Entwined Destiny

By Emma Grace

All Mark Hunter had ever wanted to do was serve his country and follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. An American soldier first and foremost, he was as dedicated as they came. One mission, though, would change his perceptive of where that war should be fought. The terrorists America had promised to eradicate had only grown in number. And now, one group had found a way to bring the war to America. Now Mark was charged with protecting the homeland, at home.

All her life, Whitney Klooster had loved one man. When he suddenly reappeared in her life, Whitney feared the worst. Would the man who never knew he held her heart, leave her behind and broken once more?

Follow Mark and Whitney as Mark tries not to lose his heart to the one woman he could and Whitney tries to keep her heart from being broken again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Emma Grace
• Release date: Mar 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310266775

Emma Grace

Emma Grace is a small town Southern girl whose love of books has been handed down through the women in her family for many generations. Emma has often sat with her mother or grandmother each reading their own books and enjoying the other's silent company. Emma is the mother of three beautiful children and is married to a loving, devoted husband. It was her husband and children who encouraged her to write her own books for others to enjoy.

Book preview

† Prologue †

A thick, wet fog rolled over the mountain, slowly dampening the ground as it neared a tiny campsite. A boy and his grandfather watched as it drifted through the trees, knowing it would not be long before it could be felt deep inside their souls. The two were camping in the woods, out behind the grandfather’s home, in the hills of Tennessee. The boy loved to go camping with his grandfather.

But the grandfather hated nights like this. He kept his eyes on the fog, which seemed to encompass all it touched as it traveled through the woods, swallowing everything in its path. He watched, and he waited. He knew, when he felt it, he would be transported to another time, another world.

Tell me the story again, Grandpa, the young boy asked quietly. He had been out here enough times with his grandfather to know the effects of a night like this. He knew what would follow.

The grandfather looked sharply at the boy. You’ve heard the story a million times, son. Why would you want to hear it again?

Please, Grandpa? The boy loved to hear his grandfather tell his war stories, and one story in particular fascinated him. It was his hope and dream to one day follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. Both had served in the Army; his father was, even now, oversees.

He settled back into his chair, outside the tent he and his grandfather had pitched together, and waited. He knew the old man would tell him. It was as if he needed to let it out, especially on a night like this. The young boy had already learned this and knew what was to follow.

That night was much like this one. Several of my buddies and I were lying down in a foxhole in the jungle. We had seen some action earlier in the day and were fervently wishing for a quiet night. We just wanted some sleep.

The grandfather always started the conversation stilted, as if he really didn’t want to talk about that day, but once he started, the woods around him transformed to the jungles of Vietnam, and he was taken back to the war, almost as if he were still there; had never really left.

"There was a small village just down the road. We had already agreed not to go near it. We learned the hard way that you just never knew which side of the war the people of the village were on, and even if they were on your side, they might have been threatened by the other side. And let me tell you, son, people will do anything when it comes to protecting their families.

But as I was saying, the jungles are hot and steamy most days, and we were worn out from the fighting, the walking, and the whole damn war. We just wanted a little rest that night. I settled down for the night next to Danny. You know Danny Morrison. He’s been to the house several times. It’s a wonder we both made it out of there alive.

The boy did know who his grandfather was talking about, so he simply nodded his head, although he knew his grandfather was already lost in his story. He was no longer in the woods behind his home, with his grandson. His mind had already taken him back in time. The boy could see it in the old man’s eyes, sense it in his body language. His grandfather was tensed up, ready for what was about to come.

"The fog started rolling in, just as it is now, boy. You could feel it as it blanketed the ground we were laying on. We had gone from the searing heat of the jungle to the cold, wetness of the jungle night. In less than an hour, we were wet from the inside out. You see, a fog like that gets into your very soul.

"It seemed like I had barely drifted off to sleep that night when I was awakened by a small boy. He wasn’t much younger than you are now, maybe about eight. He walked right up to our foxhole, shook my arm, and called out to us.

