by Kariss Lynch
He pulled into a sandy lot and parked. Grabbing a couple of blankets from the backseat, he jumped from the car and spread one out on the hood overlooking the ocean.
“Hop on.”
Kaylan clambered up beside him and tugged a blanket over her legs. Together they watched the sky change color to a blood red as the sun sank.
Kaylan broke the silence first. “You might change my mind. Sunsets are pretty good here.”
“I’m sorry. What?”
Kaylan giggled and curled up under his arm. “I’m not repeating that twice. I will not cheat on sunrises or my lake house.”
“It’s not cheating if it’s truth.”
“Loyalty, Nick. Loyalty.”
“For you, always. For my team, without question. To Alabama, well . . . ”
She punched his chest, drawing a laugh from him. “Okay, okay. Alabama’s not so bad. But we’ll have to agree to disagree on sunsets and sunrises. By the way, I have something for you.”
He sat up and pulled something from his pocket. It glistened in the failing light.
“My ring. I was starting to wonder if you changed your mind.”
She reached for the ring, but Nick closed his fingers over it. “On second thought, since we can’t agree on this whole sunrise, sunset thing, I don’t know what we can agree on. Maybe it isn’t meant to be.”
Kaylan gestured to the sinking sun and the pinks and oranges now mixing with the red. “It’s amazingly beautiful. Better than sunrises. In California,” she added under her breath.
“Well, I guess that will have to do. Conflict resolution at its finest. May I?” He reached for her hand and slipped the ring on her finger. “Promise me something?”
She leaned close to his face, her green eyes glowing in the dimming light. “Anything.”
“Don’t ever take this off again.”
Her fingers drifted over the scruff on his chin. He loved her gentle touch. “Never.”
He clasped her hand and kissed her fingers. “Great. I have one more surprise.” He reached into his pocket again and withdrew a box.
“What’s this?”
She opened the lid and her breath caught. On the top of a sheet of cotton he’d placed a chain with dog tags. He removed the chain from the box.
“Kaylan Lee Carmichael,” he read as he slipped the chain over her head.
Tears filled her eyes. “Nick, I can’t believe you did this.” She turned the tag over in her hand. “‘Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.’ Nick.” Her eyes met his.
He brushed her cheek, thankful for the depth of love that now radiated from her eyes. Her walls had dropped. She trusted him completely, loved him fully, and depended on the Lord wholeheartedly. In that she found strength, the heart of a warrior the size of any SEAL he knew.
“You amazed me out there. You fought hard for your friend. I could kill you for not getting help. But your courage is undeniable.”
She laughed. “There had to be proof I was strong enough to marry a SEAL.”
His fingers drifted down her cheek and into her hair, pulling her face to his. “No, Kayles. I never needed any proof. You had it in you all along. Your strength comes purely from your relationship with the Lord and who He made you to be. God is faithful, and I’m honored to call you mine.”
His lips met hers as the sun sank lower, colors dimming in the light of his love for her. He deepened his kiss, his fingers weaving through her hair. His Kaylan. His gift. Something he would never deserve but God had given. He silently thanked his Savior.
Kaylan drew back and rested her forehead on his. The colors were gone. A turquoise sky hovered above them as stars began to appear. “So what’s next?”
He leaned back against the windshield, pulling her against his chest. “Now? I guess it’s time to plan a wedding. And I can’t wait to marry you, Kaylan Richards.”
“Soon to be Carmichael, mister.”
He kissed her forehead, thankful that no matter what came their way, he’d found a woman capable and willing to stand by him forever. In her he’d found an invaluable treasure.
COMING FROM KARISS LYNCH WINTER 2016
BOOK 3, HEART OF A WARRIOR
SURRENDERED
Chapter 1
THE BATTLEFIELD, POCKMARKED with old cars and metal remains, yawned before Nick Carmichael and his team of SEALs. He’d never fought a battle quite like this before, nor faced a more formidable opponent. He crouched behind a beat-up red pickup truck. The insides had disappeared at some point, leaving the shell to the mercy of enemy fire. Nick dug his boots deeper into the mud, evidence of rain the night before, although the deceptively blue sky showed no trace of it now. Despite the slightly cooler January temperature, moisture seeped from beneath his armor. He hated feeling stuck and sweaty.
He folded his body behind the tire to avoid the peppered shots coming from the other side and glanced down the line to Micah Richards, his best friend and the brother of his fiancée, Kaylan. The enemy had them penned for now, but Nick grew tired of waiting.
“I thought you said she knew how to shoot,” Nick shouted over the cacophony of paintballs striking the truck bumper.
