Navy Seal Promise

She was a carbon copy of his mother without the red hair neither of them had managed to inherit. Adrian’s freckles had faded out long ago, but they remained on Kyle’s sister, dark and splattered every which way across pale features. Still, the woman before him was so small even holding her as a child in arms, arms that had felt clumsy and reckless, Kyle had wondered that they could be so closely related.

He was eight when his mother married his biological father, James. And he was just shy of ten when the sibling he’d wished for with every fiber of his being was at last born. Not a brother like he’d wanted. But a sibling just the same.

When the door closed behind him, encasing him in the fresh, sweet-scented showroom, she didn’t look around. Her head bent over a large open book, she recited in a bored monotone, “Welcome to Flora, Fairhope’s finest florist. How may I assist you?”

“Damn,” Kyle muttered, backtracking. “This ain’t the cathouse.”

Mavis’s spine straightened. Her head whipped. Dark eyes pinned him to the spot, the muscles of her face momentarily slack in a rare show of surprise. “Kyle?” It wasn’t so much a question as a demand. “You’re home,” she stated, combing him.

“Just.”

“You didn’t call,” she said, accusing now. A well-worn scowl pulled at her insouciant mouth. “Typical of you to just show up and give everybody the shock of the month.” A fist came to rest against her hip. “Jackass.”

“Pipsqueak,” he threw back.

“Nimrod.”

“Tightwad.”

“Meathead.”

The corners of his lips moved. “Meathead?”

He watched hers waver. “Yeah. That’s what I said. Meathead.”

He couldn’t stop it. He broke into a fond grin. “Get over here.”

Mavis had never been one for public displays of affection. Despite that and the tough love she volleyed routinely back at him in spades, she moved toward him. When he wrapped her tight against his chest, she stood only slightly stiff in his embrace.

“Miss me?” he whispered, his cheek against her hair.

“Eh.”

A quiet laugh rumbled through him before he let her go.

She gave him another study. “At least you’re intact. Wilderness Man.”

Kyle skimmed his knuckles over the unruly beard. “Yeah, I could probably do with a shave, huh?”

“You’re going to need a bush-hog to rid yourself of that mess.” Eyes widening, she asked, aiming to tease, “Didn’t lose any more of the family jewels, I take it.”

He hissed through his teeth. “Can’t afford it. What’s left is here, standing right in front of you,” he added when she continued to eyeball him, waiting for a solid answer on the health front. She blinked, and the relief was gone, but the glimpse of emotion he gleaned made his stomach tighten just the same. “What about you? How’re you doing?”

“No complaints.” When his brows hitched and he scrutinized her much as she’d scrutinized him, she repeated, “I said no complaints.”

“Good,” he said after a second’s longer study. Mavis had been treated for epilepsy since she was a little kid. “And how’s business?”

“Fine,” she admitted.

“Mmm-hmm. Any, uh—” he fanned his fingers in the air “—sightings lately?”

She smirked, banding her arms over her chest. “You know that’s confidential.”

Mavis had an unusual job description and loose hours to go with it. When she wasn’t tied up doing paranormal investigation, she filled the needs of her parents and their various industries—Flora, Carlton Nurseries, Bracken Mechanics and his father’s latest and fondest project, a start-up company called Bracken-Savitt Aerial Application & Training. Or B.S., for short. “You’re being careful out there at least,” he said. “Right?”

“God, Kyle. It’s not like I chase zombies or supervillains or whatever it is you do.”

“Just ghosts and ghouls,” he asserted. He digressed. “Where’s Mom?”

“Greenhouse,” she told him. “You better have brought her something. Seeing you’s bound to knock her over.”

He flicked the end of her button nose. She dodged and swiped. Bringing her against his side, he pecked a quick kiss to her temple. “Plans for dinner?” he asked as he backtracked to the entry door.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She crossed her eyes at him.

He rolled his at her and pushed his way out into the heat. “I’m still waitin’ for directions to that cathouse.”

“Drive hard due west,” she called at his back. “When you hit the bay, hold your breath and keep going!”

He chuckled again when the door closed behind him. He followed the path through the silver sale buckets and past an impressive display of succulents planted between the slats of an Old West wagon wheel. Around the side of the building, a wheelbarrow overflowed with annuals and a pineapple-shaped fountain burbled just before the wide-parted doors of Flora’s greenhouse.

