Forsaken

by Sarah Ballance

  Maybe she wouldn’t tell him they needed to talk.

  She walked over and sat across from him on the bed. “I’m serious.”

  “I know,” he said. “Hence my attempt to change the subject.”

  “You didn’t attempt to change the subject. You merely criticized my introduction.” A hint of a smile peeked through her glare, loosening the ache in his stomach.

  Maybe she wouldn’t skewer him after all.

  He reached for her, touched her. Pulled her to him, relieved when she immediately melted into his arms. “I didn’t lie to you,” he said. “I know that’s not really the point—”

  “Actually, that’s exactly the point. I don’t want to be put in the position of looking for loopholes.”

  “Loopholes?”

  “Yes. Technically, you did not lie to me, but you were betraying me all the same. And I can’t live my life in search of technicalities or loopholes or whatever else you want to call them. I need to know you’re living by the intent of your word and not just the literal interpretation.”

  He moved a stray lock of hair from her face. When his finger grazed her skin, every cell in his body reacted, claiming her. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “If we’re going to do this, you need to stop worrying about hurting me and start worrying about trusting me.”

  “So if I give you my word to avoid all loopholes and technicalities, will you consider forgiving me? Or at least punishing me through sex?”

  She rolled her eyes. “That all depends on whether or not there’s a loophole in that promise.”

  He shrugged. “I’m afraid you have me in a catch sixty-nine.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “I believe the proper phrase is a catch twenty-two.”

  “A guy can hope.” He tugged her closer, stopping just short of kissing her. “I promise. No more deception of any kind. You have my word.”

  “I hope so. Because a catch sixty-nine is a really dangerous position for a guy with a pissed off girlfriend.”

  “Wife,” he corrected. “I’m going to marry you one day.”

  Her stern countenance dissolved. She laughed and climbed backward off the bed, then coyly stripped off her shirt. Wearing only a pair of lacey-looking panties, she crawled over him, pushing him backward onto the bed. “Whatever you say.”

  “Hey, I’m serious,” he protested. Her tight, hot body settled over his and he lost all rational thought. Almost. “You will marry me, won’t you?”

  “I’d probably marry you,” she said benignly. Like he’d asked her to get the mail or pick up the dry cleaning. “But then again, the list of things I’ll never do for you numbers just one.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Let’s put it this way. Gage Lawton, don’t you ever touch my truck.”

  About the Author

  Sarah and her husband of what he calls “many long, long years” live on the mid-Atlantic coast with their six young children, all of whom are perfectly adorable when they’re asleep. She never dreamed of becoming an author, but as a homeschooling mom, she often jokes she writes fiction because if she wants anyone to listen to her, she has to make them up. (As it turns out, her characters aren’t much better than the kids.) When not buried under piles of laundry, she may be found adrift in the Atlantic (preferably on a boat) or seeking that ever-elusive perfect writing spot where not even the kids can find her.

  As an author, she loves creating unforgettable stories while putting her characters through an unkind amount of torture–a hobby that has nothing to do with living with six children. (Really.) Though she adores nail biting mysteries and edge-of-your-seat thrillers, Sarah writes in many genres including historical, contemporary, and supernatural romance and romantic suspense.

  Find her at any of the following links:

  www.sarahballance.com

  sarahballance.wordpress.com/

  www.facebook.com/sarah.ballance.author.news

  www.twitter.com/SarahBallance

  www.pinterest.com/SarahBallance34/

  sarah@sarahballance.com

  www.goodreads.com/author/show/4103362.Sarah_Ballance

  A man with a past is her only hope for the future.

  Non-Stop Till Tokyo

  © 2014 KJ Charles

  Kerry Ekdahl’s mixed heritage and linguistics skills could have made her a corporate star. Instead, she’s a hostess in a high-end Tokyo bar, catering to businessmen who want conversation, translation and flirtation. Easy money, no stress. Life is good—until she’s framed for the murder of a yakuza boss.

