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

by Cora Seton

  “Maybe Savannah secretly pledged herself to celibacy when she was young,” Sam was saying when the waitress appeared again to clear away their salad plates and serve the main course. “Maybe she’s afraid to go back on a deal she made with God.”

  “Maybe Jericho is already married, and is frantically getting a divorce as we speak,” Harris said. “Or maybe he has a gay lover stashed somewhere.” He would probably pay for that later, but he was willing to feed Jericho to the wolves, if it kept Samantha’s unkind words about her parents off the air.

  “I wish I could kiss you,” Sam said suddenly.

  Harris swallowed, and shifted in his seat. Throughout everything, his desire for her had raged unabated. Now it surged all over again. “I wish I could kiss you, too,” he said. “Hell, I wish I could take you to bed right now.”

  She smiled, and Harris realized that she was playing it up for the cameras. She must be really desperate to keep what she’d said off the show. He’d go with it, but not because he cared about her parents’ feelings. He simply enjoyed the verbal foreplay. “If I had you alone, I’d get that gown off of you, and anything else you’re wearing underneath it, and I would lay you out on my bed and take a good long look at you, before I got down to the matter at hand.”

  She licked her lips again. “And if I got you alone, I’d get you naked as fast as humanly possible, and welcome you to do whatever you liked.”

  Harris nearly growled, his need for her was so bad. “I’d make the most of it.”

  “That’s what I’d be counting on.”

  Harris wasn’t sure how much longer he could do this without making a spectacle of himself. Samantha must’ve understood. She took a mouthful of her manicotti and moaned with pleasure.

  “That’s not helping,” he said.

  “Maybe I don’t want to help,” she said. “Maybe I want to drive you wild.”

  “Honey, if you’re trying to drive me wild, you succeeded days ago.”

  “Win, could you help me with my gown?” Samantha asked the following afternoon when she had finished up her work in the gardens. Her muscles ached, she was exhausted, and she couldn’t remember ever being happier. All day, as she’d transplanted seedlings from the greenhouse into the dirt outside and helped to start set up their hydroponics system, she’d replayed her date with Harris in her mind, especially the last parts, in which he’d made it all too clear how much he wanted her. This was so much more satisfying than driving the bus, and so much more meaningful, too. She wished she could show her parents around the gardens, and show them what she was doing. She wanted to explain to them she didn’t mean to hurt them by leaving them behind.

  She tried to picture who had taken over her job. Had her mother or sister done so? Or had the band brought in somebody from the outside? She hoped there hadn’t been too much disruption in their schedule while they made the transition.

  “Sure thing,” Win said.

  They’d had many chances to chat during the day and Sam and enjoyed Win’s sharp sense of humor. She gathered up everything she needed and led the way to the bunkhouse bathroom. Win helped her change, waiting while Sam washed up and then lacing up her new gown.

  “Who’s the lucky man tonight?”

  “It’s Curtis tonight.” Sam sighed. She wasn’t looking forward to another round of sparring with the man. With each date, he was working harder to impress her, and the worst of it was she was pretty sure they could’ve been friends if he wasn’t trying to make her his wife. Curtis was nice enough when he wasn’t being pushy, but there wasn’t a single spark between them. She wasn’t sure if Curtis was blind to that, or if his pride refused to allow him to back down. She’d tried hinting she’d changed her mind about giving it thirty days and wanted him to stop pursuing her. He’d only shaken his head. “That was a one-time offer. You chose to give me a month. I expect you to keep your word. Besides, it’s what Renata wants.”

  Sam couldn’t argue that.

  More than once, she’d wondered about that other woman Curtis had mentioned; the one he’d proposed to, but hadn’t ended up marrying. Was she the reason he wouldn’t take no for an answer?

  Whatever made him so stubborn, Sam was getting tired of it.

