Excerpt: The hero, Dare Logan, is in the midst of a tropical tempest, on
a cruise ship. His ex is on the small tropical island he’s just left.
And he
can’t stand where he is.
From Real Deep
by Susan Saxx, Chapter 13.
The storm was a bitch, approaching
near gale.
Dare leaned into the railing
around the hurricane deck, his fingers white-knuckling the cold metal, the
relentless wind buffeting him and forming his jacket and pants so hard against
his body they were like a second skin.
Freezing. He was so damn cold.
The wall of wind, unyielding.
He sucked in a breath through his
nose, lips clamped together. He’d opened his mouth a moment ago, and airborne
spray and some marine concoction had hurtled in as the torrent of air had
whipped his breath away. No, thanks.
He stared, gaze narrowed, at the
boiling sea. Watched the waves dancing crazily, froth bursting into life then
gone from existence the next second as new sections of briny ocean reared.
Strained to see the island he’d left just a few short hours ago, and made out
the grey shapes of palms in the distance bowing in the ferocious wind.
“A mess.” One of the crewmen
appeared at his side, and he felt strangely comforted by the presence of
another human. “Captain wants everyone inside.”
Dare didn’t answer, just kept his
eyes straight ahead. A thousand possibilities cycling through his mind.
Considering.
The relentless storm. What the
gale force winds were doing to the water. Heaving it, slashing it into sharp
lines that could cut.
How
a bunch of tiny humans could protect themselves on land against Mother Nature’s
evil bitch step sister.
His cellphone dinged, and he
turned, huddled away from the conflagration. He palmed his phone protectively
within the confines of his slicker, checked.
A text from Mack.
Keeping his lower half pressed
against the bulwark, he made his way to a tiny shielded section and ducked
inside. While he could still hear the wind, its effect on him was momentarily
reduced to zero. Except for the cold. He was still so damn cold.
Everywhere.
Inside
and out.
He peered at the screen, drew the
configuration to unlock it and was greeted by Mack’s latest communiqué.
How’s paradise, jerkface?
Mack. Buddy extraordinaire. And
another Jack’s Bay boy.
He’d gone to Mack for help with
increasing his cash flow for some costly and unexpected equipment for the
latest job he’d taken on for his crew. Mack had given him sound advice that had
taken into consideration his current need while barely adding to his mounting
loan. Smart as hell with numbers, dude was. Dare swore he got it by osmosis.
His dad made money in consumer goods and the Stones never lacked for the latest
Pagani roadster or designer vacation.
But it didn’t change who Mack was.
The truth was, whatever he could do to help a buddy, it was done. The guy was
often a pain in innumerable ways and he certainly couldn’t help it if every
woman within ten kilometers of him went ape-shit for his good looks, and
dropped her panties on command. Made him the world’s lousiest wingman.
But if you needed him, it was
done. Without fanfare. Mack didn’t want accolades. Just knowing you were his
buddy seemed to be enough, though he’d never say it or even hint at it. Just a
clipped, brief, “I’ll get back to you” followed by him getting back to you with
what you needed, no embellishment.
All Mack wanted was your
friendship.
And yeah. All the warm pussies.
Which he always got. Damn babe magnet.
He clicked his response. Storm.
A mess. You?
Read that. U safe?
Yeah.
A long pause, where the wind howled
around him, blew past him like a deranged bat out of hell.
But his eyes were fastened to the
screen as his gut wrenched in anticipation. Wait for it, he told himself. And
it came. Bastard.
How is she? Safe?
A sigh expunged from him as
something deep in him pinched razor sharp. I
don’t fucking know would be honest, but he couldn’t—wouldn’t—admit that. It
would cut him into tiny bits that would never heal, bits that, though they were
bleeding, didn’t let him feel. Couldn’t.
Bleeding, yet numb. His new
normal.
He couldn’t very well say Dunno. I blew her off for a job.
His breathing accelerated, and he
forced himself to put the reality out there. He always forced himself to face
the truth, or at least, he tried. He texted the awful acronym.
IDK.
A pause, then the rest of the text
came, damning in its brevity.
WTF?
And the vile taste in his mouth
overwhelmed him and something jolted through him.
Fuck him, fuck Mack. Fuck the
lousy job he needed and Tabby’s medical shit, the mountain of bills. Fuck the
asshole that left his mom after promising her the moon.
Mostly, fuck himself.
He clicked off the cell with a
flourish, was just about to jam it into his inner pocket, when he heard the
querying ding.
“Fuck it. What does he want now?”
We’re
thousands of miles from each other and a few words can still split me open.
Customer. Gotta go. Hang in there bud.
And just like that, dead space
reigned as relief spilled into him, and the cell was cloistered away.
