#someone said “The scent reminds me of old times when gentlemen and women used to retreat to the parlor for after dinner

[aturnoftheearth]

bath and body works description that reads “would have been used by the rich to mask the extreme body odor in the 18th century and perhaps could clear a room today”

[rainy-day-gracie]

Old Friends 7

Hello!! 

This chapter KILLED me. Just get ready. 

More angst and fluff!!

Spencer Reid x Reader

Enjoy :)

Chapter 7: 

Just breathe. In and out. 

That’s what I told myself as I rode the elevator up to the BAU. 

It’s been almost six months since the day I realized I was going to live. Six months since someone I called my friend beat me to a pulp until my ex-boyfriend put a bullet in his brain. 

Riding up the elevator felt so much like my first day starting at the BAU. Except this time, I actually knew these people. And after my former experience, I couldn’t even bring myself to trust any of them anymore, even though I knew they would never try to hurt me. 

I had thought that before also. 

The first person that saw me was Morgan. “Hey, pretty girl is back!” 

A genuine smile fell across my lips. “I couldn’t stand watching baking shows anymore. Figured it was time to get back to work.”

“We’re so happy you’re back, YLN,” JJ said as she patted my arm with a smile. I fought back the flinch reaction I had to her touch. 

“Are you absolutely sure six months is enough time?” I heard Spencer ask from behind me. 

I didn’t even turn around when I answered. “Yes, Spencer, I’m fine.” 

He didn’t look too convinced when he stood next to me. Prentiss smiled when she saw me, and she walked over to stand next to JJ. 

“We may have a surprise for you.” Prentiss gestured for me to follow her to the briefing room.

“Please tell me it’s cake,” I whispered to JJ. She laughed and nodded. 

I realized when I walked in that it was red velvet cake. It was my favorite. 

Now it only reminded me of my blood spilling over Spencer’s hands in that basement. 

My smile never wavered. “You guys are the absolute best.”

I heard the thudding of Garcia’s high heels and I turned around to face her. “Oh my gosh, the beautiful genius woman has returned!”

She ran forward to hug me, and I immediately shrank into myself and took a few steps backwards. She retreated with an embarrassed look on her face, and I quickly tried to comfort her. “Sorry... um, I’m still struggling with touch.”

“No, no, I’m sorry. It’s just a habit.” She looked so sad in that moment that I felt bad about retreating.

“It is very wonderful to see you, Penelope.” I lightly patted her on the arm. 

Hotch and Rossi walked into the room. 

“It is very good to have you back, YLN,” Hotch shook my hand and Rossi kissed both my cheeks, making me smile. 

The day passed slowly, catching up on paperwork. I felt Spencer keep glancing at me, and I finally couldn’t take it anymore. 

“Spencer if you keep looking at me like I’m going to fall apart, I will slap your pretty face so hard.” 

He flushed. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m just telling you that you don’t need to do that. I’m fine.” I could feel the lie in my mouth, and I knew Spencer could see it on my face. 

I am not fine. Not even close. Every time I look in a mirror I see the scars riddled across my body. Whenever I sleep I hear my captor’s voice whispering in my ear. The memories seemed to laugh at me. You may have escaped Barry, but you can’t escape us. 

As five o’clock neared, I was counting the minutes until I could drop the act of the strong survivor. 

My heart sunk as I watched Garcia walk across the hall. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a case!”

Disappointment must’ve been clear as day on my face because Spencer and Morgan pulled me aside before we went into the BAU room. 

“Hey, YLN, I’m sure Hotch would let you sit this one out if you asked.” Morgan looked at me with his concerned dark eyes, and a knot of anger rolled in my stomach. 

“Why do you guys keep acting like I’m some delicate little thing?” I hissed at them. “I’m sick of it!”

“Because you’ve been through more than almost any of us on this team and we all care about you.” Spencer crossed his arms defiantly. “It’s totally acceptable for you to not be completely okay.” 

I rolled my eyes and pushed past them into the BAU room. “I’m fine.”

“No you’re not,” I heard Spencer whisper. 

