SEAL's Bride: A Secret Baby Romance Read Online Free PDF Page B

were from women, various booty calls in D.C. and New York. Another message from Amy, who’d gone from sexting to threatening.
    You think you can ignore me???
    Rolling his eyes, Sawyer scrolled through his contacts and silenced her incoming messages. If he talked to Amy again, it would be on his terms.
    Checking his messages again, he perused the names. Eliza. Mary. Merissa…
    “Oh, Merissa,” Sawyer said, opening the text. She’d also sent nudes, much more explicit than Amy’s paltry offering. “Damn, girl.”
    She was hot as hell, but Sawyer was too tired to mess with her tonight.
    Closing his eyes, he fell into an exhausted sleep, dreaming of being chased by a crowd of pitchfork-waving locals.

4
    T he second that her father shut the front door in Sawyer’s face, Remy turned and fled. Racing through the living room and kitchen, she ran right out the back door toward the tractor shed.
    Flimsy corrugated steel, leaning precariously in some places, it was a silly place to take refuge. Still, Remy skirted around the shed, hiding out from her family. She sat on a big pile of firewood, pressing her face into her hands.
    Sawyer Roman, knocking on her door. How many times had she dreamt of that moment?
    And yet, the reality of it, seeing him again… she’d gone cold inside, breaking out into a sweat. The fantasy of Sawyer, remembering his touch and the way his smile lit her up inside, that was one thing.
    His presence in real life, showing up unexpectedly at the farm…
    That was another thing entirely. The fact that Remy and her dad were the only ones in the living room… just a pure stroke of luck for Remy, something she couldn’t expect to happen a second time.
    She sucked in deep gulps of air, trying to slow her pounding heart. Seeing Sawyer should have been bittersweet. Her first love, her first… well, everything, where men were concerned. The only man who’d ever made Remy’s heart sing.
    Subsequently, Sawyer was also the only man to ever break it. Back in high school, when he announced he was leaving right after graduation to join the Navy, she’d understood that.
    After all, his mother had just passed away, and his father was a miserable bastard. His brothers were sullen and quiet, which led to people in town constantly walking on eggshells around the Roman brothers.
    So when he left, it hurt, but it made sense. Part of Remy just assumed he’d come back…
    And he did, but never for long. She’d see him, catch up with him, share a few drinks… One thing would lead to another…
    It was just what Remy and Sawyer did .
    Until the last time, when he disappeared for almost four years.
    Remy clenched her fists, taking a deep breath. It was almost dinner time, she couldn’t go to pieces right now. There were things to do, like feeding Shiloh and dodging her family’s questions.
    Later , she promised herself. You can freak out about this tonight, when you’re alone in bed .
    Rising, she wiped at her face and headed back toward the house.
    “Remy!” her mother called.
    “Coming!” she said as she came around the corner of the shed.
    “Come on, then, slowpoke,” her mother said, brushing some flour off her faded blue apron.
    Remy trotted back to the house, feeling self-conscious. She probably looked a mess, her face mottled from the handful of panicked tears that she’d been unable to repress.
    When she climbed the back steps to the kitchen, everyone else was already around the table. Her father at the head of the table, her mother’s place set at the opposite end. Her sister Shelby and brother Micah sitting on one side, her sister Larkin sitting on the other.
    “Hurry up, Rem, I’m starrrrrving,” Larkin said.
    “Y’all start without us,” Remy said.
    “Not a chance,” her mother said.
    “Eulah,” her father said to her mother. “A man’s got to eat.”
    “Nobody’s eating until we pray, and we don’t pray until everyone’s seated,” her mother replied primly.
    Eulah sat down, looking