Hot SEALs: Reclaiming the SEAL (Kindle Worlds) (Lost and Found Series Book 11) by J.M. Madden Page A

think about it. He was a better man with you in his life.”
    Julie blinked away tears as the SEAL walked away and fell back into helping his team. His words had touched her and made her wonder if Gabe knew what great guys he had protecting his back.
    *     *     *
    AS THEY STOOD on the front walk saying goodbye to his teammates, Gabe took a second just to look at Julie. She’d been here for hours, supporting both him and Gwen. Right now she was hugging Gwen tightly, rubbing the older woman’s back in a final goodbye. Part of Gabe wanted to bolt. He hated goodbyes and this one especially felt … incomplete.
    But when Gwen wrapped him in her arms, he let himself absorb her affection. He’d known her for many years and he hoped that this would not be a final goodbye. “I will see you again,” he promised.
    She smiled up at him with that smile so like Butter’s. “You better, boy.”
    Franklin arrived on the street then. As she climbed into the passenger side of her big sedan she rolled down the window. “All of you are welcome in Butter’s home anytime.”
    The men waved back until she disappeared from sight.

Chapter Eight
    THE SEALS DISBURSED, promising Gabe they would drop off the boxes in their trucks at the Salvation Army. Then Gabe handed her up into his truck to head back to his apartment. There were a couple of cardboard boxes in the back of things he’d wanted to keep, and the shoebox, but it hadn’t added up to much. When they got back to his apartment, Julie took the smaller box and led the way up the walk. He unlocked the door and waved her in ahead of him. She set her shoebox on the coffee table and watched him set his lot down. “I can’t imagine Gwen doing all this alone when she gets to Savannah. I hope her husband helps her. She’s a strong woman,” Julie murmured, “but she needs help with this.”
    Gabe looked down at her. “You are too, you know. A strong woman, I mean.”
    She made a funny face as if to discount his words. “I don’t think so. I used to wonder if I should have fought more that night. Instead, I just walked out and let the situation fall apart. It’s one of the biggest regrets of my life, leaving you.”
    Gabe turned to her, stroking her hair away from her forehead. “I think you were the strongest of the three of us. We’re supposed to be these trained, deliberate, rational machines, but that night you knew what needed to be done. I was too angry and hurt to see clearly.” Leaning down, he pressed a kiss to her forehead, then moved down the bridge of her nose, then on to her lips. She opened to him as she always did and he loved that acceptance from her. Whether just in off the field and still wearing his dirty bush gear, or after a jog, she never turned him away. Everything about her had accepted every part of him. “I want you to think about coming back to me.”
    Julie gasped and her eyes filled with tears. “But,” she sputtered, and seemed to stall out. “It’s too soon.”
    “No,” he shook his head firmly. “I feel like it’s been way too long. I’ve been without you for too long and we let other people’s actions dictate our lives. Our love. I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t feel like we need to.”
    He tugged her in against him, needing her to feel his heart thudding and his erection straining, all for her. Julie moaned deep in her throat and he knew she was giving in. “I love you, Jules, and I know for a fact you love me too.”
    She nodded as tears flooded her eyes. “I do. I always have.”
    “And I want you to be with me in the future. No bemoaning what could have been or how we screwed up. I just want to be with you every minute I can spare. I go back to training in less than eighteen hours. I want to know you’ll be here when I get back.”
    Nodding, she stroked her hand down his cheek. Gabe leaned into her touch and reached down to cup her ass.
    Julie was one of those women that was completely put together. Her