  “Where is he taking you?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m going to miss dinner here.” That annoyed her. She didn’t mind going out when it meant she and Harris could be together, but if she kept missing all of the group dinners at Base Camp, it would keep her separate from the others. It was as if she was still on trial here, rather than a full member of the community. As long as Curtis and Harris were fighting over her, it would stay that way.

  “Want me to do your hair?” Win gathered Samantha’s long hair into her hands, took the brush Sam offered her and got to work. Sam stood in front of the mirror and watched her progress. This was something that she hadn’t known in her former life. It had always been as if her mother and sister were in competition with her, and she’d never felt like pushing hard enough to win. She’d always held back, and that had kept a certain distance between them.

  Here, the women helped each other because they had to. Their old fashioned clothing was designed for an era far different than the current one. You couldn’t lace up your own stays. It was difficult to do up the fastenings of your gown by yourself. Their daily interactions made them closer.

  “There,” Win said.

  Samantha looked at her reflection. Win had rolled the bulk of her hair into a neat chignon. “Thank you.”

  When she came out of the bunkhouse, Harris was waiting for her. “Don’t fall for him,” he said, with a lazy smile that told her he wasn’t too worried about it anymore.

  “I won’t,” she said. “I think I know which man I want.”

  Harris stepped closer. “Maybe I’d better think about buying a ring,” he said loudly for the cameras present, winking to remind her he had their wedding rings for safe-keeping. She nodded back, aching to cross the distance between them and press a kiss to his mouth.

  “Samantha, you ready to go for a ride?” Curtis drawled the words in a lazy twang that gave them a meaning they shouldn’t have. When she turned, startled, his knowing smile implied a far closer relationship than the one they had.

  “Watch it,” Harris said.

  “Relax,” Curtis said. “Samantha will be in good hands tonight. I know exactly how to treat her.”

  Every sentence made it worse, and Samantha backed away, afraid the men would come to blows again. Instead, Curtis took her elbow. “Come on, sweetheart, we don’t want to be late for our date. I’ve been looking forward to this all day. Couldn’t get you out of my mind.”

  With a final warning look at Harris she hoped would keep him from rising to Curtis’s bait, Sam accompanied him to the truck and climbed in. Curtis waited until she’d arranged her skirts around her legs, and shut the door. He said something to Harris she didn’t quite catch, and a minute later he was in the truck, too, and had started the engine.

  A half-hour later, she was holding a paper bag of take-out food in her lap as Curtis drove. They were going on a picnic, although Curtis had yet to tell her where. The ride had been quiet, the inevitable cameramen in the backseat shifting in the silence, as if begging them to give them something to film. Samantha didn’t mind the lack of conversation, however. She wasn’t sure how much more she had to say to Curtis, and she had a feeling things were coming to a head between them.

  It wasn’t until Curtis pulled off from the highway onto a rutted road that Samantha began to recognize her surroundings. He was taking her down the same track Harris had the day she’d met him. The day she’d married him.

  “No,” she said. “Not here.”

  “Yes, here. Trust me, it’s one of the prettiest spots around, and it’s where we’re going to have our dinner.”

  Samantha couldn’t say more in front of the cameras, but heading up this road felt like trespassing. She had no idea if Curtis had somehow figured out where she and Harri
s had gone that first morning, or if this was purely a coincidence. When Curtis pulled over and climbed out, she refused to move. “Anywhere but here,” she said when Curtis opened her door.

  Curtis leaned in across her, undid her seat belt and lifted her down from the truck. He held her like that a moment, a hand on each hip, and leaned in close. She was afraid he would try to kiss her, but instead he whispered in her ear, “Look, I don’t know another picnic spot, and the sun’s going down. If we have to stop now and retrace our steps, it’s going to screw everything up, and we’ll have to do it again tomorrow night. Is that what you want?”

  Someone swiped the paper bag from her hand; one of the cameramen.

  Curtis’s hands remained on her hips, and she covered them with hers, trying to peel his away. “No.” Curtis was right; she didn’t want that. Tomorrow night she wanted to be with Harris, which meant she would have to get through this the best she could.

