SEALionaire Book 1: A Military Romance

  The woman at the front desk took one look at me and tensed.

  “Sir, visiting hours–”

  “My mother’s in ICU. Bad wreck, they don’t think she’ll make it. Don’t even try,” I said, striding past her.

  One of the security guards stepped between me and the elevators. Fortunately, I knew him. Mom had worked here for twenty years, after all.

  “It’s okay, Elsie. This is Mary Dedman’s boy. He flew all the way here from…where you stationed at now, Adam?”

  I didn’t want to play the game of Midwestern pleasantries, but Joe could get me up to that room. So I played. “California, sir.”

  He nodded, then looked at the woman behind the desk. “See? Chief Dedman…?” he paused and raised a brow at me.

  I nodded again. I’d been promoted to Chief Petty Officer six months ago. Apparently, Mom and Joe were still fond of catching up over coffee.

  Mom.

  “Chief Dedman’s in the Navy, Elsie. He got here as fast as he could.”

  Elsie frowned but turned back to her desk. “The nurses won’t let him in.”

  Like hell they wouldn’t.

  Mom was awake.

  I wanted to think it was a good sign, but that look in her eyes…

  When I sat down next to her, she held out a hand, and it was shaking. I folded my fingers around hers, the calluses there rasping against her softer skin. “Mama.”

  “I knew you’d get here. I could feel it.” She closed her eyes, a sigh escaping her. “Adam…”

  Lifting her hand to my lips, I kissed it then pressed it to my cheek. “You keep fighting, Mama. You’re going to pull through this.”

  “No, I’m not.” She lifted her lashes once more and gazed at me, the pain in her eyes enough to level me. “It’s better this way, really. The hurtin’ is all over…fast.”

  She sighed again, and the sound was thick, wet.

  “Mom!”

  “Hush now. You know there are sick people here…” She managed a weak smile and squeezed my hand. “I love you, Adam.”

  “I love you too.”

  Her lids drifted closed over soft blue eyes. “You stay with me now. And, Adam…don’t be angry…”

  She drifted off to sleep.

  “Mama…”

  She didn’t stir.

  Less than an hour later, she was gone.

  The words of condolence that came from the medical staff fell on deaf ears.

  She held on, waiting for you.

  You were able to say goodbye.

  I’m sorry for your loss.

  I wanted to ask which one – they seemed to be piling up damn high lately.

  Rake was gone. Dog was gone. Now Mom.

  When they started talking arrangements, all I wanted to do was throw them all out, just lock myself in a room, somewhere dark and quiet. Since it wasn’t an option, I just sucked it all in and got through it. The minute there was a lull, I said to nobody in particular. “I have to go.”

  “Go…?” The nurse closest to me looked confused. Then she nodded. “Of course. You must be exhausted. I know this is all very sudden.”

  Sudden. Yeah. That covered it. I hadn’t seen my mother since Christmas, and now she was gone. All because of some asshole who hadn’t been able to say no to a few more drinks.

  I was given names, information, told my mother had already made arrangements, and I didn’t need to do much. Did I have a phone number?

  Of course I had a fucking phone number. What dumbass didn’t?

  At the look one of them gave me, I realized two things – I’d said that out loud, and they were just trying to figure out where I could be contacted once they were ready to…

  “I gotta go.” Turning on my heel, I strode for the door. I could handle a world of shit raining down on me, but I couldn’t handle the death of my mom. Not right now, not like this. I was almost through the door when the responsibility that Mom had drilled into me made me stop. Without looking over my shoulder, I said, “I’ll be staying at her place. Reach me there.”

  5

  Reaper

  The bar was a shit hole, the kind that didn’t close until the dregs of the night were fading into memory. It wasn’t quite miserable enough to suit my mood, but it wasn’t the fault of the bar or even the locale. I was in the worst part of Cincinnati I could find, but while the city had some bad areas, it couldn’t measure up to the hell holes I’d frequented in my life.

  Part of a SEAL’s job description was to regularly visit hell holes, and I’d grown accustomed to it.

  What I wouldn’t give for my phone to ring its ass off right then, alerting me to a mission, but it was quiet. In reality, it was probably a good thing because my head wasn’t in a good place.

  I wasn’t in a good place. I was in the kind of place that could end with people dead, and I’d deliberately avoided going for my phone and trying to find out anything about the man who’d plowed into my mother’s car. I already knew too much, thanks to a couple of people at the hospital not being as careful as they should. Two of the hospital staff had been talking, crying. Upset. I got it, really.

  But it was dangerous to stand around and drop bombs like “…the cops on scene mentioned to the paramedics that he’d already been arrested for drunk driving twice.”

  Twice. He’d been arrested twice. Had he hurt anybody before?

  I could find out.

  I could find out everything.

  I didn’t want to do that.

  Because if I did that, I’d turn into the kind of man who’d make her ashamed.

  “You’ve had enough, jackass,” a woman’s tired voice said.

  “Listen, you ugly bitch.”

  The malice in that slurred voice had me lifting my head from the beer I’d been drinking. It was my fourth, but my head was ridiculously clear. Whether it was training or just the fact that they were probably watering down their booze, I had yet to feel even the slightest buzz.

