Tall, Dark and Fearless: Frisco's Kid. Suzanne Brockmann

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      Dear Reader,

      I’m always glad when one of my older romances get reissued—those books are out of print, and tend to be very hard to find. In fact, I frequently get e-mail from readers telling me they’ve bought one of these books at auction online—for four or five times the original cover price! (With someone’s ancient lunch glued between pages 23 and 24…)

      So I really love it when my books are reissued—I’m twice as happy when they’re packaged, like this, in a fabulous 2-in-1 format!

      The book you’re holding includes two stories from my Tall, Dark and Dangerous series about U.S. Navy SEAL Team Ten. I originally conceived of this series as a trilogy, but it quickly grew to eleven installments—all first published by Silhouette Books.

      The stories in Tall, Dark and Fearless are two of my favorites—Frisco’s Kid and Everyday, Average Jones.

      Two more of my favorites—Harvard’s Education and Hawken’s Heart—will be available next month in Tall, Dark and Devastating. (And okay, let’s face it—all of the books in my Tall, Dark and Dangerous series are personal faves! I just love those Navy SEALs….)

      Visit www.eHarlequin.com or my Web site, www.SuzanneBrockmann.com, for more information about upcoming releases and reissues!

      Happy reading,

      Suz Brockmann

      Praise for the novels of New York Times bestselling author

       SUZANNE BROCKMANN

      “Zingy dialogue, a great sense of drama and a pair of lovers who generate enough steam heat to power a whole city.”

      —RT Book Reviews on Hero Under Cover

      “Brockmann deftly delivers another testosterone-drenched, adrenaline-fueled tale of danger and desire that brilliantly combines superbly crafted, realistically complex characters with white-knuckle plotting.”

      —Booklist on Force of Nature

      “Readers will be on the edge of their seats.”

      —Library Journal on Breaking Point

      “Another excellently paced, action-filled read. Brockmann delivers yet again!”

      —RT Book Reviews on Into the Storm

      “Funny, sexy, suspenseful and superb.”

      —Booklist on Hot Target

      “Sizzling with military intrigue and sexual tension, with characters so vivid they leap right off the page, Gone Too Far is a bold, brassy read with a momentum that just doesn’t quit.”

      —New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen

      “An unusual and compelling romance.”

      —Affaire de Coeur on No Ordinary Man

      “Sensational sizzle, powerful emotion and sheer fun.”

      —RT Book Reviews on Body Language

      Suzanne Brockmann

      Tall, Dark and Fearless

      CONTENTS

      FRISCO'S KID

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      CHAPTER SIXTEEN

      CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

      EVERYDAY, AVERAGE JONES

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      EPILOGUE

FRISCO’S KID

      For my cousin, Elise Kramer, who played with and loved my mother, then me and now my children, too, as if we were her own kids.

      With all my love, Elise, this one’s for you.

      CHAPTER ONE

      FRISCO’S KNEE WAS on fire.

      He had to lean heavily on his cane to get from the shower to the room he shared with three other vets, and still his leg hurt like hell with every step he took.

      But pain was no big deal. Pain had been part of Navy Lt. Alan “Frisco” Francisco’s everyday life since his leg had damn near been blown off more than five years ago during a covert rescue operation. The pain he could handle.

      It was this cane that he couldn’t stand.

      It was the fact that his knee wouldn’t—couldn’t—support his full weight or fully extend that made him crazy.

      It was a warm California day, so he pulled on a pair of shorts, well aware that they wouldn’t hide the raw, ugly scars on his knee.

      His latest surgery had been attempted only a few months ago. They’d cut him open all over again, trying, like Humpty Dumpty, to put all the pieces back together. After the required hospital stay, he’d been sent here, to this physical therapy center, to build up strength in his leg, and to see if the operation had worked—to see if he had more flexibility in his injured joint.

      But his doctor had been no more successful than the legendary King’s horses and King’s men. The operation hadn’t improved Frisco’s knee. His doctor couldn’t put Frisco together again.

      There was a knock on the door, and it opened a crack.

      “Yo, Frisco, you in here?”

      It was Lt. Joe Catalanotto, the commander of SEAL Team Ten’s Alpha Squad—the squad to which, an aeon of pain and frustration and crushed hopes ago, Frisco had once belonged.

      “Where else would I be?” Frisco said.

      He saw Joe react to his bitter words, saw the bigger man’s jaw tighten as he came into the room, closing the door behind him. He could see the look in Joe’s dark eyes—a look of wary reserve. Frisco had always been the optimist of Alpha Squad. His attitude had always been upbeat and friendly. Wherever they went, Frisco had been out in the street, making friends with the locals. He’d been the first one smiling, the man who’d make jokes before a high-altitude parachute jump, relieving the tension, making everyone laugh.

      But Frisco wasn’t laughing now. He’d stopped laughing five years ago, when the doctors had walked into his hospital room and told him his leg would never be the same. He’d never walk again.

      At first he’d approached it with the same upbeat, optimistic attitude he’d always