Issued to the Bride One Marine (Brides of Chance Creek Book 4)

by Cora Seton

  Brian groaned, then chuckled. “It’s never going to stop, is it?”

  “Nope,” Logan said happily. He looked Lena up and down appreciatively.

  “What?” she whispered. “Why are you looking at me that way?”

  “Because you take my breath away, Lena Reed.”

  Her eyes shone, and he saw so much love reflected there, he knew they’d be happy, come what may.

  “Dearly beloved,” Halpern began.

  Logan squeezed Lena’s hand. She squeezed his back.

  “We are gathered here today…”

  Lena felt her mother’s presence as she stood in front of the altar and listened to Reverend Halpern repeat the words she’d heard so many times. She wished she knew where the General was and how he was faring, but uncertainty was part of life and she’d come to realize there was nothing she could do now but wait. She’d made her pledge to the stone, and she’d stick to it. Maybe she and her sisters should have done that long ago, rather than letting their mother’s promise speak for them.

  She was glad for Logan’s strong presence beside her, and if she was honest she was glad for this silly dress. Just for once she wanted to feel soft in contrast to Logan’s strength. She wanted to bend to fit him, to be supple in his hands.

  Then she’d go back to being a ball-buster.

  A ball-buster who shared his last name.

  Lena and Logan Hughes.

  She bit back a grin and glanced up to see an answering one on Logan’s face. Did he feel like she did? Like they were getting away with something?

  Surely someone would stop them.

  Logan spoke his vows in a clear, steady voice, and she hoped she sounded as sure of herself, because she was. When he slipped her wedding ring on her finger, her heart swelled with so much love she thought it would burst.

  And when Reverend Halpern announced they were husband and wife—and told Logan he could kiss the bride—she went up on tiptoe, nearly breathless with anticipation.

  This was the man she loved—and she planned to spend a lifetime with him. A lifetime that was starting today.

  Logan leaned down, kissed her thoroughly and whispered, “My mom says it’s time to get started on those babies.”

  “She did not!” But at the moment it sounded like a very good idea. Working on them—if not having them quite yet. “Behave yourself.”

  “Never.” He kissed her again, lifted her up off the ground and swirled her around. “Not as long as I’m with you.”

  She decided she could live with that.

  Epilogue

  ‡

  Alice didn’t think she’d ever seen Lena so happy. Not since their mother had died, anyway. She’d been radiant at the altar, and her smile had been unceasing ever since Logan kissed her and led her back up the aisle. Now they were dancing, their love for each other more than evident.

  Alice wished she was dancing, too, but she’d been out of sorts all day, and she supposed she must have shown it, because she hadn’t gotten many offers—

  And if she was honest, she’d turned down most of them.

  She couldn’t understand what was happening to her. Her hunches were all messed up. She still got flashes of things that would happen to her sisters—she’d known Jo would spill her wine and had been on hand with seltzer water and paper towels just a moment later—but the hunches that concerned her were intermittent—

  As if they were being blocked.

  She supposed that accounted for her grumpiness. It certainly wasn’t the fact that all four of her sisters were married.

  And she didn’t even have a boyfriend.

  She wouldn’t get one, either, hiding away in the kitchen like this. But Reed women didn’t meet their husbands-to-be on the dance floor. They met them at the front door, after the General sent them, and she didn’t want to think about the General tonight.

  It was her fault he’d gone missing. She’d been the last to leave the ranch the day they’d all met up at Linda’s Diner and realized what they’d done. She’d spotted another drone in the distance that morning, and had been so furious at the idea that her maze was being spied on, she hadn’t thought twice about whether or not one of her sisters were home when she left the ranch later to do her errands.

  Now no one knew what had happened to the General, which meant no husband showing up on the steps today for her.

  Which was fine: she didn’t want one. Certainly not one he’d pick.

  Bad enough fate sent her hunches and visions all the time, making her life seem preordained rather than under her control. She didn’t need another choice made for her.

