thoughts and prayers go out to all who were affected by these terrible storms. Hope your lives soon get back to normal. In a few weeks, I’m traveling to Florida for a long-planned conference and I dread seeing homes and businesses that didn’t fare so well.
In Wayne and Paisley’s story, they’re both dealing with the kind of pain that can’t be fixed with a hammer and nails or fresh coat of paint. Wayne has learned his father is dying of cancer, and oddly enough, his best friend and very pregnant neighbor, Paisley, is the only one who can help. To find out how, you’ll have to dive into their story.
Happy reading!
Laura Marie
For my mom, Louise. I love you. xoxo
Contents
“This team sucks! You look more like rubber ducks than SEALs. If it was up to me, I’d strip your Tridents and replace them with flight attendant wings!”
Navy SEAL Wayne Brustanovitch sat alongside the rest of his twelve-man team on the Mark V Special Operations Craft jetting past the Coronado coast at forty-five knots while their pissed-off CO handed them their asses on a platter. It was 0300, and they’d been running beach landing drills for the past eight hours.
It was late March. Cold, wet, tired and hungry, Wayne needed a beer, burger and bed. Hell—at this point, he wasn’t even choosy about the order.
Twelve hours later, they’d finally achieved an insertion time their CO deemed acceptable—at least good enough to earn a meal and hot shower.
“How’s your dad doing?” Logan Crenshaw served as the closest thing Wayne had to a brother. While they dressed before heading for the chow hall, Wayne welcomed the chance to run a predicament by his roommate and friend.
“Bad. Our last call, he said the doctor had basically given him a death sentence.”
“Damn...” Logan whistled. “That’s rough. Sorry, man.”
“Thanks. But that’s not the half of it.” He pulled on boxers, then gray sweats. “He told me that it’s his dying wish to see me married and to hold his grandchild in his arms.”
“Ouch. Way to pour on the parental guilt.”
“No kidding, right?” Wayne added deodorant, then a white T-shirt with Navy written on the front.
“Too bad you can’t rent a wife and kid, huh?”
“I wish. That’s the only way I’d take vows again.”
“Got nothing but love for you, brother. That sorry SOB can rot in hell.”
A fist bump relayed Wayne’s similar sentiment.
But the SEAL brother who’d broken ranks to cheat with Wayne’s ex wasn’t solely to blame. Like the old saying goes, “It takes two to tango,” and Chelsea had lied and schemed right up to their marriage’s official end.
Dressed,
