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Friday, April 30, 2021

His To Protect Tour and Giveaway

 



His To Protect
by Sharon C. Cooper
Genre: Romantic Suspense


She looked a criminal in the eye...
...and now she's a target.

When Connie Shaw witnesses a bank robbery gone horribly wrong, security specialist Trace Halstead makes himself her personal protection detail. Days and nights together make it impossible for Connie and Trace to resist the attraction burning between them. But Connie doesn’t know which she fears more…the threat from the man who wants to end her life or the love of the man trying to save it.

From Harlequin Romantic Suspense: Danger. Passion. Drama.




“So how are you really?” Trace asked when he finished eating. He leaned back and stretched his arm on the back of the sofa. “Be honest.”

Connie curled her legs beneath her as she thought about his question.

“Honestly, I’m better now that you’re here.”

That lopsided grin that she adored tilted the left corner of his tempting lips. It should be against the law for any man to be so good-looking. The way his full lips curled a little too perfectly and the way his eyes twinkled with mischief, even in the dim lighting, made her heart thump a tad bit faster.

Connie lifted her hand when he started to speak. “Before your head explodes with that big ego of yours, let me finish. You’re a good distraction. Before you arrived, every few minutes my mind drifted back to what took place at the bank. It seems surreal. Even though the incident went by fast, in my head it plays out in slow motion.”

Trace lightly brushed a strand of her hair out of her face. “Did you remember anything else?”

“No. I think I told them everything, except for what I told you about the man’s eyes seeming familiar. Right now, though, I’m just praying Richard will pull through.”

“Yeah, hopefully he will.”

“I can’t help wondering how long it will take for me to put the whole incident behind me.”

“It’ll probably take a while.”

“Is that how it was when you left the navy?” He had done two tours in Afghanistan and spent a few years in Japan, but rarely discussed his military days.

The only sound in the room was the television as the silence between them grew. Connie wasn’t sure if discussing that time in his life was off-limits. But that only made her more curious about his experience.

“It will take a lifetime to forget what I went through…what I experienced and what I saw. Each day that I’m away from the military gets easier, though. But occasionally, someone will say something or something will happen that will trigger a memory.”

“What happens when you’re triggered?” she asked, truly curious.

Again, seconds of silence ticked by without Trace responding. He leaned forward and grabbed his water, guzzling half of it before setting it back on the table. Still he said nothing.

“Want to talk about something else?”

“Yeah, that would be good.”

“Okay, well, I was planning to find another comedy show or movie to watch. I figured laughing would do me good. You interested?”

His left eyebrow lifted skyward. “You already know I’m interested,” he said suggestively.

Connie punched him in the arm. “I’m talking about the show. Nothing else.”

Trace chuckled and reached over her, giving her a whiff of his enticing cologne before he grabbed the remote. “In that case, let’s see what’s on.”

He pulled up the channel guide and scrolled through the list.

“I’mma run to the bathroom real quick. Be right back.” Connie hurried down the hall and once she finished, she went to the kitchen. “I’m grabbing a cookie. Do you—?”

A large boom sounded from outside, and Connie jumped. A second later the lights and television went out. She stood frozen in place as panic bubbled inside of her. Had the robbers found her? Had they cut her power?

Alarm bells sounded off in her head as dread seeped into her body. The house was pitch-black, and a dense silence as thick and heavy as San Francisco fog filled the space. Disoriented, her heart practically pounding out of her chest, she fumbled around the kitchen until she bumped into the counter.

“Tr-Trace?”

“I’m right here,” he said calmly, but his voice still made her jump and she gripped the counter tighter.

“I ca-can’t see you.”

Suddenly, the space was illuminated by his cell-phone flashlight. The room was still dimly lit, but at least she could see him. He moved closer and glided the back of his fingers down her cheek. The tenderness of his touch sent heat coursing through her body like warm honey and almost made her whimper. How could someone so big, strong and powerful also be so sensitive and gentle?

