by Joss Wood
God, he was lucky. He’d hit the jackpot; Emily, as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside, loved him and never missed a chance to tell him how much. And, God, the sex just kept getting better and better. Matt glanced at his watch and decided they had enough time for shower sex before the movers arrived.
Matt picked up Em’s coffee and was about to turn away when his electronic tablet beeped with a news alert. Swiping his finger across the screen, he stared down, unable to process the words...
“Vernon Lowell Lives! Black Crescent Fugitive Discovered in Remote Caribbean Location.”
Well, now wasn’t that interesting?
* * *
Dynasties:
Seven Sins
It takes the betrayal of only one man
to destroy generations.
When a hedge fund hotshot vanishes with billions,
the high-powered families of Falling Brook
are changed forever.
Now seven heirs, shaped by his betrayal,
must reckon with the sins of the past.
Passion may be their only path to redemption.
Experience all Seven Sins!
Ruthless Pride by Naima Simone
Forbidden Lust by Karen Booth
Insatiable Hunger by Yahrah St. John
Hidden Ambition by Jules Bennett
Reckless Envy by Joss Wood
Untamed Passion by Cat Schield
Slow Burn by Janice Maynard
Available May through November 2020!
Keep reading for an excerpt from One Wild Texas Night by Sara Orwig.
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Luxury, scandal, desire—welcome to the lives of the American elite.
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One Wild Texas Night
by Sara Orwig
One
Jake Reed’s pickup bounced as he sped across an open field on his Texas ranch. Nearby, cowboys on horseback herded his cattle toward the east side of his ranch while a huge wildfire swept the area to the west. None of the noise of cowboys yelling, frightened cattle on the move and Jake’s and other cowboys’ pickups could drown out the crackle of burning branches, the snap of tree limbs and the occasional crash of a falling tree.
As fire consumed the dry February grass, billowing gray smoke spread overhead, obliterating sunshine. Mesquite vanished in the swift-moving fire. A plane circled above, and Jake glanced at the screen he had set up in his pickup. Hap Green, one of his hands, was flying around overhead with a camera, relaying pictures of the fire to Jake’s screen. The pictures confirmed that his house was safe right now—a huge relief. They had radio communication also, so Jake could ask questions.
As long as the wind held in the west, Jake knew his house wouldn’t be in danger. Even now, as the wind began to shift from the north, his ranch house would remain out of the fire’s path. His house was far to the east, but he knew how fast fires spread and how easily a tiny spark from a burning cedar could blow, land on a roof and ignite a house, so he remained vigilant. He and some of his men had plowed a large area on two sides of his house, as well as around the outbuildings and other homes. They had dug what was, hopefully, too big an area for the fire to jump, but if the wind kept shifting, nothing would be safe.
He saw the barbed wire fence separating his land from that of his feuding neighbor—a Blake. Both families had fought since they had settled in Texas after the Civil War more than a century and a half ago. He felt a jolt of surprise when he glanced across the fence and saw someone kneeling on the ground by an animal.
He turned his pickup to drive closer, and in seconds he saw it was his neighbor Claire Blake. The solitary Blake living in the area, she owned the family ranch now. Even though he saw her at cattle auctions, rodeos, the bank and grocery in Persimmon, Texas, their nearest small town, they hadn’t really spoken in years—except when they had gone to court to fight each other.
He motioned to one of his men to keep going forward, and then he continued to the fence. Her pickup was parked too far away for her to get to it quickly, and she had her back to the fire—unwise with a fast-moving blaze in high wind.
Her grandfather had brought in Texas red cedars as a windbreak. Big mistake in Jake’s view. They turned out to be nuisance trees, gobbling up groundwater, spreading rapidly and defying control, and he fought constantly to keep them off his land. Now the fire was sweeping through them on her ranch, each cedar exploding in flames when mere sparks touched it, the blaze spreading faster than a man could run.
If she didn’t get out in the next few minutes, she wasn’t going to get out alive. Even though the Reeds had a long history of fighting the Blakes, he couldn’t leave her to burn. He remembered that Sunday when he had been driving past her church and he’d seen her laughing with a companion. She’d looked so attractive that if she had been anybody else except a Blake, he would have approached her. She was never with her brothers, Clyde and Les, who had caused a lot of trouble for his dad when they were growing up with mischief that they called harmless pranks. Claire lived alone out on the family ranch, and none of her family ever came to see her. Maybe she couldn’t get along with her brothers any more than most of the other people in the area. Still, she was a Blake, and probably as annoying as the rest of her family. He didn’t speak to her and she didn’t speak to him. Despite all that, he increased his speed, bouncing over the rough ground toward her and the raging fire.
She was kneeling over an animal—a dog, he saw now—with her pickup a hundred yards behind her, too near a stand of cedars and native oaks, too near the fire. The minute he stepped out of his truck, he looked up, turning to face the wind.
The wind was changing directions—no surprise—but it was what he had been praying wouldn’t happen, and it was going to be deadly. More of his land would burn now. He knew from flying over their ranches that if the wind came fully out of the north, her home would be engulfed. And right now, they, as well as the dog, were in the fire’s path. Still bending over the dog, she seemed totally oblivious. He was surprised, because the general consensus in the area was that she seemed to be a good rancher. He yelled, but the fire and wind drowned out his call.
