“You’re a good sport, you know that?”
Erin smiled. “Why?”
“Because you made a fool out of yourself like everyone else trying to get an apple. That takes courage in front of a bunch of strangers. “
She touched his cheek. Ty captured her hand, and kissed her palm with tantalizing slowness. “I didn’t feel like a stranger,” she admitted. “Isn’t that funny? Back in New York I doubt I’d have felt as welcome. But here…”
Ty released her hand and slid down beside her on the carpet. He poured more apricot brandy into the snifter she cradled in her hands. “Here it’s different, honey. SAC forces us to work hard and long, sometimes too much so. But when we get a break, we play hard, too. As a crew.”
“At everything?” she teased.
“Not quite everything,” he answered. He took her into his arms, his mouth descending lightly against her lips, teasing them with his tongue. His breath was moist against her face as she leaned eagerly against his body, hungry for the closeness he offered. Pulling away, he whispered, “Come on. Let’s go to bed. It’s been a long day and we’re both tired.”
Six days later, Erin gingerly tested the snow, which was almost knee-deep. She had bundled up in a hip-length lavender ski coat, white knit cap and mittens, and was waiting patiently for Ty. Her breath formed white clouds in the early-afternoon air. The sky was a deep blue, and the sun glinted fiercely off the snow. In the distance, she heard the thunderous growl of B-52s winding up for takeoff.
Some of her ebullient mood faded as she thought of the last week. It had gone by so fast. When had she enjoyed life so fully as with Ty? She rubbed her mittened hands together and moved in a small circle to keep warm. Their time was almost over, and she frowned, unsure of the direction her future would take. Erin placed her hand over her heart, fiercely aware of the love she felt for Ty. In the past week, he had shared more about his life with her. Their long talks had revealed new aspects of his character, but above all she had come to see just how dedicated he was to his career. She had never realized that men like Ty and his crew existed and her admiration for them and their families deepened.
At last Ty appeared at the back door and skipped down the wooden steps, a picnic basket in one hand, a blanket in the other. He tossed her a warming smile as he handed her the blanket and promptly slid his arms around her shoulders, drawing her near.
“Almost forgot the mulled wine,” he said by way of apology.
“Can’t do that,” Erin answered, pretending to be horrified. His blue eyes danced. His ability to express his feelings openly had helped her tremendously to voice her own emotions. He was an inspiration to her in every way.
“I don’t think we’ll have any problem keeping it hot,” he said drily. “We’ll drink it fast once we reach the meadow.”
She laughed with him, and they continued to trek toward the same meadow where they had held another picnic weeks ago. After the exhausting walk, Erin was happy to plop down on the blanket. She had never gone on a winter picnic and was thrilled with the idea. As Ty explained, living at a Northern Tier base forced him to be more creative in thinking up ways to spend his leisure hours.
Erin sat expectantly across from him, hands in her lap as she watched him open the thermos.
‘This is a very special picnic, darlin’,” he said, pouring hot, spicy wine into a ceramic mug. Their fingers touched as he handed it to her, and pleasure tingled up her arm. “Careful, you could burn your tongue,” he warned.
She held the mug to her lips, inhaling the fruity fragrance. “Mmm, it smells like heaven!”
“No way, gal. You smell like heaven. Matter of fact, you are heaven.” Ty recapped the thermos and raised his mug, his eyes steady on hers. “Here, I want to make a toast,” he said.
Erin caught the husky inflection in his tone. A new expression of seriousness came to his face as he met her widened eyes. “Go ahead,” she urged softly, touching his mug with hers.
“Here’s to a lifetime of sharing love,” Ty murmured, watching her closely.
Her lips parted and she stared at him in silence. “Well?” he prodded gently. “Are you going to drink to that, my lovely banshee witch?” The pulse leaped at the base of her throat. “You mean—” Erin stammered.
