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EXCERPT REVEAL ~ BabyJacked by Sosie Frost
To be honest, I set fire to her barn, fought with her brothers, then exiled myself to a logging company in the Canadian wilderness.
But a reclusive b@stard can’t hide forever. When my sister got sick, I took in my two young nieces. Now I’m paying rent to Sesame Street, drinking Jack and fruit juice, and reading my chainsaw manual as a bedtime story. I’ve gone from lumberjack to babyjacked, and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.
Fortunately, I found a nanny. Five years have passed, and Cassi’s not just my best friends’ little sister anymore. She’s all grown up, dark and beautiful with a smart mouth and a broken heart.
Doesn’t take long before she’s falling for me again, but I can’t shout timber yet.
Cassi can’t forgive the past. And I can’t tell her why I ran.
When a man doesn’t deserve a second chance, he’s just gotta steal her heart.
The first time I saw Remington Marshall, he stole my heart.
The last time I saw Remington Marshall, he’d just burned my family’s barn to the ground.
Arson usually complicated relationships.
Especially afterward, when Rem left our sleepy town of Butterpond in the dead of night without so much as a goodbye. He’d stayed gone for five long years.
Five years with no phone call. No visits. No explanations.
Even worse—no apology.
So, when my brother, Tidus, told me Rem was back in town, I had to make a decision.
Ignore Remington Marshall and forget he’d ever existed…
Or demand an answer for why he’d broken my heart.
I chose the latter, encouraged by the perspective I’d gained over the last couple years. As long as we stayed away from any flammable objects that might’ve torched what remained of my potential happiness, a conversation would bring me some much-needed closure. Besides, all that time had allowed me to douse the last few embers burning in my barn, heart, and loins.
But that still didn’t make confrontation a good idea, despite my brother’s insistence.
He came home to take care of his nieces, Tidus said.
Take him up a box of kids’ toys from storage, he said.
Pick me up a burger from Lou’s on the way home, he said.
Yeah, right.
Rem wasn’t a man who wanted to be found, even in the tiny town of Butterpond—a small cluster of dreams, prayers, and fatty liver disease. Butterpond was where the trees wanted in, the people wanted out, and my family’s farm accidentally lynch-pinned the whole place together.
To the town, my family was a fixture. The Payne’s farm. The Payne’s charity. The Payne’s pain in the ass boys who rolled over the town’s one streetlight like a plague of locusts. The Payne’s adopted daughter in a family of five boys—bless her heart.
But Rem? He no longer belonged in the town. Men like him kept to themselves, tucked away inside a cabin in the mountains, hidden from society by gravel roads, the occasional tick, and busted suspensions.
As much as I’d once loved Rem, risking Lyme disease and a punctured tire seemed a bad idea.
I did it anyway.
A box of old toys and children’s clothes was jammed in next to my suitcase.
This would be quick. In and out. Hand him the box stuffed with goodies from when my family had foster kids running all over the farm. Wish him well. Make the requisite small talk. And then pretend like my heart wasn’t held together with a roll of scotch tape and a smattering of pride.
I wasn’t about to let Remington Marshall shatter my barely rejuvenated dignity. Besides, the last I’d heard, he was the one crippled with guilt. Rumor had it—and by rumor, I meant the occasional conversation with his sister, Emma—he’d run away to the deepest forests of Canada to join a logging company.
If a heart broke in the forest, did it make a sound? The answer was yes, but it wasn’t a thud. More like the noise a sleepy woman yelped in the middle of the night when she stubbed her toe on the way to the bathroom. Less of a timber! More like son of a—
The box fit snugly against my hip, drawing the hem of my skirt up only an inch. I was fine with that. Showing a little leg would do me good. I’d grown up since the fire. Earned my curves. Managed to fill out my bra without two handfuls of wadded up toilet paper. Things were looking up.
I wound my way over a weed-choked cobblestone path and picked my steps up the rickety porch. The cabin was lost in the woods, and the forest wasn’t happy with the new occupant. The little space was so overgrown with brush and leaves that the trees would be grateful to be cleaned out of the gutters.
My knock clattered against the cabin door—almost loud enough to drown out the very irritated cry of a baby.
Almost.
The wail might’ve belonged to a child. Could have also been a mountain lion with a toothache. Sometimes it was tough to tell, even with a degree in early education. Money well spent.
The door flung open. I expected Remington. Instead, a bright-eyed, blonde-haired, puffy-cheeked three-year-old peered up at me, scowled, and belted at the top of her precious little lungs to alert all within a square mile of my arrival.
“Stranger!”
I winced. “Hi. I’m Cassi. Is your Uncle—”
“Stranger!”
This alerted the baby—the real siren of the household who’d missed her calling as the dive alarm for a German U-Boat.
The chorus of screams rang in my ears. I shushed the three-year-old with a wave of my hand.
“I’m not a stranger—I’m a…” Was friend the right word? “I know your Uncle Rem…well, not know know. We grew up together. I mean, he grew up with my brother—I grew up later. But we were…I’d see him a lot—”
“Stranger!”
I cringed and went to Plan B. The box dropped to the porch. I debated on running, but the tape had loosened enough for me to rip the flaps. An old baby doll rested on a folded pile of clothes. I offered it as a sacrifice to appease the child.
“It’s for you!” My frantic words shushed her. “It’s PJ Sparkles. All the little girls loved PJ Sparkles!”
The child quieted. She bit her lip, scratched her leg with a foot clad in mismatched socks, and reached for the doll. She jumped as a husky voice caught her in the act.
“What do we have here?”
His voice was a blend of sticky marshmallow and crumbling graham cracker, and I melted like a chocolate bar squished near the fire.
I knew better than to get burned by Remington Marshall, but even the wisest girl sometimes took a big bite before blowing on it.
And, believe me, Rem would go to his grave wishing I had blown him.
Rem leaned against the door frame. His broad shoulders were clad in a warm, red flannel shirt. He scratched a wild, thick beard, and might have teased a smile. I couldn’t tell. Five years of isolation had obscured his face in dark hair.
A one-year-old baby wailed in his arms.
“Never expected to see you here, Cassia Payne.” He grunted as the three-year-old bashed the doll’s plastic head into a part of him that regretted meeting PJ Sparkles. He stepped aside and let her go play, but his stare pinned me in place. “Lost in the woods, little girl?”
What had happened to my Remington Marshall?
Gone was the teenage bad boy, strong enough to win his fights but lean enough to make a quick escape once Sherriff Samson flashed his lights. Now, Rem had become a terrifying beast of rugged strength. A lumberjack. A man like him could have punched down a tree. The Canadian forests never stood a chance.
Muscles packed on muscles. And the beard…oh, the beard. I didn’t know if he belonged in an ice fishing cabin or on a Harley, but this wasn’t the boy who’d left me behind.
This was a man.
And he was in trouble.
Rem struggled to bounce the little bundle of pink in his arms. The baby fussed, red-faced and probably wishing her Uncle hadn’t given her diaper a wedgie while rocking her. The three-year-old dropped the doll and instead raced over, around, and on top of his feet, tugging on his jeans with an urgent need to tinkle. She tripped over one of the four stuffed garbage bags piled in the entryway. One had already blown open, spilling dresses, shoes, socks, and toys into the cabin.
The three-year-old was wearing two shirts. The baby needed a pair of pants. Rem’s own belongings had tumbled into the hall—duffel bags and mountain boots.
Tidus wasn’t lying. Rem must have come home only hours before to take care of the kids.
The older girl somersaulted around his feet, somehow summoning and then spilling a glass of water. The TV blared cartoons from the den. The baby cried just to be louder than the show. Behind him, every chair had been toppled in the dining room. The cushions stripped off the couch. Something slimy dripped from the sink.
Chaos had descended upon a three-square-foot area of his life…
And a part of me really enjoyed the struggle.
“Everyone said you ran away to become a lumberjack,” I said. “But apparently you joined a circus.”
Rem was a great liar. I’d learned that long ago. He attempted to soothe the baby and accidentally smooshed her face into the wall of muscle that was his shoulder. His wink wasn’t fooling anyone.
“Brought the circus home too.” He reached down and lifted the little girl to her feet before she somersaulted into the wall. “Got my acrobat tumbling her way into preschool, and the prepubescent bearded lady doing shows before and after naptime.”
Cute. “And what’s your talent?”
“World’s sexiest uncle.”
“Ain’t no one buying tickets for that.”
“Ringleader then.”
The three-year-old demanded cookies. The baby, blood. I shook my head. “Guess again.”
“Toddler-tamer.”
He wished. I crossed my arms. “Better get a shovel. I think you’re mucking out stalls and diapers.”
Rem grinned, but that was a charmer’s smile, part of his bag of tricks. He’d always been the type to sweet-talk his way out of handcuffs just to use them in bed. But maybe he had changed. Maybe the wilderness had straightened him out? Perhaps…the hard work taught him responsibility? Was it possible the time apart had made him as miserable as it had me?
Or maybe that smile meant I should’ve left the box on the porch and ran.
“Do I have to charge admission, or are you coming inside?” he asked.
Dangerous question. “Depends. Got an elephant under this big top?”
