My Greek SEAL Read online

  My Greek SEAL

  by

  Sabrina Devonshire

  This work is copyright. No part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted in any form, or by any means without the prior written permission of the author except by reviewers who may use brief excerpts as part of a review.

  Please purchase only authorized editions, and do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  My Greek SEAL

  Copyright © 2016 Sabrina Devonshire

  Published by Corazon del Oro Communications, LLC

  Cover art by Sabrina Devonshire

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I wish to thank Marion Cook for her diligent editing work and Patricia Dawson for her copyediting support.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Acknowledgements

  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 Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  About Sabrina

  CHAPTER ONE

  Lefkada Island, Greece

  I snatch my backpack and glance in the bathroom mirror. Frowning, I tug down my floral print wrap to cover more of my thighs and twist my lips into a frown. My long strawberry-blonde hair is a tangled mess and dark circles rim my eyes. What was I thinking? After a ten-hour flight from the States and a five-hour bus ride across Greece, the few hours of toss and turn sleep on a rock hard mattress haven’t done a damn thing to improve my exhausted state. Or my appearance.

  My weary muscles rebel against every step and even keeping my eyelids open is a struggle. What am I doing here? I’m a high maintenance woman. I don’t do sleep deprivation and Third World countries. I usually head to a beach resort in southern California, sprawl out on a lounge chair and drink Mai Tais until it’s time for my late afternoon massage.

  I exit the bathroom and glance at the wrinkled sheets and the stiff pillows on the bed where I just spent a mostly sleepless night. Dropping back down into that bed of discomfort doesn’t tempt me in the least. What do they make mattresses out of in this country? I reach over to peel off the mattress cover and then decide against it. I really don’t want to see what’s hiding under that sheet. It’s probably a block of cement. I let out a long sigh.

  What I really need is a spa day and twelve hours of sleep in a five star hotel. I imagine drifting off into a blissful sleep, my back pleasantly cushioned by a pillow top mattress and my body cocooned with a cushy comforter. I could be awakening refreshed now, about to sip espresso delivered to my room instead of feeling like absolute hell and about to embark on a long day of bouncing over waves on a boat. But this is Greece. The water and the islands will be beautiful.

  “Shit.” I forgot the motion sickness pill. I drop my backpack, rush into the bathroom and rummage through my toiletry kit. My hand finally closes around the cylindrical container of pills. I pour two of them into my hand and down them with water before snatching up my backpack and heading toward the door.

  Despite my high-maintenance tendencies, I’m an exercise addict. Back home in Arizona I leap out of bed at 4 AM to rush off for a pre-work swim. Yes, 4 AM is an ungodly hour, a time when any normal person should be curled up under the covers. But I’ve always been a bit of a freak anyway. Hey, exercise is my coffee. It wakes me up and energizes me.

  Getting the blood pumping hard and fast elicits my enthusiasm to accomplish something. I’ve loved the water since I wore diapers. It must have been love at first splash because my mom said I fell in the pool when I was two and she only left me unattended for a minute. My butt high in the air, the diaper kept me floating until my mom screamed, ran to the edge of the pool and grabbed my plastic-coated buttocks and hauled me out. Expecting a scream, she was startled when I burst out laughing. Apparently, falling in the pool was just a game to me, she said. Ever since, she’s regaled family and friends with this story.

  I feel a tug of sadness inside my chest thinking about mom and my dad and even my annoying little brother. I long for the comforting safety of my youth. Growing up I never appreciated the home cooked meals or having my own room with a comfortable bed to sleep in. Comfort and security have always been things I’ve taken for granted. Even in college, my dorm room was fairly comfortable. After I graduated and was hired by a Tucson company, my salary paid more than enough for a high-end apartment. I never imagined the necessities and comforts I expected to always have would be taken away in an instant.

  My boss terminated me without warning last week. I felt so depressed I could barely drag myself out of bed. I should have gone job-hunting instead of drinking myself unconscious and holding a non-stop pity party for myself. Or called my mom and asked her if I could move back home until I landed another job. But I hate the weather in Seattle. Cold and dreary days are the worst. A recipe for depression, actually. And it would be awful going back to my parents’ house, not for vacation, but because I can’t handle life on my own. So instead of job-hunting or calling my parents and asking for help, I’m here in Greece. How logical is that?

  As an image of cliff diving off of the highest rocky promontory on Lefkada Island into the shallowest water imaginable flashes through my mind, I grimace. Okay, I’m damn depressed, but I’m not ready to give up on life. I feel like I’m trapped in one of those eddies in a river that swirls around and around so fast that I can’t seem to escape. Maybe being away from the mess that is my life now will help me figure things out. I pause in front of the door and turn around and look longingly at the unmade bed.

  A few more hours sprawled out on that hard mattress with the shades drawn might rid me of this pounding headache and allow me to temporarily forget that I’m unemployed and will likely be in debt for the rest of my life after this week ends.

