The Asset
Wounded Warrior, #1
by Anna del Mar
Date of Publication:
February 22nd 2016
Publisher: Carina
Press
Genre: Romantic Suspense,
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.
BLURB
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.
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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.
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Long Excerpt for The
Asset by Anna del Mar: Complete First Chapter, approximately 5,000 words.
Alternatively, here’s the direct link to read the chapter directly from the
website:
Author Info
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.
Author Links:
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