  Trapped in rural Japan with the gangsters closing in, Kerry doesn’t stand a chance. Then help arrives in the menacing form of Chanko, a Samoan-American ex-sumo wrestler with a bad attitude, a lot of secrets, and a mission she doesn’t understand.

  Kerry doesn’t get involved with dangerous men. Then again, she’s never had one on her side before. And the big, taciturn fighter seems determined to save her life, even if they rub each other the wrong way.

  Then her friends are threatened, and Kerry has no choice but to return to Tokyo and face the yakuza. Where she learns, too late, that the muscle man who’s got her back could be poised to stab it.

  Warning: Contains graphic violence, swearing, and implied sexual abuse.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Non-Stop Till Tokyo:

  Jun threw me out of the car at Ameyokochō.

  The traffic had been so dreadful on the way to the station, and I had been so trapped in my own frantically circling thoughts, that he had apologised three times before I realised what he was apologising for.

  “You want me to get out?” I stared at him. He stared through the windshield. “But we’re not at the station.”

  “I’m sorry.” He used a polite form, shitsurei shimasu—literally “I am being rude”. He wasn’t being rude. He was abandoning me to what could be my death.

  “Jun-san, you can’t. I haven’t changed.”

  “Change in the station. Get out now, please. I’m very sorry.”

  “But Mama-san said—”

  He leaned over me and popped the door handle. There were horns blaring all around us as we blocked the congested street.

  “Go through Ameyokochō, into the station. Change there. Leave your hair on till you get there,” he added as I grabbed at the telltale blonde locks around my face. “Hurry. Good luck.”

  He unclicked my seatbelt and pushed at my arm. I wanted to cry. I wanted to tell him what a chickenshit, gutless bastard he was. “Thanks for the lift,” I hissed, swinging my legs out and grabbing the big bag and my handbag from the back seat.

  “Dumb tart,” he said levelly, and slammed the door behind me.

  “Kuso shite shine!” I screamed at the car as it drove off. Go shit and die! A couple of shopkeepers gave me looks of disdain at my filthy language, mixed with unconcealed assessment. My manners and my appearance marked me out as deserving both.

  I was at the back of Ameyokochō, one of the most crowded marketplaces in Tokyo, full of tiny alleys and stalls. I hated Jun for leaving me, but I couldn’t blame him. If they were coming for me, they would have taken him too. At least there was no way anyone could find me in the press of people here.

  The people. Ameyokochō was one solid block of early-rising or non-sleeping humanity, young men setting up stalls and some of Japan’s endless supply of old people haggling for the early bargains. A million elderly women were arguing over the price of piles of silver mackerel and orange roe; bright red-and-white octopus chunks; salmon eyes the size of golf balls, four to a box; squid fresh, floppy and purple, or dried and looking like parchment with tentacles; great red Hokkaido spider crabs; piles of dried goods and oversized fruit and clothes of all kinds, leather and denim and plastic, and phone cases and knock-off watches; and the clangs and clatter of a pachinko parlour somewhere cl
ose, and everybody shrieking for attention or space, and…

  And I had twenty-six minutes to get through it and catch the train that would save my life. If they weren’t at the station already.

  I pushed and shoved, the panic starting to choke me. Tokyo is too crowded for people to worry much about shoving; people who are scrupulously polite about personal space at home can ignore full-length body contact with six strangers on the subway. I started off begging people to excuse me—sumimasen, sumimasen, shitsurei shimasu—but after a couple of minutes, stuck behind a man carrying a half tuna the size of a calf, the panic was taking over. If I missed the train they would find me. I could disappear if I got the train, but in Tokyo I was a danger to everyone around me.

  “Yokero!” I shouted. Get out of the way!

  The colloquial rough speech, coming from a non-Japanese, startled a few people into moving. I pushed past, shoved my way around a gaggle of old ladies, found my path blocked between a barrow laden with cheap green alien toys and a gang of men scooping ramen noodles into their mouths.

