The Navy Seal's Promise Read Online Free PDF Page B

planning on taking it slow, but he was sure that he’d get
her home.
    “Luke, am I keeping you from your own family?”
    Saskia’s question took him by surprise. He glanced at her, took his eyes
off the road for a split second and cleared his throat. “Well,” he started,
wondering how the hell he’d ended up talking about his family when he never
usually talked about them to anyone, “my dad lived to see me come home from my
first deployment with the Navy, and my mom was alive long enough to know that
I’d become a SEAL,” he said, saying words that he wasn’t used to sharing. “Dad
was a military man, so it meant a lot that he was able to see me graduate, wave
me off in my uniform, all that kind of thing.”
    “No brothers or sisters, then?” Saskia’s voice was soft, low.
    “A sister, but she lives in Canada with her husband.”
    “And I take it you don’t have a…” she hesitated and he gulped. He knew
what was coming. “Well, I mean I can see you don’t wear a wedding band, but then
I guess you wouldn’t while you were on a…”
    “No,” he said. “I mean, I was married, but I’m not spoken for any
longer.”
    Saskia let out a nervous laugh, like she wasn’t quite sure what to say. “So
we can trade bitter stories about our crappy ex-spouses then?” she said,
smiling across at him.
    But her smile faded at the grim look on his face, and he couldn’t help
it. His wife had been gone awhile now, but talking about it wasn’t exactly his
favorite topic. Not when he still hated himself for the way it had happened,
for not being able to do anything to protect her, to take away her pain.
    Luke concentrated on the road, tried to say what he needed to tell Saskia
without thinking, without letting himself get pulled back into the past, of
what had happened. And without making her feel like shit for even asking.
    “My wife died a couple of years ago after a short battle with cancer,” he
told her, slowing as they approached what appeared to be deeper snow. He
squinted and gripped the wheel tighter. “I did everything I could to get home,
offered to volunteer for whatever I had to in the future so I could get back
and be here with her, but before I touched down, she was gone.”
    The silence in the car was deafening.
    “Luke, I’m so sorry,” Saskia murmured, her warm hand touching down over
his arm, connecting with the skin of his forearm bared by his shoved up sleeve.
“I am so, so sorry.”
    Luke clamped his jaw tight, stared straight ahead, tried to ignore how
conflicted he felt over the beautiful woman beside him, sending a shiver of
desire through his body just from her touch, and the memory of the wife he was
talking to her about.
    “When I tell you I know how important it is to get back to someone you
love, I really do understand,” he told her, glancing down only when her hand
slowly drew away and she unbuckled her seatbelt instead. He didn’t expect the
kiss she pressed to his cheek when she leaned across to his seat.
    “You’re a special man, Luke Gray,” she whispered.
    If only she knew what he wanted to do to her, she might have other
thoughts. Because right now, he could think of nothing better than pulling
over and having his wicked way with Saskia in the back of the Humvee, to push
his memories back where they belonged and do something reckless for once.
    Luke rolled his shoulders back and stayed focused. Getting a mom home
to her son, that was all this mission was about.
    “Would you mind passing me that sandwich?” he asked Saskia.
    She reached into the space between them and pulled them both out. “Cold,”
she said, unwrapping one and positioning it so he could eat it half-inside the
paper without spilling it everywhere. “Sorry.”
    Luke took the sandwich and ignored the touch of her hand against his, the
way her fingers skimmed his and waited, like she wanted to make sure he had hold
of it.
    Who was he kidding ? Today wasn’t just about getting her home, it
was