Marry Me, Major Read online

  An officer and a groom

  But for how long?

  Alexis Smith is single, and desperate to keep custody of her late sister’s sweet stepdaughter. But for this, she needs a husband. She thinks US Air Force Major Ben Kincaid is perfect for the job. The Special Ops pilot is a world-class stud who loves a challenge—and is always out of town. A brief marriage of convenience suits them both...until Ben moves in. Suddenly, playing house seems a little too real...

  “I know we agreed that sex wouldn’t be part of the deal,” he murmured, holding her eyes with his, “but I’m willing to renegotiate the terms of our agreement if you are.”

  Alex caught her breath. Just moments ago she’d decided to offer him a choice to opt out of their marriage or dive all the way in. He’d just opened the door for her.

  “You sure you want to complicate things between us even more than they already are?” she asked.

  “Why not?”

  His knuckle made another pass. Slowly. Deliberately. Then his hand slid to her nape. The palm was rough against her skin, the eyes holding hers deep blue and steady.

  “The way I see it, we’ve already jumped aboard a moving train. Might as well see where it takes us.”

  “It could take us on a rocky ride.”

  “It could.”

  “Just to be clear, I’m talking long-term here, Cowboy. You. Me. Maria.”

  That gave him pause. Hesitation flickered across his face. “I don’t know how good I’ll be at long-term. Haven’t had any practice at it.”

  “I’m willing to take my chances, if you are.”

  AMERICAN HEROES: They’re coming home—and finding love!

  Dear Reader,

  Writing this book zinged me right back to my own years in uniform. First, because it’s set at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, where I was stationed for three busy, exciting years. And second, because those years afforded me the privilege of being part of the Special Ops community. I learned so much during that assignment, and to this day have only the greatest respect for the superbly skilled and ferociously dedicated men and women who form the tip of our war-fighting spear.

  I also enjoyed tangling my poor heroine deeper and deeper in a web of her own making—and loved how she continually surprised me by coming up with solutions to seemingly impossible situations. Hope you enjoy it, too!

  All my best,

  Merline Lovelace

  Marry Me, Major

  Merline Lovelace

  A career Air Force officer, Merline Lovelace served at bases all over the world. When she hung up her uniform for the last time, she decided to try her hand at storytelling. Since then, more than twelve million copies of her books have been published in over thirty countries. Check her website at merlinelovelace.com or friend Merline on Facebook for news and information about her latest releases.

  Books by Merline Lovelace

  Harlequin Special Edition

  Three Coins in the Fountain

  “I Do”...Take Two!

  Third Time’s the Bride

  Callie’s Christmas Wish

  Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  Course of Action (with Lindsay McKenna)

  Course of Action

  Crossfire

  The Rescue

  Harlequin Desire

  The Paternity Proposition

  The Paternity Promise

  Duchess Diaries

  Her Unforgettable Royal Lover

  The Texan’s Royal M.D.

  The Diplomat’s Pregnant Bride

  A Business Engagement

  Visit the Author Profile page at www.Harlequin.com for more titles.

  To the men and women I worked with at the 58th Special Operations Wing, formerly the 1550th Aircrew Training and Test Wing. So proud to have been part of such a dedicated band of warriors!

  With special thanks to my pals Joann Henderson and author Krysta Scott, both of whom served as watchdogs for the protection of children.

  Thanks sooo much for the excellent advice on child advocacy and adoption procedures.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Excerpt from Herons Landing by JoAnn Ross

  Excerpt from The Ballerina’s Secret by Teri Wilson

  Chapter One

  The reek of stale peanut shells, spilled beer and cigarette smoke smacked Alexis in the face the moment she stepped inside the Cactus Café. Her nose wrinkled as she surveyed the patrons of the run-down bar on a corner of Albuquerque’s Central Avenue. She should’ve guessed the tough, combat-seasoned men and women who’d worked for the legendary Colonel Mike Dolan, call sign Badger, would pick a dive like this for their annual drunk.

  Except they didn’t conduct a Badger Bash every year. Only when three or more of them happened to be on the same continent at the same time. And they didn’t get drunk, she’d discovered the first and only other time she’d attended a Badger Bash. She’d been a guest then, along with a few other wives, boyfriends and significant others. The chance-met date of one of the participants, invited on the spur of the moment. That moment that now looked to make a serious change in the direction of her life.

  They’d gotten just a little loose at that Bash. Laughing and snorting in their beer as they took turns adding to the absurdly ridiculous tales of Colonel Dolan, hard-ass squadron commander and the world’s studliest Special Ops pilot.

  Alexis had left that Bash convinced Dolan’s subordinates had fabricated his whole larger-than-life persona. The colonel’s adventures were too fantastic, his kill ratio too unbelievable, his success with the female half of the population way too improbable.

  Then again, she’d left the gathering in the company of one of the Badger’s protégées. Major Ben Kincaid. Also a Special Ops pilot. And a world-class stud. One long weekend with the major had pretty much made a believer out of Alex.

