Category Archives: Excerpts

Excerpt of Kill Shot by J D Faver

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Hi Cindy! Thanks so much for hosting me today. I appreciate being invited into your worlds. I write contemporary mysteries and romance. I’m sharing with your readers an excerpt from Kill Shot, one of my recent releases in romantic suspense.

I will be giving a free download of Kill Shot as well as a Bad Girls Need Love Too…tee shirt in a choice of size ( small to extra-large) to one lucky person who leaves a comment.

Kill Shot is a reunion story about two people who grew up in the same neighborhood and were sweethearts through school. But my heroine, Micki Vermillion, decided she wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps and have a career in photography instead of being the stay-at-home wife the hero expected her to be. “Oz” Osmond follows his dream and becomes a cop while Micki is following hers, but when someone shoots the windows out of her car, the first person she calls is Oz. Their reunion is not the smoothest, with both of them being cautious and reluctant to reopen old wounds.

This scene takes place after Micki has been attacked for a second time in her apartment and Oz, her ex-boyfriend, is on the scene with other police and emergency personnel.

Kill Shot excerpt:

 

~*~

“I’m fine,” she said. “Just let me get up.”

Oz loomed over her, his brows drawn together. “You’re not fine. Shut up, lay down and let them examine you.” He looked worried as opposed to angry. He stepped away and an ambulance attendant took her blood pressure while another blinded her by shining a flashlight in her eyes.

Micki stared up at the ceiling in her entryway, following the bright haloes of light echoing off her retinas. “How did you get here? I specifically didn’t call you.”

One of the EMT’s hailed Oz. “I think she’s talking to you, Officer.”

He glowered down at her. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“You told me not to. I didn’t even have a chance to call nine-one-one.”

“I think she’s delirious, sir,” the young EMT said.

Oz grunted. “No, she’s always confusing. One of your neighbors called nine-one-one and dispatch cross-referenced your name to the shooting in the park.” He let out a sigh. “Does it make any difference how I got the call? I’m here now.”

Micki raised her hand to her throbbing head, tentatively touching the area close to her eye. “Ouch! What’s wrong with me?”

“Don’t ever give me a straight line like that.” Oz squatted down to her level. “You have what is referred to as a mouse. A real shiner.”

“A black eye! He hit me. Yes, I remember.” The tissue around her eye was swollen and tender.

“You saw your attacker?”

“Clearly.” She glimpsed movement at the periphery of her vision and swiveled her head. An officer scooped debris off her floor.  “Oh, just look at my apartment,” she wailed. “The computer! He smashed my computer.”

“It’s okay, Micki. It was just a computer.” Oz sounded reasonable, but he had no idea of the enormity of her loss.

“That computer is my business. I use it to print and store picture files.” She struggled to get up, but several pairs of hands restrained her. “Please, I…I have to see.”

Oz nodded and lifted her to her feet. She swayed dizzily for a few moments, reeling from the carousel spinning in her head and from the carnage around her.  Several people, including two uniformed officers were examining the items strewn on the floor.

“My stuff is so trashed,” she wailed. “Oh, noooo! He took the memory card out of the USB port.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Oz tried to hold her steady.

“I left the memory card from my camera in the port to the computer. It holds three hundred shots and it was full. It had the pictures I shot yesterday.”

Oz lowered her onto the gurney. “I was wrong. She’s delirious. Take her to the hospital and don’t let her walk until I have personally come to question her.”

“Oz!”

The EMTs strapped her to the gurney and raised the legs, sending a pounding pain to her head.

“Oz!”

“I can’t hear you. Go with these trained professionals and be nice.”

“My camera! That guy took my camera.”

Oz stopped the gurney. “What camera?”

“He jerked the new camera case off my shoulder. I just rented it. Oh freakin’ great! What else can happen?”

“Don’t ask.” He stared hard into her eyes and rested his hand on her forehead for a moment. “I’ll see you at the hospital.”

The problem with having a big, hunky, alpha-male ex- boyfriend is that he always thinks he knows what’s best for you and that he has the right to impose his views on you. Micki considered the pros and cons of the situation as she was being loaded into the ambulance.

Someone shot at her and now someone had broken into and trashed her apartment. Clearly, the two acts were connected and the shooting wasn’t random as she had hoped.

With the wail of a siren adding another dimension to the pain throbbing in her head, the ambulance transported Micki to Saint Andrew’s Hospital at mid-town, where radiology scanned her head as though it contained hidden treasure.

A haggard-looking young doctor came into her cubicle to examine her. He appeared to have been on duty longer than his allotted shift. A scraggly beard sprouted from his chin and the front of his scrubs had a fresh spatter of something Micki didn’t want to think about.

His smudged glasses had slipped to the end of his nose. He frowned at her over the rims. “It says here I’m not to release you until an Officer Osmond comes to pick you up. Are you under arrest?”

Micki groaned. “I need to go home. Someone broke into my place. Even now, people are tromping all over my stuff.” She was nodding her head, but each movement brought a shower of pain like mini fireworks going off behind her eyes.

The doctor nodded too, giving her a pill to calm her down and another one for pain. He instructed her to continue lying down with an icepack on her bruised face. The cubicle was curtained off from the rest of the ER and before she knew it she’d fallen asleep.

At some point during the time she slept, Oz appeared. She heard his deep voice as he talked to the doctor, although she couldn’t force her eyes to open.

“How did you get her to stay?” Oz asked.

“I gave her something to help her relax.”

“You doped her?” Oz gave a snort of laughter. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

The voices faded and she slept for several hours. When she awoke she’d been transferred to a room. Oz was sitting beside the bed.

“Where am I?” she asked.

