It’s books like these that leave me in awe of authors who write category romance. Their stories are tight, concise, and to the point, weaving in romance and emotion. A very difficult task at times, I have a feeling.

HelenKay Dimon packs a huge punch in this romantic suspense with Deputy Sheriff Jonas Porter who knows to listen to his instincts. That gets him involved with Courtney, who’s been on her own for years after losing her family. But things are heating up when the enemy uses Jonas bring Courtney out in the open. Really dumb move on the jerk’s part, as you’ll see when you pick up your copy.

So sit back and enjoy this excerpt from When She Wasn’t Looking. Bet you’ll be hooked in no time at all.

Summary:

No woman could deny the appeal of the sexy deputy sheriff Jonas Porter. But to Courtney Allen, Jonas has one major flaw-his badge. Years ago, Courtney’s father was wrongfully convicted of a crime and she vowed to never trust a cop again. But when Jonas becomes the only man to believe in her father’s innocence, Courtney begins seeing the brooding lawman in a whole new way.

Jonas knows in his gut that the real killer is still out there and determined to finish what he started long ago. To protect Courtney and bring the criminal to justice will require all the skills he can muster. And that means focusing on the job. Not the woman who makes him forget his troublesome past and arouses in him a passion that is anything but professional.

Chapter One

Jonas Porter yawned as he marched up the front porch steps to the craftsman-style bungalow in the middle of nowhere. At ten in the morning he’d been on shift for more than sixteen straight hours thanks to the Webber kid taking his neighbor’s car for a joyride that ended with a big splash into the Siuslaw River.

When he took the law enforcement position, Jonas had been promised relative peace and quiet by the county sheriff and Jonas’ long-time mentor, Walt Roberts. Since Jonas needed a break and crime didn’t run rampant in Aberdeen, the small Oregon town where the river dumped into the Pacific Ocean, the job looked like the perfect solution. If a drunk pre-teen with a lack of common sense turned out to be the biggest problem, Jonas could live with that.

Agreeing to handle one small task on his way back to his place to pass out was probably not his brightest move. He needed sleep, but this should easy. In and out and then he could slip into bed for a few hours.

He knocked on the dark red door. The rock beat thumping inside and shaking the walls cut off. He double-checked the house number to make sure he was at the right place. He expected an older lady, a grandmother type. He guessed this one liked her music loud, which blew his older-woman stereotype apart.

In the resulting silence he waited for someone to open up. When no one did, he raised his hand to try again and nearly punched the woman who threw the door open.

“Sorry.” He mumbled as he stared into big brown eyes filled with a wariness that appeared older than the rest of her.

“Yes?” Her smile faded when her gaze traveled down his chest.

A guy could get a complex. “Ma’am, is this your house?”

“Of course.”

The high cheekbones and slim figure didn’t make any sense. Young and pretty with shoulder-length brown hair and not at all the lonely older woman he’d been told to check on. This one couldn’t be more than in her mid-to-late twenties. She wore a slim long-sleeve red t-shirt, and if his guess was right, no bra.

He pretended not to notice the last part. “I’m Lieutenant Jonas Porter, the deputy police chief.”

“I got that much from the uniform and nametag.”

“Uh, right. Sure.” She had him stuttering like the Webber kid.

“Why are you here?” She wiped her hands on her olive cargo pants but didn’t shift one inch to let him in.

Young or old, she hardly struck him as a woman who needed police assistance to make sure she took her medicine on time. This one could handle her business without any help from him. The flat line of her mouth and clenched fists suggested she wanted to kick him right off the porch.

“We had a call,” he explained. “I’m here for a wellness check.”

Something flashed in her dark eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Your husband has been trying to reach you and when he couldn’t-”

Her grip tightened on the door. “My husband?”

“Yes, ma’am. My understanding is that he’s away from home on business.” When she continued to stare at him with that you’ve-lost-your-mind expression, Jonas tried again. “He called a friend who called the police in Maryland who contacted my office. I’m here as a courtesy.”

“Maryland?”

Seemed she had a repetition problem. “Yes, ma’am. Your husband was worried you’d forgotten to take your medications.”

“You think I need drugs?”

Jonas refused to be thrown off stride. “Your husband said something about a bad fall recently.”

“Is this a joke?”

That’s what Jonas was starting to wonder. “No, ma’am.”

“You obviously have the wrong person.” She started to close the door. Right in his face.

He caught the edge with one hand as the other went to the top of his gun. “Hold up.”

The move was pure instinct. He’d once waited a second too long and vowed never to make that mistake again.

She didn’t miss the move. Her gaze zipped to his weapon. “Excuse me?”

“Let’s calm down for a second and walk through this.”

“Do I look nervous to you?”

“Actually, yes.” Something was wrong here. Very wrong.

I tire of reading erotic very quickly. Mostly because it seems to be the same story over and over again. More fucking than content or emotion. I’d like some story with my sex, please. I’m very happy – happy! – to tell you Joely Sue Burkhart does that and more.

Yours to Take is a story of loving and giving unconditionally, of self-discovery, of forgiveness, and, yes, of enjoying the pleasures of the flesh with a bite of pain and roughness. But this is also a story of characters you want to know more about, you want to see them work differences out, you want them to be together and enjoy each other. The sex is an integral part of that, but it’s not the end-all be-all.

There are very few authors who do this successfully. Only two immediately come to mind when I think about that. But now there’s three. Though Ms. Burkhart may be the new kid on the block as far as my erotic reading goes, she’s a very welcome addition.

Summary:

The day one of her old clients gunned down a cop, former defense attorney Vicki Connagher lost everything—her passion for justice, and her lover, Detective Elias Reyes. The dead cop’s partner.
Even though she’s following her dream to start her own fashion line, it’s tough with heartache as her only companion. Until she brings Jesse, a wandering street artist, in from a freak Texas snowstorm. His submissive flirting brings out dominant tendencies she never knew she possessed, yet she hesitates to let him take her as far and as hard as she wants to go.

Some homeless junkie in Vicki’s house? Not on Elias’s watch. Pride kept him away, but as long as Jesse is staying in Vicki’s downstairs shop, he’s staying with Vicki. On the couch, but it’s a start.

As the days go by, the three work out an uneasy alliance. But Vicki’s joy at having Elias back in her life is tempered with a growing desire to have it all. Elias in her bed, and Jesse under her command. The only question remaining is if her tough alpha cop is willing to embrace all that she is…

Now meet some very complex and intriguing characters…

Chapter One

It didn’t snow very often in Dallas, Texas, but when it did, everything came to a halt. Vicki Connagher paused at the deserted intersection. Shivering, she drew her coat tighter with her free hand. What a stupid idea. Since the store was only three blocks away, she’d thought she could get back with a few groceries before the storm hit. In just a matter of minutes, though, the sidewalks were already coated with ice.

Just one more block, she told herself, trudging across the slushy road. Snow still fell, thick and wet, dulling the usual noises of the city. Hot cocoa was going to taste especially good tonight. She’d bundle up on the couch in her favorite quilt and stay up all night watching cheesy horror movies. Sounds like a blast, if I wasn’t alone.

But she was miserably alone. She’d end up working downstairs all night to avoid the emptiness of her apartment. Besides, she still had to come up with one more evening gown design before the gala. Since her mood was about as cheery as the Black Plague, she was going to need all the time she could get.

Her foot slid out and she fell with a curse. Getting wetter and colder by the minute, she muttered, “Not even chocolate is worth getting out in a freak Texas blizzard.”

“Are you all right?”

The male voice startled her. Her heart slammed up into her throat and she whirled around, fumbling to get her keys gripped like claws between her fingers.

Hovering a safe distance away, the man held up both his hands in a non-threatening manner. With the streetlight shining down on his face, she recognized Jesse, a street artist she’d gotten to know during her law office days at Wagner & Leeman.

Seeing him brought back all the turmoil and grief that had driven her to quit her dream job.

It’d started innocently enough. Every time she was over by the park for lunch, she’d stop by his favorite bench beneath the largest tree. Handsome despite the grime, he always managed to make her smile, and she loved his work. She’d bought several of his charcoals and dropped a few bucks in his hat. Over the next few months, they’d talked, at first casually, but then as the stress of her job started to get to her, she found herself talking to him almost every day. She couldn’t get through a day at court if she didn’t take a lunch in the park. With Jesse.

Even her friends at the office had taken note of her “sponsorship” of the handsome young artist. It shamed her to remember how their jokes had embarrassed her. She’d cut back on those trips to the park, although she’d never been able to stay away for long. When she heard the horrible news that one of her clients had gunned down a policeman, she’d run to the park. Jesse had been there for her in a way that no one else had ever been in her entire life.

Jesse was the only person who’d ever seen her completely break down. Sobbing and sick with grief, she’d gone to him for comfort, and then to her great shame, she’d never gone back to see him again. She’d been too embarrassed that she’d let him in so deeply, a man she barely knew. A homeless man.

Cut to the core by her shallowness, she met his gaze and hoped he didn’t hate her. “I’m fine. Nothing hurt but my pride. How are you, Jesse?”

“Good.” He flashed a smile—revealing killer dimples—and helped her pick up the canned beans that had escaped her bag. “Haven’t seen you around the park in a while.”

Not even his ragged clothes could detract from that wholesome, down-to-earth smile and face. It’d been impossible not to like him from the start. “I quit my job and started my own business. Corporate life got to be too much for me.”

He handed her the last can and then shyly pulled a small square out of his bag. “I made something for you.”

When he didn’t bring up that awful day in the park that had driven her to quit her job, she wanted to hug him. He didn’t question or press her for answers. No, he made me something, instead of accusing me of turning my back on him like so many other people must have.

Blinking back tears because she hated to cry more than anything else, she held the folded paper up to the streetlight. On the front, he’d used watercolors to paint dozens of butterflies, laid on top of each other in carefully detailed layers so the entire page was covered in wings. Inside, he’d written a simple message: Happy birthday, Vicki.

“Sorry, I know your birthday was months ago, but I didn’t know where you’d gone.”

She tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “Oh, Jesse, thank you. How did you know?”

Shrugging self-consciously, he shifted the strap of his bag higher on his shoulder. “One of the last few times you stopped by, I overheard you tell your friend that you were planning a special dinner with your family for your birthday. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. Anyway, I’ve got a few new pieces you might like. Come over to the park when you get the chance.”

“I will.” She stared down at the card, thinking about how many weeks he’d carried it in his bag, protecting it from getting torn or dirty, hoping to see her. He’d made her a card, when some of her best friends hadn’t remembered her birthday at all. She’d lost more than her career. “Thank you, Jesse. This really means a lot to me.”

He tipped his battered, lopsided straw hat, gave her another gorgeous smile that seemed so out of place on a homeless man’s face, and turned to head down the street. Alone. His skinny shoulders hunched against the cold.

Vicki had built in her mind all sorts of reasons of why he was on the streets, but she’d never had the courage to ask him. He only had on a jean jacket, no gloves, and the knapsack tossed over his shoulder, exactly how she’d seen him countless times. Everything he owned in the world must be in that bag.

“Jesse?”

Immediately, he turned around and came back toward her, his eyes wide and hopeful. It was too dark to make out the remarkable turquoise shade of his eyes, but she remembered. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Do you have someplace to go?”

“Oh, sure.” He nodded, but she didn’t like the way he ducked his head. “Don’t worry about me. Come over to the park when you get the chance. I miss seeing you.”

She took the last few steps toward her building, her mind screaming all the reasons it would be stupid to ask him inside. She was alone. He was a man, bigger and stronger than her even if she had a few years on him. She had a damned good security system on both the shop and her apartment upstairs, but if he chose to overpower her, she wouldn’t have a chance to call for help.

She didn’t really know him at all. A few lunches in the park, a couple of hours of casual talking, and one time she’d needed a non-judgmental friend. He was homeless, for God’s sake, and had probably seen more crime and violence than she’d even dreamed of despite working all those years as a defense attorney. But there was something undeniable in his eyes, a deep, soul-piercing light that she couldn’t forget. Without saying a word, he managed to reach inside her and tug, hard, amplifying her guilt and worry.

It wasn’t her fault that he was homeless, but it would be her fault if he froze to death tonight. I refuse to turn my back on him ever again.

Putting on her best formidable, cast-iron face that had intimidated many a shady character into providing better testimony, she turned and faced him squarely. “If you promise to behave yourself, you can come home with me tonight.”

His eyes flared with horror and he recoiled a step, which instantly made her feel better about asking him. His mouth opened, but it took him several times before he could say anything. “Oh, no, ma’am. That wouldn’t be right. I just wanted to make sure you were okay—it didn’t even occur to me that you might… No, please, I couldn’t.”

“I couldn’t sleep a wink if you were freezing out here all night.” She opened the door to the shop and flipped on the light. He hovered behind her, staring at the warmth and shelter longingly. “I’m making a huge batch of chili and cornbread.”

His shoulders shook, but he didn’t move closer.

“What I really wanted was hot cocoa. That’s why I went out tonight before the weather got too horrible. Not cocoa from a mix or powder—I want the real thing. I’m going to make some first.”

“With real milk?” His voice sounded hoarse. He took a step closer, but kept his shoulders down, hunched, as though he were trying to make himself smaller and less threatening. “And marshmallows?”

“Real milk, real chocolate,” she promised. “But I don’t have marshmallows. I think they’re disgusting. Come on in, Jesse. I’m not the world’s greatest cook, but I can make a mean pot of beans.”

He hung his head, one hand gripping the strap of his bag so hard his knuckles were white. “I’ve been in trouble before, ma’am, but I haven’t been arrested in more than five years, and I’ve been clean since. Call one of your old contacts in the police department and check up on me.”

She was surprised at his willingness to share his unsavory past—and a little disconcerted that he knew so much about her. “I can do that. I should also warn you that my very mean and much bigger, older brother could be here in minutes.”

Leading the way through the long tables stacked with fabrics and trim, she flipped on another light. Now I know why my security guy insisted I have a separate system for my upstairs apartment. “I set up this place so that my seamstress could sleep over when we’re on a time crunch. There’s a bed, clean linen and a full-sized bathroom.”

Jesse risked a quick glance at the room but otherwise kept his head down, his shoulders so tight that he was as short as her, when he was actually several inches taller. Lightly, she touched his arm. He flinched, but at least his head came up. She was struck again by the intensity of his eyes, so clear and honest despite the harshness of his life.

“Are you sure?” His voice shook. “I didn’t mean—”

“I’m sure.” She smiled, gently squeezing his arm. He was so thin, just bones and tight, wiry muscle lay over the top. “Look around on the shelves in the closet—I think I stuck some of my brother’s old clothes in there. Take a shower and come upstairs when you’re done. I’ll have the cocoa ready in no time.”

“My full name is Jesse Dean Inglemarre and I’m twenty-five. Check me out. If you’re not comfortable, tell me to leave. I swear on a stack of Bibles that I’ll leave immediately, no questions asked. I won’t ever bother you again.”

He was several years older than she’d guessed, although still several years younger than her. She smiled to put him at ease. It felt right, so very, very right, to help him. “You’re not bothering me.”

Solemnly, he stared into her eyes, searching her face, even though he didn’t ask, Why me? Why are you doing this?

How could she explain it? Sometimes after a particularly bad trial, the only bright spot in her day had been walking through the park to see what new drawing he might be working on. Once he’d smiled at her, she’d found the courage to trudge back to work. On this cold, lonely night he was a welcome surprise. “There’s something about you, Jesse.”

 

Oh, there’s something about me all right, Jesse thought sadly, waiting until she shut the door before looking about the room. Simple, spartan, and the most glorious thing he’d seen in years, until he found a stack of clean clothes on the shelf. Even musty from storage, they smelled like heaven. Then he saw the shampoo and soap in the bathroom, and he found himself crying beneath the steaming hot water.

God, so incredible. People didn’t know what a luxury it could be simply to be clean. To have a spare set of clean clothes. To be in a safe enough place to risk taking off his filthy clothes and washing completely. Bliss. Pure bliss.

It all came from the most gorgeous, unforgettable woman he’d ever met. He had no pride left, or surely he’d be ashamed that he’d come to her like this and she’d taken him in like an abandoned puppy. He’d depended on seeing her every day, but then she’d quit coming to the park. She’d given him one taste of heaven and then disappeared off the face of the earth.

He hadn’t even known her full name or where she worked. One of the women he’d seen her with occasionally had dropped the fact that Vicki had left the firm to start her own business down by Oak Lawn. So he’d started hanging out in this neighborhood, hoping to find her.

Never in a million years had he thought she’d let him inside her home. All he’d wanted to do was see her again, find her place, and maybe stop by once a week or so, just to talk. Just to see her smile at his latest work.

I know where to find her now. He scrubbed his hair a second time. I can’t stay long. She’s sheltering me from the cold, that’s all.

She has no idea that I’m hopelessly in love with her.

 

Vicki dialed the number and laid the phone down on the counter in speaker mode. Chopping chocolate, she counted the rings. Mentally, she rearranged her questions in the most logical order that would lead to the best possible outcome with the least amount of suspicion.

“Reyes.”

By the sharp bark of Elias’s voice, she knew he was already frustrated. Hell, he was always frustrated. Working on a narcotics task force overwhelmed by the Mexican drug cartels tended to frustrate even the most patient of men. A lot could be said about Elias Reyes, but he wasn’t exactly patient.

She decided to be professional and not friendly. He hadn’t been by in months, and she couldn’t remember the last time they’d had sex. Okay, that was a lie; she’d never forget a moment with Elias, even though they’d fought constantly about their jobs. Then his partner had been killed by one of her old clients in a drug bust gone bad. He still hadn’t forgiven her, and she’d found herself sobbing in the arms of a homeless man in the park instead of her lover’s.

Now that she’d started her own business, she was still too busy, and he certainly hadn’t bothered to come by. “I need you to run a name through your database.”

“Vik,” he drawled out his nickname for her in that low, sexy voice that always made her want to throw her head back and moan deep in her throat. “I thought you quit defending assholes I put away.”

“I did.” She refused to allow her tone to sharpen defensively. “I need a background run on somebody and you’re the only person in the Dallas PD who’ll still take my calls.”

He let out a low grunt of agreement. “What’s the name?”

“Jesse Dean Inglemarre.”

“What exactly are you looking for?”

She heard him typing. He must be at work and already looking up the data for her. Who was she kidding—Elias was always at work. “Any warrants, recent arrests, known gang affiliation. Standard stuff.”

“Got a soc?”

“Nope, but I know he’s twenty-five years old.”

A few moments went by. She didn’t hear any voices. Usually his office was loud and rowdy at any hour. The war on drugs never slept.

“Looks like your boy last got in trouble five years ago, but nothing recent. No known address. How do you know him?”

“He’s a street artist.” She tried to keep her tone casual and strictly to the truth. Elias could sniff out a lie quicker than a bloodhound. “I used to see him when I worked at Wagner & Leeman. Thanks, Elias. I hope you’re not out in this snow tonight.”

“Not so fast, Vik.”

Mentally, she groaned. He always was too damned smart for his own good, which meant he was a fine cop who always suspected the worst in people. Unfortunately, he was almost always right.

“Why the sudden interest in a homeless street artist in the middle of a snow storm? Surely you’re not thinking about letting this punk into your home.”

“Thanks,” she said firmly. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Fuck.” In her mind, she could see him at his desk, jumping to his feet and raking his hand through his hair. “You did. You invited this asshole into your home. Are you insane? He’s a druggie. A scumbag. You know they can never come clean. Give them a ten and they’ll buy a hit instead of food.”

“He’s not like that.” She used her softest voice, trying to calm him down before he decided to get on his white horse and charge over here like a knight in shining armor. “He just needs a little help.”

“Jesus, Vik, does he have any weapons? Did he bring drugs into your house?”

“No!” Although I didn’t think to check. “I can handle this, Reyes.” Deliberately, she emphasized his cop name, the cold and formal relationship they’d used at their jobs even when they shared a bed once in a while. “I don’t want you to interfere.”

“You should have thought of that before you invited a homeless junkie to spend the night!”

“I have my phone right here and you’re on speed dial. I promise I’ll call you if I get even a hint of a weird vibe from him, but he’s barely more than a kid, Elias. He’s not going to hurt me.”

“You’re damned right he’s not.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“He’s not a kid, Vik, even if he looks helpless and innocent to you. He hasn’t been a kid in a long time. One of his raps was for prostitution when he was barely sixteen. Yeah, he must be a real pretty boy, huh? I’m surprised he came on to you. Seems like a rich queer is more up his alley.”

The thought of Jesse’s brilliant eyes scrunched up with pain or staring up at a jerk forcing him to give a blowjob made her knees quiver hard enough that she had to sit on a barstool. She’d known he must have had a hard life, but the reality made her stomach heave. “He didn’t come on to me.”

“Maybe he’ll come on to me, then.”

“He’s not like that.” Her voice quivered, betraying her. She clenched her jaws a moment, concentrating on retrieving that calm, cool exterior she’d learned as a defense attorney. “I saw him in the snow and cold—he was helping me because I fell on the ice!—and I couldn’t leave him out there.”

“If you used to see him over at the park near Wagner & Leeman, then why the hell was he way out by your place? He was staking you out, Vik. He knew exactly what he was doing when he just happened to walk by. I bet he seemed real shocked to find you, didn’t he? They’re damned good actors when they need to be.”

Torn between outrage and concern, she tried to remember if she’d ever told Jesse where she lived. Would he really come dozens of blocks in the cold to give her a birthday card? Surely, he couldn’t have pretended that much surprise when she asked him to come inside. She was a good judge of character. She’d seen more than her share of bad guys willing to sell their mamas if it would get them out of prison.

“Jesse’s not like that. He’s not one of the bad guys, Elias. I can see it in his eyes. He needs someone to give him a break.”

Wheels screeched on the street below so loudly that she jumped up and ran to the window. Elias jumped out of his truck and stormed up to the door of her building. “I’ll give him a break. I’ll break his fucking arm if he even lays a finger on you.”

She glared down at him, whether he could actually see her or not. “I told you I could handle this!”

“Let me in, Vik, or I’m going to owe you a new door.”

Elias heard her shouting at him as she ran down the stairs, but he didn’t stop. He threw open the door to the rear living quarters, grabbed the invader, and slammed him face-first against the wall with a satisfying crunch.

The kid didn’t put up a fight. Man, Elias reminded himself. Not a kid, no matter how scrawny and slender he was, not at twenty-five years of age.

Vicki screamed, a high, shrill wail like nothing he’d ever heard from her. “Jesse!”

Her terrified voice pierced through Elias’s rage. As a kid huddled in a narrow bed with his younger brothers and sisters while his crazy father beat the shit out of his mother, he’d sworn to never make a woman scream like that. He slapped cuffs on the man and forced himself to ease off. He had to be the cop in this, not the enraged, jealous, overprotective—and almost always absent—lover.

The junkie stayed against the wall, legs automatically spread. He knew the drill all too well.

“You don’t smell like a bum, so I guess you’ve already taken advantage of your hostess’s hot water. Do you have anything stashed in these nice clean pockets?”

“No, sir.”

Damn it, he even sounded like a kid, his voice breathless and shaking with fear. Elias twisted his lips into a furious snarl. The punk was afraid of being caught. Afraid of being thrown in jail instead of enjoying a nice cushy night under Vicki’s roof, stealing everything not locked down while she slept.

She stepped between them, her face white and her mouth tight with strain. “I gave him those pants. How dare you come in here and throw him around like this? He’s hurt! Look at him, Elias, he’s bleeding!”

Crying, she cradled the jerk’s face in her hands and wiped the blood from his split lip with a tissue snatched from the bedside table. “Jesse, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know he’d come over like this. I didn’t know he’d hurt you.”

“It’s okay. He’s protecting you. I’ve had much worse done to me.”

The nicer he acted—pretended to be!—the worse Elias felt, which pissed him off even more. He grabbed the ratty duffel bag lying at the foot of the bed and dumped it out, using an ink pen to separate items so he didn’t get poked by a dirty needle. “Any weapons? Drugs? Paraphernalia?”

“No, sir. Just my straight-edge razor. I have used it as protection a few times, but no knives or guns. I haven’t touched drugs in five years. I’ll take a drug test right this minute if you order it.”

Elias flipped open a small wooden case, but all it contained was tiny whittled down pencils and precious little nubs of chalk, so used up that a normal person—with money—would have thrown them out and replaced them long ago. Feeling more and more like a heel, he methodically emptied the pockets of everything. Wadded up small bills littered the bed. A five in each denim pocket, a twenty in the threadbare shirt, several more bills tucked into the rolled socks, but certainly no nice wad of cash that a dealer would carry. Spreading the bills out across the meager belongings would make it more difficult to steal his precious savings.

“I have a hundred dollar bill in each boot hidden beneath the insole.” Jesse leaned against the wall as though the entire building would crumble around them without his weight propping it up. The pants sagged low on his slim hips, and he didn’t have on a shirt. Bones moved beneath his skin in sharp, painful relief. The kid was half-starved and malnourished. In despair, he hung his head, his streaked golden-brown hair falling down to hide his face. “Took me a year to save that much because the punks on the street keep stealing it. They know I don’t have a weapon.”

Elias knew the answer, but he wanted to see how many lies the kid might weave. “How do you know Vicki?”

“She used to come to Highland Park where I hang out. When she quit coming, I asked one of her friends what had happened. I missed her, and I wanted to make sure she was okay. She was always nice to me, but I never thought she’d help me like this.”

“Get these cuffs off him,” Vicki said in a deceptively pleasant voice that sent shards of ice skittering down his spine. This was the defense attorney, not a woman who’d called him to check out a friend. “He answered your questions satisfactorily and you have nothing to charge him with. He’s not trespassing and he’s not a danger to me or himself.”

When he hesitated, she narrowed those glittering dark eyes on him and lowered her chin, preparing for the charge. “I might not work for Leeman any longer, but I’ll have him crawling in every orifice you’ve got unless you release Jesse immediately.”

A wanna-be demon who needs her last soul to finally acquire demon status and an angel cowboy whose mission is to save the demon’s soul, to give her another chance at life. What they don’t count on is the heat…the smoke…the fire when they touch, kiss, love.

Destiny and Chance are at cross purposes at this point in their lives, but the heat between them is all encompassing. They can’t fight it. Destiny doesn’t want to. And Chance finally realizes he can’t.

So is there a way out for them in the end? Is it possible for a demon and an angel to find happily ever after?

Summary:

When sexy wannabe-demon, Destiny Carter, is kicked out of Hell, she lands in Ft. Worth, Texas with one week to corrupt a soul. Or else. She slips into a slinky red dress, and heads straight for the delicious, corruptible looking cowboy at the bar.

But Chance Bellew has his own agenda-saving souls. He’s not your typical angel. He’s a nephilim, to be exact. Centuries ago, angels came down from Heaven and mated with mortal women. When the women bore children, a new race was created. Immortals with powers—demigods, nephilim.

But the children don’t live by the same rules as mortals, or that of the typical, robe-wearing, bright light-surrounding-them angels. Hell, most of the time the nephilim are breaking the rules, and making up new ones as they go. As long as they don’t cross over to the dark side, everyone pretty much stays out of their way.

But sometimes a demon-in-training, who looks like Destiny, comes along and all Hell breaks loose.

Here’s a little taste…

Chapter 1

Destiny Carter was six years old when she had the first inkling that her life wouldn’t be a fairy tale. That was the day her mother left her in a grocery store and never came back. Destiny was right, her life went downhill from there. Bad foster homes, bad boyfriends, and really, really bad choices.

Then she died and went to Hell.

Until she was kicked out.

Destiny landed on the sidewalk with a hard thump.

“Son of a bitch!” She grimaced as she came to her feet, rubbing her hands over her tender backside. She was probably the first person ever to get kicked out of Hell. Temporarily, that is.

Hysterical laughter bubbled inside her, but she quickly tamped it down. She was not going to lose what little bit of sanity she had left. She would get through this like she did everything else, by gritting her teeth and doing what she had to do.

All is not lost. Just take a deep breath.

She inhaled.

Ugh! Her nose twitched as a god-awful stench filled her space. She glanced down the deserted street. Faded army-green painted letters on a shabby storefront window proclaimed it as Ft. Worth’s finest resale shop.

Oh hell, she’d landed close to the stockyards in Ft. Worth, Texas, but this wasn’t Billy Bob’s. No, skid-row bars and vacant buildings lined both sides of the street.

Could her day get any worse?

Not that she had anything against Texas, except it was hot as hell. The dry heat was not helping her mood.

“I couldn’t manage to steal one more soul?” she grumbled.

Okay, so she wasn’t the best salesperson in the underworld. Why didn’t that lawyer just sign on the dotted line? He insisted on reading the fine print and before she knew it, poof, he was gone. One more soul and she would’ve been a full-fledged demon with all the rights and privileges of that position-like drinking, gambling, and lots of sex.

“Sex,” she breathed on a sigh as she slowly combed her fingers through her long, black hair. Naked, straining bodies. Hands touching, caressing. She bit her bottom lip and forced the vision to go far, far away before she grabbed the grungy-looking bum leaning against the vacant store front and had her way with him.

She grimaced. Maybe she wasn’t that hard up. But Destiny did really miss sex. Everything about her life might have been lousy, but never the sex. And right now she was so horny she figured she’d start sprouting a pair any time, except people at the trainee level couldn’t grow a set of horns to save their lives.

Now she was one step farther from her goal. The ones in charge were really pissed, but at least they had given her another chance, and new orders: corrupt someone and drag the unwitting person back to Hell. She had one week to do it or else. Why the fuck had they tacked on “or else”? What were they going to do? Send her to Hell?

Okay, shake it off. Getting kicked out was only a minor glitch. She could take a soul in less than a week. A moment of panic sent a shiver down her spine and her bravado drained away. Who was she kidding? Only dying souls caught between Heaven and Hell were sent to the sorting station. Her job was to convince them Hell was their best choice. She didn’t have to search them out. Nothing ever went right for her in life. Why did she think being dead would change things?

No, she could do this. She would survive.

A flashing neon sign suddenly caught her attention when one of the bulbs popped and blew out. THE STOMPIN’ GROUND. A bar. Her mouth watered. Demons-in-training weren’t allowed to drink, or do much of anything on the job, and they were always on the job. One drink wouldn’t hurt, and a bar would be a good place to start looking for a corruptible soul. In fact, it was her duty to go inside and check the place out.

A slow smile curved her lips as she slid her hands slowly over her body and the plain, butt-ugly, black wool uniform shift became a tight-fitting, low-cut, fuck-me red dress that shimmered with each slow, seductive step she took. Yeah, she was bad. Life made her that way. That’s why she went straight to Hell. You never saw a good girl in Hell.

The bum’s mouth dropped open. He looked at his wrinkled brown paper sack that obviously held a bottle of booze, then back at her. She grinned and winked. He tipped the bottle to his mouth, guzzling down more alcohol.

“See you in Hell,” she muttered.

Destiny made her way to the bar, then pushed on the door, stepping inside the cool, dimly lit interior. As soon as her eyes adjusted, she glanced around. A haze of cigarette smoke formed a gray cloud above the patrons.

Slim pickings. Only a handful of people sat at tables.

Two worn out hookers were strategically positioned close to the door. Too easy. They already had Hell stamped on their foreheads. Destiny wanted to impress the powers that be. Used-up hookers would not make an impact on them.

A couple of men sat at another table deep in conversation about a stupid football game. Not bad looking. Wedding rings glinted on their fingers. Married. Too much trouble.

Hmm… But the demons might be impressed.

Before she could take a step toward them the bathroom door opened, spilling a patch of light into the bar. Two laughing women joined the men at their table. Scratch that idea. Two was company, four was a crowd.

There was a lively group of barely legal college boys chugging pitchers of beer. Hmm, certainly corruptible. From the way they were dressed, they were definitely slumming. One guy glanced her way, eyes practically bugging out.

Oh hell, was that drool? No thanks!

Someone put money in the jukebox and a slow country song began to play. For a moment, she let the deep voice of the singer wash over her. She didn’t even mind that he was crooning about his cheating wife and losing himself in a bottle of whiskey. Damn, she missed being alive.

Her gaze languidly drifted around the rest of the room, past dark walls with posters of country singers plastered all over them. The bartender wiped a damp cloth across one end of the bar. Destiny’s eyes narrowed as she sized him up. The potential was there.

He raised his head, saw her, then smiled. The kind of smile that made her feel good all over. He wasn’t bad looking, in a good-old-boy sort of way.

Destiny drew in a deep breath as she readied herself for a full assault, but at the last minute a movement at the other end of the bar caught her eye.

A lone cowboy sat on one of the stools nursing a beer, his back to her. He wore a black T-shirt that deliciously hugged his broad shoulders. Her gaze dropped. The jeans weren’t bad, either. Nope, not bad at all. The guy had a great ass from this angle. Sweet! Cowboy had just enough muscles that he created a fantasy, but not enough that she would be in competition with his ego.

He turned and looked her way, his gaze sliding sensuously over her body. Tingles of excitement tickled her spine. She had such a fondness for cowboys. They knew how to ride ‘em long and hard, and she was all for long and hard.

She devoured him with one long lazy look. His black Stetson was pulled down low on his forehead as though he didn’t give a damn about anyone or anything. It didn’t help that, for some insane reason, black cowboy hats turned her on.

Oh baby, she was about to make his wet dreams come true. Yee-haw, ride ‘em cowboy.

The bartender was forgotten as she locked on target. Destiny slid her hands over her hips nice and slow before sauntering toward him, putting just a little bit of swing in her hips.

This time she would be the one calling the shots. The one in charge. No one would ever control her again like they had when she was alive. She would take what she wanted and to hell with the rest! Literally.

The cowboy watched her every step of the way. She was already wrapping him around her little finger and the poor guy didn’t have a clue. She stopped beside him.

“Buy a lady a beer?” she asked. Her words held enough invitation that only an idiot wouldn’t guess she wanted more than a beer, and this guy didn’t look like an idiot. She slid onto the stool next to his, propping her elbow on the scarred wooden surface of the bar.

Over the haze of smoke, over the smell of alcohol, Destiny caught another scent that weaved its way around her, making her lean in a little closer. It was spicy and held a promise of nights filled with down-and-dirty sex. She could feel the waves of heat radiating off him, curling around her body and wrapping her in a sensual cloud of sexual awareness.

“A beer for the lady,” he drawled, breaking into her fantasy and nodding toward the bartender.

His voice sent tingles down her spine. It was just a little raspy-low and sexy.

Cowboy swiveled his stool around to face her and tipped the brim of his hat with one finger so she got a better look at his face: the strong jaw, the slight stubble, and the most intense blue eyes she’d ever encountered.

Destiny had her first mini orgasm, and it felt so fucking great! This guy looked good enough to eat. She was going to enjoy corrupting him.

“What’s a cowboy like you doing in a bar all alone?” Okay, that sounded pretty cheesy, but she was a little out of practice; she’d died in 1959.

“Waiting for a woman like you,” he replied and again his words caressed her as his blue-eyed gaze drifted lazily down her body before returning to her face. Her nipples tightened.

The bartender set a beer in front of her. Cowboy dropped a few bills on the counter and the bartender left.

She grinned as she took the bottle, her tongue sliding nice and slow around the rim before she brought it the rest of the way to her lips. She tilted the bottle a little and ice-cold liquid slid down her throat. Nice. She’d missed the taste of alcohol.

“So, what’s your handle, cowboy?” she asked after she lowered the bottle.

“Chance. Chance Bellew.”

“Well, you’ve just met your destiny.” She grinned. “Destiny Carter.”

Like Genevieve Graham, if you’re a Diana Gabaldon and a Jamie and Claire fan, you’re going to enjoy her MacDonnell family books, Under the Same Sky and Sound of the Heart. They have that rich, historical, and Scottish feel to them. The way of life of these characters is harsh and there are more times of anguish than there are of happy, but that makes the happy moments all the sweeter.

Dougal has survived Culloden and is held prisoner by the English until a daring escape. Along with him is the young teenage boy, Aiden, who Dougal has protected during their imprisonment. They make their way to London, putting more distance between them and the soldiers searching for them. What happens next is a huge surprise and one of those very happy times.

Until the English once again tear his world apart. Dougal takes the lesser of two evils, soldering for the enemy to make his way to the colonies and where his destiny lies.

We have a chapter from the book for you today, and I guarantee after reading it,  you won’t want to miss this book.

Summary:

Dougal MacDonnell, a fierce warrior from the Highlands of Scotland, is able to hear the thoughts of other men and dream how the future will unfold.

Devastated by the loss of his family during the Battle of Culloden in 1746, he fosters a deep hatred for the English. But when Glenna, the love of his life and a Scottish outlaw, is captured and shipped overseas, Dougal is forced to join an English army made of vanquished Scots. Now fighting on the side of his sworn enemies, he embarks on a journey that will take him across the seas to the colonies.

There he will risk everything for the chance to find his true love.

CHAPTER TWO

A Different Kind of March

Dougal’s face still lay in the mud when he awoke. He was no longer sure if the dirt was cold, since his cheek had gone numb. He kept his eyes closed, wanting to cry, but lacking the strength. He was tired, always tired these days, but Dougal had never been a man to admit to that. He was frozen and half-starved, as they all were. That weakness had contributed to a lot of the killings today.

Before they’d even stepped onto the frozen marshes of Culloden Moor, Dougal had known the Scots would suffer. He hadn’t needed one of his damn dreams to tell him this battle would not go well. He and the other Highlanders had marched and practically starved for the past two months, and their plaids had been poor protection from the miserable late winter. None of the crofters they had passed on their travels had food to share. The whole of the Highlands was suffering. The men had gone down to London, up to Culloden, back and forth in the miserable winter and spring months, completely at the whim of their chiefs and Prince Charles himself.

Damn Prince Charles. Dougal had pride in his people, sure. But to throw thousands of them away just so one man could settle his well-dressed arse on a throne? Useless. Unforgivable. And if Dougal ever saw Charles, he’d tell him so to his bonny wee face.

“Hey,” he heard from his right side a few feet away. “Help me, man.”

Dougal consulted the stabbing pain in his neck before twisting to see the source of the voice. The man lay nearby and looked to be about the same age as he, with a dark complexion and straggling brown hair pasted to his face. Dougal didn’t remember having seen him before, but there had been so many of them it wasn’t too much of a surprise. What was one man out of thousands?

“Aye, sir. How do ye fare?” Dougal asked.

“Och, I’ve the most terrible itch on my nose. Ye dinna think ye could help me wi’ that, could ye?”

Dougal stared at the man, whose expression was dead serious. For a moment, Dougal was speechless, then he burst into laughter, feeling his lip split with the effort and his head pound with renewed agony. Laughter was an unexpected sound, and a few others glanced over to see what was up.

Still laughing, Dougal said, “We’re the lot of us trussed like turkeys, probably set to be hangit, an’ ye’re fashed about a wee itch on yer nose?”

“Aye, I am,” the man replied indignantly. “I canna reach it.”

“No, I dinna suppose ye can,” Dougal said, trying to stem his laughter. “An’ how am I to manage it then?”

“I’ve no idea. But ‘twould be a blessin’ if ye’d figure it out.”

Dougal snorted, then, with a flick of one black eyebrow, agreed to try. He rolled to his right side and used his heels to shove his own body, bit by bit, closer to the man. When he was a foot away, he spoke again.

“Bring yer damn neb here,” Dougal said. “I canna reach farther.” He wiggled his swollen fingers in illustration. They tingled with strangled circulation from within their rough bindings.

He heard the shuffling of a body behind his, then felt the strange pressure of the man’s nose moving against his fingers. Dougal couldn’t help himself. He started to giggle.

The man behind him moaned with relief. “Ye’re a godsend, man,” he said. “That was killin’ me.”

“That was killin’ ye? Well, if that’s all, then ye’re better than most of us. That is one of the strangest things I’ve ever been asked to do,” Dougal said, still smiling. “All done?”

“Aye, I am. Thanks very much.”

The men rolled onto their stomachs, though Dougal would have greatly preferred to lie on his back. If only their hands had been tied in front. The man beside Dougal gave him a friendly smile and what would have to suffice for a nod.

“John Wallace,” he said. “Yer servant, sir.”

Dougal returned the smile. “Dougal MacDonnell. Good to meet ye as well.”

There wasn’t much to say, so the men sank into an uncomfortable doze while they waited to find out what would happen next. It was becoming more difficult for any of them to stay awake these days, weakened as they all were. Now pain and—Dougal hated to accept the word—defeat weighed down every fibre in his body.

Dougal hadn’t realised he had slept until he was jolted awake by a solid kick of a boot connecting with his ribs. He grunted and rolled away, wide awake. But when he automatically reached for the offending boot, his bound arms permitted no such movement.

“Wake up, dog,” a soldier snarled.

Dougal smothered the words that pressed against his lips. They would do him no good here. He would wait. Bide his time. Beside him, John Wallace apparently came to the same conclusion. He snorted into consciousness, looked around, then dropped his face back down to the mud.

Someone grabbed Dougal’s feet. He kicked and tried instinctively to yank his feet away, but his legs were held fast. He twisted as far as he could so he could watch a soldier untie the ropes at his ankles. So they would be walking, would they? Fine. Anything was better than this, lying helpless as a lassie in a roomful of brawlers.

Other men’s legs were being untied as well, and there were groans and mutterings as the Highlanders stumbled to their feet. Most of their hands were still bound, so the men were limited to shrugging and squirming to release cramped muscles.

They were a sorry lot, Dougal thought, watching the others rise and stretch. Especially when compared to the English soldiers, who were clean, fed and glowing with victory. The Highlanders were filthy and bedraggled, covered head to barely covered feet by bruises and blood. He recognised a few men with whom he had walked on the road to hell, men who, like him, had left their families alone and unprotected while they went off to war. That thought brought Dougal back to images of his family. Of his mother in particular. Dougal was fairly sure he was the only man in the family to have survived. So now she was alone out there, with no means of defence other than her dirk, which she carried all the time.

Be strong, Mother. I’ll come back for ye someday.

She was smart, so she might take to the woods. Then again, she might stay in the house, waiting for her men to return. They were big men, all of them, and she wouldn’t have expected any of them to die.

No. That wasn’t true. She’d known as well as they had. She’d packed their food and seen them off, then turned and ducked through the small door to the croft. She’d never shed a tear. Or if she had, it had been secret, falling within the refuge of her empty home.

What of his brothers? He knew, of course, the fate of his father. The sound of a bayonet ripping through Duncan’s body came back to him, forcing bile up Dougal’s throat. He swallowed it down, determined to banish the sound forever, knowing it was an impossible feat. But what of Ciaran? And Andrew? He should have been with them. His back should have been against theirs, fighting as they’d been taught. But that damn fog, the cursed smoke. He’d lost them as soon as they’d started running, shrieking, onto the frozen moor.

John Wallace jostled him from one side and Dougal gave him a placid smile.

“What of it?” John asked.

“Eh?”

“I was sayin’ I think we should leave,” John suggested. “Just go. When the sons of bitches are lookin’ elsewhere.”

“Oh, that’s a fine idea, John. I reckon they’d just let a wee slip of a man like yerself take a walk off into the trees wi’out too much notice. No, ye fool. They’ve plans to work us hard. Otherwise they’d have shot us by now.”

John shrugged good naturedly. “Worth a thought.”

Dougal gestured with his chin toward a cluster of older men off by the trees, hunched and curled into themselves with resignation. “Those fellows willna fare well. Nor those.” He switched his gaze to a couple of small boys standing together, watching the activity with owlish expressions. They were probably no more than thirteen or fourteen. Drummer boys, he imagined. Frightened lads who should have been home practicing with wooden swords, not facing the menacing glares of hardened English soldiers, ripe with victory. The boys’ hands were untied, he noticed, as were those of some of the older men. The ropes were for bigger men, those who offered obvious threat to the soldiers.

“I’d think they’re no’ much use besides entertainment.”

As if he’d been overheard, a couple of soldiers strode toward the boys. Dougal saw them stiffen but set their slender shoulders in defiance, and the darker of the two stepped forward, placing himself as a shield in front of the smaller one. The soldier stood head and shoulders taller than the little Highlander, but Dougal wondered which, when faced with death, would be more brave. The soldier chuckled at whatever the boy had said and Dougal heard the cold sound from thirty feet away. The boy’s jaw was clenched, and when the soldier turned away, the boy spat at the receding red coat.

The soldier whirled and Dougal took an instinctive step toward the youngsters. “You little pig turd,” the soldier growled. “You’ll show a bit more respect, you will.”

Using his momentum, the soldier ploughed his fist into the boy’s cheek. The slender body crumpled, and though his hands were still tied behind him, Dougal stepped in as the soldier moved toward the smaller boy.

“If it’s a fight ye’re after,” Dougal said. “Might I offer my own services? Surely ye’d no’ want yer men to see ye crowin’ o’er a couple o’ wee lads. Doesna seem so gallant when they’re barely thirteen, does it?”

“Sixteen,” came a whisper, which Dougal ignored.

“You’ve fight left in you, ‘ave you?” the soldier demanded with a sneer. “Bloody Scots ‘ave no idea when to quit.” Needing no further encouragement, he smashed one fist into Dougal’s cheek, then plunged the other upward, under Dougal’s ribs. Dougal doubled over as the breath whooshed out of him, then turned to the side and spat.

He straightened and glared at the soldier. “Better?” he asked, voice still gruff from lack of wind.

The soldier gave him a wide smile, his mouth a checkerboard of missing teeth. “For now, my lad. But we’ll talk later, shall we?”

Dougal slid his jaw one way, then the other, testing the extent of the injury. Satisfied, he sniffed and started back toward John. The soldier hadn’t had much of an arm, fortunately. Good enough, but now Dougal knew what the man was made of. And at least he’d forgotten about the boys for now.

“I could have done just fine on my own, sir,” came the whispered voice.

The boy still standing was slender and gaunt, large blue eyes huge in his sunken face. His blond hair raged wildly around his head and Dougal had an urge to pat it down. To cut it off, even.

“Sure. I reckon ye could have. ‘Twas only I’ve a fondness for gettin’ hit,” he teased. “It had been a couple of hours, I reckon, since the last one.”

The boy, lips tight with pride, studied Dougal skeptically.

“Dinna fash,” Dougal said. “They’ll come back to hit ye soon enough. There’s plenty hungerin’ for a fight. An’ they dinna seem to mind if it’s a young lad, an’ old man, or a big fellow wi’ his hands tied. I’d keep well enough out o’ reach, if ‘twas me.”

The small face seemed to relax a bit. “Thank ye, sir,” he said. “I’ll do that.”

Dougal looked down at the fallen boy, just starting to push himself back to his feet. The side of his face where he had been hit was already swelling; the other side was black with fresh mud. How many times had Dougal taken part in boyhood brawls, gotten hit, then jumped back up again, eager for a rematch? He waited to see the boy’s expression, nodded approval when he recognised the glare of defiance, then turned back toward John, who had come closer to watch.

“Very gallant,” John said.

“Oh aye. I’m a real hero,” Dougal said.

“Right. Well, then I’ll stay by you. They’ll hit ye first, I reckon.”

“Ye’re a smarter fellow than ye let on, sir,” Dougal replied.

Within a half hour the crowd of men was shuffling along on the rough, drenched road to Inverness. Dougal’s shoulders ached, the joints burned from the restraints on his wrists. His worn shoes scraped along the road so that little pebbles danced ahead of him like raindrops on a still loch.

God, he was tired of walking. Always walking. Or waiting. He wasn’t sure which was worse. Either one allowed him to drift away in his mind, which could be either a good or a bad thing. Sometimes he used the time to think about easier times, to bring back memories and voices that made him smile. But more often his mind slid back to the sight of his father’s dying eyes, and the sound of his voice. “I’m proud of ye, son.”

