Forged by Sacrifice Kindle rev 100519 Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing people and locations, the events, names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  FORGED BY SACRIFICE Copyright © 2019 by LJ Evans

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored, in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book.

  Published by LJ Evans Books

  www.ljevansbooks.com

  Cover Design: © Designed With Grace

  Cover Images: © DepositPhotos | Feedough

  Developmental & Line Editing: Ally I. Evans Editing

  Copy Editing: Jenn Lockwood Editing Services

  Proofing: Karen Hrdlicka

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publications in process.

  ISBN: 9781696245012

  ASIN: B07YR89RXB

  Printed in the United States

  Table of Contents

  Playlist

  Message from the Author

  Dedication

  Chapter One - Mac

  Chapter Two - Georgie

  Chapter Three - Mac

  Chapter Four – Georgie

  Chapter Five – Mac

  Chapter Six – Georgie

  Chapter Seven – Mac

  Chapter Eight – Georgie

  Chapter Nine – Mac

  Chapter Ten – Georgie

  Chapter Eleven – Mac

  Chapter Twelve – Georgie

  Chapter Thirteen – Mac

  Chapter Fourteen – Georgie

  Chapter Fifteen – Mac

  Chapter Sixteen – Georgie

  Chapter Seventeen – Mac

  Chapter Eighteen – Georgie

  Chapter Nineteen – Mac

  Chapter Twenty – Georgie

  Chapter Twenty-one – Mac

  Chapter Twenty-two – Georgie

  Chapter Twenty-three – Mac

  Chapter Twenty-four – Georgie

  Chapter Twenty-five – Mac

  Chapter Twenty-six – Georgie

  Chapter Twenty-seven – Mac

  Chapter Twenty-eight – Georgie

  Chapter Twenty-nine – Mac

  Chapter Thirty – Georgie

  Epilogue – Mac

  Forged by Sacrifice Bonus Epilogue

  Guarded Dreams – Chapter One Sample

  Guarded Dreams – Chapter Two Sample

  About the Book

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Books by LJ

  Thank you for taking the time to read my story. This book was inspired by Lewis Capaldi’s “Bruises.” Mac and Georgie’s story came to life while listening to those lyrics. Love, characters, and their hopefully ever afters are what writing is all about for me. I hope you find all of that within these pages—love, hope, and happiness.

  In all my books, my characters have to learn how to live their lives resiliently. They have to find a way to get through life’s challenges with grace, humility, and strength. We talk about this concept a lot in my Facebook reader’s group. I’d love it if you came and joined me in those conversations.

  LJ’s Music & Stories

  I know that there are thousands of books for you to choose from, so I am honored that you chose to spend a portion of your life with one of my book babies.

  If you enjoy reading this book, I would truly appreciate it if you could take a moment to write a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or BookBub, and then share the book with others. This is the only way books get out into the world in today’s competitive market. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking this extra step.

  Happy Reading!

  LJ Evans

  Website

  Bookbub

  Amazon

  Goodreads

  Facebook

  Twitter

  Instagram

  Pinterest

  To Steve for living this challenging last year with me, and for never letting me give up on myself or this writer journey.

  To all the members of LJ’s Music & Stories who make me feel like a rock star every day.

  To all the readers who have read and shared their love of my books with the world.

  Thank you.

  Mac

  HOPELESS ROMANTIC

  “I'm just a hopeless romantic,

  Looking for love,

  I'd risk it all just to have it.”

  Performed by Meghan Trainor

  Written by Carlsson / Trainor / Golan

  The sun was afterburner hot when I tied off and locked up my boat before stepping onto the dock in Rockport. The humidity hit me hard after being on the water for a few weeks. It made me question whether I really wanted to spend time on land or not. But the solitude of my boat had reached its limit for me.

  Besides, I hadn’t been able to see both my best friends at the same time in a couple of years. I squinted at the road, waiting for Eli’s black pickup to come barreling down, while I thought about how long it had actually been since we’d all been together. I’d seen Eli, and I’d seen Truck, and they’d seen each other, but it hadn’t been the three of us since Ava, Eli’s fiancée, had graduated from Juilliard. That was over two years ago, so this time together was both rare and much needed.

  Since Eli had left the military, I’d been able to see him the most. With Truck in the Coast Guard and me in the Navy, we’d been at the beck and call of our leaders and the imbeciles who were running the country. I mentally checked myself. I had to lose that kind of talk about our leaders if I was really going to be one of them in the near future.

  Turning on my phone, it blew up with texts and messages received since I’d last had a signal.

  NASH: Macauley?!

  ME: Just got into port. What’s up?

  NASH: Who the fuck did you leave in charge?

  ME: ** laughing emoji ** Are you making friends already?

  NASH: Seriously, the intel reports we’re getting are crap.

  Leaving the Navy and my work at the Department of Defense behind had been harder than I’d thought it would be. I was leaving a family. Some of them were actual blood, like my dad, and some of them were men who’d become brothers through bloodshed, like Nash and Darren. People who had depended on me to make sure no one came home in a body bag.