“You all right?” he asked, standing close enough for her to see concern in his eyes.

Connie gave a small laugh as her insides quivered. She wasn’t sure if she was feeling anxious because they’d been plunged into darkness. Or if it was because of his closeness. “I’ve been better,” she said.

Trace moved in even closer and lowered his head. His lips brushed over hers in a soothing manner, and Connie immediately felt more at ease. The kiss was like a whisper over her mouth, but just as powerful, as if he’d slipped her some tongue.

“How do you feel now?” he crooned, still standing close enough for them to kiss again.

A smile spread across Connie’s face. “Better. Much better.”

“Good. Now let’s figure out what’s going on with the lights.”

“Do you think they found me?” Connie asked, but wasn’t sure she was ready for the answer.

“If they had, they probably would’ve revealed themselves by now. Give me your hand.” She grabbed hold tight enough to cause pain, but all he said was, “Let’s look outside.”




Award-winning and bestselling author, Sharon C. Cooper loves anything that involves romance with a happily-ever-after, whether in books, movies, or real life. Sharon writes contemporary romance, as well as romantic suspense and enjoys rainy days, carpet picnics, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She’s been nominated for numerous awards and is the recipient of an Emma Award for Romantic Suspense of the Year 2015 (Truth or Consequences), Emma Award - Interracial Romance of the Year 2015 (All You’ll Ever Need), and BRAB (book club) Award -Breakout Author of the Year 2014. When Sharon is not writing or working, she’s hanging out with her amazing husband, doing volunteer work or reading a good book (a romance of course). To read more about Sharon and her novels, visit www.sharoncooper.net





Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!

$10 Amazon


Summoned Tour and Giveaway

 


Summoned
Magus Malefica - The Coven Series Book 1
by J.P. Jackson
Genre: M/M Paranormal Romance, Dark Urban Fantasy



Devid Khandelwal desperately wants to experience the supernatural. After years of studying everything from crystals to tarot to spellcasting, nothing has happened that would tell him the Shadow Realm is real. And that kills Dev. As a last-ditch resort, he purchases a summoning board, an occult tool that will grant him his ultimate desires.

Cameron Habersham is Dev’s best friend. Cam loves Dev like a brother and will do anything for him, as long as he looks good doing it. So when Dev asks him to perform the summoning board’s ritual, he reluctantly agrees, but he knows nothing will come of it. Nothing ever does.

However, within a day, Dev and Cam’s lives are turned upside down as wishes begin to come true. They discover the existence of a supernatural world beyond their imagination, but peace between the species is tenuous at best.

Dev finally gets to see the Shadow Realm, meets the man of his dreams, and is inducted into the local male coven. But for all the desires that were summoned into existence, Dev soon realizes the magical community dances the line between good and evil, and Cam ends up on the wrong side of everything.
The old adage is true: Be careful what you wish for.



Setup: The main character Dev, and his best friend Cam, have just returned from buying a summoning board. Tucked away in Dev’s room, they are about to use it for the first time.

 

“Honestly, I don’t get what you see in all this stuff.” Cam waved his hand through the air, a flippant gesture meant to dismiss Dev’s impressive occult collection.

Of course, Cam was referring to the contents of Dev’s room. The occult was Dev’s jam. Crystals, runes, tarot decks—you name it, Dev had it. The occult. He had read, studied, and practiced everything from card readings to spirit summoning. But despite his keen interest, admirable level of knowledge, and dedicated study, Dev hadn’t had a single otherworldly encounter or brush with psychic phenomenon.

That killed Dev.

“Shush. You be nice. Otherwise my demons will get you.” Dev chuckled, knowing full well Cam’s interest level focused more on his latest pair of shoes. Dev made a mental note to check for holes in the floorboards.

Dev, on the other hand, would have done anything to be a witch, sorcerer, or seer of the hidden. A pastime his Indian-born mother did not appreciate.

