Howdy Readers,
I’m a little late getting my #WIP snippet up today, but I figured better late than never. Now that Triple Naughty Christmas is out, I’m determined to finish and publish Saving Suki no later than the end of January. I already have an awesome cover I’ll be sharing soon.
Blurb:
Suki Marks has been in love with Malcolm Patterson ever since she was ten years old when he saved her from bullies who called her an abomination. He was the first person to be straight with her about her family’s unwarranted reputation and was quick to debunk those prejudices as the ignorant folktales and stupid superstitions they were. Even after Malcolm graduated high school and left town, she couldn’t forget him, but becoming his father’s live-in nurse in his last year of life was a coincidence. She never expected to be included in the wealthy physician’s will.
An abusive childhood and an accident in his teens left stallion-shifter, Malcolm Paterson, with a distrust for his father and a lot of holes in his memory. After his dad passes away, Malcolm returns to Horse Mountain to attend his funeral. He finds the shifter community’s near hero-worship of the late doctor disquieting but is thrown for a loop when he meets Suki, a curvy beauty who makes his heart gallop and his primal instincts take over.
Even from the after-life, Malcolm’s father continues to turn the knife, naming Malcolm in his will along with an elaborate scheme to taint his feelings for the woman who might just be his fated mate. To make matters worse, a dangerous shifter-purist movement is brewing among a small segment of the Horse Mountain Clan, and they’re determined to prevent Suki from passing on her genes to a new generation. Will Malcolm be able to work through his past in time to secure his and Suki’s future?
Saving Suki is book four in the Horse Mountain Shifters series.
Excerpt:
A sorrowful expression crossed her face and he knew he’d already said too much about his unusual upbringing. As he contemplated a way to lighten the mood again, she found the answer without saying a word, reaching up to her shoulder and placing her hand over his. A squeezing sensation in his chest complimented the haze rolling over his rationality. So many mixed emotions vexed him since his return, especially the anger and regret he’d tried his best to lock away. Her tiny gesture and light touch sent all the pain scurrying. Warmth bloomed over his knuckles and radiated up his arm, gaining intensity and burning the hottest in his core.
“You’re putting on a brave face, but how are you really holding up?”
Her words pricked at his brain as he breathed in her sumptuous fragrance. “Umm…honestly, if I try to think about my father being gone forever, I feel a bit numb.” As his own words hung in the air, an odd, sour sensation stirred in his stomach. Why the hell did I tell her that? He hated thinking about his father. Imagining how things could have been if they’d reconciled seemed useless since he’d never admitted he’d always wanted the old buzzard’s love. He sure as hell didn’t want to talk about his contradictory emotions on the subject, but even still he could hear his stupid mouth dropping more of his secrets like a huge drain sending washed-away filth out of the shower. “Things were never good between us and during the entire funeral, I felt like a fraud.”
“The parent-child relationship is often a complicated one.” She rested her head on his shoulder while tucking herself in closer to his side, another comforting gesture that somehow had him ready to spill his guts to this woman he barely knew.
Other books in the Horse Mountain Shifters Series:
