Barefoot Bay: SEALed With a Twist (Kindle Worlds)

by Kiersten Hallie Krum

“Skye’s not going anywhere with you,” Mandy announced with a Mama Bear glare. “And nowhere she doesn’t want to go.”

  “That was the Thornquist wedding,” Grant realized now that his mind had the chance to move chunks of social intel around and refit it into a new picture at the center of which sat Skye.

  Even disconnected from his old life, he got monthly gossip downloads from his mother. The Thornquist scandal had been the juicy news of her set for weeks. Two sisters with the same guy, and the wrong one turns up pregnant with a company merger at stake? Oh yeah, his mother dined out on that for months. Grant hadn’t heard about it till a few weeks after his first trip to Barefoot Bay. By then, the Maverick fallout was consuming his attention or he probably would’ve put it all together sooner, particularly his drunk debutante’s front-row role in the drama.

  His valiant, heartbroken girl.

  “Shit. No wonder you went into the pool.”

  Skye closed her eyes and fresh embarrassment flushed her cheeks a warm red. “Would everyone please stop talking about the pool?!”

  She looked so cute and exasperated, Grant couldn’t resist leaning down to touch his mouth to hers, adding a tongue swipe on her bottom lip to get a quick taste. He’d get more than a quick one later tonight. Enough of this bullshit waiting, taking it slow and easing her back into the idea of getting with him again. Not when smarmy bastards were showing up trying to claim what was his.

  Tonight, he’d remind her of that fact.

  Decision set, he lifted his head and saw she was now flush with something very much not embarrassment, pupils blown with desire. The asshole in him couldn’t resist shooting fucking Brandon a triumphant smirk of his own.

  “Oh, that’s mature,” Quinn chided.

  “Shut it, McQueen.”

  Quinn beamed and Grant belatedly realized he’d called her Jasper’s last name for the first time.

  Despite the situation, he grinned back.

  “If you’re quite through with this juvenile posturing, I am on a schedule.”

  Grant felt Skye draw herself upright. “How remiss of me not to offer felicitations.”

  Quinn’s smile turned to a grin at Skye’s hoity-toity tone.

  Brandon looked taken aback. “To what do you refer?”

  “Surely Melissa’s had the baby by now. Was it a boy or a girl? I never thought to ask. And how is my sister? She must take great comfort in her baby during this time of familial...grief.”

  The man hesitated and Grant squeezed Skye’s arm in warning. Whatever was about to come out of Brandon’s mouth would not be good.

  “She miscarried.”

  Mandy gasped, a quick sound of shared pain.

  Skye’s face went bone white when Brandon added, “About a week after you disappeared. Really screwed up the merger negotiations too. Had to rewrite half the contract.”

  Fuck. Grant figured this guy was an asswipe, but Jesus.

  “What did you say?” Skye breathed, aghast.

  “You can’t blame Skye for that,” Mandy hotly objected.

  “Can’t I? The trauma was too much for Melissa, learning her sister had abandoned her in her time of need. She developed preeclampsia and the pregnancy quickly deteriorated.”

  “Pregnancy? That’s how you describe the child your wife lost?!”

  Brandon had the grace to look mildly chagrined. “It is an accurate description.”

  “Was it a boy or a girl?” When he hesitated, Skye leaned forward, Grant’s arm now a restricting band around her chest, barely holding her in check as she shrieked, “BOY OR GIRL?!”

  “It was a girl,” Brandon admitted baldly. “Twelve weeks along.”

  “A girl,” Skye said, an agonized whisper that grated along Grant’s skin. Tears tripped over the bottom rim of her eyes to streak down her cheeks. “My sweet niece.”

  Grant shifted her to face him. “I’m so sorry, baby.” He murmured the useless words before kissing her temple. He wouldn’t stay close with a sibling who’d done to him anything near to what Skye’s sister had done to her, but he wasn’t a chick either.

  Despite such betrayal, this marvel of a woman felt this loss keenly, as deep a wound as if she’d lost her own child.