  No, that could never work. I won’t sleep anyway. I’ll toss around in that bed ruminating about what went wrong at work and the fact that I have no idea what I’m going to do next until I get so entangled in the sheets I have to cut my way out with nail scissors. Bad plan.

  Before I can change my mind, I reach for the knob, yank the door open and step outside.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The balmy sea air embraces me, as if trying to persuade me this day won’t be so bad. I make a sour face so it knows I won’t be won over so easily. Being miserable is my plan for the day and I won’t be dissuaded from it. I hear only a faint whisper of wind through the leaves of the olive trees on the hill above where I’m standing. There are no chirping birds, car engines or barking dogs; sounds I would expect to hear even in this remote village. The silence seems strange. There’s never quiet where I live. I open my window to let in fresh air to hear leaf blowers and thundering garbage trucks and the roar of car tires on nearby roads.

  I give myself a pep talk as I stride down the steep stone driveway. I need to go easy on myself today. People are supposed to be a little crazy when they find themselves suddenly unemployed and about
to plunge into financial ruin. Manic laughter, biting my nails and deck pacing will be permissible behavior for the day. Muttering to myself, randomly bursting into tears or mentioning my unemployment status to anyone won’t.

  As I walk, I see clay pots bursting with brilliant pink, orange and yellow flowers. A drop-dead gorgeous man and an attractive woman with long, dark-brown, to-die for hair sit on their room patio sipping tea. She speaks to him in Greek and he leans in and kisses her in response. Towels and swimsuits hang from chairs and tables on some of the vacant patio railings. Perhaps they belong to other swimmers on the tour who have no time for a cup of tea because they are rushing down to the dock.

  Last night I met the swimmers and the guides at a poolside welcome meeting where we were served beer and told what to expect on the week’s swimming outings.

  I had been eager to find out what everyone was like. Would they be fun to hang around or drive me nuts? My mind sorts through the faces of the people I met the previous night at the hotel bar. Only one of the guides, Libby, showed up at the meeting. She had shortly cropped blond hair and a solid, sturdy frame. It was obvious from her accent that she was British, although she wasted no time filling us in on her life’s details. It was on to business from the get go. Turning down our offer to buy her a beer, she passed around laminated pages with maps of the places we’d be swimming. After going over each swim in exhaustive detail, she told us her expectations for safety.

  The swimmers I remember meeting were a retired couple from Australia and their new friends who had recently moved to Sydney from London. Oh, and there were two female friends traveling together who were also Aussies. There was a mother and her college-age daughter from Scotland, and two middle-aged couples from London. All had mentioned pools, lakes or oceans they frequented. No one said they were training for an Iron Man or to swim the English Channel. Thank God.

  The group as a whole gave the impression they were here to see sights, to unwind, to enjoy the blue waters of the Ionian Sea, not to embark on a reality show-like endurance contest.

  They all seemed so nice. I don’t want to be the problem tourist. None of them seemed worried about cold water or rough seas. Meanwhile, I’m the high-maintenance American from Arizona who swims in an outdoor pool heated to eighty-two degrees, indulges in ice-cream binges, Saturday morning sleep-ins and bi-monthly massages, and pops motion sick pills before cab rides.

  It won’t be a problem. I’ve taken my motion sickness pill so I won’t be heaving over the deck anytime soon. If I’m uncomfortable for any reason, I’ll just keep it to myself. I won’t complain if the water’s too cold or that I’m jetlagged and tired. And most of all, I won’t drink too much wine at lunch and babble on about how I got fired three days ago with no notice and all my commissions unpaid and spent most of the money in my account to hire an attorney.

  I know it’s stupid I came on this trip. A wise woman would have cancelled her pending vacation and started interviewing for new positions. I, on the other hand, foolishly decided to travel anyway because I couldn’t get a refund on the flight or the tour and figured if I stayed home I would probably keep drinking myself into a stupor every night. The cash I’d brought along had taken my savings account balance down to less than five hundred dollars.

  I look both ways before crossing the street. No cars are approaching from either direction on the winding, weathered road bracketed by olive trees and the occasional weathered stone building. Apparently no one drives around in remote Greek island villages at seven thirty AM. I stride across the street and down the steep staircase leading to the harbor.

  Most of the swimmers are already gathered there. I call on my exhausted brain to remember names. Sherry, Scott, Margie, Jan, Maryann, Randy...Oh, and Libby is the guide. And? No more names are coming to me. My brain refuses to cough up even one more. Shit. I’m not looking forward to asking, what’s your name again? They’ll think I’m a moron.

  “Good morning,” I say to no one in particular.

