Broken Dreams (Delos Series Book 4) Read online

  Broken Dreams

  Lindsay McKenna

  Praise for Lindsay McKenna

  “A treasure of a book . . . highly recommended reading that everyone will enjoy and learn from.”

  —Chief Michael Jaco, US Navy SEAL, retired, on Breaking Point

  “Readers will root for this complex heroine, scarred both inside and out, and hope she finds peace with her steadfast and loving hero. Rife with realistic conflict and spiced with danger, this is a worthy page-turner.”

  —BookPage.com on Taking Fire

  March 2015 Top Pick in Romance

  “. . . is fast-paced romantic suspense that renders a beautiful love story, start to finish. McKenna’s writing is flawless, and her story line fully absorbing. More, please.”

  —Annalisa Pesek, Library Journal on Taking Fire

  “Ms. McKenna masterfully blends the two different paces to convey a beautiful saga about love, trust, patience and having faith in each other.”

  —Fresh Fiction on Never Surrender

  “Genuine and moving, this romantic story set in the complex world of military ops grabs at the heart.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Risk Taker

  “McKenna does a beautiful job of illustrating difficult topics through the development of well-formed, sympathetic characters.”

  —Publisher’s Weekly (starred review) on Wolf Haven

  One of the Best Books of 2014, Publisher’s Weekly

  “McKenna delivers a story that is raw and heartfelt. The relationship between Kell and Leah is both passionate and tender. Kell is the hero every woman wants, and McKenna employs skill and s empathy to craft a physically and emotionally abused character in Leah. Using tension and steady pacing, McKenna is adept at expressing growing, tender love in the midst of high stakes danger.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Taking Fire

  “Her military background lends authenticity to this outstanding tale, and readers will fall in love with the upstanding hero and his fierce determination to save the woman he loves.

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Never Surrender

  One of the Best Books of 2014, Publisher’s Weekly

  “Readers will find this addition to the Shadow Warriors series full of intensity and action-packed romance. There is great chemistry between the characters and tremendous realism, making Breaking Point a great read.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “This sequel to Risk Taker is an action-packed, compelling story, and the sizzling chemistry between Ethan and Sarah makes this a good read.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Degree of Risk

  “McKenna elicits tears, laughter, fist-pumping triumph, and most all, a desire for the next tale in this powerful series.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Running Fire

  “McKenna’s military experience shines through i this moving tail . . . McKenna (High Country Rebel) skillfully takes readers on an emotional journey into modern warfare and two people’s hearts.”

  —Publisher’s Weekly on Down Range

  Also available from

  Lindsay McKenna

  Blue Turtle Publishing

  DELOS Series

  Last Chance (free eBook), prologue to Nowhere to Hide

  Nowhere To Hide

  Tangled Pursuit

  Forged in Fire

  Broken Dreams

  Coming soon…

  Secret Dream, 1B novella, epilogue to Nowhere to Hide

  Unbound Pursuit, 2B novella, epilogue to Tangled Pursuit

  Harlequin/HQN/Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  SHADOW WARRIORS

  Running Fire

  On Fire—eBook

  Taking Fire

  Zone of Fire—eBook

  Never Surrender

  Breaking Point

  Degree of Risk

  Risk Taker

  Down Range

  Danger Close—eBook

  THE WYOMING SERIES HQN, Harlequin

  Wolf Haven

  High Country Rebel

  The Loner

  The Defender

  The Wrangler

  The Last Cowboy

  Deadly Silence

  Deadly Identity

  Shadows From The Past

  Night Hawk

  Coming soon…

  Out Rider

  WIND RIVER VALLEY SERIES, Kensington

  Coming soon…

  Wind River Wrangler

  Broken Dreams

  Copyright © 2016 by Nauman Living Trust

  ISBN: 978-1-929977-17-8

  Kindle Edition

  Excerpt from Hold On

  Copyright © 2016 by Nauman Living Trust

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Blue Turtle Publishing, PO Box 2513, Cottonwood, AZ 86326 USA

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Blue Turtle Publishing

  www.lindsaymckenna.com

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to the Delos Series! Broken Dreams is Book 4 of the series. I spent five years creating this saga-series. Readers who are familiar with Morgan’s Mercenaries (45 books strong) know that I wrote about a military family. This started back in the 1990’s. You and I fell in love with the Trayhern Family. It was the right tone for the tenor of the times.

  Today, we’re global. Those who have Internet can be halfway around the world in the blink of an eye. There are no longer the boundaries we’ve known before. We are a huge melting pot of humanity, warts and all. I wanted to create a global family this time that reflects the world we live in. With this in mind, I created three families from three different parts of the world who hold all life sacred and important.

  The Culver family is from Alexandria, Virginia. The Kemel family is from Kusadasi, Turkey. The Mykonos family is from Athens, Greece. And like today, family members meet, fall in love and marry a partner from another country. There is a mixing of blood, experience, knowledge, philosophies and an emphasis on what is important to each of them.