A lazy smile curved his mouth. “You realize, of course, that if you go back to New York, I’ll die of wretched loneliness without you.”
She lowered the mug, unable to meet his warming gaze any longer. “Oh, Ty.” The moments of silence lengthened between them. Erin fingered the mug, staring down into the ruby liquid.
“What’s going on in your head?” he demanded quietly. “Are you worried about being up here in the middle of nowhere without a job, with no career?”
Erin lifted her chin, eyes filled with tears. “I can freelance…”
Ty tilted his head, studying her. “What then, honey?” She made a small, helpless gesture. “I—I thought all you wanted was an affair. A long-term one, but—”
He reached out and gripped her hand firmly. “I don’t go around saying ‘I love you’ to every woman I meet, Erin. I do love you and that means one-hundred-percent commitment. Whatever gave you the crazy idea that all I wanted was an affair?”
She sniffed, brushing away a tear. “I never thought we stood a chance, Ty. I live in New York. I have—had—a job there. From the way you talked about your first marriage, I knew you had chosen between a personal commitment and your career. But I can’t help feeling that your marriage ended because of more than just your career.” She studied him keenly. “You made Anne out to be the victim, but somehow—” she groped for the right words “—somehow I think she contributed to the problems, too. It takes two to make a divorce, Ty, not just one. Knowing you as I do, I think you’re taking most of the blame on yourself. Is that true?”
He put his mug down and then took hers from her fingers and pulled her into his arms. “You’re right on all counts,” he said heavily. “Anne had a streak of restlessness I couldn’t satisfy, Erin. She craved a more exciting life, a faster pace of living, I suppose.” Ty shrugged. “What can I say? We were like a plow horse and a thoroughbred in the same hitch. We worked against each other instead of together.” He touched her wet cheek, drying it gently. “Part of it was my fault. I was fulfilling some pretty tough career demands at the time. The other was just mismatched personalities. It happens, you know, to more people than I care to think about. I got married too young, when I was too eager about establishing my career.”
Erin remained silent for a long time. “What if I have to fly all over the U.S. or Canada to get stories for different magazines and newspapers? Would you object?”
Ty chuckled, nuzzling her ear. “How could I? I’ll be flying halfway around the world, taking off on secret missions or just going on long training flights. I’ll be gone twenty days out of every month. No, honey, I wouldn’t mind. I’d hope that those other ten days we might be together instead of apart.”
Erin closed her eyes and sighed. “We’ll make the most of those ten days,” she promised huskily.
He turned her so that she was resting her back against his bent leg. “Well, will you marry me now?”
She threw her arms around his neck. “Yes!” she whispered fiercely into his ear, “I will!”
Ty murmured her name, his mouth seeking and finding her lips. Erin responded passionately to his breath-stealing kiss, content to remain imprisoned within his arms.
His blue eyes danced with a roguish glint as he drew away. He shifted her next to him and dug in his side pocket. “Here,” he said, drawing out a velvet gray box, “open this.”
He placed it in her waiting hands. She smiled at him as she carefully lifted the lid. Her eyes widened in appreciation as she stared at a dark blue oval stone in a platinum setting. “It’s lovely,” she whispered.
“Not the usual diamond ring,” he noted.
“I never liked diamonds,” Erin admitted, carefully pulling the ring from the box. Ty
placed it on her left hand. “This is a rare form of tourmaline that I bought a long time ago when I was down in South America on leave.” Ty held her hand up and the color of the stone changed as light refracted through it. “When I saw this stone, it reminded me of a woman whose eyes changed colors depending on her moods.” He smiled tenderly down at her. “You’re like that, darlin’—moody, unpredictable, willful, part child, part adult. The tourmaline symbolizes a very small part of the vast range of your emotions, all of which I love experiencing.”
Erin gripped his hand, resting her cheek against it, her heart turning over with love. “It’s so beautiful,” she whispered, fighting back tears of happiness. “I never expected anything, Ty.”