  But she didn’t want the General to be in danger, either.

  She lugged the dishes toward the sink and was halfway across the kitchen when her sight overtook her, sending her reeling toward the counter to set them down with a crash.

  He was here. The man the General had sent for her.

  The doorbell rang.

  Alice shook her head. It couldn’t be. Not when—

  The doorbell rang again, and she realized it was only a matter of time before someone else heard it and went to see who was there.

  It couldn’t be a husband, she reminded herself. The General was missing. He couldn’t send anyone to Two Willows right now. But a shiver traced down her spine. Someone was here with an important message. She knew that in every fiber of her being.

  Alice took a deep breath and counted to five, then strode to the front door, her spring green bridesmaid gown swirling around her ankles. The happy hub-bub of the party in the living room swirled around her, but didn’t calm her nerves.

  She opened the door to find a handsome man with sandy brown hair and blue eyes on the other side. He stood at ease like a soldier, hands clasped behind his back, legs spread in a strong, ready stance. There was a rugged duffel bag on the porch to one side of him.

  The man stuck his hand out. “I’m Jack. Jack Sanders. The General sent me. You’re Alice.”

  She nodded. Found her voice. “I knew it would be you.”

  “I knew you’d say that,” he answered.

  “You’re the one who sent the drone.” Alice’s throat was dry. This was the man the General had sent. The man he meant for her to marry. But where was—?

  “You’re the one who shot it down.”

  “Not me; Lena.” One point for her.

  Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Do you know what I’m going to say next?”

  She shook her head. Try as she might, she couldn’t catch hold of it, but a sudden foreboding filled her. Whatever it was wouldn’t be good. Alice shivered and crossed her arms over her chest.

  Jack stepped closer, suddenly filling the doorway. His gaze held hers, and she read concern—and a searching hope she couldn’t fathom. He cleared his throat.

  “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”

  Ice water swept through her veins. Of course. She’d known that ever since the owl swooped out of the sky and grabbed that mouse. Alice nodded and waited, unable to breathe, until he said the words already echoing in her mind.

  “The General’s been hurt. He’s coming home.”

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  Other books in the Brides of Chance Creek Series:

  Issued to the Bride One Navy SEAL

  Issued to the Bride One Airman

  Issued to the Bride One Sniper

  Issued to the Bride One Soldier

  Read on for an excerpt of Volume 1 of The SEALs of Chance Creek series – A SEAL’s Oath.

  A SEAL’s Oath

  By Cora Seton

  Chapter One

  ‡

  Navy SEAL Boone Rudman should have been concentrating on the pile of paperwork in front of him. Instead he was brooding over a woman he hadn’t seen in thirteen years. If he’d been alone, he would have pulled up Riley Eaton’s photograph on his laptop, but three other men ringed the table in the small office he occupied at the Naval Amphibi
ous Base at Little Creek, Virginia, so instead he mentally ran over the information he’d found out about her on the Internet. Riley lived in Boston, where she’d gone to school. She’d graduated with a fine arts degree, something which confused Boone; she’d never talked about wanting to study art when they were young. She worked at a vitamin manufacturer, which made no sense at all. And why was she living in a city, when Riley had only ever come alive when she’d visited Chance Creek, Montana, every summer as a child?

  Too many questions. Questions he should know the answer to, since Riley had once been such an integral part of his life. If only he hadn’t been such a fool, Boone knew she still would be. Still a friend at least, or maybe much, much more. Pride had kept him from finding out.

  He was done with pride.

  He reached for his laptop, ready to pull up her photograph, whether he was alone or not, but stopped when it chimed to announce a video call. For one crazy second, Boone wondered if his thoughts had conjured Riley up, but he quickly shook away that ridiculous notion.

  Probably his parents wondering once again why he wasn’t coming home when he left the Navy. He’d explained time and again the plans he’d made, but they couldn’t comprehend why he wouldn’t take the job his father had found him at a local ranch.

