Jack (7 Brides for 7 Soldiers Book 5) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Jack

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  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Book Blurb – NOAH –7 Brides for 7 Soldiers #6

  EXCERPT – NOAH – 7 Brides for 7 Soldiers #6

  Julia London’s Book List

  About The Author

  Jack

  7 Brides for 7 Soldiers, #5

  Julia London

  Also Available

  7 Brides for 7 Soldiers - Multi-Author Series

  Ryder - Barbara Freethy (#1)

  Adam - Roxanne St. Claire (#2)

  Zane - Christie Ridgway (#3)

  Wyatt - Lynn Raye Harris (#4)

  Jack - Julia London (#5)

  Noah - Cristin Harber (#6)

  Ford - Samantha Chase (#7)

  Fall in love with seven sexy and irresistible soldiers who find their courage and heart tested like never before in the battle for love! This multi-author collaborative series of contemporary romance novels is brought to you by bestselling authors Barbara Freethy, Roxanne St. Claire, Christie Ridgway, Lynn Raye Harris, Julia London, Cristin Harber and Samantha Chase. You won't want to miss a single one!

  Jack

  Former Marine Jack Carter has left Afghanistan behind, but after a close encounter with a suicide bomber, he now battles a hidden enemy. Ashamed that he succumbs to heart-stopping panic attacks, he refuses to leave his house and makes excuses for failing to meet up with his best friends. He’s got the perfect set up—his job allows him to work from home, he hires out the dog walking and grocery shopping and he has subscribed to a meal delivery service that comes complete with a cook. Jack expected a lunch lady, but he gets Whitney. She’s bubbly, she’s way too chatty, and his dog loves her more than him. But he forgives her all of that because she’s sexy as hell and a bright spot in an otherwise lonely day.

  Whitney Baldwin has been groomed to follow a long line of highly successful lawyers into an equally successful family law firm, but she’d rather bake a cake than read a tort. Her dream is to open her own patisserie. To say her father is disappointed in her career path is an understatement—if she can’t pull this off, she’ll have to head home with her tail between her legs. In a last bid to make her dream a reality Whitney accepts a job with Dinner Magic and lands an insanely handsome client in Jack Carter. His crazy good looks captivate her, but it's something about his hyper-awareness of her combined with a vulnerability that is an irresistible recipe.

  The smoldering attraction between Jack and Whitney quickly turns molten. But when he makes an important promise that he can’t keep, Whitney can’t fathom how this relationship is going to work. Will Jack ever be able to conquer his worst fears for true love?

  Don't miss any of the sexy soldiers!

  Ryder (#1) - Barbara Freethy

  Adam (#2) - Roxanne St. Claire

  Zane (#3) - Christie Ridgway

  Wyatt (#4) - Lynn Raye Harris

  Jack (#5) - Julia London

  Noah (#6) - Cristin Harber

  Ford (#7) - Samantha Chase

  JACK– 7 Brides for 7 Soldiers

  © Copyright 2017 Dinah Dinwiddie

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN: 9780999332108

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Contact: [email protected]

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  One

  March

  Jack Carter was looking forward to meeting up with one of his oldest friends, Ryder. As soon as he hit Eagle’s Ridge, he was going to walk right into the No Man’s Land diner and order a burger, just like they used to do when they were kids. And then, he pictured that he and Ryder hopefully would meet up with some of the guys, whoever was in town, up on the ridge. They’d drink a few beers, throw a log or two on the fire, and look down at Eagle’s Ridge and where they’d grown up. They’d reminisce about school, and sports, and the first girls they’d ever touched, and their lives in the armed services after that.

  After meeting his friends, his plan was to surprise his widowed mom, and crash in his old bedroom.

  Just like he used to do.

  Even after the fiasco of renting wheels, Jack felt confident. The car business had happened in Seattle. He’d been surprised at how many people wanted to get out of town early on a Saturday morning. The rental counter had been so crowded that Jack had somehow ended up in the back of the room, penned in by restless travelers, next to a plastic fern in a corner. But he’d managed to keep his cool, had managed to rent a car in spite of perspiring profusely. He’d thrown his bag into the backseat, and with a death grip on the wheel, he’d driven out of that crowded garage, down that crowded street, and out of a crowded town.

  As soon as he’d cleared town, he’d texted Ryder, told him he was on his way.

  Can’t wait, man, Ryder had texted back.

  It had been a few years, that was for sure. To say Jack was looking forward to this mini-reunion was an understatement. He missed his best buds—Ryder, the brothers Zane and Adam, Wyatt, Ford, and Noah. He’d find time to swing by and see Lainey, too, one of his first real girlfriends.

  He missed Eagle’s Ridge, missed being part of a community.

  He missed being the guy he’d been before he’d joined the Marines.

