Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Take Cover
    Take Cover
    Take Cover
    Ebook119 pages2 hours

    Take Cover

    By Marliss Melton

    3/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Navy SEAL Lt. Mitch Thoreau’s vacation to Spain coincides with Catalonia’s bid for independence. On the streets of Barcelona, the tension between the separatists and the national police suggests imminent unrest—not the best time for a vacation. Meeting the proprietress of Hotel Leonardo makes it all worthwhile.

    Katrina Ferrer is beautiful, idealistic, and everything Mitch desires in a woman. She also carries a terrible secret—one that threatens innocent lives and thrusts Mitch into danger. Arousing suspicion on one side and resentment on the other, both Mitch and Katrina must flee Barcelona or face unwanted consequences. As they talk of a future together, vengeance overtakes them in the medieval city of Seville. Will Mitch’s training be enough to ensure Katrina’s safety, or is happily-ever-after too much to hope for in a world coming apart at the seams?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMarliss Melton
    Release dateDec 21, 2017
    ISBN9781938732249
    Take Cover
    Author

    Marliss Melton

    Bestselling Author Marliss Melton uses her Spec Ops and Intelligence communities to pen realistic and heartfelt stories featuring America's elite warriors. The daughter of a U.S. foreign officer, Melton grew up in various overseas countries, and now resides in Williamsburg, Virginia with her husband and family. www.marlissmelton.com

    Read more from Marliss Melton

    Related to Take Cover

    Related ebooks

    Suspense For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Past Imperfect

      Sep 2, 2023

      Past Imperfect
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Best Recent Thrillers – Review Roundup

      Nov 2, 2021

      Macmillan, £20, pp512 I didn’t expect, when picking up Hillary Rodham Clinton’s debut, State of Terror, for it to be the sort of thriller that I’d simultaneously want to read slowly, soaking in the delicious details of how high-level politicians real

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Mop Closet Of American History

      Jul 11, 2019

      "They were quiet, and just staring, blankly," she said. "There were just blank stares and no expressions on their faces." Welcome to hell, as presided over by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. This image bears deep reflection. It doesn't change. Ch

      4 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Aug 21, 2019

      by Geovani Martins, translated by Julia Sanches (Faber & Faber, ISBN 9780571348244) faber.co.uk The short story is often regarded, somewhat unfairly, as a country cousin to the novel: limited in scope and unable to match the nuance and complexity of

      4 min read

    • Article

      Man Of A Thousand Faces

      Jul 14, 2022

      Man Of A Thousand Faces
      6 min read

    • Article

      The View From Afar

      Sep 11, 2021

      The View From Afar
      5 min read

    • Article

      Cain’s Jawbone: How Crime Novel’s Puzzling Plot Still Keeps Us Guessing

      Nov 27, 2021

      In 1934 Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express was published and became a bestseller. That same year another murder mystery appeared, to rather less fanfare, by “Torquemada”, a contributor to this newspaper famed for his inscrutable crossword

      5 min read

    • Article

      Fiction

      Apr 3, 2024

      Fiction
      9 min read

    • Article

      Past IMPERFECT

      Oct 2, 2023

      Past IMPERFECT
      10 min read

    • Article

      Bad Cop, Worse Cop

      Jun 23, 2017

      Bad Cop, Worse Cop
      4 min read

    • Article

      Paul Theroux: ‘Writing Is A Blood Sport. One Does Have Differences With People’

      Oct 2, 2022

      In an ideal world – by which I mean one that lives up to my most energetic fantasies – Paul Theroux and I would be meeting in some far flung and exotic place: on an empty platform in a distant railway station, or under a date palm in a dried-up deser

      9 min read

    • Article

      Summer Books Special!

