Unconventional Beginnings

by KaLyn Cooper

  “Cool toy,” LtCol Rogers commented as he glanced away from the blank display to meet her eyes.

  “We’re testing it.” That’s all she’d admit as she touched the corners of the screen in a precise order. A stilled picture of Nassar al-Jamil filled the display. With the press of a side button, a video showed the terrorist leader walking through a well-known village Marines patrolled daily. A blur flipped across the screen a millisecond before the extremist slumped toward the ground, and then his body jerked and spun before it hit the unpaved street. Two shots.

  “Captain, where did you get this?” The man sounded angry.

  She said nothing.

  The angle pulled back as it widened. Two shooters lay on the ground, with small waists and full hips. The woman on the left wore a long blonde braid down her back, and the spotter had loops of jet-black hair tied at her nape. Wild, curly red hair lay across the shoulders of the second shooter.

  The field grade officer’s gaze shot to Katlin. She nodded toward the small screen where her face turned toward the camera and mouthed, “Did you get it?” The spotter’s fine-boned Asian face looked into the camera seconds before the redhead’s green eyes flashed up. All three women smiled and high-fived each other. In the distance, the video showed men in desert utilities surround a downed and bloody body.

  “You?” the older Marine managed.

  “Yes. I wanted you to know what your men will, and won’t, be facing in the northern areas.” She shook her head. “But we both know someone else will fill his vacated spot. My guess is his brother, Khalid Junayd, will take over, but he has over a dozen immediate brothers not counting any of the half siblings by his father’s other wives.” She pressed the button on the side of her phone, and the screen went blank before it slowly folded in on itself. She slid it into her cammies. “You never saw this video because we were never here. A HUMINT team of women spent a few hours in your camp.” That was all she was willing to explain to him.

  He stared at her for a long time before he admitted, “Yes, a team of extraordinary women spent a few hours in my camp. Thank you, Captain.” For a few seconds he stared at the black double bars she wore on the front of her utilities. “Are you really a Marine captain?”

  Katlin smiled as she walked away. “I am today.”

  Unrelenting Love - Chapter 3

  Alex Wolf thrashed side to side in the king-sized bed as the dream repeated the worst night of his life.

  Red streaks lit the shallow ravine that seemed to extend into hell. The smell of gunpowder and dust choked the air. Screams of dying men echoed under the report of machine guns.

  The dream jumped back in time.

  “Drinks on me when this is over, Lobo. You’ve got my back, old friend.” Tyler Malone’s voice and brilliant smile cut through the thick night air just before he and his SEAL team blended into the darkness and the sandy foothills to secure the perimeter.

  The nightmare leapt forward this time.

  Rapid-firing bullets. Red tracers. Men in turbans with dark stains on their digitized camouflage lay screaming in pain in several languages.

  Sweat seeped from every pore in Alex’s body as the dream dragged him through it all again.

  “Alpha and Delta, left flank, come around them from the back. Bravo and Charlie, right flank. Clean sweep. Echo, with me.” Alex had called out orders through his helmet mic in the blackness of the Afghan mountains to his company of Special Operations Marines.

  “I’m hit.” Muffled cries from American boys pierced by enemy fire seeped through his comm unit.

  He felt the ancient-packed sandy soil shift under his desert boots as his legs peddled in the soft tan sheets of the huge bed.

  Three-shot bursts of gunfire mixed with machine guns on squirt. Men in light brown camouflage lay beside American Navy SEALs, dark spots on every man that lay on the ground. The screams. Oh God, the screams.

  “Medic, forward,” Alex ordered. “Comm, we need medevac ASAP. Get some choppers in here now.”

  He ran as fast as he could. Alex checked every SEAL looking for Ty. Looking for his best friend.

  Finally, Ty’s face.

  He’d found him. There was blood everywhere.

  Alex placed his fingers on Ty’s throat to find a pulse, but it wasn’t there.

  His throat wasn’t there.

