Page 1 of A Wilde Christmas

one

One thingthat could be said about Davey Wilde’s family: a holiday with them was anything but boring. If his dad weren’t scheming and causing chaos—a favorite pastime for the youngest of the original five Wildes—then one of his brothers, uncles, or many cousins would pick up the slack.

But Davey could do with a little bit of boring.

And some quiet.

He wasn’t going to get either, judging by the noise level coming from his parents’ house when he opened his car door. The family was already well into the chaos, and it wasn’t even dark yet.

“This is going to be a long-ass weekend.”

His Belgian Malinois, Luka, grumbled an agreement from the passenger seat. He glanced over at the former military working dog. “Are you ready for this?”

Luka wagged.

Davey sucked in a fortifying breath and gathered the two large bags of gifts from his backseat. This was his first Christmas as a civilian, and he wasn’t ready for it.

Much to his Marine father’s chagrin, he’d wanted to be a SEAL from the moment he was old enough to understand Uncle Vaughn’s stories about the Teams. He’d joined the Navy right out of high school and made it through all the rigorous training on sheer stubbornness, securing his trident at nineteen. And he had loved every second of being a Special Operator for almost fifteen years…

Only to lose it all because his dumb ass had driven his team over an anti-tank landmine. His career hadn’t ended in a heroic firefight or a stunning blaze of glory. They hadn’t even been on a mission. He’d simply been driving along the barely-there desert road one minute, and then the world tipped upside-down. He hadn’t even known what happened at first until he looked over and saw the entire passenger side of the Humvee gone. Luckily, Luka hadn’t been sitting there beside him like he usually was. His dog hadn’t escaped injury, but at least they had both walked away from it.

Or, in Davey’s case, limped away.

His femur was mostly metal, and he had more pins than a voodoo doll. He had a permanent limp and loss of range of motion in that leg, making him a liability. He could’ve stayed on in a desk job or as a trainer, but he no longer knew what he was fighting for. It was the same old war his dad and uncles had fought thirty-five years ago. They had changed nothing. He and his teammates had changed nothing.

It just didn’t seem worth it anymore.

Since he knew he always had a job waiting at Wilde Security Worldwide, he’d bugged out of the Navy and adopted Luka when they retired him. Now, faced with spending Christmas with his family, he wondered if he’d made the right call.

He loved his family. It was just…

They were a lot.

They meant well—especially Mom—but they had been smothering him since his medical discharge.

The noise increased to a roar when he opened the front door of the big house he’d grown up in.

A football sailed by inches from his face, and he stumbled back a step. “Jesus.”

“Run now,” Daphne said. She was one of only four female cousins in the army of Wilde men. She sat on the stairs to the left of the door, tucked away in the shadows of the second-floor landing. Her dark hair sported one hot pink streak that fell over her eye when she looked up from her laptop. The highlight was probably the work of her twin, given that Daphne’s favorite color was the opposite of pink. “Save yourself while you still can.”

He righted himself and set his bags in the foyer to scoop up the football. Luka eyed the ball with intense interest, but he didn’t release the dog yet. “Aw, come on. It can’t be that bad, Daph.”

“I’ve been in war zones that are less dangerous than a Wilde family Christmas. Tessa had the right idea taking that humanitarian aide job in Kyrgyzstan. She’s probably safer there than here.”

He shrugged, trying to sound cool and collected even though he felt anything but. “So there’s usually at least one trip to the hospital, but nobody’s ever died.”

“Yet.”

“Hey, Davey!” Another cousin, Weston, appeared under the archway between the living room and foyer and held up his hands for the football. He was a carbon copy of his dad, Camden—messy dark hair, sparkling blue eyes, and a crooked good old boy smile.

Davey tossed the ball to him. “Good to see you, West.”

“You, too, man.” Something like worry passed over Weston’s face as he did a surreptitious up-down assessment of Davey withhis eyes. It was there and gone in an instant, quickly replaced with his trademark smile. “We’re taking bets on who draws first blood this year. You want in?”

Christ, he hated how they all looked at him like he’d break. “My bet is always on my dad.”

“Yeah, given family history, it’s a safe bet.”

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