Barefoot Bay: SEALed With a Twist (Kindle Worlds) Read online

  Table of Contents

  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

  Text copyright ©2017 by the Author.

  This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Roxanne St. Claire. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original Barefoot Bay remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Roxanne St. Claire, or their affiliates or licensors.

  For more information on Kindle Worlds: http://www.amazon.com/kindleworlds

  SEALed With A Twist

  Kiersten Hallie Krum

  Contents

  A Message from Roxanne St. Claire

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  About Kiersten Hallie Krum

  Acknowledgments

  Praise for Wild on The Rocks

  Available Now

  A Message from Roxanne St. Claire

  Welcome to Barefoot Bay Kindle World, a place for authors to write their own stories set in the tropical paradise that I created! For these books, I have only provided the setting of Mimosa Key and a cast of characters from my popular Barefoot Bay series. That’s it! I haven’t contributed to the plotting, writing, or editing of SEALed With a Twist. This book is entirely the work of Kiersten Halle Krum, who is back by popular demand with another sexy, steamy, laugh-out-loud, entertaining, military romance set in Barefoot Bay.

  After meeting Navy SEAL Grant “Twisted” Sisti in Kiersten’s first Barefoot Bay Kindle World book, Wild on the Rocks, readers will be delighted to get more of this unforgettable character. But tragedy has changed him, and only love can save this troubled hero. Love and an enigmatic, compelling, and jaw-droppingly hot woman who happens to be swimming naked in his private pool…and hiding out from her own pack of problems. Pour a drink, add a twist, and have a blast with this one, readers!

  Roxanne St. Claire, the creator of Barefoot Bay

  PS. If you’re interested in the rest of the Barefoot Bay Kindle World novels or would like to explore the possibility of writing your own book set in my world, visit www.roxannestclaire.com for details!

  For The Mother

  I miss you with every breath I take

  And in all the spaces in between.

  Chapter One

  Barefoot Bay

  Mimosa Key

  Florida

  Lieutenant Grant “Twisted” Sisti eyed the jellyfish swirling in the water off his port side and far too close to the groom’s ankle-deep feet.

  If they didn’t finish this thing up quick, someone was going to get a helluva wedding gift.

  “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

  Finally.

  The warm, bay water swept over Grant’s shins, pulling the jellyfish out to sea. He watched his best friend and former commander, Captain Jasper “Queen” McQueen, take his new wife’s mouth in a kiss far too carnal for public consumption.

  Not that Jasper would give one good damn.

  Grant couldn’t blame him. Jasper fought a tough battle to get back with his once-again wife, Quinn, and wind up here, hitched for the second time. Worrying about onlookers probably wasn’t his top priority.

  Grant applauded along with the small crowd of well-wishers who’d gathered on the edge of Barefoot Bay to witness the nuptials. He even whooped when Jasper bent a now-laughing Quinn back over his arm.

  “Let ‘er up for air, Queen,” he called out when the kiss broke the second-minute mark. Jasper ignored him. Probably didn’t even hear his best man’s jibe, too intent on sealing the deal with his woman.

  Grant’s toes dug for purchase as the tide rippled up the beach, splattering the legs of his off-white trousers with salty water. Jasper had insisted the vows be spoken with the bridal couple standing in the water rather than barefoot on the beach as did most couples who got married at the exclusive Casa Blanca Resort & Spa in Barefoot Bay on Mimosa Key island. Quinn had told this to an uninterested Grant when they’d taken their respective places during the rehearsal. Not that he’d needed an explanation. Grant got it. As Navy SEALs, he and Jasper were as much home in the water as out of it.

  For both men, taking vows seaside was as holy a place as a cathedral.

  Quinn finally broke free of her amorous husband only to throw her arms around his neck. He lifted her up and off her feet to swing her around in a circle. Grant grinned and sloshed back a few steps to avoid Quinn’s shapely legs as they flew out in a wide arc.

  A wide smile creased Jasper’s hewn, usually taciturn face and something in Grant’s chest squeezed tight. Felt good to see his friend happy again with the love of his life, especially in light of what’d happened to them six months ago.

  Happy wasn’t a state Grant expected to revisit anytime soon. Six months ago, he and Jasper had watched their teammate murder a civilian in a bar brawl and then commit suicide right before their eyes. Shit like that tended to slap the happy right out of a man. But seeing Jasper fight his way through that trauma to his own happily ever after didn’t give Grant hope for himself.

  He’d seen and done a lot of dark and sometimes questionable things in his time, many of them under the justifiable umbrella of following orders. He’d long ago made peace with the sins he committed in the defense of his country. But nothing had affected him as acutely as Maverick’s murder/suicide. Like he’d left a piece of himself, maybe part of his soul, in that California roadhouse’s back lot.

  Hard to find room for happy after that.

