Summary:
The sexy Navy chief and his best friend’s adorkable little brother…
It’s petty, but Naval Chief Derrick Fox wishes he could exact a little revenge on his ex by showing off a rebound fling. His submarine is due to return to its Bremerton, Washington, home base soon and Derrick knows all too well there won't be anyone waiting with a big, showy welcome.
Enter one ill-advised plan…
Arthur Euler is the guy you go to in a pinch—he's excellent at out-of-the-box solutions. It's what the genius music-slash-computer nerd is known for. So when he finds out Derrick needs a favor, he’s happy to help. He can muster the sort of welcome a Naval Chief deserves, no problem at all.
Except it is a problem. A very big problem.
When Arthur’s homecoming welcome is a little too convincing, when a video of their gangplank smooch goes enormously viral, they're caught between a dock and a hard place. Neither of them ever expected a temporary fake relationship to look—or feel—so real. And Arthur certainly never considered he'd be fighting for a very much not-fake forever with a military man.
Winning and losing are subject to sexy interpretation…
Navy chief Calder Euler loves to win big. His latest score? A remote mountain cabin. Checking it out is supposed to be a quick trip, but Calder’s luck abruptly turns when a freak injury and a freakier snowstorm leave him stranded.
Oh, and the cabin isn’t empty. A silver fox caring for two young girls claims that the property is his, but Calder’s paperwork says otherwise.
Felix Sigurd is on a losing streak, and his ex-husband risking the cabin in a reckless bet is only the latest in a series of misfortunes. He’ll tolerate the handsome stranger for a couple nights--even care for his injuries—but that’s it.
Calder doesn’t know a damn thing about kids, but making pancakes for Felix’s girls is a surprising delight. Trapped in the cabin, the four of them slip easily into the rhythms of a family. But when the ice melts, they’ll have to decide if a future together is in the cards.
Sailor Proof #1
Chapter One
Derrick
It was going to happen. Today was finally the day I was going to deck an officer and thus end any hope I had of ever making chief of the boat, and probably earn myself a court-martial to boot. But Fernsby had it coming, and he knew it, the way he met my eyes as he gave a cocky laugh. He might be a junior-grade lieutenant who had to answer to the other officers, but he wasn’t stupid. It didn’t matter how much he had it coming, a chief fighting with an officer of any rank over a personal matter was going to be harshly punished.
But it might be worth it.
Fernsby had been goading me the entire long deployment, every chance he got, which considering the close quarters on a submarine was pretty damn often. And now here he was, joking with another officer about winning the first-kiss raffle for our homecoming, knowing full well that I was standing right there. And that he’d be kissing my ex.
Personal matter indeed.
And totally worth punching that smug smile away.
“I hope we go viral. Social media loves two hot dudes kissing.” Fernsby smirked as he waggled his eyebrows at the big-eyed ensign who’d been hero-worshipping him all damn tour. And of course he was smirking. First kiss was a storied tradition for most navy deployments, and sailors loved vying for the honor of being first to disembark and greet their loved ones. Usually I was happy for whoever won, and over the years I’d seen more than one proposal as a result of that first kiss.
God, I hoped Fernsby wasn’t planning that. Bad enough that he couldn’t stop ribbing me that Steve chose him over me and that I’d been the last to know Steve was cheating. Watching them be all happy was going to suck.
“I’m gonna get so lucky.” Fernsby’s knowing gaze met mine over the ensign’s head.
An angry noise escaped my throat. “And I hope—”
“Fox. A word. Now.” My friend Calder appeared seemingly out of nowhere in the narrow corridor and hauled me backward, effectively cutting off my tirade along with a good deal of my circulation.
“Yeah, Fox. Go on with you.” Fernsby made a dismissive gesture as I growled, but Calder kept moving, giving me little choice but to follow. He dragged me past various compartments through the mess, where two of our fellow chiefs were playing cards. He didn’t stop until we were in the chief’s section of the bunking with its rows of triple beds, steering me into the far corner by our bunks and about as close to privacy as we were going to get.
“What the fuck?” Calder wasted no time in unleashing on me.
“It’s nothing.” I looked down at my narrow bunk. I had the bottom bunk, another chief had the middle, and the top bunk was Calder’s. And I was more than a little tempted to disappear into mine and pull the blue privacy curtain. “Fernsby was running his mouth again.”
“You sure as hell looked like you were gearing up to slug him. I saw your clenched fist. I’m surprised smoke wasn’t coming out of your ears.”
