take good care of my babies. Make sure they know their parents loved them, and most of all know I’ll always be with you. You’re amazing and I couldn’t have asked for a better woman to come into our lives after my wife died. You gave me the strength to carry on, and for that I’ll always be grateful. Thank you.

  With tears streaming down her face, she set the letter aside. This letter was enough to at least gain partial custody of the girls, but knowing what Shawn had wanted changed things. How could she fight Mac when Shawn wanted them to work together? She knew she should value his last wishes, and move to Virginia. But it didn’t make it easier.

  I don’t know how I supposed to raise the girls with a man I barely know—a man who sends my heart racing.

  All she could do was try. Give it her best shot, and make Shawn proud.

  Mac woke before the sun peeked over the horizon, his thoughts instantly returning to the last conversation he’d had with Nicole before he crashed. He wanted to do it gently, to ease her into the idea of returning to Virginia with him. Instead, he’d blurted it out like an idiot. He hadn’t been this uneasy and unsure of himself since his first year as an officer; leading his men for the first time had been almost as bad.

  His men, the damn squad of SEALs, was becoming family central. First Ace and Gwen, with their beautiful daughter Roulette. Now Boom and Wynn were expecting their first child in June. The once squad of eight single men dedicated to the SEALs were now starting families of their own. Eventually some of them would move on, leaving the SEALs behind for a safer career, one that would keep them home. This was the first hint that one day the eight men he’d been leading since he was commissioned as an officer would someday be divided. With each blink of an eye, the world changes, sometimes for the good and other times for the bad, and only time would tell which direction things went.

  He scooted up in bed, pressing his back against the headboard. The need for coffee hit him but he worried that if he got up and started moving about in the kitchen he’d wake Nicole. After the night they had, she deserved to be able to sleep in if the girls didn’t wake her first.

  There was something about that woman that drove him wild. He hadn’t been drawn to another woman as he was with her in years. There had been occasional women in his life, but none of them had lasted longer than a few weeks. His career was too demanding for most women to be willing to put up with it, let alone think long-term. Why should he suspect it would be any different with Nicole? Because he proposed they raise the twins together in Virginia? If anything, that would make her more likely to run. What did he have to offer her? Nothing compared to what she was living in now.

  His house was comfortable, but didn’t offer the luxury of Shawn’s home, especially since he was in the middle of remodeling it. There were no marble floors, no swimming pool half the size of a football field. His place held the same privacy with over six acres, and trees adding to the secluded atmosphere. He’d purchased it three years ago for a good price because of its run-down state. Now when he wasn’t on military duty he was restoring the French colonial. There were still things he’d need to get done before the girls were walking, including baby-proofing the house.

  Baby-proofing the house, look how far I’ve fallen. He couldn’t believe he was thinking about child proofing his house. A man who couldn’t even keep a woman long-term and somehow he was supposed to raise twin girls. What did he know about females, or even raising children?

  A tap came from the door, so light he thought he wasn’t sure he even heard it. “Come in?” He almost thought his ears were playing a trick on him.

  The door he had left open a crack swung open. “Mac?”

  “Come in. Is it the girls?” He reached for the shirt he’d draped over the bedpost before he fell asleep.

  “No, the girls are still asleep. I couldn’t sleep and thought you might be awake. Could we talk?” She stood in the doorway, her hand on the doorknob.

  “Sure. Come sit, or we can go to the kitchen.”

  “It will only take a minute, then you can go back to sleep, or whatever you want to do.” She stepped closer to the edge of the bed, her gaze darting from his chest to anywhere else.

  “Merda.” He grabbed his shirt and tugged it over his head. It had been too long since a woman had seen him without his shirt; he had forgotten his scars tended to make people uncomfortable. They always reminded them just how dangerous his job was. “Sorry.”

  “It’s my fault, and not for the reason you think.” She shook her head. “I want to discuss me coming to Virginia to help raise the girls, but first I think you should read this.” She held out a piece of stationary.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s Shawn’s last letter, written the day before his death. He knew…read it. I’ll get us coffee and be right back.” She didn’t wait for him to reply, instead she scurried out the door.

  Bringing it close enough to read, he recognized his nephew’s handwriting from the occasional letters they’d exchanged over the years. How did Shawn know he’d die? Would he have changed the will? His mind overflowed with questions he didn’t have the answers to. He was already invested in the girls. What if this letter said he wanted Nicole to have custody of them? Could he just walk away from them?

  Nicole couldn’t get the image of Mac’s chest out of her mind. She wanted to go to him, rub her hand over the contours of his chest, explore the taut muscles under her fingertips, the puckered and indented skin around each scar. What had he experienced to cause them? Suffering the actions of war, seeing the things he had seen, how could he still be sane? She had heard of some of the troops coming back with post-traumatic stress disorder, suffering from nightmares. Some of them never returned to normal. Did Mac have any issues she needed to be concerned with?

