Showing posts with label Chapter Reveal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chapter Reveal. Show all posts
False Perceptions by Michelle Heard
Available via Kindle Unlimited
Conspiracies and lies lead to a secret that was never supposed to be uncovered.
Six months ago we rescued Emilie Swanson, the daughter of retired Navy Admiral George Swanson – now a senator running for the presidency.
Having just returned from a harrowing operation gone wrong, I accept an undercover mission. With orders to protect Emilie from any further threats, everything should be uncomplicated. Expecting a socialite, I’m surprised when I get to know the spirited woman.
But the Navy SEAL motto is true. The only easy day was yesterday.
To save her I have to take on a powerful political player who will do anything to further his career. Things aren’t what they seem, and the threat to Emilie’s life lies much closer to home than we thought.
Time is running out as we’re both caught in a web of false perceptions.
Six months ago we rescued Emilie Swanson, the daughter of retired Navy Admiral George Swanson – now a senator running for the presidency.
Having just returned from a harrowing operation gone wrong, I accept an undercover mission. With orders to protect Emilie from any further threats, everything should be uncomplicated. Expecting a socialite, I’m surprised when I get to know the spirited woman.
But the Navy SEAL motto is true. The only easy day was yesterday.
To save her I have to take on a powerful political player who will do anything to further his career. Things aren’t what they seem, and the threat to Emilie’s life lies much closer to home than we thought.
Time is running out as we’re both caught in a web of false perceptions.
EMILIE
I wish someone would’ve told me.
I used to lie in my bed and dream about what my life could be. Life almost had me fooled, telling me to believe in fairytales.
But, I know better now.
There’s no such thing as a happily ever after. If you’re one of the lucky ones then maybe you’ll get a happily for now.
Unfortunately, just like everything else on this planet, even love has an expiration date.
Disappointment stabs at my heart which feels like it’s been reduced to nothing but a burial ground where dreams and love once flourished.
Twelve years.
It’s strange. These emotions that keep crashing over me in waves. I’m constantly being washed off my feet, overwhelmed by the pain. But then, the knowledge that it’s finally over sets in, offering some reprieve.
It’s a feeling of release, finality, and an uncanny sense of peace that all the futile hoping and praying have come to an end.
It’s in those moments when the finality sets in that I feel a renewed strength to pack faster. Raleigh holds nothing for me anymore. I just need to get everything packed so I can move back home to Virginia. There’s not much I’ll miss about Raleigh. Hell, come to think of it, I won’t miss a single thing.
Part of me wants to say, screw it, and to just leave everything behind. But I won’t. I won’t let that woman have one more thing that I’ve worked so hard for.
She’s like a sister to me.
Hah!
I’m helping a friend. You know that’s what I do. She’s just a friend.
Bastard.
Lying, cheating pig.
I wish someone would’ve told me.
I used to lie in my bed and dream about what my life could be. Life almost had me fooled, telling me to believe in fairytales.
But, I know better now.
There’s no such thing as a happily ever after. If you’re one of the lucky ones then maybe you’ll get a happily for now.
Unfortunately, just like everything else on this planet, even love has an expiration date.
Disappointment stabs at my heart which feels like it’s been reduced to nothing but a burial ground where dreams and love once flourished.
Twelve years.
It’s strange. These emotions that keep crashing over me in waves. I’m constantly being washed off my feet, overwhelmed by the pain. But then, the knowledge that it’s finally over sets in, offering some reprieve.
It’s a feeling of release, finality, and an uncanny sense of peace that all the futile hoping and praying have come to an end.
It’s in those moments when the finality sets in that I feel a renewed strength to pack faster. Raleigh holds nothing for me anymore. I just need to get everything packed so I can move back home to Virginia. There’s not much I’ll miss about Raleigh. Hell, come to think of it, I won’t miss a single thing.
Part of me wants to say, screw it, and to just leave everything behind. But I won’t. I won’t let that woman have one more thing that I’ve worked so hard for.
She’s like a sister to me.
Hah!
I’m helping a friend. You know that’s what I do. She’s just a friend.
