Her Blue-Eyed Lieutenant (Soldiers 0f Swing Book 3)
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HER BLUE-EYED LIEUTENANT
Soldiers of Swing: Book Three
By
Linda Ellen
Synopsis
Until now, Gary Tucker’s life had been one of privilege and wealth. His long-lost brothers figured he’d had everything handed to him on a silver platter. But he’d had struggles of a different kind—like the struggle to break free of Gareth B. Tucker, Sr.’s iron-fisted control—to be his own man. No one really understood what it was like to be Gareth Tucker, Jr….no one that is, except Julie. Julie Banks was beautiful, wholesome, smart and funny—and his brother’s little sister. Gene thought of her as just a kid—but Gary saw her as the woman of his dreams. Therein lay the problem. Were they destined to remain best friends, never taking their relationship farther than that?
Overshadowing all of this, however, was the War. More than anything, Gary wanted to join the conflict and fly bombers over Germany and Japan. Would he get the opportunity?
Could he find a way to become the man he knew he was called to be—and would the woman he loved be by his side when it was all said and done?
If you love stories about WWII and the “Greatest Generation” that read like you’re watching a classic movie, with handsome soldiers and beautiful girls-next-door, then Her Blue-Eyed Lieutenant is for you!
This is the third book in the Soldiers of Swing series, and like the others, it contains no profanity or illicit sex.
Reviews
Once again, Linda Ellen takes us behind the veil of the WWII era. Reading one of her books is like plunging into a classic silver screen movie. The romance between Gary Tucker and Julie Banks struck at the cords of my heart from beginning to end. Theirs is a world of flying fortresses, food rationing, USO dances, and falling in love by taking pen to paper.
Through Linda’s spectacular writing, I learned it takes more than naming your B-17 and painting a saucy pin-up on the fuselage. She draws on the backdrop of history with seamless strokes, taking the reader through the Miami Beach Training Center and Bowman Field.
And the most treasured character of all of the Soldiers of Swing books—historical Louisville. From the majestic Idlewild steaming along the river, to standing on the overlook peering down over Iroquois Park, sipping tea at the Canary Cottage, or just stealing a kiss in the tunnel of love at Fontaine Ferry Park, Louisville shines like a gem.
Her Blue-Eyed Lieutenant reverberates with the pride of family, friends, and the strength and courage of our men and women in uniform.
~ Author/Editor Venessa Vargas
I have been enthralled with all of Linda Ellen’s books and this one is no exception. It’s obvious Linda did a lot of research for this story. Events flow flawlessly and historic events are presented with accuracy and respect. Gary quickly became my favorite character of all her books. Eager to do his part for the war effort, he signs up with the army air corps with the hope of flying bombers. But before he can achieve his dream, he has to struggle with an over-protective father and his growing feelings for Julie. Though they are best of friends, Gary wants more. For her part, Julie wonders if he will ever see her as more than a friend. They keep misreading the other’s intent and many times I wanted to scream for them to admit their feelings.
While in basic training, Gary has to deal with someone who, for reasons unknown, is determined to see him fail. When an unexpected occurrence seems to derail his dreams, a bitter confrontation ensues. Gary is a strong, honest man but when disappointments and tragedy bring him to the breaking point, Julie is determined to help.
This story is full of romance, drama and surprises. Through Linda’s well-written words I feel I know the characters and cry when they cry, laugh when they laugh. I was sorry when the story ended.
A clean romance with lots of excitement added in. Highly recommend.
~ Beta Reader Judy Glenn
Reading Linda Ellen’s “Her Blue-Eyed Lieutenant” is like stepping into a wonderful Old Hollywood movie. It’s good and wholesome all the while being entertaining and charming. The third and final book in her delightful Soldiers of Swing series takes readers back to Louisville, Kentucky circa WWП where we get to follow Gary and Julie’s story. We were introduced to Gary and Julie in the first book in the series, “Her Blue-Eyed Sergeant”, and got another sneak peak at them in the second, “Her Blue-Eyed Corporal”, giving us a foundation for when they would get their own book.
Not only do I highly recommend this book, I also recommend the whole series. I love Linda Ellen’s writing style. She expertly spins a story that draws the reader in, makes them feel like they’re right there with the characters walking through their world, if only for a little while. You can always count on Linda’s books to have an interesting plot, and relatable, well-developed characters, that draw you in immediately. One thing I especially enjoy about Linda’s books is the fact that she always weaves fascinating historical facts, events, and places into her stories, which adds depth and helps the reader get a better understanding of the time period and the characters themselves. From Air Force basic training to USO dances to the tunnel of love, this story is as charming and lovable as Clark Gable. I’m truly sad to see this series end, but I’m excited to see what else Linda Ellen has up her sleeve. ;)
~ Liz Austin, The Book Corner Blog
Gary and Julie prove again that falling in love with your best friend is the best love. Her Blue-Eyed Lieutenant is sweet, clean and wholesome historical fiction, set in late WWII. A perfect addition and ending to the Soldiers of Swing trilogy. Linda Ellen has this genre nailed!
