ATONE
Recovered Innocence #2
Beth Yarnall
Releasing February 23rd, 2016
Loveswept
Beth Yarnall’s sexy and emotional
Recovered Innocence series continues as two broken souls discover that keeping
their hands off each other is even harder than facing their demons.
Beau: Six years. That’s how long I spent
behind bars for a crime I didn’t commit—the murder of the woman I loved. Now
I’m free, but life on the outside is a different kind of prison. I don’t know
who I am or who I want to be. At least I have my sister, Cora. She never
stopped believing in me. She even got me a job at the private investigation
agency that cleared my name. And then Vera Swain walks into Nash Security and
Investigations and kicks my world on its ass.
Vera: There’s only one thing that would
make me come out of hiding after two years on the run: finding my sister. I
made the mistake of telling a monster about her, the same monster who beat me
and broke me. Now I’m forced to confide in Beau Hollis of Nash Security and
Investigations. He looks at me like he knows me—the real me. He sees too much,
makes me feel too much. The pleasure he offers is exciting and
addictive. But I can’t fall for him . . . because my love could get us both
killed.
I don’t have much of value. I’ve left so
many things behind that objects no longer have any meaning for me. I could walk
out of this pay-by-the-week motel with nothing but the clothes on my back and
I’d find a way to survive. It’s a skill that served me well as I got tossed
from group home to foster home and back again, and then when I was finally spit
out into the world with literally nothing. I left everything when I
escaped . . . including my name. You don’t know what your limits are until
they’re pushed past breaking. My boundaries have been stitched and restitched
back together too many times. I no longer have a sense of what it’s like to be
able to set my own parameters.
I’m working on that, but it’s slow going
and meticulous. Mostly I stay isolated. Interactions with other people are kept
to the bare minimum, unavoidable social necessities. I avoid eye contact and
speak only when forced to. I don’t like what I see. You can tell a lot about a
person by what lurks in the depths of their eyes. Every ugly thing they think
and feel hides there. They smile, but it doesn’t pretty up the person they are
inside. What’s that saying? Like putting lipstick on a pig. That’s what smiles
are for me. People will smile at you while they hurt you. I no longer trust
them.
Everybody has an agenda. I learned this
from my mother, whose only plan was letting anyone who would pay her shove
their dick in her so she could put a needle in her arm. I learned it from the
foster families who accumulated children like part-time jobs, cashing in the
checks they got for taking us in, then barely feeding us. And I learned it from
the police who failed to protect, and the only serving they did was to their
own self-interests.
I don’t know how long I can stay in San
Diego. The need to keep moving rides me hard. I’m too close to where everything
started and where it ended. Marie is the reason I’m here and the only reason
I’ll stay for any length of time. I have to find her. Javier knows about her. I
was too stupid not to mention her when I first met him. He’ll remember and
he’ll use her to get to me, to get back at me. I can only fight him so far. I
will never win against him. But I can try to outsmart him by staying ahead of
him and finding Marie first.
Someone bangs on the door and I jump. No
one knows I’m here. At least they shouldn’t know. I’ve been careful. But
obviously not careful enough. I pull out my gun. It’s always on hand. I don’t
have to check it to know it’s ready if I need it. At the door, I stand
off-center and look through the peephole to see who’s there. My heart explodes
in my chest and I sag in the corner between the door and the wall, breaking out
into a sweat.
What
the hell is he doing here?
He strikes the door again. “Vera!”
What
does he want?
“I can see your shadow under the door,” he
says. “Open up.”
I can’t make myself unhook the latch or
answer back.
“I’ll keep your secret, but I at least need
to know why I’m keeping it.”
I try to work up some spit so I can speak. How did he find me?
“The cameras in front of the agency picked
up your Colorado license plate,” he says, answering my unasked question. “It
wasn’t easy finding you.” His voice gets quiet, as if his face is pressed to
the door. “I want to help you. Let me help you.”
I swipe the sweat off my upper lip. The gun
is heavy and reassuring in my shaky hand.
“I didn’t tell Cora. I didn’t tell anyone.
I promise. Please, open up.”
My feet barely support me as I come off the
wall. I don’t know why I’m doing it, but I slide the lock back and open the
door, staying behind it for whatever imaginary protection it can give me. Beau
sidesteps through the door and into the room. He’s larger than I remember,
crowding his big body into the small room. With the flat of his giant hand he
closes the door. I hesitate for a moment before choosing the greater of two
fears and slide the lock back into place.
His gaze goes to my gun. He shoves his
hands into the front pockets of his jeans and acknowledges it with a jerk of
his head. Other than that, he doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t say anything. We
stare at each other, sizing each other up. I hope I haven’t made a mistake
letting him in. A thousand questions sit on my tongue, but I don’t ask them. He
said he was here to help. I need help. I don’t want to need it. But there it
is. I don’t want to trust him, yet somehow I do. I think I should be afraid, but
there’s nothing about him that drives me to run.
“Why are you here?” I finally ask.
“Is she really your sister?”
“Yes.”
“You’re afraid for her.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not going to tell me why.”
“No.”
“Okay.”
He doesn’t ask the question I would ask:
Who are you? Because there’s no doubt he knows I’m not who I say I am. He
could’ve called the burner number I put down on the agency’s form. Instead, he
tracked me down. Was it only to show that he could do it, or is there another
reason? Maybe he’s trying to prove to me that I can trust him with this
gesture. He could’ve handled it so many different ways, but he chose to
maintain my need for anonymity.
“Do you mind if I sit down?” he asks.
BUY NOW
Amazon | B
& N |Google
Play| iTunes | Kobo
Enter to Win a
$25.00 Amazon eGift Card
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Beth Yarnall writes romantic
suspense, mysteries, and the occasional hilarious Tweet. She discovered romance
novels in middle school and hasn’t stopped writing since. For a number of
years, she made her living as a hairstylist and makeup artist and co-owned a
salon. Somehow hairstylists and salons always seem to find a way into her
stories. Yarnall lives with her husband, two sons, and their rescue dog in
Orange County, California, where she’s hard at work on her next novel.
Don't Miss the first title in the Recovered Innocence Series
now on Sale for $0.99
No comments:
Post a Comment