Synopsis from Amazon:Arriving on a lush Pacific island, Eulalie Grace LaRue was soon to be reunited with the father she hadn't seen since childhood. Yet before Lollie's dreamed-of meeting could take place, the lovely Southern belle was caught in the crossfire of a violent revolution -- and thrown into the rugged arms of Sam Forester.
On the run in the jungle, the battle-scarred soldier of fortune didn't know what to do with the pampered blonde placed in his care. Survival was his top priority, but he could not resist Lollie's seductive charm ... or deny the growing attraction between them. Though Sam thrived on chance and risk, falling in love was the one chance he wasn't willing to take.
Powerless against the desire that consumed them both, Lollie surrendered to his passionate embrace. But when he dismissed her affections, she was determined to fight for him ... to prove that in the steamy heat of paradise, two hearts would find the love of a lifetime ....
My rating: 4 stars
Excerpt: [from Chapter 1]
Luzon Island, Cavite Province, July 1896
The machete just missed his head.
And Sam Forester needed his mercenary head, preferably still attached to his body. He spun around. A guerrilla soldier stood a foot away with the long curved knife held high, ready to strike again. Sam punched him. A familiar crunch rang from his callused knuckles to his wrist. He shook the soreness from his hand and stared down at the soldier. The man wouldn't get up soon.
Sam picked up the machete and a moment later whacked a path of escape through the dense jungle bamboo. Where the growth allowed, he ran. Damp, pointed leaves of oleander scratched his face. Cut bamboo crunched under his feet. Wet, furry vines slapped at his shoulders and head. He raised the machete and sliced through a low, smothering ceiling of jade vine. All the while he could hear the others chasing him.
He burst into a clearing—no jungle to tangle him up, to hold him back. He pushed harder for the chance to gain a little ground. Running, running, pulse throbbing in his ears, he looked up. It was still dark. A virid canopy of giant banyans blocked out the afternoon sun. Ahead all he saw was a wall of green—the never-ending sea of tree-palm fronds and another dark wooden forest of island bamboo.
Mist steamed up from the humid ground as if the earth had cracked open over the seas of hell. A sweet, almost sickening smell hung like fog in the heavy air. The smell grew stronger, the leaves around him thicker. He ripped at them, driving on, harder and harder, tearing through a dense, twisted prison of sweet jungle jasmine. The rough, woody vines caught on his shoulder, scratched his arms and hands. They seemed to suddenly wrap around him like long grasping fingers, determined to slow him down, hold him, or trip him. But he couldn't trip. His escape depended on it. One fall and they'd have him. The guerrilla soldiers were that close. Though now he couldn't hear them over the pounding of his heart, he could still sense them, could feel them. They were hot on his heels.
Then he heard them right behind him, crashing through the underbrush. They panted. They swore. They stuck to him as if they were his own shadow, ever present. He heard the crack of their machetes—long, deadly, curved steel blades that splintered a path in the tall bamboo. With each chop, each hack of metal against splitting wood, the frenzied sound of pursuit ran an icy path of fear through Sam's bones.
Sweat streamed down his tanned face, under the black leather eye patch he'd worn for eight years, over the hewn angles of his life-weathered face, and trickled down through the dark shadow of a three-day beard. His perspiration mixed with the sweltering beads of humid, thick, steamy air that cloaked everything on this heaven-and-hell island.
His vision blurred from the wet air… or from the sweat; he wasn't sure which. He sped on, stumbling once when he couldn't see anything but a dark wet blur. He swabbed his good eye with a torn sleeve. His heart drummed in his ears. It was a beat to run by.
A new fragrance filled the air. The smell of risk.
A sudden blood rush sent him running faster, pounding through the jungle. The bitter metallic taste of danger was so palpable, so real, that it swelled in his dry mouth with the same urgency of sexual impulse. His brink-driven breaths increased, faster, faster, until they burned in his chest like hot acid. His legs churned. His ridged thighs contracted. Mud suddenly swallowed his feet. He couldn't move.
Damn! He pulled forward, determined not to let dirt and water stop him. He fought on, dragging and slogging his legs forward. His boots felt like lead. The mud got deeper. It sucked at his thighs. His calves ached. The muscles in his forearms tightened. He trudged on and on. Now the mud was only ankle-deep. He broke free, still ahead of the men who chased him, and soon he had gained ground once again.
He ran. They pursued. It was a game in which he wavered on the edge, maybe even the edge of death. He was in his element. He tested the fates. He challenged the odds. And he gambled with his life, because the thrill was keener and so much more intense when the price of failure was so dear.
A white, wicked smile cut like lightning across his hard jaw.
Sam Forester lived for this.
