The Airman's E-Mail Order Bride (Heroes of Chance Creek Book 5) Read online

  The Airman’s E-Mail Order Bride

  By Cora Seton

  ‡

  The Airman’s E-Mail Order Bride

  Copyright © 2015 Cora Seton

  Kindle Edition

  ISBN: 9781927036617

  Published by One Acre Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Author’s Note

  The Airman’s E-Mail Order Bride is the fifth in the five volume series, The Heroes of Chance Creek. To find out more about Mason, Regan, Austin, Zane, Colt and other Chance Creek inhabitants, look for the rest of the books in the series, including:

  The Navy SEAL’s E-mail Order Bride (Volume 1)

  The Soldier’s E-Mail Order Bride (Volume 2)

  The Marine’s E-Mail Order Bride (Volume 3)

  The Navy SEAL’s Christmas Bride (Volume 4)

  Find out where it all began with The Cowboys of Chance Creek Series:

  The Cowboy Inherits a Bride (Volume 0)

  The Cowboy’s E-mail Order Bride (Volume 1)

  The Cowboy Wins a Bride (Volume 2)

  The Cowboy Imports a Bride (Volume 3)

  The Cowgirl Ropes a Billionaire (Volume 4)

  The Sheriff Catches a Bride (Volume 5)

  The Cowboy Lassos a Bride (Volume 6)

  The Cowboy Rescues a Bride (Volume 7)

  The Cowboy Earns a Bride (Volume 8)

  The SEALs of Chance Creek

  A SEAL’s Oath

  A SEAL’s Vow

  A SEAL’s Pledge

  A SEAL’s Consent

  Visit www.coraseton.com for more titles and release dates.

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  Prologue

  ‡

  July

  Staff Sergeant Colt Hall squatted in the darkness on a rocky outcrop high in the mountains on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. His father, Aaron, crouched silently beside him. Dawn would come soon, but for now the valley was full of shadows where anything could hide.

  “Tough country.”

  “Got that right,” Colt said. He knew his father shouldn’t stand watch with him while the rest of his team slept; he knew something was odd about Aaron’s presence there at all, but he couldn’t quite work it out. Colt had served with this small band of Navy SEALs for the past year in his position as an Air Force combat controller, and he needed to stay alert and not be distracted by conversation—or conundrums. This hour of the night was lonely, though, and he appreciated his father’s company, even if they were breaking the rules.

  “Hard to make a living from that land.”

  “They grow ’em tough as nails around here,” Colt agreed. He didn’t know how the Afghans eked sustenance out of these hills year after year, lifetime after lifetime.

  “You’ve got some good land waiting for you back in Montana.”

  Colt shifted. He knew that. He could just about taste summer in Chance Creek, but he chased all memories of Crescent Hall, his family’s ranch, from his mind. “I’ve got a job to do here.”

  “I think your stint here’s about finished, son.”

  Finished? His job was never finished. If it wasn’t the Taliban in Afghanistan, it was drug lords in Central America, or an earthquake in Haiti. “I don’t think so.”

  “Someone’s waiting for you. Don’t let them down.”

  Waiting for him? Colt turned his head to look at his father, all the time knowing he had to keep watch on the valley below. They could be ambushed at any time, especially in these hushed moments between night and sunrise.

  His father’s expression held love, compassion and something else—something… wistful. He set his hand on Colt’s shoulder.

  “Time to go home.”

  Colt reared up from sleep with a gasp so loud he woke his three companions and sent their lookout scrambling for cover under the nearby trees. His father’s voice rang so clearly in his mind he jerked around to find him, but all he saw was the rocky escarpment on which they’d made camp. A hint of the coming dawn eased the dark grays into lighter shades in the east. Otherwise, all was as bleak and grim as it had been when he’d gone to bed.

  “What the fuck, Colt?” Tanner Hudson hissed close by his side.

  “Just a dream,” Colt managed to say. But what a dream. He still couldn’t believe he’d been sleeping instead of standing guard. It had felt so real—especially Aaron’s hand on his shoulder. Time to go home.

  Colt eased back to rest on his elbows. Aaron had been dead for over a decade and Colt had never had a visitation like this. Not a visitation, he reminded himself. Just a dream. Just his mind playing tricks on him.

  He hadn’t wanted to go home since Aaron had died and his family had been forced to leave Chance Creek and go to live with his aunt in Florida. Even now that his brothers had begun to move back to claim their family’s old ranch, there were too many memories he didn’t want to face, especially the ones that had to do with his father.

  Colt had joined the Air Force just as soon as he’d turned seventeen. His brother, Austin, had already decided to enter the military and the rest of them had joined up when it became clear their mother, in her grief over their father’s death, couldn’t support them. Colt had worked his way up the ranks and now his job was to aid this advance party behind enemy lines by calling in airstrikes and relaying coordinates to the pilots and rear crews.

  Time to go home.

