Brigid
Roan is a graduate student at the University of Texas. She had no
trouble getting her thesis approved, but finding a Hill Country
motorcycle club willing to give her access to their lifestyle had
started to seem impossible. Then she got a lead. A friend of a friend
had a cousin with ties to The Sons of Sanctuary.
What
she wanted was information to prove a proposition. What she didn’t
want was to fall for one of the members of the club. Especially since
she had set out to prove that motorcycle clubs are organized
according to the same structure as primitive tribal society.
Brash
Fornight was standing in line at the H.E.B. Market when his world
tipped on its axis. While waiting his turn to check out, his gaze had
wandered to the magazine display and settled on the new issue of
“NOW”. The image on the cover, although GQ’d up in an insanely
urbane way, was… him.
After
reading the article, Brash threw some stuff in a duffle and left his
club, The Sons of Sanctuary, with a vague explanation about needing a
couple of days away. He left his Jeep at the Austin airport and
caught a plane for New York, on a mission to find the guy who was
walking around with his face.
Two
brothers, one a player, one a playboy, are on a collision course with
destiny and a woman who thought she won a prize when she was allowed
a look inside the Sons of Sanctuary MC.
“Sir?”
Brash Fornight gradually became aware that someone behind him in the
grocery checkout line was trying to get his attention. “Sir?” He
refocused and glanced behind him. The woman leaning on a cart
overflowing with chip bags and cookie boxes nodded toward the cashier
indicating that it was his turn to move forward. Brash looked her in
the eye and had to give her props. Most people wouldn’t have the
balls to try to herd a guy wearing Sons of Sanctuary MC leather.
The
club employed a woman who cooked and did grocery shopping several
times a week as part of her job description, but Brash didn’t like
to explain his relentless craving for peanuts and he liked being
teased about it even less. He didn’t know whether it was the
Vitamin B or the fat or just because he liked the taste, but he
couldn’t imagine going a day without them.
That’s
how he came to be standing statue still In the grocery checkout line,
being prompted by some woman with more nerve than sense. While he was
waiting, his eyes drifted over the magazine display and settled on
the cover of “NOW”, on the Most Eligible Bachelor edition no
less. The debonair figure staring back was wearing Brash’s own face
and body. He looked different with short hair and a four thousand
dollar suit with the shirt fashionably open at the neckline, but the
similarity was inescapable.
On
impulse he grabbed the magazine and tossed it onto the conveyor belt
with his week’s stash of peanuts.
He
stuffed the bags into the saddlebags of his bike and roared toward
home, nervously tapping his fingers on handlebars at red lights,
riding on shoulders to keep from slowing down. He was anxious to get
to the privacy of his own room and read about Branach St. Germaine.
Two
beers, one jar of peanuts, and one “NOW” article later, Brash was
sitting on the edge of his bed looking at the wall, seeing nothing
but his own heavy thoughts. He pulled out his phone, looked up a
website, and waited on hold for ten minutes to hear the time of the
next flight from Austin to New York.
There
was a flight to Newark in a little over three hours. He looked at his
watch and calculated the time it would take to drive from Dripping
Springs at that time of day. As he booked the flight, he stood up,
walked to the small closet, grabbed a duffel bag, and began shoving
stuff into it. Ten minutes later, he closed his door and locked it,
threw the duffel over his shoulder, and headed straight for the
office downstairs. He dropped the duffel on the hallway floor beside
the closed door and knocked.
“Yeah?”
Brash looked inside, glad that his dad was by himself, and stepped
in. “What’s up?”
“I’m
takin’ personal time, Pop. Gonna be gone for a couple of days.”
“What
the hell is ‘personal time’?”
The
gruffness made Brash smile. “It means I’m not gonna be here if
you call and I’m not tellin’ you why.”
The
Sons of Sanctuary President looked up at Brash, over the top of his
readers, and narrowed his eyes. “You got a secret?”
“Everybody’s
got secrets.”
Brandon
Fornight studied his son for a minute. “True enough. Is it the kind
of secret that could affect this club?”
