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Today is release day for WYATT'S WAR, the first book in my military romance series HEARTS & HEROES. Hot military hero, romantic suspense, spitfire heroine in San Antonio,TX.
WYATT'S WAR
by Myla Jackson
by Myla Jackson
July 8, 2014 Release
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Hearts & Heroes, Book 1
After a particularly difficult operation in Somalia, Master Sergeant Wyatt Magnus is stuck with “light” duty providing anti-terrorist security for delegates at the International Trade Convention in San Antonio.
As he settles in for what he expects will be an easy assignment, he discovers he’s got a whole new kind of battle on his hands with the convention’s director, a tightly packaged, five-foot-nothing, sexy piece of work with an iron fist.
Under pressure to bring foreign dignitaries to the River Walk without a hitch, Fiona Allen doesn’t have time to babysit a Special Forces grunt with a superiority complex. Even if just looking at him makes her mouth water.
When a hotel snafu lands them in the same room, at first she’s steaming mad. Then burning up in smoking-hot desire. But even as she tells herself he’s a one-time ride, trouble is brewing behind the scenes. The kind of trouble with a vendetta—and a detonator.
Warning: Contains one hot hero with a gift for strategic placement of his hands, one fiery redhead who’d like to make a career out of exploring every rippling muscle, and one hotel room that’s about to see some serious action. Fire extinguisher recommended.
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Chapter One
Sergeant Major Wyatt Magnus pushed past the pain in his knee, forcing himself to finish a three-mile run in the sticky heat of south Texas. Thankfully his ribs had healed and his broken fingers had mended enough he could pull the trigger again. He didn’t anticipate needing to use the nine-millimeter Beretta tucked beneath his fluorescent vest. San Antonio wasn’t what he’d call a hot zone. Not like Somalia, his last real assignment.
It wouldn’t be long before his commander saw he was fit for combat duty, not playing the role of a babysitter for fat tourists, politicians and businessmen visiting the Alamo and stuffing themselves on Tex-Mex food while pretending to attend an International Trade Convention.
The scents of fajitas and salsa filled the air, accompanied by the happy cadence of a mariachi band. Twinkle lights lit the trees along the downtown River Walk as he completed his run around the San Antonio Convention Center and started back to his hotel. Neither the food, nor the music lightened his spirits.
Since being medevaced out of Somalia to San Antonio Medical Center, the combined armed forces’ medical facility, he’d been chomping at the bit to get back to where the action was. But for some damn reason, his commander and the psych evaluator thought he needed to cool his heels a little longer and get his head on straight before he went back into the more volatile situations.
So what? He’d been captured and tortured by Somali militants. If he hadn’t been so trusting of the men he’d been sent to train in combat techniques, he might have picked up on the signs. Staff Sergeant Dane might not be dead and Wyatt wouldn’t have spent three of the worst weeks of his life held captive. He’d been tortured: nine fingers, four ribs and one kneecap broken and had been beaten to within an inch of his life. All his training, his experience in the field, the culture briefings and in-country observations hadn’t prepared him for complete betrayal by the very people he had been sent there to help.
He understood why the Somali armed forces had turned him over to the residual al-Shabab militants that were attempting a comeback after being ousted from the capital, Mogadishu. He might have done the same if his family had been kidnapped and threatened with torture and beheading if he didn’t hand over the foreigners.
No, he’d have found a better way to deal with the terrorists. A way that involved very painful deaths. His breathing grew shallower and the beginning of a panic attack snuck up on him like a freight train.
Focus. The psych doc had given him methods to cope with the onset of anxiety that made him feel like he was having a heart attack. He had to focus to get his mind out of Somalia and torture and back to San Antonio and the River Walk.
Ahead he spied the pert twitch of a female butt encased in hot pink running shorts and a neon green tank top. Her ass was as far from the dry terrain of Somalia as a guy could get. Wyatt focused on her and her tight buttocks, picking up the pace to catch up. She was a pretty young woman with an MP3 device strapped to her arm with wires leading to the earbuds in her ears. Her dark red hair pulled back in a loose ponytail bounced with every step. Running in the zone, she seemed to ignore everything around but the path in front of her.
Once he caught up, Wyatt slowed to her pace, falling in behind. His heart rate slowed, returning to normal, his breathing regular and steady. Panic attack averted, he felt more normal, in control and aware of the time. As much as he liked following the pretty woman with the pink ass and the dark red, bobbing ponytail, he needed to get back and shower before he met the coordinator of the International Trade Convention.
Wyatt lengthened his stride and passed the woman, thankful that simply by jogging ahead of him, she’d brought him back to the present and out of a near clash with the crippling anxiety he refused to let get the better of him.
As he put distance between him and the woman in pink, he passed the shadow of a building. A movement out of the corner of his eye made him spin around. He jogged in a circle, his pulse ratcheting up, his body ready, instincts on high alert. The scuffle of feet made him circle again and stop. He crouched in a fighting stance and faced the threat, the memory of his abduction exploding in his mind, slamming him back to Somalia, back to the dry terrain of Africa and the twenty rebels who’d jumped him and Dane when they’d been leading a training exercise in the bush.
Instead of Somali militants garbed in camouflage and turbans, a small child darted out of his parents’ reach and ran past Wyatt, headed toward the edge of the river.
His mother screamed, “Johnnie, stop!”
By the time Wyatt grasped that the child wasn’t an al-Shabab fighter, the kid had nearly reached the edge.
