Band of Bachelors: Jake2: Book 4 (SEAL Brotherhood) Read online

  Jake 2

  Band of Bachelors

  Book 4

  Sharon Hamilton

  Sharon Hamilton’s Book List

  SEAL Brotherhood Series

  SEAL Encounter (Book .5)

  Accidental SEAL (Book 1)

  SEAL Endeavor (Book 1.5)

  Fallen SEAL Legacy (Book 2)

  SEAL Under Covers (Book 3)

  SEAL The Deal (Book 4)

  Cruisin’ For A SEAL (Book 5)

  SEAL My Destiny (Book 6)

  SEAL Of My Heart (Book 7)

  Bad Boys of SEAL Team 3 Series

  SEAL’s Promise (Book 1)

  SEAL My Home (Book 2)

  SEAL’s Code (Book 3)

  Band of Bachelors Series

  Lucas (Book 1)

  Alex (Book 2)

  Jake (Book 3)

  Jake2 (Book 4)

  True Blue SEALs Series

  True Navy Blue (prequel to Zak)

  Zak (Includes novella above)

  Nashville SEAL Series

  Nashville SEAL (Book 1)

  Nashville SEAL: Jameson (Books 1 & 2 combined)

  Fredo Series

  Fredo’s Secret (novella) Book 1

  Fredo’s Dream (Books 1 & 2 combined)

  Novellas

  SEAL Encounter

  SEAL Endeavor

  True Navy Blue (prequel to Zak)

  Fredo’s Secret

  Nashville SEAL

  SEAL You In My Dreams (Magnolias and Moonshine)

  SEAL Of Time (Trident Legacy)

  Boxed Sets

  SEAL Brotherhood Box Set 1 (Accidental SEAL & Prequel)

  SEAL Brotherhood Box Set 2 (Fallen SEAL & Prequel)

  Ultimate SEAL Collection Vol. 1 (Books 1-4 + 2 Prequels)

  Ultimate SEAL Collection Vol. 2 (Books 5-7)

  Big Bad Boys Bundle (Books 1-3 of Bad Boys)

  Hotshot Heartbreakers: Men Women Love Anthology

  Beaus & Arrows Valentines Anthology

  Immortal Valentines (5 Paranormals: Angels & Vamps)

  Kindle Worlds

  SEAL’s Goal: The Beautiful Game

  Love Me Tender, Love You Hard

  Sleeper SEALs: Bone Frog Brotherhood Series

  Bachelor SEAL

  Paradise Series

  Paradise: In Search of Love

  Fall From Grace Series (Paranormal)

  Gideon: Heavenly Fall

  Golden Vampires of Tuscany Series (Paranormal)

  Honeymoon Bite (Book 1)

  Mortal Bite (Book 2)

  The Guardians (Paranormal)

  Heavenly Lover (Book 1)

  Underworld Lover (Book 2)

  Underworld Queen (Book 3)

  About the Book

  Navy SEAL Jake Green comes home from deployment to a family in turmoil. With the recent death of his father, his ex-wives, mother and brother are thrown into a snakepit left by his father’s poor choices. Jake and Ginger attempt to strengthen their marriage and young family amidst a dangerous deployment to Baja California. Jake’s got alimony and child support, a blown up will he’s the executor of, illegitimate siblings and a Mexican General gunning for him. It’s one thing to come home in one piece from a SEAL mission. But which mission is more dangerous?

  Begin Reading

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Series Overview

  Table of Contents

  Copyright © 2017 by Sharon Hamilton

  Kindle Edition

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. In many cases, liberties and intentional inaccuracies have been taken with rank, description of duties, locations and aspects of the SEAL community.

  License Notes

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Author’s Note

  I always dedicate my SEAL Brotherhood books to the brave men and women who defend our shores and keep us safe. Without their sacrifice, and that of their families—because a warrior’s fight always includes his or her family—I wouldn’t have the freedom and opportunity to make a living writing these stories. They sometimes pay the ultimate price so we can debate, argue, go have coffee with friends, raise our children and see them have children of their own.

  One of my favorite tributes to warriors resides on many memorials, including one I saw honoring the fallen of WWII on an island in the Pacific:

  “When you go home

  Tell them of us, and say

  For your tomorrow,

  We gave our today.”

  These are my stories created out of my own imagination. Anything that is inaccurately portrayed is either my mistake, or done intentionally to disguise something I might have overheard over a beer or in the corner of one of the hangouts along the Coronado Strand.

