Title: Secret Maneuvers
Series: Ex Ops – Book #1
Author: Jessie Lane
Format: eBook
Expected Publication Date: June 15th 2013
Genre: Adult Contemporary Romance
Buy Links: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / All Romance Ebooks / Smashwords
Some mistakes from the past haunt us forever… unless fate steps in with a second chance.
One ‘dear John’ letter haunts Bobby Baker’s every living moment. It’s the letter he stupidly wrote to his high school sweetheart, Belle, right after he left to join the Army. The letter that he told her that he wasn’t so sure if they were ready for forever yet. But before he can let her know that the letter, and his second thoughts, are nothing but a mistake, she up and disappears from the small Georgia town they were both raised in.
Fifteen years later, Belle unknowingly walks back into Bobby’s life when her job as an ATF Agent forces her to work with a group of men secretly headed by the CIA to help her track down whoever is involved in funneling black market weapons to a drug cartel in Mexico.
Bobby will use this mission to try and soothe Belle’s hurt feelings while proving to her that their love is still meant for forever. He’ll use every dirty trick he’s learned since he joined the Army to maneuver her back into his life for the long haul. But Belle’s not making it easy as she keeps him at arm’s length in the hopes that mistakes of her own never come to light.
Excerpt:
Men don’t wax
poetic on how they feel about other men. It was in the unwritten man rules
somewhere that we were allowed to burp, fart and scratch our balls around each
other, but there would be no wordy displays of affection. Anyone who violated
that rule would have to turn our man card in. Even if the other guy was my best
friend and had covered my ass on more missions than I could count. At this
moment in time, though, I was willing to make a serious exception to the man
rules since Declan had talked Belle into staying for a game of poker and beer.
Now I was on
the verge of telling Riley that Belle and I would name our first child after
him because he was loading her up with booze. It was a low-down dirty play, but
she wasn’t giving me another in. If I could get her drunk, then get her
talking, it could be the breakthrough I’d been looking for. In essence,
maneuvering her into a drunken corner in order to keep her in one spot long
enough for me to talk to her because, God knew, that woman wouldn’t give me the
time of day otherwise.
The game continued, and it was easy to see that Belle was quickly slipping into a drunken stupor since she’d been squinting at her cards for the last four hands, trying to figure out in her head what she was holding. As if that wasn’t cute enough, now she had the tip of her tongue peeking out of the side of her mouth like the crap hand of cards she was holding was a three thousand year old treasure map, and she was trying to figure it out to get the treasure. When I looked over to see the amused grins on Declan and Riley’s faces aimed at Belle because she was once again holding up the game, it caused me to shake my head in feigned disgust. It was easy to see that, after all these years, my girl still had no idea that she was a natural at being cute.
Looking back to
her, I muttered, “Baby, you going to play that hand or keep staring at it?”
Her head flew
up and, for a moment, I braced myself for what was probably going to be a
seriously pissed off woman’s rant about how I had no right to call her baby
anymore. Instead, she threw her hands up in the air in disgust, and then
plopped them down on the table with not a care in the world that she was
flashing her cards to everyone. Huffing in annoyance, she exclaimed, “Gimme a
second here, Ace! I’m tryin’ to concentrate on what I’m doin’!”
My breath
caught in my chest. You could never pay me enough to admit this aloud, hell,
I’d never let anyone torture this fact out of me, but hearing her say the name
‘Ace’ for the first time in fifteen years was the most beautiful thing I’d ever
heard. Hearing that one, little name again made my chest constrict painfully
for a few seconds before slowly turning everything inside me into something
warm and good. It was the closest thing I’d felt to being whole in a long damn
time.
Not that Belle gave me any time to enjoy that nice
warm feeling. Upon realization of what she’d said, all the color drained out of
her face, and she was halfway out of the Sullivan’s room before I could blink.
Not that I was letting her get away from me this time. Throwing my cards on the
table, I hauled ass after her, leaving the smirking Sullivan brothers in my
dust. Luckily, the alcohol had slowed her down, so she hadn’t made it very far
down the breezeway when I caught sight of her again. By the time I was in arm’s
reach of her, she was unknowingly just four steps short of my hotel room’s
door. Opportunity wasn’t knocking, he was telling me to haul my girl, kicking
and screaming, into my room and kick the damn door down to get there, if I had
to.
Author
Bio:
Jessie Lane is the writing team of Crystal Leo and Melissa Pahl. The two sisters-in-law share a passionate love of naughty romance, cliff hanging suspense, and out-of-this-world characters that demand your attention, or threaten to slap you around until you do pay attention to them. Because really, it is ALL about the characters. (They’re kind of megalomaniacs – but don’t tell them that we said that.)
Crystal lives in Kentucky with her husband, little 7 and 9 year old Rock Chicks in the making, and her Dad who likes to play the air guitar while listening to George Thorogood’s Bad To The Bone. Melissa just moved to Minnesota with her husband and giant furry Rottweiler baby named Yuffi. Crystal is now trying to talk Melissa into “polar bear” swimming in Lake Superior, but so far Melissa is adamantly telling her no.
Their first YA novel, The Burning Star, was released in May 2012. Big Bad Bite was their second novel, but their first adult paranormal romance, and released in January 2013. Their third book, Secret Maneuvers, just releaseed this past June, and will be the start of a new adult contemporary romance series (Ex Ops Series). They are now working on their next three novels, Walk On The Striped Side (Big Bad Bite Series #2), Stripping Her Defenses (Ex Ops Series #2) and The Frozen Star (YA Star Series #2).With these projects underway, they are looking forward to showing the rest of the world their crazy stories, heroes and heroines that often plague their minds until written, and hope you will join them on their journey!
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