His Road Home Read online

  His Road Home

  By Anna Richland

  Special Forces medic Rey Cruz needs to find a fiancée, fast, or he’ll end up in a marriage orchestrated by an Afghan warlord. Finding a picture online of a girl he barely knew back home, he fakes an engagement photo, thinking no one else will see it. But when Rey loses both legs and the ability to speak while rescuing a local boy, the image goes viral.

  Seattle marine biologist Grace Kim is shocked to find out she’s engaged. When she’s offered a plane ticket to visit her “fiancé,” she takes it, looking for the answer to one question: Why did he lie? Touched by Rey’s funny texts and the determination she sees in him, Grace offers her friendship—a big step for someone who prefers whales to most company.

  And when Rey is finally sent home, Grace agrees to help him drive his classic car cross-country over Thanksgiving—a once-in-a-lifetime road trip that leads to what feels like real love. In front of his friends and family, she plays the caring fiancée, but what place will Grace have in Rey’s new life once he’s ready to be on his own again?

  38,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  Happy October! I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I love October. Not only is it the month in which my daughter was born (ten years ago!!) but I love the weather, the scents and the activities of October. Everything about the month combines to something fun and transporting for me. Of course, I’m sure not everyone feels the same about this fall month, but I’m happy to say we have a great collection of fiction releases to help aid all of you with fun escapes.

  In the spirit of the somewhat paranormal mood of the month, I’ll start with paranormal and fantasy genres. R.L. Naquin returns with an installment in her quirky, fun, romantic urban fantasy Monster Haven series. With Aegises dying all over the world, the only safe place for Zoey is the protection of home—but hiding doesn’t come naturally for Zoey, and she’ll have to act fast to prevent a zombie apocalypse in Demons in My Driveway. And in Dana Marie Bell’s paranormal romance Of Shadows and Ash, when evil attacks from the shadows, dryad Ashton Ward will be the only one who can save his beloved witchdoctor from eternal darkness.

  Matt Sheehan brings back the ever-lovable Helmut and his sidekick in urban fantasy Helmut Goes Abroad. Another round of magic, fistfights and one-liners with the best, most handsome, and of course humble detective Helmut Haase and his apothetic sidekick Shamus O’Sheagan.

  Futurisic romance In the Void by Sheryl Nantus gives us romance set in space—and a brothel spaceship. Answering a distress call can spell the end of the Bonnie Belle and everyone aboard...

  A dragonshifter intent on executing a high-stakes art heist is forced to juggle a wedding, a family and a pesky attraction to her target’s head of security in paranormal romance ’Til Dragons Do Us Part by Lorenda Christensen. April Taylor’s alternate history fantasy Taste of Treason, the second in her Tudor Enigma series, also releases this month. Master Elemancer Luke Ballard has grown his magical powers since his last encounter with the dark sorcerers who will stop at nothing to destroy the English throne. But is he skilled enough to both protect his own and prevent tragedy from reaching the royal family?

  Moving on to contemporary romance releases in October, the last man that handywoman Georgia Lennox expects to break through her tough-as-nails, ugly-duckling exterior is John Montgomery the Third, the millionaire philanthropist she’s worked for in Because I Can by Tamara Morgan.

  In military contemporary romance His Road Home by Anna Richland, a false engagement story gives injured Special Forces Sergeant Rey Cruz a surprise gift: love. Pitch Imperfect by Elise Alden is a contemporary romance in which the last thing celebrity singer Anjuli Carver wanted was to be dependent on her ex-fiancé to restore her dilapidated manor. Will he rebuild her crumbling walls or demolish her defenses with his sexy pursuit?

  Male/male romance Stand By You by A.M. Arthur is the story of a broken soul who finds solace and safety in the company of a gentle janitor—as well as an unexpected chance at real love.

  Last this month, we’re pleased to welcome co-authors Eileen Griffin and Nikka Michaels with In the Raw, part one of a male/male romance duology about culinary students Ethan Martin and James Lassiter. When they find themselves competing for the same scholarship they also discover they’re competing for something more important—love. Look for part two, In the Fire, next month, in November 2014.

  Coming in November 2014: Carina Press and I both celebrate an anniversary. And we have books from a number of powerhouse authors including Josh Lanyon, Shannon Stacey, Lauren Dane and so many more!

  Here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Editorial Director, Carina Press

  Dedication

  To the Mother at Evergreen-Washelli Cemetery

  Every year we attend Veterans Day ceremonies at our local veteran’s cemetery. Seattle is a wet and chilly place, but my children know better than to complain about the weather on November 11 or they will hear the story of Great-uncle Mitch in the Battle of the Bulge. (They actually get to hear it even if they don’t complain, but they haven’t figured that out.)

  About six years ago, after the annual request for veterans in the audience to stand and be acknowledged, the woman in front of me turned and thanked me for my service. On her denim jacket she wore a circular button with a photo of a young Marine in his dress uniform and white hat. Although my heart beat in my throat, I asked her if that was her son. She said yes. I asked, although I suspected I knew her answer, if he was okay. She said no, he wasn’t okay. He was just over the hill. My son was about five, and he was next to me as I started to cry. This woman who had given so much, who had given her son, had thanked me—but I gave nothing. Nothing.