  Grant smoothed a soothing hand over the crown of her head as he felt and ignored Brandon’s searching gaze.

  “Sisti,” the man said thoughtfully.

  “What?” Grant snapped without releasing Skye.

  “I know that name.”

  “Good for you.”

  But the guy had the bit between his teeth now and Grant knew what would happened next.

  “You’re Rebecca’s son,” Brandon announced with such self-satisfied glee, he might as well have revealed Grant to be the Queen of England’s illegitimate get.

  The man thought he’d uncovered a scandal and he wasn’t wrong. But he’d yet to figure out that Grant never cared what people of his set thought. About him or anything related to him.

  Skye was different though. He cared a helluva lot what she thought of him.

  Damned if he knew why.

  But this wasn’t his first minefield, and Grant had long ago learned how to navigate an incendiary device—and when to let the fucker blow up and deal with the fallout.

  “Have been for thirty-five years. Your point?”

  “You’re the Sisti black sheep. The lost son nobody speaks about. The man who walked away from his psychiatry practice to go play soldier to his parent’s everlasting shame.”

  He waited for Grant’s eyes to meet his before continuing, using the pregnant pause into which the women had fallen as his dramatic set up. Twisted glee filled the asshole’s face before he masked it with feigned sympathy.

  Here it comes.

  “But you were going to lose that practice anyway given one of your patients shot himself in the head right in front you.”

  “Twist.”

  Skye couldn’t pay heed to Quinn’s agonized whisper. She had enough trouble trying not to burst into tears at the look on Grant’s face.

  God. No man should ever look like that. She doubted he even knew the pain that right now made his eyes glow with green fire.

  Fire eager to consume the man standing before them.

  But for that fire, Grant’s face was a blank mask. Close as she was, Skye could see the fine tremor of his eye twitch. His corded body was locked tight against her, as if to contain a berserker impulse.

  He was a hairsbreadth from taking Brandon down.

  As much as she’d like to see her tool of an ex-fiancé for once bear the brunt of what he’d wrought, she couldn’t allow Grant to put himself at risk. Brandon would take even the slightest overture of aggression as a challenge. He was a ruthless competitor and she’d already seen the anticipatory gleam when Grant had made his claim on her plain. Brandon was too smart to attempt to beat Grant physically, which meant he’d make it his mission to ruin him in other, more morally lacking and potentially devastating ways.

  Which left it up to her to put him in his place.

  Thornquists do not engage in public scenes.

  That was one lesson she was going to have to respectfully decline.

  Sorry, Grandmother.

  “You unmitigated ass,” she hissed. “I knew you lack the very basics in morality, but somehow your absence even of a soul to tarnish escaped my notice. Until now.

  “It’s public knowledge my dear. And it may have been years ago, but a stain like that never really comes off one’s record. Or fades from public memory.”

  Skye’s back went up at the clear threat; he would resurrect those memories in a heartbeat if it served his agenda. Skye didn’t know what kind of damage that would do to Grant or his career with the Navy. She didn’t even know really what he did as a SEAL outside of the publicity when the SEALs had found and killed Osama Bin Laden.

  “No doubt Rebecca paid well to keep you from losing your license,” Brandon continued. “She’s efficient that way. Wouldn’t want the family reputation tarn
ished by your embarrassing gaffe. Your mother was likely relieved when you joined the army, but then they take all kinds, right? More fodder for the heathen terrorists. Even appalling failures who can’t see a suicide risk even when it’s right in front of them.”

  “Shut the fuck up.” That was Quinn, losing what little hold she had on her temper. “Don’t you dare speak to him like that! Twist is a decorated Navy combatant. You’re not fit to lick his balls, you spineless wanker.”

  “It’s all right, Quinn,” Grant rumbled near Skye’s ear.

  “No, it isn’t!” Quinn objected, full of righteous fury for her friend. But Skye saw it was more than that as Quinn began to fray at the seams. “Twist—” she managed, voice breaking over his name. “I mean—God…first Maverick—and now…I didn’t—” She stopped stuttering words and visibly worked to get a grip on her emotions before getting to what really bothered her. “Does Jasper know?”

