True Navy Blue: SEAL Brotherhood, True Blue SEALs Series Premiere
Read True Navy Blue: SEAL Brotherhood, True Blue SEALs Series Premiere Online
Authors: Sharon Hamilton
Tags: #Military, #SEALs, #Romance
A Novella
Prequel to TRUE NAVY BLUE,
Book 1 of the True Blue SEALs Series
This is dedicated to all those who have loved once, twice, perhaps three times or more, and thought they should give up. I believe in Happily Ever Afters. I believe in long slow kisses and moonlit strolls on the beach. I believe in walks in the woods on sunny days. I believe in forgiveness and the healing power of true love.
Love hurts and makes us strong. I believe it brings us to the truest expression of ourselves, and when we strive for true love, we are striving for the very best within our souls.
Yes, even for Navy SEALs,
True Love Heals In The Gardens Of The Heart.
Live well and love often. And let’s explore the depths our hearts can take us, even in this very short ride of life.
Sonoma County, California
September 2015
Copyright © 2015 by Sharon Hamilton
Kindle Edition
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. In many cases, liberties and intentional inaccuracies have been taken with rank, description of duties, locations and aspects of the SEAL community.
License Notes
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
I always dedicate my SEAL Brotherhood books to the brave men and women who defend our shores and keep us safe. Without their sacrifice, and that of their families—because a warrior’s fight always includes his or her family—I wouldn’t have the freedom and opportunity to make a living writing these stories. They sometimes pay the ultimate price so we can debate, argue, go have coffee with friends, raise our children and see them have children of their own.
One of my favorite tributes to warriors resides on many memorials, including one I saw honoring the fallen of WWII on an island in the Pacific:
“When you go home
Tell them of us, and say
For your tomorrow,
We gave our today.”
These are my stories created out of my own imagination. Anything that is inaccurately portrayed is either my mistake, or done intentionally to disguise something I might have overheard over a beer or in the corner of one of the hangouts along the Coronado Strand.
Wounded Warriors is the one charity I give to on a regular basis. I encourage you to get involved and tell them thank you:
support.woundedwarriorproject.org
Other Books by Sharon Hamilton
‡
T
he red lights
flashed, pulsing dangerous images across her white skin as she lay unconscious. Was she dead? He hoped not. Paramedics were pouring over her with care, asking hushed questions, obviously looking for some kind of response. And then, thank God, he heard her whisper something back and cry.
Where am I?
They were rougher with him. Zak Chambers was used to people around him making up their minds before they got to know him. Santa Rosa used to be a small town, back when his father was sowing
his
wild oats. Half the cops in town were kids of the same cops who used to arrest his dad for pranks he was legendary for doing—things like throwing pumpkins into the Redwood Motel pool at Halloween, making the headlines in the local newspaper. His father still had the article hanging on his garage wall.
And what was so wrong with pouring red Jell-O into the fountain at Santa Rosa High School? They were
his
high school colors and they’d just creamed Santa Rosa’s football team 47 to 6.
Why am I thinking about all this stuff? Where the heck am I? What’s happened?
This time, however, was no prank. His father’s Camaro, a twisted and partially melted hulk in front of him, looked even more ghastly because of the red flashing lights, this was no prank. This wasn’t about Jell-O or pumpkins or anything that could be construed as a high school caper. This was a first-class grown up tragedy, getting worse by the minute. He didn’t have a clue what he was doing here or how he got here.
“Can you sit up, Chambers?” the gruff uniformed man with a badge and white plastic gloves asked him.
Where are the pretty nurses?
His dad always got lucky with the nurses.
He tried to right himself, but the blow to his head had him confused. And he’d had a glass of wine, but just one…
“Need your permission to take a breath sample, son.”
Fuck me.
The guy looked younger than Zak did.
“No. Not going to happen,” Zak mumbled.
“Oh, it’s gonna happen. Either here or down at the station, but you better cooperate or you get an automatic suspension.” The guy squinted. He had pimples. He looked like one of the boys he’d hassled in school.
“Do I know you?” Zak asked. The word “suspension” was rattling around in his head like a bad idea. He tried to focus on it, but nothing came.
