Her Dominant SEAL (Midnight Delta Book 9) Read online

  “Thanks for all of the Christmas and birthday gifts. I really liked the Kindle you got me.” He smiled as he looked at her shining face.

  “Trenda told me how much you loved to read. I’m sorry we haven’t had a chance to talk more.” God, how he’d missed seeing his younger sisters grow up. Trenda had been great in keeping them in touch with him when they came over to her house. There were phone conversations, and later there had been SKYPE sessions. But still, to have not seen any of them in person for twelve years had been hard.

  “Trenda finally told me how you were the one who made sure everyone was taken care of when they moved out of Mom’s. Maddie and the twins wouldn’t have been able to afford college if it weren’t for the money you sent. She even explained you sent money to Mom. I never knew that. Why didn’t Mom tell me?”

  “She must have had her reasons. You know how proud she is.” Drake knew how hard it must have been for his mom to take help from a son that she resented.

  “Still, you did so much for all of us. Thank you. I’ve always wanted to say that to your face.”

  “It wasn’t much.” Drake felt his cheeks getting hot, and it wasn’t from the heater in the car.

  “Bullshit. Trenda showed us the check we got from you last December. She said it was the same amount you sent every month for the last three years. We loved being able to gift it back to you, big brother.”

  “You ought not of done that,” his accent getting thicker. Drake had received an individual Christmas card from each of his sisters. Each of them had sent back one piece of the torn-up check as well as a piece of a picture of a truck that he wanted. Somehow his sisters had known he had wanted that new truck. Money had always been tight for him, sending half of his paycheck home to Tennessee each month. But it had been the right thing to do. When his sisters had torn up his December check and sent it back to him, he’d been blown away.

  “How is Mom?” he finally asked.

  “The same. She’s going to be mad that you’re here.” She held out her hand, and he grasped it. “How’d we end up with parents like ours?”

  “I don’t know, Tinkerbell.” Drake pulled out of the parking space. “We need to find you a place to stay.”

  “How about you?” she asked as he pulled onto the highway and headed back towards Jasper Creek.

  “Yep, I guess I need a place too. Got any ideas?”

  “There’s a cheap motel near the truck stop,” Piper suggested.

  Drake snorted. “I don’t think so. Try again.”

  “Eva works at a small boutique hotel near Gatlinburg that caters to honeymooners. She works the front desk and cleans the rooms. There are three other hotels close by, she could probably ask one of them to get us a deal.”

  “Sold.” Drake fished out his phone and handed it to her.

  “Is that a gun?” Piper breathed out the question, pointing to his gun that she’d seen under his coat.

  “Yes.”

  “You can’t have that here.”

  “Piper, I have a permit to carry. You can be damn sure I’m carrying with Dad and his prison buddies around town.”

  “But I thought you were in the Navy. What are you doing with a gun?”

  Drake shot a sideways look over at his little sister. What in the hell did she think he did for a living, swab the deck of ships?

  “You know I’m a SEAL, right?”

  “Uhm, no,” she said slowly. “Trenda said you were in the Navy. She never said you did anything dangerous. She said you lived in San Diego and went out on the aircraft carriers. That’s what she told Mom and me.” She bit the tip of her thumb, then hit the dashboard. “She freakin’ lied to me. Why would she do that?”

  Drake figured Trenda didn’t want their father to know what Drake did for a living, and their mother definitely would have told him. And because Piper lived at the house, Trenda wouldn’t have told her either.

  “I can’t answer for Trenda,” Drake said.

  “That’s a really dangerous job, isn’t it? How often have you been wounded?” Piper’s voice was trembling.

  “Hey there,” Drake crooned. “What makes you think I’ve been wounded. Look at me. I’m big as a house.”

  “That just makes you a bigger target.” He heard tears in her voice again.

  “Piper, you’re killing me. I’m a mean son of a bitch, and I work with the best team in the world. I’ve been fine. Yeah, I’ve got a few scars, but nothing major. I’m sorry Trenda didn’t tell you, Honey. Now, why don’t you call Evie and find us a place to stay tonight, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said in a soft voice. He continued along the highway as she dialed.