He heard the clomp of the stem cutter before he was even part of the way through. Inside, it was sweltering. The hanging plants and tables of vegetation soaked up the humidity. Kyle was already sweating under his cotton T-shirt when he rounded the corner and saw his mother chopping the stems off her latest delivery of fresh roses. The blade swung down, decisive under the guiding stroke of her hand. She worked by rote, quick, efficient in a red apron labeled with the Flora logo and thick work gloves to ward off any ill will from thorns.

He reached into the leg pocket of his cargoes and pulled out the wrapping with his offering inside. “Howdy.”

Adrian’s head rotated quickly, and she stopped.

It took her a moment. Kyle knew with the beard, and his hair grown out a good ways, that the resemblance between his father and himself was striking. He watched it sink in. Her hands fell away from the cutter, and her mouth parted. With her, the emotions bled through him easily and he let them, smile going soft. “Is this where you keep Dad’s testicles?” When she continued to gaze, slack with surprise, he went on. “Mav and I. We’ve always wondered.”

Her lips closed and her throat moved on a swallow. Though her eyes filled, she pulled in a breath and offered him a smile in return. “Why do you think I germinate the best bulbs in five counties?” The mist in her eyes grew until she blinked. She lifted her shoulders, taking him in. “Oh, my God, Kyle.”

“Hey,” he said, as her hands rose to her face and she lowered it into them. He crossed to her and spanned his arms around her. It was easy to hold her, much as it was once easy for her to hold him. When a silent sob tremored through her, he cradled her closer and rocked, side to side. He gave a small, cajoling laugh. “Mom. Hey, it’s okay.”

“Did something happen—to send you home early?”

“I’m fine. My rotation just ended.”

She pulled back slowly. Raising her hands to his face, she took a good conclusive look at him. Where Mavis had been satisfied with words, Adrian knew better. She looked deep, beyond the eyes, searching. “Something’s happened.”

He shrugged it off. “It’s over. I’m home.”

“You are. I’m happy. So happy.” Hugging him around the middle, she sighed. “Was your father in on this?”

“No.” Kyle chuckled. “No, he’s off the hook.”

“Have you seen him?”

“Not yet. I saw Nick at the marina. He said something about an air show.”

“It’s something B.S. put together,” Adrian said. “For charity. And, of course, advertising. He’s flying a vintage training plane from the ’50s. I’ve spent the better part of the day trying not to think about what happens when that man gets behind the yoke of an outmoded bucket.”

“He’s a good pilot.”

“He’s a show-off,” she said plainly.

“Can’t a guy be both?”

“Harmony’s there, too,” Adrian added.

“Harm.” Kyle warmed at the news. He’d known Harmony from the day she was born. He’d marveled over her—her growth, her can’t-touch-this attitude, her remarkable go-hard personality and the unquestioned strength that held those around her together. Being with Harmony was like finding a new penny somewhere unexpected, and not just because of her Zippo Flamethrower hair. “How’s she doing?”

Adrian’s smile wavered by a hair. Only a hair. “She likes being back in the air, and your father’s determined to make sure she stays there this time around.”

“Why wouldn’t she?” When Adrian’s eyes skimmed to his shoulder, he ducked his head to bring her attention back to his face. “B.S. isn’t in some kind of trouble already?” Thus far, none of his father’s ventures had failed. To hear the man tell it, the agricultural market had been ripe for new sprayers. “It’s been barely a year since they cut the ribbon.”

Adrian shook her head. “I couldn’t tell you everything. I don’t think even he’s told me all the nitpicky details, but there’ve been problems. Prospective clients slipping away. Contracts breaking up over mysterious circumstances. And the holes need plugging now to keep the belly of the business off the ground. Until then...” She lifted her brows, eyeing him from underneath them. “This needs to stay quiet. I’m not sure Harmony knows half of what I’m telling you.”

“She’s fifty percent of the business,” Kyle pointed out.

“Yes, but your dad told her from day one that this was a sure thing,” Adrian said. “She put her faith in his word, as well as her money, name and reputation. If B.S. goes under, it won’t be without a fight on your dad’s part. Or mine, for that matter.”

Kyle frowned over the wave of information.

Adrian crossed her arms over her chest. Mavis had looked much the same moments ago. “Did you sail home?”

“Always do.”

“On the Hellraiser.”

“What else?”

