ROMANCE: BIKER ROMANCE: Werewolf Rider (MC Shifter Pregnancy Romance) (New Adult Paranormal Romance Short Stories) (99 page)

CHAPTER SIX

Seven days later, their parents sent them identical texts saying that they would be returning the next morning.

With one last night left of freedom and to end this ‘relationship’, they spent the night in each other’s arms.  They made love until the bright glares of the sun indicated that it would have to be the last time.  With a groan and a sigh, they pulled away from each other and went to their respective bedrooms.

He straightened up his things and washed his sheets.  Anything to get rid of the evidence of their short term love affair before their parents returned.  He wasn’t sure he could wipe away the thought of her, the smell of her, as easily as a pair of clean sheets.  Every time he laid his head down on the pillow, he would think of her.  The way that she curled her toes around his in her sleep.  The way she laughed whenever he touched that ticklish spot on her elbow with his tongue.  The way she cried at the silliest of kid’s movies.

Their parents came in on a whirlwind of tropical gifts and Hawaiian shirts, but he could tell that both he and Gianna questioned their moods.  They both seemed outrageously happy on the outside, but they refused to look at each other.  Again, he wondered what had happened on that cruise.

It took two weeks before they found out the truth.  On board the ship, Carson’s father had taken to another passenger, while Gianna’s mother had found solace with the captain.  They had both spent almost the entire trip apart, interested in their new relationships.

Apparently whatever fondness they had before they went on vacation had paled in comparison to the affairs that had been offered once aboard the ship.

In the end, they had both agreed that divorce was the only option.  Neither wanted to live a lie, and especially because their children were involved, they decided that splitting up was best for every party.

Carson listened to the decision, and the speech that accompanied it, and tried not to look at Gianna.  He hoped that she understood what this meant.  They would no longer be related.  Although they had never been blood related, they would no longer be living in the same house, under the same roof, with the same parents.

Everything had changed over the course of a few days.  But that night, when he visited Gianna while their parents were out with the respective attorneys, she wouldn’t speak with him.

“Gianna, will you just talk to me?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.  Nothing has changed, Carson.”  She continued to fold up her clothes.  Although the divorce meant that Carson would obviously be moving out, Gianna had decided to still move in with some friends for the duration of her internship.

“What are you thinking?  Of course everything has changed.”

She waited a few moments before responding, folding up the sweater she had been working on.  “Carson, this would never work, and you know it.  It was only the chase that interested you.  The forbidden.”

He laughed a humorless laugh.  “Then what possibly reason did I have for being interested in you when we first met?  That was before it was…forbidden.”

She lifted a shoulder in a mock shrug.  “I don’t know.  I only know that this was only a farce.  A brief interlude that we both knew was a terribly idea.  I refused to have my emotions toyed with only to have you realize that it was only fun because it was wrong.”

“G, you’re so wrong it’s almost laughable.  I care for you.  I think I…”

“Don’t!”  She interrupted, whirling around on him.  “Don’t even say it.  Don’t even think it.  You’ll see that I’m right in a few weeks.  You forgot about me the last time.  You can do it again.”

He stared at her, astonished.  “I never forgot about you.  I looked!  I waited at the bar!  I came back night after night!”

She looked curiously at him.  “You did?”

“Of course I did,” he exploded.  He waited for her response, but she just turned back to packing.  Frustrated, he stomped out.  Women, he cursed

Gianna heard him walk away, understood his anger.  He had to understand that this was more than just a fling for her.  She never in a million years would’ve ever thought she could be interested in her stepbrother.  But it was different with Carson.  He made her laugh, and cry, and love.  Her mind stuttered around the word.  Yes.  Love.  The word she could not have stood for him to say.  Not until she knew for sure that it was her, and not the sham of the relationship they had created while their parents were on vacation.

Two months, she reminded herself.  If he came for her in two months, she would know that he cared for her without any pretense of being siblings.  That meant she will have been moved out for eight weeks, and their parents will have been divorced for a month.  That was enough time, she hoped, to find out if what they had was real.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Three months later…

Gianna placed her headphones in her ears, tied her sneakers, and headed out the front door. 

She called back into her roommates that she was going for her run, and jogged out the door down the front steps.

Stopping to tie her shoe on the front stoop concrete, she gave her hamstring an extra stretch.

When she turned around, Carson was standing there.  She dropped her IPod, which luckily landed in the bark edging instead of shattering on the concrete.  Her headphones hung there awkwardly unless she pulled them hastily from her ears.

“What are you doing here?”  She tried to make her voice sound demanding, but instead it just came out as shocked as she felt.

“You know what I’m doing here, G.  It’s been three months.”

“Yeah, I know how long it’s been.  But Carson, what are you doing here?”

For the first time, he seemed to hesitate.  Then he stepped closer until their bodies were only a foot apart.  He reached out and cupped her face.  She had no choice but to tip her head back and stare into the eyes she had fallen for so many months ago.