  “Hey, sexy girl. Come and say hello.”

  “Please, excuse me,” I panted, trying to wriggle through. One of them grasped my arm. “Get off. Let me past.”

  “That’s not friendly.” He scowled, red-faced, and I realised he was drunk. “Shomben-geisha should be friendly.”

  That meant “piss geisha”. He was calling me a whore with big ideas of herself, and he was big, and he wasn’t letting go.

  I took a deep breath and shrieked in his face, “Shita ni! Shita ni!”

  That was a trick I’d picked up from a guy named Taka. Shita ni is what the retainers of great lords would shout to peasants on the road—Bow down! Everyone in Japan has seen enough samurai movies to know the phrase, and the effect is about the same as bellowing, “All rise for Her Majesty!” on a British train. It startles people off balance, and the split second of slack-jawed astonishment was all I needed to wrench my arm free and shove my way past. I ran as best I could, elbows out for balance, cursing my ludicrous five-inch heels and clutching my heavy bag.

  My hair and dress were far too obvious; if they had men here, they’d see me go in the front. Luckily, like many Tokyo stations, Ueno doubles as a huge shopping mall. I went in through the trendiest, sluttiest boutique I could see instead, one with stairs down to a lower storey that opened into the station. I looked around wildly as I emerged into the concourse—no use, it was crammed with people, with suits, with wild crests of hair and dye jobs in every colour—said a prayer to anyone who might be listening, and darted for the nearest ladies toilet.

  The only obstacles I encountered were a group of schoolgirls, off on a trip in their old-fashioned navy uniforms and round sailor hats, huddled round a vending machine in the pigeon-toed stance of prepubescent Japanese girls, who stared at my lurid outfit with awe and envy; and a pair of tiny obāsan, the old ladies who everyone calls “aunties”. They muttered audibly to one another as I brushed past them, clearly assuming I couldn’t understand.

  I tottered into a cubicle, locked it and leaned against the door, feeling the sweat sliding down my backbone under the clingy fabric of my dress. Or, rather, Kelly’s dress. That bitch.

  No time for that. No time to catch my breath, no time to let my heart rate slow. I had seventeen minutes left—it had taken nine minutes to get through Ameyokochō and it had felt like as many hours. They would be circling out there. Looking for me.

  Looking for the gaijin slut in the bright pink dress.

  I pulled off the shoulder-length blonde wig and ran my fingers through my own black crop, fluffing it out. It was unwashed and wet with sweat, but it would do. I peeled Kelly’s fuchsia Lycra off my body and dropped it on the floor with a vindictive stamp. That bitch.

  Next, the bag, a big cotton sack. I pulled open the drawstring neck and tugged out my favourite leather bag, with a vaguely briefcase look to it. I kicked the sack behind the toilet and popped the clasps on the bag, praying Noriko had packed everything I needed. Fifteen and a half minutes left.

  Oh, thank you, Nori-chan: on the top of the bag were makeup remover wipes. I had to use about six to get the night’s caked war paint off my face, scrubbing as hard as I dared without making my skin red. I needed to wash but I couldn’t risk going to the sinks, in case anyone saw me partway through my transformation. Instead I let the chemical wipes do their magic on the bright pink lipstick, the thick mascara, the pale foundation, the blue eye shadow, dropping the multicoloured stained tissues into the toilet bowl one by one, until finally my compact mirror revealed a clean, unobtrusive, sufficiently Asian face.

  Except for the eyes.

  My eyebrows were too pale; only last week I’d had them bleached and dyed a dark blonde to go with the rest of the gaijin look. A quick swipe of black mascara dealt with that, although it also made them look heavy and hairy. No matter. They were looking for a hostess, not an office lady who didn’t pluck.