“Nah. He’s on break. I’m standing in.”
“And what are you?”
“The jackass.”
Fair enough. I offered him the box. “This is some stuff from the farm—back when we had all the foster kids. Tidus said you could probably use it. Clothes and toys.”
Rem easily balanced the baby on his shoulder and the box in his arms. He left the door open. Inviting the little ones to escape or beckoning me inside?
I spoke from the entryway, a promise to myself. “Only for a minute.”
“Want something to drink?” he asked.
“That would take longer than a minute.”
“Good. I don’t have much to offer.”
The three-year-old circled the sofa with the doll, tripped over the logs that were once stacked neatly by a stone fireplace, and plummeted onto the hardwood. She whimpered, rolled, and revealed a scraped knee. The crying began anew.
Rem brushed his hands through his shaggy, collar length dark hair and sighed.
“Are you bleeding? Again? Really?” He fumbled through a couple drawers. “All right. Here. No band-aids, but…”
Oh, this was a disaster.
Rem ripped a piece of electrical tape between his teeth, juggled the baby from one arm to the other, and slapped the silver strip over the girl’s knee.
“Good job,” I said. “Now she’s patched up, and she won’t conduct electricity.”
“She’ll be fine.” He patted the girl’s head. “Mellie, say hi to Cassi. Cas, this is Melanie. And this…” He flipped the baby outwards, finally letting her look around the room. She instantly stopped crying. The chubby cheeks and sniffling nose gave way to an adorable smile with three little white teeth poking out. “This is Tabitha—Tabby. They’re Emma’s kids.”
They looked like his sister—blonde and perky with the right amount of sass that got her in as much trouble as Rem.
I hated to ask the question, but a man like Rem wouldn’t volunteer to babysit without a genuine crisis. “What happened to Emma?”
Rem turned somber—a dark, serious glance broken with a forced shrug. “She’s…sick. Needed some help.”
“Is she okay?”
“Yeah. Just needs time. I came home to wrangle the kids.”
“I’m surprised to see you.” No harm in the truth.
“It’s been a while.”
Silence.
I looked away. Somehow, under the heavy flannel, bushy beard, and shaggy hair was the Remington Marshall that still made my chest flutter. My options were to escape or find a defibrillator. My heart was broken, but it could still stop if he whispered the right words.
I shuffled towards the door, but Mellie plucked at the electrical tape banding her knee. The garbage bags of clothes, the injured child, and the quarter inch of dust over the cabin didn’t bode well.
“Are you sure you know…” How to phrase it without insulting him or completely terrifying the kids. “I had no idea you liked children.”
“They’re all right.”
“And…they’re still alive. So you must be doing…okay?”
Rem snorted. “They’re kids, Cas. I can handle ‘em.”
Right. “And…how long have you had them?”
Rem checked his watch. “It’s been five hours, and I haven’t lost my mind yet.”
Yet. “And you’re happy to babysit?”
“Sure.”
“For how long?”
“As long as she needs.” Rem sounded confident. Or foolish. Probably foolish. “Don’t worry. It’s temporary. A week or two at the most. Shouldn’t be too hard. Keep an eye on them until Emma’s good, and then I’ll head back to the logging company.”
I laughed. Sweet Jesus, he was serious. I covered my mouth. “You…you’re keeping them here?”
“I was going to let them out at night like a cat, but I figured they’d rather get the lay of the land first.” He plopped the baby on the ground within range of both the wall outlet, fire place, and his penknife on the coffee table. “How hard can it be?”
And that was all I needed to hear.
I did not need to get involved.
Did not need to warm at his smile.
Did not need to wonder why my skin tingled in his presence.
Rem was a good-looking boy when we were kids, but at twenty-seven, he was absolutely gorgeous. A hard jaw from hard work. Toughened voice from a tough life. A strong back strengthened through manual labor. He might’ve tussled with a baby hell-bent on toddling into the fireplace, but he hadn’t left the wilds in the forest.
Rem looked as out of place in his own home as the kids did in the middle of the woods.
I had to help him.
Maybe I made this bad decision because it had been so long since I last saw him. Maybe I let my heart lead because the beard disguised him in a dark, tempting mystery. Or maybe I took pity on him because five years ago I had been hopelessly in love with our small town’s baddest bad boy.
Rem wasn’t a trouble-maker anymore, but he was still in trouble. Especially now that Butterpond had changed so much. We had cell phone reception. Community events. A giant Facebook group where all the busybodies kept in touch. Butterpond wouldn’t let him hunker down in the forest and hide forever.
And it must’ve terrified him.
“How’s the farm?” Even his words were jagged, briars in his throat. Either he was out of practice with small talk or he knew he shouldn’t have asked.
“It’s a warzone,” I said. “but no fires at least.”
“Tidus okay?”
“Is he ever?” I smirked. “Tidus hates this town as much as me.”
“What about everyone else?”
Well, they wouldn’t be happy to hear that Rem came back home. “Julian is…Julian. Trying to rebuild the farm like he has any idea how to manage it. Marius is overseas still—he can’t tell us where, and he likes it that way. Varius hasn’t been the same since the tornado. Quint…God only knows. Runs around like a puppy, but turns rabid the instant any of my brothers look his way.”
Rem rummaged through his fridge and offered me a beer. I shook my head. He popped the cap off but didn’t drink.
“About your dad…” he said.
“I know.”
“Just…I’m sorry.”
So was everyone, but I still nodded and accepted the thoughts, prayers, and Bundt cakes.
“We knew it was coming,” I said. “His heart was bad.”
“Doesn’t mean it hurts any less.”
I’d done a fantastic job of smooshing that pain deep, deep down and suppressing the memories of the past few months when I’d taken care of him. My brothers understood, but it felt different for me—the one adopted girl in the family of biological sons.
They’d left me alone on the farm with Dad, and the family slowly tore itself apart. Fight after fight, even during Dad’s last days. Each of my brothers swore they’d never speak to the others again.
At least, until that phone call had to be made.
“The good news…well…news, I guess,” I said. “Everyone is home now. In Dad’s infinite wisdom, he left the farm to everyone. Every decision on the land must be made in unison, in person. No subdividing the farm. No selling our pieces to anyone else. It’s World War Three with pitchforks and chicken coops.”
“Feathers flying?”
“Bombs dropping like eggs.”
Tabby attempted to toddle with Rem’s wallet into the bathroom. Mellie giggled from inside. Rem excused himself, swore as the toilet flushed, and returned with a soaking wet wallet. He pitched it into the sink and shooed both kids away.
They stayed glued to him, wrapping their arms around his legs like they hadn’t been hugged in years. Rem knelt down and welcomed them into his thick arms.
It wasn’t a sight I’d expected to see from a man like him.
“So what…” His words mumbled over Tabby’s fingers as she clobbered him in the mouth. “What are you…doing?”
“Anything I can to get out of here.”
Mellie slid from his side and skipped back to her baby doll. He set Tabby on the counter. I rushed forward before he realized that the one-year-old was a bit hyper and likely to take a tumble. She eagerly offered me more of his possessions. I accepted the jingling keys and his cellphone, but I stopped her before she lunged for a sheathed bowie knife tucked inside a stack of paperwork.
Rem leaned against the sink, sipping his beer. “You’re leaving, huh? Where are you planning to go?”
“Anywhere.”
“Been there, Sassy.” The nickname rolled off his tongue, like he’d never stopped using it. “Running doesn’t get you as far as you think.”
“Well, I need to get somewhere. I love my brothers too much to start hating them.”
“You know they need you, especially with your parents gone.”
The guilt was already suffocating me. “Jules says I remind them of Mom.”
“Yeah. I can see the family resemblance.”
As was the gentle joke which passed around the town. I brushed my dark fingers through the bouncing curls I’d swept away with the aid of a bubblegum pink scarf. Didn’t matter if my momma was blonde haired and green eyed or if she shared my mahogany skin and fawn eyes, people in Butterpond knew I was her daughter because she’d taught me how to be a lady.
And how to whoop my brothers into shape if they gave me a hard time.
But mostly how to be a good lady.
Also, a forgiving woman. She never thumped the Bible, only used it to swat our backsides when we acted out. What would she say about this? The man I swore never to forgive…and the kids tumbling around his house.
Mellie climbed the woodpile. Tabby unsuccessfully attempted to roll off the counter, falling into my arms.
And he thought it was going to be easy.
He wouldn’t last the night.
“Do you have everything you need for them?” I asked.
Rem nodded. “I got some of their clothes. They brought toys. I set them up in the spare bedroom.”
“Well, that’s good. But…do you know Tabby’s diaper is on backwards?”
He approached the child, picked her up under the arms, and gave her a quick once over.
“Is that why it keeps leaking?” He whistled in realization. “Thought she was an overachiever.”
Fantastic. “Okay, Rem…there’s like, six things I can see from where I’m standing that will seriously maim the very young children.”
He plopped Tabby on the counter and attempted to twist the diaper to the right position. When that didn’t work, he undid the tabs with so much force ripped the Velcro, removed the diaper, and left her tush on the cold counter. The diaper flipped, but he couldn’t fasten it.
