We're just over a week away from the release of HONEST INTENTIONS by Kennedy Layne - but we couldn't wait that long! Read the first chapter below and preorder your copy today!
About HONEST INTENTIONS
USA Today Bestselling Author Kennedy Layne continues the Safeguard Series with this fast-paced romantic suspense novel that leads the SSI team on the trail of a serial killer who continually seems to be one step ahead…
Coen Flynn has always done the right thing, even it meant siding against his own family. His sense of justice was what led him to take a job in law enforcement, though his choice of agency was a bit unorthodox. His current assignment was believed to be a simple protection detail. He was never supposed to be identified by his charge, but a murder took priority and changed the course of his mission.
Brettany Lambert’s life is suddenly rocked when she finds the body of a dead friend on the eve of what was supposed to be a special wedding. Now Brettany and Coen are trapped in the middle of a blizzard and their attraction will fuel the heat of temptation. Good intentions always have a way of backfiring, but his desired intent won’t matter if a notorious serial killer can finish what he started.
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Read the first chapter of HONEST INTENTIONS now:
Chapter One
One week ago…
The
shrieking howl of the bitter cold wind pierced through the walls of the tiny
log cabin as it endeavored to find a way inside. The flames of the blazing fire reflected a
thousand tiny flickers on the river rock hearth as it rose through the rafters
and beyond. The view was mesmerizing as
the dancing columns of blue and yellow fluttered briefly in their efforts to
consume enough oxygen.
The crisp night
air finally succeeded in finding an otherwise tiny gap in the roughhewn pine
logs that nevertheless continued their valiant fight to keep Old Man Winter at
bay. The tail ends of each curling spark
were like desperate souls trying to fight for their survival.
The
irony of that useless battle wasn’t lost on her as the fire consumed its fuel.
Brettany Lambert
slowly ran her hands up her arms and over the soft fabric of her chain-knit
sweater in a vain attempt to absorb the warmth emanating only a few feet from
the fire. The electricity had gone out
hours ago, the backup generator had failed to start, and the wind chill had
already dipped well below zero. The
night proved to be long, but she didn’t have to spend it alone.
She shot a glance
toward the window that usually offered her a charming view of Mount Evans, but
all she could see were large, distorted snowflakes battering the windowpane
that Jack Frost had decorated with a whimsical etching of the winter
winds.
Beyond that?
Nothing but
darkness.
The Colorado
mountain range was picturesque in the middle of winter, but it certainly wasn’t
her idea of an idyllic place to host a romantic wedding. Who wanted to say their vows against a
backdrop of a wind chill that was in the double digits? Add on to that the fact that each of the
guests had to use snowmobiles or an arctic cat to reach their destination. That should have clued in the future bride
and groom that a classic Aruba beach wedding would have been much more
appropriate—in addition to being a lot warmer, even during the latter part of
the season. Eighty-two degrees sounded
pretty good right now.
Brett sighed in
resignation as she reached for the scarf she’d strung up over the coatrack
earlier. She personally would have
preferred any Caribbean location, but her proposal had been tossed aside like a
bad penny the moment the wedding planning had begun over a year ago. She usually tried not to dwell over where she
stood on the friendship scale, but at that moment she had been shoved aside
given that certain souls born in the West Elk Mountains of west-central
Colorado were strange breeds anyway. It
was as if exposure to all those dark winter months affected their perception of
what was obvious to everyone else.
The bride had
listened to her maid of honor, despite all the other opposing views. Heidi had thought Louise and Chad marrying
where they met would be romantic, but it turned out to be a total
disaster. The wedding journey had
started off with the incredibly difficult task of finding a heavy winter coat
that would cover a traditional wedding dress.
Unfortunately, the beautifully added layer wasn’t needed by the end of
the rocky passage to wedded bliss.
Chad had decided
the day before the ceremony was the perfect time to bring up old wounds,
unearthing some deep-seated bitterness that had never been completely wiped
clean. Louise had been all but
blindsided as the groom had heatedly declared that the wedding was off,
although most of the still sober guests suspected an alcohol-soaked bachelor
party was to blame. It instantly caused
their family and friends to take sides.
