Never Enough: Delos Series, 3B1 Read online

  Never Enough

  By 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 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 in this moving tale … 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

  “Lindsay McKenna has proven that she knows what she’s doing when it comes to these military action/romance books.”

  —Terry Lynn, Amazon on Zone of Fire.

  “At no time do you want to put your book down and come back to it later! Last Chance is a well written, fast paced, short (remember that) story that will please any military romance reader!”

  —LBDDiaries, Amazon on Last Chance.

  Available from

  Lindsay McKenna

  Blue Turtle Publishing

  DELOS

  Last Chance, prologue novella to Nowhere to Hide

  Nowhere to Hide, Book 1

  Tangled Pursuit, Book 2

  Forged in Fire, Book 3

  2016

  Broken Dreams, Book 4

  Cowboy Justice Bundle/Blind Sided, Bundle 2, novella

  Blind Sided, BN2

  Secret Dream, B1B novella, epilogue to Nowhere to Hide

  Hold On, Book 5

  Hold Me, 5B1, sequel to Hold On

  Unbound Pursuit, 2B1 novella, epilogue to Tangled Pursuit

  Dog Tags for Christmas Bundle/Snowflake’s Gift, Bundle 3, novella

  Secrets, 2B2 novella, sequel to Unbound Pursuit, 2B1

  2017

  Snowflake’s Gift, Book 6

  Never Enough, 3B1, novella, sequel to Forged in Fire

  Dream of Me, 4B1, novella, sequel to Broken Dreams

  Trapped, Book 7

  Taking a Chance, Book 8, sequel to Trapped

  Harlequin/HQN/Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  SHADOW WARRIORS

  Danger Close

  Down Range

  Risk Taker

  Degree of Risk

  Breaking Point

  Never Surrender

  Zone of Fire

  Taking Fire

  On Fire

  Running Fire

  THE WYOMING SERIES

  Shadows From The Past

  Deadly Identity

  Deadly Silence

  The Last Cowboy

  The Wrangler

  The Defender

  The Loner

  High Country Rebel

  Wolf Haven

  Night Hawk

  Out Rider

  WIND RIVER VALLEY SERIES, Kensington

  2016

  Wind River Wrangler

  Wind River Rancher

  2017

  Wind River Cowboy

  Wind River Wrangler’s Challenge

  Never Enough

  Copyright © 2017 by Nauman Living Trust

  ISBN: 978-1-929977-22-2

  Kindle Edition

  Excerpt from Sanctuary

  Copyright © 2017 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! Readers get to follow Matt Culver and Dara McKinley’s continuing story from Forged in Fire, after they’ve met and fell in love.

  In Forged in Fire, Dara met Matt Culver, a Delta Force operator. She’d never been so drawn to someone in her life as this golden-brown eyed Army sergeant who was supremely confident, yet so tender with children and with her. While driving out to a “safe” Afghan village to render medical aid with her sister, Callie, they were attacked by the Taliban. After surviving, Dara was slammed back into the real world to finish her pediatric residency in Alexandria, Virginia. Matt comes home a month later, proposes to her and she accepts. After Christmas, Dara goes home to her ranch family in Butte, Montana and introduces them to Matt. While there, she is emotionally drained by the needs of Callie, her sister, who was captured and nearly raped by the enemy during the escape. She loves her younger sister very much. She fights to help her return from that trauma along with Beau Gardener’s help, as well as her Grandfather McKinley. Dara is exhausted in every way. Matt takes her to Hawaii to revive, which begins our story of Never Enough.

  Matt is adamant about getting his beautifu
l, beleaguered fiancée some vacation time. He knows that Dara loves Hawaii, but has never been to the Islands. Matt wants Dara to have true down time. Only, the peace he had hoped for is interrupted unexpectedly when a Delos charity on Oahu asks for their help.

  Let me hear from you about the Culver Family and the Delos series. Please visit my website at www.lindsaymckenna.com, to keep up the latest, exciting happenings with my series.

  You will find an excerpt in the back of this novella for Sanctuary, Teren and Nolan’s story.

  Happy reading!

  Warmly, Lindsay McKenna

  Dedication

  To all my readers who loved the Morgan’s Mercenary saga-series! Now there is a new one! Delos series. May you enjoy this vibrant, exciting global family!