“Did you stay close to shore?”

“Mostly,” he claimed.

One of her brows twitched. “Please tell me you didn’t sail like an idiot through that storm.”

He hedged. “Huh.”

“Kyle Zachariah Bracken.”

They both were born Carltons. Adrian had been married to Radley Kennard at the time of Kyle’s birth. However, she’d wanted to give Kyle her name in lieu of her first husband’s. When James came back into their lives, solidifying the family unit, his mother had asked Kyle’s advice over what to do with their name.

He liked the idea of them staying Carltons, sharing what had been theirs together for so long. But he’d also finally gained a real father—one hell of a father—and he’d wanted to take his name. So, to James’s amusement and pride, Kyle and Adrian took up the name Bracken to please themselves as well as him. “In my defense,” Kyle said slowly, “it wasn’t a tropical storm at the time...”

“You sailed through a hurricane and didn’t have the decency to call your mother,” she surmised, unimpressed by her findings.

“Are you surprised?”

“Not in the least. But I still have that BB gun I took from your possession all those years ago.” Her lips pursed. “Don’t think I’m not above poppin’ you with it.”

Kyle finally extended what was in his hand. “Then now’s a good a time as any...”

Adrian took the bundle gingerly. “What’s this?”

“A surprise. Careful,” he added as she unrolled the cotton wrapping. “It’s not the cuddly type.”

Adrian carefully unveiled the offering. She cupped it in her hands with the cotton bunched between her skin and the thorns packed close along the stem. “Kyle,” she breathed, every trace of censure vanishing. “Where did you get this?”

“That’s...classified, Mom.” When she tutted at him, he said, “I did some research. It’s native to Madagascar. They say it migrated to the Middle East in ancient times as well as to small areas of India. They call it the Crown of Thorns.”

Adrian gazed at it in wonder. Kyle’s mother had seen most every flower under the sun. He loved nothing more than bringing home something exotic, something she hadn’t seen before. In his parents’ bedroom at The Farm, she kept a shadowbox full of treasures he’d found through his years of service. Bending her head low over the pink blossoms, she sniffed for fragrance. “It’s different. I like that. Is it dangerous?”

“Poisonous, from flower to stem. And it’d make a fair pincushion.”

It might as well have been a puppy, the way she lifted it to look from another angle. She beamed. “You did good. If you’re right about the poison, it’ll do well to keep your dad in line, too.”

Kyle swallowed. “I missed you, Mom.”

She gazed at him, the light in her flickering as she focused on what was behind the eyes once more. “Something did happen over there. But I missed you, too. And I’m glad you’re home.”

CHAPTER TWO

THE WARPLANE HANDLED like it was the 1940s and the war was on again. Harmony strapped into the cockpit of the old bird with the giddiness of a child and took to the sky, climbing high, the nose reaching for the blue, white-peppered expanse.

“No tricks today, ace,” the voice of her radioman advised. “Just do some nice fly-bys and get the people going.”

“You’re a buzzkill, James,” she called back. “I’m just stretching the lady’s legs.”

What legs! The engine had fire and pizzazz. It was bred for dogfighting and hell-for-leather maneuvers. The idea brought gooseflesh to Harmony’s skin as she banked, coming around.

The trim airfield spread out below her, a jutting green carpet. Two lines of exhibition planes were queued on either side of the runway. Hundreds of faces from the metal bleachers were turned up to the sky, watching the fighter live again. “Hold on to your hats,” Harmony warned, going low.

A curse blew through the headset of her flying helmet as she dipped over the bleachers and climbed again, gaining airspeed. “Well. Hats are in the wind,” James observed. “You nearly ripped the blouse off the congressman’s wife.”

“Then we’re certain to make the papers.” She banked again. “Relax. Are the good people smiling?”

“They’re verklempt. Nobody ever said you don’t put on a good show.”

“Just sit back and enjoy it, why don’t you?” she suggested. “Coming in again...”

Even she whooped as she made the next sweep. This was worth all the hassle they’d gone through to get the summer show off the ground. They’d haggled for weeks with FAA regulations. With well-trained pilots, they’d managed to rustle together all the right paperwork and get the all-clear from the powers that be.

God, it felt great to be in the cockpit. No way she would ever give it up again. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t give to stay airborne.