  Now Kincaid was here. In Albuquerque. Just seeing him again after all this time knocked the breath back down Alex’s throat. He was leaning against the bar, one boot hooked on the rail, his jeans and black knit polo shirt hugging his long, lean frame and a grin tipping a corner of his mouth. Ruthlessly, she banished the memory of that mouth moving over her. Moving over every part of her.

  This was business.

  A very desperate business.

  Dragging in a determined breath, she stepped out of the shadows of the bar’s entrance and let the door whoosh out the hot New Mexico night. As she wove her way through the Cactus Café’s beer-stained tables, smoky haze bit into her lungs and the country-pop crossover nasal whine blasting through the speakers assaulted her eardrums.

  She didn’t recognize the man talking to Kincaid. Another military type she guessed from the buzz-cut hair and easy slouch that somehow still managed to convey a careless self-confidence. She did recognize the woman with the two men, though. The blonde was another of Badger’s protégées that Alex had met at the previous Bash. Susan Something. Alex couldn’t recall her last name but she did remember that the woman owed her call sign Swish to the ponytail that teased her shoulder blades seductively. That was the version put out for public consumption, anyway. A grinning Kincaid had indicated there was another version, known only
to the chosen few.

  Swish caught sight of Alex first. A frown creased her forehead as she tried to fit the face to a name or place. She made the connection while Alex was still a few yards away. Arching a delicately penciled brow, she nudged Kincaid with an elbow. Either he was too involved in the other man’s story or he mistook the poke for something more intimate. Smiling, he curled an arm around her shoulders and rubbed his palm up and down her arm.

  The absentminded caress stopped Alex in her tracks. Damn! Had Love-’Em-and-Leave-’Em Kincaid changed his modus operandi? Her carefully constructed plan would disintegrate if the easy camaraderie Alex had observed between him and Swishy Susan two years ago had developed into something deeper. Something more permanent.

  Then the blonde dug her elbow into Kincaid’s ribs again. Hard enough to get his attention this time. His beer sloshing, he winced and sent her a pained look.

  “Hey!”

  “We’ve got company,” the blonde said. “Someone from your checkered past, if memory serves.”

  Swish tipped her chin. Kincaid followed her lead. Under other circumstances the blank look when he spotted Alex might have bruised her ego. Instead, it confirmed that the major was still the right man for her job.

  Cutting past the last few tables, she joined the three of them at the bar. “Long time no see, Cowboy.”

  That was his call sign. Cowboy. Reportedly gained when he’d swooped low over some grazing longhorns and stampeded the whole herd across thirty miles of Texas panhandle. Much to the displeasure of several local ranchers, he’d confided to Alex.

  “Long time,” he agreed.

  There was just enough of a question buried in his reply to confirm that he didn’t have a clue who she was. Alex wasn’t surprised. She’d changed considerably since Vegas. Her hair, her style of dressing, her life.

  Still, they had spent two days and three extremely erotic nights together. She couldn’t help feeling a little piqued. With a cynical smile, she held out her hand.

  “Alexis Scott. Las Vegas. Two years ago.”

  She could see him make the connection. Those electric-blue eyes widened, made a quick trip south, zipped back up to her face.

  “Alex! Damn. You’re looking good.”

  She should be. She’d donned her best armor in preparation for this meeting. The subtly dramatic makeup. The snug short-sleeved black tank sparkling with turquoise and silver crystals along its low-cut scoop neckline. The slim black jeans with matching crystal trim on the pockets. The black boots with ice pick heels. She’d even coaxed some curl into her shoulder-length auburn hair.

  “You’re looking good, too” she had to admit as she mirrored his quick inventory. His dark hair was a little shorter than she remembered from Vegas. The white squint lines at the corners of his eyes were pretty much the same, though. So were the square chin, the strong neck and the muscled shoulders under his faded denim shirt.

  “What are you doing in New Mexico?” he asked, jerking her back to the here and now.

  “I moved here last year.”

  “With...” He cocked his head. “What was his name? The real estate tycoon?”

  “Bryan, and no.”

  She’d started dating Bryan a month or so after her wild weekend with the hotshot special operations pilot. She and Bryan had progressed to the exclusive stage when Kincaid called her some four months later. He’d been in Iraq, he’d explained. Then she’d explained her situation at the time, at which point he’d cheerfully wished her and Bryan the best and disappeared from her life again.

  Not that Alex had ever expected her weekend with the major to result in any kind of long-term relationship. Kincaid had been up-front with her about his single state. No ties, no obligations, not even a pet goldfish. Short-notice deployments flying heavily armed gunships into hot spots around the world didn’t make for either stability or durability in relationships. Alex suspected there was more to his deliberately casual philosophy of life and love, but they hadn’t spent enough time together for her to want to dig deeper.

  But now...with so much on the line... Kincaid’s here-today, gone-tomorrow philosophy formed an essential element of her desperate scheme. She itched to get him away from his friends and lay out her proposition but curbed her impatience while he introduced the other two.

  “This is Susan Hall. She served as a comm officer under the Badger.”

