Secret Dream: Delos Series, 1B1 Read online

  Secret Dream

  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 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.

  Also 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

  Secret Dream, novella epilogue to Nowhere to Hide

  Unbound Pursuit, novella epilogue to Tangled Pursuit

  Hold On, Book 5

  Hold Me, novella epilogue to Hold On

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

  2017

  Never Enough, novella epilogue to Forged in Fire

  Dream of Me, novella epilogue to Broken Dreams

  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

  2017

  Wind River Rancher

  Wind River Cowboy

  Secret Dream

  Copyright © 2016 by Nauman Living Trust

  ISBN: 978-1-929977-15-4

  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! Secret Dream is a novella that is a continuation of Nowhere To Hide with our hero and heroine Cav and Lia.

  Lia is deeply in love with Cav. All she wants is for her parents to meet and love him as much as she does. Cav, coming from a dysfunctional home, isn’t keen on the idea, not knowing what to expect. Because he loves Lia, wants her happy, he agrees to fly home to meet her farm parents from Ontario, Oregon. Cav gets a less than warm welcome from Lia’s mother, Susan. But her father, Steve, warmly embraces Cav, making him feel more than welcome. As the week stretches on, Cav seeks, in his SEAL way, to ferret out what is really bothering Susan.

  It’s clear to Cav that Susan dotes on her only daughter and is highly protective of Lia because of the attack upon her years earlier. He can’t blame the mother, but the tension in the household must be resolved and he’s going to try and defuse the unknown situation. Further, Lia very much want to become pregnant. She comes from a large farm family, and yearns for a family. It is her secret dream. Can Cav walk through an emotional mine field with Susan, find the source of her distrust of him? More than anything, Cav wants Lia to be happy and he’ll do anything to give her just that.

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

  Dedication

  To my readers, worldwide, who loved Morgan’s Mercenaries. Thank you for supporting this 45-book family saga-series! Now, you have a NEW one to read … Del
os series! I hope you fall in love with the Culver family as you did with the Trayhern family. Happy reading!

  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

  Excerpt from Hold On

  The Books of Delos

  Everything Delos!

  CHAPTER 1

  “I’m worried, Steve.” Susan Cassidy tried to quell her fears and concerns as she sat with her husband at the breakfast table. A red and white checked oilcloth was draped over the rectangular oak table that had been in their family since 1910, when the farmhouse they lived in was built by an earlier generation of their relatives. The September sun shot light through the white and green polka-dot curtains over the kitchen sink. It was seven a.m. on a Saturday. She knew Steve, who was a sugar beet farmer, had a lot to do today before they met Lia, their only daughter, at three p.m. at the Ontario, Oregon, regional airport. She was bringing home a man to introduce to them.

  “About what?” Steve asked, mopping up broken egg yolks with a large piece of the black bread that Susan had made yesterday. He studied his wife. She sat close to his right elbow, her long hair caught up in a blond ponytail between her shoulder blades. He could see the vertical mark that always appeared between her arched brows when she was anxious. Why was she worried? He saw she hadn’t eaten most of her breakfast, which wasn’t like her.

  “This guy she’s bringing home.” She rubbed her brow. “I don’t have a good feeling about it, Steve.”

  He finished cleaning up his plate with the bread and then set it aside, sliding his work-worn hands around a dark blue ceramic mug filled with strong coffee. “Why? Was it something Lia said in her last phone call to us?”

  Mouth quirking, Susan muttered, “No,” and pushed her scrambled eggs around on her plate. “Just a feeling.”

  “The only guys she ever talked about were that Jerry fellow and that Costa Rican, Manuel. And that was years ago.”

  “Yes, and I didn’t have a good feeling about either of them. Manuel was the lesser of two evils, Steve. It was Jerry who did so much more damage to Lia.”

  “Well,” he said, giving his wife a warm look, “you were right about Jerry being bad news for her. He saw Lia’s extensive scarring, and it scared him off.”

  “It did more than that!” Susan said, strain in her voice. “That immature idiot might as well have taken a real knife to Lia! He hurt her so badly when he said he couldn’t stay in their relationship. The moment he saw some of her scars, he freaked out and ran the other way.” Her voice lowered to a growl. “What a coward he was! Did he ever stop to think that someone had brutally attacked her? That she’d barely escaped with her life? He had no sensitivity to her or her situation.”

  Reaching over to his wife, Steve said gently, “That was two years ago, sweetheart. Lia’s grown, she’s matured, and she’s an adult.” He patted her hand. Susan pulled it away, her lips set. He could see the turmoil in his wife’s green eyes. She had been fiercely protective of their daughter since Lia had been attacked and nearly died five years earlier. She was in the Army, at Bagram, at the time. Two men who had worked with her as mechanics suddenly, out of the blue, decided to try to rape her one night when everyone had left the building. What they hadn’t counted on was Lia fighting back. They had used knives to subdue her and threatened to slice her throat open if she didn’t lie down and let them rape her. His daughter was a petite person, but Steve had taught her Krav Maga, an Israeli street-fighting technique. She’d used it, and was still stabbed seven different times by the men, but she managed to escape and go for help. She’d nearly bled to death and would have if not for a doctor driving by the building. Lia had collapsed out in the middle of a highway, trying to flag anyone down who would stop and help her. Luckily, the doctor did. Her quick actions saved Lia’s life.

  “Look, she made a good career change when she left the Army after putting those two goons in prison for four years. She got hired by Delos. And she was happy down in Costa Rica, Susan.”

