Holiday at Magnolia Bay (Southern Born Christmas Book 1)
Read Holiday at Magnolia Bay (Southern Born Christmas Book 1) Online
Authors: Tracy Solheim
Tags: #Romance, #Southern, #Christmas
A Southern Born Christmas Novella
Tracy Solheim
Holiday in Magnolia Bay
Copyright © 2014 Tracy Solheim
Kindle Edition
The Tule Publishing Group, LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-940296-92-0
This one is dedicated to two beautiful ladies:
Melanie Lanham, for her willingness to read whatever I write. Love you, girl!
And my favorite octogenarian fan, Eveline Sorg, who hasn’t forgotten what it means to pen a lovely letter. Read on, Evie!
Southern Born Christmas Series
Dear Reader,
Thanks for taking the time to read
Holiday at Magnolia Bay
. I hope that you enjoyed Drew and Jenna’s story. As a military brat myself, I love sharing with readers the complexity of life in the military, whether it’s serving in the armed forces or loving someone who’s served. Times are a little crazy right now in our world and I ask that you keep those who serve and their loved ones waiting at home in your hearts.
I’ve always been fascinated with sea turtles. Like Jenna, growing up, my family gravitated to one beach on the North Carolina coast for years—and I’ve continued the tradition with my own children. We’ve been fortunate enough to see these great turtles in “the wild” and also stranded on the beach. Turtle nests along the shore are as much a part of our vacation spot as sunburn and seagulls. I’ve been lucky to be able to watch under a late summer moon as a nest of loggerhead turtles bubbled up from the sand and sprinted into the ocean. It was awesome!
A few years ago, my family and I took a trip to the Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Jekyll Island, Georgia. The day-long backstage tour was the basis for my description of the fictional Magnolia Bay Turtle Center. If I made any errors, it’s totally my fault for not taking proper notes. (In my defense, other books were drowning this one out in my head at the time!) If you’d like to learn more about the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, here’s the link:
It’s worth the visit.
As an author, I really value your feedback on my books. Please, let me know what you think at
[email protected]
. I love to hear from readers—what you liked and what you didn’t. Or you can visit me on my website at
www.tracysolheim.com
. Lastly, I’d like to ask you a favor. If you’re so inclined, I’d be thrilled if you’d take the time to review
Holiday at Magnolia Bay
at any of the online review sites. Whether you loved it or hated it, or somewhere in between, I’d appreciate it if you’d let other potential readers know about the book. Word of mouth is still the best form of advertising!
Thanks again for spending time with me in Magnolia Bay. I hope you and yours have the happiest of holidays and all the best in the New Year!
Tracy
‡
N
o matter how
fast or how far he ran, Andrew Lanham couldn’t escape the memories. The familiar noise of the ocean waves crashing loudly beside him as his feet pounded through the sand wasn’t enough to drown out the sounds dogging him this early morning—not to mention every minute of the past month. Try as he might, it was impossible to distance himself from the flashbacks of his last mission.
Take some R&R,
his superiors commanded.
Come back to the States
, his family pleaded.
Go find a quiet place to make peace with yourself
, the Navy shrink advised.
Get drunk and get laid,
his SEAL comrades dared.
So far none of the advice he’d been given had worked. Three days into his enforced leave and he still couldn’t shake the nightmares. He’d come back to the States, but instead of returning to Coronado Beach to face the music, he’d isolated himself on the opposite coast, hunkering down at his godmother’s beachfront mansion in Magnolia Bay, a seaside resort thirty miles north of Charleston, South Carolina. Aunt Evie, as the elderly woman was called, had ‘tsked’ over Drew while he drank himself into a stupor. But even the epic headache he’d woken up with this morning couldn’t obliterate the scenes from that failed op; visions that played out like a YouTube video on a continuous loop in his brain.
A seagull dive-bombed the shoreline startling Drew. He slowed down to a walk in an effort to get his heartbeat back to DEFCON three. Technically, he hadn’t followed
all
the suggestions he’d been given. He hadn’t gotten laid.
Drew kicked his sneaker through a sticky mound of foam the sea had left along the sand. Maybe his buddies were right; a few hours of mindless sex might be the thing to help chase away the memories. Too bad he’d detoured to picturesque Magnolia Bay in lieu of Southern California. The opportunities for a meaningless hook-up were plentiful surrounding a navy base. Not so much in a sleepy resort town. He stopped in front of the sprawling seaside home owned by his godmother. With its secluded decks and near private beach, it was the perfect spot for licking his wounds. He just wouldn’t be able to scratch that other itch while he was visiting. His quirky godmother was a bit of celebrity in town, and he wouldn’t risk embarrassing Aunt Evie by picking up a strange woman in a bar just to slack his needs. That particular remedy would have to wait until he got back to base and could look up an old girlfriend. Or maybe two.
