King's Ransom: (Tall, Dark and Dangerous Book 13)

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Tasha felt tears spring to her eyes. “Okay, that was a good one. But still. Thomas.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, taking her hands and pulling her over to sit with him on the sofa. “You’re right. I should’ve trusted you.” If only he’d stopped there. But he said it. “But...”

  He realized he shouldn’t’ve said the b-word, even before she narrowed her eyes and pulled her hands free. He shook his head.

  “No, just say it,” she said, glancing over at the front desk, double-checking that the clerk had gone into the back room—that they truly were alone. “You started, so finish. But what?”

  He cleared his throat. “I don’t know why you just didn’t tell me.”

  “Because I promised Ted that I wouldn’t,” Tasha informed him. “The only reason we’re talking about this right now is because I finally got a chance to talk to him. He told me it was okay to tell you... what you’ve already figured out because of Jeff.”

  “Still,” he said. “You couldn’t have given me even just a little clue—”

  “No, I couldn’t.” She was absolute. “He’s keeping his sexual orientation private, at least for right now. Do I wish he’d come out and live his life openly? Of course I do. It’s the twenty-first century. The world is way more welcoming than he thinks. I think his mother is, too, but that doesn’t give me the right to give you little clues that out him to you. And believe me, I thought about it. He’s in love with someone else. How easy would that’ve been to say to you? It’s true, he is. But if I said something like that and you pushed me in terms of who...? As soon as I use even vague they pronouns, well, there’s another little clue. Or am I supposed to lie at that point, and say she?” She shook her head. “I didn’t want to lie to you.”

  “You could’ve said, There’s something important that you don’t know.”

  Tasha looked at him. “And that’s not another giant, flashing neon clue? If I said that to you? There’s something important about Ted that you don’t know? You’re gonna assume, what, that he has six toes on his left foot? No. Nope. You’re gonna assume he’s gay. Which, I repeat, should not be an issue today, but sure as hell is with all the hate out there, being intentionally stirred up among the deplorable, the fearful, and the willfully ignorant.”

  Thomas nodded. She knew he understood. “You know, what you said about his mother...? When we were on that conference call, it was Queen Wila who made the request for Jeff Willems to be released and brought to the hospital. She said, I’m sure my son would appreciate his support.”

  Tasha shook her head in disbelief. And there was a potentially amazing twist. What if, all this time, the queen’s seemingly active dislike was because she knew—or at least suspected—that Tasha’s relationship with Ted was fake. “Will you do me a favor and tell Teddy that? I’m not sure he’ll believe it if it comes from me.”

  “I will,” Thomas said. “And I really do appreciate that you made Ted a promise that you wouldn’t break. I get that. I respect that.”

  “But you didn’t,” she said. “Respect it. Instead of saying There’s something you don’t know, which, by the way, is pretty damn obvious because there’s a lot you still don’t know about me—I said Trust me.” Her voice shook. “And you chose not to.”

  Thomas nodded. Looked her in the eye. “That was a mistake,” he said. “I am sorry. More sorry than I can say.”

  She waited, and there was no but this time.

  And this time, when he reached to take her hands, Tasha let him.

  “I hope you can forgive me,” he said. “And I hope this maybe helps you see that I’m not perfect. I try to be, but I make mistakes all the time. I get things wrong.”

  “I never said you were perfect,” she reminded him. “I said that I thought you were perfect for me. But if you don’t trust me...”

  Thomas nodded. “I do,” he said, but then quickly corrected himself. “I’ll learn to. It might take some time. I can’t promise you that I won’t make more mistakes, because I’m used to being older than you. It’s hard not to think of you as... young.”

  “Cue the intro for Sixteen Going on Seventeen.”

  “Ouch.” Thomas winced. “That guy was a condescending asshole.”

  “And a Nazi,” she agreed. “Luckily, I was born canny and careful. And in your defense, I had to nearly wrestle you to the ground to get you to write upon my empty page.”

  He was laughing now. “Oh, my God, that song. I know those lyrics too damn well. How many times did you make me watch that movie?”

