Full Share (Shore House Book 1) (32 page)

“Ahh,” I breathed as another star shot across the sky. “Aren’t they pretty?”

They were both silent. I leaned up to see if they’d fallen asleep, but they were staring at the night sky, waiting for the show to continue.

I laid back down as three more stars shot across the night. The light met the darkness in the summer sky. It was a flash, and it was beautiful.

“I love you, Mommy.”

I kissed his sweet little cheek. “I love you, too, Thomas.”

Keep reading for an excerpt of the stunning first installment of The Lost Souls Series.

The Devil’s Playground

(Book One in the Faraway Series)

Purchase The Devil’s Playground from Amazon

Former U.S. Attorney, Meredith Walsh, took some time off to raise her children. But the time took away everything she once trusted about herself. She’s lost within the mundane confines of her children's schedules of lacrosse, soccer, Cub Scouts, and math facts. Desperate for a sliver of her former passion, and isolated in the small town her corporate husband relocated her to, she counsels herself on risking her family for the rush of a fling. 
But Vincent Pratt, the local chief of police, weakens Meredith’s abhorrence of affairs and her dedication to her family. With him, she finds a new version of herself, one capable of contributing in her new world, and thriving in her lonely home. In spite of the fact, she’s not the kind of woman who has an affair.

Forgive Me Excerpt

Available now

~ 1 ~

“My soul is forgotten, veiled by a boring complication”

My foot will bleed soon. Judging by the familiar curve in the road, I’m still at least two miles from home. Of course I end up walking home the night I’m wearing great shoes. The pain shoots through my heel as the clouds flash with lightning in the dark sky.

Maybe I’m bleeding already. I mentally review the last few hours. Anything to distract me from the agony of each step. The texts, the endless stream of drunken texts, run through my mind.

We’re soul mates.
I roll my eyes. Brian deserves a nicer girlfriend; someone sweet like him. Someone who doesn’t roll their eyes at this statement.

We belong together.
Bleh.

What does it say about my relationship when the only thing I ever tell people about my boyfriend is, “He’s a really nice guy”? And how, after two years of being apart, did I ever take him back? The last three weeks have felt like years, years I was asleep.

We’re perfect together.
My mother thought we were perfect. Hell, this whole town thought it.

No one is ever going to know you the way I do.
He was watching me as I read this one and I had to work hard to keep a straight face. At the time I wasn’t sure why, but here on this deserted road, in the middle of a thunderstorm Brian would never walk through, I know it’s because he never knew me at all. Or my soul. It’s not his fault. I’d nearly forgotten it myself.

I stop to adjust the strap on my sandals and two sets of eyes peer out from the ditch next to the road. They’re low to the ground, watching me. I’ve always hated nocturnal animals.

“Anyone else come out to play in the storm?” I say to the other hidden night life. I move to the edge of the shoulder, facing the nonexistent traffic, and give my new friends some room. I wince as I step forward, and watch as a set of headlights shines on the road in front of me and the scene around me turns mystical. The steam rises off the pavement at least five feet high before disappearing into the blue tinted night. The rain only lasted twenty spectacular minutes, not long enough to cool the scorched earth.

I’m lost in it as the truck pulls up beside me, now driving on the wrong side of the road, and Jason Leer rolls down his window. I glance at him and turn to stare straight ahead, trying not to let the excruciating torture of each step show on my face.

“Hi, Annie,” he says, and immediately pisses me off. I might look sweet in my new rose-colored shorts romper, but these wedges have me ready to commit murder.

“My name is Charlotte,” I say without looking at him, and keep walking. The strap is an ax cutting my heel from my foot.
Why won’t he call me Charlotte?
Of course the cowboy would show up. What this night needs is a steer wrestler to confound me further. The same two desires he always evokes in me surface now. Wanting to punch him, and wanting to climb on top of him.

“What the hell are you doing out here? Alone—” A guttural moan of thunder interrupts him, and I tilt my head to determine the origin, but it surrounds us. The clouds circle, blanketing us with darkness, but when the moon is visible it’s bright enough to see in this blue-gray night. We’re in the eye of the storm and there will never be a night like this again.
God I love a storm.
The crackling of the truck’s tires on the road reminds me of my cohort.

“I’m not alone. You’re here, irritating me as usual.” I will not look at him. I can feel his smartass grin without even seeing him, the same way I can feel a chill slip across my skin. It’s hot as hell out and Jason Leer is giving me the chills.