“Complete idiots,”
Brett muttered in fondness, wrapping the cashmere scarf around her neck before
lightly binding the ends together. “Any
Caribbean island would have sufficed.
But no, we had to come to a place that resembles Antarctica.”
She loved them
both dearly and didn’t want either of them to throw away a life together over a
past mistake that had been rehashed over and over again until there was nothing
but ashes. Louise and Chad thrived on
drama, though. It followed them no
matter where they went—even on their wedding getaway to the great white north.
Luckily for them,
all the guests were now stranded on this isolated mountain range until the
storm lifted and permitted everyone to take what snowmobiles and conveyances
there were across the pass to safety. Until
then, it gave Chad and Louise’s family and friends time to try to talk sense
into the two of them…at least those who weren’t in favor of a total and
complete separation.
Had that been
Heidi’s plan all along? She never did
like some of Chad’s friends.
Brett shrugged
into the horribly expensive parka she’d specifically bought for this trip,
ignoring the path her thoughts had taken.
She wasn’t one to judge, and that certainly wouldn’t help the situation
now that everything had blown over, so to speak. The bottom line was that she could either
stay out here in this tiny, frosty cabin she’d been assigned to for the whole
weekend and go stir crazy, or she could join the others up at the lodge and see
if the massive hoard of proffered nuptial booze was still available.
It wasn’t that the
main inn was some kind of colossal log structure that could fit hundreds of
guests. It was much more of a larger
cabin…maybe triple in size as the one she was currently staying in with a large
kitchen to host the twelve or so guests occupying the camp. It also helped that the lodge had a larger
generator that worked even at these temperatures.
Brett checked
herself over one more time, taking in her winter jacket, scarf, gloves, and
waterproofed Ugg boots. She had somehow
drawn the shortest straw without even realizing it when she’d been assigned the
cabin farthest from the lodge.
Suddenly, the
scene from Jurassic Park popped into
her head when the actors drew lots to see who would race those velociraptors
through the utility tunnels to turn the power back on to the contaminated
pens.
She honestly
hadn’t minded the distance in the least, until the storm had hit. Watching the groundskeeper string rope from
each cabin had put the dangers of such extreme weather into serious
perspective.
Brett finally
gathered the courage to crack open the hatch.
The wind was
stronger than she had expected. She
barely maintained her hold on the side of the door as a strong gust tried to
rip the wood from her fingers. The
snowfall didn’t feel like the normal white fluffy flakes collecting on the
ground, but instead like pelting ice crystals trying to penetrate her cheeks
similar to little needles. She pushed
down her gathering irritation that they could all be lying on the beach
somewhere enjoying the trade winds with those umbrella drinks to drown their
disappointment with the cancelled ceremony.
Brett turned away
as she pulled the door closed behind her, not bothering to lock the latch. One, she trusted everyone here not to
snoop. Two, no other sane person not
stupid enough to attend this debacle could possibly be this high up on the
mountain range in this crappy weather.
Three, there was nothing of value that she’d brought with her other than
her laptop anyway. It wasn’t like her computer
was even of any use, considering there wasn’t Wi-Fi or any other type of
cellular service that could be activated to reach the Internet.
This area was as
primitive as it got, which was why a shiver ran up the back of her neck that
had nothing to do with the bitter cold.
God help them should anything happen that would be considered a real
emergency. They were a very long way
from medical rescue help. There would be
no life flight helicopter with this storm, just a whole lot of pain for a very
long time.
Another shriek of
wind jarringly howled as the strong gusts of frigid air traveled through the
ancient pines surrounding the campground.
Had she not been listening to that exact same eerie sound all evening,
she would have thought it was a screaming banshee somewhere off in the distance. It was downright terrifying. Mother Nature at her worst. Brett breathed a little easier as the
screeching wail slowly faded.
