by Julie Rowe
Deadly Strain
By Julie Rowe
Major Grace Samuels, a trauma surgeon deployed to Afghanistan, spends her life helping her fellow soldiers overcome disease and combat injuries. But her own wounds are harder to heal. Wracked with guilt over the death of a fellow soldier, she finds comfort in her only friend and appointed bodyguard, weapons sergeant Jacob “Sharp” Foster.
Sharp feels more for Grace than a soldier should, more than he wants to admit. When the team discovers a new, quick-to-kill strain of anthrax, he tries to focus on the mission to find its source. He knows he can help Grace defeat her demons, but first they must defeat the deadly outbreak.
Sharp is Grace’s most loyal ally, but in close quarters, he starts to feel like more. She can’t watch someone else she cares about die—but she might not have a choice. The closer they get to finding the source of the strain, the closer it gets to finding them.
79,830 words
Dear Reader,
This week, my ten-year-old daughter looked woefully at her Kindle and then at me and said, “I have nothing to read!” I asked her about several recent books I’d uploaded for her and if she’d read those yet, and of course the answer was no, but she still had nothing to read. It’s hard for me to get too upset with this sentiment, since I’m a bit of a book hoarder, and I own more books that I haven’t read than I care to admit, but...I’ll get to them someday! As someone pointed out to me, “nothing to read” is much like “nothing to eat” and “nothing to do.” It’s not a statement of literal fact, it’s a statement of mood and feeling. I don’t know if you’re in the same boat as my daughter and feeling as if you have nothing to read, but if so, one of our June 2015 releases should strike just the right note for you.
Lisa Marie Rice thrilled fans and new readers alike when she returned to the world of her popular Midnight Series with Midnight Vengeance and Midnight Promises. This June, in Midnight Secrets, we get to fall in love with her cracktastic and sexy romantic suspense series all over again. Former Navy SEAL Joe Harris nearly died—twice—on a medevac helo after being blown up by an IED. He’s not moving too great these days, but if there was ever a woman designed to jump start a man’s hormones, it would be his new neighbor. Meeting Isabel—loving Isabel—brought Joe back to life, and he’s not going to let anyone take her from him, not even a high-powered politician who needs to keep Isabel from remembering what he’s done.
Julie Moffett is back with her hit mystery series. Geek extraordinaire Lexi Carmichael is more comfortable with computer code than commandos, but in No Woman Left Behind, she’s about to undertake her most dangerous case yet with a little help from the Navy SEALs.
We also have several authors in the contemporary romance lineup this month. In Alison Packard’s latest book in her Feeling the Heat series, Stealing Second, Tom Morgan and Katherine Whitton, once deeply in love and planning a future together, now work together and are finally forced to confront their long-held belief that each one was betrayed by the other.
Elizabeth Harmon’s Turning It On brings us a new stand-alone romance in her Red Hot Russians series. On a steamy reality show, shy book editor Hannah Levinson fights to keep her fiancé from the clutches of a scheming dental hygienist with the help of an unlikely ally, sexy former figure skater turned stripper “Vlad the Bad” Shustov. Can she trust there’s more to Vlad than meets the eye?
Spoiled college student Olivia Christakos experiences the ultimate fall from grace when she’s hit by a car (losing her memory in the process) and catches her family (who she’s supposed to be able to trust at a time like this) lying to her about her past. Find out what happens in Olivia Christakos and Her Second First Time by debut author Dani Irons.
If male/male contemporary romance is what you’re looking for, check out previously released In the Raw and In the Fire from the In the Kitchen series by writing duo Nikka Michaels and Eileen Griffin. In that duology, we met Ethan and Jamie. In their latest stand-alone romance, In the Distance, Trevor Pratt and Tyler Mitchell just might have a shot at love—if, that is, they choose to follow their hearts, instead of letting their ten-year age difference and the three thousand miles separating them keep them apart forever.
Dana Marie Bell gives us paranormal romance Song of Midnight Embers, the next book in her Maggie’s Grove series. To prove she’s not a murderer, Mollie Greer will have to turn to the one person she’s been longing for—and avoiding—her whole life: Greer Berkley, the Singer of the Forest.
And last, this June I’m excited to introduce you to a new direction for author Julie Rowe with the first romantic suspense in her new Biological Response Team series. American Sniper meets the worldwide Ebola-outbreak response meets romance in Deadly Strain. A sniper tries to protect an infectious disease specialist while they combat a deadly new bacterial strain, but he might not be able to stop from her from making the ultimate sacrifice in order to save him.
