Marine for Hire by Tawna Fenske Read Free Book Online Page A

pulled low, hiding his face. Something long and solid poked through the duffel.
    Sam froze, every muscle in his body tense. Behind him, Sheri fussed with the twins, kneeling in the sand to offer juice cups and kisses. He reached instinctively for the pistol strapped to his shoulder holster.
    Shit.
    He’d locked his gun in a desk drawer back at the house, knowing a holster might raise questions on a beach outing with two infants and a woman who had no idea he was anything other than the football-playing manny he claimed to be. He studied the man walking toward them and memorized his gait, the suspicious duffel, the averted gaze. Sam stared, unblinking.
    The guy was getting closer, and Sam moved into position, putting his body between the man and Sheri. A glint of metal flashed at the edge of the duffel, and he watched the guy’s hand drop as he reached for it.
    Slowly, the man brought his hand up. Sam’s heart leaped to his throat as he recognized the cold steel, the familiar shape of the rifle, the sudden burst of adrenaline in his own veins.
    “No!” Sam yelled, and dove for Sheri.

Chapter Five
    The feel of Sam’s massive, muscled frame pressing her into the sand was so foreign, so unexpected, so deliciously welcome, that it took Sheri a few beats to ask the obvious question.
    “Um, Sam?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Is there a reason you just tackled me?”
    He sat up and straightened his dark sunglasses, pausing to brush sand off her arm as he scowled down the beach at an old man sweeping a metal detector along the edge of the water. She watched him stare at the guy for a few beats before he turned back to her.
    “Sorry about that,” he said, brushing more sand off her shoulder. “I thought you were headed for the water, and I had to stop you. It hasn’t been very long since you ate breakfast, and I don’t want you to get leg cramps and drown.”
    She struggled to sit up, feeling oddly disappointed not to have his body pressed against hers anymore. Was she out of her mind? Was he?
    “You’re nuts,” she said at last. “But thank you. I guess. You know that’s an old wives’ tale, right?”
    “What’s that?” he asked, still watching the guy with the metal detector.
    “That thing they used to tell kids about how they shouldn’t go in the water after eating or they’ll get cramps and drown. I looked it up on Snopes.com once when I was researching all these things I needed to prepare for in raising two boys so close to the beach, and I learned that’s not true. Doctors say that doesn’t really happen.”
    “Huh,” he said. “Sorry. Here, let me help you up.”
    He jumped to his feet, surprisingly graceful for such a big guy. He reached down and hoisted her to her feet, dusting more sand off her elbow, her stomach, her hip, the back pocket of her shorts. As his hand made contact with her backside through the thin fabric of her shorts, she gasped and pressed against him ever so slightly, craving more.
    “Sorry about that,” he said, dropping his hands to his sides and looking a bit like a naughty schoolboy. “Just being thorough.”
    “I appreciate it,” she said, wishing she’d managed to cover her whole body in sand like a cinnamon-sugar doughnut so he could spend the whole day dusting her off. “So you must’ve been a defensive lineman?”
    “What?”
    “When you played football with Mac. That was quite a tackle you just pulled.” She smiled to show she was teasing, but he looked mildly horrified.
    “Right,” he said. “Turn around.” He maneuvered her the other way and dusted some more sand off her right thigh. She shivered and glanced back at the little canopy where Jeffrey and Jackson slept like the dead.
    “Wow, the boys conked out fast,” she said. “I expected them to be amped up about the water and sand and birds. Maybe they’re still too young for this.”
    A normal mother would have known that. Would have instinctively realized the appropriate age to bring small children to the