  It was a beautiful day, perfect for a Founders’ Day celebration. Ryder’s grandfather was one of the founders of Eagle’s Ridge. It was hard to imagine the old guy was still alive, but then again, Jack remembered him as tough as nails. He’d been an Air Force pilot during World War II and used to tell them amazing stories. He probably had a few more now. Jack was looking forward to this—it was going to be fun.

  But when Jack drove into town, he was surprised to see that traffic was crawling in both directions down Main Street. Founders’ Day weekend had always been big in Eagle’s Ridge, but Jack wasn’t expecting anything like this. The event had grown—tents and pavilions had been set up on both sides of the river. Main Street, with its collection of trendy restaurants and eclectic shops, was limited to foot traffic, and even that was already pretty thick.

  To get to No Man’s Land, Jack would have to join that stream of humanity and walk up Main Street.

  No big deal, Jack told himself. He could do it—it wasn’t that far. He parked his car and got out, and joined the crowd. But as they moved along like one corporate body, Jack’s skin began to feel itchy. He felt hemmed in again, and shoved his fisted hands into his pockets and tried to focus on his breathing. He was a head taller than most, so he could see pretty well. He could see Sentinel Bridge, which he’d have to cross to get to No Man’s Land.

  His pulse began to ratchet. This is not a big deal. This is Eagle’s Ridge, asshole. You�
��re in the Blue Mountains, as far from enemy territory as a person can get, so calm the hell down—it’s been two years, man.

  The internal chastisement worked for all of a minute. But then someone laid on a car horn, and all of Jack’s rational thought shut down. His heart went haywire, speeding up, then skipping around, then failing to beat at all. He struggled to get air in his lungs and broke into a cold sweat. He was not going to lose his shit in the middle of Main Street, and yet, he couldn’t seem to stop himself. His vision blurred to the point that he could hardly see in front of him. His legs felt numb. He had the single, horrifying thought that he was going to faint. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, he was going to pass out on Main Street, in Eagle’s Ridge, on Founders’ Day.

  Escape.

  He turned around, knocking into a man so violently that the man stumbled and fell against the side of a building. The man shouted at him, flipped him off, but Jack didn’t offer an apology—he was too desperate to get off that street.

  “Move,” Jack said through gritted teeth. “Move, damn it.” He was loping against the tide almost blindly, knocking against people in his haste. He was running before he realized he was. Fight-or-flight, fight-or-flight. He’d lost his fight—it had been consumed by fear somewhere along the way—and now all he had was flight.

  When he reached the parking area, the line of cars trying to get in had grown even longer. He banged into his car and scanned the parking lot—there was one way in, one way out. How would he get out? He was trapped! Anyone with just a passing acquaintance with firearms could come in and start picking them off, one by one, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

  He couldn’t breathe. His heart was on fire. He clutched at his chest, certain he would die in a parking lot, gripped by a heart attack.

  “Hey, buddy, are you okay?”

  The voice was that of an older man, but Jack couldn’t focus on him. “Heart attack,” he croaked.

  The rest of it was a blur. There were sirens, and then men around him, men in uniforms. If they were uniforms, he must be safe. Was he safe?

  “Can you hear me?” one of the men asked.

  Jack nodded. His head hit the wheel well of his car. He realized he was on the ground, gravel pressing into his body, and he had no idea how he’d gotten there.

  “Are you taking anything?” the man asked.

  Jack focused on him. A paramedic.

  “Maybe some kind of beta-blocker?”

  “What?” He was unable to form a coherent sentence.

  “You’re okay.” The paramedic put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “It’s okay.”

  It wasn’t okay! Nothing was okay!

  “We can take you in if you want, but your vitals are good. I’d check in with your doctor if I were you.” The paramedic began to pack up his stuff. “You had a panic attack.”

  Jack’s face flooded with heat. “No way.” He didn’t know what had happened, exactly. This wasn’t the first time he’d had painful heart palpitations. But it wasn’t a damn panic attack. That was impossible—he was not that guy.

  Jack drove back to Seattle that night. He couldn’t go near Main Street for fear of it happening again. He didn’t try to see his mom, either, unwilling to discuss why he looked as if he’d just been beaten to death, to face the possibility that maybe he was more like her than he wanted to be.

  When he finally reached home, he walked in through the door of his apartment, locked it, then slid down on his haunches and dry heaved. What was happening to him? He was an ex-Marine. He’d served two tours in Afghanistan. How could this be him?

  It was then that Jack saw the text from Ryder. Dude, where are you?

  He turned off his phone and wearily put himself in bed.

  Two

  September

  When Whitney Baldwin received her list of Dinner Magic clients for the week, she rolled her eyes.

  Not him again.

  She didn’t know what irritated her more—that this client could not be bothered to come out of his office to even say hello? Or how about, thank-you for making my dinner? Or even, please, not so much curry sauce? Because honestly, between Whitney and her cupcakes, that curry sauce was a bit much.

  Or maybe it was the fact that his fat, floppy-eared dog, with the inventive name of Buster, insisted on sprawling in the middle of the kitchen so that Whitney had to step over him every time she turned around?