He grabbed his handy electrical tape once more. “There. Now she’s got a racing stripe.”
If only he could feed, bathe, and entertain the kids with tape too. At least it wasn’t a staple gun.
I finally asked the question. “Do you need help, Rem?”
His lazy smile would’ve been cute if Mellie wasn’t heading for the axe he’d set near the backdoor. “You worried about me, Sassy?”
“Worried you’re going to end up on the news…” I pointed to the axe wielding Mellie—one blue ox short of a classic American tall tale. “And now I’ll be an accomplice.”
“Mellie, you chop my house down, you’re building the next one.” He took the axe from her hands and searched for a place to put it. The cabin was a mess, so he shrugged and stuck it on top of the fridge, clattering a couple pots and pans out of the way. “They’re kids. Sure, I need some time to fix the place up…” Rem batted at a spider web over the kitchen window. I cringed as the spider clamored to hide in the dusty curtains. “But they needed me. Emma asked, so here I am. Someone’s gotta help the girls. Just like what your family used to do for all those kids—including me.”
“You’re certain you can handle it?”
“Got no problems here.”
I should have left. The suitcase waited in my car. I had a full-tank of gas. I’d been threatening to head to Ironfield for two weeks now.
Rem had the box of supplies. The kids hadn’t set fire to the cabin yet.
They’d be fine.
But my feet didn’t move. “Do you have food for them?”
Rem took a swig from his beer. A liquid dinner might have suited him, but I doubted Mellie and Tabby wanted to lounge on the couch, knocking back a cold six-pack of Juicy Juice.
“I’ll find something,” he said. “I think it’s cute that you’re worried.”
“I’m not worried.” If I was worried, I’d have to stay. “I’m…making conversation.”
“Could have done that a long time ago,” he said. “Called me up.”
And let him know how twice in the past five years I’d actually tracked down a contact number for him in the middle of the Canadian wilds? No thanks.
“I didn’t hear from you either,” I said. “Not even a hey, sorry about the barn.”
“I am sorry about the barn. Sorry about a lot of things. Sorry I haven’t seen you since then.”
I stomped down a betraying warmth. No need to open that Pandora’s Box. “You were the one who left.”
“You didn’t want me around.”
“I never said that.”
“Cause you were too polite. You’d let Julian’s fist do the talking.”
“He’s quite persuasive.”
“And if he knew you were up here, asking about my dinner plans?”
I smirked. “Asking about the kids’ dinner plans.”
Rem glanced over his shoulder. “Mellie, want some dinner?”
The little girl marched into the kitchen, dragging Rem’s boots on her feet. She stumbled as she walked, but she raised her little chin as if she wore a tiara instead of steel-toed mud buckets.
“I don’t like peas,” she said.
“Me either. See?” He winked. “We’re fine.”
This would be fun. I knelt to her level. “Mellie, what else don’t you like to eat?”
Her words bumbled in and out of intelligibility. “Chicken. Broccoli. Green. Yogurt. Cars. Dragons. Shoes!”
The answer became a rambling story about a kitten, dragon, and a spaghetti noodle, but she illustrated my point.
“Any ideas, Chef?” I asked.
Rem had attempted to memorize her preferences and got lost somewhere around worms and green. “I…have some beef jerky.”
“You’re going to feed beef jerky to some toddlers?”
“Got some trail mix too. A can of soup beans.”
“…How long are you keeping the kids?”
“As long as Emma needs.”
I raised my eyebrows. “How long do you think you can keep them alive?”
“At least through the night.”
Good enough for me. Now it was my turn to leave him. I’d already survived five years without speaking, without resolving anything, without…
Saying those words.
I’d last another five. Maybe by then, he’d be out of jail for child endangerment.
“Start small,” I said. “Do you have milk?”
“Well-water.”
“Do you want my advice?”
Rem braced himself on the counter, muscles flexing, eyes brightening with a roguish playfulness that made any game unwinnable.
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, Cas…I’ll take anything you’re willing to give.”
“Go into town—”
“Nope.”
I sighed. “Why not?”
“I’ve gotten real good at avoiding Butterpond.”
“Who’s the real baby here? Get off this mountain. Take the girls into town. Buy some kid-friendly food.”
“Like…chew and whiskey?”
I scolded him. “Battery acid and horseradish.”
He grimaced, finally realizing the girls couldn’t survive on dried meats and wild onions.
“Okay,” he said. “This might be hard to believe, Cas…but I might need some help managing this circus. I mean…” His smile turned wicked. “I can pitch a hell of a tent, but beyond that…”
I didn’t need the visual. It’d taken years for me to stop fantasizing about it. “It won’t be that hard. Just…feed them. Make sure they don’t set themselves or the forest on fire. Put them to bed. Repeat.”
“Go with me,” he said.
“Where?”
“To the store.”
Nope. Nada. Not happening. “It’s right where you left it, Rem.”
“How will I know what to buy? Chicken nuggets or liver and onions? Red jello or red wine?”
“You’ll figure it out.”
He edged a little closer, grabbing Tabby before she tossed his phone against the wall. “Not asking for much, Sassy. Give me a couple pointers.”
“I’m on my way out of town.” And this time, I meant it.
That smile didn’t just slay me—it pinned me against the ropes, powerslammed me to the mat, then grabbed a metal folding chair from the crowd.
“How about one last favor for me?” he asked.
Not a chance. That well had emptied trying to put out the barn fire.
He read my reluctance. “Okay. A favor to the kids?”
Damn it. Tabby gave me a wave of her chubby fingers. Mellie continued to list things she liked, didn’t like, and some sounds the baby particularity enjoyed while shouted at the top of her lungs.
I surrendered. “Tell me you have a car seat.”
“No, the kids rode up here on top of a wild boar. Have a little faith, Cassi.”
“That’s the problem,” I said. “I don’t have much faith left in you.”
“Me either.” Rem’s voice had mellowed with honesty and time. “Just means I can’t disappoint you anymore, huh?”
“You’ve never backed down from a challenge.”
“That settles it.” His amusement thudded my heart like an axe missing a tree and striking a nearby boulder instead. “I got nothing else to lose, Cas.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I already lost you.”
Sosie Frost is no stranger to quirky, embarrassing, and wild situations, and she’s channeling all that new adult angst into fun romances.
From marching at the high school homecoming game without her trumpet (a punishment for forgetting the instrument on the band bus), to regretfully tucking her prom dress into the back of her tights before pictures, and even accidentally starting a chemical fire in the college chem lab, Sosie has the market cornered on crazy stories.
But hey, writing is a better outlet than therapy right? 😉
If you want funny, charming, and steamy romances, you’ve found the right author!
Sosie lives in Pittsburgh with her hubby, her two cats, and thrives on a near constant stream of gummy bears.
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CHAPTER REVEAL ~ Ryker (Sinister Knights MC) by Aria Cole
Ride. Protect. Defend.
Anna Kloss grew up as a smart girl in the Sinister Knights Motorcycle Club, an above-the-law group of misfits that fights to safeguard the women of their town. Straddling both worlds, she’s lived the last few years in a college dorm, losing herself in the promise of her future and trying to forget the lost love of her past.
As Vice President of the Sinister Knights, Ryker Beckett has proven his dedication and loyalty by sitting in a county jail cell for three years for saving one woman from a nightmarish assault. The woman. The only one who matters. Prez’s young, innocent, and untouched daughter, Anna.
But now, Ryker is back, his sights set on reconnecting with the woman who occupied every minute of his thoughts while he was away. Anna’s all grown up, but she’s still the only one he can’t have, the only one he craves… Is she ready for this giant, rough-around-the-edges biker to protect and defend her forever?
Warning: Ryker is hard in all the right places—a tall, tattooed drink of water sitting on a powerful engine. He’s got his mind on one woman only, and when he sees her again, he’s determined to get her bred and on his bike for their sexy ride into the sunset.
One
Anna
“So when do you think that sexy hunk of man meat will be here?” My best friend, Piper, threw herself onto my violet duvet.
“He’s not sexy.” I turned away from her, heart falling in my chest at just the thought of him.
“Bullshit.” Piper snapped her gum. “You’ve been pining over him since he went away.”
“I haven’t,” I protested.
“Again, I’m gonna have to call bullshit. So when’s he coming back?”
“I don’t know. I heard Dad say the party starts tonight, so I’m thinking sometime between now and then.” Dad would have killed me if he’d known I was eavesdropping outside of his office while he was on my phone, but the old man had refused to give me any information relating to Ryker, and I’d grown desperate for anything.
“Between now and then, huh?” Piper eyed me curiously. “So what are you gonna say to the asshole?”
“He’s not an asshole, Piper.”
“Well, he hasn’t written in the three years he’s been gone.”
“Maybe he couldn’t,” I defended weakly.
“But he could keep in touch with your dad?”
“Dad went to visit him every week, kept him in the loop, but I wasn’t allowed to go.”
Piper frowned. “You should call him on that bullshit. This is your life, you’ve got to get your man.”
“He’s not my man.” But he used to be.
“He was when he went up to County. I’m bettin’ he still sees you that way now.”