He laughed softly and hugged her fiercely. “Banshee witches only cast spells. They don’t look into the future,” Ty murmured, kissing her temple. “Let’s face it, we’re two very unique people, and we’ll have a unique marriage. The engagement ring is a symbol of that, a celebration of our individuality. I can’t think of a better way to start a wonderful marriage. Can you?”
She gazed down at the ring, which was the color of the sky in which he would continue to fly. To Erin the ring symbolized a proud breed of men and women who believed deeply in what they were doing and were willing to pay the price.
She loved Ty Phillips. His standards and commitment were no higher than her own.
She placed her hands on either side of his face and looked deeply into his eyes. “I’ve been waiting a lifetime to meet you, darling. This ring is living proof of our love for one another.”
Ty kissed her hands. “What took you so long to come into my life?” he whispered, crushing her in his arms. Erin nuzzled beneath his chin, thoroughly content. “I guess good things are just worth waiting for.”
“And honey, you were worth waiting for, believe me,” he said fiercely, covering her lips in a soul-searing kiss.
ROMANTIC suspense
Two USA TODAY bestselling authors in one book!
Two deadly missions have these men in uniform
putting their lives and their hearts on the line for
service, duty and love.
Look for COURSE OF ACTION next month,
featuring Out of Harm’s Way
by Lindsay McKenna
and Any Time, Any Place
by Merline Lovelace.
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Also available from Lindsay McKenna and HQN Books
High Country Rebel
The Loner
The Last Cowboy
Deadly Silence
Deadly Identity
Guardian
The Adversary
Reunion
Shadows from the Past
Dangerous Prey
Time Raiders: The Seeker
The Quest
Heart of the Storm
Dark Truth
Beyond the Limit
Unforgiven
Silent Witness
Enemy Mine
Firstborn
Morgan’s Honor
Morgan’s Legacy
An Honorable Woman
Selected books by Lindsay McKenna
Harlequin Romantic Suspense
@His Duty to Protect #1691
@Beyond Valor #1739
Silhouette Romantic Suspense
Love Me Before Dawn #44
^Protecting His Own #1184
Mission: Christmas/“The Christmas Wild Bunch” #1535
@His Woman in Command #1599
@Operation: Forbidden #1647
Silhouette Nocturne
*Unforgiven #1
*Dark Truth #20
*The Quest #33
Time Raiders: The Seeker #69
*Reunion #85
*The Adversary #87
*Guardian #89
HQN
Enemy Mine
Silent Witness
Beyond the Limit
Heart of the Storm
Dangerous Prey
Shadows from the Past
Deadly Identity
Deadly Silence
The Last Cowboy
The Wrangler
The Defender
Lindsay McKenna is proud to have served her country in the U.S. Navy as an aerographer’s mate third class—also known as a weather forecaster. She was a pioneer of the military romance subgenre and loves to combine heart-pounding action with soulful and poignant romance. True to her military roots, she is the originator of the long-running and reader-favorite Morgan’s Mercenaries series. She does extensive hands-on research, including flying in aircraft such as a P3-B Orion sub-hunter and a B-52 bomber. She was the first romance writer to sign her books in the Pentagon bookstore. Today, she has created a new military romantic suspense series, Shadow Warriors, which features romantic and action-packed tales about U.S. Navy SEALs. Visit her online at:
www.LindsayMcKenna.com
www.twitter.com/lindsaymckenna
www.facebook.com/eileen.nauman
Excerpt from Down Range
Chapter One
WHAT THE HELL? He had to be seeing things. SEAL Lieutenant Jake Ramsey froze as he climbed out of his rented red Jeep Wrangler. He’d just parked at the Pentagon, ordered here for an appointment with U.S. Army General Stevenson. He had no idea what this meeting entailed. It was top secret.
