He lifted one eyebrow slowly, amusement flickering in his eyes, and suddenly, she realized she was gawking at him. Like, literally gawking. Heat flooded her cheeks, but she had nowhere to hide, nowhere else to look, not when it was his grip on her arm that was keeping her from tumbling back down the embankment to the muddy, bubbly water.
"Ready?" His voice rolled through her. Deep. Masculine. Rich. Her stomach literally vibrated in response.
"Ready? For what?" She had no idea what he was talking about. All she could think of was how kind and warm he sounded, a hint of gentleness in his voice that contrasted so sharply with the strapping strength of his frame, and the ease with which he was keeping her from sliding down the hill.
The amusement in his eyes deepened. "For me to haul you up here so you don't slide down again. I can let you go, if you prefer."
"Oh, right." She'd totally forgotten she was still standing at a forty-five-degree angle, several feet below him, on an embankment that was becoming increasingly unstable in the heavy rain. "Hauling me up would be fantastic, thanks."
He flashed her a grin so devastatingly charming that she forgot to breathe, and then he stepped back, using his body to counterbalance her as she scrambled up the last few feet and over the edge. She landed in front of him, her boots thudding on the even ground...and she realized that he was even more solid and tall when she was on his level than he'd looked when he was above her.
For a long moment, she didn't move, and neither did he. His hand was still locked around her arm, and she didn't pull away. They just stood there, the rain hammering down on them, sliding over her face, and down her neck.
She was close enough now to see the heavy whiskers on his face, a beard that he didn't quite allow to grow in. His jaw was hard and strong. His face angular. And his eyes...she forgot about everything else but his eyes. They were deep, turbulent crystal blue that were so intense they literally took her breath away with the intensity burning with them. She knew then that he wasn't simply a sinfully hot cowboy. He was more, something infinitely more complex, burdened by a weight so raw that he made her heart speed up. This man was alive, fermenting with power and passion that made her heart clench.
God, how long had it been since she'd felt alive like that?
His gaze traveled over her, across her face, over her muddy, soaking body, moving with a languid interest that made heat burn in her belly. His gaze flicked to her car, angled down in the ditch, and then back to her. "City girl?"
The way he said it didn't sound like an insult. It sounded like a seduction that made him promise to show her exactly how wild the cowboy life could be. She nodded. "Boston."
"Boston." He repeated the word, rolling it ever so slightly with a cowboy twang that made her belly tighten. "So, you must be Noelle Wilder." His gaze settled on her face. "I've been expecting you."
* * *
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Sneak Peek: Ghost
"Ghost will have you holding your breath for what comes next." ~Kelli (Amazon Review)
New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Rowe plunges readers into the wilds of Alaska for a twisted, dangerous game when a man convicted of murdering his sister races to save the next woman on the real killer's list.
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"I read this in one sitting, with both hands gripping my e-reader." ~MetalMom (Amazon Review)
"What are you running from?"
Ben Forsett went utterly still, his hand clenching around the amber beer bottle. For a long second, he didn't move. Instead, his gaze shot stealthily to the three exits that he'd already located before he'd even walked into this small diner in Where-the-Hell-Are-We, Alaska, his mind calculating with rapid speed which one had the clearest path. A couple of bush pilots were by the kitchen door. Big men who would step in the path of someone they thought should be stopped. At the front door, two jean-clad young women were coming in, shaking snow out of their freshly done hair. The emergency exit was alarmed, but no one was in front of it. Best choice—
"Chill, kid. I'm not going to hunt you. I've been where you are. So have most of the men in this place."
Slowly, Ben pulled his gaze off his escape route and looked at the man sitting next to him. Lines of outdoor hardship creased his face, and wisps of straggly white hair hung below his faded, black ball cap. His skin hung loose, too tired to hold on anymore, but in the old man's pale blue eyes burned a sharp, gritty intelligence born of a tough life. The man's upper body was encased in a heavy, dark green jacket that was so bulky it almost hid the hunch to his back and the thinness of his shoulders.
