He only gave up the military for his son. He couldn’t ask her to give it up for him. Despite limping around on a busted leg that wasn’t healing very fast, Marine Gunnery Sergeant Melina Angel is up for a serious promotion. All she has to do to become a Master Sergeant is not retire. Of course not retiring means more duty, and war time duty at that. Dessert or jungle, her team follows their SEALs wherever they end up being dropped. There was nothing like a little trauma to keep the blood pumping, but more and more she was wondering just how long she could keep it up. While her life as Gunny Angel is full of dedicated service to her country, Melina can’t help thinking she’s done a disservice to herself over her twenty year career. Outside of an intense physical relationship with one of her SEALs, she’s had no real love life. What military woman has time to look around for that one right guy? Hell, does someone like that even exist? Former SEAL, Gower Beckett, doesn’t regret resigning his lieutenant’s commission, even though he was barely over thirty when he had to make the call. When the mother of his son died in a car accident, his sense of duty shifted instantly to who needed him the most. Leaving was a hard decision but he left behind guys as well-suited to serving their country as he had ever been. And he kept them as friends. His son now calls them all uncle even though the woman he’d loved and lost to his military career would have hated knowing it. What the hell. He'd never been lucky in love, but he was damn lucky in the rest of his life. His eight year old spitting image brought him more joy daily than he’d ever imagined having. Now if he could just find civilian work he liked before his entire savings ran out, he and Dillon would be just fine. Finding love with that one perfect woman was a dream he no longer allowed himself.