A heart-wrenching new military romance from USA TODAY
bestselling author Carmen Jenner.
Available exclusively on Amazon and
KU
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1TgTU7v
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1TiqZDz
Amazon CA: http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01FOQJ780
Amazon AU: http://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B01FOQJ780
Blurb
Jake
Tucker is broken. At twenty-two, he went into the Marine Corps a naïve,
troubled youth. Nine years and four tours later, Jake finds himself back on US
soil, though his mind remains firmly planted in the sands of Afghanistan with
the men he left behind.
Wounded,
chewed up and spat out by war, Jake has only his dog, Nuke, PTSD, and
survivor’s guilt to keep him company. He’s lived every day for nine years
wondering when it will be his last, but there’s little comfort in the fact that
he’s still standing when his platoon isn’t.
Ellie
Mason doesn’t have time for broken. She’s too busy trying to put food on the
table. And keeping up with the demands of her autistic son, Spencer, is
sometimes like fighting behind enemy lines. As if navigating the minefields of
single parenthood isn’t enough, Ellie finds herself drawn to the quiet Marine
who’s just as lonely as she is. But she’s loved damaged men before, and it left
her wounded.
Set
against the picturesque backdrop of Fairhope, Alabama, Ellie and Jake find
themselves running toward the sound of chaos.
Love is
war.
Only the
strong survive, and surrender is inevitable.
Excerpt
I ease her down on her feet, before the bed and take a step
back. I want this, God do I want this, but I’m terrified. Elle’s eyes roam over
me and she takes in a deep breath, and I won’t lie—it hurts like hell. I don’t
want pity, and I don’t want the woman I care about looking at me like a monster
just sprouted from my back. She reaches out a hand and trails her fingertips
over my scarred flesh, feeling the hard, ugly edges. I flinch a little, and she
pulls away as if she’s been burned.
“Did I hurt you?” she whispers.
“Angel, it hurts just looking at you.”
She smiles and continues her exploration of my body, openin’
old wounds with every scar she touches, and yet it’s as if she’s tenderly
sewing them shut at the same time. I haven’t felt the touch of a woman for a
very long time, and never again did I think I would, especially not one as
perfect and kind-hearted as this.
“What did they do to you, Jake?” Her eyes are bright with
tears, and I grab her hands and hold them flat to my chest.
“I don’t want your pity, Elle.”
“You think that’s why I’m here?” she says, staring up at me
with those incredible eyes. “You think that’s all this is between us?”
“I thought about it.” I nod. “I can’t see much other reason
that a woman like you would want someone like me. I’m a freak and a drunk, and
you? You’re so goddamn beautiful it hurts.”
Excerpt #2:
“You been drinkin’, Jake?” Obviously, I already know the
answer, but I ask anyway because I need to get him talkin’. I don’t like the
way his eyes seem to look right through me.
The corners of his mouth turn up in a bitter grin. “Yeah, I
been drinkin’.”
I pick up the bottles of pills strewn all over the floor and
set them on the counter. “How many of these did you take?” I snap.
“None.”
I discard the pills in the trash because they wouldn’t do no
good after they’ve been rollin’ around in glass. “You shouldn’t drink when
you’re on meds.”
“It don’t fuckin’ matter anymore.”
I snap my gaze back to his and grit my teeth. “It matters to
me.”
“Why?”
“Because I care about you,” I say. “We care about you.”
His eyes get all squinty and he slurs, “You don’t even know
me.”
“Is that what you think?” I snap, losing all patience with
him. “That I don’t know the man I’ve been letting into my house? I know you,
and the Jake Tucker I know—the Jake Spencer knows—is not this Jake.”
He smiles that twisted grin again, and so help me, I’ve
never wanted to put my hands on a person in anger so much in my life. I want to
slap that smirk right off his beautiful face.
“Maybe this is the real Jake; maybe I’m just another asshole
you hardly know tryin’ to get in your panties.”
I stare at him in shock, and I won’t lie, it takes a moment
to recover, but like any southern woman worth her salt, I’m a master in the art
of backhanded compliments and southern charm. “Then you clearly ain’t as smart
as I thought you were, ’cause this Jake? He don’t stand a chance of getting
anywhere near my panties, but the other may have. Looks like now we’ll never
know.” His cocky smile falters. “Now, stop feeling sorry for yourself and get
up.”
He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “What do you know
about it? You can’t even see what’s right in front of you.”
“Oh I see it,” I huff. “I’m real familiar with how mean a
bottle of Johnnie Walker can make a man.”
“That the reason you never talk about why Spencer’s daddy
ain’t around?”
