Enjoy the following excerpt for THE LOOK OF LOVE...
Chase almost missed
the flickering light off on the right side of the two-lane country
road. In the past thirty minutes, he hadn’t passed a single car,
because on a night like this, most sane Californians—who didn’t
know the first thing about driving safely in inclement weather—stayed
home.
Knowing better than
to slam on the brakes—he wouldn’t be able to help whomever was
stranded on the side of the road if he ended up stuck in the muddy
ditch right next to them—Chase slowed down enough to see that there
was definitely a vehicle stuck in the ditch.
He turned his
brights on to see better in the pouring rain and realized there was a
person walking along the edge of the road about a hundred yards up
ahead. Obviously hearing his car approach, she turned to face him and
he could see her long wet hair whipping around her shoulders in his
headlights.
Wondering why she
wasn’t just sitting in her car, dry and warm, calling Triple A and
waiting for them to come save her, he pulled over to the edge of his
lane and got out to try and help her. She was shivering as she
watched him approach.
“Are you hurt?”
She covered her
cheek with one hand, but shook her head. “No."
He had to move
closer to hear her over the sound of the water hitting the pavement
in what were rapidly becoming hailstones. Even though he’d turned
his headlights off, as his eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, he
was able to get a better look at her face.
Something inside of
Chase’s chest clenched tight.
Despite the long,
dark hair plastered to her head and chest, regardless of the fact
that looking like a drowned rat wasn’t too far off the
descriptive mark, her beauty stunned him.
In an instant, his
photographer’s eye cataloged her features. Her mouth was a little
too big, her eyes a little too wide-set on her face. She wasn’t
even close to model thin, but given the way her T-shirt and jeans
stuck to her skin, he could see that she wore her lush curves well.
In the dark he couldn’t judge the exact color of her hair, but it
looked like silk, perfectly smooth and straight where it lay over her
breasts.
It wasn’t until
Chase heard her say, “My car is definitely hurt, though,” that he
realized he had completely lost the thread of what he’d come out
here to do.
Knowing he’d been
drinking her in like he was dying of thirst, he worked to recover his
balance. He could already see he’d been right about her car. It
didn’t take a mechanic like his brother, Zach, who owned an auto
shop—more like forty, but Chase had stopped counting years ago—to
see that her shitty hatchback was borderline totaled. Even if the
front bumper wasn’t half smashed to pieces by the white farm fence
she’d slid into, her bald tires weren’t going to get any traction
on the mud. Not tonight, anyway.
If her car had been
in a less precarious situation, he probably would have sent her to
hang out in her car while he took care of getting it unstuck. But
one of her back tires was hanging precariously over the edge of the
ditch.
He jerked his thumb
over his shoulder. “Get in my car. We can wait there for a tow
truck.” He was vaguely aware of his words coming out like an order,
but the hail was starting to sting, damn it. Both of them needed to
get out of the rain before they froze.
But the woman
didn’t move. Instead, she gave him a look that said he was a
complete and utter nut-job.
“I’m not
getting into your car.”
Realizing just how
frightening it must be for a lone woman to end up stuck and alone in
the middle of a dark road, Chase took a step back from her. He had to
speak loudly enough for her to hear him over the hail.
“I’m not going
to attack you. I swear I won’t do anything to hurt you.”
She all but
flinched at the word attack and Chase’s radar started
buzzing. He’d never been a magnet for troubled women, wasn’t the
kind of guy who thrived on fixing wounded birds. But living with two
sisters for so many years meant he could always tell when something
was up.
And something was
definitely up with this woman, beyond the fact that her car was
half-stuck in a muddy ditch.
Wanting to make her
feel safe, he held his hands up. “I swear on my father’s grave,
I’m not going to hurt you. It’s okay to get into my car.” When
she didn’t immediately say no again, he pressed his advantage with,
“I just want to help you.” And he did. More than it made sense to
want to help a stranger. “Please,” he said. “Let me help you.”
She stared at him
for a long moment, hail hammering between them, around them, onto
them. Chase found himself holding his breath, waiting for her
decision. It shouldn’t matter to him what she decided.
But, for some
strange reason, it did.
...Excerpt from THE
LOOK OF LOVE by Bella Andre ©2012.
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1 comment:
Thank you so much for hosting The Sullivans on their gigantic tour across the web! The support of book bloggers has been key in getting my books out there for the world. YOU make a huge difference and, therefore, deserve a huge THANK YOU!
:) Bella
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