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Resurrection River
Men of Mercy #2
Lindsay Cross
Releasing Oct 21st, 2015
Cypress Bend Publishing
Ranger James accepted his best
friend’s death like a good soldier. With guilt. Regret. Vengeance. But a
forbidden desire keeps pulling him from his mission…
Desire for his best friend’s widow.
Killed in Action. That’s why Rachel
Carter’s husband wasn’t coming home.
A war widow, alone and broke, Rachel
struggles to revive her family’s crop dusting service to survive. Now she takes
to the skies to find escape. Escape from the pain. From the guilt. From the
earth-shattering desire for her husband’s best friend.
Rachel and Ranger can’t fight the
attraction between them any longer. But one fateful night cleaves their new
found love in two...
Can they find the will to fight for
true love? Or will an evil so shocking destroy their lives for good?
Rachel spun
around, the yellow airplane a perfect backdrop to her beautiful face. “What are
you doing here?”
Ranger
let his gaze travel from her scruffy boots, torn jeans and gloriously figure
hugging tank, to the top of her dark red head. Her pink cheeks flushed.
“Like
what you see?”
Ranger
approached, her green gaze turned wary. Good. She should be worried. She’d
doused him in chemicals. His skin still itched. He reached forward, plucked an
oil stick from her ponytail and sent her hair spilling to her shoulders. He
caught the brief scent of flowers and oil.
Rachel
grabbed her hair, lips parted. Angry. Stubborn. Sexy.
He held up the stick right in
front of her face. “Oil stick.”
Rachel snatched it from his
fingers and tossed it across the room. “I told you to stay away from me.”
Ranger
shrugged, his brain still caught on the image of her jean-clad ass hanging out
of that airplane. Forget Sports Illustrated. He had farm fucking fantastic right
here.
"Don't
you think dropping that all-natural excuse for chemicals on me is a bit
dramatic? If you want to get me naked all you had to do is ask." Ranger
gestured to himself, sweeping his hand from his head down to his torso,
Rachel's eyes followed.
That
definitely wasn't desperation or anger in her gaze.
The
desire he’d been trying to hold in check for months reared up inside him.
"You
think I want to see you naked?” Rachel snorted, lifted her chin. “Besides, I
figured anything would be an improvement to your normal smell.” So much for her
vulnerability.
The
wind picked up, blew into the hangar. Ranger shifted, praying the wind wouldn’t
open the fly on his boxers, and almost covered himself. Almost. Until he
remembered she was the reason for his stench. Instead, he stood tall. “You’ve
never had a problem with the way I smelled before.”
“My
manners were just too good to say anything.” She strode past him, punishing him
with the sexy sway of her hips.
Dammit,
he was so hard up for her, even her walk had his mind blanking. He stood there,
nearly naked, and drenched in herbicide, and she walked past him like a
stranger on a sidewalk.
Running from him. Again.
“Rachel
Ann.” He didn’t yell, but she stopped mid-stride. Turned. Lips parted.
“You did that on purpose,” Ranger said. She’d
been hard headed even in high-school, when he tried to break up with her,
explaining that he needed a little space to see if life in Mercy was what he
really wanted. Jumping on the marriage and kids bandwagon at eighteen years old
had scared the shit out of him. But he’d obliterated any chance for
reconnecting with Rachel when she’d seen him making out with Tonya at the
football game senior year.
He
hadn’t thought that leaving her to sow the wild oats of his youth would be a
self-fulfilling prophecy of regret. Or that his best friend would move in on
Rachel so fast and fill the void that Ranger had left in her heart.
“You
bet your ass I did.”
“What
the hell for?” He couldn’t get her smell, her taste, her touch out of his head.
But she’d dumped shit on him for the last time.
Her
eyes narrowed and her lips flattened. “I warned you.”
Yeah,
she’d warned him to stay away from her. He’d stayed with her for weeks, helping
her after the funeral. She’d healed physically, but remained an emotional tomb.
“I
promised Shane, if anything ever happened to him, I’d look out for you.” He
wanted to take her in his arms and kiss that angry expression right off her
face. He’d wanted her since high-school, but when she’d married Shane, he’d
vowed to put those feelings away. Forever. But the attraction hadn’t
disappeared. And he knew it never would. “I know the chemistry between us is
weird. Scary. But dammit it’s real and it’s here and now. You’re just flying
through the clouds because you don’t want to see what’s on the ground right in
front of you.”
If
he hadn’t been studying every minute expression on her face he would have
missed the brief flash of vulnerability in her gaze. Then her anger slid back
in place. “The only thing I feel is annoyance. Are you so desperate that you
have to chase after what you can’t have? You dumped me first, remember?”
Him?
Desperate? No. He’d never had a problem getting women. Until Rachel.
If
he hadn’t been so young and stupid he would have been the one she’d married.
Not Shane.
Now
all he could think, all he could see, was the small sprinkle of freckles across
her pert nose. He could be on a mission in a third world country or down the
road. It didn’t matter. She affected him.
He
had an all-consuming need for his best friend’s wife. He hadn’t counted on lust
eating him alive.
But
he had honor. He had loyalty. Ranger had vowed over Shane’s grave to take care
of Rachel.
Resurrection River, Book 2
There was a twist I was not expecting, and I am very rarely surprised! I loved Ranger and the way he did not give up on Rachel, even when it seemed that she wanted nothing to do with him. I tried to be understanding of Rachel's guilt, but it annoyed me at times the way she was afraid of what people would think. I was especially annoyed about the way she let her mother-in-law treat her. There was some pretty intense chemistry between Ranger and Rachel as well as deep emotions that led to tender moments between them. The mission the involving the missing weapons continues as Ranger and his team try to locate them while also trying to stop a local gang from getting their hands on them. Overall another action paced romantic suspense!
I received an ARC for the purpose of an honest review. I was not compensated for this review, all conclusions are my own.
Lindsay Cross is the award-winning author of the Men of Mercy series. She is the fun loving mom of two beautiful daughters and one precocious Great Dane. Lindsay is happily married to the man of her dreams – a soldier and veteran. During one of her husband’s deployments from home, writing became her escape and motivation.
An avid reader since childhood, reading and writing is in her blood. After years of reading, she discovered her true passion – writing. Her alpha military men are damaged, drop-dead gorgeous and determined to win the heart of the woman of their dreams.
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