New release Feb. 1

Shielded by the Cowboy Seal is out Feb. 1! I'm quite excited about my second romantic suspense book for Harlequin. Cooper is a sexy Navy SEAL who is home on leave and has to protect a runaway heiress who needs refuge from her ex-husband. Meg hides a secret that will rattle Cooper's world once he discovers it. 

Here's a sneak peak at Shielded by the Cowboy Seal, out Feb. 1!

Copyright 2017 Bonnie Vanak

She peered upward to get a closer look at him. A thick shock of wavy dark brown hair was cropped short. He had an intense gaze, thin cheekbones and a wide mouth. Handsome, with a hint of Irish blood in those ice-blue eyes.

A dusting of black hair covered his muscled chest. Washboard abs rippled beneath smooth, tanned skin. He was mouthwatering, a prime example of masculinity. Meg stared, still struggling with the unreality that this man had rescued her from the cold and warmed her with his body.

“You’re Cooper Johnson?”

“The one and only,” he drawled. “Your host over the next several days.”

She pulled the blankets up to cover her breasts, well aware her lacy red bra provided thin covering in the chill, and her nipples had turned rigid.

From the cold. Not the pull of attraction toward this handsome stranger. It didn’t matter if her libido sat up and started shimmying.

All she had to do was think of what Prescott would do if he found her, and her heated blood turned to ice.

“Where’s Sophie?”

Cooper lifted the bottom of the blankets. Snuggled at his feet, wedged partly beneath the covers, her dog snoozed. Relief filled Meg. She tossed back the covers, climbed down the length of the bed and gathered her dog into her arms, checking her over anxiously.

“She seems okay.” Meg drew in a deep breath as the awakening Sophie licked her face.

Sheer male interest flared on Cooper’s face. He rearranged the blankets around his waist. Realizing he must have had a bull’s-eye glimpse of her rear end, Meg flushed. She clutched the dog just a little too tightly, and Sophie squirmed.

The interest faded as his expression shuttered. He scratched the bristles on his hard jaw. “You feeling okay now, Princess?”

At her nod, he flung back the blankets, displaying a pair of long, muscled legs. A dusting of hair didn’t hide a wicked-looking scar on his left thigh. Her fascinated gaze traveled upward to the black Jockeys he wore…

And the very large bulge beneath them showing a blatant male reaction.

Seems as if Cooper Johnson was equally attracted to her.
Not that she’d do anything about it. Not in her lifetime.

His mouth curved into a knowing smile as he reached down to the floor, retrieved a pair of jeans. Cooper slid into them and stood, buckling the belt.

“Had to get you warm. Can’t help the consequences. I’m a guy, and you’re a very attractive woman.”

He shoved a hand through his thick hair and the move flexed the biceps of his right arm. A tattoo of a snake writhed with the motion as well. Sailors got inked, from what she knew. And he was a Navy SEAL.

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Navy Seal Seduction is FINISHED!

I finally finished writing Navy Seal Seduction, my first romantic suspense book for Harlequin. Yay! This book is out in print and digital in July. I've posted an excerpt below.

The plan is now to finish the proposal due for the next romantic suspense book, and then I'll be returning to my Werewolves of Montana. Tristan's book is close to being finished. Happy 2016!

Navy Seal Seduction
copyright 2016 by Bonnie Vanak

A tall, muscled pirate in a clean white shirt and black trousers stood before her in the courtyard of Le Soleil Hotel. Scowling to hide her emotions, she stared, her heart racing as if she’d run a mile up and down the nearby mountain. Black hair cropped short, he wore a pressed white shirt, the cuffs rolled up to display tanned, muscled forearms. Smooth cheeks, strong jaw and a nose that had been broken at least once. Rugged, tough and those eyes, green as the ocean water he navigated on a mission.

            Those eyes had turned smoky and dark with passion as they’d made love, and cold as the Arctic the day she’d announced she’d hired a lawyer to initiate divorce proceedings. Whoa, he still had it. Hot, hot, hot, as the locals said. Bad boy to the extreme, who made her female parts say Why, hello there!

            Her female parts needed to stay quiet. This time she’d listen to her broken heart, and not her hormones, even though her heart jumped at the sight of him.

            He had never been there for her before, and certainly wasn’t staying now. 

            Lacey managed to find her voice. “I hope this is a bad dream and I’ll wake up and find you gone.”

            Her ex-husband pulled out a chair, turned it around and straddled it. “Well, darling, it seems your nightmare isn’t going away. Neither am I.”

She managed to conceal her trembling hands by wrapping her fingers tight around the beer bottle. Lacey took a deep drink, relishing the cool wash of liquid sliding down her throat. It reminded her of that time after they’d consumed several beers and then he’d kissed her and they had…

Not. Going. There.

“Go away Jarrett. If you’re here on a mission, aren’t you supposed to be invisible in your invincibility?”

He did not smile. Flickering candlelight on the table revealed the sharp angles and planes of his lean face. Jarrett looked all business.

“You’re my mission. I’m taking you out of here. I booked us on tomorrow’s early morning flight.” He glanced around. “Before the elections and before this place blows to hell.”

            Jarrett, trying to be funny, except his expression was dead serious. Had he heard about the mysterious vandalism plaguing her compound? It had been a few minor incidents she’d written off as a nuisance caused by locals who didn’t like how she helped women, until last week’s truck fire.

            That fire had not been a nuisance. It destroyed her best working vehicle.

She glanced around at the two other occupied tables and lowered her voice.

            “Are you insane? I’m not going anywhere with you.”

            “St. Marc is teetering on a coup and I’m taking you back to the States.”

            She knew St. Marc intimately, shied away from the hot spots and knew how to handle herself. “Elections are in two days. I know about the violence, and know how to avoid it and soon as elections are over, things will cool down. Stop wasting your time.”

            “You’re at risk of getting shot, kidnapped, or both.”

            “The media exaggerates about a few protests downtown. It’s not violent here.”

Jarrett turned his head as six men carrying sinister-looking guns trotted out onto the courtyard, racing off toward the hotel disco. His mouth curved in a knowing smile.

            “The president is here with his friends. He likes the disco,” she snapped.

            “Do all his friends carry assault rifles?”

            “It’s the latest fashion craze. Goes well with the Guayabera shirts. We do like to accessorize here on St. Marc.”

            The smile dropped, replaced with a dark stare. The Look. How many times had he aimed it at her in the past? The man had a stubborn streak bigger than a US Navy destroyer. Jarrett leaned forward. “This country is eroding into civil unrest, Lace, elections or no elections. You need to get out. How many State Department warnings does it take before you’ll listen?”

            Anger fisted in her stomach. “Those warnings are for the tourists who come here to do poverty tours, or sun themselves on the beaches. Not for ex-pats like me or Paul. And who the hell are you to tell me what to do? We’re no longer married.”

             She was 29, no longer that wide-eyed girl who’d fallen hard and fast for the handsome Navy sailor with a wicked smile, husky laugh and skilled hands. Marlee’s Mangos was her dream now, not a life of domestic bliss with a SEAL who was gone more than he’d been home.

            Gone too, when she needed him the most. Lacey clenched her beer bottle again and pushed away thoughts of the baby they’d lost. That was the past, and St. Marc was her future.

            Jarrett Adler belonged to those ghosts she’d exorcised out of her life...