The man nodded once. "Name's Haas. Haas Carter." He extended a gnarled hand toward Ben.
Ben didn't move, and Haas didn't retract his hand.
For a long moment, neither man moved, then finally Ben peeled his hand off his beer and shook Haas's hand. "John Sullivan," he said, the fake name sliding off his tongue far more easily than it had three months ago, the first time he'd used it.
"John Sullivan, eh?" Haas laughed softly. "Couldn't have picked a more common name. Lots of John Sullivans in just about every town you've been to in the last few months, I should imagine. Hard to keep track of one more."
Ben stiffened. "My father was John Sullivan, Sr.," he lied. "I honor the name."
Haas's bushy gray brows went up. "Do you now?"
The truth was, Ben's father was a lying bastard who had left when he was two years old. Or got shot. Or put in prison. No one knew what had happened to him, and no one really cared. "I'm not here to make friends," Ben said quietly.
"No, I can see that." Haas regarded him for a moment, his silver-blue eyes surveying Ben's heavy whiskers and the shaggy hair he'd let grow out. Ben let his hair hang low over his forehead, shielding his eyes as he watched the older man, waiting for a sign that this situation was going to go south.
He would be pissed if Haas turned on him. He needed to be here. He was so sure this was the break he'd finally been waiting for. He let his gaze slither off Haas to the old wooden clock hanging on the wall above the bar beside the moose rack. Adrenaline raced through him as he watched the minute hand clunk to the twelve. It was seven o'clock.
"What happens at seven?"
Ben jerked his gaze back to Haas. "I turn into a fairy princess."
Haas guffawed and slammed his hand down on Ben's shoulder. "You're all right, John Sullivan. Mind if I call you Sully? Most Sullivans go by Sully. It'll make it seem more like it's your real name."
"It is my real name."
Haas dropped the smile and leaned forward, lowering his voice as his gaze locked onto Ben's. "I'll tell you this, young man, I've seen a lot of shit in my life. I've seen scum you wouldn't even want to waste a bullet on who look like princes, and I've seen pieces of shit who would give their life for you. You look like shit, but whatever the hell you're running from, you got my vote. Don't let the bastards catch you until you can serve it up right in their damn faces. Got it?"
Ben stared at Haas, too stunned by the words to respond. No one believed in him, no one except for the two men who had helped him escape, people who he'd known since he was a kid. Guys who understood what loyalty meant. But even those two knew who he was and what he was capable of. They stood by him, but they knew exactly what he was. He had a sudden urge to tell Haas exactly what shit was going down for him, and see if the old man still wanted to stand by him.
But he wasn't that stupid. "I don't know what you're talking about," he finally said.
Haas raised his beer in a toast. "Yeah, me neither, Sully. Me neither." As the old man took a drink, another weather-beaten Alaskan sat down on Haas's other side. This guy's face was so creased it looked like his razor would get lost if he tried to shave, but the size of his beard said the guy hadn't been willing to take the risk. Haas nodded at him. "Donnie, this here boy is Sully. New in town. Needs a job. His wife left him six months ago, and the poor bastard lost everything. He's been wandering aimless for too damn long."
Ben almos
t choked on his beer at Haas's story, but Donnie just nodded. "Women can sure break a man." He leveled dark brown eyes on Ben. "She ain't worth it, young man. There's lots of doe around for a guy to take up with."
Ben managed a nod. "Yeah, well, I'm not ready yet."
"We gotta get him back on the horse," Haas said. "Got any ideas?" With a wink at Ben, he and Donnie launched into a discussion about the assorted available women in town and which ones might be worthy of Ben.
As the two old timers talked, Ben felt some of the tension ease from his shoulders. In this small town in the middle of Alaska, he had an ally, at least until Haas found out the truth. Shit, it felt good to have someone have his back. It had been too damn long—
The door to the kitchen swung open, and a light female voice echoed through the opening. Her voice was like a soft caress of something...shit... he didn't even know what to compare it to. But it washed over him, through him, like someone had just slid hot whiskey into his veins, burning and cleansing as it went.
