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

by Cora Seton

  “If we give them facilities and water, that’s like an open invitation for them to stay,” Boone protested.

  “If you don’t, those hippies will be using the great outdoors to take care of their needs,” the sheriff said. “And those camera crews hovering around will beam the results to the whole world. I don’t think that’s the image you want to project.”

  “Those hippies are my family,” Samantha put in.

  “I use the term in the best sense of the word, ma’am,” the sheriff said with a smile. “I’m a fan of Deader Than Ever. Believe me, I want everything to stay friendly here.”

  Samantha relaxed a little bit, but later she watched the growing crowd of protesters set up tents in the pasture where Boone and Cab had directed them, and her uneasiness grew. She’d seen this before, and knew how tenacious her parents and their followers could be. She had no doubt they would get a lot of press.

  By the time she got up the following morning, the crowd had swelled to several hundred, with more people arriving by the minute. She would’ve been surprised at how quickly it was all happening, if she hadn’t participated in similar protests before. Deader Than Ever’s fans were willing to drop anything and pay whatever it took to get to a concert. For the privilege of camping out and protesting with them, they would mortgage their homes and sell their cars. Judging from past events, there’d be several thousand protestors by sundown, and more by tomorrow. She’d hoped people wouldn’t be interested in a private argument between her and her parents, but she quickly realized that didn’t matter. They weren’t here to protest Base Camp so much as they were here to hang out with the band.

  “It’s beginning to look like Woodstock out there,” Avery said mid-morning when she came to check in with Sam. “We’re about to take our guests to Maud and James’s house for lunch and a walk in their gardens. If you’re coming, you’d better change.”

  It broke Sam’s heart to turn down the invitation, but she couldn’t leave the ranch now.

  “I’d better stay here,” she said. “Have fun.”

  “I’m sorry this is happening.” Avery gave her a quick hug. “I know how frustrating families can be.”

  “Thanks.”

  When Sam joined the line at the bunkhouse to get her lunch, she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to eat any of it. Outside again, she looked for a place to sit, and finally chose a log that was a little way off from the others.

  “I don’t know why we don’t just run them off,” Angus said, his thick Scottish accent making the idea sound almost jolly.

  “That would only make matters worse,” Clay said.

  “I don’t understand why they think we’re on opposite sides,” Boone said. “So what if we were in the military? Deader Than Ever is supposed to be supportive of sustainability.”

  “They are,” Samantha said. As angry as she was at her family, it was hard to hear people put them down. “They’re very supportive of sustainability, and environmentalism in general. They don’t like war.”

  “No one likes war,” Jericho said.

  “They think that if the country keeps a standing military it’ll find reasons to use it,” Samantha told them. She knew it was futile; discussions like this never got anywhere. And besides, she understood both sides. She didn’t like war either, and the idea of Harris out there in danger, being shot at, shooting at other people—it was hard to imagine. She didn’t want to imagine it.

  But she wasn’t so naïve she thought doing away with the military would end war. Didn’t every country in the world have a military of some sort? She didn’t think that would change anytime soon.

  She straightened when she saw Renata coming their way, wondering if her objective was to chew her out for allowing her parents to disrupt things. Instead, Renata was fairly glowing, and there was a bounce in her step.

  “Isn’t this fantastic?” she exclaimed. “Think of the publicity. Our ratings are going to go through the roof. Our servers are already getting overloaded by hits on the website. Samantha, you’re a genius.”

  Did Renata think she’d planned this? Samantha glanced around. Did they all think she’d planned this?

  “This is all my parents’ doing, not mine,” she said angrily. “I think my work here shows just how dedicated I am to our cause.”

  “Damn straight,” Boone came to her defense. “You get more done in those gardens than anyone else. No one’s questioning that. Renata, don’t forget that if Base Camp fails, so does your TV show. With all this publicity, you could do yourself right out of a job.”

  “There’s always another job,” she told him, but she left soon after.

  Sam decided she needed a cup of tea. Leaving the men to strategize, she slipped inside to the kitchen and found Kai already cleaning up the meal.

  “Aren’t you going to eat?” she asked him.

  “No appetite. I’m having flashbacks,” he told her. “I come from Venice Beach, California, which isn’t exactly a hotbed of military support. When I decided to join up, some of my friends picketed my house. It was a joke—kind of. It kind of wasn’t, too.”

  “It’s hard to go against family and friends, isn’t it?”

  “It is. Was,” he said sheepishly. “They’re proud of me now that I’ve joined Base Camp. Sometimes they act like I finally came to my senses. Kind of bugs me, you know?”

  She nodded. “We live in a complicated world. I wish people would acknowledge that.”

  “Complicated doesn’t make for good soundbites,” he said, lifting a stack of dishes into the soapy water in the sink.

  “Seems unfair that they make you do all the cooking and all the cleaning, too,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t refuse a hand,” he said with a quick grin.

  “Be glad to.” She needed something to keep her mind off the evening she was missing. And the fact that her family was picketing just a few hundred yards away.

  Curtis barged into the kitchen, stopped when he saw her, exchanged a look with Kai she couldn’t interpret and left again with only a nod.

