Tangled Pursuit
Authors: Lindsay McKenna
Tangled Pursuit
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
Tangled Pursuit
Coming soon…
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
Wolf Haven
High Country Rebel
The Loner
The Defender
The Wrangler
The Last Cowboy
Deadly Silence
Deadly Identity
Shadows From The Past
Coming soon…
Night Hawk, December 2015
Out Rider, April 2016
Tangled Pursuit
Copyright © 2015 by Nauman Living Trust
ISBN: 978-1-929977-06-2
Kindle Edition
Excerpt from Forged in Fire
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
Printed in U.S.A.
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed Book 1, Nowhere to Hide! Cav and Lia’s story sparked the creation of Artemis Security, the Delos in-house firm to protect their worldwide charities. Stay tuned for Cav and Lia’s novella,
Secret Dream
, which will be coming out July, 2016!
First of all, there are FREE sample chapters on the first four Delos series books! You can run and get them at:
lindsaymckenna.selz.com/categories/delos-series
One of the great things I can do is experiment creatively on the books I write. Many, many times in the past, I hated to say goodbye to my characters. I found over time, my readers felt the same way. Now, I can add as many or as little 40,000 word novellas to the original novel and you can continue to read about the lives of the characters you and I fell in love with—and we don’t have to say goodbye, either!
Delos books 2, 3 and 4 are about Robert and Dilara Culver’s children. I invite you to visit my website,
delos.lindsaymckenna.com
, and go to Tal, Matt and Alexa’s pages. There will be an image and quote book that you can download not only on the Culver Family as a whole, but you can also on the Delos History page, find another one quote book, which chronicles how Delos began and how it runs today. Please download the books, they’re free, fun and you can share them.
Now . . . about book 2, Tangled Pursuit, is Captain Talia (Tal) Culver’s story. She goes from being a Captain in the US Marine Corps to becoming a CEO of Artemis Security for her mother’s Delos charities. Tal is a firstborn and takes a lot after her U.S. Air Force father, General Robert Culver. She’s serious, a good leader and takes care of her cadre of Marine snipers that are in her unit at Bagram the U.S. Army base outside Kabul, Afghanistan.
U.S. Navy SEAL, Wyatt Lockwood, a Texan in mind, heart and soul, met Tal three years earlier. They were coming through ops, both coming in off of different missions, when Chief Lockwood realized the leader of the sniper op was a WOMAN. He’d never met a woman sniper before, but never mind that. Wyatt fell for Tal Culver so hard that it took him three years of chasing here off and on during tours at Bagram, to finally break through her shields and get her undivided attention. Texans are notorious for going after what they want, no matter how impossible it might seem to others. It’s all in a day’s work for Wyatt.
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.
Tal gives Lockwood a cold shoulder from the gitgo, but she has good reason to. She lost the military man she loved to combat two years earlier. She swears off military men as a result because her heart simply can’t take that kind of torture and loss ever again. Except that Wyatt doesn’t let her forget that he’s interested in her. Besides, he’s enlisted and she’s an officer. The two don’t mix or meet according to the UCMJ. But Wyatt, ever the optimist, continues to be like a bad cold she can’t get rid of.
I hope you enjoy their story. And I hope it keeps you on the edge of your seat. You’ll also learn more about Artemis, too. This is a saga-series with many, many books to come and these first for books build the foundation from which all other exciting, exotic, interesting stories will spin off.
Let me hear from you about the Culver Family and the Delos series. Happy reading!
To my wonderful and loyal readers, you rock!
Table of Contents
Also available from Lindsay McKenna
CHAPTER 1
May 1
O
H, NO!
W
HY
the hell did Wyatt Lockwood have to show up at the Bagram chow hall at the same time she did? Captain Talia Culver, her full mouth tight with displeasure, decided to stand outside in the cool June morning desert air rather than enter the building. Actually, she preferred anything to a face-to-face with the Navy SEAL chief who seemed determined to add her to his long list of conquests. She forced herself to get into the long chow line.
Dressed in her Marine Corps desert cammies, Tal pulled her dark green baseball cap a little lower over her face to make sure that Lockwood couldn’t spot her among the hundred-plus men and women waiting in line to get their breakfasts.
Although the drawdown was well under way, Bagram was still at the hub of the action in Afghanistan when it came to protecting the remaining U.S. ground troops. She could hear the whapping of CH-47 transports taking off from the helicopter terminal. On the fixed-wing runway, a group of A-10 Warthogs were flying in from strike missions. Tal watched one Warthog dip down to land, wondering if Alexa Culver, her younger sister by two years, was piloting it.
Bagram was home base for the Force Recon Marine units and their sniper cadre. As a captain, Tal was in charge of creating missions for one of the two sniper units assigned to the base. She had just come off an op herself with her spotter, Sergeant Jay Caldwell, and she was starving. Hopefully, some decent hot food would take the edge off her exhausted state.
She’d finished off the last of her protein bars a day ago and had been drinking water to stop her stomach from growling. The hike out of the Hindu Kush mountains to get to their rally point had added two days to their planned extraction.
A grim sense of satisfaction flowed through Tal as she inched forward with the rest of her comrades in the snaking line that went outside and down the sidewalk. She had just stopped a Zakir Sharan group from moving into Afghanistan. Sharan was a major thorn in Tal’s side. She saw again, in her mind’s eye, how the HVT—high-value target—Raastagar Sharan, son of the billionaire Pakistani, had come into the sights of her younger brother’s rifle. Matt’s Delta Force team had intersected one of the two sons. Raastagar was a sick, murdering bastard, and Matt had trailed him and his group to an Afghan village months earlier. The oldest son of Sharan would no longer make the Af-Pak border a site for raids, murder, rape, and intimidating Afghan villagers from the Shinwari tribe.
It made the extra two-day wait well worth it, even as she rubbed her protesting stomach. The image of eggs, bacon, and toast was so enticing it made her mouth water. Sharan made his money legitimately and otherwise. His sons, Raastagar and Sidiq, were in sex-slave trafficking and opium drug distribution. Getting rid of the two sons was a high priority for the U.S. military.