A SEAL's Pledge (SEALs of Chance Creek Book 3)

by Cora Seton

  By the time they arrived, however, Sam was as nervous as she’d been when she got off the plane. The clouds were even darker now, but Harris had been right; so far it hadn’t rained. A cluster of men and women were gathered near an empty fire pit chatting. The men wore work clothes, but the women were dressed in the same kind of Regency finery that Sam had seen them wearing on television. A sense of unreality washed over her. It was as if she had stepped into a movie, not just driven up to a ranch. Harris climbed out of the truck first. Daisy followed, barking excitedly. Sam meant to follow them, but she couldn’t seem to get her limbs to move. Harris came around the truck to open her door and Sam climbed out gingerly, arranging the skirts of her wedding gown. Already, people were beginning to turn their way, gesture toward them, point at Sam’s dress and the dog, and come to meet them. Cameramen followed in a throng, and Sam froze, intimidated by the idea that everything she did from now on would be filmed.

  “Where have you been?” a man Sam recognized as Boone Rudman asked.

  “I went to the airport,” Harris said.

  Boone nodded at Sam. “The backup bride.”

  “That’s right,” Harris said.

  “I went to get her, too, but she was already gone. I thought maybe she’d changed her mind.”

  “Nope.”

  Sam wasn’t sure what to make of the confrontation between the two men. Neither seemed angry, but there was definitely tension between them. Boone looked beyond Harris at her. When he moved to greet her, Harris stepped in his way.

  Boone hesitated, as if waiting for Harris to say more. When he didn’t, he asked, “You must’ve picked her up hours ago. What have you been doing ever since?”

  “Marrying her.”

  Boone stiffened. “Marrying her? What do you mean marrying her? She’s Curtis’s bride.”

  “Not anymore,” Harris said.

  The gathered crowd went quiet. Sam clutched her hands before her, her palms damp. She looked for a friendly face among them, but only saw confusion and concern. They were all just like they had been on-screen, the men weathered warriors, the women beautiful in their Regency gowns. Except instead of welcoming her with open arms, they were staring at her like she’d dropped in uninvited to a party.

  Harris stepped back to take her arm and lead her forward. “Everyone, meet my wife, Samantha Smith… Samantha Wentworth now.”

  Samantha tried to smile, but she was afraid it wasn’t convincing. The silence that had settled over the crowd deepened and just as she became afraid it would never end, a woman stepped forward, her bonnet framing her sweet face, her bodice encasing a beautiful figure. She wore a green gown that set off her fair features. Savannah Edwards, if Sam wasn’t mistaken.

  “Welcome to Base Camp,” she said. “We’re glad to have you.”

  Sam relaxed just a bit. Maybe everything would be all right after all.

  But even as she thought this, another woman pushed forward. Unlike the beauty in the green gown, she was dressed all in black in modern clothes, and Sam wondered how she could negotiate the rough ground in her high heels. She recognized this woman, too. Renata Ludlow. She was the one who always conducted the interviews on the show, and her piercing questions often reduced the men and women of Base Camp to stuttering answers.

  “Say that again,” Renata demanded of Harris.

  “This is my wife, Samantha Wentworth.” Harris stared her down, but Renata didn’t even blink.

  “You are mistaken; this is not your wife. For one thing, you haven’t married her. For another thing, Boone’s right, Samantha is Curtis’s bride. Curtis will romance her for the next forty days, and then he will marry her in front of the cameras, so our viewing audience can see every minute of the ceremony, just as they’ve been promised. Whatever foolishness you two have concocted between you is over right now.”

  “There’s no mistake about it.” Harris stepped closer to Renata, looming over her. “And you’ll stay away from her if you know what’s good for you.”

  “You’ll stay away from her, if you know what’s good for you,” Renata parroted in a squeaky voice. “You might think this is all a big game, but it’s not, and I have the contracts to prove it. You don’t get to marry until you draw the short straw, which you haven’t. You definitely don’t get to marry the bride who’s been promised to another man. Curtis drew the short straw, he’s going to marry next. And he’s going to marry her.”