  ME: I can talk to Dad, see what’s going on.

  NASH: Or just come back.

  But Nash knew I couldn’t. Not if I was going to be true to everything I’d worked for since childhood. I didn’t know what else to say to him, so I opened the next round of messages from my sister, Dani.

  Dani and I were a mere twelve months apart. I didn’t even want to think about what that meant for how often my parents had been having sex in order for that to happen. But because of the small age gap, Dani and I were the closest of our siblings. Unfortunately, she was older and liked to remind me of it every single time we met, as if the twelve months had somehow endowed her with a lifetime more of experiences. I’d wanted her to come on vacation with me, but she’d said there was too much to do before Congress was out of session for the summer break.

  BRAT: When are you starting again?

  ME: Rag, rag, rag. Hello to you too, Gooberpants.

  BRAT: ** one fingered emoji ** I’m drowning in reports that I need you to look at
.

  ME: I’ll be back by the end of the month.

  BRAT: I swear if you’re later than that, I’ll send an assassin after you.

  ME: I think Nash is ready to do that for free.

  BRAT: He’s still pissed you left?

  I didn’t respond because I didn’t need to. Dani knew everything, including how I felt.

  BRAT: You have a right to go after your dreams.

  ME: I know. I just wish I didn’t feel like I was letting people down by doing it.

  BRAT: ** Whining GIF **

  ME: Just for that, I may be late getting back to D.C.

  BRAT: Did you miss the part about the hit man?

  I was saved from further discussion about both my past and my future as Eli’s pickup turned onto the street.

  ME: Gotta go. Eli’s here.

  BRAT: Well, have fun for the both of us, and give Ava, Eli, and Truck hugs for me.

  ME: Will do.

  When Eli pulled up to the curb, I flung my bag into the bed before climbing into the air-conditioned cab.

  “Mac!” Eli greeted, reaching across the console to give me a half-hug.

  We were men. Military men. But we’d never been afraid to hug each other. We both had known, for a lot of years, that it could be the last time we were ever able to do it. Now that we had both lost our military titles—mine by choice, his by bad luck—we weren’t going to be changing how we greeted each other.

  “Thought you’d never get here. F―forking humidity is enough to roll me over,” I said.

  Eli smirked. “Forking?”

  “Really trying hard to get this political lingo down.”

  He laughed. I liked that he laughed so much these days. Since Eli and Ava had gotten together, he was almost jovial. It wasn’t the only change. He was still as muscled as he’d been in the Coast Guard, but he’d lost the buzz cut. Instead, his hair was almost always long enough to see the dark color that was just a shade lighter than mine.

  Mine was all black. It made my blue eyes stand out, and that was okay by me. My looks had always helped me with the ladies. Not as many as most people thought I’d scored, but I’d definitely sown my wild oats. I was tired of sowing oats.

  Eli put the truck in gear and headed out of town to the beach house he and Ava had been living in since they’d come back to Texas.

  “When’s Truck getting here?” I asked.

  “Friday,” Eli answered.

  “Did he say whether he was signing his re-enlistment contract or not?”

  “What’s with the twenty questions about Truck? You two not speaking or something?” Eli asked.

  I chuckled. “No, asswipe. I’ve been on a boat in the middle of the ocean for two weeks. No signal.”

  “The senator from Delaware was accused of using the word asswipe when speaking to his aide,” he said in a fake TV newscaster voice.

  I flipped him off.

  “I don’t think Truck will ever leave the Coast Guard as long as he has a choice,” Eli said.

  That had been Eli’s plan, too. Never to leave. Until a harbor seal had crashed into him and his knee and changed everything he’d ever wanted. I crossed my fingers and begged my mom’s God that nothing like that ever crashed into my plans. I didn’t know what I’d do if I got sideswiped from my course of action.

  “You all set to work for your grandfather?” Eli asked.

  I nodded. Between Granddad and Dani, I had a job working in Senator Guy Matherton’s office. He was from my home state, and Granddad was his chief of staff. Dani had been working there since her own college days. It was going to be a challenge to prove it wasn’t pure nepotism that had gotten me the job.

  “I haven’t signed on the dotted line yet because I’m waiting for the Navy paperwork to go through, but Granddad’s already got a desk for me next to Dani’s.”

  Eli grinned. “That oughtta be fun.”

  We pulled into the beach house. It was still the teal color we’d painted it six years ago. On the wraparound porch, stood a woman way too tall to be Ava. Not that Ava was short, but this woman was close to six-foot, easy. My heart leaped into my throat at the sight of her. Georgie. I’d had a hell of a time getting her out of my head after we’d met in New York City two years ago. It had taken me almost a year not to compare every woman I met to her. You would have thought that she and I had had earth-shattering sex with the way my body had seemed to pine after her.

