Should some secrets remain buried?
Dusty has always been
a hothead, far more impulsive than her twin, Nick, the calm, cool and collected
one of the pair. But Nick is dead, found murdered in their local cemetery, and
Dusty simply can’t rest until she finds out who–or what–has killed her
brother.
Sure the local
authorities aren’t being straight with her–or anyone else–about what’s been
going on in their little upper Michigan town, Dusty delays going off to college
for a semester, defying her father and stepmother and taking a job in the local
bar to start doing some digging.
Her focus soon fixes
on Shane, her brother’s best friend and the town bad boy. The tension and
rivalry between Dusty and Shane has always been palpable and sparks fly as the
two collide. Dusty finds herself sinking in deeper with Shane and the mystery of
what happened to her brother–and a lengthening list of victims–grows even
stranger.
When everything comes
to a head, Dusty focuses on one thing: What happened the night her brother was
killed in the cemetery? She’s sure Shane is keeping a secret and she’s
determined to find out what it is, one way or another.
******** EXCERPT *********
“Nick
told me something the last time I saw him… alive.”
She
closed her eyes, not sure why she was telling him. Maybe it was the way he
turned his head toward her before inhaling deeply, like he was trying to breathe
her in. Maybe it was the way he cupped her shoulder in his hand, like he was
holding something delicate—a tiny field mouse or a baby bird—and he was trying
to be careful not to startle it. But mostly she thought it was the memory of his
kiss in the darkness, the way he had taken it, how he had groaned and given into
her response in that one brief moment before his senses
returned.
“What
did he tell you?” Shane’s spine straightened slightly, breath catching in his
chest. He went completely still, like a deer caught in the shine of a poacher’s
flashlight.
“He
said he saw the way you look at me.” She hesitated, hearing his intake of breath
when her hand moved to his thigh. Leaving it there, halfway up, she rested her
head in the crook of his shoulder, feeling him breathing again. “And he saw the
way I look at you.”
“What,
exactly, is that supposed to mean?”
“Nick
said he had the feeling, if he hadn’t been around, we might have ended up
together.” Dusty lifted her chin to see his reaction. He didn’t look surprised,
not like she had been. They were very close now. Close enough she could see the
reddish stubble on his cheeks and the gold flecks in the light blue of his eyes
and that little divot above his lip. She had the impulse to touch him there and
repressed it.
“You and me?” he asked, pondering it, lips pursed in thought,
making her think about that damnable kiss. She didn’t understand why she was
feeling this way. First, the funeral home. Now they were both
sitting on her brother’s grave. What was it about her dead brother that revved up her libido
around Shane? It went beyond crazy and slipped into the realm of the
surreal.
“You
and me.” She nodded slowly, fascinated by the shape of his
mouth.
“I
don’t know.” Shane blinked those striking blue eyes at her, both eyebrows
raised. Her attention was drawn down to his mouth again when he licked his lips,
drawing the lower one thoughtfully in before asking, “What do you
think?”
“I
don’t understand why…” She didn’t. She didn’t understand any of it. Her world
made no sense anymore. Nick was dead and Shane was here, offering her comfort
and something else—she didn’t even know what—after all the years they’d spent
sparring and going after each other’s throats.
But
he’d come looking for her, had known she would be in the closet. He’d known her
temper well enough to hold her back when she would have gone after the idiotic
sheriff with her bare hands. And he’d held her and rocked her and let her cry
when she needed to, which was far more than anyone else in her life seemed to
want to do.
She
didn’t understand it, but she knew she was feeling it. And whatever “it” was, it
was powerful. Magnetic. It made her want to act, to do something reckless,
careless, shameless. It made her feel like she had in the closet of the funeral
home, ready to strip down to nothing and give into the feeling. It made her feel
like doing that now, right here, on her brother’s grave. It felt wrong and right
at the same time.
“What
don’t you understand?” he prompted.
Dusty
took a deep breath, reaching out and doing it, touching that little divot above
his parted lips. She didn’t stop there, tracing the delicious shape of them,
feeling him go still again, but it was different this time. This sort of
stillness was more predator than prey. It was like the watchful, waiting crouch
of an animal.
“I
don’t understand why,” she whispered, swallowing as she let her finger trail
down over his Adam’s apple, feeling him swallow. “But I think Nick wanted us to
kiss and make up.”
“Do you
want to?” He turned more fully toward her, the question in his
eyes.
“Kiss?”
Her finger traced the V of his t-shirt, his jacket still
undone.
“Yes.”
His
lips were slightly parted, wet. So were hers. They were so close she’d lost
focus and longed to close her eyes. Her body thrummed, so very alive, and the
irony didn’t escape her because they were surrounded by death. Everything else
faded away, lost its shape, until all she could focus on was Shane’s presence,
the heat of his body, the way his hands moved down the curve of her shoulders to
grip her upper arms.
“I
don’t know why,” she confessed, finally letting her eyes close in anticipation,
feeling him drawing her closer by micro increments. “But yes. Yes.
Yes.”
She whispered the last
three words, her lips almost touching his. His breath was warm, fruity and
sweet, fingers tightening their grip on her arms.
AUTHOR BIO AND
LINKS:
BIO
Emme Rollins is Top
100 Amazon Bestselling New Adult/Mature Young Adult fiction. She’s been writing
since she could hold a crayon and still chews her pen caps to a mangled plastic
mess. She did not, however, eat paste as a kid.
She has two degrees, a
bachelor’s and a master’s, one of which she’s still paying for, but neither of
which she uses out in the “real world,” because when she isn’t writing, she
spends her time growing an organic garden to feed her husband and children (and
far too many rabbits and deer!) where they live on twenty gorgeous forested
acres in rural Michigan.
She loves tending her
beehives (bees are wonderful pollinators and Hello!? Honey!) and keeping up with
her daily yoga practice and going for long walks in the woods with her boxer,
Rodeo, who loves chasing squirrels almost as much as Emme loves
writing!
Social Media
Links
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