  “Make you?” she said, laughing, too. “You always wanted to watch it. How about Sound of Music, Tash? you’d say. Why don’t we watch Sound of Music, Tash.”

  “Because I preferred Doe a deer to Bridges of Madison County, which was, like, four hours of sex scenes—which is some kind of amazing feat of physics, because the movie’s two hours and fifteen endless minutes long.”

  And now they were both smiling at each other, their fingers tightly entwined.

  “I love you,” Thomas said softly. “I promise I’ll try to be less of a condescending douche. Please forgive me, because you’re it, Tash. I want you in my life, forever. Without you...” He shook his head. “Nah, I can’t even imagine that. First time ever, in my entire life, I’ve got no plan B.”

  Tasha’s heart leapt as she looked into the eyes of the man she’d loved for as long as she could remember. “Forever’s a long time.”

  “It can be.” He paused then, and said it. “Tasha, will you marry me?”

  And there it was. The life she’d always dreamed of, with Thomas King by her side. Filled with laughter and sunlight and limitless joy to balance out life’s inevitable hardship, sorrow, and pain.

  “Rio and Dave are leaving tomorrow instead of tonight,” Thomas told her. “Air traffic’s still shut down—the world’s on fire. We’re gonna fix it, we’re gonna win, but it’s gonna take time. I need to get back to San Diego as quickly as I can—I really should go with them in the SUV. Will you come, too? I know I can talk ’em into stopping in Vegas, so we can get married right away. We can plan a party for later—as big as you want, with Alan and Mia and the girls—”

  “And all of Team Ten,” Tasha said.

  “And all of Team Ten,” Thomas agreed. “After we get back to Coronado, things’ll move pretty fast. I expect to go wheels up right away. I don’t know where I’ll be sent or how long I’ll be gone. That’s why I wanna do it in Vegas. I don’t want to wait another second to start my life with you.”

  Tasha kissed him, melting into his arms.

  But he pulled back. “Is that a yes?”

  “It’s a yes to everything,” she told him.

  He double-checked, searching her eyes. “It’s not too soon?”

  Too soon. He thought it might be too soon for the woman who’d loved him for nearly twenty years. Tasha laughed as she stood up, picked up her bags, and looked around the lobby for the hotel elevators. Ah, there they were, back behind the breakfast area.

  “If we’re leaving in the morning, we should go to bed.” She looked at Thomas and smiled. “Follow me.”

  He smiled back at her as he pulled her into her arms to kiss her soundly. “Always,” he told her, “and forever.”

  Author’s Note

  King’s Ransom

  Dear Reader,

  Frisco’s Kid, the third book in my popular Tall, Dark & Dangerous series, the book in which Thomas King and Tasha Francisco first appeared, was originally released as a Silhouette Intimate Moments category romance in January, 1997.

  I started getting emails from readers almost immediately: “You’re gonna write Thomas and Tasha’s book, right…?” For nearly all of my thirty-year career, this has been my most frequently asked question.

  Um… Yes? But Tasha and I both needed a little time. Cause she was, like, five…?

  Still, I thought, “Sure, someday!” My original plan with the TDD books was to write an ongoing and opened-ended series about U.S. Navy
SEAL Team Ten. (I think if you’d approached 1997-me with the idea that I’d still be writing this series in 2020, I would’ve said, “Hooyah…?”)

  Oh! Here’s some fun trivia! Back when I outlined the first TDD book, Prince Joe, there was no real-life SEAL Team Ten. There was one, two, three and six, with six being the most elite. So I skipped a few numbers, too, and created my fictional elite Team Ten.

  More fun trivia! Prince Joe (TDD #1, published June, 1996) features the original Prince Tedric (Uncle Prince Tedric, as Thomas calls him).

  See, when I sat down to finally outline Thomas and Tasha’s book, I thought it would be fun to a) bring this long-running series full circle and end where I started; and b) write a story in which it appears as if Tasha is truly going to become a princess.

  But I also knew that this story was going to be a challenge to write, not just because of the heroine and hero’s age difference, but because of their history. After Frisco’s Kid, Thomas and Tasha both appear regularly throughout the TDD series, and most of the time, Tasha is still a very young girl.

