Elle James - Six Minutes To Midnight

He’s a navy SEAL who’s highly trained for any assignment.

So why can’t he resist the woman he’s vowed to protect?

Navy SEAL “T-Mac” Trace McGuire is assigned to protect army specialist Kinsley Anderson and Agar, her IED-detecting dog. When they’re shot at and nearly blown up, T-Mac admires Kinsley’s ability to hold her own. On the run from terrorists, T-Mac is trained to ensure their safety and survival in the African desert. He’s prepared for every scenario but one: falling for the woman whose life is in his hands.

Mission: Six

ELLE JAMES, a New York Times bestselling author, started writing when her sister challenged her to write a romance novel. She has managed a full-time job and raised three wonderful children, and she and her husband even tried ranching exotic birds (ostriches, emus and rheas). Ask her, and she’ll tell you what it’s like to go toe-to-toe with an angry 350-pound bird! Elle loves to hear from fans at ellejames@earthlink.net or ellejames.com.

Also by Elle James

One Intrepid SEAL

Two Dauntless Hearts

Three Courageous Words

Four Relentless Days

Five Ways to Surrender

Hot Combat

Hot Target

Hot Zone

Hot Velocity

Navy SEAL Survival

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Six Minutes to Midnight

Elle James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09348-4

SIX MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

© 2018 Mary Jernigan

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

I’d like to dedicate this book to the military

working dogs, who are such an important addition

to our fighting forces. They are loyal, smart and

dedicated to doing what they do best. Friends of

mine adopted a retired military working dog, which

gave me the idea to include him in this book.

Agar, thanks for your service!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

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

Epilogue

About the Publisher

“Four days and a wakeup,” Trace McGuire, T-Mac to his friends, said as he sat across the table in the chow hall on Camp Lemonnier. They’d returned from their last mission in Niger with news they were scheduled to redeploy back to the States.

He glanced around the table at his friends. When they were deployed, they spent practically every waking hour together. In the past, being stateside was about the same. They’d go to work, train, get briefed, work out and then go back to their apartments. Most of the time, they’d end up at one of the team members’ places to watch football, cook out or just lounge around and shoot the crap with each other. They were like family and never seemed to get tired of each other’s company.

T-Mac suspected all that was about to change. All of his closest SEAL buddies had women in their lives now. All except him. Suddenly, going back to Virginia wasn’t quite as appealing as it had been in the past. T-Mac sighed and drank his lukewarm coffee.

“I can’t wait to see Reese.” Diesel tapped a finger against the rim of his coffee cup. “I promised to take her on a real date when I get back to civilization.”

“What? You’re not going to take her swinging through the jungle, communing with the gorillas?” Buck teased.

Petty Officer Dalton Samuel Landon, otherwise known as Diesel, shook his head. “Nope. Been there, done that. I think I’ll take her to a restaurant where we don’t have to forage for food. Then maybe we’ll go out to a nightclub.” He tipped his head to the side. “I wonder if she likes to dance.”

“You mean you don’t know?” Big Jake Schuler, the tallest man on the team, rolled his eyes. “I would have thought that in the time you two spent traipsing along the Congo River, you would know everything there was to know about each other.”

Diesel frowned. “I know what’s important. She’s not fragile, she can climb a tree when she needs to, she doesn’t fall apart when someone’s shooting at her and she can kiss like nobody’s business.” Diesel shrugged. “In fact, I’m looking forward to learning more. She’s amazing. How many female bodyguards do you know?”

Big Jake held up his hands in surrender. “You got me there. None.”

“I can’t wait to see Angela.” Corpsman Graham “Buck” Buckner, the team medic, smiled. “She’s interviewing for positions around Little Creek.”

“With her doctor credentials, and the work she did with Doctors Without Borders, she’s sure to get on pretty quickly,” Big Jake said. “If not one of the military hospitals, there are lots of civilian hospitals and clinics in the area.”

Buck nodded. “I can’t believe after all these years, she’d want to be close to me.” He smiled. “I’m one lucky guy.”

“Yeah, and maybe she’ll talk you into going back to school to finish your medical degree.” Built solid like a tank, Percy Taylor had the tenacity of a pit bull, thus his nickname, Pitbull. He gave Buck a chin lift. “You’d make a good doc.”