A SEAL's Triumph

by Cora Seton

  “If you went right home to Grandma Diane’s after school, you’d keep yourself out of a lot of trouble,” she always said, but she was the one who’d made him go to school in Chance Creek rather than on the reservation, where she was principal, so what did she expect?

  Grandma Diane’s was a silent household, torture for a boy like him. Boone and the others had befriended him right away when he’d started at their school, and their boisterousness held his loneliness at bay.

  He would have fit in better at the reservation school than in town, but Sue worried people would accuse her of favoritism toward him. That meant he ping-ponged back and forth, in town during the week, on the reservation for weekends, not truly belonging in either place. Boone, Clay and Jericho were his lifeline, so when they came up with a plan, and he was able to join them, he made sure he did, no matter how much trouble he’d catch for it later.

  “You’re between two worlds,” Grandma Diane used to say with a quiet sigh, but that wasn’t quite it. He knew Diane did her best, but she’d never been comfortable with the fact her daughter had hooked up—there was no other word for it—with a man from the nearby Crow reservation, given birth and then taken off to live a life that was increasingly chaotic until finally dying at thirty-four from an aneurysm in Tennessee.

  Walker wasn’t sure what had made his mother so restless. Maybe it was a reaction to her parents’ carefully scripted life of work, church and community service. Diane and Paul tried to love Walker but kept him at arm’s length. Sue had explained it once. “Diane can’t get over the loss of her daughter. She’s afraid to love you for fear you’ll break her heart, too.” Grandpa Paul was simply too busy to have time for anyone. He worked at the feed store full time when Walker was a kid, was a deacon at their church, volunteered with several local service organizations and served on the board of trustees at the Chance Creek library. He passed away when Walker was fourteen. Walker’s paternal grandfather, Gerald Norton, a kind man with a big heart and plenty of time for his grandson, passed away the following year. His grandmothers got him through the rest of high school.

  Between Diane’s formal wariness and Sue’s stiff pride, he was never coddled, but he was always loved, and Walker figured he’d done well enough.

  Still, that feeling that he never quite fit in all the way—anywhere—sat deep in him.

  He’d thought he’d come to terms with it until the day Fulsom offered to fund Boone’s community if, and only if, they all agreed to marry within twelve months. He should have said no. Wanted to say no. Should have moved on and let his friends do what worked for them. For one thing, he’d have to be crazy to marry given what he believed was coming at them all. For another, he’d made a promise—a dumb promise—and needed to find an honorable way out of it before he could make any plans that involved a woman.

  He’d opened his mouth to tell Boone—and Fulsom—just that. Instead, he’d heard himself say yes—like he had a thousand times when he was a kid.

  And he’d regretted it ever since.

  Now he was bound by two promises he couldn’t escape. A man lived by his word, that’s what his father had told him. A promise was a promise.

  He was in big trouble.

  Someone whistled, long and low, and pulled him from his thoughts.

  A woman he’d never seen before strode down the path from the manor toward them, followed at a distance by Riley and two other women he didn’t know. Their old-fashioned dresses rippled around them as they walked. Boone had told him about the Regency gowns, but seeing them in person was something. The woman in the lead was coming fast, the rest hurrying to catch up with her. Boone straightened.

  “She’s hot,” someone said.

  “She’s pissed, you mean,” Angus McBride said. One of the new recruits to Base Camp, he loved to lay a Scottish accent on thick, although Walker had noticed he could drop it anytime he wanted. “I think we’re in trouble, lads.”

  “Goddamn you, Boone Rudman,” the petite redhead yelled as she marched right in among them, “you are a stupid, lowlife, pond-scum-sucking, dirty old goddamn ass, and I hate you!” She gave Boone a shove that actually knocked him off balance, mostly because he was too surprised to react in time. Despite himself, Walker stifled a smile. He thought he heard someone else laugh.

  When was the last time Boone had been pushed around by anyone?

  “Avery—”

  Avery wasn’t done. “You’ve ruined everything, you shitfucking butthead—you and your stupid band of merry frogmen. I hope you rot in hell!”

  “Avery—”

  The woman could swear like a sailor, but Walker thought she belonged in a Renaissance painting, all curvy and lovely and full of life. He wondered what Boone had done to piss her off so badly. His friend tended to boss people around.

  “I’ve waited years for the chance to live with my friends and quit my asinine job so I could actually do something I loved, and now you want to steal it all away from me?”

  “I’m not stealing—”

  “Nora’s going to Billings to get a teaching job. Savannah’s going to California so she can have peace and quiet to practice her piano!”

  A silence stretched out as Boone took this in, and if his expression was anything to go by, he knew he was in trouble. “You told them,” he said to Riley over Avery’s head.

  Riley nodded, and Walker’s heart twinged with remembered guilt. The last time he’d seen her look this anguished was when Boone had passed her over for another, older girl when she was sixteen. At the time, Walker hadn’t been very sympathetic. He’d still thought of her as a kid.

  He figured he knew why Avery was so mad now, though. Boone mentioned he’d explained to Riley about Fulsom’s rules. Riley must have told her friends.