~ Beta Reader Teri Stallone
Her Blue-Eyed Lieutenant
Soldiers of Swing Series, Book 3
Written by Linda Ellen
Copyright © 2017 by Linda Ellen
Trade Paperback Release: July 2017
Electronic Release: July 2017
lindaellenbooks.weebly.com
ISBN: 978-0-9909044-9-6
Kindle Edition
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. All characters and storylines are the property of the author and your support and respect is appreciated.
Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Although this book is a work of fiction, real locales, streets, and places were used. Brands are used respectfully. Details regarding Louisville, Bowman Field, and the Miami Beach Officer Training School during WWII were taken from photographs, DVDs, and information found online. Incidents detailed in this story regarding the Miami Beach school and Bowman Field are mostly fictitious, meaning they are either invented or embellished by the author.
The following story contains themes of real life, but is suitable for all ages, as it contains no illicit sex or profanity.
Cover design by Samantha Fury
Editing by Venessa Vargas
Proofreading by Kathryn Lockwood
Formatting by BB eBooks
Chapters
Title Page
Synopsis
Reviews
Copyright Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
Historical Notes
Dedications
About the Author
HER BLUE-EYED LIEUTENANT
Soldiers of Swing, Book Three
By
Linda Ellen
As with the first two stories in this series, HER BLUE-EYED SERGEANT, and HER BLUE-EYED CORPORAL, this is also a light-hearted tale about soldiers and civilians who are contributing to the war effort back home, not a part of the monumental battles fought “Over there.” Soldiers on the home front were just as important to the war effort – and fought their own battles. Now, our hero is about to become a member of the US Army Air Corps, eventually stationed at Bowman Field Army Air Base in Louisville, Kentucky.
CHAPTER 1
January 1943
Downtown Louisville
Gary Tucker, or Gareth B. Tucker, Jr. to the corporate world, leaned one shoulder against the edge of the window frame, his hands deep in his trouser pockets, as tiny flakes of snow turned to ice crystals and stuck to the outside of the glass.
It was a gloomy day outside and it matched his mood. Brooding, he smirked before huffing out his warm breath, which caused the pane to fog a bit. The sky was gray, and seemed bloated with heavy expectation, as if it wanted to dump its load on the world below, but for some reason was holding back.
Waiting…waiting…waiting…just like him.
With no other buildings at the base of Fifteenth Street to block the scenery beyond his fourth floor office window, he could see for quite a distance. Below and just to the left, he had a good view of the steel vertical-lift section of the Fourteenth Street Bridge which spanned the Portland Canal and the Ohio River, the falls, the dam, and over to New Albany, Indiana.
The moveable section of the bridge, which normally stayed down to allow trains to lumber through, was slowly rising to its top-most position as a large boat waited to navigate under it before heading down the canal toward the locks.
The engineer inside Gary was inexplicably drawn to the workings of the steel mechanism. Its wheels and pulleys keeping the deck horizontal reminded him a bit of an outdoor elevator project he had worked on for a class assignment in engineering school. It fascinated him, and he wished that he were in the tiny shack way up on top with the operator, controlling the bridge’s movement.
For a moment, Gary closed his eyes and pictured the mesmerizingly smooth rhythm of the oil derricks that he loved to watch back home in Texas. From there, his thoughts drifted to Trinity Bay and the spot where, as a boy, he used to sit and watch the waves lapping up onto the shore. Without much effort, he could conjure up the distinctive, pungent smell of raw crude oil that seemed to hang in the air near the oil fields. Some people hated it, but to him it would always remind him of home.
Everything was so different in Kentucky—rolling hills, not flat terrain; tall trees, not scrub grass and tropical plants; not one oil derrick in sight; and the temperatures! Winter was much colder this far north. Sure, he’d experienced freezing temps before, but never days on end where the mercury didn’t rise out of the teens. There in his plush, warm executive office at Tucker Manufacturing, he shivered just thinking about the weather outside.
Opening his eyes, he turned his head to the right and gazed down at the barges and steamboats on the water, and then at the shipping vessels docked at the wharf. The road deck of the Second Street Bridge was crowded with cars crossing the river. People on the streets below were scurrying to get to their destinations now that the weather had turned colder and snow was imminent. He watched a group of soldiers step off a bus and idly wondered if they were from Fort Knox.
Lately, Gary hadn’t been able to keep his mind on his work, and as Manager of Operations for the Louisville plant and his father’s right-hand-man on the new venture, it was only a matter of time before that fact would begin to cause problems. Of course, he knew he had achieved quite a bit in the six months since his father had put in a bid for and won the government contract to produce steering gears, brake shoes, clutch parts, and other items for Ford and Willys jeeps. He’d chosen his staff and employees well, and he felt confident that he had done everything right with the new venture. With the enterprise up and running his personal responsibilities had eased.
That was the trouble. The adrenaline of this new venture had subsided, thereby allowing his inherent restlessness to seep back in.
