Wildest Dream (Teach Me Book 1) Read online

  Dedication

  About The Book

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Epilogue

  About The Author

  Acknowledgments

  Wildest Dream

  Copyright © 2015 by RC Boldt

  ISBN: 9780996893800

  Editor: There For You Editing

  http://thereforyoumelissa.wix.com/there-for-you

  Cover design: Mayhem Cover Creations

  http://mayhemcovercreations.com

  Formatting: Pink Ink Designs Co.

  http://www.pinkinkdesigns.com

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products references in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  To Mr. Boldt,

  Thanks for being my wildest dream come true.

  P.S. I still love you more.

  There is mention of a race in this book and it is one I had the great honor of participating in two years in a row when I lived in that area. They now offer a virtual race for those not able to travel to Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida to run it. Please check out the race www.breastcancermarathon.com and the main founder, Donna Deegan, who has an utterly amazing book called, “The Good Fight.” She has battled breast cancer and won three times.

  This book contains much of what has happened to me in real life; some of it funny and some, well, not so funny. To anyone who has dealt with anything close to the big, bad “C” word, I hope you know how very brave you are and that there are many pulling for you.

  Along every step of your journey, no matter what you might be facing, we are all cheering your name from the sidelines.

  Mac

  Outskirts of Marja, Afghanistan

  Early 2013

  WE HAD SOMEHOW lost our EOD guy as well as our interpreter and the last word before our radio communication went out was there were approximately ten guys ahead of us. Of all the times for it to go out. To top it off, we couldn’t see shit for all the trees and shrubs that were pretty much like a wall in front of us. The half-moon had moved behind some thick clouds making it even darker. That fucker, Murphy, and his law seemed to be at it in full force and that never boded well.

  My senses were on overload and I swear the hair, as short as it was with my buzz cut, stood up on the back of my neck. No radio response. No eyes on the lookout for us. We were lucky to still have our comms working for us at this point. I told Mikey and Nash we’d enter from the south facing line and send these goat fuckers on their way to meet their maker.

  What we didn’t realize is we were being led straight into the kill zone, into a clusterfuck of an ambush.

  The first shot that rang out hit right near Mikey’s left foot and he immediately shut that one down enough to get him off our asses. This was a mini reprieve as more shots rang out, spraying all around us on that desert floor.

  God, I fucking hated this place. But I loved my country and these guys who were like brothers to me. Because of that, I had to be more vigilant in this fight against tyranny, against terrorism, and against the hatred of freedom than these little fuckers were. It was go time. No way in hell we were going down without a fight. To the death, if necessary.

  It was us or them. And we were outnumbered by what we estimated to be eight to ten guys. But, Mikey, Nash and I had always loved a good challenge.

  Mikey yelled out. “That motherfucker just singed my goddamn elbow! Damn it! I liked that fucking elbow!”

  Yeah, we always resorted to humor when there were signs of a shitshow ahead.

  “Quit being a pansy ass! You’re the damn medic!” This came from Nash.

  I leveled my rifle and focused on firing at the muzzle flash, trying to take out or hinder these assholes as much as I could. I could tell by the silence on our comms that my guys were doing the same.

  We seemed to be putting them down successfully and gaining on our entrance to their hideout. If we got lucky enough to come across any of the wounded, we could get intel out of them. Nash could speak enough Pashto to get by so he’d be the one to question them.

  They liked to call themselves freedom fighters but that alludes to the connotation of them being noble and that was laughable, at best. They were nothing of the sort. These fuckers would sell their own mother for a few dollars if you offered.

  As we neared, the shots seemed to get sloppy, like they weren’t trying to hit us all of a sudden. The shots rang out wide to the far outside of us. That’s when I froze.

  Oh, shit.

  I had a really bad feeling about this. I called out on the comm, “Stop! Don’t move -”

  The explosion felt like it rocked the earth on its axis. One of the IEDs had been almost directly beneath Mikey and I watched in horror as his mangled, lifeless body got tossed along the dirt covered floor.

  Just as I had turned with the intention of spraying as many shots as I could at these fuckers who’d just killed one of my best friends, one of my “brothers,” another IED was set off at the same time as the one nearby Nash. It was as if time slowed and I watched myself get tossed into the air, my armored vest mangled, piercing pain everywhere, predominantly my upper torso. My pant leg was on fire and when I went to try and sit up from where the explosion had me sprawled, it nearly made me puke from the pain. I kicked my boot around, moving it, managing to get enough dirt and dust to swallow the flames.

