Escape To Sunset: One Night Stand Romance-Hiding From The Mob (Sunset SEALs Book 4) Read online

  Escape To Sunset

  Sunset SEALs Book 4

  Sharon Hamilton

  Sharon Hamilton’s Book List

  SEAL BROTHERHOOD BOOKS

  SEAL BROTHERHOOD SERIES

  Accidental SEAL Book 1

  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

  Fredo’s Dream Book 8

  SEAL My Love Book 9

  SEAL Encounter Prequel to Book 1

  SEAL Endeavor Prequel to Book 2

  Ultimate SEAL Collection Vol. 1 Books 1-4 /2 Prequels

  Ultimate SEAL Collection Vol. 2 Books 5-7

  BAD BOYS OF SEAL TEAM 3 SERIES

  SEAL’s Promise Book 1

  SEAL My Home Book 2

  SEAL’s Code Book 3

  Big Bad Boys Bundle Books 1-3

  BAND OF BACHELORS SERIES

  Lucas Book 1

  Alex Book 2

  Jake Book 3

  Jake 2 Book 4

  Big Band of Bachelors Bundle

  BONE FROG BROTHERHOOD SERIES

  New Year’s SEAL Dream Book 1

  SEALed At The Altar Book 2

  SEALed Forever Book 3

  SEAL’s Rescue Book 4

  SEALed Protection Book 5

  SUNSET SEALS SERIES

  SEALed at Sunset

  Second Chance SEAL

  Treasure Island SEAL

  Escape to Sunset

  SILVER SEALS SERIES

  SEAL Love’s Legacy

  SLEEPER SEALS SERIES

  Bachelor SEAL

  STAND ALONE BOOKS & SERIES

  SEAL’s Goal: The Beautiful Game

  Nashville SEAL: Jameson

  True Blue SEALS Zak

  Paradise: In Search of Love

  Love Me Tender, Love You Hard

  NOVELLAS

  SEAL You In My Dreams Magnolias and Moonshine

  PARANORMALS

  GOLDEN VAMPIRES OF TUSCANY SERIES

  Honeymoon Bite Book 1

  Mortal Bite Book 2

  Christmas Bite Book 3

  Midnight Bite Book 4

  THE GUARDIANS

  Heavenly Lover Book 1

  Underworld Lover Book 2

  Underworld Queen Book 3

  Redemption Book 4

  FALL FROM GRACE SERIES

  Gideon: Heavenly Fall

  NOVELLAS

  SEAL Of Time Trident Legacy

  All of Sharon’s books are available on Audible, narrated by the talented J.D. Hart.

  About the Book

  Navy SEAL Jason Kealoha comes to Sunset Beach to release the ashes of his SEAL brother, who was killed in an attack in Nigeria. A Pacific Islander by lineage, Jason is unfamiliar with the Gulf Coast shores his buddy grew up playing in as a child. He befriends a beauty one night at sunset, as she roams the surf, skipping shells, lost in her own world.

  Kiley Worthington is on the run from a sex trafficking cartel she stumbled upon as an investigative reporter in Portland. She decides hiding out in her sleepy beach hometown in Florida makes sense until she can figure out where she can spend the rest of her life in safety. The one-night stand was nice, but the last thing she needs is a huge tatted overly-protective guy who won’t leave her alone. His attitude is all hardboiled, but his lips are warm and seductive. If she’s not careful, she may never escape.

  But Jason turns out to be the right kind of wrong for Kiley, as her enemies find her. In Jason’s arms she finds a true sanctuary, as well as a safe place to hide forever.

  Begin Reading

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

  Copyright © 2020 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 operates 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

  Chapter 21

  About the Author

  Reviews

  SEAL Prayer

  Chapter 1

  Jason Kealoha stepped out of his Hummer. The sunset was bright orange with purple and grey streaks across the early evening sky. The blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico were chummed, darker than he’d seen in pictures, worried and angry, like his own insides. He could hear the chants of his ancestors, especially the white-hairs, older women who pounded drums and beat their palms on their thighs.

