They say being a Military wife is the toughest job, even though there is no MOS for the position. As the veteran of more than a few deployments, I have to agree. My husband proudly served 8 years in the United States Navy. There has always been something about a man in uniform that got my blood pumping and my mind fantasizing. So what did I do when my man was halfway around the world - read Romance novels and fantasized about my own story lines, of course!
Margaret Kay is a wife to her best friend of forty years, a mother of two adult children, a grandmother, and a dog-mom who makes her own dog food. She counts herself as fortunate that she has turned her passion of daydreaming about characters and storylines into books that people want to read. Margaret has to date published 15 books in the Amazon Best Selling Shepherd Security Series out of 24 planned and has written several short stories that are included in charity anthologies. A Women’s Fiction, Contemporary Romance/Family Drama novel, That First Year, that also ranked Amazon’s Best Sellers List, rounds out her current published work. She has many other story ideas, in several other genres planned.
Check out my website for more info: https://www.sistersromance.com/
Title Operation: Protected Angel
Author Margaret Kay
Genre Military Romance, Women’s Adventure Fiction, Romantic Suspense
Publisher Sister’s Romance
Book Blurb
Angel Matthew’s day started like any other…until she ran into the armed man in
the hallway at work. What came next was a blur, a hostage ordeal, a terrorist attack, explosions and gunfire, a fight for her life. Then she wakes with a head injury and finds herself in the custody of a group of armed men, who won’t disclose exactly who they are. One of them, the attractive and attentive Jackson is kind and Angel finds herself trusting him, falling for him.
Excerpt
Alpha
Blinding bright white light, painfully so, surrounded by darkness. She struggled to keep her eyes open, even the tiny slivers they were. Pain everywhere in her body. Her head felt as though it was actually split open. Noise, explosions, muffled shouts, she felt the sensation of moving, of falling. She grabbed onto something, an arm, a person. He came into her line of sight, momentarily blocking out that intense light. A man, his face leaned in close, the white light a distant halo around him.
He was saying something, quiet garbled words. Why couldn’t she hear or understand him? He had kind eyes, hazel-green, a helmet on his head like a soldier or SWAT would wear. His squared-off face was framed in a trimmed dark beard with a mustache over lips that were still talking to her, words she still couldn’t hear and didn’t understand. He was handsome in a rugged, dangerous way. She was past the point of caring if he meant her harm. Darkness overtook her, and all the noise quieted. Bliss.
“I’m Jackson; I’m here to keep you safe. Stay with me,” he yelled above the gunfire, his face in hers as he cradled her in his arms. He easily lifted her petite frame from the floor. Her eyes had re-closed.
“You got her Jax?” Came through his comms.
“Roger that, Coop,” he replied, his eyes shifting across the room to where Cooper laid down cover fire.
“Exfil in five, four, three, two, one,” Coop counted down, and then a concussion reverberated through the room while the bright flash stunned the Tangos.
Jackson bolted to the door, went past Cooper and cleared it without incident. He held her tightly to his chest, dead weight in his arms.
“Watch her head,” Doc’s voice came through his comms.
“You want to come take her?” Jackson demanded.
“Just keep the head up and as still as possible. She’s got one hell of a concussion,” Doc’s worried voice spoke as Jackson mounted the stairs, the first flight of the eight he’d run up with her one-hundred-twenty pounds of toned muscle and feminine curves clutched in his grasp.
“I’ve got her,” Jackson repeated with annoyance. This wasn’t his first go-around with a concussion. He didn’t need to be reminded.
He heard the pounding of Razor’s boots a flight up and Doc’s and Coop’s a flight down in concert with his own, interrupted with the intermittent gunfire echoing up through the stairwell. These guys were tenacious. They really wanted her.
His chest was tight as he pushed himself harder. The strain and fatigue cramped his leg muscles and the heaviness of his breathing burned his chest by the time he reached the roof access door. Doc passed him on the stairs and stood, holding the door open for him.
The gust kicked up by the rotor blades of the Lakota UH-72A ahead, battered his face and sent her long black locks wildly whipping through the air. The whirl was loud in his already deafened ears, drowning out all other sounds. Razor stood near the chopper, his M4 CQBR at the ready. The setting sun was an orange blaze behind his solid form.
