The
Asset
Wounded
Warrior Series, Book
One
Anna
del Mar
Genre: Romantic suspense, Contemporary romance, Military romance, SEAL romance.
Publisher: Carina Press * Date of Publication: February 22,
2016
eISBN: 9781459293526 * ASIN: B01765RJI2
Number of pages: 336 pages * Word Count: Approx. 95,000
Anna
del Mar’s explosive, sexy debut novel in the Wounded Warrior series, perfect
for fans of Lisa Marie Rice and Lora Leigh—the story of a woman desperate to
escape her dangerous past and the navy SEAL who would lay down his life to save
her.
Book
Description:
Ash Hunter knows what it is to run.
A SEAL gravely injured in Afghanistan, he’s gone AWOL from the military
hospital. Physically and mentally scarred, he returns home to his grandmother’s
isolated cottage—and finds a beautiful, haunted stranger inside.
Like recognizes like.
Lia Stewart’s in hiding from the
cartel she barely escaped alive, holed up in this small Rocky Mountain town.
Surviving, but only just. Helping the wounded warrior on her doorstep is the
right thing to do…it’s loving him that might get them both killed.
Soon, Ash realizes he’s not the
only one tormented by the past. Pushing the limits of his broken body, testing
the boundaries of her shattered soul, he’ll protect Lia until his last breath.
Excerpt:
Chapter
One
My finger twitched
on the trigger as I stared down the barrel of my shotgun. A stranger stood on
my stoop. The mere sight of him shoved my heart into my throat and sent my
brain into default. I widened my stance, tightened my grip on the gun and aimed
at the stranger’s chest. No way. He wasn’t going to take me alive.
A sharp bark
startled me. The largest, darkest, most handsome German shepherd I’d ever seen
stood next to the stranger, head tilted, ears forward, nose quivering in the
air. It uttered a quiet whimper and padded over to me without a trace of
aggression, circling me once before it leaned against my legs.
I kept my shotgun
leveled, but I spared another glance at the stunning dog. The plea in his eyes
tempered the adrenaline jolting through my body, reined in my runaway heart and
gave me pause to consider the stranger before me.
Framed by the
Rocky Mountains and the lake, the man at the threshold blocked the morning’s gray
light and cast a huge shadow over my little porch. Raindrops tapped on his
leather jacket, dripped from the rim of his cap and ran like tears down the
sides of his face. Despite the exhaustion etched on his features, his glacial
blue eyes narrowed on my gun.
“That’s a pretty
old Remington,” he rumbled. “With the damn safety off, no less. Who the hell
are you expecting, Jack the Ripper?”
“Stay back.” I
forced the words out. “I’ll shoot if you come any closer.”
“Damn it, girl,”
he said. “If you want us to leave, just say so.”
The scowl on his
face contributed to his dangerous appearance. So did the scruffy beard and the
shaggy hair sticking out from under his baseball cap. If he hadn’t come all the
way out here to get to me—and that was still a big “if”—what on earth was he
doing here?
I couldn’t see any
weapons on him. Was he a drifter? He didn’t look dirty, but a metallic scent
wafted from him, an odd, ripe trace I couldn’t place.
He must have seen
my nose wrinkle. His whole body stiffened. He drew taller than six feet by
several inches, but it was the outrage I spotted in his eyes that reinforced my
fears.
“Aren’t you a
spitfire?” He pulled out a rumpled piece of paper from his pocket, balled it
and dropped it at my feet. “Secluded, cheap and quiet, that’s what the ad said.
But I don’t think you want to rent out a room, at least not to me. Come on,
Neil,” he said to the dog. “Let’s leave this little hellcat to count her
bullets.” He touched the rim of his baseball cap. “And a good day to you,
ma’am.”
He braced on a
pair of sturdy crutches and hopped down from the stoop. Crutches? I should’ve
noticed those before. The sable shepherd looked up at me, then nuzzled my hip
and trotted off after his owner. The rubber bottoms of the man’s crutches
stabbed the ground as he shuffled to the black truck parked in my driveway, a
supercharged Ram 3500 that matched its owner’s brawn.
I exhaled the
breath I’d been holding. Bad guys didn’t knock at your door. They didn’t back
down, attack while on crutches or hobble away after they came for you. They
didn’t call you ma’am, either. I picked up the crumpled paper and flattened it
against the stair’s wobbly baluster. It was indeed the one flyer I’d dared to
post at Kailyn’s convenience store, printed on pink paper, complete with the
ten tear-off rectangles that listed my cell phone number.
The ad. My brain
came on line. He was here about the ad?
Crap. Terror had a
sure way of wiping reason from my mind. The ad talked about a stone cottage but
didn’t include the address. True, mine was the only stone cottage around.
Still, my stomach churned.
I stared at the
paper in my hands. He’d taken down the ad. Now I had exactly zero chance to
rent out the room, which also meant that, since I’d have no money to make the
rent, I was going to lose my little stone cottage. I was going to be homeless
and I’d have to move on. Again.
But I liked it
here. The place suited me well. People in this secluded valley were nice and
I’d managed to build a semblance of a life hidden out here. And what about my
little friends out back? Who’d take care of them if I wasn’t around?
The pound, that’s
who.
I took a deep
breath and looked down on my flannel pajama pants and my extra-large sweater.
With my hair up in a messy tail, I was pretty sure I looked like a gun-toting,
gray-eyed witch, brimming with hostility. I’d just scared away my first and
only customer.
A top-notch German
shepherd like that couldn’t belong to a crook. It was obvious that the owner
took excellent care of his dog. If that wasn’t enough, the man got around on
crutches. He couldn’t hurt me and, if he tried, I wouldn’t need a shotgun to
defend myself. I’d just have to trip him.
God, the things I
thought about. Was I going to live in fear forever?
Yes, I would, but
living in fear was better than not living at all.
About
the Author:
Anna del Mar writes hot, smart
romances that soothe the soul, challenge the mind, and satisfy the heart. Her
stories focus on strong heroines struggling to find their place in the world
and the brave, sexy, kickass, military heroes who defy the limits of their
broken bodies to protect the women they love. She is the author of The Asset
(Carina Press), the first novel of her Wounded Warrior series and three other
novels scheduled for release during 2016.
A Georgetown University graduate,
Anna enjoys traveling, hiking, skiing, and the sea. Writing is her addiction,
her drug of choice, and what she wants to do all the time. The extraordinary
men and women she met during her years as a Navy wife inspire the fabulous
heroes and heroines at the center of her stories. When she stays put—which
doesn’t happen very often—she lives in Florida with her indulgent husband and
two very opinionated cats.