  He’d felt this way in full battle gear, stepping out of a Hummer into some hellhole as death and trouble lurked. Those voices kept him connected to his ancestors from long ago, giving him encouragement and reminding him that they held a spot for him if things should not turn out. Sometimes that made all the difference. Sometimes it made him settle so he could hear the voices of the other men on his SEAL team, follow instructions quickly and clearly, and be that missing piece of their puzzle, their force for good when they worked so seamlessly together.

  Today, that calling, that rumble left him nervous. He had a mission. He held it between the fingers of his hands, those same fingers that wiped dirt from the face of his dying brother after several of their Team had been taken down in that red clay earth in Nigeria. He whispered things to his buddy that were untrue, that he’d be okay, that he’d make it back to the base and the evacs were on their way. His buddy knew he was speaking the lies you tell a dying man when there is no hope. You don’t ask if they’re in pain because you want them to focus on your eyes and the lies so you can walk with them home.

  The blue urn was fashioned with a Trident, compliments of the Navy, as if a family member wanted this on their fireplace mantle. But his buddy Thomas had no family. There were no parents, no women or children to mourn over his passing. That’s why Jason had adopted him as his brother. The bond never stronger than that day Thomas passed into the hands of his ancestors, who would take the Haole boy and love him to eternity, until Jason joined again, and they fished the waters of Heaven together. The kahuna would pray over him and bless his journey, so his uhane, or spirit, could travel into the afterlife and to a time of great joy and celebration. Jason asked them to take care of this peaceful warrior, abandoned at birth, but never in battle.

  Jason’s spine was straight, his footsteps sure. He held the urn as the valuable treasure it was, as if presenting it to the hungry mouth of the ocean. If Thomas’ uhane absorbed into a stray shark or large barracuda or even a dolphin or great whale, so be it. Far better than to rot in the ground somewhere and be eaten by worms, to smell, putrefy, decay, and become something unholy and unclean. Thomas was a warrior. His warrior spirit would live on in the unlimited ocean or inhabit the body of a great animal.

  The setting sun stung his eyes, dry from the tears he’d shed in silence and in the privacy of several darkened rooms and spaces. On the plane from California, he had held the urn. He tendered it carefully upon touchdown and set it at the desk of the rental car agency when he picked up his Hummer. The clerk eyed it suspiciously but didn’t ask.

  That made Jason smile. It was the first time he’d smiled in three days.

  The chants got louder the closer he came to the ocean. He’d walked the archway of the wooden bridge leading across the dunes to the beach from the street, the one that had brightly painted arrows labeled Paris, New York, Barbados, Texas, and even San Francisco, pointing right, left, and straight up. He traveled on sure footing through the soft white sand to the harder white-grey sand then the wet sand that was slightly tan in color, the path bathed in the light blue and white gentle surf.

  Sister ocean was a gentle lover, covering his toes with the lacy foam of her underskirts without revealing her modest parts.

  With a wash, his sandaled feet were bathed in sea water up to his ankles. The women started hitting the drums louder, their voices arching up an octave. Watchers on the right and left stood still as he carried out his mission. Nobody stopped him. Everybody kept still.

  The butterflies in his gut began to flutter. He took in a deep breath and released the metal canister top, allowing the salty air of the Florida Gulf to mate with the ashes of his buddy just before he heard the kahuna chant the story of how he would travel to the place of eternal sunshine and love. That was Jason’s Christian grandmother’s doing. She told him it was a place of eternal sunshine and love because her God was the God of Love.

  That was good enough for Jason too.

  He raised the urn as a sacrifice to the God of the Sun, reached back, then tossed the grey contents into the ocean. Thomas’ cloud of bones and flesh hung in the sky, arched and then dissipated into the air before dropping into the bay.

  “Safe travels, Thomas,” he mumbled. “I look forward to the fishing, the laughter, and yes, the beautiful women with big breasts that will suckle us both and feed us roast pig!”

  He laughed. The villagers in Nigeria where Thomas had been killed would be horrified with the knowledge they’d feast on pig.

  All the more reason to do so, Thomas, my friend. My one true friend. My brother. Life was unkind to you, but I promise to make up for it.

  He wanted to send him off with laughter because his grandmother had taught Jason that death was a celebration.