Garcia pointed to the TV after we all had gotten seated. “You are headed to Nashville, Tennessee, where three women, all unidentified, have been found murdered in different motels. All of the bodies were discovered on a Saturday morning.”

The crime scene photos made me want to vomit. The women were found in the motel room bathtubs, severely tortured and beaten, cause of death being a strong slash across the neck. The bile rose up in my throat, and I swallowed it bitterly. 

“Um, the killer likely met them on Friday night, maybe at a bar or club. That means he’s a charmer, he could get these women into a motel room with him.” I took a deep breath, trying to convince myself that I was okay. At least I added something, so the team won’t catch on to the intense churning in my stomach. 

“Something triggered him to start killing, and now that he’s started he can’t stop. Wheels up in 30, and YLN, come see me for a minute.” 

Shit. That can’t be good.

I stepped into Hotch’s office a few minutes later. “You wanted to see me?”

Hotch looked into my eyes, and I was thankful he was the only one not looking at me like I was going to shatter at any given time. “I’m not sure I want you in the field, YLN.” 

I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. “Excuse me? I passed all my psych evaluations, and I’ve been cleared from two doctors to come back to work.”

“I know.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Hotch huffed a heavy breath. “I’m worried about you being in the field and painful memories coming back. I know from personal experience that can lead to recklessness and impulsive decisions.” 

I raised my eyebrows and laughed bitterly. “You think I won’t keep my cool.” 

“That’s my fear, yes.” 

While turning to walk out of the office, I turned to Hotch. “Painful memories don’t have to come back, Hotch. They’re always there. Surely you can understand that?”

Hotch grabbed his go bag and followed me out. “All too well.”

__

I ended up with Prentiss and Morgan at the Nashville FBI Field Office. After hours of speculation over motive and victimology, we headed to the hotel around 1 AM. 

Dark images filled my head more than usual as I sat in the backseat of the SUV. Morgan and Prentiss didn’t speak as we pulled up to the hotel, the rest of the team had already settled in. 

I pounded on Spencer’s door. I felt bad that it was 3 AM, but I needed to see him, to know he was alive. 

It had been a month since my kidnapping and torture, and I hadn’t slept since. 

He cracked the door open to see me, in my pajamas and messy bed head, standing outside his apartment. Spencer swung the door open wide, letting me in. “What's wrong?”

We sat on his couch, and I cried for the first time in a month. He didn’t say anything, he just held me as I broke down. “Spencer… when he tried to… hurt me, I thought of you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought about all the little things and all the big things that we’ve gone through… I cherished them in that moment because… I really thought I was going to die. And I wanted to be thinking of you when… I finally did die.” 

Spencer just shook his head. “But you didn’t die, YFN. You have to remember that.” 

After five hours of sleep, the call at 6 AM alerted us that they had another body. The team met in the lobby, everyone’s faces looking grim. 

“He’s sped up his time table majorly. Normally he’s only killed on Friday nights. It’s Tuesday.” JJ said in a low voice. 

Hotch huffed a tired breath. “Alright, Reid, YLN, go to the new crime scene. Go and change then head over there as soon as you can. Check to see if anything is new or frantic. We’ll be at the station.”

“Got it.” As I went to go change, a ball formed in the pit of my stomach. How was I supposed to look at the mangled bodies of women when I could’ve just as easily been one of them?

__

When we pulled up to the motel the sun was rising over the horizon. I tried not to get distracted by Spencer’s cute messy bed head and the way he seemed to glow in the sun rise.

We walked into the room, and the scent of blood hit me like a truck. Spencer noticed my hesitation, but didn’t say anything.

The bathtub was nearly full of this woman’s blood, and her black and blue skin stood out against her pale complexion. “Major escalation,” I murmured. As I got a closer look, the more I wanted to run out. “He violated her with the knife this time.”

I turned back to face Spencer and I saw his furrowed eyebrows. He stepped forward to look at the victim’s face. “Up until now he’s chosen seemingly low risk victims, but this woman looks to be a prostitute.”