  Complicated, indeed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‡

  Close to midnight, Harris lay in the grass, binoculars pressed to his eyes, and once again scanned the encampment of protesters. Their numbers had ballooned up faster than any of them had thought possible, and he estimated about four thousand people were milling around in their field. Tents had sprung up all over, along with campfires and charcoal grills. Harris knew the whole thing was giving Cab nightmares. He didn’t like it one bit, either.

  It’d taken him half an hour to wriggle his way close, but he had a feeling he could’ve been far less careful and he still wouldn’t have been noticed. Bottles of wine were being passed around from protester to protester, and the air was fragrant with weed. Someone strummed a guitar, and a few people were singing, but the biggest cohort were huddled around listening to Henry.

  Who would’ve thought the mild-mannered guitarist would have so much to say about capitalism, patriotism and the military industrial complex? Henry had obviously put a lot of thought into it over the years, and had come up with some interesting hypotheses about the way the country was run. Harris had heard them all before, of course. If you wanted conspiracy theories, just hang around a military compound.

  Backing him up was another, younger man. Kenny Strike. Where Henry was focused on his theories, Kenny was all fire and brimstone. He wasn’t interested in debate—he wanted action.

  “We need to shut down this show—by any means necessary,” he kept saying, even when Henry tried to calm him down.

  Harris didn’t like the sound of that.

  What he wanted to hear was the tactics the group planned to use to disrupt the show. But maybe that was expecting too much from this crowd. For all their talk, neither man outlined a plan. Still, acting as recon for Base Camp was far more satisfying than hanging around moping over Samantha.

  He was pretty sure the protesters wanted maximum press coverage, and were
waiting to make their stand until television crews could arrive from around the country. He’d already seen several, and he was sure there would be more tomorrow. He began to think about ways to keep the chaos under control. Keeping the crowds contained was the main thing. If the protesters got too close to the manor, or to Base Camp, things could get ugly.

  Harris stayed in position for hours, long past when the revelers finally all retired to their tents, and snoring, fueled by alcohol, filled the air. When another hour passed, and no one stirred, he finally eased away again, got to his feet and went back to catch a quick round of shut-eye himself.

  He was up again well before dawn, watching every move the protesters made as they ate their breakfast, stretched and scratched, and began to form up their picket lines again.

  Supporters began to stream in as soon as dawn arrived. And with them the press he knew Henry and Rachel craved. Renata strode around issuing orders to the cameramen. “This is fabulous,” he heard her say more than once. Her happiness galled Harris more than he could say.

  Riley, when she came down to Base Camp from the manor to confront Boone, was far less pleased. “We’re trying to give our guests a Regency experience, and these protestors are ruining it,” she exclaimed. “Can you imagine what kind of reviews we’re going to get? We might as well shut down the bed-and-breakfast right now.”

  Samantha picked at her breakfast miserably. Harris knew she’d wanted to spend the weekend with the other women and their guests, but he supposed she couldn’t do that when her own family was threatening to shut Base Camp down. It was too bad she was missing out. Curtis, standing some distance away, but watching Sam, seemed just as miserable. Harris hadn’t seen the two of them interact once during the week that had crawled past. Boone and the others kept telling him Sam had made it clear she didn’t want to.

  He was beginning to lose his resolve as far as keeping his distance was concerned. Should he talk to Samantha?

  Maybe.

  Hell, probably. But he’d have to wait until this current crisis was over. He couldn’t let Sam—or anyone—distract him when trouble was brewing.

  “Nonsense,” Renata told Riley. “This publicity is good for all of us. Just you wait, you’ll have customers knocking down your doors.”

  The look Boone and Riley exchanged said neither of them believed it. “I’m sorry,” Boone said to his wife. “If I could run them off I would, but you know that would just make it worse.”

  “Samantha, isn’t there something you can do?” Riley asked her.

  “I’ve tried, but I’m the last person they’ll listen to,” Samantha said. “They hate that I’m getting any attention at all. They want it all for themselves. And—” she sighed “—they’ve always been against the military. I’m sorry. I thought maybe if I laid low, they’d go away, but that doesn’t seem to be working.”

  “I guess we’ll have to give our guests free vouchers for another vacation,” Riley said. “I don’t know if they’ll come back again after the experience that they’ve had so far, though.”

  “Maybe I could talk to your guests,” Samantha told her. “I can apologize to them on my parents’ behalf. I can explain what’s going on, make a joke out of it. Maybe they’ll see the humor?”

  “I’m not sure that will help,” Riley said. “We’re going to take them back to Maud and James’s house in a half-hour or so for lunch, instead of eating down here like we’d planned. We’ll skip the tour of Base Camp, too. At least at Maud and James’s they’ll get away from the noise and crowds for a while.”

  “I’m sorry,” Samantha said again. “I wish I could fix this.” She got up to bring her dishes back to the bunkhouse, and Harris’s heart squeezed at the way her head was bowed and her shoulders slumped. A minute later she was back outside, heading toward the gardens. He knew she spent most of her time there, and he’d overheard Boone talking about what a green thumb she had. She was finding a place for herself here, or she would be if her parents hadn’t interfered.