Bastard.
Lying, cheating pig.
His To Claim by Shelly Bell
"I had to constantly remind myself to breathe. Shelly Bell packs a powerful punch with her flawless writing and suspenseful, passionate love story." --- #1 New York Times bestselling author Jodi Ellen Malpas on At His Mercy
Fate brought them together. Family could tear them apart.
Ryder McKay may be a playboy, but he's never been a fool. Not until he met the woman he simply knew as Jane. For one night, he dropped his guard, but in the morning she disappeared---along with a copy of his top secret technology.
When it ends up in the hands of his biggest enemy---his father---Ryder knows without a doubt he's been betrayed. And when he finds Jane again, a year later, he can't decide what's worse---that her mother is marrying his brother, or that he still finds Jane irresistible, despite the fact that she's a liar, a thief, and his father's latest protégé.
Jane Cooper does have a secret, but it's not the one Ryder thinks. As their rekindled passion changes into something deeper, they'll have to work together to untangle a web of lies and corruption that will shatter everything they thought they knew about their pasts. Because Jane's not the only one with a secret---and this secret is getting people killed.
Ryder McKay may be a playboy, but he's never been a fool. Not until he met the woman he simply knew as Jane. For one night, he dropped his guard, but in the morning she disappeared---along with a copy of his top secret technology.
When it ends up in the hands of his biggest enemy---his father---Ryder knows without a doubt he's been betrayed. And when he finds Jane again, a year later, he can't decide what's worse---that her mother is marrying his brother, or that he still finds Jane irresistible, despite the fact that she's a liar, a thief, and his father's latest protégé.
Jane Cooper does have a secret, but it's not the one Ryder thinks. As their rekindled passion changes into something deeper, they'll have to work together to untangle a web of lies and corruption that will shatter everything they thought they knew about their pasts. Because Jane's not the only one with a secret---and this secret is getting people killed.
Ryder McKay knocked back a shot of Jameson, slammed the glass down on the bar, and grabbed the next one, relishing the smooth burn sliding down his throat. It wasn’t every day your brother was about to marry the daughter of the country’s most powerful man.
The press was calling the union a “marriage made in heaven.”
More like a deal with the devil.
Only in this case, it had been a deal between two devils. Two criminals posing as legitimate business men who were likely using their offspring to solidify some kind of pact between the two families. If Keane McKay and Ian Sinclair joined forces instead of working against each other, they’d have the potential to be largest crime syndicate in North America.
It had been years since Ryder had turned his back on Keane and that life. After he’d graduated high school, he’d made good on his lifelong promise to himself. He’d moved out and never returned.
Any conversation with Keane over the past decade had been limited to Ryder’s insistence that his father not contact him again. It had taken several years, but he had eventually gotten the hint and stopped calling.
The press was calling the union a “marriage made in heaven.”
More like a deal with the devil.
Only in this case, it had been a deal between two devils. Two criminals posing as legitimate business men who were likely using their offspring to solidify some kind of pact between the two families. If Keane McKay and Ian Sinclair joined forces instead of working against each other, they’d have the potential to be largest crime syndicate in North America.
It had been years since Ryder had turned his back on Keane and that life. After he’d graduated high school, he’d made good on his lifelong promise to himself. He’d moved out and never returned.
Any conversation with Keane over the past decade had been limited to Ryder’s insistence that his father not contact him again. It had taken several years, but he had eventually gotten the hint and stopped calling.
Knave by Jane Henry & Maisy Archer
Sabrina: Good guys save the day and criminals go to jail. It’s not rocket science, people.
But then my father’s killed, I’m rescued by a thief, and my worldview is shattered. He takes me to his penthouse. His bed. I don’t have to like it but I can’t help it. His touch is everything a good girl like me shouldn’t want.
Anson: Good and bad mean nothing to a master thief. I take what I want, and what I want is vengeance. No more, no less.
Maybe the girl can help, so I’ll hide her. Protect her. And if I have to manhandle her to keep her quiet, she’ll deal. Hell, she might even like it. But she’ll learn fast that I make the rules.
