Page 1 of The Seal's Promise

CHAPTER ONE

Dalton

You Can Always Go Home

Dalton Hart’s bootscrunched in the dusting of sand along the weathered wooden pier. Ten steps down, he stood in the broken shells washed up by the tide. Waves crashed about twenty feet away, and the beach was deserted. It was too rainy for an evening walk and the sun was already setting, but this was the first place he’d needed to stop.

The salty air was crisp and a fog hung over the ocean. Steep dunes that held up the precarious two-lane road ran along the coast casting shadows on the beach.

Fifteen years seemed too long and not long enough at the same time. He watched as the last bit of daylight sank into the ocean, turning the sky pitch dark, and climbed back up the dock to his rental car. It was going to be difficult to be back here in every way, but the SEAL team had taught him a lot about getting through hard situations. Hopefully that mental toughness wouldn’t fail him, because he was at war with himself just driving back to this town, where he’d already lost so much.

*

“Dalton James Hart,as I live and breathe, is that really you standing on my clean kitchen floor with sandy boots?” his grandmother asked, her stern voice dripping in a Southern twang.

Fighting a smile, he set down his bag and proceeded to untie his boots and walk them back out to the covered deck.

“If I find a spider in those tomorrow I’ll scream like a girl,” he said.

He leaned down to embrace his grandmother and lift her off her feet. All one hundred pounds of her.

“Oh, put me down, you brute. I’ll break a hip.”

He kissed her wrinkled cheek covered in powder and blush and smelled her signature floral scent, then set her back down.

“I’m sorry I’ve stayed away so long.”

His grandmother narrowed her eyes as her hands landed on her hips.

“I reckon you’ll be sorry, but you know what I always say.”

“Apologies are for mistakes and assholes?”

“That’s right. If you’d behaved, there wouldn’t be a need to apologize.”

He couldn’t help but laugh and feel an instant tug of both regret and happiness standing in his paternal grandmother’s kitchen, also his childhood home.

“Alright. Wash up, then have a seat for a real home-cooked meal—you don’t look like you’re being fed regularly.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Dalton walked into the hall and looked around. The layout was the same, but the colors and furniture had changed. The large Georgia home had tall ceilings with crisscrossing wood beams and oversize light fixtures. It was a mix of mid-century, modern, and coastal. It was the house he’d grown up in and had run away from the same day he graduated high school.

After washing his hands in the hall bathroom, he stepped back into the kitchen to find one place setting. His grandmother brought several covered dishes out of the oven and set them on the table.

“You’re not eating with me?”

“I had a bite earlier and I can’t eat all this rich food anymore, but I made your favorites. Homemade greens, mac and cheese, and crab cakes.”

“You made all this for me?”

“Of course! You’re still my third favorite grandson, even if you did stay gone for over a decade.”

Her lips were pursed together, giving Dalton no doubt how she felt.

“Gran, we need to talk about it if I’m going to help you. On the phone you told me that you’re at the end of your life and that Levi has gone off the deep end. Then you said we needed an intervention before you die.”

“Oh, Dalton, are you sure I said all that? That doesn’t sound like something I’d say.”

“Yes, I’m sure, and when I said I had a career and home in Virginia, you said that if I didn’t come home now I’d regret it for the rest of my life and you’d never forgive me. That was right before you went radio silent and stopped taking my calls.”

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