He thought of Andrew. Two years younger than he, quiet and introspective, but with a sharp mind. Andrew was the thinker of the three brothers. No, that wasn’t right. Ciaran was the thinker, the one with promise, the one the family hoped to send to Europe to attend university someday. Andrew was the dreamer. Always sinking into places Dougal never saw. Always with that faraway look, as if he saw something beyond the sea. But when the situation demanded it, Andrew was just as quick as Dougal. Just as strong and skilled with his sword. They’d been more than brothers. Andrew was Dougal’s best friend.

It didn’t seem possible, imagining Andrew dead. Andrew was the most vibrant person he knew, filled with a deep energy that never let him rest. He was almost as big as Dougal himself: well over six feet. While Dougal’s hair was jet black, Andrew’s fell in brown waves. Dougal’s eyes flashed a clear blue while Andrew’s were a deep brown. Other than that, the two couldn’t have been mistaken for anything but brothers.

Dougal tried to picture Andrew’s body, motionless like all the rest, blood matting his hair and staining his kilt, his dark eyes forever closed. But he couldn’t hold the image. It felt wrong. The thought that Andrew’s corpse might be sprawled on that field of death was beyond Dougal’s comprehension. He looked into the forest on either side of the parade of captives, peering deep into the spring branches. The slender trees glistened with promise of new life, but any buds were barely visible. It was too early for green. Still, Dougal looked for any sign of his brother, then snorted at his own idiocy. Even if Andrew had somehow survived, even if he had run for his life, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to hang about and follow soldiers.

Go home, Dougal thought hard. If you’re out there, go home.

He could almost visualise Ciaran going down. That seemed, though the thought broke his heart, almost feasible. Their younger brother was smaller-boned and almost feminine in his looks, but fierce from necessity. The way of the youngest, always chasing the older two. He stood up to everyone, just to prove he had more than just a bookish mind, but swordplay wasn’t his strongest asset, and they all knew it. Ciaran should have been fighting with his father that day. That was how they always practiced.

Then again, Duncan was dead. He wouldn’t have been much help.

For the thousandth time, Dougal sifted through his memories, wondering if there were anything he could have done to change the day’s outcome. At least to have his brothers and father marching alongside him on this miserable road to incarceration, rather than draped over other corpses whose pock-scarred skin sizzled and spat over some English pyre. No matter how far they marched, Dougal could still smell the smoke from those fires, started randomly across the battlefield. Corpses, and some bodies close to death but not quite there, were stacked like wood, packed with anything that burned, then lit. The woollen plaids caught quickly; the fire was too hot to pay much mind to the dampness of the material. It ate through flesh and wood and wool, candling toward the sky, the smoke black as ink and stinking of meat.

Hundreds of bodies burned. Thousands more limped along this road with him, the undead marching toward the unknown. The Highlanders had set off the year before with such confidence, building their numbers and their conviction with every step. The clans had come together for their Prince, and now they had died for the man. And where was this wonderful Prince? Gone. Some of the men in the crowd actually spoke of seeing him ride away. He’d cheered them on, ridden his beautiful white horse back to a safe distance, then turned tail when the loss became horribly obvious. Dougal shook his head with disgust and winced at the resultant pounding in his head.

There was nothing he could have done to save the others. He knew that. And yet he supposed his soul would always wonder.

Lynn Viehl’s Nightborn is a resumption of her Lords of the Darkyn series, but if you’re new to the series, you can start with this one, if you want to. She keeps spoilers about the other books to an absolute minimum.

There is no puppetry here, no events taking over the characters who do as they are told, rather than what the characters dictate. Everything moves organically. People make mistakes, and, in doing so, discover more about themselves. The thrills are there, too, great sex, action and excitement, but through it all, Viehl never loses sight of what is most important to readers – the characters. We suffer with them, rejoice with them and hold our breaths as they face danger that they can’t overcome without working hard and, yes, learning more about themselves. I lived the story along with Korvel and Simone, and then sighed in relief as they achieved their well-deserved happy ending.

I’ve devoured the Darkyn books as they came out and loved them all. Viehl writes about interesting, intelligent characters in a rock-solid, believable world. No TSTL or inconsistencies here. This is just about as good as it gets.

Summary:

The High Lord of the Immortal Darkyn has sent his most trusted warrior, Korvel, to retrieve a coveted scroll that’s rumored to contain maps to Templar treasures and the secrets to eternal life. Uniting with Korvel to recover the dangerous artifact is Simone Derien, the daughter of the scroll’s guardian, and a woman with many deadly secrets…

And now an exclusive, never-seen-before excerpt just for our Pond visitors:

After washing and donning the garments Sister Simone had set out for him, Korvel tested the strength of his leg on the stairs.  While the wound still throbbed, he felt none of the numbing coldness that would indicate any copper remained in his flesh.  The young nun’s blood as well as the bloodwine the abbess had brought to him had done much to restore his strength, although he would need to feed several more times before he fought again.

Not from her, Korvel decided.  He would not risk causing either of them to fall under the spell of thrall and rapture.

Outside the convent he saw Simone loading a bag and several boxes into the back of a rover.  She moved with speed and efficiency, and while she still appeared pale she demonstrated no signs of weakness.  During her tresoran training she had probably been conditioned to withstand the effects of regular blood loss.  Over the centuries mortals who were born to serve the Kyn had gradually developed tolerances and immunities that ordinary humans lacked, such as a resistance to l’attrait.

She cannot resist my ability. No mortal female ever had.  I could have had her a dozen times, and she would only have begged for more.

Her unremarkable clothing and the black cap she had used to cover her braids should have rendered her unnoticeable, but Korvel found his gaze drawn to the trousers, which emphasized the elegant length of her legs.  When she bent over to arrange something the sweet curves of her buttocks made him clench his fists, but he didn’t look away.

Lust roiled inside him, but he could withstand the longing of his body.  He knew why he wanted Simone; because he could not have her.  Tresora or not, she was a nun.  His honor would not permit him to violate the innocence of her body or the vows of chastity she had already taken.

She glanced up as he joined her.  “It is only a few hours’ drive to Marseilles.  We have friends there who will assist us in tracking the thieves.”

“Before we go I must return to my car and retrieve my belongings,” he advised her.  “I left it on the road by the turn-off into the hills.  Give me the keys.”

“I know all the roads as well as the quickest routes, Captain,” she pointed out.  “You do not.”

Centuries of commanding instant obedience from the most vicious warriors among the Kyn had not prepared Korvel to be questioned by a mortal female.  That she was right only further annoyed him.  As he ducked into the passenger side of the rover, he asked, “Can you drive faster than a cabbage farmer?”

“I don’t know.”  Now she sounded irritated.  “I’ve never raced one.”

As soon as Korvel shut the door she started the engine and made a three-point turn, driving around the convent to a gravel-and-dirt road that divided two fields.  He saw several men with large canvas bags slung across their torsos; each stood crouched over the short, leafy rows of vegetables.  All the dead mortals he had seen at the château had been elderly, and all the women at the convent were blind.  “Sister, why did the council not send men to protect the scroll and its guardian?”

“Until yesterday, no one knew it was here.”  The rover bounced as she turned onto a narrow dirt road.  “Helada has no need of protection.”

“You know the guardian personally?”

Her lips twisted.  “All my life.”

He saw a wispy column of smoke rising in the distance.  “Among the Kyn, Helada’s reputation is legend.  In more than six centuries no one has ever laid eyes upon him.  It has been said that he kills anyone who does.  Now you tell me that you have known him for years.”  When she didn’t reply, he added, “Why did he spare your life?”

“That is a very long story, Captain,” she said as she braked to a stop.  “One that will have to wait for another time.”

“Why?”

She nodded at the windshield.  “Your car is on fire.”

Korvel turned his head and swore as he saw the flames and smoke pouring out of the Audi.  One of the rear windows had been smashed in, and the smoke carried with it the stink of grain alcohol.

Simone walked to the back of the rover, where she retrieved a small fire extinguisher and walked down to the Audi.  By the time he reached her she had begun spraying foam through the broken window.

“Sister.”  He caught her arm.  “The petrol tank.”

“It hasn’t spread that far yet.”  She continued using the extinguisher until the flames disappeared and all that was left was a smoldering ruin.  She lowered the nozzle, peered inside at the sooty foam coating the interior, and then glanced down each side of the road.  “Were you followed here?”

“No.”  Korvel wrenched open the driver’s side door to see what could be salvaged.  The heat had melted his mobile phone into a blob of plastic, and the nylon bag containing the rest of his belongings had been reduced to a pile of ash.  As the foam dissipated he saw the glitter of glass spread across the back seat.  The soot-blackened shards were too curved to have come from the smashing of the window.  “They used a bottle of alcohol for the fire bomb.”

He went to open the trunk, and found it filled with smoke.  The flames, however, had not reached his sword.

Korvel removed his coat to strap on his blade harness.  As soon as the sheathed sword pressed against his shoulder blades the damnable sense of feeling naked disappeared.  “What sort of field training did the council give you, Sister?”

“Field training?”  She frowned.  “None.”

He eyed her.  “But you are tresora. You must have had some instruction.”

“I know what my duties are, Captain, and I am capable of attending to them.”  Her expression turned bleak.  “We should go.”

“I need a satellite phone.”  When she didn’t produce one, he made an impatient sound.  “Take me to a secure phone line, then.  I must contact the high lord and relate what has happened to the scroll.”

“This is a farming village, Captain, not Paris.  Your call will have to wait until we reach the city.”  She started walking back to the rover.

Korvel followed her to the vehicle.  “What was the council thinking?  You are completely unprepared for this.”

She stopped in her tracks and slowly turned around.  “How is it that you were prepared?”  Her eyes shifted past him.  “You came here alone, with no one to have your back.  You tried to fight mortals armed with copper blades, and you’re still limping from a wound that should have killed you.  You don’t know where they are or how to find them.  Oh, and now you have no phone.”

He clenched his jaw.  “I did not try to fight those mortals,” he told her.  “I killed them.  All of them.”

“Did you?  Then tell me, Captain, where is the scroll?  And who burned your car?”  She tossed the fire extinguisher into the back of the rover and got in, waiting only until Korvel was inside before taking off.

I first read Beth Kery when I discovered one of her erotic romances, Exorcising Sean’s Ghost, a few years ago. She was a new author for me, and that book hooked me. I’ve been reading her ever since. Beth writes a variety of romance, from the heated, sizzling erotic to those lovely, heartwarming stories that make you smile. Her latest series, Home to Harbor Town, is full of heart and warmth while steeped in misfortune and catastrophe.

Claiming Colleen is the third book of a five-book series, and, while the tragedy that has hit these families is still the underlying base of the story, the tone is a bit more lighthearted than the previous books, but the emotion and the romance, those very important heartwarming elements that have been there from the beginning, are still front and center.

Eric and Colleen are both passionate and bull-headed. And perfect for each other, though they don’t acknowledge that any time soon. But that’s where a lot of the fun comes from in this book. Watching them waltz around each other with hurt and anger turns into a lovely dance of fire and admiration as they and their love grow through the course of the story. You don’t want to miss this book. You don’t want to miss this series. Trust me.

Summary:

In high school, small-town princess Colleen Kavanaugh had had it all, and Eric Reyes was the outsider with his nose pressed against the glass. Then a sudden change in circumstance led to a reversal of fortune. Now Eric was a wealthy, successful, arrogant surgeon who rubbed the onetime golden girl the wrong way.

When an ironic twist of fate forced Eric and Colleen back together, the single mom found herself drawn to the irresistible doctor despite their dark history. Sure, she’d felt something for Eric when they were teenagers, but those memories were long forgotten—or so she thought. It wasn’t long before he wooed her into his arms…and his bed. But could their newfound passion lead to the happily-ever-after of their dreams?

It’s time to meet Eric and Colleen. So here’s a little teaser to give you a taste of what’s in store for you when you pick up this book.

“It’s just a reality check,” Eric reminded her, his voice low and compelling.

She glanced up into his eyes and wished she hadn’t. She couldn’t seem to look away.

“You know…to remind our siblings that passion can cloud the brain.”

“Oh, yes. Because we all should be as rational and clearheaded as
you,” Colleen replied under her breath.

“What’s that?” he asked, dipping his head toward her as though to
hear her better.

“Nothing,” she muttered, because much to her shock his face was now only inches away from hers, and those eyes she’d formerly designated as
the bedroom variety were latched on to her mouth.

“Mind if I ask you a question?” She watched his firm, shapely lips moving as if in a trance.

“Okay,” she murmured.

“Sixteen months ago I kissed you, and a few months later, you slugged me in the jaw in the parking lot at Jake’s Place.”

Her mouth fell open, but she didn’t utter a word. She didn’t know what shocked her more: the fact that Eric had brought up that kiss on Sunset Beach again or his reference to her impassioned, impulsive slug to his jaw last summer…or possibly the fact that said sexy jaw was now hovering mere inches away from her upturned face.

“I…I’ve never apologized for that. I’m really sorry,” she whispered. Just thinking about it mortified her. It’d been a hot, sultry night, and Eric had got into a confrontation with her brothers, Liam and Marc. Old emotions regarding the crash had boiled to the surface. Colleen had made a fool of herself by stopping the fight by jumping in front of her brothers and punching Eric herself.

Not one of her finer moments.

Eric and she were the only two people on the entire planet who knew that impulsive act, in large part, related to what had occurred on Sunset Beach months before. That physical action was an admission, in a sense, that Eric had gotten to her, and he must know that. Colleen hadn’t realized until that moment how much a secret tied you to another person. She struggled to think up an excuse for her volatile behavior that summer night.

“We Kavanaughs are rather…protective of one another. You know how
family can be,” she said apologetically.

“I do,” he said in a hushed tone. “But I didn’t bring it up because I was looking for an apology.”

“No?”

He shook his head slowly. She couldn’t pull her gaze off the firm, shapely lips centered above the indentation of that cleft on his chin.

“I brought it up because I wanted to ask you something…something I’ve
wondered about.”

She stood frozen t o the spot, even though she knew she should back
away. His dark head dipped slightly. His breath, warm and fragrant, brushed against her nose and lips. The subtle scent of his spicy aftershave filtered into her nose. She inhaled, greedy for it.

“Do you regret that kiss?” he asked.

For a stretched few seconds, neither spoke. The silence was absolute. Colleen wondered if they both held their breath.

“I keep trying to regret it but—”

She never finished her sentence, because he leaned down and closed the distance between them, seizing her mouth with his. One second she’d been Eric-less, and the next she was submerged in him, overwhelmed by the feeling of his demanding lips and singular taste. She stumbled in her boots. In fact, she later wondered with rising horror if she hadn’t
swooned. He caught her, holding her firmly in his arms. But what woman wouldn’t be caught off balance—and thrilled by her dizziness—while being consumed by Eric Reyes?

You’re in for a treat with this excerpt from Fever by Joan Swan. You will be hooked. You will want more of this fast-paced new book from a new author, who is going to be a favorite of romance readers in record time. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Ms. Swan is already a master at stirring the emotions of a reader, no matter what that emotion is. From fear to joy to anger to love to revulsion and a myriad other feelings, this book will lay claim to every response you go through while reading it. Teague and Alyssa are real, multi-layered characters who will flay your heart and soul with their journey together.

So I’m not going to keep you any longer. You have to read this excerpt!

Summary:

Dr. Alyssa Foster will admit to a bad boy fetish…

But when she finds herself face to face with a convicted murderer with a ripped body, a determination for freedom and an eye on her as his get out of jail free card, Alyssa knows she’s in deep trouble…. Not just because Teague Creek is a prisoner desperate for freedom, but because his every touch makes her desperate for more.

A man with a life sentence has nothing to lose…

Teague Creek has one shot at freedom, but his plan to escape with a hostage develops a fatal flaw: Alyssa. On the run from both the law and deadly undercover operatives who know of his strange abilities, he needs to avoid trouble, but every heated kiss tells him the fire between them could be just as devastating as the flames that changed him forever.

Good thing you can pre-order nowadays. Go for it! You won’t be sorry, as you will quickly see once you start reading…

Chapter One

The clank-clank-clank of shackles echoed off the hospital’s linoleum floors, rippling across Doctor Alyssa Foster’s shoulders.

She headed toward the source, her muscles tense despite her fatigue. Normally, she didn’t mind taking on additional duties when the department was short staffed like this. She didn’t even mind carrying the everyday load for her attending physicians. And sure as hell didn’t complain about it like her sorry-assed excuse of a rival, Greg Dyne, but this… This was the worst of the mundane chores. She’d rather perform the toughest procedure on the nastiest patient than be forced to interact with prisoners.

Before facing the hardened, violent psychopaths waiting at the end of the hall, Alyssa ducked into the restroom and took a minute to splash water on her face. Then she made the mistake of looking in the mirror.

Pale skin, bruise-colored shadows beneath her eyes, frown lines marring her forehead. She almost didn’t recognize the person staring back. Her twelfth day in a row of twenty-fours didn’t look so good in this light, and the unsavory chore awaiting didn’t help.

“Fourteen more days,” she murmured to her reflection. Her year-long fellowship would end in just two weeks. Had it really only been a year? She felt like she’d been at St. Jude’s for a decade already. “And if you want to stay here, you’d better learn to live with the jailbirds.”

The hospital had contracts with five neighboring prisons and the forensic patients had prompted the budget increase, which in turn opened this new attending radiologist’s position, one either she or Dyne would fill.

No. The one she would fill.

Alyssa yanked at the elastic band in her hair and smoothed the messy strands back into a ponytail with a damp hand. After stretching her back and popping her neck, she dragged herself through the closed double doors hiding the forensic wing from the general public.

She’d be the first to admit to a bit of a badboy fetish. Certainly had made her share of mistakes choosing men in the past. But her definition of badboys encompassed independent men who pushed the limits and lived by their own rules, not murderers, rapists and drug pushers.

The angle of sunlight spilling through the glass on the single exterior door at the end of the hall told her it was getting late. She still had patients in the intensive care units in need of procedures, the day’s studies to read out and…oh, yeah, food. She hadn’t stopped to eat anything all day.

Her teeth met and her jaw muscle flexed. She didn’t have time to be doing other people’s work, but if she didn’t, Dyne would. And she damn well wasn’t going to lose this position to that cocky, substandard excuse for a rival.

Alyssa paused at the doorway to the already darkened exam room and nodded to the officer standing in the hallway. The one with a weapon. The one who kept a safe distance from the inmate so the prisoner wouldn’t have an opportunity to steal a gun. One sweep of his twenty-something, clean-shaven, open, eager, sweet Midwestern face, and Alyssa knew this was the perfect place for him—well out of the felon’s reach.

“Ma’am.” Farmboy shifted to allow her past the partially curtained opening. “Sorry we’re so late. The transportation sergeant screwed up.”

She couldn’t quite muster the words, that’s okay, because it was really messing with her day and her mood. But it also wasn’t his fault. She nodded acknowledgement. “What facility are you from?”

“San Quentin, ma’am.”

Alyssa resisted the urge to close her eyes and slump her shoulders. Quentin: death row capital of the California state prison system. Home to the most notorious serial killers and mass murderers of the decade. Definitely an apropos ending to this two-week hellacious shift.

With a slow breath directed deep into her chest, Alyssa prepared her emotional shields then passed the guard and scanned the prisoner’s paperwork: Teague Creek, thirty-four, right upper quadrant pain. Abdomen ultrasound. Piece of cake. It would take her ten minutes, tops.

She surveyed the prisoner from shoulders to toes. He was tall, but little else stood out. His periwinkle blue prison uniform was too similar to hospital scrubs for Alyssa’s taste. Probably because they made her wonder if she was a prisoner of sorts as well. Especially on days like this.

The second officer—this one inside the room and without the weapon—was older, maybe fifty, also Caucasian.

She nodded a greeting. “Officer. I’ll need his shirt off and his hands uncuffed from the waist chain.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Alyssa pulled the curtain halfway closed and set the papers on a fold-out desk. Her gaze paused on the box labeled release date where the word life had been scribbled. Her lips pursed with a slight involuntary shake of her head. So young. What a waste.

She slipped on a glove, picked up a bottle of warm gel and turned to find the prisoner leaning on the edge of the gurney. Something dark caught her eye and her gaze passed over his face without seeing it, honing in on the coal black tattoos covering a wide muscled chest.

A swastika the size of a basketball stamped the left side of his torso. The right side of his abdomen flaunted an eagle holding a shield engraved with the letters A B and two swords crossed in the background. Barbed wire spiraled his biceps. All classic insignia of the Aryan Brotherhood.

Apprehension clutched her belly in a tight, hot fist. Her eyes darted to his face, looking for something—disgust, venom, condescension—some reaction to her ethnicity. Anyone with two eyes could tell she wasn’t a hundred percent lily white. But he’d tilted his chin down, his gaze now cast to the floor, and Alyssa found herself looking at the top of his head, shaved nearly to the skin. And—surprise, surprise—another swastika centered on the dome of his cranium.

In a last ditch effort to quell her growing anxiety, she cast a quick look at his hands. They’d been released from the waist chain and another set of regular cuffs secured around his wrists, standard procedure for high-risk prisoners. Suspicion confirmed. This guy had trouble written all over him. Capital T. And Alyssa already had all the trouble she could handle. She already felt brittle enough to shatter. This would be the fastest scan she’d ever performed. The typical ten minute exam just dropped to three.

She gestured to the gurney, keeping her focus on the crisp white sheet. She didn’t want to meet his eyes, didn’t want to see whatever was there—or not there. “Lay on your back, please.”

He obeyed without even attempting a side-glance her way. Seemed he wanted to avoid eye contact as much as she did. Something was finally going right with her day.

Alyssa tapped information into the machine with tense fingers and grabbed a chair. “Can you lift your arms over your head, please?”

As he moved, so did the bulk beneath his tan skin and black tattoos. Alyssa could have used him as an anatomy model to delineate each muscle. Inmates were often physically fit, after all they had all the time in the world to work out, but this man was extreme. As a physician, the sheer beauty of his body intrigued her to distraction. As a woman half his size, it scared the hell out of her.

The officer in the room edged toward the partially open curtain, meeting up with the other guard. “Did you buy that golf pass yet?”

“No,” Farmboy replied. “I have to wait until my next paycheck.”

“You’re gonna miss the deadline, man. Can’t beat those prices. Thirty bucks for eighteen holes on a course like that? Includes a cart, too.”

Alyssa angled the transducer between Creek’s ribs to get a good shot of his liver, half listening to the idle conversation. She darted a glance at his face. His gaze was locked on the ceiling, his jaw ticking. The darkened room shadowed his features, but his looks still caused a double-take. Just as striking as his body, his face was all handsome angles and perfect proportions. Too bad the good looks had gone to waste on a racist, criminal pig.

“Do you have AIDS?” she asked as she clicked pictures of his right kidney.

His eyes flicked toward her, held. Light eyes. Sharp eyes. “No, ma’am.”

The low, smooth timber of his voice gave her belly an uncomfortable twist.

“Hepatitis? A, B, C?”

“No, ma’am.”

Her arm brushed his ribs and heat stung her skin. Alyssa startled, attention refocused. She tipped the transducer so she could lay the back of her hand against his belly. “You’re burning up. How long have you had this fever?”

He shifted away from her touch and turned his eyes to the ceiling. “No fever, ma’am. I’m fine.”

“I can feel it through my glove.”

“Normal for me.”

Alyssa squinted at him in disbelief. That level of heat wasn’t normal for anyone. He had to be near a hundred and five degrees. As she continued to scan, she searched for a source of infection to explain the fever, but ultimately found none.

In an effort to get him talking in hopes of gaining more information, she said, “I haven’t found anything that would cause the abdomen pain you’re having.”

Creek said nothing. His jaw resumed ticking.

With a mental shrug, Alyssa used a washcloth to clean the gel off his skin, his body heat burning through the cloth. Weird kept repeating in her head. But if he wanted to let his blood boil, so be it.

“Turn onto your right side, toward me,” she said. “You’re almost done.”

When he rolled, he was only six inches away. His intense body heat closed around her like an embrace, creating an unexpected intimacy that left her squirming in her chair.

Alyssa’s eyes lifted to his face again, expecting to find him staring at her, but again, he was looking down and away, his gaze fixed on the officers’ boots, all that was visible of the men now situated just outside the curtain.

With one last image of yet another perfect kidney, Alyssa dropped the transducer into its holder and laid a towel on the table beside him. This man’s cut physique would linger in her mind for a long time.

Which meant this place must have finally pushed her over the edge, because fantasizing about prisoners was not what lingered on a normal woman’s mind.

“Done. You can clean up.” She turned away and pushed to her feet. “You need to mention that fever to your —“

The hair on her neck barely had time to lift before heat washed her back. Creek’s hard body closed around her. A cool chain cut across her throat. No. She sucked air. No. Her fingers clawed at the metal. No!

“Don’t make a sound.” He spoke soft and slow, his chin on her shoulder as he bent over her and pressed his cheek against hers from behind.

Her brain finally came back online. Air wisped into her lungs and fed the new baseline of fear. When Creek straightened, he rose ten inches above her. And she now registered not only his size, but the sheer strength in all that corded muscle she’d been admiring. His movements controlled, purposeful, almost zen-like in confidence.

“You idiot…” She barely breathed the words, the metal and pressure restricting her vocal chords. “Let go—“

The chain jerked once, cutting into her trachea. “Shut. Up.”

Pain cut off all thoughts but sheer survival. Air. Breath. Air.

She wedged her skull against his collarbone to allow a fraction of relief on her airway. Oxygen wisped through the stricture. In. Out. In. Out. Her gray matter slugged back to work, edged with hot, sharp panic that threatened to invade every crevice and drive her insane.

The officers’ boots were still visible beneath the curtain where they stood in the hall, but she couldn’t draw enough air to speak let alone scream. And the links of metal weren’t cool anymore. They burned, as if Creek’s body heat streamed through the metal.

The older guard chuckled. “You have to stay away from those sand traps, man.”

“Water holes are my problem,” Farmboy replied. “I could pay for the damn pass with the cost of the balls I lose in those lagoons.”

Creek leaned sideways, reaching for something on the desk. With his chest pressed against the width of her shoulders, his hips fitted to the low curve of her spine, he dragged her along. Alyssa strained her peripheral vision toward his reach. Toward the coffee cup holding pens and pencils and… He plucked up a pair of scissors.

Jesus. “Put…those down.” A spurt of terror gushed up her chest. Her fingers searched for a millimeter of leverage between the chain and her skin. “You’re…burning…me.”

Creek’s head tilted down, his whisker-roughened chin scraping her cheek. “Fuck.”

The pressure eased and Alyssa ran her cool fingers over raw skin, choking in blessed air. Her relief was short-lived as the rasp of metal on metal sounded in her ear. A hard blade pressed against her neck. Her eyes squeezed shut.

“Not another sound,” Creek whispered, “or I’ll cut your throat.”

“All right.” The older guard sounded relaxed and jovial as he swooshed the curtain aside. “Are we all done in—?”

The room went completely still. The extended, shocked moment expanded, taking on weight and mass and volume like one of the cancers Alyssa fought so hard to find and fight in her patients.

“Creek, what the fuck are you doing?” The older guard’s voice snapped the aggressive silence. Fear wobbled on the edge of disbelief. “You’re not thinkin’, man. This stunt will get you thrown in the hole for a month.”

“Not if I don’t go back.” His forearms locked over her shoulders, keeping her tight against him. “Give me the gun.”

Oh, no. God, no. Alyssa’s eyes popped open. In front of her, the older man had both hands held out in a now-just-wait-a-second gesture. He’d also lost two shades of color in his face.

This really couldn’t be happening. She could almost convince herself of that if Creek’s body heat weren’t wearing on her as if she’d been hiking in the sun.

“Listen, Creek,” the guard said, “I heard about your appeal, but you’re not out of options, man. You know how this works. Just have to keep bucking the system. You’ll get another chance. This kind of shit will only get you—“

“Out of that living hell,” Creek finished. “Now, give me the damn gun before I cut her open.”

Something pinched Alyssa’s neck. She gasped. Or at least she tried. Only a thread of air got through. Warm liquid trickled down her neck. “Do…something.”

“You heard her, boys.” His voice dipped to a dangerously desperate tone. “Do what I say or she’ll be dead before she hits the floor. And you know where I’ll be? No worse off than I was when I woke up this morning. Give me the gun, right fucking now.”

To Alyssa’s utter disbelief, the older guard pursed his lips, dug his hands into his hips and nodded at the younger officer. “Do it.”

“What?” Alyssa squeaked. If that gun reached Creek’s hand, every chance she had evaporated. “No!”

The younger guard stepped forward, the weapon held out, butt first. After one more glance at the older officer, he slapped the gun into Creek’s palm. Her vision blackened at the edges.

“Give me your gear,” Creek ordered. “Both of you. Now.”

They obeyed, setting their radios, sticks and whistles on the fold-out desk. Creek pointed the gun at the base of Alyssa’s skull. The scissors rasped closed and disappeared. She took one luscious, deep, shaky breath. Air never tasted so good.

“Keys,” Creek said. “Uncuff me.”

The older guard unhooked his keys from a belt loop and dropped them on the desk, his expression angry but resolute. “Make your new girlfriend do it for you.”

“You bastard.” If Alyssa could have reached that guard, she’d have decked him. “How dare you—“

“Dump your keys, kid,” Teague said to the younger man.

Once Farmboy’s keys joined the others, Creek lifted his chin toward the half bath tucked into the corner of the room for patient use. “Both of you, in.”

He pushed Alyssa forward as the men crowded into the tiny space. Within sixty seconds she’d be alone with Creek. No one came down this hallway but prisoners and guards, and look how well that worked out.

Creek shifted his grip. The chain loosened, offering instant relief. But her skin simmered as if she’d been fried in oil. “Oh, my God. What’s on that chain? You burned me.”

His arm came up and across her throat. “One twist, and I’ll break your neck. Then you’ll forget all about the burn. You’re no safer now than you were a second ago, so don’t get cocky.”

Fear and betrayal mingled with confusion and exhaustion, resulting in white-hot anger. “I’m not cocky, I’m pissed off. If you want to screw up your own life, go right ahead, but I can screw up my own just fine.”

His chin scraped her temple when he looked down at her. He remained silent an extended moment as if he didn’t know how to respond.

“You won’t make it past the others,” Farmboy said.

“Others?” Creek’s voice lightened with sarcasm and victory, yet still sounded starkly mature and powerful and authoritative in comparison to the guard’s. “I happen to know there’s only one other. And I’d tell you to watch me, but the first one who sticks his head out that door will get a bullet to the brain.”

“Close the door,” he ordered in Alyssa’s ear, “and put that chair under the knob.”

She did as she was told, trying to do the lousiest job possible. Not hard considering she had a two hundred pound—burning—proverbial monkey on her back.

“Do it right,” Creek said. “Or you’ll be responsible for getting their heads blown off.”

Just what she needed—a guilt trip. She wedged the chair’s metal bar beneath the knob. With the cabinets securing the chair’s feet, those guards wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

“Good girl. Stay that way and you’ll be fine.” Creek walked her backwards, pausing at the desk. “Pick them up.”

Gladly. Alyssa wedged the individual keys between her fingers like claws.

“And put them in your pocket,” he said.

Dammit. “I don’t have pockets.”

Creek tightened his arm on her throat. “You have pockets.”

She couldn’t swallow. Could barely breathe. And, damn, her neck hurt. Alyssa shoved the keys into the breast pocket of her scrubs.

“Good girl.” Creek loosened his hold and dragged her toward the door. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to. Got me?”

“You’ve already hurt me.” Alyssa took deep, quick breaths, savoring the oxygen. “It would be smarter to let me go and get the hell out of here as fast as you can. I’ll only slow you down.”

He didn’t respond. He was busy searching the length of the hallway, empty now at nearly six o’clock. The side doors, where all prisoners entered and exited the hospital, was just twenty feet away. Twenty feet. Surely, he’d release her when he hit the exit. She couldn’t consider any other conclusion.

And just to push her own desired conclusion forward, she kept talking. What man in his right mind would want a pissy, chattering female along for the ride? “Look, I really don’t have time for this. I’ve got critical patients in ICU who could die if I don’t get PICC lines in them ASAP.”

It was true they could die, just not from lack of a PICC line. But he didn’t know that.

“Not my problem. And stop talking in acronyms. It’s annoying as hell.”

“I’d be a lot less annoying if you let me go.”

“I can see you’re going to have to learn to keep your mouth shut. That’s not what I expected from you.”

“From me? What does that mean?”

He didn’t answer as they approached the exit where late fall sunlight filtered through the glass. Screw whatever he may have meant. Freedom inched closer with every step. That’s what she had to focus on: reaching that door.

But Creek stopped too soon.

At a doorway leading into a holding area, he tapped the fake paneling with the muzzle of the guard’s gun in some cryptic Morse code-type pattern. The door burst open with such force, Creek jerked Alyssa back and twisted, putting his body between her and whoever or whatever was in that room. In that moment, his massive body engulfed hers giving her a flickering sense of complete protection.

“Hey, man.” A rough voice, filled with almost boyish glee, sounded on the other side of Creek. “You gotta see this.”

He straightened and turned them both back around. Another prisoner stood at the door, no cuffs, no leg irons. He had a gun stuffed in the waistband of his navy prison sweatpants, and the grin on his unshaven face matched the mischief in his tone. But his eyes… There was definitely something wrong in the brain behind those eyes. Alyssa had worked with too many mentally deficient patients to miss it.

She caught a whimper in her throat before it escaped. Reflexively, she pressed back against Creek as Psycho Prisoner eyed her up and down, too thoroughly, too slowly.

His lips lifted in more of a sneer than a smile. “Would have preferred a purebred, but she’ll do.” He squinted at her throat. “What’d you do to her neck? That’s wicked cool, man.”

Creek took a step and nudged her forward. Alyssa pushed back. He shoved again, harder. A frantic edge cut at her belly. Bile lunged up her chest, burning the back of her throat.

“Look at him.” Psycho tossed a hand toward the back of the holding area, filled with empty gurneys and chairs. Another officer sat in the corner, his hands, feet and mouth bound with compression tape. “Stupid sonofabitch. He was so easy it wasn’t even fun.” He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his sweats. “Got some toys, too.”

“Great.” Creek’s gaze darted toward the hall, the door, then back. “Let’s get out of here.”

Yes! Alyssa almost yelled the word. Relief and hope broke through the fear. She was almost free. This time, when Creek pushed her, she moved. Five more steps…four…three…

They stopped just inside the doorway. This was it. As soon as these jerks were gone, she’d hit the bathroom, clean herself up, grab some burn gel from the E.R. and call one of the radiologists from their partner clinic across the street to cover for the night. Then, she’d head to the nearest bar and drink this whole nightmare away.

“Get these off of me.” Creek’s voice interrupted Alyssa’s fantasy. He extended his hands in front of her face. “Keys are in her pocket.”

Psycho scanned Alyssa’s shirt, a lewd grin on his face. “My pleasure.”

He pushed his hand into her pocket and grabbed her breast. Disgust twisted Alyssa’s throat closed. She knocked his arm up and away with her own. The knit of keys flew out of his hand and across the room.

The pupil’s of Psycho’s eyes expanded, turning his muddy hazel irises nearly black with rage. Alyssa identified. She’d been attacked by someone she’d been trying to help. She’d been abandoned by someone who should have helped her. Now, she’d been molested by scum living off her tax dollars. Rage? Yeah. She identified.

“Don’t touch me, you—“

Creek turned, pulling Alyssa with him and cutting her off. “Stop fucking around Taz.”

Psycho whipped another key from his own front chest pocket, but his cold, cutting eyes stayed on Alyssa. He slipped the key into the cuffs, and with a click, Creek was free.

An instant later, Creek had his big hand around her wrist. The cuffs were so warm she didn’t feel them close. By the time her reflexes kicked in, she was trapped. She stared at the contrast of her fine fingers and slender wrists against the thick metal cuffs. Hands her mother forever insisted were made for dishes and diapers. Hands Alyssa eternally argued were destined for helping and healing.

Surreal. Absurd. Fallacious.

This isn’t happening.

Creek put one hand in the middle of her back, pushed her into the hall and turned her toward the exit door.

This is happening.

Her stomach lifted then dropped then went queasy, like it did when she rode a roller coaster.

Alyssa planted her feet and leaned back. “I’m not going out there.”

He fisted the back of her scrub top and used the bulk of his body to force her through the doorway.

Alyssa twisted, grabbed the metal frame with both hands. “I’m not going.”

“Oh, yes, you are.”

“No!” Alyssa held on with every last muscle fiber in her fingers. “You got what you wanted. Leave me here.”

Psycho elbowed his way out the door. “There’s the car. I told you it’d be here. Let’s go.”

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be.” Creek’s tense voice ground in her ear. “Let go of the door before I break your arm.”

“No.” Her feet skidded forward as he pushed harder. Her wrists ached from the bite of the cuffs. Her fingers burned from grasping the metal. “No! I’m not go—”

Psycho’s hand blurred in front of her face a split second before her head snapped sideways. Fire erupted in her cheek, spread through her face. Blood seeped onto her tongue. The stark metallic bitterness added another realistic edge to the nightmare.

Taz gripped her chin and cheeks in one meaty hand and jerked her face toward his. “Shut the fuck up, you goddamned gook.” He smacked a piece of tape over her mouth. “You fuck this up for us and I’ll gut you.”

Creek yanked her out of Psycho’s reach. “Chill, Taz. The only person who’s going to fuck this up for us is you. Get the car.”

Alyssa let her eyes close. Pain buzzed across her face. Shock numbed her brain. At some point, she’d started to shake, and couldn’t control it. She’d never been hit before. Not by any man she’d ever dated, even in the most heated argument. Not by any one of her four older brothers, even during a tussle. Not even so much as a spanking as a child, even though she’d given her parents plenty of cause. She’d spent the entire twenty-eight years of her life abuse-free. Until now.

She’d also never been taunted with racial slurs, probably because she looked more Caucasian than Asian. The combination of violence and racism shook her solid foundation.

“Don’t fuck with him.” Creek’s hold loosened. “The quieter you are, the less trouble you cause, the better this will go.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him. His gaze darted to her cheek, then away, scanning the parking lot, as if her suffering meant absolutely nothing to him.

Primal anger sank deep in her gut and overlaid the fear. She’d be quiet all right. And in the silence, she’d watch. And wait. And plan.

Deirdre Martin is back with her wildly popular New York Blades series, this time taking readers on a journey away from hockey and all the way to Ireland. Breakaway pulls you into the story of the NHL’s only Irish player, Rory Brady, and the one and only woman for him, Erin O’Brien – but he has a lot of groveling to do now that he’s home again.

Since Rory left her behind after making it big in the states, Erin has finally come into her own, determined to make her dream of leaving the small town of Ballycraig at the earliest opportunity. But when Rory unexpectedly returns, plans have a way of changing, no matter how hard she fights against it. Will he work his magic on her again, claiming the forgiveness he needs and the love he knows is still there? Or will Erin stick to her path and make it without the big lug?

Summary:

Erin O’Brien was everyone’s favorite in Ballycraig, while Rory Brady was the town’s golden boy: the local lad who moved to America and became a professional hockey player. Rory promised to return to sweep Erin away to the life of her dreams in New York. But the bright lights and late nights turned his head and he never came back.

Two years later, Rory realizes he’s made the worst mistake of his life. Heading back to Ballycraig, he’s confident that all he needs to do is flash his winning smile and Erin will fall back into his arms. But Erin’s moved on.

Racing the clock, Rory needs to prove to her that the man she fell in love with is still there. But can happy-go-lucky Erin risk it all and give another chance to the man who broke her heart?

Chapter One

Lord, please don’t let there be any truth to the saying, “This is the first day of the rest of my life,” thought Erin O’Brien, as she shoved guests’ dirty sheets into the massive washer in the basement. Ever since her parents had purchased Ballycraig’s sole B & B, she’d come to feel like an indentured servant. Helping her mother run the place was supposed to be temporary until they found “the right kind of help.” Apparently, no one in the village was right for catering to the PJ Leary fanatics who made up the bulk of the visitors. Months had crawled by, and Erin was still here, relegated to the less glamorous tasks: laundry, housecleaning, dishes. The worst part was, she did it all for free, out of what mother liked to term, “family unity.”

Unity? I guess da and Brian are exempt.

She envied her brother: Brian had left town as soon as he got married, an IT job waiting for him Liverpool. It was a great career opportunity, except it left their father all alone to run Ballycraig’s sole auto shop. For years they’d worked side by side. Now her poor father was working with a very green assistant mechanic, who’d already come close to crushing himself under a number of cars.

“How’s it going down there?” her mother called from the top of the basement steps.

“Fine,” Erin called back, peering up at her mother’s creased, anxious face. “Dad did a great job fixing the washer. Could be a second career for him.”

“No need to be cheeky.”

“I’m not!”

“Nevertheless, watch yourself.” Her mother checked her watch. “The first of the weekend guests will be here in three hours. Would you be a love and go to the supermarket in Moneygall for me?”

Erin’s shoulders slumped. “Mam—“

“Asking too much, am I?”

Erin felt guilty. “No, it’s just you’ve more than enough time to go to the market yourself. You’ll be back here and baking before they’ve even arrived.”

“Assuming the buses are running on time.” She looked fretful. “Normally, I wouldn’t ask you to shop on such short notice, love. You know that. It’s just that I’ve got so much to do…. ”

Lord help me, Erin thought. I really need to get my license. If I don’t, I’ll always be hostage to a bus timetable, or worse.

“Relax, all right. You know I’ll do it.”

“You’re a good girl, Erin.”

“A patsy, more like,” Erin grumbled to herself. Her mother was still peering down at her with a distressed expression. “Mum, calm down. I just said I’d do it, so why do you still look so upset? All you achieve by fretting and wringing your hands is driving yourself—and everyone around you—mad. You’re going to give yourself a stroke, and for what?”

“I know, I know,” her mother agreed distractedly. “It’s just that I want it all to be perfect, you know?”

“Perfection doesn’t exist.”

Her mother snorted. “Oh, so now you’re a philosopher, I see. You should be down at the pub with that Holy Trinity of Dimwits, sitting at the bar, each one thinking they’re the next Stephen Fry.”

Erin felt the sting of criticism but refrained from saying what she was thinking: I can never win with you. She didn’t want things to escalate, especially since her mother could go from zero to fifty in the rage department in seconds. Still, she did have a right to defend herself.

“I’m not being philosophical,” she replied calmly. “I’m just trying to point out that you drive yourself mad unnecessarily.”

Her mother didn’t respond. Erin could see this conversation was going in one ear and out the other.

“I’ll leave the list for you on the kitchen counter, all right?”

“Sure.”

“You’re a good girl,” her mother repeated.

Too good, Erin thought. She took comfort in knowing her escape plan was firmly in place and that she would, sooner or later, be free. She double checked behind her to make sure the washer was still tumbling properly, and headed up the stairs.

***

“Chores” done, Erin headed up to her room, locking the door behind her. She and her parents now occupied the top floor of the guest house, the sale of their family home and some land having provided the bulk of the money to buy the B & B.

She caught her reflection in the mirror atop the scratched bureau from her childhood, and paused. You’re no great shakes, she told herself. Nothing special to look at. But in the career she’d be pursuing, looks didn’t matter.

She glanced around the tiny attic room, her eyes caressing the reproductions of some of her favorite artwork that she’d pinned to the walls to help fend off dreariness: Frida Kahlo, the bright reds of Henri Matisse, fields of mood lifting bright yellow sunflowers by van Gogh, Irish landscape artist Henry McGrane’s gentle impressions of spring. Erin was pursuing an art history degree online with the Open University. Most people would think it impractical, even odd. Erin didn’t care: she loved art, and it was something she’d pursued off and on while Rory was away at college. Now that Rory was out of her life, she could do as she wanted, no more putting her dreams on hold for that selfish bastard. No one knew she was almost done with her degree but her best friend, Sandra.

Rory Brady. Just thinking about him made her feel like a twit. Ballycraig’s local idiot, that’s who she was, too stupid to tell when she was being played. How many times had she replayed their years long relationship in her mind? Why did she insist on torturing herself? The story always ended the same way: her life in tatters and his looking brighter and brighter, the first Irish born man playing in the NHL, for the New York Blades.

Rory’s face swam up in her mind’s eye. Her mam had always said he looked like David Beckham, and it was true. If he were a pop star, girls would be breaking into his house just to catch a glimpse of that dirty blond hair and blue eyes. It was a sin that a man should have eyes that beautiful and be such an SOB.

They’d started dating when they were just babies, fifteen years old. Casual, then serious. Very serious, then committed, even when his family moved to America. Six years of trying to find a place to be alone together when he’d come back in the summer, of arguing with her parents about visiting him, of the two of them planning their wedding. One memory in particular dashed back at her: it was early evening, the sky all grey dusk and pink, and she and Rory were lounging beneath the big oak tree in Old Man Mc Donagh’s field, the sun filtering through the lattice work of the leaves. “The Lover’s Tree,” it was called, because the old man never minded couples loafing beneath it. Rory was leaning back against the tree; she was stretched out with her head in his lap. It felt like they were in a poem.

Rory looked down at her, smiling. “I was thinking it might be nice if our wedding ceremony was just you and me, and some old padre saying the words in an ancient church, the only light coming from a blaze of candles surrounding us.”

Erin settled into his lap dreamily. “That’s very romantic.”

“And it saves us worrying about a guest list.”

Erin clucked her tongue and looked up at him with affection. “I knew you had an ulterior motive.”

“Me? Never.” His expression was tender as his large, strong hand brushed against her cheek. “I know it sounds mad, but sometimes I feel like we’re already married, we’ve been together so long.”

“Is that your way of telling me you’re getting tired of me, Rory Brady?” Erin teased.

His expression turned tender. “I could never get tired of you.”

“Promise?”

He put his hand over his heart. “On my life.” His voice, a deep sexy rumble, was charged with emotion as he continued, “You’re the only one for me, Erin, and you always have been. Nothing can change that, not even geography. You’re going to be my wife.”

She believed him. Their love was immutable, fixed as law. There was no telling where one left off and the other began. It had always been that way, and always would be.

The memory faded, straight on narrative returning as if she needed once again to recount the facts of what happened to make sure it was real.

They decided they’d wait to tie the knot until Rory graduated from Cornell and got picked up by a minor hockey team, and then hopefully, the NHL. Which is exactly how it happened.

Except part of it didn’t. The wedding. Erin loved him so blindly and with such faith that even after he hadn’t come back to Ballycraig for two summers running, she clung to her belief they’d always be together. swallowing all that rubbish he fed her about the NHL and training camp and not having any time to get back home. Deep down, she knew. So when she gave him the ultimatum—either marry me like you promised or walk—she shouldn’t have been surprised when he grabbed Option B.

Even so, when the crash came, it was no less devastating. She was dragged under by their history together, tormented by every loving thing he’d ever said and done over the years. She’d have donned widow’s weeds if she could. It was a lucky thing that she was surrounded by loving family and friends, like Sandra and Rory’s former best friend, Jake Fry. Were it not for all of them, especially Jake and Sandra, she’d have spent her life curled up in bed, not caring about anything. She certainly stopped caring about her job in the jewelry store in Crosshaven, quitting a month after Rory dumped her. She couldn’t handle dealing with people, especially happy couples who came in looking for wedding rings.

It took her two years her to pull herself together, but when she did, she made a promise to herself: never, ever again would she give her hopes and dreams over to a man like Rory Gallagher.

*Deep quivering sigh* I love Highlanders. Always have. Lately I’ve been disappointed once or twice in books that just didn’t live up to my expectations when reading about these alpha, sexy heroes. So I’m very happy to tell you that this book definitely gives a reader everything they want in a Highlander, sins and all.

Mad Rob MacLaren has reason to live up to the nickname given to him. He now lives dangerously on the edge, and with his current plan under way, folks are going to talk that much more when all is said and done and if he still lives. But his innocent abductee is going to change everything in his life. Elspeth at first wants only to return to her family, but when she learns more about Rob and sees him in action, her wants take a decidedly sharp left turn, and with Rob is where she wants and needs to be.