  Why had his father been so insistent? And who could be waiting for him? Don’t let them down. Colt settled back and pulled his covers around him, his heart rate slowing. He’d already let his father down the day Aaron died. The last time he’d seen his father alive, he’d been in too much of a hurry to slow down and talk to him. His family had still owned Crescent Hall back then, the old three-story mansion and the ranch that shared its name. Colt, just sixteen and on fire for Heather Ward—his new girlfriend and his brother Austin’s ex—had met Aaron on the path between the house and the barn.

  “Hold up a minute,” Aaron had called out. “You off to cause trouble?”

  “No.” But he hadn’t met his father’s eyes as he raced on by.

  “You know what you’re doing isn’t right!” his father had shouted after him.

  Colt hadn’t answered. Hopped up on adrenaline and hormones, he’d done exactly what his father had feared he’d do: slept with the girl who only weeks ago had dated his brother. He’d regretted every last illicit minute with Heather ever since. Before he’d even reached the woods and his meeting place with her, his father had died from an aneurysm. Colt didn’t learn of it for hours. His tryst with Heather marked the last few moments of what he now knew was a glorious childhood, and introduced him to the wonders of making love. But the nightmare he’d come home to had wiped any joyful memory from his mind. He couldn’t think of that day with anything but horror.

  He’d killed his father while betraying his brother. Aaron must have worried so much about the rift he knew was coming between his sons that a vein in his brain had burst and felled him instantly.

  Colt swallowed against the nausea that rose in his throat. His older brother, Zane, was the only one who knew that he’d been with Heather at all, and no one knew about the words he’d exchanged with Aaron on the track between the house and barn. No one would ever know. He’d never been with Heather again. Had broken off all contact with her as soon as he learned his father was dead—even before his family was forced to leave the ran
ch a scant two weeks later. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done, especially since none of it was Heather’s fault. All the blame was his. He was the one so caught up in lust and love that he hadn’t heard the sense in his father’s words.

  Heather Ward. Colt turned over, knowing soon it would be time to get up. Around him the others settled in again to try to glean a few last moments of rest. Once he thought he’d marry Heather and live out his days on the family’s ranch, but that was so long ago it didn’t matter anymore. Four months ago, he and his brothers had been given another chance to win it back. He’d scoffed at Mason, Austin and Zane when they’d agreed to his Aunt Heloise’s crazy conditions for inheriting the place, but when they’d pressured him he’d agreed to do his part. Heloise had insisted they fix up the buildings and stock the ranch with cattle. In addition, all four of them had to marry, and one had to have a child.

  “I won’t leave the Air Force,” he’d told his brothers, and they’d agreed it wasn’t necessary. All they needed was for him to find a wife.

  The dream about Aaron had cracked a fault line through his resolution to stay away. The truth was he’d never felt worthy to go home—not after what he’d done. Maybe the aneurysm would have struck whether he raced by or stopped to talk to his dad. Still, he couldn’t help think that losing his father and the ranch all in one blow was divine retribution for his sins.

  But if his father wanted him home…

  It was just a dream, he reminded himself.

  “It’s time,” Brian Leyton whispered from several feet away. The others began to stir and prepare to move out for another day’s reconnaissance. As Colt got to his feet and silently stowed his gear in his backpack, he felt again the pressure of his father’s hand on his shoulder.

  Time to go home. He stood still amidst his team’s activity, and took a long look around him. Mountains stretched in every direction. He’d never been in such a starkly beautiful, empty place. For a moment, the sounds of his companions fell away and Colt stood alone under a sky so large it seemed to recede from him. The details of his mission emptied from his mind and he gave himself up to the beauty of the sunrise in a strange land so far from home.

  Someone’s waiting for you. Don’t let them down. The words were only an echo from his earlier dream, but the message sliced through all Colt’s defenses straight to his heart. He missed Chance Creek with an ache he’d lived with so long it had become part of him. Maybe his father was right; maybe it was time. Time to confess to his brothers what had happened the day of their father’s death. Time to apologize to Austin for his tryst with Heather. Time to find a wife, get married, and take his place on the ranch with the rest of his family.

  Colt let out a breath and the world came rushing back in. Small birds peeped in the brush around them. His teammates, as quiet as they could be, still rustled as they moved. Tanner edged up to him. “Ready?” he asked, voice low.

  “Yeah,” Colt said, taking one last look around. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

  Chapter One

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  December

  “Are you really going home to Montana to marry some stranger?” Tanner said, lounging in the doorway of Colt’s room at Eglin Air Force Base.

  “Yep.” Colt focused on the laptop screen in front of him. “As long as I can find a stranger who wants to marry me. How’s this for a title: Get Paid to be My Wife.”

  “Catchy.” Tanner rolled his eyes. “You’ll reel in some high quality girls with that one.”

  “You got a better idea?” Colt had already spent way too much time on this damn ad. Each time he tried to write it, his gut tightened with an anxious feeling he was setting a lethal trap for himself. It was one thing to go home. It was another to get married, especially when you had a deadline. Back in the spring when Mason first told him about Heloise’s conditions, he’d thought it would be funny to advertise for a fake wife. Now it wasn’t quite as amusing. He would have to live with the woman for months and he’d have to convince his aunt he actually loved her, which wouldn’t be simple. Heloise was wily.