Calder wasn’t wrong, so I shrugged. “I need to stop letting him get to me. I know.”
“Yeah, you do.” He shoved my shoulder the way only a longtime best friend could get away with. We’d been lucky, meeting up in submarine school, both getting assigned to Bremerton, and then ending up on the same boat together as chiefs. Calder had a vested interest in me not fucking up, and my skin heated from how close I’d come to doing just that.
“I’m pissed because it looks like he won first kiss and now I have to watch that,” I admitted in a low whisper.
“What you need is a kiss of your own,” said the guy who probably had different dates scheduled for each of our first three days home.
“Ha. Would be nice, but not happening.” It went without saying that I wouldn’t have anyone in the throngs of family and friends waiting on me. Simply wasn’t how my life was structured, and most of the time I was fine with it. Calder was the one who would have a big contingent of friends and family. And I was well-acquainted with his undying belief that the solution to one terrible relationship was to find another more casual arrangement. “I’m not exactly a rebound sort of guy.”
“Everyone knows that about you.” Calder rolled his eyes. He was both taller and broader than me, which was saying something because I wasn’t exactly tiny. However, his playful demeanor always made him seem younger. “But you should be. And I’m not even talking about getting laid. I’m saying you need to make Fernsby and Steve-the-lying-ex-from-hell jealous by having some hottie there to greet you.”
“God. I wish.” I let my head thump back against the panel where the bunks met the wall. Unlike Calder, I wasn’t counting down the minutes until I could get lucky, but I had entertained more than fantasy about how to pay Steve back. A rebound held limited appeal from an emotional standpoint. But jealousy? Yeah, I wouldn’t mind trotting out someone hotter than Steve, who always was a vain fucker. “But we’re only a couple of weeks out from homecoming, and I’m not exactly in a position to meet someone while we’re deployed.”
Unlike some other deployments, the submarine force had very limited communication access. No cell phones, no swiping right, no mindless surfing of hookup sites. Hell, simply getting messages to friends and family could be challenging, let alone trying to conduct a revenge romance on the down-low.
“Call in a favor?” Calder quirked his mouth. He undoubtedly had multiple persons who would love nothing more than to pretend to be madly in lust with him.
“From who?” My back tensed and my nerves were still jangling from listening to Fernsby brag. “It’s not like my contact list is awash in friends with benefits or even friends period.”
“You need to work on that whole brooding-loner persona.” Calder clapped me on the shoulder, nicer now. “It’s not doing you any favors.”
“Why be the life of the party when I have you?” I laughed, years of shared memories flowing between us. Any social life I did have, I owed almost entirely to Calder. He’d even introduced me to Steve.
“I do like to bring the party.”
“You do.” Closing my eyes, I took another deep breath, trying to steady myself. I truly did not want to fight Fernsby even if my fist tended to forget that. “You’re right, though. Someone there, even pretend, would make me feel less like a fucking loser.”
“Exactly,” Calder agreed a little too readily, making my gut clench. Maybe I was that pathetic.
“But I’m not doing something stupid like an ad.” I cracked an eye open in time to catch him laughing at me.
“Of course not. You save your stupidity for fighting with officers.”
I groaned because he was right. “I’m not the personal-ads type. But who do you know? Surely there’s a guy into guys who owes you a favor whom you could loan me?”
I wasn’t too proud to borrow from Calder’s vast social network.
“Hmm.” Tilting his head, Calder narrowed his eyes, the same intense thinking he did when poring over the latest supply manifest. As a logistics specialist, Calder had a solution to almost every problem that could crop up, apparently my love life included. He muttered to himself for a few moments before straightening. “Arthur would do it.”
“Ha. Very funny. Try again.” I kept my voice down, but my laugh was a lot freer this time. Arthur. The nerve. I had to go ahead and sit on a bunk before I lost it laughing.
“He would,” Calder insisted, serious expression never wavering. “He owes me.”
I shook my head. Arthur. I’d known Calder’s family for a decade now, including his spindly youngest brother who was some sort of musical genius. And also terminally hopeless. “You want me to use your too-nerdy-for-band-camp little brother to make Fernsby jealous?”
“He’s almost twenty-five now. Not so little. He’s been out since high school, so no issues about a public kiss. And Haggerty said Arthur’s hot now. Kid went and got all buff in Boston.”
“Haggerty said that? And you let him live?” Our mutual friend did like them young and pretty. I had vague memories of Arthur having a riot of unruly hair, far redder than his brothers’, and big green eyes, but he’d been barely legal last time I’d seen him a couple of years back. And as I’d already been seeing Steve, and Arthur was Calder’s little brother, I hadn’t looked too terribly hard.