I hope you find something from Carina Press to help you cure your “nothing to read” mood. And don’t forget our extensive romance, mystery, science fiction and fantasy backlist is also always available where ebooks are sold.
Coming in July: A dragon-shifter romance trilogy from a brand-new author, the next book in Stephanie Tyler’s postapocalyptic motorcycle club world and a new male/male romance from A.M. Arthur.
Until next time, here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.
Happy reading!
Angela James
Editorial Director, Carina Press
Dedication
To my husband, George, who never fails in his support and love. I am a lucky, lucky woman.
Authors’ Note
The inspiration for Deadly Strain and the other forthcoming books in the Biological Response Team series came out of research into some of the most deadly outbreaks in human history. The bubonic plague (Black Death), tuberculosis and cholera pandemics are just a few examples of pathogens that caused millions of deaths worldwide, some in reoccurring outbreaks lasting years. Many of these deadly organisms have been controlled through vaccination programs or with antibiotics. Many others can’t be controlled so easily, and some are becoming resistant to the drugs we use to treat them.
In April of 2014, the World Health Organization published its first global report on antibiotic resistance (who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/amr-report/en). In the report, the WHO reveals the full extent of antibiotic resistance across the world—it’s everywhere. We’re not headed for a post-antibiotic era, we’re already there.
Information about how to use antibiotics safely and properly can be found at the Do Bugs Need Drugs website, dobugsneeddrugs.org.
Also available from Julie Rowe and Carina Press
Icebound
North of Heartbreak
The War Girls Series
Saving the Rifleman
Enticing the Spymaster
Aiding the Enemy
Coming October 2015
Lethal Game
The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.
—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Epilogue
Excerpt from Lethal Game by Julie Rowe
About the Author
Copyright
Chapter One
“I’m so dead.” Dr. Grace Samuels stared at the chessboard. There was no hope. None. Not a single move left open to her.
Except for one.
She sighed, shook her head at the patience on her opponent’s face. “I concede.”
“Want to know where you went wrong?” he asked as he cleared the board. He set the pieces up again. Those big hands of his could bandage a wounded soldier, field strip a 9 mm and box her into checkmate with equal skill.
“I sat down in this chair,” she answered with a straight face. The mess hall was busy with soldiers, American and Afghan alike, either beginning their day or ending their night.
“No,” he said. “You played the board.”
Grace thought about it for a second, but it still didn’t make any sense. Then again, it was 0600 and she’d only been up for twenty minutes. “Huh?”
Special Forces Weapons Sergeant Jacob “Sharp” Foster looked at her earnestly. “You played the board,” he repeated. “You should have been playing the man.”
He winked and she had to fight not to roll her eyes. When she first met him she’d thought his flirting was for real, and had been worried she’d have to shut him down. She didn’t want to, because he was hilarious, but the impropriety couldn’t be ignored. Then, she discovered when he wasn’t on the job, he had a wicked sense of humor, and everyone was a target.
“Then I suppose I’ll have to study you.” She leaned forward and made a show of giving him a thorough once-over.
He grinned and spread his hands wide. “By all means, study me.”
Sharp was a big man, about six-two, and she’d guess he weighed about two hundred pounds. He flexed his biceps and waggled his eyebrows in response to her joke. Though he had brown hair, with a mustache and beard to match, he had the lightest blue eyes she’d ever seen—like looking into glacial ice.
Right now, those eyes were challenging her. She just wasn’t sure if it was regarding the game or something she didn’t want to talk about. At all.
Unfortunately, Sharp wasn’t going to leave it alone. The chess game should have warned her. They usually played poker.
She watched him reset the chessboard while, for the first time in a week, letting her mind go back to the moment she realized she was in trouble. On her way to her quarters late at night. They’d arrived at Forward Operating Base Bostick the week before, and she’d been introduced to the base commander, Colonel Marshall. He’d barely spoken to her. So why was he waiting for her outside her quarters with clenched fists and a face so blank she knew he was in the grip of a powerful emotion?
The colonel wasn’t known for any kind of emotion.
She stopped several feet away. “What are you doing here at this hour, sir?”
One corner of his upper lip lifted in a sneer and he snarled, “I wanted a private conversation.”
His words triggered every internal red flag she had. “I don’t understand.”
Marshall’s response was two words. One name. “Joseph Cranston.”
A name she wished she could forget. “You...knew him?”
Scorn turned his words into weapons. “He was my son.”
