Vigor (A Spartan Riders Novel) by JC Valentine Blog Tour + Excerpt + Giveaway

VIGOR, A Spartan Riders Novel

by J.C. Valentine

Spartan Riders, #3

Cover Designer: Sara Eirew

Publication Date: August 29, 2017

Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance, MC Romance, Bikers, Standalone

AVAILABLE NOW!

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SYNOPSIS:

USA Today and International bestselling author J.C. Valentine is back with the latest in her electrifying, dangerous, and provocative world of the Spartan Riders MC…

After escaping an abusive marriage, Spartan Riders bartender Ginger “Red” Mercury is determined to live life on her own terms. When the club’s VP declares her untouchable and stakes his own claim on her, she finds herself ready to wage war.

A year after inoculating the threat from notorious cartel leader Ricky Cruiz, Garrick “Repo” Stone, the last-standing original member of the Spartan Riders MC, has his focus on something else: monogamy. Having decided to settle down and take an ol’ lady, he has his sights set on Red…and he has his work cut out for him if he hopes to win her.

When a new threat makes itself known, threatening everything the brothers stand for and care about, they’re left scrambling to find out who’s behind it before it’s too late. With the high-stakes game of war looming over them, will Red be able to open her heart to love before outside forces pull her and Repo apart?

He turned to face her in the mirror, his large frame folding around her as he leaned down
to frame her with his thick, muscular arms. His eyes on hers, he turned his lips to her ear, his
warm breath a sweet caress that raised goose bumps on her arms. “I’m going to wear you down,
Red. You think you can resist me, but you’re wrong.”
“It’ll be a cold day in hell before I accept your patch, Garrick. And I told you to call me
Ginger.”
Turning his face into her neck, he breathed her in, his eyes drifting closed as if she were
the sweetest thing he’d ever smelled. Ginger had to fight not to close her eyes, too, not to get lost
in the warmth of his body pressed up tight against hers. “I’ve got time. For you, Ginger, I’ve got
time,” he murmured. Then, he pressed a soft kiss to the side of her throat, over her thundering
pulse.

COMING THIS OCTOBER…

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SYNOPSIS:

Taco’s story…blurb coming soon!

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SYNOPSIS:

Gabby Morgan isn’t looking for love. Not even a little romance. Following a rocky past that she’d just as soon forget, she’s determined to focus on the future. One that most certainly doesn’t involve the tough-as-nails, short-on-words, hot-as-hell biker…or his kid.

Blake Mahone may not be done with women, but he’s finished with relationships. Then Gabby Morgan enters the picture. She’s flawless, refined, and as his kid’s teacher, way out of his league. She acts like she hates him, but her eyes tell a different story. Before he knows it, Blake finds himself hot for teacher, and he’s more than ready to learn all her secrets. Now all he has to do is convince her to give him a shot…without getting them both killed in the process.

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SYNOPSIS:

Talia McKinnon said goodbye to love the day she signed the divorce papers and moved across the country looking for a fresh start. With work occupying her days and nights, a relationship is the last thing on her mind, until a run-in with a hot-as-Hades, leather clad biker changes her mind. He’s everything she shouldn’t want but has to have. The problem is, he’s not that easy to catch.

Tucker “Country” Abrams believes in two things: brotherhood and women. He takes his job seriously and his women hard, but at the end of the day, the only loyalty he has is to his club. So when a night with a beautiful stranger threatens to change everything, he’s quick to apply the brakes. But when a little detective work reveals that Talia may be much more than a one-night stand, Tucker is tasked with an impossible decision. Will he push her away, or go against every instinct he has and pull her closer?

ABOUT J.C. VALENTINE

J.C. Valentine is the USA Today and International bestselling author of the Night Calls and Wayward Fighters Series and the Forbidden Trilogy. Her vivid imagination and love of words and romance had her penning her own romance stories from an early age, which, despite being poorly edited and written longhand, she forced friends and family members to read. No, she isn’t sorry.

Living in the Northwest, she has three amazing children and far too many pets. Among the many hats she wears, J.C. is an entrepreneur. Having graduated with honors, she holds a Bachelor’s in English and when she isn’t writing, you can find her editing for fellow authors.