“It was an observation, not a request to go break his heart.” Calder kicked my foot. “Come on. It’s perfect. Arthur has always liked you, but he doesn’t like you.”
“Hey!” I should have been relieved that Arthur wasn’t harboring some giant crush, not indignant.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re a catch.” Calder fiddled with the strap on his bunk. Everything got strapped down on a sub, even us. “But he’s always said he’d never get involved long-term with someone military.”
“I don’t blame him.” This was why I was never doing another relationship myself. Romance and the navy simply didn’t mix, especially not submarine personnel. We were bad relationship bets, and I could admit that.
“See? This is why he’d be good for this. He can fake it long enough to get Steve and Fernsby off your back, but it’s not like he’d actually date you.”
“Of course not.”
“Plus all that experience as a dorm RA has him good at shit like signs and banners and cutesy gestures. And he’s been back in Seattle a couple of months now. He’d do it.”
“I can’t believe I’m actually considering this. How are you going to get a message to him anyway?” The last thing I needed was anyone else getting wind of this ill-advised plan. There was no such thing as privacy on a sub.
“Trust me. I’ve got my ways.” Calder’s voice went from confident to hushed as voices sounded near the front row of bunks.
“Dude. Did you hear about Fernsby?” asked one of the youngest chiefs, a Nuke with a chipped front tooth and no filter. I couldn’t see him or his buddy but his surfer-boy drawl was unmistakable.
“Yep. Fox is gonna be so pissed.” The other person had to be Beauregard, who worked with me in Weapons. The Southern accent gave him away. “It’s a wonder they haven’t murdered each other this whole deployment. If a crew member stole my girl—or guy—I’m not sure I could stand the humiliation.”
“Shush.” A third voice sounded farther back, and then there was a lot of fumbling around before Beauregard slapped his bunk.
“Okay, okay, here’s my new deck,” he announced as the three of them exited the quarters.
“See?” I gestured up at Calder. “It would be justifiable homicide.”
“It would. But wouldn’t revenge be better?”
“I dunno. Fernsby’s head would look pretty great mounted on my wall back on base.” I groaned as I thought about returning to my little room in the barracks. I’d let Steve keep the apartment, because I was such a nice guy and all. Damn it, I was tired of being nice. Tired of being taken advantage of and pitied and gossiped about. Fuck it all. “Okay. Whatever. See what you can arrange.”
“Leave it all to me.” Calder straightened to his full height, which came just shy of the low ceiling. “You won’t regret this.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure I will.” Dread churned in my too-empty gut, but it was a distraction from all the weeks of hurt and anger I’d been stamping down. At least we had a plan.
Sink or Swim #2
Chapter One
Calder
“You seriously won a whole house? Man, you are the luckiest fucker I know.” Max’s voice crackled over my car speaker. My signal kept fading in and out the farther outside Seattle I drove, but his skepticism came through loud and clear.
“Cabin. And yeah, it’s probably my biggest score yet.” I couldn’t help doing a little bragging as I navigated a curve on the country highway that kept advising travelers of their elevation and the distance to Mount Rainier. “I lucked into the invite for this high-stakes poker party, and this one jackass kept going all-in. Totally out of his league. But he wasn’t drunk or otherwise impaired, so his loss is totally my gain.”
“Hell, yeah. So when do we get to come for a ski weekend?” Max sounded predictably eager to get away from base. “Cards and ski bunnies sound pretty damn good right now. Not that you have anything left to play for.”
“There’s always something to play for.” I had to slow for an RV plodding along. I was relying on some sketchy directions and my GPS to get me to this place. Now that I’d left the suburbs behind, the terrain had turned decidedly mountainous, little towns with folksy names fewer and farther between long stretches of evergreen trees marching up and down scenic vistas. “You can come soon, but I need to check the place out first. For all I know it’s a shack inhabited by a family of elk. This guy wasn’t especially high on the place, but I figured what the hell. Even if it turns out that calling the place a ski chalet is pushing it, property is property.”
“Yup. And knowing you, you weren’t about to walk away from the table with a winning hand either.” Max snorted.
“Too true.” I wouldn’t take bets I couldn’t win, but I also wasn’t one to back down from a challenge either. A passing lane finally opened up, and I seized the chance to pass the RV. “If the cabin is too much of a dump, I’ll unload it in a quick sale as soon as I get the paperwork straightened out. But in the meantime, having my own getaway sounds pretty sweet.”