  Her mind jumped from one thing to another. Was he like some of the other military men she met with woman all over the world? Did she need to worry there might be a different woman every week, or every month, in the girls’ lives? How would she explain that to them as they got older? As the questions raced through her mind, she realized she had already agreed to go to Virginia with him, in order to keep the girls. She just hoped he would meet a few of her requests.

  “Knowing Shawn wanted us to raise the girls together, are you still going to fight for custody?” Mac startled her, nearly making her drop the pot of coffee.

  She sat the pot back in the coffeemaker, turned to him, and held out a mug. “I’ll go to Virginia with one request.”

  “Name it.”

  “We sign the custody papers for the girls together. Give me the same rights to them as you have—joint custody. It will help if you’re deployed and they need medical care, to be enrolled in school as they get older, but most importantly because it’s what Shawn wanted…and what I want. To me, those gir
ls are my daughters.”

  “Compromise.” He sat the coffee aside and watched her. “Come spend Christmas with me in Virginia. If everything goes okay, we’ll sign the papers for joint custody. If things don’t go as planned, we can work something else out. It’s going to take time for the official paperwork to be drawn up anyway, and it’s only two weeks until Christmas. In the meantime I won’t sell the house, or deal with any of that in case you wish to return.”

  “It’s not my house, it’s yours.”

  “If you wish to return and take the girls, at least I would know you have a good home. One that will keep you and the girls protected and where they can be raised without moving around from place to place. If we need to, we’ll split the time with the girls, though I’m sure Shawn would want us to raise them together on a daily basis, and I’ll admit it’s what I want too.” He came to stand in front of her, his hand laying over hers on the counter. “When I was a young boy my best friend’s father died, and it’s something I could never forget. His father was military, but he was killed in a motorcycle accident, and the police showed up on a dark rainy night while I was spending the night with him, to tell his mother what happened. After that, the family moved around, apartment to apartment, his mother taking whatever waitressing jobs she could find until she needed to move on. I remember what they suffered, how my best friend was never the same. I want the girls to grow up in a home, not just a house but a real home, that no matter how old they are they can always come back to.”

  “That sounds nice.” Many times, she wished she had that very thing. “Giving the girls a home is very important to me. If we can bond as Shawn and I did to raise the girls together, that would be even better. They deserve a proper family, at least as much as we can give them.”

  “So you agree, you’ll come spend the holidays with me and then we can tackle the legal paperwork?”

  “Okay, but I want to give them a proper Christmas, with trees, decorations, and all the festive stuff. It’s their first Christmas, and though I don’t feel like celebrating I want to make it special for Gabriella and Sophia. They won’t remember it, but we’ll have the pictures.”

  “We’ll make it the best Christmas for all of us. We deserve it.”

  The idea of spending Christmas with him sent her heart racing. It seemed more intimate than it should have been. They were supposed to develop a friendship, nothing more. But if that was true, why did his body call to her like a candle to a flame?

  My SEAL. She didn’t have a right to think like that. Not to mention that getting involved with him could be disastrous. If things went wrong it could have dramatic effects on her relationship with the girls. No, for their sake she had to keep things purely platonic with Mac. Now if she could only convince her erotic thoughts of that fact.

  He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Anything you want just let me know, and I’ll do my best to see it happen. After all, this is a new start for all of us.”

  A new start…she tried not to read further into it, but her stomach fluttered with the possibilities. “When do we leave?”

  “We both have appointments with Mr. Batty tomorrow, so how about the next day? It will give us time to get settled and ready for Christmas.” He paused and took a long drink of the coffee.

  “I can pack most of what the girls need, but we’ll still need at least one crib.”

  “Boom’s wife Wynn—he’s one of my men—is about to launch a new store, Heart of Diamond, which mostly carries her own designs for baby and toddler outfits. I’ll call her and see if we can arrange for it to be at the house when we arrive. Anything else we can purchase once we’re there.”

  “As long as we have a crib, we can make do. Traveling with them isn’t going to be easy.” She chuckled at the thought. Easy was an understatement. She and Shawn had tried to take the girls to California for a business trip when they were three months old and he didn’t want to leave them. Three hours away, and they turned the SUV around, and threw in the towel. They were fine on short trips but got fussy the longer it went.

  Shawn, I miss you so much.

  She closed her eyes, trying to keep the tears that threatened to fall hidden, but they escaped and splashed down her face. Would there ever be a time when the memories of Shawn didn’t tear her heart to shreds? She tried to breathe, to force the air into her tightening chest, and the memories of him away. Mac’s brushed his thumb against her cheek, wiping away the tears that had fallen.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “It wasn’t you.” She opened her eyes to look at him, only to see the same pain she felt. She wondered why he was upset; he barely knew Shawn. “I can’t think of Shawn without regret and deep loss.”