  “Eva?”

  Even from the driver’s seat, Drake could hear his other sister’s loud voice coming through the phone.

  “Please don’t yell. I’m sorry I worried y’all. I just didn’t want to put you in danger.” Evie obviously wasn’t pleased with that answer because the yelling continued.

  “Give me the phone,” he demanded.

  “You shouldn’t drive and talk on the phone,” Piper admonished. “I’ll put it on speaker.”

  She held out the phone between them.

  “Who’s that man talking?” Evie yelled. “You better not be hitchhiking.”

  “It’s too late. She already hitchhiked last night with a trucker,” Drake growled.

  “He was nice. He gave me a blanket,” Piper defended herself.

  “Who are you?” Evie damn near screeched. “Piper, who is that man?”

  “It’s Drake. He came and got me. Now stop yelling, we need a favor.”

  “Drake?”

  “Evie girl, you still have a witch’s temper, don’t you?” Drake chuckled.

  “Don’t you even start talking about a temper, Drake Jefferson Avery. You have me beat every which way. What the fuck is going on? Dad got out of prison yesterday. Mom called me and demanded to know where Piper was, I told her I didn’t know. Dad showed up at Trenda’s and scared the hell out of her. He tore through her house looking for Piper, said she had to come home. Thank God Maddie and the twins are away at college. Drake, you can’t let Piper anywhere near dad, you hear me?”

  “Calm down, you hell-cat. I’m not letting her out of my sight. Now we need a place to bed down for the night and rumor has it you might know of a spot.”

  “Get over here right now.”

  “Eva, Dad might have one of his friends watching your place. I can’t go there.”

  “Let him try. I’ve got my shotgun loaded and waitin’, ain’t nobody going to hurt you again Piper.”

  “Jesus, Evie, mellow, we are not trying to re-enact Custer’s Last Stand. Piper’s right, we can’t show up at your place. You might be under surveillance. Tell us where we can go get a room.”

  “Dammit Drake, you are not the boss, we already have one...Trenda.”

  Drake felt his blood beginning to boil.

  “Evie-”

  “My name is Eva, nobody calls me Evie anymore.”

  “Evalyn Lavender Avery, we are fifteen minutes outside of Gatlinburg. Find us a reservation for something that has at least two bedrooms and a kitchen. If you can’t find two bedrooms, then at least a fold out couch. Can you manage that?”

  “Yes,” she ground out. “But it’s going to cost you.”

  “I’m good for it.” He grabbed the phone out of Piper’s hand and ended the call.

  “Not even Trenda argues that much with Eva,” Piper said in an awed voice.

  “Yeah, well, not many people argue with me that much,” Drake said wryly. He looked over at Piper and was happy to see that she had pushed off the blanket. She was wearing a thin denim jacket. No wonder she had needed the blanket.

  “So, tell me what all I’ve missed since I’ve been gone.”

  “In fifteen minutes?”

  “What I’d really like to know about is you. Trenda’s sent me pictures, and we’ve talked on SKYPE, but tell me what you’ve been up to. What do you plan to be whe
n you grow up?”

  “Oh my God, I can’t believe you just asked me that question. How old do you think I am? Twelve? For God’s sake, I’m graduating this year!”

  Way to go, Avery. Pissing off the teenage girl, nothing much has changed.

  “What I meant was, what do you want to do after you graduate?”

  “I plan to be a teacher,” she said it in such a prim little voice he could just imagine her in front of a classroom.

  “What grade?”

  “Kindergarten. I’m a teacher’s aide right now. I missed school yesterday, and the class I was supposed to help in.” Drake hated how sad she sounded. Meanwhile, he was just angry. What the fuck was going on? He knew that years ago, Piper had witnessed their dad kill a man, but he’d already been convicted of that and done his time. Why would he want to harm his daughter now? But then again, who the hell knew why Norville Avery did anything?

