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.
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Short
Excerpt for The Asset by Anna del Mar (900 words)
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.
Teaser Scene:
When Ash and
Neil went out for their evening walk, I slipped on a T-shirt and my old pajama
pants and arranged my pillow and blanket on the couch. I was in the process of
starting a fire in the living room’s hearth when they came back. Neil made a
straight line for me, splayed on the ground and, pawing the air, flashed his
belly.
Ash’s stare shifted from the
couch to me. He sighed, stepped to the couch and, after bundling my pillow and
blankets, threw them over his shoulder and started up the stairs.
“Hello?” I followed him. “That’s
my pillow.”
“You’re not sleeping downstairs.”
“Who gave you the power to
decide where I sleep?”
“Reason and common sense.” He
plodded to his room and, without hesitation, added my blankets to his bed and
propped my pillow next to his.
“Ashton Hunter,” I said. “You’re
definitively crossing a line here.”
He flashed me a stoic look.
“Then can we please cross it quickly?”
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.
http://www.annadelmar.com/pages/home.html
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorAnnadelMar/
https://twitter.com/anna_del_mar
Interview with Anna del Mar
As a kid did you write or make up
stories?
All the time. In fact, I have a
blurry memory of me at four or five, closing a story book and telling myself: “Hey,
I could do this. I could tell stories to other kids.”
Where does most of your Character
inspiration come from? Do some qualities of your characters come from people
you personally know? And what was the inspiration for your book?
My romances are inspired by real
people, the men and women I met while I was a Navy wife. So yes, many of
characters are influenced by my friends, neighbors and peers, the silent heroes
and heroines I was so fortunate to meet when I was part of the military
community.
More specifically, my Wounded
Warrior series draws inspiration from the military heroes who have given so
much for our country. The series is about strong, self-reliant heroines
struggling to find their place in the world and the brave, skilled, sexy
military heroes who challenge their limits to protect the women they love.
Just to give you an example, the
first novel of the series, The Asset,
is about Lia Stuart, a woman desperate
to escape her dangerous past and Ash Hunter, the Navy SEAL who would lay down
his life to save her. Ash is also on the run, from his superiors, but
worse, from his uncertain future. When we meet him, he has just bolted from the
hospital, suffering from a crippling infection and PTSD. Along with his trained
service dog, he flees to his hometown to the isolated lakeside cottage where he
confronts Lia’s shotgun and the limits of his broken body.
But when Lia risks her life to care
for Ash, he discovers that he’s not the only one suffering from PTSD. Together,
Ash and Lia have to defeat the evil that threatens to destroy their lives as
they struggle to heal, not only Ash's broken body but Lia's shattered soul.
What I love about The Asset is that it is a story about
hope, courage, resilience, redemption and love’s extraordinary healing power. I’m
really awed by the wounded warriors returning from the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. I think these men and women and the families that support them are
amazing. Their strength in the face of adversity, their determination to
reclaim their lives and their resilience are extraordinary. I hope that in The Asset, Lia and Ash honor their
stories.
What is your favorite spot to
write?
I have a cozy writing studio with a
door that can be closed if necessary, where I’m surrounded by some of favorite
books, pictures of my family and mementos from my travels. I’m afraid my desk
is a bit of a mess most of the time, piled high with stuff. But, hey, it works
for me.
What advice would you give budding
writers?
Write with passion, purpose and
power, and keep writing all the way to The End.