“Devid, why? This is all bad. You need to find a nice girl, get married, have children. I want to be a grandmother.” Dev pictured his mother’s face as her lips mouthed words. He would sit in a state of catatonia while she spouted off such sentiments. Like this morning, at breakfast.

Cam snapped Dev out of his mental wanderings. “Dev, the moment you actually manage to harness a demon and have it do your bidding, I’ll concede to wearing discount clothing.” Cam cocked an eyebrow at Dev, who met his gaze. They both smirked. In no world, anywhere, would Cam ever resort to wearing anything so common.

This was the nature of their relationship. Cam was eternally bitchy, and Dev was perpetually spooky. The dynamic was weird, but the friendship worked for them.

“Come on,” Dev said, pulling Cam’s attention to the task at hand. “Do this with me.”

“What? Bitch, no.”

“Why not? What the hell have you got to lose?”

“Just, you know, for some crazy-ass reason you manage to pull off some kind of beast wrangling, I don’t want to be dragged into the depths of the pit by some shrieking harpy demon. Especially in this outfit. I’m not ready to go to hell looking like this.”

“That’s not a thing, Cam.” Dev shook his head at Cam with a ‘god, you don’t know anything!’ kind of look.

“How the hell would you know?”

“I know. Now get down here.”

“Ugh, all right fine. It’s not like any of this has ever worked before.” Cam slid off the bed and sat opposite Dev on the floor, cross-legged. “What exactly is this thing?”

“A summoning board.”

“Yeah, you’ve said that. What is it, though? Like, what’s it supposed to do?” Cam asked, “And what are all those squiggly things?” Cam pointed toward the script patterning the outside of the board, his finger getting far too close to the board for Dev’s comfort.

“Shh. It’s nothing.” Dev slapped his hand away. “It’s only there to make the board look all gothic and shit.”

“Mmmhmm. K. So…what am I supposed to do? Run around the thing three times and chant ‘Bloody Mary’?” Cam asked.

“Oh my god, you’re such an idiot. It’s for summoning your greatest desires,” Dev instructed.

“Really? So, like, a big monster boyfriend?” Cam winked, cupped his own crotch, gave the bulge a couple of squeezes.

“I just…I can’t with you right now. Is that all you think about?”

“Nope. Bastard better be good-looking too. And rich. It takes money to keep me looking this good.” Cam ran his hands over his designer-clad torso and overpriced jeans.

“I swear to god, I don’t know why I bother with you.”

“Because you love me.”

“Sadly, yes. I do. Why? I have no idea.” Dev got up and rummaged around his room.

“Okay, so what the hell are you doing now?”

“We need things.”

“This is getting complicated.”

“Shush.”

Dev rushed around his room, gathering the trinkets they needed to do their first summons. And as fast as a desperate person would sell their soul to the devil, he returned, handing Cam a marker and three post-it notes.

“And…?”

“Write down three wishes.”

“Damn, are we summoning a genie?”

“It’s called a Djinn, and no, we are not…at least, I don’t think. Why do you make everything a challenge? Write something down.” Dev prodded Cam with the end of his marker.

“Good lord, all right. Fine.”

Cam got busy scratching stuff down. 

Dev on the other hand had already planned exactly what he was going to wish for. 

This was it.

The last straw.

The last time any of this hocus pocus would be attempted.

Dev had promised himself if this didn’t work, he would give all of it up, for good. Dev believed in magic. He would have staked his soul on a bargain with the devil.

So, this was it. And with all the heart-wrenching, utter loneliness and consuming desire for the Shadow Realm to be real, he wrote down his three wishes:

I want to have a supernatural power.

I want to see the Shadow Realm and be part of it.

I want my friends and family to respect me for my knowledge of the occult.