      Dec 28, 2023

      Summer Books Special!
      9 min read

    • Article

      Our Founding Father

      Feb 9, 2022

      Mark Boxer once drew a caricature of Richard Ingrams dressed up as a schoolboy, wearing a tiny cap, sitting down with his hands lodged awkwardly between his legs, his mouth set in one of those upside-down smiles, like an upturned U, and a steely, unf

      5 min read

    • Article

      Books

      May 25, 2020

      In this novel, set amid the Spanish Civil War, Isabel Allende gives us a short but incisive account of the horrors of war, as seen through the eyes of the Dalmau family from Barcelona, the Republican forces’ centre. It’s 1938, and the Republicans are

      5 min read

    • Article

      Mexican Standoff

      Jul 3, 2019

      Mexican Standoff
      13 min read

    • Article

      Bad Hare Days

      Oct 6, 2021

      Bad Hare Days
      3 min read

    • Article

      THE CHICAGO MOTHMAN PART ONE RED-EYED CREATURES & GREEN-EYED MONSTERS

      Jan 26, 2023

      “Suddenly a figure stirred in the darkness behind the parked car… It rose up slowly from the ground. A big gray thing. Bigger than a man, with terrible glowing red eyes.” – John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies “O, beware, my lord of jealousy; it is the

      21 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Jun 15, 2022

      Great Read
      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Take Cover

    3/5

    2 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      good read kept my interest peaked throughout the story. I am looking forward to your next book.

    Book preview

    Take Cover - Marliss Melton

    TAKE COVER

    A Novella in the Echo Platoon Series

    MARLISS MELTON

    A NOTICE TO THE READER/LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY:

    This book is a work of fiction and is a product of the author’s imagination or is used fictitiously. Names, characters, and incidents in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone, living or dead, bearing the same name or names. All incidents are pure invention from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or businesses or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

    Copyright © 2017 by Marliss Melton

    Smashwords Edition

    All rights reserved.

    James-York Press

    Williamsburg, Virginia

    Edited by Sydney J. Baily

    Cover Design by Dar Dixon

    Print Layout by BB eBooks

    DEDICATION

    This one is for you, Mike. You’re one hero I will never forget.

    Table of Contents

    Title Page

    Copyright Page

    Dedication

    Acknowledgements

    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

    Other Books by Marliss Melton

    ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

    An author has hit her stride when her readers join her in crafting a story. I am so blessed to have loyal fans who not only proofread my work but to help me come up with the words! Janie Hawkins, I loved having you back in my life. Please stay in it!

    For all the members of my Special Reconnaissance Team who helped this time around—Hooyah! (If you are a huge fan and want to be a member, contact me on Facebook)

    Still, even with so much help, I would be so, so bad without my best friend and editor,

    Sydney J. Baily, to guide me.

    God bless all y’all, as we say here in Virginia!

    Chapter One

    Piped-in Spanish guitar music masked the sound of LT Mitchell Thoreau’s footsteps as he crossed the tiled foyer of Hotel Leonardo, steps ahead of his two teammates. Having come straight from Barcelona International Airport, the three Navy SEALs intended to enjoy their vacation to its fullest. One look at the lovely lady working behind the reception counter, and Mitch lengthened his stride to get to her first. Being on vacation lent him confidence he didn’t usually have with women.

    Hola, he said, putting his Spanish to good use and summoning what he hoped approximated a confident grin. Tenemos una reservación.

    The hotel employee looked up with a friendly smile. Amber brown eyes widened as they skimmed over him and then peered past him to encompass his approaching friends.

    Welcome to Barcelona, she said in flawless English.

    You sound American. Mitch’s gaze slid to her name tag—Katrina Ferrer. Her neat breasts, straining the fabric of a white button-up blouse, were perfect.

    My mother was from Kansas. She shrugged at the unlikelihood that her mother would be from a landlocked state nearly 5,000 miles away. I think she took a hot-air balloon to get here. My father is Catalan, though, and I’ve lived here my whole life.

    "So you speak English, Spanish, and Catalan," Mitch deduced just as Austin and Chuck stepped up beside him.

    Yes, I do. She sent all three of them a dazzling smile. What name is your reservation under?

    Thoreau. He’d inherited the name from his ancestor, Henry David Thoreau. However, since she’d probably never heard of the American novelist and philosopher, Mitch spelled his last name as she lifted slim hands to the keyboard. No wedding ring, he noticed.

