A SEAL’s Desire

  A SEAL’s Desire

  By Cora Seton

  Copyright © 2019 Cora Seton

  Kindle Edition

  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.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Excerpt from A SEAL’s Struggle

  About the Author

  Author’s Note

  A SEAL’s Desire is the eighth volume in the SEALs of Chance Creek series, set in the fictional town of Chance Creek, Montana. To find out more about Greg, Renata, Boone, Clay, Jericho, Walker and the other inhabitants of Base Camp, look for the rest of the books in the series, including:

  A SEAL’s Oath

  A SEAL’s Vow

  A SEAL’s Pledge

  A SEAL’s Consent

  A SEAL’s Purpose

  A SEAL’s Resolve

  A SEAL’s Devotion

  A SEAL’s Struggle

  A SEAL’s Triumph

  Also, don’t miss Cora Seton’s other Chance Creek series, the Cowboys of Chance Creek, the Heroes of Chance Creek, and the Brides of Chance Creek

  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 Cowboy’s Christmas Bride (Volume 9)

  The Heroes of Chance Creek Series:

  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)

  The Airman’s E-Mail Order Bride (Volume 5)

  The Brides of Chance Creek Series:

  Issued to the Bride One Navy SEAL

  Issued to the Bride One Airman

  Issued to the Bride One Sniper

  Issued to the Bride One Marine

  Issued to the Bride One Soldier

  The Turners v. Coopers Series:

  The Cowboy’s Secret Bride (Volume 1)

  The Cowboy’s Outlaw Bride (Volume 2)

  The Cowboy’s Hidden Bride (Volume 3)

  The Cowboy’s Stolen Bride (Volume 4)

  The Cowboy’s Forbidden Bride (Volume 5)

  Visit Cora’s website at www.coraseton.com

  Find Cora on Facebook at facebook.com/CoraSeton

  Sign up for my newsletter HERE.

  Are you a Kindle Unlimited Subscriber? Sign up for my Kindle Unlimited newsletter here!

  Chapter One

  ‡

  Ten years ago, Mayahuay, Peru…

  Greg Devon thought he’d seen the worst of what the day could offer until a school bus rolled up and parked less than thirty feet away. He’d been struggling to help erect one of the tents meant to house the survivors straggling down from Colina Blanca, a tiny settlement perched high in the Andes Mountains above Lima, Peru. The bus was as covered with mud and grime as everything else in the area, the misty rain not heavy enough to wash it clean. The roads up from the capital, the direction from which it had arrived, had been in rough shape when he’d made the journey before sunrise, and he doubted conditions had improved since then.

  In the middle of the night, back when this drizzle had still been a deluge, a mudslide had wiped out most of Colina Blanca. Rescue operations had been set up here in Mayahuay because the roads beyond it were impassible by vehicles. Now it was well past lunch, and everywhere he looked people had gathered in knots and family groups. Babies crying, overburdened mothers swaying and crooning to them tunelessly, more people arriving now and then from outlying hamlets, all of them soaked, exhausted—

  Devastated.

  Rumor had it other aid groups were on their way, which was good because the one Greg had latched on to wasn’t prepared for a disaster like this. He’d been woken in his dorm room in Lima around four in the morning by running footsteps out in the corridor. Never a heavy sleeper, he’d pulled on a pair of pants, stuck his feet into his hiking boots and a minute later was out on the street. He’d recognized another student who’d come here to Peru for the semester. Both of them were a little older than most of the college kids who came to study abroad, and they’d hit it off. Greg was twenty-three, Brandon twenty-four. They hung out frequently, talking about their future plans.

  “What’s going on?” he’d asked.

  “Mudslide. Big one. It’s taken out one village at least. We’re going to help dig out.”

  Greg had piled in a truck with him and a bunch of other students, some he recognized, others he didn’t. They’d driven straight up into the hills, the rain sluicing off their vehicle’s windows until he began to wonder if they’d have to pull over and swim the rest of the way.

  They’d stopped in Mayahuay when they found out it was the end of the road—literally—and Greg and the others were put to work setting up tents and shelters, hauling boxes of supplies and stacking bottles of water for the victims when they arrived.

  Those victims started straggling in almost at once, and the snippets of conversation he’d heard—and understood—had left Greg chilled. Hundreds must be dead. More than half the village, maybe. As more people arrived, a sound he’d never heard before pervaded the camp, a low, despairing keening that traced up and down his spine. All around him people were grieving loved ones they knew they’d never see again and homes that were buried under tons of debris.

  Midmorning, Brandon had tugged his arm, taken him aside, showed him photos forwarded from the village by one or two workers who’d managed to get through, and Greg began to understand the scope of the damage. They showed a moonscape, a flat plain of mud with only rock outcroppings and tufts of greenery sticking out from it here and there—former hills and trees—everything else now buried under the flow. It was a wonder anyone had made it out and walked the miles down to Mayahuay.