She had no choice
but to expose her face to the harsh elements as she looked for the knotted rope
that would guide her toward the lodge.
It occurred to her that the knots were evenly spaced at ten foot
intervals. She reached into her right
pocket and pulled out a small black lithium battery flashlight they had all
been given by the groundskeeper. That
vital contribution alone should have clued her in as to how severe these
conditions could develop from a simple prediction of two to four inches into
something truly monstrous as the system stalled swirling over the top of the
range like a miniature hurricane made up of icy winds.
The meteorologist
had certainly gotten this one wrong.
His ass should be fired.
Brett focused the
beam in the direction of where the rope had been tied off to a small stake in
the ground ahead of her. She had no
trouble locating the line tied to her post on the front porch, though it was rather
difficult to walk against the wind out in the open. At least seven inches of heavy snow had
already dropped with many more expected according to the last radio
transmission she’d heard this morning before the power and the wedding
failed.
Now one of the
children’s songs from Frosty the Snowman
got stuck in her head.
Put one foot in front of the other…
Each step Brett
managed to undertake took effort, but it wasn’t quite so hard with the joyful
melody in her head. She mentally kept
track of her pace, figuring she wasn’t even halfway to the next cabin and even
farther from her intended destination.
That was okay. Her daily runs
kept her in fairly good shape. It was
getting a little hard to breathe, but she chalked it up to the altitude and the
temperature.
“Ahh!”
Brett tried to
catch herself as her boot caught on something solid buried in the snow. Not even her tight grip on the rope could
keep her upright. The cushion of the
thick white blanket did nothing to stop the blunt force of her body hitting the
ground with a muted thud. She landed on
her hands and knees abruptly. The impact
instantly sent her good spirits and the merry little melody packing. It didn’t help that she’d lost her hold on
the tiny flashlight. The item in
question had landed about four feet in front of her.
“Damn it,” Brett
muttered in frustration, instantly lifting both hands in the air as she sat
back on her legs. She tried to shake out
the snow that had stuck itself into the sleeves of her jacket, but it was too
late. “Ugh.”
The cold slush had
already melted against her wrists and was instantly soaked up by the material
of her sweater sleeves. It didn’t help
that the thin denim of her jeans became saturated by the cold moisture around her
knees in spite of her long johns underneath, though her boots were well
insulated and protected her ankles and feet.
There was always a
silver lining, right?
Well, she couldn’t
stay outside in these unforgiving temperatures forever. She quickly reached for
the rope that was now shoulder height above her. She finally caught onto the coarse twine, but
she didn’t stand. Instead, she scooted
forward on her knees and reached out toward the bright light illuminating the
snow like a brilliant beam driving up into the night’s sky.
Wait.
What was on top of
the snow?
Blood?
Brett
instinctively closed her gloved fingers into the palm of her hand. Her mind immediately rejected the grisly word
it had formed, her heart breaking for whatever poor animal had been hurt in
such a harsh winter storm. She couldn’t
stand to think of such an innocent creature suffering in pain.
She tried to look
around, but it was a futile effort.
Had the critter
found shelter, food, and water?
Brett maintained
her hold on the rope as she reached over the splatters of red dots for the
flashlight. She followed the trail with
the beam, easily making out the darker circle that had already melted the snow
underneath.
That was a lot of
blood for an animal.
“Shit,” Brett
muttered, left with a decision that could very well be detrimental to her own
health. She wanted to help whatever
animal was bleeding so profusely, but she didn’t want to put herself in any
danger of getting lost in the winter landscape.
It could be a bunny rabbit or a doe some hunter had wounded that simply
needed a bandage and some shelter in order to recover. Or it could very well be a very large black
bear, in which case she would immediately regret her choice of not leaving well
enough alone. “This is the kind of crap
that gets me into trouble. Nothing like
this would have happened in Aruba.”