  I support two main charities: Navy SEAL/UDT Museum in Ft. Pierce, Florida. Please learn about this wonderful museum, all run by active and former SEALs and their friends and families, and who rely on public support, not that of the U.S. Government.

  www.navysealmuseum.org

  I also support Wounded Warriors, who tirelessly bring together the warrior as well as the family members who are just learning to deal with their soldier’s condition and have nowhere to turn. It is a long path to becoming well, but I’ve seen first-hand what this organization does for its warriors and the families who love them. Please give what your heart tells you is right. If you cannot give, volunteer at one of the many service centers all over the United States. Get involved. Do something meaningful for someone who gave so much of themselves, to families who have paid the price for your freedom. You’ll find a family there unlike any other on the planet.

  www.woundedwarriorproject.org

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Sharon Hamilton’s Book List

  About the Book

  Copyright Page

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  About the Author

  Series Overview

  Reviews

  Navy Seal Prayer

  Chapter 1

  IT WAS AN exceptionally beautiful morning in San Diego. Bright fuschia bougainvillea vines covered the Spanish style First Presbyterian Church in the downtown Gas Light district. People filtered into the weathered building wearing black, since this was no wedding, but the funeral for Navy SEAL Jake Gre
en’s father. It was the church Jake and Ginger had been married in, the same place his parents had attended church, along with the rest of the country club crowd who were not Jewish or Catholic. Ginger had the girls dedicated there when they were old enough, but he was never a regular attendee.

  The service had been preplanned and paid for by Burt Green himself prior to his death. Jake knew his father had been on a roller coaster ride, with the recent “downs” outweighing the “ups” of his personal life, as well as his business life. A prominent and respected broker in town, the Green & Green name was synonymous with old money and status, even though the company had fallen on hard times recently. Jake didn’t think his father anticipated his heart attack and subsequent death, but it was as if he wanted to ease a little of the firestorm that would be created in the aftermath, and so at least he planned his own funeral and didn’t leave any room for anyone else’s input, good or bad.

  But the family had overruled him, and urged Jake to speak, which was a noted departure from the order of service. Jake’s mother, Adele, talked down her other son, Gerud, when he felt left out of the process. It was a foretelling of future events. Jake took his spot at the lectern, sucked in air and let the exhale calm his nerves. This was the last thing he wanted to do. Public speaking was not his strength. He’d much rather jump out of an airplane at midnight, landing in a quiet cove and swimming to shore silently with his Team buds from SEAL Team 3.

  “My father and I had a very close relationship, made closer the more we stayed apart.”

  Jake waited for the snickering to die down. There wasn’t anyone there to object, and he doubted his father was anywhere at all, since he didn’t believe in the afterlife.

  The audience was peppered with mostly people he’d seen only a time or two, and others he knew by reputation or by his father’s descriptions from the Country Club crowd. Burt Green was a larger than life character on all fronts. He lived hard, he played hard, and he died hard, according to what Ginger had told him. But the hardest of all was the way his dad lost. That was never anything done with any kind of grace or decorum. It was as if old Satan himself pulled Burt down through the black ooze of a tar pit in the center of that one horrible investment in the Hawaiian Golf Course shopping mall that threatened a lifetime of good investments. He could nearly hear his father screaming under the bubbling goo. And still blaming his other son, Gerud, for the mistake.

  Jake glanced over at his father’s casket just to make sure Burt wasn’t really screaming obscenities. Then he made a mental note to get an appointment with Coop’s father-in-law, the shrink, to discuss some of Jake’s residual PTSD. He wanted a drink too so it was time for another meeting and he really didn’t want to go.

  Several from his SEAL Team 3 were in the front seats to the side, which required some of the family having to sit in the second row. Jake nodded to Coop, who gave him a lopsided smirk, as a thank you. He needed those guys right in front of him today, and he was glad Coop knew enough to make it so.

  He gripped the lectern edges because people started coughing. He’d taken too long to give them sentence number two of the eulogy.

  “I used to think he was the most fearless man on the planet. Nothing my dad couldn’t handle, even if it didn’t exactly turn out the way he’d intended.”

  There was another small rumble of titters. Were they making fun of his dear old dad?

  “I think he cared about things very deeply. About people very deeply. But he worked very hard not to show it. His costume and his game face got stuck and after awhile, it was a permanent fixture to him. But one thing was for sure, he loved his grandkids probably most of all.”

  The front row burst into grins. It was filled with Jake’s three exes and his children. Karlene kissed the squirming two-year-old Aaron on her lap, as Monica gushed and then kissed her treasure, the sleeping baby Samantha in her arms. Those were his most recent exes. Karlene had been his wife for nearly a year but Monica he never married. He glanced at Ginger, who had been his first wife, and mother of his oldest two red-headed daughters, sitting together like three angels on a perch, next to his mother, Adele. Ginger was the one he never should have left. And now he was going to try to negotiate his way back to a more permanent station with her again.