Jackson hurried over and slid in, seating himself way to the back of the bird on the floor, still cradling her in his arms. Doc crowded in beside him, immediately assessing her condition. Coop brought up the rear with both him and Razor jumping in. The pilot pulled it off the roof before the doors were even secure. The craft banked sharply to the left, clearing the roof and then it dropped below the roofline of the hospital, gaining speed.
Thirty minutes before
“On target in five minutes,” their pilot’s voice came through their comms.
Anthony ‘Razor’ Garcia turned off his pregame music, a playlist of the Stones, Doors, and Cream. John ‘Coop’ Cooper’s eyes snapped open from the purposeful focused state he had been in. He never called it meditating. Alexander ‘Doc’ Williams closed his medical kit, having spent the last twenty minutes reviewing his supplies, and Ethan ‘Jax’ Jackson turned off his country music playlist that he always listened to before going into a shitstorm.
The four men did one more check of their equipment. “Holden and his team are barricaded in the imaging lab suite, first floor, southwest corner, unknown number of Tangos. They knocked out the surveillance cameras,” Coop reported. He ran his fingers through his short-cropped blond hair before securing his helmet.
“They’re taking heavy fire, multiple casualties,” Doc added. He checked over his mags of ammo and grenades to be sure he was properly geared up.
“Let’s make this a quick in and out, exfil within twenty minutes of insertion, with the target,” Coop ordered.
“Roger that, your standard dustoff,” Garcia’s baritone voice acknowledged. He was fully geared up from head to toe. The black of the fatigues matching his deep-set eyes.
“Holden reports she is completely incapacitated,” Doc said, his steely gaze penetrating Jackson’s eyes. “She’s yours to get out.”
Jackson nodded, as was usually the case. He checked his weapons a second time. Rifle loaded and secure, Sig 320 9mm at his side, multiple mags of ammo secured everywhere there was space available.
Buy Links
Free to read on Kindle Unlimited!
Title That First Year
Author Margaret Kay
Genre – Women’s Fiction, Family Saga, Literary Fiction
Book Blurb
From #1 Amazon Bestselling Author Margaret Kay, That First Year, a story of love, loss, family, and resiliency, with hope, tears, and laughter.
Elyse Laramie created a happy, loving home for herself and her three children, who now, as adults, are successful and living independent lives away from home. Her marriage to her high school sweetheart, Tim, had grown into something that neither of them wanted it to be, but it wasn’t something that either of them wanted to end. Elyse had always secretly hoped the future would bring about a change that would rekindle that spark between them and renew what had become a platonic relationship.
Her oldest daughter, Claire, is married with two young children of her own. She is building her career in the same field as her father. Kade, the middle child, is a paramedic, living with his girlfriend of two years. Kelsey, the youngest, is getting ready to graduate from college.
Then…a terrible accident changes everything.
In the aftermath, life goes on and brings new roles, new or renewed romantic relationships, and new challenges to each member of the family.
Grief experts advise someone coping with the recent loss of their loved one to make no major life decisions or changes during That First Year. For the Laramie family, life had other plans. This is each of their stories during That First Year.
Excerpt
It Arrives
The design was beautiful, sleek, Asian inspired. It was onyx with inlaid mother-of-pearl in a traditional floral tapestry pattern he would have loved. It was cool to the touch and heavy in its weight. Elyse Laramie clutched the urn to herself as she watched the woman from the Solace Crematorium and Funeral Home retreat down her long driveway, the wheels of the black SUV crunching the gravel. The chrome on the car’s bumper gleamed in the early afternoon sun.
It was a stunning spring day. The sky was cobalt blue and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. The trees and bushes had filled in with dark green leaves and beautiful, brilliant purple- and salmon-colored blooms. They gently swayed in the seventy-degree breeze. The vibrant colors were breathtaking, surreal, life bursting forth; a stark contrast to the life suddenly lost.