“Thirty-six months is a long time to be…” I struggled to find the word. The club didn’t say things like prison, jail, incarcerated. They said, “going away.” It was safer that way.
“He owes you an explanation,” Piper said finally.
“He doesn’t owe me anything. I think he’s given me enough already.” I felt the bundle of tears clogging my throat.
“That’s not your fault, Anna. You’re not the reason he’s up there.”
I paused, holding the gaze of the girl I’d been friends with since I was three. “Feels like it.”
Her eyes searched my face before she collapsed with uncharacteristic emotion and pulled me into her embrace. “I know it does, Anna, but it’s not. I promise you it’s not.”
I wiped at the itchy tears running down my face. Every day without Ryker in my life felt like a bullet fracturing my soul.
Would he even want me anymore? Was I the same girl he left?
I wasn’t sure I was, and somewhere down deep, I felt guilt for changing on him too.
In the weeks following Ryker’s arrest and sentencing, Dad had sent me away to an early entrance college program that could fast-track me to a degree in sociology.
I’d only half wanted to go before the event that changed all of our lives. So when I’d told Dad I planned to stay right here at Falcon’s Nest and wait for Ryker to get home, he’d pulled me off my ass and thrown me out the door faster than I could blink.
All for the best, he’d said.
It’d taken me a long couple years to see the wisdom in that statement.
Now I was only six months away from earning my degree and back home for the summer. Back where it all began.
“So what time does that party start? I don’t want to be late.” Piper twittered behind me.
“We’re not going.”
“Why the hell not? It’s Ryker’s welcome home party, right? We’d like to welcome him.”
“You might like to welcome him. I’d rather sit here and sulk away the pain.”
“I’d really like to check out that bod. I bet he got big in the joint.” Piper’s eyes lit up.
I shook my head. “I don’t care.”
“Ha! He was a big motherfucker before, just imagine him now, Anna. Bulging biceps, washboard abs… Remember when we used to watch him do pull-ups in the garage?” Her eyes glassed over with the pleasurable memory.
“I remember you dragging me down into the ditch and getting covered in thistle weeds when he caught us.”
“He didn’t catch us,” Piper retorted.
“He did.” I laughed. “He told me he did.”
“Shit.”
“Not as stealthy as you thought, sister.”
She stuck out her tongue at me. “What are you gonna wear to the party? Something short, show off those legs. You’ve lost at least ten pounds since he last saw you.”
“Twelve.” I groaned, “And I’m not going. I’m staying right here, and if I run into him, I run into him—”
“This one will make your tits look great.” She ignored everything I’d just said and pushed a clingy purple dress over my head.
“Piper!” I spat as I shoved my arms through the holes. “My dad will fucking kill us if we show up. It’s a members-only kind of thing.”
“We’re members.” She adjusted the dress around my boobs, pulling the neckline down a little farther. “Well, you are. And I sorta am…by proxy or something.”
I arched an eyebrow when she spun me in the mirror. I frowned, taking in my curvy form.
“You look fucking hot.”
My frown deepened.
“He’s going to want to bone you the second he sees you.”
“Piper!”
“It’s a good dress. And, you’re kind of fucking gorgeous, Anna. I know no one tells you that. I don’t know why they don’t tell you that… It’s that whole, I’m too smart for you unapproachable vibe you’ve got going on, but it’s true. You’re fucking gorgeous, and I bet Ryker beat off to you every night he was in that place, just waiting to see you again.”
A blush burned up my cheeks. “What if I don’t know him anymore, Piper?”
“Well, then it’s time to get reacquainted tonight.” She winked at my reflection in the mirror.
“I’m not going to that party.”
“Over my dead body, sister. Now let’s get into your makeup. It just so happens I brought my falsies with me.” She yanked a pair of false eyelashes out of her huge purse. “You’re gonna look like a Kardashian tonight.”
“Ugh or a hooker. Kill me now.”
“Not until your face is done. After that, I don’t care what you do.” Piper pushed me into my bathroom, flicking on the light and plopping me ass-first onto the bench. “Time for him to see what he’s been missing.”
Aria Cole is a thirty-something housewife who once felt bad for reading dirty books late at night, until she decided to write her own. Possessive alpha men and the sassy heroines who love them are common, along with a healthy dose of irresistible insta-love and happily ever afters so sweet your teeth may ache.For a safe, off-the-charts HOT, and always HEA story that doesn’t take a lifetime to read, get lost in an Aria Cole book!Follow Aria on Amazon for new release updates, or stalk her on Facebook and Twitter to see which daring book boyfriend she’s writing next!Sign up to get a NEW RELEASE ALERT from me!
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CHAPTER REVEAL & PRE-ORDER BLITZ ~ Well Played by J.S. Scott & Ruth Cardello
LaurenGraham is my brother’s best friend. He’s always been my protector and my confident because he accepts me the way I am—and not many do. I can’t imagine not having him in my life.
Our weekend together was supposed to be a celebration. I graduated from college, Graham got engaged and signed with a pro football team, and my brother landed his dream job. It should have been the best time of our lives.Except that the weekend started with me walking in on Graham’s fiancée going down on my brother.I complicated the situation by having sex with Graham after that, but I wanted to comfort him and, damn, when I saw desire in his eyes—for me—I couldn’t say no. I’ve wanted him for so long.Now he doesn’t want to see me. He says he has a darker side he needs to protect me from.
Where do we go from here? Do I try to pretend to be his friend again or push him to open up to me and possibly lose him forever?
Graham
Sleeping with one of my best friends was not exactly a brilliant idea. It made things complicated, and I didn’t do anything that threw my life into chaos. The fiancee her brother, Jack, had stolen had been part of my life plan, one more step I was taking to be somebody. Granted, I hadn’t been in love with my intended bride, but I didn’t really know how to love anybody
I survived.
I pushed to achieve more.
I battled my way to the top of the heap in my pro football career..
I’m a total dick, and I don’t want Lauren to see the side of me that would trample over anybody to work my way up in the world.
Lauren sees me as a hero, a title I’d never gain with anybody else in my life, so I wanted to keep her sheltered from the hard realities of my life. I wanted her to continue to think I was nice guy when I was really just the opposite.
We never should have crossed the line of going from friends to lovers.
There’s too much Lauren doesn’t know about me, and I care enough about her that I don’t want her to share my pain and the darkness that never sees daylight inside me.
I want her, but she’s a woman I can never have. She’s too smart, too sweet, and way too good for a guy like me.
Unfortunately, pushing her away becomes much more difficult than I’d planned…
Specific moments tend to embed onto your psyche. They are so traumatic, so painful, they instantly imprint onto your long-term memory.
This was destined to be one of those moments. If I survived. If my ability to breathe returned.
I clenched the doorknob as my brother scrambled to cover his naked ass with a pillow. He swore and told me to get out.
I froze.
Holy shit, nothing will ever be the same.
Hope, the woman whose mouth was inhaling my brother’s cock, scrambled to retrieve her clothing from the floor. Her face was tomato-red. It should be. She’s engaged to Graham Morgan, my brother’s best friend.
Or she was.
“My lesson was canceled.” My voice was strangled as were my insides.
“You should have said something,” Jack said in a tone he’d used once when we were much younger and I’d caught him downloading porn on my computer.
That memory was also embedded.
I’m not a prude, but certain societal codes of behavior should be adhered to. One: Not violating my computer or—ew—my room because you’re grounded from the Internet.
Two: This!
“I’m sorry—” I stopped; I wasn’t sorry. I was numb. I waited for Jack to break out in a smile. It had to be a prank. Graham and Hope’s wedding invitation had arrived two days ago. Mine was secured on the refrigerator at Dad’s place with a heart magnet. We were in Aspen to celebrate the pending nuptials as well as my graduation and Jack’s promotion. “What are you doing, Jack?”
He shook his head without answering, and I pitied him. He usually wasn’t an asshole, at least not as assholey as he appeared with a pillow clutched to his genitals as if his nudity was the big issue.
Clothing in hand, Hope dashed from the living room, down the hall, and to the master bedroom. I wanted to escape, too, so no judgment on my behalf.
“Hope,” Jack bellowed.
She didn’t stop.
He grabbed his clothing and charged after her.
A cold burst of air brought a flurry of snow through the opened door. It instantly melted on the dark wooden floor of the luxury chalet Graham had rented.
We had spent weekends in Aspen, although never in a place so nice. During high school, Jack and I had scraped our pennies and rented the best discounted rooms we could afford. Graham had joined us, but we’d refused his money. He’d never talked much about his home life, but we knew it wasn’t good. Eventually, he’d stopped arguing and simply swore he’d get a huge NFL contract and repay us someday.
He finally had, and the expense of this chalet probably balanced the account.
On autopilot, I closed the door, unzipped my jacket, and hung it in the closet. I peeled off my boots and neatly placed them on the mat. I should have sought the warmth of the blazing fire in the stone hearth, but I still had the visual of my brother and Hope sprawled in front of it.
I shook my head.
That’s an image that can’t be unseen.
The kitchen seemed like a safe destination. I poured a glass of Merlot, and even though I wasn’t a drinker, I finished it off in one long gulp.