Summary:

Elspeth Stewart’s gift of Sight hadn’t warned her of the dark-haired madman who charged into her wedding and bore her away into the wild Scottish highlands. Pressed against his hard chest and nestled between his strong thighs, she ought to fear for her life. But her captor silenced all protest with a soul-searing kiss, giving Elspeth a glimpse of the pain behind his passion—pain only she could ease.

“Mad Rob” MacLaren thought stealing his enemy’s bride would be the perfect revenge. But Rob never reckoned that this beautiful, innocent lass would awaken the part of him he thought dead and buried with his wife. Against all reason, he longs to introduce the luscious Elspeth to the pleasures of the flesh, to make her his, and only his forever.

With two clans against them burning for battle, they must find a way to join—body, breath and soul. Or both will be made to pay for the … Sins of the Highlander.

Chapter One

The peat fire had burned out and the ash gone gray, but Rob MacLaren didn’t feel the least bit cold. Not while his hot-blooded woman writhed under him. Their breaths mingled in the frosty air of the bedchamber. Fiona tilted her hips, welcoming him deeper, and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from emptying himself into her.

It was too soon. He never wanted it to end, this joining, this loss of himself in the woman he adored.

Rob raised himself up on his arms and gazed down at her. The candles had burned down to nubs but still flickered enough to cast her in soft light. He could see his wife clearly and loved looking at her.

“What are ye doing, daftie man? ’Tis too cold!” Fiona raised herself up and clung to him for warmth.

“That’s what ye get when ye marry a man on Christmas Day—a cold bridal night.” He gently pushed her back down, and she sank into the feather tick.

“It doesna have to be cold.” Her skin rippled with goose­flesh. “Come back under the covers, love.”

“I canna. I need to see the lass I wed,” he said. “I want to watch ye melt for me, to see your face when ye make that wee kitten noise just afore ye come.”

“Wee kitten noise, is it?” She shook with laughter. “Have a care, husband, lest I bare my claws.”She raked her nails across his chest, and the sensation made his balls clench.

He lowered himself and kissed her, devouring her lips and chasing her tongue. He withdrew for a heartbeat for the sheer joy of sliding slowly back into her slick wetness. Then he raised himself again and reached between them to stroke her over the edge.

“Oh, Rob.” Her inner walls clenched around him, and he felt the soft tremor that signaled the start of her release. “When ye do that, I don’t care a fig if it’s so cold I catch my death…my death…my death…”

Her voice echoed round the chamber and faded into the distant thatch overhead.

Rob jerked awake.

He wasn’t in his bridal bedchamber. He was lying on stone-hard ground with a stone-hard cock still primed to make love to the woman in his dream. Stars wheeled above him in a frigid sky. His band of men snored nearby.

And the fact that Fiona was dead slammed into him afresh.

He’d married her two years ago at Christmas, and she’d been gone by Epiphany. Twelve days, he’d been a husband. Only twelve.

And now a night didn’t pass without his wife visiting him as some phantom, sometimes tender, sometimes terrifying. She lived in his dreams, but always he was powerless to hold her to earth. She was so vibrant, so real by night, he suffered all the more in the waking world with the knowledge that he’d not find her there.

One of the men in the clearing let out a loud snore and mumbled in his sleep. It was hours till dawn, and even more till Rob could accomplish what he intended in the coming day. But he would not seek sleep.

He couldn’t bear to lose Fiona again so soon.

 

Rob narrowed his gaze at the stone kirk across the glen. The bagpipes’ celebratory tune ended with an off-key wheeze. He and his men, concealed on the edge of the forest, had watched the bridal procession and the arrival of the groom’s party. Now he heard nothing from the kirk. The only sound was the harsh cry of a jay from the branches above him.

The ceremony must have been beginning in earnest. Rob snorted, his breath like a curl of dragon smoke in the chilly air.

“’Tis time, Hamish.”

“I wish ye’d reconsider.” His friend shook his head, his scruff of red beard making him look like an alarmed hedgehog. Hamish never let his beard grow beyond the stubble stage. A metal worker couldn’t chance much facial hair. Even his eyebrows were habitually singed off. “If ye go through with this, folk will say ye’re…that ye’re—”

“Mad? They say that already.” Rob mounted his black stallion. The beast sensed his agitation and pawed the dirt, restive and spoiling for action. “I see no other path before me. Now will ye help me or no?”

“Aye, Rob, ye’ve no need to ask, but—”

“Then get the men ready to ride. I hope to be in a wee bit of a hurry when next ye see me.” He shot his friend a mirthless grin and spurred his mount into a gallop across the glen. It was possible the next time Hamish saw him, Rob might be in no hurry at all.

He might very well be dead.

 

The smell of incense was so cloying, Elspeth Stewart feared she might faint dead away. But a bride must stand before the altar. She drew a shallow breath and swallowed hard. That was better. As the priest droned on, she sneaked a glance from under her lashes at the man who would be her husband.

Lachlan Drummond.

Tall and commanding in his dress plaid, he wasn’t altogether unpleasing. His face was tanned, and the lines at the corners of his eyes suggested he’d squinted into countless northern suns. Those lines didn’t trouble her. They proved the laird was a man of action, not like the dainty fops who visited from the English court from time to time.

No, it was the deep grooves between his brows and the hard set of his mouth that gave her pause.

Dinna fret yerself,” her mother had assured her when she complained that she didn’t know her betrothed well enough to even speak to him if she met him in Queen Mary’s court. “An arranged match is a safe match. Yer father has chosen the Drummond for ye, and ye’ll do well to bide by his wishes.”

The queen had approved too. She’d angered so many of the nobles with her other policies, she didn’t dare gainsay two of them on something as inconse­quential as the marriage of one of her ladies-in-waiting.

Inconsequential to everyone but me, Elspeth fumed. An exchange of breeding cattle, a grant of grazing rights, a promise of fealty between their clans; that was really all that was being solemnized now. It was certainly no marriage as she’d ever imagined it.

Or Seen it. Elspeth was gifted with a bit of the Sight, and never in all her prescient dreams had she seen this match on her horizon. This loveless ceremony was as far removed from the tales of courtly devotion in her precious little book of sonnets as the distant moon.

Yet when the priest asked Lachlan Drummond to pledge his faith to her, his voice was strong, the tone pleasing. He even sent her a quick private smile.

Elspeth jerked her gaze back to her folded hands. Her cheeks burned as if she had a fever. She wondered if her mother was right.

“Passion,” Morag Stewart had said, “is a dish that flares hot, but then goes cold as a tomb often as not. An arranged match is like a cauldron set to simmer over a low fire. A nourishing broth heated evenly warms a body from the inside out.”

Elspeth wasn’t sure how she could do the things her mother said her husband would expect of her. Bizarrely intimate things. Of course, she’d seen horses mate, and dogs too, but she never suspected people did something as…primitive as the mere beasts.

And now she’d have to do it with a man she barely knew.

Silence jerked her back from her musings. The priest had asked her a question and was waiting for a reply. She blinked stupidly at him. What had he said?

Suddenly the double doors of the nave shattered. A man on a large black horse was silhouetted in the opening for a heartbeat. Then he urged the stallion into the kirk and charged up the center aisle.

“Mad Rob!” she heard someone call out. Half the horseman’s face was painted with woad, and his cobalt eyes burned as brightly blue. With his dark hair flying and the fierce expression of a berserker on his features, he certainly looked mad.

“The MacLaren,” shouted another. Her bridegroom was silent, but a muscle worked furiously in his cheek.

Her father reached for the horse’s bridle, but the MacLaren shouted a command, and the stallion reared, pawing the air. Then it lashed out with its hind hooves, and everyone scrambled out of reach of the slashing kicks.

Elspeth watched in disbelief as the man drew a long claymore from the shoulder baldric strapped to his back and laid the flat of the blade across Lachlan Drummond’s chest. Riding a horse into the kirk was bad enough. Mad Rob had broken the sanctity of holy ground by drawing his weapon. All the other men had laid their swords and dirks outside the doors, which now hung drunkenly from the hinges. Elspeth half expected the Almighty to strike the blasphemer down with thunderbolts from the altar.

“Twitch so much as an eyelash, wee Lachlan, and I’ll take yer head,” Mad Rob said as pleasantly if he’d offered Drummond a plate of warm scones.

Then he leaned down and scooped Elspeth up with his other arm and dropped her belly-first across his kilted lap.

She was too astonished to be afraid. All the air fled from her lungs with a whoosh. Her head and arms dangled on one side of the restive stallion, and her legs kicked on the other. She couldn’t rail at the man, since she was busy fighting for breath, but she struggled to free herself from such an undignified position.

“Hold still, lass, lest my hand slips and I lop off a bit of your groom.”

Now fear sliced into her. She froze and looked at Lachlan. The madman’s blade had slid up to his chin. Her bridegroom hadn’t taken his black-eyed gaze from Mad Rob’s face.

“I’ll be going now, Drummond,” Rob said in the same reasonable tone a man might use to discuss cattle or the weather. “If ye’ve the stones for a fight, ye may collect yer bride at Caisteal Dubh. But dinna show your face till month’s end. Come for her sooner or try to follow us now, and I might have to kill her.”

Elspeth couldn’t look up at her captor’s face, but she heard a wicked smile in his voice. Kill her reverberated in her mind.

And all she’d thought she’d lose when she woke this day was her maidenhead.

If you have teenagers, you might want to read this book. Then give it to him or her to read. It covers a lot of ground from the perspective of a depressed, post-suicidal teen. From family to school to his own inner thoughts, Try Not to Breathe doesn’t dwell on the negative. The story follows Ryan as he tries to move on, which he does with remorse, a good sense of humor, and more insight into himself and those around him than he had before.

Even if you don’t have teenagers, this is a book worth reading. Young adults today go through so much, and Jennifer Hubbard takes a look deep into that world with emotion and humor. Even a little romance. Yeah, remember those days? And maybe for some you, you might remember a few of the same issues Ryan is living today.

Summary:

Learning to live is more than just choosing not to die, as sixteen-year-old Ryan discovers in the year following his suicide attempt. Despite his mother’s anxious hovering and the rumors at school, he’s trying to forget the darkness from which he has escaped. But it doesn’t help that he’s still hiding guilty secrets, or that he longs for a girl who may not return his feelings. Then he befriends Nicki, who is using psychics to seek contact with her dead father. This unlikely friendship thaws Ryan to the point where he can face the worst in himself. He and Nicki confide in one another the things they never thought they’d tell anyone—but their confessions are trickier than they seem, and the fallout tests the bound of friendship and forgiveness.

It was dangerous to stand under the waterfall, but some kids did it anyway, and I was one of them. The water pounded my mind blank, stung my skin. It hit my naked back, chest, and shoulders so hard I couldn’t think. That water could knock me over, pound me into hypothermia, force the breath out of me, pin me to the rock, and I knew it.

But I kept doing it.

My parents’ heads would’ve shot through the roof if they’d known. They’d done their best to wrap me in cotton since I’d gotten out of Patterson Hospital a few months before. My mother panicked if I missed a dose of my meds, so I sure wasn’t going to tell her about the waterfall. How could I explain it anyway?

Because I needed it. The roaring water shot over the ledge and beat down on my shoulders and head, a thunder I felt even through the slick stones under my feet. My nerves crackled and buzzed. It was all I could do to stand still against the water.

Whatever else I had messed up in my life, I could do that much: stand still. Okay, so I wasn’t setting the bar too high.

There were rumors that a guy had drowned here once, or that he’d fallen from the cliff and smashed his head on the rocks, his brains spilling into the pool below. Each version of the story was bloodier and less believable than the last.

There were rumors about me, about what I’d done back in the spring. Everyone snuck looks at me in the school halls after I got out of Patterson. Sometimes I was tempted to foam at the mouth and babble to invisible people, because the other kids seemed so disappointed that I didn’t. But I couldn’t be sure they would realize it was a joke. The few times I’d tried to make anyone laugh, all I got were nervous glances and squirming. Nobody expected me to have a sense of humor, and it was safer for me to let them think I might be crazy than to give them proof.

So I knew about rumors, how they were 95 percent bullshit with maybe one kernel of truth. I wasn’t sure where the kernel was in the story about the dead guy at the waterfall.

I first went under the waterfall in May, and I kept it up all summer. July was so hot, I imagined steam pouring off me whenever the icy rush hit my skin.

Early in August, we got rain. I watched the waterfall from the stream bank, waiting for the cool stormy weather to pass, for the heat to return.

I was sitting there one day when Kent Thornton’s sister came by. Kent was going into eleventh grade like me, and I knew his sister was a year younger, but I’d never talked to her much. Last year she’d been at the junior high, since Seaton High didn’t start until tenth grade.

“Hey.” I tried to remember her name, but couldn’t.

She stood watching the water charge over the cliff. Ferns waved in the breeze. “Are you going in?” she asked.

“No, not today.” All that rain had swelled the creek and the waterfall. I was tempted to see if I could stand up under the cold weight of that water, but I wasn’t completely insane, no matter what kids at school might whisper about me.

“I do it all the time.” She grinned. “My friend Angie won’t even stick her foot in the water. She says the rocks are too slippery.”

“They are slippery.” Not that it had ever stopped me.

Kent’s sister wiped sweat off the back of her neck. “You live up at the glass house, don’t you?”

“It’s not glass.” I hated when people called it that. It sounded like we were expecting some TV show to feature us in our architectural wonder of a home. Lifestyles of People Who Have Way More Money Than You. “It just has a lot of windows.”

“Whatever. That’s your house, right?”

“Yeah. Why?”

Her face flushed pink. “Just wondered.” She waved at the waterfall. “Dare me to go under there?”

“Nah, it’s too cold today. And strong. It’s kind of dangerous.”

She stepped into the water. Ripples spread out from her foot. She wore a tank top and shorts, which she didn’t take off. She walked toward the waterfall, slipping once on the mossy rocks.

I followed her with my eyes. Dread squeezed my stomach and wedged a lump at the back of my throat. I didn’t even know this girl, but I had no desire to see her crushed, drowned. She disappeared under the silver curtain of water.

I stood up because I couldn’t see her anymore. I squinted at the foaming water, trying to see into it, through it.

My fingers tapped the sides of my thighs as if counting the seconds she’d been under. How long should I wait before going in after her? If I should go in at all—there being a narrow line between heroes and idiots.

Kent’s sister ducked out, spitting, hair glued flat to her head. I exhaled. She lifted a handful of wet hair off her face, shook herself like a dog, and laughed. She splashed toward me.

“You all right?” I said.

Her lips were purple; her skin prickled with goose bumps. Her teeth hammered against each other.

“I should’ve brought a towel,” she said.

I’d done that before—remembered the towel only after I was wet. “I can get you one.”

“Okay.” She rubbed her arms. “That sounds fantastic.”

If you like sinful heroes who fall hard for that perfect woman who pushes all his buttons, you should be reading Alexandra Hawkins‘ Lords of Vice series. The Notorious Lord is Vane, Earl of Vanewright, and he’s as sinful as they come, as Isabel is about find out once she engages him in a game she soon discovers can’t be won.

Vane has never been quite this fascinated with a woman before, he doesn’t know what hits him until it’s too late. Isabel finally acknowledges feelings for the man, even though he’s supposed to be someone else’s.

But fire and passion keep flaring between them, and they become lost in each other  – until secrets begin to unravel the dream that almost comes true.

Summary:

Christopher Courtland, Earl of Vanewright—known around London as “Vane”—is the very picture of a rich, handsome ladies’ man. Why shackle himself to just one lady when he’s free to sample them all? In spite of his own mother’s attempts at matchmaking, Vane has sworn to stay single. Until he has a chance run-in with Miss Isabel Thorne…

A modest and refined beauty, Isabel is a lot more brazen than she appears. When a pickpocket tries to make away with Vane’s bejeweled snuffbox, Isabel attempts to thwart his escape…and manages to steal Vane’s heart. But the harder he tries to seduce the sharp-tongued, strong-willed Isabel, the more she resists. Now it’s up to this tried-and-true bachelor to find a new way to play the game…or risk losing the one woman who’s ever captured his heart.

Enjoy the teaser of their banter, just to whet your appetite for more sin….

“Merciful heavens, what happened to you?”

Isabel smiled wanly at their housekeeper as Lord Vanewright carried her over the threshold and into the small front hall.  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Allen.  It appears you were correct when you warned us that shopping on Bond Street was fraught with peril and unsavory characters.”

Delia focused on what mattered most to her.  “Oh, Mrs. Allen, you should have seen the lovely evening dress we found!  I vow I shall perish if it is sold before we have the opportunity to return to the shop.”  She gave her sister a side glance, disgusted that Isabel had ruined the afternoon by tangling with a pickpocket.

Isabel sighed.  There was no point in reminding Delia that they could not really afford the expensive dress.  Such details mattered little to her sister.  Isabel started when the earl murmured in her ear, “Shall I carry you to your bedchamber?”

A wordless exclamation was uttered by the housekeeper.  Surprised by the brazen suggestion, Isabel turned her face toward Lord Vanewright’s, resulting in her nose brushing against his chin.  “No you shall not!  The drawing room will suffice, my lord.”

Trailing after the trio, the housekeeper said, “Miss Thorne, forgive my impudence, but who is this gentleman?  And why is he carrying you about town as if he has the right to put his hands on you.”

“Not a word from you,” she warned him sternly.  With her arms wrapped about his shoulders, she could feel his body quaking with laughter.  “Mrs. Allen, allow me to present Lord Vanewright.  My lord, this is our housekeeper, Mrs. Allen.  She is looking after us during our brief stay in London.”

“Mrs. Allen, would you mind opening the door to the drawing room?  Miss Thorne had a terrible fright with a pickpocket and I want to see her settled comfortably before the surgeon arrives.”

“The surgeon?” Isabel echoed, struggling in the earl’s arms to be released.

Mrs. Allen stepped around the couple and opened the door.  “A pickpocket?  In a dressmaker’s shop you say?  Is no place safe, I ask you?”

“Isabel stumbled into the thief and rescued Lord Vanewright’s snuffbox,” Delia explained as she retrieved a pillow from a chair and placed it on the sofa.

Isabel marveled that the earl was not winded by his efforts.  He carried her to the sofa with an ease that suggested he appreciated the outdoors and had a casual familiarity with manual labor.  She was almost disappointed when he lowered her onto the sofa.

“When did you have time to summon a surgeon?” she demanded, annoyed by the unexpected expense.

“I ordered my coachman to fetch him.”  His look was inscrutable as it rested on her grim features.  “Are you in pain?”

“As I have told you over and over again, I am fine,” she said through clenched teeth.  “Ow!  Stop that.”  She slapped his hand away when he deliberately probed her wrapped ankle to prove that she was lying to him—again.

“Uh-huh,” he said, his tone suspiciously flat.  He glanced at the housekeeper.  “Mrs. Allen, would be so kind as to fetch a shallow basin of warm water for Miss Thorne’s ankle and a pot of tea to settle her nerves.”

Eyes blazing, Isabel glared at the presumptuous man.  “See here, Lord Vanewright.  You have no right to bully me or my staff!”  Before she said something that she would come to regret, Isabel cleared her throat.  “Yes, Mrs. Allen, I believe a cup of strong tea would benefit us all.”

Rudeness was clearly not the way to get rid of the man.  From the sparkling glint in his eyes, the earl was having too much fun baiting her.

“Nothing else to say, Miss Thorne?” he asked, sitting down in the chair to her left even though no one had invited the arrogant man to remain.

“Not at this time,” Isabel said haughtily.  “I am saving my strength for the surgeon.”

A man and his dog. Both with a sense of humor. Both protective of those they love. Angus Wallace – the new Lord Ashby – has just crossed an ocean and half a continent to find his wife. The one who left him. Without a word. As he lay wounded, his military career now over.

A woman left alone in Scotland with a family who has never taken to her. Hardly a word from her soldier husband, a few letters, even fewer visits in years. Really alone after the death of her parents, Maddie Wallace takes destiny by the horns and carves out a life for herself in America, taking photographs of the Old West for English readers who will never experience the rawness and intensity of such a frontier.

Both still have feelings from the marriage they thought dead. But each has a different place in the world to be, a calling and a duty that distance cannot span. Will their reunion give them another chance at happiness? Will their love survive the differences pulling them apart?

This is another lovely story from Kaki Warner. Her characters are the kind of people you want to know. She gives them real issues, heartbreak, happiness, guilt, and through every emotion they follow their heart. We have the first chapter of the book for you today to meet Ash and Maddie. I think you will be thoroughly enchanted.

Summary:

After only three letters and one visit during her six-year marriage to a Scottish Cavalry Officer, Maddie Wallace decides to build a life without him. Accepting an assignment from a London periodical to photograph the West from a female perspective, she sails from England, determined to build a new life as an independent woman.

After injury ends his military career, Angus Wallace returns homes to find his wife gone, his family decimated by fever, and himself next in line to an earldom. His new mission is clear – find his wife and sire heirs. His search takes him across an ocean and half a continent, but he finally tracks her to Heartbreak Creek There his biggest challenge awaits – to challenge his headstrong wife to return home as his viscountess.

Prologue

Lister House, outside London
September 1868

Maddie turned the key in the lock at her parent’s small stone cottage, paused for a moment to gather her courage, then opened the door and stepped inside.
Silence greeted her. That oppressive kind of silence that came when a house has been left empty too long and the life and energy once trapped within its walls was slowly draining away. A fanciful notion. But funerals always made her melancholy.

Still wearing her coat and clutching her reticule in cold, numb fingers, she walked slowly through the rooms.

Everything looked the same, like a tintype frozen in time—her mother’s bonnet draped over the arm of the settee, the same array of photographs lining the walls, a book left open on the table beside her father’s chair. Even the air smelled familiar—a subtle blend of old smoke with a hint of her father’s pipe tobacco and her mother’s sachet. But beneath it, barely detectable, hung the damp mustiness of an empty house and the beginnings of decay.

And they had only been dead a week.

In the kitchen, she dropped her reticule on the table and stripped off her coat and gloves. Moving by rote, she set a fire in the cook stove and lit the lamp sitting on the table, then went through the rituals of preparing tea. Once she had the kettle heating and the tea caddy and sugar bowl on the table, she set out her mother’s favorite cup, a napkin, and a spoon.

Then she sat down in her father’s chair, dropped her head onto her folded arms, and wept.

An hour later, she was still sitting there, her tears long spent, nursing her third cup of tea and trying to decide what to do with the rest of her life. Her parents were dead. Her marriage was a failure. She would probably never have children or a home of her own. Even this house would have to be sold to cover the cost of her parents’ funerals. With no other family and no resources, her future stretched bleak and empty ahead of her.

So what was she to do? Go back to Scotland? To a father-in-law who couldn’t abide the English, and a mother-in-law who rarely left her room? Angus’s sister, Glynnis, was so busy running the Kirkwell lands she had little time for a husband, much less a friend, and his two older brothers were so involved with their own pursuits they were rarely at home, and when they were, they called her the English girl because they couldn’t remember her name. With her husband gone years on end, what reason had she to go back?

She looked down at the heavy signet ring Angus had given her before he rode off to rejoin his cavalry regiment almost a year and a half ago. She hadn’t seen him since. In almost four years of marriage, he had written her two letters and visited her once. Four years, languishing at the family’s remote Highland estate, the unwanted English bride of a Scottish earl’s son, while he played soldier in Ireland.

She had given up her dreams for that?

She almost yanked the ring off her finger and threw it across the room. But she hadn’t the energy for even that. After her hurried dash across half of England to get to the funeral on time, then standing in the icy drizzle as Vicar Collins presided over the small graveside service for her parents this afternoon, she was so emotionally drained just lifting her teacup took an effort of will.

It was all rather meaningless, anyway, if the target of her ire wasn’t even there to make note of it.

Beyond the window, the wind huffed and moaned. Tiny pellets of sleet rattled against the window panes. Gusts sent drafts back down the stovepipe to burp puffs of smoke into the still air.

Perhaps he had died. That’s what soldiers did, especially rash, high-spirited cavalrymen who took needless risks. But she had always thought Angus Wallace was too big, too headstrong, too fearless to die. Besides, if something had happened to him, his family would have been notified—if not his wife, then surely his father, the Earl of Kirkwell.

If not dead, then what?

Utterly indifferent.

The realization left her breathless with despair.

Fearing another onslaught of tears, she looked around the room, seeking distraction. Her gaze fell on the framed photograph hanging beside the door that led into the parlor. A calmness came over her as she studied the smiling faces of her parents, remembering that last holiday at Brighton, and how Papa had cajoled her mother into donning one of those scandalous bathing costumes and testing the waters. Maddie had tried to make them sit still all afternoon. Finally, when they stopped to rest on the wall overlooking the beach, she saw her chance.

It was one of her first attempts at portraiture, and a poor one at that. Blurred lines, misplaced shadows, shoddy composition—all marks of a novice photographer. But it was her favorite, because there was more to it than just an image on paper. For the first time she had captured not just form, but emotion.
There was a story behind those smiling faces. She had seen it, and coaxed it out of the shadows, and trapped it in tintype for all the years to come.

Perhaps she could do that again.

That notion burst into her head, half formed and elusive. But it grew with every heartbeat until it filled her mind. Dare she?

For the next two days, as she set her parent’s house to rights and packed away their things, that thought dogged her footsteps like a lost cat.

It was absurd. So far beyond reason and practicality it wasn’t worth pursuing. Yet, after her third restless night, she surrendered to the lure of possibility and resolutely climbed the stairs to the attic where her photographs and equipment were stored, determined to at least give it a try.

The Scottish had a saying: “Be happy while you’re living, for you’ll be a long time dead.” And Maddie intended to be happy. She deserved it, Angus Wallace be damned.

The next afternoon, she was sitting before Mr. Reginald Farnsworth Chesterfield’s desk at The Illustrated London News nervously clasping her gloved hands in her lap and growing more convinced by the moment that grief had robbed her of her senses.

Daughters of baronets and wives of third sons to earls did not seek employment. They did not set up shop, or peddle their wares, or go into business, especially such a male-dominated business as photography. They stayed at home and tatted and traded vague reminiscences about their absent husbands and childless, empty lives until God finally took pity and allowed them to die.

“Hmm,” the gray-haired publisher said as he pulled another photograph from the portfolio she had brought for his perusal.

Hmm? What did that mean?

She tried not to fidget. A chance. That’s all she wanted. She would work for a pittance—or at least enough to keep her parent’s house so she would have someplace to live. She would even take an assignment on speculation, just to prove she could do it.

Minutes ticked by. Maddie’s confidence dwindled to quivery jelly. After almost a half hour of silence, she was on the verge of snatching up her portfolio and fleeing the building.

This was all a horrid mistake. It was time to accept her fate and go back to Northbridge, and learn to speak Gaelic and eat haggis without gagging.

“I had to look at them one more time,” Mr. Chesterfield finally said as he slid the photographs and cartes de visite back into the heavy canvas folder. “Just to be sure.”

Maddie tried to keep her breathing even.

After tying the closure tabs, he tipped back his swivel chair and studied the ceiling, his brow furrowed in thought, the forefinger and thumb of his right hand idly plucking at the gray hairs sprouting from his top lip. “It’s a rather forward-thinking notion,” he mused, more to himself than to her. “Revolutionary. Still . . . It just might just work.”

Abruptly he swiveled around and stared at her across his desk. “Have you seen the photographs of Matthew Brady?” he demanded. “Those he took in America during their recent rebellion?”

“Y-yes.” Her voice sounded like a mouse squeak, so she cleared her throat and tried again. “They are most evocative.” Astounding. Haunting. Compelling. Everything she wished her photographs could be.

“And those of William Jackson,” he pressed. “And Tim O’Sullivan?”

“The ones of the American West? They’re fascinating. Each image seems to tell a tale all its own.”

“Yes!” The elderly man beamed, showing small, crooked teeth beneath his gray muttonchops. “But they only present one side of the story, don’t you see.”

Maddie didn’t but nodded politely, her fixed smile starting to wobble. “One side.”

“The male side, as it were.”

“Ah. The male side.” She wondered if he was insane. And what he would do if she cast up her accounts on his desk. Perhaps she should leave before she did.

“But to see it from a whole new perspective, that’s the challenge. That would certainly catch your eye, would it not?”

“Indeed.” Clearly insane.

“Of course it would! So what do you think, madam?”

Maddie felt that thickness in her throat again. “About what, sir?”

“The female perspective!”

“Well . . . insomuch as it’s the only one I have, I rather like it.”

He gave a sudden bark of laughter that made her jump. “You misunderstand. I’m asking if you would like to travel to America, Mrs. Wallace, and photograph the West from the female perspective.”

Maddie was too astounded to respond. America?

“I have been wanting to send an expeditionary photographer over there for some time.” His voice grew more enthusiastic with every word. “But a woman! Now that would be unheard of. Revolutionary!” He startled her anew by slapping the flat of his hand down on her closed portfolio. “You have the talent for it, madam. But have you the will? What say you?”

She couldn’t say anything. Her tongue wouldn’t work.

“I would advance you travel expenses,” he added before she could form a response. “And those of your husband, of course, as I assume he will be accompanying you.”

“I . . . ah . . .”

“Unless you think he might object? Shall I contact him directly? I realize this is highly unusual, but if he—”

“There is no he,” Maddie blurted out, astounded by her own audacity and the lie she was about to tell. But how could she not do it? A new start. A new life. A whole new country, even. “That is to say, I’m”—forgive me, Angus—“a widow.”

“A widow?” The idea seemed to delight him. “Well, then, there’s nothing to hold you back, is there?”

“Not a thing.” And for all intents and purposes, she truly was a widow. Angus had left her in spirit almost two years ago. This physical parting was simply the final step in accepting the death of her marriage so she could begin a new life without him.

“Excellent. I’ll book passage for . . . shall we say, two weeks? That should give you time to gather what equipment and supplies you’ll need. Have the bills sent to my office.” He smiled, all but rubbing his hands together in glee. “Any questions?”

Dozens of them. Thousands. “No.”

“Excellent! Then we’re agreed.” Hopping up, he held out his hand.

Maddie rose on shaky legs and placed her fingers in his, hoping he didn’t feel the tremors in her hand. “Agreed.”

And as simply as that, it was done.

Two weeks to pack, put the house up for sale, restock her supplies, and send a note to Northbridge to inform them of her plans in case Angus ever inquired about her absence.

America. Just the thought of it made her giddy.

Chapter 1

Heartbreak Creek, Colorado Territory
September 1870

The Fifth Viscount of Ashby—or Ash, as his new London friends called him—rode slowly down the muddy street, Tricks padding wearily at his side, his rough coat dripping rain and mud.

A sad place, Heartbreak Creek. Judging by the faded store shingles hanging over the warped boardwalk, and the hulking structure perched on the bluffs above the canyon that sheltered the town, it had once been a prosperous mining community. But now the machinery sat silent, the mine dark, and few people walked past the unpainted wooden buildings with their sagging roofs and boarded storefronts. It looked no different from dozen other wee villages he’d ridden through in the last months.

He had seen worse in Ireland—which would probably never recover from the devastation of the potato famine—and in Scotland, where the Clearances had left a trail of empty huts and overflowing graveyards across his beloved Highlands. But it was always disturbing to see a town die.

Yet, despite the obvious decline, there were still signs of life in Heartbreak Creek. Two wagons stood in front of the Mercantile, Feed, and Mining Supplies store, and the hotel looked freshly painted and bore a fine new sign over the front doors. But without steady commerce from mining, timber, or the railroads, the town would soon die.

So why had she come to such a bleak place? To hide from him? He had once been a forward rider with the Rifles of the Light Division, and a man never forgot training like that. Dinna she realize that no matter where she went or how far she ran, he could still find her? She had led him a merry chase, so she had. The lass was as elusive as peat smoke, but he sensed that finally after twenty months of searching, he was getting close.

Reining in at the rail in front of the hotel, he stiffly dismounted, twisting as little as possible as he swung down. For the last hour, pain had been gnawing at his left side like the starving hounds of hell, and he knew he would pay a high price for riding so long in the rain. Cold dampness always made his slow-healing wound ache—the crossing had been a bluidy nightmare, made worse by the constant pitch and roll of the ship. But the dizziness had eased once he’d stepped onto solid ground in Boston Harbor, and he hadna suffered a single headache in well over a month.

“Stay,” he ordered Tricks as he looped Lurch’s reins over the rail.

The dog grinned up at him, tongue lolling, his bushy brows spiky with rain and clumps of mud.

“I mean it. You’re bluidy filthy, so you are. And since you willna allow a bath, you’ll stay out here. That’s an order.”

Ignoring the animal’s pitiful whines, Ash stepped through the double front doors and was pleased to see that Heartbreak Creek Hotel was as dapper inside as it was out. Dark paneling gleamed. Lush green plants rose out of tall clay urns. There were no patches or stains on the upholstered chairs gathered around a tufted hassock, and no dusty cobwebs dangling from the sparkling chandelier. Even the bald spot atop the head of the old man at the front desk looked polished, and the brass clasps on the braces worn by the freckled bellboy posted inside the doors would have satisfied the most demanding sergeant.

A well-run establishment. Ash nodded in approval.

“Hidy,” the clerk said as Ash crossed to the front desk. “Help you?”

“Aye. I need a room. One with a big bed.”

The old man’s grin showed a lack of teeth, and those that remained were marred by rusty stains. “Planning a party, are you?”

Ash looked at him.

The grin faded. “All our beds are the same size.”

“Then one without a foot rail.”

The clerk gazed past Ash’s shoulder. His faded blue eyes widened. “Great Godamighty! What is that thing?”

Ash dinna have to guess what had caught the old man’s attention. “A wolfhound. The room?”

Still staring toward the door, the elderly fellow said, “Dogs—assuming that hulking beast is a dog and not a starving, long-tailed bear—ain’t allowed inside.”

“I told him that but he dinna listen. You’re welcome to give it a go.”

Whirling, the old man fled through the open doors into what appeared to be the dining area. “Miss Hathaway! You better come quick!”

Bollocks. Ash felt a gob of mud hit his ear and turned to glare at Tricks, who was slinging water and mud in a ten-foot arc as he wagged his long, thin tail. “Now look what you’ve done,” he accused. “I should sell you to the Chinamen, so I should.”

“Sir!” A woman marched out of the dining area, the clerk hot on her heels. A blond woman, with eyes as green as Ireland and a look on her pretty face that would send the devil into retreat.

“Animals are not allowed in this establishment.” She waved a hand at the double doors. “Take him outside immediately!”

“He willna stay there without me.”

“Then I’ll bid you good day, as well.”

The old man snickered.

Ash sighed. “I’ve come a long way, so I have, and I’m in desperate need of a warm, dry room. One with a long bed, so my feet willna hang off the end. Can you make an exception this one time?”

Her pretty eyes narrowed in suspicion. “A long way from where?”

“Scotland.”

“I told you he wasn’t from around here,” the clerk muttered.

“Yancey, I’ll handle this!”

But Ash could see his answer had startled her, and he wondered why.

“What is your name, sir?” she asked.

“Ashby.”

“That’s it? No first name?”

Ash shrugged. “Some call me lord.”

Understanding came quickly—the woman was blade sharp. “Lord Ashby? Is that a joke?”

“Regretfully, no. I’ll pay double,” he added to distract her.

“Why are you here? In Heartbreak Creek?”

“I’m seeking a woman.”

The clerk snorted. “Aren’t we all.”

With a hiss of exasperation, she whirled on the old man. “Yancey, please assist Miriam upstairs. Billy”—she waved to the freckled boy watching with wide-eyed interest from his post by the front door—“fetch Sheriff Brodie, if you will. Now.”

After the boy dashed out the front door and Yancey stomped up the staircase that rose along the wall separating the lobby from the dining room, she returned
her attention to Ash. “What woman?”

Ash frowned, put off by the challenge in her tone. Not many would dare. Especially a female. But he had no wish to sleep on the ground again tonight, so he kept his tone pleasant. “Madeline Wallace.”

“Why?”

“I have news of her family.”

“What news?”

Bugger this. He started toward the door.

“Ah . . . double, you say?”

He stopped, debated, then thinking of the cold dampness that awaited him if he left, turned back. “Aye. But the bed canna have a foot rail.”

“You’ll bathe your dog?”

Ash thought of the last attempt. “Aye. If you have four stout men to aid me.”

“You can bathe him in the trough around back. I’ll send out Yancey and Billy with drying rags.” Her green eyes flicked over him. “You may use the tub in the washroom off the kitchen. But not the dog. And we don’t have stables here, so you’ll have to take your horse to the livery on the edge of town.”

It took Yancey, Billy, and two lengths of rope to get Tricks into the trough, but the deed was done without loss of limb. When Ash left the washroom an hour later, clean and freshly dressed with his pouting and mostly clean wolfhound at his heels, he found a man leaning against the wall beside the door, working at his nails with a penknife. By his expression when he saw Ash, it was apparent he had been waiting for him.

“Heard you were looking for Maddie Wallace,” the man said, studying Ash through dark eyes from beneath the brim of his black flat-crowned hat. He was even taller than Ash and solidly built, and he would have carried an air of authority even without the sheriff’s badge pinned to his vest.

Ash nodded. “I am.”

“Mind if I ask why?”

Ash did, so he dinna respond. Tricks plopped onto his belly by Ash’s boot, his rangy body taking up most of the hallway, and began licking the dampness from his front legs.

“Impressive dog,” the man said as he folded the penknife. “Is he as dangerous as he looks?”

“Not to me.”

The sheriff nodded and slipped the penknife into his pocket. Bending down, he let Tricks sniff his open hand, then gently stroked the knobby head.

Ash was surprised. Like most of his breed, Tricks was standoffish with strangers. By accepting the sheriff so readily, it only confirmed Ash’s assessment of the man. A reasonable fellow who wore his position well.

The sheriff straightened. “See that table in the back corner?” He pointed across the hall to the open door that led into the dining room. “The one with the ladies?”
Ash followed his direction and saw the blond woman seated with a dark-skinned woman and a pregnant sandy-haired woman. All three were staring their way.

And frowning. “Aye, I see them.”

“The blond is Lucinda Hathaway,” the sheriff explained in a friendly tone. “Owns the hotel. Yankee. Smart. Carries a pepperbox pistol. Far as I know, she hasn’t killed anyone with it. The dark-skinned woman is Prudence Lincoln. She lives at the school the ladies set up for ex-slaves and anyone else who wants to come learn. Whether she likes it or not, she’s under the protection of a Cheyenne Dog Soldier. Ever heard of them?”

Ash had. He’d never seen one, but he’d heard of their legendary fierceness in battle and admired them for it. He was Scottish, after all. But right now he was less curious about Indians than why the sheriff was telling him all this.

“Now that blue-eyed beauty,” the man went on, his voice softening as he looked at the sandy-haired woman. “She’s Edwina Brodie. She might fool some with her southern charm, but she’s pretty handy with a shovel and once even faced down a mountain lion with a bucket of salad greens. And if that’s not enough to give a man pause . . .” Swinging his gaze back to Ash, he gave him a hard look. “There’s me.”

Ash heard the challenge but gave no reaction. “And who are you?”

The sheriff touched the tips of two fingers to the brim of his hat. “Declan Brodie. I’m temporary sheriff here at Heartbreak Creek. And her husband.”

The warning was clear, although Ash had no idea why Sheriff Brodie had issued it. Maddie Wallace was the woman he had come to see, not these females. “Why temporary?” he asked.

“Because I’m a rancher,” Brodie explained, which explained nothing. “As you can see,” he went on, glancing back toward the women, “the ladies are upset. It’s not good when they get upset.”

“Which of us is in trouble?” Ash asked, although he had a fair idea.

Brodie flashed white teeth in a crooked grin that changed his austere face to one that women might find handsome. “Hell, I’ve got four kids and a pregnant wife. I’m always in trouble. But this time, it’s you.”

“What have I done?”

“That depends.” No longer smiling, the sheriff stepped toward Ash.

Immediately Tricks rose.

The sheriff paused, looked from the dog to Ash, but came no closer. He showed no menace, yet Ash sensed an unbendable resolve within the man. He respected that, since it was a trait they had in common.

“Why are you looking for Maddie?” Brodie asked again.

That was the second time the sheriff had casually used the shortened version of Madeline’s name. Ash dinna like the sound of it on another man’s tongue. “As I told the Hathaway woman, I have news of her family,” he said stiffly. “Is she here?”

Brodie remained silent. Ash suspected he was being assessed by the lawman, and although he dinna like it, he withstood it without showing his growing irritation.

The women continued to watch them and whisper quietly amongst themselves. Ash could feel the censure in their eyes and wondered what he’d done to cause it.

“She’s off making pictures,” the sheriff finally said. “Should be back in a week or so, then she’ll be leaving again for the big meeting up in Denver.”

“Meeting about what?”

“Political thing. Statehood. Delegates are coming from all over the territory. Promises to be quite a gathering.”

“She’s a delegate?” That surprised him. Despite her father’s leanings, she had showed no interest in politics before. But then, that she was here instead of Scotland where she belonged showed how little he knew her.

“No, I am. Part of the job. Or so I’ve been told.”

Ash heard the disgust in the man’s voice and guessed the sheriff wasna excited about the trip. But he’d heard enough to know this was the woman he sought, and his natural impatience caused him to speak more sharply than he intended. “I canna wait another week. Where is she now?”

The sheriff reared his head back and subjected Ash to another lengthy assessment.

Ash was weary of it. “It’s important that I speak to her.”

“You’ll not hurt her?”

“I dinna hurt women.”

After more scrutiny, the sheriff sighed, as if he’d come to a decision he might later regret. “She headed up to the Alamosa a month ago.”

“The Alamosa?”

“Alamosa River. Things are hopping up there since the strikes.”

Brodie must have seen Ash’s confusion. “Gold strikes,” he clarified. “Miners are pouring in from all over. She wanted to document it. Photograph it. She’s a photographer. Didn’t you know that?”

Of course Ash knew. It was through her photographs that he had tracked her this far. But he thought the woman had more sense than to go haring off to a place as dangerous as a wide-open mining town. “She dinna go alone, did she?”

“She’s got Wall-eyed Willy with her, not that he’d be much protection.”

Bluidy hell.

“You going after her?”

“Aye. I’m going after her.”

Fae magic and guilt. Malcolm MacDowylt has both in his life much more than he wants. One he can ignore until a later time, the other he has to face day in and day out. Especially when that magic tosses Danielle Dearmon right smack into the middle of his world, which is now tilting every which way, forcing him to look at a future he never imagined.

Dani, on the other hand, is finally where she belongs. Despite Malcolm wanting her to return where she came from. All the years of trying the gain the good graces of the fae and now thrust seven hundred years into the past to a man who is her destiny is more than she could have ever dreamed of.

Together they must fight the evil that no knows no bounds in a war to conquer them. Is love enough to help them survive?

We have the first chapter of Warrior’s Redemption for you today. Get ready to trek down to your local bookstore after this! Or navigate over to your favorite online bookstore. Or enter the contest included with Melissa’s guest blog today. Good thing there’s a few options today. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Summary:

Will the magic of modern romance help him defeat an evil ancient power?

Malcolm MacDowylt sees himself a failed warrior, haunted by the death of the woman he married to become laird of Clan MacGahan.  Neither his Viking heritage nor his claim to descend from Norse gods can restore his confidence in his ability to protect his people.  His sister is held captive, her life in jeopardy, and his Magically powerful half brother wants him dead.  The last thing he needs is more responsibility, but that’s exactly what he gets when his Faerie mother-in-law arrives seeking justice for her daughter in the form of an enticing woman from seven hundred years in the future.

Danielle Dearmon has waited fifteen years to discover the life she is supposed to live.  She just never dreamed she’d end up in the thirteenth century with a handsome Scot bent on saving everyone but himself.

With the lives of those most dear to him hanging in the balance, Malcolm sets out to battle a powerful evil Magic, only to learn that the redemption he seeks exists only in the arms of the woman he loves.

PROLOGUE

Tom Green County, Texas
Fifteen Years Ago

Fairies absolutely were real. Dani didn’t care what her Aunt Jean claimed.

After Mrs. Palmer down at the new library had loaned her those wonderful books this past summer, she’d known it wasn’t just her imagination. Lots of people believed in them. She’d spent the entire vacation between fourth and fifth grades reading all about Faeries.

“Dani?” Aunt Jean’s voice carried all the way down to the chicken coops. “Dani! You better hurry up with those eggs, little girl, if you expect to get breakfast in you before the school bus gets here.”

Dani grabbed the one egg that had been laid already, dodging the grumpy old brown hen’s beak, and hurried back toward the farmhouse. She’d have to gather again when she got home from school, but at least Emma Hen had come through early, as usual.

A furtive glance to the empty corner next to the steps as she approached the house warned her of what was to come.

“Get your hands washed and sit yourself down.”

Aunt Jean’s no-nonsense expression was firmly in place and Dani quickly did as she was told, slipping into her spot at the old kitchen table as her aunt slid a warm plate in front of her.

“What did I tell you about setting a saucer of milk out by the steps?” Aunt Jean waited, arms folded in front of her.

“Not to,” Dani mumbled around her first bite of thick toast. “Draws snakes.”

“So it’s not that you forgot. You’ve just decided you’re not going to mind me, is that it? You’re just trying to be bad?”

“No ma’am, I’m not trying to be bad. I promise.” The Faeries liked milk and bread. It encouraged them to stay. “My book said –”

“Nuh-uh,” Aunt Jean turned back to the stove, scrambling Dani’s egg, her gray curls swaying with the stubborn shaking of her head. “I don’t want another word of that fairy nonsense, you hear me? There’s no such thing as a fairy, but rattlers are real enough. Those damn snakes will smell that milk a mile off and next thing you know, you or me one will be getting ourselves snake bit. And then what?”

“The Faeries would keep us safe, if you’d let me feed them,” Dani muttered, tearing a corner off her toast and dropping it into her lap. If her aunt would just believe, the Faeries would hear all their wishes and make them come true. “I read that in one of my books.”

“Danielle Faye Dearmon!” Aunt Jean turned around from the stove and leaned across the table. “I’ve had just about enough of this nonsense from you. Not everything in books is true just because somebody wrote it down. I’m serious as a heart attack about this, little girl. I want your promise right now that you won’t put any more milk out by the steps for these damned imaginary fairies of yours or else I’m going to have to paddle your butt, you understand me? I want your promise on it, Dani. I want it now.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Dani didn’t hesitate with her response. She had no choice. Her aunt was really serious this time. She almost never pulled out the ‘paddle your butt’ threat. “I promise.”

She meant to keep the promise, too. No more milk by the porch steps. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t hunt down a new spot to feed the Faeries when she got home from school this afternoon. A better spot. One that Aunt Jean wouldn’t find.

Because no matter that Aunt Jean was the best substitute mama on the face of the planet, in this one thing, she was completely wrong.

Faeries were absolutely real and Dani meant to make sure she stayed on their good side.

CHAPTER ONE

Land of the Faerie
1294 [as calculated by Mortals]

Howls echoed through the forest of Wyddecol, so protracted and pain-ridden they tortured Elesyria’s eardrums. Like some animal in its death throes, the screams pitched from fury to terror and back again.

She ran faster through the trees, seeking in vain to escape the torment of those sounds. Knowing she could never outrun that which came from her own throat.

It was her agony, her torment that tore the screams from her lungs as if the pain were a living creature eating at her innards.

Her daughter, her only child, her beautiful Isabella had disappeared from the World of Man.

On she ran, unseeing, dodging by instinct the low-hanging branches and fallen limbs. On, deeper into the forest until at last she broke through into a clearing. Ahead lay the Temple of Danu, golden in its perpetual shaft of sunlight, encircled by its ring of massive stones.

Elesyria pushed herself harder, maintaining her pace up the long marble staircase. Not even at the doorway did she slow. No stopping to shed her sandals, no washing her feet, no bending low to show reverence at the doorway to the inner sanctum. Not this time. This time, for the first time ever, she simply didn’t care.

