A SEXY STRANGER Flirting with danger is reporter Grace Grainger's modus operandi. But she's learned the hard way not to grow attached to the soldiers she's embedded with in Afghanistan. To escape from her pain and loneliness, she fantasizes about the hot night she spent with a gorgeous stranger three years before in D.C. Grace never thought she'd see him again-let alone need him to rescue her . . . AN EXPLOSIVE NIGHT Air Force Master Sergeant Josh Travers knows journalists are nothing but trouble. So when he has to risk the lives of his team to save some reporter who's been separated from her patrol, he's not happy-until he recognizes her stunning eyes and delicious curves. Josh has never wanted a woman like he wants Grace. Even in an Afghan cave with a sandstorm and enemy troops closing in, he can't deny the desire. This might be the end for both of them-or one hell of a beginning. (30,000 words)
Release date:
August 5, 2014
Publisher:
Forever Yours
Print pages:
112
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Grace stared through the glass of swirling amber liquid in the quiet bar of the Four Seasons hotel. Maybe a few more of these and she could forget. Forget the last year, forget the war, forget… She swallowed hard.
Yeah, that was never going to happen.
This was why she always kept her distance from her subjects. This was why she never got involved with them. She had broken her code, and now her heart was in a million pieces.
Glue. She needed more whiskey to glue it back together.
She swigged from her glass, ignoring the fact that the very expensive brand was supposed to be savored. In happier times she would have been chatting with the bartender and swishing the fiery yet smooth liquid around her mouth, wondering if she should give in to the temptation to try a cigar—the only barrier she hadn’t yet broken in her quest to be “one of the boys” in the reporters’ club.
Grace poked her face with the tip of her finger. Good. It was getting numb, a sure sign that her plan was working. With the next drink would come the warm honey in her knees, which would mean she would have to be very careful going back to her room. She hadn’t survived a year in Afghanistan just to be felled by the slippery marble staircase of the Four Seasons.
As she held up a finger to the barkeep for one more, her eye was caught by a tall man who had walked into the plush bar. He had thick, sandy-blond hair, cut short but not too short. Wearing jeans and a barely-tucked-in button-down shirt, he exuded an air of confidence usually associated with a sharp designer suit. Especially in this hotel.
He sat three seats away from her at the bar. And by the way he launched himself so heavily onto the barstool, she guessed she wasn’t the only one not celebrating Christmas.
“I’ll have what she’s having,” he said to the barman.
Grace looked away and rolled her eyes. Really? All that promise and a crappy pickup line. Shame.
She poked a little more at her face and tried out the varying focus by closing one eye and then the other. She could definitely see better with just one eye. And then her brain started the slow turn of an engine trying to combust. Maybe he was looking for someone in the same way that she was looking for someone—or something—to take away all the crap in his head. Why not?
Her reporter instincts kicked in as she swiveled in her chair to take him in. She studied him, his wide shoulders, well-fitting black jeans, the way his hair lay against the back of his neck… and then she realized that he was also looking at her. In five seconds she had clocked the sad look behind his eyes, the restless tapping of his fingers on the metal bar, and had decided that he was in fact looking for escape, just like she was. Maybe he’d had a big argument with his family and had checked into the hotel for the night.
What he needed was Sally, the alter ego she used for those times she needed to remain anonymous, or for when she didn’t want to talk about her job. He needed Sally the cheerful flight attendant. She needed Sally the cheerful flight attendant.
“Hi there.” She held her hand out to shake his.
In a second he was on his feet and pulling out the seat next to her while taking her hand in his. Oh yes, he really did need Sally.
“I’m Josh.” He motioned for the guy to bring them two more drinks, even though they hadn’t finished the ones they had in front of them. “Rack ’em and stack ’em, right? It’s been that kind of day. You?”
“About the same. I’m Sally.” Grace tried to assume her perky Sally face. “Back-to-back flights and I’m off again tomorrow!” Somehow she knew that she wasn’t pulling off her usually flawless performance. Probably the numb face.
Josh spun back to the bar and flashed a sexy half smile at her. “Really? Back-to-back flights, huh?”
“Where are you going on Christmas Day?” Grace asked, interested in spite of herself.
He laughed. “Well, sweetheart, if you’re not going to tell me anything real about you, why should I tell you anything about me?”
Busted. But how?
“How do you know I’m not a well-traveled flight attendant?”
