Winners!! Update: The winners of 3 Kindle copies of FEVER are…Minna, Marianne, and Shannon. Congrats, ladies!!
So…I told you that guest authors would be coming soon–and today I’ve got the lovely and talented Joan Swan as my guest! Joan is one of my Brava sisters. She writes pulse-pounding romantic suspense (with some very cool paranormal touches). I hope you enjoy her post–and, Joan, thanks for visiting!
One of my favorite turning points in a story is when my hero and heroine encounter the point of no return. That place where one or both make the decision to do something that changes everything in their existing relationship. From that point on, there is no going back to the way things were.
In FEVER, my debut novel, Alyssa makes that choice in a pet store. I know. It happens in the damnedest places!
I’m sharing that excerpt with you here in celebration of Amazon’s inclusion of my debut novel, FEVER, in their Top 100 program.
That means FEVER is sale priced at $3.99 for the month of May! Now you can try a new-to-you author (me) at very low risk! If you’re interested to know what others think of FEVER, there are many in-depth reviews on Amazon.
For everyone (FEVER fans included), I’m happy to offer the chance to win 1 of 3 Amazon Gift Cards ($25, $15 and $10) for your help in spreading the word about this great promotion!
Everyone can enter! All you have to do is follow the instructions on the Rafflecopter below.
Good luck!
Teague led Alyssa past the cash register where a young man sat talking on the phone, a newspaper spread out on the counter in front of him. He glanced up as they passed and returned his gaze to the paper, hardly more than an uninterested blink. Just as Alyssa looked away, the man’s eyes jumped up again. She continued to watch him from the corner of her eye as the conversation on his end of the phone ceased, and he slowly pushed to his feet.
They turned down an aisle and Alyssa lost sight of him, but by the way his eyes grew wide as they’d disappeared, she was sure he’d recognized them. Instead of excitement, the sighting brought apprehension.
Creek turned and looked down at her, his steps slowing. “What?”
“Wh-what do you mean, what?”
“You squeezed my hand.”
“I didn’t… I mean, I didn’t mean to…” She was torn between pulling him from the store and stalling to keep them there as long as possible. This was exactly what she’d been silently begging for at Wal-mart and here it had been handed to her without even trying. “Never mind. Nothing.”
She turned her attention to the shelves where he’d stopped and stared at the contents in disbelief. “You brought me in here to buy fish food?”
“Little trivia for you, doc.” He crouched and picked up a bottle. “Fish ailments are treated with human medications. Antibiotics.”
Her mouth dropped open and her mind temporarily veered from her turmoil. “You expect me to take off-the-shelf medication for fish? Okay, this nails it, Cr—“ She stopped herself and forced his first name out of her mouth. “Teague. You are officially certifiable.”
A grin tilted his mouth as he looked up at her and something strange and uncomfortable twisted in her chest. His teeth were straight and white, his eyes a sparkling blue beneath the hat’s dark brim. A glimpse of someone else shone out at her. Maybe the man he was beneath the fear and desperation. Maybe the man he’d been before he’d gone to prison. She didn’t know, but whoever it was touched her in a way she hadn’t been touched in a long, long time. Maybe ever.
“Here’s the thing,” he said. “The emergency room would have asked too many questions and then called the cops to report a knife wound. Internet sources would take too long, and I’m not in the mood to knock off a vet’s office. So.” He pointed at two more bottles on the shelf. “You have your choice of Amoxicillin, Erythromycin or a sulfa-combo. What’ll it be?”
Curiosity won out and Alyssa took one of the bottles from him. Sure enough, as far as she could tell, it was the same stuff she’d given out prescriptions for in the past. “How is this legal?”
“Let’s not worry about that right now. Just tell me which one you can take and we’ll get back on the road.”
That comment had her looking up and toward the front of the store. The two young clerks loitered there talking, their heads together, body language hunched and tight.
“Well?” Teague prodded.
He’d truly made this stop to help her. He’d risked being seen just to find antibiotics for her infection. So many thoughts zoomed through her head at the same time she couldn’t prioritize or sift. She looked back at him. “Do you have that gun on you or is it in the car?”
His face tensed, eyes sharpened. He glanced the direction she’d been looking and watched the clerks. “I have it on me. Why?”
Let me make one thing very clear: I am not going back to prison. Ever. I’ll die first.
“I think we should go.” Alyssa pulled him toward the opposite end of the aisle.
He resisted. “Why the rush?”
“Come on.”
He pulled on her hand until she was forced to turn back around and face him. “Talk to me first.”
She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I think they recognized us.”
Teague’s mouth went stone hard. His bright eyes scoured the store and he urged Alyssa toward the rear corner of the building.
“Where are you going? The front doors are that way.”
“Which is exactly where the cops will come in if they’ve been called.”
They reached a single rear door with a banner reading, No exit. Fire alarm will sound. Teague tinkered with a lever on the big red bell over the door then pressed the metal bar. Alyssa cringed, expecting an ear piercing alarm, but it never came. Teague poked his head out the door, took a quick look around then pulled her out behind him.
**Skipping over another unrelated occurrence in the scene…**
He remained silent as he drove, his hands busy in a familiar wringing of the steering wheel, his brow heavy in thought.
As Alyssa’s mind turned back to the fiasco they’d just fled, nausea rolled in her belly. She’d just walked away from her chance to escape, and she wasn’t sure if the queasiness stemmed from missing the opportunity or from nearly getting the opportunity.
At the first exit, Teague veered off the freeway and drove half a block to a gas station-slash-mini mart. Her muscles tensed, jutting another round of pain through her torso.
“Can we stop somewhere else?” Alyssa asked. “Anywhere else? I think I’m suffering PTSD.”
He parked around the corner from the front door, jammed the car in park and got out without a word. The slam of the door made Alyssa flinch. Instead of coming to her side of the car, he walked directly into the store without looking back.
A fresh sense of uncertainty tightened her chest. He’d left her in the car unattended and uncuffed. She looked out the window at a vacant office building with a ‘for rent’ sign out front, then to a darkened church next door, the parking lot empty. There was no immediate shelter within running distance, but she should still run. She should. So what kept her sitting there?
He wasn’t gone long enough for Alyssa’s heart to slow to a regular rhythm let alone give her time to form an answer to the question. He approached her side of the car carrying a bottle of water and a newspaper. Popping the door open, he pulled the antibiotics from his pocket and twisted the top off then held both out to her. When she took them, he closed the door without saying a word and walked around to the driver’s side.
He slid into his seat and sat there staring straight ahead without turning the car on. His fingers fiddled with the edge of the newspaper in his lap.
Alyssa downed a healthy dose of the fish meds, hoping they didn’t kill her, then looked at him again. “You’re kind of freaking me out.”
“What the hell is PTSD?”
“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
He rolled his eyes then turned to look at her with a quick snap of his head. “Why’d you do that? At the pet store?”
“I just… I don’t know. You made it clear you’d die before you went back to prison. I… I…” Didn’t want to watch you die. “I didn’t want to see anyone get hurt.”
You can read the entire first chapter of FEVER on my website.
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a Rafflecopter giveaway (please click link)
Note from Cynthia: And I’d like to add to the giveaway fun. I’ll giveaway 3 Kindle copies of FEVER to random winners. Want to win? Then ask Joan a question or leave a comment. Thanks! Enjoy your weekend!
