#FictionFriday -- a Teaser Tuesday
/I LOVE TEASERS! I can't help it. I love the visuals with the words. They compel me to buy books. Seriously.
Today is Fiction Friday on the blog, and I thought I'd share a teaser as well as an excerpt...
Excerpt: From For Love or Duty available at AMAZON!
Chapter Ten
Sweat dripped from Kevin’s head onto the map-covered table. They’d made about fifty runs to the drop-off and pick-up zone in the last two weeks. His men were tired but going strong.
“Captain, the last of the Seals have flown out with Otto and Tyler.”
With a nod, Kevin folded the map in front of him. “Good. Let’s start breaking down camp. Five hours, and we’re going home.”
“Hoo-ah,” Specialist Quinn sang out with a grin. “We are finally out of this fucking sandbox. You know, it’s spring back home. The tulips are coming up and the trees are filling out. Damn, I know we haven’t been gone that long, but it’s always nice to go back.”
Kevin thought the same thing. And as the afternoon progressed, he began planning how he could put together the best salmon and shrimp ceviche Valerie had ever experienced. He wanted it to be perfect—a perfect meal, perfect mood, perfect company. Grand scheme to get a ring on her finger or not, he wanted to be with her.
With a self-conscious look around, he brought himself back to the task at hand. As the last tent was taken down, Kevin nodded at Quinn to radio the chopper.
At the sound of a car coming down the road through the scraggly brush, he turned to see and whistled, signaling for everyone to be on alert.
The driver smiled. Kevin recognized the face of one of the local merchants.
“ETA twelve minutes,” Quinn reported of the helicopter.
The car continued past their location, the driver giving him a slight nod of acknowledgment and a wave.
The rotors of the chopper drummed in the distance.
He smiled when a vision of Valerie came to him, the easy way she laughed, her cynical edge, ready to question any unspoken promises. She was a pistol, his Valerie, and she was never out of his mind for long these days.
One question remained. Could he charm her back into the military life?
“Yo, Capt’n. Look.”
He turned. The small foreign car sat ten yards down the road. The driver was on a cell phone and waving his arms emphatically. He had a flat tire.
Kevin couldn’t help it. He groaned inwardly and, at the same time, waved his men back. The helicopter was in sight. If he hurried, he could assist the stranded motorist without delaying their departure while everyone else loaded for take-off.
He jogged a few yards then slowed.
The man gave Kevin a deliberate look. His smile came up on one side, tilting his mustache. A glint—there was no other way to describe it—appeared in his eye.
The man spoke one word into his phone.
Kevin took a step back, instinct and survival racing through his veins.
The unexpectedly snazzy phone slid shut.
Kevin ran toward the helicopter, yelling, “Back! Get down! Down, down, down!”
An explosion lifted him from the ground. Glass flew past him, striking him like needles—his neck, through his fatigues to his arms and back. Jesus, not good. The ground came at him like a Mack truck, and he slammed into it.
For a brief moment, the world tilted around him, forcing him to close his eyes. When he shook it off and opened his eyes again, Tyler and Quinn were running to him.
Kevin dragged himself to his knees and stumbled to his feet.
Strong arms hoisted his body and dragged him toward the chopper.
His vision hazed at the edges, and he wondered if a storm was brewing. No. The sun shone too brightly, hurting his head with every step.
At the helicopter, he lifted his leg but fumbled the movement. Tyler jumped up and grabbed him under the arms.
Pain mauled his shoulder and he moaned as consciousness slipped.
“There’s lots of bleeding,” his medic, Jeremiah, spoke over the sound of the rotors. Jer stuck him. An IV. “The shoulder’s dislocated.”
“He hit the ground like a ragdoll.”
Tyler?
The sounds around him began to fade.
“…fucking glass everywhere, must have been a trunk full…”
“Gently…”
“Radio ahead, Quinn. Find out…”
Then, sweet oblivion as the thwap of the helicopter finally faded.