Copyright © 2023 At Your Service by Haven Rose

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted by U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the author.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, establishments, or organizations, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously to give a sense of authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. This story is intended for mature audiences only.

  Cover by: Tiff Writes Romance

  Acknowledgments and Dedication

  Let me begin by offering my apologies. My intent was to release Oscar and Pearl’s story. I introduced them as secondary characters in The Patient Heart. They were already blissfully married and had a little girl. That was not the end of that. Readers wanted their journey and I wanted to give it.

  When the Essentially Yours collab was created, I immediately thought of Oscar and Pearl for it. They were having none of it, disagreeing with everything I attempted, no matter what I tried. Ergo, I admitted defeat and went a different route.

  They were relieved because, despite my best efforts, they weren’t ready. Their HEA is not forgotten, just delayed. I promise.

  I had to come up with a plan b. Within seconds, Tyler Dawson, a secondary character in Just for You, which was intended to be a standalone title, started jumping up and down to get my attention. He was very persuasive as he stated his case to let it be him.

  I accepted, though I feared I’d struggle with him, too. I did not. It poured out of me. Sixty-six hundred, in fact, of a projected ten thousand word book was written in approximately eight hours.

  Tyler and Khary, his heroine, knew exactly what, or should I say who, would bring them together and couldn’t wait to share it with all of you.

  I hope you’re as happy with it as they are.

  That being said, while I do suggest reading Just for You first, it isn’t necessary. I will tell you, there’s an adorable dog in it and their road to forever also begins with a marriage of convenience. Want to know a secret? That’ll be the theme for every book in the series.

  Why? Because love happens.

  Tyler Dawson has faced untold dangers in the military, but nothing could prepare him for the unexpected news that he was now legally responsible to a niece he didn’t know existed. And his estranged brother stipulated that he needed to marry the maternal aunt to keep her.

  Khary Weston thought she’d finally found her place in the world, even if it wasn’t the happily ever after she’s always imagined for herself. And then that was abruptly ripped from her when her niece’s dad died, naming her as the guardian. She’d agreed to that without hesitation. What she didn’t know was that it’d come with a husband. The little girl’s uncle.

  Love Happens Series:

  1. Just for You

  2. At Your Service

  More to come…

  The scariest thing about distance is that you don't know whether they'll miss you or forget you. – Nicholas Sparks

  Chapter One

  Tyler

  April 1st…

  “Mail call!” Carter Jacobs, one of my teammates, shouts. I’m not sure who is worse, him or Marcus Wayne. With them being the only married guys out of the six of us, they’re so eager to get a letter or package from their respective wives that they regularly try to jostle the other out of the way to get it first.

  If I was lucky enough to find my soulmate, I’d be just as bad.

  Maybe worse.

  I don’t stand, knowing there’s nothing for me.

  Pete Hawkins stays on his bunk as well, the standoff between he and his parents long-standing with neither willing to make the first move. It’s one of the things that created such a bond between he and I, leading us to become best friends in basic.

  Frederick Iverson and Teddy Brown – that is not a joke, it’s his real name – get to their feet, both having people back home that miss them.

  My parents are gone and while I have an older brother, Tanner, our relationship is strained. Okay, non-existent. It started when I enlisted at eighteen, though I tried to maintain it around my deployments. It didn’t work as I’d hoped, but it was something until I re-upped after my initial required four years. That’s when he essentially disowned me for some reason he never saw fit to share with me.

  It hurt, hurts, like hell, but I can’t make him love me nor would I want to. He has to choose that on his own. Otherwise, it’s a mockery of the relationship siblings should have. I know not all of them are blessed with that, but we had been.

  “Dawson, I’m not your servant. Come get it, man,” Carter barks.

  I stare at him in shock. Not because of his attitude, I’m used to that. We’re all ready to go home, sick and tired of the desert and sleeping in beds that aren’t ours. Eventually, that irritation shows in speech and actions and ball busting.

  Having been with these assholes for years, none of us take any offense.

  “I don’t need your wife,” I glare at him, “or yours,” I aim my stare at Marcus, “to send me pity packages.” It’s sweet as hell, though, as are Hazel and Skye. They’re lucky bastards and they know it.

  Carter scoffs. “My woman didn’t send you shit.” He’s so territorial where she’s concerned that it’s kinda fun to yank his chain, but I’m truly stumped right now. “Her goodies are only for me.”

  “TMI, asshole.”

  I stomp toward Carter, snatch the envelope from him, then return to my corner like a naughty toddler who can’t socialize correctly. Not far from the mark, truthfully. I can handle these jerks, but that’s about it. I think I’m allergic to people.

  I don’t recognize the return address, but I’d know the handwriting anywhere, though it’s shakier than I remember.

  It’s my brother’s.