  And they were furious. The blonde and brunette standing behind Riley hadn’t uttered a word, but if looks could kill, he and every other man on site would be ready for burial.

  “That’s right; Riley told us,” Avery said to Boone. “Not you—you didn’t have the balls to do it. And you—” Avery turned on Clay. “You’ve had the gall to pretend you like Nora? Like hell! You want to use her to spawn your demon seed. And you—” She pointed an accusing finger at Jericho. “You thought you could sweet-talk Savannah all the way to the altar? Hanging’s too good for you!”

  Jericho froze like a deer caught in headlights. Clay opened his mouth to protest.

  “But mostly it’s you.” Avery turned back to Boone. “You just… suck! I hope Riley finds a better man to marry. Someone like…” She scanned the crowd, caught sight of Walker for the first time and locked her green-eyed gaze with his.

  A zing of electricity traced through his veins, bringing Walker on high alert in a way he hadn’t been since the last time he’d come under fire on a mission. It was that same slowing of time, the awareness of his heart beating hard, his breath coming fast—and as the moment stretched out, he knew he’d met someone who’d change his life.

  His grandmother talked about these moments sometimes. Pay-attention moments, she called them and had drummed it into his head since he was little that the body knew things the mind couldn’t grasp, and it was his job to listen to it.

  What did this reaction mean? That Avery was beautiful? Warm? Vibrant?

  Everything he wasn’t?

  No—it was more than that. She was important.

  “Okay, folks,” Boone said placatingly, “let’s all take it easy.”

  They’d gone far beyond easy. Avery’s presence here was going to make his life way too complicated, Walker realized. His throat had gone dry with the understanding that everything had changed. A moment ago, he’d been reluctantly on board with this plan, picturing himself as a bystander who’d do as much as possible to help his friends.

  Now his role had changed, and he was as much in the thick of it as anyone else here.

  He’d just met a woman he instinctively knew he could love. A woman he could spend eternity with.

  Even if etern
ity was what none of them had.

  He had to act fast, he decided. He needed to change the trajectory of this confrontation right now, or the surprisingly wonderful future he’d just glimpsed could speed right by him, like a comet burning past a planet, in and out of its orbit, heading out to the depths of space.

  “She’s right,” he said loudly, and he could tell he’d surprised Boone almost as much as he’d surprised himself. “You have ruined things.”

  “Hey!” Boone protested.

  “These women had a plan; you messed it up.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “It’s simple.” He faced down his friend.

  He had everyone’s attention, and he’d definitely riled Boone. This was his project, after all—these were his men—

  Walker raised an eyebrow, a subtle reminder that he’d always outranked Boone in the military and had the right to speak now; they all did. Boone bit back whatever he was about to say.

  Walker let a moment pass, so everyone could take a breath, and by the time he continued, they were all listening intently. He ignored them, focusing on Avery as if she was the only one there.

  She was the only one who mattered to him right now. She still gazed at him, transfixed, and to his surprise, Walker thought he saw interest there.

  Interest in him as a man.

  Heat suffused him, desire so strong he almost reached out to her then and there, but he held back.

  Could a woman like her want him?

  He wanted her.

  Every vein thrumming with awareness, Walker took in the sweet curve of her cheek, the arch of her eyebrow and the way her body filled out her old-fashioned dress. He hadn’t known how much he’d been longing for female company. Had convinced himself he didn’t need any of that.

  He was a fool.

  Now he needed to make her stick around long enough to see if she could feel something for him. Had the interest he’d glimpsed been real or the fantasy of a man who’d gone too long without?

  He wasn’t sure.

  What should he say to her?

  He thought about explaining how everything had come about. Maybe if she knew they’d accepted Fulsom’s strange terms because they couldn’t see any other way to get this project off the ground, she wouldn’t judge them so harshly.

  He rejected that plan. Like Sue always said, why use ten words when one will suffice?

  “Here’s the thing,” he told Avery. “Sometimes there’s compromise. Sometimes there’s sacrifice.” Would she understand what he was trying to say? He knew a lot about sacrifice and had been raised to withstand every kind of disappointment, but Avery was light and sunshine, a butterfly to his sturdy oak. He hated to ask her to give up anything.

  “And you want us to sacrifice,” she said flatly.

  Maybe she wasn’t as much a stranger to adversity as he’d thought. Was he losing her by being so blunt?

  He didn’t want to lose her.

  He nodded. “We want you to sacrifice.” Compromise wasn’t possible in this situation, not with Fulsom calling the shots. He wondered what he’d do if she refused—or if she took her friends and left. Now that he knew there was an Avery in the world, he wanted to keep her here as long as possible.

  “You know how unfair that is?” Her pretty face tilted up toward him, but she didn’t back down an inch.

  “I know.” It’s worth it, he wanted to add. What we could be together is worth it. He couldn’t do that, though. Not with so many people watching them.

  His fingers itched to reach out and take her hand, to establish a connection and keep it. He wished he was a bolder man when it came to women, but Sue would be appalled if he behaved that way.