When the SUV disappeared behind the wall of purple leaf plum trees and flowering quince shrubs at the end of the drive, only then did she move within her spacious, two-story foyer. Beneath her bare feet, the beige ceramic tile was cool. The tile color matched the paint on the upper portion of the entry walls. The white wainscoting below flowed up the grand staircase that looped around the entire entry, ending on the second floor at the entrance to her master suite, where Tim had seldom slept.
She set the urn on the black entry table beneath the ornate, white wrought iron mirror to the spot she had prepared for it. Dangling from her hand were the four necklaces with charms that each held a small portion of Tim’s ashes. Cremation jewelry. Who thought up such a thing? She set the necklaces beside the urn.
Beside the urn to the right was her favorite photo of him, taken with her cell phone four and a half months earlier, on Christmas Day. She had printed it on high-grade photo paper and placed it in an eight by ten black frame. On the other side of the urn was the family photo taken the same day. The five of them together. That was a rare event. It was in an identical frame. She admired the balanced appearance the two black picture frames gave the urn presentation against the rich beige wall. A short white candle in front, she thought. That would finish the display beautifully.
She lifted the family photo, her eyes scanning each of her family members’ faces. Tim looked genuinely happy, his arms around each of his girls. Claire to his right, the spitting image of her father in both personality and appearance. Black hair, brown eyes, olive complexion, just like Tim and his mother. Kelsey, Elyse’s mini-me on his left; her same auburn-brown hair, sparkling green eyes, high cheekbones, full lips, and a wide, beautiful smile.
Kade, their middle child, the tallest of all five of them, a mix of both his parents. He had Tim’s hair and complexion, Elyse’s personality, eyes, and lips. He stood towering over them all by nearly a foot. He had his arm draped over Claire’s shoulder, the new dragon tattoo on his forearm peeking out from under the rolled up white shirt sleeve. Its yellow eyes appeared to glow, drawing her gaze.
Elyse smiled, remembering how Claire had berated Kade after the photo was taken, angry he hadn’t rolled his sleeves down. She’d said his ink ruined the picture, which led into a tirade by Claire about how disgusting tattoos and tattoo parlors were. Elyse wondered how she had raised such a judgmental prude. Elyse was neither judgmental nor was she prudish, and neither was Tim, that she knew of.
Her eyes shifted to the wall to the right, zeroing in on the other family picture taken that day. It was in the middle of the many family photos she had displayed in the large grouping of frames. This picture included Claire’s husband, Matthew, who had the same olive complexion, brown eyes, and black hair, as both of their young children did.
Kade’s sleeve was rolled down in that shot, she noticed. Her eyes shifted to Kelsey, Elyse’s arm around her. Around her twenty-two-year-old. Kelsey had told her that day that she would not be home after she graduated from Old Dominion University that June. She had decided to stay in Norfolk for the summer and then she would settle wherever she went to grad school. Elyse’s last child had officially flown the coop. She was proud of all her children. She raised them to become successful adults who could stand on their own two feet, and they were. It was just that, as much as she hated to admit it, she was closest to Kelsey, and she missed her.
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub)
Title Operation: Healing Angel
Author Margaret Kay
Genre Military Romance, Women’s Adventure Fiction, Romantic Suspense
Book Blurb
Colonel Samuel ‘Big Bear’ Shepherd, retired on paper only. A West Point Graduate, he served his entire career in the Special Operations Command where he made the necessary contacts to make his agency, Shepherd Security, a reality. His agency was born from the need to have an independent, highly trained, and specialized group that could work outside of the system to accomplish what could not be done within the highly bureaucratic and often ineffectual governmental organizations.
Excerpt
Shepherd never shied away from getting his hands dirty. He actively engaged, leading his men on the toughest missions. It was on one such mission, nearly five years ago, that Shepherd was shot in the abdomen. Significant damage resulted from his injury, and he has been confined to a wheelchair since. Over the past few months, the pain has increased as well as other sensations in the lower half of his body.His life has been focused on the mission, leaving little room for any personal distractions…until he meets the attractive and intelligent doctor who immediately impresses him. The doctor who will change his life.