He leaned down, pulling the barbed wire strands wide enough to step between them, avoiding the barbs while going through the fence quickly, then ran toward her.
“Hey!” he yelled again, and when she looked up, she jumped to her feet and stepped back as if he was a threat. Damn. He was risking his life for her, and she’d better not fight him about going with him.
* * *
Claire Blake looked up from the birthing dog before her, glanced over her shoulder and was startled to see her neighbor waving his arms and running toward her. Even though he was handsome as the devil, he was from a family that might as well have been related to Satan himself. Whatever he wanted, he’d better leave her alone, which he always had in the past. For a moment, she wondered if this was his dog and she had wandered onto her land to have her pups. No matter. She didn’t have to do one thing Jake Reed said. All she had to do was take care of the dog and the five newborn pups in front of her, because they were in danger from the fire. She turned back to look at the dog spread on a blanket in front of her and the tiny newest pup in her hands as she cleaned the little wrinkled brown Lab puppy, its eyes still tightly closed. Thankfully, for her and the exhausted new mom in front of her, this was the last.
She knew the fire raged behind her and they had to get out. Would Jake help her with the pups? No, she had never counted on anything from him, and she wouldn’t start now. If the situation had been reversed, her brothers wouldn’t have helped him. She had to get the dogs out on her own.
“Queenie, you picked a lousy time to have your babies.” She didn’t know the dog’s real name, so she gave her a temporary one. “We’ve got to get out of here. I wouldn’t blame you, but please don’t bite my neighbor.” She ran her hand over the dog’s head, and Queenie’s tail thumped.
“You’ve got to go,” Jake Reed yelled as he ran toward her.
“Duh,” she mumbled. “I know we need to get out,” she said, still working over the dog and pups.
“The wind’s changing. You and the dogs will burn,” he yelled. As he drew closer, she stood and faced him. Even under the circumstances, the thought crossed her mind when she saw her neighbor that he really was the best-looking guy in the next six counties.
She dragged her eyes from him, and for the first time in a while, she glanced at the fire. Shock chilled her, driving all other thoughts from her mind. The fire had changed direction and was nearly upon them. It seemed just minutes ago she had looked at it and deemed them out of immediate danger. Then she turned to Jake. So, what was he doing here? Coming to save her? She couldn’t believe that. No, the dog must be his. “I didn’t notice how fast the fire is moving. I need to get the dogs into my pickup. If I take—” She gasped as her eyes lit on her vehicle. “Oh no.”
“I’d forget that one,” he remarked, stopping near her as flames engulfed her pickup. “I’ll get mama dog. Grab the pups and let’s go.”
“My pickup...it was fine a moment ago,” she said, not sure what shocked her more—her destroyed truck or the fact that he was offering to get her out of the area.
“Is this your dog?” she asked him.
“Hell, no. Let’s go,” he ordered, picking up the dog. “Grab the pups and get into my truck. Move it,” he snapped. “Your pickup is toast. We’re next. Go, dammit.”
“I had no idea—” She realized she had been too focused on the dogs and had made what could have been a fatal error in ignoring the fire for a few minutes. That sent shivers all over her.
“Put some pups on her so she doesn’t think we’re taking them away from her,” he said. Claire quickly placed three pups on the mother.
“C’mon, move,” he shouted over his shoulder. “We’ve got to get out of here while we can.”
His brisk order cut through her shock, and she grabbed up the remaining pups and rushed after him as he ran for his pickup. She glanced back once, and even in the heat of the raging inferno, sweat running down her face and body, she was chilled.
As he ran ahead of her, his long legs covering the ground easily, she realized she owed her life to him. Her worst enemy. He had rescued her and the dogs from dying in the inferno. How would she ever repay him when she didn’t even like to speak to him and rarely ever had? She had made a terrible error in turning her back on the fire, but she’d made just as big a mistake in getting into a predicament where her rescuer was Jake Reed. A lifelong enemy of her and every member of her family. How was she going to cope with the fact that he had just saved her life? Just as bad—how was she going to cope with the nagging awareness of how appealing and sexy he was?
Copyright © 2020 by Sara Orwig
Keep reading for an excerpt from Here to Stay by Adriana Herrera.
Here to Stay
by Adriana Herrera
Chapter One
Julia
If you assumed that being a grown-ass woman who paid her bills and lived ten states away from my Dominican mother meant she would not be all up in my business, you’d be wrong.
“Mamí, I gotta go. I need to go and see my boss. It’s important.” My stomach dipped, remembering how my boss pressed had sounded. Gail, who was usually cool as a cucumber, was pretty flustered when she’d asked to see me. Not that I blamed her. Things around here were getting more stressful by the minute. My new job, on paper, was a dream.
A job as program director for the Sturm Foundation. Not only did I get to do the work I was passionate about, but I was also employed by one of the most iconic high-end department stores in the world. There was also that seriously impressive employee discount.
Sample sales and meaningful work... I was living the dream.