  And then there was the shadow that lingered behind Maverick’s death, the one Grant had carefully ignored for seven years, sequestered in the far reaches of memory for unsuspecting dreams to randomly unlock.

  Jesus, he was a fucking lousy best man.

  Grant shook off the melancholy as Jasper set Quinn back on her feet and kissed her again—this one mercifully brief—before the wedding couple faced their few guests who waited on the beach. Quinn took her bouquet from the wedding planner—her name was something with a “W”. Whitney? Willow? He should know since she was married to a former SEAL teammate—who’d stood in as her matron of honor. Grant clasped Jasper’s outstretched hand and pulled his friend in for a one-armed, back-slapping hug. “Pleased for you, Queen,” he said low into Jasper’s ear. “Try not to screw it up this time.”

  Jasper snorted. “Thanks, man.”

  Grant leaned back but kept hold of his friend as he caught his gaze. “Seriously, Jasper. Fucking overjoyed.”

  Jasper’s arm around his shoulders tightened at Grant’s unusual use of his real name. “I know it,” he returned with feeling. Their hands squeezed once before Jasper turned back to his bride.

  Between them, no more needed to be said.

  Together, bride and groom made their way out of the breakers and up to the re
sort.

  “Grant?” He dragged his gaze from his friends to find the matron of honor waiting on him. Belatedly, he held out his arm and, with her hand in place, led her up the beach to her waiting husband.

  He skipped the receiving line, small as the crowd was, only Jasper’s commanding officer from SOCOM and his wife along with the few men and women he’d bonded with during the short time in his new command. Some of the resort staff were there too as Quinn sometimes manned the bar at the resort’s restaurant when not off working jobs for her mixologist business. Quinn embraced the grizzled bar manager who’d given her the job at Casa Blanca as Grant slipped by on his way up to the resort’s restaurant.

  He didn’t know what he was feeling, but needed a moment before he could play his role again.

  Almost from the moment he’d realized he was not going to get out of returning to Barefuck Bay and playing Jasper’s best man, an odd lethargy had plagued Grant. He was thrilled for the guy, obviously. He’d have to be a first class shit not to be, and Grant was a lot of things, but he hoped he hadn’t gone so low as to resent his best friend.

  But he’d grown tired of being the one everyone counted on to keep spirits high. Today especially, he wasn’t feeling it.

  Even he sometimes got sick of “Twist”.

  Grant scanned the area as he walked, checking egress points and defensive options, instinctively cataloging the easiest places by which the resort could be breeched. He might be on leave, but some things never turned off and a lazy SEAL was a dead SEAL. As recent as last week, a suicide bomber had taken out a tourist hotel in Tangiers, putting all the spec ops community on alert. His team had shipped out hours before Grant left Coronado for Barefoot Bay.

  Not being with his men was as good a reason as any to explain his disquiet. But Grant had spent too many hours in therapy—his and his patients’—to let that sorry excuse fly.

  It was more than that.

  On cue, as if summoned, his phone erupted with Kenny Loggins’ ode to the danger zone. He saw Jasper’s head jerk up, a conditioned alertness that even nuptials couldn’t suppress. His narrow gaze zeroed in on Grant with clear demand. Grant sent him a low, reassuring wave that loosened the tension in his friend’s neck. He glanced at the screen and scowled as he pushed the button to connect the call, ducking behind a bush of the huge, pink flowers that gave Mimosa Key its name. “What the fuck do you want?”

  There was a brief pause. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Caleb “Putter” Titcher asked.

  “Your mother had no complaints.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Dick.” Grant’s mouth quirked since the other man wasn’t there to see it. “We done with this meet cute?”

  “Well, when you’re this warm and cuddly…”

  “I’m at Queen’s wedding. You’re interrupting the releasing of the doves.”

  “Soiled doves?”

  “Only if you’re standing directly under them.”

  The other man snorted. “Oughta thank me then.”

  “Thankful doesn’t come to mind when we have these little chats.”

  The caller’s voice flattened abruptly. “I get that, man. But serious shit’s goin’ down. Figured you’d want in the know.”

  Grant suppressed a wince. If Putter was calling him, it sure as shit was serious. He and Jasper had kept a tenuous connection with Putter ever since their teammate Maverick put a bullet through Putter’s biker brother during that roadhouse bar fight before offing himself. Theirs was an uncomfortable alliance that’d shifted to something else as time passed.

  Losing men together did that. No matter the battlefield.

  Grant didn’t need to be told their relationship did not go over well with Putter’s club, the Lords of Mayhem. Putter had told them he wasn’t Club Member of the Month after a brother was killed on his watch, no matter no one saw it coming until it was done. But despite his unswerving loyalty to his club, the biker had his own code and his connection to Grant and Jasper fell right into the “don’t fuck with me over this” slot.

  Most of his crew respected that—and Putter—enough to cut him some slack. It was the few who didn’t who made Grant’s temples throb whenever Putter reached out.

