MODEL SOLDIER (Red Hot & Blue)Â
“heart-pounding adventure on the edge of the war torn Middle East” Sizzling Hot Book Reviews
Staff Sergeant David “Hawk” Hawkins never refused an order, but he also never signed up for the duty for which he’s been enlisted–becoming the Army’s new recruitment poster boy and working side-by-side with a pretty little, big city marketing executive who has no business being in his war zone.
This is a rerelease. Model Soldier was previously published.
EXCERPT
The minute she walked into the bar she felt it, eyes on her. Lots of them, all male, and judging by the fact Hawk stood in the center of the group of males watching her, she guessed they were all soldiers from the neighboring garrison.
They weren’t in uniform, but they did all sport the signature military cropped hair. Two of them even walked in sync when they crossed the bar to the jukebox together.
Hawk smiled and crossed the room himself, but he wasn’t following the other two. He was heading right for her. Emily took a deep breath and prepared for another verbal battle.
“Good evening, Sergeant,” Jai greeted Hawk.
Hawk nodded a return greeting to Jai then he turned to her. “Hey, Goldilocks. Fancy seeing you here.”
Her brows shot up, but that was all the reaction she allowed him. “Sergeant Hawkins.”
Jae grinned, apparently amused at her new name. At least it was her name as far as Hawk was concerned. “Em. I’m going to get us two beers. Good with you?”
“Yeah, fine. Thanks.” She scowled at her supposed friend for enjoying Hawk’s teasing of her so much, but accepted his offer.
Glancing back at Hawk, she had a feeling a beer, or three, would be in order tonight.
As Jai left them alone, she raised her chin.
“Do you even know my name?” She confronted Hawk as he towered over her.
He grinned wider. “Yeah.”
“Okay. Then what is it?” Emily crossed her arms and challenged him over the noise of the many bar patrons.
Leaning down, Hawk came so close she could feel his breath brush her ear. “It’s Emily, Goldilocks.”
She shivered involuntarily at the feel of his warm breath against her skin and swallowed hard, unsure what to say.
It was a simple answer to her question, though delivered in a far more intimate manner than she’d expected. She certainly never expected it to affect her as it had.
Deciding the safest course of action would be to change the subject, she did just that. “So, I looked over the shots from today. They look really great. I could email you the proofs if you wanted to see them.”
Then she would have not only his email address, but also an excuse to be in contact with him after she left Germany tomorrow. Why did her heart race at that idea?
He was a jerk, most of the time anyway. Like now as he shrugged. “Whatever.”
“Don’t you care about the ads?”
“I have to tell you, doll. I won’t waste one moment thinking about this modeling thing once the bullets start flying and the baddies start to fall.”
“Fine, I won’t bother you with them then.”
Looking actually sincere, Hawk shook his head. “I didn’t say you’d be bothering me. What I meant was I’ll have a few things on my mind, like bringing the men depending on me home alive. Latest word from where we’ll be in the Afghan mountains is that a storm dumped a few feet of snow and more will be on its way. And that’s the good news, because at least with the snow mounds building up we actually have a perimeter defense.”
“Oh.” Emily didn’t know much about perimeter defense, but she did hate the snow and could empathize with him about that. “Hopefully they’ll get the snowplows to clean all that up before you guys get there.”
Hawk laughed—a deep, rich, genuine belly laugh she’d never assumed he was capable of.
Emily frowned. “What?”
Why was this guy always laughing at her expense?
Hawk could barely respond through his laughter. “Oh, Goldilocks. There aren’t going to be road crews cleaning up for us.”
“Isn’t where you’re going kind of like the set up here at Hohenfels?”
Hawk tilted his head to one side and grinned. “No, it’s not.”
“Oh. I figured all bases were probably the same.” Emily shrugged. What did she know? It was pretty rude of him to think she should.
“No, doll. They’re not, but I’m not going to a base anyway.” He smiled, shaking his head. “If I was going to be at Kandahar or Bagram, then yeah, maybe we’d have some services, but not where I’ll be. We literally have some dirt huts and a few rail boxes. Supplies will have to be choppered in and dropped to us. It’ll be like going caveman.”
Not appreciating his delight at her expense, Emily grumbled, “That should be easier for some of you than others, I suppose.”
He raised one dark brow with amusement. “You calling me a caveman, doll?”
“Maybe.” Emily smiled, enjoying her own cleverness.
It was the strangest thing, but bickering with Hawk kind of got her excited. Even his calling her doll was starting to sound sexy, and she hadn’t even drunk the beer that Jai was now carrying her way.
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