Brett’s parents
had to deal with more strays than any other mother and father in their old
neighborhood. She really should have
become a veterinarian, but teaching kids had seemed less daunting than Taming the Shrew, her ode to her
favorite classic author. How wrong she’d
been, but she could ruminate about her life’s choices another time. A wounded animal was somewhere close by, and
she couldn’t leave them to fend for themselves in this crap.
She made a rash
decision to quickly check out how far the trail of blood went with every
intention of turning back once she reached the outer edge of the camp. She wouldn’t venture any farther than the
back clearing the cabins were in. Taking
in how far she’d already walked, Heidi or Martin’s cabin had to be to the right
of her current location. Her search
should be safe enough, if she discounted the fact that she was starting to
shake from exposure to the cold.
The pool of blood
that had soaked into the ground happened to be right underneath one of the
other ropes, so Brett grabbed ahold of the thick twine and cautiously proceeded
to follow the trail. She didn’t want to
inadvertently stumble upon a wounded animal, so she slowed her steps. The critter would almost certainly react in
defense of itself, most likely striking out at her. It wouldn’t do to have them both hurt and
bleeding.
Brett couldn’t
stop her teeth from chattering as the cold moisture from her denim and the
wetness from the sleeves of her sweater started to soak into her skin. It didn’t help that the wind had once again
picked up to a howl, propelling the little needles directly into her face. She blinked several times, unable to stop her
eyes from watering as the forceful gusts refused to relent.
After halting her
progress a couple of times to wipe the tears from her cheeks with the back of
her gloves, she finally managed to find the end of the blood trail. Surprisingly, it was on the doorstep to one
of the cabins. Had someone already taken
whatever it was inside?
She lifted the
flashlight and shined the beam on the assigned number.
Four.
That was Heidi’s
cabin.
Brett surmised
that the animal must have curled up underneath the small awning, but a slow
swipe of the artificial light revealed nothing of interest.
Well, that wasn’t
exactly true.
A splatter of
blood was literally at the threshold of the door.
Had Heidi heard
the injured animal and brought it inside?
“Heidi!” Brett
called out after a couple of knocks on the door. “Heidi, open up!”
No answer.
As a matter of
fact, the wind had died down and the snow appeared to be falling at a slower
pace as the flakes leisurely found their home with the others on the
ground. It had become eerily quiet as
the echo of her voice faded in the clearing.
The smell of
firewood burning drifted through the air from every direction, reminding Brett
that everyone was trying to ride out the storm and stay warm. Had Heidi brought the wounded animal inside
to keep it warm or had she taken it up to the main lodge?
Brett looked over
her shoulder, shifting her hood after she’d released her hold on the rope. She swiped the beam of the flashlight over
the area, though she found no one else around.
That wasn’t surprising. All the
other guests were probably enjoying a late dinner and trying to patch up Chris
and Louise’s relationship so that tomorrow’s ceremony could continue without
further delay.
Brett would knock
one more time, just in case Heidi was still inside. She might need help bringing the little critter
up to the central cabin.
“Heidi?” Brett
called out with a bang of her fist to the frozen wood, certainly not expecting
the door to unlatch and swing open from the simple force of her knock. She instinctively used her shoulder to push
open the entrance upon sensing the heat from inside…only there was no
fire. There was only darkness…and the
distinct smell of copper. “Hello?”
Heidi must have
already left to join the others, leaving her fire to burn itself out. Brett was well aware that leaving a roaring
fire burning in the hearth when no one was present wasn’t the brightest of
ideas, but this campground had no electricity at the moment. The only structure she knew of with a working
generator was the main lodge, but that didn’t help the individual cabins once
the main power to the camp had failed.
It also didn’t
help to extinguish the strong odor of what could only be blood.
Had Heidi been
unable to save the animal, or had she sought help from the others? Brett’s curiosity always got the better of
her, and now was no exception to that rule.
She quickly swiped her arm in one long motion, only wanting to confirm
that the animal hadn’t been left behind.
It took more than a few seconds for the sight before her to penetrate
the deep-seated denial that her mind instantly created.
