I hope you'll stop by Siren and pick up a copy. Did you know you can buy it on the Siren site and have it sent directly to your Kindle? No? Well, yep, you sure can.
Even better, Two Cowboys in Her Crosshairs is also on SALE! 15% off until April 4. Hurry and get a smokin' hot romance for not a lot of money.
Here's a small excerpt: (If you want the adult excerpt, follow the link above and scroll down. It's naughty!)
Jake slowly sank back into the leather chair. Hudson remained standing, and Jake leaned to the left to look around him. “I didn’t do anything to him, Livvie.”
Hudson started and whirled around. “Livvie? You call her Livvie?”
Jake scowled and waved him back to his own seat. “Later,” he muttered. He knew his friend was going to give him a large ration of shit for calling his horse by Olivia’s nickname. He just never figured anyone would have the opportunity to make the connection.
Hud wavered for a long, silent moment. “Damn skippy you’ll tell me later.”
“Tell you what?” Olivia asked.
“Not important. What else aren’t you saying?”
She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth—the same way she always did when her quick brain was madly thinking and sifting through information.
“No bullshit, Olivia. Shag was my friend. Where’s the connection that brought you here?”
“All right, Jake, I’m going to trust you.”
He flinched at the reluctance in her voice. Not that he blamed her. Trusting him had not only gotten her heart broken, but it cost her an eye. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he rasped in a weary attempt to joke.
Her responding smile was strained at best. She dug into her purse and pulled out a wrinkled envelope. The outside was black with what he assumed to be fingerprint powder. With a stretch, she tossed it to the table between them. “That’s part of what he sent.”
Jake quickly read through the short missive and immediately understood why she’d come to the ranch. Shag pretty much drew her a map to his ranch.
“What’s he talking about showing me?”
“It’s a statue. About this high.” Her elegant fingers showed a distance of about six inches. “It seems to be the figure of a standing woman. Unfortunately it’s been smashed into bits, and several pieces are obviously missing.”
Sweat broke out on the back of his neck. “Do you have it here?”
“In my SUV.”
“Want to get it?”
She hesitated, and again he saw the contemplation in her eyes. She still wasn’t totally sure of him. Jake was surprised by the amount of pain he felt knowing she didn’t trust him.
“Okay.”
She rose and strode from the room. The front door closed behind her seconds later.
“Livvie?” Hudson said immediately.
Jake waved a hand. “It’s nothing. Just a name.”
“Bullshit, Jake. You love that damn horse. Hell, when she caught West Nile and Dr. Marsalis suggested you put her down, you nearly had a conniption fit. I had to hide the guns for a week so you didn’t go after Doc.”
An embarrassed flush crawled over Jake’s cheeks, burning him from the inside out. “She’s a good horse. Why kill her when she’s fixable?”
Hudson’s eyes flickered to the front of the ranch house. “Is Olivia fixable? What’s the story with her?”
The embarrassment faded, and regret slipped in. “There’s no story. She was part of the Hellfire Battalion. She was with us the day of the ambush. Hell, if it hadn’t been for her, we probably all would have died.”
“What do you mean? And why the hell didn’t you tell me about her?” Hurt sounded in his old friend’s voice.
Jake rose and shoved his hands deep in the front pockets of his jeans. He stared down at the dusty and scuffed tips of his brown cowboy boots. They needed a polish. He should really take care of that. Letting equipment go to pot was not the way a marine did things.
It wasn’t the way Jake did things.
Hudson poked him in the back, and Jake spun, dropping into a crouch.
Hud’s palms immediately rose and flattened against the air. “Whoa, whoa. Damn, you haven’t done that in months. She’s got you riled up.”
“It’s not just her,” Jake admitted as he rose. He exhaled sharply and tried to quell the gallop in his chest. “I can’t believe Shag is dead.”
Sorrow shone in Hudson’s face, and he clapped Jake on the shoulder. “Me either. I’m sorry, man. He was a helluva guy.”
“Yeah, he was.” Jake frowned and looked toward the front of the house again. “What’s taking her so long?”
He started to head that way, but Hudson stilled him. “You didn’t tell me how she saved your ass.”
Jake heard the unspoken and in his voice. Hudson wanted to know why Jake never mentioned Olivia—Livvie—in all the times he talked about his tour and the events leading up to the ambush. Jake didn’t really have a good answer himself. He shrugged, and Hud’s hand fell away. “She’s a sniper.” He paused and grimaced. “Was a sniper. She held those insurgent bastards off long enough for us to get to safety.”
“Was?”
Another bout of tearing pain ripped through Jake. “Yeah,” he rasped. “She saved us but lost her left eye. Got hit by a shrapnel grenade.”
“Jesus,” Hudson whispered.
Jake nodded. “She was lying up on that ridge, totally unprotected and bleeding. I couldn’t leave her there, so I headed up to get her. I wasn’t in time. We got shelled by the grenades.” He wiped his forehead, surprised when his palm came away damp. “Boone or Tag took out whoever shot them off, but it was too late. She’d been hit in the face.”
“There’s where those scars came from.”
“Yeah.” He looked to the door then headed for it. Olivia had been gone too long. With the news of Shag’s death, nothing felt safe, not even his own ranch.
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Jennifer August
