Secret Dream: Delos Series, 1B1 Read Free Page A

more. She was bringing him home to meet them. And even though he’d asked Lia to marry him last month, they’d told only a few close friends at this point. It was simply his promise to her that he loved her, wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, have kids, have a home, a loving home—that was something he’d never had. Lia’s walking into his life had changed it forever in the best of ways. She represented a dream he had never thought could come true for him: falling in love with a woman who he wanted to carry his baby. Lia had made that dream a reality. In fact, Lia had made so many of his dreams come true that he was still spun out by all of it.
    At twenty-eight, Cav had never thought he’d ever fall in love. He’d had a lot of sex with women, but none had grabbed his heart. Until Lia came like fog, silent and timid, into that Delos board meeting in a five-star hotel in San José one afternoon. He knew now that he’d fallen hard for her from the moment he saw her stand unsurely in the doorway of that meeting room. And instantly, he’d wanted to protect her, because he felt her rawness, her vulnerability, and saw that look in her intelligent gray eyes that told him she was afraid for her life. It wasn’t drama on Lia’s part. She had almost been killed. If not for her having been in the Army and having military thinking and training, she would have been shot in the head just like the two teachers who worked for Delos had been.
    And now? She was his. And she held his wounded heart so tenderly between her small, slender hands, the most kind, giving person that Cav had ever known. Since she’d met him, Lia’s old self had begun to emerge from the trauma of that attack on her life five years earlier. Every day, he enjoyed discovering a new facet to the woman he loved. Cav knew how important this meeting was to Lia, and he wanted badly for it to go right for her sake. She was trying to decide whether she was going to tell her parents that they were engaged to be married. She nattered about her mother, Susan, who had been overly protective of her since she’d been attacked at Bagram and nearly bled to death. That seemed like a natural reaction for any parent who cared about their child , Cav thought.
    Cav had never experienced a healthy family until Chief Jacoby, his SEAL sea daddy, had taken him under his wing. His father had been addicted to cocaine and used every bit of money his mother earned to feed his habit, not his family. There were mornings during Cav’s childhood when he woke up and wondered if he’d live to see the sun set that night. His father was violent and anything could set him off. His poor mother had done her best to protect him and paid a horrific price for it. Cav had seen her shield him from his raging father, only to have her nose, jaw, arm, and cheekbone broken over time. And then, one day, Cav saw his mother give up. From twelve years old onward, he tried to defend and protect her. And his father would use him as a punching bag, trying to teach him not to interfere between him and his wife. Cav touched his broken nose, remembering all too clearly the day that his father had done this to him. So he didn’t know much about what a real family was like at all until Jacoby stepped into his life and showed it to him. And there was a touch of curiosity on his part to see Lia with her healthy family like Jacoby’s family had been toward him. He hoped so.
    As the escalator emptied them into the busy baggage claim, he saw there were just two baggage carousels. Ontario was a very small airport. Suddenly he heard a swift intake of breath from Lia. Her hand gripped his even more firmly.
    “Cav! There’s my mom and dad!” She practically ran toward them, dragging him along with her. Though she was a tiny little thing, Cav had learned early on she wasn’t weak.
    Cav saw a tall, darkly tanned man in a straw cowboy hat, a chambray shirt, jeans, and work boots standing next to a woman. She had