Nowhere to Hide (Delos Series Book 1) Read online

  Nowhere To Hide

  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

  “RUNNING FIRE….McKenna’s dazzling eight Shadow Warriors novel (after Taking Fire) is a rip-roaring contemporary military romance with heart and heat. McKenna elicits tears, laughter, fist-pumping triumph, and most of all, a desire for the next tale in this powerful series.”

  —(starred review) Publisher’s Weekly, 3.23.2015 on Running Fire

  “…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’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

  Nowhere To Hide

  Coming soon…

  Tangled Pursuit

  Forged in Fire

  Broken Dreams

  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 WYOMNG SERIES

  Night Hawk

  Wolf Haven

  High Country Rebel

  The Loner

  The Defender

  The Wrangler

  The Last Cowboy

  Deadly Silence

  Deadly Identity

  Shadows From The Past

  Coming soon…

  Out Rider

  Nowhere To Hide

  Copyright © 2015 by Nauman Living Trust

  ISBN: 978-1-929977-02-4

  Kobo Edition

  Excerpt from Tangled Pursuit

  Copyright © 2015 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

  Printed in U.S.A.

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to the Delos 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 boundaries as we’ve known them before. We are a huge melting pot of humanity, warts and all. I wanted to create a global family this time, that reflected 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. In 1950, Delos charities were formed by the Kemel family. 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 today’s world of terror, nothing is safe anywhere on our planet, to fight terrorism the three Culver children went into the military. It is when one of the Delos charities in La Fortuna, Costa Rica, is attacked, two teachers murdered, that Robert and Dilara Culver decided their 1,800 charities worldwide needed protection. Artemis Security was created and became their in-house firm. And as they created this protection for their vast number of volunteers worldwide, they asked their grown children to leave the military and come home to run it.

  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. Alexa was planning on giving up her commission to go home to help run Artemis.

  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!

  What I love also, is being an “Indie” (independent) writer. In 2016 you will find 40,000 word novellas on each of the above characters. You’ll go deeper into their individual stories. I have always wanted to write beyond the main book, but in brick ’n mortar publishing, it was almost impossible. Now? I can do it. Please drop me a line and let me know if you enjoy the novellas.

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

  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

  Cover

  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 Tangled Pursuit

  The Books of Delos

  Everything Delos!

  CHAPTER 1

  The thundering hoof beats sent a minor quake through Lia’s slender, nine-year-old body. Her laughter bubbled up as her long, bare legs gripped the barrel of her gelding, Goldy. The horse raced down a pathway between two huge fields of sugar beets filling row after row across a hundred acres, each plant bearing wavy green leaves. The wind whipped past Lia’s tipped-up face, her eyes now closed and her arms thrown upwards toward the dusky August sky.

  With each powerful beat of Goldy’s hooves striking the dry, sandy soil, Lia gripped her horse tighter with her long thighs. She had only ten days until school started, and before she left she wanted to ride like the wind each evening. This was the best time, when the temperatures climbed down from the hundred-degree mark on this eastern border town in Oregon.

  Goldy’s white mane was long, whipping against Lia’s slim body. Today, she wore only a pink tank top and dark blue shorts, as well as the tennis shoes her mother insisted she wear when she rode. She preferred that her horse wear only a faded old nylon halter and a lead rope. She used no saddle, but rode his damp, sleek gold back as if born to it, laughing as she felt the powerful ripple of his muscles beneath her bouncing butt. The wind trailed between her open fingers, drying her perspiration.

  The pathway between the two large beet fields was a mile in length. Even though this horse, her companion since he was rescued from a dog food factory in Ontario, was now eighteen years old, he still raced at full speed down the beet-laden corridor. Lia just loved the sensation of the two of them in full flight, probably as much as Goldy did!

  The wind made her eyes water, so she kept them shut. The rope halter hung around Goldy’s neck within easy reach of her hand, but Lia didn’t want to pick it up. Her horse had carried her like this many times, and it was a special joy, as if he were Pegasus and she his rider, racing with him across the pink and orange sunset. They were more than horse and rider. Lia trusted her gelding with her life.