Her precious Isabella was gone from the World of Man.

“Show yourself, I demand it! How could you allow this to happen?” she accused, ignoring the hysterical echo of her own words in the cavernous rounded room. “You promised. She was to be cared for if I would but leave her with the Mortals and return to your service. You promised!”

She screamed the final words, her voice cracking as she sank to her knees. The until-now strangely absent tears at last found their release, rolling down her cheeks to splatter on the white stone floor at her knees. “You promised,” she accused one final time, her words no more than a whisper against the canvas of her grief.

“You would demand my presence in your world, Daughter of Danu?”

The words echoed off the arc of the room’s high ceiling, bouncing, tumbling in a harmonious melody of sound.

“I do,” Elesyria answered without hesitation. She had no care for the ancient protocols. No time to travel to the trance world. No desire to honor the bitch-Goddess who had betrayed her.

In front of her a pale green mist coalesced, writhing and bubbling, shifting from one form to another until at last a tall, beautiful woman emerged. The Goddess, the Earth Mother, had arrived.

“Then I can only assume these are the direst of times. What troubles you, my child?”

“The loss of my child.” Elesyria rose to her feet, well aware she breeched all acceptable behavior in doing so. Eye contact with the Goddess was too painful, so she fixed her gaze on the other woman’s chin. “Isabella is dead. You’ve broken your promise to me.”

The Goddess lifted her hand as if to catch a handful of air in the room before rubbing her thumb against her fingers, much in the way a merchant might sample the feel of a fine silk.

“Isabella lives.”

“Impossible!” Elesyria had been to the curtain between the worlds this very morning. She’d stood there as so often she did, stretching out her magic to caress the essence of the daughter she’d left behind. Only this time, there had been nothing. “She’s not in the World of Man. I felt for her myself. That which had been her is gone.”

“Nevertheless, Isabella’s soul has not returned to the Fountain. She lives.”

“How can that be?” Elesyria’s legs buckled, too weak to hold her weight and she dropped to her knees. “The place where I felt for her is as empty as my heart.”

The Goddess lifted both arms and the mist returned, swirling in a sphere between her hands. It moved as if alive, frantic with a billion life forms, its color shifting from the palest green to a brilliant emerald and back again. Then the Goddess clapped her hands together and the mist disappeared as quickly as it had formed.

“Not only does she live, she has joined with her SoulMate. Though, as you say, she is not in the time and place where you left her.”

“What does that mean?”

The Goddess shrugged, palms held upward. “I cannot yet say. I know only what I feel when I search the Myst.”

Elesyria’s mind reeled in confusion. Isabella’s space on the Mortal Plain was empty. She’d felt that for herself. And yet, the Goddess claimed her daughter lived. Lived and had found the one happiness every Fae sought: her own SoulMate!

“I need answers,” she whispered, as much to herself as to the Goddess standing nearby.

“Indeed you do. Go with my blessings.”

Her blessings? Not enough. Not by half.

Elesyria raised her head, coming as close to meeting the Earth Mother’s eyes as she dared. “After all the years I’ve dedicated to your service, Goddess, I want more than your blessings. I want to travel through the curtain with the power to punish any who harmed my child.”

“Crossing over with your Magic intact is forbidden by your High Council.”

If the Goddess thought to dissuade her with something so trivial, she was seriously mistaken.

“I’ve no more care for the politics of Fae than I have for those of Man. I care only for the child grown to woman who I left behind when I returned to my service in your temple. I must know the truth of her fate. I want to travel through the curtain. With my Magic.”

“And if you find your daughter has not been harmed? If you find it is as I have indicated?”

If, pray the Goddess, Isabella lived happily joined to her SoulMate as the Goddess insisted? “Then I want the power to reward those who aided her.”

The visage in front of her shimmered from green to gold and back again.

“In offering reward as freely as you threaten punishment, Elesyria, you demonstrate your wisdom. So be it. You may retain your powers to use for this purpose and this purpose only. Your years of faithful service watching over my followers have earned at least this much from me. As you go forth, I will set in motion what I can to assist. Travel to the place where your daughter should be. Seek out the Tinklers when you arrive. They are my eyes and ears in the World of Man. If any can guide you to the truth, surely it will be they.”

“Thank you, Earth Mother.”

Elesyria bowed her head, honoring the Goddess before her. When she lifted her eyes once again, she was alone.

Rising to her feet, she squared her shoulders and hurried from the chamber, already seeing the spot she would cross over in her mind’s eye.

She would find the Tinklers the Goddess had spoken of and she would know the truth. She prayed the result would require her to use her Magic for the benefit of one who had helped her daughter, but if not?

Woe be unto any who had lifted a hand to bring harm down upon Isabella. They would feel her wrath even if it should shake the very foundations of the Mortals’ world.

You’re really in for a treat now. This first chapter of Hot Zone pulls you right in, places you in the middle of the devastation after an earthquake tumbles the Bahamas every which way. You meet Hugh and Amelia under the worst of circumstances, when you see the best of them, what makes them the people they are today.

Catherine Mann has given readers characters who are, foremost, honorable, so very likeable but also flawed, and who make you emotionally invest in them from the start. I don’t think you’ll be able to walk away from this excerpt without wanting more of Hugh and Amelia, without wanting to know what happens to them and where they go from here.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Summary:

Days full of danger…
For Pararescueman Master Sergeant Hugh Franco, it’s all about saving other people’s lives. Then he moves on. But when he pulls beautiful Amelia Bailey and her adopted nephew from the rubble of a catastrophic earthquake, he finds himself entangled in their lives in ways he could never have imagined…

And desire-filled nights…
Amelia’s trip to the Bahamas to help with an international adoption has been no vacation, but the hardest part is yet to come. As Amelia and Hugh are pulled unawares into a deadly smuggling scheme, simmering beneath their growing need to protect each other is a compelling attraction they’re both determined to deny…

Get ready…

Chapter One

The world had caved in on Amelia Bailey. Literally.

Aftershocks from the earthquake still rumbled the gritty earth under her cheek, jarring her out of her hazy micro nap. Dust and rocks showered around her. Her skin, her eyes, everything itched and ached after hours—she’d lost track of how many – beneath the rubble.

The quake had to have hit at least seven on the Richter Scale. Although when you ended up with a building on top of you, somehow a Richter scale didn’t seem all that pertinent.

She squeezed her lids closed. Inhaling. Exhaling. Inhaling, she drew in slow, even breaths of the dank air filled with dirt. Was this what it was like to be buried alive? She pushed back the panic as forcefully as she’d clawed out a tiny cavern for herself.

This wasn’t how she’d envisioned her trip to the Bahamas when she’d offered to help her brother and sister-in-law with the legalities of international adoption.

Muffled sounds penetrated, of jackhammers and tractors. Life scurried above her, not that anybody seemed to have heard her shouts. She’d screamed her throat raw until she could only manage a hoarse croak now.

Time fused in her pitch black cubby, the air thick with sand. Or disintegrated concrete. She didn’t want to think what else. She remembered the first tremor, the dawning realization that her third floor hotel room in the seaside Bahamas resort was slowly giving way beneath her feet. But after that?

Her mind blanked.

How long had she been entombed? Forever, it seemed, but probably more along the lines of half a day while she drifted in and out of consciousness. She wriggled her fingers and toes to keep the circulation moving after so long immobile. Every inch of her body screamed in agony from scrapes and bruises and probably worse, but she couldn’t move enough to check. Still, she welcomed the pain that reassured her she was alive.

Her body was intact.

Forget trying to sit up. Her head throbbed from having tried that. The ceiling was maybe six inches above where she lay flat on her belly. Again, she willed back hysteria. The fog of claustrophobia hovered, waiting to swallow her whole.

More dust sifted around her. The sound of the jackhammers rattled her teeth. They seemed closer, louder with even a hint of a voice. Was that a dog barking?

Hope hurt after so many disappointments. Even if her ears heard right, there had to be so many people in need of rescuing after the earthquake. All those efforts could easily be for someone else a few feet away. They might not find her for hours. Days.

Ever.

But she couldn’t give up. She had to keep fighting. If not for herself, then for the little life beside her, her precious new nephew. She threaded her arm through the tiny hole between them to rub his back, even though he’d long ago given up crying, sinking into a frighteningly long nap. His shoulders rose and fell evenly, thank God, but for how much longer?

Her fingers wrapped tighter around a rock and she banged steadily against the oppressive wall overhead. Again and again. If only she knew Morse code. Her arm numbed. Needle-like pain prickled down her skin. She gritted her teeth and continued. Didn’t the people up there have special listening gear?

Dim shouts echoed, like a celebration. Someone had been found. Someone else. Her eyes burned with tears that she was too dehydrated to form. Desperation clawed up her throat. What if the rescue party moved on now? Far from her deeply buried spot?

Time ticked away. Precious seconds. Her left hand gripped the rock tighter, her right hand around the tiny wrist of the child beside her. Joshua’s pulse fluttered weakly against her thumb.

Desperation thundered in her ears. She pounded the rock harder overhead. God, she didn’t want to die. There’d been times after her divorce when the betrayal hurt so much she’d thought her chance at finally having a family was over, but she’d never thrown in the towel. Damn him. She wasn’t a quitter.

Except why wasn’t her hand cooperating anymore? The opaque air grew thicker with despair. Her arm grew leaden. Her shoulder shrieked in agony, pushing a gasping moan from between her cracked lips. Pounding became taps… She frowned. Realizing…

Her hand wasn’t moving anymore. It slid uselessly back onto the rubble strewn floor. Even if her will to live was kicking ass, her body waved the white flag of surrender.

**

Master Sergeant Hugh Franco had given up caring if he lived or died five years ago. These days, the Air Force pararescueman motto was the only thing that kept his soul planted on this side of mortality.

That others may live.

Since he didn’t have anything to live for here on earth, he volunteered for the assignments no sane person would touch. And even if they would, his buds had people who would miss them. Why cause them pain?

Which was what brought him to his current snow-ball’s-chance-in-hell mission.

Hugh commando crawled through the narrow tunnel in the earthquake rubble. His helmet lamp sliced a thin blade through the dusty dark. His headset echoed with chatter from above – familiar voices looking after him and unfamiliar personnel working other missions scattered throughout the chaos. One of the search and rescue dogs above ground had barked his head off the second he’d sniffed this fissure in the jumbled jigsaw of broken concrete.

Now, Hugh burrowed deeper on the say so of a German Shepherd named Zorro. Ground crew attempts at drilling a hole for a search camera had come up with zip. But that Zorro was one mighty insistent pup so Hugh was all in.

He half listened to the talking in one ear, with the other tuned in for signs of life in the devastation. Years of training honed an internal filter that blocked out communication not meant for him.

“You okay down there Franco?”

He tapped the talk button on his safety harness and replied, “Still moving. Seems stable enough.”

“So says the guy who parachuted into a minefield on an Afghani mountainside.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Somebody had needed to go in and rescue that Green Beret who’d gotten his legs blown off. “I’m good for now and I’m sure I heard some tapping ahead of me. Tough to tell, but maybe another twenty feet or so.”

He felt a slight tug, then loosening to the line attached to his safety harness as his team leader played out more cord.

“Roger that, Franco. Slow and steady man, slow and steady.”

Just then he heard the tapping again. “Wait one, Major.”

Hugh stopped and cocked his free ear. Tapping for sure. He swept his light forward, pushing around a corner and saw a widening cavern that held promise inside the whole hellish pancake collapse. He inched ahead, aiming the light on his helmet into the void.

The slim beam swept a trapped individual. Belly to the ground, the person sprawled with only a few inches free above. The lower half of the body was blocked. But the torso was visible, covered in so much dust and grime he couldn’t tell at first if he saw a male or female. Wide eyes stared back at him with disbelief, followed by wary hope. Then the person dropped a rock and pointed toward him.

Definitely a woman’s hand.

Trembling, she reached, her French manicure chipped, nails torn back and bloody. A gold band on her thumb had bent into an oval. He clasped her hand quickly to check the thumb for warmth and a pulse.

And found it. Circulation still intact.

Then he checked her wrist, heart rate elevated but strong.

She gripped his hand with surprising strength. “If I’m hallucinating,” she said, her raspy voice barely more than a whisper, “please don’t tell me.”

“Ma’am, you’re not imagining anything. I’m here to help you.”

He let her keep holding on as it seemed to bring her comfort—and calm—while he swept the light over what he could see of her to assess medically. Tangled hair. A streak of blood across her head. But no gaping wounds.

He thumbed his mic. “Have found a live female. Trapped, but lucid. More data after I evaluate.”

“Roger that,” McCabe’s voice crackled through.

Hugh inched closer, wedging the light into the crevice in hopes of seeing more of his patient. “Ma’am, crews are working hard to get you out of here, but they need to stabilize the structure before removing more debris. Do you understand me?”

“I hear you.” She nodded, then winced as her cheek slid along the gritty ground. “My name is Amelia Bailey. I’m not alone.”

More souls in danger. “How many?”

“One more. A baby.”

His gut gripped. He forced words past his throat clogging from more than particulates in the air. “McCabe, add a second soul to that. A baby with the female, Amelia Bailey. Am switching to hot mic so you can listen in.”

He flipped the mic to constant feed, which would use more battery but time was of the essence now. He didn’t want to waste valuable seconds repeating info. “Ma’am, how old is the baby?”

“Thirteen months. A boy,” she spoke faster and faster, her voice coming out in scratchy croaks. “I can’t see him because it’s so dark, but I can feel his pulse. He’s still alive, but oh God, please get us out of here.”

“Yes, ma’am. Now, I’m going to slip my hand over your back to see if I can reach him.”

He had his doubts. There wasn’t a sound from the child, no whimpering, none of those huffing little breaths children made when they slept or had cried themselves out. Still, he had to go through the motions. Inching closer until he stretched alongside her, he tunneled his arm over her shoulders. Her back rose and fell shallowly, as if she tried to give him more space when millimeters counted. His fingers snagged on her torn shirt, something silky and too insubstantial a barrier between her and tons of concrete.

Pushing further, he met resistance, stopped short. Damn it. He grappled past the jutting stone, lower down her back until he brushed the top of her—

She gasped.

He looked up fast, nearly nose to nose now. His hand stilled on her buttock. She stared back, the light from his helmet sweeping over her sooty face. Her eyes stared back, a splash of color in the middle of murky desperation.

Blue. Her eyes were glistened pure blue, and what a strange thought to have in the middle of hell. But he couldn’t help but notice they were the same color as cornflowers he’d seen carpeting a field once during a mission in the U.K.

Hell, cornflowers were just weeds. He stretched deeper, along the curve of her butt, bringing his face nearer to hers. She bit her lip.

“Sorry,” he clipped out.

Wincing, she shrugged. “It was a reflex. Modesty’s pretty silly right now. Keep going.”

Wriggling, he shifted for a better path beyond the maze of jagged edges, protruding glass, spikes…

“Damn it.” He rolled away, stifling the urge to say a helluva lot worse. “I can’t reach past you.”

Her fingers crawled to grip his sleeve. “I’m just so glad you’re here, that everyone knows we are here. Joshua’s heart is still beating. He’s with us and we haven’t been down here long enough for him to get dehydrated, less than a day. There’s hope, right?”

Less than a day? Nearly forty-eight hours had passed since the earthquake occurred, and while he’d participated in against all odds rescues before, he had a sick sense that the child was already dead. But alerting the woman to her own confusion over the time wouldn’t help and could actually freak her out.

“Sure, Amelia. There’s always hope.”

Or so the platitude went.

“I’m going to hang out here with you while they do their work upstairs.” He unstrapped the pack around his waist and pointed his headlight toward the supplies. “Now I’m gonna pull out some tricks to make you more comfortable while we wait.”

“Happen to have an ice cold Diet Coke? Although I’ll settle for water, no lemon necessary.”

He laughed softly. Not many would be able to joke right now, much less stay calm. “I’m sorry, but until I know more about your physical status, I can’t risk letting you eat or drink.” He tugged out a bag of saline, the needle, antiseptic swabs, grunting as a rock bit into his side. “But I am going to start an IV, just some fluids to hydrate you.”

“You said you’re here to help me,” she said, wincing at a fresh burst of noise from the jackhammers, “but who are you?”

“I’m with the U.S. Air Force.” Dust and pebbles showered down. “I’m a pararescueman—you may have heard it called parajumper or PJ—but regardless it includes a crap-ton of medic training. I need to ask some questions so I know what else to put in your IV. Where exactly did the debris land on you?”

She puffed dust from her mouth, blinking fast. “There’s a frickin’ building on top of me.”

“Let me be more specific. Are your legs pinned?” He tore the corner of a sealed alcohol pad with his teeth, spitting the foil edge free. “I couldn’t reach that far to assess.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I thought you were checking on Joshua.”

“I’m a good multi-tasker.”

“My foot is wedged, but I can still wriggle my toes.”

He looked up sharply. If she was hemorrhaging internally, fluids could make her bleed out faster, but without hydration…

The balancing act often came down to going with his gut. “Just your foot?”

“Yes. Why? Do you think I’m delusional?” Her breath hitched with early signs of hysteria. “I’m not having phantom sensations. I can feel grit against my ankle. There’s some blood in my shoe, not a lot. It’s sticky, but not fresh. I’m feeling things.”

“I hear you. I believe you.” Without question, her mind would do whatever was needed to survive. But he’d felt enough of her body to know she was blocked, rather than pressed into the space. “I’m going to put an IV in now.”

“Why was it so important about my foot?”

He scrubbed the top of her hand with alcohol pads, sanitizing as best he could. “When parts of the body are crushed, we need to be… uh… careful in freeing you.”

“Crush syndrome.” Her throat moved with a long slow swallow. “I’ve heard of that. People die from it after they get free. I saw it on a rerun of that TV show about a crabby drug addict doctor.”

“We just need to be careful.” In a crush situation, tissue died, breaking down and when the pressure was released, toxins flooded the body, overloading the kidneys. And for just that remote possibility, he hadn’t included potassium in her IV.

Panic flooded her glittering blue eyes. “Are you planning to cut off my foot?” Her arm twitched, harder, faster until she flailed. “Are you going to put something else in that IV? Something to knock me out?”

He covered her fingers with his before she dislodged the port in her hand. “There’s nothing in there but fluid. I’m being honest with you now, but if you panic, I’m going to have to start feeding you a line of bullshit to calm you down. Now you said you wanted the unvarnished truth—”

“I do. Okay. I’m breathing. Calming down. Give me the IV.”

He patted her wrist a final time. “I already did.”

Blinking fast, she looked at the tape along her hand. A smile pushed through the grime on her face. “You’re good. I was so busy trying not to freak out I didn’t even notice.”

“Not bad for my first time.”

“Your first time?”

“I’m kidding.” And working to distract her again from the rattle overhead, the fear that at any second the whole damn place could collapse onto them.

She laughed weakly, then stronger. “Thank you.”

“It’s just an IV.”

“For the laugh. I was afraid I would never get to do that again.” Her fingers relaxed slowly, tension seeping from them as surely as fluid dripped out of the bag. “The second they uncover us, you’ll make Joshua top priority. Forget about me until he’s taken care of.”

“We’re going to get you both out of here. I swear it.”

“Easy for you to claim that. If I die, it’s not like I can call you a liar.”

A dead woman and child. He resisted the urge to tear through the rocks with his bare hands and to hell with waiting on the crews above. He stowed his gear, twisting to avoid that damn stone stabbing his side.

“Hey,” Amelia whispered. “That was supposed to be a joke from me this time.”

“Right, got it.” Admiration for her grit kicked through his own personal fog threatening to swallow him whole. “You’re a tough one. I think you’re going to be fine.”

“I’m a county prosecutor. I chew up criminals for a living.”

“Atta girl.” He settled onto his back, watching the hypnotic drip, drip. His fingers rested on her wrist to monitor her pulse.

“Girl?” She sniffed. “I prefer to be called a woman or a lady, thank you very much.”

“Where I come from, it’s wise not to be nitpicky with the person who’s saving your ass.”

“Score one for you.” She scraped a torn fingernail through the dust on the ground. Her sigh stirred the dust around that shaky line. “I’m good now. So you should go before this building collapses on top of you and keeps you from doing your job for other people.”

“I don’t have anywhere else to be.” He ignored a call from McCabe through his headset that pretty much echoed the woman’s words. “The second they give the go ahead, I’m hauling you out of here, Amelia Bailey.”

“And Joshua. I want you to promise you’ll take care of him first.”

“I will do what I can for him,” he answered evasively.

Her wide eyes studied him for seven drips of the IV before she cleared her throat. “You don’t think he’s alive, do you? I can feel his pulse.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m not imagining it, damn it.” Her hand flipped and she grabbed his arm, her ragged nails digging deep with urgency. “I can feel his pulse in his wrist. He’s a little chilly, but he’s not cold. Just because he’s not screaming his head off doesn’t mean he’s dead. And sometimes, he moves. Only a little, but I feel it.” Her words tumbled over each other faster and faster until she dissolved into a coughing fit.

Ah, to hell with it. He unhooked his canteen. “Wet your mouth. Just don’t gulp, okay? Or they’ll kick my butt up there.”

He brought the jug to her lips and she sipped, her restraint Herculean when she must want to drain it dry. Sighing, she sagged again, her eyes closing as she hmmmed, her breathing evening out. He freaked. She needed to stay awake, alert.

Alive.

“Tell me about your son Joshua.” He recapped the canteen without wasting a swallow on himself.

Her lashes fluttered open again. “Joshua’s my nephew. I came with my brother and his wife to help them with the paperwork for their adoption. They don’t want any legal loopholes. What happens to Joshua if they’re…?”

She bit her lip.

His brain raced as he swept the light along the rubble, searching for some signs of others. Although there hadn’t been a helluva lot of survivors in the vicinity. All the same, he made sure they heard upstairs, by speaking straight into his mic as he asked her, “Where were your brother and sister-in-law when the earthquake hit?”

“They were in the street, outside the hotel. They left to buy lunch. They waited until Joshua was asleep so he wouldn’t miss them.” Her voice hitched. “I promised I would take care of him.”

“And you have.” He pinned her with his eyes, with his determination, the swath of light staying steady on her face. “Keep the faith. Hold steady and picture your family in one of the camps for survivors right now going nuts trying to find you.”

“I’ve read stories about how babies do better because they have more fat stores and they don’t tense up or get claustrophobic.” Her eyes pleaded with him. “He’s just napping, you know.”

The force of her need pummeled him harder than the spray of rocks from the jack hammered ceiling. The world closed in to just this woman and a kid he couldn’t see. Too clearly he could envision his wife and his daughter, trapped in the wreckage of a crashed plane. Marissa would have held out hope for Tilly right to the end too, fighting for her until her nails and spirit were ragged.

Shit.

The vise on his brain clamped harder, the roar in his ears louder, threatening his focus. “I’m changing your IV bag now, so don’t wig out if you feel a little tug.”

She clenched her fist. “You must get pretty jaded in this line of work.”

“I’ve got a good success rate.” He didn’t walk away from tough odds. Every mission was do or die for him.

“About my foot,” she started hesitantly, “am I imagining that it’s okay? Be honest. I won’t panic. I need to be prepared.”

“The mind does what it needs to in order to survive. That’s what you need to focus on. Surviving.”

Not that any amount of determination had mattered in the end for Marissa or Tilly. They’d died in that plane crash, their broken bodies returned to him to bury along with his will to live. A trembling started deep inside him. His teeth chattered. He dug his fingers into the ground to anchor himself into the present. Amelia Bailey would not die on his watch, damn it.

But the trembling increased inside him. Harder. Deeper. Until he realized… The shaking wasn’t inside, but outside.

The ground shuddered with another earthquake.

Beautiful scenery, white water rapids, and long-limbed models yours for the taking. What could be better than that for a sexy and single adrenaline junkie with a soft spot for kids? How about a Goth chick sporting skull and crossbones and who can’t resist the latest Jimmy Choos?

Oh, yeah, there are a few such dichotomies in this book, and they all add up to one heck of a good time.

Robin Kaye has written one of those feel-good books that makes you laugh, then sizzle, and then grin till it hurts. Think you know whether it’s Hunter or Toni who’s Wild Thing? Don’t count on that cover helping you out!

Summary:

Whitewater-rafting guide Hunter Kincaid lands his dream job–guiding sportswear models through Idaho’s rugged wilderness for a week-long photo shoot. When he meets Toni Russo, the goth New York manager of Action Models, there are enough sparks to set the forest ablaze.

When Hunter finds Toni’s book on how to marry the man of your choice, he studies it as a joke. Before long Hunter realizes he’s never cared enough for a woman to bother working this hard to get her. But the last man in the world this city girl wants is a Survivor Man wannabe…

Now for some real fun…

Chapter 1

Toni Russo stood on the porch of the Sawtooth Inn ignoring the mountains cutting the bright blue sky, concentrating instead on Hunter Kincaid’s very confused, very green eyes. She recognized him from the photos on the River Runners’ website. They didn’t do him justice, probably because there was no way to transmit the pheromones rolling off the man onto an image.

Hunter stared at her the whole way from his old Land Cruiser to the porch. He stopped, tipped his baseball cap back, and then put his hands on his hips. “You’re not who I expected to see.”

Well, no shit. “Yeah, I guess you’ll have to learn to live with the disappointment. I know I have.”

“Toni?” A look of relief flashed across his face then a smile ticked up the right side of his mouth as he made a slow perusal of her from head to feet and back again.

She waited, knowing it would take awhile. Ever since she’d landed in Boise, she’d experienced the same thing. No one quite knew what to make of her. Holding her clipboard to her chest, she wondered if it would have been better to have spent her time in Boise shopping for less interesting clothes. She mentally shook her head and knew it would never have worked. You could put her in a sack, and she’d do something to stand out. She’d long since given up trying to rein herself in. As Catherine Aird said, “If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to serve as a horrible warning.” So far, it had worked for her.

Blowing her bangs out of her eyes, Toni looked down at her outfit. The short, red plaid kilt wasn’t too offensive. She pulled her clipboard away to see she had on her Stay Away T-shirt. Maybe he had something against the collage of pistols, brass knuckles, knives, and bullets. But really, he didn’t look like a pacifist, not that she wasn’t—it was a T-shirt for goodness sake, not a personal manifesto. The kitty-face Mary Janes and red skull-and-crossbones knee-socks were a bit busy. Okay, Hunter’s thirty seconds were up. She fingered the D-ring on the studded collar around her neck and cleared her throat. “Do you mind?”

Hunter took a sip of whatever was in the travel cup he held. “Not at all—just wondering if you were going for that naughty-schoolgirl-fantasy look.”

“No, I was going for my not-quite-sure-what-to-wear-for-a-meeting-with-Davy-Crocket look. How’s it working for you?”

Hunter’s mouth worked its way into a full smile. Great teeth. She had a thing for nice teeth, and yeah, his mouth was full of them.

“Really well, thanks. Over the phone, it sounded as if you wouldn’t be caught dead out here. When Bianca came to scout for photo shoot locations, she said something about you having a phobia. What changed your mind?”

Toni took in the rustic porch wrapping around the log cabin lodge and decided to sit on a rocking chair. There was nothing else to sit on except the steps, and they needed a good sweeping. “You asked Bianca about me?”

Hunter leaned against the rough-hewn post holding up the corner of the porch. “I didn’t know it was a federal offense.”

“Bianca was involved in negotiating a big deal so she sent me.” Toni placed her clipboard on her lap and clicked her pen a few times in rapid succession. “I had no choice.”

Hunter’s big hiking boots filled her line of sight. Her gaze wandered up to where neatly rolled, rag-wool socks met hard, tanned calf muscle with just the right splattering of leg hair—not so much you’d be tempted to take a brush to it, and not so little you’d wonder if he routinely waxed. He wore khaki shorts low around the hips, his green River Runners T-shirt pulled tight against his chest and abs. She’d seen him without a shirt thanks to the picture on the website, so she knew if she poked him it would feel like poking a brick wall. She’d bet dollars to doughnuts he didn’t get that hard body in a gym.

When her eyes hit his stubbled chin, she encountered another full-toothed grin. Damn, she hadn’t meant to be so obvious.

The slap of an old-fashioned screen door broke the tension. “Sorry.” James, Bianca’s right-hand man, appeared with two cups of coffee. He handed Toni hers. “That’s decaf. Maybe you’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

Not likely. The woods seemed to inch closer and closer to the lodge. God only knew what roamed out there. She took a sip of bad coffee as James, an ex-model and now her partner in managing the series of shoots, shook Hunter’s offered hand. James’s dark hair glittered with silver at the temples, his bright blue eyes were full of intelligence and humor, and his build was still trim and muscular, but not like Hunter’s. Hunter’s muscles were brought about by his life’s work, James’s by a trainer, weight machines, and a strict diet.

“James, this is Hunter Kincaid. Hunter, James Ness.”

“Hunter, good to see you again. Do you want coffee?”

“No, thanks, I brought my own.” Hunter’s handshake turned into a guy hug, which was weird considering James’s sexual preference was in direct opposition to the one Hunter oozed.

Toni caught James’s eye with a raised brow. A quick shake of his head confirmed Hunter was, in fact, straight. She’d forgotten James had accompanied Bianca on the scouting trip. The guys had obviously bonded.

Hunter set his travel cup on the table and sat. She finally saw what was written on the side of the cup: “The Way to a Fisherman’s Heart is Through His Fly” along with a picture of what looked like an insect with a hook up its butt. Nice.

“I was surprised to find Toni here,” Hunter said as he eased back on the chair.

James let out a laugh that grated on her nerves. “No more than she, I presume. Bianca didn’t give her much notice. Or should I call it warning? Still, Toni can run the show with one hand cuffed behind her back. We won’t have a problem.”

“I wasn’t worried.” Hunter watched her over the rim of his cup as he sipped his coffee, no decaf for him. He slept like a baby every night, no matter how late he drank coffee, but he wouldn’t mind spending a few sleepless nights with a beautiful woman.

He’d wondered what Toni looked like since the first day she’d called River Runners in January. Her deep, husky, raspingly sexy voice brought to mind an unbidden picture of a young, blonde, long-legged Kathleen Turner. The New York accent was all wrong, but that do-me voice was right on. Man, was he ever way off base. He found himself eye-to-eye with the polar opposite of the woman he’d pictured. Toni wore her jet black, shoulder-length hair in pigtails. Instead of making her look like a schoolgirl, it made him wonder what kind of underwear she wore, if she was into bondage, or just dug the whole collar-and-cuff thing for fashion’s sake, and had him searching all exposed skin for ink. When he didn’t see any, he thought about putting himself in the position to do a full body search.

Checking his dive watch, Hunter looked around for the models he’d promised his brothers they’d be working with when they signed on as guides. That was an ingenious idea if he did say so himself. By bringing Trapper and Fisher along, he not only got free guides and someone to distract Bianca, who, on their week-long outing, had been determined to share a sleeping bag with him, but supplied a physician and legal help if necessary. Since his brothers had plenty of vacation time racked up, they jumped at the chance to spend a week escorting ten models through the mountains and down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in the Sawtooth Recreation Area. Hunter could have gotten his brothers to pay for the privilege, but he hadn’t pushed it since Bianca Ferrari, the owner of Action Models, had paid top dollar for his services. “My guides, Trapper and Fisher, will be here any minute for the barbeque and to meet your group.”

Toni flipped through the pages stuck in her skull-and-crossbones stenciled clipboard, which, if he wasn’t mistaken, was shaped like a coffin. The clasp was a bat forged from what looked like pewter with onyx stones for eyes. “I’ve called a 9:00 a.m. meeting tomorrow then the models can spend the rest of the day getting acclimated.”

Hunter stopped staring at the clipboard and shrugged, trying not to envision what that bat would look like tattooed on Toni’s lower back, its wings spanning her small waist. “We can take a short rafting trip and have a picnic down by my cabin. Bianca had planned a shoot there. There’s a nice beach with plenty of space for sunbathing and a regulation sand volleyball court. It’ll be an easy trip and will give your group a chance to have a lesson on the rafts.”

James nodded. “That sounds great. I’ll make arrangements to have a lunch packed for everyone. It’s gorgeous, Toni. You’re going to love it.”

Toni paled, which was hard to do since the girl without makeup was pale enough to qualify for a vampire casting call. She was definitely a candidate for skin cancer. Hunter made a mental note to make sure she wore plenty of sunscreen—he’d be happy to help with the hard to reach spots.

She shook her twin ponytails as her lips drew into a deep frown. “I’m sure you’ll have fun. I’m going to stick close to my cabin. I brought plenty of reading material.”

Hunter crossed his arms. “You really need the lesson on the raft, and the only way to do that is to get you on the river.”

Still shaking her head, Toni backed away. Not a good sign.

“If you want to get out of the sun and hang out in my cabin and read, you’re more than welcome to. Put your book in a Ziploc, and bring it along.”

Toni held her clipboard tight against her chest. “I won’t be joining you.”

Hunter moved toward her like he would a spooked horse. “You’re not going to supervise the photo shoots?”

“Of course I will. That’s my job.”

It took him a moment to compute what she’d said since she’d spoken so fast. He tried his most encouraging smile. “Then you’ll want to come tomorrow. If not, you’re not going to be able to do at least two of the shoots Bianca planned.”

Toni stared at James as if she expected him to jump in and save her.

Hunter watched the silent argument going on between them. When no words were spoken, he cleared his throat. “It’s perfectly safe. Everyone wears PFDs and even lightweight helmets. We teach you everything you need to know in case you fall in. We show you how to get back into the raft, how to paddle, and what to do if we get stuck. We’ll be running down a lazy part of the river tomorrow. I promise there will be no class-five rapids.”

When James did nothing more than shrug, she tossed her clipboard on the table and turned on Hunter with both hands on her hips. “What the hell is a PFD?”

“A personal flotation device.”

“And why would I need a helmet?”

“The helmet protects you in the rare instance you should fall and hit your head on a rock in the river.”

Toni blinked twice and looked as if she needed to sit down and put her head between her legs.

“Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer. She just stood there, wide-eyed, looking as if she wasn’t breathing. Really not good.

The purr of Trapper’s Sequoia broke the silence. The engine died as doors opened and shut. Hunter looked for help from James who suddenly found his shoes very interesting. Great.

When boots hit the steps, Hunter turned. “Trapper and Fisher, this is James Ness. He’s working with Toni Russo, the manager of Action Models in New York.” Hunter turned back toward Toni only to find she’d disappeared, coffin clipboard and all.
***
Trapper watched Toni slip around the corner of the inn and then run down the path toward the cabins. He whispered to Fisher, “Did you remember to wear deodorant today? I know it wasn’t something I said since I didn’t say a thing.”

Fisher did a sniff test. “Deodorant, check. I even brushed my teeth before we left, but I didn’t get close enough to breathe on her, which, when you think about it, is a real shame.”

Hunter said something to James then chased after the hot, Goth chick.

Trapper leaned closer to Fisher. “Looks like Hunter has dibs on Toni. That means you owe me a twenty. Didn’t I bet you that he’d go after the first model he set eyes on?”
Fisher opened his wallet and pulled out a Jackson. “I’m not sure I actually owe you this since Toni isn’t a model. Hunter said she was the manager of the modeling agency—if the manager is that hot, just imagine what the models look like.”

“Stop being cheap, and hand over the money.”

Fisher did, and Trapper stuffed it in his pocket before his baby brother changed his mind. “You know what this means, right?”

Fisher smiled wide. “We get first dibs on the rest?”

“Exactly.”

James seemed awfully interested in Hunter and Toni. When they were out of sight, James whistled, “Brave brother you have there.”

Trapper leaned against the porch rail. “Toni doesn’t look that scary to me.”

James sat and curled his hand around a steaming mug of coffee. “Oh she’s not. She’s all bark and no bite, but that doesn’t mean she’s not a handful. Hunter has an uphill climb, that is, if he can talk her into ever coming out of her cabin.”

“Agoraphobic?”

James shook his head. “Nah, just not a fan of the great outdoors. Well, the great outdoors without paved streets, high rises, and a Starbucks on every corner.”

Trapper tipped his straw cowboy hat back. “At least it wasn’t personal. Fisher and I were wondering.” He sat beside James, who stared at the cabin Hunter had followed Toni into. “You don’t have anything to worry about.”

James pulled his gaze away from the cabin. “I’m not worried.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Trapper sat back and made himself comfortable. It could be awhile. “Hunter is great with anyone skittish, be it people or horses.”

Fisher dragged a rocking chair over and took a seat. “Oh yeah, Hunter’s used to it in his field of work. Hell, he specializes in it. He spends a few weeks a couple of times a year running a camp for abused kids.”

Taking off his hat, Trapper twirled it on his finger. “It’s amazing how he can reach out to kids who are afraid of their own shadows and have enough baggage to fill a freight train. After a week with Hunter, you wouldn’t recognize them.”

Fisher nodded. “He’s a real miracle worker, my brother.”

Trapper couldn’t agree more. “Toni should be a walk in the park compared to some of the kids he’s worked with.”

James nodded but didn’t look convinced.

“You’ll see. I’ll bet you the twenty I just won from Fisher that Hunter has her out of that cabin inside a half hour.”

James smiled. “You’re on.”

***

Toni knew running away in the middle of introductions was rude. Still, it was less embarrassing than hyperventilating and passing out in front of three completely gorgeous strangers.

She’d fought to keep the panic at bay ever since she’d climbed out of the van that had taken her and the Action Models crew through vast mountain wilderness for the three-hour trek from Boise. With each mile they’d driven deeper into the wilderness, the panic increased exponentially.

She ran into her cabin, throwing herself on the bed before the door slammed shut behind her. Toni buried her face in a feather pillow, concentrating on taking deep, slow breaths.

The door to her cabin opened and closed quietly. She didn’t raise her head. She thanked God James was there and that he understood. He was the closest thing to a father she had. Not that her father was dead or anything—he’d just never been interested in the job.

“I know. I made a complete fool of myself. But believe me it was better than what would have happened if I’d stuck around. At least I didn’t pass out.”

She focused on her breathing. Nothing was said, but nothing needed to be. It was just nice to have James close by. The creak of the cane chair next to her bedside table told her he’d sat. When she finally had her breathing under control, she rolled over and shot up in bed. “Hunter?”

Hunter sat perusing the book she’d set on her bedside table. He Comes First: How to Find Your Perfect Man and Marry Him.

She didn’t know which was more mortifying, her behavior, or the fact that he knew she was reading that book. “It’s not mine.”

Hunter peered over the top of the book and raised an eyebrow. He must have practiced that look since he was a kid. It bothered her that it worked.

“Okay, it’s mine, but I didn’t buy it. My mother sent it to me. She believes in marriage—she must since she keeps trying it, over and over and over. After number five I thought she’d give up, but apparently she hasn’t.”

The man said nothing.

“Some girls might find the strong, silent type attractive. I don’t.”

He turned the page and kept reading.

“Just so you know, I’m not looking for a husband, but I would like to have a healthy, long-term relationship. So I thought, what could it hurt? You know? It stands to reason you’d look for the same thing in a long-term relationship as you would in a spouse. I mean, really, marriage is nothing more than a long-term relationship with a license attached and a divorce in the making. Since I’m not into doing paperwork or being legally bound to anyone, I plan to forgo the whole wedding thing.”

When he didn’t comment, she blew her hair off her face and crossed her arms. “Are you always so talkative?”

“With you it’s hard to get a word in edgewise.” Hunter closed the book and held his finger in it as if not wanting to lose his place. He’d gotten farther into it than she had. “I thought I’d let you finish.”

“I’m done.”

He set the book on the table and slid the chair around to face her. The tall bed put them eye-to-eye. “No, you’re not.”

Toni took a deep breath. She wasn’t known for her patience, but dug for it, since pissing him off on their first day was probably not a good idea—especially since she’d have to work with him for the next week. God help her. “I think I would know when I’m finished babbling. I usually don’t babble. I may talk to myself or mumble on occasion, but I never babble. You caught me off guard. I thought you were James. He’s the only one brave enough to come into my cabin without an invitation. This begs the question, what made you think it’s okay to waltz in uninvited?”

Hunter threw his ankle over his knee as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “I’m not much of a waltzer. Walking usually works for me.” He cocked his head and grinned. “Though there have been times I’ve found running effective. I told James I was going after you, and he didn’t try to stop me.”

“The charm is so not working on me. I deal with beautiful men on a daily basis. I’m immune. So since James didn’t stop you, you assumed you had permission to invade my personal space? Why?”

The corner of his mouth quirked up. “It wasn’t as if you stopped me either.”

“I would have had I known it was you.”

“But you didn’t, and I’m here. Why don’t you tell me what you’re so afraid of?”

Toni shook her head. “That’s personal.”

“And your mother’s five marriages aren’t? Not to mention your low opinion of the institution of marriage and your interest in hooking up with someone.”

“I’m not interested in hooking up.”

His eyebrow rose again.

“Not hooking up the way most people think of hooking up. I’d just like to have a normal, stable relationship with a normal, stable man.”

She snapped her mouth shut, not sure why she was even talking to him about this, especially since it didn’t look as if he was buying it. Since it was the God’s honest truth, his cynicism ticked her off. She pulled her pillow onto her lap, hugging it to her chest. “What?”

“Maybe our definition of normal is different. I can’t see you going out with anyone boring enough to be defined as normal.”

She sat up a little straighter. The guy certainly knew how to get under her skin, and not in a good way. “You don’t know anything about me.”

His low, sexy chuckle grated on her nerves. “Toni, I’ve learned more about you in the last half hour than I know about most of my best friends.”

“You don’t know much about your friends then, do you?”

“I know how long their skis are, how much they weigh, their favorite beer, what kind of flies they tie, and who they’re married to or dating—all the important stuff. Now why don’t you tell me what’s got you so spooked you almost passed out at the thought of taking a raft down a lazy river?”

“No.”

“Afraid of the water?”

Damn, the man could have been a cop. All he was missing was the bare light bulb. “Not particularly.”

“Then what is it?”

“None of your business.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I own River Runners, which makes you one of my guests. Everything about you that affects the quality of your experience is my business.”

“Nice try, but no cigar. The only thing you’re responsible for is following the schedule I emailed you last week and keeping my models safe. The rest is my business and mine alone.”

He stood and inspected the living area of the small cabin as if he expected to see something more than the rustic couch, coffee table, chair, TV, desk, and a few lamps. He returned to the bedroom section against the far wall, peeked into the bathroom, and then opened the closet, which served as a partition separating the two spaces. “Did you get everything on the packing list?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Because you can’t wear a get-up like that on the raft tomorrow.” He reached into her closet and pulled out her checkerboard, slip-on, canvas Vans.

He was going through her closet? She got off the bed and pulled her sneakers from his huge hands. “Do you always invade everyone’s personal space and property, or am I just special?”

“These will work fine. You might want to put on a bathing suit or at least swap that skirt for a pair of shorts. Oh, and don’t forget your sunscreen, sunglasses, and a hat tomorrow. I’ll be here at 9:00 a.m. sharp.” He grabbed a hoodie out of her closet. “Everyone’s meeting up by the lodge for the barbeque. You might think about changing into a pair of jeans. And I’m sure you’ll need this.” He tossed the hoodie to her; she caught it with one hand. “Once the sun ducks behind the mountains the temperature drops. I’ll wait outside for you to change.”

“You ignored my question.”

Hunter turned and looked her up and down again. “I didn’t ignore it. I don’t know the answer yet.”

“You don’t know if you invade everyone’s personal space?”

“No, I don’t know if you’re special, but I’m looking forward to finding out.”
***
Hunter stepped outside. He leaned against the closest tree, pulled his sat-phone off his belt, and dialed his sister. God, this was going to kill him.

“Speak.”

“Great phone manners, Karma.”

“Ha, you’re just jealous you can’t answer the same way, Mr. Businessman.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. I need a favor.” He could almost hear her deciding how to make him pay. “I need you to buy me a book and bring it up here tomorrow.”

“Oooh, this is gonna cost you. What book and where?”

“You have a pen handy?”

“Do I need one? It’s not one of those boring treatises on history or literature you’re so fond of, is it? If it is, I’m going to charge you twenty bucks a pound to lug it all the way up there. And why the urgency?”

“It’s a paperback, and no, it’s nothing like my usual reading material. You have to promise you’ll keep this a secret.” Man, he was going to be paying for this forever.

“This is just getting better and better. What is it? The Joy of Sex or something?”

“Worse. It’s called He Comes First: How to Find Your Perfect Man and Marry Him.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

He pulled off his hat and wiped his brow on his forearm. “Unfortunately, no.”

“Spill.”

“That’s not part of the deal.”

“It is if you want to get your hands on a copy in the near future.”

“Fine.” He held back a groan. “A woman I know is reading it. I just thought it was something I could use—”

“To become her perfect man?”

“No… well, maybe for a little while. I thought it could be fun to screw with her.”

“Literally, figuratively, or both?”

“Not your business.”

“And what about that whole ‘men come first’ thing? I thought the woman was always supposed to come first, sexually speaking, of course. But maybe that’s just wishful thinking.”

“I’m not talking to you about this. Are you going to bring me the book or not?”

“Okay, I’ll bring it, but you owe me big. What’s her name?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“The usual reasons. I’m a nosy little sister, and I want to meet the woman who would incite you to call me and ask me for something you know you’ll never live down.”

“Karma, how about this? If you don’t bring me the book, I’ll tell Trapper who backed into his brand-new Sequoia.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Wanna bet?”

“Fine. I’ll bring you the damn book, and I’ll find out on my own who the lucky lady is. Heck, I’ll probably know more about her than you do before I’m halfway to wherever it is you expect me to deliver your package.”

“Doubtful.”

“Which reminds me, where are you?”

“I’m up at the Sawtooth Inn now. Tomorrow morning we’re taking a raft trip to my place. When can you come?”

“Lucky for you, tomorrow’s my day off. I guess I can meet you at the cabin. Want me to bring anything else since I’m making the trip?”

“Has Mom made any cookies lately?”

“I’m sure she will if she knows you want some. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon. Call me if there’s a change of plans.”

“Will do… and Karma? Mum’s the word, okay?”

“Sure, but it’ll cost you.”

“Believe me, I know.” He ended the call and waited. He’d give Toni another three minutes, and then he was going in after her.

Hunter checked his watch and called Emilio, one of the campers he worked with and wished he could have kept longer. Emilio had begun to show progress just in time to go back to the streets. “Emilio, it’s Hunter.”

“Hey.”

Street sounds came blaring through the phone. “What’s up?”

“Just hangin’.”

“Pat said you missed curfew last night. What’s up with that?”

“Dude, I had my girl with me. I wasn’t thinkin’ ’bout no curfew.”

“You should be thinking about your curfew, but more importantly—be safe. Real men protect themselves and their girls.”

“I hear ya. Hey, I gotta go. Later.”

“Emilio, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever.” The phone went dead.

Hunter cursed under his breath. Emilio didn’t believe him, and why should he? He had absolutely no reason to think that Hunter would follow through on his promises. No one else in his life ever had.

Hunter slammed the phone back onto his belt and felt like punching the tree he leaned against. Emilio was slipping away, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. It was a good thing he had another problem to concentrate on.

Just as he turned toward the cabin, Toni stepped out wearing skintight black pants with what looked like black leather suspenders hanging from the waistband. The pants were tucked into tall, high-heeled black boots that laced up the front and had four black straps hanging from hooks and draping around the calf. Hunter swallowed hard as his gaze moved up to the black-and-white-striped top that fit her like a second skin. She wore the same wrist cuffs she’d sported earlier, but she’d changed collars; this one sported studs and rings with silver chains draped between them. Her hair was down and so straight and shiny, it looked fake. She caught her bright red bottom lip between her teeth and watched him with wide eyes. She looked like something out of a steaming hot sexual fantasy. He’d never had a sexual fantasy of the Goth variety before. He was pretty sure that was about to change.