Dr. Diana Palmer is a highly educated practitioner in multiple disciplines to bring the most effective treatments to her patients. Every second of her life focuses on her work with a patient wellness with a holistic approach and mindset, leaving little time for personal relationships outside of her large, close family. Her last romantic relationship while in med school ended with a pathetic whimper, two extremely busy people who had no time for each other. That was one mistake she vowed she would never repeat…until she meets the enigmatic recluse whom she finds to be both warm and personable as well as intelligent and kind. He communicates in a matter-of-fact manner that she respects. She is as attracted to his personality as she is to him physically, a wrong mindset to have, given that he becomes her patient.
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub)
Title Operation: Bayou Angel
Author Margaret Kay
Genre Military Romance, Women’s Adventure Fiction, Romantic Suspense
Book Blurb
Just as he prepares to leave on a mission with his team, Shepherd Security Operator Brian ‘the Birdman’ Sherman receives a call from his brother, Bobby, pleading with him to come home to Louisiana to help him. Bobby’s been arrested again and needs Brian to help get him remanded into drug rehab, rather than jail.
Little does Sherman know that his brother is not being completely honest with him.Brielle Jarboe is Bobby Sherman's best friend. She is a full-time Bayou Guide, part-time reporter who is chasing her dream of getting a job in the big leagues of journalism. She writes a blog on happenings in the Parish, a hard-hitting, real news, no-fluff blog that has called out people and businesses in the Parish and brought a lot of unwanted attention to herself.
She knows something isn’t right in the Bayou, but she doesn't know that she has the story of her life, a story that just may get her killed.
Enter Brian Sherman and Shepherd Security.
Excerpt
Alpha
Beyond the dense canopy of tree branches and hanging moss, the light from the moon and the stars in the cloudless night shone brightly. It filtered through the trees, illuminating random sections. The surrounding calls from the bullfrogs harmonized with the choir of crickets and cicadas, creating a sweet symphony that filled the still night air. The concert also covered the sound of twigs cracking and foliage rustling as the lone figure made her way up to the edge of the twelve-foot-high chain link fence that surrounded the old fish cannery plant that had been refurbished into the new BioDynamix facility.
She wore black combat boots, to help to protect her feet and ankles from possible snake bites, heavy-weight long pants, to help protect from the same as well as from insect bites. She wore a large black hoodie over her smaller frame and a black nylon face mask that revealed only alert brown eyes, eyes that cautiously scanned the area. Black gloved hands produced a set of wire cutters. She quickly cut an opening and pressed her five-foot-seven-inch frame through it.
Moving through the tall grass that edged the inside of the fence, she was careful to stay in the corner that she knew was shrouded in shadows. There were surveillance cameras everywhere at this plant. She’d be caught on one feed or another, she was sure. It was more a matter if she could gain entry into the warehouse to get a quick look at what was there and get out before she was seen, and guards arrived.
This was breaking and entering, most likely criminal trespass, and could possibly even be called industrial espionage. She knew if she got caught inside, it would be a trip to the local jail. She banished those thoughts from her mind, a bit too late to think about that. She crossed the open, manicured lawn and pressed her back against the metal wall of the building. She’d made it this far with no alarms, no spotlights, and no people invading this corner of the plant grounds.
She crept along the wall until she reached the door that she knew led within the warehouse. She tried the knob. Locked. She listened at the door, straining her ears to hear any possible sounds from within or from around her. Nothing. It was past midnight, but she knew this plant had activity twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. She took a deep breath to summon her courage and fortify her will and then she withdrew the lockpicking tools from her pocket. She’d never done this for real before.
She inserted the tension wrench into the bottom of the keyhole. Then the pick into the top. Her hands trembled slightly as she maneuvered the tools within the lock, tripping one pin set at a time. It seemed to take forever to unlock the door, when in reality it was less than three minutes, just like she’d practiced.
She cracked the door open, her heart pounding. Through the narrow slit she saw racks of empty shelves in front of her. The lighting was low. The area in front of the shelves was cavernous and filled with shadows. She heard nothing from within, heard only her own pounding heartbeat. She slipped through the door and soundlessly reclosed it. She paused there, her back pressed against the metal wall. Still no alarms, no lights clicking on, no sounds of running feet converging on her location.