The gruesome image
trying to form in her mind was of Heidi’s sightless, cloudy, dilated eyes
staring directly into the beam of Brett’s flashlight, but that couldn’t be
right.
Her friend
couldn’t dead.
That wasn’t right.
“Heidi?” Brett
took a step closer because the name falling from her lips came out as nothing
but a whisper as her breath billowed in the air. Heidi wouldn’t be able to hear her. She hadn’t been loud enough to be heard
properly. She cleared her throat and
tried again. “Heidi?”
Brett’s
boot slipped out from under her. She tried to catch her balance, but there was
nothing for her to grab ahold of as she swung her arms wildly and caught
nothing but air. She landed hard on her
side where her hip took the brunt of her body weight. Unfortunately, her flashlight once again
slipped away from her grip and rolled a couple feet away.
Panic had already
started to infuse itself, because there was no way she could accept the scene
which was painted in front of her. This
had to be a horrible joke—a very sick and cruel joke. That didn’t stop the horror of what could
possibly be reality bubble into a scream that never released. Brett was too busy scrambling for the
flashlight and crawling toward the beam that was now directed toward herself.
“What—”
Brett stared in
revulsion at the red, thick coagulating liquid coating her hand. She’d first thought her palms had landed in
the melting snow she’d brought in with her boots, but this…this was all blood.
Heidi’s blood.
“No, no, no,”
Brett chanted over and over as she finally picked up the flashlight and swung
the light back toward Heidi.
Was this real?
Oh, my God!
Heidi’s lips were
parted as if she were silently screaming, while her eyes were trained on something
no one on this earth could possibly see.
Her normally ivory white skin had lost its vibrancy, reminding Brett of
the glue her class used to make arts and crafts. She’d never be able to glue glitter on
construction paper again without recalling this grisly image.
Blue. The color of Heidi’s lips and her discernable
veins were blue.
Her friend was
almost certainly dead.
And the
blood.
There was so much
blood.
Brett swallowed
against the bile in her throat as she attempted to stand without falling. She recognized the need to call for help, but
she couldn’t get her body to agree to move.
No one would hear her anyway.
All she could
manage to do was stare in horror at…death.
Death had come
knocking without a wedding invitation.
Heidi was too young
to have her life cut so short.
Terror unlike
anything Brett had ever experienced settled over her like a cold blanket at the
thought that someone had done this to Heidi.
There had been no wounded animal.
The blood outside had been Heidi’s and someone had brought her inside to
bleed out.
Icy spindles
wrapped themselves around Brett as she finally grasped the understanding that
this hadn’t been an accident.
Someone had done
this to her friend.
Someone had
committed murder so far away from the rest of the world.
And that someone
had to still be here in the campground, trapped by the storm…trapped here with
her.
* *
* *
He hadn’t had time to finish what
he’d started.
Anger morphed into rage, but he had
no outlet.
Not now that the body had been discovered.
That had been taken from him the
moment Brettany Lambert had walked into Heidi’s cabin. He’d been trying to cover the tread of the
boot marks he’d left in the snow when he’d heard a muffled cry, alerting him to
the fact that he hadn’t been alone anymore.
Brettany had walked right by him,
not even realizing she had been arm’s length away from the sharp blade of his
knife. He should have stabbed her then
and there, dropping her in the snow.
Now, he had to watch from afar as the beam
from her flashlight finally faded from his sight as she entered Heidi’s
cabin. He waited in the darkness for the
satisfying scream to carry through the air.
It took longer than he thought it would.
About Kennedy Layne
Kennedy Layne is a USA Today bestselling author. She draws inspiration for her military romantic suspense novels in part from her not-so-secret second life as a wife of a retired Marine Master Sergeant. He doubles as her critique partner, beta reader, and military consultant. They live in the Midwest with their teenage son and menagerie of pets. The loyal dogs and mischievous cats appreciate her writing days as much as she does, usually curled up in front of the fireplace. She loves hearing from readers--find out how to connect with her at www.kennedylayne.com.
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