Tawny Weber - Call To Engage

The Poseidon team are hard-bodied, fiercely competitive Navy SEALs. But when a sensitive mission goes disastrously wrong, three of the team’s finest will have to trust their hearts and instincts to uncover the truth...

Lieutenant Elijah Prescott should be spending his precious leave somewhere with sun, surf and scantily clad women. Instead, he’s heading home with two goals in mind. Figure out exactly how his last assignment went to hell and almost killed him—and reconnect with the woman who might offer salvation.

Ava Monroe has streamlined her life, eliminating every source of pain—including a marriage touched by tragedy. One glimpse of her ex and those good intentions turn to bad-girl desires. Her strategy: get over Elijah by getting under him again, sating herself until she can finally let go. But as betrayal within the rank of the SEALs turns deadly, there’s no denying that her heart and her life are on the line. Elijah is the only man who can protect both...

Praise for New York Times bestselling author Tawny Weber

“A sexy, hot SEAL undercover in more ways than one...Tawny Weber nails this steamy suspense.”

—New York Times bestselling author Cristin Harber

“Tawny Weber...has created the perfect hero for our time and a sizzling page-turner! What an awesome start to her Team Poseidon series.”

—New York Times bestselling author Vicki Lewis Thompson

“I love a good SEAL romance and Tawny Weber knocked this one out of the park. Don’t miss it!”

—USA TODAY bestselling author Karen Fenech

“This hot and sexy adventure takes readers on a thrilling ride of romance, secrets and SEALs.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Reminiscent of Suzanne Brockmann’s Troubleshooters series, Weber’s latest will appeal to her fans as well as other military-romance readers. Diego personifies the honor and strength of a SEAL warrior in a good read with an engaging heroine and child.”

—Booklist

“Call to Honor is a tightly plotted story with a few startling turns of events, the characters are all credible and...the pace never falters.”

—Fresh Fiction

Call to Engage

Tawny Weber

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To my daughters, with love and thanks.

You changed my life.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

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

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

THE SHADOWS WERE closing in. Dark and silent, they smothered the light. Sucked up every ounce of air, ripping it from the very atoms of his body.

Then there was the pain.

Vicious. Cutting. Fire deep in the bones, exploding outward. Tearing inward. Flesh shredding as flames engulfed his body.

Cries of terror rang out, circling his head. He tried to move, tried to force himself to ignore the agony. He had to rescue the caller. Had to. The screams continued. Sharp at first, calling for help. Then weaker. Then nothing. Just the crackling roar of fire, the hideous thunder of a heart struggling to keep its beat.

Just as the struggle became too much, a hand reached into the fire. Cool, liberating, extricating him from hell. Long, slender fingers soothed the misery, eased the terror.

Even as he grasped salvation, desperate for respite, a part of him—a remote particle of his brain—recognized the hand. He knew the scar that bisected the index finger had come from a broken bottle. The ring, a twist of gold and silver with tiny copper beads, had been bought at a county fair.

For a heartbeat he was free of the pain. But even as he escaped the fire, the hand disappeared. Leaving him in the aftermath.

The pain.

Soul-ripping pain.

The bitter taste of failure.

Trapped in the heavy silence, the reminder circled, spiraling tighter. Closing in.

The pained cries from his teammate. His brother. His friend.

Everything went black. Soulless and empty as reality clenched around him in a tight fist, forcing him to face the inescapable. That instead of rescuing his teammate, instead of doing the job he’d been trained to do, he’d let the man die in a miserable inferno.

He would pay for that forever.

If only here in the silence.

“Yo, Rembrandt.”

Lieutenant Elijah Prescott woke drenched in sweat that felt like ice on his skin, his mind—his heart—still gripped by the sharp teeth of the dream. His breath came in guttural pants. His body flashed hot, then cold, then hot again as his pulse whipped furiously through his battered system.

Still spiraling through a hideous slide show of mental images, he pried his eyelids open and hoped like hell it really had been just a dream. No. Memories, he realized as he blinked in the dim light.

Half dreams, half memories. It didn’t matter.

He pushed himself upright, rubbing both hands over his face to scrub away the sticky layer of dried sweat.

“Rembrandt?”

“Yeah?” Face still buried in his hands, Elijah turned his head toward the voice in the shadowy dark of his doorway.

“Supposed to report for duty in less than an hour,” Lansky said, the shrug clear in his tone. “Figured you might not have heard your alarm.”

Was that the shrieking siren that had been blaring through his dream? His alarm clock? He glanced at the numbers glowing red and noted that it was already 5:08 a.m.

“Thanks, ” he said. For the wake-up, and for letting it go at that.

Waiting until Lansky melted back into the darkness, Elijah dropped his face back into his hands and breathed, shaking off the nasty dregs of the nightmare.

They had fifty-two minutes until they reported for duty. There’d been a time that he could go from waking to duty in ten. Three if he was stationed in a hot zone.

That was then.

Now?

Now he was rolling out of bed feeling like a goddamn eighty-year-old arthritic on a wet, cold night.

Or, worse, an invalid.

Elijah gave his face one last scrub before shoving to his feet. Ignoring the pain ripping down his side, tearing into his thigh, he stretched.

Katas, chaturangas.

His body was a machine.

He dropped to the floor for his customary one hundred push-ups.

His body was well honed and built for power.

By the time he’d finished his morning trifecta with sit-ups and pull-ups, he was ready to admit that his well-honed, powerful body hurt like hell.

Bare skin covered in a layer of sweat and boxers, he ignored the trembling muscles and moved back to his bed. A part of him wanted to drop down, face-first, into the pillow, wanted to burrow under the covers and find the sweet oblivion of dreamless sleep.

Instead, with the military precision honed by a dozen years served in the Navy, he tucked and stretched the bedding into place with a couple of practiced moves. He didn’t have to think about what to wear, just grabbed the neatly pressed digies—blue camo multipocketed pants and tee—on their mutual hanger, snapped up boxers and socks and headed for the shower. He didn’t bother with the lights. He had vision like a cat, and the dark was easier on the burning behind his eyes.