Women Under Fire
Book Two in The Grayce Walters Series
Then a desperate mother begs Grayce to help find her missing daughter—an Afghanistan war veteran suffering from PTSD, and Grayce reluctantly takes on the case, following a disturbing clue provided by the missing young woman’s cat. Calling once again on the aid of her cross-dressing best friend and her shrewd assistant, Grayce uncovers a terrorist plot with chilling international implications.
Grayce races to rescue the young veteran before the escalating danger explodes. But if she manages to escape the threat, will she find the courage to commit to the fiery passion that awaits her wrapped in Davis’s arms?
EXCERPT
Grayce Walters sat upright, uncomfortable on the cold metal chair in the fire investigator’s waiting room. The chair creaked each time she shifted her weight.
Today was about facts and only facts.
Lieutenant Davis had been clear on the phone. “I’ll take your statement. Nothing to worry about. Just routine.”
Routine. There was nothing routine about last night’s explosion, and plenty for Grayce to worry about. She came to the lieutenant’s office because she didn’t want last night’s violence to disrupt her animal patients. She refused to allow that stress into her healing space.
“Ma’am? Lieutenant Davis will see you now, third door on the right.”
With the help of three inches from her Jimmy Choos, a birthday present from her best friend, Grayce pulled herself up to a full five feet three.
Why was she worried? She was doing a public service, acting as a witness who had seen a suspect on the wharf, just before the blaze. Her certainty that this man had assaulted Baxter and started the shed fire wouldn’t be mentioned.
She walked down a long white corridor. There was nothing creative about this workplace, although located above an eminent art gallery in Pioneer Square. The energy in the building was contained and functional, just like the lieutenant. From his efficient manner on the phone, she suspected that Lieutenant Davis would have no tolerance for her intuition. Though, who was she kidding, few people would. Her ability to read and heal energy states was hard to explain.
The historic building smelled of years of rain and mold. With each step on the uneven floor, her pantyhose began to slip and sag. She resisted the urge to pull on the damn things—they’d likely be puddled at her knees and feet by the time she got to the lieutenant’s office. She hadn’t worn tights since last year. She hated dressing up. She felt constricted, contained, and crabby.
A mass of black fur, nails clicking, bounded toward her. Shocked to see a dog running free in the fire station, she didn’t notice a gap in the floorboards. Her heel wedged into a crack. The black lab tried to stop, but unable to get traction on the wood floor, slid straight into Grayce’s legs. Grayce teetered then tumbled backward. She looked up into a pair of warm dark eyes. Doggie breath wafted across her face.
“Henny!” A loud voice reverberated in the narrow hallway.
“Oh, you’re in trouble now.” Grayce rubbed the dog’s head, smiling into the soft eyes; then she tried to stand.
The dog placed one of her enormous paws on Grayce’s shoulder and began to lick her face.
“My God, get off,” a man shouted as he strode toward them. From her position on the floor, he looked to be at least seven feet tall. His white shirt pulled tautly across his broad chest and muscular arms, he was a man capable of carrying victims out of a burning building.
Grayce locked stares with the man who towered over her. His face was all angles and planes, like a model out of one of those edgy photo shoots in Nordstrom’s catalogue. An electrifying shiver coursed through her. This man exuded the same controlled power as Samba, the Bengal tiger she had treated at the zoo.
“Henny!”
Both Henny and Grayce stiffened.
He pulled the dog by her collar. “I’m sorry. She never disobeys.”
“I seem to have that effect on dogs.” Grayce smiled and straightened her skirt that had hiked up to mid-thigh. She couldn’t help noticing how his eyes trailed over her legs.
“I apologize, ma’am. I’m Lieutenant Ewan Davis, the Fire Investigator you spoke with on the phone. And now you’ve met Henny, usually a well-behaved part of our crew and our accelerant dog.”
He grasped Grayce’s hand to help her up. His giant hand enveloped hers, sending an elemental surge through to her toes. His heat radiated in her palm while she brushed off her skirt.
“It wasn’t Henny. She’s great. It was my darn heels.”
Lieutenant Davis’s gaze dropped to her shoes, then moved back up her legs.
Grayce felt fully exposed as if he saw her as a woman, not a witness. It wasn’t just her Jimmy Choos knocking her off balance.
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Jacki Delecki
Jacki Delecki is a Best-Selling, Romantic Suspense writer. Delecki’s Grayce Walters Series, which chronicles the adventures of a Seattle animal acupuncturist, was an editor’s selection by USA Today. Delecki’s Romantic Regency The Code Breaker Series hit number one on Amazon. Both acclaimed series are available for purchase at http://www.JackiDelecki.com
To learn more about Jacki and her books and to be the first to hear about giveaways join her newsletter found on her website. Follow her on FB—Jacki Delecki; Twitter @jackidelecki.
GRAYCE WALTERS SERIES
INNER FIREiBooks Kindle Kobo Nook GooglePlay
Grayce Walters, animal acupuncturist, harbors a secret. She hides her intuitive gifts from the world until she becomes embroiled in arson on Seattle’s waterfront.
As a key crime witness, Grayce must convince the attractive, logical, by-the-numbers fire investigator, Ewan Davis, that the fire she witnessed is part of a larger criminal conspiracy. Grayce embarks upon a mission to gather proof of the dangerous threat. She enlists the help of her cross-dressing best friend, her street-wise assistant, and Davis’ poodle, to conduct her own investigation.
As her feelings for Davis shift between white hot passion and cold fear, Grayce must risk exposing her secrets to save Davis’ life. Davis must accept things, he can neither see, nor understand to solve the mystery and finally find the love he has stopped believing in.
With nudges from the protective poodle, Grayce and Davis confront shocking betrayal and international crime on the rain soaked streets of Seattle.
MEN UNDER FIRE
Book 3 in the Grayce Walters series
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Hollie Thomas, the feisty, tattooed office assistant to Grayce Walters, has come a long way from living on the streets. Along with finding a job she loves, she’s found friends and safety. When her new life unravels, she faces dangers that dwarf her troubled past. Fighting to survive, she discovers that sometimes what you need the most might be found in the one person you failed to see coming.
Returning home from the war and struggling to find his way, Sergeant Nick Welby, and his bomb-sniffing golden lab, use their skill set in the last place he’d ever imagined—Seattle’s Waterfront. To protect the one woman who matters, Nick and his trusty canine partner will risk everything to rescue her and Seattle from disaster.
Embroiled in Grayce Walters’ most perilous case—a terrorist plot with the threat of deadly explosives—can Nick and Hollie work together to save themselves and each other before it’s too late?
MARRIAGE UNDER FIRE
Book 4 in the Grayce Walters Series
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Marine veteran Maddy Jeffers never expected her most demanding and daunting mission would come off the battlefield. Ordered to infiltrate a Seattle terrorist cell, Maddy must pose as a loving wife to Major Hunter Hines. The undercover role begins to feel all too real when Maddy falls hard for the rugged, macho Marine.
Duty and discipline are Hunter Hines’s credo, guiding every decision and every action. But constant proximity with the fierce and enticing Maddy is veering his mission wildly off course. Although their role as man and wife is only pretend, there is nothing false about his out-of-control desire for his partner.
When Maddy’s life is threatened by an ISIS cell, protecting her becomes the only mission that matters, and Hunter is willing to break all the rules to save her. As the danger heats up around these two veteran heroes, Maddy and Hunter must walk a narrow path between passion and survival.
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