I sighed, closing my eyes. “He’s getting antsy. He can’t wait for crowded Friday nights anymore, he needed an accessible victim pool that would get in a car with him.”

I couldn’t take the metallic smell of blood in that motel room any longer. After pushing past officers and CSI, I took a deep breath of fresh cold air outside. 

“What do you think this new victimology means for future victims?” Spencer said from behind me. 

“I think… he’s hunting again tonight. And we need to be ready.”

__

The warmth of the coffee cup in my hand soothed me as I staked out in front of Lana’s Motel. It was my idea to stake out all the motels in the geographic profile, and the numbers were so high that we were all on our own in our SUVs. 

About three hours had gone by when I saw a small dark green car pull into the motel extremely quickly. I watched as a man got out and went into the main lobby to get a room. The man came back out and pulled his car into an isolated spot in the parking lot. He grabbed someone from the passenger’s seat and seemed to throw her into one of the motel rooms. 

I listened at the door for some kind of noise, and I dialed Hotch’s number as soon as I heard cries for help. “Hotch, I got him. He’s in Room 14A at Lana’s Motel.”

“Listen to me, do not engage. He is extremely unstable and paranoid. Do not enter the room.” Hotch was almost pleading with me. “Tell me you won’t go in until backup arrives.”

A terrified scream was muffled through the door, and I couldn’t help but think of my own screams echoing in that dark basement. “Hotch, she’s screaming for help. I can’t just leave her.”

“YLN-” Hotch started, and I hung up the phone and kicked the motel door in with my gun drawn. 

A young woman was on her knees, a larger figure holding a knife to her throat behind her. “Please help,” she whispered to me.

“You don’t wanna do this.” I kept my voice even and calm. “I know that you’ve been rejected your entire life, and you're angry about that. I understand. But why throw away your life for…” I jutted my chin out to the terrified woman. “Her?”

He huffed a laugh and he unknowingly slightly lowered the knife. 

I continued with my even voice. “Look at her. Do you really want me to shoot you over some blubbering mess?” The words hurt to say, especially now that I know what it’s like to be her. To be a victim. 

Police lights illuminated the dirty motel room, and he finally made a decision. 

The rest of my team burst in the room as I was cuffing the disgusting killer that I outsmarted. 

__

Hotch was pissed.

“What were you thinking? The risks that you took? This is exactly what I was worried about!” 

I leaned against my SUV, the lecture starting to get tiring after 15 minutes. Hotch was pacing frantically and Spencer was leaning against the car next to me. I’ve never seen either of them this mad before.

“Look Hotch, you can’t look me in the eye and tell me that you wouldn’t have done the exact same thing. The woman was screaming for God’s sake, what was I supposed to do?” 

He didn’t have an answer for me. “Take a walk, YLN.”

I huffed a breath and pushed past Hotch and Spencer to stand by the motel pool, away from everything. 

After a few minutes I felt Spencer stand next to me.

“That was a big risk, YFN.” 

I rolled my eyes.  “Everything we do is a risk. I couldn’t just stand by listening to her scream for help when…” my voice hitched.

Spencer looked me in the eyes. “When what?”

“When I know how it feels.” A rebellious tear rolled down my cheek, and I tried to keep my chin from quivering. 

Spencer lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “When you were taken, I was completely panicking. I just kept thinking about how fast it happened and how I feel like it was my fault. There was a moment when we found you, bleeding in that basement, where I really thought that I would lose you… and it was the worst feeling I’ve ever had. I’m not mad that you ignored Hotch, I’m mad that you don’t even think about risks anymore. You’re not okay, no matter how many times you deny it.” 

“Don’t you think I know that?!” I almost yelled at him. “I know that I’m not okay better than anyone. There’s scars to prove it, so you don’t have to keep reminding me.” Hot angry tears streamed down my cheeks, and Spencer enveloped me in a hug.

“You can’t be alone right now.”

__

Spencer and I both have a taste for the simpler ways of life. As I was sitting in his library of an apartment, he played soft tunes on his keyboard, and we didn’t speak. We sat like that for hours, him playing the piano and me just sitting on his sofa in silence. 