  “Over my dead body.”

  Renata was as formidable in person as she was on-screen. Sam was glad she was addressing Harris and not her. Just when Sam thought it couldn’t get any worse, a man pushed his way through the crowd to stand before them. Curtis Lloyd. She recognized him from the show. She remembered how Boone told her it wasn’t fair to demand Clay and Nora decide their future while Nora was recovering from the attack. It wasn’t fair to demand that Clay marry somebody else and live a life of regret because he couldn’t wait for the woman he loved to heal. Curtis, who had drawn the short straw, had manfully agreed.

  But he must have changed his mind about going through with it if he’d gotten so drunk last night he couldn’t be bothered to come and pick her up this morning. She didn’t blame him for wanting to choose his own bride. Still, it was strange to see him in real life and know if he hadn’t slept in, she’d have married him today.

  “What’s all this?”

  “Just introducing everybody to my bride,” Harris said. “Curtis, meet Samantha Wentworth.”

  “Samantha?” Curtis looked her over, took in her wedding dress, and understanding dawned. “Samantha?” he said again. “Wait…you married my bride?”

  “I married my bride. You said you weren’t interested. You hit on every woman you saw at the wedding last night. You couldn’t be bothered to get up and go to the airport to meet her this morning. You made it perfectly clear that you didn’t want to marry Sam. So I stepped in and married her for you.”

  Curtis sputtered. “But… but… I just wanted a chance to meet her first. To—” He broke off, color rising in his handsome face. “Damn it, Harris!”

  “You didn’t want her,” Harris said again.

  “I didn’t know she’d look like that!”

  Samantha took a step back. If all Curtis cared about was her face and figure, she was glad he hadn’t come to marry her this morning. The connection she shared with Harris went far deeper. At least, she thought it did.

  “What’s done is done.” Harris’s tone said it was his final word on the matter.

  Renata and Curtis erupted simultaneously.

  “You agreed to be filmed every moment for one year.”

  “I never even got to meet her!”

  “You can’t marry until I say you can marry,” Renata said, stepping forward to waggle a finger in Harris’s face.

  “You can’t run off and steal my bride before I even have a say,” Curtis added.

  Sam took another step back. She didn’t like this one bit. In her fantasies about this moment, she’d arrived at Base Camp to a welcome of open arms and instant camaraderie.

  “Enough. Enough!” Boone stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled. The shrill noise pierced through the commotion, and everyone fell silent. “Harris, Samantha, Curtis, Renata, in the bunkhouse, now. Let’s sort this out.”

  Harris took her hand and led the way, not waiting to see if the others followed. Sam followed reluctantly, feeling like she’d stepped into a hornet’s nest. She wasn’t sure how to behave. Should she speak up and assert her right to be with Harris? Or keep quiet and let Harris stand up for both of them? He knew the others, after all. She didn’t.

  Looking back, she saw Daisy trot over to inspect Curtis and lick his hand. Sam stifled the urge to go and get the dog. Didn’t Daisy know she was consorting with the enemy? This was the man who’d hit on every woman he met last night because he was so relieved he didn’t have to marry her. The man who couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed this morning and tell her himself he’d changed his mind.
Daisy obviously didn’t care about that. She licked Curtis’s hand again and stuck close to him.

  Inside the building, Sam took in the rough surroundings, just like she’d seen on-screen. The large room had a battered wooden floor, and metal folding chairs were scattered around. A wooden desk sat in one corner, piled with paperwork and a laptop. Other than that the room was empty.

  Harris grabbed two chairs and moved them close together. He waved Samantha into one of them and she sat down carefully, although her dress had already taken a beating. Curtis paced the room before finally taking a seat at Boone’s command, but Renata refused. She stood there, toe tapping, arms folded over her chest, as several crew members followed them in and set up to record the scene.

  “Well, this is a cluster fuck,” she said. “Fulsom isn’t going to be pleased.”

  “We can figure this out,” Boone said reasonably.

  “There’s nothing to figure out,” Harris said. “Sam and I are married, end of story.”