  “Working with horses,” his dad had said the last time they talked. “What more do you want?”

  It was tempting. Boone had always loved horses. But he had something else in mind. Something his parents found difficult to comprehend. The laptop chimed again.

  “You going to get that?” Jericho Cook said, looking up from his work. Blond, blue-eyed, and six-foot-one inches of muscle, he looked out of place hunched over his paperwork. He and the other two men sitting at the table were three of Boone’s most trusted buddies and members of his strike team. Like him, they were far more at home jumping out of airplanes, infiltrating terrorist organizations and negotiating their way through disaster areas than sitting on their asses filling out forms. But paperwork caught up to everyone at some point.

  He wouldn’t have to do it much longer, though. Boone was due to separate from the Navy in less than a month. The others were due to leave soon after. They’d joined up together—egging each other on when they turned eighteen over their parents’ objections. They’d survived the brutal process of becoming Navy SEALs together, too, adamant that they’d never leave each other behind. They’d served together whenever they could. Now, thirteen years later, they’d transition back to civilian life together as well.

  The computer chimed a third time and his mind finally registered the name on the screen. Boone slapped a hand on the table to get the others’ attention.

  “It’s him!”

  “Him, who?” Jericho asked.

  “Martin Fulsom, from the Fulsom Foundation. He’s calling me!”

  “Are you sure?” Clay Pickett shifted his chair over to where he could see. He was an inch or two shorter than Jericho, with dark hair and a wiry build that concealed a perpetual source of energy. Even now Clay’s foot was tapping as he worked.

  Boone understood his confusion. Why would Martin Fulsom, who must have a legion of secretaries and assistants at his command, call him personally?

  “It says Martin Fulsom.”

  “Holy shit. Answer it,” Jericho said. He shifted his chair over, too. Walker Norton, the final member of their little group, stood up silently and moved behind the others. Walker had dark hair and dark eyes that hinted at his Native American ancestry. Unlike the others, he’d taken the time to get his schooling and become an officer. As Lieutenant, he was the highest ranked. He was also the tallest of the group, with a heavy muscular frame that could move faster than most gave him credit for. He was quiet, though. So quiet that those who didn’t know him tended to write him off. They did so at their own peril.

  Boone stifled an oath at the tremor that ran through him as he reached out to accept the call, but it wasn’t every day you got to meet your hero face to face. Martin Fulsom wasn’t a Navy SEAL. He wasn’t in the military at all. He’d once been an oil man, and had amassed a fortune in the industry before he’d learned about global warming and had a change of heart. For the last decade he’d spearheaded a movement to prevent carbon dioxide particulates from exceeding the disastrous level of 450 ppm. He’d backed his foundation with his entire fortune, invested it in green technology and used his earnings to fund projects around the world aimed at helping him reach his goal. Fulsom was a force of nature, with an oversized personality to match his incredible wealth. Boone liked his can-do attitude and his refusal to mince words when the situation called for plain speaking.

  Boone clicked Accept and his screen resolved into an image of a man seated at a large wooden desk. He was gray-haired but virile, with large hands and an impressively large watch. Beside him stood a middle aged woman in a severely tailored black suit, who handed him pieces of paper one at a time, waited for him to sign them and took them back, placing them in various folders she cradled in her arm.

  “Boone!” The man’s hearty voice was almost too much for the laptop’s speakers. “Good to finally meet you. This is an impressive proposal you have here.”

  Boone swallowed. It was true. Martin Fulsom—one of the greatest innovators of their time—had actually called him. “It’s good to meet you, too, Mr. Fulsom,” he managed to say.

  “Call me Martin,” Fulsom boomed. “Everybody does. Like I said, it’s a hell of a proposal. To build a fully operational sustainable community in less than six months? That take guts. Can you deliver?”