  Or could it be the fact that he ordered the same three dishes every week: turkey sausage with peppers and onions, salmon over zucchini, and Thai red curry chicken?

  Answer: all of the above.

  When Whitney had taken this job at Dinner Magic a month ago, she’d understood exactly what it was: a meal kit delivery service that featured organic, fresh ingredients, easy instructions, and suggestions for wine pairings. Only this delivery service was a notch above the rest because it came with a cook. The website said they were chefs, but Whitney was no chef. Sure, she knew her way around a kitchen, and she could follow instructions as well as anyone. But she was a baker—she was the queen of pies and cakes and cupcakes. Not dinner.

  Nevertheless, she’d be a “chef” until she found the right place to open up her bakery and coffee shop.

  When she’d taken the Dinner Magic job, she’d believed it would be a cool job. She’d envisioned meeting interesting people who would introduce her to a social life in Seattle. She’d expected, like any reasonable person fresh off the boat from Orange County, California, that people who lived in flashy, shiny high-rise apartments with doormen would be flashy and shiny, too. Young and hip people with lots of money, brilliantly interesting careers, so many friends that they had to juggle them with a social calendar, and many exotic places to be. The kind of people who needed a doorman. The kind of people who would want a friend like her.

  So far, she was zero for ten on that front.

  First of all, the apartments in those shiny high-rises were uncomfortably small—much smaller than the average apartment in Orange County. And many of her clients were surprisingly unshiny. She counted among her regular clients a lonely old widower who liked sauerkraut with every meal and kept cans of the stuff stacked in his tiny pantry; a single mother with two of the brattiest kids Whitney had ever encountered (and if the little girl slapped her on the rump one more time, Whitney could not be held responsible for her actions); and a young lawyer who apparently only worked and worked out, judging by his apartment’s distinctive gym smell and papers stacked everywhere. And who could forget the man who was convinced his lovely wife was having an affair and was determined that Whitney was going to help him figure it out?

  But they all paled in comparison to this dude. Jack Carter was his name. Whitney had only seen glimpses of him, flashes of body parts, even though he was in his apartment every time she’d gone. The first time, Buster had been waiting for her in the open doorway. She’d stepped off the elevator, looked down the hall, and the dog had hauled himself to his feet and bayed at her. The moment she’d stepped inside the apartment, a deep, masculine voice that sounded as if it ought to be selling you a luxury car on TV shouted, “I’m on the phone!”

  She’d craned her neck toward the voice, down a long hallway, and all she could make out was the bluish-white glow of a computer screen lighting a room. Everything else was dark. “Should I just…start?” she’d called out uncertainly.

  At which point, a figure suddenly appeared in the open doorway, but it was so dark that she couldn’t make out his face. She couldn’t make out anything other than he was tall. And muscular. Quite muscular. Muscular like the men on the covers of romance novels and underwear ads. He wore cargo shorts and a white Henley with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. It looked as if his hair brushed his shoulders, but she wasn’t certain. He had one hand on the doorframe, as if he were holding himself there. “Just put it in the fridge,” he said.

  “The ingredients?”

  “The meal.” And with that, he’d disappeared back into the room.
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  “Okay,” Whitney had muttered, and had turned toward the kitchen—and had tripped over the dog, banged her elbow on the edge of the bar and knocked over a stool. “Ouch, ouch, ouch,” she hissed.

  “Watch out for Buster!” the man shouted at her from down the hall.

  Whitney had glared down at Buster, with his droopy face and floppy ears, which only seemed to delight the canine. His tail swished with such alarming speed she thought he might take off and crash into the ceiling.

  The next time, there was Buster in the open door, and a note on the counter. Please put finished meal in fridge. She’d looked down the hall and could only make out the eerie light generated by a computer screen. But she could hear the unmistakable tap tap tap of computer keys. No guy, just another shout to put it all in the fridge.

  And that was the way it was every time she arrived at his apartment. She and Buster developed a relationship built around the bits of food she tossed in his direction while his owner stayed in that back room. It was all a little creepy, to be honest. Whitney imagined all sorts of things about Jack Carter: A physical deformity so grotesque that he couldn’t show his face. A debilitating immune deficiency disorder so dire that the mere chance of contact with another human was lethal. A drug addict. An ex-Mafia guy in the Witness Protection Program.

  After two weeks, Mr. Carter stopped leaving notes. Not a hello, or put it in the fridge, or jump off a cliff. She would call out that she was here; he would grunt or say something so monosyllabic that she stopped trying to figure it out. She cooked the meal, put it in the fridge, set out a pair of cupcakes like she did at every client’s house, and left.

  So great! Here was Mr. Creepy again on her client list. Whitney complained to the chef scheduler, or whatever they called the woman who told her where to go each week and emailed the grocery list. “I get him every week, and he’s just weird,” she’d said. “Plus, he orders the same damn thing every week.”