  Now that you’re gone, I can sing the truth. It’s no fuckin’ celebration. It’s the end of one thing and the beginning of another. I am so sorry we did not do the Haka for you. Make them show you in Heaven. And think of me down below.

  The waters completely absorbed the particles.

  “I will miss you Haole boy. Now you won’t have to wear so much fuckin’ bugspray and sunscreen. And the angels in Heaven don’t wear panties, I’m told, so pick the prettiest and have at it, please, for me.”

  Jason put the lid on the metal container, brushed off the ash clinging to it, then set it back out of reach of the surf. He washed his hands in the water, drying them on his khakis. He didn’t have to examine the beach to know there were eyes on him that might not have approved of him dumping Thomas into their bay.

  So be it.

  He didn’t want to spoil the serenity of the moment, so he saved the urn without tossing it too, because that would make the tongues wag and might bring the authorities. He held the container to his chest and watched as the sun melted into the horizon. The orange turned into dark purple then grey. The wind kicked up. A few gulls flew past, and a pelican dove into the water right near where part of Thomas had landed. It caught a fish.

  “Okay, so maybe you won’t be a mighty fish. Maybe you’ll be a pelican. Or a baby pelican when she brings this to her nest.”

  That gave him the second smile of the day.

  The old kahuna his father, now dead some twenty years, used to consult, cackled in the distance. Jason could see the old man dance around the room like a bird, making fun of the brave warrior who had died so others could live.

  It didn’t matter that the whole world didn’t know about Thomas’ sacrifice. He did. So did the rest of the team on SEAL Team 3.

  Jason’s heart clinched, squeezing one bloody tear as if it made a fist.

  It’s delicious to miss someone, he thought. It enhances the feeling of being alive.

  Whether it was the pain of loss or the joy of celebration and communion, the tug, that dull ache in his heart felt exactly the same. If he were a zombie, he used to watch in those old horror films when he was a boy, he would have no heart, no expression, and would feel no pain. But because his pain was big, his heart was big. And that made him happy.

  Jason scanned both directions, the orange remnants creeping back out to the dark blue water. He knew why Thomas had enjoyed this beach of his boyhood. He could see him frolic in the waves as a young man, throwing shells, playing with other boys, making sandcastles, like Jason liked to do.

  But this wasn’t Hawaii. This was the land of Thomas’ ancestors. These men and women were perhaps like ones who h
ad invaded the islands, altered the local Polynesian population culture forever, and mated with women, leaving mixed raced keikis behind. In Jason’s land, it didn’t matter, because Hawaii was stronger and more beautiful than any of the devastation she experienced by any of those who tried to conquer her. She would remain beautiful as the old Hawaiian women were. Their hips would rumble under their bright muumuus. Their full lips would be painted bright fuchsia or red.

  Thomas’ relatives were sailors—perhaps pirates, misfits or young men looking for adventure in the Florida Everglades—blown off course from the Caribbean or Cuba. They could have been couples fleeing the big cities of the north or the children and grandchildren of spring breakers, snowbirds, vagabonds, or people just wanting to get as far south in the United States as they could go.

  Jason always heard the chanting when he watched the sunsets on Kauai. He didn’t hear the ukulele music or the slide electric guitars commonly piped in many of the hotel lobbies, airports, and shopping centers.

  He heard the drums and the chanting. His family roots ran deep.

  His grandfather said they could trace their ancestors back over four hundred years. When asked, his mother wouldn’t tell him if this was true. “They were legendary fisherman, canoe-builders, and engineers who liked to use the powers of the ocean to harness speed and balance.”

  His grandfather found employment after the Second World War, being unable to serve himself. He liked to show off to the American GIs who were stationed there by climbing coconut trees in his bare feet without any equipment.

  Thomas had told him about how everyone came out at sunset. He called it sacred time, and Jason agreed. It was a time to reflect on the day, the dying day, and let the fantasy of the future run wild in the waves and travel between stars at night. It was the celebration of the unknown, as one day collapsed into the arms of the night and then the night fell into the arms of the next morning. It was the cycle and circle of life repeated over and over again, like the lapping of the ocean in its most liquid form, eroding the hardness of the rock and sand on the shore.