Nikki Kent thought she’d spend her entire life wandering.
And hiding. She’d never wanted to put down roots or even get to know the people
around her with any intimacy—intimacy was risky and she refused to put others
in danger. Until she met Cooper Marquez.
Cooper hadn’t been looking for romance. His days were filled
with a ranch that demanded every ounce of his attention. But from the moment
Nikki set foot on his land, inquiring about a job as a veterinarian, he knew he
wanted more than her help with his ranch.
Despite the sizzling attraction and the hot sex, from their
first meeting something stood between them. A secret with origins in the mystical
and one that had burrowed itself deep within Nikki. She needed to protect
Cooper from her secret, but Cooper would risk everything to keep her safe.
Where to Pre-Order:
All Romance eBooks
Barnes and Noble (pre-order not yet available)
Excerpt:
She
should have left by now.
Nikki Kent
stared out the window at the just-rising sun and knew it was already far too
late to simply vanish without a word. She’d owe explanations, justifications she
really didn’t want to make. But more than that, no sense of urgency pushed her
out the door; she felt no need to sneak out like a thief, no pounding fear of
discovery.
Her mind may
have screamed at her to leave, to get the hell out now before it was too late. Her
heart knew better. She knew she needed to leave, but had never in her life felt
so content in one place.
She’d left
without a word many times before, and from many different places. But this
place was different. Everything about her life now was different. And Nikki
liked that. The ranch spread out before her; the vast terrain of open land that
had originally beckoned her, still enticed her with its untamed beauty.
The sun
back-lighted the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and though she could
barely see the cattle or the quarter horse stables in the pre-dawn
light, she knew precisely where they sat. She knew where every building and
every fence post lay, and loved every inch of the land.
Her love of this
land paled compared to her love for the man sleeping in the bed behind her. Closing
her eyes, she took a deep breath and glanced over her shoulder to where Cooper
slept.
Despite the
dangers of growing attached to one place, Nikki had found more at
the Agua Clara Ranch than just a job. The ranch had needed a vet and Nikki,
funds low and tired of moving, had needed a new job. She’d traveled the country
and found work where she could, from the small family farms that dotted the
northeast to the wine country in Northern California.
Nikki had a
rhythm to her movements: stay one or two months, three at the absolute most,
then leave as unexpectedly as she’d appeared.
No comments:
Post a Comment