Sign up for J.C.’s newsletter and never miss a thing! http://bit.ly/1KxXWWB

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The Liquor Cabinet Boxset by DL Gallie Cover Reveal

 

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Cover Reveal: The Liquor Cabinet Boxset

by DL Gallie

 

Genre: Romantic Suspense

Series: The Liquor Cabinet

 

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Three full length novels plus a never before released novelette offered together in one place for the first time.

 

Follow the adventures of Kenzie and Jordan in Malt Me; Mike and Sav in Tequila Healing; Sarah and Logan in Wine Not; and the whole gang in The Final Shot.

 

The cabinet has never been so disturbingly saucy.

 

 

 

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Hot Stuff by Kim Karr Cover Reveal

 

 

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Title: Hot Stuff

 

Author: Kim Karr

 

Genre: Contemporary Romance

 

Release Date: September 27, 2017

 

Cover Designer:  Michele Catalano-Creative

 

Cover Model:  Andrew Biernat

 

Photographer:   Wander Pedro Aguiar

 

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Get ready to fall in love with this new standalone sports romance from New York Times bestselling author Kim Karr.

 

 

He’s the newly drafted quarterback.

 

 

Hot. Arrogant. Too sexy for words.

 

 

Ready to score.

 

 

I’m an athletic intern, and the coach’s daughter.

 

 

Driven. Determined.

 Prepared to conquer the world.

 

 

Completely off-limits.

 

 

The NFL is full of rules. Rules I’ve never broken. Never challenged. Never even scratched—until the day Lucas Carrington crashes into my life with his hard body and I-don’t-give-a-f*ck attitude. 

 

 After I almost injure my father’s star player, I volunteer to make sure he’s in top shape. At first, it’s hell. I don’t like his attitude, his cockiness, his easy smile. Don’t like the way he oozes sex. Or how his penetrating eyes follow me everywhere. 

 

 

That doesn’t stop me from wanting him.

 

 

He’s meant to be a distraction—something to occupy my mind for these precious few remaining hot summer nights before I’m forced to leave football behind forever. 

 

 I know what we’re doing will lead nowhere good. I know we’re crossing the line. And I know my father will never understand. 

 

 None of that matters. 

 

 But maybe it should.

 

 

Rules aren’t meant to be broken.     

 

     

Or are they?​

 

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To enter to win a Paperback of Hot Stuff click HERE! 

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Kim Karr is a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal Bestselling author.

She grew up in Rochester, NY and now lives in Florida with her husband and four kids. She’s always had a love for reading books and writing. Being an English major in college, she wanted to teach at the college level but that was not to be. She went on to receive an MBA and became a project manager until quitting to raise her family. Kim currently works part-time with her husband and recently decided to embrace one of her biggest passions–writing.

 

Kim wears a lot of hats! Writer, book-lover, wife, soccer-mom, taxi driver, and the all around go-to person of her family. However, she always finds time to read. One of her favorite family outings was taking her kids when they were little to the bookstore or the library. Today, Kim’s oldest child is seventeen and no longer goes with her on these, now rare and infrequent, outings. She finds that she doesn’t need to go on them anymore because she has the greatest device ever invented–a Kindle.

 

Kim likes to believe in soul mates, kindred spirits, true friends, and Happily-Ever-Afters. She loves to drink champagne, listen to music, and hopes to always stay young at heart.

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Eye Candy by Tijan, J. Daniels, Helena Hunting, Bella Jewel, & Tara Sivec New Release

A frightfully good time! Dive into these Halloween novellas from bestselling authors Tijan, J. Daniels, Helena Hunting, Bella Jewel and Tara Sivec. Featuring stories set in the worlds of their popular series.

Eye Candy by Tijan, J. Daniels, Helena Hunting, Bella Jewel and Tara Sivec

Publishing Date: September 5th, 2017

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Tijan’s Fallen Crest crew are back for a weekend of mischief that takes a sinister turn; all four couples from J. Daniels’ Alabama Summer series gear up for Halloween in their own sexy ways, with a special surprise at the end; Helena Hunting’s characters from Shacking Up plan a Halloween gala that features a few ghouls and witches; Bella Jewel brings the chills and thrills in her suspenseful take on Halloween night; and Tara Sivec gathers the Holiday family together one last time as they try to make this ghostly holiday one to remember—or one they’d rather forget…

Cozy up with a mug of hot cider on a dark night and fall under the spell of this Halloween anthology!

Read Today!

