SEALed At Sunset Read online

  SEALed At Sunset

  Sunset SEALs Book 1

  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

  SILVER SEALS SERIES

  SEAL Love’s Legacy

  SLEEPER SEALS SERIES

  Bachelor SEAL

  SUNSET SEALS SERIES

  SEALed at Sunset

  Second Chance 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

  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

  SEALs Don’t Poach on another Team Guy’s girl.

  Navy SEAL Andrew Carr needs a lot of mindless beach time as he comes home from his first deployment. He visits a friend he met in BUD/S at a small Florida coastal town. But what he finds is something he cannot have: another SEAL brother’s girl.

  Aimee Greer is running from the stress in her life, and knows the beach, and the arms of her hot new boyfriend should do the trick. But when Andrew Carr comes to visit, she’s not prepared for the explosive chemistry that develops between them.

  When Carr is forced to defend her from her past, she realizes she has found the one she’s been searching for her whole life.

  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

  About the Author

  Reviews

  SEAL Prayer

  Chapter 1

  A pair of green Nikes haunted Special Operator Andy Carr. He was used to dreaming about girls to take his mind off anything he wanted to forget, but this was new. It didn’t make any sense to dream about running shoes. Yet, night after night, he saw those shoes lying by the side of the road, attached to skinny brown legs wrapped in the brightly-colored skirt of one of the local girls who brought them things from the village.

  She was one of the ones he couldn’t save.

  Maybe that was why he remembered the shoes and not the girl.
It was self-preservation, and he refused to dwell on it. Time for that later when he was ready to talk to someone about it. Not now.

  Like crowning out of a deep blue wave, he arched up out of his mattress so fast he almost hit his head on the ceiling. The motel room was tiny, and the ceiling was shallow but much taller than the bunker they’d been holed up in on their last deployment to West Africa.

  He was home, and as usual, he wanted to feel normal, and only a woman could do that. He’d gotten home two days ago, after nearly twenty hours of being jumbled and jostled in a transport plane. He let that sink in before he acknowledged he’d had another one of those dreams. It would drive half the male population insane to do that more than once in a lifetime.

  He could still smell the smoke and hear the sounds of the village people, even the children playing with wooden sticks, Coke bottles and toys they fashioned from the detritus of war. Somehow the kids always played. Even after some of the worst attacks he’d ever seen, after the cessation of battle, after the smoke cleared, the children would slowly creep out into the open and begin to play.

  Life moves on.

  The village people wanted peace, and he knew their SEAL Team 3 mission was to try to extricate several bad guys who extorted and preyed on them. These were hired guns, mercenaries without any allegiance to their land or culture, militiamen encroaching on the docile village life coming all the way across Africa or from neighboring Nigeria. They were nothing but bullies.

  Although he wanted to save the villagers, he wasn’t there to do that. He was there to pluck the bad guys from the salad bowl that was their war-torn country and get them out of the mix. And in that way, perhaps he’d save the village or help them save themselves, if that was possible.

  Some of the older SEALs warned him to harden himself against some of the things he was going to see. It in no way properly prepared him. This was his first deployment, and he couldn’t say whether he would be able to walk into the next mission more hardened or softer from the knowledge of what real war was all about. He’d seen the movies, and he’d been trained. He’d been counseled about how his emotions would rise up, how he would feel like taking a M4 carbine and slaughtering the bad guys instead of airlifting them to base or withholding critical medical assistance, just letting them bleed out. Why not?

  But no, Andy was supposed to abide by the rules of his elite SEAL Team 3 unit.

  They were not savages, after all, no matter how much anger or revenge boiled up inside.

  Kyle Lansdowne, his LPO, told him that it was bum luck to have drawn this particular mission for his first. He hadn’t cared. He’d been ready. He told himself that every day while he worked up to his deployment.

  The day they got the call and were summoned to the Team 3 metal building at Coronado, he experienced fear. And he knew it was logical and normal to feel this way. But it didn’t make it any easier.

  Sitting now at the edge of the bed, he let his eyes accustom to the darkness at three A.M. It was turning out to be the most dangerous time for Andy. He’d had some rest after his fun little love dance with the green-eyed girl from the Oasis bar. She’d been willing, and he was hungry.

  He knew the nightmare of the Nike shoes was going to wake him up again like it did every night. That’s why, when she left close to eleven o’clock, he was grateful. The sweats on his body cooled the mixture of rage and fear that heated him from the inside out, making his mouth parched and his fingertips tingle. No reason for her to see any of that. It would scare her. He was supposed to protect innocents and do such a good job of it that they didn’t even worry about the dark forces out there he was battling.

  He heard the foghorns in the distance, that constant thrum he recognized as the ambiance in Coronado. Occasionally, he heard a seabird in the distance. He hoped that someday he would wake up to some soft willing arms or to the sight of a gentle backside he could study. He’d watch her come alive as the sun peeked through the window. New promise of a bright, lazy day. Someone he could spend all night with and still like her the next morning.

  But for right now, all he had was the remembrance of the dream again, the shoes attached to those legs, lying lifeless by the side of the road.

