âWeâll find them and straighten out this whole mess.â
âWe will,â Kristine agreed with obvious determination.
He couldnât help it. He bent down and kissed her gently on the mouth.
Within the space of a moment, they stood still on a secluded path and he kissed her once more.
Hell, Quinn didnât just want to share kisses with her. He wanted to touch her everywhere.
That wasnât going to happen now. Probably wouldnât happen ever. It shouldnât happen.
Reluctantly, he pulled back. âGuess that was for luck,â he said, making a joke of it.
âYours or mine?â
âBoth.â
Dear Reader,
Even honeymooning members of Alpha Force can get into trouble, and it takes both family and friendsâshapeshifters or notâto help them out.
In Undercover Wolf, the protagonists of the preceding Alpha Force story, Lt. Grace Andreas Parran and her new husband, Lt. Simon Parran, have gone missing on their honeymoon. Simonâs brother, Lt. Quinn Parran, and Staff Sergeant Kristine Norwood, Graceâs Alpha Force aide and good friend, go undercover, unofficially and against orders, to find them. Itâs hard enough ignoring their own growing attraction but their undercover identities require that they pretend to be honeymooners! Kristine must also act as Quinnâs aide for shifting into wolf form, which means she keeps seeing him naked!
I had great fun writing Undercover Wolf, the fourth novel about Alpha Forceâa highly covert military unit partly comprised of shapeshifters. I hope you enjoy the story.
Please come visit me at my website, www.LindaOJohnston.com, and at my blog: http://KillerHobbies.blogspot.com. And, yes, Iâm on Facebook, too.
Linda O. Johnston
LINDA O. JOHNSTON loves to write. More than one genre at a time? Thatâs part of the fun. While honing her writing skills, she started working in advertising and public relations, then became a lawyer ⦠and still enjoys writing contracts. Lindaâs first published fiction novel appeared in Ellery Queenâs Mystery Magazine and won a Robert L. Fish Memorial Award for Best First Mystery Short Story of the Year. It was the beginning of her versatile fiction-writing career. Linda now spends most of her time creating memorable tales of paranormal romance and mystery.
Linda lives in the Hollywood Hills with her husband and two Cavalier King Charles spaniels. Visit her at her website, www.LindaOJohnston.com.
Iâve been visiting a number of national parks lately and enjoying them immensely. Acadia National Park, near Bar Harbor, Maine, has been one of my favorites, so I had to set a story there. But as always, I have invoked poetic licenseâthis time to make sure those who investigate the fictional crime that happens there handle it the way I want them to, not necessarily as real law enforcement folks might operate. But real law enforcement folks might find problems with having Alpha Force members shapeshift in their jurisdiction!
Those who read my books will expect that this one, too, is dedicated to my husband, Fred, who enjoys travel even more than I do and has fun visiting national parks.
Why do I feel so unnerved?
It wasnât as if Staff Sgt. Kristine Norwood hadnât seen a lot of naked male bodies during her years as a nurse, before sheâd become a member of the covert military unit Alpha Force.
Maybe it was because she had foolishly allowed herself to notice exactly how good-looking and sexy her new but temporary superior officer, Lt. Quinn Parran, was when theyâd first been introduced a few days ago.
They had just reached the test missionâs planned locationâa woodsy area at the far end of Ft. Lukman, on Marylandâs Eastern Shore. Clad in her usual camo uniform and boots, Kristine had hurried in this direction with her heavy backpack over her shoulders. She stopped now and could sense the presence of the man who had kept up with her along the path through the most remote area of the military base where Alpha Force was headquartered.
She ignored that niggling uneasiness, embarrassmentâand something she didnât even want to think about, lustâas she turned toward him.
âThis the place?â He glanced around at the pin oak trees looming around them.
âYes, sir.â
She caught the sardonic raise of his dark brows over his golden-brown eyes.
âStop calling me âsir,ââ he said. âYou called me Quinn when we were introduced at Simonâs wedding.â
âYes, sir, but we werenât on an official exercise then.â And she hadnât felt so uneasy at the wedding of her regular superior officer, Lt. Grace Andreas, to Quinnâs brother Lt. Simon Parran, who had also just recently joined Alpha Force. Kristine had been maid of honor and Quinn was best man.
He had undoubtedly been the best-looking man there.
Grace and Simon were on their honeymoon now, which was why Kristine and Quinn were temporarily assigned to work together.
He was right, though. She usually called other Alpha Force members by their first names from the time she met them, no matter what their rank. She was friendly enough with Grace and others to joke around with them. But this was different. Way different.