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About the Authors:

Bella Jewel is a USA Today bestselling author of over 18 e-books, including the popular Alphas Heart eOriginal series with St. Martin’s Press. She lives in North Queensland where she’s working on her next novel.

Tijan is a New York Times Bestselling author of the Carter Reed Series, the Fallen Crest Series, and the Broken and Screwed Series among others. She lives in north Minnesota.

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of PUCKED, Helena Hunting lives on the outskirts of Toronto. She writes contemporary romance ranging from new adult angst to romantic sports comedy.

Tara Sivec is a USA Today best-selling author and the Best Indie Author in the Indie Romance Convention Reader’s Choice Awards in 2014. She lives in Ohio with her husband and two children.

J.Daniels is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Sweet Addiction series, the Alabama Summer series, and the Dirty Deeds series. J grew up in Baltimore and resides in Maryland with her family.

Connect with the authors:

Bella Jewel: http://bellajewelbooks.com

Tijan: http://www.tijansbooks.com

Tara Sivec: http://tarasivec.com

J. Daniels: http://authorjdaniels.com

Rough Rider by Aria Cole Release Blitz + Excerpt

 

 

 

 

Amazon

 

 

 

After years of living alone, Nash Campbell sets eyes on curvy beauty Eden Sutherland again, the day she steps out of her brother’s pickup truck and falls directly into his arms. He may have made a promise to her brother to take care of her, but it isn’t long before Nash is fixed on wrangling his best friend’s little sister into his bed—and his life.

Eden Sutherland enjoys living alongside her brother in the old farmhouse where they grew up, but when he’s deployed, she’s uprooted to Circle C Ranch and dumped in the arms of her brother’s best friend, irritatingly moody and maddeningly sexy cowboy Nash Campbell. The boy who pulled her pigtails and made the butterflies jump in her stomach for the first time when they were kids. She may have grown up running through the pastures at Circle C, but that doesn’t mean seeing Nash again is easy on the heart. She’s been purposefully avoiding this man for years, and now she has to call him roommate…

Warning: When this filthy-talkin’ cowboy falls, it’s hard and fast. Insta-love obsessed, countrified goodness is the best way to describe this rough rider. Sit back, relax, and grab a sweet tea, it’s about to he heart. She may have grown-get sticky down south.

 

 

ONE

 

Eden

 

   I wrung my hands in my lap, eyes focused on the long gravel driveway that led to my imprisonment.  

   “You know, I don’t need a babysitter,” I spat to my brother in the driver’s seat.  

   “Sweet young girl like you, you most certainly do. These damn cowboys would eat you alive,” he drawled, eyes cutting to me then back to the windshield. The old truck rattled to a sputtering stop in front of the giant red barn I spent too many summer nights playing hide-and-seek in.  

   “I’m not sweet or young. Since I’ve managed to handle you my whole life, I figure these cowboys will be easy.” I shoved open the door of the truck, storming off with a desperate slam of the door for dramatic effect. But instead, it squawked on its rusty hinges. Baxter, the old golden retriever that’d been wandering this dusty ranch since the time I was eight, rambled up to me. I knelt down and put my arm around the old dog, giving him a good rub. His scent was so familiar, just as it had been all those years ago. I closed my eyes, sucking in a fortifying breath before I faced the man who inhabited this place.  

   “Welcome, Eden.” His throaty voice sent fire through my veins, just like it always had. My cheeks flamed, hands shoved into the pockets of my cutoff shorts when Nash Campbell’s dusty cowboy boots came into view.

   I wanted to die.  

   Colt, Nash, and I may have grown up together on this ranch, bonfires and swimming in the pond from sunup to sundown, but I hadn’t laid eyes on him in nearly two years. And there was a reason for it.  

   “Hey.” Colt came around the back of the pickup and pulled two giant duffles out of the bed. “She’s not too pleased ’bout me dropping her off here, but she’ll grow up and see I was right. Someday.” Colt shot me a glare.  

   “I should have gone away to college,” I grumbled. I still hadn’t looked Nash in the face yet.  

   I couldn’t. One look into those intense eyes would have me lost. It’d been too long, and those feeling and memories were still all twisted into knots from my head to my toes. The worst place those knots tangled around was my heart.