He stood with his hands on his hips, surveying the quiet coastline. The sun had been up for more than an hour, but the beach was nearly deserted, just the way Drew liked it. Two little tow-headed boys wearing boardshorts and a layer of zinc across their shoulders were digging in the tall grass lining the dunes that protected Aunt Evie’s house from the ocean. Ignorant of his presence, the boys moved closer to the corrugated edging dug into the sand outlining a nest of sea turtle eggs covered by chicken wire. They looked old enough to be able to read the sign warning them to keep away—sea turtles are an endangered species and, as such, their nests are protected by federal law—but, as happens with boys, their curiosity got the better of them. Having been their age once, Drew decided to see how far they’d go before stepping in.
“Hey!”
Turns out, they didn’t get very far at all. Both boys jumped at the sound of a female voice. Drew watched out of the corner of his eye as a woman emerged from the surf as though she were Amphitrite, Goddess of the Sea. She charged over to where the boys were now frozen and Drew couldn’t help but notice some very nice curves accentuated by the long-sleeved sun shirt she wore over her bathing suit. The white fabric clung to her like a second skin. Her legs were bare, a sheen of water making them look pearlescent in the sun. A wild mass of shoulder-length strawberry-blonde hair flew beside her as she proceeded to chew out the boys like a hardened drill instructor.
“Don’t touch that! You boys shouldn’t be playing over here.” She pointed to the sign. “It’s against the law to tamper with the nests. You could go to prison.”
With the mention of hard time, the younger of the two boys gulped a sob just as the older one’s lip began to quiver. Drew shook his head at the Goddess of the Sea’s dramatic overkill. Being curious wasn’t a crime; it was just a phase all boys went through. Hell, he’d been in their shoes numerous times in his life. Unfortunately, he’d never had anyone stand up for him.
And look where that had landed him
. He wasn’t about to leave these two defenseless.
“They weren’t doing any harm.”
He watched as her body tensed just before she jerked her chin over her shoulder to glare at him. Clearly, she hadn’t seen him standing there when she vaulted from the sea because her caramel eyes held a hint of surprise as she took him in.
“Are they with you?” It was more accusation than question.
One glance at her mouth, however, and he was having trouble formulating an answer for her. It was mesmerizing, that mouth of hers. Built for pleasure and sin. His shorts grew tighter just looking at her.
“Are these your children?” She enunciated each word as if he’d suffered from a traumatic brain injury.
Too bad she was using those sexy lips to intimidate two little boys. Drew shook his head, as much to answer her question as to clear his wandering mind. He looked over at the two kids. Had she really asked if they were his? He wasn’t sure if he’d ever in his life considered having children, but he knew now that he never would. Children—families—they were all collateral damage if and when an op didn’t go the way it was planned.
Just like Atkins’ family.
Drew flinched at the realization. “Boys,” he said, using his SEAL team commander’s voice. “You need to leave turtle nests alone or the babies won’t be able to hatch and go out to sea.”
Both boys nodded solemnly while the Goddess of the Sea just gaped at him.
“Do you promise not to go near any of the nests again?” he added.
Their chins bobbed up and down in unison and Drew lifted an eyebrow at her as if to say “we’re done here.”
She shifted in the sand so that she fully faced him. Her hands rested on her hips pulling the shirt up enough to give him a nice peek at the top of a creamy thigh. Then she went and spoiled the erotic image in his head by opening that luscious mouth of hers.
“Who are you, the Kindergarten Cop?”
He bit back a smile at that one. “No.”
“This is private property, you know.”
Drew wanted to point out that she was the one who was trespassing, but then his stay at Aunt Evie’s would no longer be covert, so he treated her to the stone-faced stare he used on his team when they were acting up. The Goddess of the Sea didn’t back down, instead she took the opportunity to study Drew. He kept his stare smug as she slowly perused him from head to toe. Dressed in nothing but nylon running shorts—he’d stripped off his T-shirt a few miles back to wipe his face before hanging it from the waistband of his shorts—Drew was well aware of how the opposite sex perceived him: six feet two and a hundred-ninety pounds of a highly sculpted Navy SEAL. Fortunately, most women ignored the part about him being a human killing machine once they had access to his body. Based on the way her nipples puckered beneath her wet shirt, this one wasn’t any different; she definitely liked what she saw.