Ben went rigid, adrenaline flooding his body. It was seven o'clock. She would be here now. Was it her? Was it her? A woman's hand was on the kitchen door, holding it open as she finished her muffled conversation. Her arm was long and delicate, with a single bracelet on her wrist. A black leather cord with a silver disk on it. On her index finger was a silver ring with a rough cut turquoise stone and a wide band with carvings on it he was too far away to decipher. Her fingernails bare and earthy, a woman who didn't bother with enamel and lacquer to go to work. Her arm was exposed, the smooth expanse of flesh sliding up to a capped black sleeve that just covered the curve of her shoulder. She wasn't tall, maybe a little over five feet.
Son of a bitch. It might actually be her. Come into the bar, he urged silently. Let me see your face. He'd never heard her talk before. He'd never seen her in person. All he had was that one newspaper picture of her, and the headshot he'd snagged from her website.
The door opened wider, and Ben ducked his head, letting his hair shield his eyes again, but he didn't take his gaze off her, watching intently as the woman moved into the room. Her back was toward him as she continued her conversation, and he could see her hair. Thick, luscious waves of dark brown.
Brown. Brown. The woman he'd been searching for was blond.
The disappointment that cascaded through him was unreal. The frustration. The desperation. He bowed his head, resting his forehead in his hands as the image flooded his mind again, the same image that had haunted him for so long. His sister, her clothes stained with the dark brown of old blood, sprawled across her living room floor, her hand reaching toward Ben in the final entreaty of death. Son of a bitch. He couldn't let Holly down. He couldn't fucking let her down.
"Are you okay?"
He went still at the question, at the sound of the woman's voice so close. It still had the same effect on him, a flood of heat that seemed to touch every part of his body. He schooled his features into the same, uninviting expression he'd perfected, and he looked up to find himself staring into the face that he'd been hunting for the last three months.
He'd never mistake those eyes. The dark rich brown framed by eyelashes so thick he'd thought they had to be fake, until now. Until he could see her for real. Until he could feel the weight of her sorrow so thickly that it seemed to wrap around him and steal the oxygen from his lungs. Until he looked into that face, that face that had once been so innocent, but now carried burdens too heavy for her small frame.
Until he'd found her.
Because he had.
It was her.
He'd found her.
Son of a bitch.
He'd found her.
* * *
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Sneak Peek: Irresistibly Mine
"I can't find the words to adequately express how much I loved this book." ~Elizabeth N. (Amazon Review)
When an ex-military hottie and a spunky social worker discover they've accidentally rented the same lakeside cabin, things get complicated in a hurry.
In this moment, Blue knew exactly what he wanted. He wanted to help her. "Give me a chance to make it up to you, Chloe." The moment he said her name, Chloe's face softened, as if the sound of him saying her name had meant something to her.
Still watching him, she put the phone back to her ear, resuming the conversation with her friend. "Hi, Emma. Blue said that he'll fix my car or drop me off, so I'm all set. But if he can't fix it, I'll need the name of a mechanic for the morning."
Something inside Blue loosened when he heard her accept his offer, almost as if the chance to be with her for a little while longer made the tension inside him ease its relentless grip on his gut.
She listened for a moment. "Okay. I'll stop at Wright's for some food on the way. See you soon. And… Emma? Thank you. I don't know what I would've done without you." Her voice choked up, and Blue looked at her sharply. Her eyes were shiny, and she was gripping the phone so tightly that her knuckles were white. She cleared her throat, and nodded, clearly listening to something Emma was saying. "Right, I know. I'm fine. Really, I am. I'll see you soon. Bye."