  I realized right away that I would need to lock Tasha and Thomas away somewhere, alone together, as full-grown adults, to help Thomas (and me!) overcome his “you’re too young” issues. I started with that—a need for isolation—back in September 2018, and I created that whole “9/11-type event” so that T&T would be forced to be alone in the wilderness together, never guessing that our world was on the verge of a global pandemic. Sheesh. I coulda made this a “quarantined together during a hurricane so there’s no power/internet/ability to Zoom/make phone calls” book. If I’d only looked harder into my crystal ball. (Hah!)

  About the time warp: I wrote the first eleven books in the TDD series between 1995 and 2002. A variety of issues made me put the series on hold until 2018, when I finally sat down to write SEAL Camp (Spaceman and Ashley’s book, set up in Taylor’s Temptation, TDD #10).

  I was faced, at that time, with a choice. Should I maintain the old timeline and set this book in the early 2000s? (Pagers! Dial-up internet! Ugh! No!!)

  Should I maintain the old timeline, acknowledge the passage of time, and set the story in the current day? (By which point even the youngest SEALs in the series would likely be retired, so all of the familiar faces would be gone. Ugh! No!!)

  Or…

  Should I do one of those funky, weird, kinda cheat-y, soap-opera-esque thangs, and warp time so that we (me-the-writer and you-the-reader) could have it all…? (Smart phones! Text messages! Wi-fi! And familiar names and faces! Yes!!)

  So yeah. As I mentioned in that little note right at the top of Chapter One, like SEAL Camp, King’s Ransom is set both in the present day, and a few years after the end of Night Watch (TDD #11, Wes and Brittany’s book). Admiral Francisco, Team Ten CO Captain Joe Catalanotto, Senior Chief Harvard Becker, and Lucky and Bobby and Wes and all of the rest of the SEALs from the original eleven books have been in their early-to-mid-to-late-thirties for more than a dozen years. (Gee, I wish I could say the same!) Thomas King, now mid-thirties to Tasha’s early twenties, has caught up to them. Embrace the time warp!

  About the future (as long as we’re time traveling!): I’d intended for King’s Ransom to be the final book in the Tall, Dark & Dangerous series, but as I was getting to know both Rio and Dave through their subplot, I found myself more and more intrigued. And then my husband cleverly came up with an enticing title: Blame it on Rio.

  No promises, but it’s hard to turn down a good title like that. Plus that story practically writes itself. (Maybe I’ll make it a short, with two stories, one for Rio and one for Dave…?)

  But here we are.

  The End.

  Thank you, TDD readers, so very much for taking this nearly-a-quarter-century journey and choosing to spend your precious reading time with my characters and me.

  If you enjoyed King’s Ransom, I’d appreciate it greatly if you’d post a review or toss it some shiny stars and/or digital buckets o’ love at your favorite on-line bookseller.

  Authors, particularly indie authors, depend on reader reviews more than ever in this crazy, noisy, option-filled digital world. I’m very grateful, too, when you post, share, tweet, text, and talk about my books, particularly new ones like King’s Ransom! (Thank you so very, very much!)

  I love getting interactive: Twitter’s my social media format of choice—give me a shout @SuzBrockmann. And if you want to be absolutely certain you’ll get hot-off-the-press news about upcoming new releases (books and movies!), reissues, appearances, and e-book deals, sign up for my e-newsletter!

  Love and hugs and don’t stop fighting for equality, hope, peace, and love, (and come on, Georgia! #VoteBlue!),

  Excerpt from SEAL Camp

  SEAL Camp

  Tall, Dark & Dangerous series #12

  First published May 2018 from Suzanne Brockmann Books

  Navy SEAL Lieutenant Jim “Spaceman” Slade’s got a problem. A SEAL Team is only as fast as its slowest member—and right now, thanks to his battered knees—that’s Jim. He reluctantly takes medical leave, but he’s a SEAL, so he spends his “vacation” as an instructor, helping out a former senior chief who runs a camp for SEAL wannabes. But to Jim’s shock, he finds himself falling for the one woman attending the camp session—an obviously brilliant but seemingly timid lawyer who is determined to do everything her way, no matter how wrong.