Dev folded the tiny notes in half and tossed them into the copper cauldron he had placed in the center of the board. The instructions on the back of the box were specific. All wishes were to be written on paper, personalized with blood, and placed into the inner ring. Finally, the paper had to be burnt in order to release the energy.

Cam gave Dev his pieces of paper.

“No! Not like that, geez.” Dev tossed them back at Cam.

Cam threw his hands up in the air. “What the hell?”

“Fold them in half like I did and put them in the copper bowl.”

“Fine.” Cam did as instructed. “There, happy?”

“Not quite. Give me your hand.” 

“Why?”

“For the love of…” Dev grabbed Cam’s hand and deftly managed to stab a finger with a thumbtack.

“What the ever-loving fuck, dude?” Cam ripped his hand away and grabbed his finger. A small pinprick of blood welled up to the skin’s surface. He brought the finger up to his mouth.

“Don’t you dare!” Dev pointed at Cam.

Cam stopped and glared at Dev.

“Squeeze your finger so the blood drips onto your papers, but get it in the bowl, don’t get blood on my floor.” Dev pricked his own finger and held his digit over the bowl.

Three drops of blood fell into the copper cauldron. Followed thereafter by three of Cam’s.

Dev lit a match and pitched the flaming splinter into the bowl, pushing the post-it notes around so they caught fire.

“Go open the window,” Dev instructed Cam.

“Your mother will kill you if you burn the house down.”

“Okay, now come read this with me.” Dev gestured for Cam to sit beside him.

“I swear if anything happens…” Cam warned while he rearranged himself next to Dev, inspecting his finger and sucking at the miniscule wound.

“It will. I know it will.”

“You always say that.” Cam rolled his eyes and sighed with exasperation.

“Come on, read this.”

“Ugh, fine.”

And together, they read the incantation off of the instruction sheet that came with the board.

“With passion of heart, I seek to find, those Desires I want. Wishes to be mine.”

“That’s it?” Cam’s head tilted to one side in disbelief.

“That’s it.” Dev shrugged.

They waited for a few heartbeats. Loud ones that thudded against the inside of Dev’s chest.

“Okay, I’m bored now. And my finger hurts. You owe me a macchiato.” Cam grabbed his designer boots and slid them on. “You coming?”

Dev gazed into the cauldron as the last of the papers charred and blackened and tiny wisps of smoke curled up toward him and dissipated.

Nothing had happened.

“Come on,” Dev flinched as Cam threw an arm around his shoulder and squeezed him in a one armed bro hug. “I’ll buy.”

“Yeah, all right.”

As the two left the room, Dev eased the door closed using both hands on the doorknob while silently praying to any god or being who happened to be listening.

“Please hear me,” he whispered.

***

Inside the empty room, behind the closed door, the summoning board’s squiggly writing around the outside edges that was ‘only there to make the board look all gothic and shit’ shifted. As if the doodles and lines were dancing or marching. 

The entire border rotated, widdershins, and the inner ring of the board spun in the opposite directions, changing the symbols.

The wind blew in through the open window and the curtain fluttered in the breeze.




J.P. Jackson is an award-winning author of dark urban fantasy, paranormal, and even paranormal romance stories, but regardless of the genre, they always feature LGBTQ main characters.
J.P. works as an IT analyst in health care during the day, where if cornered he'd confess to casting spells to ensure clinicians actually use the electronic medical charting system he configures and implements.
At night, the writing happens, where demons, witches and shapeshifters congregate around the kitchen table and general chaos ensues. His husband of 22 years has very firmly put his foot down on any further wraith summonings and regularly lines the doorway with iron shavings and salt crystals. Imps are most definitely not house-trainable. Ghosts appear at the most inopportune times, and the Fae are known for regular visits where a glass of wine is exchanged for a good ole story or two. Although the husband doesn't know it, Canela and Jalisco, the two Chihuahuas, are in cahoots with the spell casting.
J.P.'s other hobbies include hybridizing African Violets (thanks to grandma), extensive traveling and believe it or not, knitting.






Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!


$20 Amazon GiftCard - 1 winner
ebook of Summoned – 3 winners!




Cowboys Down Under Tour and Giveaway

 


Smooth Whiskey Whisper
Cowboys Down Under Book 1
by Kay Maree
Genre: Australian Cowboy Contemporary Romance


Cora

I was 5 when I went into the system, and I was the girl that nobody wanted, not even the mother that birthed me.
You break, being passed off from one place to another.
Every couple of months someone else proving to you once again how unlovable you really are. Each move took just a little bit more of me, a little more of my soul. My reason for living became less each time I was sent back to the agency to wait for a new family to take a chance on me. My whole life, my world was carried around in a trash bag, but what people forget to mention is that that bag breaks too never to be repaired again, just replaced with a new one.
You wait for that day that one will tear too just as much as you do, but just like many stuck in the system I was overlooked and pushed aside when I wasn’t needed anymore.

My life was in pieces... My world torn apart once again.
What did I have to lose taking a trip to the country?
Then I met him…
Nash Steel…
Rugged, Sexy and Alpha to the core with piercing grey eyes that have a smoky quality to them that I wouldn't mind getting swept away in.

But will he hold on with both hands and cherish every minute, or throw it all away the minute he gets bored with me?

Decisions... Decisions... Is he worth the risk?


Nash

I was never interested in finding a woman before.
I was happy with the land I shared with my parents, wrangling the cattle and riding my horse, but a few hours with Cora has me wanting to change my whole world to fit her into it.
Smiling, shit is about to change big time and I can’t fucking wait.
Little Miss Cora Hope better get ready to hang on tight because I'm coming for her, and I don’t think I will ever let her go once I wrangle her and brand that ass as mine.

Operation make the girl with the mood ring eyes fall for me commences...





Sassy Daiquiri Kiss
Cowboys Down Under Book 2



Lucy

Ever since I was 16 years old, I have struggled to work out where I belonged in this world.
Then I meet him...
Lucas Knight...
My little heart swooned and to be honest, who’s heart wouldn’t when meeting him?
He was well over six feet tall, muscled, with dark windswept hair and a hard sculptured jaw that could have been made by the gods themselves.
Piercing blue eyes that took the breath right from my lungs as they seemed to zero in on me and my every movement.
He is the one person I know I am meant to spend the rest of my life with.
It’s just a shame he doesn’t feel the same way.

Everyone yearns for the light of the day, the sun signifies the start of a new beginning but deep down I crave when the night comes, the soft glow of the moon as the stars brighten up the velvet night sky brings something inside me alive and all I want to do is throw my head back and howl at the moon.

It’s hard loving someone that thinks your invisible.


Lucas

Lucy Jacobson = End Game.
I’m too old, too dominant for someone like her.
She is innocence coated in Sass...
Her beauty and the light that lives inside her shouldn't be harnessed.

So why the fuck do I want to be the one to capture her and never go?




Kay Maree is a mother and a wife. Born and raised in Newcastle, NSW Australia.
Her passion was to show her children that you are never too old to make your dreams come true.
Which is what lead her to write and publish Angel Mine in 2017.
With support from her family and friends, Kay has managed to accomplish something she never thought she could.
And she just hopes you fall in love with her characters as much as she has.





Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!

$20 Amazon



The Heavy Side Blitz

 


Techno-thriller

Date Published: 11-16-2019



Silicon Valley Tech meets The Cocaine Trade.


Can you program yourself into a winner?

In the San Francisco Bay Area, tech innovation is King, and money is God.

Vik Singh watched his immigrant parents work their fingers to the bone chasing the American Dream. But standing at his father's funeral, he realizes one thing - hustling will get you nowhere. All you need to get rich is one big idea.

And when he meets Los, a small-time drug lord with visions of grandeur, Vik makes a plan worthy of Jobs and Zuckerberg:

Design a drug sale app.