"I woke up with a start. The boy looked like he had been crying. Somehow, between his broken English and my limited grasp of his language, I learned that his mother was being held hostage by the enemy. He was scared for her life. He knew we were here; the villagers had been talking about the American soldiers, just down the road.

"He asked for our help. ‘Please help my mother,’ he pleaded with me. By this time, Danny was awake. Both of us had seen enough to know better than to believe the kid, much less follow him back to that village, but he was just a boy. We climbed out of the foxhole, but we didn’t wake the rest of the guys. That was our first mistake.

We started walking with this boy back to his village. We didn’t take time to survey the scene, check out the surroundings. That was our second mistake, boy. Do you hear what I’m saying to you? There is no room for mistakes in war, son. Danny and I never should have made it back home.

The grandson nodded again. He knew what his grandfather was saying. It had been drilled into him.

"Because of the dense fog, we couldn’t see very much around us. We walked right into a trap. There was no woman in distress. There were only enemy soldiers waiting to capture some stupid American soldiers in hopes of gaining information. The boy had been sent to lure us in. If he succeeded, his family would be left alone by the enemy soldiers, but if he failed, his house would be torched with everything, including his mother and baby sister, inside. He would have been made to watch.

"That is what that poor boy was told. I overheard the soldiers talking about it. I don’t blame the boy. What choice did he have? In the end, it didn’t matter. Once the soldiers were finished with him, they torched the house anyway, with him and his family inside. As a matter of fact, they torched the whole village. Danny and I could hear the villagers screaming in pain before they finally succumbed to the fire.

"That’s war, boy. Do you hear me? Do you understand what I am telling you? The enemy doesn’t fight fair. They never have, and they never will. America wasn’t going to win this one. Our hearts were not in it, and the enemy knew how to manipulate us. When they put guns and bombs in the hands of women and small children, our soldiers refused to shoot. Americans were slaughtered by the thousands because we refused to fight dirty.

"But you listen to me, boy. There is a lesson to be learned here. Had Danny and I talked this over with our leader and our troop, had we surveyed the scene and understood the situation, we would not have gotten caught. We might have saved that boy’s family and the whole damn village.

But we were young and stupid. Just young enough and stupid enough to believe we could make a difference over there. But we didn’t, and we couldn’t. Needless to say, we were trapped. Both of us were tied up and tortured for days. I’m proud to say though, boy, neither of us gave up anything to the enemy.

By this time, the boy’s eyes were as big as saucers. He never got tired of hearing how his grandfather had been captured by the enemy. And ultimately, how he had been freed.

What happened next, Grandpa? he whispered. For a long, silent few minutes, the older man did not answer the question. He was seeing it all in his mind’s eye. He could feel the sting of the lash on his back, where he still had the scars. He could hear the tortured screams of his long-time buddy and Army pal as his fingernails were ripped from his hand. He never went into all of the details of the torture techniques used when he talked with his grandson. Only he and Danny, and other captured soldiers, knew what really had happened in that month they were in the enemy camp. It was something he would never share with his family.

The boy’s grandfather drew in a tortured, ragged breath. He was unsure why he talked about those times with the boy, but when he did, he released a little more of the pent-up anger over the whole damn war and what some of his fellow soldiers went through. They had no business fighting a war they were not really trying to win. In the end, the enemy got what they had wanted to begin with.

"It was a month, son, before we were rescued. To tell you the truth, I thought me and Danny were goners. We should have been. Someone was looking out for your grandpa’s soul, I’ll tell you that. Your grandmother believes it was because we were meant to find each other. Girls are like that, you know. She believes the good Lord kept me alive, because I was the one and only man for her.

"But you don’t want to hear about that. Like I said, it was a full thirty days in that hellhole, before we were rescued. And a grand rescue it was. You see, son, that’s another part of war. The troop Danny and I served with refused to leave us behind. They woke up the next day to find us gone and the village still smoldering. They never gave up looking for us. It turned out, the place we had been taken to was not very far from where my troop had made camp that night.

