Sweet & Sassy Anthology: Stormy Kisses

by Rebecca Rode

  “The doctor’s?”

  “Just a checkup.”

  “Oh.” Tanner pushed his glasses up his nose. The action still managed to make her heart melt, even after a year together. “What did you talk to your parents about?”

  “The new adventure we’ll be embarking on.”

  Tanner raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? And just what adventure is that?”

  Happiness bubbled up inside her, and she couldn’t stop smiling. Lauren gently took Tanner’s hand and rested it on her stomach. His eyes grew wide, and he stared at her, eyebrows raised in question.

  “I was thinking Vortex might make a good name,” Lauren said, her tone teasing. “But I’m open to suggestions.”

  Tears filled Tanner’s eyes. “A baby?” he whispered.

  “A baby.”

  He laughed, spreading his hand over her stomach. “I’m going to be a daddy.” He rested his forehead against hers. “I love you so much, Lauren.”

  She laughed, wiping a tear off his cheek. “I love you, too.”

  “This will be our best adventure yet—better than any tornado you’ve ever chased.”

  “Of that, I have no doubt,” Lauren said, and then she kissed him.

  Lightning pierced the sky, and Lauren leaned against Tanner with a contented sigh. This right here was better than any mesocyclone could ever hope to be. She was home to stay.

  Thank you so much for reading Twisters and Textbooks. If you want even more of Sunset Plains, make sure you read Cassidy and Jase’s story, Cupcakes and Cowboys. Cassidy wants two things—to make her cupcake shop a success, and to forget the fiancé who traded her for the lights of Hollywood. When Jase—best friend of her ex and A-list actor—shows up at the ranch to research an upcoming role, forgetting is the last thing she can do. How will Jase convince her he’s really a country boy at heart?

  If you want even more of Lindzee Armstrong, check out the No Match for Love series. With the matchmaking company she works for in decline, Brooke is desperate to sign Luke, her billionaire best friend, as a client. But Luke is more interested in capturing Brooke’s heart.

  You can also visit Lindzee’s website, www.lindzeearmstrong.com, to claim a free ebook and gain access to exclusive insider information about Lindzee’s books.

  Thanks again for reading!

  About Lindzee Armstrong

  LINDZEE ARMSTRONG is the #1 best-selling author of the No Match for Love series and Sunset Plains Romance series. In case it wasn’t obvious, she’s always had a soft spot for love stories. In third grade, she started secretly reading romance novels, hiding the covers so no one would know (because hello, embarrassing!), and dreaming of her own Prince Charming.

  Lindzee finally met her true love while at college, where she graduated with a bachelor’s in history education. They are now happily married and raising twin boys in the Rocky Mountains.

  Like any true romantic, Lindzee loves chick flicks, ice cream, and chocolate. She believes in sigh-worthy kisses and happily ever afters, and loves expressing that through her writing.

  To find out about future releases, you can sign up for Lindzee’s newsletter. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or her website.

  If you enjoyed this book, please take a few minutes and leave a review. This is the best way you can say thank you to an author! It really helps other readers discover books they might enjoy. Thank you!

  Acknowledgments

  There are lots of people that help make my stories amazing. But there are also lots of things that make these stories possible.

  I would like to thank my Contigo water bottle for keeping me hydrated during the long hours I spent at my desk writing this story. If not for its ability to keep ice cool for an entire day, and the way just its presence acted as a gentle reminder to drink, I probably would’ve wasted valuable writing time hooked up to an IV after passing out.

  Another unsung hero that made this book possible is Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Their (completely inaccurate) rules for a pirate life kept my kids occupied for twenty-two minutes at a time so I could squeeze in some (mostly) uninterrupted writing time.

  Thank you to M&M’s and Oreo for providing endless incentives to finish just one more chapter. Thank you to Pandora for providing me hours of motivational songs to keep me going. Thank you to my Facebook newsfeed for all the ridiculous articles and memes that kept me chuckling while I was procrastinating the chapters that I needed to edit. If you’ve never checked out the headlines on trending news stories, you really should.