Micah lifted his face mask and rolled his eyes. Yellow paint splattered above his head, causing him to duck.
“Masks on!” shouted the referee from across the field, and Micah slapped his mask down again just as a pink paintball splattered near his feet.
“I said we taught her. Not that she was good.” He shrugged, his voice muffled beneath the plastic. “At least they are hitting somewhat close to us.”
Across the field their SEAL buddies Titus, Jay, and Colt crept from obstacle to obstacle, avoiding fire until they finally huddled with Nick and Micah. David and Seth Richards—Micah’s brothers visiting for the week—joined from the other end of the metal line.
The San Diego paintball course affectionately named “The Fuel Depot” stretched the length of half a football field. It reminded Nick of a deserted old gas depot in some podunk Southern town. Nick peeked from behind the tire to get a better lay of the land. Old cars, painted to look rusted, long since retired, sat scattered in something resembling a horizontal line formation from one end of the field to the other. Barrel obstacles sat stacked two tall and two wide throughout the course, providing the perfect cover for their wives and girlfriends regaling them with colored paint. The girls had insisted on playing with one fewer teammate, convinced they could still dominate.
They could shoot. They just couldn’t aim.
“Come on out, fellas!” Titus’s wife, Liza, yelled as another barrage of fire peppered the air.
“Yeah, don’t be chicken.” Megan, Kaylan’s roommate, hollered from behind a barrel.
“Says the girl at the back of the course,” Jay shouted back. He spat in the mud and crouched behind the truck with Nick. Self-titled “team prankster,” he clearly didn’t see the current predicament as challenge enough for his skills.
Nick pulled a piece of Juicy Fruit from his pocket and popped it in his mouth. “Colt, you got eyes on all the girls?”
“My sister is hiding out behind a couple of barrels off to our right and back about twenty yards,” Seth huffed beneath his mask. A University of Alabama linebacker, his shoulders barely fit behind the single barrel he crouched behind.
“Anyone else?”
At their silence Nick rolled over again, trying to gauge the direction of the paintballs with the locations he now knew. His sniper skills served him well in moments like these. Melody, David’s girlfriend, popped from behind a single barrel at the back right of the field to fire a shot. He grinned at her shoot-and-hide approach. That left one more.
“Jay, where’s your date, man?”
“My what?”
Micah bent next to him and slapped him across the chest. “Gorgeous blonde, successful lawyer, way out of your league, responds to Bree. Ringing any bells?”
“Oh, right.” His bored expression caused Nick to chuckle. “She’s got guts. She’s behind the car right next to Liza and sneaking pretty close to our line.”
A movement caught Nick’s eye, and he fired. A frustrated cry met his ears as Bree stood tall with her hands over her head. “I’m out. You happy?”
“Well, one down.” Nick rolled and sat up, swiping the drying mud from his cargo shorts. “Jay, if you don’t like her, why’d you bring her?”
“Because Megan won’t go out with me. Now, for the love of everything sacred, can we please put them out of their misery?” Jay begged as he readied his gun. “Whose idea was it to play paintball with a bunch of women anyway?”
“I can’t take much more of this. They think they’re winning,” Colt huffed.
“They have to be about out of ammo,” Titus said as he swiped a bead of sweat rolling down his neck.
The sun hovered in the California sky, heating the metal around them. Nick sighed. “Kaylan bruises like a peach. I’m going to hear about it for the next two weeks.”
Jay flipped his mask up, his blue eyes incredulous. “That’s what’s holding us back? Man, forget this!” With a whistle the men took off in twos and threes, taking cover behind the obstacles. Gunfire erupted in earnest. The SEALs were out to win.
Micah slapped Nick’s back, chuckling as he scurried off. “She’s your problem now, my friend. No refunds or exchanges.”
“I haven’t married her yet,” Nick muttered as feminine cries filled the air. He might as well help end this quickly. He rolled onto his belly beneath the truck and took aim. He watched Kaylan creep closer and take cover behind two metal barrels fifteen yards away. She took aim facing away from him, her green eyes intent beneath her mask. Nick grinned. Why not up the stakes a bit?
“Yo, Seth! Feel like picking on your big sister?”
Seth shuffled closer and leaned down to hear as the carnage continued, the SEALs now fully engaged and decimating the enemy. “What do you have in mind?”
Nick’s smile spread wider in anticipation, his breath heating the air in his face mask. “How ’bout a game of catch? Keep her distracted while I sneak up behind her. I’ll take her hostage, and we’ll force the girls to surrender.”
Seth smirked. “You do remember this is paintball and not BUD/S, right?”