She moved further inside, following the line of tall black metal shelving racks towards the two massive garage doors. The last shelf was piled high, from the floor to the top shelf ten feet in the air with flattened boxes of all sizes, packaging material, bubble wrap, peanuts, and rolls of clear shipping tape.
Peeking around the end of the shelf, she was shocked to see no boxes at all on the warehouse floor. Nor were there any stacked along any of the walls. She hurried back to the door she came in, cracked it open and peered back into the quiet night. She half expected to find guards waiting for her. But no one was there. She rushed out, soundlessly closing the door, and then she retraced her steps back towards the southeast corner of the building. She quickly crossed the distance to the far corner and slipped back through the cut fence, disappearing into the dense undergrowth beneath the gnarled branches of the cypress and oak trees.
Even though it was sixty-two degrees out, the sweat poured down her body. The nylon facemask was soaked and clung to her face. But she didn’t dare remove it yet. She followed the route back the way she’d come. Besides the snakes, coming across a gator was always a possibility too. She kept her eyes alert.
Five minutes later, she made it back to the dilapidated one room shack that hung over the edge of the bayou. The pirogue, the small flat bottom wood boat, was tied up there, waiting for her. She glanced around and listened. There were no sounds to indicate anyone had followed her. But then she heard the engine of a car echo from the road to the east. Shit!
She was startled when a figure emerged from the shadows of the porch.
“Quick, give me the hoodie. The cops are just arriving,” his whispered voice said.
She tore the hoodie over her head, revealing a black long-sleeved shirt beneath. It too was drenched with sweat. She pulled the wet black nylon mask from over her face, revealing thick, long black hair, secured in a ponytail. She handed the hoodie to Bobby, her best friend and accomplice. She shoved the facemask into her pants pocket.
Buy Links
Title Operation: Reluctant Angel
Author Margaret Kay
Genre Military Romance, Women’s Adventure Fiction, Romantic Suspense
Book Blurb
Book #14 in the Shepherd Security Series.
Shepherd Security field engineer Laura Lee ‘Lah-lee’ Saxton declined Operator training. She also voiced her opposition to working in the Operations Center as an analyst. She failed to complete and submit her required coursework to earn her FBI Credentials. Although she is a top-notch electrical engineer, she was the first person at Shepherd Security to ever be placed on disciplinary probation.
But there are reasons for her reluctance to assume these duties that no one at the agency knows, secrets she had kept since she was four years old and also secrets related to a crime that occurred ten years earlier while she was in college. These incidents were major moments that shaped her adult life.
A self-described introvert, she has never felt part of any team, including her Shepherd Security Team designated Echo. Until her appendix ruptures and the outpouring of support she receives from all the members of the team, including many of the wives, makes her realize she is not only part of the team, but she is also a part of the family.It is while she is sedated on pain killers that a realization comes to her that is fueled by twisted dreams from an operation the team conducted recently in New Orleans—Abusers don’t stop abusing. If they’re not stopped, they leave more victims in their wake.
During a solo cursory investigation as she recovers from her surgery reveals an alarming pattern. She easily identifies at least ten other women who may have been similar victims at her alma mater. That’s when she realizes she needs help if she’s going to take the investigation further.When you have kept secrets your whole life, it’s hard to trust.
Excerpt
First Lieutenant Laura Lee Saxton, U.S. Army, reported to her CO’s office as ordered. She had an idea what he wanted to see her about. She had requested a transfer. Her yearly eval that she’d received two weeks earlier ranked her performance at the top of the scale. Even so, she had been denied a higher rank due to other criteria, which she believed were subjective and impacted because her CO and many of her co-workers didn’t like her. That, coupled with the fact that her unit had just been notified they’d be deploying to work on projects in Africa, made Saxton want a transfer anywhere.
She was the only woman on her squad that consisted of eight engineers. She was one of two electrical engineers in her work group. The other was male. He’d just made captain. And he had always been assigned the better, higher-profile projects and been assigned as lead. Of course, he made captain before she did. It may be the twenty-first century, but it was still the boys’ club and women were still treated as less by their male counterparts. It was infuriating.