  Dread instantly hits me even as I try to reassure myself it isn’t necessarily bad.

  It could be that he’s finally reaching out, ready to fix whatever went wrong between us, but my gut says it’s too late for that.

  Hey, brother.

  I hope I still have the right to call you that. I may not have acted like it in far too long, but in my heart, that’s always been what you are. What we are. Even if I wasn’t a good one to you.

  If you’re reading this, yeah, I’m doing the cliché thing, then I’m gone. And I’m sorry because it clearly means I didn’t man up and do what I should have a long time ago.

  Hell, I shouldn’t have had to. I lashed out when mom and dad died. Not an excuse, but it is an explanation. When you decided to join the military, instead of being happy for you in finding your own path as I’d found mine, I saw it as you leaving me, too.

  I’m not proud to admit that. I fucked up. Once I got my head out of my ass, and the liquor out of my system, I regretted it. Every single day. For years.

  Unfortunately, by that time, I assumed what I did was irrevocable. I told myself that it must be. Otherwise, you would’ve reached out to me.

  There I went, blaming you yet again when it had never been your fault. It was all mine and I’ll never get the chance to say that to your face.

  Never get the opportunity to hug you.

  To say I’m sorry and beg you to forgive me.

  I hope, since you’ve always been the better of us, that you’ll do it anyway.

  Because I need a favor.

  Clearly, it’s not to help me move. I’ll wait while you laugh because that was funny.

  Soon, you’ll get a letter from my lawyer. See, I’m responsible now. I had to be when my life changed.

  How? Damn, I wish you already knew this. That you’d seen her being born. That you’d met her. Held her. Spoiled her.

  I have a daughter. You have a niece.

  She’s the favor. I need you to raise her for me. To let her know how much I love her. How much I’ll always love her.

  Her mom…Fuck, I hate calling her that. The woman who carried her was a mistake. Having my daughter was not. I’d do it all over again to have Taylor. In case you’re wondering, yes, I named her after you. Well, the female version of it.

  I hate to speak ill of the dead, but I also won’t lie. Not in my last words to you. Kristin Weston was a one-night stand in a moment of weakness that gave me my greatest treasure and now she’s yours.

  I know you’re serving our country and I’m damn proud of you for it. That’s important as hell and I’d never ask you to stop doing that. I do pray you’re as careful as you can be. We may not have talked in far too long, but knowing you’re alive, that we were on the same planet, gave me peace.

  I’ve legally appointed you Taylor’s guardian should something happen to me.

  Spoiler alert, it obviously did.

  It’s a big ask, I know. Just as I know you’ll accept it and excel at it.

  There’s a catch, though.

  Are you cursing me out yet?

  I may have stipulated a certain criteria in the will.

  If you aren’t married, I have a wife for you.



  Back to the bomb I dropped on you. Well, technically, it’s the second, if we’re keeping track.

  Kristin has a younger sister, Khary, that’s around your age.

  Khary is everything Kristin wasn’t.

  Which is why Kristin hated her.

  Khary, though, is a huge part of Taylor’s life and I want her to stay that way. For both their sakes.

  But she can’t do it alone. She shouldn’t have to either.

  Nor should you.

  I think a union between the two of you would be equally beneficial.

  Your daughter, because yes, that’s how I want you to think of her, will need a mom. Khary has been that to her and it would be devastating to take that away.

  I’m not trying to guilt you into this. I just want you to have all the facts.

  To recap, those are:

  I’m gone.

  I’m sorry.

  I need you to raise Taylor as if she’s your own and I want Khary to do that with you.

  Lastly, I love you, little brother. Always.

  Tanner

  “Fuck!” The chatter around me instantly stops and I feel the weight from the eyes of those closest to me watching me. Swiping at my cheeks, I stare at my friends, silently begging for help.

  “What is it?” Teddy asks. He kneels in front of me, his arms wrapping around me to offer support. His name is perfect for him because he’s a giant one, in size and mannerisms. Taylor will adore him.

  I wave the papers clutched in my hand in the air, unable to speak for fear of blubbering. They give me time to work through it. When I do, all I can say is, “He’s gone.”

  “Who?” Frederick cautiously inquires, sensing how fragile my emotions are right now.

  “My brother.” I’ve spoken of him and our estrangement, and the fact I wish we weren’t. Like Tanner, I’m also to blame for that. He stayed in our hometown, lived in the same house we did as kids. I knew where to find him.

  But I didn’t think he wanted me to seek him out.

  In my head, if I did and he rejected me, I’d have to accept that he was figuratively gone forever.

  And now he literally is and I can’t process it. It’s too much.

  I cry, unable to stop the tears and not giving a damn that I’m running my sleeve under my runny nose, snot collecting on it until a roll of toilet paper is thrust at me.

  We don’t exactly have a box of tissues on hand, so you learn to make do.