  “We’ve never discussed it, but he’s read my file.”

  “Twist, honey, I’m so sorry.”

  Fascinated, Skye watched the byplay.

  Maverick? Who was that? Why did she feel this mysterious Maverick was the key to what haunted Grant?

  She caught the cunning gleam in Brandon’s eye as he likewise evaluated the players, cataloguing her friend’s responses to his information bomb, she knew, to use against them at some later date.

  There was a reason he was CFO of a major corporation before he reached forty and not only thanks to nepotism. In fact, he once told Skye, in a rare moment of intimacy, how being the second son of the company’s CEO meant he’d had to work harder especially as his father didn’t want Brandon in the company in the first place. He was a ruthless negotiator, and her mistake had been thinking that killer instinct was reserved for the business part of his life.

  Marriage was merely another business deal to him.

  She really hated that man.

  The epiphany shocked her, enough that she sagged against Grant, who took her unexpected weight with ease.

  She hated him.

  Ex-fiancé.

  Brother-in-law.

  Horrible man.

  How had she not seen it sooner? She’d known she wasn’t in love with him, she’d accepted that her marriage would lack that, but surely, she had better instincts, better taste, than to think she could marry the likes of him.

  Or was she so used to the world and the people she’d been raised in, so conditioned to believe this was how people behaved, that she simply accepted this would be her husband, the father of her future children, this man who didn’t even seem to care about the loss of his unborn child beyond the cost to the family merger?

  She glanced up at Grant who held her tight to his side while bending a look of death on the man who presumed to be better than him. Here was a man who, in the short if extreme amount of time she’d known him, had given her strength and safety and passion and laughter. One who had real demons—from the sound of it, well earned—but didn’t let that stop him from serving his country to an extreme degree. Who’d apparently turned his back on a life of luxury in order to do it too.

  Could she be such a man’s safe haven?

  She sure as hell wanted to try.

  “Skye?” Quinn called.

  Skye realized she’d been staring at Grant intently for several charged moments. Reaching out, she cupped the curve of his bristly jaw, bringing that laser gaze down to study her when she swept her thumb over his etched cheekbone.

  Her mouth curved, a soft parenthesis of understanding, and she let it and her hand express a thesis of emotion.

  The bones in Grant’s face visibly relaxed as he read everything her face was telling him.

  Quinn called her name again. “You are so right,” Skye replied without breaking her connection with Grant. “I traded way up.”

  Quinn and Mandy burst out laughing, popping the emotional balloon that encased them. Released, Grant pecked her nose before turning her to fully face Brandon.

  Message received, Brandon scowled, which had the added benefit of turning his professionally tanned complexion a motley shade.

  “I know my marrying your sister was a blow, Skylar, but really? This is your choice?”

  Skye sighed and Grant knew before she spoke that she was done. “What are you doing here, Brandon? The real reason.”

  “There are things we need to discuss.” He looked around at the other three in their group. “Private things.”

  “There’s nothing you could have to say to me that would require any more privacy than this.”

  “These are family matters,” he stressed. “Legal ones that can’t be discussed in a public area.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have accosted her in a public area,” Grant tersely pointed out. “She’s not going anywhere with you, pal. Get over it.”

  Brandon studied them both then, shocking Skye completely, he capitulated.

  “Your grandmother left certain…instructions. According to her personal lawyer, she drew up a new will after you left. Likely inspired by your abandonment to write you out of the existing one.”

  “She wouldn’t do that,” Skye managed though numb lips. “She loved me.”

  “Don’t be so naïve. Love has nothing to do with it. Or anything.” He sat down in the last chair and crossed his legs with studied nonchalance. “I tried to discredit it, believe me, but it’s all legal and above board. She always was a wily bitch.”

  “Careful,” Grant warned.

  “I never wanted the money. Grandmother has no cause to think otherwise.”