Nick remembered well his days training to be a SEAL, but it’s what made this faux war even more fun. “You’re playing with SEALs, son.” He slapped Seth on the back and crouched low to take up his position before Seth could toss another jab his way. He needn’t have worried. Seth trained his sights on his sister instead.
“Hey, Kayles, we taught you to shoot better than that.”
His taunt worked like a charm. Kaylan fired and the shot went wide, causing Seth to momentarily duck and snicker. His head popped up as he continued his teasing, fulfilling his role of younger brother. Nick ran to the next barrel. A shot came from his right. He swiveled, aimed, and fired in a fluid movement, taking out Megan, who lost her balance and fell rear first into the mud in surprise.
“Seriously?” Megan shrieked. She swiped at paint on her protective vest as she stood to her feet and stalked off the field. “I hate pink.”
Nick smirked, imagining her in the pink bridesmaids dresses Kaylan was thinking about choosing in honor of Sarah Beth, her best friend who had died in the Haiti earthquake almost a year before. He shook his head. Only two barrels remained between Kaylan and him, but Kaylan had eyes only for Seth.
His shoes squeaked in the mud as he ran to the next barrel, assessing the scene. Bree, Megan, and Jia slumped off to the side, watching as the guys cleaned shop. Jay stood fuming next to them, paint on the center of his mask and covering his thigh. “Let’s end this, men ,” he shouted. Only Kaylan, Liza, and Melody remained in the game. Nick knew just how to force their hand.
With a final sprint he pounced on Kaylan, forcing a squeal as she tried to swivel around.
“Nuh-uh, gorgeous. Just drop the gun nice and easy.”
“Nick Carmichael, this is paintball, not war games, and I am trying to shoot my smart-mouth little brother.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that. He may be a smart-mouth, but he’s on my team.”
“I heard that, traitor!” Seth shouted.
Nick pulled Kaylan to her feet in front of him with his arm wrapped around her and his gun held at the ready in his other hand.
“All right, all right. Game’s over, ladies. Time to give it up,” Nick called across the field to Liza and Melody.
“Don’t think because Kaylan is in front, we won’t still shoot,” Liza hollered. Titus had married a spitfire, a spitfire he was about to take out from the looks of it.
“Liza, look out,” Melody and Kaylan yelled from different sides of the field as Titus crept up.
Liza spun and fired at Titus just as Colt let loose a round that splattered against her back. She howled, and her eyes shot daggers at her husband. David put a quick end to Melody with a shot to her toes peeking out from beneath an old, dented Cadillac, and the game ended.
Kaylan swung around in Nick’s arms, her green eyes sparkling. “That, my dear fiancé, was world-class cheating.”
Nick bit back a chuckle. He pulled her face mask off, placed a finger under her chin, and murmured, “When you learn how to actually shoot, we might call it a game.”
“You jerk,” she squealed. “I grew up in the South. I can outride and outshoot most other people.”
Nick crossed his arms over his chest as Kaylan’s brothers and Melody joined them at the barrels in the center of the field. “First of all, not everyone in the South rides a horse, so don’t perpetuate the stereotype. Second, you are playing with Navy SEALs. You will never outshoot us. And third, your brothers epically failed to teach you how to shoot at anything.”
“Hey there, don’t blame us. We tried.” Micah p
opped Nick on the back of the head.
“She finally shot a coke bottle a couple of years ago,” David said as he threw his arm around Melody. The petite blonde folded her arms and leaned into him, her smile evidence of her familiarity with Richards’ family banter.
“Actually,” Seth interrupted, “I kind of shot that bottle and let her take the credit.” His sheepish expression almost made Nick feel sorry for Kaylan. Almost.
“Seth Richards, I really am going to kill you.” Kaylan’s face went red as she took off after her brother. She was no match for the sophomore collegiate football star. He let her chase him before turning around and flipping her over his shoulder. He trundled back to his family as she screamed.
“Shall we?” he motioned to the parking lot where the rest of the guys and their wives and girlfriends were gathering to leave.
“I’ll take her,” Nick responded, bracing himself as Seth dumped Kaylan into his arms. Nick swung her into a cradle position as David, Micah, Seth, and Melody walked ahead of them to the gravel parking lot. Laughter drifted on the breeze, and Nick thanked God for the family he would join in just a short time.
He gently placed Kaylan on the ground and they hung back for some alone time, Kaylan gazing after her brothers. “You know, sometimes I hate that my brothers are all much stronger and taller than I am. I think God made a mistake by not giving me a sister.” A sadness stole across her eyes, tugging at Nick’s heart.