His heart thudded in his chest as he stared one row of cars up. A Marine Captain emerged from her black SUV. Jake removed his wraparound sunglasses, remaining motionless, watching her pull her black leather purse over the left shoulder. The gesture was all too familiar to him.
She wore her khaki summer uniform short-sleeved blouse along with dark green gabardine trousers that emphasized her long legs. In short-heeled, polished black pumps, she was all spit and polish. Morgan Boland had an hourglass figure, and though her clothes fit her comfortably, Jake knew how beautiful she was without any clothes at all.
His mouth tightened. What the hell was Morgan Boland doing here?
Stunned, Jake wrestled with a lot of old feelings leaping to life within him. Oh, he remembered tunneling his fingers through that mass of silky red hair now softly framing her oval face and stubborn chin. The strands curled slightly across her proud shoulders.
She hadn’t seen him—yet.
Two years ago they’d met in the Hindu Kush mountains near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. They’d collided like two comets, renewing their relationship that had started at the Naval Academy, Annapolis. His lower body tightened in memory of those three incredible days with her in his arms in that Afghan village. Three of the most incredible nights of his life since…He ruthlessly tried to crush the grief-stricken memories from when he was twenty-four years old. Jake had lost his wife, Amanda, and two-week-old baby, Joshua, in a car accident. They’d only been married a year.
At twenty-seven, Jake had unexpectedly met Morgan once again. And whether she ever realized it or not, she’d salvaged his bleeding, wounded soul. Those few days had transformed him, pulled him out of a three-year depression. She’d breathed new life into him.
His mouth pursed, the corners pulling in as he watched her shut the door on the SUV. The May morning’s breeze was inconstant, lifting a few gold-and-copper strands of hair across her face. He stared with a mixture of grief and longing as she lifted her long, expressive fingers and pulled the stran
ds away from her cheek.
Morgan was still hauntingly beautiful to him. His mind spun with a hundred questions as to why she was here at the same time he was. Jake worked to suppress those unrequited feelings about their shared history. He’d had that impulse, of never allowing her to escape his arms again. But she had. And it had been his damned fault. For the second time in his life, he’d driven Morgan away from him.
There was a file beneath her left arm. She pointed the clicker at the SUV to lock it. Jake swallowed hard, trying to ignore his desire. It had been a lethal attraction from the first moment, in Annapolis, while going through the Naval Academy. They were a powerful match in bed, but dammit, she was bullheaded and wildly independent. She refused to be what he wanted her to be. When they came together in bed, it was like the Fourth of July every time. Yet, afterward, it always descended into a heated argument, hurtful words flying between them like bullets being fired from an M-4 rifle.
His breath jammed in his throat as he saw her lift her head, her green-eyed gaze meeting his. For a moment, Jake felt like a proverbial deer paralyzed in a set of car headlights. Her eyes narrowed. Of course, she recognized him. Her oval face with high cheekbones and a sprinkle of pale freckles tightened. Her mouth…oh, God, her mouth…Jake remembered hotly covering those full lips, feeling her hungry response, her sleek, athletic body pressed demandingly against his, wanting him as much as he wanted her. Now, that soft, full mouth thinned with displeasure. He forced himself to hold her gaze. Even from this distance, he could see the spark of surprise and then anger flare in her green eyes.
What the hell were the chances of meeting Morgan two years later, here in a damned Pentagon parking lot? Jake decided he had to be a gentleman and walk over and say hello. He shut the door on his Jeep, locked it and shoved the key into a pocket of his tan Navy summer trousers. Pulling the garrison cap from beneath his left arm, he settled it on his head.
Jake felt as if he was going downrange into a direct action combat mission. Born of a Navy SEAL, he walked with an easy, natural confidence toward the only other woman in his life who had held his heart—and he’d screwed it up both times. Now, as he closed the distance between them, tension was evident in her, but she was a warrior like him. Jake tried to prepare himself. Morgan was definitely not happy to see him. And he knew why.
On Wings of Passion Page 16
