Red Blooded (Red Hot & Blue) Read online

  RED BLOODED

  A Red Hot & Blue Compilation

  CAT JOHNSON

  New York Times & USA Today Bestselling Author

  “hot, hot, hot and sexy as hell” Guilty Indulgence

  “Johnson does a superb job… The pacing is dead perfect.” Stephanotis, Long & Short Reviews

  “thrilling in its intensity” Chrissy Dionne, Romance Junkies

  “TREY is fast paced and spiced with danger and eroticism – my kind of book. JACK took a little humor, a little spice and a little danger, stirred it up and found the perfect love potion.” Jo, Joyfully Reviewed

  “an emotional ride… This is a fantastic series that I would recommend to anyone that loves a man in uniform! ...I absolutely love every one of the books in this set and recommend.” Maree Schuler, Romance Junkies

  “The sexual tension helped make the storyline the winner it is… This fast-moving book was hard, almost impossible, to put down.” The Romance Studio

  "TREY is a rollercoaster of a ride that will thrill you from start to finish. JACK is filled with thrilling suspense and a super-hot romance…With an endlessly, sizzling hot flirtation and suspenseful undertone. [In JIMMY] Cat Johnson did not disappoint…sizzling hot and highly intense.” Nikita Veiled, Secrets Reviews

  Meet the red hot and true blue men of Task Force Zeta

  TREY

  The last thing special operative Trey Williams wants is a girlfriend. Problem is, the woman who’s been recruited to pose as his wife on a special assignment is proving to be exactly the kind of distraction he can’t afford.

  JACK

  The only thing worse than Jack Gordon having to watch the girl he’s crushed on for years fall for his teammate is having to cool his heels while on leave at his family’s farm. But things get more interesting when he meets the sexy and secretive new farm hand.

  JIMMY

  No amount of training prepared undercover operative Jimmy Gordon to handle the governor’s hot, red headed daughter. She thought she was seducing a waiter . . . and he let her.

  Red Blooded and the three stories within (Trey, Jack and Jimmy) have been previously published in paperback and eBook. The stories have been reedited and given a new cover for rerelease but with no substantial changes to the text.

  TREY

  RED BLOODED

  Book 1

  CHAPTER 1

  He waited in the reeds. An RPG launcher rested on top of his shoulder as he watched for the enemy from his hiding place along the road.

  His persistence finally paid off. He heard the US force moving toward him. Training gave him the patience to hold until they were dead ahead.

  Dead.

  He grinned at that word since, for all intents and purposes, they would soon be dead.

  Zeroing in on his target, he stood, sighted and then fired. The rocket-propelled grenade cut through the air with a trail of smoke and its unmistakable sound.

  The soldiers heard it coming, but it was too late. That tended to be the problem with RPGs. By the time you heard them coming you were as good as gone.

  The concussion of the explosion caused the soldiers on foot to fall where they stood. The vehicles behind the ground pounders stopped, the passengers scurrying out. He watched their panic.

  Nothing felt as good as a successful mission. He hadn’t totally destroyed the force, but he’d done quite a bit of damage with just the one RPG. Enough to teach them a lesson and hadn’t that been his goal to begin with? Though right now, it was time to get moving.

  He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Allah achbar!”

  God is great.

  That little bit of shouted Arabic had the soldiers scrambling faster than even the incoming RPG had.

  Sorry he couldn’t stick around to watch the aftermath, he took off running as a spray of gunfire peppered the area where he’d been.

  Amid the noise, he heard the scattered orders and curses behind him as the soldiers tried to get their fallen men to cover.

  He sped to the next previously selected point of attack, then launched another rocket, this time at one of the trucks. The soldiers would think there were more attackers hiding than there actually were because of the multiple assaults in rapid succession from different locations.

  That done, he took off for cover farther away. He wouldn’t strike again just yet. Let them think the danger had passed, then he and his team would hit with an improvised explosive device when it was least expected.