  A bald man at the far end of the bar wasn’t suffering the same problem. He was so drunk, he couldn’t even stand up without bracing himself on the bar. That didn’t keep him from making a grab for the rail-thin, scarred woman on the other side.

  I took another drink and lowered my glass, setting it down harder than necessary.

  The bald dude wasn’t alone in his drunkenness. “Bobbi, why don’t you just give me and Leo the bottle and mind your own fucking business?” His friend was a piggish-looking man, his nose squashed up below eyes that were narrowed to slits in his fat face.

  He caught sight of me looking at him and narrowed those slitted eyes so much that the glint of them was almost impossible to make out. “What the fuck you looking at, pretty boy?”

  “That’s yet to be determined.” I lifted my glass and studied him over the rim before dismissing him, taking another drink of the beer.

  He was still looking at me when I put the glass down.

  I ignored him and spoke to the woman behind the bar. “Can I get something else?”

  She didn’t exactly turn her back on the men at the far end, but she edged my way, jerking her chin up. “What you want?”

  Pulling my wallet out, I checked the cash. A few twenties. I dropped them all on the surface and smiled at her. “The bottle.”

  Her lips quirked up a little as she put it down in front of me. “Asking for trouble, pretty boy,” she said in a voice too low for them to hear.

  Maybe I was.

  She moved off after scooping up the cash, tucking most of it into the pocket of jeans so tight it was a wonder she could move. She put one of the bills in the cash register and then smacked the arm of a bum a few seats down from me. “Last call was a few minutes ago,” she said. “Get your ass out, Hal.”

  She hadn’t even done a last call, but apparently, the bum realized those words meant something. He more or less oozed over the stool and shuffled out the door. At the same time, Leo glared at Bobbi. “Where the fuck is my drink?” he shouted. He emphasized his demand by sla
mming his fist down on the bar. It rattled under the blow. Taking the bottle, I lifted it to the light and studied the booze inside. It was some label I’d never heard of, and the smell of it was more akin to turpentine than the Tennessee whiskey it was purported to be.

  Bobbi glared at Leo. “Didn’t you hear what I said? We had last call, and you’re already so drunk you can’t see straight. Get your ass out of my place.”

  “If you don’t…” He tried to point at her.

  “Why don’t you do what the woman says?” I suggested. He still hadn’t noticed me holding the whiskey he’d demanded.

  His friend was still glaring at me. In fact, he hadn’t taken his eyes off me.

  A couple of drunk, mean bastards. As Bobbi shot me a look, I glanced at her. “You might want to stay out of the way.”

  “You might want to make your peace with God,” she said. “Leo’s a mean son of a bitch.”

  “Is he?” Smirking, I looked down at them and saw that the drunk piece of shit had finally managed to focus on me. “That makes it even better.”

  Now that I had both of the men’s attention, I upended the bottle. The stink of the cheap alcohol filled the air as it splashed out onto the surface of the bar.

  They rushed me.

  Leo slammed into a chair and fell over his drunk feet before he cleared even a yard.

  The pig, though…he was bigger than I realized, and as I’d suspected, all that fat hid a layer of hard muscle. He came at me hard, and I took one punch, welcoming the pain. It cut through the wall of grief inside me, and I wiped the blood from my mouth as I swung my head around to look at him. He had a decent punch, I had to admit.

  “That the best you got?”

  He swung again.

  That one missed by a mile.

  Ducking under another wild punch, I caught him in the gut before slamming a hard elbow into the side of his head. Spinning to face his partner, I curled my fingers at him. “Come on.”

  An ugly smile settled on his lips. I heard the door opening to my left, quiet as it was.

  “You are one dumb motherfucker,” he said.

  It didn’t quite cover up the sound of footfalls though. Several of them. Flicking my eyes off to the side, I saw them coming in the mirror over the bar. “Well, hell, man…I guess this’ll be more fun than I thought.”

  6

  Olivia

  Rubbing my temple with one hand, I put down the tablet and pondered calling in dead.

  The problem was, the old man was too shrewd to fall for it. Plus, he paid me really well. Then there was the fact that I kind of adored the guy, and he was going through some seriously shitty days lately. First he’d lost his best friend, then his wife got diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease and then came his own diagnosis, cancer. This latest blow had him looking every single one of his sixty-plus years.

  “O?”

  At the sound of my shortened name, I looked up. Andi, another one of the boss’s strays, had been working for me as my housekeeper for nearly two years now while she went to school to finish up her college degree. She was almost done, which meant I’d soon need to find somebody else to take her place. I hated cleaning. And cooking. And shopping. And I kind of sucked at remembering to check the mail and lock the door and every other thing that didn’t involve dealing with the old man.

  “What do you need, Andi?” I asked, rising from my desk and grabbing the short, fitted jacket I’d chosen to wear today. My attire was almost always black and white, though I sometimes mixed it up and went white and black. It worked fairly well with my coloring. Black hair, pale skin, blue eyes. My job wasn’t to look pretty anyway. Not that I was dog ugly. I was just…boring. The old man told me I was his secret weapon. Nobody ever expected anything of me because I was so unassuming, and I made sure to dress the part. It made it easier to take care of things.