After all, market disruption is everything.

From his comfortable cottage in Lake Tahoe, Vik writes the code that builds a cocaine empire. When his app attracts an infamous drug cartel leader, it seems like a natural expansion move. And for a while, life is Swiss bank accounts, luxe coke parties, and falling in love with Remi, a beautiful and ballsy woman with secrets of her own.

Then he discovers he is being watched.

The DEA is closing in, the cartel is getting suspicious, and he can trust no one. As things heat up, Vik discovers the real price of easy money.

And that price could be his life.


If you're a fan of Breaking Bad, Mr. Robot, and Dark Mirror, this is the book for you. Get your copy right now!


About the Author


Ben Rogers is the author of the novels The Flamer and The Heavy Side. His work has been published in The Rumpus, PANK, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Portland Review, Arroyo Literary Review, The Nevada Review, and Wag's Revue, and has earned the Nevada Arts Council Fellowship and the Sierra Arts Foundation grant. He is also the lead author of Nanotechnology: Understanding Small Systems, the first-ever comprehensive textbook on nanotechnology, and Nanotechnology: The Whole Story, both of which earned the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award from the American Library Association. He studied engineering and journalism in college and has worked as a business analyst, a newspaper reporter, a teacher, and a scientist at various labs, including Oak Ridge National Laboratory and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is currently the Director of Engineering at NevadaNano. He lives in Reno with his family.


Contact Links

Website

Facebook

Goodreads


Purchase Link

Amazon

 

RABT Book Tours & PR

Thursday, April 29, 2021

✱✱Book Review✱✱ Spring Fling Harlequin Series Blog Tour for A PLAN FOR HER FUTURE by Lois Richer

 


A Plan for Her Future

by Lois Richer



One little girl

could give him a second chance at love.

Jack Prinz barely knows how to be a grandfather, much less raise a child by himself. But he has the perfect solution—marry his childhood friend to provide his orphaned granddaughter with the mother figure she needs. Now he has to convince Grace Partridge to accept his loveless proposal. If only sticking to his plan were that simple…


From Harlequin Love Inspired: Uplifting stories of faith, forgiveness and hope.


The Calhoun Cowboys

Book 1: Hoping for a Father
Book 2: Home to Heal
Book 3: Christmas in a Snowstorm
Book 4: A Plan for Her Future


Heartfelt or thrilling, passionate or uplifting—our romances have it all. Visit TryHarlequin.com to sample FREE books from among 12 different series. It’s just a taste of the new books published each month—every story a journey guaranteed to leave you with That Harlequin Feeling.


Momma Says: 4 stars⭐⭐⭐⭐

Such a charming and touching story. As a grandmother myself, I loved the storyline here, especially since most romances revolve around coming-of-age couples. I also liked that Jack is learning a lesson many of us have had to learn as we come to trust in our faith. I know I have, and I still struggle with wanting the answers now rather than later, so this one definitely hit home for me. The book is well written, the couple is one you just want to root for, and I always enjoy when a child is in the mix - particularly when they're done as well as Richer does Lizzie. I thoroughly enjoyed A Plan for Her Future, and while this may be the first book I've read by this author, it won't be the last. 


🞿🞿🞿🞿🞿

Excerpt

Grace Partridge, you look stunning so stop fussing.” Jessica James flipped up the car’s visor, hiding the passenger mirror. “Trust me, with your makeup update, your stunning wardrobe and now that glorious feathered cut, you’re going to be attracting men’s looks the entire three months you’re traveling the world.” 

“Oh.” Grace gulped. Attracting men’s looks— Did she really want that? “Maybe it’s too much...” 

“Out!” Jess laughed as she parked in front of Grace’s tidy bungalow. She leaned across and flicked the door latch so the passenger door swung open. “No more second- guessing yourself. Embrace the new you, best friend of mine. And finish getting ready,” she ordered after glancing at her watch. “The Calhoun boys will soon be here to drive you to catch your flight in Missoula.” 

