Free SEAL's Baby (Navy SEAL Secret Baby Romance) by Naomi Niles Page A

loss.
       We sat there, falling into a comfortable silence. I kept stealing
glances at her, drinking her in as though she were the sun and I was a blind
man who had just been given back his sight. She burned so brightly that I
couldn’t for the life of me understand what had happened between us all those
years ago.

 
 
 
 
 
 
    Chapter Ten
    Elizabeth

 
       I was impressed by how well planned the funeral was, especially
considering that Tyler had been the one responsible for everything. The wreaths
he had chosen were simple and pretty, they suited the old-fashioned rustic feel
of the church.
       I walked down the aisle towards the pulpit, feeling sadness at my
heels. I was staring at the coffin when my mother up behind me. “Elizabeth,
honey,” she whispered as she wrapped a hand around my waist. “You’re here
early.”
    “I’m playing the piano
today,” I admitted.
       The nerves were starting to get to me. I would have loved the
chance to practice a little more first, but I didn’t own a piano. I had gone to
the resident music store in town and Gary, the sales clerk, had been nice
enough to let me stretch my muscles a bit. Still, I felt as though I knew
enough not to make a fool of myself but not nearly enough to give Mr. Thomas a
great send off.
    “That’s wonderful,” mom
replied. “I didn’t know you were playing again?”
       I turned to my mother. She was a small lady with dark-brown hair
that she had been dyeing since her forties. We didn’t look much alike, and in
my teens that had bothered me. Within a year of my parent’s divorce, my father
already had a new family and it felt as though there was no room for me in his
life anymore. I figured if my father wasn’t interested in me anymore, then I
wanted no part of him, including his looks. After mom had gotten wind of this,
she sat me down and looked me in the eye.
       “Forget your looks,” she had told me. “I’d rather you have my
character than my features anyway.” And after that, it hadn’t bothered me
anymore.
    “Tyler asked me,” I told
my mother. “And I couldn’t say no.”
    “That’s good,” she
replied. “That’s right. The Thomas’s were always so fond of you; I’m sure Derek
would have loved that you’re playing today.”
    “I can’t believe he’s
gone,” I said. “It doesn’t feel real.”
       “Death often feels like that,” mom replied. “It only becomes real
once the person has been buried and the mourners have cleared away. When it’s
just you and your empty house … that’s when it becomes real.”
    “I can’t imagine how Mrs.
Thomas is going to get through this.”
       “She has her children,” mom said simply. “That’s enough for any
mother.” I leaned against my mother, taking comfort in the familiar lines of
her body. “I heard Dylan was in town,” she said after a moment.
    I nodded. “He is,” I
replied. “I met him a few days ago when I went over to the house to drop off
the food.”
    “I see,” mom said
knowingly. “And how was it, seeing him again after so long?”
    “It was strange,” I
replied honestly. “But it still felt the same somehow.”
       I knew I was contradicting myself but that was genuinely how I
felt. Seeing him that day had been such a mix of emotions that I had had a hard
time keeping up with them. There had been a jolt of some current that had
surged through my body as I saw him.
       He looked amazing. He had the kind of body that you would normally
see on the cover of a fitness magazine. He was all broad shoulders and hard
muscle. His hair was cut short and shaved close to his scalp, which only
heightened the attractive sharpness of his features. I’d forgotten how
beautiful his eyes were. They were blue like mine, but his were subtle, soft,
and held all the colors of the ocean.
       A selfish part of me had wished that he hadn’t turned out quite so
good looking; it would have been easier for me to deal with his