SEAL’s Accidental Family (SEAL & Veteran Series Book 2) , livre ebook

SEAL & Veteran Series



SEAL’s Homecoming

SEAL’s Accidental Family

Ranger’s Protection
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.


RELAY PUBLISHING EDITION, FEBRUARY 2019
Copyright © 2019 Relay Publishing Ltd.
All rights reserved. Published in the United Kingdom by Relay Publishing. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.


www.relaypub.com

Blurb

All her life, Rachel Winchester has fought against the idea that she was nothing but white trash destined for Loserville. Now, it seems all that fighting was for nothing. Sure, she’s running a successful B&B and, yes, she finally had her way with a man she’s crushed on for forever—Harris McCallister, the guy she’s flirted with for years; the guy she’s thought about and pined for. She’s finally feeling good about the future when— bam —she gets pregnant. True or not, in her world, nothing says white trash more than an unmarried pregnant woman. Worse, her “loving” mother is threatening her over the B&B and the property it sits on, all because of a silly legend about a pirate’s buried treasure.
Harris doesn’t know what it is about Rachel, but he’s always been drawn to her. With her brightly dyed hair and sexy-as-hell tattooed body, she’s impossible to ignore—and drives him crazy in all the best ways. Finding out she’s carrying his baby has him thinking things he’s never thought before. Thoughts he brutally pushes away. Returning to active duty as a Marine Raider is what he wants, not settling down and playing house. He’ll stick around just long enough to make sure Rachel and the baby-to-be are safe from increasingly disturbing attacks they both believe has to do with an old legend about a pirate’s buried treasure. The longer he stays, though, the tougher returning to duty is becoming. But when the time comes to head back to the Marines, he has to make the toughest decision of his life—duty to his country, or life with the woman he loves.
Contents



Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue


End of SEAL’s Accidental Family

Thank you!