   There was too much history wrapped up in my feelings for him. Nash and my brother had been best friends since the time they were in diapers, and then I came along five years later, the annoying, tagalong little sister. They’d picked on me relentlessly, daring me to eat bugs and touch garden snakes, and then the teen years had hit, and everything changed.    

   Nash’s voice had deepened, suddenly sending spirals of excitement through my nine-year-old stomach. And then dark stubble smattered his cheeks and jawline, and I couldn’t help thinking about what the scratchy scruff would feel like against my skin. And by the time Nash was fifteen, he was working in the field or around the barns all summer. Slinging hay bales six hours a day did a lot for his once lean, taut physique.  

   Nash had bloomed into a damn Adonis right before my eyes, his body rivaling the sketches of David I’d seen in my art class.  

   I fell in love with Nash Campbell the summer I turned eleven.

   While my brother still seemed perpetually immature and annoying, Nash’s confidence grew, his eyes lighting with genuine kindness whenever he saw me. I’d never met anyone like him back then, and I still hadn’t now. Nash was a once in a lifetime dream—a dream that was unattainable. Like a mirage, a faint whisper on the wind. A man like Nash would never want someone like me, but still, that didn’t matter to my heart. When I thought of him, I was still that eleven-year-old little girl who fell in love with a boy she could never have.  

   That was probably why today was all the harder.  

   Colt was leaving for his deployment in the Army, and I was moving in here, with my brother’s best friend, at Circle C Ranch.

    “Got your room all made up for you, the corner room upstairs, the one you used to sleep in when we were little.” Nash was addressing me.  

   Oh shit, that meant I’d have to actually look him in the face. I’d been considering a way to avoid his eyes for the entire time I was here, which would hopefully just be the summer. Colt didn’t know it, but I’d already filled out a few applications for colleges. I’d been going to the community college in our small town, but now that Colt wouldn’t be here, I didn’t have a reason to stay.  

   Living on my own would be tight, but I was accustomed to making do on a budget. I just had to hope I would be awarded a few grants or scholarships for housing. I could afford the classes for the coming semester at least, but I couldn’t pay for the housing on top of that.  

   And I needed to get out of this town.  

   I needed to get away from all these memories.  

   The gorgeous, impossibly sculpted, stubbled, and rugged memories.  “Thanks,” I finally muttered, allowing my eyes to wash across Nash’s face for the first time.  

  Oh God, was that my heart beating so loudly?

  It sounded like a John Deere vibrating in my ears.  

  “I can get this carried up for you. Dinner’s at five, so you’ve got some time to settle in before—”

   “I’m not hungry. I had a big lunch,” I lied.  

   Colt shook his head at my side. “She’s lying. If you don’t force her to eat, she’ll peck like a bird.”

   My cheeks flamed as my teeth gnashed together. “I thought you had somewhere to be tonight?”  

   Colt chuckled, taking off ahead of us toward the house.  

   “Still treating you like a dick, I see,” Nash said at my shoulder.  

   Shit, when had he moved closer?

   This was too much. His body so close to mine felt like a ticking time bomb waiting to detonate.  

   “He says he means well, but I personally think it’s a control thing.”

   “Can’t blame him. A man should take care of his only sister. I’d do the same thing.”

   I chanced a glance out of the corner of my eye, catching his gaze hovering at my neckline, then dipping lower.  

   My stomach dropped, my feet screaming at me to run before I made a fool of myself somehow. I’d never known quite how to act around men, especially this one, when it felt like he stole all the oxygen from my lungs with one look.

    “Maybe you’re on a power trip too, then,” I finally replied, stomping in the dirt after Colt and toward the house.  

   I was a prisoner here; there was nothing willing about it.  

   If Colt and Nash thought I needed a babysitter, that I couldn’t be left to my own devices, I’d sure as hell prove them wrong—and have fun while doing it.  

   No way could they keep this woman down.  

   “Eden!” Nash called after me, amusement lacing his voice.  

   I stuttered to a halt, turning to find him hot on my heels, an intoxicating half grin darting across his face.  

   “What?” I asked.  

   “You have no idea what kind of power play I’m into. Keep that in mind.” That cocky grin deepened, and my thighs grew slick with drop-dead desire.  

   Oh, shit.  

   What the hell was I in for this summer?

 

 

Aria Cole is a thirty-something housewife who once felt bad for reading dirty books late at night, until she decided to write her own. Possessive alpha men and the sassy heroines who love them are common, along with a healthy dose of irresistible insta-love and happily ever afters so sweet your teeth may ache.