“Sure does. And hell, the way Seattle real estate prices are going, some sucker’s gonna be willing to buy it to attempt the long-ass commute.”
“Exactly.” Those same ridiculous prices were a big reason why I kept living in the barracks. As a chief I had options, but in the Seattle area all those options required more bread than I was willing to part with. For all that I loved the thrill of winning a bet, I was also notoriously tight with my money. My brothers liked to joke that getting a loan out of me required three signatures and collateral, and they weren’t that far from the truth. Saving cash by staying in the barracks made sense, but all the regulations, cramped spaces, and constant drama of other sailors got damn old. Having a place to escape to and bring my buddies was going to be awesome.
As long as the place wasn’t falling down. Even I wasn’t enough of a risk-taker to bring the crew to a cabin that wasn’t structurally sound. I’d take this weekend, inspect everything, make it as clean as possible, and draft some to-do and to-buy lists. Then I could set a date for the weekend away I’d been promising my crew. Traveling alone wasn’t usually my style and my car had felt too quiet until I’d dialed Max, but I didn’t want anyone around to laugh if it turned out I’d been had and the key didn’t even work.
“So, how’s the new duty assignment going?” Max asked, voice too careful to pass off as totally casual. Fuck. Maybe calling him hadn’t been so smart after all.
“Awesome,” I lied. “Shouldn’t be too much longer before I’m out from behind a desk.”
“Good to hear it. Couldn’t pay me to get chained to an office.” Max was a crane operator at the pier and possibly even more outdoorsy than me. Another reason to not have him along. If there were things I had to figure out, like lighting a tricky woodstove or something, I preferred to get it right before I had an audience eager to swoop in and help.
“Quit reminding me how much I wanna be back out there,” I grumbled right as the phone crackled again. “Damn it. Signal’s dropping again.”
“No worries. I should probably run anyway. I’ve got a date tonight. Maybe you’re not the only one with some recent luck.” Max’s warm laugh made me a little less grumbly. “This hottie swiped right and slid into my DMs with some killer pics.”
“Have a good time. Hope they’re not actually some pimple-faced kid.” I kept my tone light, the sort of ribbing we gave each other all day.
“Hey, that only happened one time.” The static increased, garbling whatever else he was trying to say until the call dropped completely. For once though I wasn’t cursing the trees and lack of cell towers. Max had been wandering into territory I didn’t want to think about, so I cranked the stereo rather than attempt a call back.
Without passengers I could indulge the musical tastes my brother the composer called hopelessly basic. Whatever. I liked what I liked, but I’d barely gotten two songs in before the GPS bleated that it was time to turn onto an even smaller side road and then another, each road more narrow and less maintained than the last. They’d been plowed at least, but not well. My sports car had all-wheel drive and was rated decent for winter, but I was still glad the forecast called for only a light dusting this weekend.
A rogue flake danced across my windshield. Probably an escapee from a nearby snowbank and not an omen. Here’s hoping. Finally, the GPS led me up a gravel drive to a red mailbox beside a large carved wooden bear holding a cheery sign that read Dutch Bear’s Hideaway. Hmm. Hideaway could be anything from a shed to a tree house, and a weird Christmas-morning-level excitement gathered in my gut as I made the turn. The house wasn’t immediately visible from the road, and when the driveway turned to reveal a red Swiss-style cottage with white trim hidden among the trees, I couldn’t help grinning.
This I could work with. It was older, sure, probably fifty years at least, and humble, but it looked sound, no saggy roof or missing windows. Its footprint was a basic rectangle with deep eaves, and a little white balcony indicated there was a second story tucked under the sloping roof. I followed the drive around back to where it ended at a little outbuilding painted the same red as the house. Tim, the guy at the poker party, had made it sound way shabbier than this.
True, it was remote, with no neighbors that I could see, but as long as that chimney worked and we had something resembling electricity, this could be a nice bro hangout. Like the little clubhouse we’d had in the backyard at one of Dad’s duty stations. Man, I’d loved that place. Maybe I’d change the sign to something more me. Keep the bear. He was cute and homey, kind of like the place itself.
After I parked, I started exploring on foot. A little fire circle with carved wooden benches and an ancient hot tub on a deck lurked behind the house. The hot tub might have to be replaced, but there was plenty of firewood in the little outbuilding, and lo and behold, one of my keys opened the white door to reveal snow shovels and other winter supplies. Not a bad start.
