Detective Isaac Taylor is a broken man. Isolated by his strange abilities and what others perceive as weird behavior, he keeps his head down and excels at his job. But he hears the whispers of his colleagues and family members, and he feels like a freak among them. Then one wrong number phone call changes everything.
Sidney Fairchild is no stranger to danger. She’s a woman on the run, in hiding and existing below the radar. Despite her efforts to stay invisible, she witnesses a crime she knows could get her killed. Then she answers a wrong number phone call that changes her life.
Bound by their undeniable connection, Isaac and Sidney forge a bond stronger than anything either has ever known. But will his psychic abilities save her or lead to their mutual destruction?
The further she drove the worse it got.
Rough-looking run down houses, many of them boarded up and abandoned. A few war-wary souls wearing expressions of despair walked the mean streets.
It was the kind of area that could get a person killed.
Hopelessly lost, Sidney knew she was in the wrong part of town with one glance out the windows at her surroundings. She drove on, dread hardening her stomach like quick-drying concrete.
She had to find a place to turn around and get back on the right road, and fast. The last remnants of daylight were fading and she didn’t want to be caught in this strange, scary neighborhood after dark.
She took the next right, her gaze darting all around.
Pop, pop, pop … pop!
The sound shot through the air.
Sidney jumped and slammed on the breaks. Her body lurched forward and crashed into the seatbelt. Through her windshield, she watched the kneeling man fall over dead in the street. The two guys with guns — perfectly illuminated by her headlights — looked up and stared at her.
Her heart stopped.
Everything around her seemed to freeze.
A perfect moment suspended in time.
One of the men raised his gun in her direction. Her heart exploded into a crazy fast uneven rhythm, hammering at her rib cage like it wanted out.
“Shit! Sidney, get out of here. Get the fuck out of here, now!”
She muttered the panicked words out loud, her brain suddenly remembering how to work again. Throwing the car into reverse, she stomped on the gas, not even stopping to check if there was anyone behind her.
Gunfire slapped her ears.
Instinctively, she ducked her head with the ping of ricocheting bullets.
Tires screeched.
She jerked the wheel, narrowly missing a parked car, and entered the intersection going the wrong way. She yanked on the gear shift and threw the car into drive. Then she floored it, tires squealing as she sped back down the street she had come.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!”
She sped through the streets like a formula one racer, zigging and zagging and weaving and wending.
“Wrong place! Wronger time, Sid. Way to go!”
She glanced up into her rearview mirror and her heart sank at the sight of a large black SUV racing after her.
“No! God, please no!”
She prayed out loud, begging for God to protect her.
Faster!
She had to go faster.
Fear rose up like a monster and gave chase.
She stepped on the gas with all her might and fought to keep the car on the road. The unshed tears stung her eyes, but she couldn’t afford to fall apart right now. She weaved the car in and out of traffic, not giving a thought to other drivers or the police.
Cars honked. People gestured.
She didn’t care that they were flipping her off and yelling obscenities. Staying alive was her only concern.
She took an immediate right, hoping to put more distance between her and the sinister-looking SUV. The sign for I-90 West appeared like a vision.
“Yes. Thank you! Come on, Sid. You can do this.”
She swerved left, narrowly missing a car in the other turn lane. Then she shot across the road, onto the entrance ramp.
When she finally found her way back onto I-90, she stepped on the gas pedal with everything she had. Checking her mirrors every few seconds to look for the evil SUV, she fled downtown Cleveland under the cloak of night and headed back to Rocky River as the sky grew ever darker.
This is what she got for venturing into the mean, unfamiliar city.
Okay, so it wasn’t LA or New York, but it was a city. And she wasn’t exactly sure what she had witnessed back there, but she knew enough to know that she shouldn’t have seen it.
Enough to know she was now in danger.
She’d witnessed a murder, and the men responsible for it had looked dead in her face. That put her in very deep shit and she knew it. But she had to hold it together for a little while longer. She had to get away, and she had to get away clean.
Terror gripped her heart like a pit bull’s jaws clamping tight around torn flesh. She zoomed over the freeway with a lump in her throat.
She hadn’t seen the SUV in several minutes, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still back there. Growing up in a neighborhood ten times worse than the one she was currently fleeing had taught her a few things. She wasn’t stupid. She knew she had to make sure she truly lost the SUV before she went back home. She didn’t relish the idea of leading the killers directly to her front door.
For nearly a solid hour, she drove around aimlessly, taking back road after back road. At one point, she even pulled into a brightly-lit, busy fast food parking lot and sat there for several minutes just watching her surroundings. Watching for any SUVs that might be lurking.
That’s when she realized the wetness of her seat.
“Jesus, Sidney,” she whispered.
She might’ve laughed at the situation if she wasn’t so petrified.
When she was fairly certain no one was following her anymore she circled back, finally picking up State Route 6, and slipped into Rocky River to her own neighborhood. Turning off of Center Ridge Road, she made her way home, still scanning her surroundings. She pulled her car into the garage — something she didn’t normally do.
The automatic garage door came down behind her and she sat clutching the steering wheel for a long time.
“Stop shaking, Sid.” Her own voice sounded hollow and far away. “Take a deep breath and stop shaking.”
She couldn’t move.
The wet panties clung to her hidden places and the urine-soaked denim felt nasty against her skin, but her butt seemed surgically attached to the driver’s seat and she couldn’t make herself move.
“It’s all good, Sid. You lost the SUV. No one followed you home. No one followed you. You’ve got this.”
“Addictive and action-packed from the jump. The very first scene will suck you in and take you on an erratic roller coaster ride of emotions. Buckle up.”
~ Romance Author Tracie Puckett“Finishing the last couple of sentences gave me goosebumps! I cannot wait for book 2!” ~ Words Turn Me On Book Review
“It takes a gifted author to make the unbelievable probable — Lashell Collins is a gifted author.” ~ Romance Author Annie Rose Welch
From the moment he first shook her hand, Detective Isaac Taylor knew that Sidney Fairchild was in danger. Even without the unwanted psychic powers he sensed it, and he has kept her safe at his side ever since. Through car explosions, police protective custody and numerous attempts on her life, he's kept her alive. But now the danger is personal, and it grows closer every day.
Sidney doesn't know how much more she can take. Escaping a ruthless drug lord was bad enough, but facing the man who forced her into hiding is a whole new kind of terror. A terror she knows can cost her everything – including her sizzling new romance with protective, sexy Detective Ike Taylor.
Desperate to hold on to the love they've found, Isaac and Sidney will both have to face their greatest fear to keep it. But with time running out and the body count rising, can Isaac learn to harness his abilities in time to save her?
💕 To be released May 15, 2020 💕
When she's not busy tapping away on her laptop and living vicariously through her characters, she can usually be found watching Grimm, rocking out to Slash, stuffing her face full of Chinese food, or riding on the back of her husband's Harley-Davidson. Between her book characters and the ones she knows in real life, her plate stays pretty full. But she loves to hear from readers, so give her a shout sometime!
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Bianca is so not into this scene. Band worship is her sister’s thing, not hers. But when the sexy and charismatic Jaxon Hawkins comes to her rescue after a concert, Bianca finds herself doing things she never would have dreamed in a million years. It’s nuts as far as she’s concerned. It’s complete madness. It’s extreme folly, indeed!
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Thank you so much for posting about my books!
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ReplyDeletelove the cover and it sounds like a great read
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