  “Just wanted to make sure you didn’t need anything. You’ve been getting home later and later.” She frowned at me from the doorway, tapping a to-go coffee cup in her hand.

  My eyes locked on it. “Is that mine?”

  “Yes.” She smiled slyly. “And you can have it after you drink half of this.” She produced a shaker cup – one of those contraptions used for protein shakes, and I groaned. “Oh, don’t be a baby. It’s got milk and yogurt and strawberries in it. All good things.”

  “Then why is it in that cup?” Suspicious, I studied her.

  “Because it made it easier to shake it all up.” Her face was complete innocence.

  “Just give me the damn coffee,” I whined, exasperated.

  “Deal’s the deal.”

  “Fine.” Storming over to her, I took the shaker cup and downed half of it in three swallows. It wasn’t bad. Gritty but tasty.

  When I pointed that out, she said, “A scoop of whey powder too.”

  “Figures. You’re a mother hen, Andi. No wonder you decided to go into nursing.” Knowing I probably wouldn’t stop until well after lunch – maybe even dinner – I finished the rest of the shake before shoving the cup at her. We traded off, and I held the coffee up to my nose, breathing in the familiar and soothing scent.

  “Getting run down and sick won’t help him, you know,” she said as I turned away.

  “Skipping a few meals won’t make me sick.” I jerked a shoulder in a shrug as I scooped up the tablet and dumped it in my bag. My laptop went in next, keys, phone, charger. That was it. I didn’t carry a purse – my license, cash, credit cards all went into a slim case that I kept tucked inside the front pocket of whichever jacket I was wearing. Purses were always in the way, and since I never bothered with make-up or powdering my nose or any of that stuff, why bother carrying another bag?

  I was gone in another ten minutes, my driver whisking me away in the ridiculous Philadelphia traffic.

  I spent the commute studying the video one more time and then tracking down just what happened to one Adam Dedman.

  He’d put four men in the hospital. I’d gotten my hands on a copy of the police report, reading through the cop-talk and trying to find the best way to put some positive spin on this. If I could talk the boss into holding off…

  But that wasn’t going to happen. I already knew it.

  7

  Olivia

  “So he beat up a couple of drunken lowlifes a few hours after his mother died.” The boss put the tablet down and focused on me. “I’m not concerned about this, Olivia.”

  He was one of the few – the very few – who called me Olivia.

  “Sir, the problem is the fallout when you go public.” I gave him a smile, leaning forward. “The public eye is about to be on you in a very big way.”

  My throat tightened at just how much the public eye would be focused on him – and me. And Adam Dedman. Well, there was always the possibility he wouldn’t be interested. But that idea was laughable. Really.

  “The public eye will look at him and see a grieving man.” He jabbed a finger at the tablet. “Especially after they find out his background. A Navy SEAL. I still don’t believe it.”

  Knowing I’d lost the argument, I leaned back and folded my hands in my lap. “I assume you still want me to contact him? Are you certain it’s wise so soon after his mother’s death?”

  “Yes, and you and I are both going.” His eyes took on a far off look. “You’ll handle him. I just want to attend the funeral. Keep me in the loop, Olivia.”

  “Of course.” Like I’d do anything else. Keeping the stylus poised over my phone, I asked, “I imagine you’ll want to make some sort of gift in acknowledgment of her passing.”

  He turned away then, moving to stare out over the skyline of the city, the winding ribbon of the Ohio River catching the line of the sun and turning to silver. It was a beautiful view. Up until I’d started working in this position, I’d never seen Cincinnati from this particular angle, but then again, the boss had introduced me to a number of things that were new to me. Stability. A decent, steady job. Friendship. A life.

  T
he boss rarely came into his headquarters these days. The ninety-minute drive was longer than he liked. It was understandable. He was young still, only in his sixties, but he had responsibilities at home that took up more and more of his time.

  I lived halfway between his home and the offices on a piece of land he’d given me as a bonus five years ago. I told him it was too much, and he’d brushed it aside. For him, it was a pittance. The man was as rich as Croesus and beyond generous with those he considered most loyal to him.

  And he still hadn’t answered me.

  But I knew he’d heard. Finally, after another moment of silence, he nodded. “Yes, we’ll make a donation to the hospital – anonymously. Any ideas on how we should frame the gift?”

  Tapping my pen to my lips, I pondered it a moment. The idea, when it came, was simple and perfect. “Make it a scholarship for nurses furthering their education. I imagine the hospital offers some help to those who continue their education like she did. But they often come with strings – agreeing to work for so many years, work so many hours a week. A scholarship would be a nice memorial gift.”

  “Yes.” He nodded, still staring outside. “Make it happen.”

  A few more moments passed before he came back to the desk. “I understand that my wife’s sister is pushing for money again.”

  “Shocking nobody,” I said dryly. There had been a rift between the boss’s wife and the sister, one that spanned decades, but the past few months, the sister had become more and more demanding. Cherise Whitney also seemed to think it was time to take certain…actions.

  “Should I just make it clear that she’s not in the will so there’s no point in her pursuing this?”