Page 37 of The Seal's Promise

The line ran from his wrist up to his elbow in a distorted, white, puffy patch of skin from the knife wound he’d sewn up. “A close quarters fight is the worst kind, it’s barbaric. This knife wound has a few more to match on my hip and stomach, but I won that battle. Maybe I’ll show you those another time,” he said with a forced smile.

She gulped, but surprised him when she ran her finger along the thin scar. The skin was less sensitive, but just watching her fingers move over it put his body on high alert and had his heart thundering.

“I’m glad you won.”

“Can I ask you something?”

She shook her head. “No. Because I’ll want to say yes even though I know it’s a bad idea, and then I’ll keep saying yes until it ends.”

“Maybe it doesn’t end.” They both knew what she meant. They were dancing around this kinetic energy between them, but their mutual desire was undeniable. Every second he was around her the urge to pull her close grew stronger.

She looked up at him with a forced smile. “I’m not looking for any maybes, Dalton,” she said before she stood and walked away.

He fought the impulse to go after her and tell her he would stay for her, because that would be a lie. Every time he drove out to his gran’s house, his old childhood home, he thought of them. The reason he’d fled his hometown, his parents’ deaths.

It had been Dalton’s fault. And the worst part was, he never told anyone. Not his brothers, not his gran, no one. Instead, he just graduated high school and ran off to the Navy against his father’s wishes, and away from all the pain and guilt.

But that was a losing battle, because the guilt just followed him wherever he went.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Brooke

If You Don’t, Who Will?

She heard thewomen in town talking about Dalton, and everyone knew exactly who they meant when they said things like “That man can rescue me” or “I would like to trace his scars with my tongue.” And that was just at the coffee shop on Monday morning. She’d seen Dalton exiting May’s café to head to the hospital as she parked across the street. Then, as she waited in line for her own coffee, she was forced to listen to several more women talking about him.

“Why are you scowling so early on a Monday morning?” her sister asked from behind the counter.

“Sorry. It’s because—” She stopped herself. “No reason.”

May looked her up and down. “You know you can have whatever you want, right?”

Brooke looked up at the menu as if she had never noticed all the options.

“Oh, I just like regular coffee and my oatmeal.”

“No, I mean, you can have whatever or whoever you want.” May dropped her voice. “There aren’t any rules that say you can’t date again or can’t just have fun just because you’re a mom.”

Brooke sighed. “No rules, sure. But there will be gossip, and everyone in this town already knows enough about my sad, disastrous marriage. I don’t want them talking about me again.”

“Oh, I forgot, because living our one life for other people who don’t even really care is for sure the best approach,” May said with a smug smirk.

“You know what, I’ll just take my coffee and oatmeal, please—hold the life advice.”

May laughed. “Come on, Brooke, you’re too young to not misbehave a little.”

“Oh, amen to that, darling, I’m about to misbehave a little myself this week,” a voice said in a warm Southern drawl just as Dalton’s gran saddled up next to Brooke. “You should start misbehaving with some experienced, ho—”

“Mrs. Barbara Hart, you minx. Telling my sister, a mom, to have fun. How bold,” May teased as she started to pull on the levers at her barista station.

“Well, I’m old enough to know that misbehaving is the most fun a young woman will have in this life.”

Brooke cleared her throat. “What trouble are you planning on getting into, Mrs. Barb?” Brooke asked as her sister slid her coffee cup over to her.

“Well, now that we got my grandson a job, it’s time to put the final nail in his plans to ever think of leaving this town again. He needs to put down some roots.”

Brooke exchanged a glance with May. “Wouldn’t it be best to let Dalton decide where he wants to land?”

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