Except as soon as I got to Dallas, the boyfriend I moved across the country for dumped me for his side-chick. And now six months later when I finally felt like I was settling in, things had taken a not-so-great turn at work. So arriving late to an important meeting with my boss was not the best move I’d ever made, and yet here I was in a hallway making a personal call. Because my family was my Kryptonite and they knew it.
“Okay, pero abuelita wants to say hi.” My mother was aware things at my job were stressful, but that did not keep her from laying on the guilt. “You know she gets worried about you down there by yourself.” You’d think instead of Dallas I’d relocated to the moon. I hoped my mother didn’t start with the guilt trip and demands to come back home. I was not in the mood and it was not the time.
I looked around the empty hallway to check if anyone was around and nodded like my mother could see me. “Fine, Mami, but just one minute.” Sturm’s headquarters was in a downtown Dallas building built in 1914. It was gorgeous inside and out but like only vintage architecture could be, but the halls were narrow and the ceilings low, so it wasn’t like I could go unnoticed while lurking in a corner. I wasn’t trying to get myself on the radar of anyone who could fire me, especially now that we seemed to be in a Code Red at the foundation. After just a couple of months into my new position, the higher-ups at Sturm’s had announced that the fashion empire was preparing to go public after almost sixty years as a private company. They’d hired a firm to help them in the process and in the last week they had deployed a team of men and women power that had been walking through the hallways looking like a wolf pack hunting for prey. They were very easy to spot in their dark and boring suits, a striking contrast to the Sturm’s workforce, who, no matter what shape or size, walked around looking runway ready.
Gail had warned me that our program—hell, the whole foundation—was on the team leader’s radar and very likely to end up on the chopping block. So, me chatting on my phone instead of sitting at my cube working was not likely to go over well. I winced, remembering I’d seen him walking around this morning.
“Lita, mija, are you still there?” I almost jumped three feet in the air when the voice of my grandmother startled me out of my anxious inner ramblings.
“Aqui estoy, Abue.”
“Your Mamí said you’re trying to meet strangers from the computer.” I cracked a smile at my grandmother’s suspicion for anything that happened via the internet.
“Abue, I am not meeting people from the computer. They all work here.” I could barely hold back a laugh as a round of tongue clicking ensued. “We’re just planning a meetup using an app, because the company is big and we don’t all know each other.” I tried to sound as reassuring as possible because neither my mother nor my grandmother were above getting on a plane and crashing my happy hour.
There was more shuffling, which probably meant that someone else was getting a turn at instructing me on how to be a functioning adult.
“Li.” My name is Julia. A pretty short name, but somehow my family had come up with at least twenty variations to it.
Julita, Lita, Li, Tali...the five letters of my name offered infinite possibilities for my relatives.
“Mija, are you listening?” And it seemed my mother was still not done.
“Si, Mami.” I managed to keep the sigh all the way down in my chest.
“Did you get the thing I sent you?”
I was grateful for the fact that we were not on FaceTime and twisted my mouth to the side, because my mother truly did too much.
“You mean the box full of dry beans and adobo? Seriously, Yolanda.” I smirked picturing her narrowing her eyes at me using her name.
“Fresca.” I laughed at that, my mother was not down with me c
alling her by her name. “I’m not one of your little friends, Julia del Mar.”
I cleared my throat in an effort to at least sound a little less like I was laughing at her. “How am I being fresh? You know it’s true. With all the Goya food you’ve sent me I just need to get a Yankees fitted and I’ll be able to open a bodega out of my apartment.”
“Tan exagerada.” She tried really hard to sound mad, but I could hear the hint of a smile in her voice.
“I’m not exaggerating, I got pounds of guandules in my apartment.” My mother had taken my move hard. I knew she missed me. I missed her too, but I was determined to make a go of things here. I would not go back to New York City with my tail between my legs.
“I know it’s disappointing, but I need to do this right now, okay?” I pushed down the knot in my throat and tried to scare off the tears pooling in my eyes by staring up at the ceiling. Crying on the phone with my mother would really set off a rescue operation. “I need to stay here, and see this job through. Matt wasn’t the only reason why I came to Texas.”
I cringed at my slip. Mentioning my ex’s name would send my mother and abuela to the land of petty in a hot second.
It took less than that. “It’s all that pendejo’s fault, making you move down there and leaving you to chase after some sucia from his office.” I miraculously managed to keep another sigh inside. “I knew that boy was trouble from the day I met him. What kind of decent person comes to meet his girlfriend’s family empty-handed? Not even a loaf of bread or some fruit in all those years. Nada.”
Yes, she was still holding that grudge.
The disbelief in my mother’s voice would’ve been funny at any other moment, but the last thing I wanted to do right now was get into a conversation about my ill-fated move and my ex’s trifling ass.
“Mami, I don’t want to talk about Matt. Yes, he’s trash, but he doesn’t matter anymore. This year is about me, no romance, no distractions. Nada.” I sliced the air with my hand as if she could see me. “I’m focusing on my job, which I actually love, and trying to build a life here. Esta bien, Mami? Can you guys support me in that?”