The shadows lengthened, and although it didn’t get dark until after ten at night in high summer, the first hint of the evening chill had settled. Hunter cleared his suddenly dry throat. “You forgot a jacket.”

“Oh.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m not going to stay long.” Her gaze skittered to the edge of the clearing and back to him.

“We’re having a bonfire after the barbeque. Come on, it’ll be fun.” He took her arm and walked her toward the barbeque.

“Yeah. Fun is subjective… obviously.”

He wasn’t sure why she was so nervous, but whatever it was, it had her wound tighter than a duck’s ass. The farther they got from her cabin, the slower she walked, and the more often she glanced back.

Maybe she was reconsidering going back for her jacket or possibly rethinking the outfit choice. She looked fine to him. Mouth-wateringly so. But he figured Karma would probably think Toni was overdressed. He didn’t know what they wore at barbecues in New York, though if the few episodes of Sex and the City he was forced by assorted girlfriends to watch were accurate, they dressed a whole lot different for just about everything. In Idaho, shorts or jeans and T-shirts were good for every occasion except weddings and funerals.

She stopped dead in her tracks, and Hunter almost stumbled over his own feet.

“You know, I’m really tired. It’s been a long day, and I’m still on Eastern time.” She backed away. “I think I’ll just go back to my cabin and crash.”

“You’re not even going to eat?”

She shook her head and bolted.

Since Toni looked more terrified than tired or angry, Hunter didn’t take it personally. He just wanted to know what had her so upset.

When he arrived at the barbeque, James was deep in conversation with Trapper.

Trapper shook his head, dug a twenty-dollar bill out of his pocket, and handed it to James. “Little brother, I’m disappointed in you.”

“Yeah, and why is that?”

“I just lost a bet to James that you’d have Toni out of her cabin in under a half hour.”

“I had her out of the cabin and halfway to the barbeque before she made up some excuse about being tired and bolted. What’s going on with her?”

James let out a sigh. “That, my friend, is Toni’s story to tell. If she chooses to share it with you, she will. I’ll fix her a plate and make sure she’s okay.”

Shit. Hunter had wanted to do the same thing, but then barging into Toni’s cabin uninvited twice in one day might not be the best idea. “I need to know what’s going on James. I can’t do my job if I have to be afraid of Toni freaking out and disappearing. This isn’t New York.”

“I believe Toni is painfully aware of that. I’ll talk to her, and we’ll see you all in the morning.”

James made his way to the buffet that had been set up and piled two plates with food before moseying off in the direction of Toni’s cabin.

Trapper handed Hunter a cold one. “James said she’s not into the great outdoors.”

“Yeah, that much is obvious, not to mention an understatement. She’s terrified. Why is a mystery—she’s told me everything but.”

“Everything?” Trapper speared Hunter with the look he had that makes everyone spill his guts. Everyone but Hunter, that is.

“Nice try, Trap, but that hasn’t worked on me since I got caught under the bleachers with Jeannie Coleman in the sixth grade.” Hunter took a draw off his beer before going to get some grub, leaving Trapper to give up on the idea of an inquisition. Hunter wasn’t about to say anything that might incriminate himself. He knew better.
***
James knocked on the screen door to Toni’s cabin with his foot. “Toni, it’s James.”

“Come on in. Everyone else does.”

His girl sounded disappointed. She must have expected Hunter. “I can’t get the door. My hands are full.”

The door opened a crack, and Toni looked out before opening it fully.

“Did you think I’d bring the paparazzi?”

“As if, I was just making sure Hunter wasn’t lurking.” She moved aside to let James in. “Hunter just walked right in here earlier as if he owned the place. I thought he was you. I was shocked when I found out who it was.”

James handed her a plate. “Oh, so I was right. You are disappointed.”

Poor Toni was completely flummoxed. “Now or then?”

“Both.” But she was definitely disappointed now.

Toni gave him a confused look, and avoiding both the table and the subject, took her meal to her bed and crawled up, sitting cross-legged in her vintage cabbage rose, blue, and white cotton pajamas. She’d taken off the collar and wristbands. With her hair down, she looked like every other pretty twenty-six-year-old woman. Unfortunately, he was the only one who ever saw the softer side of Toni. She wore her Goth clothes like armor. James understood why. He just wished she did.

Toni took a bite of a barbecued chicken leg. “Thanks for bringing me dinner. I was getting hungry. I tried to go…” She licked her finger and then waved her hand. “I just couldn’t.”

“You’re welcome.” James sat at the end of the bed and leaned against the footboard facing her. “I’m sure if I hadn’t thought of it first, Hunter would have brought you something. He’s a good guy, not to mention single and gorgeous.”

“He makes me nervous. He looks at me as if he’s trying to read my mind.”

“Maybe he can. I hear he’s great with troubled youths—he has a way with them.”

“I’m hardly a troubled kid.”

James gave her his “get real” look. “You used to be. Hunter’s observant—maybe too observant.” He held a chicken leg and pointed it at her. “You’re going to be working closely together. He’s smart. He’s going to figure you out on his own, so you might as well just tell him why you’re afraid and get it out in the open. It’ll save us all time and trouble.”

The expression on Toni’s face said she wasn’t buying it—her and her damn walls.

“I spent a week with him, Toni. Believe me, he’ll understand and help you out.”

“James.” She nudged him with her foot. “You swore you wouldn’t say anything.”

“And I won’t, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think you should. You should give him a chance.”

“Why?”

“Because for some reason, he seems to have taken a shine to you.” James ignored Toni’s eye roll, moved over to sit beside her, and smiled when she leaned back against him. “He went after you, didn’t he?”

“To my eternal embarrassment. He found me with my face buried in a pillow trying not to hyperventilate. I’m sure I made a real strong impression—just not the kind that makes a man want to peel my clothes off.”

“I guess that depends upon just how much of your butt was showing when your head was buried in that pillow. You were wearing a really short skirt.”

Toni laughed and elbowed him in the ribs. “Thanks so much for pointing that out. As if I didn’t have enough to be embarrassed about.”

James threw his arm around her and gave her a squeeze. “I live to serve.”

“Even if Hunter is understanding, how am I supposed to get the models’ respect if I’m falling apart?”

“Exactly. The only way they’re going to respect you is if you do your job, and you can’t do your job if you don’t figure out a way to deal with your phobia. All I’m asking is to let me and Hunter help you.”

“I’ll try, but you’re the only one I’ve ever talked to about it, I would never have bored you with my own personal nightmare if you hadn’t been with me when I found out about this trip.”

“Yes, but I was, and there’s no way you’re going to pull the wool over Hunter’s eyes. You don’t have much choice but to accept his help. Everything he gives you beyond that will be a bonus.”

“James, having one mother giving me dating books is bad enough. I don’t need two. Sheesh, you’re turning into a regular yenta.”

James watched Toni toy with her food.

“He found the dating book my mother sent me.” She nodded toward her bedside table. “He was reading it and probably thinks I’m out to hook up with the first man I set eyes on. I was so mortified I babbled like a lunatic.”

“No, he probably thinks you’re quirky. Guys like quirky.”

“Somehow I doubt that—especially when the quirky girl is surrounded by beautiful models. Not that I’m even interested. Could you see me and Survivor Man? I don’t think so.”

***

Hunter didn’t have much of an appetite but took his plate and sat with his brothers.
Trapper moved over to make space at the picnic table. “Thanks for striking out again. You cost me twenty bucks.”

Hunter decided to ignore him. It was Trapper’s own fault for betting. He never seemed to learn. “Have either of you talked to Ben and Gina lately?”

Trapper’s gaze wandered from one beautiful model to the next. “We’re surrounded by gorgeous women, and you want to talk about family?”

Hunter shook his head and picked up a barbecued rib. “I was just wondering if that private detective found out anything more. I’ve been working twenty-four—seven all summer and haven’t had a chance to talk to the newlyweds.”

Their cousin, Ben, his wife, Gina, and the whole family had been searching for Gina’s brother Rafael who’d been put up for private adoption when Gina was six years old. The only thing they had to go on were the memories of a terrified child, which wasn’t much.

Fisher stopped gnawing on his corn-on-the-cob. “I think they’ve found seven possibilities. Dick Sommers is following up on them.”

A red-headed model wearing goose bumps and an oversized bandana disguised as a dress sat next to Hunter. “Hi, I’m Yvette. You must be our fearless leader.”

He wiped his hand on a napkin before shaking hers. “Your fearless leader is Toni. I’m just the guide—Hunter Kincaid.”

“Nice to meet you.” Yvette didn’t let go of his hand. “I thought I’d come over and break the ice.”

Fisher leaned in, practically knocking over Hunter’s beer to shake the woman’s hand. “I’m Fisher. I’m a guide and a doctor.”

Hunter rolled his eyes. “We couldn’t get him to stop watching ER when he was a kid.”

Fisher took an awful long time to let go of Yvette’s hand. “Yeah, like you weren’t glued to Grizzly Adams.”

“It was better than those stupid law shows Trapper always watched. Remember the Susan Day poster he hung over his bed?”

Trapper set his beer down with a thunk. “Hey, watch it. She was hot.”

Yvette scooted closer to Hunter. “Who’s Susan Day?”

“Never mind.” Hunter shook his head wondering what planet she was from. “You’re probably too young to remember.”

Trapper kicked him under the table. “I’m Trapper. There’s a bonfire after the barbeque. Are you going?”

“Of course, James said it was a meet and greet.” Yvette touched the inside of Hunter’s leg, and he jumped. “I can’t wait to get better acquainted with you.”

Hunter removed her hand and set it on top of the table as he rose. “I can use another cold one.”

Grinning from ear to ear, Trapper slid into Hunter’s spot. “A beer or a shower?”

When Hunter returned with three more bottles, he made sure to sit next to Fisher. As soon as he settled, a set of twins straddled the bench, sandwiching him between them.

“Hi.” The pair said in stereo.

“I’m Candace, but you can call me Candy.”

Fisher leaned forward and caught Hunter’s eye. “Sweet.”

“And I’m Randy.”

Trapper took a swig of his beer and grinned. “Even better.”

Hunter cleared his throat as he looked from Candy to Randy, feeling like a piece of meat slapped between two slices of Wonder Bread—bleached with no nutritional value. Not that he had a problem with that, but at the moment, all he wanted was to have a private conversation with his brothers. “If you ladies have finished eating, you should go put on some layers. It gets really cold up here at night.”

One of the male models strolled over, sat beside Trapper, and gave him the once-over. “Looks like the party’s here. I’m Ari.” He scooted closer to Trapper. “And who might you be?”

Hunter enjoyed watching Trapper squirm. He wondered how PC his big brother would be if Ari ended up on his lap, which seemed to be the model’s objective.

Trapper stood. “Trapper Kincaid, Judge Trapper Kincaid.” Taking advantage of his full six-foot-four height he looked down at Ari. “Hate to break it to you, Ari, but we don’t bat for the same team, and I’m not a pinch hitter either.”

“A judge, huh? I always wondered what they wore under their robes.”

Trapper sat his hat on his head and adjusted the angle. “Clothes.”

Fisher snorted beer out of his nose, and Hunter tossed him a napkin. “Don’t mind Fisher. He’s just learning to eat in public.”

Yvette laughed. “I gathered that.” She gestured at Fisher. “You uh… have a little corn stuck in your teeth.”

Ari stood locking in on his second target. “I have dental floss back in my cabin if you need some. It’s Oral B.”

Fisher laughed. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ve got some fishing line back in the truck.”

Hunter stood and collected the plates. “It’s getting cold. I’m going to get my jacket. You might want to do the same.”

He moseyed toward the trucks with his brothers. “Finally, before we get interrupted again, tell me what Dick Sommers found out. You said he had seven possibilities?”

Fisher took out his Swiss Army knife, pulled the toothpick from its sheath, and poked it between his teeth.

Trapper took the last swig of his beer and tossed it in a waste barrel. “He’s checking them out.”

“Which sucks.” Fisher ran his tongue over his teeth.

Trapper stopped and looked over. “Why? At least we have something to go on.”

“Sure, but what are we doing? Nothing. I thought this was a family thing.”

Hunter nodded. “Fisher’s right. We should all be more involved. After I finish up the season, I’ll fly to New York and see what I can hunt down. We can’t let Dick Sommers have all the fun.”

Trapper raised an eyebrow to that. “And I don’t suppose this has anything to do with Toni Russo or the models who were just plastered to you, does it?”

Hunter just smiled at Trapper. “Jealous, older brother?”

“Hardly.”

“Trapper, get real. I’m free from September through mid-November, and I want to help Ben and Gina find Rafael.”

Fisher laughed. “Sure, okay. But let me just say, if I were going back to New York anytime soon, I’d sure as hell look up any number of the models at this shindig. Look at them all.”

Trapper chucked him on the arm. “Ari would love that. I’ll make sure he gets your number.”

“No thanks. He went after you first. I don’t like playing second fiddle.”

“But Hunter’s throwbacks are okay?”

“Damn straight—the operative word being straight, which, unfortunately for Ari, we both are. Right?”

Trapper laughed. “I know I am little brother. Is there something you want to tell us?”

Hunter opened the back of his Land Cruiser. “Are you two done yet, and do I have to remind you that these people are our clients? You can explore your sexuality later. We’ve got work to do.”

Trapper rocked on his heels. “Lord knows we’re going to have our hands full just keeping them out of the bonfire tonight.”

Fisher reached into the truck and pulled out a fire extinguisher. “Don’t worry. I’ve got it covered.”

***
The next morning Hunter was up with the birds. At a quarter to nine, after a nice breakfast at the lodge, he knocked on Toni’s cabin door. She answered wearing a big, black straw sun hat, its brim almost concealing her face, a black fishnet, see-through cover-up over a bathing suit that was… something completely unexpected.

The black one-piece suit was right out of a 1940s pin-up calendar—plain, save for a little ruffle on the sweetheart neckline, held up by wide straps, and a small ruffle at the leg where it ended like those boy shorts his old girlfriend wore all the time. He suddenly knew why those photos stayed on the walls for years and years. Her suit barely hinted at cleavage, but was so damn sexy he had to shake his head to clear it.

“What is it now?” She stuck her hands on her hips and spread her legs as if she was getting ready to fight. She had long, powerful legs, not the sticks some girls walk around on. Toni’s were cut without being bulky. Damn, even in those checkerboard Vans, she looked hot.

It probably wasn’t a good idea to mention that seeing her in an old-fashioned bathing suit scrambled his brain. “One good breeze, and your hat will be history. Do you have a baseball cap?”

“I thought we had to wear helmets.” She was cute when she was exasperated.

“We do when we’re on the raft, but this is for the hike to the river and the time we’re off the raft. Believe me, as pale as you are, you’ll need a hat. I have one you can wear if you want.”

She took a step back. “Hike?”

Damn. In a tenth of a second she went from mad to scared. He preferred mad—it was kind of a turn-on. He imagined she was always sexy, but anger made her go from hot to scorching. When she was scared though—shit, he had no defenses. “We’re about a quarter of a mile from the river. It’s an easy hike.”

“Nothing about this trip is easy.”

“Why is that?”

Toni shook her head and mumbled something that sounded like, “I can’t do this.”

James, Trapper, Fisher, and a pack of models chose that particular moment to join them. No matter how many beautiful women surrounded him, Hunter couldn’t take his eyes off Toni. She had all the signs of being terrified of something; he just didn’t know what. On that subject, her mouth was shut, which seemed out of character.

James slid beside her, threw his arm over her shoulder, and pulled her close. “How you holding up?”

“Just peachy, thanks. I have to get my other hat.” She took off her floppy hat and gave it a wave. “Survivor Man said this one won’t cut it. Everyone go on ahead. I’ll catch up.”

Hunter didn’t move. “I don’t mind waiting.”

She stepped into his personal space. A tough New Yorker replaced the terrified woman. “I don’t need an escort. I’m a grown woman. I think I can find the river on my own.” Not that she was planning to. As soon as she could get back inside the cabin, he was sure she’d slam the door shut, slide the bolt home, and shove a chair under the doorknob.

Hunter didn’t need reminding that she was a woman grown. He knew that in every fiber of his being. He had a sudden urge to make use of the collar she wore around her throat, whether to pull her closer or make sure she stayed, he was unsure. He didn’t have to be Einstein to know she was past ready to bolt. He wanted to know why. “I’m sure you can. I’m just not sure you will.”

With a toss of her head, she had James clapping his hands. “Okay, let’s get down to the rafts everyone. Toni and Hunter, play nice, and don’t be too long.”

We have a terrific excerpt for you today from Heather Killough-Walden‘s Avenger’s Angel, the first book in her new Lost Angels series.

Meet Uriel, the Archangel of Vengeance. The former Archangel, that is. He and his brothers have been on Earth for millennia waiting to find their Archesses, the soul mates made for them and then thrown into the far reaches of the world when dissension comes between angels.

Eleanore has enough problems keeping her ability to control weather and heal people secret from the masses, so who needs a wickedly handsome actor, who turns out to be an angel, causing more havoc in her life? Well, there’s the other side of that problem, he causes plenty of pleasure too.

Together they fight to save Ellie from a very powerful enemy. Together they learn who they truly are. Together they find a destiny that has been decreed for eons.

Summary:

When four female angels were created for the archangels Michael, Gabriel, Uriel and Azrael, a chaos spurned by jealousy erupted, and the archesses were secreted to Earth. The four favored archangels followed, prompting a search that has lasted millennia. But for Uriel, the former Archangel of vengeance, the search ends the moment he lays eyes on Eleanor Granger, his one true archess. Can he protect her from the danger lying in wait for her – and win her heart?

They were there for a signing. The movie Comeuppance had been such a hit with vampire fans around the world, it had been turned into a book – and then a series of books – and cast members from the movie were signing autographs in bookstores across the globe. It was late in the afternoon and Uriel’s signing as “Christopher Daniels,” the actor who had played Jonathan Brakes, the gorgeous vampire in Comeuppance, was about to begin.

They’d pulled up to the back of the bookstore in order to prepare. Across from him in the back of the limousine sat Max, Uriel’s manager. He was also Uriel’s guardian – and guardian to his three brothers, Michael, Gabriel and Azrael. Max was good at the job; he was an ace at donning the multitude of different hats it took to deal with four very strong male spirits in an ever changing world.

Just as Max was reaching his hand through the break in the separation glass to signal to the driver that they were ready to go to the front of the store and meet Daniels’s fans, a harsh shrieking sound drew Uriel’s attention to the limousine windows.

His vivid green eyes grew very wide. “Is that what I think it is?”

“I’m afraid so,” Gillihan replied.

“They’re blocking the exit,” Uriel said, his tone laced with shock. A throng of teenage girls had amassed on the Tarmac that ran around the side of the bookstore and were racing toward the limousine at break-neck speed.

There was no time to formulate a plan. He could either stay inside the car indefinitely and wait for the cops, or he could escape from the car and run. Fast.

Uriel threw open the door of the limousine and bolted out of the backseat. Behind him, he heard Max calling, but he ignored the guardian and headed directly for the bookstore.

Later, and in retrospect, he would realize that heading toward the bookstore instead of away from it was, at the very least, a bizarre decision. Especially considering that the slew of fans now racing toward him like a medieval village mob was coming from said store.

However, there was little thought involved. The girls were coming around the corner from the front of the store, which gave him a clear shot at the back door. It was mostly instinct that propelled Uriel across the lot to the locked back exit of the establishment. And it was superhuman strength that then allowed him to wrench the door open against the lock and rush inside.

He sensed that the alarm wanted to go off. He used his powers to silence it and pulled the door shut behind him, making sure to yank it in tight enough that it warped a little and held.

The girls outside reached it just as it shut and their fists pounded furiously on the metal of the barred exit. They were getting soaked out there. He was more than a little damp himself.

He wondered if they were also hurting one another as they shoved toward the door. He sincerely hoped not. But whatever was happening, the sheer number of them suggested that the door wouldn’t hold for long. All they had to do was work together and it would come open.

Uriel passed the restrooms on his left and strode toward the science fiction section of the store just beyond the exit foyer. There, he stopped and grimaced. Another mass of girls, nearly as large as the first, was grouped around the front of the store. There must have been a hundred of them. . . . Maybe more.

The door behind him creaked and then scraped.

Uriel thought fast and ducked into the women’s restroom. Once inside, he closed his eyes, pressed his back to the wall beside the door, and listened. The exit door of the bookstore gave way beyond and he could hear the group of girls rush into the hallway. They raced by, their Converses squeaking with rain water on the linoleum tile.

“You have to memorize a script to act, and the movie you starred in was also turned into a book, so I assumed that you could read.”

Uriel’s eyes flew open to find a woman and a little girl standing a few feet away, beside the door of the first stall.

“I was obviously wrong,” she continued. “Because you’ve mistaken the women’s restroom for the ridiculously famous sex symbol restroom—which is next door.”

Uriel’s heart stopped beating. His jaw dropped open.

He couldn’t be seeing what he was seeing in that moment. He couldn’t be feeling what he was feeling. Not now. Not here, in a bathroom—after two thousand years. Maybe he’d slipped in the rain outside and hit his head.

No, that was impossible. He was relatively invincible. Being hit on the head would do nothing to him but make him a little cranky.

She was really standing there before him. She was real; he could see her, hear her—he could even smell her. She smelled like shampoo and soap and lavender.

Jesus, he thought, unable to refrain from letting his gaze drop down her body and back up again. She was everything that he had ever imagined she would be, from her tall, slim body to her long jet-black hair, and those indigo blue eyes the color of a Milky Way night. Her skin was like porcelain. Her lips were plump and pink and framed perfect, white teeth. She was an angel.

She was his archess. And she was . . . scowling at him?

He frowned.

The door to the bathroom had shut firmly behind Christopher Daniels, and he clearly had heard what she’d said, but he still just stood there like he was frozen and Eleanore could not figure out why. “Mr. Daniels, is there something I can help you with?” Eleanore asked.

She had to admit to herself that when Daniels had first entered the women’s restroom, she’d been taken completely and utterly by surprise. First of all, he was even more handsome in real life than he was in his plethora of press photos. And that wasn’t supposed to be the case at all. Wasn’t there supposed to be loads and loads of makeup involved? Tricks of the light? In real life, didn’t actors have acne and scars and wrinkles and undyed roots for miles?

In real life, an actor’s eyes didn’t seem to glow the way they did in the movies. But Christopher Daniels’s eyes did. It was nearly eerie, they were so intense. They instantly called to mind the dreams she’d had of him. It was always his eyes she saw just before she woke up. All of the pictures he had plastered across the nation didn’t do them justice. His eyes were the color of arctic icebergs, so very, very light green that they seemed . . . more than human. They were incredibly beautiful.

She was standing in a restroom, face-to-face with a famous actor who was, quite literally, the most attractive man she had ever seen. And yet he was looking at her as if she were the gorgeous movie star instead.

And so she was more than a little surprised at herself when, instead of feeling faint and falling all over him like all of the other girls in the world seemed to do, her first instinct had been to stand up to him. For what, exactly, she had no idea. For coming into the girls’ restroom, she guessed. Of all things! What kind of crime was that, exactly?

Eleanore’s subconscious mind knew the truth. She wasn’t mad at him for coming into the wrong restroom, of course. She was mad at him for being who and what he was. Gorgeous—and famous. It was an old brain kind of thing.

He was obviously hiding. That was clear. And from the sound of the giggling schoolgirls beyond the door, she would wager a guess that it was his fans he was hiding from. The nerve! First, these guys fight tooth and nail to climb their way into fandom and then they balk at being loved by the masses.

What was up with that?

Meanwhile she’d forgotten Jennifer, the little girl she’d come into the bathroom to help in the first place. But Jennifer had clearly noticed Daniels as well. Her hand slipped out of Eleanore’s own as she spoke up. “Miss Ellie made my stomach feel better!” she chimed in, completely out of the blue. “I was throwing up, but she touched my tummy and made it stop.”

Eleanore paled. Oh no, she thought. Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet—don’t say any more!

“Which is a good thing,” Jennifer went on, nodding emphatically, “because the throw up made me want to throw up some more.” Jennifer was only about five, but she wasn’t shy. She grimaced and seemed to want to push the memory away with her little hands. “It was so gross.”

Eleanore felt herself blanching further. She pulled her gaze off the famous actor and looked at the wall. She needed to compose herself. She needed to get a handle on the situation—take control.

Finally, she rolled her shoulders and looked back up at him.

She blinked. He was still staring at her in abject fascination. That was fascination, wasn’t it? Not amusement? Maybe he just thought she was mental. . . .

“Mr. Daniels, I’m going to find Jennifer’s parents and then I would be happy to announce your arrival over the intercom, if you’d like—”

Daniels pushed himself off the wall and stepped toward her. His motorcycle boots made a heavy thud on the linoleum floor. It sounded dangerous. A warm, erotic warning thrummed through Eleanore’s body.

“You’re the reason it’s storming,” he said. “Now it makes perfect sense.”

Eleanore’s world tipped on its axis, and fear gripped her. Her vision began to tunnel. “P-pardon me?” she asked. Her voice sounded hollow to her own ears.

What is he talking about? He can’t know.

She almost shook her head against the possibility. She thought about taking a step back, suddenly needing space. But there was a tiny hand in hers, squeezing tight, and she couldn’t escape.

“You’re a man and this is a girls’ bathroom,” little Jennifer said.

Christopher Daniels glanced down at the child. Jennifer’s nose was scrunched up and her gaze was reprimanding. The actor seemed to be considering the girl for a moment and then he looked back up at Eleanore.

“Ellie,” he said softly.

Eleanore swallowed hard. Her mouth and throat had gone dry. “It’s—it’s Eleanore,” she stammered. And then, realizing that she’d just given out her name and that perhaps she shouldn’t have, she looked away from him and shook her head. “Mr. Daniels,” she tried again. “Excuse me. I really do need to find Jennifer’s parents. She’s just been pretty sick.”

She brushed past him to push open the door and as she did, the air seemed to thicken around her; it suddenly felt cloying and confusing. It took forever to get by the actor; she could feel him watching her as she came near and he made virtually no move to get out of the way. His nearness was electrifying and disarming, his body tall and hard and very real. Time seemed to slow down as she opened the door and stepped out into the store.

But once she was past him, she walked as quickly as she could with a five-year-old tethered to her arm, which wasn’t very fast at all. She heard footsteps behind her and glanced back to see that Daniels was following her. He kept pace easily, a small, determined smile playing about his lips.

Christopher Daniels is behind me, Eleanore thought. The famous actor, Christopher Daniels, is behind me! He’s probably looking at my ass. She tried not to groan out loud at that thought. As if it mattered!

She wasn’t sure what her bottom looked like from his vantage point; she never bothered with the mirror that much in the morning. And she was nearly as horrified by the fact that she cared what she looked like to him as she was by the fact that he seemed to be looking at her. Was he looking at her butt?

Of course he’s looking at my butt, she thought. He’s a guy! That’s what they do!

She berated herself for the internal monologue of Clueless-worthy concerns and once more wondered what he’d meant by his storm comment. Did he know that she’d caused the storm? If he did—how?

There’s no way, she thought. He must have meant something else.

Eleanore stopped beside the customer service desk and bent to whisper into Jennifer’s little ear.

“This is our secret, okay?” she said, hoping against hope that the child would catch the urgency with which she made the request.

Jennifer looked up at her and then glanced over at Daniels, who was leaning against a bookshelf a few feet away, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression both bewildered and amused. Then she nodded and smiled up at Eleanore, and Ellie’s fear dropped down a notch.

Eleanore straightened and picked up the phone at the customer service desk. She saw Daniels peek over the racks at the crowd by the front doors. A woman dressed in a suit with a name tag glanced nervously at her watch and then stood on her toes as if to look for someone. They were wondering where their star was.

There was a tall man in a suit with them. He was pushing his way through the women—and a few men—to the front of the store. Eleanore wondered vaguely who he was, but let it go as she made a “lost child” announcement over the intercom to get the attention of Jennifer’s parents.

When she’d finished, she put the phone back in its cradle and turned to face a harried-looking couple who instantly knelt before Jennifer to console her. Jennifer’s mother scooped her up into her arms and with a quick thank-you to Ellie, they were on their way out of the store.

Now Ellie turned to face Daniels, who was still leaning against the bookshelf, watching her. In the next split second, he straightened from the shelf, closed the distance between them with two purposeful strides, and pinned her to the customer service desk, one strong arm braced against the counter on either side of her.

Eleanore inhaled sharply and her heart did a somersault in her chest.

“I have to go to a big party Thursday night. Come with me,” he said. He was so close, his breath whispered across her lips—it smelled of licorice and mint.

“W-wha  . . .” she stammered. Then she dry swallowed and tried again. “What?”

She heard a faint cracking sound and glanced down to see that his grip on the desk behind her had tightened. She turned back to face him and watched as his gaze flicked to her mouth and back.

“Ellie,” he said, as if testing her name out on his tongue. “Here’s the thing,” he continued softly. “I need a date to a big promotional party in Dallas. A gala. I don’t know anyone in Texas. You were kind enough to let me hide in the women’s restroom.” He smiled an incredibly charming smile. “And I appreciate it,” he added. “So I would be honored if you would consider being my date next week on Thursday.”

Eleanore took a few seconds to digest this. There was a part of her that simply couldn’t believe her position at that moment. She was being cornered by Christopher Daniels, against her own customer service desk, and asked out on a date. But despite the impossibility of it all, she knew she wasn’t dreaming. This felt too real.

He was so big. So tall and . . . he looked hard—everywhere. And his nearness was doing strange things to her. He smelled good. The leather of his jacket and whatever aftershave or shower gel he’d used were a heady, highly tantalizing combination. There wasn’t an ounce of him that wasn’t pure masculinity, from the set of his jaw to the smooth, determined sound of his voice.

“You’re not answering,” he said, once more glancing at her lips as he’d done before. He seemed to be leaning in closer now, and Eleanore was finding it more difficult to breathe. “Does this mean you’re considering it?”

Christ, I’m falling for this jerk. I’ve barely met him and I’ve already got it bad.

She tried to swallow past a spot in her throat that had gone dry. She wondered then, as she gazed up into those impossibly colored eyes, how many women he’d done this to lately. He was good at it.

He’s an actor, she told herself. Of course he’s good at it.

That was a sobering thought. She blinked and felt her own gaze harden. He seemed to notice, because something flashed in his eyes and his gaze narrowed in response.

“You’re serious,” she said in a low voice. “You don’t know anything about me and you want me to just agree to go out on a date—in another city—with you.”

“I know enough,” he told her plainly. “And yes. I want you to go out on a date with me.” He paused and then added meaningfully, “Very much so.”

She stared back at him for several more hard beats, and then, before she realized what she was doing, she had the customer service desk phone to her ear and was pressing a button behind her on the carriage.

Daniels seemed as surprised as she was and only watched as she put the speaker to her mouth.

“Attention guests! It is my pleasure to announce to you all that the star of the evening, Mr. Christopher Daniels, is here with us now and is making his way to the front of the store to begin signing autographs for all of his much-appreciated fans.”

The sound of cheering rose from the front of the store and spread through the aisles. Daniels glanced up, not moving from where he had her ensnared between his arms.

Eleanore glanced behind her to catch frantic movement at the front of the store.

When she turned back to face him, it was to find Christopher’s jaw tensed and his teeth clenched in obvious irritation. But his ice-green eyes returned to Eleanore’s face and once more trapped her gaze in his. He took a deep, calming breath and seemed to ponder the situation.

Then he smiled and straightened, stepping away from the desk. Eleanore stayed where she was and watched him warily. For a moment, his eyes flicked to her neck, her shoulders, and back up again. She could have sworn she saw a troubling indecision cross his handsome features. He looked as if he were tempted to grab her, throw her over his shoulder, and abscond with her.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Ellie,” he said instead, locking gazes with her a final time. “I’ll be seeing you again soon.”

With that, he turned and strode down the aisle toward the front of the store.

Eleanore was too stunned to move. She watched him go, and as he disappeared, she listened. The ecstatic greetings started up almost immediately. They were crazy about him.

And now she could see why.

He asked me on a date, she thought. The gorgeous, famous movie star from Comeuppance asked me on a date.

A part of her wanted to be thrilled at the thought. But there was another part of her that knew better. It was that other part that had forced her to cut their exchange short by announcing his arrival. Because that part of her had a feeling that Christopher Daniels was not who he pretended to be. Not just on the screen—but in real life.

He knows something, she thought.

She didn’t know how it was possible; even the very idea was unfathomably weird. But somehow, Christopher Daniels seemed to know that Eleanore had caused the storm. He’d told her as much. You’re the reason it’s storming, he’d said. She was willing to bet a dollar that he even suspected her healing powers after Jennifer’s untimely exclamation in the bathroom.

And now he also knew her name and where she worked.

Several more long, tense seconds passed and Eleanore’s body finally relaxed a little and she slumped against the desk. She closed her eyes and ran a somewhat shaky hand through her long hair.

Life had just gotten a little too interesting for her taste. Maybe it was time to move again.

After five books in her Darcy Saga, Sharon Lathan has changed tactics and given us a look at the younger sister of the very intimidating but lovable Fitzwilliam Darcy, Georgiana. Named for her Uncle George, she’s a quiet, shy young lady, but her in own book, Miss Darcy Falls in Love, Georgiana blossoms into a beautiful woman and brilliant musician on the journey of a lifetime.

But don’t think for a moment that Georgiana will have an easy time of it. As women our emotions and feelings are always front and center, and Miss Darcy is no different, as we find out when she’s faced with not just one but two handsome gentlemen who vie for her affections. Some problem, you say? Well, maybe, maybe not. You have to meet them all to find out who she chooses and all the whys and wherefores that go along with such circumstances.

Summary:

Noble young ladies were expected to play an instrument, but Georgiana Darcy is an accomplished musician who hungers to pursue her talents. She embarks upon a tour of Europe, ending in Paris where two very different men will ignite her heart in entirely different ways and begin a bitter rivalry to win her. But only one holds the key to her happiness.

Set in post-Napoleonic Empire France, Miss Darcy Falls in Love is a riveting love story that enters a world of passion where gentlemen know exactly how to please and a young woman learns to direct her destiny and understand her heart.

Chapter 1 – Overture in Lyon

Miss Georgiana Darcy was written on the outside flap of the folded parchment envelope in fine calligraphy. The addressee fingered the dried ink before turning the envelope and noting the imprinted, wax seal. A bold M circled by what appeared to be holly.

Interesting, Georgiana thought.

Not too long ago the concept of receiving what was undoubtedly an invitation addressed directly to her by people unknown would have flabbergasted her. Half a year of traveling through Europe had altered her expectations and such invitations were so common an occurrence that she barely noted the absurdity of it. Furthermore she was actually rather surprised that this was the first as yet conveyed since she had arrived in Lyon three days ago.

Her smile deepened, a low chuckle escaping as she shook her head. How Fitzwilliam would laugh at me, she mused, the thought rising unbidden and causing a sharp pang that pierced her heart. The smile faded, but she rapidly smothered her homesickness, walking to the wide, cushioned seat recessed into the window alcove where the stunning view would lift her spirits. She sat, taking a moment to gaze over the perfectly symmetrical rows of grapevines that stretched in an unbroken sweep to the distant river. All were currently barren of growth and she fleetingly wished it were spring or summer rather than deep winter, but then she squelched that ridiculous notion, thankful that her excursion abroad would encompass all four season ere her return to England in April.

Yes, I am a little homesick. The smile returned as her attention was given to the missive held in her hand.

The Marquis and Douairière-Marquise de Marcov request the presence of Miss Georgiana Darcy for dîner de gala at the Château la Rochebelin on 21, January of 1820 at hour seven.

As she suspected, the Marcovs were unknown to her. She shrugged, certain that her aunt and uncle would be familiar with the family. She was  under their jurisdiction for this leg of the journey and trusted them explicitly. Thus far, there had been no cause for doubt or dismay, every partaken entertainment delightful. She rested her head against the cold wall, her thick plaited coil of golden hair acting as a cushion. Her reflection shimmered on the polished surface of the glass, her densely lashed large eyes so vividly blue that they mocked the dull sky of winter. Not the tiniest wrinkle of unhappiness marred the smooth perfection of her high forehead, honeyed brows arching delicately over the round eyes that surveyed the landscape stretching before her. The chilled air infused rosiness in her cheeks, it the only hint of color on her creamy skin, and she drew the wrap closer about her arms.

The Château Plessis-Rhône, home of the Vicomte de Valday, sat on a gentle rise surrounded by fertile fields. Even in the winter the countryside was verdant with enormous evergreen trees and bushes randomly distributed amongst the dormant vines, leafless trees, and dulled lawns. The waters of the Saône glittered turquoise in the muted daylight of what was a typically sullen day, the residuals of misty fog lingering in places. The intermittent rain from the day before continued to threaten, lurking darkly in the patchy clouds that obscured the sun. Georgiana much preferred the warmth and brightness of a summer day, but the play of grays and shadows amid the nimbostratus clouds mixing with the colors on the ground was beautiful in its own way.

Sunshine or gloom, the joy of being stationary and surrounded by stout walls was priceless.

Georgiana had discovered during the Channel crossing from England the previous spring that sea voyages did not disturb her as they did her unfortunate brother. Therefore, as difficult as it was to say arrivederci to Italy, she had relished the complication-free voyage across the Mediterranean. Unfortunately, the inclement weather that had not plagued them during the voyage had beset them once on solid terra firma. Crossing the Alps of Switzerland last June was as easy as a country stroll compared to the rigors of the overland journey from Genoa to Lyon. Incessant rains and wind-blown debris required frequent halts and accommodations in less than luxurious coaching inns. The cold was unrelenting, their sturdy carriage and piles of blankets and furs seemingly worthless against the chill. The bedraggled travelers arrived at the massive estate owned by the de Valdays never before experiencing such joy to see a house!

Simply being warm and clean had lifted Georgiana’s sagging spirits immeasurably. Now if she could only ease the ache in her heart.

Georgiana sighed, gazing at the cloud formations suspiciously. A sudden flurry of activity to the right captured her attention and brought a laugh to her lips. A dozen birds had burst forth from a copse of low bushes with dead leaves flying crazily, the agitating predator unseen but the squawks indicative of some sort of fright. It was a simple thing, of course, and nothing she may not have witnessed at Pemberley, but the landscape was so unique and served to remind her of how fortunate she was – and how amazing the journey was, in spite of the pangs of homesickness and grief.

A clamor in French from the hallway broke her reverie, seconds later the door bursting open and three figures tumbling into the parlor.

“Dearest Georgiana, finally! Hiding away already, are you? Frédéric insisted that we hunt you down and rescue from your solitary daydreams!”

The speaker was a young woman of nineteen. She was short, barely reaching Georgiana’s shoulders, with a voluptuous figure finely accentuated by an exquisitely tailored gown of purple velvet. Her lavender-tinted eyes blazed vibrantly amid a round face. Mischief and impertinence were etched upon her entire countenance from the tiny tapping foot to the mass of tightly coiled ebony curls audaciously escaping jeweled pins. She was in all ways a vision of supreme, sensual loveliness that could wrest the breath away from everyone who beheld her, male or female. Her name was Zoë, and her lush beauty was so ineffable that it was impossible to imagine that another could match it.

Yet the woman standing beside her was indeed a match.

Her twin, Yvette, was nearly a duplicate. It was only the small mole located just to the right of her upper lip that easily revealed her unique identity. The combined essence of these two extraordinary creatures was a captivating assault upon one’s senses. The blessing from the Maker in allowing the creation of two entrancing offspring would presumably then exhaust any hope of further divine favor upon their parents, but this was not the case.

Frédéric, nearly eighteen, was as stunning and forceful a presence as his elder sisters. With his curls styled foppishly about his face, his enormous deep-blue eyes, and his plump mouth, he had a slight feminine air to his look that was aided by his shorter stature and stout fleshiness. But this was only at first glance. As soon as he moved or spoke a word, the effeminate vision was swept away by a personality, voice, and bearing that exuded confident masculinity. The three de Valdays were bewitching and somewhat exhausting, but Georgiana adored them already.

Frédéric bowed gallantly, spearing Georgiana with an unconsciously sensuous gaze. “Rescuing damsels is a gentleman’s sworn duty, is it not, beautiful lady? Especially those whom are fated to be one’s love for all eternity?”

Georgiana laughed, shaking her head as he kissed her hand.

“Foolish child!” Yvette declared, shoving her brother aside. “How many women have you declared undying, passionate love to this week?” Frédéric merely shrugged, his grin brilliant and unrepentant. Yvette sniffed, turning to Georgiana and opening her mouth to speak, but Zoë beat her to it.

“I see you have your own invitation to the de Marcov’s gala. Magnifique!” She fluttered the parchment paper addressed to her in the air while performing a sequence of graceful pirouettes about the room, gleefully singing, “Dancing, dancing, dancing! Until dawn! With endless parades of handsome men!”

“Shall you save one dance for me, sweet sister?”

“I said ‘handsome men,’ dear brother, not ‘homely child.’” She continued to dance about the room, Frédéric laughing and fluidly twirling toward her, engaging in an elegant pas de deux.

Yvette sat onto the window seat beside Georgiana. She held her invitation in her hand, face alit with the same sparkling joy as her sister’s. “Is it not marvelous? You shall meet dozens upon dozens of men, the finest noble gentilshommes of the Rhône-Alpes. Perhaps you shall fall madly in love and never wish to return home!”

“That is doubtful, my dear Yvette.”

“I shall not give up hope, my friend. Why return to dreary England?”

Georgiana laughed. “You have never been there, and should be hesitant to call any other place dreary considering the weather here.”

Yvette shrugged and then suddenly gasped, eyes wide as she grasped Georgiana’s hand. “They say the grand ball is in honor of Lord de Marcov’s betrothed, an Englishwoman! Perhaps you know her!”

“Highly unlikely. Dreary England is a vast continent. Do you know all in France?”

Yvette laughed gaily, deep dimples flashing, rising to commence her own sweeping ballet across the room. “Not as yet, mon ami, but someday I shall. Famous I will be! An actress or prima ballerina or wife to the greatest duke in the Empire!”

“Come, Georgiana! Practice the dance with us!” Zoë dragged her from the window seat, Georgiana blushing and shaking her head, but swiftly getting caught up in the frivolity of the moment. One could never maintain a dour attitude for long when surrounded by the de Valday siblings.

“I deduce the invitations have been delivered.”

The gay voice, accented English in a melodious tone, interrupted Georgiana’s silliness. Her cheeks flushed in embarrassment, but the three de Valdays continued to twirl.

“Yes, mother dearest! Dancing and flirting and dancing!”

“Will there be handsome Englishmen, Mama? Men with exotic accents and clear blue eyes like Georgiana?”

“Not every man in England has blue eyes,” Georgiana explained with a laugh, but the girls ignored her.

“With luck the mysterious Englishwoman will have a dozen sisters for Frédéric to flirt and fall in love with.”

Frédéric grinned at Yvette, but declared emphatically, “My heart has been lost to the glorious Miss Darcy and I shall never gaze upon another!”

The Vicomtesse de Valday waved her hand airily, winking at Lady Matlock as the two of them entered the room and crossed to the sofa. “Of course, Frédéric,” his mother said with exaggerated conviction, sitting onto the cushion before answering her daughters. “I do not know if there shall be dozens of English men or women for you three to charm. Nevertheless, I am sure there shall be dozens and dozens of eligible French dance partners since the Marcovs never celebrate by halves.”

“Pish!” Yvette pouted, lower lip protruding becomingly. “We have charmed all the available men in Lyon. None are remotely interesting, are they, Zoë?” Her twin nodded, curls bobbing and pout as adorable. “We must travel to Paris or Vienna or London for fresh conquests.”

Zoë fell in a graceful heap at her mother’s feet. “Oh yes, Mama. Lyon is so dreadfully dull! Surely you saw hundreds of gorgeous Englishmen when you lived in England?”

“Perhaps,” Lady de Valday responded with a secretive smile, “but if you remember, silly girl, I met your father while dwelling in England, at Lady Matlock’s home, in fact, soother handsome men vanished from my memories.”

“Oh yes!” Yvette joined her sister in a pool of skirts at their mother’s feet. “Tell us the story of how you and Papa met and fell so desperately in love!”

“Oh so romantic!” Zoë added with a dramatic clutch to her heart and a feigned swoon.

The vicomtesse laughed and shook her head. “You have heard the tale a million times and yet still add your own flourishes to a mundane meeting. Silly girls!”

The chorus of pleases rose to the gilded ceiling, but it was Georgiana’s softly spoken reminder that she had not heard the story that prompted the two older women to jointly recount how they first met.

“It was in the years prior to the Revolution,” Lady de Valday began, her voice serious and sad. “My father was a loyal royalist and refused to leave as the terror grew. It would prove to be an unwise choice as there was no halting the blood thirst of the masses and his efforts to spread rationality only earned him an appointment with the guillotine.”

She paused, wiping a tear from her eye before able to put aside the endless grief. “He was not, however, completely foolish or trusting. He secured our wealth, secreting the bulk of our family heirlooms, and then he sent us away to England. My mother cried and refused to leave him, but he insisted. It saved us all.”

Her voice broke, the memories still raw. Lady Matlock squeezed her friend’s hand and took up the tale. “I was a young wife then, living at Rivallain with my husband, and we opened our home to French refugees. Inès and her family came to us, her mother and mine related distantly. They dwelt with us for nearly four years, Inès and I growing close.”

She smiled affectionately at Lady de Valday, who smiled back as long ago memories washed over them. “It was a wonderful experience,” Lady Matlock resumed, gazing at her friend. “I perfected my French, learned many new musical techniques and compositions as well as artistic talents since Inès is brilliantly accomplished. We became dearest friends.”

“What Madeline does not say is that she is an incredible painter who could never teach me to hold a brush the correct way, let alone actually create an image of worth, and that she soundly beat me at every sport we engaged in! Her archery skills are incomparable.”

“I shall concede the truth of that, although we were equal equestrians and a generous portion of our days were spent exploring on horseback. But of course the most memorable time was when Césaire, your father, came with his family.”

Inès blushed, much like an adolescent with her first crush, and took up the narrative. “He was so handsome. He still is, of course, but then? Ah, magnifique! His grandfather knew the previous Lord Matlock, I cannot quite recollect how the connection originated, but it did not matter. My heart was instantly captivated.”

“And Papa? Was he as captivated?” Yvette asked breathlessly, as if she had never heard the story.

“Alas, no. He was intrigued, but far too capricious to willingly settle based on a summer acquaintance.”

“But you were persistence, oui, Mama?”

“A huntress determined to capture the man of your dreams! Your will firmly set to acquire what your heart needed to survive!”

Lady de Valday laughed at her girls’ exclamations, shaking her head as she replied, “To a point, I suppose. We females can be quite tenacious. But in truth, it was our parents who finagled matters. Unbeknownst to us, they agreed the match was to be. All your father and I knew was that once the war ended, with Napoleon restoring a semblance of order so we could return to France, our families were suddenly the best of friends!”

“It took nearly a year, Inès’s letters to me filled with her romantic machinations.”

“Poor Papa never had a chance,” Frédéric declared. “How could he resist your charms, Mama?”

“How could he indeed!” Yvette agreed. “He merely needed time as all men are pathetically obtuse in matters of amour.”

Frédéric huffed derisively, Zoë speaking before he could counter that assertion. “It is a wonderful story. So full of love and longing, romance and drama.” She sighed. “And because of your friendship with Madame Countess de Matlock, forged via the fires of war and heartbreak, we now have our own refugee to harbor…”

“I am not a ref–” Georgiana began, Yvette’s breathless oui interrupting her protest.

“Oui! Thus it is our sworn duty to entertain our lost friend, and, as fate is destined to be repeated, lead her to finding her true love!”

“Oh, how delicious a tale it will be,” Zoë squealed, her curls bouncing with her emphatic nodding. “Mademoiselle Darcy’s heart succumbs to deep, passionate love while dancing in Lyon, or” –she suddenly gasped– “better yet, Paris!”

