Shatter

by Joan Swan

Genre: Romantic Suspense (with paranormal elements)

Heat Level: 3.5/5

Elements/Tags: romance, suspense, paranormal abilities, conspiracy, firefighters,

Publisher: Kensington

Publishing Date: 12/31/13

Series: Phoenix Rising, 4

Format: Print and Ebook

Words: 110k

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For seven years, Halina Beloi has been in hiding. But she’s never forgotten Mitch Foster, the long, lean man she had to leave behind. Until, that is, Mitch shows up with a list of questions and a 9mm in his hand.

All Mitch knows is that Halina broke his heart and disappeared. But new information has surfaced implicating her as a player in the deadliest game of Mitch’s life. This time, he’s not letting go without answers. Now terror, danger and heat will fuse them together or shatter the future. . .

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Excerpt: 

Outside, the cold, wet fog hit them like a wall. Halina tightened her arms around herself and took tentative steps on the concrete in her bare feet, pausing near the building.

People in robes, slippers and pajamas clustered in the parking lot. A ladder truck, lights flashing, parked in front of the hotel. Firefighters in yellow turnouts roamed in different directions.

“Fucking firefighters,” Mitch muttered. “I swear I could go the rest of my life without ever seeing one again.”

Beneath his hand, Halina started to shiver. He tossed his jacket around her shoulders.

“Away from the building, people,” one of the firefighters called, gesturing toward the parking lot. “Come this way.”

“Stay at the back of the crowd,” Mitch said. “Dex is dark and low. No one will notice him.”

Once there, Halina pulled from Mitch’s hold and dropped into a crouch, drawing Dex into a hug. With everyone watching the fire truck—which was doing nothing, along with the milling firefighters . . .fucking waste of taxpayer dollars—no one noticed they had a dog. Last thing Mitch needed was someone complaining about an animal in a non-animal-friendly hotel. Or bitching they hadn’t gotten to bring their dog. Or, worse, wanting to pet the mutt. Any attention was unwanted attention.

Mitch crossed his arms and faced her. “Tell me, Halina. Why?”

She released Dex and pushed to her feet. Her eyes blazed with emotion, but the night had taken its toll, leaving only a ghostly trace of her beauty. Mitch forced himself to ignore the shadows beneath her eyes, the injury across her forehead, her nearly translucent skin. She’d brought this on herself.

“Maybe, if you were a good guy,” she said, her anger showing only in the flare of heat in her gaze, “if you were genuine, if you cared, if you were nice, I’d tell you. But you know what, Mitch? You’ve been nothing but angry and mean. You came here with an agenda, one that was all about you. You don’t give a shit about me. You don’t give a shit what that agenda will cost me.”

She took a breath so deep it raised her shoulders. Mitch’s chest tightened with anger and regret and more of the self-disgust that was becoming far too familiar.

“So you can go to hell not knowing why. I know I hurt you. And you may not believe it, but it hurt me too. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done and I’ve done a shitload of hard things in my life. I told you that night that I was sorry. There’s nothing more I can say than I’m sorry. But that will never be enough for you. And it’s clear nothing about me will ever be enough for you now. You don’t believe anything I say anyway.”

Tears spilled over her lashes and slid down her cheeks. She was shaking. And damn it, Mitch wanted to reach for her, hold her. At the same time he wanted to shake her until the words he needed to hear fell from her mouth.

“Fuck you, Mitch,” she said, voice strong even pushing through a throat clogged with tears.  “You don’t deserve answers from me.”

She didn’t turn and walk away as he expected. She stood her ground and glared at him. Daring him to deny he’d been the worst kind of bastard. To deny he was risking her safety. Her sanity. Her life.

And he couldn’t. She knew he couldn’t. And she knew he’d hate himself because he couldn’t.

Nor could he stand the sight of her tears, and reached out to wipe them. She knocked his hand away in one smooth, practiced move, then turned her back on him—nothing new there—and wandered further into the darkness, Dex beside her.

Mitch heaved a breath and checked on the unfolding events at the front of the hotel, hands stuffed into his pockets. But there were no unfolding events. Nothing was happening. “What the hell are they doing?”

With Dex standing guard over Halina, Mitch approached one of the firefighters. “Sir,” he said, “my wife’s sick. Do you have an ETA of when we’ll be able to go back in?”

“We’re just doing a final check,” he said. “Ten minutes.”

Mitch slogged back through the crowd. Statements like “false alarm” and “someone pulled the box in the lobby” and “getting a lot of different stories” penetrated his troubled mind, escalating into a vague sense of alarm.

A small yelp sounded at the back of the crowd. The sheer wrongness of it sent dread skittering across his chest. He sidestepped a couple and peered through the darkness in the direction Halina had taken Dex.

She was crouched next to a dark shadow on the concrete and her worried voice cut through the night.

“Dex. Dex. God, Dex.”

Dread turned to fear.

“Halina.” He called to her as he jostled through milling people, trying to get her attention off the dog and onto her surroundings. Her head came up and her light, frantic eyes met his, flooded with a plea for help just as another shadow moved.

“Behind you!” Fear burst at the center of his body and Mitch pushed into a sprint, drawing his gun. But she was too far away. The man behind her, dressed in a black jacket and black pants, slammed a fist to her arm.

Halina turned, grabbed his wrist and pushed to her feet. She struggled for mere seconds before losing strength. Then she went limp and fell right into the man’s arms—Abernathy’s arms, torn, scabbed lips and all.

Abernathy whipped Halina over his shoulder and threw her in the backseat of an SUV. A gray Chevy SUV. Mitch’s mind snapped back to the freeway accident. To the car that had made that insane cut across traffic. “Sonofabitch.”

Mitch passed the spot where Halina had been standing and chased the SUV as it fishtailed out of the parking lot. When the vehicle was well out of range, he came to a shaky stop and dragged in air.

He set his stance. “No way, you fucker.” Aimed. “She’s mine.” Fired.

Meet Author Joan Swan:

NY Times and USA Today Bestselling Author Joan Swan writes sexy romantic suspense for Kensington (Phoenix Rising Series) and independently (Covert Affairs Series).  She also works as a sonographer at a top medical facility in San Francisco and lives in magnificent wine country on the central coast of California with her husband and two daughters.

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