“Spencer, dance with me.” I tugged on Spencer’s arm, trying to get him away from the book he was pouring over. 

“Why?” He closed the book and looked up at me. “We’re in the middle of the MIT library and there’s no music.”

“Because I’m your girlfriend, and we’ve never danced before.” 

Spencer rolled his eyes with a smile. He stood up and wrapped an arm around my waist, and I rested my head on his shoulder, swaying gently. We danced like that until the librarian yelled at us to leave, and she chased us out as we laughed, giddy with love. 

I wrapped my arms around his shoulders from behind. “Dance with me.”

Spencer chuckled as he placed one hand on my arm, the other hand still expertly playing. “Like in college?” 

“Yes.”

He turned around as he stood up, smoothly placing his arm around my waist, holding me like I was the most precious piece of treasure in the world. Scars and all. 

He held our hands out and pressed his nose to mine. We swayed as gently as that night in the MIT library when we were 19. His breath smelled like the strawberry ice cream we had eaten earlier tonight, and I found it simply intoxicating.

There were no words as he pressed his lips to mine. We didn’t need them. 

We had each other memorized. 

@itsarayofsunshine @thesailbells  @squirrellover1967  @softpeteparker @parkeroffline

[ivanoconnorhorrorbooks-blog]

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” Norman Cousins

 Chapter 1

            I stared out the window soaking up the majestic beauty of tall fir trees lining the old road.  The Great Northwest Country provided shade from the mid-afternoon sunlight, blaring down from an unusually cloudless sky. A thick scent of pine filled the car, a smell usually noticed at Christmas time.

           Douglas fir trees. The thought made me smile. It reminded me of watching Twin Peaks with my husband, before things went wrong. I’d been too young to watch the show when it first came out so we caught it just before the new series dropped on Showtime. I’d been taken with the charm, especially after growing up in Washington state.

           Agent Cooper drove down a similar road in the show, heading to an imaginary town to solve a murder. He’d been drawn in by the natural beauty of the area, speaking into his tape recorder to remind himself to ask what they called the trees. I wished I had the same enthusiasm for my surroundings.

           I honestly believed I’d reached the end of my story before it all came crashing down. Married to someone who seemed wonderful. I had just held a fantastic job with people I enjoyed working with. The next stage sat at the horizon, having kids but fortunately, we didn’t quite get there.

           Henry, his friends called him Hank (or Shank during parties with drinking), couldn’t keep his eyes from wandering. I didn’t consider myself perfect by any stretch of the imagination but I never cheated on him. The thought of being with another man hadn’t crossed my mind. Our wedding vows meant something to me, even if he forgot them.

           Hank claimed he still loved me, even the day after I caught him screwing a girl fresh out of high school. He told me how much he cared about me in the same breath he confessed having an affair with  seven different women this past year. When I asked him why he did it, his shocked expression made me laugh despite the situation.

           “They did things you wouldn’t,” Hank replied.

           I had to weigh how much I wanted the gritty details of his wrongdoings against a need to know how I’d failed as a wife. Since the first stage of separation for me involved taking the blame. I didn’t know where this wrong-turn in my life came from. My mother certainly didn’t seem like the type of woman to accept responsibility for something like that.

           It happened all the same.

           “Sexual things?” I asked but immediately shook my head. “No, I don’t want details. I don’t want to know. But you could’ve told me about your fetishes before we took those vows. You could’ve asked some frank questions. Let me know what you wanted to keep satisfied before we joined our lives!”

           Hank didn’t have an answer for me. He just said he still loved me and wanted to make it work. But I didn’t possess enough denial of reality to fall back in his arms. On the contrary, my fighting nature made me stubborn and far more harsh than was probably necessary.

           He deserved it. My thought turned into a mantra, using it whenever I felt soft hearted about the process of the divorce. I seemed to be at loose ends. Where to live, furniture, career, family.  All of it seemed so stable, then suddenly swept away. Hank’s shady activities ruined it all, and starting over from scratch made my head spin.

