Subject: Marine Will MacIntyre
Current Status: Medical leave
One day a year Will MacIntyre lets himself remember the woman who left him after he enlisted. But seven years later, on the anniversary of that fateful day, Will is defusing a bomb in Afghanistan—and it explodes.
Dr. Oliva Eklund can barely find the boy she loved inside the hard, chiseled body of the man Will is now—a Marine who knows just how to tempt her, just how to seduce her. Olivia is well aware that Will plans to return to his unit after he recovers, but she can’t resist trying to heal him. Even if it means sending him back into a war zone. And breaking them apart forever.
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SEDUCING THE MARINE
by Kate Hoffmann
January 2015
A SEAL’S SECRET
by Tawny Weber
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As you’re opening this book, I suspect many of you are wondering where the Quinns are. Well, everyone, even romance writers, needs a vacation from family. And it seems like the Quinns have moved into my career and set up housekeeping.
With Seducing the Marine, I had a chance to write a different sort of story. My editor mentioned the Uniformly Hot! series and I jumped at the chance to write a book. Little did I know that the series followed only military heroes, and not policemen and firemen.
Of course, I needed a little help with my Marine hero, and I found an obliging colonel willing to answer all my questions. Thank you, Colonel Kurk. And thanks to all those in service to our country, for your sacrifice and dedication.
Happy reading!
Kate Hoffmann
Seducing the Marine
Kate Hoffmann
KATE HOFFMANN has written over ninety books for Mills & Boon, including stories for Mills & Boon Temptation and Mills & Boon Blaze, since she was first published in 1993. When she isn’t searching the world for Quinns to write about, she enjoys working with high school actors in local theater productions. She also enjoys cooking and baking, reading about cooking and baking, and watching cooking and baking shows on television. She does not enjoy doing dishes. She lives in southeastern Wisconsin with her cat, Chloe.
To Colonel Kurk A. (Marines, Retired) for all your help in bringing my hero to life.
And to his lovely wife, Paula A., for steering me in the right direction.
Contents
Dear Reader
Prologue
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THE HEAT SURROUNDED HIM, smothering him like an impenetrable blanket. Staff Sergeant Will MacIntyre focused his attention on the explosive device in front of him, ignoring the drop of perspiration that clung to the end of his nose. He carefully followed the trip wire, tugging it out of the sand until he reached the trigger. It didn’t appear to have an electronic switch that would allow remote detonation.
He could hear his heart beating inside the Kevlar bomb suit. Inside his helmet, the radio earpiece crackled and the voice of one of his team members split the silence. “What do you need, Mac? Talk to me.”
“A cold beer and a hot woman,” he murmured. “When did the cooling system go out on this suit?”
The voice of Staff Sergeant Josh Fletcher crackled over the radio. “Last time I wore it everything was working fine. Are you all right?”
“Just a little warm,” he replied.
Will thought about home, about the winters in upper Michigan, where the weather was so cold a person’s fingertips could freeze in a matter of seconds. It was late October now, long past the first snow. The days were getting shorter. The lakes would freeze in a few weeks and then the ice-fishing shacks would go up on Thayer Lake. The silence of a cold winter night would be broken only by the high whine of a snowmobile engine.
For Yoopers, as citizens of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan were affectionately known, winter was like a months-long battle—except it was nothing like a real war. They could retreat to their warm houses and their crackling fires. He was the one fighting the war. And with every day that passed, Will wondered when the odds would catch up with him.
“What’s going on, Mac?” Josh asked. “Maybe you’d better pull back. We can send in the robot.”
“No,” Will said. “This is a simple one.”
“There’s no such thing as a simple IED. Let me send in the robot.”
“I’m not going to frag another robot on something I can disarm myself.” He pulled off his glove and bent closer, carefully brushing the gravel away from the payload, an old mortar shell.
“Hernandez, check the perimeter,” he ordered, trusting the third member of their crew to rule out a remote detonator.
Though the bomb didn’t appear to be capable of remote detonation, Will knew not to put anything past the Taliban bomb makers. They seemed determined to blow up every last American left in Afghanistan. And when they couldn’t do that, they settled for members of the Afghan security forces.
Will drew a deep breath and waited for another droplet of