When I ducked back out of the outbuilding, a few more snowflakes fluttered over my face. Luckily I wasn’t planning on going anywhere before morning, and I’d have wood and the food and supplies I’d brought if nothing else. The rear patio door next to the hot tub didn’t take the first key I tried or the second or the same one as the outbuilding either. But then I went back to the first key, jiggled the knob a little, and the lock turned.
“Who’s got the magic touch?” I crowed to the empty woods before opening the door. It let out a loud creak but would be an easy fix to put on my list. The door opened into a hallway with a neat row of hooks for coats and a mat for shoes and boots. Taking the hint, I took a second to take off my boots so I wouldn’t track mud and snow all over the house. I left my coat on until I could assess the heat situation. The hallway led me past a modest bedroom with what looked to be a queen and bedding already on. Score.
A breaker box hung on the wall between the bedroom and bathroom. The electric was already on, so I tested the light in the bathroom. Worked. The bath was cramped with a cracked vanity, but I’d done multiple submarine tours. The tub/shower combo was practically palatial compared with the head on a sub. And after a brief pause with a gasp and sputter, the sink turned on. A little hard to turn and the water was rusty. However, I could let it run later, and I’d brought bottled for drinking, anyway.
“Running water! We’re in business now.” Happy, I hummed to myself as I continued down the hall, which opened into a U-shaped kitchen. Old appliances, but neat and tidy. Like the bath, it was cramped, but it opened to a living area, making it appear bigger. I could already picture games of cards at the built-in eating nook. It’d be a tight fit for my build, but I could always pull up a chair.
The living area was dominated by a stone fireplace and woodstove. I’d come back to that in a moment, but first the stairs beckoned me. I felt like some storybook character exploring a fairy-tale cottage. So far, everything was just right.
“Come on, Goldilocks. Let’s see what’s upstairs.” Talking to myself was helping me feel less alone, especially when the third stair creaked like in a horror movie. I’d brought a portable speaker for my phone. Maybe I could play some music while I messed with the woodstove.
The upstairs had a sleeping loft with three twin beds all in a row made up with identical quilts. “Wow. This really is some fairy-tale shit.”
My nieces and nephews would go nuts for this space. My adult-sized pals were gonna be a tight fit in those beds, but it beat making them bunk down on the floor, and there was also a small room with crowded bookshelves, a rocking chair, and a small desk next to a teeny half bath tucked into the eaves.
“Nice.” Giving the space one last look, I turned to head back downstairs. For a second, I thought I heard the echo of children’s voices. Damn. All this aloneness really was getting to me. Click. I heard another sound, but the noise didn’t repeat. Still, I hastened my trek down the stairs.
Whoosh. A rush of cold air made my whole body tense, every sense on red alert as the front door burst open.
“What the—” Whatever curse I’d been about to bellow was cut off by an ear-piercing shriek as a young girl appeared in the door. If I’d tried to conjure up an actual Goldilocks, I couldn’t have done much better than her pale blond curls, pink cheeks, old-fashioned wool coat, and startled expression.
“There’s someone here!” Her alarmed shout echoed off the wood walls.
“Wait,” I called out right as my sock slid against the stair step. “Whoa!”
I thrust an arm out, but it was already too late and I was tumbling down the last three steps, landing on my ass in a heap at the bottom. Ouch. Trying to figure out what I’d injured, I was still catching my breath when another form appeared in the front doorway, this one adult, male, and mad as a grizzly.
“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my cabin?”
Annabeth Albert grew up sneaking romance novels under the bed covers. Now, she devours all subgenres of romance out in the open--no flashlights required! When she's not adding to her keeper shelf, she's a multi-published Pacific Northwest romance writer.
Emotionally complex, sexy, and funny stories are her favorites both to read and to write. Annabeth loves finding happy endings for a variety of pairings and is a passionate gay rights supporter. In between searching out dark heroes to redeem, she works a rewarding day job and wrangles two children.
Emotionally complex, sexy, and funny stories are her favorites both to read and to write. Annabeth loves finding happy endings for a variety of pairings and is a passionate gay rights supporter. In between searching out dark heroes to redeem, she works a rewarding day job and wrangles two children.
Sailor Proof #1
B&N / iTUNES AUDIO / iTUNES
AUDIBLE / CHIRP / AUDIOBOOKS
KOBO / GOOGLE PLAY / CARINA
Sink or Swim #2
B&N / iTUNES / iTUNES AUDIO
AUDIBLE / CHIRP / AUDIOBOOKS
KOBO / GOOGLE PLAY / CARINA
Series
B&N / KOBO / iTUNES AUDIO