“Please!” Georgiana laughed. “I assure you my heart is perfectly safe and not intending to succumb to anyone, in Lyon or Paris.”

Frédéric groaned, pantomiming a dagger to the heart, his death taking a dreadfully long time as he staggered about the room. Georgiana merely shook her head at the dramatic display.

“Surely you do not mean you will not dance or flirt?” Yvette asked, her eyes wide with astonishment at such a bizarre concept.

“I will dance, yes, but I do not flirt.”

Yvette remained incredulous, but Zoë waved her hand dismissively. “Every girl flirts. It is natural. As is falling in love, especially in Paris where love is tangible in the very air you breathe.”

“Well, I did not fall in love while in Paris last summer, nor have I become even remotely smitten while in Austria or Italy, so I fear I shall disappoint, my dear Zoë.”

Zoë shrugged, clearly not convinced. In fact, she wore a rather devious expression that caused Georgiana no small amount of alarm!

Yvette recovered from her amazement, springing up from her knees. “I certainly shall flirt. Flirt and dance, dance, dance! We shall teach you how it is done, my friend.” She grabbed her “dead” brother, where he laid draped over a chair, and the heartbroken lover was instantly resurrected and began gaily waltzing with his sister.

Georgiana was yanked from her chair by Zoë, the latter apparently deciding that the woefully ignorant Georgiana needed lessons in coquettish behavior begun immediately. Within minutes all three de Valdays encircled their protégé, the eyelash fluttering, simpering smiles, and seductive gazes only causing Georgiana to laugh.

Lady Matlock and Lady de Valday shared a glance, the unspoken communication inherent in most long-term relationships easily comprehended. With nods of silent agreement it was decided not to share what they knew of Lord de Marcov’s fiancé, his “English Rose” as he called the lovely Lady Vivienne.

Indeed, it would be much more fun to have the connections discovered at the ball.

Sandy M’s review of Miss Darcy Falls in Love (Darcy Saga, Book 6) by Sharon Lathan
Historical Romance published by Sourcebooks Landmark 1 Nov 11

With this sixth book in Sharon Lathan’s Darcy Saga series, she takes a turn from the loving couple who started her writing career for her and gives us a look at Fitzwilliam’s sister, Georgiana. We’ve watched her grow from a quiet and shy girl into a confident and intelligent young lady, as well as a brilliant musician. It’s a nice change of pace, and Ms. Lathan does Georgiana proud.

On the trip of a lifetime meeting new friends, seeing exciting places, and gaining more experience and knowledge in her music, Georgiana’s whirlwind journey gets another jolt when she comes face to face again with Sebastian, an interested beau we met in the last book. They share a love of everything music and immediately begin to meet to discuss that passion, play each other’s compositions, and leisurely explore museums and conservatories to their hearts’ content. For Georgiana it is a blessing to have someone who understands her desire to immerse herself in nothing else but melodies and lyrics. She does, however, become a bit homesick now and again in the midst of these very exciting times. Knowing she will eventually return home to marry and start a family as all young women her age do keeps her will strong to continue her journey.

Sebastian has had a more difficult time of it, having to deflect his father’s attempts to bring him home to be further groomed to take over the family estates when the time comes – and to start his own family as soon as possible. A prospective bride has already been chosen, though Sebastian wants nothing to do with the woman. Coming to an agreement with his father gives Sebastian three years to gain what he can at the Conservatoire de Musique in Paris, a dream he thought never to live. And the time he’s spending with Miss Darcy beforehand has also been a dream, one unexpected and enlightening. The woman is beyond ingenious.

Both Georgiana and Sebastian view their relationship as friends. It definitely starts out that way, but slowly, without them realizing it, their feelings become deeper and more meaningful. However, they each keep silent, not wanting to interrupt the other’s life path. Georgiana knows Sebastian’s heart is set on attending the conservatory and he knows her desire to return to England is growing with each passing day. Should they go their own way and leave behind a love that may last a lifetime or should one of them sacrifice their wants for the sake of the other? Neither is willing to test their options for fear of the hurt and heartache that may result.

But when Georgiana meets Baron Caxton, she’s taken by his masculinity and charm. She’s also torn now between two men who she’s grown to care for. While she paints the town with the baron, it’s Sebastian who seemingly bows out of her life, which causes both of them to reflect much deeper into their feelings and to make decisions that may come too late to halt lives changing directions they might never recover from.

There are a variety of secondary characters who throw fun and laughter into the story, most notably the de Valday twins, Yvette and Zoe, along with their brother, Frederic. All three are the typical flamboyant French and always out for a raucous good time. Sebastian’s grandmother, Lady Warrow, is also an interesting character. I love the scenes where she vexes her son over his continual fuss about Sebastian’s life choices and refusing to see the man he’s become. I have only one slight nitpick, which is near the end when Sebastian asks for Georgiana’s hand. I would rather have been shown that scene rather than being told about it. We’ve seen over the course of the series how protective Darcy has been of Georgiana all her life, so some emotions from him about this momentous life change for her would have added so much, especially since she’d been gone so long from home during her journey.

One scene I really enjoyed is when Georgiana is on her way to Sebastian and is constantly having her progress impeded. She finally takes matter into her own hands – time is of the essence! – and her flight toward him is well done, fraught with tension, longing, happiness, devastation and so much more, as is the immediate following scenes when life now looks bleak and without color for Georgiana. Also, the prologue brings surprises. I love the way Ms. Lathan gives this couple an afterlife, so to speak. Very inspired! And Dr. George Darcy gives those of us who follow this series a huge surprise. Is there more to come with him and his new-found happiness? Only time will tell…..

Grade: A

Summary:

Noble young ladies were expected to play an instrument, but Georgiana Darcy is an accomplished musician who hungers to pursue her talents. She embarks upon a tour of Europe, ending in Paris where two very different men will ignite her heart in entirely different ways and begin a bitter rivalry to win her. But only one holds the key to her happiness.

 

Set in post-Napoleonic Empire France, Miss Darcy Falls in Love is a riveting love story that enters a world of passion where gentlemen know exactly how to please and a young woman learns to direct her destiny and understand her heart.

Read an excerpt.

Other books in this series:

I have been a fan of Helen Scott Taylor since reading the first book in her wonderful and magical series, The Magic Knot. I knew then we have something special in this author, one who weaves spells to pull a reader into her characters’ world and entertains them on every page – good, bad, happy, evil, lusty, loving, romantic, and everything in between.

With this third book in the series, The Ruby Kiss, she surpasses all of that, bringing her writing to a new level, pulling on the heartstrings more than ever, showing us wishes and dreams do indeed come true, faith in others is necessary, family is where your heart is, and to never give up what you know is right.

Nightshade and Ruby discover all of this in stages as their world is turned upside and torn apart. But what comes to them in the end just may be worth a wee bit of heartache.

Summary:

A Powerful Nightstalker: Nightshade hungers to bring the strong and beautiful to their knees beneath the ecstasy of his bite, but he has never known sexual lust–not until he meets Ruby McDonald. The curvy redhead wields attitude and strength like an ax and she would be the perfect mother of his children. Caught in a clash between the Seelie and Unseelie courts, he battles not only for her survival but also for her heart.

A Mortal with a Secret: Plagued by magic inherited from a father she never knew, Ruby wants answers. Nightshade has them. But when he crashes into her bedroom late one night, the Fairy’s silvery eyes, dark intensity, and striking black wings tempt her with a whole lot more: a mysterious world waiting to be explored, a dangerous love that binds her in body, mind, and spirit, and the children she thought she could never have. The future offers her a choice between freedom and a power some would kill to possess. Should she deny her desires, or succumb to the seduction of…THE RUBY KISS

Now take a wild ride with Nightshade and Ruby:

Chapter One

Ruby Macdonald woke to a frightful bang and the rattle of roof tiles. Something crashed onto the skylight above her bed, knocking the window wide. She instinctively ducked beneath her bedcovers, and a huge heavy object thudded down on the mattress beside her, making the bedsprings bounce and strain under the impact. Downstairs her two dogs started barking.

After a second’s shock, Ruby yanked the covers away from her face. A dark figure crouched on the comforter near her feet. She recoiled against the headboard, a scream searing her throat. The streak of light coming through the bedroom doorway from the hall silhouetted the creature’s naked, heavily muscled chest and widespread black wings.

Her mother had carted her all over the place, searching for supernatural creatures. Ruby had met many strange beings, including tiny leprechauns in Ireland and beautiful people who could breathe underwater, but after everything she had gone through back then and her mother’s horrible death, she had tried to forget. She hadn’t wanted to believe her mother’s claim that Ruby was the result of a nocturnal seduction by a beautiful winged angel, even though she knew she wasn’t like other people.

Ruby’s blood thundered in her ears. Was her father really an angel? And was history about to repeat itself? Although the intruder’s gleaming black skin and leathery wings suggested he was more demon than angel. She had never seen anything like him in her travels, but she vaguely remembered seeing his likeness in a book.

The creature spat white stuff at her. Ruby dove to the floor and grabbed out from under her bed the baseball bat she’d hoped never to have to use. She jumped up, getting a firm two-handed grip on its wooden handle.

“Keep away from me or you’re dog food.”

Instead of pursuing her, the winged man clambered off the other side of the bed and dragged a hand over his mouth.

“Bloody bird,” he bit out in a deep British accent. “Closed my eyes for half a second and the damn thing hit me in the face.” He spat out something else that Ruby realized was a feather. At over six feet tall, his powerful body dominated the room. Yet his cultured voice was so at odds with his appearance that Ruby had the crazy urge to laugh. Without taking her eyes off him, she bent to snap on the bedside light.

She had wondered if he was completely naked, having noticed his bare chest, but he wore black jeans and boots. His eyes shone an unnerving silver in a savagely beautiful face. He swept aside his long black hair with a careless hand and folded his wings against his back.

“Who are you?” he demanded, his head angled arrogantly as he pinned her with his gaze.

“Oh no, laddie.” She pointed at him with the bat. “You’re going to tell me who you are first.”

He ruffled his wings against his back, looking disgruntled. “I’m Nightshade.”

In her experience, these supernatural beings usually had strange names. “What are you?” Ruby demanded.

His nostrils flared and his jaw clenched. “I don’t appreciate that tone of voice.”

Despite his fierce expression, she didn’t sense any real malice in him, and she had always been very perceptive about the nature of “supernaturals,” as her mother had called them. “Tough. You land on my bed in the middle of the night; you answer my questions.”

He narrowed his eyes. Ruby held his gaze and tightened her grip on the bat. As they stared each other down, a tingle of excitement ran up her spine. She had thought she never wanted to see another supernatural after what happened to her mother, but there was something about this one’s vibrant male energy that set her nerves singing.

He gave a hiss of reluctant surrender. “I’m a nightstalker.”

Yes, that did ring a bell. She wished now she hadn’t burned all her mother’s supernatural books. “Is that some type of demon?”

He bristled. “I’m not a bloody shadow elemental, woman. I’m a fairy.”

“A what?” The bat sagged in Ruby’s hands while her brain scrambled to process. She had thought fairies were tiny with translucent wings. A slightly hysterical giggle burst from her lips.

“What’s so funny?” he demanded.

“I thought fairies were small.” At his scowl, she had to stop herself from grinning. He was so easy to get a rise out of. “Don’t fairies wear sparkly dresses and have bells on their slippers?”

A growl broke from the back of his throat. She raised her bat again, wondering if she’d pushed him too far. Time to change the subject.

“To answer your first question, I’m Ruby Macdonald.”

He grunted, his gaze tracking down her body, then back to her face. “And this place is?”

“Glenskelly Lodge. I suppose you realize you’re in Scotland?” She watched him take stock of his surroundings, absently ruffling his wings against his back. Ruby stabbed a finger toward the ceiling and added, “It sounded as though you damaged my roof.”

The nightstalker glanced up, his nostrils flaring. “It wasn’t my fault. The damn bird should have looked where it was going.” He flexed his shoulders before raising a hand to rub one. “Bathroom?” he demanded.

“You use bathroom facilities?” The leprechauns who had helped her and her mother when she was small had lived in caves. But, come to think of it, some of the others supernaturals they’d met had seemed very civilized. Still, she couldn’t imagine a man with wings sitting on the toilet

or lying in a bath.

“Of course, woman. This is the twenty-first century.” He tapped the cell phone on his belt. “Where I come from we make use of modern technology and live among humans. Although most do not know what we are.”

Ruby pointed the bat at the door of her en suite. Nightshade strode inside, leaving the door open. He washed his hands and face, then wiped himself dry on her towel before dropping it over the side of the bath.

“Make yourself at home, why don’t you,” Ruby said under her breath.

The nightstalker wandered back into the room, blinked, and rubbed his eyes. His hand went to his shoulder again, and he looked exhausted. With a sigh, he glanced at the open skylight. “Sorry about the intrusion,” he offered reluctantly. “Don’t often get birds flying at night.”

“Looks to me like you were asleep at the wheel,” Ruby retorted. “So to speak.”

He pinned her with a belligerent gaze but didn’t deny the accusation. His gaze roamed more slowly over her body, as if he were really noticing it. The tension between them shifted subtly. The annoyance melted from his face and he licked his lips.

A prickle of awareness skittered across her skin, making her nipples peak beneath the tight jersey tank top, which she belatedly realized left little to the imagination. And her pajama shorts made her thighs look fat. She tossed the bat on the bed, hurried across the room to grab her dressing gown off the back of the door, and put it on.

She considered him for a moment and remembered the kindness of many supernaturals whom her mother had intruded upon in her relentless search for Ruby’s father. Although the last thing she wanted to do was get tangled up in that weird world again, she strongly believed that what goes around comes around and it was time to reciprocate. “When it’s lighter out, you can check my roof’s not damaged where you hit it. First I think you need to sleep. Before you fall over.”

Winged ebony brows rose in surprise. “You’ll let me stay in your house?”

“You can go outside and sleep in the dog kennel if you’d rather, but I think you’re too big.”

He scowled—an expression with which Ruby was fast becoming familiar. She’d always been good at sensing the energy of people and animals, she’d been told it was a gift, and she was certain this stranger didn’t pose any danger to her. He was exhausted and he could hardly check into the nearest hotel. And, now he had dropped in on her, she might as well take the opportunity to question him. She was determined to rid herself of the annoying power she’d inherited from her supernatural father. Perhaps Nightshade could help.

***

Nightshade narrowed his eyes on the woman’s back while she made up the bed in her spare room. He couldn’t pick up her psychic signature in the way he would expect if she carried fairy blood, yet she wasn’t completely human. The house resonated with strange energy. It was as though he could feel her in the wood beneath his feet.

She turned and bent over the bed to tuck in the sheets, and her breasts swung forward and made the dressing gown gape. All thought of psychic signatures disappeared from his brain. Excitement raced through him at the thought of standing behind her and catching those breasts in his hands. She was no slender creature like the Cornish pisky women from the troop with whom he lived; she was only just over five feet tall but with buxom curves. He’d never seen a full-bodied woman like her. And although his fangs burned within his gums with the desire to taste the sweetness of her blood, they did not slide out over his lower lip. Instead, the tight heaviness in his groin dominated his awareness. For the first time in his life, his instinct to mate was stronger than his desire to bite.

“One bed ready for occupation.” She straightened and put her hands on her shapely hips with a long exhalation of breath, then flashed him a quick smile, her hazel eyes twinkling. The small diamond stud in her nose glinted in the overhead light. She was so different from other females he knew, with her short spiky red hair and the many piercings in her ears.

“Thank you,” he mumbled, uncomfortable with being in her debt. He wouldn’t have blamed her for tossing him out after he’d crashed onto her bed in the middle of the night. She had a sharp tongue, yet she must have a kind nature to have offered him a place to rest.

“Would you like a cuppa before you turn in?” Then, without waiting for his answer, she bustled past, leaving a trail of sweet floral fragrance in her wake.

This healthy well-built woman would produce big strong babies. Could she be the right woman to give him the son he longed for?

***

“Come on. You’re dead on your feet,” Ruby said, beckoning Nightshade into the guest room after he’d silently drunk his cup of tea. She’d been hoping he’d be chattier. As she stood aside to let him pass, she noticed scratches marring the smooth skin of the shoulder he’d been favoring. The impact with her roof must have injured him, but his black skin hid the damage.

He slanted her a sideways glance through his hair as he sat on the edge of the bed to pull off his boots. “Thanks.”

“Want me to look at your shoulder?”

“No.” He made to lie down.

Ruby hurried across to the bed and caught his wrist. “Yes, you do.”

Sinews flexed beneath her hand like tensile steel cables, and a shock of response burst through her at contact with the leashed power of his body. Drawing an uneven breath she released him and leaned over to examine his injured shoulder. A sticky trail of blood had seeped from a nasty gash to run down his back beneath one of his wings. He must be in pain but she would never have guessed. The smell of blood mingled with the unusual scent of almonds and the musky male fragrance of his skin.

“Leave me be, woman. Let me get some rest.”

He turned his head toward her, and she stared into the brilliance of his silver gaze, looked so close she could see every hair in his dense ebony lashes. His face was a study of masculine beauty, his strong jaw and brows giving a rugged cast to his otherwise fine features. For a moment she couldn’t breathe, then she pulled back and rested her hands on her hips, determined not to show he affected her.

“Sit tight for a few minutes. I’m going to dress that wound or you’ll ruin my sheets.”

Ruby grabbed the first-aid kit from the bathroom and returned to find Nightshade sitting with his head in his hands. To see this huge über macho creature looking vulnerable did something strange to her insides.

“I’ll be quick,” she assured him.

She climbed onto the bed behind him and started wiping the blood off his skin. When she eased aside his wing, the stretchy skin was strong and soft as kid gloves. She had a crazy urge to rub her cheek against it and decided she must be lightheaded with tiredness. She smoothed away the thick silk of his hair before she cleaned up his wound and covered it with gauze.

“There you go,” she said in a brightly efficient voice. “Ready for bed.”

He didn’t move. She went around in front of him and squatted down. His eyelids were lowered, his lashes thick ebony crescents against his cheeks.

“Nightshade,” she whispered, and silver slivers appeared beneath those lashes. “Lie down, laddie.”

He eased onto his side, and she threw a duvet over him, then watched while he went back to sleep. His guarded expression relaxed and he looked even more beautiful. His lean dark fingers gripped the edge of the pillow, and she clenched her hand as she imagined running her fingertips up his sinewy forearm to the bulge of his biceps. He must be casting some kind of magic over her; she could hardly tear her eyes away. She had thought that only a mad and irresponsible woman like her mother would succumb to a supernatural man who appeared in her bedroom in the middle of the night.

Perhaps she had inherited the same madness.

***

Nightshade woke to stillness. For a moment he wondered where he was. Then he recognized Ruby’s light floral fragrance on the air.

He stared at the clock beside the bed and puzzled over the fact that, although he felt well rested, he’d apparently slept for only fifteen minutes. After more thought, he worked out that he’d slept round the clock. As it would soon be dawn and he couldn’t be seen flying during daylight, he would have to wait another day before he went on to the fairy Gathering of Kith and Kin in the Scottish Highlands. At least that meant he would have time to check Ruby’s roof for damage.

He listened for her, heard the steady beating of her heart on the other side of the wall. Guilt flickered within him at how he’d dropped in and frightened her; he should never have flown all the way from one end of the country to the other when he was out of practice. Normal nightstalkers who lived a solitary life got used to flying all the time. But he’d grown soft living his comfortable life in Cornwall, with the modern-thinking pisky troop, being driven around in cars.

Longing ticked in his chest. Only two days away from home and he already missed his brother. He imagined Rhys sleeping peacefully in the nursery at Trevelion Manor with the Cornish pisky king and queen’s children. His beloved baby half brother. To protect Rhys, he would find their evil father Dragon and make him swear a blood oath to give up all rights to the boy. He would never let Dragon injure the child again, as he had in the past.

Nightshade’s stomach rumbled in protest. Heaving himself out of bed, he ripped the dressing off his healing shoulder and went downstairs to find the kitchen. When he snapped on the lights, they gleamed off the contemporary white-fronted units. The house was a strange combination of rustic wooden hunting lodge and modern styling. He preferred old houses, like Trevelion Manor where he lived, that breathed history from every seasoned-oak beam and floorboard.

He opened cupboards at random until he found a loaf of bread, then dropped two slices into the toaster before making a cup of tea. That would have to tide him over until Ruby prepared him a proper breakfast.

While he ate, he sat at the pine kitchen table, scrolling through the photos of Rhys saved on his cell phone. The Gathering of Kith and Kin where he hoped to find his father would last five nights, and he had already missed the first. He must arrive tonight in order to get his bearings and plan his strategy.

After he finished eating, Nightshade looked for a calendar to check his dates. One hung beside the fridge, each full moon highlighted in orange. The Cornish pisky wise woman kept just such a moon calendar in her room at Trevelion Manor, but Nightshade couldn’t understand why Ruby would be interested in lunar cycles. Maybe she was a wise woman or witch. That would explain the strange power he’d sensed in the house. He stared at the calendar for a few seconds, frowning, then noticed the wall clock showed it was getting-up time. So he went upstairs, impatient for Ruby to wake and cook for him.

Her bedroom door stood ajar, the bed visible through the gap. Early sunlight glowed through the thin white curtains, illuminating her. She lay in a state of abandon, arms flung above her head, one leg protruding from beneath the covers. Without him making a conscious decision to go inside, his feet carried him to the foot of her bed.

He had never noticed how women smelled before. Her floral scent mingled with an enticingly musky feminine fragrance that stirred an unfamiliar hunger. The covers rode lower as she moved, revealing the ripe swells of her breasts. Nightshade clenched his teeth to hold in his fangs.

This woman did things to him he’d never experienced. He might be a vampire, but for him taking blood was a pleasure rather than a necessity. He’d only ever wanted to bite men, and the idea of mating rarely entered his head. Now his body ached to mate with Ruby’s while he sank his fangs into her soft pink curves and formed a blood bond so that he could control her. He would only be able to take blood from her a couple of times a week, assuming he didn’t want to hurt her, but that could be enough to satisfy him. She was the woman he needed to complete his life. He would make her scream with pleasure and start his baby growing in her belly. Then, after he’d secured the blood oath from his father, he would collect Ruby and bring her home with him to Cornwall.

***

The sound of her name dragged Ruby up from the depths of sleep. She groaned when shafts of early morning sunlight fell on her face, then blinked sleepily and met determined silver eyes.

“Hey, shut the damn curtains and get out of my bedroom.”

“It’s time to get up,” Nightshade replied.

“Go away.”

“I’m hungry,” he announced, as though that was a momentous statement.

“I’m not surprised. You were comatose for a day. Was I supposed to drip-feed you while you slept?”

Ruby watched his gaze cruise slowly down her body beneath the sheet, and that made her heart do a funny little jig. For a moment she imagined that his hunger was for something other than food, but then she dismissed the thought. He was a spectacular example of masculine beauty. There wasn’t much chance he’d be attracted to a short and overweight human. He probably only went for lady nightstalkers, whatever they were.

“Kitchen’s downstairs,” she said.

“I’ve already had toast. I need something more substantial, please.”

When he tapped impatient fingers on the footboard, Ruby gave him a threatening look. “You touch my bed once more and all you’ll get is dog food.”

He ruffled his wings against his back, disgruntled. “I need to replenish the energy I used flying up here!”

“You’ll have to wait till seven-thirty. That’s when I get up.” Ruby glanced meaningfully at her alarm clock, which read six fifty-four.

With a sigh Nightshade turned to stare out the window. The rising sun hung over the glen. “You get used to early starts when there are small children in the house.”

Small children? Ruby stared at his neatly folded wings. Did that mean he had a Mrs. Nightshade at home? What sort of a house did he live in? And why did she even care?

“Okay, I’m getting up.” She was already too wide awake to go back to sleep. Climbing out of bed, she trudged over to fetch her dressing gown off the door. Then she realized: “Are you telling me you can’t cook anything but toast?”

His chin hitched up. “The kitchen is a female’s place.”

Ruby’s step faltered. “Your wife must be tolerant to put up with an attitude like that.”

“I don’t have a wife.”

“But you’ve got kids?”

“A three-year-old brother,” he replied.

“Ah.” Ruby stared at him, unmoving, an unwanted flash of relief tingling through her.

Fifteen minutes later, a full Scottish breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, black pudding, haggis, and oatcakes was in preparation, while Nightshade paced back and forth across the kitchen speaking into his cell phone. He was questioning someone about a little boy called Rhys—presumably his brother, although Nightshade sounded more like a concerned father. When Ruby imagined a tiny version of him with small wings, she found herself smiling.

She placed two plates on the table, and Nightshade snapped his phone shut and sat down. He mumbled a thank-you before tucking in as though he hadn’t eaten for a week. Ruby picked at her scrambled eggs. She didn’t feel hungry this early, but she’d wanted to sit with him. He cleared half his plate in record time.

“Who were you talking to?” she asked.

“Eloise, my brother’s mother.”

“Not your mother?”

He shook his head, forking food into his mouth. She so rarely cooked for anyone that it was gratifying to see him enjoy what she’d prepared.

“Eloise is human, but my mother was a Cornish pisky. That’s why I live with them.”

“A Cornish pisky?” She remembered them from her mother’s books. “Aren’t they small?”

“No. Our size.”

Ruby’s heart rate doubled as she realized this was the ideal moment to ask about her father. “Do you know any angels?”

He wiped his mouth and leaned back with a satisfied sigh. “They don’t exist. Humans probably muddle them up with some sort of fairy.”

Could her father be a fairy? The idea made her snort with disbelief. She was about as unfairylike as it was possible to get. “So, there are beautiful glowing fairies with wings?”

Nightshade sniggered. “The only beautiful glowing individual I know doesn’t have wings, and he definitely isn’t angelic…but I suppose a human might think he was an angel.”

Disappointed, Ruby sagged back in her seat. Even if he didn’t know her father, he might know something about the strange magical affliction that had plagued her at full moon since puberty. “Have you ever heard of anyone who makes plants grow when they touch them?”

“You mean a nature spirit? You don’t want to mess with them. They’re strange. I met a dryad once and his skin looked like leaves.”

“So none of them look like angels?”

“Not that I know of, but the Cornish piskies keep to themselves and live an almost human life because the pisky queen is half human. There are different fairy courts in different parts of the country, but I’ve only visited a few. If you ever go to Ireland, steer clear of the Wicklow Mountains. The Irish fairy queen has her court there, and she’s a psycho.”

Ruby didn’t need that advice. She’d discovered the Irish fairies were dangerous years ago when her mother was searching for Ruby’s father. If not for the leprechauns’ help, she and her mother probably wouldn’t have escaped alive. And, as usual, her mother had blamed Ruby for not sensing the Irish fairies were dangerous. Whenever things went wrong it was always her fault, just because she had the stupid power.

Nightshade patted his stomach. “That breakfast was good, Ruby.”

She ignored the ridiculous flash of pleasure his words gave her. “So, does your father live in Cornwall?”

“No!” His expression darkened and his jaw clenched. “I would not allow Dragon within ten miles of Rhys.” For the first time she saw the threat of violence in his eyes. With his cell phone and his love of her cooking, Nightshade had lulled her into a false sense of normality, but his civilized veneer only thinly disguised the powerful male beneath. She would do well to remember that he wasn’t human. Whatever he said about living a human-style life, the rules and conventions nightstalkers lived by were likely different from her own.

Ruby busied herself loading the dishwasher before washing up the griddle. Yet, while she worked, Nightshade’s potent presence dominated her senses. She’d dated a few men she met at art exhibitions, but no human man emanated such raw masculine power. She would definitely paint a picture of his energy if she got the chance.

She tensed when she felt him approach behind her. His hands landed on her upper arms in a firm but gentle touch that sent tingles racing across her skin, and she tried to concentrate on the dishes as he bent close to her ear.

“You’re a strong and beautiful female, Ruby,” he whispered in a velvet voice. He made a little noise in his throat that sounded like a growl. Then his lips brushed the side of her neck.

The griddle slipped from Ruby’s hands, splashing greasy water up the front of her dressing gown. Where had his sudden interest in her sprung from? She cast a sideways glance at his strong black fingers gripping her arm, and her knees felt weak.

“I want you, Ruby,” he whispered. The tip of his tongue stroked her skin, and a pulsing knot of heat tied low in her belly. “You taste so good.”

She should pull away from him, but her feet were glued to the floor. The tiniest scrape of teeth against her skin nearly made her legs give way. His hands gripped her waist to steady her as if he sensed her weakness.

“I’ve never met a female who makes me feel like this,” he said in a low sexy growl. “I want to mate with you.”

Ruby should say no and push him away. She’d only known him for two days, and she knew supernaturals could be trouble. Yet there was something about Nightshade that resonated with her.

Actually, it was an advantage that he would be a one-night stand. The guys she dated were rarely invited home, in case they discovered her secret affliction. Such a discovery wouldn’t be a problem with Nightshade. And, this way, she would never become obsessed with him like her mother had been with her father. When darkness fell that night, he’d just leave. She had a chance for passion with no strings.

Even as the idea pleased her, it also made Ruby sad. She felt a natural affinity with him that she couldn’t explain. He might be the one man who wouldn’t be freaked out by her affliction.

Before she had the chance to make a decision, Nightshade turned her to face him. Although he didn’t hurt her, his grip was so assured and controlling that she realized how much stronger he was. If he forced himself on her, she couldn’t resist. His arms slid around her, pulling her flat against his hard chest while his mouth came down on hers, and by the time he broke that claiming kiss, she was disoriented and gasping for breath. He swept her up into his arms and heat rushed to her face. She struggled to get down before he noticed how much she weighed.

“Stop wriggling, woman,” he said as he carried her upstairs. Then, with a satisfied male smile, he deposited her in the center of her bed.

He flicked open the button on his jeans. Languorous heat flooded Ruby’s body as he lowered the zipper. Hard, sleek muscles rippled with every movement, and when he pushed his jeans down over his hips, every other thought fled her mind. Little flickers of heat raced through her, making her so hot she thought she might melt.

“Strewth,” she whispered. “That’s one for the record books.”

Nightshade had a tadger the size of a rolling pin.

“Ruby, you’re special,” he whispered.

He eased down onto the bed at her side, then leaned over and stroked his fingers across her cheek. He pressed his lips against her neck, and the scrape of his teeth made her tremble with a deep primeval excitement that had an edge of fear. A tiny voice in the back of her mind told her she shouldn’t be doing this; her mother had come to a terrible end over her dalliance with a powerful supernatural. But, heck, Ruby was a woman with needs. And this was a one-time deal. When would she ever get a chance like this again? Her hands went to Nightshade’s chest. For a moment she paused; then her fingers slipped over the firm contours of his pectorals to his shoulders and dragged him close.

His hand swept up her body to cup a breast through her dressing gown. He gave a little grunt of displeasure at the clothing in his way, reared back and untied the belt of her robe before pulling the offending garment off her and tossing it away. Then he buried his face in her breasts. Ruby’s eyelids closed on a burning wave of sensation.

She ran her hands over his back to the hard ridge where his wings joined his body and let her fingers play over that unfamiliar structure. His breath hissed in and he raised his head to stare at her.

“I love being touched there,” he whispered.

He threw a leg over her, and the impressive length of his arousal pressed against her thigh, sending wicked little whirls of heat swirling through her. His mouth came down on hers again, hot and hard, almost desperate. He trailed kisses along her jaw. His teeth nipped her neck and spikes of pleasure pierced her.

“You’re my ideal woman,” he whispered in a sizzling purr. “We’ll make a beautiful son together.”

His words shattered Ruby’s rapturous haze like a hand grenade. “What!” She turned her face away and pushed at his shoulders.

Nightshade raised his head, his smooth ebony brows drawing together in confusion. “We’ll have a beautiful son,” he repeated, in a tone that suggested he was paying her a huge compliment.

“Are you freaking mad?” Little slivers of pain sliced through her: He didn’t want her at all. He wanted a baby. She shoved at his shoulders, raised one leg and managed to wedge a foot against his thigh. She should have known it was a mistake to even think about getting mixed up with a supernatural, especially when her father had done the exact same thing, left her mother with a baby.

“Oomph.” Nightshade rolled away. With a snap of his wings, he retreated from the battlefield the bed had become. “What is wrong with you, woman?”

“What’s wrong with me?” Ruby grabbed the covers and pulled them over herself. “I’m not having a baby with you.” The fact the doctors said she was infertile and couldn’t have a baby was irrelevant. He’d already ruined the mood.

He blinked, looking genuinely puzzled. “But you were happy to mate with me.”

“That doesn’t have to mean a baby,” she shouted.

A frown creased his forehead. “Why else should we want to mate?”

Ruby let her head drop back on the pillow with a thump and threw an arm over her face. They’d obviously hit a major cultural difference. She fought to control her fractured breathing and calm down. The fact he’d called it mating should have warned her that something was off. It wasn’t his fault if nightstalkers only made love when they wanted children; she was human, he was not.

“There’s been a misunderstanding,” she said, striving for a level tone. “I am not having a baby.”

His lip curled with disdain. “You mean you don’t want to bear a nightstalker boy.”

“No. That’s not what I mean. Well, it is, but…” Blast. Now she’d hurt his feelings, although why she cared after this fiasco she didn’t know. “Listen, Nightshade. I’m not prejudiced against nightstalkers, if that’s something you’re worried about. I won’t have any man’s baby.”

He stared at her as though she blasphemed. “I thought females wanted babies. My friends’ women all have babies.”

“Two misunderstandings there: I’m not your woman, and I definitely do not want a baby right now. Surely you’ve had other lovers who didn’t want babies?”

He stared at her blankly for a moment, managing to look intimidating even in the nude. “The situation has never arisen. I usually prefer men.”

Ruby’s mouth dropped open. For long seconds she couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Then blood rushed to her head. “Get out of my bedroom. Now!”

“What have I done to anger you?” he demanded. He looked even more confused.

“Do you want a bloody list?” she screeched, the last shreds of her self-control shot to pieces. “Get out!”

With a grunt of disgust, he snatched up his jeans and headed for the door.

When he’d left the room, Ruby closed her eyes and dragged in steadying breaths. How the hell had she gotten herself into such a mess? With a slight twinge of regret, she realized she had probably been unfair to him, but babies were a sensitive subject and her emotions had flared out of control.

Downstairs, her dogs barked like mad and the back door slammed. He was gone. An ache of missed opportunity hit her. Too late she feared she might have ruined something special.

If you’ve been reading Grace Burrowe‘s Duke’s Obsession series, you know how much the youngest son, Valentine, loves his music. It moves through him in every aspect of his life; he uses it to help those around him when needed, and it does help tremendously, as evidenced by his brother Devlin and his post-traumatic issues after his stint in the war. Music is everything to Val.

In The Virtuoso, he soon learns, however, that everything can altered and silenced in the blink of an eye. Suddenly Val can no longer play the piano, no longer enjoy his passion whenever the mood strikes. But what he learns and receives in return, he finds, is better than music, by far.

So take a few minutes to go on a short trek with Val. Then pick up his book and go the distance with him on his life-changing journey.

Summary:

Ellen Markham tells herself she’s happy raising flowers and living in near penury in the Oxfordshire countryside, but when Valentine Windham moves in just on the other side of the wood, Ellen’s longing for things she can never have threatens to overcome her good sense. Valentine’s artistic soul, tender loving, and ducal determination tempt Ellen to trust and confide in a man who can only be endangered, should he learn of her past. For Valentine, regaining his musical skill becomes far less urgent than winning Ellen’s heart.

Now join Valentine and Ellen:

As evening falls on Valentine Windham’s recently acquired aging manor house, Valentine, his companion Darius Lindsay, and Ellen Markham exchange pleasantries in the lengthening shadows…

…Valentine Windham continued to smile at Ellen, an expression of concentrated regard that formed a substantial part of Ellen’s pleasurable memories of him.

“Mrs. Ellen FitzEngle.” Mr. Windham’s gaze—and his smile—remained directed at her. “May I make known to you the Honorable Mr. Darius Lindsey, late of Kent, come to assist me in the assessment of damages on my newly acquired property.”

Lindsey fell in with the introductions with the smooth manners sported by any well-bred fellow.

“You’ve bought this place?” Ellen kept both the hope and the dread from her voice, but just barely.

“I have acquired it, and apparently just in the nick of time. Do you often have to shoo away thieves and vandals?”

Ellen glanced at the scythe in her hand. “It’s worse in the summer. Boys wander around in packs and have not enough to keep them busy. There’s a very pleasant pond in the first meadow beyond the wood and it draws them on hot days.”

“No doubt they are responsible for my broken windows. Perhaps they’ll be willing to help with the repairs.”

“You’re going to restore the house?” Ellen asked, though it was none of her business.

“Very likely. It will take a good deal of time.”

“Where are my manners? May I offer you a pot of tea, gentlemen, or a mug of cider, perhaps?”

“Cider.” His just-for-you smile broadened. “An ambrosial thought.”

“I take it you live near here, Mrs. FitzEngle?” Mr. Lindsey interjected as they left the carriage house.

Ellen gestured vaguely. “Through the wood.”

“Well, darkness approaches,” Mr. Windham said. “Darius, if you’ll bring the horses along down the track, I’ll escort Mrs. FitzEngle through the wood.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Ellen replied. “I know the woods blindfolded.”

“You wound me.” His smile—and worse—his green eyes put a hint of sincerity in the words, leaving Ellen to feel a little flip of excitement in her vitals. Oh, God help her, her tame, tired memories of his single previous visit did not do him justice. Either that, or Mr. Windham had become even more intensely attractive in the year of his absence. Dark hair slightly longer than was fashionable went with those green eyes, and if anything, in the year since she’d seen him, he’d grown leaner, taller, and better looking than was decent.

“Despite the fact that periodic wounding keeps him humble,” Mr. Lindsey spoke up, “I must ask you to humor my friend’s suggestion, Mrs. FitzEngle. He will only want to inspect his wood come morning in any case, so you are the ideal guide.” He spun on his heel and strode off toward the front of the house.

“You are looking well,” Ellen said, dusting off her long unused skills with small talk.

“I’m tired. Road weary, dusty, and probably scented accordingly. You, however, look to be blooming.”

“You mustn’t flatter me, Mr. Windham,” Ellen replied, not meeting his gaze. He offered his arm as he had once long ago and she took it gingerly. “I did steal a nap after my supper.”

“Did a handsome prince come kiss you awake?” he asked, matching his steps to hers. “Darius is convinced we’ve fallen into the land of the fairy, what with the rhododendrons, the bats in the attic, and the air of neglect.”

“You’re less than three miles from that thriving enclave of modern civilization, Little Weldon. I will disabuse your friend of his wayward notions.”

“Oh, please don’t. He’s having great fun at my expense, and the summer is likely to try his patience if he bides with me for any length of time.”

“You can’t think to live at the manor.” Ellen frowned as she spoke. She didn’t want him so nearby, or rather, she did, and it was a stupid, foolish idea.

“We’ll put up in the carriage house. It’s clean and serviceable. There’s a small stove upstairs for tea and warmth, and the quarters are well ventilated.”

“And the roof is still functioning,” Ellen added. They were passing through the woods on one of the more worn bridle paths. Nobody maintained the paths, but game used them, and Ellen did.

And nasty little boys did, as well.

She walked more quickly, all too aware that in these woods the man beside her had kissed her, only once, but endlessly, until she was a standing puddle of desire and anticipation. With nothing more than his mouth on hers, he’d stripped her of dignity, self-restraint, and common sense, probably without a backward thought when he’d gone on his way.

“Are we in a hurry?” her escort inquired.

“I would not want to leave Mr.…” Ellen searched frantically for his name. Good lord, she’d just been introduced to the man.

“The Honorable Darius Lindsey,” Mr. Windham supplied as they walked along. “His papa is the Earl of Wilton, with the primary estate over in Hampshire.”

“I see.”

Mr. Windham must have heard the cooling in her tone at the mention of a title, because as he and Mr. Lindsey sipped cold cider on Ellen’s back porch, he quizzed her on the tenants, the neighbors, the availability of various services in the area, and the likelihood of finding competent laborers in the immediate future, keeping well away from any remotely social topic.

“You’ll have to wait until the hay is in,” Ellen said as the shadows lengthened across her yard. “There’s help to be had for coin. Tomorrow is market day, so you can start getting the word out among the locals and they’ll spread it quickly enough. How are you fixed for provisions?”

“For provisions?” Mr. Lindsey echoed. “We rode out from Town with saddlebags bulging, but that’s about it.”

“I can keep you in butter, milk, cheese, and eggs. Mable presented me with a little heifer calf not a month past. I was giving the extra to Bathsheba, since she’s nursing eight piglets, but she can make shift without cream and eggs every day. I’ve also been working on a smoke-cured ham but not making much progress.”

“You were feeding your sow cream and eggs?”

“Eight piglets, Mr. Lindsey, would take a lot out of any lady. It was either that or much of it would go to waste.”

“We’ll be happy to enjoy your surplus,” Mr. Windham cut in, “though you must allow us compensate you somehow.”

“I will not take coin for being neighborly.”

“I didn’t mean to offend, merely to suggest when the opportunity presents itself, I would like to be neighborly, as well. I’m sure there’s some effort a pair of strong-backed fellows might turn themselves to that would be useful to you, Mrs. FitzEngle.”

His voice was a melody of good breeding and better intentions, an aural embodiment of kindness and politesse. Just to hear him speaking left Ellen a little dazed, a little… wanting.

“We’ll see,” she said briskly. “For now, enjoy your cider. Moonrise will be early this evening, and if you’re staying in town for now, you’ll want to get back to The Tired Rooster before the darts start flying.”

“Tame gentlemen such as ourselves will need to be up early tomorrow,” Mr. Windham said, rising. “We’ll be on our way, but thank you for the cider and the hospitality.”

“Until tomorrow, then.” Ellen rose, as well, pretending to ignore the hand Mr. Windham extended toward her.

“Tomorrow?” Mr. Lindsey frowned. “Here I was hoping to malinger at the Rooster for a couple weeks waiting for building materials to come in from London, or darkest Peru.”

“Lazy sot.” Mr. Windham smiled at his friend. “I think the lady meant she’d be in town for market day and we might be fortunate enough to see her then.”

“Until tomorrow.” Mr. Lindsey bowed over her hand and went to collect the horses, leaving Ellen standing in the gathering darkness with Valentine Windham.

“I am glad to have renewed our acquaintance,” Mr. Windham said, his gaze traveling around the colorful borders of her yard. “Your flowers make an impression.”

“I am glad to see you again, as well.” Ellen used the most cordially unremarkable tones she could muster. “One is always pleased to know one’s gardening efforts are memorable.”

“Until tomorrow.” Mr. Windham took her hand and bowed over it, but he also kissed her knuckles…a soft, fleeting contact of his mouth on the back of her hand, accompanied by a slight squeeze of his fingers around hers. And then he was swinging up on a big chestnut, saluting with his crop, and cantering off into the darkness, Mr. Lindsey at his side.

Ellen sat, her left hand closed over the knuckles of her right, and tried to think whether it was a good thing her flowers had left an impression on Mr. Windham.

It was a bad thing, she decided, for Mr. Windham was a scamp, and a scamp as a neighbor was trouble enough, particularly when she liked him, and his every touch and glance had her insides in a compete muddle. And while he might recall her flowers, she recalled quite clearly their one, very thorough and far beyond neighborly kiss.

Isn’t it wonderful when a book and its cover actually mesh perfectly? IMHO, I think that’s happened with Amanda Forester‘s latest, The Highlander’s Heart.

And when an author entertains you with a sassy heroine and a very patient hero, with some humor thrown in and an adventure to liven up things even further, you just have to sit up and take notice. Ms. Forester has done that and then some.

So have some fun with Isabelle and David this evening. Pull up a chair, a cup of hot chocolate with a Snickers bar, and enjoy! And leave a meaningful comment or question for Amanda and we’ll toss your name into the hat for a copy of The Highlander’s Heart. Not a bad way to pass the evening, is it?

Summary:

Lady Isabelle escapes her murderous English husband only to be abducted by a Highland warrior and held for ransom.  Her determination to break free from captivity is exceeded only by the passion growing between her and the Highland Laird.  David Campbell plans to hold Isabelle for ransom as an easy way to line his pockets and return her back where she belongs, but he is unprepared for a feisty English lass with a penchant for finding trouble.  Caught between rival clans bent on claiming the throne of Scotland, Campbell must choose a side, and a bride.  Standing on the brink of war, Isabelle may be his only hope to save his clan, and his heart.

Here they are:

Scottish border, 1355

Isabelle stared at the barbarian before her. These would surely be her final moments on Earth. She tried to think of something worthy of her last thoughts. I can see his knees. Isabelle groaned and squeezed her eyes shut. This would never do. Thoughts like that would send her straight to purgatory. She put her hands over her eyes and tried to think of something pious. Nothing but a mental vision of his thighs came to mind.

“No, no, no.” She looked up pleading. “Do not kill me yet, I am not ready.”

“Sassenach,” said the shadowy figure with disgust. “Get up English, I will no’ be killing ye.”

He lifted his sword over his head. Isabelle cringed, but the man only re-sheathed it in the harness he wore on his back. The action should have been comforting, but she could not overcome the shock of his appearance.

He was a tall man with a muscular body, around which he wore some kind of woven blanket. It was belted around his waist and thrown over one shoulder, pinned to a thick shirt. He wore large black leather boots but between the top of his boots and the edge of his blanket he was naked. She stared at his bare legs. Strong, hairy, man legs. She had never seen the like. She swallowed hard.

“I…you…perhaps you require time to finishing dressing?” She cringed at her inane babbling.

The stranger sighed and glanced toward the heavens. “I am fully dressed.” It was more of a growl than a statement.

“But I can see your legs,” she blurted, wishing she had held her tongue.

“And I can see yers,” he retorted.

“Oh, merciful heavens!” Isabelle realized her gown had been rucked up to her thighs. She pushed down her skirts and struggled to stand. Her face burned from being caught in such a compromising position and from the memory of what had almost happened.

“I should thank you,” Isabelle stammered, focusing on smoothing her ruined gown.

The stranger shook his head. “I kenned ye were a Douglas lass or I woud’na troubled myself. Well, good day to ye English.”

“Wait! If you please, where am I?”

“You are in Ettrick forest and the land of Sir William Douglas.”

“The Douglas?” Isabelle gasped. She had been raised in fear of the Black Douglas. She could still hear the hushed voice of her nurse threatening the Black Douglas would come for her if she did not go to sleep or eat her porridge.

“Aye.” The man frowned at her, his eyes piercing into hers until his face softened. He looked away and shook his head. Muttering something to himself, he turned and walked down the road from where he had emerged.

“Wait!” called Isabelle, hobbling after him on sore feet. She did not wish to be left alone again. “I am a bit lost. I…please sir, could you help me?”

Struggling around the bend in the road, Isabelle saw that the man had reached his horse, which, unlike her own, was standing still, placidly waiting for his master to return.

“Go back to your men folk, English. And tell them to get off Douglas land. I have no time for trouble today but if I come across them, they shall no’ be spared my blade.”

Isabelle stammered, trying to find the right words, unsure what to do. He was a Scot. Worse yet, she strongly suspected him of being one of those Highlanders, a wild race of barbarian warriors. Yet he was also the only human being she had seen all day that was not trying to return her to her husband or molest her. She was hungry, lost, and the sun was low on the horizon.

“I have become separated from my party and have walked all day. I would greatly appreciate your assistance.”

He pointed toward the dark forest. “England is that way.”

“Would you consent to escorting me home?”

“Ye would have me set foot on English soil?” He snorted. “Nay, I winna be throwing away my life just because ye got yerself lost.” He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Och, come on then. I’ll see ye to the next burgh.”

“But, please sir, I wish to be returned home. I assure ye that ye will be well compensated for your time and effort if you would but consent to see me safely home to… um that is to Bewcastle.”