"The enemy soldiers thought it was so well hidden in the jungle, they did not bother to set too many guards. Once our troop located us, they waited and watched. When they were able to determine how many soldiers were in the compound, they made their move.

With the help of a Special Forces unit nearby, my team was able to storm the enemy camp. There were more than forty soldiers being held in that camp, each of us too weak from lack of food and water, not to mention the torture we had endured, to be of much help with the breakout. But when we heard our American brothers storm that site, we did all we could to hinder our guards in combat.

After a long pause, the boy asked, Are you going to tell the rest, Grandpa?

Yes, son. Give me just a minute.

The boy watched as his grandfather wiped a few tears from his eyes. He waited. This was his favorite part of the story.

We were finally free. The grandfather’s voice wavered as he made that statement. "I was barely able to stand; my feet were cracked and bleeding. Danny wasn’t in much better shape than I was, but somehow, together, we managed to crawl out of that place. We were almost to the edge of the clearing when a fresh set of enemy troops showed up. They had heard the fighting and had come to help their fellow soldiers. I looked up just as one of the bastards pointed his rifle right at my heart. I closed my eyes, boy. You should know, many times I had thought I would die in that camp. I thought I should have died for my stupidity, but the good Lord had other plans.

I never felt that bullet hit my chest, son. Do you know why, boy?

Because one of the Special Forces soldiers killed him first, the boy responded with a smile on his face and pride in his voice as if he had been the one to take that shot himself.

"That’s right, son. One of the Special Forces soldiers had climbed high into a tree the night before the soldiers stormed the camp. He waited. He had a rifle with a scope on it. He could see some of the enemy coming before the rest of us could, boy, and it was his job to take down the ones we couldn’t see coming.

When I opened my eyes, the man with his rifle trained on my heart was lying on the ground, shot clean through the head. I looked up, and there, in the tree above me, was what your grandmother still refers to as my guardian angel.

That’s what I want to be someday, Grandpa. I want to be a sniper and take out the bad guys no one sees coming. I want to protect other soldiers the way that guy protected you.

The boy’s grandfather smiled.

† Chapter 1 †

Another long day in the blistering desert heat had Mark Hunter cursing to himself and wondering why he had ever signed up for this job. Three days he had lain here, patiently waiting for his mark to make a move. He had lasted through two dust storms, glaring sunlight that could blind a man as he looked over the sand, and one pelting rain. He knew his target was in the building he was watching, but he had no idea when said target would make an appearance.

Mark was positioned on a slight rise about twelve hundred yards from an enemy compound housing a volatile, militant group that made daily headlines for their violent and gruesome acts. The man identified as the head of the group, Abu Omar al-Zarqawi, was wanted in several countries for his part in the ordering of brutal beheadings, mutilations, and dismemberment of aid workers, reporters, and other non-military personnel.

Mark would consider it an honor to take this monster down. He just needed the bastard to come out of his hole for a minute. If he would step out of the compound for any reason, Mark’s scope was ready, his finger on the trigger of the high-powered rifle in his grip. But so far, the terrorist had been elusive. This would be the sixth time an American sniper had al-Zarqawi within grasp, only to lose him when he left the compound—either fully surrounded or some other way completely.

His usual method was to leave in the dead of night, so surrounded by his men there was no clear shot. Three of Mark’s fellow soldiers had lost him like that. This time, Mark was prepared. He had the equipment needed to pick the bastard out of a large crowd, even in the middle of a moonless night. So he waited. And he sweated.

Mark could feel a bead of moisture trickle down his face, but that didn’t bother him as much as the ones now running down his butt crack. He grimaced slightly. It felt like an insect crawling down his butt.

In the last three days, he had been bitten by who-knew-what more times than he cared to count. There was a throbbing in his ribcage that told him something was going to need medical attention when he made it back to base. He didn’t even think about what was crawling around and nesting down beside him in the sandpit he had dug out and half buried himself into.

He was used to these conditions. He had wanted to become a soldier almost from the time he could walk. His daddy had served, and his grandfather had served. Mark had always known he would follow in their footsteps.

