Triple Threat

Epilogue

Chapter One

“Where are you headed?” Captain Eli Murdoch asked, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder as he and another soldier crossed the parking lot at Fort Benning, Georgia, home of the U.S. Army’s paratrooper jump school.

“Anywhere but this hellhole,” Lieutenant Colonel Mitch Dugan said with a grin.

Mitch was full of shit. Eli and Mitch had met five years ago in basic training, fresh out of college, both ROTC guys, and struck up a friendship. After spending the last five years at different bases, they’d both made the decision to move into Special Forces and wound up at the same three-week jump school rotation.

Eli had embraced every minute of the challenge that was paratrooper training. Mitch hadn’t been one to shy away from the challenges either.

“So, your folks already headed down to Florida?” Mitch said.

“Yeah, they drove down from Tennessee a couple of days ago so they could be here this morning, but they’re back on the road now. They’ll spend a week with my sister and her triplets. Better them than me. Teresa’s kids are cute but they’re wild. Seriously, man, they could bring those hellions in for Special Ops training and they’d probably kick our asses.”

This morning, after three weeks of intense training, Eli and Mitch had earned their wings and become part of an elite fraternity, the Airborne. Eli’s folks had shown up at 0900 at the south end of Eubank Field on Airborne Walk to observe the final jumps, the graduation ceremony and the awarding of the coveted paratrooper wings. And then they’d promptly continued south.

His mother’s eyes had sparkled with unshed tears and a quiet pride when she’d hugged him. “Grandpa would be so proud of you. In fact, I think he’s watching and he’s proud right now,” she’d whispered.

Funny, but Eli had felt the same way—that the grandfather who’d regaled him with tales of serving on the European front in World War II and later in Korea and Vietnam was aware that today his grandson had taken one step closer to being a more effective soldier. A paratrooper. From the time he was a kid, Eli had known he was meant to serve and defend his country.

Not surprisingly, no one had shown up on Mitch’s behalf. From what Eli had seen over the years they’d been Regular Army together, Mitch’s family was a bunch of losers. Eli knew he was blessed with a close-knit, albeit small, family. No matter how far across the globe he was stationed, he always knew his folks and his buddies who’d stayed in Jackson Flats, Tennessee, had his back. He’d always had a home base. Mitch, on the other hand, never elected to visit family on leave. Not once, ever. The guy was straight discipline, hardcore army all the way. Eli had invited Mitch to come home with him a couple of times for the holidays, but it soon became apparent that even though they were friends, Mitch wasn’t going to take him up on his offer.

Mitch laughed now at Eli’s assessment of his three nephews. “Mini-terrorists, eh?”

“You don’t even want to know,” Eli said. Hellion was a good term for them. His mother said they reminded her of him at that age. He grinned. “Are you taking leave?”

“Nope. I’m heading up to Bragg.” That didn’t surprise Eli, either. Special Forces training would continue at Fort Bragg, home of the 82

Airborne and Special Operations Forces in North Carolina. There they’d become the crème de la crème—some of the most valuable soldiers in the military, Special Forces officers, experts in unilateral direct action operations and unconventional warfare. Eli had an affinity for languages. The weeks prior to jump school he’d completed an intense course in Farsi.

“Where are you heading?” Mitch asked.

“Back home for the weekend. Another one of my buddies is getting married. Poor bastard. I’ll stay at my folks’ place, even though they’re away right now.” His friends were dropping like flies now. This was number four. And Eli had agreed to be a groomsman when said bastard, Greg Waddell, married Lisa Mosley. He and Greg had had a reputation in town for pulling some harmless but dumb-ass pranks when they were younger, like spray painting the town water tower one night. Eli had the leave time coming and it’d be cool to reconnect with some of the people from his severely misspent youth. It was kind of strange that while he’d spent the last several years traveling the globe, so many of the people he’d grown up with had stayed in Jackson Flats.

And she would be there. His gut clenched at the thought of Tara Swenson…her mouth, her hands, her soft, soft skin, her legs wrapped around his waist, her writhing beneath him, on top of him…This time he was definitely staying away. Twice had been two times too many. No more close encounters of the hot kind with her.

“You need a psych eval, man, if you’re spending your leave at some wedding.”

Eli shrugged, stopping at his pride and joy, his 2008 Shelby Mustang GT500KR, black with silver stripes and packing 500 horses in the engine. He popped the trunk. “They’re not bad and the parties afterward are usually kick-ass.” That was an understatement.

His first buddy had succumbed to matrimony five years ago. Eli had been fresh out of college and had just been handed down his commission. Yeah, he’d thought he was the man. The champagne had been endless and the night had been hot. And what had started out as a casual romp had turned into something way, way more…so not what he wanted, needed or was looking for. He’d woken up the next morning, looked into Tara’s sea-green eyes and felt something inside him turn upside down.