  Steve understood his wife’s concerns. Lia was their only daughter. She had grown up wild, confident, beautiful, and so alive. The near-rape and assault on her, however, had made her a shadow of her former self. She had scars on her left cheek and neck, on each of her arms and legs, and across her belly. Unable to understand how his brave daughter had survived, Steve had shared his wife’s overprotectiveness toward her since that traumatic day.

  In the five years since then, Lia had struggled—hidden, really—in Costa Rica working for that charity. Jerry, who was her boyfriend when she was attacked, couldn’t stand looking at her and had run away from her, never to see her again. Two years ago, she had gotten into a relationship with Manuel, a Costa Rican, but when he saw her scarring, he was disgusted by it and her. Steve knew his daughter was lonely. He and Susan had envisioned her married and with a passel of kids surrounding her by now, at age twenty-six. She was a natural mothering type, like his wife, who loved children and animals more than anything else. Except—he smiled to himself—them.

  “Yes, until that drug lord Dante Medina murdered the other two teachers at the charity school and then put a hit out on Lia. God, I thought charities were safe,” Susan whispered rawly, pushing strands of blond hair away from her cheek. “I never thought in a million years that Lia would be caught in that kind of crossfire.”

  “Me neither,” Steve agreed, sipping his coffee. “But at least the folks at Delos reacted instantly, Susan. They started rebuilding the school that Medina burned down and hired Lia a bodyguard.”

  “Yes, him,” Susan muttered darkly, scowling.

  Steve smiled a little. “You know nothing about him, Susan. We’ve both spoken to Lia since she came back to Alexandria, Virginia, to work at Delos headquarters. Cav Jordan saved her life down in Costa Rica. Remember? He stopped her from being kidnapped by Medina. He put his life on the line for her. So how bad can he really be?”

  Susan glared at her husband of thirty years. “Okay, I’ll admit that Jordan did save her, and I’m grateful.”

  A faint grin touched Steve’s darkly tanned, weathered features. “You sound awfully accommodating.”

  Susan sat back, watching a grin crawl across her husband’s rugged face. She loved this man as fiercely as when she met him thirty years ago at a barn dance at a neighbor’s beet farm. She punched him lightly in the arm, feeling the corded strength beneath the blue chambray shirt he wore. “Am I going overboard?”

  He chuckled. “Maybe just a little, sweet. I know you’re concerned for our daughter’s sake, but don’t target this poor fella before he gets here and gives you a chance to sit down and really check him out and talk with him. He’s an ex-SEAL. He can’t be all bad. You know, he’s put his life on the line for our country to keep it safe, Susan. I can’t imagine that Lia would be bringing him home to meet us if he wasn’t something real special to her.”

  Rubbing her face, Susan whispered, “Oh, I know, Steve … but she was devastated by Jerry’s immaturity. It hurts me so much to even remember that time, when she came home to stay with us after it happened. Lia cried in my arms, Steve. Do you know how that feels? She was so hurt, she sobbed until she ran out of tears to cry. I cried with her until I couldn’t cry anymore. If anyone is all heart, it’s our daughter. You know that. She was crushed twice by two idiot men who couldn’t see her, just her scars. It absolutely sickens me.”

  He lifted his arm, sliding it around his wife’s tense shoulders. “Lia’s made of strong stuff. She’s inherited our backbone. I know she was hurt by Jerry and that dude Manuel, but that was two years ago. She’s rebounded, and now I think she’s found a fella that is the real deal. She sounded excited
about him on the phone last night, Susan. You heard it in her voice, the hope?”

  “Yes, I did. But you know how starry-eyed and idealistic Lia is. She doesn’t see men realistically.”

  He patted her shoulder, smoothing out the white cotton of her blouse. “And she’s never brought a man home for us to meet, either, sweet. So, there’s something special between those two. We can’t judge without meeting him. And when we do? We have to give him the benefit of the doubt. I know our first knee-jerk reaction is to protect Lia, but she’s twenty-six years old, Susan. She’s an adult. And she can make her own decisions.”

  “Yes,” she sighed. “I know you’re right, darling, but I worry. I worry this guy is like Jerry. Same kind of jerk, just a different name and face.”

  Chuckling, Steve pushed his chair back and released her. “I’ve never met a mother who wasn’t protective of her child. Just don’t bring out the shotgun and shoot the poor guy at fifty feet, okay?” He gave her a grin and picked up his plate and flatware, taking it to the sink.

  Susan grumbled under her breath, “I wish she’d sent a picture of him, Steve.”

  He turned at the sink after rinsing off his hands. “Why? So you can throw darts at it?”

  Susan had the good grace to laugh. “I’m really being ridiculous, aren’t I?”

  Steve held up his thumb and forefinger. “Just a smidgen, sweet.” Wiping his hands on a red and white checked towel, he added, “The man saved our only daughter’s life down in Costa Rica.” He hung the towel on a nearby hook. “If Cav Jordan hadn’t been there to protect Lia, we wouldn’t be seeing either one of them here today. Hold on to that.”

  *

  Cav Jordan wished he could share his fiancée’s excitement as they left the security area of the Ontario, Oregon, airport. Lia looked fetching as the sunlight glancing through the large, tall windows brought out the red and gold highlights among her brown curls, which nearly touched her shoulders. When he’d met her met her in San José, Costa Rica, she had been a pale, scared ghost of herself. She had just escaped being murdered five days before by a regional drug lord, Dante Medina. Her friends, two women teachers, had been brutally murdered, and their school had been burned to the ground. She’d been smart and run to the jungle before his men could find and kill her.