She snorted and slumped against the window.
I followed the hills and curves until I spotted a little bridge tucked away in the trees. I held my breath as we crossed the creek—it was nearly time to face her reaction.
She sat up in her seat looking around at the creek and surroundings as I parked the car in front of a small red house.
“You found a place,” she gasped. Jumping out of the car before I could turn it off.
I climbed out, too. Leaning against the roof and watching her take it all in. “I started looking for a place to buy and, well, I’ve had my eye on this one for a while. What do you think?”
“It’s very you.”
I snorted. That didn’t tell me a whole lot. I fished the key out of my pocket and herded Rose toward the front door.
The house was a little musty since it had been empty for a few months, but some cleaning and a few days with the windows open would take care of that. The structure itself was sound and well-maintained.
“It’s small, just a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and living room.” I led her through the open area.
“I think the whole place could fit in my current living room.” She smirked, wandering through the living room and into the bedroom.
I took a deep breath. “Is that a bad thing?”
“Nah.” She peeked in the closet. “I don’t know what to do with half the space in my house.”
My heart pounded so hard I could hear it over her feet as she moved across the hardwood floors. Now or never. “So, you wouldn’t mind living here with me?”
She stopped in her tracks with her mouth wide open. “You’re asking me to move in with you?”
I nodded. My mouth agonizingly dry as I waited for her response, and I think she intentionally kept me waiting.
She looked out the bedroom window and let out a long sigh. “Really intent on turning me into a country girl, aren’t you?”
“No—maybe—I don’t want to turn you into—”
Grabbing my hand, she pulled me over to the window. October had made its mark, and the back window looked out over the lush colored hill. Reds and yellows with touches of greens and browns as far as I could see. The area was quiet and beautiful—the perfect place to relax and unwind.
Rose leaned against me, pulling my arms around her. “Think all three of us will fit here?”
My peace shattered. “Three?”
She turned and gave me a dumbfounded look. “Trapper, silly. What the hell else would I mean?”
“I thought we could give the—”
“No.” She pressed her finger over my lips.
I yanked her hand away and countered with a kiss. “I think we’ll all fit perfectly. I thought we could get a dog to guard the yard, too.”
“We could.” She laughed quietly and peered out the window again. I held her against me, tucking her head under my chin.
I knew we’d still have plenty to work through, new challenges every day, but at that moment, I had everything I needed and wanted. “You want to know the best thing about it?”
“What?”
“No neighbors.” I pressed my lips against her ear and whispered, “I can make you scream as loud as I want. And I intend to do it very often.”
Bend, Don’t Break Playlist
Spotify: Bend, Don't Break
Die Trying by Art of Dying
Angel of Mercy by Black Label Society
Road Back Home by Black Label Society
Sail by DevilDriver
The Infection by Disturbed
The Animal by Disturbed
Erase My Scars by Evans Blue
Awake by Godsmack
Straight Out of Line by Godsmack
Coming Undone by Korn
Wish You Hell by Like A Storm
Shatter Me (Featuring Lzzy Hale) by Lindsey Stirling
A Line in the Sand by Linkin Park
Open My Eyes by Rival Sons
Save me by Royal Bliss
Weak by Seether
Monster by Skillet
Bent to Fly by Slash
Say You’ll Haunt me by Stone Sour
Animal I have Become by Three Days Grace
Room to Breathe by You Me At Six
First off, I’d like to thank you, the reader, because without you I could sit and write all day long, but I would have no one to share my experiences with!
I couldn’t make it through everything without the support of my husband. He has never questioned my love of writing and even when I drive him to the brink of insanity, he does everything he can to keep me motivated and working. I have been fortunate to have no shortage of friends and family who have encouraged me to become a writer. My late night writing/chat sessions with Pepper Winters are one of my favorite parts of the day. She keeps me working at a pace I never thought was possible, but even more than that I’m honored to call her my friend.
This story wouldn’t be what it is without the feedback from my betas. Thanks to Rachel, Tina, Sheila, Diane, Becky, and Vicki for making sure that no important detail was left unturned. You all are amazing and I appreciate your help and support. Amber was a lifesaver who stepped up and helped me edit this beast so I could get it all turned around and ready for everyone.
I’m also thankful for every reader and blogger who is a member of my Street Team or the Skye Callahan Reading Hangout. Not only do they all rock it by supporting my work, I’m glad to call them my friends. Stand up and take a bow, because I love you all!