“I love you.  I don’t know how it happened, and I sure as hell don’t know why.  All I know is that my life is empty without you.”  He added teasingly, “and my bed.”

She started to protest, but he interrupted.  “The divorce is final.  We’re not related, we never were.”

When she didn’t respond right away, he started to shift uncomfortably.  “Look, if I read into this too much, or if you’re not interested, then—“

She interrupted him by throwing herself in his arms.  He didn’t move for a moment, stunned.  Then his arms crushed around her until she felt like they were one body.

When the world stopped spinning, Gianna looked at him with just a hint of shine in her eyes. 

Family truly was a beautiful thing.

THE END

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Cassandra Cole is much like the characters she writes about.  Definitely female, fiercely independent, and hopelessly romantic. She writes romance novels about ordinary people in extraordinary situations with strong feelings and few inhibitions.

CODENAME

APACHE

A Navy SEAL Romance

By

Cassandra Cole

CHAPTER ONE

He was getting too damned old for this shit, John Harper thought, struggling to catch his breath.  The SEAL team commander known by his codename Apache, unclipped the harness and let the hundred-pound pack slip down his shoulders and off his arms.  He took off his t-shirt and mopped the sweat from his face with it. 

He pulled a water bottle from the pack and drained it dry as he looked at his watch.  Five miles in thirty minutes with a hundred-pounds of gear on his back.  Not bad for an old man, especially considering the scorching sun above that was baking his dark face and the Iraqi landscape around him.

He pulled a second bottle of water from the pack and poured it over his face and head.  Even though every muscle in his body was screaming, pushing the envelope sure felt good. 

He took a few minutes to rest, then pulled on the wet t-shirt, strapped on the pack, and started back toward the base at a steady jog.

Harper was pushing forty-five, which was the upper age limit for most Navy SEALs. It was at this age that most men started staying stateside permanently – riding desks on bases and settling into comfortable routines -- certainly not doing ten mile runs in the frickin’ Iraqi dessert.

Maybe that’s why Harper kept pushing himself.  He would rather have a stroke on the side of this road than ride a desk for the rest of his career.  Maybe he was just a glutton for punishment.  Or maybe he was just too damned stubborn to quit.

Harper figured he would retire when his body stopped supporting all the bullshit he put it through – and he was still a long way from that. He had passed his most recent PT test a month ago, and outpaced sailors a decade younger than him.

His father had always told him to treat his body as a temple, something he’d never done.  “You only got one body, boy.  You better take care it.” 

Too bad the old man didn’t follow his own advice.  A heavy smoker and drinker all his life, he died from lung cancer before his son reached fifteen.  Do as I say, son, not as I do...

He might have lived longer, Harper knew, but things had never been easy for the Harper men.  Still weren’t easy.

One of the reasons he was much more at home in the Middle East than he was stateside was the blood flowing through his veins.  He was a full blooded Apache Indian – a dying breed in the modern world.

Harper’s mother had died bringing him into the world, and so his father was all he had.  His old man had raised him off his job as manager of a general store outside Phoenix.  Times were always hard, money was always tight, but the old man said they had it better than most and Harper never argued with his dad, lest he find himself flat of his back in the dirt.

Until the cancer took him, his father had been a powerful man, standing over six and a half feet, with a broad chest and shoulders and hair the color of crow’s wings. From a young age, Harper had known not do disobey his father. To do so meant a lesson that he wouldn’t soon forget. 

Harper learned all the old traditions from his maternal grandfather, a shaman in the tribe, a man of great knowledge and respect. He grew up learning how to tan animal skins, grow fragrant herbs, and create handmade weapons that their neighbors always tried to convince his father to sell.

His grandfather wouldn’t sell a thing.  He would only give them away.  “This is how we share our culture,” the old man attested. It was his father who would steal the items and sell them out of his junk car to tourists in town, then use the money for booze and gambling and women.

To the day he died and long after, Harper resented the way his father robbed them of a better life.  For awhile, he thought he was just young, stupid, and unappreciative.

He was teased in their community for being the only one without a traditional Apache name, and for having a father that refused to bend to the society that ate up more of their land every day. His father told Harper many times that he had been given a white man’s name so that he might avoid the strife his ancestors faced.

His father had even gone so far as to legally change their last name to Harper – a “good white man’s name”.  Another thing to resent him for.

After his old man died, Harper found himself in a bad place. He was barely into his teens, and shuffled into a system that could give two shits about his heritage, who he was, or what he became.

Their house was sold to pay off debts, and aside from a few pieces he managed to keep for sentimental purposes, all his grandfather and father’s possessions were sold, as well, for perhaps a tenth of what they were really worth.

Harper had done his best to not be Native American. He was tired of all the name calling in his foster home, of picking fights that he won for sheer size, and of being something that he wasn’t. He didn’t have his grandfather’s knowledge of his father’s balls. Why couldn’t he just be an “American” like everyone else? 

He’d starting drinking at fifteen, and hard drugs came not long after. He ran away from his foster homes more times than he could count, and pretty soon, no one wanted to take him in anymore. He was a hateful, violent teenager – and he blamed his father for it all.