  The three families have grown children who are a combination of American, Turkish and Greek bloodlines. And although their lineage is far flung, all three families believe in giving back to those who have less. The Kemel family formed the Delos charities in 1950. In 1990, Dilara Kemel-Badem met and married U.S. Air Force Major Robert Culver. She moved to Alexandria, Virginia and became the president of Delos charities. They raised three children: Talia (Tal), the oldest daughter and twins, Matt and Alexa.

  In Book 1, Nowhere to Hide, is the story of Lia Cassidy, a volunteer to the school in La Fortuna. You will be on the ground floor of seeing how Artemis came into being. And how ex-SEAL, Cav Jordan, assigned to protect Lia as they rebuild the burned down school, falls in love with this valiant, brave young woman.

  Book 2, Tangled Pursuit, you will meet Captain Tal Culver, U.S. Marine Corps. She has nearly nine years in the Corps. A natural leader, she is the assistant commanding officer for one of two sniper units out of Bagram, Afghanistan. She will become CEO of Artemis. U.S. Navy SEAL Chief Wyatt Lockwood, a brazen Texan who has had his eye on Tal for three years, decides it’s time to get this woman of his (even though Tal doesn’t
know it yet), to give him a chance to catch and keep her.

  Book 3, Forged in Fire, you will meet Delta Force Army Sergeant Matt Culver. He’s been in the Army since eighteen and is a kidnapping and ransom (KNR) specialist out of Bagram, Afghanistan. Matt’s enlistment is up in four months. During a holiday program over Thanksgiving at the base, he meets Dr. Dara McKinley, a pediatrician who volunteers her time at a charity in Kabul. They are on a collision course with one another. Matt will later become the director of KNR at Artemis.

  Book 4, Broken Dreams, you will meet U.S. Air Force Captain Alexa Culver. She’s an A-10 combat jet pilot, risking her life over six tours in Afghanistan. Unexpectedly she meets Gage Hunter, a quiet Marine Corps sniper who is a good friend of her brother, Matt. She finds herself helplessly drawn to the West Virginian with a soft drawl. Little do they realize when they go out to an Afghan village to give medical help to children, their lives will change forever.

  FREE EBOOK!

  Good news for my readers! Last Chance is a free eBook available to all of you that begins the Delos Series! Lia Cassidy, the heroine is an employee of the Delos charities and this book is the prologue to Nowhere to Hide. The free novella is 14,000 words long and sets up the premise of the saga-series for the reader. Last Chance is available at Amazon, iBooks, Kobo or my bookstore at lindsaymckenna.selz.com.

  After you meet the Culver family and get to know them, their stories, and the people they fall deeply in love with, I will then be writing about the missions. These ops will come out of Delos charities that have need of protection from some faction in their country. Tal, Matt and Alexa, with a team of two hundred of the best security people in the world, will take the info and create a mission plan. One security contractor might be needed. It could be a man or a woman. Or two might be needed. The stories are fresh, intensely romantic, and heart pounding. You won’t be able to stop reading!

  Let me hear from you about the Culver Family and the Delos series. Happy reading!

  Dedication

  To J.M. Madden, my Indie author-sister who has more than helped me get grounded into my new career as an Indie author. Thank you. Check out J.M.’s books at her website jmmadden.com.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Praise for Lindsay McKenna

  Also available from Lindsay McKenna

  Copyright Page

  Dear Reader

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Excerpt from Hold On

  The Books of Delos

  Everything Delos!

  CHAPTER 1

  Gage Hunter had to admit it—he was exhausted. Sitting on a bench in the Marine Corps’s Force Recon unit locker room, he put a little more oil on the cloth and finished cleaning his rifle. After completing a successful HVT—high-value target—mission, he’d been picked up last night by a Night Stalker MH-47 on the side of a mountain. Once back at the base, he’d fallen into bed at the Recon HQ barracks for his first night’s sleep in three weeks.

  Usually, Gage bounced back after a mission, but for some reason he felt wiped out this time. He should have been celebrating his kill—after all, it was the twentieth HVT he’d taken out in Afghanistan during his five rotations here.

  He rose and carried the rifle over to the nearby weapon’s locker, carefully stowing it away. It was now 1400 and his stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast at the chow hall, when he’d hungrily shoveled down a real meal of ham and eggs. While on assignment, he usually lost between ten and twenty pounds, depending on the length of the mission. Unfortunately, HVTs didn’t exactly come over the border whenever he wanted them to.

  His spotter, Sergeant Craig Wilson, was gone for a month. He’d earned himself a thirty-day leave, and he’d headed home to his wife and family. Gage envied him. It was mid-January, and here in Afghanistan, snow was falling in the Hindu Kush mountains. Gage knew his life as a sniper was now pretty much curtailed, except for special ops missions with the SEALs or Delta Force. Those guys moved all the time, even in winter, ignoring the ass-freezing cold and deep snows that usually attacked this beleaguered country. Gage liked working with black ops groups, and reciprocally, Marine snipers were heartily welcomed on SEAL DAs—direct action missions—regardless of the weather.