  “Apparently, she did. Whatever her reasons, the new will cannot be read and put into probate without you being physically present.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Grant interrupted. “She’s not going anywhere near that viper’s nest of a family.” Skye looked at him askance, shock rounding her eyes, which pissed him off. “Babe, what? You think I don’t know all about the Thornquists, you haven’t been paying attention. I didn’t get it back then, but after you left, I eventually put two and two together and got holy fucking twats. Bridesmaid while your pregnant sister married this douchebag? Jesus. You’re a goddam miracle growing up in that excuse for a family and coming out even half as sweet as you are. Family,” he spat, incensed on her behalf. “Goddamn cutthroat corporation more like.”

  No one had ever been in Skye’s corner before. Even her beloved grandmother had chosen the family good over Skye when push came to shove. She felt Grant’s defense of her like a swarm of protection ready to sting any and all comers.

  “What would you know about it?” Brandon said. “Like her, you abandoned your duty when it no longer suited you. The two of you both running out on your families after failing to honor your obligations.”

  “That’s funny, you talking about honor. Or is it a sign of devotion in your twisted excuse for a brain to fuck your fiancée’s sister?!”

  His upper lip curled with distain. “This is the company you keep now, Skylar? Charming.”

  “Enough, Brandon.” The resigned tone in Skye’s voice took Grant aback.

  “You’re not giving into him,” Quinn asked, clearly hearing the same.

  “Of course not.” But there was enough defeat in her words to worry him.

  Like any good operator, Brandon pressed his advantage.

  “I can’t make any promises,” he began. “But barring any legal requirements by the terms of the will, I see no reason why you couldn’t return here once our family business concludes.”

  “You are not my family.”

  “Don’t be so provincial. It’s tiresome.” With a sigh, Brandon rose to his feet. “I didn’t expect you to make such a ruckus. I’ll need to call my admin and get her to make me a reservation at the Hilton in Naples. I’m certainly not going to stay here.” He fished a card from his wallet and placed it on the table. “Since I’m sure you long since deleted my cell number.” One manicured finger tapped the card. “Call me when you come to your sense
s.”

  Chapter Nine

  When he’d watched Skye walk out of Casa Blanca, flanked by her two friends and somewhat dazed from an epic info dump, Grant wanted to pick her up and carry her away somewhere no one would find them.

  “I could do it too,” he’d muttered, cell phone to ear, endless ringing going unanswered. He’d hole them up in his place on Coronado, hire guards for when he was OUTCONUS, and keep her sequestered and safe. Anything to erase that vacant, lost look from her eyes, the look that’d made his chest feel like he’d taken a .425 slug point blank.

  “McQueen,” Jasper snapped over the line. “I just got done sorting a cluster on my honeymoon and I’m on my way to my wife. You’d better be bloody or broken, brother.”

  “I got an asshole threatening a woman I care about. That enough?”

  “God dammit.” Jasper went silent. Grant was well-familiar with this maneuver and waited while his former commander worked through the immediate options. When he sighed with customary exasperation, Grant knew he had him. “She with you now?”

  “No. Your woman is taking her back to her apartment before she keels over where she stands. She got some hard family news.”

  “I’ll get Quinn to stick close, take her to dinner and keep her occupied. Where’re you?”

  “Resort lobby.”

  “I’m at McBain’s bungalow. Had to use his secure connection for the sit rep.”

  “On my way.”

  He disconnected and shoved the phone into his back pocket as he walked out the door, stepping aside for a middle-aged, spray-tanned couple and their pile of luggage, then having to dodge and weave through a family of five, including three rowdy boys. Once clear, he made short work of the walk to the resort’s security center, one of the original, smaller bungalows that had been tricked out with state-of-the-art equipment.

  Last time they were at Casa Blanca, Quinn had gotten herself mixed up with a Russian mob and wound up with a hit on her head. When she’d been snatched, it was Luke McBain, Casa Blanca’s security manager, who’d kitted them out to go get her, using his resources to track her to Tampa where they arrived just short of too late to save her.