With: Nicole Helm
Giveaway Alert!
Injured in the line of duty
Desperate for a new beginning…
Searching for a place to call their own.
Jack Armstrong’s been slowly piecing his life back together after a career-ending injury bounced him from the SEALs. The only trouble is, his family’s on their way to his new haven in Montana...and Jack refuses to let them know he’s still hurting. Desperate, he makes a deal with local bad girl Rose Rogers: in exchange for some extra security, she’ll play the perfect loving girlfriend.
Rose doesn’t trust any man, much less some tough-as-nails former SEAL. But the more they settle into their ruse, the more things start to feel real, and the more Rose’s true fear surfaces—that she’ll never be good enough for love. But Jack isn’t about to lose Rose. He’s done running when things get tough, and he’s determined to prove—once and for all—that even the most troubled hearts can find their way to redemption.
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2ko0XTy
iBooks: https://apple.co/2J45Lv1
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
No
man had ever held her close like this. Like you just held a person because you woke up together.
And okay, maybe she’d never really spent the night with a guy. The few times
she’d allowed herself to be charmed into sex, she’d always vamoosed either once
the act was done or once the guy dozed off.
She
didn’t stay. She didn’t do it again. And she did not, God forbid,
cuddle. Someone holding her was supposed to be stifling. It was supposed
to feel awkward. She was supposed to want to make fun of an act as soft and
pointless as this.
Mostly
she wanted to cry again and stay here forever. What was this man doing to her?
And why him? Was it the scars—internal and external? The sob story? Or just
those eyes?
She
shifted in his arms. “Why would I have nightmares?”
He
kissed her bare shoulder. “PTSD.”
“Hate
to break it to you, sailor, but I never went to war.”
“You
survived your own hell,” he said so matter-of-factly, she couldn’t even think
up a response. “War isn’t the only thing that stamps itself on you, and death
isn’t either. You know, when I was in the rehabilitation center, someone told
me foster kids suffer from PTSD at a higher rate than military veterans.”
“What
asshole said that to you while you were in a rehabilitation center?”
He
shrugged. “Mike.”
“I’d
like to wring that little fucker’s neck.”
Jack’s
mouth curved into a smile. “I’d rather you didn’t. My mother likes you, but she
wouldn’t approve of that.”
“Your
sister likes me too.” Which she shouldn’t have said or even thought. What did
it matter what his family thought? It was a fake like, for a fake her…but she
liked them in return.
Except
Dick Bag Mike.
“My
sister worships you and might not care if you wring Mike’s neck.”
She
laughed. Oh, damn him for having half a charming family. Vivian was adorable,
and his parents were…
Well,
she didn’t want to think about how lovely they were.
“You
had your own trauma, Rose. I just wondered if it still bothered you.
Nightmares. Panic attacks. I’ve done it all, so…”
Trauma.
As though she were a victim. She had been, in a sense, but not like her
sisters. They’d all looked after each other. They had put each other
first at great risk to themselves. Only Rose had ever taken their father’s
teachings to heart.
Always
look out for number one.
“Just
tell me the truth,” he said, and it was all gentle and impossible to fight him
off.
The
truth. She didn’t want to acknowledge the truth, but lying to Jack seemed so
impossible. “S-sometimes. I’ve had nightmares. Rarely, but sometimes.”
“Mine
have gotten fewer ever since I started talking. I told my sister I loved her
last night.” He paused, rubbing his lightly stubbled chin against her temple. “I
don’t think I’ve ever done that. And it was something. Telling Madison how much
she hurt me changed something. I’ve still got scars, Geiger is still dead,
Madison is still married to my brother, but…”
“But
what?”
“See,
that’s the thing. There didn’t used to be a but. It was a list of
horrible, dark things, and it ended there. Everything was awful. Now? I still
feel beat down by those things, by those hurts and scars, but…there’s a but.
There’s more.”
She
wanted to cry. For him. Because of him. She knew what it was like to have a but.
Her sisters had always been that. It was so strange to realize that, over the
past year as her sisters had been building their lives, she’d lost that but for
herself.
She
had her bar, her power, and her freedom. It should have been enough, but the
list of bleak was holding her down, and she didn’t know how to be as brave as
Jack and believe in a but.
“I’m
not your happy ending, Jack,” she rasped.
“I
don’t believe in happy endings anymore, Rose. Maybe I never did. I do know we
don’t get what we deserve, and hard work doesn’t always pay off. That doesn’t
change the beauty and hope of having a but.” He smiled then, so open and
perfect and beautiful. “I care about you, Rose.” A gesture she didn’t
deserve.
“I
wish you wouldn’t,” she whispered.
“I
know.” He sighed and brushed his lips across hers, light and quick. “I have to
go do my chores before the family wakes up. Why don’t you come with me?”
“Come
with?”
“Yeah,
you can watch me do manly chores, we can eat breakfast with my family, and then
you can head home and get some rest before you have to open the bar.”
She
should refuse, stop diving deeper into this thing that was going to end so very
badly if she let him get more attached.
If
you let yourself get more attached.
“Say
yes,” he murmured against her neck, nuzzling there.
The link for adding Cowboy SEAL Redemption to your Goodreads shelf brings up I am Justice by Diana Munoz Stewart. I tried typing in Cowboy SEAL Redemption on Goodreads and it shows a picture of your book, but when I click on it, it still takes me to I am Justice.
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