  I never learned her name, but I will never forget her words. I dedicate this book to the mother with the button of her Marine on her jacket at Evergreen-Washelli Cemetery, and to her son, a fine American Marine who has passed over his last hill.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Author’s Notes and Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  “Do you know how Persian poets describe almond blossoms?” Abdullah asked from his spot on the mat next to Staff Sergeant Reynaldo Cruz.

  “Nope, but I’m sure you’ll tell me.” Cruz couldn’t complain about the Afghan-American’s interpreting, but the poetry was new. Add spring fever to the training missions, medic duties, tribal politics and random reports that filled his days in Operational Detachment Alpha 5131, 5th Special Forces Group, United States Army, and the result was him falling behind on treating the Afghans waiting for an exam. At least this was the last dude in line for dental care. “Could you grab his shoulders first?” Cruz asked his interpreter. “Poetry won’t pull this tooth. I don’t want a black eye.”

  Abdullah reached for the Afghan without shifting gears. “When the wind blows across a branch to shake the white almond flowers, they say it looks like the pale movement of a woman’s raised arms.”

  “You tell one her arms jiggle. Let me know how that works out.” The sun angled low from the top of the western courtyard wall, throwing shadows across his patient’s mouth. Special Forces 18D medic training made Cruz the closest to a docto
r or dentist performing house calls in Paktia Province. He’d become damn good at pulling rotted teeth, although having smaller fingers might be helpful.

  On this trip to Dostum’s village he had half the usual antibiotics, thanks to the supply challenges of a troop draw-down. Improvising after the extraction, he packed gauze saturated with oil of cloves into the Afghan’s mouth. “Tell him no smoking for forty-eight hours, or the clot will break. Embellish at your leisure that his dick will stop working or whatever, but if he smokes, I guarantee bad results.”

  While he reorganized his treatment kit, the almond blossoms reminded him of his hometown in Eastern Washington. The droning of Dostum, an ally along this section of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, could almost be the buzz of pollinating bees. In Pateros, apple trees would be in bloom, and rows of wheat shoots would line the plateau. Here green fields meant opium poppies, and the river cutting through the valley was a trickle compared to the Columbia, but from a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, April in Afghanistan almost resembled home.

  “Dostum’s willing to provide twenty men for fighting season,” Abdullah explained their host’s soliloquy, “but first he wants a more permanent relationship with Americans.”

  “What the fuck does he think thirteen years and five hundred billion dollars are? No one-night hookup.” In contrast to his words, Cruz smiled. He’d shared tea with the old man often enough to know the game.

  “I’ll rephrase that.”

  “Why we haul you around, amigo.”

  As the terp listened to the reply, his shoulders tightened and his eyes flicked from the dozen tribesmen squatting around the compound, to the weapons stacked throughout the open courtyard and to the gate. Abdullah’s body language was subtle, but Cruz lived or died by noticing a trickle of gravel or a faraway glint of sun on metal.

  When Abdullah began to translate, Cruz was ready for word of renewed insurgency or allied losses. “It has been my privilege to work with your fine American team, and Allah blessed me with two healthy sons last year due to the generous and great American doctor you brought. I desire to repay the blessing.”

  Not the bad news he’d been expecting, but his interpreter still looked tense.

  “I understand Sergeant Cruz is unmarried.” Abdullah shared the tribal leader’s words. “I humbly offer him one of my daughters.”

  While Dostum watched like a one-eyed, toothless cupid cradling an AK-47 instead of a bow and arrow, Cruz forced himself to obey the rules for breathing before a five-mile high parachute jump: inhale steadily, no gulps, no matter what instinct urged, no matter that he could barely keep his lips from puckering with rejection. “That’s—”

  “Shut up.” Abdullah’s voice quavered. “He’s giving you a gift that matters a hell of a lot to him and in his mind, doing you a favor. Half these men can’t afford to get married, and if you throw his daughter in his face, the insult might make them open fire.”

  The air stopped moving except for two flies close to Cruz’s cheek. An insider attack: when a local soldier snaps and kills his allies. Green-on-blue, briefings called it.

  “Get me out of it.” He missed his former teammate Wulf’s interpreting skill like a guy missed his nuts. He disliked giving so much power to someone the team had known for six months but saw no choice. “Whatever you have to say.” He tried to smile, but his lips were too dry to peel away from his teeth.

  Undershirts always soaked through, the price of wearing more than forty pounds of protective gear, but now sweat chilled on his skin. The sun was a joke, making those weapons shiny enough to reflect glare, but not providing a bit of warmth.

  The two men talked while he watched a fighter in a striped vest, the man whose hands were closest to his rifle. Target one if this went to hell. Shoot, roll left to cover Abdullah and count on the rest of the team to roar through the gate and clean the courtyard. One on twelve for ninety seconds, survivable only on paper.

  He didn’t have to field test the plan. His terp pulled a save from the faded Tigers hat that never left his head.

  “Relax, lover boy.” Abdullah flung an arm across his shoulders.