  “So you’re okay with this?”

  She definitely wasn’t okay with it, but she nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Curtis finally stepped back, took her hand and led the way to the small track that curved into the woods. When he turned back, flashed a grin at the cameramen and gave them a thumbs up, Samantha wanted to smack him, but she kept her cool and walked as quickly as she could, wanting to get this over with. Curtis kept a hand on her arm and slowed her down. Sam was fuming by the time they reached the overlook.

  “Where’s the food?” she snapped, then realized one of the crewmembers must have darted ahead of them, and set up the scene as if Curtis had done it himself earlier. A beautiful blanket was laid out on the ground. A picnic basket was artfully arranged, its lid open, displaying silverware and tempting food, including the take-out fare, which now was presented in covered containers.

  “Have a seat,” Curtis said.

  Against her will, Samantha did so, a growing sense of unease in her gut. All of this was too well thought out. The camera crew seemed to be in on it. She didn’t know what that meant, but she had a feeling it wasn’t good.

  “What’s going on?” She decided on a direct approach.

  “What’s going on is our time is running out,” Curtis said. “We only have a few weeks to get to know each other before you make your decision. I want you to really know what kind of man I am.”

  “What kind of a man are you?” Sam wondered if she’d just stepped into a trap.

  “The kind of man who wants you. The kind of man who would do just about anything to get you.” As he spoke, he leaned forward again, and once more, Samantha braced herself for a kiss. It never came, which almost disappointed her; because if it did, she could cry foul and Curtis would lose.

  Of course he knew that, too. Instead of kissing her, he touched her cheek, slid his hand along her jaw and around to the nape of her neck. He leaned even closer. It was as intimate a gesture as possible without taking anything too far. “We could be happy together,” he told her. “I would worship the ground you walked on. I would do everything I could to make you happy—work hard, stay by your side, be a man you could depend on.” He searched her face with his gaze. “Think about it, Samantha. I’m more a part of this community than Harris could ever be. I don’t just hang on the sidelines of things, I get involved. The people here are connected to me. Can’t you see how suspicious Harris is? How he holds himself apart from everybody else? It’s like he doesn’t trust any of us, and he never will. As his wife, you’ll always be an outsider, too.”

  Curtis’s words hit home. She had observed what he said; Harris did tend to keep himself apart from the others. She was afraid that as his wife, his distance from the group would extend to her, too. Sometimes, she worried what their relationship would be like over time. Would a distance grow between them, too? She didn’t think she could stand that. And what if they had children? How would he behave toward them?

  “I’m a family man,” Curtis said, as if he’d read her mind. “I want a big family. I already belong to one, and I’ve always enjoyed it. When the time is right, my relatives will come and visit, and you’ll see how it is. No one’s ever lonely around us.”

  The picture he was painting touched desires Sam had hardly admitted to herself she had. It must’ve shown in her face, because he leaned in closer. “Imagine us, living at Base Camp, our children running around with all the other kids in the community. Sharing meals with them, visiting back and forth in the evenings. You hanging out with the other women, knowing that everything is right between me and the other men. We’d be the ones to organize social events. Our kids would be friends with everyone else. Right in the center of the community, that’s where we’d be. Now imagine it with Harris. You know he’ll keep to himself rather than joining in. If you have children—if—he’ll train them to be the same way. You’ll always be on the outside of things. Is that what you want?”

  Samantha shook her head before she even knew what she was doing, and a tear slid down her cheek because he was naming all of her own fears. Before she could wipe it away, Curtis beat her to it, his thumb smearing the wetness across her cheek.

  “Don’t cry.” He spoke so loudly she jumped and pulled back. “It’s going to be all right,” he continued in that clear, distinct voice. “I’m here. You don’t have to marry Harris.”

