Two Weeks With a SEAL (The Wakefield Romance Series)

BOOK: Two Weeks With a SEAL (The Wakefield Romance Series)
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Two Weeks With A SEAL

Book 1

The Wakefield Romance Series

By:

Theresa Marguerite Hewitt

 

 

 

 

Text Copyright © 2013 Theresa Marguerite Hewitt

All Rights Reserved

 

 

 

 

Table of Contents

PROLOUGE:

CHAPTER ONE:

CHAPTER TWO:

CHAPTER
THREE:

CHAPTER
FOUR:

CHAPTER
FIVE:

CHAPTER SIX:

CHAPTER
SEVEN:

CHAPTER
EIGHT:

CHAPTER
NINE:

CHAPTER TEN:

CHAPTER
ELEVEN:

CHAPTER
TWELVE:

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN:

CHAPTER ONE:

 

 

To my readers:

I just want to thank every one of you for taking the time to help build
my dream. To all my co-workers and friends who endured my endless and sometimes
incoherent babble about my characters, thank you very much, being able to vent
and talk about ideas makes them grow and expand. To my friend and 'editor' SB-
you're da bomb!

Most of all to all those who are serving, have served or are married/in
a relationship with someone who has been in the Armed Services, no matter what
branch; this ones for you. I've tried to make this first part of Rhea and
Chad's story as real as possible by pulling on some experiences I and others I
know have gone through.

I hope you enjoy Book 1 of the Wakefield Romance Series and thank you
for supporting Self publishers.--TMH

 

 

 

 

PROLOUGE:

 

I couldn't believe it.
It was actually snowing. I had lived in Wakefield, Virginia all my life and had
only seen it snow a handful of times and of all the days, it decided to snow
today. Today was the day I was saying goodbye to  my mom. The day after
Christmas and two days after my twenty-fifth birthday and here I am burying my
mom, kind of a huge downer right? I try not to let the tears well in my eyes,
but I can feel them there as I look out the glass sliding back door of our
double-wide trailer, my fingers resting on the cold glass.

See, my family was far
from perfect, and now I was the only member left. Well, my Uncle Rick was still
alive but I didn't give a flying fuck where he was, you'll see why. My family,
the Griggs family of Wakefield, Virginia, had been upon the topics of gossip
pretty much my whole life and I knew my name would be on the tip of people's
tongues today as well. Our downfall, at least in my eyes, started in October of
1992. It’s funny how I remember the date, the image of what I had seen still
burned in my retinas. The yells and whispers that came in the years following
still echoing in my mind.

My dad, Robbert Griggs,
was a tough man, raised by the whip and other traditional Southern values. He
was a big man, standing six foot five, his thick arms and legs making him look
even more like a giant, his large hands easily could palm anything. I remember
being a tiny girl, wrapping my arms around his leg and he use to walk around
with me like that, finally having to tickle me to get me off, and then swinging
me above his head. His dark brown hair was always kept pretty short, his beard
growing in in the winter, his grey eyes looking like storm clouds when he was
mad. October of 1992 brought that man that I had thought of as this great sense
of strength, down to nothing but a nightmare in my book.

My older brother, Randy,
had walked me home from the elementary school that day. The leaves had been all
over the ground but it was still pretty warm out, I remember that Randy was
wearing shorts. We had walked into the house and I remember strange noises
coming from the living room, and I ran like every five year old girl would to
investigate. Being so young I didn't really understand what I was seeing. But
Randy was ten and he knew a little more of the world than I did and he tried to
cover my eyes, yelling at my father as he dragged me from the house. We had
interrupted my dad and his mistress, having sex on our family room couch. Randy
ran across our road, dragging me crying behind him, to our neighbor Ms. Tillman
and he had called our mother at work.

I would learn later in
life that my dad’s 'mistress' was really a hooker, and that my dad paid her in
drugs. This man that I had thought of as an awesome giant filled with love, was
in fact a dirty drug dealer and manufacturer, brought into the game by his
brother, my Uncle Rick. My mom had thrown him out of the house, making a huge
scene to the point where the police had to be called, hauling my dad and some
of his clothing away in one of their patrol cars. It wasn't the last time that
I saw my father though, oh no, the last time will forever be burned in my
memory every time I watch a television show or movie that has a situation where
a man slaps a woman. It had been past our bed time, on a school night, Randy in
his room and me in mine, the light sounds of our mom doing her before bedtime
routine of shutting lights off and locking doors echoing slightly throughout
our homey double-wide.

The snapping of the door
frame is what brought me out of bed, the screams of my mom bringing tears to my
eyes as I raced to my bedroom door only to be intercepted by Randy, pushing me
back in and shutting the door behind him, dragging me into my closet. Randy's
grey eyes were so much like my father's, watering as he told me to be quiet,
putting his hand over my mouth as the slapping sounds bounced off of the walls.
My dad's voice was loud and harsh, calling her 'bitch' and 'no good whore' as
the fist to flesh sounds filled the night air, Randy's hand tight to my mouth
as we huddled together, both with tears streaming down our cheeks. "Stay
here," he had whispered to me, my five year old mind panicking, telling
him no, grabbing at his legs as he shut the closet door behind him, shoving a
chair up against it so I couldn't follow him.