           So I decided to put things off by visiting my father. I couldn’t call it going home because dad sold the place I grew up in. Ivan Peterson, the best selling horror novelist, no longer lived among the rank and file in some normal neighborhood. No, his work had done very well.

           Two of his short stories were chosen for some terrifying films. Not a big success with the critics but the producers paid dad a fortune for the rights. The result of his success meant he bought a house on Lake Cavanaugh for just under one million. I visited during the house warming and couldn’t believe the step-up in wealth.

           A tiny dock went right into the water from his private part of the beach. The house, a five bedroom oversized cottage, was built with that sort of Northwestern warmth typically reserved for log cabins out in the middle of nowhere. The chimney stonework was modern.  A warm heat always radiated from the heavy steel stove, wood logs stayed piled high.

           This was exactly like what I needed. A chance to recover from the blows life being thrown my way.

           We lost mother several years earlier. Dad stayed quiet about how it happened but she was buried just after I finished nursing school. That had been a rough time, especially when dad started acting more strange about the situation. I had to contact the police to find Mother’s cause of death.

           Which explained why dad didn’t want to talk about it. I knew I could be insensitive at times. During my evaluations as a nurse, it proved to be the biggest criticism. The fact I’d been so blind about how my dad dealt with mom’s death frustrated me. I’d hoped to have been far more observant, especially given my original career plan.

           Long before I diverted my attention to nursing, I went to college for criminal justice. I even graduated from a fantastic school, the University of Puget Sound, and fully intended to join the police right after. Then I met Hank and he absolutely swept me off my feet.

           Hank was charming and sexy, a real gentlemen when we started dating. I couldn’t deny our chemistry. I reserved a spot in the police academy but before I started, I fell hard for him. He’d expressed concern about my chosen career anyway and as things became serious, I swayed to his way of thinking.

           I wasn’t asked out by the boys in high school that often. I didn’t blossom until my first year of college and by then, I’d been so used to being plain, hot was beyond comprehension. Nevertheless, I fell into it easily enough. My natural long blonde hair and slender figure seemed to be noticed more.  Men weren’t hard to come by, not when they were always expressing interest.

           Hank stood apart from other men because he put on a show of how much he admired me. It went beyond physical, at least I thought so. When we started dating, he focused on my intellectual qualities and we really talked. Not the sort of mundane drivel about our days at work or school, but about important topics. World politics, books…it was lovely.

           So after a lifetime of wanting to work in law, I turned my attention to a nursing program. Hank worked in commercial real estate and when I got into the work force, we made a comfortable living together. Marriage followed, a mortgage then infidelity. It was as if Hank had a different checklist to follow.

           Turned out his father fooled around on his mother so maybe the cheating gene could be inherited.

           Being with Hank deadened my natural observation skills, my ability to assess a situation thoughtfully went into hibernation mode. Even after I caught him, it took a couple days to process what happened. Then, it all came back. Razor sharp focus returned as if it had been on vacation somewhere.

             That’s when I found the strength to leave, to give Hank hell for what he’d done and ultimately, bury my feelings of betrayal and love beneath a demeanor of a tough exterior. Crying happened at the beginning. Anger took over. The trip to a cozier part of the world was meant to get my life back to the way I wanted.

           Which meant getting back my original career choice.  I’ve pursued law since I was old enough to talk about jobs.

           I worried about seeing dad again. We hadn’t spent any time together since mom’s passing. He tended to keep our interactions to email and the occasional phone call. After my wedding, I assumed he didn’t approve of Hank but then, paranoia suggested he didn’t approve of me either.

           He never said it verbally, but I believed he didn’t like the fact I walked away from my original dream. He spoke constantly against compromising. How he got along with my mom baffled me because relationships were about give and take. Growing up, they never seemed to argue but they held to old fashioned beliefs.

           That meant any fighting happened behind closed doors. Just stay quiet enough that no one else would be dragged into their affairs. I tried to live by that idea but my passion tended to overcome subtlety. Hank and I got into some pretty loud arguments in our time together, the kind of fights that made the walls vibrate.

           Our neighbors in our first apartment must’ve been thrilled.