  A nice IED would shake things up. He was getting bored with the old Russian RPG launcher anyway.

  Explosions were much more fun and, when you knew what you were doing, child’s play to set up. His team probably had a few in place already.

  After reaching a point a safe distance from the strike zone, he hit the ground behind an outcropping of rock. Enjoying a rare, brief moment of leisure, he pulled a bottle of water out of his pack and took a long swallow. He wiped a dribble from his beard with the back of one hand just as footsteps to his right drew his attention.

  “Pigeon Two approaching Songbird from the north.” The voice came through his earpiece just before his teammate Jack Gordon hit the ground next to him, looking as dirty and sweaty as he felt. “Nice explosions.”

  “Thanks.” His throat dry, Trey Williams took another swig.

  “Bull and I set up the IEDs.” Jack pulled out his own bottle and took a swallow.

  It had been a long, hot day of training exercises for everyone involved and it wasn’t over yet.

  “How many you set up?” Trey asked.

  “A pretty obvious primary in the middle of the road with a secondary one better hidden on the side path just off the main route in case they try to drive around the first one.”

  Trey scratched an itch on his chin that his sweat-soaked, overgrown beard caused. “They’ll see the first one right away.”

  “Yup.” Jack nodded. “And when they’re trying to avoid it by driving on the path they’ll hit the second one.”

  “Or they could move backward and fire upon the primary to disarm it,” Trey pointed out.

  “They could, but they’ll back up over the third one we put behind them. Bull’s got it hidden so well I’m not sure I could find it if I hadn’t been with him when he set it up. Once they’ve backed up to decide what to do about the one in front of them, Bull will detonate. Then kaboom.” Jack grinned like a kid on Christmas morning.

  Trey shook his head and smiled. “You’re evil.”

  “Hey, why not enjoy ourselves?” Jack shook his head. “I’m kind of sorry this exercise is over after today. I love OPFOR training.”

  “Hell, who doesn’t love it?”

  An explosion sounded in the distance and Jack snorted out a laugh. “Those guys who just got blown up by Bull’s IED, that’s who.”

  “Bull sets up a nice explosion, even his fake ones.” Trey admired the skill. He could set up a decent IED himself, but Bull was a master craftsman at it.

  Jack chuckled. “I’m gonna laugh my ass off watching their reaction on the video during the after-action review tonight. This is easier than shooting beer cans off a fence post. A helluva lot more fun too.”

  “It’s definitely more fun playing the bad guys than the good guys in these exercises.” Trey knew well it may be fun, but opposition-force training was crucial. What the soldiers learned today could save their lives when they deployed to regions where the bad guys were actually out to kill them.

  All in all, it had been a good day, except for the damn itchy beard he’d grown out so he’d look more like a terrorist and less like a member of Task Force Zeta.

  That Trey could have lived without.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Vodka tonic,
gin and tonic, diet cola, regular cola and a bottle of beer.” The bleached-blonde cocktail waitress snapped her gum and read off her scribbled list.

  Trey leaned his forearms against the bar rail. Happy to be clean-shaven again and out of the dusty, ripe cammies from the previous day’s final exercise, he was more than content to simply sit and watch the bartender work.

  After picking up two glasses in each hand, she packed them with ice and then lined them up in front of her on the bar. She poured the liquor with her left hand while operating the soda gun with her right. Not even glancing at the bottles in the speed rack, she just grabbed, poured and then returned them to their proper places.

  Leaning on the bar next to him, an also-well-groomed Jack watched her too while shaking his head. “Ooo wee, how can someone look so hot and act so cold?”

  “She’s not cold. She’s just busy.” Trey kept his voice low.

  Jack laughed. “Oh, believe me, she can get cold as ice. Just ask her out a few times and you’ll see.”

  Trey had seen each and every time Jack had asked this woman out and gotten a no in response.