But then my father’s killed, I’m rescued by a thief, and my worldview is shattered. He takes me to his penthouse. His bed. I don’t have to like it but I can’t help it. His touch is everything a good girl like me shouldn’t want.
Anson: Good and bad mean nothing to a master thief. I take what I want, and what I want is vengeance. No more, no less.
Maybe the girl can help, so I’ll hide her. Protect her. And if I have to manhandle her to keep her quiet, she’ll deal. Hell, she might even like it. But she’ll learn fast that I make the rules.
Manhattan
“3, 2, 1… And, security systems are down,” Walker said, his voice with its lilting accent magnified over the tiny communication device in my ear, so that it sounded like he was sitting right next to me. “Daly, you’re up.”
No shit. I rolled my eyes as I employed the tiny laser cutting tool to make a hole in the glass window just large enough for me to slip through. Dangling from a cable four stories above the ground in the middle of a bright, moonlit night was not the best time to start contemplating your life choices, but it seemed to happen every time I worked with these guys; which was to say, twenty-four-seven for the past six months.
“I’m in,” I whispered, pushing the suction holder I’d clamped to the freshly-cut glass disk and reaching my arm into the cooler, drier air of the office. With practiced ease, I levered myself headfirst through the hole, twisting to land lightly on my feet. I set the now useless glass gently on the floor, removed the rappelling cable that tethered me to the roof, and stood silently in the empty office, taking a second to get my bearings, to let my eyes adjust to the relative darkness, and to let my body, sweating from the humid night outside, cool for a second.
“Daly, report.” As always, Xavier’s cool, imperious voice drove me bonkers.
“Report,” I muttered. “Because I’m your freakin’ minion, X.” The comm device, created by Walker to detect the slightest sound, obviously caught my words, but other than Caelan’s reproachful sigh, nobody replied.
Six months, the five of us had been living and working together, and I couldn’t say it had made much difference in my attitude. I still preferred to work alone, and it still bugged the crap out of me that I had four other voices in my head while I was on a job, but I had no one to blame for the situation but myself. I’d answered the invitation that January night, after all, and I’d agreed to stay even after Eugenia Carmichael’s videotaped last will and testament had thrown my life into a tailspin.
“Office is empty,” I said, after a beat or two of silence where I glanced around the empty surfaces of the desk and bookcase behind me. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s been working here. I was able to cut the window in a low visibility location. No direct views from inside or outside, thanks to the Rosenberg building next door being under renovation. Ethan’s intel was good.”
“3, 2, 1… And, security systems are down,” Walker said, his voice with its lilting accent magnified over the tiny communication device in my ear, so that it sounded like he was sitting right next to me. “Daly, you’re up.”
No shit. I rolled my eyes as I employed the tiny laser cutting tool to make a hole in the glass window just large enough for me to slip through. Dangling from a cable four stories above the ground in the middle of a bright, moonlit night was not the best time to start contemplating your life choices, but it seemed to happen every time I worked with these guys; which was to say, twenty-four-seven for the past six months.
“I’m in,” I whispered, pushing the suction holder I’d clamped to the freshly-cut glass disk and reaching my arm into the cooler, drier air of the office. With practiced ease, I levered myself headfirst through the hole, twisting to land lightly on my feet. I set the now useless glass gently on the floor, removed the rappelling cable that tethered me to the roof, and stood silently in the empty office, taking a second to get my bearings, to let my eyes adjust to the relative darkness, and to let my body, sweating from the humid night outside, cool for a second.
“Daly, report.” As always, Xavier’s cool, imperious voice drove me bonkers.
“Report,” I muttered. “Because I’m your freakin’ minion, X.” The comm device, created by Walker to detect the slightest sound, obviously caught my words, but other than Caelan’s reproachful sigh, nobody replied.
Six months, the five of us had been living and working together, and I couldn’t say it had made much difference in my attitude. I still preferred to work alone, and it still bugged the crap out of me that I had four other voices in my head while I was on a job, but I had no one to blame for the situation but myself. I’d answered the invitation that January night, after all, and I’d agreed to stay even after Eugenia Carmichael’s videotaped last will and testament had thrown my life into a tailspin.