  And, of course, thank you to all the amazing people in my life who make this possible more than all the other things combined. My husband, who is a real-life hero and endlessly supportive. My children, who get as excited about a shipment of new books as I do. Liz, my accountability partner who puts up with way more whining than she should. I couldn’t do it without them. Hugs!

  Zoey’s Place

  Rachel Branton

  copyright © 2016 by Rachel Branton

  Caring for the animals at Safe Haven Exotic Wildlife Sanctuary has filled the holes in Zoey Morgan’s life and smoothed the memories that still haunt her. It helps that she works with friendly Stephen Carey, whose uncle owns the Arizona sanctuary, and Declan Walker, who is as wild and untouchable as the animals they help.

  When a storm hits, flattening buildings and flooding roads all over the state, the sanctuary goes into lockdown mode. But Zoey learns that her younger sister is lost in the storm, and she will risk anything to find her. So will the man who loves her—if she’d let him. Can he slip past the walls Zoey has built to hide her secrets?

  Zoey’s Place is a stand-alone novella telling the story of the now-grownup orphan that readers first saw in Rachel Branton’s House without Lies.

  Chapter 1

  I PLACED THE BOWL OF chopped vegetables and bread in front of the swollen raccoon. It had been three days since the wounded animal had tried to bite me when I came to feed her in the quarantine building, and I had to admit my attachment to her was growing. I couldn’t wait until Betsy, as I’d named her, delivered her babies. Homeowners had discovered her in their chimney a week earlier, her leg chewed and one eye missing after an apparent encounter with their neighbor’s dog. Like many of the animals at Safe Haven Exotic Wildlife Sanctuary, coming here was her last chance.

  A branch on a newly planted sapling banged loudly against the quarantine’s solitary window, startling both me and the raccoon. “It’s okay girl,” I murmured, darting a glance at the window. For mid-afternoon, it was growing dark, and I wondered if we were in for another microburst. I hoped not because Tuesday was fasting day for the big cats, the one day the sanctuary was closed to the public, and a storm would interfere with all the work we had to get done before the visitors returned.

  I reached out to soothe Betsy as I would many of our other raccoons, but she stopped eating, cringing away from my hand. “Sorry girl,” I muttered. I’d worked here a month and should remember that wild animals, even the most playful, didn’t like being touched while they were eating. I eased back to give her room and came slowly to my feet.

  “How’s she doing?”

  I jumped a little, my heart speeding into high gear, before turning around to see Stephen Carey’s tall, lean figure outside the cage. He was wearing a leather bomber jacket, hands in the pockets as if he was cold, his short, brown hair standing slightly on end in the front.

  “Sorry if I scared you, Zoey.” He rubbed a hand through his hair, smoothing it down.

  “That’s okay.” I glanced at the window. If anything, it was getting darker out there. “Looks like a storm.”

  He nodded. “Bad one, according to the forecast. A storm warning’s been issued over half of Arizona, so I sent the volunteers home. We’ll need to round up everyone else and secure the animals.”

  His aunt and uncle owned the sanctuary, and Stephen was the manager, which meant he had to deal with ordering food, public relations, keeping the books, and fundrais
ing while the rest of us focused on the animals that came to us from all over the world. I thought we had the better end of the deal.

  I ducked out of the cage door and shut it carefully behind me. Stephen watched, and I was all too aware of his stare. Last week we’d gone to see a movie together with a couple of the other sanctuary employees, and we’d had a great time. Stephen was smart, intelligent, and good looking. It wasn’t anything like an official date, but ever since the movie, I’d thought about asking him out to show my interest. Yet something inside held me back. Would he even be interested if he knew the truth about my life and where I’d come from?

  I pushed the thoughts away. Stephen and I were friends, and I wasn’t going to let the past dictate my actions with him—or anyone else.