As she hung up the phone, she closed her eyes, bowed her head, and pressed her phone to her forehead. She took a deep breath, and then another, as if she'd forgotten she wasn't alone. Blue watched her, noting the paleness of her skin, and the way her shoulders were tucked up toward her ears ever so slightly, in the protective posture he'd seen many times when a newly rescued kidnap victim had hunched in the corner of the helicopter, unwilling to believe the nightmare was really over.
Instinctively, Blue walked over to her and crouched in front of her. "Hey."
She opened her eyes and quickly lowered the phone, sitting up straighter in a posture clearly designed to make sure no one knew the weight she was carrying inside. She met his gaze for a split second, then her attention dropped to the beer he was holding. "Is that for me?"
Silently, he handed it to her, still watching her. "It'll be okay," he said. "Whatever the nightmare is, it can't get inside you unless you let it." Of course, he knew all too well about the damage nightmares could do, but just because he couldn't shield himself from his own baggage didn't mean he was unaware of how it could work if someone had their shit together better than he did.
She narrowed her eyes. "It's that easy to let it go? Really? I had no idea." She sounded a little annoyed, as if insulted he would reduce all her problems to some philosophical resolution.
He got that. He inclined his head in acknowledgment. "Theoretically, yeah, it's that's simple. In reality, it can eat away at you until you're so dead on the inside that life stops mattering. Until all you can do is run as hard as you can, hoping that you can escape the darkness before it consumes you."
She froze with the bottle of beer halfway to her lips, her eyes widening in surprise. Belatedly, he realized what he'd said and what he'd revealed about himself. Grimacing, he shrugged, and took a sip of his own beer. "Or so I've heard."
Chloe angled the mouth of the bottle toward him as if pointing at him. "You, my friend, are a wealth of complexity, aren't you?"
Blue grinned. "Nah. I drink beer. I shoot guns. And, after tonight, apparently I can add terrorizing women to my list. It's pretty simple and basic. I'm just your normal, upstanding boy-next-door kind of guy. I'm exactly the type that mothers fantasize that their daughters will fall for."
Her gaze flicked to his cheek, and he suddenly remembered the scar that bisected the side of his face. He never thought about it much. Who the hell cared about a scar? But Chloe was soft, gentle, and sensitive. What would she think about a six-inch scar that belied every claim he'd just made? The thought made him tense, and he didn't like that. He didn't like worrying about his scar, or what someone would think about it.
Scowling, he stood up and paced away from her. He leaned against the tiny kitchenette counter and folded his arms over his chest. "So, tell me, Chloe Dalton. Why were you barging into this cabin at ten o'clock at night in the first plac
e?"
She raised her eyebrows. "I felt as though my life was too tame and predictable. I thought that getting the living daylights scared out of me would make my day more interesting."
He felt himself grin again, but he was learning not to be surprised by the fact she could coax a smile out of him. "Any other reasons?"
She took a drink of her beer, wrinkling her nose as the bitterness drifted across her tongue. "First of all, you're kind of nosy. Second of all, the beer is kind of horrible."
He grinned wider, amused by her inability to school her face into impassive, neutral expressions. "You know, the problem with trying to avoid questions with me, is that I'm an expert on not telling anyone anything that I don't want them to know, so I see right through that façade. So yeah, I'm nosy. Yeah, the beer sucks. But I still want to know what's going on that made you show up at this cabin and sprint into it without checking to see if anyone was here."
She cocked her head, studying him. "Why do you want to know so badly?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. I just do."
She smiled then, a gentle smile that made him want to grin. "Fair enough." Her gaze flicked away from him, drifting over the bare walls of the rustic cabin, before coming back to rest on his face. "In addition to losing my job yesterday, I also got evicted from the place I've been living in for the last ten years."
Her voice was tight and calm, but he could instantly sense the depth of grief at her words, grief she was absolutely refusing to succumb to.
Respect flooded him, but also empathy. She was tough, refusing to be broken, but something really shitty had crashed down upon her. "Sorry about that."
A Real Cowboy Always Trusts His Heart Page 21