  Alex looked at the blood on his hand illuminated by the red tracer bullets that flew around him Then, he looked into the empty eyes of his best friend.

  No. No. No.

  “No!” Alex awoke to his own screams. He sat up, heart pounding. He was alone in the king-sized bed in the quiet penthouse apartment at the New York City location of Guardian Security, Inc. As he glanced around the barely lit room, he reassured himself that it had been only a dream.

  It was the dream. Again.

  He lifted the sheet and wiped the sweat off his face while he controlled his breathing to bring his pounding heart rate down. A glance at the clock revealed that it was only three thirty in the morning. He didn’t have to be at JFK International Airport until nine o’clock.

  He raked all ten fingers through his long damp hair. “Christ!” he said on an exhale. It had been nearly three years since he’d left a combat zone. He’d led Marines on top-secret black ops missions all over the globe. He’d seen plenty of death before, and after, he’d held Ty’s bullet-riddled body in that ravine in Afghanistan. He thought he’d left all that behind him when he’d resigned his commission as a Marine Corps captain and said goodbye to his Special Operations company on Onslow Beach at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

  More sleep would be impossible.

  Alex threw off the clammy sheets and padded naked to the gigantic marble shower where he turned on all eight body jets and both showerheads, hot and full blast.

  As water pummeled his body in the bright lights of the bathroom, it rinsed away the darkness of the dream and the pain of a lost friend. He shoved his head under the stream of wet heat, and when he surfaced, she was there.

  She was always in his subconscious, but after the dream, she would come to him. He couldn’t think about Ty without thinking of Katlin Callahan. Vivid memories of her pale face draped in golden hair, lips reddened and swollen from their potent kisses. His cock grew as hard as a rifle barrel and trigger-finger ready. His mind showed him her infectious smile, looking down at him as she rode him hard. Those blue-within-blue eyes captured and held him until she took both of them into orgasmic bliss.

  Then she was gone. Just as she had disappeared from his life three years ago.

  “Fuck.” It was a whispered oath as he glanced at his throbbing erection. That was what he needed, though, a good hard fuck. A whole night of fucking. Maybe he’d troll a few bars in Miami with Griffin, his manager, there. Over the past few years, their relationship had grown into good friends, so more than boss and employee.

  Or maybe he’d visit the Chicago Center after Miami and see Aleta. She was the absolute opposite of Katlin Callahan. Aleta’s dark brown skin under him as he pumped into her was the solution. After a nice dinner and great conversation, she always invited him back to her condo, and the sex was good. Not mind blowing, but really good.

  He hadn’t had mind blowing in years…since college…since Kat.

  God dammit, quit thinking about her. He hadn’t seen her since the funeral, and she hadn’t spoken a word to him since. Why then couldn’t he exorcise himself from their past? From her?

  Alex looked at his long, hard cock and knew his erection wouldn’t go away while memories of her lingered. He soaped his hand then leaned his forehead against the cool rock of the shower. Closing his eyes, it was her face, smiling down at him, he saw as he sought the much-needed release.

  Christ. Will I never find peace?

  Ten minutes later, Alex forced his focus to his workday as he pulled on a Guardian Security, Inc. polo shirt over sore shoulder muscles. At thirty years old, with a more sedentary job than he’d ever had in his life, he now worshiped at the
altar of weight benches, ran at least five miles, and ate “clean” every day. No love handles for him.

  He’d abused his body in the company gym yesterday for over an hour then taught a hand-to-hand refresher class to his men. They’d all wanted to prove how tough they were to the boss so he’d taken a beating on the mats. It was a pack thing. In the end he’d proven he was still the alpha. But damn, he would pay for it today, especially after being cramped on an airplane for hours. Even in first class, his long legs didn’t fit well under the seat in front of him.

  He pulled on khaki slacks and grimaced as his right knee reminded him of the lack of cartilage under his kneecap thanks to too many ugly jumps out of perfectly good aircraft. His bad knee would ache all fucking day.

  He finished packing, excited, yet apprehensive, to see his daughter in Miami. She was growing up so fast.

