đź–¤ ON THE BRINK OF BLISS SNEAK PEEK đź–¤
A.L. Jackson has your first look of On the Brink of Bliss, her upcoming grumpy x sunshine, fake marriage, small-town romance!
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The last thing he expected when he found the trespasser bathing in his river was for it to be her…
I suddenly froze when I felt a shift in the air. The hairs lifted at my nape and my pulse increased. Couldn’t shake it, this creeping sense that skittered over me.
Inclining my ear, I listened to the sounds of the forest. The faint rustle of the trees as the breeze blew through and the rush of the river at the bottom of the ravine.
I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was that set me on guard.
But I could feel it.
Something wasn’t right.
Duke’s ears twitched as he listened, and his golden tail went rigid.
“You feel that?” I rumbled low.
Duke gave a little whimper, no question, sensing it, too.
I started to wind through the thick pines again, slower that time as I listened for any movement or sound.
Branches scratched against my arms and my heart rate accelerated. I was always fucking on edge because I never knew who might be coming for me.
This felt different than when I sensed one of those random trespassers hiking on my land.
Anxiety bubbled beneath the surface of my skin, awareness coming on that whoever was out there truly didn’t belong.
Adrenaline squeezed my chest, and I reached back to grip the handle of my gun that was hidden under my shirt and strapped into a holster at my back, not pulling it out but ready.
I never got complacent.
Never took the chance.
I followed in the direction of where the sensation was coming from, and I hopped off the path and weaved through the shrubbery.
Adrenaline pumped through my veins as Duke and I angled through the woods.
I hustled down a steep decline, soles of my boots skidding and digging into the damp, dark earth below.
The sound of the river grew. A loud whoosh of the water as it streamed down from the mountain peaks.
I slowed to a creep when that sense became all-consuming.
My skin prickled.
Someone was there.
Pulling my gun from the holster, I knelt low as I dashed between the cover of trees.
My breaths turned jagged and shallow as I edged up behind the trunk of an ancient oak and peered out through the limbs and leaves at the area that opened to the river.
Here, grass lined the bank, and it had a few of the same boulders that I’d traversed on my way down sporadically sitting along the water’s edge.
Through a break in two of the large rocks, I could see movement.
Someone concealed in the barrier the boulders made.
The flash of flesh.
The fall of long hair draped down a bare back.
What the fuck? Did someone have the audacity to take a swim in my river?
I swallowed down the murder that had been itching in my fingers, and irritation rushed in to take its place as I tucked my gun back into its holster.
This was my sanctuary.
Miles between me and humanity because I no longer possessed any of that.
Teeth gritted, I wound out of the cover of trees and moved toward the intruder, though my footsteps were somehow restricted.
It felt like I was sludging through quicksand.
Like time had been set to slow.
Or maybe it was just set to rewind.
I blinked as I came up around the side of the boulder, sure my mind had to be playing tricks on me. Eyes convincing me of something that wasn’t there. Something that couldn’t be there.
A woman was facing away, wearing underwear that were soaked and nothing else. Long locks of cinnamon hair clung to the slick moisture of her back and shoulders as she lathered a bar of soap over her skin.
A thousand memories impaled me. A cyclone of old joy and demolished dreams and the most gutting sort of shame. All of it crashed together to boil a riot of fury in my blood.
It couldn’t be her.
It couldn’t be.
Like the woman felt the rush of my presence, she whirled around.
That was the moment the cornflower-colored eyes I would never forget widened back at me. So blue they were nearly purple.
Eyes that had always danced with mirth and shyness and vulnerability.
For a moment, I was frozen by them.
Fucking staked to the spot.
Before her name that was nothing but a barb of guilt and rejection fell as a whisper from my tongue.
“Daisy?”
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