  There was nothing to be done about my eyes themselves except to wear dark glasses; the Japanese don’t go in for sunglasses much, and it was more likely to attract a second glance than I wanted, but it was that or stare up with my bright baby blues at the face of somebody who would kill me if he identified me.

  Oh God, oh God, they were going to kill me. How the hell had this happened?

  Nine minutes and counting.

  She needed answers, but he gives her a place she can call home.

  Count on Me

  © 2014 Lauren Dane

  Petal, Georgia, Book 3

  Petal is the last place Caroline Mendoza thought she’d end up. Sixteen years ago she lost both parents there—her mother to murder and her father to prison for the crime. Since then she’s built a successful life, but she’s never let go of the belief her father is innocent.

  Now she’s back in Petal to find the truth. With a new job and a mystery to solve, she’s got plenty on her plate. But when she bumps into Royal Watson, the sparks fly hard and fast.

  When the whipsmart, opinionated lawyer blows into town like a beautiful storm, Royal has a reason to make the time to get off his organic farm and pursue her. And soon their intense attraction is tipping into something more.

  As Caroline’s dogged investigation digs up ghosts of the past, there’s not much time for basking in love’s glow. The closer she gets to the truth, the more threatened the real killer gets…and the greater the danger that all her digging could lead to her own grave.

  Warning: Laid-back ranchers who are really sneak alpha males, tight butts in wranglers, and creative use of belts and buckles. Bad words, hot sex, and lots of pie—sometimes all at once.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Count on Me:

  Caroline stared up the box she needed.

  On the top shelf.

  Naturally.

  Sighing, she looked through her cart to for something to use to tip it down. Nothing that would work.

  Muttering a curse, she stretched and just barely missed it. She’d totally climb the shelves if she had to but the last time she’d tried it, she’d ended up knocking a bunch of jars down and they broke and it was pretty embarrassing. Heaven knew she had enough to work against as it was without an incident on aisle ten with cereal.

  “Lemme get that for you.”

  She looked to the side at the very tall cowboy who’d sidled up to use all his height to retrieve her box of cereal.

  “This here?” He pointed at the natural cereal she liked.

  “Yes, thanks.”

  He grabbed it.

  “Can you please get two? I figure I may as well just have a backup now, you know in case you aren’t around the next time I’m here.”

  He pulled one more down and turned to drop them in her cart. That’s when she realized it was Royal Watson. All grown up.

  He faced her and all her parts stood up and cheered
. Like a full-stadium wave.

  “Hey, it’s Caroline Mendoza.”

  Oh. That accent. All Southern charm. Sexy and slow, like he tasted every word, savoring it before he let it go. She did love a Southern drawl coming from a man who used words like ma’am when they opened doors and retrieved things from high shelves. She knew it was pretty old school of her, but damn she didn’t even care.

  “Hey, it’s Royal Watson. Thanks again for the assist.”

  His grin made her want to moan.

  Back in high school, he’d been two grades ahead. He’d been that super cute older boy who probably never noticed her existence. And of course by the time she’d grown into her body, he’d grown into his everything and she’d left town.

  He had great hands. She tore her gaze away from them and her brain from imagining them on her because hello, grocery store, in front of people and all.

  As if he knew what she was thinking, he got just a smidge closer. “It’s good to see you. You’re in town. For a visit or?”

  She laughed, putting a hand at her hip. “Come on now. Are we pretending you haven’t already heard I moved back to Petal? I may have forgotten my share of things about living in small towns, but your business is everyone’s business.” And her past had so much meat for the gossip table, she knew tongues had been wagging ever since she signed the lease on her apartment three weeks before.

  “All right. Well, my Aunt Denver is famous for two things. First, she makes the best coconut cake in a hundred-mile radius. Maybe even the whole state of Georgia, but there’s some serious old-lady cake competition out there so I can’t be totally sure. Second, she’s got a nose for gossip that is, as my uncle says, unparalleled. I was just being neighborly and was gonna let you divulge all the details to me yourself.”