  “Hey there, darlin’. Couple of longnecks over here when you get a chance,” Jack called out to her.

  Trey frowned. “Jeez, Jack. Give her a second. She’s got her hands full.”

  “Vodka tonic has two straws, gin and tonic one straw, diet’s got a lemon and regular doesn’t.” Without even glancing their way, the bartender lined a cocktail tray with the drinks, calling them off for the gum-snapping blonde as she did so.

  She turned her back to the two of them, reached down into a fridge against the wall behind the bar and came up with three longneck beer bottles in one hand.

  Trey had to admit the view was damn nice from there with her bending over in those tight jeans. No wonder she sold so much bottled beer. Pretty much every guy on the base came in when they were stateside and ninety-nine percent of them ordered the bottled beer strictly for the view.

  With an economy of motion he had to appreciate, she popped the tops off the bottles using the bar-mounted opener, letting the caps plunk one by one into the garbage pail positioned perfectly underneath to catch them.

  She placed one bottle in the center of the drinks on the cocktail tray. “And there’s the beer.”

  Finished with the waitress, she slapped two cocktail napkins down in front of them and plopped the remaining two beers in her hand on top of them. “And there are your beers, darlin’.”

  Trey had to smile at the verbal slap aimed directly at Jack until she turned to him next. “And I can do more than one thing at a time, but thanks for your concern.”

  Just when he’d thought she wasn’t listening . . .

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jack enjoying his discomfort now.

  Trey shrugged. “Looked more like seven things at once to me.” He raised his bottle in a mock toast to her and drank.

  “Hey, darlin’. Why don’t you give in and go out with me? Give up all this cat and mouse. Playing hard to get is fun and all, but I know we could have a lot more fun together.” Jack waggled his eyebrows.

  Would Jack ever stop trying? His resilience never ceased to amaze Trey.

  “Okay. I’ll go out with you.” She walked over to them and leaned up against the bar, her well-rounded breasts pushing the boundaries of the neckline of her tight T-shirt. “On one condition.”

  Trey had never seen Jack so flustered before in all the time he’d known him. Jack had been asking this woman out for years now and this was as close as he’d ever come to an actual yes.

  Jack swallowed and finally wrestled his eyes up from her chest. “W-what’s that, darlin’?”

  “What’s my name?” She slapped each palm flat on the bar and waited for the answer.

  Jack opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Trey paused for a moment himself. She had a good point. They’d been coming here a good two years now and she’d served them most times, but he’d be damned if he knew her name.

  Shaking her head, she smiled. “Didn’t think so.”

  She walked away as the waitress returned to give her money for the drinks. Trey watched her glance at them in the reflection of the mirror behind the bar as she opened the cash register and made change.

  “Why didn’t you remember her name?” Jack backhanded Trey’s leg. “Dang it. I was as happy as a puppy with two peters when she said she’d go out with me. I nearly shit my pants. Then she comes up with some stupid question. I didn’t think there’d be a test first.”

  As Jack scowled, Trey shook his head. “It wasn’t a stupid question. She’s right. We should know after all this time. Besides the team, we probably spend more hours here with her than with anyone else in our lives and we don’t even know her name.”

  Jack frowned and broke his gaze away from watching the nameless bartender. Staring right at Trey now, Jack cocked his head to one side. “What is all this tonight? First it’s ‘Don’t bother her, she’s busy’. Now it’s ‘She’s right, we should know her name’. You better not be snooping around my girl. Teammates don’t steal each other’s women. It’s in the code.”

  Trey rolled his eyes and let out a short laugh. “First of all, I’m not snooping around, as you put it. Second, if she’s your woman, learn her damn name.”

  “I will.” Jack banged his bottle onto the bar. He glanced around until his attention landed on the waitress. “Baby cakes, sashay your sweet self on over here.”

  The willing waitress arrived immediately after his summons in a cloud of perfume mixed with grape gum. She had on so much makeup her eyelashes stuck together when she tried to bat them at Jack.

