It’s RELEASE DAY! Once and Again, Barrett Creek Book 1, from Megyn Ward! Available on Amazon and in Kindle Unlimited.
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Tropes:
Brother’s Best Friend
First Love
Wounded Warrior
Forced Proximity
Found Family
Small Town
Blurb:
Riggs Wheeler was my first everything.
My first crush.
My first kiss.
My first heartbreak.
He was my older brother, Beck’s best friend, and I used to follow them constantly—begging to be included.
Go home, Tagalong. You’re too little to keep up.
That’s what Beck always called me.
Tagalong.
Not Riggs though—he always called me Gem.
I used to think it meant something. Grew up believing that someday he’d open his eyes and see me. Someday, he’d realize that what he’s been looking for has been right in front of him all along. When he joined the military, I panicked because someday wasn’t coming soon enough and if I wanted him to see me before he left, I’d have to make him look at me.
I’d have to tell him how I felt.
What I wanted before it was too late.
When I kissed him that night, he kissed me back.
I thought that meant something too.
I was wrong.
Now Beck lives in LA—a big-time movie star and I’m still little Tagalong. Still trying to keep up. Still looking for a place to belong. Someone to call home.
When Riggs comes back to Barrett it becomes my job to take care of him.
A wounded warrior, he’s so bitter and broken I barely recognize him.
But he still calls me Gem.
Still looks at me like I’m something worth seeing.
Still kisses me like he means it, and maybe, just maybe… that’s enough to heal us both.
EXCERPT:
IT’S BEEN THREE DAYS.
I think.
Three days in the dark, breathing in dust and the smell of blood. Listening
to the muffled sobs and quiet prayers of my brothers. It’s Gallagher. He’s the one
who’s crying, I’m sure of it. He’s green. First tour. Joined the Reserves, straight
out of high school, to help pay for college. He has no business being here. He’s
just a kid. Has a girl back home, waiting for him. They got married two days
before we shipped. He showed me their wedding picture on his phone, standing
in front of some small town courthouse in West Virginia. He’s wearing his dress
blues. She’s wearing a white sundress, a cash and carry bouquet of pink
carnations clutched in her hand. His arm wrapped around her waist like he
means to hold onto her forever. Both of them beaming into the camera like
forever is just the beginning.
I hated him a little when he showed it to me. Hated how happy he looked. I
feel guilty about that now.
The building came down before I could get him out. I guess that makes it
my fault that he’s lying under fifteen thousand pounds of metal and concrete,
crying for his mother.
You’re mama’s not here, Gallagher and Marines don’t cry—so you’re either
gonna shut the fuck up or I’m going to come over there and give you something
to cry about.
Freeman, taking a break from banging a scrap of metal pipe on the section
of duct work she’s pinned under. When she says it, her voice thick with pain and
the terror we’re all feeling, we laugh because she’s full of shit and we all know it.
She’s not going anywhere.
None of us are.
But Gallagher stopped crying.
He stopped praying too.
They all did.
No more crying. No more banging. No more praying.
Now all I can hear are the far off barks of the rescue dogs and the muted
cadence of tense conversation—the Army Corp of Engineers, working out the
best way to get us all out of here without bringing the rest of the building down on
top of us.
And her.
I can still hear her.
I can see her too—at the least the shape of her—lying next to me in the
dark. Feel the warm weight of her pressed against me. Soft breath feathered on
my cheek. Cool fingertips brushing against my forehead.
That’s how I know it’s too late. That I’m never getting out of here. That I’m
dying.
Because this is heaven.
I’m already here.
“Are you real?” I ask, my voice rough. Throat raw and throbbing.
Cool fingers.
Warm breath.
As real as you are, I guess.
“I’m sorry…” I want to reach out to her. Touch her like she’s touching me
but I can’t. Like Freeman, I’m pinned. Flat on my stomach, arm trapped at my
side under something heavy, pressed against my spine. It’s broken. Something’s
not right. I know it because I can’t feel anything but the wrongness of it. There’s
no pain. No pressure. Like my lower half was quicker than the rest of me. Like it
got up and got the fuck out before things got bad.
Cool fingers.
Warm breath.
For what?
“You know what,” I whisper, too ashamed to say it any louder than that.
I really don’t, Riggs. You’ve got a lot to be sorry for, so I’m afraid you’re
gonna have to be specific.
I laugh when she says it, the dry scrape of it digging and gouging into my
throat, because even though she’s right, even though hearing her say it hurts,
her sass is one of the million things I’ve missed about her. One of the million
things I fell in love with.
“I’m sorry I left you,” I answer her honestly, still whispering. “I shouldn’t
have. I regret it.”
You regret it now?
“No…” I wish she would touch me again, just so I can feel something. “I
regretted it the second I did it.”
Good.
I laugh again.
The conversations above me get louder. The barking more frantic. Chunks
of concrete and broken rubble start to shift overhead.
“The second I kissed you, I wanted to do it again,” I confess quietly.
You did. You did kiss me again.
Cool fingers.
Warm breath.
I sigh quietly with relief. I want to tell them to stop.
Stop digging.
Stop trying.
To leave me here.
To leave us alone.
“Not enough. I didn’t kiss you enough.” Ignoring it all, I focus on the dark.
On her. “You were right that day. The day I walked you home.”
You walked me home on lots of days, and I was right more often than not.
I laugh again because I did walk her home on lots of days. Even when she
didn’t know I was there. “That last day. The day down by the river, when you told
me to leave you alone. Threatened to tell Beck what I did if I didn’t…”
Oh… that day.
“Yeah…” Staring at the shape of her, lying next to me, I feel the weight of it.
How much I love her. How much I’ve missed her. How much I wish I’d done it all
differently. Done it better. Been better. “You were right. I was afraid.”
Afraid of me?
“Yes.”
Cool fingers.
Warm breath.
Because loving me felt wrong.
“No,” I confess quietly. “Because it was supposed to and it didn’t.”
Why now, Riggs? Why are you letting me in now?
“I don’t know,” I mumble it, heart pounding out of my chest because saying
it makes me what I’ve always been when it comes to her.
A coward.
A liar.
“Are you happy?” I hope the answer is no. As shitty and wrong as it makes
me, I hope she’s miserable. I hope she’s felt every minute of every year like I
have.
Cool fingers.
Warm breath.
I’m—
“We hear you, Marine,” someone shouts above me. “Keep talking. We’re
coming.”
Light suddenly stabs into my eyes, washing my vision in a blinding field of
bright white.
Robbing me of the dark.
Stealing her away.
Nononononono…
ginreads 