About Leslie North

Sneak Peek: Ranger’s Protection

Also by Leslie
Prologue



Thirty-Two Days Ago—Dive Bar near Parris Island, South Carolina Marine Base
H arris McCallister slapped the empty long-neck bottle onto the scarred wooden bar table and lifted his gaze toward the bartender working her ass off behind the long counter. Between the off-duty military personnel, local civilians needing to forget their day, and the loud music he did his best to tune out, he’d be waiting until hell froze over before he caught her attention.
In the dive bar’s main dining area, a group of young women decked out in skimpy dresses broke into jubilant laughter as they raised shot glasses, then downed the colorful liquid. A few shuddered with sour faces while others smacked their lips and grinned. In one of the booths along the perimeter, four guys in worn fatigues watched the women with calculated expressions, probably looking for an opening to move in.
Harris snorted. The off-duty Marines would have no problem picking up the ladies. Those women were classic tag-chasers—women who targeted military men in hopes of leading them by their dog tags straight to the altar. Why else would the women hold their celebration in a crappy bar popular with Marines who traveled across the bridge from Parris Island?
Marines such as Harris. God, he was only twenty-nine years old, but he felt ancient. Slumping even further in the uncomfortable wooden-backed stool, he slid the empty bottle next to its equally empty buddy. Should he have another? Twirling the glass so the label faced him, he answered himself, how else are you going to get numbingly drunk?
Excellent point. He peered at the bartender again, but could not catch her eye. Shocker . Searching for the waitress who had served him the previous two beers, he found her tied up with a large group taking up three of the five tables in the bar area. Shit .
Another pang ripped through his heart, and he smoothed a hand over his olive-green T-shirt in an attempt to sooth it. Not that his attempt did a thing to help.
Too many goddamn funerals threatened to steal his sanity. First, his best friend and fellow teammate had stepped on an IED on their last mission in a Colombian hellhole. And second, his unit’s barely stateside and still reeling from hauling a casket home, when Harris gets the call that his father passed away.
A hard lump formed in Harris’s throat and he swiped his hand over his face to push the tears threatening to fall back into submission. Choosing between attending his best friend’s funeral or his father’s was a choice straight out of hell. But not really a choice in the end. He put in for bereavement leave, was granted a thirty-day pass, and made arrangements to head home to Springwell, Georgia. It had been too long since he’d seen his two brothers due to them all being in the military, though in different branches. The oldest brother, Chance, became a Navy SEAL, while the youngest McCallister, Lee, became a sniper for the Army Rangers. And Harris became a Marine Raider, basically the Marine’s version of the SEALs and Rangers.
They’re not in the military anymore , his conscience piped up. Right. Both his brothers recently retired but for two contrasting reasons. Regardless of their status, they’d all be together again tomorrow. And it only took their father dying to kick off the reunion. Fuck . He rubbed at his aching heart again. They’d need him to be his typical level-headed, supportive, middle-child-peace-keeping self. And he would, but that meant tonight, he could get stupid drunk as a way to anesthetize the pain.
Speaking of anesthesia, he glanced toward the last place he saw his waitress, then jerked upright on his stool. All thoughts about ordering another beer fled as he gazed at Rachel Winchester strolling toward him. All five-feet-two inches of sexiness packed into her petite frame kept striding closer with her denim-clad hips swaying provocatively while her pale-yellow tank top showed off perfect breasts and colorful tattoos filling her bared skin. She frequently changed the color of her long, straight hair and today she was sporting a muted shade of purple. With all the beautiful ink, the bright revolving hair color, and her small physique, she reminded him of a fairy—a naughty fairy he constantly fantasized about.
Oh, the dirty things he imagined doing to her and her reciprocating in turn kept him well primed when he had to take care of his own needs. For years. Ever since he’d joined his Raiders unit and got stationed at Parris Island. She lived in town and used to bartend here before she inherited a property and established a B&B…or at least that’s what he’d heard. When he was stateside, he had constantly planted his ass at the bar counter just to flirt outrageously with her. It had been a massive disappointment to come back from a mission earlier in the year and find out she had quit. He hadn’t seen her since…until now. God had finally showed some pity on him.
“By the look in your eye,” Rachel stated in a throaty voice, stopping beside Harris’s table, “a girl would think you missed her.”
Harris propped his elbows on the small round table. “By the way you disappeared, a guy would think you didn’t care about him at all.”
Rachel ran her forefinger and thumb down her purple-dyed hair and studied his face. The twinkle in her eyes dimmed, and a crease formed at the corner of her mouth. “What’s wrong?”
Harris sighed and slumped back in the chair. Retorts that normally came easily deserted him, and he didn’t have it in him to keep up the act.
Warmth filled his forearm, and he stared at the hand curling around his muscle. A shiver stole through him at the contact, and he closed his eyes against the godforsaken tears that threatened to fall again. Christ. He did not need to break down in the dive bar, and he especially didn’t want to lose it in front of Rachel.
“Harris?” Rachel whispered, her breath puffing against his cheek causing another tremor to rock through him for a completely different reason.
How messed up was that? He was getting turned on in the middle of trying not to sob like a baby.
“Talk to me,” Rachel urged, moving closer so her hip rested against his thigh.
His hands clenched into fists at the argument flaring in his mind. Did he dare share his grief with his fantasy woman or would that ruin everything they’d established and slam the door on the possibility of ever sleeping with her? Opening his eyes, he gazed at her concerned face only a foot from his own. Her blue eyes deepened as she met his stare.
Fuck it. He needed a friend and she fit the bill at the moment. “I lost my best friend on our last mission,” he managed to croak past the re-forming lump in his throat, “and I just found out my father passed away.”
Her hand on his arm spasmed as her eyes shined with empathy. “Oh, Harris,” she breathed. “I’m so sorry.”
His eyes traced her plump, red-lined lips, and he suddenly had no interest in sharing anymore. Visions of finally tasting those lips clouded his mind, and he didn’t want to hold back any longer.
Leaning forward—
“Do you trust me?”
Her question froze him in place. “What?” he asked, trying to force his muzzy mind to work again.
She grazed her other hand over his cheek. “I want to get you out of here. Do you trust me?”
Only two brain cells were able t