“Oh yea, you do. You used to buy our booze with your fake I.D. when I was a freshman.”
It was beginning to come back to him now. Little flashes of color. Painful things. Things he didn’t want to remember.
“Except one time, you kept the money. You freakin’ robbed us, man. Ain’t life a bitch, Zak? Look at us now, dancing here on the pavement with your wrecked souped up Camaro your dad probably spent his year’s pension on, and me here with my badge and gun and all. Oh yea, life is a real bitch sometimes.”
Zak remembered him. Had an upper crust name like Dawson, or Drew or…
“I remember you, Dirtbag.” It was what Zak always called him, not because he was a real dirtbag, because he worshiped Zak for the ladies he got to hang with. But it was given him because he was unlucky enough to be named Dirk by his parents. And Zak didn’t want to be anybody’s idol. He wasn’t
that
fake. He just didn’t deserve it. In those days, Zak was still a promising football player courting a couple of full ride college scholarships. He’d walked away from it all.
But what the hell am I doing here?
The kid administered the breathalizer and Zak saw the instrument yanked from the kid’s hands.
“Still scoring points with the authorities, I see.” An older man with a nasty gravelly voice and a nastier-looking face peered over the top of his head and blinked down at him, upside down. It made Zak dizzy. “And you’re drunk,” he said looking at the device. Instead of showing it to Zak he placed it in a plastic bag and shoved it in his large jacket pocket. “Works for me.”
“Sir.” Dirtbag stood up. “Should I test—”
“Yeah. He’s drunk,” the older officer said. “He needs to be taken in until we can figure it out.”
It occurred to Zak he knew the man but couldn’t remember his name.
When they stood him up, that’s when Zak saw the other vehicle, a vegetable truck loaded with melons. Half of them were escaping over the freeway, bouncing like a girl’s oversized tits with an agenda of their own. Cars were swerving and Zak expected to hear another crash any minute.
The older deputy barked some instructions. Two Highway Patrolmen took off with their lights flashing, while someone lit flares and started to direct traffic slowly in one narrow lane taking up part of the shoulder.
Ginger had not really been his date, but she was going to be his fuckbunny for the night, sure as shit. He’d made the mistake of letting her long lip lock go a little too long, distracting him enough to miss the overloaded melon truck swerving into his lane. The impact was on her side. As he heard it, he noticed the seatbelt firmly pressing into her chest, and like a dog, he had a second or two of turn-on before he realized they’d been hit.
Seatbelts were a good thing. In this instance, it probably saved Ginger’s life.
“
He
hit
me
,” Zak tried to protest as he was led, handcuffed, into the back of the patrol car. His shouts were falling on deaf ears as they closed the cruiser’s door after shoving him into the rear seat. He saw the ambulance leave in a blaze of red and blue flashing lights ahead of him. He felt bad about not saying goodbye to Ginger before they took her away. He hoped she’d be okay.
The dark-skinned truck driver had a child clinging to his side. Zak noticed he wasn’t being handcuffed and carted away like Zak was.
No, this wasn’t going to wind up being a very good day.
The worst thing
about getting taken down to the station was that his mother had to come down and pick him up. They’d not fingerprinted him or taken pictures, just put him in a cell with about twenty others, mostly drunk drivers, which made for a very uncomfortable sleep on a metal bench with a full-on fluorescent light buzzing overhead. But he didn’t have time to tell her. She looked at him like road kill.
“I wasn’t drinkin’ Ma.” He insisted. It was
almost
the truth.
“Zak, you’re just one good time after another,” she said, dragging on her electric cigarette.
“Where’s Dad?”
“Sleeping. Right now that’s a good thing.”
He’d known that was the answer before he’d asked. He’d seen his dad down at the Irish Pub, rubbing shoulders with the computer nerds and yuppies who worked for Medtronic and Agilent. His dad was still better looking than he had a right to be, and though twice their age, could occasionally chat himself into someone’s bed. Zak was glad he’d made it home. Now there was a
real
alcoholic, Zak thought.
“You know anything about Ginger?” he asked her.
“That the girl you were with last night?”
Zak nodded.
“News says she’ll be released today. You’re the one that needed the hospitalization.”