Lightning strikes, reaching the ground in the field just to our left, and I stop walking to watch it. Every minute of today brought me here. The mind-numbing dinner date with Brian Matlin, the conversation on the way to Michelle’s party about how we should see other people, the repeated and
annoying
texts declaring his love, and the eleven beers and four shots I watched Brian pour down his throat, all brought me here.

“If you’re trying to kill yourself by being struck by lightning, I could just hit you with my truck. It’ll be faster,” he says, stealing my eyes from the field. His arm rests out his truck window and it’s enormous. He tilts his body toward the door and the width of his chest holds my gaze for a moment too long.

“Annie!”

I shake my head, freeing myself from him. “What? What do you want? I’m not afraid of a storm.” I am, however, exhausted by this conversation.

I finally allow myself to look him in the eyes. They are dark tonight, like the slick, steamy road before me, and I shouldn’t have looked.

“I want you.” His voice is tranquil, as if he’s talking the suicide jumper off the bridge. “I want you to get in the truck and I’ll drive you home.” Thunder growls in the distance and the lightning strikes to the left and right of the road at the same time. The storm surrounds us, but the rain was gone too soon. Leaving us with the suffocating heat that set the road on fire.

I close my eyes as my sandal cuts deeper into my foot, and Jason finally pulls away. My grandmother always said the heat brings out the crazy in people. It was ninety-seven degrees at 7 p.m. The humidity was unbearable. Too hot to eat. Too hot to laugh. The only thing you could do was talk about how miserably hot it was outside. By the time Brian and I arrived, most of the party had already been in the lake at some point. Even that didn’t look refreshing. The sky unleashed, and Michelle kicked everyone out rather than let them destroy her house.

I stop walking, and shift my foot in the shoe. The strap is now sticking; I’ve probably already shed blood. Jason drives onto the right side of the road and stops the truck on the tiny shoulder. He turns on his hazard lights and gets out of the truck.
He’s a hazard.
I plaster a smile on my face and begin walking again. As soon as he leaves I’m taking off these shoes and throwing them in the pepper field next to me.

Before I endure two steps, he’s in front of me. He’s as fast as I remember. Like lightning: always picked first for kickball in elementary school. His hair is the same thick, jet black as back then, too. The moonlight shines off it and I wonder where his cowboy hat is. He’s too beautiful to piss me off as much as he does. He blocks my path, a concrete wall, and I stop just inches from him.

“I’m going to ask you one more time to get in the truck.” A lightning strike hits the road near his truck and without flinching he looks back at me, waiting for my answer.

“Or what?” I challenge him with my words and my “I dare you” look on my face. He hoists me over his shoulder and walks back to the truck as if I’m a sweatshirt he grabbed as an afterthought before walking out the door.

“Put me down! I’m not some steer you can toss around,” I yell, as I fist my hands and pound on his back. He’s laughing and pissing me off even more. I pull his shirt up and start to reach for his underwear and Jason runs the last few steps to the truck.

“Do you ever behave?” he asks, and swings the truck door open. He drops me on the seat and leans in the truck between my legs. I push my hair out of my face, my chest still heaving with anger. “Why the hell are you walking alone on a country road, in a goddamned storm, this late at night?”

My stomach knots at his closeness and this angers me, too. Why can’t Jason Leer bore me the way Brian Matlin does? Jason raises his eyebrows and tilts his head at the perfect angle to send a chill down my spine.

“Brian and I broke up tonight.”

“And he made you walk home?” Shock is written all over his face. Brian would never make me walk home. He is the nicest of guys. Not great at holding his liquor, but nice.

“No.” I roll my eyes, calling him an idiot, and he somehow leans in closer, making my stomach flip. “He proceeded to get drunk at Michelle Farrell’s party and I drove him home so he didn’t die.” I think back to all the parties of the last six years, since Jason and I entered high school. Besides graduation, we were rarely in the same place. I’ve barely hung out with Jason Leer since eighth grade. At the start of high school everyone broke into groups, and this cowboy wasn’t in mine.

“Why didn’t you call someone for a ride?” He breaks my revelry.

“Because apparently when Brian gets drunk he texts a lot. My battery died after the fiftieth message professing his love for me.”

“Poor guy.”

“Poor guy? What about me? I’m the one who had to delete them, and drive him home. I thought he’d never pass out.” I’m still mourning the time I lost with Brian’s drunken mess.

“Why didn’t you just take his car?”