  “Like hell you are,” Curtis said. “That’s my wife,”

  “She’s my wife,” Harris asserted. “Nothing you can say or do is going to change that.”

  “Don’t be so sure about that,” Renata said. “You haven’t shown us any paperwork. How did you manage to get married anyway?”

  Samantha shifted in her seat, uncomfortable with the way that they were all talking about her as if she wasn’t there. She wanted to speak up, but she was all too aware of the cameras filming everything. This was as bad as band meetings back on the bus, but at least there she hadn’t been filmed. Here, every word she spoke would be captured for posterity.

  “We went to the Heaven’s Gate Chapel,” Harris said.

  “How the hell do you even know about that place?” Boone asked him.

  “Seen it driving to Bozeman,” Harris said. “They did a real fine job of the wedding.”

  “Which we have no way of corroborating, since none of us were there to film it,” Renata exploded. “I’ll remind you again, your contract says that we have the right to film you whenever you are awake and outside your tent. This is in direct violation of that contract, which means that anything you did during the period in which you left Base Camp is null and void.”

  “That’s not the way it works,” Harris said, keeping his cool. Samantha wondered how he was doing it. She was beginning to lose her temper.

  “That’s right,” Curtis said. “Your marriage isn’t valid. It’s like it never happened.”

  “It happened,” Harris asserted, before Sam could do it herself. “Nothing you can do will change that now.” He pulled out his wallet, fished out a copy of the paperwork they’d been given back at the chapel and handed it over.

  Renata snatched it from his fingers, pulled out a slim, black cell phone, tapped at it and lifted it to her ear. “Get me Fulsom,” she said, unfolding the paperwork. She surveyed Harris and Samantha. “Fulsom has the resources to change anything he wants to. Your marriage will be annulled within the day. Then we’ll start over and do this right.”

  Harris stood up. “You can’t annul anything. What’s done is done. We’re married.”

  Renata looked at him coolly. “Are you telling me you two have consummated this marriage?”

  Harris swallowed. Samantha lowered her head, unable to look at anybody, sure her cheeks were red with heat. They hadn’t consummated the marriage, but they’d come incredibly close. Did that count? Should she speak up?

  “Not… not exactly,” Harris admitted.

  “Not exactly?” Curtis sputtered, leaping to his feet. “What the hell does that mean? If you put your hands on my bride, you’re going to pay.”

  “I’m not your bride!”

  Everyone stared at Sam as if Daisy was the one who’d spoken. “I’m not. I’m his.” She pointed to Harris.

  “Just how far did you two go?” Renata demanded of them, still pressing the phone to her ear.

  Clutching at the folds of her dress, not sure when she’d ever felt so humiliated, Sam found herself at a loss for words.

  “Far enough.” Harris glared at Curtis.

  Curtis glared back. “That’s it. You get this marriage annulled,” he demanded of Renata. “You get this joker out of here. That’s my bride, and he doesn’t get to touch her.”

  “I get to touch her anytime I want,” Harris said. “She’s my wife.”

  “She’s not your wife until I say she’s your wife,” Renata said.

  “She’s not ever going to be your wife,” Curtis roared.

  Harris shoved him. Curtis shoved him back. Boone stepped between the two men, just as it seemed they were about to come to blows. “Settle down.”

  “Fulsom? It’s Renata.” She turned her back on the rest of them as if the scuffle didn’t concern her in the least. Harris and Curtis backed away from each other. “We’ve got a problem. Harris went off half-cocked and married Curtis’s backup bride.” She listened for a moment. “That’s right. Um-hm. Yes. Yes, you read my mind. Of course. I like that idea. I’ll take care of it.” She ended the call and put the phone in her pocket. “Okay, that’s that. Harris, I understand you feel you have a prior claim. So does Curtis. Luckily, we have forty days until the next wedding is scheduled to occur. You and Curtis can both try to woo Samantha. Samantha will choose her groom—but not until a month from now. August tenth is when she’ll announce her engagement. That’s when she’ll name her husband-to-be. And not before then.” She turned to Samantha. “You got that?”