  Now Greg grabbed a water bottle, took a swig and watched as the school bus idled. He’d come to Peru for the adventure of it, champing at the bit to expand his horizons after a lifetime in Oregon, first at Greenside, the large agricultural commune outside Portland where he’d grown up, then at Lewis & Clark College, where he’d been studying engineering. Nearly five thousand miles away from the farm that once had comprised his world, Lima represented a break from his childhood. Greg had already decided what he’d do next, just as soon as he had his diploma in his hands. Keep traveling around the world and chase more adventures.

  He wasn’t going to live a settled, small-town life ever again.

  The drizzle tapered off, and tepid sunshine tried to break through the clouds. When the bus’s door swung open, Greg was surprised to se
e a young woman exit. Dressed in crisp black slacks and a snowy white blouse, she had raven-dark hair, a slim build. She wasn’t soaked like everyone at the camp. Wasn’t even damp. A man exited behind her, dressed more casually in cargo shorts and a T-shirt, portable video camera in hand.

  A news crew?

  He didn’t think so. Several of those had arrived from Lima already, and these two didn’t quite look the part. When the woman spoke, her clipped British accent surprised him all over again.

  “Get all of this, quick. Set up the shot for the reunion,” the woman ordered the man holding the camera.

  Reunion? Greg stepped closer, nudged Brandon as he passed him. “Who’s in the bus?”

  Brandon straightened from his task stacking pallets of water bottles, turned and frowned. “I don’t know.”

  “Where is everyone?” the woman was saying. She turned and looked over the camp again. “What’s going on here? Is it some kind of fair?”

  Dread twisted Greg’s gut at her misreading of the situation. This sure as hell wasn’t a fair. Who on earth did she expect to meet here? He watched the woman’s gaze light on the huddled groups on the far side of the area in their mud-spattered clothes. The crying babies.

  He saw the moment she realized something was wrong—the same moment the first of the remaining passengers got off the bus.

  The cameraman, who’d been panning the camp and getting a shot of the line of Red Cross vehicles that had just turned up the road, spun around at the woman’s oath. He pointed his video camera at her, then at the bus, where a girl—a girl in a school uniform—had just stepped down.

  “Mama?” the girl said, scanning the area.

  Hell, Greg thought.

  “Fuck,” Brandon echoed beside him. “Are they from—?” He broke off, but Greg knew exactly what he meant to say. Were they from Colina Blanca? Had they arrived back from somewhere else expecting a welcoming committee here in the next larger town? Perhaps when they’d set up the trip, the charter bus operator had refused to make the run all the way up to their hillside village. Greg wouldn’t blame him, given the usual state of the roads that far up in the mountains.

  Wouldn’t the driver have heard the news, though, and turned back?

  Maybe not.

  The woman was conferring with Diego Alvarez, the man who had organized the convoy of student volunteers from Lima and taken charge of the disaster aid operation so far. Greg had met Diego at a party just last week hosted for all the foreign exchange students at the university and the men and women who helped organize the exchanges. From the way Diego was gesturing up at Colina Blanca, first pointing, then flattening his hand and making it swoop down like the wall of mud had just hours ago, he was informing her of what had happened.

  Greg watched her take it in, her face a mask of shock. She stood still a moment. Behind her, girls kept spilling out of the bus, all in pristine uniforms, ranging in age from five or six to teenagers. Suddenly he knew exactly who they were. He’d seen a news story about the girls from the San Pedro School of Excellence who were celebrating the twenty-year anniversary of the founding of their institution with a trip to the capital. The school had been set up to help female students from this rural area achieve an education that would leave them ready to attend a university, serve in government positions and excel in the private sector, too. The idea was that a generation of highly educated women could help bring this entire rural area out of its depressed circumstances. The girls stood alert, maintaining the decorum they’d been taught.

  Two more women stepped off the bus after the last of the girls had scrambled out. One was tall with sharp, hawklike features, her dark eyes quickly taking in the scene. The other was shorter, older, her hair going gray and her round face, which Greg somehow knew was normally wreathed in smiles, was grim. These two had seen at a glance that something was horribly wrong. They conferred in rapid Spanish before the tall one clapped her hands twice and barked an order at the girls. They lined up immediately in front of the bus.

  That was when the first woman, the British one with the cameraman, turned around. Her gaze rested on Greg for only a moment before it slid to the girls, but that moment stopped his breath in his chest. The pain in her eyes pierced him. She’d laid a hand over her heart unconsciously, as if trying to hold in a riot of emotions struggling to break free. She was young. His age, he figured, or a year or two older. She’d heard what had happened in Colina Blanca. Knew what the girls standing next to the bus didn’t—yet. That most of their families were probably gone—their homes destroyed—

  Greg didn’t realize he was moving until he found himself by her side. He took her arm. Steadied her. “Tell them fast,” he said. “Make it clean.”