Laura Lee had worked her butt off both in college and in the Army. She’d gone the ROTC route, taking the scholarships that carried with them an obligation of service after she’d earned her degree. She had two years left on her obligation of active duty.
She arrived in the outer office and greeted her CO’s admin, seated at his desk outside the closed door that led into the lieutenant colonel’s office. “Hi Sean, he summoned me,” she greeted the private, first class, who she knew well. “Got any idea what it’s about?”
“I can’t say.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“I honestly don’t know, Laura. But he isn’t alone in there. Some female captain is with him and she’s not from this command.”
“Oh, crap, this can’t be good,” Laura Lee remarked as Sean got up from his chair and approached the door.
He knocked.
From within, Laura Lee heard the lieutenant colonel. “Come.”
She watched Sean crack the door open.
“Lieutenant Saxton is here, sir,” Sean said.
“Send her in,” the lieutenant colonel said.
Sean swung the door wide. Laura Lee took a deep breath for courage and then she marched into the office. She came to attention before Lieutenant Colonel Bayles and the unknown female captain. “Lieutenant Saxton reporting as ordered, sir.”
“At ease, Saxton,” Bayles said. “This is Captain Miller. She’d like a word with you. I suggest you carefully consider her offer. It’s the best one you’re going to get.”
Captain Miller was a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman in her mid-thirties. She wore her dress uniform better than Laura Lee ever could. How did she look so good in her uniform? Laura Lee was confused as she watched Bayles leave the office, closing the door behind himself.
Captain Miller stepped over to the small conference table on the left side of the office. She took a seat. “Please join me, Lieutenant Saxton,” she said.
Laura Lee crossed the room and sat across from the captain. To say she was nervous was an understatement. A file folder sat on the table. The captain opened it and flipped through a few pieces of paper.
“Your performance evals are top-notch. You know your shit. So, why have you been passed over for promotion again?” Captain Miller asked.
Laura Lee knew her eyes went wide at this question. She had a moment of indecision. “You’ve read the reviews, I’m sure. I’m not sure what you want me to say.”
Madison Miller’s lips tipped into a grin. “How about your opinion as to why?”
Saxton glanced away for a moment. She could be committing career suicide with her answer, but she fully intended to transfer out of this unit before it deployed, and she only had two years of service left. She could tough anything out for two years. “Permission to speak freely, ma’am?”
Miller nodded.
“The other criteria used to rank my progression for advancement are, in my opinion, subjective. I am not claiming blatant bias or discrimination by my commanding officers, but I will say that personality should not be factored into ranking up and that is what I believe is happening. The other engineers in my unit are all male and they are all tight, the boys club. And Lieutenant Wallace in my unit, the other electrical engineer, is Lieutenant Colonel Bayles’ golf buddy. The two of them and our unit head, plus one of the other men in the unit, are a regular foursome. Wallace pulls lead on all projects. I’m not saying he isn’t a competent engineer; I’m just saying that the assignment of project lead is always his and I don’t believe it should be.”
“May I call you Laura?”
“I go by Laura Lee.”
“Laura Lee, I don’t doubt for a second that the glass ceiling is still in place in many Army units, yours included. I’ve reviewed your college transcripts and all your military records. You’ve requested a transfer. I’m recruiting for a special unit, and I need the very best engineers who are flexible and will step up and take on additional responsibilities as needed. I need people who will work their asses off to accomplish the mission on a very small team that will work domestically to ensure our power grid is secure from cyber-attacks. Further education in addition to a full-time work schedule will be required.”
“Is it with another division within USACE?” she asked.
“No, it’s not associated with the Army Corps of Engineers at all,” Miller replied without elaborating. “Your unit was just notified it would deploy before you put the transfer request in.”
Laura Lee nodded.
“Was that part of the reason you requested a transfer?”
“This unit, when I accepted the assignment, was not a deployable unit. We were to work on domestic projects only.”
“If you take the transfer into the unit I’m recruiting for, you will never deploy.”
Buy Links