This can’t be happening. I gripped the counter behind me. Graham had trust issues. Jack and I were the only family he had. Jack, how could you do something this stupid? This cruel?
I poured another glass and downed half. My stomach churned in warning.
Voices in the living room forced me to abandon my wine and walk toward them. Although I couldn’t make out what they were saying at first, they were obviously arguing.
Hope dropped her luggage in the foyer and retrieved her coat from the closet. I stood, silently observing. “I have to get out of here,” she said desperately. When she realized I was there, she said, “I’m sorry. Graham is on his way. I should tell him not to come, but—” She covered her face with her hands. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
I might have felt sorry for her if I weren’t still trying to erase a certain image from my mind. It was still disgustingly vivid. Jack wrapped his arms around her, an act that angered me.
“You’re upset. You can’t drive like this,” Jack pleaded.
“I have to. I need to think. This isn’t me. I don’t do things like this.” She looked for confirmation from me, but I looked away. I hadn’t known her long enough to refute or support her claim, nor did I want to be put in that position.
“It’s going to be okay. I’ll drive you,” Jack said, as he cupped her face between his hands.
My voice finally functioned. “What about Graham?”
Jack turned to acknowledge my presence. I expected him to be angry with me, but his face held a pained expression instead. “I’ll drive Hope to the airport then come back. He’s still a few hours out.”
“I should be the one to tell him,” Hope said, although she didn’t look or sound convinced.
“No, we’ve been friends our whole lives. I’ll tell him,” Jack said firmly.
How noble of him. I wanted to slap him. His declaration had the opposite effect on Hope. She melted against him, and I wanted to vomit. There were many words I could have let fly, but none would have helped the situation.
I turned to walk away.
“Lauren,” Jack said as he approached me. Whispering to keep Hope from hearing, he said, “Don’t say anything to Graham if he beats me here. Tell him we were out when you arrived.”
“I won’t lie to him,” I said forcefully, brave from my wine buzz.
“Then drive home now.”
My mouth gaped. I didn’t know this Jack. “What if Graham gets here before you? Don’t you think he’ll worry if no one is here or answering his calls?”
The door opened, and Hope slipped out.
I started to tell him what I thought of his plan, but he walked away.
He grabbed his coat and swung the door open. “Listen, I fucked up. You don’t need to tell me how badly. Don’t say anything to Graham, okay? I’ll make this right. I swear.”
He slammed the door before I had a chance to agree or tell him to go to hell.
I grabbed my cell and brought up Graham’s number. He deserved to know what had happened. He deserved a chance to talk it out with Hope if that was what he wanted.
I stopped in front of the fire without calling him. I paused, trying to understand my feelings. My anger had dissolved; I felt relieved—almost happy.
That was as unnerving as seeing Jack and Hope together.
Graham was my honorary brother from another mother, my protector, and even my confidant. Jack’s betrayal would cut Graham deeply, and my heart should be breaking for him.
Leaving my phone on the mantel, I went to my room to pack. No matter who told Graham, chances were he would hate all of us, including me, simply for bearing witness. He’d cut members of his family out of his life for that very crime.
I tried imagining my life without Graham but couldn’t.
Confused and disgusted with myself, I transferred my belongings into my luggage, pausing when I saw my reflection in the bureau mirror. I told myself my feelings were irrelevant. Graham had never looked at me the way he looked at Hope.
I wasn’t in her league. On my best day, I was cute. On my worst, I was a slightly overweight, bespectacled nerd with awkward social skills.
Many people spend their entire lives trying to stand out. I only wanted to blend in. Strategically, I had learned to keep the majority of my thoughts to myself. Sharing them had never made my life better.
At age seven I pinpointed the error in a cartoon character’s attempt at Fermat’s Last Theorem, a problem that had taken mathematicians until 1994 to solve, and sought to discuss it. Not having the mathematical vocabulary to properly express how I would have solved it, I’d asked my teacher, and was instantly transferred to a school for the gifted.
I graduated from high school at fourteen, had an undergraduate degree in applied mathematics by seventeen, and my PhD in condensed matter physics by twenty. Whether it was what I wanted or what I was told I should want, I was still unsure. When I requested a year off to find myself, I was directed to therapy. Some good came from that experience. I learned to value my emotions even when they didn’t match the expected. Feelings weren’t wrong, actions were.
I also met my best friend, Kelley. She was interning at the practice where I paid for two sessions, debated the basic principles of psychology for two more, then on my clinician’s prodding, went on to formally study it.
In retrospect, the suggestion to get my own degree if I thought I knew so much might have been sarcastic, but I wrote a dissertation to support my views and had an additional diploma a year later. Unlike my clinician, Kelley found my questions invigorating. She defined friendship as two people bringing out the best in each other. We were still close even though she had gone off to college in California to finish her studies, leaving us to communicate only by phone for now. Besides Graham, she was the only person who accepted me as I was.
On impulse, I retrieved my phone from the mantel and called her. No answer. I checked the time. It was early enough that she might be in class. I left her a voice message—a long, detailed update that included a trip to the kitchen for another glass of Merlot.
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Insatiable Bachelor Available February 22nd 2018
Dalton:
Women are a perk of my lifestyle. I work hard. I deserve to play harder. But I didn’t get on the Forbes List of Rising Entrepreneurs by getting lost in the baggage and disruption that comes with dating. I’ve seen dozens of men fail when they fall in love. Pathetic.That’s why I chose the Bachelor Tower. It was designed by a genius, my hero: the late, Garry F. Sinclair. He created an all-male haven for ambitious men who want to live like kings and play by their own rules. Casino nights, a fully equipped gym and lap pool, cigar and Scotch bar, and a media room with screens the size of the average movie theater. The list is endless. I easily network with men trying to launch their careers or those at the top who want to stay hungry. The best part: the tower attracts women, beautiful women who hang out in the lobby bar and vie for an invite upstairs. Easy, like fishing in a barrel.Until Sinclair dies and Penny Fuller moves into the apartment next to me because the new owner doesn’t share his vision.
Everyone agrees Penny can’t stay. I don’t want to get involved, but she doesn’t understand the lengths my fellow building mates will go to to get her out. She’s not only irresistibly sexy and painfully optimistic, she’s also in real danger.
Siding with her would be career suicide.
Betraying her was never my intention.
J.S. “Jan” Scott is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USAToday bestselling author of steamy romance. She’s an avid reader of all types of books and literature. Writing what she loves to read, J.S. Scott writes both contemporary steamy romance stories and paranormal romance. They almost always feature an Alpha Male and have a happily ever after because she just can’t seem to write them any other way! She lives in the beautiful Rocky Mountains with her husband and two very spoiled German Shepherds.
Ruth Cardello hit the New York Times and USA Today BestsellersLists for the first time back in 2012. Millions of sales are evidence that her her books are akin to potato chips, addictive from the first one. She has created a multi-series billionaire world with a combination of escapism and realism that has gained her a faithful following of readers.What Kindle Reviewers write about her:
“Wow hot at every page. Heart stopping, fear raging, mind blowing wonderful.”
“I’m a true fan of Ms. Cardello. I ran on to her first book a few years back and have been hooked ever since. I could go on and on about the story like of this book, but I’m not. All of her books are total page turners, unique, heart wrenching, and I love them all. There isn’t two alike in the bunch and I feel like i know the characters personally. I personally read 97 authors books. And I buy every book they put out. This author is in my top 10. Great job and keep them coming.”
“Love this series. Got me to start reading again. I look forward to the next book. Thank you for giving me the love of reading back.”
Ruth Cardello was born the youngest of 11 children in a small city in northern Rhode Island. She spent her young adult years moving as far away as she could from her large extended family. She lived in Boston, Paris, Orlando, New York–then came full circle and moved back to New England. She now happily lives one town over from the one she was born in. For her, family trumped the warmer weather and international scene.
She was an educator for 20 years, the last 11 as a kindergarten teacher. When her school district began cutting jobs, Ruth turned a serious eye toward her second love- writing and has never been happier. When she’s not writing, you can find her chasing her children around her small farm or connecting with her readers online.
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CHAPTER REVEAL ~ The Rebound by Winter Renshaw
The last time I saw Nevada Kane, I was seventeen and he was loading his things into the back of his truck, about to embark on a fourteen-hour drive to the only college that offered him a full ride to play basketball.
I told him I’d wait for him. He promised to do the same.
But life happened. I broke my promise long before he ever broke his. And not because I wanted to.
We never saw each other again …
Until ten years later when Nevada unexpectedly returned to our hometown after an abrupt retirement from his professional basketball career.
Suddenly he was everywhere, always staring through me with that brooding gaze, never returning my smiles or “hellos.”
Over the years, I’d heard that he’d changed. And that despite his multi-million dollar contracts and rampant success, life hadn’t been so kind to him.
He was a widower.
And a single father.
And rumor had it, he’d spent his last ten years trying to forget me, refusing to so much as breathe my name … hating me.
But just like a rebound, he’s back.
And I have to believe everything happens for a reason.
Yardley Devereaux {Ten Years Ago}
He sent my letter back.
I re-read my words, imagining the way they must have made him feel.
