Brenda Jackson - His To Claim

It could be his toughest mission yet:

win back his wife.

When navy SEAL and honorary Westmoreland Mac McRoy returns home, he discovers his wife has left. Teri has retreated to the Wyoming ranch they’d planned to visit together, and is resentful when he follows. She doesn’t want a second honeymoon; she wants a marriage Mac doesn’t take for granted. But life-or-death circumstances are about to put their love to the ultimate test.

BRENDA JACKSON is a New York Times bestselling author of more than one hundred romance titles. Brenda lives in Jacksonville, Florida, and divides her time between family, writing and travelling.

Email Brenda at authorbrendajackson@gmail.com or visit her on her website at brendajackson.net.

Also by Brenda Jackson

The Westmorelands miniseries

The Real Thing

The Secret Affair

Breaking Bailey’s Rules

Bane

The Westmoreland Legacy miniseries

The Rancher Returns

His Secret Son

An Honorable Seduction

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

His to Claim

Brenda Jackson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09237-1

HIS TO CLAIM

© 2019 Brenda Streater Jackson

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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Acknowledgements

To the man who will always and forever be

the love of my life and the wind beneath my wings:

Gerald Jackson, Sr.

Special thanks to my readers who are attending

the Brenda Jackson Readers Reunion 2019

as we cruise to Aruba. Fun! Fun! Fun!

I always enjoy spending time with you!

To all my readers who requested Mac’s story.

This book is for you.

Sending congratulations to my goddaughter,

Ty’ra Malloy, who is celebrating her graduation

from Florida State University.

Your Goddy is very proud of you!

Though thy beginning was small,

yet thy latter end should greatly increase.

—Job 8:7

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Acknowledgements

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Epilogue

Note from the Author

About the Publisher

One

Thurston McRoy, called Mac by all who knew him, got out of his rental vehicle and slid the keys into the pocket of his jeans. There was a dark blue sedan parked in his driveway.

At two in the morning.

It looked like a brand-new luxury Lexus and had a Georgia license plate. The only people he knew who lived in Georgia were his parents. Was this their vehicle?

They would often visit Virginia to check on his wife, Teri, and the kids whenever he was away for long periods of time. With his work as a navy SEAL, he often took part in missions where he was out of communication with his family. He appreciated his parents for all they did to make his work easier on his family. However, he was surprised to see their car here, tonight. Over the last year or so, they’d begun staying at a nearby hotel whenever they came to town. Unfortunately, there were no longer any spare rooms at the McRoy house.

The last time Mac had come home, he’d discovered Teri had given Tia, their oldest daughter of nine, her own room—namely the spare room. According to Teri, Tia was at the age where she now wanted privacy from her three younger sisters, Tatum, Tempest and Tasha. But did she have to take the only spare room in the house? The one that doubled as his man cave whenever he came home?

He and Teri had always talked about buying a bigger place. Frankly, he had more than enough means to make it happen thanks to the investments he’d made on the advice of his friend and teammate, Bane Westmoreland. However, over the past several years, he’d been gone a lot, sent on several missions, and he was too hands-on to even think of letting her make such a major purchase like that without him. He knew exactly what he wanted in a home and Teri knew what she wanted. And their wants were on the opposite ends of the spectrum. She wanted a two-story home and he wanted ranch style. The fewer stairs he had to climb, the better.

Tonight, he was returning home from an eight-month-long, highly classified covert operation near Libya. During that time, he hadn’t been able to let anyone, not even Teri, know of his whereabouts. He had left home in the wee hours of the morning after making passionate love to his wife, without being able to tell her where he was going or when he would return.

As a toddler he recalled sitting on his maternal grandfather’s knee and listening to stories of his military days, specifically as a SEAL. His paternal grandfather had been a military man, as well, an army ranger. Although Mac’s father hadn’t been in the military Mac had decided early in life protecting his country was something he wanted to do. Being a SEAL had always been his dream and he’d worked hard to make that particular dream come true. Now after almost twenty years whenever he thought it was time to retire, a part of him was convinced there was one more mission, one more opportunity to defend the country he loved.