“Yeah, that’s the reason,” I say folding my arms over my
chest. “Because, it’s a long painful road that I walked away from and one that
I don’t wanna have to revisit. And considering where you been, Jake Tucker, I
thought you might know something about that.”
“What’s his name?”
“It don’t matter.”
“It matters,” he says through his teeth. “Believe me, it
matters.”
“Why? You gonna go to Charleston, find him, and beat the
crap outta him for hurtin’ me? The best thing you can do for me is to not
become him.” I take a deep breath and wonder why we’re talkin’ about me at all
when there’s clearly more important things going on right here. “Why didn’t you
show up at my house yesterday? And why are you drinking in the middle of the
day?”
“Day, night, it don’t matter. The nightmares don’t stop
unless I’m three fuckin’ sheets to the wind.”
I sigh and grab the washcloth from a rack. Running warm
water over it, I wring out the excess and crouch down to his level. “Give me
your hand.” He shakes his head. “Give me your goddamn hand, Jake.”
He doesn’t extend it out to me, but he doesn’t pull away
either when I grab his forearm. I get a good glimpse of the damage he’s done.
He don’t need stitches, far as I can tell.
I gently start wiping at the mess and get to my feet a few
times to rinse out the washcloth. As the blood is washed away, his scars become
more pronounced. This is the first time I’m seeing him in a shirt that doesn’t
have long sleeves. It makes me want to cry because his skin is a patchwork of
pain. It tells a story of hate and unimaginable cruelty, but there is splendor
in it, too. There’s a tale of courage, survival, immeasurable strength, and
beauty in the face of such ugliness. They tried to destroy him, and they
failed.
I trace my finger over the deepest scar on his forearm and
blink back tears. Jake’s whole body stiffens. I decide it’s best not to push
him any further by touching him again, but that don’t mean I’m going to go easy
on him either. “So, you got any rubbing alcohol? Or did you drink that too?”
Excerpt #3:
“Why haven’t you found a woman to love yet, Jake?”
I stiffen. Her question catches me off guard. I don’t know
how to reply to that. I have found someone, but she deserves better than to
spend her life with a freak.
“I like being alone.” That was a lie. “Who in their right mind would have me?” is what I want to say, but
I don’t. I don’t tell her how much I loathe myself, or that I wish I was dead,
or that at night I lie awake wondering if this was part of Aasif Bashir’s plan
in disfiguring me—that he’d hoped that one day I’d roam the earth a free man
and yet never know the freedom of a woman’s touch again.
I don’t tell her that I hate being alone because I can never
shut off the voices or quiet the sounds of war that ring in my ear long after
the dust has settled and the blood has dried. I attempt to fill the void with
distractions: Nuke, Ellie, Spencer, pouring myself into something physical
until my limbs shake from misuse, but it doesn’t mask the stillness. That’s
always waiting for the moment I shut everything off. And it never becomes any
less haunting.
“I hate it,” she says, as if she’s echoing my thoughts.
“Being alone. When you climb into bed and everything’s so still you could hear
a pin drop? There’s something in that silence that screams all my greatest
fears.”
“What are they?” I say, too quickly.
“My fears?” she asks with a sigh. “That I’ll be alone
forever. That Spence will grow up and leave like all kids do, or that he’ll
enlist and my life will be filled with endless days and nights of that sound.
Of nothing.”
I feel like she just cracked open my skull and pulled the
words from my head, but two hearts as lonely as ours? Well, that’s a dangerous
thing. Deep down I know as much as she does that I’m no good for her, and yet
I’m still too selfish to push her away.
“You shouldn’t be alone,” I whisper.
“Neither should you.” She leans back into my embrace, and I
kiss the top of her hair because I never dreamed I’d be lucky enough to do that
again to any woman, let alone to this angel who came crashing into my life and
made all the pain that came before her seem worth it.
I survived war, I survived torture at the hands of the
Taliban, but I won’t survive Ellie Mason, not with my heart still intact.
About the Author
Carmen Jenner
Her dark romance, KICK (Savage
Saints MC #1), won Best Dark Romance Read in the Reader’s Choice Awards at RWDU
2015.
A tattoo enthusiast, hardcore
lipstick addict and zombie fangirl, Carmen lives on the sunny north coast of
New South Wales, Australia, where she spends her time indoors wrangling her two
wildling children, a dog named Pikelet, and her very own man-child.
A romantic at heart, Carmen strives
to give her characters the HEA they deserve, but not before ruining their lives
completely first … because what’s a happily ever after without a little
torture?
Published titles to date:
THANK YOU!
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