  “No.” Samantha finally found her voice again. “No, I don’t understand it at all. I married this man today. I pledged my life to him. I intend to keep my promise. I don’t want to be courted. I don’t want to pretend that I’m not already married to Harris. I want to be his wife.”

  Curtis strode off a few paces, spun around and came back again. “This is bullshit. I don’t know what you did to her out there, but whatever it is, it sucks. You had no right to pick up my bride. You had no right to marry her. I think you should have to leave the show.”

  “No one’s leaving the show,” Boone said. He turned to Renata. “If these two have fallen for each other, and gotten married, then what’s really the harm of it? We can re-create the wedding. We can move on to the next couple.”

  Renata was already shaking her head. “Absolutely not. We promised the viewers ten romances and ten marriages. It’s bad enough that they didn’t get to see you woo your wife. We’re not going to stiff them on any of the other romances. We will annul the marriage. Harris and Samantha will start over. Curtis will get his shot, too—I’ll make sure of that. It’s only fair to him, and it’s only fair to the viewers.”

  “Fuck that,” Harris ground out. “I’m not going to stand around and watch Curtis go after my girl.”

  “You don’t have a choice,” Renata said.

  “Like hell I don’t,” Harris said. “I’ll take her and leave.”

  Sam’s breath hitched. She wanted to be with Harris—but she didn’t want to leave. She had done all this to be part of a community—not to run away from one.

  Renata glared at him. “You’ll take her and leave?” she repeated, putting her hands on her hips. “Fine. Go right ahead. We’ll just shut this whole thing down right now. You’ll all lose, and you know the consequences of that. The developer Fulsom has on standby will win. I’ve got Montague on speed-dial. Give me an hour and I’ll have him here with his machinery. He’ll tear down the bunkhouse and the manor, flatten the tiny houses you’ve built so far and start the prep-work for the 325 houses he wants to build on this property. I’ll film all of it for the final episode of Base Camp. Remember the contract you signed at the beginning of the show? If the ten of you and your wives don’t meet the conditions, the game is over, and this ranch becomes a housing tract.”

  Harris stared at her, wet his lips, opened his mouth to speak and shut it again.

  “You’re not serious,” Boone said.

  “Try me,” Renata said. “We’re going t
o begin filming in five minutes. We’ll either re-film Samantha’s arrival at Base Camp, Curtis’s reaction to meeting his bride and Harris realizing she’s the woman he’s always dreamed of—or we’ll film the scene in which you all decide your free will is more important than your commitments, more important than the television show and more important than this community. We’ll show the American viewing public all the reasons they can’t band together to create a better life. Which do you want it to be? I’ll be waiting outside for your answer.”

  She strode out of the building, the tapping of her high heels loud on the wooden floorboards.

  Boone scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “Sit down,” he told Curtis and Harris.

  To Sam’s surprise, they did.

  “It’s like Renata said,” Boone told Harris. “We don’t have a choice. We’re in this thing together, and we have to see it through. Curtis, you made it clear to everyone last night you weren’t interested in marrying a woman you hadn’t known and chosen for yourself. You can’t blame Harris for stepping in and taking the opportunity you turned down. You might regret your decision, but that doesn’t mean you get to ruin what Harris and Samantha have found between them. On the other hand, Harris, you and Samantha broke the rules. You knew when you took her to the chapel to get married that you were violating your contract and the spirit in which our community is formed. Your rush to the altar shows that you knew damn well you weren’t doing the right thing.”

  “The hell with that,” Harris said.

  Boone interrupted him. “We don’t have time for a debate. We’re going to do what Renata said. We really don’t have a choice. Samantha will get a tent and bunk down with the other women. She’ll spend her days working on the B&B. She’ll also help out with the carpentry, and during that time she’ll get the chance to know both you and Curtis better. You both will get the opportunity to date her—but neither one of you will lay a hand on her until she’s had the chance to make up her mind. You heard Renata; on August tenth, Samantha will tell us who she’s chosen. The wedding will take place on August twentieth, as scheduled. Until then, there will be no physical contact among any of you.”