Simon Says

A dark cabin on the edge of the woods near a military base, brings two former lovers together again…in mortal danger and undeniable passion.

Special circumstances, special soldier…

Simon Blackwell ended his affair with Mariana Daniels after his life changed irrevocably on a top secret mission, but he’ll never stop protecting her. Now, they’re both working on the same military base and he has vowed to watch over her only from afar…until fate steps in and changes things again.

She’s a healer with a broken heart…

Mariana was bereft when Simon walked away without a backward glance. She’s never forgotten him—or gotten over him. When he walks into her clinic, torn up and in need of medical attention, she can’t turn him away. Nor can she stop the leaping of her heart at his return.

Secrets and science experiments run amok…

Mariana has no knowledge of the dark, deadly creatures that lurk in the forest surrounding her, or of the mysterious changes that make Simon the only one who can safely defeat them. Soon, he’ll have no choice but to reveal the truth, and urge her to trust in an explosive passion that never died…

He watched from the bushes, gauging the woman’s reactions as she peered up at the full moon from her back porch. She wasn’t wary, and that was a dangerous thing. For her.
Dark things prowled the night. Things out of nightmares. Things a woman like her should never encounter.
If he had his way, she never would. It was his job to see that she remained ignorant of the creatures that stalked the forest behind her home. He was her silent protector, though she would never know it.
If things went as planned…

Hours later, Simon cursed his bad luck. His plan had gone right out the proverbial window, but he was a hell of an improviser. His fast actions and lightning reflexes had saved his life more than once in the past. This time, however, he might’ve cut things just a little too close. Only the dawn pinkening the eastern sky had saved him tonight, sending the creatures he hunted to ground.
In the night, the hunter had become the hunted and now he was injured. Blood drew the undead creatures like moths to a flame. Simon had left a blood trail through the forest that would have the zombies in a frenzy when they rose again.
Thankfully, the day was sunny and he knew from experience that the reanimated corpses shunned the sun’s cleansing rays. They’d be in hiding until sunset. Or until storm clouds showed up. Cloudy days were the worst, because then he had no respite from hunting the creatures that should never have been let loose in the first place.
Simon headed for the deep woods that would take him eventually to Quantico, the Marine base from which he was currently operating. He had been recruited to eradicate the threat in the woods surrounding the base before it could spread any further.
Ostensibly, he was a civilian contractor doing some unspecified work on base. Only a select few high up in the command structure knew his true identity and his real mission. One man against a potential army of the undead wasn’t great odds. Simon’s training, unique skill set, covert operations experience, and immunity to the contagion that had created these monsters tipped the scales in his favor.
Until today. Today he would be lucky to make it back to base without passing out. He would head straight for the small clinic that served as an infirmary for men in the field. He would go there even though he’d been avoiding that one particular place for weeks now. Not the place really. In truth, it was the woman who worked there he had been trying so hard to avoid. He’d guarded her. He’d watched over her from afar, but he’d been avoiding a face-to-face confrontation with the woman out of his past. The one he’d let get away.
Now, if his rotten luck held, he would be unable to avoid her.

Dr. Mariana Daniels arrived at the base infirmary early, as was her habit. She had only a few more weeks left as a naval officer before she finally returned to civilian life. It had been a long time since she had first put on the uniform. At one time, she had thought to make the military her life’s work. Now, over a decade later, she was ready to start a new adventure in the civilian world.
She opened the door to her office and set her coffee cup down on the cluttered desk. A commotion from the front of the clinic made her turn. Usually, she had a good half hour alone before the rest of the staff started reporting for duty in the small infirmary that was just a field branch of the larger medical facility on base. She retraced her steps, curious to see who was early.
She rounded a corner and stopped short in the hall, face to face with a man she’d thought never to see again.
“Simon?” Shock colored her voice.
“Damn.”
All this time apart, and the first word out of his mouth was a curse. She shouldn’t have expected anything different. Her time with Simon Blackwell had been a low point in her life from which she was still recovering. To be fair, he had also been a high point. Their short-lived relationship had made her happier than she had ever been. Then he’d left with little fanfare. One day he was there, the next he was gone, leaving her to pick up the pieces.
She shouldn’t have been surprised. That’s what Special Forces guys were like. When they got called up for a mission, they had to leave and couldn’t say where they were going or when they would be back. At first she had waited. Only when she’d run into one of his teammates a few months later had she finally realized he wasn’t coming back. At least not back to her. He was alive according to his friend, but the prolonged silence where she was concerned told her all she needed to know.
He still looked as handsome as ever, those twinkling blue eyes all too serious and clouded with…pain? She looked him over and realized he was holding his arm abnormally close to his chest and leaving a faint blood trail down the crisp white corridor.
“You’re injured.”
He nodded, still apparently a man of few words. “I wouldn’t have come here otherwise.”
Now that hurt. She tried not to flinch, but Simon had always been a little too perceptive.
“I didn’t mean it that way, Mari. I figured it would be better for you if you didn’t know I was here, on base.”
She ushered him into a curtained treatment area and watched as he sat unsteadily on the paper-draped table. She didn’t like the pale look of his tanned skin.
“What happened to you?”
“Field exercise. Training accident.” His clipped words told her there was a lot more to the story than met the eye. His tone told her not to pry.
She’d known going into their relationship that he was a Special Operations guy. What he’d been doing in the months since she had last seen him was a mystery. Simon Blackwell lived much of his life on a need-to-know basis. It had been hard to deal with while they’d been dating, but she had always understood duty and honor. She had even admired him for his devotion to both.
Mariana stepped closer and started examining his injuries. There were multiple gashes running along one side of his body and some of them looked deep. A few would probably require stitches.
“Well, your field exercise seems to have put you in the path of…are these claw marks?”
“Ran into a badger. Got scratched up.”
“Ah, I see. A badger…with what looks like a serrated edged weapon in addition to some very nasty claws.”
She gasped as he grabbed her hand, stilling her motions. “Don’t push, Mari.” His tone was both familiar and forbidding.
Silence passed between them as she regarded him. He had always had an intensity about him that made her want to swoon. A badass vibe that turned her on like nothing else. He had locked eyes with her a couple of times while they were making love and she’d thought she’d seen her future in his bottomless blue gaze.
She’d been wrong.
“All right. I won’t ask any more questions. Other than medical questions, of course. You’re up to date on your tetanus, right?”
He nodded, letting go of her hand and she relaxed fractionally.
She took a closer look at his wounds. The slashes and claw marks extended over his biceps and onto his chest. The shirt had to go.