The Heart's Command

by Rachel Lee; Merline Lovelace; Lindsay Mckenna

• ISBN13: 9780373484669
• ISBN10: 0373484666
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-10-01
• Publisher: Silhouette

Summary

This anthology of three brand-new stories features three incredibly sexy heroes in uniform. Stories include Lee's "The Dream Marine, " Lovelace's "Undercover Operations, " and McKenna's "To Love and Protect."

Excerpts

Joe Yates came home to Conard County, Wyoming, a changed man. Sitting in Mahoney's Bar with his green marine tunic and the top buttons of his shirt undone, and his tie hanging loose, he sipped a whiskey and told himself he wasn't going to do anything as clichéd as turn into a drunk over this.

But he still felt a huge hole at the very center of himself, and he couldn't figure out how to fill it. Or if he even wanted to. At the moment he didn't even want to go out to the ranch and see his sister and her family. He didn't want to see anyone who might touch that gaping hole and make it hurt.

He sipped more whiskey, and told himself not to be an ass. The words didn't help. Kara was gone and it was all his fault, and to hell with the USMC anyway.

Joe was a young man, only in his middle twenties, but he looked a lot older. Wind and weather had aged him, but so had events of the last months, especially the last week. The lines were cut deeply in his lean face now, a face that was ever so slightly exotic, hinting of his Shoshone ancestry.

After a troubled youth, he'd left Conard County nine years ago, an eighteen-year-old boy proud that he'd been accepted by the Marine Corps, and looking forward to a life of adventure. He'd come home now sickened by it all.

Any innocence he had once possessed was gone, left in the dusty, rugged mountains north of a country he wasn't allowed to name. Home didn't even feel familiar anymore. It felt as if he'd stepped out of reality into the pages of a fantasy. Nothing real could be as peaceful as Mahoney's Bar on a Wednesday night.

It offended him. But Kara's death had been the last straw. Especially since she was there only by accident. She was a United Nations health worker from Amsterdam who'd been sentenced to die by the repressive regime for the crime of wearing a cross around her neck. She'd escaped and had been taken in by insurgents.

Joe and his unit had found her hiding in a cave with some friendlies. They'd planned to take her out after they finished their operation, but instead they had carried out her body. And Joe, recuperating from a wound of his own, had accompanied her remains home to Amsterdam.

It was enough. It was more than enough. He was done, finished, fed up, worn-out, and dead inside. It was one thing when he and his buddies risked their necks; hell, they'd volunteered for the job. It was another when innocent civilians died. He'd seen too much of that, and Kara, lovely sweet Kara who had glowed with life even in a cave where she had almost nothing to eat, was the final straw.

He looked down at the whiskey glass between his hands and almost sneered. It was a picture out of a bad movie, he thought: marine in rumpled uniform drowning his sorrows in a dark bar. The amber liquid at the bottom of the glass didn't hold any answers, and as an anesthetic it didn't come close to silencing the empty gnawing inside him. All it did was sting on the way down and remind him that he was still alive.

He didn't think he wanted to be dead. He just didn't know how to get through this. How to handle this. That was something they hadn't covered in training. Paris Island didn't prepare anybody for this.

He looked at his hands, splaying his fingers, wondering why they looked like ordinary human hands. These were killer's hands. They looked strange, though, because for the first time in months they were free of grime. He wished the memory of that place would wash away as easily.

He wished he didn't have to go back. "You're out of uniform, Marine."

The female voice was smoky, something out of a man's most wistful dreams. It didn't seem to go with the words it spoke, though. Unfortunately, Joe wasn't drunk enough to ignore them. A spike of anger jabbed him. "Get lost."

"Look at me, Marine." So he looked. It was probably a measure of the amount of alcohol he'd consumed that he noticed first that she was beautiful. Beautiful in a quiet way, with short dark hair, a neat figure and the tiniest waist. Legs ... He wished he could see them better.

But then he registered her uniform and her rank. And the name on the badge over her breast. Gunnery Sergeant Mathison. Well, hell, wasn't it just his luck to run into another marine a thousand miles from the nearest water? And a nipped-and-tucked one, too. She couldn't have been any neater if she'd stepped off a recruiting poster.

"Go away," he said, even though she outranked him. Hell, she wasn't in his chain of command, anyway.

"No. I won't have you embarrassing the Corps in public like this."

He pushed back his stool and stood, facing off with her. "You wanna fight, Gunny? 'Cause I'm a damn good fighter. Had plenty of practice the last few months."

Her eyes narrowed, and he found himself wishing, oddly enough, that he could tell what color they were.

But the bar was too dimly lit. At least they weren't blue like Kara's.

"Hey," said Mahoney, coming up behind him. "Joey, cool it. I don't want a couple of jarheads tearing up my place. Take it outside if you wanna fight."

The gunny spoke. "I don't fight with drunks, Mr. Mahoney. It's too easy."

Oh, a spitfire. Joe had no doubt he could show her a thing or two. Or three, but he wasn't going to do it here. And come to think of it, he wasn't going to fight, either. Certainly not with a woman. Anyway, he was sick of fighting. Turning, he tossed some bills on the bar to cover his tab. "I'm outta here."

He should have guessed she would follow him. He should have known she wasn't going to have the sense to let it lie. Hell, no, she was a marine, and a marine never backed down. Except that he had, in a way, so why the hell didn't she get the message?

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Heart's Command by Rachel Lee Merline Lovelace Lindsay McKenna Copyright © 2002 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.