Well, there was one thing she wouldn’t give. Harmony’s gaze strayed to the three-by-five photograph she’d taped to the control panel for luck. Her daughter smiled back at her over a ruffle-lined shoulder, curly-headed and coquettish. She was the reason Harmony couldn’t try any of her old barnstorming maneuvers, though the temptation sang. She was the reason Harmony heeded James’s warning and performed fly-bys instead of loops.

Gracie Bea, who’d lost one parent before she was born, was the general reason Harmony toed the line. Because no matter how trained she was, no matter how well-maintained the warbird might be, she couldn’t take risks. She took enough on a day-to-day basis. Aerial application wasn’t low-level aerobatics, but it still held its share of dangers.

Harmony liked being the pilot mama who taught her daughter not to slow down but to run and climb, whoop and holler. Yet she knew her limits, and she heeded them as she’d heeded few other limits in life, even gravity, because no child deserved to grow up an orphan.

It hurt enough that Bea would never know her father, Petty Officer Benjamin Zaccoe—Benji.

“Last pass,” Harmony informed James through the radio. “Ready down there?” A frown pulled at her lips when he didn’t answer. “James?” She was already going in for a dive. She pulled off the final fly-by and tapped her headset. “Tower, do you read?”

Communications must be down, she mused. Wheels down, she executed a safe, only somewhat flashy landing that brought the bird to a standstill in front of the rows of spectators who clambered to their feet and cheered her as she rose from the cockpit and waved. She’d dressed the part in a vintage flying helmet and sheep-lined leather jacket. As had been her trademark in flying days past, she wore her hair in a thick braid over one shoulder.

The warm reception brought her flight buzz to a satisfying conclusion. She stood on the wing of the fighter, gave a salute, and prepared to hop to the grass before she saw James approaching.

“Nice flying, ace.” He nodded, impressed.

She pulled off her helmet. “I lost comms.”

He reached out to grasp the wing’s edge. James was well over six feet tall and had aged well. Very well. His hair and beard were still thick, with some salt and pepper sprinkled through. His tan face only looked worn around the corners of his eyes where laughter had inscribed itself. “Sorry. It was me,” he admitted.

“Why?” she asked. “What happened?”

“I was distracted,” James told her. He turned toward the row of B.S. personnel on the ground. “You can blame that one over there.”

Harmony squinted. Well-worn T-shirt, cargo pants, battered baseball cap over hair that curled brown under the rim and bordered on unruliness. The beard was full enough to rival James’s, and the smile wove a wide path through it. Blue eyes winked at her from under the brim of the hat.

“’Ey, Carrots,” he greeted.

She nearly shuddered. “Kyle!” Hopping down to the grass, she got a running leap on him.

“Umphf!” he groaned under the impact, breaking into a low-rumbling laugh as he grabbed her up off the ground in a fierce hug.

Some hugs had the power to heal all manner of woes. Some were as vital as the bodies they brought together. Harmony tightened her hold around Kyle’s neck. For a moment—a small moment—she let all her anxiety bleed through to the surface where she never let it stray. Not when he was away. She couldn’t think about what he and her brother, Gavin, did. She couldn’t think about the risk of losing either of them where she’d already lost too much.

Ducking her head into Kyle’s shoulder, she felt her brow creasing and the muscles beneath quake with the effort to hold it back. Beating it under, she breathed deep and smelled sunshine, Zest soap and sea salt—smells that were so very Kyle.

He was back. It was her turn to feel verklempt.

“Talk about a hero’s reception,” he murmured.

Her lips curved. “Mmm-hmm.”

“Harm?”

“Hmm?” she mumbled. She felt a bit fuzzy-headed as she pulled back in his embrace. “Oh.” Loosening her grip, she let him set her on the grass. “Sorry. I just... I missed the hell out of you.”

All the fuzziness faded, and her focus sharpened, everything zeroing in on him. As a girl, she’d felt a magnetic pull toward him. He might’ve known her since she was a baby, but Harmony was a woman, damn it, and Kyle Bracken was a man, a soldier, that women noticed.

“You look the same,” he said.

She swore sometimes Kyle still saw her as his best buddy Gavin’s little sister. Did he look at her and see the four-year-old who’d wrecked her bicycle in earth-scorching fashion on the gravel outside his mother’s flower shop? Or the eighteen-year-old he’d tossed into a mud puddle in front of his navy friends? “Is that good?” she asked.