For a safe, off-the-charts HOT, and always HEA story that doesn’t take a lifetime to read, get lost in an Aria Cole book!
Follow Aria on Amazon for new release updates, or stalk her on Facebook and Twitter to see which daring book boyfriend she’s writing next!

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Exes With Benefits by Nicole Williams Chapter Reveal

 

 

 

 

Coming September 18th

 

Amazon

Nook

iBooks

He wants a second chance. I want a divorce. To get what I want, I’ll have to give him what he does.


From New York Times & USA Today bestselling author, Nicole Williams, comes a new standalone romance in the same vein as Roommates with Benefits.

 

 

PROLOGUE


Goodbye.
It was the one relationship guarantee we could all expect. Whether it was death or circumstance, tragedy or choice, it was the only promise we were assured. Goodbye. It had been coming since the day we met, and now it was here. Sooner than I’d hoped. Even sooner than the sensible segment of me had predicted.
Still, it was later than maybe I should have expected out of a relationship with Canaan Ford.
I’d been waiting all night for his truck to rumble up the driveway when it finally did just past two a.m.. Before his footsteps echoed up the stairs, I shouldered the couple of bags I’d packed and waited in the shadows of the hallway. My paintbrushes were sticking out of one of my oversized totes, tickling the underside of my arm. I’d packed everything that seemed important at the time, but now, I wasn’t sure that what I’d stuffed in my bags mattered at all.
It was late, dark, and Canaan would be coming home exhausted, hurting, and some degree of drunk. He wouldn’t see me, and I could just slip away without him knowing.
Maybe I should have left before he made it back, but whenever I tried, my feet froze to the floor before I could make it to the door. I needed to wait for him to get home first—to make sure he was okay before I left him. That might have been a messed up model of morality, but most of Canaan’s and my relationship was messed up, from the beginning to now, the ending.
He struggled with the key in the lock before shoving the door open and clomping straight toward the couch. He’d stopped crawling into bed beside me after a night of fighting and drinking months ago, like he thought it would spare me the pain of seeing him bloodied and plastered. It never had. The black eyes, the swollen lips, the bruised ribs; they were that much worse in the light of morning.
Canaan had barely crashed onto the sofa before his breathing evened out. Still, I waited another minute in the hallway before moving into the living room.
Don’t look, Maggie. Don’t let yourself look at him.
I looked. Of course I looked. I never listened to what was best for me—if I had, my life would have wound up so much differently.
He was already passed out, sprawled across the couch we’d bought at a yard sale the summer before . . .
Before all of this.
One arm and one leg were hanging off the end, his face tipped far enough toward me I could gauge the type of fight he’d been in tonight. A good one by Canaan’s definition—the best kind. The type where his opponent got in as many hits as he did. The type of fight that made him almost question if it would be the first one he’d lose. Canaan loved the challenge, the fight. He thrived off of chaos, seeming to wilt when life was simple. I used to admire that about him, and maybe I still did. It just wasn’t the life for me. I couldn’t live life like it was a battle—not anymore.
He was passed out hard, but I still crept slowly toward the front door, my heart thundering as the boards creaked below me. Even though I was moving toward the door, my eyes stayed on him.
Look away.
I couldn’t. Canaan was the best part of my life. And the worst. The best memories. And the worst. He was the high and the low and I was so damn tired of the sick cycle I thought would kill me one day.
As my hand cupped around the cool doorknob, my eyes burned. This was it. As resolved as I’d felt in the weeks leading up to this, I felt like I was being torn in half by walking away. I knew if I stayed, this relationship would be the end of me. But at the moment, leaving felt like the same.
Lying on that couch, he looked so vulnerable. Almost like he needed someone to protect him. From the world. From his demons. From himself. I’d tried. God, I’d been trying for what felt like forever, but the only thing I had to show for my efforts was scars and pain.
One of his eyes was swollen shut, his bottom lip three times its normal size, and he’d split the same eyebrow open again. It was going to need stiches. Six, I guessed. I’d gotten really good as estimating the number of stiches needed to seal a wound.
A sob rose from my chest, but I managed to swallow it back down. He was the only boy I’d ever loved—the only one I’d ever come close to loving. In some ways, he was perfect for me. But in more ways, especially lately, he was entirely wrong for me.
That was why I needed to leave. We might have been good together, but we weren’t good for each other. I knew that now.