  “Regret? Shawn died in a car accident. What is there to regret?”

  “My grandmother…” Her voice cracked before she could gain control of her emotions. “I spent so much time with her, especially after the problems with my dad. Almost two years ago, she passed away without a will. Because of the medical bills, her cottage was claimed by the collectors and was being sold. On the day he died, Shawn was out because of the auction. He was going to purchase it. If I hadn’t told him I wanted that damn cottage, he’d have been home with the girls like he should have been.”

  “That’s not your fault.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “We can talk about the ifs all day long, but it doesn’t change things. I learned long ago that when it’s our time, nothing can stop death.”

  “You’ve seen the worst, haven’t you? Men dying.”

  He winced at her comment and sadness filled his forest green eyes as his look became distant. “More than I care to remember.”

  Wanting to ease the pain she saw in his eyes, she wrapped her arms around him. He was such a strong man, one who believed in fighting for their country, even after all the death and injuries he’d seen. He’d fight through the worst to keep America safe, and she admired that. She only prayed he wouldn’t become another casualty, not while she and the girls needed him.

  Standing there with her arms around his waist, his cologne drifting past her nose, she could feel herself drawn to him and needed to know if there was someone else before she let things got too far. She hadn’t felt a connection to anyone like this since her college boyfriend, who ended up taking a job in California and leaving her behind to start her accounting business. But she needed something with more freedom, with children. That’s when she saw Shawn’s ad and she never looked back. Everything happened for a reason, but if Mac had someone in his life, she needed to stop this before it could go any further.

  “May I ask something personal?”

  “Go ahead.” There was a slight hesitation in his voice.

  “I don’t see a wedding ring on your finger, but is there someone in your life? A fiancée? Girlfriend? Anyone I should worry about who might have issues with this?”

  “With this?” Smirking, he raised an eyebrow at her.

  “I meant the arrangement of us raising the girls together. If there’s someone else—” She wasn’t sure where she was going with that, but thankfully he cut her off before she could finish.

  “There’s no woman in my life, just my career, and the house. If I’m not on duty, I’m working on the house. It’s an old French colonial, with over six acres. When I purchased it three years ago it was pretty run-down, so I’ve been restoring it.” He slipped his hand up from the small of her back. “Why do you ask, beautiful, are you interested?”

  “I…” She stammered, hating she was that obvious, before she pulled herself together. “I was asking for the girls’ sake. They’re going to have a hard enough time adjusting, so the less interruptions they have the better. Adding new people right now isn’t going to make things easier.”

  “Whatever you say.” He smirked, almost as if he didn’t believe her.

  Nice one, Nicole. She’d just met him and she was already coming across as some cheap slut. The fact that he was drop-dead sexy wasn’t enough for
a relationship, and she didn’t know anything about him. All the time they’d spent together had been because of the twins, anything they talked about was regarding them. Hell, she had threatened to take him to court for custody; that wasn’t the best way to start any kind of relationship, let alone a romantic one.

  She wasn’t sure getting involved with him was a good thing; it risked too much when it came to the twins. If things went badly, it was the children who would suffer the most. Her fantasies could go on, but in real life she needed to focus on providing for Gabriella and Sophia, not on the gorgeous SEAL in front of her.

  Mac was adjusting to fatherhood with an ease he hadn’t expected, despite the fact the twins never slept through the night. He was developing a bond with them that he hadn’t thought possible with a child that wasn’t his own. It brought a whole new understanding to what Nicole went through; he could resonate with her fears that they’d be taken away from her. She was a wonderful mother to them, and he couldn’t have asked for someone better to be on this path to parenthood with him.

  Though the twins took up most of their time, he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Every thought seemed to center around her, his gaze following her wherever she went. For the first time, possibly ever, he wanted to get to know a woman—Nicole. It wasn’t just about getting her into bed, even though he did want her badly. He needed more with her. If it was just about sex, he could have gotten that from anyone else. Nicole would need more, too. She wasn’t a woman who would take anything less than a commitment.

  Stay away from her; you don’t need that. You’re a SEAL, you can’t give a commitment. With the internal warning bells going off, he couldn’t stop himself from gazing down the path that would lead them together. The way she inquired if there was someone waiting in Virginia for him was enough of an indication that she was interested in him. All he had to do was make his move.

  Shawn had always had a sixth sense about things, even his own death. Could he have believed that bringing them together would give Gabriella and Sophia a real family again? Still, he doubted that he could give Nicole what she deserved. She warranted only the best, someone who didn’t have baggage and scars. He had already seen how she reacted to the scars on his chest; if she saw his back, it would only be worse. He couldn’t stand the sorrow in her sparkling blue eyes.