  I get an assortment of greetings in response. I wrench my lips into a smile as a jolt of nervousness strikes. I haven’t spent much time on boats. There are hundreds of boats moored in this harbor and I’m not sure which one is ours. There are tiny fishing boats, mid-sized yachts and sailboats. I glance at a rickety looking wooden boat a hundred or so feet from the dock. What if that’s the boat we’re getting on? Maybe it will sink or a rogue wave will tip us over or...Stop. Breathe. But I don’t know how to breathe any other way except fast, especially now that my heart is racing a mile a minute. I should have learned how to do yoga breathing. I haven’t even boarded the boat and already I feel like I’m going to have a panic attack. I recall all the people in the movies who breathe into a paper bag. I have some of my stuff in zip loc bags to keep it dry. I wonder if that could work. No. Everyone will think you’re nuts. Or I guess it’s batty they call weird people in England.

  Libby sits waiting for us in an inflatable boat tied to the dock. Her sticking-up-in-every-direction blond hair shouts bed head. Her mouth stretches open in a yawn just before she shouts that she’s ready to take groups of six at a time out to the Ionian Goddess.

  The two British couples are engaged in deep discussion. Libby waves her hand at me, apparently thinking she’s got a better chance of attracting my attention than anyone else’s. I stride toward the boat and look tentatively at it bobbing in the gentle waves. Boarding gracefully could be a task. The interior of the craft is slick with water and all the rubber surfaces look slippery.

  “Hand me your stuff first,” says Libby.

  I pass her my bag and she places it in the center of the boat.

  Libby leans around me before shouting again. “Are you people going to get on board the bloody boat or not?” She’s smiling so I can tell she’s more amused than irritated.

  “We’re on our way,” Maryann answers.

  I look at the space of water between the dock and cautiously place the ball of my all-terrain-sandaled foot on the rounded edge of the inflatable boat. It lurches. I pull my foot back.

  “It’s okay. Come on ahead.” Libby reaches for my hand. I grab it and allow my foot to slide over the curved rubber surface of the boat’s side.

  “Don’t put your foot there. Step inside the boat,” Libby urges. With her free hand, she adjusts her sunglasses, which have bright red rims.

  “Oh, okay.” My legs feel too far apart to be even close to stable as I launch my lead foot onto the flat surface of the boat bottom. It’s rocking in the gentle waves. Whoa. I wave my arms to regain my balance. I need to re-establish some semblance of equilibrium before I pick up the second foot from solid ground.

  That’s when my gaze lands on a drool-worthy man walking nonchalantly down the stairs. I first notice he’s not wearing a shirt. It’s very hard not to notice that every perfectly defined muscle on his chest is tanned to a deep bronze that exaggerates every cut and contour. The sprinkle of dark hair on his chest only makes him look more masculine. Damn, he’s hot. I’m so spellbound by the sight my eyeballs could pop out and splash down in the water in front of me. My tongue and the roof of my mouth feel as dry as the Sahara Desert. My heart races. My eyes water and sting because I can’t blink. If I do, I might miss a second of this spectacular view.

  Where the hell did the to-die-for man come from? He wasn’t at the meeting the previous night. Is he part of our group or here to board a different boat? I silently hope he’s with us. Then I reprimand myself for that thought, telling myself now is about the worst time for me to get distracted by some random hot man.

  He has to be Greek. His hair is a tangled mass of dark curls and falls well below his shoulders. Dark thick wing-shaped brows draw attention to his large, expressive eyes. Holy shit. My gaze takes a delicious detour back to his body, where it’s already spent too much time lingering. My eyes soak up the view of the muscular planes of his chest and follow the line of dark hair over his six-pack abs until it disappears into his swim trunks. This is the kind of man yo
u dream about and then wake up mad and pounding your pillow over it because you want to be back asleep and not awaking anytime soon.

  Libby tugs on my arm, urging me onward. “You’d think you never bloody seen a man before. Would you stop gaping and get your backside on this boat?”

  “Oh, sure.” I lift my lagging foot from the dock and raise it over the rim of the inflatable boat. My gaze refuses to unglue itself from Hot Man’s Chest. My foot catches on a rope along the top of the rim. The boat and my body lurches and my hand slips from Libby’s grasp. I look below me and see that the boat has pulled more than two feet away from the dock on the taut rope. I’m in imminent danger of a splashdown.

  My arms flap like wings through the empty air and my body tips and sways and I think how embarrassing this situation is just before I make a dramatic splash into the bay.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I wish I could swim underwater for several hundred yards so when I surfaced, no one would see my embarrassed face. But Libby warned us swarms of jellyfish reside in this secluded bay and that it’s got a mud bottom and isn’t as clean as the blue water we’ll be swimming in the rest of the day. A mud breakfast and a jellyfish-sting facial aren’t things I want to experience so I pull frantically toward the surface, sputtering for air.

  I’m greeted by the man’s laughter. It’s deep and full-bodied and so sexy.

  Too bad he’ll never take me seriously. He’ll probably always see me as the bimbo who fell overboard looking at his pecs.

  Shit. Until a week ago, everything was orderly and predictable and no one ever seemed to take notice of anything I did and I wouldn’t have minded a little attention. Now when keeping a low profile seems paramount to maintaining my sanity, I make a complete idiot of myself. I feel the curious gazes before I see them. I raise one hand and grip the side of the boat.