  Avery deserved the chance to make up her mind if she wanted to be touched by him. She seemed as caught up in him as he was in her, but that didn’t make it fair, either. Did she wonder what it would be like to be alone together? His thoughts were running away with him, imagining talking to her, kissing her—

  Riley broke the spell when she moved to stand beside Avery. “This is why I didn’t want my friends involved,” she said to Boone. She took Avery’s arm. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Walker almost reached out to stop them. Racked his mind for something else to say that would keep Avery here with him longer.

  In the end, he kept quiet. Either Avery would be as curious about him as he was about her—or she wouldn’t.

  He kept hold of her gaze, though. Refused to look away. Hoped she could tell he wanted far more than this moment with her.

  She flushed a little under his scrutiny. Looked him up and down again.

  Stay, he willed at her. Give us a chance.

  She hesitated, but in the end she turned and faced Boone. “You don’t deserve Riley” was her final salvo. She let her friend drag her away, the fight gone out of her. She didn’t look back, but he thought she wanted to.

  She was tough—but fragile, too. He had to remember that. To take care—

  A thought struck him, one painful enough to take his breath away.

  He was going to hurt her, he realized. He wouldn’t mean to, but it was almost inevitable, given his circumstances.

  Almost.

  There was just a sliver of a chance he could pull this off without doing so.

  Determination filled him, and Walker swore he’d do everything in his power to prevent Avery from ever learning he’d been promised to another woman when he fell for her. He’d do what it took to hunt down Elizabeth Blaine and free himself from her once and for all.

  “Now what do we do?” Jericho asked, his gaze on Savannah’s retreating back.

  Boone lifted his hands in defeat and walked away.

  Looking after him, Clay shrugged. “We’re screwed,” he said.

  Walker wasn’t ready to accept that. “We’re screwed only if we let ourselves be.” He regretted his words when they turned to him. Hadn’t he been filled with doubts about this project only minutes ago? Who was he to rally them?

  He watched Avery toil up the hill with the other women and knew he’d always be able to pinpoint her in a crowd from here on in.

  He was a man who’d fallen hard for a woman at first sight. A man who wanted the chance at a future with her.

  “We’ll do everything it takes to convince them to give us a chance,” he said, his will rising to meet this new challenge. “Everything.”

  Chapter One

  ‡

  Present day

  “Walker, something’s wrong!”

  At the sound of Avery’s voice, Walker sprang into motion before he was fully awake, out of his sleeping bag, into jeans and boots and halfway across the floor before it dawned on him that she was fully dressed and calling him from outside the open bunkhouse door. Had she already started her morning chores?

  He was losing his touch.

  Walker was still untangling his dreams from reality as he followed her outside. She darted ahead of him, the forest green of her work gown contrasting with the wide, white apron she wore over it. After nearly a year spent with a ranch full of women in Regency garb, he still had to smile to see Avery pick up her long skirts and run toward the closest pasture, but his smile was short lived. She was heading for the bison.

  Was something wrong with them?

  They’d already been let out once this year by someone trying to sabotage their chances to win Westfield Ranch. Were the bison gone again? Would they need to wake everyone and call all their friends in town to help round them up?

  No. There they were, a herd of prehistoric-looking animals in the gloom of an early April morning, their shapes mingling with tendrils of fog.

  “It’s Ruth. Something’s wrong with her,” Avery tossed back over her shoulder, still running. She stopped only when she reached the fence.

  Walker prided himself on a keen eye, but Avery had him stumped with the way she could discern one bison from another in the herd. The animal she was pointing to stood some twenty yards from the fence, motionless wh
ile her herd-mates cropped the pasture around her.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Walker caught up with Avery, as edgy with the desire to get close to her as he always was when she was around, especially these last weeks when she’d held herself so aloof.

  He’d messed up—big time. Accused her of stealing a family heirloom, a traditional Crow fan used in ceremonial dances that had been handed down for generations and given to him by his father. He’d thought he had proof. Clem Bailey, one of Base Camp’s directors, had showed them footage of her committing the crime.

  He still wasn’t sure why he’d believed the man.

  “She’s just standing there. She won’t eat. She isn’t moving, except she’s—I don’t know. She’s shaking now and then, and she’s making these strange sounds.”

  As Walker watched, a ripple ran over Ruth’s shaggy body, and she emitted a kind of painful lowing sound that must have been what sent Avery running to find him. He didn’t blame her; it was like nothing she would have heard from the beasts before. He’d heard it plenty of times, though. There was a bison herd on the Crow reservation, and he’d grown up taking note of all their behaviors.

  “She’s calving.”

  Avery’s mouth opened, and she turned to him, her face pale in the gray light of dawn. “Calving? Isn’t it too early? Her baby isn’t due to come for another two weeks.”

  He smiled at her belief in the punctuality of nature. He knew Avery had been studying about all the animals she helped care for on the ranch. She’d named every one of them, and heartache was bound to follow, given this was a working ranch, not some petting zoo. Avery had hidden depths, though, and a strength that kept her going even when life dealt her setbacks.

  Even when he broke her heart.

  She’d come to him for help just now, he reminded himself. When she feared for an animal, it was him she’d run to find. She just as easily could have pounded on Boone and Riley’s tiny house door or one of the others. Her instinct had been to seek him out.