  One by one, the others offer their sympathies, the sincerity in each causing fresh tears to rise to my eyes.

  Not wanting to say it out loud because it’ll make it more real, I shake the letter in their direction. I don’t know which of them takes it, but I hear the slight sniffles emanating from the group as they read it.

  They didn’t know Tanner, of course. Hell, neither did I as we hadn’t talked in ten years, but they know me. They know I’m hurting and, therefore, so are they.

  Nobody seems willing to break the silence. To ask what I’m going to do.

  They don’t have to. They already know.

  “I’m a dad.”

  “A fiancé, too,” Pete mutters, reminding me that I can’t be one without accepting the other.

  It hurts like fuck that Tanner is gone, but I realize the trust he’s putting in me by giving me Taylor.

  That’s a helluva of an apology.

  Clasping my hand to my heart, I look up at the ceiling and picture the sky, imagining that Tanner is watching me, and give him what he needs to hear and I need to say. “I forgive you.”

  Chapter Two

  Khary

  April 4th…

  “Shh, sweetheart. Auntie has you.” That is my actual relation to her, but I’ve been more like a mom to her since she took her first breath. Hell, before then. I badgered my older sister, Kristin, into taking care of herself while she was pregnant with Taylor. Knowing full well if I didn’t that she wouldn’t do it herself.

  The second she gave birth to Taylor, she tried to stand, wanting to leave the hospital, and her daughter, behind. Thankfully, I’d called Tanner, Taylor’s dad, to let him know what was going on and he never left her side.

  Taylor’s, that is.

  Kristin did three things right.

  First was having Taylor.

  Second, putting Tanner’s name on the birth certificate.

  Third, signing away her parental rights.

  Four if you count her never contacting me or them again.

  Now Tanner is gone, too.

  He promised me that, should something happen to him, Taylor would be mine. It wasn’t until I was next to his bed in the hospital, an accident at a job site leaving injuries too severe to recover from, that he admitted the rest.

  His brother, Tyler, is the other guardian.

  I knew of their past, and that it wasn’t a good one, but nothing specific other than Tanner regretted that they weren’t closer.

  He’d made me promise to give Tyler a chance.

  Claimed over and over that he was the one that had fucked up. Not Tyler.

  Then he’d blackmailed me, emotionally, by asking me for a favor.

  To fulfill his dying wish.

  I’d told him that wasn’t fair, that he was fighting dirty knowing I wouldn’t deny him that. Tanner had smiled, the sadness in it heartbreaking, as he’d confessed that’s why he was doing it now.

  Tyler and I are to share Taylor, but it’s to be as husband and wife. We’re to raise Taylor as our own. To become a true family.

  “I couldn’t be that for Tyler and I hate myself for it. With you, with Taylor, he can have that. And so can you.”

  Save for Tanner and my niece, I was alone, just like Tyler would be without his brother.

  My parents were too much like Kristin. Thinking only of themselves, uncaring who they hurt or used. I’d washed my hands of them as soon as I was legally able to. I have no clue where they are or if they’re still alive and I’ve made my peace with that.

  As for my sister, I held out hope that we could have the relationship I wanted and she strung me along, letting me believe we were working toward the same goal.

  We weren’t. I realized it the same day she told me she was pregnant.

  But I stayed because my niece or nephew needed me to.

  Now I’m waiting for Tyler to arrive. The funeral is tomorrow and he’s coming today to meet his niece.

  And me.

  We spoke on the phone once and agreed to do it this way instead of publicly. The ceremony is for everyone else that knew Tanner. Our initial meeting, that’ll be private.

  We’ve both decided to accept Tanner’s terms.

  How could we not?

  The alternative is Taylor going into the foster system and neither of us want that.

  We couldn’t live with ourselves.

  She will always come first.

  When there’s a slight knock, my smile is bittersweet. Tyler remembered that I told him he’d be getting here around her nap time. He’s already thinking of her needs which bodes well for this unconventional union.

  Opening the door, I realize that being married to this man will not be a hardship at all.

  **Tyler**

  “Marry me,” Khary, please, God, let this be her, grins at my greeting.

  “I thought we’d already established that I would?”

  We did, but I needed to say it to her. It feels as if it comes from me this way instead of being Tanner’s decree.

  You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.

  That has my eyes watering yet again. Damn things have become like a leaky faucet since I got his letter.

  Seeing I was in no shape to do anything but grieve, Carter met with Colonel McGarrett, our CO, and arranged my emergency family leave.

  Marcus started packing my shit.

  Frederick refolded the pages and returned them to the envelope, tucking it in with my gear to protect it once Marcus’ task was done.

  Teddy went to the mess hall and snagged me some non-perishable food and snacks for the impending trip.

  Pete sat with me, ready to provide support should I need it.

 

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