  Pushing his hand through his unruly black hair, he closed the door to his weapons locker and locked it. Yeah, he knew he needed to get his hair cut soon and neatly trim the scraggly three weeks’ growth of beard. He knew he’d soon have to listen to his captain growl, “Look like a Marine, damn it, not like an Afghan.”

  Gage had four weeks of downtime here at Bagram, and now he had to fit into the drawdown and start wearing his Marine Corps gear again. When he was on an op, he looked more like a sun-darkened Afghan than a Marine, and he hated returning to the base to become a spit-polished Marine once more.

  On the plus side, his captain, Troy Donner, tended to give him some leeway. Snipers were force multipliers. A single man could go out with his rifle and disrupt ten to twenty times the enemy, scattering them, causing confusion, and breaking down authority in the ranks. In a firefight, snipers were always desired just for that reason. They were the cream of the crop, and Gage was often given an exception to the Corps’ rules because of his status and importance as a sniper. They were the rock gods of the ground forces—looked up to, respected, and always a welcomed addition to a squad, platoon, or company operating in the badlands of this country.

  Rubbing his beard, Gage decided to go over to the base barber after a late lunch of cold beer and pizza. Sure, it was the dead of winter, but cold beer tasted great anytime, and after being out on a three-week op, he looked forward to drinking a mug or two. Besides, he was sure his fellow snipers were hanging out in one of the many canteens on Bagram, making up for lost time.

  He grinned as he thought of his group. They were all close to each other, like brothers who got along really well. Only Gage kept himself on the perimeter of their fraternity, and some of his friends called him a loner. Well, he was—sort of.

  Leaning down, he opened his clothes locker and came face-to-face with the three photos he’d taped to the inside of the door. As he took in his family staring back at him, he again felt the emptiness of loss.

  The first photo showed him and his younger sister, Jen standing together on the front porch of their Chicago row house. A surge of love overwhelmed him as he stood staring at his blond sister with her huge blue eyes, her arm around his waist, looking as if she were having the time of her life. Gage had thrown his arm around his sister’s small shoulders, and they were both grinning up at their ex-Marine father, Gib, who’d taken the photo.

  Jenny had been eleven then, and he’d been thirteen. It was the first day of school on that hot, humid late-August morning. Both of them were eager to check it out, but neither suspected this would count as one of the happiest days of their lives.

  God, it hurt to look at these photos now. Gage had lost so much since they were taken that he stubbornly clung to them. How could he not? They were all he had left of his original family.

  In the second photo, his mother, Cynthia, whose black hair and blue eyes he had inherited, stood beneath his other arm. She was partially blind but tough and strong. Despite her visual impairment, she still worked from home as a customer service assistant for a national company. She had enough energy to be a loving, caring mom to her kids.

  His father, his id
ol, had just left the Marine Corps a year earlier and was still struggling to adjust to civilian life.

  Now Gage regarded the last photo, of him and his dad. Gib Hunter had been a sniper in Iraq, a Marine Corps hero who had earned a Silver Star. At six feet four inches, he was two inches taller than his son, but Gage had inherited his dad’s oval face, high-cheek bones, wide-spaced eyes, and strong, well-muscled body, along with his mother’s cheerful disposition. At least, he’d always been upbeat . . . until it all came crashing down.

  Gage scowled, tearing his gaze from the photos. It would do no good to rehash what had happened. Death was final. He couldn’t go back and replay that scenario. His family was gone. Just acknowledging it brought a lump to his throat, and he lowered his eyes, unable to look at their faces another minute.

  Closing the locker door gently, he grabbed a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved, dark green shirt bearing the gold Marine Corps symbol, a pair of thick black winter socks, and his motorcycle boots. Dropping down onto the bench, he pulled off his green Marine T-shirt, unlaced his desert combat boots, and pushed them aside. In no time, he was in his civilian clothes.

  He grabbed his dark brown, beat-up leather bombardier jacket, his Marine Corps baseball cap, and a green and yellow shemagh that he wrapped around his neck and shoulders.

  Who would he see over at the local canteen? He was hoping some of his sniper friends would be there, but you never knew. Gage was just fine sitting by himself sipping a beer in a dark corner, his watchful eyes surveying the rest of the men and the few women in it.

  Glancing at the leather watch on his wrist, he saw it was 1420. Time to eat, and hopefully, to put back on some of the weight he’d lost.

  *

  “Hey! Hunter! Over here, buddy.”

  Gage halted just inside the loud, bustling canteen. In the far corner he saw his friend Matt Culver, a Delta Force operator, waving in his direction. His mood lifted a bit, and he nodded and made his way over. Matt was sitting by himself at a round table with three chairs.