  He got up and splashed cold water on his face. He was grateful he couldn’t see himself in the mirror. He knew he wouldn’t like what his eyes reflected back to him and the message he would tell himself. It was one thing to run away from people. It was quite another to deny looking at a piece of himself.

  He’d do it eventually, of course. He knew he could make it work. But he needed some time. And he needed some distraction.

  Cory Phillips, his medic friend from BUD/S and Specialty School, had been picked up by an East Coast team and had deployed six months earlier with his group from Little Creek. He was a Florida native and had encouraged Andy to go with him to Team 4, even though Andy was from a little farming town in central California. He’d never spent any time on the other side of the U.S.

  His friend had injured his arm in a training exercise and was healing from a full elbow reconstruction. The Navy gave him three months to get healthy before they’d decide to take him back. So of course, Cory made a beeline to the Gulf Coast, back to his old stomping grounds.

  Cory’d bragged that the beaches in California weren’t anything like Florida’s picture-perfect, deep white sugar sand beaches and blue waters slicing the horizon. Cory told him about all the fishing and surfing they’d do. He told him they could stuff themselves on the fish they could catch off the many piers and on the shore. Live on the water if they wanted.

  But when his buddy came home from the Middle East, even before his accident, he sounded different. Now that Andy had a deployment, he knew. Cory was probably also haunted by something, though probably not green running shoes…

  The text message he got from him last week, complete with a picture of the beautiful nearly abandoned sugary beach on the Gulf, was damn tempting. And it didn’t reflect any of the dangerous pauses and gaps in their conversation he had with Cory a couple of months ago. That had scared him.

  Luckily, he had to cut the call short, because they were leading a small party into the bush. He’d been glad to be with his brothers on the mission that day because he didn’t want to think about what he heard in Cory’s voice. Those kinds of questions and concerns were never to be spoken over the phone. They had to be done in person.

  The picture and the text message indicated he’d met a girl. He told Andy all he was going to do was savor the waves and the sun, chill at the tiki bars, and enjoy his new girlfriend, Aimee.

  Andy thought maybe he’d give him a call and see if the invitation was real. It underscored what he told himself several days in a row—that the distraction would be good for him. Besides, he’d never seen Florida. And, okay, maybe he wanted to be able to prove Cory wrong. There was no way in the world Florida beaches could rival any of California’s. He’d bought his ticket and was leaving for the Gulf Coast today before he had time to change his mind.

  He knew sleep was impossible, so he took a shower and dressed. Stuffing clothes into a small duffel bag with the Bone Frog logo on it, he packed up his instant shakes and some energy bars he liked and headed for the airport. On the way, he would search for an all-night diner to grab some breakfast. With any luck, he’d be able to sleep on the plane. A couple Bloody Mary’s would help in that department.

  After an uneventful flight, Andy picked up his rental car at the Tampa airport and followed directions west toward St. Pete’s, on his way to Sunset Beach.

  Growing up in the San Joaquin Valley, he remembered being about ten years old when his dad first drove him to the coast where he played in the surf. It was an instant love affair, and he still could smell the salt, hear the birds, and feel the relief after clearing his ears of the sandy water from a spill bodysurfing. He respected the powerful forces of the ocean, and his dad warned him about the undertow occurrence and sometimes jellyfish he’d have to avoid stepping on.


  That day with his dad, just the two of them, changed his life forever. He knew there was something about being in the water that would always be a part of his life.

  His dad still operated a small farm, and both he and his mother worked long hours. Vacations were infrequent, and it was another five years before he saw the beautiful Pacific Ocean again.

  But when he reported to Coronado after his Basic Training and Corps School in Michigan, he’d felt like he’d come home. That year, as they completed their further SQT, they spent time in Alaska and Mexico and had some big desert runs in Nevada. Then they’d return home to Coronado. He vowed never to live in a farming community inland away from the water again. He found swimming easy, the lifestyle in the San Diego area to his liking. The weather was temperate and sunshine nearly every day. And even in the winter time, it felt like early spring in the valley.

  Today, as he drove his rental car over the long bridge that led to the coastal towns of St. Petersburg, Redington Shores, Madeira Beach, Treasure Island, Indian Rocks Beach, and Sunset Beach, he was struck by all the water. Green tangled foliage made its way down to the water’s edge. Coastal waterways linked together subdivisions of homes that fanned out everywhere on the water, almost making them look like terraforms on Mars. Huge homes rose up out of the foliage like crystals. He’d never seen so many private boats of all sizes and shapes. Unlike Southern California, he found more boats than swimming pools as he drove down the expressway ending in a dead end at Gulf Boulevard.

  He turned right.

  He instantly loved the beach vibe. The bright blue sky seemed bigger here. The weather was warmer. Large marshmallow clouds swept across the horizon as he glimpsed blue coastal waters between motels, condos, and restaurants. Enclaves of smaller homes and cottages were interspersed between the commercial buildings and occasional highrises.

  The cat-and-mouse game of hide-and-seek with the Gulf waters felt like he was chasing a pretty girl with big blue eyes who was playing coy and hard to get. He nearly rear-ended the car in front of him while craning his neck, peering between two large homes on stilts, built right on the ocean.