Free A SEAL's Secret by Tawny Weber Page A

his voice so it’d be heard by his father and grandfather. “Did you know Romeo met a woman? Totally fell for her, too.”
    “Gabriel, that’s wonderful.” Denise beamed. Her fondest hope, right after marrying off her son to the perfect woman, was marrying off all of his friends. Her theory, Mitch knew, was to surround him with so much wedded bliss that he would never catch sight of the temptations of bachelor life again.
    “You finally got hooked, did you?” Thomas grinned. He didn’t have his wife’s hopes. He just liked seeing his son and his friends happy.
    “Well, who is she? Tell us about her,” Denise prodded, slanting a sideways look at Charity. Mitch knew a trap when he saw it. But as a trained SEAL, he knew how to use it to his advantage, too.
    Before Gabriel could do more than aim a deadly glare his way, Mitch offered a sad shake of his head.
    “She was a sweetheart. An absolute angel. But for some reason, she didn’t want anything to do with our boy here.” Mitch pursed his lips before adding, “I think Romeo might be losing his touch. We might have to find him a new nickname.”
    The scowl on Romeo’s face and the frustration in his eyes told Mitch he wasn’t the only one who couldn’t get Halloween out of his head. Good.
    The only other person who didn’t look shocked by Mitch’s words was Charity. She hadn’t been around long enough to understand Romeo’s reputation.
    “Oh, Gabriel,” Denise breathed. She looked devastated, as if Mitch had just told her his friend only had hours to live.
    It only took a moment for Gabriel’s usual equanimity to resurface, though.
    “Hey, we can’t all have Twinkies,” he said with a shrug and an unabashed grin.
    Mitch looked from the array of delicious food spread over the table to the pretty brunette now engaged in animated conversation with his mother.
    The problem was, that Twinkie was all he wanted.

5
    L IVI ALMOST GOT a speeding ticket on her way to Thanksgiving dinner. Not because she was in any rush to glut on turkey. But because she’d heard her phone chime to tell her she had a text message, and she couldn’t wait to stop the car and read it.
    She didn’t even bother to turn off the engine when she reached the restaurant parking lot. She just grabbed the first space, put ’er in park and grabbed her cell phone.
    It was from Mitch. Doing a happy butt-wiggle in her seat, she read the text.
    I kept fantasizing about you over dinner. You’re such a distraction.
    She typed back.
    A good distraction?
    A sexy distraction.
    That’s a good distraction.
    I’ll call later.
    Livi bit her lip to keep from giggling.
    She knew he couldn’t actually see or hear her. But it was
so
unsophisticated. She wrote back:
    Can’t wait. I’ll be home by ten.
    Oh, my. Livi dropped her head against her seat and fanned her face. Whew. Mitch Donovan was amazing. Just a simple text from him had her all hot and excited. And three weeks after their backroom lip lock, she was still reeling.
    Livi wondered if he’d seared the image of his lips on hers when he’d sent her over the edge. Or maybe her mouth was just refusing to let her forget what good kissing felt like.
    Or, maybe it was his first phone call last week.
    She hadn’t expected to hear from him. Hoped, maybe. But not expected.
    Livi had spent the week after Halloween pumping Roz for information, and the one after that tapping every resource she had on the SEALs and who knew whom.
    It seemed that Lt. Commander Mitch Donovan was a wunderkind, even among the SEALs, a group known for surpassing excellence. A decorated pilot, or rather a naval flight officer, he’d trained in communications and linguistics before joining the SEALs. He’d risen through the ranks at the speed of light, in part because he kept volunteering for dangerous missions and racking up points. But smarter, Roz claimed, was that he’d trained and gotten certified in areas few others did, which meant he was in high demand.
    Beyond that