  Then there was Wanda Avery. How could she let him in her house when he was intent on doing her daughter harm? It made his heart hurt and his head about ready to explode.

  Piper reached over and placed her hand on his thigh.

  “Don’t think about it, Drake. I try not to.”

  “Think about what?” he pretended to misunderstand.

  “About Mom. She just loves our dad so much that she can’t help herself.” He squinted against the sun, it was causing his eyes to water. He wasn’t going to admit to the fact that he was tearing up at the fact that he had a mother who was turning her back on her children.

  “Drake, think about Granny.”

  That stopped him short. He hadn’t thought about Granny Laughton for at least a year. But driving up and down the hills of the highway and looking at the evergreens sprinkled with snow, he thought back to the days in his grandmother’s kitchen. She had been his mother’s mother and a refuge for the Avery children for years. She’d died two years ago. When Trenda tried to call him and let him know, he had been on a mission and unreachable. He’d have given anything to have been stateside. For her funeral, he would have come back to Tennessee.

  “I’m surprised you remember Granny Laughton,” Drake said.

  “She gifted me her books. Mom kept them in a box for me in the attic, I took them over to Trenda’s last year and looked online. Some of them are really rare, one of them has been auctioned off for over a thousand dollars. Some of them aren’t. A couple I’ve read and used this year to study for class.”

  Drake whistled. “I can’t believe Dad never got his hands on those.”

  “They were frickin’ books,” Piper snorted. “It never occurred to either Mom or Dad that books could be valuable.”

  “True.”

  “With the money from these, I can go to college.”

  “You were always going to go to college,” Drake said firmly.

  The hand on his thigh tightened. “You do too much for us. One day you’ll want to start a family of your own.”

  “What are you talking about? You are my family.”

  “You haven’t even seen us in over twelve years. You shouldn’t be here. Sheriff Arnold and the Judge Comey said if you came back they’d press charges and you’d go to prison.”

  “The statute of limitations is long past. I’d like to see them try.” But Drake knew they’d be looking for some way to make him pay. It wasn’t just his dad who’d gone away back then, it’d been the judge’s son too, and he’d died while at the Pikeville State Prison. After he’d testified against his dad and the judge’s son, the sheriff had manufactured a charge of assault with a deadly weapon against him. He would have ended up in prison too if it had gone to Judge Comey’s court, but Judge Kirkland presided over it and said he had to join the military. He’d also advised never setting foot back in Jasper Creek.

  “Trenda said it was dangerous for you to ever come back,” Piper persisted.

  “I should have come back years ago,” he muttered under his breath.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, call Evie, see if she’s found us a place to stay.”

  Chapter Two

  Drake laid down his credit card on the front desk of the Elk Condominium Rentals and was stunned at the rate they quoted him for a three-room condo.

  “Excuse me? For a condo with three bedrooms?” The rate sounded like something he’d pay for the roadside motel that Piper had originally suggested.

  “Drake, it’s good to see you again. Eva called ahead, she said you were coming. I’ve got you signed in under an assumed name.” The man winked at Piper.

  “Do I know you?”

  “You played ball with my nephew.” He eyed Piper who still had the blanket wrapped around her. “You better get her inside. I have the heat set to seventy in the rooms, but there is also everything you need to start a fire in the fireplace. The kitchen is fully stocked. If you need anything, and I mean anything, call me.”

  Drake shook the man’s hand. “What’s your name again?” Drake looked him up and down. It was clear that the man had served.

  “Larry Hemet, but my nephew’s name was Parker Evans.”

  “I remember him.” Drake saw Piper shiver. “Come on, Tinkerbell, let’s get you settled.” He put his arm around her and nodded to Larry as they headed outside to their rooms.

  “Movie stars stay at this place,” Piper said. Drake watched as her words turned to vapor in the cold air.

  “You’re pretty enough to be a movie star. I bet the boys are asking you out all the time.”