  Ashley DeWitt’s got a problem, too. She’s a kickass lawyer, but when it comes to her personal life, she’s a total pushover. When she finds herself hiding behind her condo Dumpster to avoid a confrontation with an ex, she decides enough is enough and signs up for a session at a camp called SEAL World, in hopes she’ll discover how to be more assertive outside of the courtroom. And then she’s assigned to Jim’s team...

  When an alpha male—smart, funny, strong, but terrified of a future trapped behind a desk—collides with a smart, funny, and quietly strong woman with a troubled past, sparks fly hot and fast.

  The tall, dark, and dangerous Navy SEALs of Team Ten are back, with reader favorites like Lucky, Joe Cat, Bobby Taylor and his wife Colleen, Thomas King, Rio Rosetti—and with Suzanne Brockmann’s signature blend of love, laughter, and a hint of danger in SEAL Camp.

  Setting the scene: Attorney Ashley DeWitt is a “Team Leader” (and the only woman) at a camp that teaches leadership skills, the Navy SEAL way. LT Jim “Spaceman” Slade is her team’s instructor. Early in the camp session, all of the Team Leaders or TLs go on a night hike with their SEAL instructor. Last TL back to the camp “wins” their team the job of emptying all of the camp RV’s black tanks...

  We’re in Jim’s point of view.

  “Put on your hat,” Jim ordered as he handed Ashley some bug repellent wipes as the van’s taillights faded into the night.

  “Um,” she said.

  He held his flashlight overhead so that it lit both of their faces. And yes, the resigned look she was giving him was heavily tinged with No, I didn’t bring my hat.

  “Seriously?” he said. It was going to rain—at night, in this part of Florida, that was inevitable. And that was going to suck even worse for anyone without a hat brim to shield their face.

  “My lack of hat isn’t our biggest problem,” she told him as she used the light to read the directions on the packet before tearing one open and rubbing the wipe down the sleeves of her shirt and the legs of her jeans. “It’s the five miles—more than that, if we go in the wrong direction.”

  “I don’t know why you think that’s a problem,” Jim answered. “You can walk ten miles, easily, if you have to.”

  “I can run ten miles,” she responded with a tartness that was refreshing. “In fact, I call that Tuesday evening after work. It’s not me I’m worried about—it’s you.”

  Jim was surprised. “Me?”

  “Yes, Mr. Braces-on-Both-Knees,” Ashley said. “I’m worried about you.”

  “Well, don’t be,” Jim said brusquely. “Five miles is nothing.”

  “
More if we go the wrong way,” she reminded him.

  “Then don’t go the wrong way,” he countered.

  “No map,” she reminded him. “No compass.” She looked up at the sky, which tended to be hazy in the humid tropics, even at the best of times. Now, however, thunder rumbled ominously in the distance. “No stars to follow, assuming I could even find the north star with all these trees. Assuming I also knew if we were north—or south or whatever—of the camp.”

  The narrow sand-and-gravel road they were standing on was surrounded by a mix of pines, palms, and banyan trees, the latter with their vast collection of trunks that started out as curling vines snaking down from broadly-spread branches to take root in the earth below.

  This would’ve been a relatively pleasant place to hike—in the daylight. Assuming the overpowering smell of dead-fish-hiding-somewhere-in-a-damp-locker-room faded in the sunshine.

  Ashley turned to look down the road in the direction they’d approached while still in the van. “If we follow the road back that way, we’ll eventually get to the camp,” she said, obviously thinking out loud. “Except we made so many turns and stops and… I’m pretty sure we went in a big circle. And the van left going that way.” She pointed down the road where the van had vanished. “So there must be something down there…”

  Jim waited as she looked back down the road in the other direction, clearly undecided.

  “Do you have another flashlight?” she finally asked, turning to focus her gaze on him.

  “No, they only gave me this one.” Hint, hint. Gave me. Jim knew Ashley had a very big brain. She just had to wake up enough to use it.