Jennifer Labrecque - Triple Threat

Twelve military heroes.

Twelve indomitable heroines.

One UNIFORMLY HOT! miniseries.

Don’t miss Harlequin Blaze’s first 12-book continuity series, featuring irresistible soldiers from all branches of the armed forces.

Watch for:

A FEW GOOD MEN by Tori Carrington

(Marines)

January 2009

ABLE-BODIED by Karen Foley

(Delta Force)

February 2009

ALWAYS READY by Joanne Rock

(Coast Guard)

March 2009

THE RIGHT STUFF by Lori Wilde

(Medical Corps)

April 2009

AFTERBURN by Kira Sinclair

(Air Force)

May 2009

LETTERS FROM HOME by Rhonda Nelson

(Army Rangers)

June 2009

Uniformly Hot!—

The Few. The Proud. The Sexy as Hell.

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Dear Reader,

I simply love writing about guys who are everyday guys, yet heroes at heart. Confident, big, bold, hot men unafraid to take on the world—men who can be knocked flat on their butts by just the right woman.

These are precisely the kind of guys you’ll find in Blaze’s Uniformly Hot! miniseries.

In TRIPLE THREAT, Eli Murdoch is an Army officer who’s just completed three grueling weeks of paratrooper training, and he’s off to join the biggest, baddest fighting machine in the U.S. Army—Special Forces. But he doesn’t stand a chance when he’s face to face, lips to lips, body to body with the one woman he has to resist—Tara Swenson.

In TRIPLE THREAT, you’ll meet Eli’s buddy and fellow paratrooper, Mitch Dugan. He’ll be getting his own Uniformly Hot! Story in October 2009. Don’t miss RIPPED!

And while we’re talking hot guys—you’ll want to watch out for Beau Stillwell, the hero in my May Blaze, HOT-WIRED. Beau’s a drag racer who likes his women as fast as his cars…until he meets Natalie Bridges and she show him how fast she can take him from 0-60.

I’d love to hear what you think of my first short e-book. Drop by my website, www.jenniferlabrecque.com and join me for my daily dose of blogging with Rhonda Nelson and Vicki Lewis Thompson at www.soapboxqueens.com.

Happy reading,

Jennifer LaBrecque

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

“Where are you headed?” Captain Eli Murdoch asked, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder as he and another soldier crossed the parking lot at Fort Benning, Georgia, home of the U.S. Army’s paratrooper jump school.

“Anywhere but this hellhole,” Lieutenant Colonel Mitch Dugan said with a grin.

Mitch was full of shit. Eli and Mitch had met five years ago in basic training, fresh out of college, both ROTC guys, and struck up a friendship. After spending the last five years at different bases, they’d both made the decision to move into Special Forces and wound up at the same three-week jump school rotation.

Eli had embraced every minute of the challenge that was paratrooper training. Mitch hadn’t been one to shy away from the challenges either.

“So, your folks already headed down to Florida?” Mitch said.

“Yeah, they drove down from Tennessee a couple of days ago so they could be here this morning, but they’re back on the road now. They’ll spend a week with my sister and her triplets. Better them than me. Teresa’s kids are cute but they’re wild. Seriously, man, they could bring those hellions in for Special Ops training and they’d probably kick our asses.”

This morning, after three weeks of intense training, Eli and Mitch had earned their wings and become part of an elite fraternity, the Airborne. Eli’s folks had shown up at 0900 at the south end of Eubank Field on Airborne Walk to observe the final jumps, the graduation ceremony and the awarding of the coveted paratrooper wings. And then they’d promptly continued south.

His mother’s eyes had sparkled with unshed tears and a quiet pride when she’d hugged him. “Grandpa would be so proud of you. In fact, I think he’s watching and he’s proud right now,” she’d whispered.

Funny, but Eli had felt the same way—that the grandfather who’d regaled him with tales of serving on the European front in World War II and later in Korea and Vietnam was aware that today his grandson had taken one step closer to being a more effective soldier. A paratrooper. From the time he was a kid, Eli had known he was meant to serve and defend his country.

Not surprisingly, no one had shown up on Mitch’s behalf. From what Eli had seen over the years they’d been Regular Army together, Mitch’s family was a bunch of losers. Eli knew he was blessed with a close-knit, albeit small, family. No matter how far across the globe he was stationed, he always knew his folks and his buddies who’d stayed in Jackson Flats, Tennessee, had his back. He’d always had a home base. Mitch, on the other hand, never elected to visit family on leave. Not once, ever. The guy was straight discipline, hardcore army all the way. Eli had invited Mitch to come home with him a couple of times for the holidays, but it soon became apparent that even though they were friends, Mitch wasn’t going to take him up on his offer.

Mitch laughed now at Eli’s assessment of his three nephews. “Mini-terrorists, eh?”

“You don’t even want to know,” Eli said. Hellion was a good term for them. His mother said they reminded her of him at that age. He grinned. “Are you taking leave?”

“Nope. I’m heading up to Bragg.” That didn’t surprise Eli, either. Special Forces training would continue at Fort Bragg, home of the 82 ndAirborne and Special Operations Forces in North Carolina. There they’d become the crème de la crème—some of the most valuable soldiers in the military, Special Forces officers, experts in unilateral direct action operations and unconventional warfare. Eli had an affinity for languages. The weeks prior to jump school he’d completed an intense course in Farsi.

“Where are you heading?” Mitch asked.

“Back home for the weekend. Another one of my buddies is getting married. Poor bastard. I’ll stay at my folks’ place, even though they’re away right now.” His friends were dropping like flies now. This was number four. And Eli had agreed to be a groomsman when said bastard, Greg Waddell, married Lisa Mosley. He and Greg had had a reputation in town for pulling some harmless but dumb-ass pranks when they were younger, like spray painting the town water tower one night. Eli had the leave time coming and it’d be cool to reconnect with some of the people from his severely misspent youth. It was kind of strange that while he’d spent the last several years traveling the globe, so many of the people he’d grown up with had stayed in Jackson Flats.