Brash
shook his head. “Don’t see how.”
“Well,
then. See you… When did you say you’d be back?”
“I
didn’t.”
“Bein’
purposefully vague, are you?”
Brash
grinned. “That’s why they call it personal time. But I expect to
be back Friday.”
“You
gonna have your phone with you?” When Brash nodded, Bran looked
back down at his ledger in a deliberately dismissive gesture. “Well,
get outta here then.”
Brash
parked his bike in the airplane hangar. The structure had already
been on the property when the club had bought it and turned it into a
compound twenty years earlier. They used part of it for vehicle
maintenance and repair and part for parking.
Some
of the guys who were working looked over and shot curious glances his
way when Brash threw his duffel into his pickup and started it up,
but it wasn’t their way to ask questions. The Sons figured that if
somebody wanted you to know something, they’d tell you.
Brash
took a cab to a midtown hotel, wondering all the way why human beings
would choose to live in such a place. As he slid his credit card
across the hotel counter to the agent on duty, he glanced at the
name, Brandon Fornight. It seemed unlikely that it was a coincidence
that that the mysterious look-alike’s first name began with the
same four letters. He ordered room service and pulled out his laptop.
Getting
intel on the guy didn’t take advanced ops. Within an hour Brash
knew where Brannach St. Germaine worked, what kind of car he drove,
what kind of women he dated, who his tailor was, and where he liked
to dine. There was no shortage of photos online, but the one that
grabbed his attention wasn’t one of the many with starlets or
debutantes on his arm. It was the one taken with his arm around his
mother as they were arriving together for some red carpet fundraiser.
Brash had an almost irresistible compulsion to reach up and touch her
face on the screen in front of him.
The
knock on the door signaled that room service had arrived. It cost a
fortune, but looked and tasted like shit. So he closed the computer
and went out for a walk to clear his head and find something edible.
USA
Today Bestselling Author, Victoria Danann, is making her debut into
Contemporary Romance with releases in May and June 2015, after taking
the world of PNR by storm.
Her
Knights of Black Swan series won Best Paranormal Romance Two years in
a Row (2013, 2014). ~Reviewers Choice Awards, The Paranormal Romance
Guild.
Victoria’s
paranormal romances come with uniquely fresh perspectives on
“imaginary” creatures, characters, and themes. She adds a dash of
scifi, a flourish of fantasy, enough humor to make you laugh out
loud, and enough steam to make you squirm in your chair. Her heroines
are independent femmes with flaws and minds of their own whether they
are aliens, witches, demonologists, psychics, past life therapists,
or financial analysts from Dallas. Her heroes are hot and hunky, but
they also have brains, character, and good manners – usually –
whether they be elves, demons, berserkers, werewolves, or vampires.
The
first book of the Knights of Black Swan Paranormal Romance Series, My
Familiar Stranger, was nominated for Best Paranormal Romance of 2012
by both Reviewers’ Choice and Readers’ Choice Awards. All of her
books have opened on the Amazon Best Sellers list and earned Night
Owl Reviews Top Pick
awards.
Many
have appeared on Listopia Book of the Month as #1 across all genres.
For
books published in 2013, Black Swan won three awards.
1.
Best Paranormal Romance Series
2.
Best Paranormal Romance Novel – A SUMMONER’S TALE
3.
Best Vampire~Shifter Novel – MOONLIGHT.
In
2014, Solomon’s Sieve won Best Vampire Novel.
Photo-
If you’re interested in me personally, I am also a classically
trained musician who defected to Classic Rock and that’s my first
love. Yeah. Even more than writing.
This
is Roadhouse, the very best in Classic Rock, taken near The Last
Concert Cafe, Houston Texas, 2011. I was the utility player which
means I played rhythm guitar, keyboards, sang backups and a few
leads.
OMG the guy on the front cover is drop dead gorgeous! :D I can't help myself from going back to look again and again~ :D
ReplyDeletethanks for hosting today!~Tabitha
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