Code Name: Forever & Ever (A Warrior's Challenge series Book 5)
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CODE NAME: Forever & Ever
A Warrior’s Challenge series
Book Five
Natasza Waters
Sensual Romance
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A Waterfall Press Book
Sensual Romance
Code Name: Forever & Ever
Copyright © 2016 Natasza Waters
E-book ISBN978-0-9947772-0-1
First E-book Publication: November 2016
Cover design by Dawné Dominique
Edited by Temple Press
Proofread by Melissa Limoges
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgment
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Epilogue
Dedication
For Kimberly.
Success is not gained without challenge.
Change only happens with determination.
Your strength is an inspiration to all.
Acknowledgments
This book comes with an apology. It’s been two years in the making for several reasons. Mostly personal. Due to federal cutbacks and modernization, my operations center was closed in the Port of Vancouver and amalgamated with Victoria to create a super center. I had to leave my family behind to finish my last three years with the Coast Guard. At this stage in the game of life, not an easy task.
Along the road, two very special people kept this book alive and reminded me I had to keep going regardless of what was occurring in my life. The talented author Sheri Fredricks, in her subtle way, prompted me to finish. She offered to crit the book which meant I had to finish the book. And for Kimberly Hickey, my street team captain, who has patiently waited for Patrick Cobbs and Marg’s story.
Thank you.
CODE NAME: Forever & Ever
A Warrior’s Challenge series
Book Five
Natasza Waters
Copyright © 2016
Chapter One
The evening sun dipped into the sea behind Patrick, creating a shadow of silent strength. Poised in the doorway, the ocean’s breeze entered before he did. Marg didn’t need to see his expression to know it would be wrought with intense concentration.
“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Marg said.
His shadow didn’t waver. Not even a flicker of movement from the plate of muscle on his rolling abs. Only a Navy SEAL had the will to shift mountains or lay on one without a twitch, concealed for days.
“Three wives put their husbands in the ground this year, Marg. If we keep growing closer you may have to do the same. Is that the future you want?”
Her nerves balled into little fists of fear, but her heart would not change its cadence. It marched straight toward the man who tempted her with his impenetrable inner strength. “Maybe I will, but we won’t stand idle waiting for it. I’m not walking away from you, Patrick Cobbs. It will have to be you who runs for cover. You’ve always stood in the doorway of our relationship just like you are now, not all in, but never closing the door on us either.”
“Your parents won’t ever see me in a different light. They despise anyone who fights for this country.”
“You’re not marrying my parents.”
A gruff, deep chuckle emitted from the shadow. “I don’t recall mentioning marriage.”
Marg threw the sheets aside and rose from the bed. Her body and mind had power over lesser men, but not Patrick Cobbs—who had kept her at arm’s length for too long. He exhaled with a low hiss, his silver eyes burning a path down her naked form.
“I’m not living in sin, Patrick.”
“You are nothing but sin, Margaret Stines, and I’m so far gone the only heaven I’ll know is you.”
His shadow moved toward her until darkness released the man she loved. He stopped within a whisper’s breath from her. “Is that a promise, or will you find heaven in another woman’s arms when mine grow old,” she asked.
Patrick’s gaze pierced her like a silver bullet inflicts a creature of the night. Right now, she was on trial. His profession put her there like every woman who had ever fallen in love with a Navy SEAL.
The pad of his thumb gently brushed her jaw. “Your grandmother buried your grandfather. I may end up in the same place. Why risk it, when you know you don’t have to?”
“She did, but without him, my grandmother wouldn’t have had my father. She has all of us, and she has the memories of the unforgettable years she had with my grandfather.”
“What if we only have one?”
“Are you afraid of me or something else? You’re not your father, Patrick. One day we’ll have a family. Our children will love you. You’ll protect them. You’ll protect all of us, and when you’re serving our country, I will protect them.”
She watched his throat flex with a deep swallow. “I could eat you whole, Marg, but instead I think I’ll take my time and taste you slowly until you come undone.”
Marg paused, afraid he’d take her next words as an ultimatum. One that would force him to sacrifice their future together. “Not until there’s a decision, and I can’t make it for you.”
Patrick’s callused hand swept to her stomach, his thumb sliding up the middle of
her body until he reached her breast and grazed her nipple, painful with need.
“I made my decision when I first saw you. Will you marry me, Marg, forever and ever?”
“Amen,” she whispered as he bowed his head and his lips teased her breast. He gently wrapped his arms around her body and laid her on the bed, his mouth a machine of destruction to her sensual core.