He didn’t just want to be a soldier; he wanted to be elite. A Special Forces unit had rescued his grandfather from a prisoner camp where he had spent thirty days being tortured for information. But on his way out of the camp, an enemy soldier had his gun trained on his grandfather’s heart. A sniper saved his life.

Another sniper had saved the life of his father when Mark was still young. Hearing those stories his whole life had Mark choosing to become one of the best. He wanted to return the favor to other soldiers for what had been done for his family. If he could save the life of fellow American soldiers like those snipers had done, he would consider his military career complete.

And there was no doubt he had been in a position to do just that. He had often been one of the first into a site that would later be cleared by a ground troop. His job was to watch for insurgents from a high enough position that he could take them out before they could harm his fellow soldiers. His accomplishments had earned him some recognition from military personnel higher up in the line of command. It was how he had come to be lying here, in the hundred-plus temperatures of the desert, waiting.

Mark thought about his military training. He felt he was better equipped for the elements than most of the men he served with, thanks to his grandfather. When Mark had made the decision to become a sniper, his grandfather started his training.

One night, on a camping trip, in the eerie fog that had come rolling over the mountain, Mark proclaimed he wanted to be a sniper, just like the man who had saved his grandfather’s life. His grandfather nodded and smiled, thinking his comment was simply a young boy’s fascination with war stories, but Mark made the statement three more times over that following year. The last time, his grandfather took him seriously.

Son, you want to be a sniper? You got to be the best. I can help you boy, if you really mean it.

Mark nodded. Please, Grandpa? You know I’m going to serve, just like you and daddy did, but I want to help my fellow soldiers and I want to be the best. Will you teach me?

His grandfather nodded his head. Listen to me closely, boy. I will push you hard, if this is truly what you want to do. You will have to be tough, brave, and able to endure. If at any time you decide you no longer want to join the military, or become a sniper, you need to let me know. Otherwise, we will train every summer when you come to stay with Grandma and me.

And that was the beginning of some very long summers for a twelve-year-old boy. His grandfather taught him how to track, how to erase his own trail, how to disappear into his surroundings, and how to survive off of very little. The following summer, he learned to lie out in the elements for days at a time.

The training caused huge fights between his grandparents when his grandmother realized why he was spending several nights away from the house. She fretted and fussed. In the end, his grandfather’s explanation of why he was doing what he was doing was almost enough to calm her. But when Mark reappeared, dirty, disheveled, and looking half starved, his grandmother would feed him, tuck him into bed, and mother him back to nourishment for days before she would allow his grandfather near him again.

For Mark, even though his grandmother would never understand, those were the best times of his young life. His parents had tried to put a stop to the training when they found out what he and his grandfather had been up to, but a terrible car accident took the lives of both his father and his mother when he was seventeen.

After the accident, he moved to Tennessee to live with his grandparents. Where before he could only train during the summer, now he was able to train in the winter. He spent almost every weekend of his senior year of high school in the snow-covered mountains of eastern Tennessee.

Under his grandfather’s care and tutelage, Mark grew strong and could handle days at a time out in any weather condition, under almost any circumstances. The day he graduated from basic training, his grandfather was there with a smile on his face and tears in his eyes. Mark’s only wish was that his father could have been there as well.

But training in the hills of Tennessee had not prepared him for the temperatures of the desert. He had dealt with heat. Tennessee summer days could get up into the high nineties in the middle of August. But that did not compare to the temperatures in the Middle East, day or night. Mark had been here for five years, and he still wasn’t sure he could get used to it.

As Mark was reminiscing, he caught movement out of the corner of his eyes. He quickly cut off the daydreaming and started concentrating on the task at hand. Militant soldiers were coming out of the compound. Mark counted about twenty before the doors closed again. It looked as if they were searching the area, looking for enemy troops. They each had telescopes and were slowly combing the desert, looking for any signs of movement.

Mark slowed his breathing, and made sure he did not so much as