“Have ye a husband in Bewcastle?”

“No!” It was spoken with a bit too much emphasis, but she certainly hoped she would not find her husband there.

“Yer father then?”

“No.”

The man sighed as if trying to maintain his patience. “Where is yer father?”

“Resting with the Lord.”

“Have you any man to care for ye?”

It was a question she had never been asked. Standing lost in a strange forest before a strange man she realized how alone she truly was. She shook her head. “My uncle recently passed away and…” Her voice broke and she pressed her lips together trying to get control of her emotions.

The man’s face grew softer. He stepped toward her, assessing her person. His gaze traveled down her body and back up, lingering on her face, his eyes catching hers and holding them. He stepped closer until he stood directly before her. Isabelle’s mouth went dry.

He was a large solid man, with a sword as long as she was tall. He reached out to touch her shoulder, stroking his hand down the length of her arm, her skin burning at his touch. “Let me hazard a guess. Ye were distraught. Ye had no one to care for ye. Some ne’er-do-well came along, made a lot of promises, gave ye this hand-me-down gown, and ye took up wi’ him, but it dinna go well.”

“No!” Isabelle recoiled with indignation. “I am not… I would never…”  I am the Countess of Tynsdale!

Isabelle held her tongue to consider the outcome of her confession. First, he would probably not believe it, considering her state. Second, if he did believe her, he would most likely do what any Scot would do, hold her for ransom and return her to her… husband.

“I did not…” Isabelle struggled to find some explanation for her being in the woods alone that did not make her a countess or a woman of ill repute. “Whilst I was traveling, my horse bolted, and I got lost.”

“Where is yer horse?” He folded his arms in front of him, clearly not believing her.

Isabelle focused on smoothing her ruined velvet riding gown once more. It had been a beautiful deep wine red; it wasn’t any more. “I lost that too.” She dared to glance up at the stranger once more and found him staring at her intently.

“I want the truth. Who waits for ye in Bewcastle?”

Isabelle tried to think of a suitable answer. “I… my…er….”

“Stop wi’ yer lies, Sassenach.”

“I have an aunt in Bewcastle! I am going to see my aunt!” exclaimed Isabelle, relieved to have blurted out something sensible.

He leaned closer, forcing her to crane her neck to look up at him. “Tell me the truth for I will ken if ye speak to me false.”

Isabelle nodded, her heart thumping hard. What was he going to do?

“Ye dinna have an aunt in Bewcastle, do ye?”

Isabelle hesitated for a moment and shook her head, fearful of what he might do if he knew she was lying.

“Ye are here because of the wrong doing o’ some man.”

Isabelle nodded furiously. “’Tis all his fault!”

“I am sure it is. Come wi’ ye then, I will drop ye at the next burgh. Mayhap they can find a suitable arrangement for ye.”

Isabelle was not sure what kind of ‘arrangement’ he had in mind, but she was certain she did not wish to discover it for herself. “No! Please, I must get to Bewcastle. Someone awaits me there.”

“Going from one man to another?” The man shook his head, his lips pressed into a thin line of disapproval. “I can take ye to the next burgh, but I winna a stand here all night. Ye can come wi’ me or take yer chances on the road, English.”

“I must return to England!”

“Sorry, but I dinna care to have my neck stretched.”

 

“But it is imperative I get to Bewcastle!”

The man shrugged. “Good luck to ye then. I’m sure yer next conquest will enjoy ye.”

Isabelle put her hands on her hips, a hot wave of righteous indignation washing over her. Did he not know that a knight should always help a damsel in distress? He was devoid of all proper feeling. This is what she got for asking a barbarian for help.

“I thank thee for your kind offer to find me an ‘arrangement’ – is that the word you used?” Her tone was hardly polite but she gave herself some latitude considering the circumstances. “But I prefer to walk back on my own.” With as much dignity and poise as she could possibly muster, she walked past him into the forest.

“England is the other way.”

Isabelle stopped short. She balled her hands into fists and slowly turned around. Her tall, not so heroic Highlander had the audacity to look amused. She hated this man. Clenching her jaw, she walked with false confidence to the other side of the road. She held her head high, her back straight, but feared her cheeks burned in evidence to her embarrassment.

“’Tis getting dark, lassie. Night will be upon ye soon.”

Without looking back, Isabelle walked with determined defiance into the forest. She had made it this far, she could make it back.

“There be all sorts of beasties in this forest at night,” he called after her.

Now that did make her pause, but the thought of being taken further into Scotland to be settled in an ‘arrangement’ got her feet moving again. She had wished to escape her husband, not the whole of England. True, she had evaded her husband’s guards, but being dragged into Scotland by a half-dressed barbarian was little improvement. Even if he did have  striking green eyes and long eyelashes. Not, of course, that she’d noticed.

A rustling sound in the brush ahead of her gained her attention. She froze, hoping whatever it was would go away, but luck had utterly abandoned her this day. Concealed by the dense foliage, something snorted and pawed the ground. With a high pitched squeal, a wild boar emerged from the brush.

Isabelle gaped at the beast, her heart pounding in her chest. The beast was covered with coarse black bristles and had two sharp tusks curving out of its pointy snout. Prior to this unfortunate day, the only boar she had ever seen had been as God intended, dead and roasted with an apple in its mouth.

Isabelle swallowed hard, as if some of those sharp bristles were lodged in her throat. This angry pig was far from being supper. The beast pawed the ground and snorted, steam rising from its warm breath in the cool dusk. Isabelle stood as still as a statue, hoping it would not notice her. Those sharp tusks could tear a person to shreds. The boar grunted again, lifting its snout to the wind.

Suddenly the beast squealed, lowered his head, and charged.

A hero who thinks he has no gentleness in him. He saves lives with no thought to his own.  No mission is too dangerous. He does what it takes, no matter what. When he meets his heroine, Becca, all those things he knows about himself change – completely. His emotions churn as never before. That is the storm known as Sterling.

Now Sterling has to fight his inner storm on two fronts – his feelings for this woman and everything else. Especially the evil that’s gunning for Becca. More than ever, Sterling is determined to win to keep her safe.

Sterling is one of those heroes who just whirls into your life with word and deed of his own, and you’re as surprised as he is when the changes happen. That just makes him all the more appealing.

Summary:

He may be invincible to everyone else…

Sterling Jeter has remarkable powers and has shown himself to be just about indestructible. But beautiful, brilliant Rebecca Burns knows that even a Super Soldier needs comfort, and so much more…

But she can see that deep down, he’s just a man…

Sterling and Rebecca’s teenage romance was interrupted, but years later the heat between them flares back to life. Even though it endangers everything they’re fighting for, it’s impossible to resist picking up right where they left off…

Now just a teaser for you to meet Sterling.

His cheek brushed hers, whiskers erotically scraping against her skin, his breath warm against her ear as he whispered, “If I instinctively know something so simple as how to order your dinner, think what else I might know about you. What we might know about each other. How to tease each other… How to please each other.”

There was an emptiness inside her that shuddered with hope, with a plea that he would drive it away, fill it with something that wasn’t icy and cold.

He pulled back and looked at her, his eyes dark, passionate. Compelling. “No regrets, Becca,” he vowed, and she knew he’d found those words in her head. Words she’d sworn to live by when she’d left that German hospital without a cure. Words she’d spoken in her head in the lab earlier with him there.

She rolled them around inside her and let them take root, rewarded herself with a deep inhalation of Sterling’s addictive, masculine scent. “No regrets,” she said softly.

A slow smile formed on his lips. “I love it when you agree with me,” he teased.

Becca laughed. “You’re crazy.”

“About you,” he said huskily.

She felt a little schoolgirl rush from that. In the past, she would have felt like the geeky bookworm with the quarterback, uncomfortable and out of her league, but not with Sterling. Never before had a man taken her from such dark emotions to laughter. A place she might just find real escape.

She pressed her hands to his face, her lips to his. Absorbing him. Breathing him in like a little piece of life. They lingered that way, heat simmering between them. Expanding… drawing them in closer to one another without ever moving

His tongue flickered against her lips, pressed past her teeth as he slid it against hers for a long, sensual taste. “Your kisses taste like honey,” he murmured. “What does the rest of you taste like?”

She shivered at the erotic comment—the promise he was going to find out. He kissed her again. Crazy-wild, hot-kissed her, and she loved every second of it. Loved his tongue, his lips, and his hands sliding through her hair, over her face.

Becca ran her fingers through his thick, blond hair. She loved his hair—a little wild like him. Hot like him too. With each stroke of his tongue, each touch of his lips, she felt liberated.

Her palms traveled over his chest—warm, hard muscle, her reward. She was extremely, intensely interested in those muscles, like the best science project in the world that had to be studied. She explored his arms, his biceps, how they felt beneath her palms. Inching forward in her chair, she arched into him, for research purposes, of course. To explore how he would feel pressed close to her. Her breasts ached for his touch, her nipples tight and swollen, in need of his mouth. God. Had she really just had that brazen thought? She was a good girl; she always had been.

His hands slid over her breasts, fingers teased the stiff peaks of her nipples. Her hands covered his, silently telling him she wanted more, because she couldn’t ask or demand. Because she was still that “good girl” at heart and couldn’t seem to let it go.

But she didn’t want to be a good girl. If anyone knew the meaning of “life is short,” she did. Becca ran her lips over his jaw, hid her face in his neck, and nibbled as she said, “You know what I want?”

He slid his hands around her waist. “If you say Chinese food, I’m going to object.”

“I’ll give you a choice then,” she said, feeling braver with his jest. “Feed me, or take off your clothes.”

“I’m all for getting naked, if you are,” he quickly agreed.

“You first,” she bargained.

And while the idea of standing in front of him naked, him fully clothed, would make her feel vulnerable, exposed, it apparently had none of those effects on him.

“Okay,” he said, unaffected by the idea as he pushed to his feet and started undressing. And only seconds later, he stood there in all his naked glory, and she sat there, fully clothed.

Family. Hope. Faith. Survival. Love in the most unexpected places. Heart-warming romance with strong characters who carry on despite whatever the harshness of the old west throws at them, who grab happiness with both hands when life looks bleak.  If you’ve not read one of Caroline Fyffe’s historical westerns, you’re really missing something special.

Texas Twilight is Caroline’s current release in her McCutcheon Family series. You will fall in love with John and Lily from the moment they meet on a stagecoach, work together to fight off Comancheros who attack the coach, and fall in love against all the odds against them from every corner.

This is the old west, and those who live it, survive it, come out stronger on the other side. John and Lily find that out very quickly in Texas Twilight.

Here’s the summary:

Fresh out of medical school, John McCutcheon finds his stagecoach under attack by brutal outlaws.  With the help of a feisty acquaintance, Lily Anthony, he manages to fend off the assault. Lily is attracted to the charming cowboy-doctor, with his chiseled good looks and teasing ways, then heartbroken to learn he’s engaged to be married.

Once settled in Rio Wells, Texas, John tries to ignore the fact that his cousin has taken a shine to Lily.  When a bounty hunter shows up looking for a priceless jewel that Lily has found stashed away in her aunt’s belongings, Lily fears her dreams of owning her own shop–and of finding true love–are about to go up in flames…or, could that just be the glow of a beautiful … Texas Twilight?

Now ride along with John and Lily…

Chapter One

Texas Badlands, 1886

The stagecoach lurched.  John Jake McCutcheon opened his eyes and saw the young woman next to him grasp the leather loop that hung from the coach’s ceiling to keep from being tossed around.  She tipped precariously to the right, then left, bumping forcefully into his shoulder.  With an apologetic glance she moved away, then dabbed at her brow with a folded handkerchief.  She looked at her elderly aunt.
“Tante Harriet? Are you all right?” she asked in a soft German accent.  She opened the fan she held and swished it back and forth in front of the tiny woman. “Your face is extremely red.”
“Of course, Lily,” Harriet Schmidt said in a raspy voice laced with exhaustion.  The old woman’s hair was swept up atop her head and fastened in a bun, but after the miles and miles traveled on the dusty, sun-baked road, it looked more like a weather blown tumbleweed after a storm.  She patted her niece on the knee.  “Thank heavens we’re almost there.  Just one more day and we’ll be out of this oven.”
John glanced away, not wanting to seem impolite.  He’d met both Harriet Schmidt and her niece, Lily Anthony, when they’d boarded the stage together in Concepción.  He’d seen them on the train from Boston, too, but they’d kept to themselves, never speaking with anyone else.
John gazed out the window, thinking. He was finally finished with his medical training and heading to West Texas.  Anticipation coursed though him.
Rio Wells was a long way from his family ranch in Montana, but he’d get used to it.  His plan to return to Y Knot after graduation hadn’t panned out.  His hometown already supported two full-time physicians. If he really wanted to make a difference in people’s lives as a doctor and surgeon, he had to strike out in a place where the townsfolk were in need.  At least he wouldn’t be a complete stranger in Rio Wells. Uncle Winston and his family were there. And his fiancée, Emmeline Jordan, would be joining him this fall.
John closed his eyes, recalling Emmeline’s elegant profile and dark, alluring eyes. In his mind’s eye, her mouth drew down into a seductive little pout, a manipulation he knew all too well, but one that, all the same, fueled his blood.  She was like a beautiful, exotic bird, needing care and affection.
“Oh, just to take this corset off,” Harriett said to no one in particular, then chortled softly at her niece’s shocked expression at her bluntness.  “It pinches horribly.  I think I’ll throw it away for good.” She paused, thinking.  “No…”  Her eyes twinkled mischievously. “Actually, I’ll burn it.”
Cyrus and Jeremiah Post and Abigail Smith, the other passengers cramped uncomfortably on the opposite seat, just smiled, now used to the old woman’s antics.  Miss Smith, a teacher, had been hired by the same town council that had hired John, and he felt a small kinship with her.
“You know, Doctor McCutcheon,” Harriett Schmidt went on, trying to catch his eye, “my Lily doesn’t need a corset.  Her waist is eighteen inches without one.”
“Tante Harriett.  Please.”
John chuckled and shrugged his shoulders.  He’d tried not to notice something like that, but it had been difficult, if not impossible.  The girl had practically been snuggled to his side for several days.
Without warning, the driver called out sharply to the horses and the coach picked up speed.  The two guards riding on top of the stage scuffled around and one shouted something unintelligible.  John glanced out the window.
A shot rang out.  One second later, one of the guards fell from the top of the stage, past the window, landing with a thunk as the stage rolled on.  Lily gasped and threw her arms protectively around her aunt.  Abigail screamed and then fainted, flopping over onto Cyrus’s shoulder.
The driver bellowed to the horses again and the stagecoach heaved forward as the six-horse team was propelled instantly into an all-out gallop.  Three more shots were fired, and the sound of horses’ hooves thundered from behind.
John looked back through the dust to see a number of riders racing toward the stagecoach, eating up the distance between the two.  What the hell was he supposed to do now?  He was a doctor.  He’d taken the Hippocratic Oath to heal not three weeks before.  His job was taking bullets out, not putting them in.  But then, he’d also been raised on a rugged Montana ranch, where the unwavering reality was hard.  Sometimes staying alive meant killing someone else.  Besides, everyone’s lives were on the line, not just his.  It would be especially bad for the women aboard. These hills were a common hiding place for Comancheros.  They used women in the worst ways and then sold them into prostitution in Mexico. As pretty as she was, Lily Anthony would fetch top price.  Hell, they’d sell the skinny teacher and the old woman, too.
Smoke and dust filled the coach.  Pop. Pop. Pop. Lily covered her ears.  Her elderly aunt coughed as she struggled to hang on.  Abigail, now fully awake again, filled the small space with one shrill scream after the other, never even pausing to take a breath.  John reached for his satchel under the seat, withdrew a Colt 45, and strapped on his holster.  Carrying his guns was a habit he hadn’t been able to break even after his years at school.  With hands nimble from experience, he loaded and fired several shots out the window.  Two riders fell.
“You have another gun?”
John was surprised to see old Harriet Schmidt eyeing him expectantly. One hand was outstretched while the other grasped the windowsill as the coach careened down the road, jerking violently this way and that.  “I’m not letting those filthy dogs take my Lily!”
“Can you shoot?”
“I wouldn’t ask if I couldn’t.  My derringer’s not worth diddly.”
John squeezed off three more shots, then pulled another gun from his bag, handing it to Harriet.  He pushed the bag toward Lily. “Bullets.”
Cyrus Post fired out the other side of the coach just as a bullet hit Cyrus’s brother in the chest, slamming Jeremiah violently against the back of the seat.  Jeremiah gasped several times as he tried to hold back a rush of crimson that spurted through his splayed fingers, soaking his clothes.  With just a glance, John could see he wasn’t long for this world.  Abigail’s eyes grew round as she took in the blood.  With a gasp, she fainted again, blessedly putting an end to her screams.
“Son of a bitch! “ Cyrus cried out.  “There’s too many. Prepare to meet your maker.”
“Hush your mouth, you old coot,” Harriet shouted as she hefted the heavy gun and shot out the window. “I have more faith in God than that.”
The coach rounded a corner dangerously fast and then slowed up a bit as it began an uphill climb.  One side of the road dropped off, falling some forty feet to a bed of jagged rocks.
Seizing the moment, John holstered his gun and opened the narrow door.  He climbed the side of the rocking coach using the window as a step, and grasping the luggage rack, pulled himself up.  He flopped onto his stomach, facing the oncoming killers and picked up the fallen guard’s Winchester.  He took aim.
He was able to shoot, cocked the rifle and pick off three Comancheros.  One thing about a McCutcheon was that their father took great pride in teaching them all how to shoot well.  Even his sister Charity was a sharpshooter.
Two bullets whizzed by John’s head so close he felt a trail of heat.  He hunkered lower behind the cargo and steeled his nerves.  A third shot took the life of the driver, forcing the remaining guard to jump into the driver’s box and grab for the multiple reins before they were lost completely.  The man scooped them up and slapped the leather across the backs of the charging horses, demanding more speed.
John paused to reload.  He wasn’t ready to die, dammit!  He’d worked his tail off to get into Harvard and get his medical degree.  And now this?  Angry at the turn of events, he unloaded his chambers, bringing down two more outlaws.
“Help me up,” a female voice shouted over the ruckus.
Lily Anthony dangled from the side of the stage, her white knuckles grasping the iron rod of the luggage rack to keep from falling under the steel-rimmed wheels.  Her dress swished around her legs as she struggled to secure footing.  John reached down and took a firm hold under her arms and pulled her up next to him.  “What the hell are you doing?” he yelled over the sound of gun shots and galloping horses.
“Helping you,” she shouted back as she scanned the area.  She picked up the abandoned Winchester, reloaded it from a bag of ammunition, and handed it over to John.  He grunted his understanding, took aim and fired three times, sending more outlaws into the dirt.
As the coach slowed, the seven remaining desperados prepared to come aboard.  John grabbed for his Colt and brought down the two closest.  Taking aim on a third, he squeezed the trigger, only to have the chamber click empty.   The rest of the ammunition was inside with Harriet.  At this range the Winchester was nearly useless.
He swung to his left as a man leapt from his mount and began climbing up.  With his empty gun, John bashed him in the face, knocking him off.  Lily hefted the Winchester to her shoulder and fired, taking down a rider who was bringing up the rear.
Lily screamed and again grasped the luggage bar.  One of the Comancheros had her by the ankle, pulling her toward the side of the rocking coach.   John fought to keep his balance as he swung around.  Grabbing the Winchester, he struck the outlaw’s face several times, but the man was mad with evil intent, and hung on relentlessly.
The coach lurched as the hind right wheel spun off the road.  John scrambled to keep from being pitched off the top.  The outlaw faltered.  Quickly dropping the rifle, he grasped Lily’s upper body and heaved.  She bucked and kicked, finding the outlaw with her boot, the kick glancing off his temple, but still he clung fast. Again the careening coach swayed violently, almost toppling all three.
A volley of shots sounded from within the coach and from the corner of his eye he saw one of the remaining two mounted riders fell.  The final rider fired once, then pulled up and stopped, abandoning his companion who still rode the stage.
John yanked Lily behind him as the Comanchero stood and pulled out a knife.  With the agility of a cat, the man slashed out and John dodged to the side.  Emboldened, the outlaw sprung forward, catching John around the middle.  The two fell to the roof, wrestling for the weapon.  John reached for his empty Colt and brought it down on the man’s head, but not before a searing heat flashed down his face from temple to earlobe.  Hefting the unconscious man up, John threw him off the cliff side of the rollicking coach then slumped down, pressing his palm to his face.

I wonder if anyone, especially the women, at the Texas Department of Transportation has secretly read Christie Craig‘s latest book, after the hullabaloo they generated with their crazy lawsuit over the title of the book.  I mean, most of those employees have to be curious. I know I would be!

And now I’m a happy reader after having finished reading all about Dallas and Nikki and their extended families, their hurtful pasts, and the murder mystery and their vulnerabilities that are mucking up their future together.

We wanted you to enjoy a little bit of a teaser from Don’t Mess with Texas, so here’s an excerpt just for y’all today.

Summary:

Nikki Hunt thought her night couldn’t get worse when her no-good, cheating ex ditched her at dinner, sticking her with the bill. Then she found his body stuffed in the trunk of her car and lost her two-hundred-dollar meal all over his three-thousand-dollar suit. Now not only is Nikki nearly broke, she’s a murder suspect.

Former cop turned PI, Dallas O’Connor knows what it’s like to be unjustly accused. But one look at the sexy-though skittish-suspect tells him she couldn’t hurt anyone. The lead detective, Dallas’s own brother, has the wrong woman and Dallas hopes a little late-night “undercover” work will help him prove it . . .

Enjoy!

“I’m killing him,” Nikki muttered again fifteen minutes later as she pulled out her already over-drawn debit card again.

The grocery cashier scanned the Pepto-Bismol, Tums, Rolaids, and anti-diarrhea meds before looking at Nikki.  “Kill who?”

Why did people think just because she was talking, she was speaking to them?  Was she the only one who talked to herself?  Nevertheless, with the cashier’s curious stare, Nikki felt obligated to answer.  “My ex.”  She placed a palm on her stomach as it roiled.

Holding her purchases in a plastic bag, Nikki couldn’t escape quickly enough.  She darted out the door.  The ball of orange sun hung low in the pre-dusk sky.  Her eyes stung.  She almost got to the car when the smell of grilled burgers from the hamburger joint next door washed over her and the full wave of nausea hit.  A woman with two kids dancing around her came right at Nikki.  Not wanting to upchuck on an innocent child, she swung around in the opposite direction, opened her bag and heaved as quietly as she could inside it.

Realizing she’d just puked on her medicine, she lost her backbone, and tears filled her eyes.  Only the weak cry. The words filled her head, but damn it, right now she was weak.

She rushed to her car, wanting only to get home.  Tying a knot in the bag, she grabbed her keys, hit the clicker to unlock the doors and then popped open the trunk.

Tears rolled down her cheeks.  Her stomach cramped so hard her breath caught.

She got to her bumper, was just about to drop the contaminated bag into the trunk when she saw . . .  She blinked the tears from her eyes as if that alone would make the image go away.

It didn’t.

There, stuffed in the back of her car, was a body.

She recognized the Armani suit first.  Then she saw his face.  His eyes were wide open, but something was missing.

Life.

Jack was dead.

Jack was dead in the trunk of her car.

Her vision started to swirl.

She tried to scream.  Nausea hit harder.  Unable to stop herself, she lost the rest of her two hundred dollar meal all over her dead ex-husband’s three thousand dollar suit.

To add to the fun of this day, we’re going to be giving away some copies of Entangled. So if you’ve been following our posts throughout the day, you’ve made it this far to find out how to win!

A meaningful comment or question left on Liz Kreger’s guest blog is what will put you in the running. Now, remember, this is an e-copy only, not a print book. And right now it looks like it’s going to be a Kindle ebook. If we can figure out ways to get other versions for you, we will.  So get your Kindle ready, and there’s always the Kindle desktop application you can download for free! So please keep that little tidbit in mind if you decide to enter the contest.

In the meantime, it’s time for a look at Edie Ramer‘s addition to this amazing anthology. Who doesn’t love a good kitty story?

She pulled up in front of the castle. One of the two oversized double doors opened.

A man marched out, head high, back straight. She was unimpressed. As a former actress, Tory immediately knew what he was doing. Making an entrance. The lights from the iron lampposts outside the entrance, along with the moonlight shining down on him, were his theater lights. She was his audience.

She opened the car door and got out. Keeping the car between them, she peered over the roof at him.

Her breath sucked in. She hadn’t expected him to look like a prince out of a fairy tale. Golden brown hair, pale gold complexion. Black jeans covered long legs and lean hips. A black turtleneck clung to broad shoulders, a great chest, a flat belly. And his face…every angle sculpted, every feature yummy.

She didn’t have to look at his lower parts to know they were in pretty good shape, too.

“Mreeooow.”

She turned her gaze from him and opened the door wider to let Samson jump out.

Bad, Samson scolded her. Bad.

“You’re late.” Damon’s voice wasn’t warm and happy, either.

“Where’s Nikki?” She shut the door but stayed on her side of the car.

He stared at her, and she felt the power of his gaze on her face.

“Come closer,” he said. “Where I can see you.”

She braced her feet. “Where’s Nikki?”

“Inside.”

“Bring her outside.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Distrustful.”

“Paranoid,” he said.

She shrugged. “I must be. I emailed my brothers, telling them where I was.”

“Would they come after me?”

“If I went missing, count on it.”

His teeth flashed and he laughed, exultation coming off of him in waves. Instead of making him angry or concerned, her words amused him. Gave him power.

He wouldn’t laugh after he saw them. But Sorcha was the one he really needed to worry about. Sorcha was…unusual. She didn’t have the same respect for laws as her brothers. She said men created them, and she wasn’t a man. She did what she felt was right, and the hell with anyone who got in her way.

Right now, Tory wanted to be more like Sorcha than her brothers.

“Either you bring Nikki outside, or I’m outta here.”

His laughter shut off. The air changed. Becoming denser, heavier, darker.

She forced herself to hold her spine straight, her chin up. Breathe, she reminded herself. Breathe.

Are you hooked yet? Can’t wait to get this anthology on your ereader? I can help out! Here’s the link to purchase your very own copy!

Entangled

What better way to spend the day reading some terrific supernatural stories after contributing to a very worthy cause? I’m glad you agree!

How about a look at Michelle Miles‘ offering? I just know you’re going to love this…

When Chloe bakes a little magic into her pastries, she attracts the attention of Edward, the sexy half-demon, half-witch, who’s come to warn her that those who murdered her sister are now after her.

Glancing at her watch, closing time neared. Only ten minutes left in the day. The no-show sexy man let all the wind out of her sails completely. There was no sense in delaying the inevitable, she thought, as she headed to the front door. Her hand was on the lock, ready to flip it when…there he was walking toward the bakery.

Her heart skipped a beat. Chloe resisted the urge to smooth back her hair. Instead she licked her suddenly parched lips. There were no other customers in the shop and she would be…all…alone…with him.

A giant knot formed in her throat. She tried to swallow around it but it wouldn’t go away. She was tempted to reach out to him again, to try and touch him with her mind but she was afraid what would happen. Last time he’d nearly fried her.

Chloe swung open the door as he walked in, a scent of musk and danger wafting in after him. Was that the acrid smell of sweat? She shook her head to clear it. She was being silly.

“Cutting it a bit close, aren’t you?” she asked, closing the door and walking behind the counter.

“I was…detained.” His gaze raked over her from head to toe, as though he could picture her naked.

Even though she wanted him to picture her naked, she couldn’t help but notice the dust on his black t-shirt or the smudge of dirt on his left cheek. The way his face looked damp. His hair stood in spikes, like he’d been raking his hand through it repeatedly. And he looked like he hadn’t shaved in three days, which seemed an odd occurrence to her. Not that she would complain. She liked her men rough and ready.

With a small smile to mask her terror, she used her sense to reach out again. She probably shouldn’t, judging by what happened yesterday, but she had to know who or what he was.

The moment she reached for him, it was like he snagged her, dragged her to him, and planted a kiss so sensual, so erotic she lost track of who and what she was. He projected an image to her, showing her all the naughty things he wanted to do to her. Most of them included her on her back, covered in cream cheese icing while he licked it off all the delicate parts of her body.

Chloe gasped, pulled away from him and stumbled backward.

“You’re a…you’re…” She couldn’t get the words out.

“A witch. Yes.” He leaned his hands on the counter and slanted toward her. “I thought you figured that out yesterday when you tried to poke me. Would you like me to prove it to you?”

The door lock clicked into place. All the blinds closed with a flourish.

“Now you’re just showing off,” Chloe snapped. Despite her bravado, fear clawed her throat. “Are you going to take me back to the coven?”

“No,” he said, matter-of-factly. “I’m going to take you in the back, strip you, and fuck you.”

“Who are you?” Her voice was stronger then, though she couldn’t mistake the quiver of her words. She didn’t want to acknowledge that it was from heightened anticipation.

“You can call me Edward.” His eyes landed on her lips again.

“That’s not your real name, is it?”

“You don’t need to know my real name.” His gaze raked over her. “Yet.”

Fear trickled over her in a cold sweat. “Are you from the coven?”

“Yes. I’ve been sent to…” He paused, cocked his head to one side before smiling and showing off those dimples. “…retrieve something that belongs to them.”

Chloe swallowed hard. Damn. She knew exactly what thing he wanted to retrieve and he would have to do it over her dead body. Which is probably the idea.

She never should have run and she’d been stupid to think she could hide here in the human world, under the guise of a baker. Who was she fooling?

She could admit now that her baking had gotten out of hand. That she had this drive and determination to be the best there ever was. That’s why she started putting a little magic in her cupcakes, a little enchantment in her scones and using a little witchery on her cookies. She was the best in town. She had succeeded. She had also succeeded in not staying anonymous.

Her use of magic had, no doubt, called attention to her.

She could run but he’d catch her. And she certainly couldn’t get around him to get to the door. Chloe straightened her back and steeled herself against the coming onslaught. She wouldn’t go down without a fight.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Edward chuckled, a deep rumble in his throat. “Oh, come now. Surely you must know. You took something you shouldn’t have, didn’t you? You also saw something you shouldn’t have.”

Damn. Chloe thought for sure she had escaped from that horrible world. Apparently changing her name and her appearance hadn’t done a bit of good. She’d convinced herself over the last year she really was Chloe O’Shea, baker extraordinaire instead of Sadie Steele, witch who saw something she really wished she’d never seen.

“Sadie.”

Edward let her name roll of his tongue in a dark, dangerous baritone dripping with sex and lust and dark promises.

Chloe swallowed hard, that lump still there. “What do you want?”

He leaned a hip on the counter, his musky scent drifting over her, tantalizing her. He certainly didn’t smell of fear. Instead, he smelled of eroticism and awesomeness. He glanced over his cuticles, examining his perfectly trimmed nails.

“It seems a have another rather pressing problem at the moment. What I want is you.” He gave her a pointed look. One that said he knew what she’d done last night, all alone, with thoughts of him racing through her mind. “It’s the only way to cure me.”

“Cure you?” Fear mingled with uncertainty as it flooded through her. Clearly, he knew who and what she was—a healer. “What do you mean?”

“Can’t you see what you’ve done to me?” He leaned toward her, his lips parted. “You put magic in your cupcakes, didn’t you?”

“I…” She faltered. She had and he knew it. And maybe subconsciously she’d put a little something extra in his. A big mistake, clearly.

“You did. That’s why I’m here.” He twined a blond lock around his forefinger. “Once I took that first bite, the magic in them awoke the demon inside me.”

Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Demon? I thought you were a witch.”

“I’m half-witch, half-incubus. Lucky for you. I take what I need, when I need it.” He winked and leaned toward to her, his lips close to hers as he whispered against them. “And there is one of two ways you can give me the release I need.”

“Dare I ask?” Her heart thrummed in her chest. Her traitorous body reacted to the way his warm breath lingered over her mouth, teasing her. Tempting her.

“Have sex with me for the next twelve hours. It will sate my thirst for you and break the spell.”

Edward’s lips brushed hers ever-so-softly, rich with promise and vows of ecstasy. Slick heat exploded between her legs, begging for release. Instead, she jerked away, out of his reach.

“Do you expect me to surrender to you that easily?”

“Oh, I expect you will surrender.” Again, that pointed sultry look. “You’ll beg to surrender to me.”

Chloe propped her hands on her hips. “I will never surrender to you.” Yes, you will, you liar. You know you will. Her inner voice taunted her.

“You want me, too, don’t you?” His grin showed off the dimples around his mouth.

“What’s my other option?” she asked, ignoring his question. Of course she wanted him. Her body shook with desire.

“Perform a spell to break the magic that’s holding me.”

Well, that was certainly out of the question. If she did, it would be like sending up a giant neon sign pointing at her saying, Here I am! Come get me! The coven would definitely know where she was if she used that much magic. She told herself the little bit she used in her baked goods would go unnoticed. That she could remain incognito. Perhaps she had been wrong about that, too, if he’d found her so easily.

Edward had to realize that using a spell like that would make the coven aware. That’s why he tried to coerce her into having sex with him. Like that was such a bad thing.

It’s werewolf time!

Hmmm. Werewolves and Cynthia Eden. I think I’m missing out not having read this ebook yet. So are you! I can guarantee that, if you’ve never read Cynthia’s books before.

And I’m going to prove that to you right now. Read on so I can make my point!

“Would you really shoot me, baby?” Doubt cloaked his whisper.

Ava risked a fast glance at the deputy. Right. Figured Ken hadn’t even heard the wolf’s approach. He was too busy talking on his phone and trying to keep his lunch down. “Don’t test me,” she snapped back to the wolf. Sure, they might have been lovers once—once—but that was over. She had a job to do.

She’d do it. A sexy werewolf wouldn’t stop her.

Julian cocked a dark brow, but he also stepped back. Good.

“Now put your hands up,” she ordered him.

Smiling a bit, he raised his hands. In the early light, she didn’t see any blood beneath his nails. Nails, not claws. The claws would only come out when he shifted.

“Want to tell me what you’re doing here?” Ava asked.

He shrugged but kept his hands up. “I just followed the scent of blood.”

Supernaturals enjoyed the scent of blood far too much.

So she had a dead human, one who’d had his throat ripped open, and a werewolf, right at the scene of the crime. She also knew for a fact that said dead human had been planning to interview Julian last night.

Things weren’t looking good for the wolf right then.

And it wasn’t like she had a whole lot of options. Sighing, Ava pulled out her cuffs. “These are gonna sting,” she warned him. Silver cuffs. Because of their enhanced strength, werewolves could break free of almost anything else instantly.

He dropped his hands. “You aren’t serious.”

She was. Did it look like she was joking? “I need you to come to the station with me. You can either come willingly…” Then she’d leave the cuffs off, at least for the time being. “Or I can take you in the same way I do other paranormal suspects.” She had a little more freedom than the sheriffs who only patrolled human counties and captured mortal criminals.

When the monsters you hunted could kill with claws and fangs, new rules had to be made.

The blood had drawn out a werewolf, but, even though the smell was like pure ambrosia to a vampire, she knew none of the undead would be coming to join their little party. Everyone knew vamps and sunlight didn’t mix.

She’d get to them, though, soon enough.

Julian glanced toward her patrol car. “You don’t want to make a mistake here, Sheriff.”

Oh, wait, she wasn’t “baby” anymore? If the big wolf wasn’t careful, he’d hurt her feelings. “I know claw marks when I see ‘em,” she told him, still holding tight to her cuffs. “As far as I know, there’s only one wolf pack in Mississippi.” Nothing happened in that pack without his approval.Nothing.

His gaze, bright blue, came back to her.

“Now, Alpha,” if he was gonna be all formal, then she could be, too. “Will you play nice and get in the car, or do I have to cuff you?”

Sirens wailed in the distance. Had to be her back-up racing toward them. The deputies always responded quickly when it was a supernatural call. Humans had to stick together.

“When have I ever played nice?” Julian growled the words.

Right. Of course, the guy wouldn’t make this easy.

She locked one cuff around his wrist. There was a slight sizzle as the silver burned his flesh. His gaze held hers. “You don’t want me as an enemy,” he warned.

She reached for his right hand. She wouldn’t put the cuffs behind him. Ava figured she owed him that much. “Sometimes it doesn’t matter what we want.” Since that night they’d shared, she’d learned that bitter lesson. Her hand curled around his wrist. Staring into his eyes, she snapped the other cuff onto his wrist. “Alpha Julian Kasey,” she’d do the legal bit to make sure she covered her ass, “you’re a paranormal person of interest in a murder investigation and, as such, you’re now in supervised custody.”

His lips curled in a very slow, wicked smile. A smile that showed the sharp edge of his canines. “Later, when you look back, this is the moment you’ll regret.”

Maybe.

But… “Right now, looking back,” she shouldn’t say this, she shouldn’t, but the words and anger couldn’t be held back, “the moment I regret was hooking up with you at that godforsaken bar.”

The faint lines around his eyes tightened.

“And if I find out that you’re behind these killings…” She shook her head. “Then what happened between us won’t matter at all. I’ll still lock you up.” She had a job to do. People who counted on her. A hard case of lust and need for a dangerous werewolf couldn’t distract her.

Not when human lives were on the line.

If you’re a paranormal fan like me, you have to be anticipating reading this anthology as much as I am right now.

There have been a number of such anthologies released over the last few years, but none have gone the extra distance this particular one is designed for: to help cure breast cancer.

So while you’re enjoying these very talented authors’ stories in Entangled (you can’t beat the $2.99 price!), you have the satisfaction of knowing you’re helping not only yourself but women everywhere. As a woman, there’s not too many other things better than that.

Now enjoy a quick sneak peak into Nancy Haddock‘s contribution in this extra-special book:

Ghost seer Colleen Cotton and Brickman A. Frasier, the hot by-the-book paranormal investigator of her dreams and nightmares, must team up to locate the one ghost who can save St. Augustine’s specters.

“My ghost investigation team ran into a wall tonight.”

“And that should mean squat to me?”

“It means something to the client. Martha Harrison. She told us you’d done one of your interventions with her ghost last month, and she wants you on site for our investigation.”

I frowned at Brick’s neutral expression. Clearly he didn’t want to lay all his cards on the table, but then he didn’t have to explain Martha Harrison to me. Elderly even by senior citizen standards and a legend in St. Augustine, she’d taught history to generations of students, fought for civil rights, and won her bout with breast cancer and lymphoma both. Far more steel than magnolia, her will was a force of nature. So much so, that I’d quaked in my sandals when Mrs. Harrison called me to do an intervention with her own home ghost, Zavier.

“Listen, Colleen,” Brick said, his voice placating, his energy set to sooth instead of confront. “I admit we got off to a bad start.”

I snorted and crossed my arms. “Brick, you called me a scam artist.”

“I conceded you might be a legitimate sensitive.”

“Only after you told certain people I’d bilk them out of thousands.”

“I apologized for that.”

“Yeah, when one of my clients divulged to you what I actually charge.”

“Okay, I had some bad information. I misjudged you, slandered you, and was an all-around ass, but that was months ago. Give me another chance. Come to Mrs. Harrison’s house with me. She won’t let us set up one piece of equipment until she talks with you.”

I rubbed my forehead and thought about his request. Much as I was attracted to Brick, I didn’t want to make his life one whit easier. However, if I ignored a command appearance from Martha Harrison, I might as well take down my therapist shingle and go flip burgers. Plus I was itching to know what had the local ghosts acting so goosey, and curious as to whether I could help them regain peace.

“Exactly what kind of problems is Mrs. Harrison reporting?”

“Knocks all over the house, bangs and thuds in the attic, shadows moving. And she’s not the only one who’s called about paranormal disturbances. I’ve fielded more calls in the last two weeks than I have for two months.”

I recalled my own uncharacteristically full calendar of clients. Ghostly activity on the rise. No leap of logic to figure something out of the ordinary was afoot.

“Please, Colleen,” Brick said. “I won’t ask anything of you again.”

I gave Brick the evil eye. “If I go, I’ll do it for Martha, not for you and your team.”

“Understood.”

“One crack from any of you, and I’m outta there.”

“Absolutely.”

“Fine. Do you have a digital recorder on you?”

“Uh, yeah.” Brick blinked in puzzlement, but thrust a hand in his windbreaker pocket and pulled out a voice-activated recorder smaller than my dinky old cell phone.

“I don’t suppose you had that running while you were, um—”

“Forcibly restrained by your ghost? No.”

“Too bad. I’ll bet Da had plenty to say.”

“Anything I’d want to hear?” Brick teased.

I waved away his attempt at levity. “Just turn the recorder on now, please.” He pushed a button and nodded. “Da, front and center. I need to ask you about the town ghosts.”

“What about them?”

Da answered even as he materialized between Brick and me. Brick put his hand out to feel the cold spot Da brought with him, and nearly stuck his hand through the middle of my great grand-ghost’s back. With a violent shiver, Brick wisely stepped back.

“The spirits in town seem to be stirred up. Even afraid. Do you know what’s wrong with them?”

Brick frowned, but I kept my focus on Da’s craggy, semi-transparent face.

Da poked a thumb over his shoulder. “Do you want me to answer so he’ll hear me on that gadget?”

For the sake of the gadget, I responded in full. “Yes, speak into the recorder.”

Da half turned. Considering he hadn’t been a tall man but Brick was easily six-five, that put Da’s mouth right about at recorder level.

“All I’ve heard,” he said, carefully enunciating, “is that there’s a raid afoot. An attack, girl. An attack targeting spirits.”

“What could possibly hurt ghosts?”

“There are dead who feed on earthbound souls. Not many of the dastards, but this one must be a doozey.”

I have to admit that I don’t read a lot of young adult. Even romance. As much as I love romance. But there’s always the exception to the rule. I love Harry Potter, but the Twilight Saga is only so-so for me. But now with Helen Scott Taylor writing in the YA genre, I’m going to definitely be reading more and more of it.

Her characters come alive in a city that is delineated by three circles, each ring denoting a class of people, from poor to rich. Her hero and heroine are poles apart, just like their city. One regards duty as most important, while the other reaches for companionship, friendship, and love. They both learn to eventually follow their heart, the only thing left to them that is true and will never lead them astray.

Take the time to read this book, the first in Helen’s new series. Your amazement will abound with each turn of the page.

Summary:

A rags to riches fairytale about a lost princess and a maverick young spymaster who must foil the plans of an evil magician bent on stealing her throne. Full of pickpockets, top hats, tiaras, clockwork doodads, danger and romance.

Seventeen-year-old Melba was raised like a boy to pick pockets and run messages in the poor outer circles of Royal Malverne Isle, but she longs to be a spy. When she meets nineteen-year-old Turk, a notorious spymaster, she thinks the Great Earth Jinn has heard her prayer. With his exotic, dark southern looks and posh lifestyle in the inner circle, Turk fascinates her. Yet he is not what he seems. He has secret plans for her that will tear them apart, just when they discover they love each other. But he is not the only one with plans for her. The evil Royal Victualler has his eye on the throne and he uses foul magic to eliminate competition and Melba is in his way.

Prepare to be amazed……

Prologue

Silver-veined marble columns flanked the portal to the temple of the Silver Jinn. The woman mounted the three steps to the entrance, treading lightly in satin slippers. Silver bracelets on her wrists and ankles jangled while a rare breeze tugged at the pink and turquoise silk sheathing her body.

She sighed with relief as she entered the relative cool of the marble temple and escaped the searing heat of the midday sun. Neat rows of embroidered kneelers filled the space, ready for the devout at dusk prayers. Her eyes rose to the magnificent silver pillar at the far end of the central aisle. Four times as thick as her body, the gleaming column soared high into the domed roof of the temple.

When her toes met the raised ridge of floor tiles that marked the place where devotees must wait, she crouched dutifully. Ticking and whirring sounds broke the still heat of the afternoon as the embossed design on the pillar started to move. Viewing the column from one side, it was not immediately clear what was represented by the intricate pattern that covered the silver. But as the woman watched, the column opened out before her into a huge silver serpent. First the Jinn’s head emerged from the metal, the millions of tiny joints and plates of silver unfolding in a miracle of engineering, the lethal spiked crest on its neck rising like a row of blades. The whirring of spinning cogs reached a crescendo that vibrated through the floor into her feet as the Silver Jinn’s head dipped to the ground and its thick sinuous body followed. Millions upon millions of minute silver scales tinkled across the marble floor as the serpent slid along the aisle toward her.

Every piece of silver in the city contained the spirit of the Silver Jinn and could be fashioned into mechanical devices animated by the spirit, but nothing else in the city was of anywhere near this size or complexity. Sorcerers and silversmiths far more skilled than any alive today had fashioned this magnificent mechanism and summoned the divine Jinn from the silver to automate it millennia ago.

After years of daily visits, she stood patiently, unafraid of the creature’s huge hooked fangs and deadly poison. Hissing, the silver serpent reared up in front of her and peered at her with unblinking eyes. With a click of mechanical jaws parting, the woven silver rope of its tongue flicked out to taste her skin. Satisfied she was one of its own, the Jinn drew back and began to refold its body into the pillar.

The first part of her daily ritual over, she went to a red silk cushion in the back row and kneeled. She bowed her head and closed her eyes. “Great Silver Jinn, son of our mother the moon, take pity on your humble servant and deliver home my husband and son from the infidels in the north who worship the Earth Jinn.” She had first whispered this prayer fourteen years ago when her husband’s merchant brig failed to return after sailing the trade route to the north. She had pleaded with the Great Silver Jinn to return her husband and son safely, to no avail. Now her daily prayer was little more than a habit. But deep in her heart, a tiny spark of hope still burned.

She rose but instead of heading out, she went to the tower on the north corner of the temple. Entering through the door used by the priests who rang the tower bell at dusk, she mounted the spiral steps.

At the top, pinpricks of heat rained down on her where shafts of sunlight spiked through the silver filigree cupola. The woman went to a small window facing north and stared across the gleaming gold and silver roofs of the city of Arco toward the harbor. Seagoing merchant vessels swayed at anchor, while nearby the cloudless sky was as bright as an artist’s palette with the multicolored silk envelopes of airships, half of them emblazoned with her family’s Silver Serpent emblem and the other half with that of their rivals in power the Golden Dragon sorcerers. Her gaze tracked the horizon. Somewhere, far away over the turquoise waters of the ocean, could her beloved husband and precious little boy still be alive? Or had the dark seas of the north stolen the Stars from their hearts?

Chapter One

If the Great Earth Jinn warns you something is wicked, do it quick before you change your mind. –Master Maddox

Master Maddox had taught Melba to keep her cap pulled down and her face dirty. The port area of Royal Malverne Isle was a dangerous place at night and if someone recognized her as a girl, she’d be done for.

She avoided the area if possible, but tonight Maddox had sent her there with an urgent message for a smuggler. As she made her way home by moonlight, a tavern door burst open in front of her. Raucous laughter and light spilled into the narrow alley. Three men stumbled out, cursing and shoving each other. She pressed back against the damp stonework of the brothel opposite. If the Great Earth Jinn were on her side, the men would turn the other way.

On the shoulder of the tallest man’s coat, the gold insignia of the Royal Fleet caught the light. A chill curled in her belly and her fingers sought the handle of the dagger wedged in her boot. Bluejackets would doubtless head for the brothel—straight toward her.

The shortest man carried a staff with an unlit lantern swinging from the hook on top. He paused by the tavern lamp, lit a twist of hay, and touched it to the wick of his lantern.

“Get your arse moving or we’ll not finish with the tarts before the tide turns,” the tall man said.

Melba sidled away from the brothel door, praying they were too drunk to notice her.

The short one stumbled against his fat friend causing the lantern to swing wildly, flashing light around the alley.

“Ha! A boy,” Fatty shouted.

Melba’s grip tightened on her knife.

“Up to no good, I’ll wager.” The short one raised his lantern and Melba squinted against the glare. “Extra rations for a week if we take the lad back to the cap’n.” The men spread out and advanced.