  “Hey, boys. I don’t get to hang with you two usually. You’re always sitting at the bar instead of at my tables. What can I do for you?”

  Jack fielded that question while Trey took another swig of beer. He noticed that while he and Jack had been arguing, the bartender had left briefly. She returned now with a rack of clean, stemmed glasses.

  Hoisting the unwieldy item onto the bar with a clang, she started to hang the glasses one by one upside-down above the bar.

  Glancing at Jack as he flirted with the waitress, she raised a brow. “Moved on already, has he? I’m heartbroken.”

  Trey laughed. He considered telling her Jack was sweet talking the waitress in an attempt to find out her name. Instead, without even knowing why he did it, he extended his arm toward her. “I’m Trey Williams.”

  She looked down at his offered hand and then back to his face. After a moment, she wiped her fingers on a bar rag and took his in a firm, strong grasp. “Carly McAfee.”

  He smiled and repeated, “Carly.”

  “Yeah, short for Charlene. Thank God my parents realized I wasn’t a Charlene pretty early on and gave me the nickname.”

  “What’s wrong with the name Charlene?” he asked mainly to keep her talking because he was enjoying the conversation.

  She glanced at the miniskirt-wearing waitress still talking with Jack.

  “I’d have to look like her to pull off a name like Charlene.” She shook her head. “No, I’m definitely a Carly.”

  Trey took in her straight brown hair pulled into a ponytail to fully expose a pretty, fresh face. If she wore makeup at all, it didn’t scream to be noticed. Her girl-next-door looks sat just fine with him. The centerfold-worthy, shapely jean-clad hips, small waist and even shapelier T-shirt-covered breasts didn’t hurt either.

  She was a strange cocktail of simplicity mixed with attitude, shaken with killer good looks. More importantly, he could tell there was a brain in that pretty head of hers.

  Jack, leaning forward, interrupted Trey’s reverie regarding Carly’s assets. “Hey, darlin’. I want another chance at this date. Come over here and ask me your question again.”

  She rolled her eyes and walked to stand in front of Jack. “I’ll give you one more chance, but the question has changed.”

  “Lay it on me, sweet cheeks.” Jack grinned wide.

&nbs
p; Looking overly confident, Jack leaned back on the barstool and waited for the question. He must have gleaned quite a bit of information from his discussion with the waitress.

  Carly covered her eyes with one hand. “What color are my eyes?”

  Jack, who never used bad language in mixed company, silently mouthed a vile curse before venturing an obviously blind guess. “Uh, brown?”

  “Wrong.” She turned, opened the beer cooler and began checking her stock of cold bottles. Scowling, Jack cursed again quietly. “Watch my beer, will you’? I gotta go take a leak.”

  Trey nodded and Jack disappeared into the bathroom. Eyes still on Carly’s back, he whispered, “They’re green.”

  She spun, those beautiful jade-colored eyes open wide and staring straight at him.

  Damn, she had good ears. He’d have to remember that in the future.

  Their gazes collided and his heart clenched.

  He reminded himself it was Jack who had a crush on this woman, not him. All of his friend’s going on and on about her must have rubbed off.

  What he felt wasn’t real. It couldn’t be, because Trey had no room in his life for a girlfriend right now.

  A distracted soldier was a dead soldier. He didn’t want a girlfriend, nor did he need one. Not now and definitely not Carly, the one girl Jack was obsessed with.

  So why did he suddenly feel like if he didn’t get far away from her soon, he’d forget his own rule and want a girlfriend? Want her.

  Trey took a swig of beer and swallowed hard. He then devoted all of his concentration to peeling the label off the bottle in an attempt to avoid getting pulled further into those eyes of hers.

  He was thankful when Jack returned and broke the spell.

  Jack sat, frowning. “What’s up with you now? You look like a hog living with a family who’s got a hankering for bacon.”