CHAPTER 1
Trask stared at the ceiling.It had only been two weeks, but if he didn’t get himself a place to live soon, his mother was going to kill him.
Normally a saint, Ellen Sothard had already had enough of his grumpy, bachelor ass, and Trask couldn’t blame her. He’d been in the Marines for nearly thirty years, and wasn’t used to acting like a compliant civilian.
He barked orders.
He looked askance at every little thing out of place.
And for the first few days that he’d bunked at his parents’ house, he’d had to bite his tongue when plans were made for one thing or another, then broken. Like when meals were planned, then cancelled on a whim.
Trask couldn’t stand it. The second time it had happened, Trask had declared he’d either be preparing his own meals, or getting take-out.
His mother hadn’t even argued with him.
That’s what a bastard he was.
Trask had known it wouldn’t be easy for him, transitioning from the military to living in his childhood home town. He’d left Maine as a wet-behind-the-ears eighteen-year-old, and wascoming back as a man of forty-seven with no clue as to how life in the outside world worked.
How did one go about making friends? Integrate into a completely unstructured life? Relate to everyday problems, as opposed to those he’d weathered in the military which were more often than not, crises?
And dammit, it bit him in the ass that his opinion here didn’t seem to be worth shit. At least on the surface.
He’d achieved the rank of Colonel after a lot of sweat and hard work. He’d seen action in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and the Gulf of Aden. He’d ended up as a regimental commander, overseeing the planning and execution of operations where he’d been responsible for more than three thousand Marines.
Then it had all gone to hell.
Trask was no slouch.
But now he felt like one.
Screw this.It was time to take matters into his own hands; define his exact role in his brothers’ new business, Diver Downeast, and find himself a frigging place to live.
Armed with that weak-ass plan—which was at least a start—Trask swung his legs off the mattress. He’d forced himself to stay prone well after the o-four-hundred hours that would normally have him up and running. Runningandworking out, because one didn’t stay in shape by lolling about in bed.
It was five AM, and that’s all the down-time he could take. On the plus side however, his father would probably be up. A lumber mill worker’s day began early, too, and just because his dad had recently seen seventy, it didn’t mean the man was slowing down
So far, Trask had been biding his time every morning to give his patriarch the alone time he probably craved, but right now Trask needed a clear-headed sounding board, andthatwas Guy Sothard.
Buck’s mother would stay in bed until seven, a luxury she afforded herself after raising eight boys. Not that she was ever idle. She cooked for Hilly Duncan-Anders’ summer camp for three months every year. She did side gigs as a caterer—which these days consisted mostly of working for her new daughter-in-law Bobbie, several days a week. And she volunteered at the local soup kitchen. Nothing was slowing his mother down.
As for the rest of the family, they were scattered about.
Two of Trask’s local brothers, Mason and Kyle, worked for a couple different police departments as well as being an integral part of Downeast SWAT. Home ownership had long since been under their belts, so they weren’t at the family homestead for anything but drop-ins.
Spence and Buck, had, of course, been getting Diver Downeast, their dive/rescue venture underway, along with their third partner, Tabitha, Spence’s submarine-operating wife. Those brothers now had houses oftheirown too, with their new spouses.
Vincent and Julian were still in the armed services—Trask was beginning to think they had the right idea—while Seifer remained a perpetual student, much to their parents’ chagrin.
Which left him.
Here.
Semi-adrift.
Sure, he’d declared before God and an entire wedding party that he would join Spence and Buck in their new diving business back in the fall when things in his life had slowly been going to hell, but he’d had hopes that separating from the Marines could be staved off.
How wrong he’d been.