  “Yes, sir.” Boone was confident he could. He’d studied this stuff for years. Dreamed about it, debated it, played with the numbers and particulars until he could speak with confidence about every aspect of the community he wanted to build. He and his friends had gained a greater working knowledge of the fallout from climate change than any of them had gone looking for when they joined the Navy SEALs. They’d realized most of the conflicts that spawned the missions they took on were caused in one way or the other by struggles over resources, usually exacerbated by climate conditions. When rains didn’t come and crops failed, unrest was sure to follow. Next came partisan politics, rebellions, coups and more. It didn’t take a genius to see that climate change and scarcity of resources would be two prongs spearheading trouble around the world for decades to come.

  “And you’ll start with four families, building up to ten within that time frame?”

  Boone blinked. Families? “Actually, sir…” He’d said nothing about families. Four men, building up to ten. That’s what he had written in his proposal.

  “This is brilliant. Too brilliant.” Fulsom’s direct gaze caught his own. “You see, we were going to launch a community of our own, but when I saw your proposal, I said, ‘This man has already done the hard work; why reinvent the wheel? I can’t think of anyone better to lead such a project than someone like Boone Rudman.’”

  Boone stifled a grin. This was going better than he could have dreamed. “Thank you, sir.”

  Fulsom leaned forward. “The thing is, Boone, you have to do it right.”

  “Of course, sir, but about—”

  “It has to be airtight. You have to prove you’re sustainable. You have to prove your food systems are self-perpetuating, that you have a strategy to deal with waste, that you have contingency plans. What you’ve written here?” He held up Boone’s proposal package. “It’s genius. Genius. But the real question is—who’s going to give a shit about it?”

  “Well, hell—” Fulsom’s abrupt change of tone startled Boone into defensiveness. He knew about the man’s legendary high-octane personality, but he hadn’t been prepared for this kind of bait and switch. “You yourself just said—”

  Fulsom waved the application at him. “I love this stuff. It makes me hard. But the American public? That’s a totally different matter. They don’t find this shit sexy. It’s not enough to jerk me off, Boone. We’re trying to turn on the whole world.”
>
  “O-okay.” Shit. Fulsom was going to turn him down after all. Boone gripped the arms of his chair, waiting for the axe to fall.

  “So the question is, how do we make the world care about your community? And not just care about it—be so damn obsessed with it they can’t think about anything else?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ll tell you how. We’re going to give you your own reality television show. Think of it. The whole world watching you go from ground zero to full-on sustainable community. Rooting for you. Cheering when you triumph. Crying when you fail. A worldwide audience fully engaged with you and your followers.”

  “That’s an interesting idea,” Boone said slowly. It was an insane idea. There was no way anyone would spend their time watching him dig garden beds and install photovoltaic panels. He couldn’t think of anything less exciting to watch on television. And he didn’t have followers. He had three like-minded friends who’d signed on to work with him. Friends who even now were bristling at this characterization of their roles. “Like I said, Mr. Fulsom, each of the equal participants in the community have pledged to document our progress. We’ll take lots of photos and post them with our entries on a daily blog.”

  “Blogs are for losers.” Fulsom leaned forward. “Come on, Boone. Don’t you want to change the world?”

  “Yes, I do.” Anger curled within him. He was serious about these issues. Deadly serious. Why was Fulsom making a mockery of him? You couldn’t win any kind of war with reality television, and Boone approached his sustainable community as if he was waging a war—a war on waste, a war on the future pain and suffering of the entire planet.

  “I get it. You think I’m nuts,” Fulsom said. “You think I’ve finally blown my lid. Well, I haven’t. I’m a free-thinker, Boone, not a crazy man. I know how to get the message across to the masses. Always have. And I’ve always been criticized for it, too. Who cares? You know what I care about? This world. The people on it. The plants and animals and atmosphere. The whole grand, beautiful spectacle that we’re currently dragging down into the muck of overconsumption. That’s what I care about. What about you?”