“Office is empty,” I said, after a beat or two of silence where I glanced around the empty surfaces of the desk and bookcase behind me. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s been working here. I was able to cut the window in a low visibility location. No direct views from inside or outside, thanks to the Rosenberg building next door being under renovation. Ethan’s intel was good.”
Eternal Mourning by Carrie Ann Ryan
ETERNAL MOURNING releases February 13th - but if you can't wait, you can read the first chapter below! Check it out now and preorder your copy today!
About ETERNAL MOURNING
Releases February 13, 2018
In the seventh book of the Talon Pack series from NYT Bestselling Author Carrie Ann Ryan, a Healer is forced to come to grips with the idea that he can’t save everyone…including the woman he loves.
Walker Brentwood vowed to the moon goddess that he’d protect his Pack and Heal with every last ounce of his power. He’s watched his siblings and cousin battle the worst circumstances to find love and is now afraid that the one woman who could be his might not have much time left. The rules of mating have changed, and Walker will do what he has to in order to protect the bonds that have eluded him for so long.
Aimee Reagan knows there’s something wrong with her. She’s known since the first time she found out shifters were real and magic existed. When the Talon Pack’s enemy sets his sights on her, her battle to survive becomes even harder.
Walker and Aimee must turn to each other when the powers around them change and the paths that had been laid before them are no longer clear. But when their passion threatens a curse far older than anyone dreamed, they’ll only have one chance to save something worth more than a mating bond. Their future.
ETERNAL MOURNING releases February 13th, 2018 - preorder your copy now!
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Read the First Chapter of ETERNAL MOURNING
Walker Brentwood let out a slow breath, figuring as long as he didn’t growl or brood like any of his other family members he’d do okay. The rain began to pick up around them, the drops hitting the leaves of the tall trees with little splats and sputters. The sound was almost soothing, as if it could rock the pups to sleep. The scents of ozone and forest filled the air, soothing his wolf. His family would probably find that idea weird since he was generally the calmest of them all, but he was still a wolf.Because their wolves had scented rain in the distance, the mating ceremony had been moved to the wooden archway of one of the large den buildings. Given how deep the deck was, and the fact that, thankfully, there wasn’t any wind, no one would get wet, and the mated couple could be blessed by their Alpha in peace.
Mitchell and Dawn truly deserved that after everything they had gone through to mate. Though most mating ceremonies happened soon after the couple completed their bond, his cousin and Dawn had decided to wait a bit since the world had almost crashed down around them right when they finally cemented their union.
Walker frowned as he remembered everything that had happened around the time the two had marked each other. He didn’t know the specifics of their relationship or why they had decided to wait, but he’d been there when they were forced to save each other in the end.
The Pack had almost lost Dawn when the fire witch took her, but the outcome of that had brought Mitchell’s new mate into the Talon Pack as one of their own. She was a Central Pack wolf no more, and no longer alone. She had the Talons.
And from the shy smile on her face when she looked up at her growly mate, Walker had a feeling she was just beginning to understand that.
Gideon, Walker’s brother and Alpha, stepped up onto the bottom step that led into the house, so he stood just slightly above everyone else. Despite the fact that Gideon wasn’t one of Walker’s triplet brothers, his Alpha still looked a lot like him. They all had thick, dark hair that curled at the ends if it got too long— though their sister Brynn’s was only slightly wavy. And the whole lot of them had the Brentwood blue eyes. A color he figured came from their Irish ancestors, who had traveled over to the western side of the continent a century before the rest of the world had figured out how to make the trek without dying. Wolves were strong for a reason, and keeping themselves secluded and spread over the land was only one of them.
Even Mitchell and Max— brothers themselves yet cousins to Walker— looked like the rest of them. Their paternal line was dominant in their genes, and sometimes, Walker wondered what their maternal line contributed.
Baby Jacked by Sosie Frost
Five years ago, I let the girl of my dreams get away.
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.
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.
Cassi
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?”
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?”
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