Nevada,
I’m writing because you haven’t been taking my calls or answering my texts. I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors, so I thought you should hear it straight from me…
I’ve broken my promise.
But you should know that I never wanted to hurt you, none of this was planned, and I still love you more than anything I’ve ever loved in this world.
This is something I had to do. And I think if you’ll let me, I can explain in a way that makes sense and doesn’t completely obliterate the beauty of what we had.
Please don’t hate me, Nevada.
Please let me explain.
Please answer your phone.
I love you. So much.
Your dove,
Yardley
The paper is torn at the top, as if he was about to rip it to shreds but changed his mind, and on the back of my letter, in bold, black marker, is a message of his own.
NEVER CONTACT ME AGAIN. Chapter OneYardley Devereaux, age 16
I don’t belong here.
I realize being the new kid makes people give you a second look, but I don’t think it should give them permission to stare at you like you have a second head growing out of your nose. Or a monstrous zit on your chin. Or a period stain on your pants.
At this point it’s all the same.
Not to mention, I don’t think anyone can prepare you for what it feels like to eat lunch alone, like some social reject.
The smell of burnt tater tots makes my stomach churn, and the milk on my tray expires today. I’m pretty sure the “chicken patty on a bun” they gave me is nothing more than pink slime baked to a rock-hard consistency. I’m unwilling to risk chipping a tooth, so I refuse to try it.
Checking my watch for the millionth time, I calculate approximately 3 1/2 hours left until I can go home and tell my parents what an amazing first day I had. That’s what they want to hear anyway. Dad moved us here from California with the promise that we were going to be richer than sin, whatever that means. But if Missouri is such a gold mine then why doesn’t the rest of the world move here? So far, Lambs Grove looks like the kind of place you’d see in some independent film about a mother trying to solve her son’s murder with the help of a crooked police department, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, JK Simmons, and Frances McDormand.
Okay, I’m probably being dramatic.
But this place is pretty lame. I miss the ocean. I miss the constant sunshine and the steady stream of seventy-five degree days. I miss the swaying palm trees.
I miss my friends.
Forcing your kid to move away from the town they’ve grown up in their entire life—in the middle of their sophomore—year is cruel. I don’t care how rich dad says we’re going to get, I’d have rather stayed in Del Mar, driven a rusting Honda, and paid my own way through a technical college if it had meant we didn’t have to move.
And can we talk about my name for a second? Yardley. Everyone here has normal names. Alyssa. Monica. Taylor. Heather. Courtney. If I have to spell my name for someone one more time I’m going to scream. My mom wanted my name to be special and different because apparently she thinks I’m special and different, but naming your daughter Yardley doesn’t make her special. It just makes it so she’ll never find her name on a souvenir license plate.
I’d go by my middle name if it weren’t equally as bad, but choosing between Yardley and Dove is akin to picking your own poison.
Yardley Dove Devereaux.
My parents are cruel.
I rest my case.
I pop a cold tater tot into my mouth and force myself to chew. I’ll be damned if I’m that girl sitting in third block with a stomach growling so loud it drowns out the teacher. I don’t need more people staring.
Pulling my notebook from my messenger bag, I pretend to focus on homework despite the fact that it’s the first day of spring semester and none of my teachers have assigned anything yet, but it’s better than sitting here staring at the block walls of the cafeteria like some loser.
Pressing my pen into the paper, I begin to write:
Monday, January 7, 2008
This day sucks.
The school sucks.
This town sucks.
These people suck.
After a minute, I toss my pen aside and exhale.
“What about me? Do I suck?” A pastel peach lunch tray plops down beside me followed by a raven-haired boy with eyes like honey and a heartbreaker’s smile. My heart flutters in my chest. He’s gorgeous. And I have no idea why he’s sitting next to me. “Nevada.”
“No. California. I’m from Del Mar,” I say, clearing my throat and sitting up straight.
The boy laughs through his perfectly straight nose.
I can’t take my eyes off his dimpled smirk. He can’t take his eyes off me.
“My name,” he says. “It’s Nevada. Like the state. And you are?”
“New,” I say.
He laughs at me again, eyes rolling. “Obviously. What’s your name?”
My cheeks warm. Apparently, I can’t human today. “Yardley.”
“Yardley from California.” He says my name like he’s trying to memorize it as he studies me. I squirm, wanting to know what he’s thinking and why he’s gazing at me like I’m some kind of magnificent creature and not some circus sideshow new girl freak. “What brings you here?”
He pops one of my tator tots between his full lips, grinning while he chews.
Nevada doesn’t look like the boys where I’m from. He doesn’t sound like them either. He isn’t sun kissed with windswept surfer hair. His features are darker, more mysterious. One look at this tall drink of water and I know he’s wise beyond his years. Mischievous and charismatic but also personable.
He’s … everything.
And he’s everything I never expected to come across in a town like this.
A group of girls at the table behind us gape and gawk, whispering and nudging each other. It occurs to me then that this might be a set-up, that this beautiful boy might be talking to this awkward new girl as a dare.
“Ignore them,” he says when he follows my gaze toward the plastic cheerleader squad sitting a few feet away. “They’re just jealous.”
I lift a brow. “Of what?”
He smirks, laughing at me like I’m supposed to ‘get it.’
“What?” I ask. If this is a joke, I want to be in on it. I refuse to add butt-of-the-joke to the list of reasons why this day can go to hell.
“They’re jealous because they think I’m about to ask you out,” he says, licking his lips. Nevada hasn’t taken his eyes off me since the moment he sat down.
“Should I go inform them that they have absolutely no reason to shoot daggers our way?”
His expression fades. “Why would you say that?”
“Because …” I laugh. “You’re not about to ask me out.”
“I’m not?”
I peel my gaze off of him and glance down at my untouched lunch. “Why are you doing this?”
“Why am I doing what? Talking to you? Trying to get the courage to ask you on a date?”
I glance up, studying his golden gaze and trying to determine if he’s being completely serious right now.
“You’ve never seen me before in your life and then you just … plop down next to me and ask me on a date?” I shake my head before rising. If I have to dump my tray and hide in the bathroom until the bell rings, then so be it.
“Where are you going?”
My lips part. “I … I don’t know. I …”
Nevada reaches for me, wrapping his hand around my wrist in a silent plea for me to stay. “Do you have a boyfriend back in California? Is that what this is about?”
“What? No.” This guy is relentless.
“Then go on a date with me,” he says, rising. “Friday.”
“Why?”
His expression fades. “Why?”
The bell rings. Thank God.
“I was new once. So I get it,” he says, fighting another dimpled smirk. God, I could never get tired of looking at a face like his. “And, uh … I think you’re, like, really fucking hot.”
Biting my lower lip and trying my damnedest to keep a straight face, I decide I won’t be won over that easily. It takes a lot more than a sexy smile, some kind words, and a curious glint in his sunset eyes. If he truly wants me … if this isn’t a joke and he honestly thinks I’m “really fucking hot,” he’s going to have to prove it.
“Bye, Nevada,” I say, gathering my things and disappearing into a crowd of students veering toward two giant trash cans.
I don’t wait for him to respond and I don’t turn around, but I feel him watching me—if that’s even possible. There’s this electric energy pulsing through me from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. I’m not sure if it’s excitement or anticipation or the promise of hope … but I can’t deny that it’s real and it’s there.
Making my way to the second floor of Lambs Grove High, I find my English Lit classroom and settle into a seat in the back.
For the tiniest sliver of a second, I imagine the two of us together. We’re laughing and happy and so in love that it physically hurts—the kind of thing I’ve never had with anyone else.
The tardy bell rings and a few more students shuffle in. My teacher takes roll call before beginning his lecture, but I don’t hear any of it.
I can’t stop thinking about that beautiful boy.
Wall Street Journal and #1 Amazon bestselling author Winter Renshaw is a bona fide daydream believer. She lives somewhere in the middle of the USA and can rarely be seen without her trusty Mead notebook and ultra portable laptop. When she’s not writing, she’s living the American dream with her husband, three kids, and the laziest puggle this side of the Mississippi.
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COVER REVEAL ~ Consequence (The Confidence Game part 2) by Rachel Higginson
Consequence
The Confidence Game Part 2
Rachel Higginson
Releasing February 27th:
Blurb:
Five years ago, I escaped a dangerous life I had always wanted to leave. I got away. I found freedom. But it cost me the love of my life.
For five years I lived in hiding, protecting my most valuable secret while Sayer Wesley sat in prison paying for both our sins. I promised to love him forever. I promised to never leave him.
I broke my promises.
Five months ago Sayer found me.
Five weeks ago, I was forced to face my past.
Five days ago, someone took my daughter. They kidnapped her in order to make Sayer and me suffer. I will do anything to get her back. Even if that means coming clean to Sayer, letting him into my life and introducing him to our daughter.
All I wanted was to protect her from this life and now she’s right in the middle of the chaos. Sayer is the only one that can help me. He’s the only one that can get her back.
But it might mean losing him again.
Fifteen years ago, I fell in love with Sayer Wesley. Now I must pay the consequences for falling in love with a con man.
