A Sampler Pack

by Jill Cooper



  A sampler pack

  By Jill Cooper

  Devour

  Stand Alone Paranormal Romance

  Life in Gloucester Massachusetts will never be the same.

  Raging storms, fierce winds, shadows shifting in the breeze. Storms are nothing new for the fishing hamlet.

  But darkness has come to claim the hearts and minds of those that stand in it too long. When that happens, love will be ripped from man leaving only violence, despair, and gnashing teeth.

  Except for two.

  Roberta is a single mom, a waitress struggling to get through life after a rocky start tainted by murder and loss. Her heart yearns for Gabriel; a deputy living in the shadow of the chief. He's a battle weary soldier ready to settle down.

  When the storm comes, when the murders start, it will be up to them to stop it before darkness isn't just an empty void.

  Chapter One

  Roberta

  “Your father wants to see you.”

  I heard the words and I choked on my coffee. It sprayed out of my mouth, covering the counter. All I could think was ‘what a waste of coffee’. Quickly searched for a rag. “Excuse me?” My voice shook. I didn’t know what else to say.

  “I know, Ms. Blake, it’s been years since he’s asked to see you. But he’s an old man now and if you could find it in your heart--.”

  “To see the man that killed my mother?” I blurted the words out and my eyes narrowed to match the anger brewing in my heart. The anger that would never defuse, leaving my emotions like a ticking time bomb.

  “He has something on his chest he needs to get off. He can’t hurt you anymore, but if you could do this one thing and come to the prison. See him this one time—.”

  “To make him feel better?” I snorted and threw the sopping wet rag into the sink. My eyes surveyed the living room to make sure Danielle hadn’t made her entrance yet. When I was sure she was still safe in her room, I turned around, resting my back up against the counter.

  “He says he has something important to tell you. Give you a warning.”

  “A warning?” My heart dropped. “You mean a threat, don’t you?”

  “Personally I think it’s an excuse just to get you here. The time hasn’t been kind to him. I don’t think he has much longer on this Earth. I wouldn’t want to live with that sort of regret, would you?”

  I didn’t say good-bye. I just hung up the phone and sighed, putting my hands on my hips. For once I wished the phone company had followed through with their threats and turned off my phone.

  I tried to shake it off. I had no choice. There were things I needed to do. Like drop my daughter off at school, get to work, and forget that my dad wanted anything to do with me. I was a kid when he last tried to see me. So why couldn’t he leave well enough alone?

  I threw together a sloppy sandwich consisting of ham and cheese. Then I slid it into the pink lunchbox on the cluttered counter. “Come on Danielle!” I yelled and took the last bite of my toast before rinsing off my plate. In the distance I heard the stomping of feet. Time to forget my problems and become mom.

  But it was hard, damn hard.

  Hard when you could barely remember your mom except for images of her blood stained night gown, laying on her bed. While your father screamed, swore, in ways you had never seen before. It was enough to drive a young girl mad.

  A moment later there Danielle was with swaying blond pigtails with a speckle of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Cute as a button and her coloring was reminiscent of her dead father.

  Life was nothing but hardship, pain and grief. I learned that early on.

  “We’re going to be late.” I sighed and handed the pink, sparkling backpack over. Danielle grinned, showing off her missing front tooth and I melted at the sight. Her smile had a way of winning me over even when I was stressed out of my gourd.

  I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Grab your jacket and let’s go peanut.”

  “Got it!” Danielle went on running again for her room. One pink tutu over yellow leggings with bright purple rain boots wouldn’t have been my first choice for school, but little girls must be little girls. Rick bought her that tutu and even though it was frayed now, I didn’t have the heart to tell her to change.

  I put my raincoat on over my blue waitress uniform. It wasn’t raining, but the morning air was always filled with dew when you lived by the ocean.

  And in the fishing town of Gloucester, it was all by the ocean.

  We left our small brownstone apartment and headed across the street to my beat up Cutlass, blue and it never met a bump on the road it liked. The thing could creak and groan like an old man on its death bed, but hopefully the car still had some life in it. Danielle jumped in the backseat while I smiled at Mr. Harper walking down the sidewalk. Even early in the morning downtown was hopping.

  It was a good day for it too. There were a few clouds in the sky, but the sun was shining brightly and my sprits lifted as I turned on the old girl. The motor roared to life and barely made the tink tink noise it had been doing the last several mornings.

