Blurb:
When your life has been stolen from you and the man responsible wants you dead, where do you run? Who do you trust?
Allison Webster dreams of having an adventure like the characters in
the books she loves. But there is no romance in being pursued by a man
who wants her dead for educating the children of former slaves. Unlike
the heroines she reads about she doesn’t have a trusty companion to
rescue her…until she literally runs into A.J. Adams, a former
Confederate cavalry officer. Now, she just has to convince A.J. he
really is the honorable man and hero depicted in the dime novel she is
reading.
When everything you fought for was stripped away, even your honor, what is left to fight for other than revenge?
Branded a “traitor” for more than ten years, scarred by harsh
treatment in an inhumane prisoner of war camp, A.J. Adams wants revenge.
Allison Webster’s arrival into his life provides the bait to destroy
the men who murdered his wife and daughters and kidnapped his little
brother. The men pursuing Allison are the very same men he has sworn to
kill. Falling in love and admitting he might actually be a hero means
surrendering his need for vengeance. Surrender is not part of A.J.’s
battle strategy.
Excerpt:
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A.J. watched her make her way from the boxcar with as much dignity as
it appeared she could muster. The memory of that tiny waist in his
hands and the slightness of her build had startled him. The barrier of
that shapeless dark green sedge skirt vanished the moment his hands
closed around her waist, and he could envision long, lithe limbs. He
didn’t make it a habit to imagine any woman undressed, but this one
knocked every bit of his equilibrium out from under him and he didn’t
have the slightest idea why she did.
When she met his eyes, he’d been taken back. Slender, feathered brows
lifted and eyes the color of melted chocolate widened—widened enough he
was sure she saw all the way into the black abyss that was once his
soul. Bright color flooded her cheeks when he told her to have a seat on
the hay bale. Her slight Georgia drawl, hidden under layers of what
sounded to be years of formal education, knifed into his chest.
He had watched her discreetly tuck several strands of walnut hair
back under that ridiculous hat perched on her head. Realizing he had
been staring at her, A.J. turned his back, letting the rapidly moving
landscape occupy his gaze. She was lovely, he had to admit that. Walnut
hair kissed with warm gold, high cheekbones that curved just enough to
give her an elfin cast, a pert little nose, and the darkest chocolate
eyes he’d ever seen combined into a rather alluring image. It had been a
very long time since he had looked at a woman and not compared her to
Cathy. He had sworn, as he knelt at Cathy’s grave that there would never
be another. Now, a little slip of a thing had gotten in past his
carefully constructed battlements and stirred something in him he could
have sworn an oath to be long dead and buried beneath a live oak in
Kentucky.
She was right, he was no gentleman. Sliding the door shut in her face
hadn’t been the most gentlemanly thing he could have done, but he had
long ago given up being anything that might even resemble a gentleman.
He’d given that up sometime during his tenure in a veritable hell on
earth called Camp Infernum. If he’d harbored hopes of regaining anything
that came close to gallantry after watching men fight one another like
animals for a scrap of moldy bread, all hope died on a warm spring
afternoon when he collapsed to his knees at Clayborne at the graves of
his wife and daughters and learned his younger brother had been taken by
a band of roving deserters. A.J. knew his veneer of civility was just
that—a veneer hiding a wounded, dangerous animal.
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About the Author:
Lynda J. Cox will tell anyone who will listen that she was born at
least one hundred and fifty years too late, and most definitely in the
wrong part of the country. She holds a master’s degree in English with a
concentration in creative writing from Indiana State University after
earning her BA from the same university as a non-traditional student.
(Think being old enough to be mom to 90% of the students in her freshman
cadre.) She’s kept busy with two spoiled rotten house cats, a 30 plus
year old Arabian gelding who has been nicknamed “Lazarus” for his
ability in the later years of his life to escape death, and quite a few
champion collies. When she isn’t writing, she can be found on the road,
travelling to the next dog show. She loves to chat about books, the
writing life, and the insanity which is called a “dog show” and can be
reached through her Facebook page.
Connect With The Author:
Giveaway:
Enter to win an ebook copy of Smolder on a Slow Burn! This giveaway will run 12/9/14 – 1/6/15. Open worldwide! Enter through Rafflecopter.
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