She opened her eyes when his ministrations stopped, and he hovered above her. “I love you, Marg. I want you to remember that every time I have to leave you.”
Her throat clenched, a sure warning tears might be on the way.
“If the day comes when I can’t make it back, I know Thane and the rest of the team and their wives will be there for you. You won’t be alone.”
She stroked his cheek, his dark stubble an erotic sensation to her fingertips. “Don’t paint our future on a wall that doesn’t exist. Just keep coming home to me.”
“I’ll do my best, beautiful. When it comes to you,”—his head dropped lower, his lips kissing hers seductively—“for you; for the family we’ll have one day; for the life I want us to share until we’re old and grey, I’ll always do my best.”
The memory waned as the dew on the grass seeped into Marg’s legs. It wasn’t the moisture that chilled her, but Patrick’s headstone glistening under the sun. She watched as Kelsey, too young to lose her father, placed a bouquet of flowers in the little holder. Marg came every day to sit at his gravesite, and each day brought a slight change in the color of new shoots that took hold over the disturbed soil, but nothing could take hold in her heart. Set adrift with her husband’s life missing from hers, Marg couldn’t see a way to do anything much but breathe.
“Mommy, are you going to cry again?”
Tears slipped down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Kels, I can’t stop.”
“Uncle Thane!!!”
Marg glanced up to see Thane Austen, her husband’s best friend and hers, standing five feet away. The Admiral had always been a daunting man with his icy blue stare, now fixed on her. The grief etched as deeply in his heart as hers. Kelsey ran to him and threw her arms around his legs. The first men to hold her had been SEALs. Their gruff exteriors didn’t intimidate her.
Marg remained sitting on her husband’s grave, her long legs curled underneath her. She didn’t have the strength to get up. Thane’s six-foot-three frame bowed, and he picked Kelsey up in his arms.
“You been taking care of your mom, Kels?” Thane kissed her rosy cheek as she hugged him around the neck.
Thane had been in the waiting room of the hospital until Kelsey came into the world. Patrick had been with her in the delivery room. Of their three daughters, he’d only been home when Kelsey was born. Her sisters, Rayanne and Cindy, were in their mid-teens when Marg became pregnant with Kelsey. Thinking she was long past diapers, it’d been a shock. Patrick had been home for the first six months of her life, and it was he who stayed up all night with Kels in his arms, staring down at her and rocking in a chair near her crib until they both fell asleep.
Thane squatted in front of her, cuddling Kelsey between his thighs and casting a large shadow over the headstone. During their lives together, Thane had always shadowed Patrick. They were each other’s strength. Two Navy SEALs who had become legends in the eyes of younger men who wanted to protect America in the Special Warfare group.
Marg plucked the grass a strand at a time. “How’s Kayla?”
“Why don’t you pick up the phone when she calls four times a day to talk to you and find out?” Thane answered.
Marg bowed her head with Thane’s gentle admonishment. “I will.”
Harsh words, but true. Kayla, Thane’s wife, was one of her dearest friends. They’d all been through so much in the last couple of years. Recently, they’d moved to Hawaii when Thane became an Admiral and Patrick was promoted to Captain. When he offered Patrick a position in headquarters their lives were supposed to have slowed down, become normal and routine. Every team wife hitched a sleigh to one wish, that their husband would eventually remain stateside.
Both Thane and Patrick had spent twenty years on active duty out in the theatre as SEALs, but a terrorist and the threat of a viral pandemic had brought them back under fire and taken Patrick’s life. Marg hadn’t returned to Hawaii with Thane and Kayla. Instead, she stayed in San Diego, close to Patrick’s grave, and rallied her daughters around her.
“Patrick would never forgive me if he knew I let you wallow in grief.”
“I remembered something yesterday, sitting here,” she said, distracting him from a pep talk she didn’t want to hear.
Thane sucked in a deep breath. Communication wasn’t his strong suit unless he was bellowing at his men. It hadn’t been like that to begin with. In fact, Thane had been a totally different guy when he was younger. She, Patrick and Thane had all been different people back then. Thane didn’t show his softer side anymore. It had been crushed by serving his country and becoming a lethal assassin for Uncle Sam. He lost his grip on humanity over the years. Unlike Patrick, who rarely lost his faith. Most people saw Thane as the stronger of the two men, but she knew differently and so did Thane, the man the SEALs called Ghost.