           I rounded the bend and the sight of the lake dragged me back to the present. All negativity faded in light of that beautiful landmark, the trees stretched out in all directions, the water rippled with a gentle breeze all presided over by fluffy white clouds far too happy to rain. I felt tears stain my cheeks just then, a second bout of crying I thought might happen.

           I embraced it, letting emotion control me for several minutes. With only the sound of the road as company, I released the ache in my heart. Whether my makeup would survive the encounter was another story, Dad never seemed to notice such things.

           His head lived in the dark clouds of horror stories and terror. Perhaps the events of my life for the past few months would inspire a new tale. The thought didn’t make me particularly happy. Despite an obsession with Hemingway, his writing reflected the Stephen King side of the house.

           I always knew that if I ended up a character in one of dad’s stories, I must’ve done something truly wrong. So far, I’d avoided the grim fate. I hoped to continue the luck going forward. Maybe reconnecting would settle my mind about how the old man felt about me. It seemed a worthy goal as I started a new phase of my life.

 ***

[cathygeha]

REVIEW

A True Cowboy Christmas by Caitlin Crews

Cold River Ranch #1

 Story telling is an art and this author is a talented wordsmith. Her characters have depth with backstories that illuminate. The plotting is tight and flows easily. I smiled and cared and wanted Abby or her grandmother to be my friend. I was able to understand why Gray and his brothers were as they were even though I wished I could have smacked some sense into Gray a time or two and I also understood the insecurities of Abby and her understanding of Gray’s daughter, Becca. I hated the people I was meant to hate and wished them the karma they so justly deserved. I smiled and cared and enjoyed this story even when it was painful. And, I can’t wait to read book two in the series no matter who is going to star in it.

 This book includes: marriage of convenience, unrequited love (till it is), dysfunctional families, small town romance, drama, friendship, awakenings and a whole lot more. I have enjoyed other books by this author but this is my first contemporary romance by her and I have to say that I enjoyed it immensely.

 Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC – This is my honest review.

 4 Stars

ABOUT THE BOOK:

From USA Today bestselling author Caitlin Crews comes A True Cowboy Christmas, the first in a sensational series debut about a cowboy, a farm girl, and the greatest gift of all. . .

Gray Everett has a heart of gold but that doesn’t mean he believes in the magic of Christmas. He’s got plenty else to worry about this holiday season, what with keeping his cattle ranch in the family and out of the hands of hungry real-estate investors looking to make a down-and-dirty deal. That, plus being a parent to his young and motherless daughter, equals a man who will not rest until he achieves his mission. Now, all Gray needs is the help of his lifelong neighbor. . .who happens to have grown into a lovely, spirited woman.

For Abby Douglas, the chance to join forces with Gray is nothing less than a Christmas miracle. Much as the down-to-earth farmer’s daughter has tried to deny it, Abby’s been in love with stern, smoking-hot Gray her whole life. So when Gray proposes a marriage of convenience as a way to combine land—and work together toward a common cause—Abby can’t refuse. But how can she convince Gray that sometimes life offers a man a second chance for a reason. . .and that their growing trust and mutual passion may be leading to true and lasting love?

EXCERPT

  “Why would you try to tell me that chemistry doesn’t matter? Of course it does.”

“I’m not saying it doesn’t matter. But sheer stubborn- ness matters more.” He heard the intensity in his voice, but did nothing to temper it. “If people want to stay married, they do. If they want that marriage to be a good one, they work on it and make it that way. It’s not rocket science. It doesn’t require your online profiles. You don’t need to get matched on your smart phone. You make a commit- ment to someone, then you keep it. It’s as simple and as hard as that.”

He watched in fascination as her hands curled into fists at her sides.

“I appreciate that you have experience being married, and that gives you a platform to make sweeping state- ments,” she said, her voice low, as if she was fighting back her own intensity. “That’s great. But you’re missing that I’m not interested in the state of marriage in a general sense. I’m telling you I am not going to marry someone I have no chemistry with. That has nothing to do with me being stubborn, not stubborn, or insufficiently committed. It’s actually all about the fact that I’m not staggering around in a grief-induced daze, proposing marriage to people I’ve never looked at twice before in my whole life.” That should have annoyed him, because he wasn’t dazed. Amos had been a mean, unhealthy old man. His death hadn’t been a real surprise. Gray wasn’t sure he was

 grieving him so much as the father Amos had never been, and he knew he wasn’t crazy with it. But he couldn’t seem to lose his grin, especially when he moved closer to her.