  Cruz wasn’t sure whose pits gave off the worst funk; his, the man hugging him or the two Afghans bringing them tea, flatbread and lentil paste.

  “Told Dostum you’re engaged to a nice girl back home—”

  An Afghan with a miraculous mouth of teeth pounded Cruz on the back to dislodge the bread stuck in his windpipe choking him. “What?”

  “And because American law doesn’t allow two wives, you regretfully cannot accept this honor, but you’ll bring gifts next week to show how much you appreciate his generosity.”

  “Great. We’ll haul a pallet of rice, but don’t let him think he’s getting weapons.” Wily bastard might have set up the incident to bag more rocket-propelled grenade launchers. “If proud papas start offering me wives but settle for swag, I know who to blame.”

  Abdullah raised his hands, palms out as if to deny his responsibility, then laughed as he turned them into finger-pistols pointed right at Cruz.

  “By the way, he expects a photo. He wonders what kind of woman American soldiers marry.”

  “No problem.” A fake fiancée. He’d almost rather risk the business end of an AK-47.

  * * *

  A week later, keyboard clicks were the only sound in the Special Ops ready room at Camp Cadwalader. Most of the team was enjoying hot chow before they bugged out for six days, but Kahananui and his laptop had stayed with Cruz.

  “Found a fiancée yet? It’s surf-n-turf night.” His best friend unplugged and stretched, ready to desert him for the dining facility’s best meal.

  “Deciding between three or four.” The skin and alcohol displayed by women in his social networks would offend Dostum, and he’d dangle from a Chinook by his short hairs before he’d pretend to be engaged to Brittney. She was probably banging SEAL Team Six. More power to her, but he wasn’t using her picture. Last winter he’d claimed brains was his new chick criteria, but of course he’d gone right back to hump-bunnies while home at Fort Campbell.

  “You got nothing.” The big Hawaiian stared over his shoulder at the thumbnail photos.

  “Give me a picture of Jewel.” Like the rest of the team except for Bama Boy and Abdullah, Kahananui advertised matrimonial bliss.

  “No can do, brah. One look at my lady, and Dostum would know your skinny ass wasn’t man enough for her.”

  “Whipped.” Married guys never helped a buddy with lady trouble, even trouble with imaginary ladies. Worse, they got laid more often than he did.

  “Roger that.” Kahananui gave him a thumb and finger shaka sign and left.

  His stomach begged to follow, but he had to identify a plausible fiancée. This trip included embedded reporters accompanying the team, so he couldn’t use a porn star or a celebrity, and picking a random army woman had at least a dozen downsides. He needed a civilian.

  Twenty-nine years old, and he didn’t have a female friend to ask for help.

  Given he’d spent eleven years in the service, mostly in training or deployed, he quit thinking and searched photos from Pateros High.

  His older sister’s former volleyball team provided an ideal candidate: Grace Kim. He’d heard she went to the University of Washington for a science degree, maybe a Ph.D. His hometown’s population was less than seven hundred, but he’d bet she hadn’t known him. She’d been older and always studying. A girl like her wouldn’t remember a Mexican kid who picked apples after school and dropped out to enlist.

  Grace Kim, his fingers typed. The internet offered the curious so much more than porn. Imagine, she worked at the National Marine Fisheries Service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle. The white blouse and navy suit in her biographical photo looked more serious than those old team knee socks. Her dark hair, a
n even length around her chin, made her face look rounder. She appeared smart, successful and sober, the type of fiancée whose picture wouldn’t insult Dostum.

  He mashed her photo and one of his promotion packet portraits in full uniform into a digital layout, then added images of rings and roses to make it almost as elaborate as the celebration banners Afghans made, although without the gold script. The color printer the team had liberated from heroin smugglers last summer did a bang-up job on photos.

  Using a blue pen, he personalized the corner: For my dearest Reynaldo. I remember walking under the apple blossoms with you. A woman with a doctorate wouldn’t draw a smiley face like Brittney had on her one and only letter, so he finished with Love, Grace.

  Fastest engagement in history. Cheapest, too. Didn’t have to buy a single dinner.

  * * *

  Friday evenings provided time to finish work uninterrupted by meetings. An hour ago Grace had completed the employee input portion of her annual performance appraisal to prepare for the third anniversary of her job with Fisheries. She’d earned tonight’s pajama movie fest—that is, if she could unlock the door to her South Lake Union condo before her ice cream melted.

  Her cell phone rang mid-twist, so she let the caller go to voicemail. Inside, she shoved her two grocery bags onto the kitchen counter while the landline her father insisted she needed for emergencies rang. Clearly her family wanted to talk to their firstborn.

  “When did you get engaged to Reynaldo Cruz?” Her younger sister’s voice came through the answering machine, higher and faster than normal. “Umma’s crying because you didn’t tell her, and Appa won’t leave the potting shed, and honestly, I’m annoyed, too. I mean, I’m your sister. You could’ve said something even if you didn’t want to tell them. What should we say to reporters? Should we call his family? He’s got a niece in first grade, but then you know that already, don’t you.” Click. Jenni’s message ended without goodbye.