Title: Where There's Smoke
Publication Date: May 20th 2014
Genre: New Adult Romantic Suspense
About WHERE THERE’S
SMOKE
There is something to be said for letting go. Ryland Roberts knows that better than anyone. He'd let go of his ambitions, of his family and—most of all—of her. He'd perfected the art of putting his past behind him and accepted the fact that the town he wanted to leave in his rearview was the place where he was going to live out his days. But sometimes the past doesn't just go away. Sometimes it comes back to haunt you.
Piper Jameson convinced herself that she left for all the right reasons. She'd saved people by leaving—made sure that they weren't tainted by her rebellious ways. When her little sister asks her to come home and say goodbye to their ailing mother, she's forced to see that things aren't always as they seem. The people who she'd left behind might not have been saved at all.
In the amount of time it takes a bullet to travel from point A to point B, Piper and Ryland will have to put their feelings for each other aside and make a choice. Forced on the run with Piper's sister, they begin to understand that the future they thought was gone was never really lost.
Excerpt
There is something to be said for letting go. Ryland Roberts knows that better than anyone. He'd let go of his ambitions, of his family and—most of all—of her. He'd perfected the art of putting his past behind him and accepted the fact that the town he wanted to leave in his rearview was the place where he was going to live out his days. But sometimes the past doesn't just go away. Sometimes it comes back to haunt you.
Piper Jameson convinced herself that she left for all the right reasons. She'd saved people by leaving—made sure that they weren't tainted by her rebellious ways. When her little sister asks her to come home and say goodbye to their ailing mother, she's forced to see that things aren't always as they seem. The people who she'd left behind might not have been saved at all.
In the amount of time it takes a bullet to travel from point A to point B, Piper and Ryland will have to put their feelings for each other aside and make a choice. Forced on the run with Piper's sister, they begin to understand that the future they thought was gone was never really lost.
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I would have listened to that little voice
inside my head and just let her go on her way, but the glowing screen of her
cell phone and whimsical chime that sounded had other plans. She'd been in such a damn hurry to get away
from me that she had left her phone on the seat of the truck.
DEAN flashed
across the screen.
Who the fuck is this guy?
I was tempted to slide my finger across the
screen and ask him just that. I was also
planning on asking him why I was the one picking his girlfriend, or whatever
she was to him, up off the side of the road in the pouring-down rain. Why was I the one left picking up the pieces
of Piper Jameson when I'd sworn I would never do it again?
I resisted my urge to answer the phone as I
grabbed it, tucked it in my back pocket, and climbed out of the truck. Ducking under the small overhang that covered
the sidewalk, I jogged down to the door Piper was still trying to unlock. The storm wasn't letting up. The roar of the rain against the ground and
the howl of the wind that accompanied it muffled my footsteps as I walked up
behind her. I reached up and tapped her
shoulder.
“Hey,” I said
softly, hoping not to startle her and get a swift knee to the groin.
She turned too quickly and her feet stumbled
backwards until she was pressed up against the door. Her breathing was erratic and her hands were
clutching her chest like her heart might actually beat out of her chest. With wide eyes, she stared at me,
trembling. The look on her face was much
more than that of a startled woman. She
was falling apart.
I shouldn't have cared. She shouldn't have been able to get under my
skin the way she did—I'd told myself that I was through with her. Six years.
Six fucking years. Not a
letter. Not a phone call. Just nothing.
For a while, I had wondered if I'd made the
whole thing up—that she had just been a figment of my imagination. Her sister was the only person who’d ever
talked about her after she left. To
everyone else in the town, she had just been gone.
But now she was standing in front of me,
looking at me like she was scared and hurt and full of regret. I couldn't
control the urgent need to comfort her.
Her body stiffened as I took a deliberate step forward and closed the
distance between us.
“Ry, wa—”
She started to speak as I raised my hand up
and touched my finger to her lips, silencing her. Her eyes fell shut and her lips pushed
lightly against my skin. The simple act
of her kissing my finger only encouraged what I was feeling. I could have denied it. I could have turned and walked away, but she
had to know that, no matter where she ran off to, she would always be...
When I'm not writing or playing the part of wife and mother, you can find me dancing back-up for Beyonce, singing back-up for Miranda, or sunning myself on the beach with a drink in hand. Here's the thing about being born and raised in a small town—you have a very vivid imagination! Now, I channel it all to create stories where the girl always ends up with the right guy, first kisses are magical, and a happy ending is just that!
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