Finally, I’d like to thank Tiffany Marie of Everything Marie Tours who arranged the first blog tour for Bend, Don’t Break. Working with her was a new experience, and I’m sure I’ll do it again. I’m floored by the response from book bloggers, and I appreciate all of the work you all do to help support authors.
Thank you for your support!
I was born and raised in rural Ohio and will always be a country girl at heart with a love for reading and writing. I’ve spent my life chained to the imaginary worlds of the characters who live in my head, and thanks to the encouragement of teachers, friends, and family, I started writing their stories down. In college, I separated from fiction and earned a M.A. in Public History, but in 2011, I decided that I had spent far too long away from the world of fiction.
Many of my early stories were paranormal, and although the paranormal will always have a special room in my imagination, my interest in BDSM and dark romance has recently led me to expand my focus.
When I’m not spending time with the voices in my head, I work for a non-profit consulting center, offer my technical services to other writers and small businesses, and enjoy life with my husband and our two ferrets.
I’d love to hear from you!
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All sneak peek materials are unedited and subject to change.
Stricken
Prologue
They say lightening never strikes the same place twice, and that belief probably works well for most people, but I must be the top of the damned Sears Tower.
The summer after my parents died, I moved in with my sister and her husband. She was five years older than me and more than willing to make sure I had a place to live at least until I could reasonably fend for myself. I was going on sixteen and starting my senior year in three days—a net result of the win/loss of skipping two grades.
But I had to get out.
For that, I usually relied on our best friend, Ben—he was my sister’s age, and they’d dated on and off growing up. I think more from our parents insisting, since we lived next door and they “looked so cute”. I still held on to my mostly silent argument that I’d seen him first. On the day they moved in next door, when I was the shy five-year-old peeking through the break in the fence.
“Finally twenty-one and hitting the big roads,” I teased as I helped him clean up the cab of h
is truck—the huge semi, he used to haul for his dad’s company.
“I guess. It’s just a two day run, one there and one back.”
I couldn’t really see his face from where I sat, but it wasn’t difficult to imagine the smile of pride. He was all about family, and didn’t give a shit about what anyone else thought or said. The open road in a big rig is where he always wanted to be.
“Are you going to do a lot of big runs now?” The thought actually terrified me. Most of the time, Ben was the only one I could talk to—and quite often I mean literally, the only one I could talk to. Since I was a little kid, I’d had a horrible time of stuttering. It often resulted in my going days without talking to anyone. And when I tried, I’d get so frustrated with my tongue flapping around uselessly in my mouth that nothing would come out the way I wanted.
On bad days, I signed. My mom worked at a daycare, where they taught all of the kids simple signs from the time they were babies, so she worked with me on the core. The rest, we just made up as we went along.
It was an impromptu system most of the time.
Ben probably understood more of my signs than anyone else, which was ironic, since he was also the least likely to let me use them.
And the only one who could get away with pushing me.
“Don’t worry, Cas.” He spoke so easily that it made me jealous, and yet, I loved him for it, because it put me at ease. “I’ll still be around plenty. Most of my runs will still be in state. And you know you can always call me.”
“Yeah, but I d—d—don’t,” I took a deep breath, “do as well on the phone.”
He climbed out of the back of the truck and slid past the driver’s seat. “Then, it’ll give us a chance to work on that.”
I gave him a sour glance, but he smiled and my resistance melted.
“Once upon a time,” he said, “You gave me that same look about working on it in general. And now you’ve been with me all morning and have only gotten tripped up once.”
He had a point. He always had a point. When I was a kid, I could stomp my feet and insist on signing, and even though he could understand me perfectly well without verbal words, he pushed me to talk. Sometimes I hated him for it. Hated him for the way he could patiently stand or sit and wait for me to stutter out sentences in the time it took a normal person to finish an entire conversation.
But as soon as I did finish, he continued on with the conversation like I was the most normal person in the world and didn’t just waste five minutes of his time.
I crawled out of the cab, and jumped down with the small bag of trash in hand. Ben was somewhat of a neat freak when it came to his truck—although he was probably also the only twenty-one-year-old driver who had his own truck. Which came by way of his dad passing it down, but I think that made it all the more significant.
“Take me with you,” I said, adding the small bag of trash I’d gathered to his larger bag.
His eyes widened. “What?”
“You’ve taken me on runs before. I want to go on this one.” What I really wanted to say was don’t leave me at home. Don’t leave me alone with him.
But I hadn’t told Ben about that part. I wanted to, but I had to get up the courage first.
He shook his head and tied a knot in the black bag, slamming the semi door closed. “You start school soon.”