  Six hours later, Alex strode into the Miami Center manager’s office. He’d lucked into an earlier flight and arrived several hours prior than planned. A Guardian limousine had been waiting for him at baggage, enabling him to check in with several of his other centers during the ride.

  “Can you believe this shit?” Parker “Griffin” Mitchell III asked in his slow Georgia drawl without glancing up from the computer screen.

  “What shit is that?” Alex lowered his aching body as casually as he could into the guest chair across the tidy desk from his friend. He held his face passive when he really wanted to wince at that one spot where his knee pinched, reminding him to spend some extra time in the next few weeks building up the muscles around the kneecap so it didn’t slip.

  “The media is making such a big deal out of a girl passing Ranger School.” Griffin shrugged. “Rangers aren’t all that tough.”

  Alex extended his legs with a satisfying stretch and crossed them at the ankles just above his Italian loafers. He’d have to change into boots and cargo pants, the official Guardian uniform of the day, before he inspected the facility. The building and records would be in perfect shape, but he had to go through the routine. Griffin ran a tight ship.

  After considering the former SEAL’s remark for a moment, Alex commented, “Most of the women I knew in the Marine Corps would sail through Ranger School. It’s little more than what every Marine goes through in boot camp.”

  “Hell, it can’t be that hard.” Griffin grinned. “Seems like half the Army has a Ranger patch.”

  Alex chuckled. “Every Army vet I’ve ever met claimed he was a Ranger.”

  “Yeah, until you ask him if he knows any of our men, who were certifiable Rangers before they went into Special Forces.” Griffin returned to reading the screen. “This just pisses me off. Next thing you know, they’ll try to put women into Special Operations.”

  “No fucking way.” Alex’s dream slammed through his mind. Bullets flying all around. Dead bodies everywhere. And the screams. Trepidation seized his whole body before he regained control and cleared his brain clean like wipers on a windshield. “They couldn’t handle it.”

  “Could you see some little woman trying to carry me a mile?” Griffin laughed. “Or you?”

  Both men were over six feet tall. Griffin had played football for the University of Georgia while Alex had been a wrestler at George Washington University. They were big men, muscled and deadly.

  The idea of a woman carrying him brought a flash of memory. Katlin had picked him up in a fireman’s carry once and walked around the huge recreation room in her parents’ basement. She’d surprised him more than once with her strength and dexterity.

  Since Katlin had grown up in Third World embassies, her father had his Marines teach her how to defend herself, and she was very good at it. It was no wonder she’d been grabbed up by the Office of Naval Intelligence right out of college. If Ty was to be believed during one of his many drunken stupors, she’d gone to work for Naval Special Warfare, which provided intelligence for SEALs and Marine SpecOps.

  For the first time, Alex wondered if Griffin had ever worked with Kat. Then it hit him and knocked him back into every mission he’d carried out… Had she supported him with Intel? For a nanosecond, he wondered if she still worked there. Or was still in the Navy.

  “After all the affairs I saw on rotation in Afghanistan and Iraq, I’m surprised they still allow women in theater.” Griffin’s comment brought Alex out of the past and away from thoughts of a woman he hadn’t seen in years.

  “Not all are like that,” Alex defended. “I worked with some very professional women over there. They were attached to our task force and went into the towns with us. They actually provided good HUMINT.”

  “Sounds more like you were their bodyguards,” Griffin replied.

  Alex had to admit, during that mission he was often overprotective of the women. “Yeah. That and more.” He then remembered Butter. Shit, what was her real name? Betty? Betsy? Cute little blonde and she knew it. During the day she’d dug in and did her job without a word, and damn the woman could shoot. But at night, she wanted a man in her bed. She’d been aptly code named. She’d spread her thighs for several of his team members and the situation had nearly become disastrous for the cohesion of his team. After discussing it with is female counterpart, they’d agreed to send her back on the next supply flight. “Sometimes women are more problems than they’re worth.”