  You took good days where you could get them.

  The radio buzzed to life with static and a hum. “…in other news memorial service for Nathan Johnson starts tomorrow at 2PM over at the Miller Funeral Home on Essex…”

  My heart banged and I swatted at the dial, turning the damn thing off. How many times had I seen Nathan and his wife at the market? Now he was just another line of fisherman lost at sea.

  Just like Rick.

  How many fisherman were going to die before anyone took the risks seriously? Nobody wanted to talk about what was really going on. Fisherman out on boats at the wrong time of year. Fisherman disappearing with no traces and their boats so beat up, it was like they were chewed up by something with big teeth.

  It didn’t make any sense. People thought I was a conspiracy theorist. Maybe it was true, but nothing would settle the rumble in my gut.

  Danielle was quiet as we drove toward her school. Through the rear view mirror I saw her doodling in her notebook with one of her glitter crayons. Her lip twisted to the side while she concentrated, just like her dad. My heart panged with the memory and his smell, his whisper against my neck in the middle of the night, left me so numb I barely felt the pain.

  “Drawing anything good?”

  She grinned. “Just Daddy.”

  My fingers clenched the steering wheel. Almost a year and it seemed the only pictures she really ever drew, were of her dead father. I knew she missed him, I just wished she would move on. The school psychologists said it would happen in time, I just wished that time was already there.

  For both of us.

  I must have spaced out because suddenly someone stepped out in front of the crosswalk. My teeth gritted together and I slammed on the breaks. Tense fingers gripped the steering wheel as the car came to a screeching halt. I lunged forward and then rocked back.

  The old lady was pushing her walker and didn’t even pat an eye at me. Damn, old broad. I laid in on the horn and only then did she glance at me, but her face was unmoving, almost like stone.

  “Jesus,” I muttered under my breath and threw a look back at Danielle. I was taken aback by how fine she was, just continuing to draw something in her notebook. “You okay, baby?”

  “Yeah.” She whispered. “I don’t want to be late.”

  “Right.” I sighed. “School.” My foot eased on the gas and we started again, passing by the quaint old brick buildings that made up our downtown. From old smoke shops, to antique stores, and coffee shops, it was all here. It was quaint and made for the perfect stroll in those summer months.

  When we arrived at the school, I pulled into the drop off
lane. “Bye, sweet pea.” Danielle reached into the front and hugged me. “I’ll pick you up at Kate’s once I get off work.”

  She nodded with a faint smile. I wondered what she thought of spending so much time with her babysitter; if she missed me being home all the time. Didn’t matter much, I couldn’t change how things were, but I worried about her. Missed her. Some days I was just treading water. Barely paying the bills, barely being her mother.

  I sat there for so long, I missed Danielle making it safe inside and behind me someone wailed on their horn. Guess that’s what I deserved for honking at an eighty year old woman crossing the street. “Okay, okay!” I hissed and cranked the wheel.

  Time to get to George’s Diner.

  A small unassuming building a few blocks from the school was where I had worked since Rick died. It wasn’t exactly run down, but the shutters didn’t close all the way anymore. The screen door squeaked as I pried it open and the sweet smell of pancakes greeted me.

  “Morning,” I said with as much cheer as I could muster and bustled to the back to hang up my coat. The cooks were busy sizzling bacon and doing prep for the lunch specials. When I got to the counter I eyed the clock and saw I was five minutes late.

  Typical. What else was knew.

  George gruffed from inside the kitchen. A big bald man with more chins than pimples, and that was saying a lot.

  “Sorry, George.” I gritted my teeth and grimaced as I waited for him to yell at me, or dock my pay.

  Instead he just went. “Hmmpf. Good help is hard to find these days.”

  “If you wanted good help, dear than maybe you should consider paying us more.” Harriet said with a hearty chuckle. Dear old Harriet had been at the diner since it opened over thirty years ago. A sweet old woman with gray curls and a matching sweater over her waitress uniform, her bones creaked, but her spirit would never be dampened. That’s what she always said anyway. She was one of the two bright spots in my life since joining George’s Diner.

  Lord knew George wasn’t one of them. But he put up with me when he didn’t have to. So maybe I should have tried harder to get to work on time, but it seemed no matter what I did, nothing ever went right.

  The door chimed and I glanced over, fluffing my red curls slightly. He was right on time.