Excerpt:
Chapter One
Sayer
Fifteen Years Ago
Doubt niggled in my gut, forcing me to question my choices. I hated it. I hated the greasy feeling sloshing around in the pit of my stomach. Halting hesitation stilted my limbs and slowed my footsteps.
The door in front of me seemed to stretch to the dark sky overhead. The damp, ivy covered walls seemed to close in on me, trapping me in a prison I wasn’t ready to face yet.
Letting out a slow, measured breath I balled my hands into fists and reminded myself that this was my only option for survival. I’d made my bed and now I had to live in it.
For however long my life lasted.
Wrapping my knuckles against the back entrance to a Russian-run bar in the middle of downtown DC, I swallowed the lump of fear and my uncertainty. The gritty taste in my mouth remained.
“What?” a gigantic tank of a man asked when the metal door creaked open.
The opened door let out a gust of warm air that smelled like booze and sweat. It reminded me of my old man and I had to plant my feet to restrain myself from involuntarily bolting.
“I want to see the bosses,” I declared boldly.
The ogre’s mouth split into a scary smile, revealing rows of gold teeth and a fat, gray tongue. My request was amusing enough that he didn’t bother playing games with me. I obviously wasn’t an FBI informant or slimy CI. I wasn’t wearing a wire. He knew exactly where I came from—the gutter.
He clicked his tongue between his teeth and lips. “And what does a street rat like you want with the pakhan?”
His thick accent made it hard for me to understand him, but I got the gist of what he asked. “I have information,” I told him and then quickly added. “Important information.”
His smile disappeared. “Yeah? How about you tell it to me and I’ll relay the message.”
I shook my head. No fucking way. I give this guy the goods, I’ll never get another chance to get inside. This had to come from me. And it had to go straight to the top. “I tell the bosses. Nobody else.”
He spat a string of curses in a foreign language I assumed was Russian. “I’m not playing games, shithead. And you’re not getting inside. Give me the fucking information or get lost.” When I hesitated, he added, “You have three seconds.”
“It’s about the Irish,” I blurted, desperate to have him hear me out. “And a huge fucking shipment of guns.” I rubbed my tongue on the roof of the mouth. The curse word felt funny on my tongue. Up until six months ago, I wouldn’t have used it out of respect for my mom. But since I’d been living on the streets, I’d learned there were certain kinds of people in the world who only responded to a specific way of talking. If I wanted to be taken seriously I needed to get comfortable with their language.
Besides it wasn’t like I was sheltered or some shit. Thirteen years of living with my dad had taught me how to survive on the streets—I could survive the Russian mob or the fucking epicenter of hell.
The meathead’s curiosity had been piqued. “And what does a piece of scum like you know about the fucking Irish?”
I craned my neck to rub my cheek against my bony shoulder. “I know that I’ve been working with them for two months. I know that they’re expecting a container next month. I know that the guns that were supposed to be on it were delayed because their customs officer was arrested and so they were put on a separate, smaller ship, making them arrive two weeks ahead of time. I know that if you know the right place they’re coming in at you could beat the Irish and grab them for yourselves.”
His jaw ticked, revealing confusion and anger. “And how the fuck do you know that?”
“Because I know it. Now are you going to let me in to talk to the bosses? Or am I going to have to take this information to the Italians?”
“Fucking Italians.” He pursed his lips and spit. I flexed my entire body and held perfectly still. I couldn’t let this guy see me flinch. He was just the gatekeeper, but if I cringed in front of him he wouldn’t take me seriously and I’d lose my one shot at getting inside.
I was tough and I’d prove it here and now.
Caroline’s voice drifted through my head, bolstering my courage, boosting my adrenaline. “Make them realize you’re valuable.” She’d offered the advice like a last-minute question. She’d wanted to save me from the streets. She’d wanted to rescue me from the assholes that had hired me. But she’d done something better instead.
She’d given me something to live for—seeing her again.
“How do you know any of that?” the bouncer demanded. “How do I know you’re not a little spy sent by someone else? The Irish could have sent you. The Italians could have sent you. The goddamn cops could be messing with us.”
“How about you let the bosses decide that? Pretty sure those questions are above your pay grade.”
I expected him to punch me in the face, but he threw his head back and laughed instead. “How old are you, kid?”
I had no reason to lie. Although I probably should have anyway. “Thirteen.”
“Fucking balls for a kid of thirteen.”
I shrugged. “Are you going to let me in or what?”
“Fuck it,” he grumbled, but pushed the door open so I could walk inside.
Repressing the relieved smile playing at the corners of my mouth, I inhaled the sticky sweet stench of the bar and tried not to gag. God, I had hated places like this. I hated the loud mouth men yelling at each other from across the room. I hated the pounding music that never ended. I hated the women that worked here, that dressed in as little as possible and let the drunk ass men put their hands all over them.
This bar was too close to home. And it took everything in me not to bolt. I wanted to run away from this place like I wanted to run from my past. I wanted to head back to the mission house that had given me a hot chocolate and offered a warm bed to sleep in.
Bile rose up in my throat and I banished the manipulative thoughts before they could take root. That idyllic dream would lead one place—to child services. And they would just send me back to foster care.
There was only one thing on this godforsaken planet worse than my old man and that was foster care.
Fuck that.
I’d take the Russians before I’d ever let them send me back.
Hell, I’d even stay with the Irish before I let that happen.
I followed the goon through the bar and toward a darkened staircase. Everyone we passed sent curious looks my way, but my new friend didn’t offer any explanations. I appreciated his discretion, even if he was trying to keep the number of witnesses to a minimum.
At the top of the stairs, we took the single hallway to the farthest closed door. I ignored the sounds coming from the other rooms as we walked by and the occasional screams of both pleasure and pain.
Eyes wide open, I reminded myself. I was stepping into this world fully aware of what I was getting into. I was choosing a life of crime, of immorality… of sin. This was my life, and for the first time ever, I was deciding how I wanted to live it.
My guide pounded his meaty fist against the door until someone on the other side called out a terse, “Come in.”
The door opened and the goon shoved me through it. “This kid says he can get us the next shipment of Irish guns. Says he wants to trade something for it.”
I hadn’t said that. A wave of gratitude washed through me for this nameless stranger. I knew enough about the world that I could recognize this for what it was—a future favor I would be expected to make right. I was grateful enough to be okay with owing this guy one.
The cool, calculated gazes of three well-dressed men turned to me. The bosses. I had never seen them in person before, but it was obvious who they were. The entire room was practically bowed in their presence.
I’d overheard the Irish talk about them enough to know there were three of them and they were brothers. Dymetrus was the muscle in the family. He controlled the enforcers and handled the punishments. Aleksander—the brains. He made the money decisions and ran the businesses. And Roman—the boss of bosses. He was the face of the family, the oldest brother and the end all be all of the Russian mafia in this city.
It was Roman I would have to convince.
It was Roman I would have to survive.
And there he sat, directly across the room from me, at the head of the table, his brothers to both sides of him, his closest men in chairs bordering the large room. He was dark-haired and slick-looking, like oil personified. He was groomed to perfection and his tailored suit was worth more than my life.
I hated him immediately.
He had everything I wanted and didn’t have. Money, power, security, a place to sleep. Something settled inside me, dropping to my gut like the first stone of a new building, the one the rest of the foundation would be built on. Or the seed of a mighty oak that took root and began the arduous task of growing, developing, of becoming something bigger, better and more permanent than what it was.
I decided right then and there that I wanted everything Roman had. Not just the money and the clothes and the material possessions—I wanted the job too. I wanted the power. I wanted his empire.
And today was the first step to getting it.
“Speak, child,” he ordered, his voice heavy with Russian influence. “Tell us your tale.”
His black eyes glinted in the low light, sparking with curiosity and mystery. I held his gaze and ignored the buzzing of nerves threatening to make me puke. “I did a job for you two months ago. It was an electronics store. I climbed up a wall and turned off security cameras, then hid in a space between two walls and jumped the driver of a delivery truck when he stepped out of the cab.”
Roman’s head tilted to the side. “I thought you were going to tell me about where I can find Irish guns.”
“I want a job,” I told him evenly. “If I tell you about the guns, I want to work for you.”
“It sounds as though you’re already working for me,” Roman countered. “And the Irish. And who knows who else.”
I shook my head, realizing I needed to slow down. “I don’t want to be a six. I want to be one of you.” I jerked my chin toward the bouncer. “I want to be bratva.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a child.”
“I’m about to help you take out the Irish,” I reminded him.
“What did the Irish do to make you hate them so much?” his brother asked. By his trimmed beard and glasses, I pegged him as Aleksander, but I couldn’t be sure. “Why are you here tattling on them as though we are your mother and they have picked on you at school?”
I shook my head again. They weren’t getting it. “I never wanted to be Irish,” I explained. “Since the job two months ago, I’ve only wanted to be Russian.”
“Then you should have stayed working for us,” Roman sighed. “Now we can’t trust you. Now we assume you are an Irish spy and we should send you back to them with your tail between your legs.”
“Or in a body bag,” Dymetrus murmured.