Because when he did, she lost that scowl. Her eyes went wide, that cute flush brightened up her face again, and she had to tip her head back to look at him. Not as much as some of the other girls he’d dated had, as she’d pointed out. Gray liked that too. He didn’t have to hunker over her.

She was . . . right there.

He had an urge and went with it. He reached over and curled his fingers around her ponytail, then pulled them gently along the length of it.

And figured the chemistry question was answered by the way her breath went shuddery.

But he didn’t end it there.

“If I’m following all this,” he said, his drawl low. Thick. “You don’t actually have any objections. You think we maybe ought to date first. You’re worried we don’t have chemistry. But at the end of the day, you’re not opposed to the idea.”

“It’s crazy. And I’m worried that you’re crazy, in a clin- ical sense.”

“If you agree to marry me, I’ll take you on a date or two. If that’s what you want.” His hand was still tangled in her hair, and he was close enough now that he could catch her scent. Gray breathed deep. She smelled like rosemary. And something that reminded him of the pies she and her grandmother had brought over the day after the funeral, warm and good. Right. “But we can settle the other question right here.”

“What do you mean . . . ?”

Gray didn’t wait. He didn’t answer her question, half stammered out with her hazel eyes so wide they looked like summer gold.

 He used his free hand to cup her cheek, flushed and smooth beneath his palm. Then he bent—only a little, which struck him as unexpectedly hot—to take her mouth with his.

He felt her tremble. And there was something about the way she melted into him as their lips touched, then brushed, as if she was being pulled by some kind of magnetic force he was half certain he could feel himself.

Gray had only meant to kiss her to make a point. The way a gentleman might, not that he’d ever met too many gentlemen out here where the mountains and the land were the only things that mattered.

But Abby’s lips were soft and velvety beneath his. And she made a tiny sound in the back of her throat that he could feel like a flickering flame.

Before he knew it, Gray was angling his head to one side and licking his way into her mouth.

As if he couldn’t help himself.

And everything got hot. Bright. Impossible.

This was Abby Douglas. Abby Douglas. There was something deliciously wrong about it being Abby that made it hotter, wilder.

It rolled in him and made a joke of him imagining he was in control of any of this. Of her.

Of this sudden storm of sensation that would have taken him off his feet, if that didn’t mean he would have had to let go of her.

When the door slapped open, both of his hands were sunk deep into her hair, and Abby was up on her toes, pressed against him, her arms wrapped around his back.

It turned out Gray wasn’t going to have to worry about easing his way into some or other form of eventual chem- istry with the woman he already knew would make him a good rancher’s wife. He was going to have to worry about

 what the hell to do with all this chemistry—so much it was like a lightning storm and he kept getting hit—with a woman he’d never paid the slightest attention to until his father’s funeral.

The fact that the front door had opened penetrated the heat and fog that was swirling around him.

Finally.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

USA Today-bestselling, RITA-nominated, and critically-acclaimed author Caitlin Crews has written more than seventy-five books, including Frenemies, Princess from the Past, A Royal Without Rules, and Undone by the Sultan's Touch. She's won fans with her romance, Harlequin Presents, women's fiction, chick lit, and work-for-hire young adult novels, many of which she writes as Megan Crane (including the dystopian Viking romance Edge series). These days her focus is on contemporary romance in all its forms, from small town heat to international glamour, cowboys to bikers to military men and beyond. She's taught creative writing classes in places like UCLA Extension's prestigious Writers' Program, gives assorted workshops on occasion, and attempts to make use of the MA and PhD in English Literature she received from the University of York in York, England. She currently lives in the Pacific Northwest with a husband who draws comics and animation storyboards, and their menagerie of ridiculous animals.

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