He turned his face back to the
crazy that was in motion all around him, the wildness that he’d had a brief and
somewhat unwelcome respite from him. Stepping into the wind, his clothes
suddenly streaming behind him in weird lines, the harsh air blasted the sudden
moisture from the rims of his eyes.
Damn it all, the internal voice
yelled within him. You need this job.
You need the money. Not just for the
pay. With the connections, you could expand your crew, take on work
internationally. You could be setting yourself up for life. Take great care of
your mom, your sis. Set yourself up for…
The wind suddenly punched him with
a wicked blast he couldn’t have foreseen and he almost let go of the railing.
Almost fell backwards to smash into the iron bulwark behind him.
The question echoed in him, the
punctuation of everything he’d been mulling, that had been roiling around in
his gut.
Set yourself up for…what exactly?
The echoing emptiness inside
clawed at him with ragged strokes. And he no longer had a defense against it
all. And finally…
…felt. With Mother Nature
screaming around him.
As
fucking bad as when she’d first left. When he thought there was supposed to be
oxygen in the air, but somehow he’d fallen into a part of the world where the
parts per billion had been drastically reduced. To a part of the world where
color had been sucked out of the universe, and his own cells were no longer
properly aligned—at least not in the configuration they’d been in before.
Suddenly, they didn’t fit, and everything bumped up against everything, abraded
raw. It hurt just to look at their livingroom, when he’d loved it before, their
clumsy bohemian approach to what they laughing called decorating obvious. To
walk in the park. To order a cup of coffee at the diner, alone.
Nothing made any fucking sense any
more.
And that feeling swirled around
inside him again.
You have a life, the responsible
dude inside him screamed. She left you, a-hole. You had no choice but to claw
your way into a new thing you then called life. Try it on, make it fit. And
some parts of it had been okay, had fit some. Not great, but ok.
But nothing fit in that one part.
It was like the room was barred off, closed, boarded up. The furniture covered
with dust piled on it, frozen in time like that old hag’s room in that
so-called classic he’d been forced to read back in school. Haversham? Something
like that.
And he’d tried to build a new
room, God knew he had. Tried to open it to prospects but it hadn’t felt the
same, had felt like shit and he’d shut that down. Lost himself in taking care
of himself and his crew. His new family. And Ralph. Their mutt.
Ralph, who loved her as he did,
and would go crazy protecting her.
And a thought
flashed into his mind, as a particularly nasty, high wave broke onto the deck,
a few meters away. Crashed into a million dirty jewels, breaking around him,
then gone, as if it had never existed, in the next wild second.
Ralph would eat his nuts if he knew he’d left her on
an island, in a storm.
What the hell was he doing here?
Protecting a business so he could
be…alone? So she could possibly—and terror seized him by the throat—never come
back?
“Enough. I’m done.” He strode off
to find the crewman he’d so roundly ignored a few minutes earlier. Found the
dude, made him talk to him. Was taken to the captain, made his case. Signed the
fucking release for them to let him go on a shifting bar.
If the storm had been any fiercer,
it would have meant the loss of life and limb almost certainly, and he would
have been shut down. But something, somewhere, held for him. Even though all
hell was breaking loose around him, the elements held themselves in stasis,
didn’t wind up further until he was lowered onto the boat and slapping the
cruiser through the rough seas at a demented horsepower, still too slow for
him.
He didn’t know where he’d land.
He’d been advised to go to a cove he’d seen briefly, but he hadn’t really paid
attention and wasn’t really sure quite how to get there. Rocks to watch out
for. Stuff like that.
But hell.
And though an errant monster of a
wave could wash him over and he be lost, and she’d never know he was coming—something in his heart clenched,
yet, incredibly, sang at the same time. All those cells within his ravaged body
came back into alignment.
He was on his way back for his
girl.
Contest!
Today,
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Real Deep:
Sexy Small Town
Military Romance
Real Men #2
by Susan Saxx
Real Men
A new, small town military romance series. Featuring full-length
stories and shorts.
Read the entire series to fall in love with the men of Jack’s Bay!
About Susan
Susan
Saxx writes sexy, unexpected, heartwarming romances. Her
REAL MEN series focuses on a band of Canadian military reservists and the
strong women they fall in love with. Join her mailing list for exclusive teaser
stories and release updates!
This. Is. The. Coolest. Thing. EVER!
I have a writing partner for a couple of series, and I'm just kind of...here. lol I've been writing for a while now, and I think I enjoy it. I could bore you with all the pros and cons of writing, but why? This is fun time for me. So I guess I could tell you what I am working on, right?
Next month, I hope to share a bit more with you about our Victorian Gothic/Steampunk series The Dreadfuls and maybe give you a sneak peek of Darkness Rises.
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