  With Brooding wide shoulders, Deputy Gabriel Manning could fill out a uniform in all the right places. His hair was sandy brown, and soft like an ocean’s wave. My heart skipped a beat in the way it had when I knew Gabriel growing up, but what girl hadn’t had a crush on him?

  “Deputy.” I said with a smile as I poured a cup of coffee into a Styrofoam cup and attached a lid. “Danish?”

  “Not today. I have to watch the calories.” Gabriel smiled and patted his perfectly flat stomach. Perfectly perfect was more like it. On more than one occasion I had imagined him without his shirt. Always made me feel guilty, I wasn’t ready to move on, and he just wasn’t my friend.

  He was Rick’s friend too.

  That just made it a whole host of complicated and while I knew Gabriel should have been off-limits, nobody told my heart that.

  He took the coffee and his fingers swept across mine gently, but I knew he did it on purpose. It made me blush, but my heart sprouted wings. He had been working up to something for a while, but I never said anything. Always pretended I didn’t notice. My heart shouted at me through a bullhorn to say or do anything, but the guilt stopped me.

  Guilt like I was betraying my dead soon-to-be-husband with his closest friend. Meanwhile Rick was somewhere at the bottom of Gloucester Harbor, still never found.

  “Busy day ahead?” I asked and busied myself with wiping down the counter as the door chimed again. The early morning breakfast crowd was arriving, just on time.

  “Oh, the usual. Ms. Davis will complain about loud noise coming from across the street at about 10AM. Then I might get to rescue a cat stuck in a tree. Oh, we do have to look into some zoning issues for next week’s kid and stroller parade.”

  “Well, sounds like you have a busy schedule.” I smiled. “Danielle’s already working on her entry. She has her dolls, I mean babies, outfit all picked out. Tonight we’re attaching some more paper machete to her old stroller.”

  I rested my hand on the counter and he put his hand on top. My chest filled with warmth even if neither of us said anything or acknowledged it was even happening. “I’m sure she’ll win top prize. I’ll see you tomorrow, Roberta.” He winked.

  “Okay,” I said simply, biting my lip. I knew my face flushed, but that didn’t stop him from leaning over to kiss my cheek. Gabriel tilted his hat to me like he always did with a small glint in his eye.

  I wanted to say something. Anything. But I didn’t. I watched after him while I picked up a take-out menu and fanned myself. It was suddenly awfully hot in the diner for October.

  “He is a looker, ain’t he?” Harriet said over my shoulder and went “Tsk, tsk.”

  Silently I agreed. “Not sure what he’d want with me.”

  Harriet patted my shoulder. “That’s for him to decide, don’t you think? You could count yourself lucky. If I was forty years younger, you can bet I would.”

  She moved on and I smirked. I knew very well how she felt. Lord knew, she reminded me enough. Gabriel was Rick’s friend, so how could I? Sport games, movie nights, it had been the three of us. So now what?

  Now what?

  The door chimed and hungry patrons began pouring in. “Time to get to work.” I picked up my waitress pad, put on my cheerful smile, and hurried to greet our first customers of the day.

  On the way over, the lights above the counter flickered and made an electrical zot-zot noise. I could even smell the warm, electrical current. It made me stop and think of another night when I had seen such a thing.

  The night my mother died. Killed. At the hand of my father.

  But the curtains along the back window were still. They weren’t billowing in the breeze with malicious intent. Oh, the things a child will see in the dark.

  “You okay, Rob?” Harriet asked, rubbing my arm.

  I nodded nervously. Unable to shake that something was wrong. Something was coming. It was silly and superstitious, but I had this feeling before. I thought it was silly then too.

  When I lost Rick.

  The Rewind Series

  15 Minutes

  YA Time Travel Thriller with Romance

  The future can be a dangerous place when you changed the past.... 

  15 minutes is all the Rewind Agency gives a person when they travel to the past, but for Lara Crane it’s enough for her to race through the city, find her mother, and stop her from being killed in a mugging that happened over ten years ago. 

  But the story she’s been told all her life is a lie. When Lara takes a bullet meant for her mother, her future changes forever. A new house, new friends and a new boyfriend turns Lara’s life upside down. She thinks if she can save her father from prison, reunite him with her mother, everything will be fine. 

  15 Minutes is an edgy high octane YA thriller where the people Lara trusts change in an instant. She is in a timeline she doesn't understand, and is about to make one fatal mistake as she faces an enemy so familiar, he’s family.

  Chapter One