Heat rushed to my brain and I felt my face turn red. “I’m not a spy. I went to the Irish in order to find you something to take them out. That’s all. I never wanted to work for them.”
The three brothers stared at me. “Did someone tell you to do that?” Roman asked. He turned to his other brother. “Who was in charge of that job? Who would give advice of that nature to this… child?”
Dymetrus snorted. “Leon Valero ran point as I remember. We needed his daughter on the inside. He didn’t do a half bad job of it, but Leon’s not kind enough to recruit a kid.”
Daughter. I wondered if they meant Caroline. I filed that information away. “It wasn’t Leon,” I interrupted and tensed for their response. “It’s not important who told me what to do. Besides they didn’t say specifically to get work from the Irish, just that I needed to do something to prove my worth in order to stay. I want to stay, so I did something to prove my worth. That’s all. I’m not an Irish spy. They probably won’t even notice I’m gone. I was just a six for them. A six that happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
“What is your name?” Roman asked when I expected him to demand more information.
Nerves pinged through me again, my stomach tightening into a twisted ball. “Sayer.” I cleared my throat. “Sayer Wesley.”
Roman sat back in his chair. “How do I know that name?” He turned to his brother again. “Why is that name familiar.”
“His father was a cop,” Aleksander offered. “He’s dead now.”
Recognition flashed in Roman’s eyes. “Suicide.”
I scanned the room for the closest trash can, convinced I was going to puke. Thankfully, I hadn’t eaten anything today so there was nothing in my stomach. I managed to nod.
Roman shared a look with his brothers before turning his black eyes back to me. “It’s time you told us everything, Sayer Wesley. Starting with how a dead cop’s kid ends up trying to defect from the family his own dear dad used to work for.”
“My dad might’ve been Irish, but I hated him. I want nothing to do with his family. I want nothing to do with the Irish.” I spit the words out as promises. Anger bubbled beneath my skin, fury ready to be unleashed in my fisted hands.
“You say that here,” Roman countered calmly. “But what about to them? Maybe you say the same things about the Russians to them. Surely they expect you to carry on his legacy. Surely they expect another dirty cop? Or at the very least a loyal soldier.”
I ground my teeth together. “Then this will set them right.”
Something in my tone or in my eyes must have finally convinced them I was telling the truth. Roman sat back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. “And how can we trust someone one that hates his father so much? Family means something to us.”
“Family means something to me too. I just want to be able to choose who my family is. I want to decide who I call brother and who I swear my life to. The Irish don’t get that honor. My fucking dad didn’t get that honor.”
“And you think the guns are enough?” Roman asked still calm and unruffled. “You think one ship full of guns is enough to turn your Irish blood Russian?”
I struggled to swallow past the baseball-sized lump in my throat. “Yes.”
“You’re wrong,” Roman said with a small, amused smile. “But it’s a start.”
His words were a fatal blow, a crushing disappointment that felt like total destruction. I hadn’t realized how much I had hoped that this would be easy or how desperately I needed them to give me what I wanted. I had nowhere else to go. I had no backup plan. I had no other options. “A-a start?”
“Who told you that you needed to prove yourself to become bratva?” Roman demanded in a tone I knew better than to argue with.
“A girl,” I confessed quickly.
The brothers shared another look. “Did this girl have a name?” Aleksander asked.
I licked dry lips and contemplated how to answer. “There were two girls there. It was the one with short hair.” I felt proud of myself for not giving away her name. If the Russians were like the Irish, they had a dozen or so nameless street kids working for them. The bosses wouldn’t know who they were. And I wouldn’t be expected to remember one of them after meeting them only once.
Only I did remember her. I remembered everything about her.
The brothers lapsed into Russian, their expressions growing stern and serious. They seemed to be arguing about something, gesturing toward me and the window behind them. And then they said her name. Caroline Valero. And I knew I’d turned her in.
Shit.
I swallowed and tried to pick up the repeated phrases or words so I could go to the library tomorrow and look them up, but it was impossible to understand them. I didn’t know any Russian and they were speaking way too fast for me to memorize anything substantial.
Roman had the last say and the other brothers closed their mouths, even though they didn’t look happy about it. He turned his gaze back to me once more and looked more sinister than ever. I couldn’t pinpoint it for a second, but I realized he reminded me of a cartoon cat with a mouse dangling from his fingertips. He had something he wanted.
And I was just now realizing that something was me.
“I want you to tell me about the guns, Sayer Wesley. If your information proves to be accurate and if my men are able to procure the weapons, I will in fact allow you to become bratva. Not a six, like you’ve suggested, but a brother. We will blood you so that you will no longer be Irish, but Russian. We will tattoo you so that everyone in this city knows who you belong to, so your ties with the Irish mob will forever be severed. And we will treat you as one of us. We will give you a place to live and you will work for us for the rest of your life. Is that what you want?”
The promise was too much to resist. My voice shook with dangerous hope as I answered, “That is what I want.”
“Then there will be one more task for you to complete. If you can give us the Irish and we make you bratva, then you must do one more thing.”
Reality sliced through me and I realized I had walked into the spider’s web. Willingly. It was one thing to become Russian. It was another thing entirely to owe them a favor.
“What thing?”
Roman hesitated long enough that I thought he might not tell me, that he might make me wait until after I was bratva to demand his pound of flesh. At last he said, “You must give us Caroline Valero.”
My heart kicked at my chest and I pushed up onto the balls of my feet, readying to run. “What do you mean?”
“I want her,” Roman explained. Before I could fly across the table and murder him, he added. “In the brotherhood. She has a… special set of skills I only see improving. I want to own her talent. I want her to be bratva.”
“She’s already a six—”
“She works begrudgingly to help her father,” Roman explained. “She has no intentions of getting marked. My niece tells me she has plans to go to college and leave the life completely.” His nose wrinkled in distaste. “Not only do I refuse to lose her talent, she has a certain influence over my niece that I will not abide. She must be bratva. Do you understand?”
From the second I saw Caroline, I knew she was different. This information didn’t surprise me at all. She didn’t look Russian. And she didn’t look like she belonged in that back alley. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and if she hadn’t talked to me, I wouldn’t have believed she was real. Of course she wanted to go to college. She didn’t belong with these lowlifes. She didn’t belong to this world. “You want me to convince her to not go to college?”
Roman stretched his neck impatiently. “I want you to give her a reason to stay. A reason she cannot leave.”
I shook my head. “I don’t follow.”
Roman said what sounded like a curse word in Russian and leaned forward, stretching his folded hands in front of him on the sleek table. “I want you to give me a reason to make her bratva. I want you to prove you belong here by securing her future with me.”
My heart pounded and adrenaline rushed through me as I realized what I was being asked. There were two ways to enter a life like this one. The first was to walk willingly into it. Like I was trying to do. The second was to do something that trapped you inside—usually a sin of some kind, a bargain with the devil that could not be broken. They were asking me to give them an opportunity to trap Caroline in the bratva.
“How much time do I have?” I asked, my tongue heavy and stiff in my mouth.
“You have until she tries to leave,” Roman answered, his lips twisting with a small smile. “She will work for us as long as she lives here and her father is working for our organization. I need her choice to be taken away from her. I need her loyalty. You have until she graduates high school. But sooner would be preferable.”
The tumultuous feelings inside of me started to become clearer. I realized I wasn’t afraid nor was I upset on her behalf. I was excited. Thrilled. Happy.
It turned out that Roman and I wanted the same thing—Caroline Valero. His task was in complete alignment with what I had set out to do.
“Your price is Caroline Valero?” I asked when I started to doubt what I’d heard. Could I want this so badly I had just imagined it?
“Make her mine,” Roman ordered. “And you will always belong to this brotherhood.”
“Okay,” I told him knowing that it was a lie. Knowing that Caroline would never be his. But I would do what he asked to make her mine. I would figure out how to make her bratva not so she wouldn’t leave the Russians, but so she wouldn’t leave me.
I spent the rest of the night explaining the shipment of guns I knew was on the way. I gave all the details of how many men would be there to pick it up and exactly where the guns would go. I showed them the fax for the port details and what time they could expect the ship to dock. After they had everything they needed, they called the bookkeeper over and arranged a place for me to stay. And then sent me home with him.
He gave me a place to stay, a shower, a hot meal and a bed to sleep in. I fell asleep knowing my future was secure, knowing my place in the brotherhood was as good as finalized, knowing I would get Roman everything he asked, because it was everything I wanted.
I would do anything to make Caroline Valero mine. Even if that meant making her bratva with me.
About the Author:
Rachel Higginson is the best-selling author of The Opposite of You, The Five Stages of Falling in Love, Every Wrong Reason, Bet on Us and The Star-Crossed Series.
She was born and raised in Nebraska, and spent her college years traveling the world. She fell in love with Eastern Europe, Paris, Indian Food and the beautiful beaches of Sri Lanka, but came back home to marry her high school sweetheart. Now she spends her days writing stories and raising five amazing kids.
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RELEASE DAY BLITZ ~ Under The Mistletoe by Aria Cole
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RELEASE DAY BLITZ ~ Under Siege by Aria Cole
What happens when ten-foot-tall and bulletproof asks you to spend thirty days alone with him?
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