  But none of that was true. Georgie had barely given me a second glance when we'd met, and it wasn’t the cold shoulder that had had me yearning for her. It had just been her. Tall. Stunning. Confident. She’d hit me like a meteor falling from the sky. The first time we’d met, she’d had short hair with purple spikes and eyes that were pale and lavender-tinted. The second time we’d met, her eyes had been such a deep blue that they’d almost been the twilight, and her hair had been longer and as dark as a black cat. She was as lean and coiled as a cat, too. I’d been starstruck and stuttered like a teen with a wet dream. It had been embarrassing.

  On the deck, she stood tall and slim like before with her dark hair blowing in the breeze. I instantly wanted to know what color she was sporting in her eyes. My entire body leaned forward as if just waiting to feel the tension and desire that I’d felt each time I’d met her.

  “What’s she doing here?” I asked, trying to mask the longing I felt with nonchalance—and failing.

  Eli looked at me over the top of his dark sunglasses. “Be nice.”

  “I’m always nice.”

  “Not that kind of nice, douchebag. She’s one of Ava’s best friends. We don’t need you messing with her.”

  “I won’t mess with her. I’m just surprised she’s here. I didn’t expect it.”

  “We didn’t either. She called a couple weeks ago and then showed up all waiflike, needing a place to stay while she got some things sorted.”

  “Waiflike?” I teased.

  “Don’t start with me.”

  I opened the door and got out. When I risked looking back at the porch, Georgie was gone, and I felt oddly disappointed even though I knew she’d still be inside when we got to the top of the stairs.

  I grabbed my bag and followed Eli into the house. I’d barely taken two steps through the door when Ava practically assaulted me with a hug that felt like a gorilla jumping into your arms. Eli had told me once that she’d hardly ever been hugged as a kid. Nowadays, it was like she was making up for it. I squeezed her back.

  “Mac!” Her husky voice was always a surprise, even after all the years I’d known her. You expected a vibrant woman like Ava to have a littler voice, almost giddy like her energy levels.

  “How the hel―heck are you?” I asked.

  “I’m really good. Glad that everyone is going to be here for the Fourth of July.”

  “Are we partying here or at the bar?”

  After she’d graduated from Juilliard, Ava had bought a bar in downtown Rockport called The Salty Dog. It had taken the last of her inheritance, from what I gathered from Eli. But with the money she had coming in from her royalty checks for the songs she wrote for the chart-topping sensation Brady O’Neil, I didn’t think she needed to work at all. She just liked to keep busy. I couldn’t imagine Ava ever standing still for too long.

  “We’re still working it all out. We’ve got time,” Ava said and stepped back. Eli’s hand went immediately to hers, like they had been apart for days instead of the minutes it had taken him to come get me at the marina.

  “I can’t believe you sailed all the way from D.C. by yourself. Isn’t that some huge nautical no-no?” Ava asked, pulling Eli with her into the kitchen where they’d obviously been working on some kind of Mexican dish. A pitcher of margaritas stood, sparkling with condensation.

  I set my bag down and risked looking around the open living space. No Georgie. My stomach lurched again. I sat down at the counter and poured myself a glass, hoping it would do something to calm
the insane patter of my heart. Ridiculous. In the war room, I’d been in situations that would have made most people keel over, and yet here I was, wanting to hurl at the thought of seeing one woman again.

  “Sailing by yourself isn’t very smart,” I replied with a shrug. “If something happens to you, who the hel―heck is going to pull you from the dink? But Dani didn’t want to leave D.C. for three weeks, and all my other sailing partners were otherwise engaged.” I waved the glass toward Eli.

  “Wait. You asked Eli to join you?” Ava asked, knife halting midway through her murdering of a tomato.

  “I did.”

  Ava turned to him, knife coming dangerously close to his shoulder. “You didn’t tell me Mac asked you to come with him.”

  “Seemed ridiculous for me to fly to D.C. only to sail back to my own damn house.”

  “That isn’t what he told me.” I winked at Ava.

  “What did he tell you?”

  “He was darn sure not going to use up weeks of vacation time without you.”

  “Eli!”

  Eli grabbed the knife from her, set it down on the counter, and wrapped her in a hug.

  “I’m saving it for our honeymoon.” He kissed her, and she melted. I normally would have harassed them both to no end, but these days, I always seemed to be eyeing the happy couples in my life with a level of longing that I’d never felt before.

  “We’re not getting married until October,” Ava said.

  “And I have honeymoon plans.”

  “You do? Don’t you think I should know these things? I’ll have to arrange for Andy and Lacey to cover the bar.”

  “Already done,” he told her.

  “You’re impossible,” she snipped back, but it was with a smile on her face.

  Movement at the corner of my eye brought me to my feet. Georgie. My breath got stuck somewhere between my lungs and my throat as I got a better look at her. Her hair was dark, but more espresso-colored than black, and she had a single white streak about the width of my pinkie finger going through it. Her hair hung down around her shoulders in a beach-tousled look. Her eyes were green today, like a green-apple kind of green. It matched the flowered, off-the-shoulder, floaty dress she wore, showcasing sun-kissed skin and baring cleavage that made it hard for me to look away.