    Good of you to visit Barcelona, given the state of things, she said, glancing up to gauge his reaction.

    Mitch hummed in acknowledgement. Their week-long trip to Spain had been planned about a year earlier—well before Catalonia’s push for independence had become a real issue. Our flight was nonrefundable. We just came from the airport, he added.

    Thank you for coming all the same, Katrina insisted. You could have stayed home.

    But then I would never have met you. It sounded like a pick-up line, but he was being perfectly honest.

    Her fingers froze for one second—the only indication that she’d heard him. Then she clicked her mouse while staring at the screen. Here you are. Just one room for the three of you? She arched an eyebrow at him inquiringly.

    At that moment, Mitch so wished he had a room to himself. Since he and his teammates were used to bunking in the same place and didn’t plan to sleep much anyway, sharing a room had seemed like the smartest way to conserve money. Unfortunately, he said, and he had to stop himself from waggling his eyebrows at her.

    Her cheeks had taken on a pinkish hue. And you’re here for only two nights?

    Our plans are flexible, he replied. For the chance to spend more time with her, he’d happily remain in Barcelona all week, though the plan was to continue to Seville and then to Madrid, spending three days in each of the cities.

    Austin Collins put his elbows on the counter. Are all the girls in Barcelona as pretty as you? he asked her.

    Mitch winced at the twenty-year-old’s lack of subtlety.

    Katrina merely smiled. Of course. She glanced at Chuck Suzuki, as if expecting him to chime in, but Chuck rarely spoke, and when he did, he used metaphors—hence his call sign, Haiku.

    Katrina laid a sheet in front of Mitch. Here are our hotel policies. Let me get your signature on the credit card, and then you’ll be all set.

    He signed the slip with his boldest and best signature. How do you feel about the Civil Guards? he asked, putting the pen down.

    Since arriving at the airport, he’d felt like the strong presence of the national police force smacked of foreign occupation—except that, of course, Catalonia was still a province of Spain. La Guardia Civil were everywhere, impossible not to notice in their blue ball caps and armed with assault rifles. He’d seen the clashes on the news between them and the citizens of Barcelona and wondered if Spain was going to turn into another Northern Ireland.

    Tension tightened Katrina’s sun-kissed face. You understand what’s going on? she countered.

    Of course. The world was watching. Barcelona, the seat of Catalonia’s government, had passed a vote declaring Catalonia an independent republic. In recent history, up to the point of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship in 1939, Catalans had ruled themselves. They enjoyed their own culture, their own language, and their cry for autonomy was being heard across the globe. Yet Spain could not afford to release them. Secession would cripple her economy as half the nation’s wealth flowed from and through Catalonia’s thriving ports.

    Things feel pretty tense out there, Mitch prompted, giving voice to his first impression, and wondering how she felt about it.

    It’s not so bad. She shrugged again. Madrid likes to pretend she controls us now, but we will have our way eventually—through peaceful resistance.

    Uh-huh. Mitch wasn’t sure he believed her. Glancing around the quiet hotel lobby, he could only imagine how the unrest had affected the tourism industry.

    We are peace-loving people, Katrina added. We don’t believe in violence. If we did, we would have an army. She gestured outside as if that settled the matter.

    The will of the people should not be ignored. Haiku had finally spoken up.

    Katrina’s eyebrows pulled together as she considered him. Well, that’s true, she agreed. But violence is not the answer.

    Mitch could only hope she was right. His commander, Captain Montgomery, had given the three of them strict orders to carry their passports on their persons, and stay the hell out of trouble—good advice, since Austin loved to fight. The young SEAL’s penchant for using his fists, paired with his love of the Flintstones, had given him his code name, Bam-Bam.

    Here are your three room keys.

    As Katrina detailed some of the hotel’s amenities, Mitch admired the way her lips moved when she talked. The golden hoops dangling from her earlobes drew his attention to the highlights in her incredibly long, honey-colored

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1