  A movement caught my eye, but this time I wasn’t startled as Declan Walker eased into view around the far end of the narrow corridor. One moment he wasn’t there and the next he was, as though he had been there all along, or that we’d been expecting him. He moved with the same grace as our big cats—unhurried, powerful, and . . . natural. And just like when I watched the big cats, my heart leapt at the sight of him. He wore jeans topped by a jacket made of sturdy canvas, a bit of white wool lining showing where it opened at the neck. His slightly long, curly blond hair was messy, as if the wind had enjoyed playing in it.

  Nodding a greeting, he squatted down in the narrow corridor next to the cage, studying Betsy. “She’ll be dropping those kits any day now.”

  “How can you tell?” The raccoon didn’t look any different to me than she had last week when she’d arrived, except for the healing wounds.

  Declan angled his head upward, his gray-blue eyes wandering somberly over my face as if considering my statement—or perhaps wondering if I really wanted to know. I did.

  “She’s finished eating,” he said. “Let’s go in and I’ll show you.”

  “What about securing the animals?” Stephen asked.

  Declan’s gaze shifted to him. “Your aunt and uncle and a couple of the others are heading out to the big cats. Ewan went for the alpaca and llamas. Kitcat’s got the goats and bears. Blake’s taking the wolves and coyotes. We’ll check Betsy here, then divide the rest of the animals between the three of us. We’ll be finished long before your uncle’s back.”

  With nearly two dozen tigers and a half dozen other big cats to secure, I could believe that.

  At Declan’s reassuring words, the tension seeped from Stephen’s stance. I’d noticed over the past month that Declan had the same kind of calming influence on the animals. “Ah, good,” Stephen said. “Thanks for taking care of all that.”

  “Yep.” Declan slipped inside Betsy’s cage before I heard it unlatch. He moved toward the raccoon slowly, keeping low to the ground. She watched him advance, her eyes unblinking, but didn’t cringe from his presence like she did most everyone except me, since I was the one who fed her.

  I went back inside the enclosure after him, moving with not quite as much grace but just as slowly so I didn’t startle her. To my amazement, Betsy allowed him to touch her stomach. I didn’t really blame her—all the animals responded to him that way. And women. My solitary late-night study sessions certainly had as much to do with learning facts to impress him as they did with my love for the animals.

  “See how tight this is?” Declan said. “You can feel the size of the babies. Go on, try it.”

  I touched her neck first, working my way down to her stomach, my hand brushing his as he pulled away. Gently, I explored the bulges under the raccoon’s fur, all too aware of Declan’s eyes on my face. We’d had many such experiences together, but for reasons I didn’t want to examine too closely, being this close to him had started to make me feel uncomfortable.

  Not that it really mattered, because apart from our work and training sessions, he kept too busy to exchange much casual chitchat. He hadn’t even come to the movie with us last week because we’d been finishing up a habitat for a new tiger, and he’d wanted to make sure the place was ready for transfer the next day.

  “Don’t most raccoons give birth in late spring?” Stephen asked from outside the enclosure. “It’s barely April. She’s early.”

  Declan looked over at him, one of his shoulders lifting in a half shrug. “It happens.” To me he added, “You feel it? At least four kits is my guess. Seem to be full term.”

  One of the babies wriggled against my touch before pushing back into the mass. I could imagine the curled form was about four or five inches long, but it was hard to tell. Betsy’s stomach did seem to be stretched to the limit. “I’ll have to take your word for it,” I said.

  Declan knew a lot about animals—even Josh Carey, Stephen’s uncle, had turned over much of his beloved tigers’ care to him—but I wondered how Declan could know this much about raccoon babies. Here at the sanctuary, our animals rarely had offspring. At first I was surprised that they neutered males when they were placed in habitats with females, but now it made a lot of sense. The point was to give abused or displaced wild animals the opportunity to live out their lives in comfort, not create more animals who could never return to the wild. We weren’t a zoo, and living in captivity was never best for a wild animal.

  “She’ll be more relaxed once she’s out of quarantine and with the other raccoons,” Declan added. “By the way, Betsy’s a good name for her.”

  I grinned. “I think it fits. Anyway, it was nice of everyone to let me name her.”

