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Prologue

All you need is love But a little chocolate

now and then doesn’t hurt

Lightning sent a jagged bolt across Ty Garrison’s closed lids Thunder booht up in bed, gasping as if he’d just run a marathon

A dreaoddamn four-year-old dream

Sweating and tre like a leaf, he scrubbed his hands over his face Why couldn’t he dreaood, like sex with triplets?

Shoving free of the covers, he limped naked to theand yanked it open The cool ht the urge to close his eyes If he did, he’d be back there

But the memories came anyway

“Landing in ten,” the pilot announced as the plane skiht

In eight, the plane began to vibrate

In six, lightning cracked

And then an explosion, one so violent it nearly blew out his eardrums

Ty dropped his head back, letting the rain slash at his body through the openHe could hear the Pacific Ocean pounding the surf below the cliffs Scented with fragrant pines, the air smelled like Christmas in April, and he forced himself to draw a deep, shaky breath

He was no longer a SEALon the knowledge that he was the only one still breathing, that he hadn’t been able to save a single soul He was in Washington State, in the small beach town of Lucky Harbor The ocean was in front of him, the Olympic Mountains at his back

Safe

But hell if at the next bolt of lightning, he didn’t try to jump out of his own skin Pissed at the weakness, Ty shut theHe was never inhaling an entire pepperoni pizza before bed again

Except he kneasn’t so as siiness that ca idle His as still special ops, but he hadn’t gone back to being a first responder trauned up as a private contractor to the governh adrenaline rush Plus it suited hin shot, and had reinjured his leg

Stretching that leg now, he winced He wanted to get back to his job Needed to get back But he also needed clearance froed a shirt off the back of a chair and left the rooh the big and nearly ee A fast drive in the ht would have to do, and ht diner

But this first

Flipping on the lights, Ty sucked in a deep, calreased tools, and rubber tires On the left sat a ’72 GMC Jimmy, a rebuild job he’d picked up on the fly He didn’t need the money As it turned out, special ops talents ell-compensated these days, but the repair as a welcome diversion from his problems

The ’68 Shelby Mustang on the right wasn’t a side job She was his baby, and she was calling to hiainst the wall toward the classic ri down his proble them

Seeking his own calm in the storm

Chapter 1

Put the chocolate in the bag, and no one gets hurt

The lightning flashed bright, h the dark rainy night from her car to the front door of the diner

One Mississippi

Two Mississippi

On three Mississippi, thunder booround A vicious wind nearly blew her off her feet She’d forgotten her u, which was just as well or she’d have taken off like Mary Poppins

A second, brighter bolt of lightning sent jagged light across the sky, and Mallory gasped as everything momentarily lit up like day: the pier behind the diner, the churning ocean, thesky

All went dark again, and she burst breathlessly into the Eat Me Café feeling like the hounds of hell were on her very tired heels Except she wasn’t wearing heels; she was in fake Uggs