  The explosion had blown off my helmet and I knew from my trouble focusing that I had a mother of all concussions. Without a comm, I had to make it over to find
Nash. Taking inventory of myself, I breathed a sigh of relief that I still had my arms and legs. My very own IED must have been built by a newbie, a brainwashed twelve year old recruit probably.

  I ripped off part of the undershirt from my back, which was surprisingly unscathed aside from some abrasions from my skid across the dirt, to try and pack it into my wounds on my front. I ignored the pieces of metal that were stuck in my flesh, knowing that if I pulled them out, I’d do more harm than good. If we were anywhere else, I would’ve packed dirt or mud into the openly bleeding wounds, but they had this nasty flesh-eating bacteria in their dirt over here and I wasn’t about to help these fuckers’ cause by adding myself to their victorious list of successful kills.

  Those turds had clearly assumed they did their job and vanished. Probably a bunch of newbies since they weren’t coming out here to collect their “trophies” and post it on their version of Youtube.

  I had to force myself to crawl, taking a second at certain moments when the pain nearly made me black out. It was so quiet out here that I didn’t have to yell. Hell, right now a whisper sounded loud. I called out Nash’s name a few times and when he finally answered me, I felt like it was my fucking birthday.

  Until, after I had made it over to him and I saw for myself what those assholes had done to him. The moon which had come out from behind the clouds, now offering up little light, made me wish it had stayed hidden. I wasn’t the medic—that had been Mikey—but even I recognized that Nash was most likely going to lose that right leg. Sweet Jesus, it was so mangled and bloody. When I went to move myself closer, still in a crawl, my hands landed in wetness. I closed my eyes.

  God, please, no. Don’t do this.

  There was a pool of blood nearly spanning the circumference of Nash’s body.

  “I’m thinking you were on the right track, man. Teaching is way better than this shit.” That was Nash, always the one to joke and lighten things up.

  I reached over for his pack which was nearby, amazingly enough, and tried to use the extra shirt in there to try and stop the bleeding but, damn it, there were so many wounds. So much blood. It was a miracle he was even remotely coherent, let alone still alive.

  Suddenly, I heard a chopper in the distance and breathed a sigh of relief.

  Hurry up, I pleaded. Nash needed a medic ASAP.

  “How bad is it? And where’s Mikey?” he asked me, his voice seemingly weaker. Hurry with that chopper, guys.

  “Nothing a few stitches won’t fix, man.” I paused. “Mikey’s on the lookout and making sure the chopper doesn’t come under fire,” I lied.

  Giving a laugh that made him grimace, he told me, “You always were a shitty liar, Mac.”

  Suddenly, I felt like a five hundred pound lead weight was on my chest. I lied down there on the ground next to Nash, one of my best friends and wondered if this was it.

  God, I know you’ve always got a great plan for everything but I really don’t want to die out here on this shitty ass desert floor. Oh, and sorry for my language.

  “We’re getting out of here, Nash. You concentrate on saving your energy. You’ll need it if you want to beat my 5k time,” I told him with a forced smile, referring to our ongoing competition with who could run the 3.1 miles quicker.

  “You’re gonna be a kickass math teacher,” Nash told me suddenly.

  Before I could respond, he turned his head toward me, “I love you, man,” he breathed out, closing his eyes on the last word with a groan. “I’m so fucking cold . . .”

  No, no, no. This wasn’t happening.

  “You open those eyes, right now, you lazy ass! There’s no dying on me! You hear me?” I yelled at him, my voice being mostly drowned out by the chopper landing a few yards away.

  I tried to tell him I loved him, too, but before I could get the words out, the darkness took over.

  Jacksonville, Florida

  August 2015

  RAINE WAS IN THE bowels of hell.

  Or just on a heinously awful blind date.

  “I done got me tickets to the Georgia game and, I gotta say, the live game was the best thing I seen in my whole life,” her date mentioned for what had to be the hundredth time.

  And for the hundredth time, Raine felt her whole body jolt as he spoke with incorrect grammar. She couldn’t help it, okay? Incorrect grammar was the bane of her existence. It was the teacher in her. But, for God’s sake, how long could a person talk about themselves and a Georgia Bulldogs’ home game?

  Raine could now confirm the answer to that: for forty-seven minutes. Solid. Without any attempts to include her in the conversation. And if that weren’t bad enough there was the smack, smack, smack of his open mouthed chewing.

  Her date, Tucker, didn’t bat an eye at chewing with his mouth open, let alone talking with a mouthful of food. Now, Raine could enjoy an order of supreme nachos as much as the next person. However, she could most definitely do without actually seeing said appetizer half masticated.

