Prologue

“Come on, Hollister, quit slacking. Give me ten more push-ups.”

Wyatt Hollister gritted his teeth, his arms shaking from exertion as he slowly lowered his body to the mat. Usually fifty push-ups weren’t a problem. Hell, he could’ve ripped off a hundred without breaking a sweat. That was BTB. Before the bomb.

A couple of weeks ago, cowardly tangos targeted the COBRA Securities compound and unleashed holy hell in the form of an explosive device that demolished the airport hangar Wyatt had just exited. The concussion from the blast was strong enough to catapult him through the air like a circus stuntman shot from a cannon. Only in his unwitting role of human cannonball, he wasn’t afforded a cushy inflated pad or horizontal net for a landing. No, at the end of his descent, he’d been met by the rock-hard, unforgiving, liberally scattered with tiny pebbles of concrete of the parking lot.

He wasn’t complaining about his various injuries. He was alive to feel them. Chet Rudd, their lead pilot, and the rest of the airport crew had all perished in the explosion. It’d been their day off, but Wyatt had felt something was off in the company jet the last time he flew the plane. Though he was an agent, he was also a licensed pilot and liked to take to the air as often as possible. He’d called in the crew to check the engine and they’d been inside doing their jobs when a helicopter circled overhead and dropped the missile. The only positive was that they’d felt no pain. They’d died instantly. He’d mourn them for the rest of his life.

No, it wasn’t discomfort from his wounds that had him cursing like a sailor under his breath. It was the beautiful blond taskmaster subjecting him to a grueling, torturous workout she called rehab. If not for the fact that she was a woman and, well, he loved her, he’d seriously think about wiping that smirk from her pretty pink lips. With his lips.

Dr. Amelia Howell, said taskmaster, had patched him back together and made it her mission to see that he fully recovered. He was thankful…he was. But there was only so much a battered body could take. She’d found his limit. If she didn’t ease up on him, he was going to do something really embarrassing, like curl into a fetal position and blubber like a baby.

Through sheer grit and determination, he cranked out all ten reps but collapsed to the ground, his arms refusing to hold him a second longer.

“Excellent, Wyatt. Now get up. Let’s head to the treadmill.”

“Leave me here to die in peace, woman.” He winced at his choice of words, remembering the women and men who had died.

Smack.

Wyatt’s head jerked up. “Did you just smack my bum?”

“I sure did. Now get your sweet booty up and moving.”

Instead, he rolled to his back and pinned her with a glare. “I quit.”

Amelia fisted her hands on her hips. “You can’t quit. Quitting isn’t an option. I won’t let you.”

God, she was so beautiful, with her creamy, flawless skin, her flaxen hair fastened into a ponytail that swished back and forth with her movements, hypnotizing him, and her Caribbean blue eyes that mesmerized him. What would she do if he swept her legs out from under her so that she fell into his arms? Then he could finally do what he’d wanted for so long: taste those lush lips. It was all he could think about. He’d fantasized about it—dreamed about it for so long, he didn’t know how much longer he could hold out. Even when she was torturing him with her evil exercises, he wanted her. He plotted ways to get her to stop, most involving them rolling around intertwined on the mat, all naked and sweaty. He’d never tell her, but he actually looked forward to their rehab sessions. He had her all to himself.

“Now, Hollister. I don’t have all day.”

“All right, all right,” he grumbled, pushing to his feet and trudging to the treadmill while mopping sweat from his face with a towel. “But I get to pick the movie tonight.”

“Oh, no you don’t. It’s my turn and I’m feeling like a good old-fashioned tear-jerker. Maybe The Notebook or PS I Love You, or A Walk to Remember.”

“Hell to the no,” he argued. “No chick flicks. Ever. It’s in the contract.”

“We’ll see,” she grinned as she punched a button and the belt started moving. He had no choice but to walk or be hurtled through the air again, this time backwards. No thank you.

He didn’t care what they watched. It could be one of the sappy rom coms she liked to tease him with or heck, the television test pattern. As long as Amelia was curled up beside him, all was right with the world.