Red, Hot, & Blue: JACK

The best way to heal a broken heart is to jump right back on the horse. So to speak…

After watching the girl he’s crushed on for years fall for his best friend, the last thing special operative Jack Gordon wants is a vacation. If cooling his heels doesn’t drive him crazy, doing it under his family’s scrutiny will.

But once he’s back home things get more than a little interesting. The new farm hand is cute, sexy—and his instincts tell him she’s got something to hide. Luckily, he’s got the skills and the backup to find out what.

Gordon Equine is the perfect place for Niccolina Campolini. The Gordons pay in room, board and cash. And they don’t ask questions. Perfect for a girl on the run…until Jack shows up. Sexy as hell and far too inquisitive, Jack strikes sparks and suspicions that put both her body and her heart in danger.

Jack knows better than to trust a woman with as many shadows as Nicki, but the heat waves of their attraction are messing with his focus. And when her secrets catch up with her, he’s not sure if he’s protecting her from something, or protecting his family from her…

This book has been previously published and has been revised from its original release.

Warning: This book contains extremely stupid gangsters bearing guns, a bored team of special operatives looking for some action, and one Southern gentleman guaranteed to charm your panties off.

 A review of

Jack

 Jack Gordon is home on a reluctant furlough from his Task Force Zeta, secret ops team.  Nursing a broken heart and checking on his injured brother Jimmy, he finds Nicki, the new ranch hand his brother has hired to work on the family horse farm.  Jack is immediately suspicious of Nicki and is determined to find out what she is hiding.

Nicki Camp has been on the run and just hired on at the Gordon horse farm and is finally beginning to feel safe there.  Nicki knows that she really should be on the move again, but wants to believe that the people she is hiding from will never find her at the farm.  What she isn’t expecting is Jack coming home and see right through her.

Jack quickly learns that he doesn’t need to save the family from Nicki, but rather protect Nicki from what she is running from.  Nicki isn’t sure what to think of Jack but know she should fight the attraction between them.  When Jack realizes the danger to Nicki is getting closer he calls in member of his team to help.  Once Nicki is safe Jack hopes he can convince to take a chance on him.


RATING: Four Chocolate-Dipped Strawberries

This book was given to us by the author. Many thanks.

An excerpt from

Jack 

Nicki leaned against the fence, watching the newborn in the corral with his mother. She sighed and tried to pinpoint what she was feeling. Contentment, she decided. She finally felt semi-safe for the first time in a month of being on the run. Although she feared she would never be truly safe again. Not as long as the man she was hiding from still lived and breathed. At least she could allow herself to relax just a little bit here at the farm.

She was about as far from New York as she could get. Who would think to look for her buried away here in the Deep South on a small horse-breeding farm? Certainly not the thick-necked imbecile she’d run from. As long as the Gordon family accepted her without question, and continued to pay her in cash and give her a place to live, she was set. She could drop off the radar indefinitely.

The colt walked slowly up to the fence and nuzzled her hand. She ran her hand over him. “You are such a sweetie.”


“Why thank you, darlin’.”

The deep voice caused Nicki to startle. She let out a squeak of fear, spooking the colt. He took off running for his mother.

She turned to look at the stranger, heart pounding until she saw his face. He was so much like the other two Gordon brothers, right down to the way he stood and talked, she knew who he was immediately. Relieved and feeling a little silly for thinking her enemies could find her all the way out here, she smiled in greeting. “You must be Jack.”

He raised a brow. “I must be. You know me, but who might you be, darlin’?”

Mmm, mmm. How she loved the way southern men sounded. So much nicer than the horrid accents she’d grown up around in New York. The accents from the five boroughs of New York City and Long Island made her cringe. But a southern man could practically make a girl’s panties fall right off just by talking to her.

She nearly shook herself to regain her senses. This was no time to be thinking about romance, or sex, or whatever this feeling was that Jack caused. She was in hiding. Besides that, this particular Gordon man was only here temporarily from what she’d heard. Good thing too. He was much too yummy and tempting to have around for very long. She sure did like the way he called her darlin’ though.

“I’m Nicki.” She offered him her hand.

His handshake was warm and slow. But then, everything in the south seemed warm and slow. She imagined what else might be warm and slow with him…

“Nicki…?” He apparently wanted her to elaborate.

“Camp. Nicki Camp.” The guilt of the lie hit her hard. Did it show as obviously on her face as it felt on her tongue? If it did sound like a lie to him, the expression on Jack’s face didn’t show it.

He was still holding her hand in his big, strong one when he crooned, “Nice to meet you, Nicki Camp.”

Slightly shaky, she pulled her hand back and then glanced up at his face again. His hair was a bit more golden brown than his brothers’, and his hazel eyes had flecks of green and gold in them. Stop it, Niccolina. She was in no position to be checking this guy out. No matter how cute and charming he was.

“So what brings you here to Pigeon Hollow, Miss Nicki Camp? You don’t sound like a local girl.”

Nicki considered her answer carefully. She didn’t think she had a New York accent. As a teenager, she’d worked damn hard to make sure of that. It had been important to her then because she’d wanted to sound more sophisticated. It was even more important now. It was a matter of life and death that no one knew where she was from. But Jack was right. She didn’t sound like a native southerner. She didn’t think she could pull that off no matter how many times she watched Gone with the Wind.


“Oh, you know. Just seeing the country.” Yeah, that didn’t sound too lame.

He took one step closer, and she resisted the urge to take a step back as he towered over her.

“Well, I sure am glad you decided to settle here for a bit.” He smiled as his eyes twinkled.

Another few minutes of this onslaught of charm and Nicki didn’t know what she’d do. Thank goodness, Jared chose that moment to interrupt them. Otherwise, she may have swooned like in all those old movies where southern men made the belle of the ball faint.

“Steer clear of my help before you scare her away.” Jared shot Jack a stern look, and then smiled and winked in her direction.

She decided to make a joke of her own and get the hell out of there before Jack wedged her any farther between him and the fence. “Not much scares me, except my boss finding me loafing around not doing my job. I better get back to it.”

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