  “No. I’m a bookworm. They never notice me. They still talk about Zoe and Chloe.” That made no sense, granted they were lookers, but they’d been away at college.

  “They graduated three and a half years ago, how can they still remember them?” he asked as he hurried them towards building ‘F.'

  “The girls were in three of the local Ford dealership commercials. They’re celebrities.” Piper blew into her hands. Drake slung his arm around her shoulders as he hustled her up the stairs to the condo.

  Before he put the key card in the lock, the door started to open. He pulled it shut.

  “Open this door, Drake Jefferson!” Eva screeched.

  He chuckled, and he slowly let loose, so his middle sister didn’t fall on her ass.

  “What in the hell are you doing here?” he asked as he ushered Piper in ahead of him.

  “I needed to see my big brother and make sure Piper was okay. We’ve been out of our minds, Pip!” Evie grabbed Piper by the shoulders and shook her, then hugged her, then shook her again.

  “Easy there, Evie. She’s a little thing.”

  “She’s in trouble. Do you know how sick with worry we’ve been?”

  “All the girls know?” he said referring to the twins and Maddie.

  “No, just Trenda and me. Maddie’s got enough on her plate, and the twins just dealt with midterms, and now have new classes to contend with. Trenda and I decided to keep it on the downlow.”

  “Chloe and Zoe are going to be pissed.”

  “We’re older and make the decisions,” Evie said decisively. “Seriously, Drake, if they could have helped, we would have called them. They couldn’t.”

  Drake saw where she was coming from and agreed.

  He herded his two sisters towards the living room.

  He saw that Evie had already started the fire, and he pulled up the ottoman in front of the hearth and gently nudged Piper down in front of it.

  “Evie, I’m glad you subscribe to the theory that older siblings need to sometimes make decisions for their younger sisters.”

  He went to the house phone and called the front desk. A girl answered.

  “Can I talk to Larry?”

  “Hold on.” He waited.

  Evie stormed over to him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she hissed up at him.

  “Hey Drake, what do you need?” the man asked when he got on the line.

  “I need to step out for a couple of hours. Can you come over and stay with Evie and
Piper?”

  “I’ll be right over,” the man said, no questions asked. Definitely military.

  “Did you just call over Larry to babysit us?” Evie asked incredulously.

  “I’m older, remember?”

  “That’s bullshit. We’re fine.”

  He needed to hurry, but he stopped and put his hands on Evie’s shoulders. “Look, Honey. This shit is serious as a heart attack and you know it. We still don’t know why dad has such a hard-on for Piper. I need to do reconnaissance. I need to know the two of you are safe. Can you, for once in your life, agree to take some help without putting up a fight?”

  She opened her mouth to argue.

  “For Piper’s sake,” he said before she could disagree.

  She shrugged away from him.

  “Fine, for Piper’s sake. And just so you don’t make any stupid mistakes because you’re worried about us.”

  “Thank you.”

  Drake went to his room and pulled out his fleece coat from his suitcase, then checked the gun in his shoulder holster. Inside the case was a smaller gym bag that contained a few other goodies, and made him grin. He picked up the bag and took it to the living room when he heard a knock on the door. Larry hadn’t been kidding about being right over. He looked through the peephole, and let the man inside.

  “Thanks for getting here so quick.”

  “Not a problem. I wanted to talk to you anyway.” Larry motioned him towards the kitchen.

  “About what?” Drake asked as he followed him.

  “A rumor that’s going around town. A fight broke out last night over at Lucille’s. It wasn’t the regulars. One had prison tats. Seems suspicious that they should be showing up the same time your dad was let out.”

  “Were they arrested?”

  “Nope, they left before the sheriff got there. Two of the three men they were fighting with ended up in the hospital.”

  Evie came into the kitchen. “Who ended up in the hospital?”

  “Just some locals hanging out at Lucille’s. Looks like they could be friends of your dad.”

  Evie scowled. “So, you came over to warn us? Why are you packing?”