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Praise for Lindsay McKenna

  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

  Excerpt from Dream of Me by Lindsay McKenna

  The Books of Delos

  Everything Delos!

  CHAPTER 1

  “Hawaii is so lush and beautiful even in early January, Matt.” Dara smiled over at him. She leaned against him, his arm around her waist. They’d landed in Oahu earlier in the morning and rented a silver Toyota RAV4, and he’d brought her to the biggest shopping district in Honolulu, the Ala Moana Center. He’d grudgingly traded in his normal black T-shirt and jeans for a bright, white and red Tommy Bahama silk shirt with short sleeves. With his new clothes and his military-short black hair, plus his Turkish and Greek blood giving his skin a golden tone, much like that of the Hawaiians Dara had already met, he looked like an islander. Drowning in those golden eyes of his, their large black pupils fixed on her in a hunter’s gaze, she smiled warmly, her heart opening fiercely to this man who was going to be her husband in five short months.

  “I’ve always liked coming to the islands,” he murmured, watching the sun climb over the sharp-pointed mountain range that ran from north to south down the western coast of Oahu. After their shopping trip, they’d drive around the island to the large town of Waianae. Dara had begged him to stop at the huge shopping center because she wanted to buy some Hawaiian clothes. He’d easily relented, hating shopping but loving the hell out of her. And Matt was glad they’d stopped at the Ala Moana, because she’d bought some knockout clothes that did nothing but enhance that long, sensuous body of hers.

  Of course, when she went shopping, Matt took the opportunity to do a little black-ops snooping on his own. He hadn’t been a Delta Force operator for nearly ten years for nothing. After moving in with Dara, he noticed she had no personal electronic tablet, so he stopped in at the huge Apple store and bought her a new iPad. He’d wanted to get her an after-Christmas gift, anyway. For his mother, Dilara, he bought a huge, king-size Hawaiian quilt in bright shades of red, yellow, and white at Auana Quilts. Artemis Shipping had red and yellow horizontal stripes painted around each of their container or tanker ships, the company’s colors. And Turkey, his mother’s home, was filled with bright, clean, beautiful colors. He thought she might like the gift because she adored quilts from around the world. She didn’t have one from Hawaii, so Matt knew it would be well received. And then he found a second shop, Hawaiian Quilt Collection, where he bought some quilted placemats for the dinner table with colorful birds-of-paradise flowers sewn into them. He knew she’d love the orange and purple.

  He then found Dara in Hilo Hattie, in the women’s clothing section. She’d already bought an ankle-length sleeveless dress with a red and yellow hibiscus print. The dark blue background was the same color as Dara’s eyes, and he smiled over that. She had also traded in her conservative, dark-brown wool pantsuit and leather shoes for a bright-red, ruched sundress with a heart-shaped bodice, slim shoulder straps, and a hem that fell to mid-thigh. The white hibiscus on it made her look like a wahine to him. Plus, it showed off her long, long, gorgeous legs that he was so fond of. She pirouetted around for him, her gold hair laying like a shining cape halfway down her back. Dara knew how much he loved seeing her with her hair down. As a pediatrician due to finish up her residency at an Alexandria, Virginia, hospital in three more months, she typically had to wear her hair up on top of her head or in a ponytail. At home in their condo, however, she always wore it down, much to his pleasure.

  Dara had already bought some women’s Hawaiian tees, shorts, and white blouses with feminine touches. It was when she excitedly brought out a stunning silk sarong, hand painted in lavender with gold hibiscus, that he about lost it. This sensuous piece of silk could be worn in various ways, all sexy as far as he was concerned. The young Hawaiian clerk, she said, had eagerly shown her the many ways to wrap it and told Dara that she could wear it without a bra or panties. That made Matt take notice, because as Dara pulled out the cloth, allowing it to hang off her arm, he was making all kinds of plans about where she could wear that and how he was going to take it off her. Dara had given him a devilish look that told him she had the very same idea, and he’d given her a feral grin. This vacation was going to be a well-earned reward for both of them.

  His fiancée was smiling as he carried all her packages to the parking lot. The morning sun rose warm in a soft-blue sky, and the ocean, which they could see from where they were, was smooth, a marine blue, with sunlight glinting and dappling on its mirror-like surface. “You look damn good in that red and white sundress,” he warned her, opening the RAV’s door for her.