“No airline in the world puts its crew up in the Four Seasons.”
“What if I were treating myself?” she countered.
“You want to know what really gave you away?”
She nodded, and his expression grew intense. “There’s something in your eyes. You don’t have that beaten-down look of a flight attendant. But there’s a sadness there.”
Grace suddenly felt incredibly exposed. “Wow. How many flight attendants have you known?” she said, trying to lighten the mood.
He laughed. “Fair point. So why don’t you tell me what you’re trying to forget?” He leaned in and brushed a thumb across her cheekbone. “I mean, we’re alone, at night, in a hotel bar. Anonymous. Whatever you say will stay with me.”
His voice was practically hypnotic. “My friend died last month,” she blurted. Just saying the words brought prickles of tears to her eyes. Dammit.
“I’m sorry. That must have been hard. What happened?”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to think about it. I want to forget it. But I don’t want to forget her.”
Josh got the bartender’s attention and asked for paper and a pen as she ducked her head to try to wipe her eyes without making a big deal about it.
Josh placed a sheet from an order pad and a pen in front of her. “Here. Write down everything you can remember about her. Everything. Every joke, every secret, every meal you shared. An essay… bullet points, it doesn’t matter. Write a list of things that remind you of her. I’m going to sit here and drink until you’re done.” He turned away from her and asked for a couple more drinks.
She wrote. She wrote until she had the whole sheet covered front and back with miniscule writing. Josh said nothing the whole time, just putting glasses of whiskey and ice water in front of her. Then she slammed the pen down and said, “I’m done. If you burn this fucker, or do something lame like that, I’m going to break your arm.” She may have slurred a little.
He laughed. “No. Now you put it in an envelope, seal it, and put it away. And forget everything. You will always be able to read this letter to yourself, so you can forget it all in here”—he tapped her forehead—“knowing it’s always in here.” He tapped the paper.
She breathed heavily. She was a writer and she never even considered the catharsis of writing about her friend. “Thank you…”
He interrupted as if he were trying to defuse an emotional moment. “Don’t thank me. I charge two hundred dollars an hour. Well, fifty minutes really. The other ten, I call my friends and laugh at your problems.”
“That’s what I thought they did. God, I hate shrinks,” Grace said, knowing full well that he was no psychiatrist. “I absolutely make it a point never to have any emotional problems for that very reason.”
“Good policy. Me too.” He clinked his glass to hers and said, “Death to shrinks.”
Grace snorted a small laugh into her glass as she downed the last of her drink. “So when are you leaving?”
“I have to be at Baltimore Airport at nine in the morning.”
“That’s…” She peered at her watch. “You’ll have to leave here in a few hours. Not much sleep for you, then?”
He spun in his chair and leaned in toward her, resting his arms on his thighs. “Do you want to sleep at all tonight?”
Grace held his stare, and a warmth seeped through her. What? Would she? Why not? “If we don’t sleep, Santa might not come,” she whispered.
* * *
He really shouldn’t do this. This kind of pickup only fed the monster of his no relationships credo. But she was crazy gorgeous. Her almost-black hair was cut against the side of her face like a straight razor. She looked like she’d stepped out of a 1920s movie, but with jeans and a leather jacket. He shouldn’t, but hell, did he want to.
Behave, Josh.
Besides which, she clearly wasn’t ready to go back to his room with him. That was fine. He really had all the time in the world. Well, the few hours until his flight left.
When he had come down for a quick drink before he turned in, the last thing in the world he’d expected to see was a beautiful woman nursing a straight-up whiskey. She pretty much had him right there. A straight-up whiskey meant a no-nonsense, low-maintenance woman. The more ice, garnishes, or umbrellas a drink had, the crazier the chick. At least in his experience. When she stared at him, he recognized the look in her eyes. It was the same sadness deep inside that he sometimes saw in the mirror. She was suffering over something, and he thought it the honorable thing to try to take her mind off whatever it was. A duty, even. And God knew, he was a man of duty.
He’d arrived looking for a nightcap, something to help him sleep. The last night stateside was always difficult. Sleep never seemed to come; he was too worried about missing his flight and letting the guys down. Afghanistan again. His sixth tour in four years. He didn’t mind the high-turnover rotation. It allowed the guys with families to take an extended break between deployments, and really, with no wife, kids, or even a dog, what else would he do?
He could seduce her with tales of unarmed. . .
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