We all love our Saturdays and most of us have our routines. Mine is to visit the library and the supermarket, maybe enjoy dinner out. In my latest release Miss Good Samaritan (April 2012, Rebel Ink Press) Robin Cavanaugh’s ordinary Saturday goes awry. After visiting the Laundromat and heading toward her hair appointment, she’s driving along a busy thoroughfare in Tulsa, Oklahoma when she notices a man, dressed in Goth leathers, running hard. He cuts across a grassy area and at the traffic light he jumps into the passenger seat and urges her to drive. Shocked, she does – and notices he’s bleeding heavily from a gunshot wound.
In those moments, her ordinary existence as a librarian changed forever.
Miss Good Samaritan
And you can find Miss Good Samaritan here:
Here’s the official blurb:
Robin Cavanaugh’s ordinary Saturday goes awry when a wounded man leaps
into her car at a traffic light and refuses to go to the hospital. Robin’s
first instinct is to take him to the nearest police station but when he
tells her his name, she realizes he’s a member of her church. He swears
he’s one of the good guys and Robin feels inclined to believe him. So she
takes him home and tends his wounds.
When his condition worsens, she even uses his cell phone to contact what
turns out to be his brother, the local medical doctor. Robin soon learns
that Gray is no criminal but an undercover agent whose life may be in
danger.
As their relationship develops and Gray heals, Robin becomes part of the
action, too. When she gives him her heart and accepts his marriage
proposal, Robin has no idea if he’ll survive his last undercover operation
or not.
I enjoy writing all of my novels and stories but I really had fun writing this one. Tulsa – the setting – is one of my favorite cities around and my daughter loves it so much she wants the family to make a move there. She also is considering attending college in Tulsa. Without giving away any spoilers, Robin and Gray make a road trip during the novel and they visit my hometown of St. Joseph, MO. I will share this – Gray’s Aunt Susie, a minor character in the novel – is based on my late Aunt Susie, one of my favorite aunts. I gave her a cameo because I miss her very much and sometimes long for her laid back, never worried, always calm approach to life.
Here’s a brief excerpt from the novel:
“I can take you to the hospital,” she said. “That’s all I can do. Hang on and we’ll be there in a few minutes, just as soon as I figure out if we’re closer to Hillcrest, OSU, or St. Francis,”
He closed his eyes, shuttered tight against the pain but at her suggestion, he opened them and glared at her.
“No hospital,” he choked. “They report gunshot wounds,”
Disbelief cut through her anxiety so that she spoke without thinking,
“Are you telling me you don’t want to go to the hospital?” He must be insane, Robin thought. He needed immediate medical attention. Those drops of blood she’d noticed were now a stream flowing down the seat and puddled onto the floorboard. “You need to get help – you’re bleeding all over the place.”
His eyes narrowed as he glared at her.
“I know but I can’t go to the hospital. The law requires them to report any gunshot wound and if they do, I’m a dead man. Drive faster. I don’t think they saw what car I got into but they might have.”
“Who saw you?” Robin asked, afraid to hear the answer. The way he’d been running, she figured it must’ve been the police, drug dealers, a gang or maybe organized crime.
“I think maybe the cops did,”
Her attention strayed from the road as Robin wheeled around to stare at him, realizing for the first time that he wore black leather pants, leather jacket, and a black T-shirt. His hands displayed half-leather gloves while studded bracelets circled both wrists. His long hair curled around his neck in back but he kept it close cropped in front. The hair on top must’ve been spiked with gel although it wilted, flat after his run. Robin couldn’t decide if his getup represented a biker look, pUnk, gothic, or what but his fashion statement stretched way outside her comfort zone. He must be a criminal, she thought and in an effort to remain calm, she asked,
“Were the police chasing you?”
Her voice emerged shrill and frantic but he didn’t appear to notice.
“Yeah, they were. They shot me.”
She braked hard and pulled from the road into a discount store parking lot.
“I ‘m sorry about this,” Robin said. “But I need to take you to either the hospital or the police station. I can’t help you if you broke the law.”
Beneath his mussed hair, his sweat-slimed face relaxed and he grinned, looking younger and vulnerable.
“I’m not a criminal and I’m innocent. I promise you I am.”
Robin pulled into a parking space far away from any other vehicle and turned to him, hands shaking, with a major headache in progress.
“Let’s see if I understand,” she said, with slow precision. This impossible scenario couldn’t be happening. Her reputation and record were washday clean. She’d never been written a single traffic ticket and now a fugitive from justice might be bleeding to death in her car. “You were pursued by police officers, they shot you, and you don’t any medical treatment because they’ll report it and then authorities will arrest you.”
“That’s about it.” He sounded serene despite his injury and situation.
Robin wasn’t calm at all, as words tumbled from her mouth. “What am I supposed to do with you? I’m getting my phone out of my purse and calling the police. I can’t do this. I’m a law abiding citizen.”
A dry, harsh sound burst from his mouth and it took more than a minute to realize he was laughing, even though his bleeding increased.
“Go ahead,” he said in a raspy, thin voice. “They’ll charge you with aiding and abetting a fugitive from justice. It might lessen the charges a little because you called but the fact is you’ve picked me up and drove around with me in the car. The old innocent until proven guilty thing doesn’t always apply. If it did, I wouldn’t be bleeding all over your car. I really am innocent.”
He sounded so convincing Robin wanted to believe him but doubt reared up with a powerful surge. Wondering just how she ever got into this mess, Robin sighed and rubbed her forehead as her headache expanded. By now, without this twist of fate, she’d be at Ci Ci’s Curling Iron, relaxed in the beauty chair. Right now she should be getting her hair done, not dealing with a fugitive and a headache pounding like a bass drum in a football homecoming parade, all at the same moment.
What I should do, Lord, she prayed and waited for an answer but no clear one came so she sighed and tried to find some way out of this mess.
“I don’t even know your name.”
Her passenger tried to grin. “I guess you want the real one.”
His nonchalance sent her headache into a new dimension of pain.
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