I opened the door slowly, so it wouldn’t make a sound, then I let myself take one last look at the life I was leaving behind before I forced myself to walk away.
Now that I wasn’t looking at him, moving was easier. Each step down from our little apartment above the garage came quicker, so by the time I reached the ground, I was jogging.
Canaan’s truck was parked right beside my old car. Ancient was maybe a better description of how “mature” my car was. It was almost like he’d known I was going to leave tonight, because he’d parked his truck so close I could barely crack my door open half a foot. Getting my bags tossed into the backseat and managing to wiggle in through the door was a tight fit, but I made it work.
The moment I was inside, I jammed the key in the ignition and turned it over. I didn’t pause. I didn’t flinch. The hardest part was behind me, and now I needed to keep moving.
Easing my car around the truck, I noticed the one light burning inside the big house in my rearview mirror. Grandma knew what was happening tonight and was keeping her light on for me as her unique way of expressing that no matter what, she was here for me. She’d keep the light on—even when it felt like there was nothing but darkness around me.
My throat constricted as I kept backing down the long driveway. I’d tried saving him, but it had cost me almost everything. I was taking what I had left and saving myself.
As I rolled past Grandma’s front porch, my gaze shifted from the rearview mirror to that little garage apartment I’d lived the last eleven months in. The door was open, light was streaming from inside, and a dark, towering shadow loomed in the doorway.
My foot instinctively moved toward the brake. Canaan was too far away for me to determine the look on his face, but I could imagine it. It came easy since I’d known him as long as I had. Knowing his face was like second nature.
He stayed unmoving in that doorway for a moment, my car doing the same. It wasn’t until he started moving down the stairs that my foot flew back to the gas. If he got to me before I made it out of this driveway, I wouldn’t leave. I knew it. Walking away from someone I loved was hard enough, but Canaan wasn’t just someone I loved—he was someone I’d shared everything with. He’d walked with me through the hardest part of my life, and I’d walked with him through his. We’d been each other’s beacon, shelter, and compass through all of life’s shit . . .
So how had we gotten here? To this hopeless, dead end of a place?
He was charging down the stairs now, taking them two at a time. How was he able to move that nimbly when he’d just been comatose on the couch?
“Maggie!”
The windows were rolled up, but his shout broke through the glass, sounding so close it was almost like he was pressed against me, whispering it into my ear.
He sprinted the moment his feet touched the ground, his long arms pumping hard at his sides.
“Canaan, don’t,” I whispered inside the car, my lower lip trembling as I focused on the driveway behind me. “Please don’t.”
I didn’t miss the shadow that had appeared in that lit window. Grandma was watching me leave, witnessing Canaan trying to convince me to stay. Before, his attempts had been successful, but not this time. I couldn’t stay for him one more time—I had to leave for me.
“Maggie! Please!”
Canaan’s shouts were so loud, they were going to wake up the neighbors a few acres over. Each word emanated like a blast inside the car.
“Let me go,” I whispered as I swung the car onto the street.
Right before I could punch it into drive and hit the gas, Canaan swooped in front of the car. His chest was moving hard from the exertion, his snug white tee stained with fresh and dried blood. His face was so messed up it was practically unrecognizable, but I couldn’t help seeing the young boy with a clip-on tie walk up to me when I was frozen on a porch step, appraising me with those wild gold eyes before holding out a tiny box. How had that boy, who’d saved me back then, become the ruin of me now?
When I revved the engine, he didn’t move. Instead, he slid closer so his legs were pushing against the bumper. He raised his arms like he was surrendering, his unswollen eye landing on me. “I’m not letting you leave. Not without a fight.”
A breath rolled past my lips—a fight. Everything was a fight with him. He couldn’t land enough hits or take enough. His guilt wouldn’t let him.
Cranking down the window, I made myself glare at him. It was harder to achieve than it should have been. “I’m not something you win or lose in a fight.”
His jaw moved as he pressed his hands into the hood of the car. “You fight for what’s important. That’s the way life is. And you are worth every fight I have in me.”
“You’re too busy fighting everyone else—including yourself—to fight for me.” My sight blurred as I stared at him. So little of the person I’d fallen in love with remained. So little of who he’d fallen in love with remained in me as well. “I can’t wait around, watching you kill yourself one fight and drink at a time.”