  He’d talk to her, he decided. As soon as the protestors were gone. He’d find out the truth once and for all about her and Curtis, and if she said there was nothing between them, he’d believe her.

  A weight slipped off his shoulders as he made his decision, and he realized with chagrin he’d almost chosen the lonely end of the roof again—for no good reason, except his own pride.

  He went to talk to Boone about finding a way to get rid of the protestors once and for all. He had a wife to remarry.

  If she’d still have him.

  “Traitor!”

  “Sell out!”

  Sam ignored the names the protestors called at her, and the cameras filming her progress, as she searched for her parents later that morning in a crowd that had ballooned up to far more than the pasture could bear. The show had arranged for two-dozen blue porta-potties to be delivered to the edge of the field, but there were lines in front of each of them and she’d heard Boone asking Renata to order more.

  “…we’ll have ten thousand people out there by the time the day’s over,” she’d heard Renata saying.

  This had to stop. And she was the only one who could stop it. She should have realized that earlier.

  When she finally spotted her mother, Rachel was in a heated discussion with Kenny Strike.

  “…I’m saying is that you’re being too soft on them,” he was saying. “They’ve got your daughter, I get that, but that’s no reason to hold back.”

  “There’s a right way to do things and a wrong way,” Rachel told him. “We’re here to show the strength of peaceful protest—” She cut off when she saw Sam. “We’ll talk more later,” she told the man. Sam thought he would argue, but he left with a disdainful shrug.

  “Having fun yet?” Sam asked her sarcastically.

  “He’s a bit of a hothead,” Rachel admitted. There were lines on her mother’s face Sam didn’t remember, and she wondered if Rachel was regretting what she’d started.

  “Why’d you invite him then?”

  “I didn’t. I can’t control who joins in—you know that. Besides, he’s Melissa’s friend.”

  “And we all know how good she is at choosing friends.”

  Rachel rolled her eyes. “Did you come her to pick on your sister?”

  “No, I came here to see if you’d come to your senses. We aren’t doing anything wrong, Mom.”

  “That remains to be seen.” Rachel led the way a little apart from the others. “You could still join us, you know.”

  Sam could imagine how her mother would love that. The press would be all over it, resulting in more publicity for the band.

  “What’s this really about?” Sam asked. “Because I’m beginning to think you’re throwing a huge hissy fit because you lost your damn driver.”

  “You really left us in the lurch, you know that?” Rachel said. “We nearly missed a show because of you.”

  “You nearly missed a show?” Sam was speechless. “Mom, I nearly missed my life because of you. How long were you going to keep me in that bus? Forever?”

  “Well, how’s that for ingratitude?” Rachel was as furious as she was. “You got to tour with one of the most popular bands of our time—for your whole childhood! You grew up around the best musicians, listening to the best music, seeing our whole country—and other parts of the world. And I’m supposed to feel bad?”

  “No, Mom.” That wasn’t what she wanted at all. “You’re supposed to feel good about what I became because of all of that. Not ruin it!”

  “Oh, stop being so dramatic.” Her mother put her hands on her hips, nodding toward the milling crowds. “I heard your own director say it; we’re giving you great publicity, too. It’s a win-win situation.”

  “No, it’s not.” Sam realized her mother would never understand what Base Camp meant to her.

  But Sam knew how important it was. What the men and women who lived here were trying to do transcended any feud she had with her family.

  And in order
to save it, she had to step away.

  Defeat thickened her throat and she closed her eyes, fighting to maintain her composure. She would hate to leave Base Camp. To lose her new friends, her new calling.

  To lose Harris.

  But it was the only way to stop to what was happening. These crowds were out of control. And while protests could start peacefully, they rarely stayed that way when they ran too long. There was nothing for them to do here on Westfield’s lawn. The sun was hot. She’d seen too much alcohol being passed around. Soon they’d get bored. Restless.

  Disaster could only follow.

  “You know what?” She opened her eyes again. Faced her mother. “Go call off the ravening hordes.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you won. I’m leaving the show.” It hurt to say it, but it was the only way. She’d get over her disappointment somehow. She’d go somewhere else. Somewhere she could garden. Create some kind of life for herself.

  Although how she could possibly do that without Harris she didn’t know.

  “You’re coming back?” Her mother’s face lit up and for one second—one very short second—Sam wondered if this was about Rachel missing her.

  Sam’s heart squeezed. She’d missed her mother, too. All of her family—and the band.

  But she couldn’t turn back time and be a child again.

  “No, Mom, I’m not coming back,” she said sadly. “And I’m not going to stay here, either. Not if that gives you an excuse to shut Base Camp down. I’m just leaving. For good.”

  She turned to go. Rachel rushed after her. “You can’t walk out of my life again. I won’t let you.”

  “Watch me.”

  “Samantha Smith, don’t you turn your back on me.”

  The closest protestors turned to see what was going on. Samantha kept going.

  “It won’t work. We won’t leave,” Rachel called out. “We’ll shut it down anyway.”