  “Wrench,” he muttered as one hand went to his forehead to rub at the ache.

  “Fucking Wrench,” Putter confirmed. “He was a pain in my ass before your man took him out. Now his brother and cousin are taking up that role in his memory, like some holy cause.”

  “Talk.”

  “Can’t,” Putter admitted with regret. “Club business. Shouldn’t have given you that much.”

  “So this call is just to whisper sweet nothings in my ear?”

  “Fuck off. Vote’s been called. Can tell you that. Might go my way, might not. You might wanna stay out of California till I know one way or the other.”

  “Hard to do that when I live and work there.”

  “Go save the world from some shit for brains with a death wish. Or at least stick close to your base until you get an all clear from me.”

  Grant gave it a moment. “That bad?”

  “Might be.” Putter paused, then added, “Likely will.”

  Despite the fact that their first meeting was one of the worst moments of Grant’s life, he’d grown to like the biker. Grant would never admit it aloud, but Putter had filled in some of the hole left behind by Jasper’s defection to Tampa and the United States Special Operations Command.

  “Need backup?” he asked with a casualness that belied his commitment.

  “Got my brothers,” Putter reassured, not without gratitude in his voice. “They got my back.”

  “Sure?” Grant asked with a thread of mock desperation.

  Putter chuckled, easing the strain as Grant intended. “You looking to ditch Barefuck Bay already?”

  Over shots of tequila at McP’s bar in Coronado (hardly neutral territory, but the one place no one Putter knew was likely to see them), Grant had filled the biker in on all that had happened the first time he and Jasper had landed at the island paradise that was Barefoot Bay.

  “Wedding planners. Worse than the Russian mob.”

  “Fuck yeah.” A wealth of relief colored Putter’s agreement.

  “You married?”

  “Nah. Dodged it last minute years ago. No one worth the risk since.”

  Grant’s gaze caught on Jasper and Quinn, wrapped again in each other’s arms. He thought of the risks they’d taken to get their marriage back, some of which actually did involve thwarting a Russian mob hitman. “Hear that.”

  “Shit, man. Not like either of us are achin’ for it. Only a fool would ditch the groupies for a ball and chain.”

  “Hear that too.” Though he hadn’t been into the usual SEAL bunnies lately, not since he’d had a taste of a drunk debutante during his last stay at Barefoot Bay. She’d been sweet too, eager and up for anything so long as it made her forget whatever it was she was trying to purge in tequila, blues, and sex. Grant had only been too happy to sacrifice his body to her cause. Once he’d hauled her drunk ass out of the resort pool.

  The wedding planner caught his eye again (Jesus, what was her name?), but then, she could probably catch a 747 with that wave and a few semaphore flags. “Gotta go,” he said, lifting his chin to the woman in acknowledgement.

  “Yeah. Best to Jasper and his bride.”

  “Got it.”

  “Like to meet the lady who managed to tie that badass down.”

  “Yeah, but you might not survive it. Listen, your biker brethren slack off, I got a few guys who’d have your back in minutes. Me right behind them.”

  “They won’t.”

  “Offer stands.”

  Putter made a low, noncommittal noise. “’Preciate that.”

  “Yeah.” Nothing left to be said after that. “See ya.”

  “Semper fi, motherfucker.”

  “Not a Marine, asshole.”

  Putter was still laughing when Grant disconnected. He
was sliding the mobile into his back pocket when his eye caught on a woman stepping out of his blind spot.

  He jerked around, cursing himself for letting Putter’s call lower his alert ready. Seeing her dressed in the resort’s shorts and golf shirt uniform gave him no relief—he knew better than most how that could be a ruse.

  Her long, blond-streaked, dark hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail that left a hank across her forehead long enough, she’d hooked it behind her ear. Too much makeup for his tastes, but it somehow amplified the admittedly tempting curve of her face. He caught a quick glimpse of brown eyes that lit a spark of interest until the flash of ink on her forearm squelched it. Not one to judge, but Grant wasn’t the kind of man who liked ink on his women. If there was any mark to be made, he’d be the one making it.

  The tension in his gut eased some when he realized she couldn’t care less about him, too intent on carting her caddy of cleaning supplies down the path toward the high-end private villas stashed around the resort proper.

  He kept eyes on her until she’d passed out of sight. A niggle of familiarity lingered after she was gone. Grant rubbed his neck and sighed. Eh, probably residual annoyance she got past his guard. His game was so off kilter, even the staff were getting by him. Did a number on his professional pride.

  Though if his skills were really in jeopardy, pride would quickly become a luxury he couldn’t afford..

  He stared off into the plush greenery that exploded all around the resort, bursts of color shooting through where Mimosa flowers, the island’s namesake, had been planted. But he didn’t see the pink hothouse blooms or the picture-perfect sunset reflected in the nearby pool. He saw what he always saw: Maverick in the back lot of a California roadhouse, dead on the ground at Grant’s feet.