Life on board ship was dismal for a boy pressed into service, unthinkable for a girl. Melba darted a few steps one way, then the other, testing their reactions. They paused, arms spread to block her escape. They might be drunk but their wits were still sharp.

The tall sailor lunged for her. She jumped aside only to crash into the fat one, who had moved to flank her. She stumbled to her knees, dropping her dagger in the gutter. Before she could scramble away, a hand grabbed the back of her jacket and hauled her off the ground.

“Nothing of ’im.” The stench of rotten teeth and ale curdled her guts. She jabbed her elbow back and connected with soft flesh. Breath whooshed out behind her, but the grip on her collar held.

“Bleedin’ tyke.” A fist thumped her side, knocking the wind from her lungs. She hung limp and helpless, gasping for air, while her hands were yanked behind her. Eyes watering with pain, she tried to think how to escape. Whatever happened, she must get away from the sailors before they reached the ship.

A dull thud echoed off the surrounding walls. The hand holding her let go suddenly and she landed awkwardly, skinning her knees on the gritty dirt through the holes in her breeches. She had no idea why she’d been released and she didn’t wait to find out. Shaking the half-tied twine from her wrists, she lunged forward to snatch up her knife and then hid in the shadows by the wall.

Another man had entered the fray and he seemed to be on her side. The tall dark stranger kicked out at head height, the buckle on the side of his boot glinting in the light as his foot connected with the fat sailor’s chin. With a grunt, Fatty crumpled to the ground. The stranger had worked fast. The tall sailor was already lying in the gutter beside the tavern door. At the sight of his fallen comrades, the short sailor threw down his lantern and scarpered.

Melba’s heart thudded and she flexed her fingers on her dagger as she assessed the stranger. Just because he had dispatched the three lowlifes didn’t mean he was her friend. Many people on Malverne Isle had cause to hate the sailors of the Royal Fleet. Had she evaded capture by the bluejackets only to fall into the hands of someone worse?

The man turned toward her, his black garb relieved only by a glint of silver at his throat. “Come, boy. Mustn’t be caught with sailors of the Royal Fleet at our feet or it’ll be The Well for both of us.”

Melba swallowed back bile, fear of the man temporarily forgotten at the thought of something worse. She’d heard the screams of men tossed down The Well. If you were lucky, the bluejackets threw you down at high tide and the sea took you right away. If you were unlucky, you lay broken on the rocks at the bottom for hours before the water flowed in and put you out of your misery.

Her rescuer strode away into the shadows and she hesitated a moment longer, but she had to follow or risk being caught. She raced after him as the tavern door opened behind her and shouts of alarm chased her along the alley.

As she caught up to him, her rescuer glanced over his shoulder at her. “Ever traveled the skyways?”

Melba shook her head. Runners and thieves like her took the waterways, escaping through the drains and flood defense pipes crisscrossing beneath the city.

Only spies traveled with the birds.

That meant, Sweet Earth Jinn, he must be a spy. Excitement bubbled inside her.

He stepped back and, with a soft grunt, leaped onto a wall as tall as she was. Then he held down a hand and whispered, “Put your foot up—”

“I know.” She’d played at spies with the boys often enough. She put her scuffed boot against the wall, leaned back so he took her weight, and walked up as he pulled.

Shouts echoed along the alley below. Her rescuer glanced down. “Time to disappear.”

He darted up the sloped wall to roof level, his soft leather boots near silent on the rough-hewn stone. Melba tugged her cap down, sucked in a breath, and ran after him. Balancing took all her concentration as her tight boots pinched her toes.

He waited for her at the end of the wall where the row houses finished. As soon as she caught up, he leaped across an alley. His jacket flapped up behind him to reveal four silver stars on his belt.

Melba’s breath froze halfway in. Only one man carried lethal spiked throwing stars. Her rescuer was far more than a spy, he was a legend. Poor people of the outer circles thought he was a benevolent Earth Jinn stealing from the nobs to give to the poor. Thieves spoke of him in reverential whispers as Master Turk, spymaster extraordinaire. Old Maddox had told her that Master Turk even had spies on the top of Nob Hill in the Royal Palace.

She’d prayed for the opportunity to catch a spymaster’s interest and have the chance to better herself.

Shouts of alarm from below pierced her thoughts.

“Jump,” Master Turk urged. “Two more streets and you’ll be safe in the third circle.”

Melba was used to crawling through dirty pipes and squeezing through holes, but jumping gaps twenty feet in the air…. She peered over the parapet to the street below.

“It’ll be easier if you take off those clodhoppers,” he said, pointing at her feet.

She looked down at her boots and shook her head. All her life Master Maddox had drummed into her one vital lesson, keep your boots and breeches on. His other boys often went barefoot, but he always made her wear boots, so people wouldn’t see her strange feet and breeches, so no one discovered she was a girl.

She took two steps back and hauled in a breath. She must make a clean jump and clear the gap. If she impressed Master Turk, he’d be more likely to accept her pledge. She belted forward, leaped, and landed in a clattering heap at his feet. Bruises throbbed and grazes stung, sending tears to her eyes, but she kept her face down so he wouldn’t see her embarrassment. She must be tough if she wanted to do well.

Without a word, he pulled her up by an arm and set off at a trot along the valley gutter between two rows of terraced cottages. After they had leaped another alley, he led her behind a thick brick chimney that shielded them from the street below.

He turned to face her and rested a shoulder against the brickwork. “You should be safe now.” He pointed to the right where a sloping wall led down to the back of a shop. “That’s your best way down. Not much of a drop.”

Melba pressed her tongue on the back of her teeth and gathered her courage. “You’re Master Turk.”

“Observant, lad.” He angled his head to examine her. Moonlight glistened on the dark strands of his hair, sculpted his profile with light and shadow. He had dark eyes and golden skin like the foreign sailors up from the south. Her heart gave a strange little bump. She had never met a master so young and handsome. But how would she persuade him to take her on?

“Let me pledge to you. I’m a superior runner and thief. I’ll be a great spy. I see stuff all the time. Pledge me, sir, please.”

“Superior, huh?” He smiled. “What are you, thirteen?”

She nodded vigorously. Although she was seventeen, she was small and skinny and passed for a lad of thirteen easily.

In the roof beside them, a lamp sputtered to life behind a small skylight. Master Turk put his finger to his lips and peered through the window. After scrutinizing the room for a few seconds, he relaxed and leaned back against the chimney.

The light revealed the fine fabric of his jacket, the stitching almost invisible. The five small circles of a tiny silver Earth Blessing gleamed against his dark neck cloth. Black jewels glittered on his ears. He dressed like a nob.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Mel.”

“Well, Mel, if you’re such a good runner and thief, won’t your current master miss you?”

Her hand went to the tin disk stamped with Master Maddox’s symbol on a length of twine around her neck. His baker’s shop in the third circle was the only home she’d known. She’d been happy there, but lately things had changed. Since she’d turned sixteen, he’d stopped her bunking with the boys in the warm storeroom behind the bakery oven and made her sleep alone in the loft. And he never let her fill her belly anymore, telling her it was best she stay skinny.

“He won’t miss me,” she said, hating the catch in her voice. She couldn’t afford to be soft like a girl or she’d get found out and end up in a whorehouse or as skivvy in a tavern.

“Give me your hand.” Master Turk leaned closer, bringing with him the tang of lemon spice. He even smelled like a nob.

Don’t give anyone your hand unless you’d give them your blade. Maddox’s lesson echoed in her mind. Why did Master Turk want to touch her? She thought about refusing, but then he might turn down her pledge. She inhaled deeply, tasting the lemony scent of him on her tongue, and held out her hand.

His fingers closed around hers, his grip firm and warm. Melba held her breath, risked a glance up at his face, and found him watching her, dark eyes narrowed. A strange shivery feeling washed through her that made her squirm inside her clothes.

He dropped her hand, pressed his lips together, and scrutinized her from head to foot.

With a flare of horror, she thought he’d sensed she was female.

“Mayhap I’ll give you a chance. What will you pledge me?”

On a sigh of relief, she looked down at the three carved wooden toggles on her jacket and slid her fingers behind her favorite. “Carved this meself from a sliver of ironwood I found on the shore.”

He raised his eyebrows and ran a finger over the pattern. “That’ll suffice.”

She grabbed the knife from her boot and sliced off the toggle before dropping it in his outstretched palm. He tucked her pledge inside his jacket and felt in his pocket. “Hold out your hand.”

When she did, he dropped something smooth, black, and oval into her palm. She stared at it aghast. Poor masters gave their boys tin disks, the more prosperous used carved bone or wooden tokens. She’d never seen the likes of this pledge before.

“It’s a starlight stone,” he said in answer to her quizzical expression. “Hold it up to the moonlight.”

She turned the warm weight of the stone over in her hand and then angled it toward the moon. Tiny sparks of light danced across the stone’s surface as silver, purple, and green streaked through its crystalline depths. For a moment, she forgot where she was, entranced by the colors.

“Take another look tomorrow,” he said. “It contains different colors under the sun.”

“Oh.” Melba curled her fingers around the treasure. Nobody had ever given her something this pretty before. A little fizz of excitement went through her. Perhaps he liked her. She glanced up at his darkly handsome face. “Do you give this type of pledge to all your boys?”

He nodded.

She ignored the sting of disappointment and jammed the stone deep in the secret loot pocket in her breeches where it couldn’t fall out. All that mattered was that Master Turk had accepted her pledge. As long as he didn’t discover she was a girl, she had a chance to become a spy and make something of her life.

“You stink as bad as an alley cat,” he said with a grimace. “When we reach the bunkhouse, first order of business is to get you out of those filthy clothes and into a bath.”

***

Turk stopped at the top of a set of brick steps that were little more than foot and handholds, invisible unless you were in the know. He glanced over his shoulder at Mel. The boy had been silent since he’d accepted his pledge. Yet Turk was keenly aware of the boy behind him, his vibrant, energetic presence extraordinarily strong for a boy untrained in Earth Magic.

They were now only a few streets from the bunkhouse he kept for his boys, and he had to make a decision on what to do with him. He had planned to pass Mel on to his friend and fellow spy Steptoe for training, but something about this boy niggled at his awareness, something more than the boy’s latent magical ability.

Although Mel had initially seemed eager to tag along, he now had a sour look on his face, his shoulders slumped. “Spit it out, lad,” Turk said. “What’s troubling you?”

Mel shrugged and stared down at his cumbersome boots. Those would have to go. How the lad had managed to walk the skyways wearing such boots was a miracle. At least it proved Mel had balance and courage.

At length, the boy raised his intelligent blue eyes and wrinkled his nose. “I don’t need no bath, sir. I’ll scrub off me face and hands under the pump in the yard. Don’t do to smell too clean.” As if to emphasize the point, he spat on his hands and rubbed them against his breeches.

Turk groaned inwardly. He couldn’t understand why all his boys detested soap and water. When he was a boy, he’d hated being filthy, his skin sore from the dirt.

Mel blinked in the moonlight. Even his dirty face couldn’t hide his jewel-bright blue eyes. Turk rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully. Mel was unusual. Only a boy trained by the Shining Brotherhood should be capable of shielding his thoughts from an Earth Magic adept like Turk, yet he could read nothing from him but vague emotions. Even the tiny Earth Jinn inside the starlight stone had failed to magnify Mel’s thoughts enough for Turk to read him.

It would be a waste to have Steptoe train the boy as a regular spy and ignore his fledgling power. He needed to be trained by the Shining Brotherhood, or perhaps Turk could bring him home and undertake his training himself. Mel’s small, even features would likely scrub up well enough to make him acceptable in the highest circles. If he proved skillful, the boy had potential to spy on Nob Hill, even in the Royal Palace. Turk’s only problem would be persuading his housekeeper Gwinnie to accept the boy.

“Come.” Turk indicated a change of direction and set off toward the inner circle.

“So I don’t need a bath?” the boy asked hopefully.

“I’ve decided not to take you to the bunkhouse.”

Mel’s boots clattered and Turk spun around in time to see Mel scramble up from where he’d slipped on the tiles. “I’m still pledged, ain’t I, sir? If it’s that important, I’ll bathe.”

“Aye, you will bathe. I’m taking you to my home and I’ll not allow a grimy tyke inside. For all I know you’ve got lice.”

“I keep me hair short so’s I don’t get no lice. Master Maddox brushed me hair with pepper dust only last week.” Mel pulled off his cap revealing a short fuzz of what was undoubtedly grubby hair.

“My housekeeper Gwinnie will make sure you’re clean.” And she wouldn’t use pepper dust. The back of Turk’s throat stung at the memory of that vile dust in his eyes and up his nose.

“You mean a woman will clean me?” Mel asked wide-eyed.

“Yes, a woman.”

“Oh.”

Turk jumped another alley and turned to watch Mel back up a few steps before he hurled himself over the gap like a rat leaving a sinking ship. The boy scrabbled on the edge and pulled himself up, breathing hard. Mel had guts; he’d give him that. He was observant, brave, strong for his size, and bright as a flare: all qualities that could potentially make him an excellent spy.

Mel stood up and looked around. “We’re heading to the inner circle, Master Turk.”

“Aye.” Turk pointed to the row of tall, narrow palaces fronting the canal that ran around the inner circle. “The one decorated with flower mosaics and green metal balconies is Waterberry House. It’s mine.”

Mel gasped. “You are a nob.”

Turk glanced at Waterberry House with a twinge of regret. He loved the place and it felt like his own even though it wasn’t. But he was as far from nobility as it was possible to get. “A good spy knows that looks can be deceiving.”

He set off again and thought Mel would wake his neighbors with his clodhopper boots on the palace roofs, but no one stirred to raise the alarm.

When they reached Waterberry House, he opened the small gate into his roof garden and led Mel along the winding path between the plants. The boy stared around open-mouthed. “I ain’t never seen a place like this before.” He ran his fingers along the thin brass pipes of the irrigation system and sniffed the flowers in a way that reminded Turk of himself when the monks of the Shining Brotherhood first took him in and he discovered the garden at the Seminary. “’Tis so beautiful, it looks like you summoned an Earth Jinn.”

Turk examined Mel’s face, wondering if he could sense the presence of the Jinn that tended the plants, but the boy had obviously just used the term as an expression of praise.

“Here,” Turk cupped a pink rose in his hand and angled the bloom toward the boy. “My favorite fragrance.” The spirits of the roses could be turned into mischievous little Flower Jinns that held a special place in Turk’s heart. The first Jinn the Brothers had taught him to summon had come from a pink rose.

Mel sniffed and his bright blue eyes widened. “That smells lovely.”

“Get out your knife. We’ll cut a few stems for my housekeeper, Gwinnie.” Flowers might put her in a good mood.

He took Mel’s blade, grimacing at the dirty handle, and demonstrated how to cut a rose and trim away the thorns. Then he watched while Mel cut and prepared four more stems.

Mel tucked his knife back in his boot and held the roses out before him reverentially. Turk led him through the small tower door and they descended the narrow winding steps. When they reached the third floor, they took the hall to the main staircase and made their way down to ground level. The mouth-watering smell of baking dinner rolls flavored the air as they approached the kitchen.

Gwinnie turned from the polished brass range when they entered and her brows snapped down. “What’s this ragamuffin doing in me kitchen? Send him to the bunkhouse.”

Turk nudged Mel in the back and he shuffled forward and presented the roses. Gwinnie scowled down at Mel before taking the gift. “He smells like a sack o’ dung.”

“I’m training this one myself.”

Gwinnie huffed and puffed as she clattered around finding a vase and then filling it with water. “Don’t want no filthy tykes in me kitchen.”

Turk walked across to the bathhouse door and pushed it open. The white china tub sat in the center of the room, cold and empty. “Fill the tub with warm water and find the lad some clean togs. His name’s Mel.”

Gwinnie scowled at the boy again. Mel stood sucking his lip and staring at his feet. He’d removed his cap and held it clasped before him. In this light, the boy’s hair was unusually pale, even coated with a layer of grime. His head looked small, his features delicate. Luckily, the lad was a lot tougher than he appeared.

“I ain’t scrubbing the filth off him,” Gwinnie snapped.

Mel looked up, his blue eyes sharp and defensive. “I can bathe meself.”

Mel and Gwinnie glared at each other. Turk grabbed a fresh bread roll from the baking sheet and decided not to bother with butter. Retreat seemed the best course of action. Mel and Gwinnie would reach an understanding far sooner if he didn’t interfere.

***

The old woman narrowed her pale brown eyes and pinned Melba with a fierce look. Melba knew nothing about housekeepers. The only women she had dealings with were the whorehouse madams she ran messages to and the skivvies who trudged around the markets first thing in the morning. The old woman’s face was as wrinkled as her droopy stockings, and one of her cheeks was pitted with scars from the Scab. Her gray hair was pinned up beneath a lace cap with ribbons dangling down her cheeks like a proper lady. At Melba’s scrutiny, Gwinnie jammed her hands on her wide hips and puckered her lips.

“What you looking at, boy?”

“Nothing.” Melba dropped her gaze to the woman’s faded layers of gauzy lace skirts.

“Get yourself over here then and help me shift this water.”

Melba rounded the table, but got distracted by the silky pink petals of the roses arranged in a blue jug on the table. She’d never guessed that such beautiful, sweet-smelling flowers existed. They seemed to tickle the edges of her mind as though they called to her. While Gwinnie poured hot water into a bucket, Melba leaned forward and breathed in the fragrance of the flowers. If she was a lady, she’d keep roses in every room so she could sniff them whenever she wanted.

“Oy, lad, you leave them roses be. They ain’t for the likes of you,” Gwinnie said.

Melba couldn’t resist inhaling a last deep breath of fragrance before she stepped back.

“Take this through to the bathhouse.” Gwinnie tapped her shoe against the tin bucket she’d filled.

Melba heaved it up, careful not to slosh water down her clothes. After carrying six more buckets, Melba’s arms were aching fit to drop off and the bath was half-full. Gwinnie appeared at the bathhouse doorway and put her hands on her hips. “Get them clothes off, then, and get in the tub. Looking at it ain’t going to wash that grime off you.”

A flash of panic tore through Melba. “I ain’t taking off me togs with you watching.”

Gwinnie flapped her hand dismissively. “Great Earth Jinn, I ain’t interested in seeing your skinny hide.” She turned away, pulling the door almost closed behind her. Melba slipped off her boots and waited a few seconds before tiptoeing to the door. She peered out and saw Gwinnie busy at the range, humming to herself. Melba pushed the door closed the last inch, then returned to the bath. She needed to be quick so Gwinnie didn’t return and catch her unclothed.

As she unfastened her jacket, she touched the space left by the toggle she’d pledged to Master Turk. Gwinnie wasn’t very friendly, but Melba had put up with worse than a carping old hag. This was the opportunity of a lifetime and Melba was determined to be the best spy trainee Master Turk had ever had.

She slipped off her jacket, pulled her shirt over her head, and yanked down her breeches. Dipping one foot in the bath, then the other, she gradually got used to the temperature. She sat down and slid beneath the water, wallowing in the blissful heat. In the summer, she and the other three lads pledged to Maddox played with cold water at the pump, but bathing in hot water was a whole new experience.

Brown dirt swirled in the water when she rubbed her legs and she couldn’t believe how white her skin was underneath. At the sound of footsteps, she hugged her knees to her chest and stared at the door.

Gwinnie came in and glanced at her. “You’ll be needing this.” She tossed a small black block and a scrap of cloth into the bathwater. Then she picked up Melba’s clothes between two fingers as though they were dead rats and headed for the door.

“Oy, me clothes.” Melba started to rise, then remembered her nakedness and plopped back down with a splash. “You can’t take me clothes.”

Gwinnie paused in the doorway and pursed her lips. “You’ll not be wearing this filthy tat in Turk’s house. I’ll bring you something more fitting.”

“No!” Melba’s cry echoed off the blank walls of the bathhouse as Gwinnie pulled the door closed. Panic welled inside her. She had nothing to cover herself. Then she remembered that the pledge stone Turk had given her was in the secret pocket in her breeches. “Bring back me pants,” she yelled.

Silence greeted her call. Gwinnie would have to bring her something to dry herself with and some clean clothes. She would ask about the pledge stone then. She took a calming breath. Get yourself clean, then you can get out and cover up.

Melba scrabbled in the bottom of the bath and found the cloth and a black slab that she recognized as a cake of seaweed soap. She lathered the cloth and rubbed it over her body and head before dunking herself again. A brown, scummy crust covered the water. She wrinkled her nose. Had all that dirt really come off her? Maybe Master Turk was right and she had needed a bath.

She scrubbed her feet until the skin was red, but she couldn’t clean all the dirt from the creases around her toes. Gwinnie came in so quietly Melba didn’t hear her arrive. “Scrub that mug of yours too, boy. Want me to do it?”

Melba hugged her knees and shrank away from the old woman. “Leave me be.”

Gwinnie laughed and dropped a large white cloth on the wooden chair in the far corner of the room. “Dry yourself with this. I’m going to find you some clean clothes.”

Three times Melba soaped the cloth and scrubbed her face and head to make sure she would be clean enough to please Master Turk. Then she sat still and listened. When she was sure it was quiet outside, she climbed from the tub and darted across the room. Her wet feet skidded on the shiny tiles and she barreled into the chair, landing in a tangled heap with the towel over her head. Cursing, she scrambled up from the cold floor. As she pulled the towel off her head, an earsplitting cry came from the doorway.

“You miserable little dollymop.” Gwinnie charged at her.

Melba just had time to throw up an arm before Gwinnie started slapping at her face.

“If you think you can entice Turk to take you into his bed, you’re wrong. He don’t want the likes of you.”

Ducking, Melba escaped and dashed around to the opposite side of the bath. “I ain’t a dollymop. I want to be a spy.”

“You miserable, conniving, scabby tart.”

Melba pulled the towel around herself as best she could, but it wasn’t quite big enough to cover top and bottom. Gwinnie lunged around the bath and Melba ran to the other end, keeping the obstacle between them. “Bring me some clothes.”

“I ain’t taking orders from a tart who’s after lying her way into me master’s bed.”

“I do not want to get into Master Turk’s bed,” Melba shouted in desperation.

“What’s this about my bed?” Master Turk appeared at the bathhouse door, his tall dark figure in stark contrast to the white walls.

“This dollymop is after you,” Gwinnie spluttered.

Master Turk frowned, his brown eyes focusing on Melba. She struggled to pull the towel up and down at the same time, which proved a wasted effort as Gwinnie darted forward and yanked the fabric out of her hands. Melba froze beneath Master Turk’s uncomprehending dark gaze. He opened his mouth and closed it again. Rather belatedly, he turned his back.

“Give the girl her towel, Gwinnie, and fetch her some clothes,” he commanded in a clipped tone.

A dark pall of desperation closed over Melba. He’d throw her out now for sure.

Gwinnie smiled slyly, threw the towel at Melba, and bustled away. Melba covered herself, and hurried to the door. Master Turk had moved into the kitchen, his back to her, his fist clenched at his side.

“I can still be a spy,” Melba pleaded. “I’m still pledged. I’m good. I’ll show you.”

He shook his head. “No, Mel, if that’s your real name. I cannot train a girl to spy. It’s not done.”

“Nobody needs to know I’m a girl. You didn’t guess.” At her words, his breath hissed in sharply and she winced, knowing she’d angered him even more.

“You’ll have to leave,” he said tightly.

“Master Turk.” The whining note in her voice sent heat racing up her neck into her face. No master liked a whiner. She cleared her throat and tried for a calm voice. “Pretend I’m a boy. Please.”

“I cannot pretend you’re a boy when I know you’re a girl. This changes everything.”

Her heart thundered as she stared at his stiff back, the width of his shoulders in his fine wool jacket, his gleaming black hair trimmed neatly over his collar. She couldn’t appeal to his back. She stepped past him and looked up into his face. He kept his gaze fixed on the far wall, his lips tight, his nostrils slightly flared.

“Look at me, Master Turk. I don’t really look like a girl, do I?”

Slowly, he lowered his eyes. His gaze flicked across her features, up to her hair, down to her lips. “You do.”

“I don’t!” She stamped her foot with frustration.

“You most certainly do. I cannot imagine how I didn’t notice before.”

Gwinnie chose that moment to reappear with a faded brown dress draped over her arm.

“I ain’t wearing that,” Melba shouted.

Gwinnie threw the dress on the floor at Melba’s feet. In all the commotion, Melba had forgotten about her toes. After years of covering them up, how could they have slipped her mind? Master Maddox had told her that if anyone saw she had twelve toes they would tie her down and cut the extra ones off. Now Master Turk would see her deformity and have even more reason to throw her out.

She looked up at Master Turk, frightened of what she’d see on his face. His forehead was furrowed, his silky black eyebrows drawn together. Her last hope of being a spy trickled away. Slowly, he raised his narrowed eyes and scrutinized her features. “What’s your proper name?”

“Melba.”

“How old are you? The truth, please.”

“Seventeen.”

He dropped his gaze to her feet again. Melba curled her twelve toes against the cold flagstones. Surely Master Turk wouldn’t cut her stupid extra little toes off.

Abruptly, he turned away and headed for the door to the hall. “Supply her with clothes she’s happy to wear, Gwinnie. I don’t care what she wears—just cover her up. Then feed her and find her somewhere to sleep. I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”

Melba stared at the doorway long after Master Turk had gone. Finally, she blinked and turned to Gwinnie. “What does that mean?”

The old woman glared at her. “You’re in for it is what that means. One thing Turk don’t like is having his boys lie to him.” She looked Melba up and down meaningfully. “You’ve done so much lying, I reckon he’ll truss you up and toss you down The Well.”

Are you ready to have a blast and laugh till you hurt? If not, get in the mood! If you are, you’ve come to the right place.

Whichever mood you’re in, you have to pick up Tawna Fenske‘s debut novel, Making Waves. If you’re in a funk, you won’t be for long, and if you’re happy and carefree at the moment, this book will only add to your current happiness. It’s that much fun.

Ms. Fenkse’s humor is first rate, giving an extra layer to her characters, especially Juli and Alex. She’s the one who supplies the fun and he’s the one who revels in it, even though it’s a low point in his life. And you get to go along for the ride, wave after wave of laughter and sexual tension, leaving you in one of those exhausted but great feelings of giddiness.

Here’s the summary:

When Alex Bradshaw’s unscrupulous boss kicks him to the curb after 20 faithful years as an executive with the world’s largest shipping company, he sets out to reclaim his dignity and his pension. Assembling a team of fellow corporate castoffs, he sails to the Caribbean to intercept an illegal diamond shipment. None of them counted on quirky blonde stowaway Juli Flynn, who has a perplexing array of talents, a few big secrets, and an intoxicating romantic chemistry with Alex…

And now for some of that fun…

Chapter 1

“I’m sorry, he wants me to do what?”

Juli Flynn didn’t think to hide the incredulity in her voice. She did, however, think of hiding beneath her mother’s kitchen table. If it weren’t for the memory of her brother wiping boogers there thirty years ago, she probably would have crawled right under.

Juli stared at her mother. Tina Flynn was chopping carrots for a Jell-O salad that would, in all likelihood, hold as much culinary appeal for the funeral guests as the actual corpse.

“You know you were always Uncle Frank’s favorite,” Tina said in the same voice she’d used to suggest her children not stick lima beans up their noses. “I think you should be flattered.”

“Mom. I’d be flattered if he asked me to read a poem at the funeral or look after his cat or take his clothes to Goodwill. But this—this is just weird.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Juli.”

“Dramatic? Dramatic is making a deathbed request that your niece travel to the freakin’ Virgin Islands to dump your ashes over the edge of a boat near St. John—that’s dramatic. Why not spread them off the Oregon coast or on Mount Hood or something?”

Tina finished with the carrots and began chopping beets, her knife making neat little slivers of purple that scattered over the green countertop. Juli sighed and began hunting in the cupboard for sesame seeds to add to the Jell-O.

“Frank had fond memories of his years sailing over there,” Juli’s mother said.

“He had fond memories of the Polish hooker he traveled with while he was fleeing that federal indictment.”

Tina smiled and set her knife down. “That’s right—what was her name? Olga or Helga or something like that?”

“Oksana,” said Juli, thinking this was so not the point.

Juli closed her eyes, hating the fact that at age 37, she felt like a petulant toddler. She had a sudden urge to stomp her feet and bang her fists on the counter in a full-blown tantrum.

It’s not like she and Uncle Frank had been that close. She’d been living in Seattle for the past six years, coming home to Portland for the occasional holiday. Until last week, she hadn’t even seen Uncle Frank since her birthday party a year ago when he’d gotten drunk on a quart of vanilla extract from Tina’s baking cupboard and spent the evening pretending to be a stegosaurus. The rest of the family had been embarrassed. Juli had been delighted that, for once, she wasn’t the oddest member of the family. That common bond was the reason she and Uncle Frank had always enjoyed a special relationship.

Well, that, and the fact that advanced dementia had led him to believe his niece was Celine Dion.

“You didn’t happen to tell Uncle Frank that I’m—”

“Terrified of the ocean? No, I didn’t have the heart to mention that.”

Juli nodded and watched her mother consult her handwritten recipe before reaching for the Worcestershire sauce.

“Did Uncle Frank say when I need to complete this mission?” Juli asked, grabbing three packets of orange Jell-O and her mother’s fish-shaped Jell-O mold. “Do cremated remains have—um—a shelf life or anything?”

“He didn’t really say. He was choking on his tongue a lot there at the end, so it was hard to understand him. Could you hand me that feta cheese?”

Juli gave her the container and scooted a knife out of the way, aware of her mother’s tendency to drop sharp objects on her bare feet.

“So maybe you didn’t understand him right?” Juli asked hopefully. “Maybe instead of ‘throw my ashes off a fishing boat,’ he said, ‘roll my ass over, you stupid whore?’”

“Those bedsores were sure something! Hand me those Junior Mints?”

Juli sighed, sensing the conversation was going nowhere. Maybe she was arguing the wrong point.

“I can’t just pack up and go to St. John. I have a life.”

Tina beamed at her daughter. “Are you dating someone new, sweetie?”

Juli scowled. “That’s not what I meant. I haven’t dated anyone since—well, for a long time.”

“Oh. Well, you know it can be a little bit intimidating for some men to date a woman with your particular—”

“Mom, can we not talk about this now?”

“Sweetie, I don’t know why you’re always so embarrassed about your special—”

“Please, Mom,” Juli said weakly, feeling her ears flame the way they always did when someone drew attention to the fact that she was—well, different. She touched her fingers to her lobes, trying to cool them. “Could we just stick with the subject of Uncle Frank?” she pleaded.

“Of course, dear. Can you hand me the dill?”

Juli spun the spice rack and located the appropriate jar. “I have a job, Mom. I have a bank account that can’t exactly handle the strain of a Caribbean vacation.”

“Well, Uncle Frank left a little bit of money in his will to cover some of the cost of your travels.”

“OK. That’s half the equation. What about my job?”

“Didn’t you say they asked for people in your department to volunteer to take a little time off? That sounds so nice.”

That sounds like a layoff, Juli thought, biting into a carrot as she watched her mother mix the Jell-O.

Not that the idea didn’t hold some appeal. She’d worked in the marketing department of a software company for less than a year and already she was so bored her skin itched. She’d hardly bothered to hide her delight the week before when the vice president had stood at the center of their cube-farm, running his fingers through his comb-over, asking if anyone was interested in a severance package of three weeks’ salary and a scone-of-the-month club membership in exchange for, “taking a little time off. Indefinitely.”

Later that day, Juli had flung herself onto the sofa in her therapist’s office and sighed. “I feel like my career is going nowhere,” she told Dr. Gordon.

“What makes you say that?” he’d asked, looking wise and vaguely constipated on the edge of his orange armchair.

“The fact that my boss told me yesterday, ‘Juli, your career is going nowhere.’”

“Right,” Dr. Gordon said, nodding. “And how does that make you feel?”

Juli shot him a look. “Terrific.”

Dr. Gordon was not amused. Dr. Gordon was seldom amused. Juli had fantasies about pinning him down on the carpet and tickling him until he peed.

“Juli, we’ve spoken before about the social oddities you’ve developed as a coping mechanism to deal with your self-consciousness and your lack of a sense of belonging, which is the direct result of  the attention you’ve generated in the scientific community and the media for your—” he stopped and stared at her, then shook his head. “Are you covering your ears so you don’t have to listen, or are you cooling them like you always do when you’re embarrassed?”

“A little of both,” she admitted, lowering her hands.

“I see,” Dr. Gordon said, looking morose. “You’re uncomfortable with this subject. Let’s talk about your career. What did you want to be when you were a child?”

“The Bionic Woman.”

Dr. Gordon didn’t smile. “What was your first job after college?”

“I was a newspaper reporter for three months before an on-the-job injury forced me to change careers.”

“Injury?”

“I fell asleep in a City Council meeting and stabbed myself between the ribs with a pencil.” She lifted the hem of her shirt. “Check it out, five stitches right here—”

Dr. Gordon sighed and began to flip through his notes. “Let’s go back over some of the other jobs you’ve held. After you were a reporter, you spent some time as a data analyst?”

Juli lowered her shirttail and sat up straighter. “Oh. Sure, there was that. And marketing, of course. And I got my helicopter pilot license about seven years ago, and there was that stint as a pet store manager, and four months as a scout for forest fires, six months working in that hat shop and—”

“Juli, your employment history leaves something to be desired.”

She nodded, pleased to be understood. “You’re right. I’ve never been a brain surgeon.”

“It’s very typical for someone with your IQ level to—”

“Are those new drapes? I like the little tassels.”

Dr. Gordon sighed again. “Juli, if you’re ever going to have close, intimate relationships with people, you’re going to need to work on grounding yourself a bit more.”

“My mother never believed in grounding—always thought time-out was a much more effective method of punishment.”

“Juli—”

“I know. I know. I was making a joke.”

He didn’t smile. “Why don’t you start by taking a step back and reevaluating your career and life choices? Gain some new perspective.”

Perspective. That’s what she needed.

She’d raced home to Portland from Seattle the day she’d heard about Uncle Frank. Now here she was, chopping steak for her mother’s Jell-O salad on the afternoon of her uncle’s funeral, wondering if a spur-of-the-moment jaunt to St. John might not be the best thing for her. Or maybe the worst.

“Honey, could you hand me those Garbanzos?”

No. Not the worst. Not quite the worst.

***

The post-funeral reception was still going strong back in the house, but Juli was hiding out in the backseat of the limo, listening to the thrum of raindrops on the roof as she lay back against the plush seat. Her eyes were closed, and she was trying not to notice the smell of Old Spice on the upholstery or the shrill memory of her cousins’ voices demanding to know why she was still single.

The limo door creaked open, and someone jumped into the front seat, slamming the door behind him. Juli didn’t have to open her eyes to know who it was. She wrinkled her nose as the smell hit her.

“Sorry my Aunt Gretchen dumped the apple cider vinegar over your head,” Juli said. “It’s a family tradition.”

“Family,” Brian repeated with obvious intrigue. “Family like kinfolk, or family like Godfather?”

Juli sat up and straightened her black wrap dress. She looked at the back of Brian’s head, wondering if he knew he was developing a bald patch the exact shape of Zimbabwe.

“Thank you for volunteering your limo service for Uncle Frank’s funeral,” Juli said, giving Brian’s shoulder a squeeze. “And thank you for letting me hide out in here while my family holds the leg-wrestling tournament in the dining room.”

Brian loosened his tie and leaned back against the driver’s seat. “No problem. Anything for my favorite ex-girlfriend.”

Juli gritted her teeth. “You know, we split up seven years ago. I think your wife would appreciate it if you stopped calling me that.”

“Nah.”

“And if you stopped patting me on the butt when we run into each other.”

“Mandy says she doesn’t mind that,” Brian mused, tugging his tie all the way off and setting it on the dashboard. “She says she’s never considered you a threat.”

Juli pressed her lips together and tried not to be annoyed by that. “Anyway, thanks for staying late,” she said finally, shoving her feet into her black patent leather Via Spigas and smoothing her hair. “I’ll get out of here so you can be on your way.”

“No rush, actually. The limo’s stuck in park, and I can’t get a mechanic out to look at it until after Wheel of Fortune. You can sit here all evening if you want.”

Juli sighed and held out her hand. “Give me the manual.”

Brian reached over to the glove box to dig out a leather-bound book the size of a dictionary. He dropped it into her lap and grinned. “You’re the best,” he said, sliding around on the front seat to look at her. “Why did we break up, anyway?”

Juli flipped the book open to the first page and tried to ignore him. She began to read, starting with the history of the car and progressing quickly to the recommended octane ratings. She felt his eyes on her, knew he was still awaiting a response. She planted her index finger on page 242 and looked up at him.

“You threw my Scrabble board out the bedroom window and yelled that board games weren’t considered foreplay even if I spelled dirty words.”

“Right,” Brian said. “I forgot.”

“The neighbor didn’t. He’s still mad about the vowels in his pond.”

“Sorry about that.”

Juli returned her attention to the manual, reading faster now that she had reached the section on oil viscosity. “Anyway, it’s fine. We weren’t right for each other.”

Brian chuckled. “You’re too much woman for most men to handle,” he said. “But there’s someone out there for you, Jules, I know it.”

Juli gritted her teeth, focusing hard on being pissed off instead of wounded. She did that a lot these days. Sometimes she even believed it.

She got to the end of the book and slammed it shut. She leaned over the seat and handed it back to him.

“The electronic release for the transmission is controlled by the same fuse as your backup lights,” she said as she picked up the little black clutch she’d carried to the funeral. “It’s a safety feature that disables the transmission if those lights aren’t working. Check the fuse.”

Brian grinned and set the manual on the seat beside him, his expression amused. Amused, but not aroused, Juli thought, knowing she didn’t care about his arousal anymore, but feeling stung just the same. It wasn’t like she’d had a future with him. It wasn’t like she’d had a future with anyone she’d dated.

The story of my life, she thought.

She watched him reach beneath the dash and pry the panel off the fuse box, poking around inside as the rain sputtered against the windshield outside.

“I’ll be damned,” he said as he pulled out the dead fuse and held it up for her to see.

Juli popped the door open and stepped out into the rain. “Thanks again, Brian,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself as she turned away. “Give my love to Mandy.”

***

3,400 miles away, Alex Bradshaw stared at the yellow piece of paper in his hand. Beyond the stuffy, peanut-scented air of the barroom, the Key West sun bathed an army of sailboats bobbing merrily in the bay.

For once, Alex didn’t care about the boats.

“It’s not pink,” Jake Grinshaw muttered beside him, holding an identical piece of yellow paper as the bar lights glinted off his bald spot. “That asshole in Human Resources pointed out the color at least three times. He said yellow is more soothing.”

Alex crumpled his own yellow pink-slip and took another sip of beer. “I feel soothed.”

Over the top of his mug, he watched as Jake wadded his own yellow pink-slip and stuffed it in his pocket. Alex tried not to notice the way his friend’s hand shook as he hoisted his beer. Even 20 years ago, Jake had been doughy and awkward when the two of them had started work the same day at Kranston Shipping Enterprises. Over the years, Jake had risen to the top of the accounting department, while Alex had become one of the chief executives for what was now the largest shipping firm in the world.

For all the good it had done them.

On the other side of Jake, Phyllis Prescott sat looking like a startled albino rabbit with great biceps. Catching Alex’s eye, she held up an envelope. “Did everyone else get the gift certificate to Sir Loins Steakhouse?”

Alex nodded and took another sip of beer. “I think $25 in bad steak is fair compensation for 19 years with the company.”

Phyllis frowned down at her amber ale, her silver-blonde hair falling over one eye. A former Olympic record holder in the steeplechase, Phyllis’s 50-something physique had never surrendered to the squishy curves and motherly bosom of most women her age. Hard-edged and steely, Phyllis looked like she could tear off a grown man’s leg with her bare hands if the need arose.

Her perpetual scowl suggested the thought had crossed her mind more than once.

“Sir Loins makes their own croutons,” offered Cody Wilkins from the other side of Alex. “They’re really good.”

Cody’s expression was so earnest, Alex’s spleen hurt. He patted Cody’s massive shoulder. It felt like slapping a ham.

“You’re right, Cody, they are,” Alex said as he watched Cody dip a cherry in and out of his Roy Rogers.

Looking pleased, Cody lifted his drink. At six-foot-five and 275 pounds, he looked exactly like an NFL tight end. Not surprising, since he’d been one for three years before a shoulder injury forced him to leave the Seahawks for a safe desk job managing accounts for Kranston Shipping. The irony of it wasn’t lost on Alex.

Cody would have been safer getting his head stepped on by linebackers.

“So what are we going to do, Alex?” Jake asked, his voice wilted with desperation. “Did you talk to your lawyer about our pensions?”

Alex nodded and tried to wash down the lump in his throat with a swallow of beer.

“We all signed the same clause saying we’d take the stock options for the bulk of our retirement funds,” Alex said. “And we aren’t fully vested in the remainder of our pensions until we’ve worked at Kranston for 20 years.”

“Convenient,” Jake muttered. “Since we’re two months from the 20 year mark, and those stock options went belly-up last week.”

“But Alex, that can’t be right,” Phyllis protested. “I mean, surely it’s obvious to anyone that we signed those forms when we were too young to know better. It was almost 20 years ago! And they were supposed to be rewritten during that reorganization in ’03, but then—”

“We still signed the forms, Phyllis,” Alex said. “That’s binding. And besides, they cut a wide swath so it wasn’t obvious they were gunning for people closing in on retirement. They took out younger employees, too, like Jim in Sales, and Sarah in Marketing and Cody here.”

“But there has to be something we can do,” Phyllis said, sounding as close to tears as she had since she’d dropped a Buick on her foot during a power-lifting competition. “Without our retirement savings, what are we supposed to do?”

No one said anything for a minute. Alex returned his attention to his beer, wondering if it had been a wise idea to invite the others to join him. Maybe he’d be better off alone drinking whiskey in his underwear in the kitchen of his air-conditioned condo. Certainly he’d feel better staring out the window at the ocean instead of at a broken neon bar sign advertising cold, refreshing Bu Ligh.

He wished like hell he could do something to fix this. Not the sign, his life. His colleagues’ lives. These guys had been more than just his co-workers. They’d been friends. Good ones.

“I just can’t believe it,” Jake said, shaking his head as he sipped his beer and wobbled a little on his barstool. Alex put a hand out, ready to catch his chubby pal if he had to. Phyllis patted Jake on the arm, the first time in 19 years that Alex had seen her display any sort of maternal gesture besides slapping a Hershey bar out of Jake’s hand and yelling that it would give him zits.

“I’m real sorry about this, guys,” Cody said at last, dropping his cherry into his soda.

Alex turned and looked at the hulking figure on his left.

“Why are you sorry?”

“I dunno. I feel like it’s my fault. I was walking in from the parking lot this morning and I saw a penny on the asphalt. I just left it there.”

Alex stared at him, waiting for the rest of the story. When none was forthcoming, he tried gentle prompting.

“What does that have to do with the layoff, Cody?”

“You know the saying. See a penny, pick it up, all the day you’ll have good luck. See a penny, leave it lay, bad luck you’ll have all day. Only I was in a hurry this morning, so I didn’t pick up the penny. It’s all my fault.”

Alex felt the lump welling in his throat again. “It’s not your fault, Cody,” he told him. “It’s not anyone’s fault except fucking Tom Portelli.”

“You think the owner of the company ordered the layoffs?” Phyllis asked.

“Of course he did,” Alex said. “Portelli’s always bitching about the bottom line. This time, we were it.”

They all sat in silence for another minute, listening to Jimmy Buffett on the jukebox. Someone had picked “A Pirate Looks at 40” and Alex listened to Jimmy croon about being drunk for over two weeks. Alex could see the appeal. He was 42 years old, unemployed, unmarried, and without the pension he’d counted on to keep him in sailboats and cheap beer in his old age.

Between the money he’d just sunk into his boat and the recent market crash, he was pretty much wiped out.

Alone and broke.

Isn’t that what his ex-fiancé had said 20 years ago? You’re going to die alone and broke if you don’t learn some goddamn provider instinct! That’s exactly what Jenny had yelled as she’d walked out the door and into the arms of her dentist. Apparently that guy had provider instinct. As Alex had learned later, the dentist had been providing a lot more than root canals long before Jenny had actually walked out.

Not that he was still bitter. And not that he had trust issues, despite what his last three girlfriends had suggested.

The sound of Jake clearing his throat brought Alex back to the present. “Can you guys keep a secret?” Jake asked.

“No,” Alex said and took another sip of beer.

“Don’t listen to him, Jake,” Phyllis said, turning toward Jake. “You say whatever you need to get off your chest.”

Jake eyed Alex dubiously. Alex stared back.

“What?” Alex asked finally. “You going to tell us you knew this was coming all along?”

“No, no,” Jake said, shaking his head so furiously Alex thought his double-chin might catch fire rubbing the starched collar of his shirt. “It’s just—I know something about a little side project Tom Portelli has going on. A personal one.”

Alex raised an eyebrow and took another swig of beer. “You’re privy to a lot of the company owner’s private business?”

“This one’s not exactly on the books,” Jake said, grabbing a fistful of peanuts from a dish on the bar. “This one’s not even entirely legal.”

Phyllis leaned closer, her interest piqued by the prospect of hearing gossip about the man who’d just bitch-slapped the whole lot of them.

“We’re listening,” she said. “Go on.”

“Well, besides all the legitimate shipping operations at Kranston, Tom Portelli has a few side jobs he likes to keep on the down-low.”

“Down-low?” Alex snorted. “You make him sound like a gangster instead of an aging executive with bad taste in ties.”

“He is!” Jake insisted, almost knocking his beer over as he flung his hands up. Alex made a grab for the beer, setting it safely in front of Cody, who would sooner drink turpentine than Budweiser.

Jake kept going with his story. “Once a year, Tom Portelli sends a cargo ship out of Monaco loaded down with Krugerrand. They head across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, and over to the Galapagos Islands where they rendezvous with some guys who illegally export exotic animals. They swap the Krugerrand for the animals—”

“What’s Krugerrand?” asked Cody, looking confused.

“Gold coins,” Alex answered. “South African, but they’re valuable worldwide since they’re made of actual gold.”

“Anyway,” Jake continued, “they swap the Krugerrand for the animals and then head over to Japan, where they trade the animals for a whole lot more Krugerrand than they started out with. Then they proceed to South Africa and swap the Krugerrand for diamonds—tons of them, about $48 million in all.”

Alex stared at him. “That’s the most fucked up money laundering scheme I’ve ever heard. No one bothers to say, ‘hey, fellas, where’d you get the crates of gold coins?’”

“Or the Komodo Dragons?” Phyllis added.

Jake shrugged. “You can pay off a lot of people with a boatload of gold coins. People are willing not to notice things. Besides, they fill the ship with legitimate cargo and they have the paperwork for that. It’s a pretty smooth operation, really.”

They all sat digesting the information. Phyllis looked distressed. Jake looked drunk. Cody looked blank. Alex ordered another beer.

“Do you think we should call the police?” Phyllis asked.

“And say what?” Jake asked. “Hi, I’m a disgruntled employee who got laid off this afternoon. Just wanted to let you know that the owner of our company is running gold coins and diamonds and illegal tortoises all over the globe.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Phyllis argued.

“Who the hell is going to believe it?” Jake shot back.

Jake and Phyllis continued bickering, but Alex had stopped listening. An idea had begun to form in the back of his mind. A crazy, juvenile, dangerous idea.

The idea of a desperate man.

Alex leaned back on his barstool and surveyed his former co-workers. One by one, they looked up at him, their eyes unfocused and a little shell-shocked. Alex took a sip of beer.

“You guys know anything about boating?”

Phyllis rolled her eyes. “Until two hours ago, we were all employees of the world’s largest shipping company. I think we know about boats.”

Alex shook his head. “Maybe not like this.”