  And so the game had begun. How many times would she get a glimpse of a jalapeno pepper? So far, her tally was up to twenty eight. Bonus points were for identifying both jalapeno pepper and black olives. These were exciting times, friends.

  “These nachos are something else. I think the last time I had nachos this good was—”

  “When you ‘done got some tickets to the Georgia game’?” Raine prompted.

  He looked surprised and his mouth dropped open slightly to show -wait for it- half chewed nachos. “How’d you know that?”

  She shrugged with a tight smile. “Lucky guess.”

  “You like college football?”

  “I love college football,” she answered. Almost as much as I love correct grammar usage and people chewing with their mouths closed, she felt like adding. But, hey, this was an actual question for her in the long-standing, one-sided conversation, so she should probably keep that one to herself. For now.

  “You like the Bulldogs?” He leaned closer to the table, waiting on her answer.

  Did he not recall anything they had talked about in the few emails they had exchanged on the dating website before meeting today? Clearly, not. Also, she would really like to know how long ago that photograph he had chosen to post on his profile had been taken because, um, Hello, false representation?

  “I’m not really a fan since I graduated from UF,” she answered, honestly. It was common knowledge that the Florida Gators and the Georgia Bulldogs were pretty serious rivals in college football. He merely stared at her, prompting her to take it one step further and, well, let’s be honest. She felt like she was allowed to be a little obnoxious after how well—cough—this date was going.

  “You know, ‘Gooo Gators’!” she said energetically, imitating the cheer while doing the well-known Gator chomp motion with her arms. His face twisted into a disgusted look.

  Oh, boy.

  “I hate the Gators,” he snarled. She stared at him, her green eyes wide for a moment, caught off guard by the forcefulness behind his words.

  “I might can overlook that,” he continued, giving her a smarmy smile as his gaze traveled from her face to her chest, lingering there far too long, before his eyes met hers again. “You know, since you got lots to offer.” He then had the audacity to wink at her.

  So gross.

  Raine inhaled a long, calming breath through her nose. Her date shook his head, sitting back in his chair to study her for a moment before taking another large bite of his nachos. Along with the loud smack, smack, smack of the food chewing, he went on.

  “You wanna marry me, you gonna hafta be a Bulldog fan.” More obnoxious open-mouthed chewing. “Plus, there’d be no more of this teachin’ business ‘cause you’d be stayin’ home with the kids. ‘Cause that’s where women belong.” He gave a firm nod at the end to punctuate his feelings on the matter.

  Misogynistic douchebag.

  Procreate with him? That would be a firm Hell, no.

  Deciding to end her suffering with this date, she threw
back her head and laughed. Raine fixed her gaze pointedly on him, reaching over to pat his hand.

  “Oh, Tucker . . .” With an exaggerated sigh, she continued, “I think you might be getting ahead of yourself. This is the first time we’re meeting, after all.”

  She smiled at him sweetly. “Not only that, but it’s a safe bet to say it’s improbable that we would marry simply due to your aversion to masticating your food in a civilized and refined manner . . . let alone your heinous grammar.”

  He looked at her incredulously and then glanced around as if afraid their conversation would be overheard by nearby patrons. He then leaned in and angrily hissed, “I do not masturbate with my food!”

  Undoubtedly, this was her cue to leave.

  She rose from her seat. “Well, this was super fun, Tucker, but I have to get going.” She pushed in her chair. “You know, to do some work for,” she paused and used air quotes,” that ‘teachin’ business’ I do.”

  Raine breathed a sigh of relief as she walked out of the restaurant doors.

  Oh, the never-ending joys of online dating.

  CALLUM MACKENZIE, OR Mac as most called him, had just unpacked the final box of “stuff” in his new house. Breathing a sigh of relief and stretching to work out the kinks from all the lifting and bending, he looked around his place. “Not bad.”

  “For a foreclosure,” came the response from up above him where his buddy, Foster Kavanaugh, was working on installing the final new ceiling fan. “One that was in much need of some TLC.”

  Running his hands over the back of his neck, Mac sighed. “Yeah, I know. Thanks, man, for all your help with this.”

  He and Foster had done a ton of work on this beach house. It was structurally sound and he had purchased it for way under its market value but it had been found lacking on the inside: no ceiling fans in any of the rooms, an outdated kitchen with worn countertops and battered cabinets, badly damaged hardwood floors, and there had been some really crappy laminate in the kitchen. The two of them had worked their asses off ripping up flooring and installing new hardwoods throughout. They had fully renovated the kitchen, as well. Now, the inside of the home matched the outside. A two story stucco, on stilts, right on Fernandina Beach, it was Mac’s new haven.