Page 2 of Summer with a Navy SEAL

Crystal laughs. “Shut up, Willy. He’ll love the house when he sees what you’ve done with it. I just wish you let his mother get everything she wanted. Payback.”

I sigh. “My career is more important to me, Crystal. No way am I going to jeopardize that just so I can have my revenge.”

But as easy as I make it sound, it wasn’t easy. Time may have healed the wounds of their relentless teasing but it left its mark on my self-confidence. Sure, I was able to get rid of my Filipino accent but it took me years to accept my body, that although I may be bigger than most girls, I was healthy.

“Speaking of your career, have you considered opening your own design firm here in Love Beach? It’ll be a hit,” Crystal says as I walk down the steps and sink my bare feet into the cool sand. June in Love Beach is hot but not as hot and muggy as Manhattan can be. I’d take this any day overliving in the city. “The realtors already love you as it is. You’ve got the eye, girl!”

I laugh. “With what? My good looks? You need money for that.”

My best friend should know. She may not be Hollister-rich but her family’s rich enough with her parents fronting her the capital to open her shop right after she graduated from college which they paid for, too, while I had to apply for scholarships and take on student loans to get my degree. But it’s not her fault; that’s just life.

“You’ve made a name for yourself in New York, Willy,” Crystal continues. “Why do you think Mrs. Hollister insisted you renovate the beach house? Because she’d heard of your reputation. Who knows? You could end up working on their hotels.”

I almost tell her that as much as I’ve always dreamed of opening my own design firm, after moving to the big city after high school and working for an international firm for six years, Love Beach feels… small. Sure, it’s a nice place to live with its sandy beaches, fun Boardwalk, and quaint small-town feel, but I need more than her friendship to make me consider moving back here.

But I also can’t deny that my ambivalence about moving back has its roots in the way the Hollister brothers bullied me. Preston led the charge with Brogan following after his older brother. It made me hate being different, being “big-boned” as my mother would tell me.

Not fat like those Hollister boys and their friends say you are, she’d say.But you’re better than that, anak. You’re beautiful inside and out and it’s their loss for not knowing it.

I’ve slimmed down since then (even if I’m still on the curvy side), although the scars of their teasing remained.

But I’m not going to dwell on that tonight. With three days left before I can mark the project complete, I’m going to pretend this beach house is my home while I still can.

CHAPTER TWO

BROGAN HOLLISTER

I should have stoppedat Raleigh two hours ago and checked into a hotel for the night before driving to Love Beach in the morning. Hell, I could have checked into one of my family’s hotels, for that matter, but that would have only alerted my mother that I was on my way home three days early.

I’m not ready to deal with all her matchmaking attempts just yet. I just returned from a mission two days ago and boarded another plane to accompany my best friend Trevor Hawthorne to Philadelphia so he could make it to his girlfriend’s hooding ceremony before my buddies and I got back on the plane for Norfolk. All that before I decided, what the hell, I might as well head to the beach house three days early and relax before Mother introduced me to yet another one of her prospective daughters-in-law.

With Trevor, Bennett, and myself the last holdouts to getting tied down like the rest of the Team guys, I had a nagging feeling Trevor was going to turn in his singles card.

And darn it, he did. He even proposed without a damn ring. Like how does that even work?

But Claudia said yes and that’s what matters.

That leaves only Bennet and me to hold down the fort. I don’t even know what I’m waiting for. My mother’s been hounding me to find someone and settle down for the last three years. When that didn’t happen (the marriage part), she christened herself as my official matchmaker, introducing me to some new woman every time I went home to visit. It’s embarrassing.

I’m thirty years old, for crying out loud. I can find a woman of my own without her help.

I don’t even know how Preston’s managed to hold her off. At thirty-two and running the family company, he should be the one she should concentrate her matchmaking efforts on, but somehow he’s managed to convince her that he’s too busy working to settle down.

As if Mother’s efforts weren’t already downright embarrassing, she’s determined to find me a woman from the “same social standing,” so everyone she’s introduced me to so far have been daughters of the wealthy set, the heiresses and the trust fund babies who have never had to work a day in their lives. They’re all nice, don’t get me wrong, but they’re not for me.

I want someone who’s down to earth, someone who understands the value of hard work and doesn’t take their privilege for granted. Someone who’s not afraid to get their hands dirty and can keep up with my adventurous spirit. That’s why I enlisted in the Navy and became a SEAL. I worked hard to get where I am even if, as Mother insists, Icould walk away right now and have a job that pays ten times what the Navy pays me.

You don’t even have to risk your life, Brogan. You have no idea how stressed I get whenever I read about some Navy SEAL incident in the news.

I get her concern (and her point about the pay), and I can’t blame her. She almost lost it when she read about the ambush that killed my best friend Desmond Pratt two years ago and injured Trevor. Bennett and I suffered some cuts and bruises but it was losing Desmond that hurt the most. The scars no one can see.

Still, I love what I do even if my body has other ideas, specifically the aches and pains that come from beating it up during every training and mission. That’s why I need this break, one that comes between a dangerous mission and humoring my mother by letting her play matchmaker.

As I drive through the night, my thoughts drift to the beach house. It’s always been my sanctuary, a place where I can escape the pressures of my family and the demands of the Team. Granddad left it to me in his will, knowing how much I loved the simplicity of it.

The beach house is a far cry from the luxury hotels my family owns all over the country. It’s a reminder of simpler times, of summers spent surfing and fishing with him.

Three days by myself is all I need. Then I can face Mother and let her play matchmaker to her heart’s content. I know she means well, even if sometimes it’s just too much. But I also get it. Ever since Father died three years ago, her two sons have become her world… and she’s eager to expand said world with grandkids.

---