Oh God.
Grace took an involuntary step backward. Now that she knew, she could see the son in his father’s face, the same eyes and jawline as the young man whose features she couldn’t forget. As if conjured, his shade floated in front of her mind’s eye, thrusting her into a memory she wanted desperately to erase. His face, covered with blood, whipped her heart into a gallop. Her breathing bellowed, lungs attempting to push air through her terror-closed throat. She fought the invisible hands pulling at her and her vision spiraled into a narrow tunnel.
Sharp had surfaced out of the dark, his presence breaking the memory’s chokehold.
He’d crouched in front of her, calling her name, ordering her to respond before he did something stupid like give her mouth-to-mouth. She coughed out a response, couldn’t remember what, and fought her way to her feet.
Sharp didn’t try to hold her. He didn’t touch her at all, but he shielded her body from prying eyes with his own. He refused to leave her, facing down Colonel Marshall, who showed no sympathy and less tolerance for her fainting spell. Two of Sharp’s team members appeared and, after glaring at them all, Marshall left without saying anything else.
She managed to get inside her quarters before anyone could demand an explanation, shut the door and locked it. She’d only felt relief when no one knocked to ask for an explanation. It wasn’t until the next day that she realized their lack of questions was as suspect as her behavior.
She hadn’t expected to meet anyone connected to Joseph Cranston outside of the United States. Hadn’t expected something that happened that long ago to thrust her into a memory like it was happening all over again.
Fool.
In the days since, Sharp had been mother-henning her like she was some fragile little chick, and she’d had about as much of that as she could take. She was a Samuels. Her father, also a military doctor, had just retired from the army, and her grandfather had run a MASH unit during the Korean War. He’d met her grandmother during WWII; she’d been one of the first Air Force service pilots. If there was one thing she wouldn’t accept from anyone, it was pity.
“I’ve been studying you for a while.” Sharp finished setting up the board and met her gaze. “You’re a damn good doctor, a hellacious good shot on the range and you put up with our male stupidity with more patience than we deserve.”
“I hear the but coming.”
“What happened between you and Marshall?”
“None of your damn business.”
When he continued to stare at her, she added, “Look, I’m not going to saddle anyone else with my personal grievances or the fact that I don’t get along with someone.”
“Personal grievances?” Sharp asked. “Twice last week I thought you were going to damage a guy for jostling you in the chow line. What’s going on with you?”
Shit, of course he would notice. She’d damn near freaked out each time, a scream hovering on her lips, her hands and feet moving to defend against an enemy who wasn’t there.
The enemy wasn’t there. No gunfire. No weapons pointed at her, yet she still found herself reacting as if it were happening all over again.
She hadn’t been reacting that way until Marshall had confronted her. Meeting the father of a soldier who’d died an unnecessary death in front of her must have detonated an emotional trip wire in her head. One she needed to deal with.
Not an easy thing when on active duty and nowhere near a base with more than a glorified first-aid station.
It seemed like anywhere she went on the base, Sharp or one of the guys from the A-Team was there. Not doing anything, just there. They weren’t fooling her.
Damn alpha males and their overprotective tendencies.
“Sort of. Chess demands more of you than poker, but the principles are the same.”
Them’s fightin’ words. “The hell you say.” She’d been playing poker with her dad since she was ten years old. He’d taught her how to bluff anyone.
“Doc,” Sharp said, chuckling. “If I were lying, you’d be beating me, but you aren’t.”
“Ha.” She leaned forward and tapped the board. “Make your move.”
Sharp opened his mouth to respond, but he never got a chance to say anything before another Beret, the team’s other weapons sergeant, Harvey Runnel, strode over to them. It wasn’t the speed he was moving that drew her and Sharp’s attention, it was the look on the soldier’s face. Flattened lips, clenched jaw and a slightly flared nose. She couldn’t see his eyes due to the tinted safety glasses he wore, but she could guess that the skin around them would be tight—a man who was on full alert.
Special Forces soldiers did not get amped up for no reason.
“Playtime’s over,” Runnel said. “Doc, grab your go-bag.”
A mental blanket sank over her, numbing her to the horror to come. It was the first self-preservation tactic doctors learned. Compartmentalize all that terrible stuff or go crazy in a week. Sometimes she wondered when all those boxes in her mind would break open and rip her apart from the inside out.
There was an entire crate named Joseph Cranston.
“Warm or cold?” She asked even though she already knew the answer. Runnel never looked this rattled. Please say warm.
