Storm Watch Read online

  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:

  LETTERS FROM HOME by Rhonda Nelson

  (Army Rangers—June 2009)

  THE SOLDIER by Rhonda Nelson

  (Special Forces—July 2009)

  STORM WATCH by Jill Shalvis

  (National Guard—August 2009)

  HER LAST LINE OF DEFENSE by Marie Donovan

  (Green Berets—September 2009)

  RIPPED! by Jennifer LaBrecque

  (Paratrooper—October 2009)

  SEALED AND DELIVERED by Jill Monroe

  (Navy SEALs—November 2009)

  CHRISTMAS MALE by Cara Summers

  (Military Police—December 2009)

  Uniformly Hot!

  The Few. The Proud. The Sexy as Hell.

  Dear Reader,

  When I wrote three connected firefighter books last summer (Flashpoint, Flashback and Heating Up the Holidays), I had a niggling feeling I wasn’t ready to be finished with these guys. So I gave my hero in Heating Up the Holidays a brother—a military guy, dark and edgy and just a little bit tortured—just in case.

  Thankfully my editor had the same thought. So I’d like to introduce you to Jason. He’s home after giving eight years to good old Uncle Sam, and he’s not sure how he feels about that. Should he reenlist? Stick with his hometown and try to reconnect? He just doesn’t know, and after losing his best friend in a rescue operation, he’s not sure he even cares.

  Until he runs into a blast from his past. Lizzy. The girl who’d once haunted him with nothing but her pretty eyes. She’s all grown up now. Grown up and developed a bit of a ‘tude. But hey, since he’s got one himself, he can appreciate that. Pitching these two against each other was great fun. I’m only sorry it’s over.

  Happy reading! I’ll see you next summer when I revisit Santa Rey. Only this time I’ve got a few sexy cops lined up to heat up your nights.

  Enjoy,

  Jill Shalvis

  Jill Shalvis

  STORM WATCH

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  USA TODAY bestselling author Jill Shalvis is happily writing her next book from her neck of the Sierras. You can find her books wherever romance novels are sold, or visit her on the Web at www.jillshalvis.com.

  Books by Jill Shalvis

  HARLEQUIN BLAZE

  63—NAUGHTY BUT NICE

  132—BARED

  232—ROOM SERVICE

  270—JUST TRY ME…

  303—JINXED!

  “Together Again?”

  329—SHADOW HAWK

  410—FLASHPOINT

  416—FLASHBACK

  435—HEATING UP THE HOLIDAYS

  “All He Wants for Christmas…”

  HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

  938—LUKE

  962—BACK IN THE BEDROOM

  995—SEDUCE ME

  1015—FREE FALL

  To Brenda Chin, for letting me write all these

  sexy firefighters and military heroes my way.

  Okay, it’s your way, but you let me think it’s my

  way. The mark of a great editor…

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  1

  JASON MAUER STAGGERED through the fifty-mile-an-hour winds and into the house with three things on his mind—food, sleep and sex.

  Thanks to Uncle Sam and the National Guard, he hadn’t been home for any real length of time in years, home being the small California beach town of Santa Rey. When he was in town, he shared a house with his brother, Dustin, and hoped to find the fridge stocked with at least sandwich makings and, please God, a beer or two.

  As for the sleep…well, he had a bedroom. The question was could he shut down enough, push away the haunting memories long enough to actually get some shut-eye.

  The jury was still out on that one.

  Which left sex.

  He needed a woman for that, at least the way he liked it, and seeing as he’d been working his ass off on his last military stint, spending some special quality time at every national disaster that had hit the news, plus a bunch that hadn’t, he was fairly certain he was lucky just to be alive, much less naked with a woman.

  With a bone-weary sigh, he dropped his gear and headed directly toward the refrigerator. He should call his brother, his sister and his mom, and let them know he was back a few days early…but they’d be all over him, wondering if he was really okay, if he’d recovered from his loss.

  He hadn’t.

  So he didn’t call, not yet. Instead, he looked out the windows into the growing dark, even though it was barely five o’clock in the afternoon in June. From the kitchen window, he watched the ocean pound the shore, the waves pushing fifteen feet minimum. The winds had stirred up some seriously ominous clouds, and he was surprised to see trees doubled over from the gusts.

  He’d seen bad weather in his time—hello, hurricanes Rita and Katrina—but nothing here on the supposedly mild Central California coast.

  His stomach growled, reminding him that it’d taken him all day and three flights to get here, bad storm or not, and he couldn’t remember the last thing he’d eaten. Peanuts, given to him by a cute flight attendant? No, a candy bar grabbed at the airport.

  And the damn fridge was empty.

  Yeah. Pretty much how his life felt at the moment. Empty as hell. Matt would laugh at that and tell him to get over himself.

  But Matt was dead, six weeks now.

  Still shell-shocked, Jason’s gut clenched hard at the thought of his best friend lying six feet under, and suddenly he was no longer hungry. Fuck it, he thought. Fuck thinking, he was going directly to bed, no passing Go. He kicked off his shoes, and so damn tired he practically staggered like a drunk, moved down the hallway. He was “in the tween” as his sister, Shelly, would say. In between military life, which was all he’d known since high school, and his old life, which no longer even seemed real.

  Which world did he want?

  The government wanted him back, of course. He was highly trained and valuable. That wasn’t ego, but fact. He was a rescue expert who worked with nerves of steel. Or he had…

  His family was hoping he’d stick here. His mother, living twenty miles north of Santa Rey in San Luis Obispo, wanted him to be safe and sound. His sister, who lived with her while going to Cal Poly, wanted him to date her friends. Dustin—here in Santa Rey—was his partner in their on-the-side renovation business, and wanted him home to be a more active presence.

  As for what Jason wanted? No clue. None. Zero.

  Zip.

  But he had a few weeks to figure it out. With a sigh, he looked around the empty house. Dustin lived with his fiancé, Cristina, most of the time these days, which left the place looking a bit neglected. It’d been just waiting for him to come back to help Dustin finish the upgrades, so they could sell it and move on to the next project. Dustin had redone the kitchen and both bathrooms. He’d pulled the carpet and refinished the original hardwood floors. And he’d done a good job, too. All that was left was a couple coats of paint and some tile in the entry, and this house could be flipped, something Dustin was eager to do.

  As for