“You’ll be back Saturday. And I already have everything ready.” I tilted my chin down and stared up at him—the look that usually won him over to whatever I wanted. Unless of course I was trying to get out of talking, and then nothing worked.
“I’ve never taken you on an overnight, Cassie.”
I pressed my lips together. I hadn’t thought about that. “You’ve never been on an overnight.”
“You have a point,” he chuckled, putting an arm around my shoulder as he headed to the dumpster. “But I don’t think it’s an argument toward my taking you on a two day drive.”
“I need out. I need to breathe before school starts. I hate school, and it’s worse since you and Rachel graduated. I want to see something new before I spend the next nine months in a stupid classroom five days a week with a bunch of kids who call me C—c—c—Cassie.” That time the stutter was deliberate, and simply imitating their taunt brought tears to my eyes. After a decade of school and relentless classmates, it seemed like I should be used to it, but it never got easier.
From the look on his face, I could tell he was debating idea. We already got enough questions about why we hung out despite our five year age difference. I tried to use my IQ to explain part of it away—that argument had worked for the counselors when they decided to move me up in school. Apparently I was emotionally mature enough for that, why couldn’t I be mature enough to have an older friend?
“If your sister okays it, I’ll get Dad to clear the paperwork.”
He drove me home and straggled behind as I ran toward the stairs to find Rachel. Mitchel’s truck hadn’t been anywhere around, so I assumed he wasn’t home from work yet, and Rachel would be in her attic workspace. She wanted to be a journalist, but the only place we could find for a makeshift in the tiny house—since I had the spare bedroom—was the small nook in the attic.
Instead, I ran into her coming out of the kitchen. “Rach,” and then I didn’t know what to say. “I—is it okay if I go with Ben on h—his run t—tomorrow?”
“Um,” she looked past me to Ben who was standing near the front door. I hated it when people did that—look past me like someone else could give them a better answer. “Isn’t he going to be gone for a few days?”
“T—two,” I said, getting nervous. Even though, of all people Rachel seemed to understand my friendship with Ben, it didn’t mean I’d get away with this one.
“And where would you be sleeping?” Mitchel asked appearing next to her.
My stomach landed at my feet. “Uh, d—d—,” I could never form words when he was around.
“I’ll cover a couple of hotel rooms,” Ben said from behind me.
Never taking his eyes off me to even acknowledge Ben, Mitchel continued with his expected barrage. “So, you want him to take you on the road, and not only pay extra to get himself a hotel room, but pay for a second one for you as well. How much does this run pay?”
I knew anything I tried to say would come out gibberish, so I didn’t even try. Fucking mouth. I wanted to stick up for myself and tell him exactly where to shove it, but he also had a way of not only making me feel nervous, but making me feel guilty for everything.
“It’s not a problem,” Ben said. “Everything that’s been going on—give her a break. Rach, you know your sister, she’ll be fine. I don’t have a problem taking care of her for two days, but I have to leave around six am.”
That almost gave me second thoughts—until I felt Mitchel’s gaze on me again. Nothing could give me second thoughts about wanting out.
“Okay,” Rachel said. Mitchel gave her a glare, but no one else seemed to notice. “You should get packed tonight,” she told me with a pointed stare, “otherwise, we both know it won’t get done.”
Ben nodded to Rachel and Mitchel, then patted my shoulder. “I’ll be here to pick you up a little after five, you okay with that?”
Anything to get away. “Yes.”
And then, lightning struck again.
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Fractured Legacy Series
(Paranormal Urban Fantasy)
The Aicil Foundation has been operating around the world since the fifth century to research and track paranormal activity.
Sisters, Kaylyn and Cole Anderson, are the youngest investigators at the Chatham, Ohio office, but that doesn’t mean they have it easy. The Fractured Legacy Series follows their cases and Kaylyn’s ongoing struggle with an entity determined to claim her life.
Book 1: Fractured Legacy
Book 2: Beyond the Divide
&nb
sp; Book 2: Grave Absolution
Out of Bounds Series
(BDSM Romance)
Meet the members of Bound as they come together in the safety of the club to explore their kinky desires.
Book 1: Bound and Unbroken
Book 2: Bound and Collared (coming soon)
Irrevocable
(Dark Romance)
Book 1: Irrevocable
Book 2: Bend, Don’t Break
Stand Alones
Stricken (coming soon)
Wild Guardian (coming soon)
More information and purchase links available at: http://skyecallahan.weebly.com/books.html
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