He reached up, touched her hair. Just a brush above the temple where some flyaway strays had pulled free of her braid. “Couldn’t be better.”

She ignored the missed breath and balled her hand into a fist. Throwing it into the rock slab of his shoulder, she knocked him back half a step and startled a short laugh out of him. “You don’t call. You don’t write. You just show up out of the blue to let us know you’re—” She stopped herself just short of saying alive. She licked her lips and shook her head. “You’re nearly as bad as my brother.”

“Ouch,” he said, his good humor fading by a fraction. He touched his shoulder. “You’ve been working on that jab.”

“I’m a mama now, K.Z.B.,” she reminded him. “Somebody’s got to step up their game. Since Benji can’t be here, and with you and Gavin gone more than half the time, I’m the only one left to teach Bea how to breathe fire.”

His face went solemn at the reminder of Benji, of Kyle’s own continual absence. She saw a spark of guilt there. Harmony hadn’t meant to hit him in the tenders. It was easy to forget he even had tender spots. He was built exactly as what he was—an elite fighter. He didn’t exactly wear his emotions on his sleeve. He wasn’t trained that way.

He just got back, she reminded herself. She knew better than most how long it took a soldier to settle after returning home—physically, emotionally, psychologically. And Kyle’s heart reached as wide as the warm Gulf waters. Switching gears quickly, she said, “Bea will be thrilled to bits when she sees you.”

“Not as much as me.”

“Are you staying at The Farm?” she asked, referring to the farmhouse and acres of horse pasture, fields and woods that belonged to Adrian and James. “You could come by. Though you probably want to settle in first.”

“I’ll stay at The Farm for a little while,” he acknowledged. “I’m not sure Mom would have it any other way. It’s not much of a walk from their place to yours.”

That was true. She lived on Bracken land in the mother-in-law suite. When Kyle’s grandfather, Van Carlton, passed away, he and James had built the cozy little house for his grandmother, Edith, while the Brackens moved their family of four into the farmhouse she had no longer wanted to keep up. The arrangement had lasted little more than three years before his grandmother moved to a retirement village in Florida.

When Harmony returned home after Benji’s death, she’d accepted the Brackens’ invitation to live in the empty suite. The arrangement worked for all parties. She couldn’t have very well brought a squalling newborn to the inn like her parents had wanted. They might like the idea of having their grandchild so close, but they also had an established business to run.

And Harmony liked the Bracken lands. She’d enjoyed raising Bea there with not much but honeybees and squirrels for company. The Farm was a rich place to raise a child. Bea had learned to ride in the last year. Adrian and James had even bought her her own pony. The Brackens themselves were generous landlords, understanding and unobtrusive. And it helped that Harmony’s business partner was only a hop, skip and a jump away. B.S. butted up against The Farm and Carlton Nurseries, meaning the commute to work wasn’t half bad either.

“Come by,” Harmony invited. “See Bea. I’ll make macaroni.”

Kyle hissed, reaching for his waistline. “You know my weakness for your macaroni. Just as you know a soldier’s got to watch his form.”

“A spoon or two won’t kill you,” she said, slugging him again in the stomach. Her knuckles did little more than ricochet off the abs underneath his T-shirt. The man was a machine. There were strong men. Ripped men. Then there were men like Kyle who were made of stronger stuff—concrete and rebar. “I’ll make it for Bea. You can gank a few bites off her plate if it makes you feel better. I’ll even throw in a free trim.” She motioned to his neckline. “You’re getting long in the back.” Overseas, he often let it grow out, but hair as thick as his didn’t last long at home without a trim, particularly in the summer.

He scrubbed those peeking brown curls. “It didn’t bother me ’til the humidity hit. Mavis could do it, but it’s a foolish man who asks her to take scissors to his head.”

“You’re afraid of Mavis,” Harmony noted. She shook her head. “I thought you big SEAL types were fearless.”

“Not entirely.”

“What else are you afraid of?” she asked experimentally.

He turned thoughtful. Again, his smile slipped. She wondered at the hitch before it vanished, and he responded. “Sharks.”

“It’s a good thing you’re home then,” she pointed out. She touched him, to assure herself again that he was really here. “You won’t find many of those inland.”

“I guess.” He looked over her head, saw the people watching and waiting. “I shouldn’t keep you. Your fans’ll want a piece of you, too.”