  Although Goldy was considered an old horse, he had the innate wisdom and years of experience to know how to take care of her.

  Lia lived for these moments, the wind tearing at her long, curly brown hair streaked with gold highlights. Suddenly, everything shifted.

  A soft moan caught in Lia’s throat, her brow wrinkling as if to fend off an unseen threat. The night sky held colorful ribbons stacked upon each other along the western horizon. At first the sky was a pale blue, Lia watched anxiously as the sky turned pink, then fuchsia and finally, a blood red. No longer simply a color, the red became liquid, dripping down in huge, long streams toward her face, striking her and staining Goldy as he continued to race forward.

  “NO!” Lia screamed, her voice cracking.

  Caught in the web of her nightmare. She saw the flash of a steel blade glittering for a split second before it came down, slicing through her flesh. She felt the hot release of blood. Lia turned, striking out with her fists. She cried out for help but she knew none would appear.

  Her attackers, Jorge Dominguez and Bruce Schaefer, were men she’d known for two years. They were Army mechanics she’d worked with at Bagram Air Base, near Kabul, Afghanistan. Why were they attacking her? Her mind reeling, she screamed as one man’s hand gripped her shirt, trying to hold her down on the cold, smooth concrete floor of the building. Twisting away, panting, scrambling, Lia saw a second blade swinging down and heard the man curse as he sliced open her left cheek.

  Crying out in shock and pain, she jerked away, the point of the knife ripping into her again, opening up a trail of blood down her outer right arm. She realized she had to escape or die!

  Air exploded from her mouth as she wrestled, kicked and shrieked, trying to get away from her assailants. Their knives flashed again and this time she heard her trousers ripping. Kicking out, she felt a hot, burning slicing sensation down one calf and then the other as she lashed out with her boots, trying to fend them off.

  She wouldn’t give up! They would have to kill her before she stopped fighting. No man was going to take her down and rape her! No man! Rage and survival instinct entwined into a lethal, invisible fist, roaring up through Lia as she kicked one assailant in the face with her Army boot. Why were they doing this? Why?

  She heard the crunch of his nose breaking beneath the heel of her boot and felt a moment of satisfaction as she heard him yelp in surprise, the blade dropping from his hand.

  One more! One more man to take down and she would be free to run like hell! Her breath came in shallow sobs as she felt another blade slice into h
er, aiming to gut her, but Lia twisted away in time, the blade made a horizontal slice across her belly.

  Blinded by blood pouring into her left eye, animal-like sounds erupted from her. Swinging her fists, she went after the brown-eyed Latino who lunged at her, unable to move quickly enough, Lia fell.

  She landed on her back, screaming as he pounced. As he did, she shot both her boots upward and connected with the man’s chest. The collision jarred every joint in her body, making her cry out in pain.

  Her assailant cursed as he was thrown off to one side, his knife falling from his hand.

  Rolling, scrambling blindly to her hands and knees, she staggered to her feet. It was nearly dark in the motor pool garage and all she could see was the red exit door light a hundred feet away.

  Lia’s boots struck the concrete, echoing hollowly. Her heart was beating hard and loud, she couldn’t hear anything else. Terror and adrenaline pushed her forward towards the door. She had to get help!

  It had all begun when she was assigned to close up the motor pool for the night. Why would these men she’d spent years with suddenly, and unaccountably, threaten her with knives and attempt to rape her.

  Why? Why? Lia sobbed as she hit the door at a full run, her hands out, striking the bar so that it opened. The door was flung back, banging loudly against the building.

  In the cool night air, Lia felt her head clear. She knew where to run—there was a highway nearby, and she could see headlights from the many military vehicles leaving the Army base. Weak from blood loss, she swayed but adrenaline kept her running. She pushed herself forward to the highway.

  Almost blinded by the blood coursing down the left side of her face, she threw up her hands and nearly fell onto the two-lane highway. She reached the yellow line and waved frantically at an approaching Humvee.