  “We met at the Vegas bash,” the blonde said with a friendly nod. “Good to see you again.” Her gaze lingered on the sparkling turquoise and silver decorating Alex’s top. “Love the bling.”

  “Thanks. This is one of my most popular designs.”

  “You designed that?”

  “It’s what I do for a living.”

  Swish looked as though she wanted to pursue that, but Kincaid hooked a thumb at the man beside him. “Blake Andrews. We call him Dingo for reasons that can’t be explained in polite company. Careful what you say around him, by the way. He’s a cop.”

  “Ex-cop,” Dingo corrected. “I hung up my shield with my air force uniform.”

  His palm was callused, his handshake firm without the iron crunch some men thought necessary to demonstrate their virility. The pleasantries observed, Kincaid asked Alex if she’d like a beer.

  “I would. Thanks. And could we talk? You and I? If your friends will excuse you for a few minutes.”

  “Sure. Why don’t you grab that table?” He gestured to one just being vacated. “I’ll bring your beer.”

  * * *

  Ben raised his bottle to signal the bartender, then watched as the unexpected visitor from his past headed for the corner table. Now that she’d stirred the memories, they played out inside his head in vivid detail. She was slimmer than he remembered. And her hair was different. Longer, he thought. Shot with streaks of red and deep, dark gold. Those chocolate-brown eyes were the same, though, and that full, sensual mouth. All in all, Ben decided with a kick to his gut, the overall package was pretty damned outstanding.

  Dingo shared his assessment. “You lucky bastard,” he muttered as he followed her progress across the room.

  Swish was more interested in the sparkles. “Find out where I can get one of those shirts.”

  Yeah, right, Ben thought wryly as the bartender handed him a dew-streaked Coors. Like he was going to talk T-shirts with a woman he could only hope wanted to take up where they’d left off in Vegas.

  Maybe this time it would work. It hadn’t last time. Truth was, he’d tried to reconnect with the auburn-haired hottie after their wild weekend. Just days after he’d returned from a four-month deployment to Iraq. Just his bad luck that she’d already hooked up with someone else. Some hotshot Realtor.

  Ben was surprised by the regret that news had spurred. He’d thoroughly enjoyed their weekend together. And not just in the opulent suite at The Venetian he’d taken her to after deserting his pals at the Bash. Alexis Scott had kept him grinning with her lively recap of the joys and challenges of designing what passed for costumes at Vegas’s risqué revues and surprised him with her savvy knowledge of video marketing techniques. He’d shaken off the regret soon enough, though. Another no-notice deployment, this one a humanitarian mission to earthquake-ravaged Haiti, had shoved that weekend out of his head.

  Maybe, just maybe, she was thinking to rekindle old fires. Hoping fervently that was the reason for her unexpected reappearance in his life, he took a seat and passed her the beer.

  “Thanks.” She raised her bottle in a toast. “Here’s to Vegas.”

  “To Vegas.”

  She tipped her head back and took a long swallow. Ben did the same, but the glitzy stuff on the low neck of her T-shirt did exactly what he figured it was supposed to. Damned if the sparkling crystals didn’t catch his gaze. And hold it!

  His, and every other male’s within a twenty-foot radius. He saw the stares, caught the elbow jabs
. No wonder Swish wanted to know where to buy one of these seemingly sedate but disturbingly provocative T-shirts. Just in time, Ben managed to drag his gaze from the seductive valley between her breasts.

  Her head tipped forward, her brown eyes met his. “I suppose you’re wondering why I tracked you down.”

  “I was kind of hoping it was my charm and suave good looks.”

  A quick smile flitted across her face. “That’s part of it.”

  “What’s the other part?”

  “Parts,” she corrected, her smile fading. “There are several.”

  She glanced down and picked at the label on her beer with a fingernail. When she looked up again, Ben had the impression she’d steeled herself for something that ranked up there on the fun meter right alongside a colonoscopy.

  “There’s a child. A little girl.”

  He didn’t move. Didn’t alter his politely curious expression. But his stomach contracted and his mind razored back to their nights together.

  He’d used protection. A whole damned box of protection, if he remembered right. Yet the possibility that one of those little suckers hadn’t worked had his knuckles going white on his beer bottle.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t want kids. He did. Someday. Maybe. Hell, he was only thirty-two. Plenty of time yet.

  Except now he had to face the possibility time might’ve run out. His spine going rigid, he waited for the hammer to fall.

  “Well,” she said, spearing through his whirling thoughts, “I guess she doesn’t really qualify as a little girl. Maria’s seven, and the sweetest, smartest, most loving...” She broke off, her brows snapping together. “Kincaid?”

  “Huh?”

  Her scowl deepened. “Am I boring you?”

  “What? No.”

  “You looked like you were a thousand miles away.”

  “I heard every word. Maria’s seven and sweet and smart and...” he couldn’t suppress a huff of laughter “...not mine.”

  “Yours?” She jerked back in her chair. “Why on earth would you...? Oh!”