Change had only come after he’d almost killed himself in a stolen car.  Harper stole his foster mom’s car and took it for a joyride, high on some drug cocktail he couldn’t remember and half a bottle of cheap booze. He ran off the road and crashed into a tree, cracking his skull on the windshield and breaking half the bones in his body.

He would have burned to death in the wreckage if it hadn’t been for Lieutenant Colonel Brendan Hicks; a Navy officer who was passing by and spotted the car smashed into the tree with flames licking from under the hood. He pulled the broken teenager from the wreckage and kept him alive until paramedics arrived.

When the young man came around, he wished he had died.  His entire body was broken and bruised and burned.  He could barely breathe on his own and couldn’t swallow due to inhaling the fumes from the fire.  He was in for a long recovery that would include multiple operations, skin grafts, and physical therapy that would make most men bawl like little babies.  And the worst part was: he was totally alone.  Or so he thought.

Colonel Hicks came every day to see him.  Harper was resistant at first, not trusting the Navy SEAL’s motives for visiting.  “Nobody’s ever given two shits about me,” Harper said in a pained, hoarse whisper.  “I don’t need you to be the first.”

Hicks ignored the bitter young man’s protests and kept coming back every day.  Over time Harper came to appreciate the company of the straight-laced Navy man, who was a good talker and a good listener. He listened when no one would, and helped Harper come to terms with all the pain that had eaten away at him for years. He helped Harper heal the emotional and physical scars.  A friendship was formed that would last both men for life.

When Harper was finally discharged from the hospital, Hicks invited him to move in with him and his wife until her could get his life sorted out.  Harper resisted at first, then realized he had nowhere else to go.  He reluctantly agreed – though he told Hicks that he was old enough to care for himself.

As it turned out, some to care was exactly what Harper needed. It took two full years before he was back to his old self.  During that time, Hicks worked with him not only on strengthening his body, but also on enhancing his mind in ways that didn’t involve getting high. He gave up the drugs and the alcohol – though it was far from easy – and started to remember what his father taught him.

He needed to preserve his temple.  It had been terribly destroyed once.  He couldn’t let that happen again.

Hicks, a Navy SEAL commander, encouraged him to look into his roots, to be proud of his heritage rather than running from it. He would never be able to come to terms with his past until he embraced it for the future.

So that was exactly what Harper did. He returned to Phoenix and lived there for two years, in the poverty-stricken community where he had grown up. He had changed so much that no one there recognized him. He was far from the resentful, dark little boy who left years ago.

He returned to his roots, remembering everything his grandfather had taught him; how to find the right herbs and ingredients in the forest to make much needed medicine, what time of the year was best for planting fruits and vegetables, and the most merciful way to hunt and kill game.

Harper no longer ran from his heritage, and one of the oldest still-living Apache medicine men in their community had given him a new name: Atsidi.  It meant ‘hammer’ in their language, symbolizing how he had crushed his vices and risen above them.

Of course, he was still John Harper at heart.  And he’d never forgotten what Colonel Hicks and his wife did for him.

He was twenty-three when he joined the Navy and applied for SEAL training.  And he had never looked back.

The death of his grandfather and father had hit Harper hard, but nothing like the death of Colonel Brendan Hicks, who was killed during a skirmish with Afghan rebels several years ago. 

Harper was in Iraq by then.  When he got the news he walked far into the dessert where he could be alone with his thoughts and the stars.  He cried like a baby for hours.  Harper still heard from Hicks’ wife every now and then. She would write him letters to ask how he was doing and invite him to visit. He would write back with promises of a visit soon, though he knew he would probably never see her again.  A visit to see her would simply be too painful.

It was a moot point.  He had precious little time to even think about leave these days.  He was a SEAL Team Alpha Unit commander now, responsible for the lives of a dozen men.  He would never take leave, no so long as his men were still in the field.

Harper had made it to where he was by being a fighter. He fought for what he believed in, for his country, and for his men. He would give up his life, if need be, in service of the country that had both made and broken him. And that was that.

Unlike the other SEALs who had reached his level of service, Harper preferred to live a solitary life. He had no wife, no family, and no friends to speak of. On those rare occasions when his Alpha Unit all got simultaneous leave, he would head back to Phoenix to reconnect with the Navajo community and practice the skills his grandfather found so vital to their way of life.

His next trip to Phoenix would be a ways off.  He still had at least another twelve weeks on this deployment to Bagdad, which suited him just fine. Things were relatively quiet and there were no missions on the board. 

In fact, he’d given four members of his unit leave and they were currently stateside in Atlanta for a few weeks.  They asked him to come, but he declined. 

The younger SEALs needed the break a hell of a lot more than he did.  They were still full of piss and vinegar and lived life like they had something to prove.

Harper had proven all he needed to and he had the medals to prove it.  Let the kids go play, he told himself.  I’d rather stay here and wait for the shit to hit the fan.