After a devastating accident, Barret
Atkins has accepted a quiet, solitary existence. His life is turned upside
down, when he finds the badly injured Kansas Smith, left for dead in a case of
mistaken identity. As Kansas begins to recover, Barret must face some deep
scars of his own. When the couple begin to fall for each other, their lives
spin into a revival of past hurts, jealousies, and betrayals, causing Barret to
put a halt to their budding relationship.
Barret’s hesitation causes his best
friend-turned vicious rival, Duncan Craig, to pursue a friendship with Kansas.
Where will this leave Barret? Can they all hold on long enough to escape
Kansas’s attacker, and will they ever conquer their own inner demons intent on
keeping them apart?
Excerpt:
On
Saturday morning, Kansas could wait no longer. She could no longer live under
the same roof with a man she was deeply in love with without telling him how
she felt, and finding out once and for all how he truly felt about her. Now she
stood leaning back against the counter sipping a cup of coffee, her stomach
ached from nerves for what she was about to do.
Most of
the night she was awake rehearsing speeches on the same theme--confessing her
love to Barret. Now all her carefully rehearsed words failed her.
Barret
sat at the kitchen table in t-shirt and jeans, absorbed in the newspaper. A
shadow of a beard emphasized his maleness.
Setting
the cup on the counter, she took the few steps to stand beside the table.
“Barret, why don’t you like me?” she blurted, immediately wishing she could
bite back her words.
Looking
up from his newspaper, his eyebrows slashed together. “Excuse me?”
Confusion
consumed her, and she felt trapped and exposed, hesitant to continue. When he
stood, she wanted to shrink away from him.
“Whatever
gave you the idea that I did not like you?”
The
demanding look in his blue eyes only made the words harder to form. Finally,
she found her voice. “I love you, and you don’t love me,” she finally admitted.
His
shoulders visibly stiffened and the color drained from his face. Obviously, she
caught him off guard. “I...I do love you, Kansas. But...but I don’t love you
like you mean,” he stuttered.
Her heart
sank heavily in her chest. She raised her chin and looked back at him. She had
to know. “What is it about me you don’t like?”
“I like
everything about you, Kansas. No, I love everything about you,” he told her as
he planted his hands firmly on her shoulders causing her to want to crawl out
of her skin and away from his touch. She’d said way too much, and upset their whole stable situation.
Finally,
she looked into his confused eyes. “I’m sorry, Barret. I just couldn’t go on
like this. Just tell me what it is about me that...” her voice trailed off as
she slowly came to terms with the fact that he didn’t love her as a woman.
Lifting
her chin, he forced her to make eye contact with him. “Listen, angel, it’s not
you, you’re absolutely perfect,” he told her,
and smiled a smile she knew was
forced.
“You’re
the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and you’re an amazing person. You can
have any man you want, but I’m not the right man for you,” he said gently.
Continuing to maintain eye contact with him, she decided she wasn’t going
to allow him to get off with such a broad response “Why?” she demanded.
“The
accident changed me, Kansas. I’m not the same man I was before it happened, and
I’m glad for that. You wouldn’t have liked me then. I was an arrogant,
self-absorbed bastard, and now I’m not sure who I am anymore, or what I really want. But I do want you to
know that if things had been different, and I wish they were...”
Finally,
she could take no more. “I got it, Barret,” she said shaking loose of his grip
and turning away.
“It’s
just the hero thing, Kansas. You’ll get over it. You think you love me because
I saved you that horrible day in that swamp. When some time passes, you’ll
realize you’d never be happy with an almost forty year old detective. You would
only resent me for taking you away from your old lifestyle.”
She
whirled to face him, her hands on her hips. “Why you arrogant… You don’t know
me at all!” Finally, she lost the battle not to cry and tears poured freely
down her cheeks. “I thought we were so close, but I guess I was completely off
base about that. I don’t care about money or scars! I only care about you! We
could have been so happy--”
The
doorbell rang cutting off Kansas’s words and she felt some relief that it had
interrupted her intense venting. She felt like such a fool now.
She’d
received the answer she was after.
Unfortunately, it was not the one she wanted to hear.
Buy Links: Amazon Amazon UK Barnes & Noble
Natalie-Nicole Bates
is a book reviewer and author.
Her passions in life
include books and hockey along with Victorian and Edwardian era photography and
antique poison bottles. Natalie contributes her uncharacteristic love of hockey
to being born in Russia.
She currently resides
in the UK where she is working on her next book and adding to her collection of
19th century post-mortem photos.
Natalie-Nicole Bates is giving away a $15.00 Amazon Gift Card during her
tour! For a chance to win please fill out the Rafflecopter below.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
4 comments:
Thank you so much for hosting The Heart of the Hunter at your fabulous blog!
This is s beautiful cover. Love the sprinkling of snow in the background.
my gf wants to read this book
Sounds like a very interesting story, friends who both want the same woman. I love the cover. Thanks for having the giveaway.
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