Saturday, July 12, 2014

Excerpt: UNTIL WE FLY by Courtney Cole @Court_Writes

Ex-Army Ranger, Brand Killien, has always been good.

A good friend, a good soldier, a good everything. .

The problem is, good hasn’t gotten him anything but a crushed heart. 

So after licking his wounds, he decides to move on.  And moving on doesn’t include being good anymore.

Bad sounds so much better.

Jaded and detached, Brand is determined to never open himself up to anyone again.  It’s not worth the pain.  Instead, he becomes closed, hardened, aloof.

But then he’s called back home for a family emergency… a family that he is estranged from.  A family that he put out of his mind a long time ago for very good reasons…reasons that involve secrets and pain.  Reasons he tried hard to forget.   

But home is where the heart is, and it just might be where Brand finds his again.

Why?  Because home is where Nora Greene is.  A fiery, red-headed spitfire, Nora is a thing from his past.  A beautiful, feisty thing.  When Brand left, she was away at boarding school.  

But she’s back now.

And she wants Brand, scars and all.


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And don’t miss the other Beautifully Broken books, now available: If You Stay | If You Leave | Before We Fall





Excerpt


Something happened to her.  Something she doesn’t want to talk about, something that she’s scared of, something that involves this William person. 

I’ve seen the fear in her eyes a couple of different times, but she always covers it up.

I’ve seen that kind of fear before, in the eyes of women in Afghanistan.  In the eyes of women who had been beaten and abused and raped.

My stomach clenches at the memory, but also for Nora. 

Someone has hurt her. 

But that someone won’t do it again, not while she’s here on my watch. 

Of that, I am certain.

Resolutely, I make my way back out to the living room and drop into the chair by the windows.  I wait while Nora gets dressed, and ponder our situation the whole time. 

We’re like two prize fighters, circling around a ring, each waiting for the other one to pounce. 

We’ve both got secrets that we don’t want the other to know. 

It’s kind of ironic. 

Nora finally emerges, clad in a t-shirt with no bra and short shorts.  Her nipples poke through the thin material and the corners of her mouth twitch. 

She knows exactly what she’s wearing. 

I smile at her. 

“How was your swim?”

She smiles back. 

Thrust and parry. 

“It was refreshing.  How was watching?”

I hold her gaze and smile again.

“It was refreshing.”

Her grin widens. 

“I forgot to get breakfast stuff for tomorrow. What would you like?”

You.

“Eggs,” I suggest. 

She nods.  “Wise choice. I think I can manage eggs.”

She grabs her purse. 

I lift an eye-brow and glance at her chest again, at the way her bare tits strain against the t-shirt and her nipples poke against the fabric. 

“Don’t you want to put on a bra?”

I somehow manage to keep my voice level.

She grins angelically and leans down to whisper in my ear, her tits pressed against my shoulder.

“No.  I want you thinking about my nipples while I’m gone.  They taste like honey.”

Jesus. 

With that, she saunters away. 

I swallow hard. 

Cold fish. Cold fish. Cold fish.

Cold.

Fucking.

Dead.

Fish.

Somehow, I doubt that even the thoughts of cold dead fish are going to help me this summer.


About the Author


Courtney Cole is a novelist who would eat mythology for breakfast if she could. She has a degree in Business, but has since discovered that corporate America is not nearly as fun to live in as fictional worlds. She loves chocolate and roller coasters and hates waiting and rude people.

Courtney lives in quiet suburbia, close to Lake Michigan, with her real-life Prince Charming, her ornery kids (there is a small chance that they get their orneriness from their mother) and a small domestic zoo.

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