“Yes, they will. Thanks for being my cheerleader.” Grace hugged Jess, stepped out of her car and then she bent over to ask anxiously, “You will call me before I leave?” 

“Try and stop me.” Jessica sounded amused by her hesitancy.

“Thank you, dear friend. You are so—” 

“I love you, too. Later, kiddo.” With a cheery wave, Jess drove away.”

-

Inside her home, Grace dropped her keys on the dish in the foyer while thinking how much she’d miss Jess these next few months. She hung the new dress she’d just purchased in the closet. What a lot of things she’d bought for this trip. 

Actually, her wardrobe shift wasn’t only for the trip. It was part of Grace’s plan to shed the three D’s: Dumpy, Drab and Dreary. 

Her musing disintegrated at the sound of frantic pounding on her front door. When she pulled it open, her jaw dropped at the sight of a young girl whose face streamed with tears while she danced from one foot to the other. 

“Help,” she pleaded. “My pops is hurt.” 

Taken aback, Grace wondered when that nest of black hair had last seen a comb. 

“Hey! Lady! Help him,” the girl begged. 

“Of course, dear.” Grace snapped into action and grabbed her phone. “Uh, where is your pops?” 

“There.” The child pointed. 

Grace gasped at the sight of a silver-templed man in a battered black leather jacket, lying sprawled on the street in front of an expensive-looking black car. She dialed 911 before racing outside and down her sidewalk toward the victim. 

“I didn’t see him, Grace,” her elderly neighbor Mrs. Fothergill wailed as she stood by her car. “When I started backing up, he wasn’t there. Then he was and my foot slipped on the gas pedal. Please help him.” 

“I’ll try, Mrs. Fothergill. I’m reporting an accident.” Grace focused on the operator and gave her address. “A man’s been hit by a car. We need the ambulance and police. Hold on while I try to find out more about his condition.” 

Grace knelt by the man. He was unconscious. She pressed her fingers against his neck for a pulse. With his head half-buried under his arm she couldn’t get a good look at his face. She was afraid to move him lest there were nonvisible injuries. 

“Oh, Lord, help us,” Mrs. Fothergill chanted repeatedly. Distracted by the feeble woman’s agitation, Grace suggested she sit in her car and wait for help. 

“Please, do something for Pops,” the little girl implored her. 

“I’m doing my best, dear.” Grace studied her watch. “He has a pulse,” she told the operator. “It’s a bit fast. Yes, I do have first-aid knowledge, but I don’t want to move him because his leg is at a strange angle. Also, there’s a large bruise forming above his left eyebrow. I believe he hit his head when he fell so he may be concussed.” She turned to the child. “Does your grandfather take medication?” 

“He already took it,” the girl explained. “I dunno if he’s s’posed to take more.” 

Grace relayed that information and the name of the pre- scription on the vial she withdrew from the pocket of the leather jacket. The name suddenly registered. 

“Jack?” she gasped in utter consternation. 

The man moaned and moved his arm slightly, revealing his face. Grace gaped as her breath whooshed out. 

He’d aged. His face was thinner, more angled, rendering him more rakish-looking than ever. But it was Jack. The operator demanded to know what was going on. 

“The victim’s name is Jack Prinz,” Grace explained after licking her dry lips and finding her voice. “He’s fifty-three. Not from Sunshine. Not for many years.” 


🞿🞿🞿🞿🞿

Author Bio

With more than fifty books and millions of copies in print worldwide, Lois Richer continues to write of characters struggling to find God amid their troubled world. Whether from her small prairie town, while crossing oceans or in the midst of the desert, Lois strives to impart hope as well as encourage readers' hunger to know more about the God of whom she writes. 


Author Links

Website: http://www.loisricher.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/128821.Lois_Richer