His wife, Kayla, had come out of the blue a couple years ago and brought the hardened, then a commander, Thane Austen to his knees. To save her life, Thane had no choice but to finally leave behind his string of random women and warfare. Now, he was a doting father and a rugged, but protective husband.
“I’ve been thinking about the past a lot myself,” Thane admitted.
“Remember when we all first met? I went to a psychic with Lydia, Lt. Redding’s wife, and a couple other girls.”
Thane nodded. “Yeah, I remember. Pat and I had just finished our BUD/S training.”
“The psychic told me something and until now, I never understood.” She raised her head to stare into Thane’s handsome face. The scar that ran down one side from his cheek to his chin a reminder of those early years. “My grandfather relayed a message. Now, I understand it was about Patrick.” Tears rolled from her eyes. “If I would have figured it out back then, maybe I wouldn’t have—”
“Stop,” he said gruffly, curling Kelsey under one arm and rising to his feet, stretching out his hand. “Come with me.”
“Where?” Silent but commanding, he gazed down at her. She trusted Thane as much as she trusted the love of her life and took his hand.
* * * *
“Where are we going, Uncle Thane?” Kelsey sat between them in the front of his truck. Patrick’s truck. Marg had given it to Thane after they had buried her husband. As they barreled down the Strand, they passed the white beaches of Coronado. Too many memories. For the hundredth time, she wondered whether she should move closer to her parents in L.A.
“To show you something,” Thane answered.
Thane’s rough timbre was the only clue Marg had to his pain.
Kelsey wiggled higher in her seat and placed her little hand over his scarred massive paw. “Are you sad Daddy’s in heaven?”
Thane choked on his answer, then cleared his throat. “I am, but I’m trying to keep my mind on all the good times we had together.”
“You and Daddy were always friends for as long I remember.”
Marg and Thane both smiled at her youngest daughter’s remark. Kelsey was only seven years old, but Thane and Patrick’s friendship had been tight for over twenty years. They met their first day on BUD/S training. Became brothers in arms. There wasn’t a milestone in either of their lives they didn’t share.
“Momma, maybe Uncle Thane can be our adopted dad. Adam and Sloane are just babies, they won’t mind sharing.”
She kissed Kelsey’s head and squeezed her tiny shoulder. “Thane will always be your Uncle Thane, young lady. Adam and Sloane need him to be their daddy.”
“But I can still ask him stuff, like I did Dad, right?”
Thane answered with a slight shake of his head, but it wasn’t in rejection. Marg knew it was to ge
t control.
“Of course you can, honey. You can call me any time. You can stay with Aunt Kayla and me anytime you want.”
Kelsey leaned her head against his muscled arm, and he brought it around her, careful of his strength, and tucked her to his side.
Silence wavered like a thick fog until Thane parked the truck in the lot of the Silver Strand State Park and Kelsey scrambled over his lap to jump out.
“I love you all. I always have.” Thane gripped the steering wheel and stared straight ahead.
“I know, Thane.” She slid her hand over his, and they forked their fingers together. “You don’t have to tell me that.”
“Sorry isn’t enough, Marg. I don’t know if I could have stopped it from happening. I’d trade places with him. You have to know that. It would have been better if it had been me.”
“Better for who, Thane Austen?” she said with a stern warning that he’d better stop before he made her angry. “Better that Adam and Sloane never know their father? Don’t be stupid. It was an accident.”
“We don’t have accidents,” he said gruffly.
She didn’t want to wallow in her loss. It consumed her every waking moment. “Why are we here?” she asked as much in the dark as Kelsey.
“To remember.” Thane drew her out of the truck and placed an arm around her shoulder, guiding her down the beach to the water.
Tourists with colorful blankets, sprinkled themselves across the sand, soaking up the warm June sun. Marg kept an eye on Kelsey as she dug in the sand for shells. “I’ve been doing nothing else. I wish I could stop.” Tears erupted partly because of the sharp wind against her face, but mostly from a broken heart. “I don’t think I can do this without him.”
“Marg.” He wrapped his arms around her. “You’ve done it all without us. The girls are amazing because you were strong enough to raise them on your own. We were away too much over the years. Didn’t have a choice, but the woman Patrick loved…the woman I will always be there for, had her feet grounded. Determination never let you give in. He loved that about you. He loved that you didn’t back down even when he thought he wasn’t good enough for you. You didn’t back down when we told him that I had seduced you into my bed. You didn’t let your parents’ bias sway you from loving him. From the start, it was the three of us. It will always be the three of us.”