  “What? That’s not what I—” Before Samantha could set him straight, Curtis turned toward the picnic basket and began to fix her a plate of food. She sat there, fuming, knowing everything that he’d said and done had been for the cameras. When he handed her the plate, she took it ungraciously, picked up a piece of fried chicken and stared at it, trying to figure out how to fix what he’d done. What could she do to make him back off and stop providing the cameras with fodder for the show?

  But Curtis seemed to have lost interest in doing so. He spent the rest of the evening chatting with her so politely she began to doubt her sanity. She remained aloof, but as the meal went on, with Curtis doing his best to lighten the mood, she couldn’t keep up her sullen responses. She finally gave up. It was hard to remain curt when he was being so sociable. With the cameras filming, she realized she was only helping his case. Curtis was coming across as a cultured, respectable man. She looked like a sulky idiot. There was nothing for it but to answer his questions and make conversation, which wasn’t all that difficult with a man as knowledgeable and witty as Curtis could be. Once again, she found herself feeling that if it wasn’t for the show they could’ve been friends. But not when he kept playing dirty.

  When the meal was finished, he poured her a glass of wine and one for himself, and leaned back on one hand to gaze up at the stars. He began pointing out the constellations he knew, and after a time she joined in. They discussed stars and galaxies, the age of the universe and how it got there in the first place. When she finished her glass, he refilled it again. He hadn’t said or done anything objectionable in over an hour and she finally relaxed. How long had it been since she’d had a night to merely gaze up at the sky and contemplate the universe? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done so. Curtis turned out to be a wealth of information about heavenly objects, and in the end, they had a lively debate about the cause of the Big Bang.

  Samantha had lost track of how much time had passed, and how many glasses of wine she had drunk, when Curtis finally said, “It’s probably time to get back. More work tomorrow.”

  “That’s right,” she said with satisfaction. She couldn’t wait to get up in the morning and get her hands back into the dirt again. She stood and began to help Curtis pack up, surprised to find herself swaying a little on her feet. More than once Curtis had to steady her, but he made a joke of it and put her at ease.

  They stumbled back down the little track toward the truck by the light of Curtis’s phone. He had taken her hand at the beginning, but soon she needed to lean on him in order to navigate the bumps and curves in the dark. By the time they reached the truck, Curtis’s arm was around her, supporting her over the uneven ground. He opened
the passenger side door for her and helped her in. Leaning across to fasten her seat belt around her, he took advantage of his position to snatch a kiss the cameras couldn’t see.

  Samantha sucked in a surprised breath. “Don’t,” she hissed, as quietly as she could; she didn’t want the cameramen to even suspect something had happened.

  Curtis tucked her skirt around her legs and shut the door on her, without acknowledging her words. When he climbed in the driver’s side, she asked loudly, “Are you even safe to drive?”

  “I’m not the one who’s been drinking,” he answered just as loudly, and started the truck. A moment later the truck was bumping down the rutted road back toward the highway.

  Stunned, Samantha kept quiet. Hadn’t he been drinking, too?

  Maybe not. She couldn’t actually recall him refilling his own glass, although she remembered him lifting it to his mouth many times. Had he deliberately gotten her tipsy? How had all of that looked for the cameras?

  All the way home, Samantha replayed that kiss. How had she let it happen? What would Harris think if he knew? She wanted to tell herself she had been repelled by it, but in truth it wasn’t repellent—and it hadn’t moved her, either. The problem with Curtis was he couldn’t see she didn’t want to be with him. He could be a good conversationalist, he was funny, and he was right; he could give her a place in the center of the community if she married him. It was flattering in an uncomfortable way how badly he wanted to win her. But she didn’t like the underhanded way he tried to achieve his means—the way he didn’t care about her feelings when he played his tricks.

  She only realized how late it was when they pulled into the parking area near Base Camp, and everything was dark, except the lone light that stayed lit in the bunkhouse overnight.

  “We’d better be quiet,” she said, and bit back a groan when she realized she had a problem; she had no one to help her out of her dress and stays. It looked like all the other women had already gone to sleep.