  “Hey, you won the coin toss fair and square.” This from Stephen, who I suspected had rigged the game in my favor.

  Together, Declan and I moved to the cage door, ducking outside and following Stephen down the quarantine’s corridor. Stephen paused at the main quarantine door, which rattled slightly with the intermittent gusts of wind outside. “Let’s divvy up the rest of the animals,” he said. “I’ll take the monkey house and the birds.”

  “I’ll check the raccoons and the small cats,” I put in hurriedly.

  Declan gave a soft groan. “Guess that leaves me the apes.”

  Stephen held his hand to his heart and blinked dramatically. “That’s because Gretta will do anything for you.” He sniffed and pretended to wipe away a tear. “Ten years that gorilla’s known me, and she still hates my guts.”

  “And mine,” I agreed.

  As far as apes went, the chimpanzees and orangutans weren’t bad, but no one enjoyed coaxing any of our gorillas from their habitats and into their more secure feeding quarters. They were too independent, not to mention huge. Give me the cute little raccoons any time—and even the bobcat was more predictable. But Gretta, the oldest of the gorillas, seemed to consider Declan her mate and would do anything he asked.

  Declan grinned and rolled his eyes. “Maybe I need to take a bath more often.”

  “Uh, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” I said, striving to keep a serious face. “But don’t worry. If you don’t return, we’ll come looking for you.”

  Declan’s grin became a laugh. “Thanks. Call me on the walkie if you have any trouble with Bob.” His hand touched the two-way radio on his belt before zipping up his coat.

  “Ah yes, Bob.” The old bobcat didn’t adjust well to new situations. I dragged the zipper up on my own jacket. Normally, I never used more than a long-sleeved shirt in April, but this morning I’d been glad the jacket I kept in my truck during the winter was still there.

  Declan opened the quarantine door, and it was nearly pulled from his hand with a sudden blast of wind. He waited for us to emerge, then shut it carefully and headed off with a purposeful stride.

  Stephen hesitated, leaning closer to me. “I had a great time last week. We should all do it again.”

  Warmth filled me, and I hoped my brown skin, a legacy from my Latina mother, would mask the tell-tale color that was probably seeping into my face. “Yeah, we should. It was fun.” Maybe I wouldn’t have to be the one to ask him out first. But why didn’t I feel as excited at his attention as I’d
expected?

  He nodded and started away from the quarantine—only to stumble across a sharp-faced stranger in a black suit. The newcomer was as tall as Stephen but far thinner, and his eyes were too close together. He leaned into the wind, as if afraid of losing his footing. His mouth opened, but whatever he said was torn away by a gust, so I couldn’t make it out.

  Even standing close to him, Stephen had to yell to make himself heard, “I’m Stephen Carey.”

  More words I couldn’t hear, and then Stephen walked back to me, his dark eyes gleaming with a challenge I knew wasn’t directed at me. “It’s Baxter Ross, that attorney.” He spoke the word like a curse.

  Before I’d come to work at Safe Haven, Stephen’s uncle had filed a lawsuit against a local man in the community for using the content of the Carey’s website to create a fake wildlife rescue site. The man had ended up bilking over a million from unwary donors. To add insult to injury, he’d sneaked into the sanctuary early one morning and hopped in with an aging Bengal tiger to make a video clip for his site.

  “Seriously? Now?” I almost wished Cuddles had bitten the trespasser harder, instead of only giving him a playful warning. Of course that might have given this attorney grounds for a countersuit.

  Stephen shot an annoyed glance at Ross. “We had an appointment, but I didn’t think he’d still come with the storm. Our attorney texted and said he was canceling the meeting. This guy probably showed up hoping he could take advantage of our attorney not being here.”

  “Go deal with him,” I said. “I’ll check the monkeys and birds.” There wasn’t much to do with the birds except to make sure the aviary and flying enclosures were secure, but I’d want to double check that the herons and ostriches, who were in regular field enclosures, made it into their wooden shelters so they’d be protected from flying objects.

  “Don’t go easy on him,” I added.