He wiped at his split-open brow, leaving a streak of blood on his forearm. “I can change.”
My fingers tightened around the steering wheel. How many times had I heard those words come from his lips? Those same lips that claimed ownership of my first kiss?
“Yeah, you can.” I steeled myself against him a little more. “That’s not your problem. Your problem is that you won’t change.”
“This time I will.” His head whipped side to side. “It’s taken this, you trying to leave me, to slap some sense into me.”
I’d tried leaving so many times. This was just the furthest I’d ever made it. “I’m not trying to leave you. I am leaving you.” I made myself look at him. I made myself appear strong when I felt so very opposite. “This is it.”
He slowly came around the side of the car toward me. I rolled up the window halfway, aiming my eyes at the road in front of me.
“One more chance.” Even from a few feet back, I could smell the alcohol on his breath. I could smell the sweat and blood on him mixed with it, the trace of perfume that didn’t belong to me.
“You’ve had a thousand one more chances.” I studied him from the corners of my eyes, knowing better than to let them lock on his when he was this close. “This was your last one.”
“Maggie . . .” His hands formed around the lip of the window. His knuckles were split open and swollen, dried blood covering them. Still, I wasn’t sure I’d ever craved having them reach for me more. I wasn’t sure I’d ever needed him to pull me to his broken body and soul more than I did right then.
In that moment, I might have needed him more than I needed air, but I couldn’t give in. Kicking the habit was the only way to cure myself.
“Let me go, Canaan.” My legs were trembling as my foot moved back to the gas.
His head lowered so it was in line with mine. “You’re my wife.”
My left hand curled farther around the steering wheel, until I couldn’t see the gold band circling my finger. “No. I was your wife.”
His head dropped for half a second, his eyes flashing with defeat right before. “I love you.”
​My chest ached. The man was the boy again, and I wanted to save him the way he’d saved me. But I couldn’t. The only person who could save Canaan Ford was Canaan Ford.
“I promised to love you forever, and I will.” My foot touched the accelerator. “But I can’t spend forever with you.”
His hands braced around the window harder when I rolled forward. “I made a promise. To you, and to myself. A promise to love you forever. To look after you as long.”
When I found my mind drifting to that overcast afternoon eleven months ago, my heart wringing when I remembered the way he’d stared at me as we repeated those phrases in the courthouse, I shook my head. Good memories weren’t enough. Hope wasn’t enough. Empty promises weren’t even close to enough.
“We exchanged vows.” My eyes focused on the road in front of me, letting go of the dead end beside me. “There’s a difference between saying them and meaning them.”
When my foot pushed down on the gas, Canaan moved with the car. “I’m not letting you go. I’m not giving up.” The car moved faster, his feet pounding the asphalt as he struggled to keep up.
“I know. But I’m giving in.” Breaking my own rule, I let my eyes meet his before punching the gas pedal as far down as it would go. “Goodbye.”
That was enough. Hearing that word shocked him just enough to still him. For one second. I didn’t ease up on the gas, not even when I heard his fists pounding the trunk as he struggled to keep up.
“I can change!” His footsteps were thundering after the car. “I will change.”
With him behind me, I let the tears I’d been fighting fall. Everything I’d ever known—my whole life—was getting smaller and smaller behind me. With every tick of the odometer.
“MAGGIE!!!” His voice pierced the air one last time before I was too far away to hear whatever came next.
It was morning by the time I stopped seeing his reflection in the rearview mirror, still chasing me into my new life.

 

 

Nicole Williams is the New York Times and USATODAY bestselling author of contemporary and young adult romance, including the Crash and Lost & Found series. Her books have been published by HarperTeen and Simon & Schuster in both domestic and foreign markets, while she continues to self-publish additional titles. She is working on a new YA series with Crown Books (a division of Random House) as well. She loves romance, from the sweet to the steamy, and writes stories about characters in search of their happily even after. She grew up surrounded by books and plans on writing until the day she dies, even if it’s just for her own personal enjoyment. She still buys paperbacks because she’s all nostalgic like that, but her kindle never goes neglected for too long. When not writing, she spends her time with her husband and daughter, and whatever time’s left over she’s forced to fit too many hobbies into too little time.

Nicole is represented by Jane Dystel, of Dystel and Goderich Literary Agency.

 

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