  So, although it would be easy to talk about his father’s flaws, Jake knew he had even bigger ones. This was a reminder to him that life was short, and that he’d better work overtime to plug those holes while he had the strength to do so, before the whole boat sank.

  He noted that his brother, Gerud, was sitting in the second row, next to Belinda Matheson, the Green & Green receptionist and personal assistant to his father, and rumored to be his dad’s sometimes mistress. And next to her was an older woman who looked like she could be Belinda’s older sister. While he watched, Gerud put his arm around sweet Belinda’s shoulder triggering a scowl on the attractive older woman’s face.

  “He’d be the first one to tell you he was a self-made man. I’ve seen first hand the value of not quitting, and my father was certainly not one of those, even when it might be in his best interest. He wouldn’t give up. He didn’t give up on people, even those who irritated him endlessly. I don’t think he ever forgave, and he certainly never forgot. It took a lot to impress him, and he liked people who didn’t have to try very hard. Being genuine was a big thing to dad. And he didn’t like pretending, except to keep someone from getting hurt. He lived with his mistakes and honored those who were loyal.”

  Jake’s mother was in the half state of shock and poised ready to spring out to defend her husband, thus defending her own reputation, if Jake went too far. So she looked to be on the edge of an eruption of some kind. Jake smiled at her.

  “Mother, you did an awesome job being his wife. It wasn’t easy to do.”

  Adele Green was forced to smile, even though her right eye twitched and her jaw clinched. She shrugged as if to show anyone sitting behind her that it was all in a day’s work, and water off a duck’s back, as well as a dozen other trite comparisons one might think up.

  “You were a good team. The only one brave enough to be his partner.”

  The room was silent, a lot of people holding their breath. Jake knew there were secrets and pledges of keeping the secrets. Burt was adept at making alliances, stringing friendships and opportunities together to form a netting good enough to ensnare just about anyone. He’d been unfaithful to his mother for years and just about everyone in the room knew it, and would pretend to his mother they didn’t have any idea about it.

  Adele sucked in air and for a moment Jake thought perhaps she was going to shut down the whole affair.

  “I guess if there’s any takeaway here, it would be that none of us knows how long we have. Some of us seek danger as part of our job responsibilities.”

  He nodded to his front row comrades and they very almost imperceptibly returned the nod.

  “Others take risks in the corporate or banking world. My father was not one to run away from those risks or the mistakes he made. He didn’t make many. He didn’t tolerate incompetence, but he didn’t expect perfection because he was imperfect. He was sometimes too abrupt for a young boy, but one thing I can say is that he made me the man I am today, and for that I’m grateful.”

  Examining the sea of faces, he tried not to look for approval. And he saw none. He saw no judgment from his Teammates. But they stood with him. They were there for him.

  His eyes finally fell upon Ginger, who looked stunning in black, her red hair naturally made her whole face glow. He hoped the last thing he saw on this earth was her sweet smile transmitting all the love and passion he knew she bore for him. He’d been unfair, but unlike his father, he still had time to make total amends.

  Forgive me, Ginger.

  He said it to himself even though he’d said it to her many times in the last month, ever since their Las Vegas second honeymoon. And every time she’d forgiven him. He intended to spend the rest of his life being the man she thought he
was.

  His two girls grinned back at him, basking in the glow and certainty that their mother and their father loved each other. Again. And hopefully forever.

  “I’m hoping that however you think of my father, you remember him as a fierce competitor who played at one hundred percent and enjoyed winning. It’s really the thing he loved more than the people in his life. But I honestly think he did it for the people in his life.”

  Several heads nodded. Some dried their tears discretely with tissues. Adele did not cry one tear, her face still showing shock and dismay.

  Jake turned to address his dad, lying too pink in the casket, with red lipstick he would have hated. His gray hair looked too stiff and filled with spray. He didn’t look like he was sleeping. He looked like he wasn’t there.

  “Good-bye, Dad. You leave a big hole behind you and big shoes to fill. But none of us will ever forget you.”

  He couldn’t say he loved him, because he really wasn’t sure that’s what he was feeling. Today, he didn’t want to pretend, or lie about anything. Jake knew his father would understand, even if the crowd wouldn’t.

  THE RECEPTION THE Presbyterian Women threw reminded him of the wedding reception they’d done for his big day with Ginger. It had been without the lavish frills she so deserved. Ginger didn’t have living parents, so Jake’s family paid for everything. She’d insisted it be simple, so simple it was.

  He was holding hands with his oldest daughter, Jasmine, who wouldn’t leave his side. Ginger shook hands with several of Burt’s friends, people she’d known from their early days of marriage. He noticed how well she was regarded. Jennifer was close beside her, soaking up all the praise and head pats from the fawning and adoring Club crowd.