  “Like it, Culver?” she teased, tossing her hair and turning in a circle, giving him some of the hip-roll action that she used in her belly dancing to spark his lust.

  “I more than like it,” he growled, opening the rear door. “You keep that up and we aren’t even going to make it out of our rental house on the other side of the island.” Dara’s blue eyes sparkled with laughter; she enjoyed teasing him. He liked seeing her girlish side and more of that wild woman he knew lurked deep within her. He placed all the packages on the rear seat.

  He had met Dara at Bagram Airfield last November. She and her sister, Callie McKinley, had volunteered to give a belly-dancing performance for the Thanksgiving USO show at one of the larger chow halls. Matt and his team had just come off a long op and were exhausted and sleep deprived. It had been Beau Gardner, another Delta Force sergeant on his team, who had nagged him to come on over, eat, and watch the show. Matt had grudgingly done so. But the first act got his blood pumping and captured his total attention. It was Dara in a bright red belly-dancing outfit with gold coins sewn on to the chiffon fabric here and there, and the sight of her ripped his exhaustion away. As her long, gold hair flowed like sunlight around her lithe, graceful upper body, he felt like someone had stunned him with a Taser. Dara had been beautiful, like a ballerina, as Callie played the music for her slow, sexy dance. Four-thousand men had been in that chow hall, and those two sisters had each brought down the house. Callie looked gorgeous, too, with her red hair shining against a purple belly-dancing outfit with glittering silver coins. Beau was smitten with Callie’s hot, fast dance. And now he was in a relationship with her. Delta operators knew how to get the women who entangled their hearts.

  Matt saw his Turkish grandmother Damia’s diamond engagement ring glittering fiercely in the sunlight as Dara climbed into the RAV. His heart swelled; his grandma Damia, whose rings he had given Dara on Christmas Day, had said on her deathbed that she saw a beautiful woman with sunlit hair who would one day wear the rings she’d worn for sixty-five years. It had totaled Matt emotionally when his mother, Dilara, reminded him of what Damia had said. He needed to feel his way through his clairvoyant Turkish grandma’s prediction. It was a good sign, an important one to him. Dara had loved
the ring set and was touched to the point of tears. Dara valued family just like Matt did, because she had a very positive, tight-knit family of her own in Butte, Montana.

  He climbed into the RAV and glanced over at Dara. She looked delicious in that short, girlish dress with the heart-shaped bodice. She had already traded her winter footgear for a pair of sexy, strappy white leather sandals, showing off the bright-red nail polish she’d painted on her toes the night before. “You look more like a college girl than a doctor,” he teased, putting the RAV in gear and slowly leaving the sprawling parking lot.

  “I feel like one. This is such a nice after-Christmas gift.” She gestured out the open window at the velvet-green lava ridge above them. “I love smelling the salt of the ocean, Matt. How many times have you been over here?”

  Matt pulled out into the busy traffic in downtown Honolulu, heading north on Ala Moana Boulevard. “I’ve lost count. When my Delta Force team came over here for jungle-training refresher courses, we were usually out in the mountains opposite the Kaneohe Marine Corps base, which sits northeast of the city. The SEALs also used the same area, and sometimes we’d work in a jungle challenge with one another to sharpen our skills. They’re a great group to work with.”

  Smiling absently, Dara enjoyed sitting back, relaxing, and leaving the driving to him. Matt wasn’t a braggart. He had what she termed quiet confidence. She remembered seeing him in action that day the Taliban sent two pickup trucks full of soldiers hurtling toward a market in Kabul, Afghanistan, that they had bombed two days earlier. They were firing off their weapons indiscriminately on either side of the street. Matt had calmly gone outside the orphanage where Callie and Dara were volunteering, gotten down on one knee, and started systematically firing his M4 rifle at the oncoming enemy. Dara couldn’t believe how placid he was as bullets flew around him. It was then that she recognized the quiet, steely courage that Matt had. She’d never been around that kind of violence before, and it had shocked her to her soul. Dara had known going over to Kabul would be dangerous, that the six months a year Callie spent working at that orphanage were filled every day with the possibility of dying. But that day, she had seen it.