I stayed in that closet,
my arms wrapped around my legs pulling them close, my tears drowned in my knees
till Randy came back to get me, his face all red from the back of my dad's
hand. The cops were there, the red and blue flashers coming through the front
windows as Randy held my hand, leading me out into the living room. Our
mother's best friend since high school and my best friends mom, Cindy Byrd,
took us in, ushering us away as our mother was loaded into an ambulance and our
father into the back of a patrol car. My mom spent three weeks in the hospital,
coming home with a cast on her right arm and bruises all over her face and
body. My dad spent a year in jail. His collect calls haunting my mom whenever
she picked up the phone to hear that automated message from the Greensville
Correctional Facility in nearby Jarratt, Virginia.

My mom, Ruth Griggs, did
an awesome job bringing us back together as a family, purging our home of
pictures and items that reminded us of that bastard. He showed up every now and
then at school, looming outside to try and talk to me and Randy [mostly me],
and he was shooed away by the teachers. In 1995, we read in the local paper
that he had been arrested in a huge raid, charged with multiple counts of
possession and the manufacturing of methamphetamines. He was sentenced to
twenty years in prison, returning to Greensville, where he still tries to call
collect and sends Christmas/Birthday cards every year, addressed only to me,
Rhea Noel Griggs.

After that, it was like
a dark cloud had been lifted off of my mother's heart. She blossomed into a new
woman, growing a back bone and even dating every now and then. She was super
active in our childhood, watching every football, baseball and track meet for
Randy, and every basketball and softball game for me. Randy was five years
older than me, so when he graduated it was a huge tear jerker for my mom,
especially since he had decided to enlist in the Navy with his best friend,
Chadwick [Chad] Payne, who I had been unashamedly in love with since I was five
years old.

My brother Randy was six
foot three, his light brown hair a mix of our father's dark brown and our
mother's dirty blonde, always kept buzzed close to his skull. I was only
thirteen when he and Chad had enlisted and like every girl who has an over
protective older brother, I was kind of glad to have him out of my life. Our
country had just declared war on terrorism, so yes it was scary, but I was
young and I wanted to spread my wings without having an older brother hover
over me at all times. Saying goodbye to him at the recruiter’s office, I cried
more for Chad than I did for Randy, both of them hugging everyone. I loved my
brother and had told him that for the first time in years as he hugged me that
day, a wide smile causing his dimples to show as he grinned down at me. He had
winked and waved at me as Chad and he walked to the travel van bound for the
airport, and I'll admit I ran and jumped up into the bed of our old Chevy, just
to wave one last time as they turned out of the parking lot. I swear that Chad
had winked at me, both him and Randy waving as they disappeared.

I ran wild at home with
Randy gone, my best friend Kendall Byrd and I becoming too little hellions.
While my brother and Chad spent a year going through Navy SEAL training,
Kendall and I had our first kisses and first 'boyfriends', mending each other's
broken hearts when we realized both guys were only interested in one thing and
dumped us when we wouldn't give it up. Another eighteen months brought the
ceremony where Chad and Randy were issued their Navy SEAL Trident insignias,
both being assigned to SEAL Team 10, based out of nearby Norfolk, Virginia and
their first deployment overseas. Over the following three years Randy and Chad
only came home a few times, my mom and I taking the little over an hour drive
more than a handful of times visiting with them for a few hours at a time.

I graduated high school
with honors in 2005, attending The College of William and Mary majoring in
Pre-Law, my dreams of becoming a lawyer in my sights. My first semester was
great, returning home for Christmas I gushed about all of my new friends to
Randy when he came home, dressed in his camouflage and utility boots. A party
thrown by some of Randy's high school friends brought everyone in our age group
together, the cliques realigning themselves, alcohol flowing freely. Randy had
assigned Chad to be my 'babysitter', having him hover at a distance to make
sure I didn't drink too much since I was still underage, and I noticed for the
first time that Chad actually paid attention to me. That night, in the basement
of local beauty queen Heather Rachel's house, I lost my virginity to Chad in a
flurry of kisses and muttered, un-meaningful 'I love you’s'. We had been drunk
and it had happened, not that it dampened the undying love that I had for the
irresistible man.

I was a new woman after
that Christmas, focusing in on my education and graduating in the spring of
2009 with a perfect 4.0 GPA. Taking my LSAT in the summer of 2009, I was elated
when I passed with an abnormally high score of 165, being accepted to The
William and Mary Law School was only icing on the cake. That first year of law
school was challenging, making it so that I only got home a few times and
making time for boyfriends all but impossible, ending a year and a half long
relationship that I had had with a classmate. Randy and Chad were deployed in
late February, their tour planning on coming to an end in July, so when June
rolled around my mother and I were planning a big welcome home party along with
Chad’s mom, Dana. We had never prepared ourselves for the phone call that
brought the notification of Randy’s death.

June 25th, 2010 we
buried Randy beside my grandfather, Tracy Brunson, in Spratley Cemetery, his
white cross head stone standing out like a sore thumb amongst the dark grey
ones. Taps was played, guns fired, prayers read, all with my mother sitting
beside me crying endlessly for her son. Chad stood with the other members of
SEAL Team 10, all in their dress uniforms, their Commander going to hand the
folded flag to my mother. He saw that she wasn’t emotionally ready for it, so
turning to me he said, “With my utmost condolences,” and I nodded my head,
accepting the flag and hugging it to my chest. At two o’clock the next morning
was the second time that I made love with Chad, the murmured meaningless ‘I love
you’s’ mixed with his tearful ‘I’m sorry’s’. It made me love him even more.

BOOK: Two Weeks With a SEAL (The Wakefield Romance Series)
13.62Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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