  She swallowed. Opened her mouth. He could feel the tears in her, but she didn’t cry, her attention solely on the students. “Girls,” she said in Spanish. Her voice wavered, but she steadied it. “Girls, I have something hard to tell you. Last night in the rain a mudslide was loosed. Colina Blanca was in its path. Many people were hurt. Died. You are safe here, and we will do everything we can to reunite you with your families, but you will have to be patient and very, very brave.”

  Greg kept close to her through all the long hours of that afternoon, evening, night and into the next morning as Renata Ludlow, as he learned she was named, helped Mayra and Gabriela, the tall and broad-faced women, respectively, keep the girls together, feed them, keep them warm and search through the chaos of the camp for their relatives. Renata worked tirelessly, never looking at him, focused single-mindedly on finding the girls’ parents, asking aid worker after aid worker if they’d seen any of the missing adults.

  As a new day dawned, the truth sank in. The twenty-three girls who made up the student body of the San Pedro School of Excellence were now orphans. Greg, who until twenty-four hours ago had little on his mind except catching a flight home to Oregon at the end of the semester in time for graduation in June, felt as if he’d donned some kind of robotic exoskeleton overnight, leaving him lumbering and unsure in his own body. It took him some time to recognize that the feeling stemmed from a shift inside him: a restructuring of the framework of his mind.

  No longer a carefree boy looking for adventure, his aspirations had hardened overnight into something weightier. This was the work he wanted in the future—work that mattered. He wanted to accomplish things. Change things. Help people. Keep them safe.

  Something else—he wanted to share his life with a woman like Renata. Someone who could work so stoically and was so trusted by the girls of the San Pedro school that each of them sought her out at one time or another during the long, dark hours of the night to beg her to find their families and cry in her arms.

  A new protectiveness had taken hold of him. A desire to patrol the space around Renata and keep her safe while she tended and comforted the students she obviously cared for so much. He’d learned from listening to the people around them that she was from London, a recent film-school graduate here to do a documentary about the San Pedro school and the girls who attended it. He’d learned little else about Renata so far. Nothing at all from the woman herself, who kept moving, kept searching, refused to give up finding the girls’ missing parents.

  And that was his problem in a nutshell. Greg was falling in love with Renata.

  And she hadn’t even noticed he was there.

  Present Day, Chance Creek, Montana

  It always came down to money, Renata Ludlow thought as she gazed out the window at the path that led to Base Camp, the sustainable community where she was directing a reality television of the same name. The path cut across a snowy landscape illuminated by moonlight. At least we aren’t having another blizzard, she thought with a sigh. Chance Creek was the last place she’d ever expected to end up, and reality television didn’t interest her in the slightest, but this is where the money was, and she needed money. Martin Fulsom, the billionaire funding the project, paid her well—very well—but every penny she took in went right back out a
gain, winging its way to Peru.

  In moments like these, she wondered what her life would be like if the mudslide that had consumed Colina Blanca had held off just a few more days. If she’d been back in London already, editing the reams of footage she and her cameraman had taken of the girls attending the San Pedro School of Excellence, the disaster still would have broken her heart and she would have sent a donation, plus notes of condolence to the teachers and girls. Maybe she would have kept on donating through the years whenever she’d had money to spare.

  She doubted she would have single-handedly taken on financial responsibility for twenty-three children and their two teachers, however.

  She hadn’t left Peru before the mudslide struck, though, and she’d been there to see the horror dawning on the faces of the girls she’d come to know so well as they realized their families were lost forever. She’d held them as they cried, had searched through the night for officials with lists of the confirmed dead, and had stayed there for nearly another month helping Mayra and Gabriela find a new home for the school—one where the girls could live as well as study—fueled by a fierce need to set things right after seeing them go so horribly wrong.

  She’d wanted to stay longer. Maybe forever. To become a parent to those motherless girls. To help—

  But Mayra had been adamant: She and Gabriela were there to teach and lead the girls. What they all needed desperately was money.

  That was Renata’s job.

  At twenty-six, securing enough money for the girls, even considering the favorable exchange rate and relatively cheap cost of living in the mountains of Peru, would have been impossible without Martin Fulsom’s help. When he’d offered her work, she couldn’t refuse. So here she was ten years later on a ranch in Montana, in the manor, a three-story stone farmhouse that now functioned as a Jane Austen–inspired bed-and-breakfast, watching another of the Navy SEALs who’d come here to build a model sustainable community marry the woman of his dreams. It was her job to make sure the viewing public found every episode of the show documenting their progress fascinating.