  “Next thing you know we’ll have women applying for jobs here,” Griffin teased. “You ready to hire a woman as personal protection for our clients?”

  “Never going to happen,” Alex reassured his friend. “Not on my watch.”

  **This concludes the first three chapters of Unrelenting Love.**

  Unrelenting Love: Lady Hawk & Alex (Black Swan Book 1)

  Women in Special Operations? Never…Until he sleeps with the most lethal woman in the world.

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  **Please consider purchasing the rest of this full-length novel from your favorite retailer listed below.**

  Unrelenting Love: Lady Hawk & Alex (Black Swan Book 1)

  Women in Special Operations? Never…Until he sleeps with the most lethal woman in the world.

  Amazon My Book

  B&N My Book

  KOBO My Book

  iTunes My Book

  Also by Kalyn Cooper

  If you’ve enjoyed Unconventional Beginning’s, please tell others by leaving a review on your retailer’s site or Goodreads.

  Consider other books by KaLyn Cooper:

  Black Swan Series

  Military active duty women secretly trained in Special Operations assigned to governmental agencies and the men who dare to capture the heart of a Warrior Woman.

  Unrelenting Love: Lady Hawk & Alex (Black Swan Book 1) Women in Special Operations? Never…Until he sleeps with the most lethal woman in the world.

  Uncaged Love: Harper & Rafe (Black Swan Book 2)

  A disgruntled CIA agent rescues a beautiful, kidnapped explosives expert. Can he get them both to safety before the Colombian cartel catches them or she captures his heart?

  Guardian Elite Series

  Former special operators, these men work for Guardian Security (from the Black Swan Series) protecting families in their homes and executives on the road, but they can’t always protect their hearts.

  Smoke and Mirrors (Novella #1 Guardian Elite series Crossover with Paige Tyler’s Dallas Fire and Rescue Kindle World)

  She’s not what she seems. Neither is he. But the terrorist threat is real. So is the desire that smolders between them.

  Double Jeopardy (Novella #2 Guardian Elite series Crossover with Hildie McQueen’s Indulgences series)

  Guarding a billionaire and his wife isn’t easy when you can’t keep your eyes off your bikini wearing, gun carrying partner who is lethal in stilettos.

  Rescuing Melina (Novella #3 Guardian Elite series Crossover with Susan Stoker’s Special Forces: Operation Alpha Kindle World)

  As
a CIA handler, Melina’s life is filled with lies, but her feelings for Jacin are all too real. When she’s kidnapped, he must go rogue to save the woman who left him when he needed her most.

  Coming: March 21, 2017

  Cancun Series

  Follow the Girard family—along with their friends, former SEALs and active duty female Navy pilots—as they hunt Mayan antiquities, terrorists and Mexican cartels in what most would call paradise. Tropical nights aren’t the only thing HOT in Cancun.

  Christmas in Cancun (Book #1) Can the former SEAL keep his libido in check and his family safe when the quest for ancient Mayan idols turns murderous?

  Conquered in Cancun (Novella #1.5) A helicopter pilot’s second chance at love walks into a Cancun nightclub, but she’s a jet fighter pilot with reinforced walls around her heart.

  Captivated in Cancun (Book #2) His job is tracking down terrorists so he’s not interested in a family. She wants him short-term then needs him when their worlds collide.

  Claimed by a SEAL (Cancun Crossover Novella #2.5 with Cat Johnson’s Hot SEALs Kindle Worlds) How far will the Homeland Security agent go to assure mission success when forced undercover for a second time with an irresistible SEAL?

  Crisis in Cancun (Book #3) (coming 2017)

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  About the Author

  KaLyn Cooper writes romantic suspense based in fact. Twenty seven years as a military wife has shown her the world and the men and women who protect it every day. Thirty years in PR taught her fact can be stranger than fiction, but she leaves it up to the reader to separate truth from imagination. She and her husband live in Tennessee on their micro-plantation filled with gardens, cattle, quail, and a bird dog. When she’s not writing, she’s at the shooting range or paddling on the river.