  The process had made him face the fact that he’d never given marriage a serious thought. He wasn’t a man to ruminate over the reasons behind his actions, but it was too clear to miss that he’d avoided any kind of commitment with a woman.

  He knew why, too.

  “How about Airman Seeks Bride? They’ll line up to get you.”

  “No way. I don’t want them lining up. I want one woman who gets the drill and won’t try to hang around when it’s time for her to hit the highway.”

  “Always the romantic.”

  “To hell with romance.”

  Tanner watched him type. When his scrutiny got irritating, Colt locked eyes with him. “You got something to say, say it.”

  “You could approach this differently.”

  “Differently how?”

  “Like there’s a chance you’ll actually fall for one of the women who answer your ad.”

  “There isn’t any chance of that.” He might be ready to go home and patch things up with his family—if that was possible—but he wasn’t ready to fall in love. Certainly not with someone he met from an online ad.

  He’d fallen in love once. It hadn’t worked out.

  “Why not? Each of your brothers has, right?”

  He didn’t know why Tanner kept trying to make the situation more than it was. “Here’s the rest of it,” he pressed on. “Wife needed for four to six months. Room, board and expenses plus generous salary. Must act the part under intense scrutiny and be willing to sign a pre-nup.”

  Tanner sighed. “You’re missing an opportunity here, Hall.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?” He filled in his payment information and prepared to place the ad.

  “What about that girl—Heather? Why not see if she’s still around?”

  Colt stilled. He should have never told Tanner anything about Heather. Unfortunately Tanner had snuck up on him earlier this year and saw her photograph on his laptop screen. It hadn’t meant anything. When Mason sent Colt an invitation to his wedding last June, Colt had looked her up to see if she was still in town. Pure curiosity, nothing more.

  She was still in town as far as he could tell, but her Internet presence was decidedly lacking. She featured in photos taken by a few of her friends. Once he got over his surprise that she’d dyed her dark hair blonde, he decided she hadn’t changed all that much. The few photos he found showed a mature version of the girl he’d lusted after all those years ago. She was still beautiful, but something in her eyes told him her life hadn’t been easy.

  His curiosity was far from satisfied, but he didn’t plan to pursue his search. He hadn’t seen Heather when he attended Mason’s wedding, and he told himself he was relieved about that.

  He wouldn’t look her up when he got home, either, and even if he saw her he wouldn’t try to renew their relationship. Heather belonged to the past—to the life he’d had before Aaron’s death.

  As a teenager she’d meant everything to him. He’d wanted her from the first time Austin brought her to the ranch, and he’d done everything he could think of to show her he was the one she should be with, but in all the months she’d dated Austin she’d never noticed him. The day she and his brother had split up, however, he knew his chance had finally come. He’d waited three more weeks to make his move—three weeks that felt like three years to a sixteen-year-old boy. When he’d finally asked her out and she’d said yes, he’d felt faint for the first time in his life. He’d taken it slow and minded his manners on the first date, kissed her good-night on the second, and made out with her until neither of them could breathe on the third.

  “I want to be with you,” he’d whispered into her hair as they stood on her front porch late that night.

  “I want to be with you, too.” Her soft words had sent shivers of desire down his spine.

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow. I’ll borrow Mom’s car. Meet me at the obstacle course.”

&nb
sp; He had, but after that Colt had never been with Heather again.

  Heather had been proud, happy, intelligent, and going places. He wondered why she’d never left Chance Creek.

  Did she ever think of him?

  “You should at least meet up with her. Go have a drink or two. What harm could come of it?” Tanner interrupted his memories.

  “Not going to happen.” Colt scanned his ad one last time and checked the image he’d added, a photo of himself in uniform that was several years old. He wondered what kind of woman would be attracted to the serious man with close cropped hair and blue eyes the photo depicted.

  It didn’t matter; he’d take whomever he could get.

  “But, you—”

  “I said, it’s not going to happen. Why are you so set on this, anyway?”

  Tanner looked sheepish. “Because… that day you had her photo up on your screen? I don’t know, man. I’ve never seen you look like that. You’re still in love with her.”

  Colt clicked to publish his ad and waited for confirmation that it would post soon. He was not in love with Heather. Or even the memory of her. “This marriage will be a business deal, plain and simple. Once it’s over, it’s over.”

  “And you still haven’t let your family know you’re coming home, either?”

  “Nope.”

  “That’s fucked up.”

  “I want to surprise them.”

  “More like you want an out in case you can’t go through with it. What kind of ghosts are you running from, Hall?”

  He wasn’t running from a ghost. If anything, he was running to one. Colt remembered the words he’d thought he’d heard his father say on that ridge in Afghanistan. Time to go home. As much as he thought he’d made the right choice by terminating his career in the Air Force, he was beginning to have doubts about his father’s message. He wasn’t sure his brothers would actually welcome him home once they heard all he had to say. Austin in particular might hate him when he learned that Colt had dated Heather, and the others might blame him for not stopping to talk to Aaron the day their father died. What if his brothers sent him packing again?