A young woman stricken by grief after the death of her beloved mother moves into a secluded cabin by the lake, looking for peace and quiet, only to discover that she is not only sharing the lake with a rowdy neighbour, but the lake is also believed to be haunted by the ghost of the man who was murdered there… A spine-tingling, intricately plotted new Romantic Thriller in Kristen Ashley’s Misted Pines series is out this week, and I have an awesome little sneak peek for you.
Excerpt
“Excuse me, Mr. Hell’s Angel,” I snapped. “Crawl forward from where it appears you live in the roaring, anything-goes, good-times seventies to today and tell me, what woman in her right mind would walk alone into a rowdy party in the middle of nowhere to ask a man to keep it down? In short, are you insane? And that doesn’t even account for the fact I shouldn’t have to.”
“I’m not in an MC.”
My head jerked at this confusing announcement.
“What?” I asked.
“I got a bike, but I’m not in an MC.”
“A what?”
“An MC.” When I was obviously looking as confused as I actually still was, he educated me. “A motorcycle club.”
“Oh,” I mumbled then shook my hair to get myself mentally back on track.
But this time, I didn’t miss how his gaze went right to my hair.
I put that in my pocket to forget about and wash until it was nothing but fluff and carried on.
“My point still stands.”
“You called me Mr. Hell’s Angel.”
I twisted at the waist and looked pointedly at the mess in his party area.
When I went back to him, he’d leaned out to have his own look, and a smile was flirting with his full lips.
This guy!
“I’m not asking for a lot,” I pointed out.
His attention returned to me. “Really? Because last night was a good fuckin’ time, and it woulda sucked for a lot of people, including me, if I had to kick my friends out at midnight because my neighbor has a stick up her ass.”
“I don’t have a stick up my ass,” I said hotly.
His brows rose.
“I don’t!” I declared.
“Babe?” a woman’s voice drifted from the interior of the house. “Get rid of her. She’s a drag.”
I put that in my pocket too. Not only what she said, but her entire existence, though, primarily where she woke up that morning.
“You done?” he asked me.
I was not.
“Listen, it’s very simple. At around midnight, just ask everyone to keep it down, turn the music down and switch it over to Fleetwood Mac or the Eagles or something.”
“No, woman, you listen,” he retorted. “People who live like us do it because we don’t want anyone telling us how to live. If you picked the wrong place to land, that’s on you. Don’t hang your shit on me.”
After delivering that, he did a full body scan of me that was entirely inappropriate considering not only our conversation, but that he had a woman inside he’d clearly had relations with not too long ago (as in, perhaps only hours had elapsed). It lingered on my hips, on my bust area and then on my hair before he locked eyes with me, muttered a cutting, “Nice Birks. Fuck, velvet.”
And then I had to jump out of the way when he stopped holding the storm door open and it whizzed closed.
If that wasn’t enough, he shut the inner door right in my face.
Well!
“What a dick,” I whispered to the door.