Gary shook his head with a soft smirk. Six months. So much had happened during that short span of time.
His open eyes were a much brighter blue than the gray cloudy sky and were no longer focusing on the weather and the goings on outside his window as Gary thought back over the days since last July. He pictured the trip from Texas to Kentucky…the life-altering meeting of his two identical siblings that he’d never met—Gene Banks and Steve Wheeler…the weeks making plans and working to acquire the facility in Louisville, having the machinery installed, hiring employees to do the work and getting production underway…and the trips from Houston to Louisville and back. In November, he had stood up with his newly found brother as he married his beautiful fiancée, Christmas had come and gone, and now it was well into January.
Even after six months in town, he still felt like a visitor to the city. Part of the reason, he knew, was that he was still staying at the Brown Hotel, as he just hadn’t had the desire to rent or purchase a house to live in alone.
With a soft snort, the thought crossed his mind that he’d been alone most of his life and he still didn’t like it. Growing up as the only child in the Tucker mansion in the Montrose area of Houston, he had spent the bulk of his solitary days talking to imaginary playmates that looked like him.
Even now that he’d found his brothers, it wasn’t as if he saw them frequently. After all—they were soldiers in the U.S. Army, doing important work for the good of the country. What was he doing? Cooling his heels running a tiny offshoot of his father’s much larger company.
Drawing in a deep breath, he tried to steer his mind away from the internal self-denigration in which he tended to indulge, but the beliefs were a habit entrenched in his brain. Spinning your wheels. That’s all you’re doing, just spinning…spinning…spinning.
Scattered, unrelated thoughts shot through his mind—arguments he’d had with his father anytime he’d wanted to branch out and do anything that the elder Tucker had deemed “too dangerous” for his only son. This was followed by images of his brothers in their uniforms marching past, like a movie screen in his head. The article in the newspaper about Steve foiling that sabotage attempt out at the ordnance plant, and Gene making the rank of first sergeant…it all made him feel like a person on the outside looking in rather than inside enjoying the party. Like a Derby horse straining at the gate. Yes, that’s how he felt! And oh, how he longed to break free from the restraints that were holding him back—to be able to burst forth and run the race!
Inevitably, his thoughts cycled back around to his father. Gary had never been able to look the man in the eye and defy him on any point, although it was out of respect and not fear. He knew his father loved him—that was a given. But, he silently groused, there is a difference between a love that allows the one who is loved to grow and flourish, versus an obsessive love that at times felt downright strangling, like an octopus with its tentacles wrapped too tightly around his chest. The thought made his body give a tiny shake, as if to try and dislodge said tentacles.
Thinking about his one and only parent, Gary understood all too well why his dad tended to grasp on and hold him to the point of suffocation. Gary was his father’s entire family—his world. His dad’s parents had passed away decades before. He’d had no sisters, aunts or cousins, only an older brother who, along with Gareth, Sr.’s best friend and an uncle, had been killed in the First World War. A devastated Gareth Tucker had wandered from his empty home in Kansas and hitched his way to T
exas, eventually struck it rich in oil, and met and married the love of his life.
Years later, however, his beloved wife, Felicity, had passed away, and they’d not had any more children other than the one they had adopted. Gary, Jr., was it—he was his father’s all in all, a dutiful son who always toed the line and did what was expected of him.
Deep down, though, the responsibility of being Gareth Tucker’s son bore down on him at times like a ten-ton shoe across the back of his neck.
The only time he’d felt unfettered and free were his years at Texas A&M. That his father had consented and allowed him to attend the college—and live in a frat house—had been a gift from Heaven. A smile slowly graced Gary’s face as he thought now about those wonderful years, during which he had matured and become a man. He’d made friends, plunged into his course work with both feet and earned two degrees—Mechanical Engineering and Business Administration—attended parties, developed hobbies he enjoyed, cultivated quite a few girlfriends, and generally had the time of his life. He’d done things that would have given his poor father a heart attack if he’d known—and Gary had no plans to enlighten him on these subjects.
But still and all—Gary had remained somewhat of a loner compared to the other guys in his fraternity. Although he’d had girlfriends, he had always wondered if the fact that he was the “heir” to what everyone thought of as the “Tucker Fortune” was really at the heart of their attention.
It was common knowledge that his dad had been in on the Goose Creek, Texas oil boom back in 1903 and it had made him a wealthy man. Wealthy in money—but no one knew that his personal life had been sorely lacking. He had sold his interest in the oil fields after his wife had passed away when Gareth was a boy, and had invested in manufacturing, scaling back his business holdings to spend more time with his son. Although he made a good living off of his investments and companies, it wasn’t as much as people assumed. Still…the females in the college town had all looked at young Gary with dollar signs in their eyes. Each one had told him they thought him gorgeous, with his vivid blue eyes, dark hair, and tall muscular physique—the catch of the town, but somehow none of them had been able to get him to propose. Truth be told, he was gun shy in that regard.