And in keeping with his military strategic training, he’d taken the only viable course of action. Far better that a soldier retreat than surrender. So, he’d run like hell in the other direction.

And then, there was Christy and Matt’s wedding two years earlier. Hell, they’d divorced before the ink was dry on the license. But Tara had been there. Neither one of them had planned to hook up, but dammit to hell he couldn’t keep his hands off her. Before the night was over, they were wearing out the sheets in a hotel thirty miles away.

His entire body tightened, quickened when he remembered the hottest sex he’d ever had. He’d almost called her after that night. Hell, he’d even put together an e-mail once and then deleted it. He was heading overseas and that didn’t make him much of a candidate for a relationship. It wasn’t fair to her. And besides, his career plans didn’t include any emotional commitments. He suspected Tara was the one woman who could derail those plans. So, they’d scorched the bed…and the carpet…and the shower…And, once again, he’d walked away.

Thinking about that was a bad-ass idea. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the memories. Then he put his duffel bag in the trunk and slammed it closed.

Mitch frowned. “I tell you what. I’ll stick with the bar scene and leave the wedding deals to you.”

“How ‘bout you recon the bars up at Bragg before I get there?”

Mitch strode over to his restored-to-mint-condition ’69 Ford Bronco. “Deal. Enjoy your wedding.”

“Will do.” He planned to have a helluva good time. And he was due a little R&R after busting his balls for his wings the last three weeks. After all, there were lots of fish in the sea. And this time, he’d make it a point to fish far, far away from where he might catch Tara.

Because come hell or high water, he was not sleeping with Tara Swenson again.

Chapter Two

“Eli’s flying in this afternoon. Greg’s picking him up at the airport and they’re heading straight to the rehearsal,” Lisa Mosley said as she strolled into Tara’s now-empty classroom after a cursory knock.

Tara knew he was coming, that he was one of the groomsmen, but hearing Lisa say it, sent her stomach somersaulting. Tara was a bridesmaid. She’d be at the rehearsal. He’d be at the rehearsal. The situation had disaster written all over it. But then, she’d known Eli had disaster written all over him from the first minute she’d seen him in high school and felt her heart drop into her stomach…and he hadn’t seen her at all.

She glanced up from the pile of essays her eighth graders had turned in last period. Despite the upheaval inside her, she strove for calm nonchalance. “And I care why?”

Lisa settled on the edge of Tara’s desk. “Hel-lo. I distinctly remember what happened two years ago when Christy and Matt got married.”

Good Lord, Lisa would be insufferable if she only knew that it had been the second time Tara had slept with Eli. In a moment of weakness, she’d confessed that second indiscretion to Lisa, but thank God, had the good sense to not tell her it was bedroom romp numero deux. “Everyone’s allowed one mistake—” or two “—in a lifetime.”

Lisa stared her down, continuing her interrogation Spanish Inquisition-style. “Are you bringing a date to the wedding?”

Tara abandoned the essays. Grading them wasn’t going to happen today. She leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms and returned Lisa’s stare. “I don’t need to bring a date to the wedding. I’m an independent woman who doesn’t have to have a man attached to her side to prove anything, thank you.”

“Anthony was busy?”

Smirking really wasn’t attractive on Lisa, but Tara held her tongue.

“Well, yeah.” Okay, so Tara had known a moment of last-minute panic. True enough, she didn’t need a man, but having a human shield between her and Captain Hard Body had suddenly struck her as a prudent move.

Eli Murdoch was her Achilles’ heel. Her weak spot. If she could keep him at arm’s length then he couldn’t get close enough to get around her. She just didn’t think she could put herself through another great-sex-and-then-he-never-calls episode again.

Hence, she’d made an emergency plea to Anthony Caldwell, who was nothing more than a friend and totally, blindly in love with Trish McGee, who’d stupidly moved in with the good-for-nothing Mac Taylor—the intricacies of small-town relationships could be mind-boggling. But Anthony was out of town on business.

Which meant that Tara had to face Eli Murdoch on her own.

“Eli’s going to be your escort.” Lisa shot her an arch look.

“I wish you hadn’t…”

“Where there are sparks, there’s fire. Look at me and Greg. We’re the last two people you’d expect to get married.”

Wasn’t that the truth? Lisa was the smart chick with the smart mouth and Greg was your typical Tennessee good ol’ boy—but what they had worked. Still, Lisa, who always thought she knew best, was wasting her time having Eli escort Tara. Whatever.

“I think I can handle hooking my arm through his without throwing him to the church floor and having my wicked way with him.”