Amber Leigh Williams - Navy Seal Promise

“Yeah, but it wasn’t like that in the beginning, was it?” Kyle asked. He was on the verge of furor and he went there. “All those years ago. You didn’t exactly tell her why you missed the first part of my life. Why you left her when she was seventeen, pregnant. She had to find out for herself what kind of man you were before us.”

James stared, stricken. They’d rarely spoken in heated terms. They’d never hurt one another. It had been their silent understanding from the moment James had come back into Kyle’s and Adrian’s lives, a way of making up for all those lost years.

But The Farm.

Some things were sacred.

Hurt worked in the creases of James’s face, looking for purchase. Yet he spoke levelly. “Have I ever done anything to make you question my loyalty or motives? You’re my life, Kyle. You, your mother, Mavis... You’re my whole life.”

“Then why didn’t Mav and I have a say in this?” Kyle asked. “You didn’t do this for us. You did this to satisfy your own need for thrills on a day-to-day basis, Howard Hughes.”

“I did this,” James said, placing each word with care, “for our home. Family-owned agriculture is dying. Farms like ours are breaking up and being put to auction. I needed to do something.”

“You did it for yourself,” Kyle maintained. Another thought struck him, and it brought on great big flame balls of ire. “And what about Harmony? How much does she have riding on this? She lives here, too, Dad—her and Bea. This is their home. She’s staked money, probably most of what she has to her name. Her name itself is stamped on the business. You lose B.S., what does that mean for her? You won’t be able to pay back all she bet.”

“No one’s going to take a loss,” James said, the first signs of frustration bleeding through. “No one.”

“How much have you told her? She’s your partner. Her training is your big ticket item. What does she know?”

A pronounced frown took hold of James’s tight features. “I don’t want her to worry.”

“But there’s no reason to worry, right?” Kyle said, tossing the assertion back at him. He shook his head. “You’re a piece of work.”

“Kyle,” James said as Kyle shoved through the screen door.

“I need a minute,” he said as he descended to the grass and kept walking. He had to walk. The fighter in him was taking shots, and it needed to stop before he could face either of his parents again. He felt betrayed by the one person in the world who shouldn’t have betrayed him. His father had thrown his so-called birthright against the wall like spaghetti.

If Kyle stayed, he’d say something he’d regret. Do something he’d regret.

He’d walk until the sting of his father’s actions numbed. Even if it meant walking all night. The Farm went on for miles.

CHAPTER THREE

SOMETIMES A GIRL needed to see the moon. Especially if that moon was a strawberry moon.

“Mama,” Bea moaned as she gazed at the rising moonscape through the paper tube of her makeshift glitter-dotted telescope. “It’s not right.”

“Not right?” Harmony said. She was on her knees in capri pants in the middle of the dusty path that led from the gate of the Brackens’ farmland to the mother-in-law suite. She peered at the horizon. Rising over the trees was a wondrous, dusky red full moon. “That’s it. Right there.”

“But it’s not a strawberry,” her four-year-old insisted, disappointment laden in her voice.

Harmony felt the urge to laugh. Bea’s seriousness kept the brevity from breaking the surface. Clearing her throat, she said in the practical tones her intuitive preschooler would appreciate most, “It’s only called a strawberry moon.”

“Why?” Bea asked, features squelched as she gazed, skeptical, at the impressive nightly specter.

Harmony pursed her lips. “Well, it’s red. Like a strawberry.”

“Tomatoes are red.”

“True.” Harmony nodded.

“And Mammy’s tulips. And puppy noses.”

“All valid points.” And Harmony did smile, because the thought of a Puppy-Nosed Moon was too amusing to resist. She loved Bea’s mind. She loved its precociousness and the great kaleidoscope of imagination that kept it from maturing too quickly. “But I think it’s called a strawberry moon because... You remember talking in day school about the first people who lived on this land, the Native Americans?”

“Uh-huh?”

“Well, those same Native Americans needed to know when their strawberries were ready for picking. So the moon would paint itself up like a strawberry to tell them.”

“Oooh.” Bea tilted her head, as if viewing the moon through a new lens. “It looks like blackberry juice.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” A heady breeze stirred the trees into a whispering frenzy. It brought the smell of salt far inland, an early herald of the storm. Shifting from one knee to another, Harmony drew the folds of her sweater close. Planes would be grounded for the next few days until the damn thing spun itself north to the Plains and petered there.

June brought pop-up thunderstorms. It was a fact of life in the low south, but that didn’t stop her from feeling restless. She’d been grounded too long before James came to her with the proposal for Bracken-Savitt Aerial Application & Training. Summer was prime running time for crop dusters with fields ripening toward harvest, and yet the seasonal weather was a nuisance and a half.

Bea shifted from one leg to another then back. Harmony picked up on the telltale impatience, identical to her own. “Have you seen enough of the moon tonight?”

“Can I have a bath?” Bea asked, swiping her small round palm over her brow. Blond curls clung, damp, to her temple. “I wanna bath.”

It took some effort not to roll her eyes and remind her daughter that she’d firmly refused bath time not two hours ago. Settling for a sigh, Harmony stood up and helped bring Bea to her feet. “Bath time sounds good.”

“With Mr. Bubble?” Bea asked, hopeful.

“With Mr. Bubble,” Harmony confirmed. Dusting the frilly skirt of Bea’s fairy outfit and the petticoat layers underneath, she took the lead to the house.

Bea’s head turned sharply at the sound of rustling in the high-climbing vegetation. “What’s that?”

“Probably an animal,” Harmony said, tugging Bea along and eyeing the bushes warily. A big animal. Creature sightings were everyday happenings on The Farm. Aside from the horses and dogs the Brackens raised, there were squirrels, raccoons, reptiles and insects in abundance.

The crashing in the undergrowth grew louder. Bea’s mouth dropped. “Mama,” she whispered. “What is that?”

“I don’t know.” She stepped halfway in front of Bea to protect her.

Bobcat?

No. Bigger.

Deer?

“It’s a bear,” Bea said, eyes as round as the moon.

“It’s not a bear,” Harmony said doubtfully. Then she frowned. Is it? All of a sudden, she found herself wishing for the hot-pink high-powered stun gun her father, a former police detective, had given her for her sixteenth birthday. In case of a break-in, she kept it in her top dresser drawer under the naughty lingerie she never wore.

Bea’s hand tightened on hers as branches snapped and tossed. Harmony licked her lips and tensed. Whatever it was would have to go through her...

A swath of moonlight fell on the T-shirt-clad figure, and she breathed again. Just a SEAL.

He turned to go up the path, then stopped when he saw them, frozen and watchful.

A very surly SEAL, Harmony observed.

“Hi,” he greeted shortly.

“Hi,” she returned. She nudged Bea. “See? Not a bear.”

Kyle tilted his head to the side to get a look at the girl hiding behind Harmony’s leg. “Hey there, little wing.”