“We’re in the observation unit. The doc didn’t want to admit you so he’s just looking at you.”

“What are you doing here?” She struggled to sit up.

A smile tweaked the corners of his mouth. “I’m looking at you too.” He raised the head of the bed with the remote.

She felt groggy and disoriented. “I feel worse than before. What was in the pills he gave me? I didn’t sign any papers for treatment.”

Dark eyes devoured her; challenged her. “I did. I told them you were my wife. Are you going to sue me?”

“Jerk.”

“Good to see you’re back to normal.”

“I need to go home.”

“I’ll take you home.” He pushed the call system and a voice asked what they needed. “She’s awake. Tell the doc to release her.”

Micki folded her arms and glared at Oz. “Do you always get everything you want?”

He shot her a dark glance as he left the cubicle. “Not everything.”

A Nurse Aide entered and helped her find her shoes.

She was forced to ride in a wheel chair to the front entrance where Oz waited for her. It was already dark.

How long was I asleep? What’s happening at my place? She squinted at Oz, still dizzy and lightheaded.

He helped her into the passenger seat and belted her in before silently easing the car into gear.

When they pulled out from under the portico, a light rain was falling. It looked golden in the street lights and made the roads appear black and oily.

Her head throbbed rhythmically in time to the windshield wipers.

Oz drove silently, glancing at her from time to time.

She pulled down the mirror behind the visor and observed her battered image. “Pretty scary.” She touched the bruised area on her cheekbone and the half-circle below her eye. “It looks like I missed with the eye shadow.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“Oh, that makes me feel so much better.” She shut the mirror with a snap. “Hey! This isn’t the way to my place.”

“I said I was taking you home. My home.”

A swarm of butterflies flew formations in her chest. “Oz, I can’t stay at your place.”

He pulled into the underground parking at his apartment and found his assigned space. He switched off the ignition and turned in his seat to face her.

“I’m only going to say this once and I don’t want any argument.” He gazed at her solemnly, letting the effects of his words sink in.

Micki bit back the retort that sprang to mind and nodded her head.

“Someone is after you. He shot at you and he punched you in the face. He ransacked your place and destroyed your property. He took your camera bag. I will not let him get to you again. Got that?”

The significance of his words caused a shiver to run down her spine. She nodded again, feeling like a king-sized bobble head. “But…” She started to protest but he laid a finger on her lips to silence her.

“You’re going to stay with me, because I’m the meanest son-of-a bitch around and I’ll take care of you. I know you don’t want to be taken care of, especially by me, but that’s the way it’s going to be.”

She swallowed the tangle of razor wire at the back of her throat.

Oz held her gaze. His face wore the ‘Take no prisoners’ expression.

She nodded silently and moistened her dry lips.

Oz seized upon her gesture. He gazed at her mouth hungrily before expelling a long breath and getting out of the car. He slammed his door a lot harder than necessary.

Where did he get off ordering her around like a child? She lolled against the headrest as Oz rounded the car and wrenched her door open.

Micki was vaguely aware that the drugs she’d been given were influencing her compliance as she allowed Oz to draw her from the vehicle and tuck her under his arm.

Being smushed against him wasn’t so bad. Her face hurt, her legs were leaden, her head pounded and she was emotionally drained from her trauma-inducing adventures. Yet, it wasn’t so bad having Oz put his arm around her.

She stumbled against him and he swept her up into his arms. Her whole body stiffened for a nanosecond. She had to protest. He was taking too much for granted. She should stop him right here and now.

She sighed and leaned her head on his shoulder. It felt so good to be held, to be borne like a child, like when her daddy had carried her up to her bed. She was excruciatingly tired. A little sleep would be good.

~*~

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Excerpt from CENTAURI MIDNIGHT

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Here is an excerpt from Centauri Midnight.  I will give a copy to one lucky commenter.  Please let me know what you think of the excerpt.

At eight o’clock, he rang the buzzer to Kiti’s quarters.

“Come in.”  He heard as the door slid open.  He stopped.  She was so beautiful tonight.  She seemed to glow.  Her hair was loose, falling straight past her shoulders, nearly to her waist.  He pictured her hair curtaining them as they make love or spread on the pillow behind her afterward.

“Are those for me?” she pointed at the roses he held.

“Yes.  Beautiful flowers for a beautiful lady.”

“Thank you.”  She took the flowers and put them in a vase.  “I’ve ordered some appetizers and,” she said with great fanfare, “I have a bottle of the Royal Danexx family’s special noskberry wine from Audra.”

Her voice forced him out of his fantasy.  “I’m jealous.  She’s never gifted me with one of her precious bottles.”  He smiled wide.  “I’m honored you’d share it with me.”

She’d laid out the appetizers on the small low table in front of the sofa and had opened the wine to let it breathe.

They sat down and she asked “Would you pour?”

Garrick filled the glasses half way and handed her one.  He raised his glass.  “Here is to good friends and a successful mission.”

“To good friends and justice for our departed loved ones,”  she said before
she drained her glass.  “So, what are our plans?”

Garrick sat back on the cool, leather couch, his body angled toward her.  “Once we get to Gregara, I’ll send a landing party point team, to gather Intel on Lord Tybold.  We need to know what he’s been up to these last few months since he fled Anton’s forces.”

She refilled her glass then took a sip of the sweet, fragrant wine.  The berry flavor rested on her tongue and invaded her senses.   “We must determine which tribe Tybold has aligned with and then determine their enemies and allies.  I’ve been studying the research we currently have available.  It appears there are three main tribes on Gregara.  The Nerutas who rule in the north, the Zolthor in the west and the Otula in the east.  The south is mostly deserted, a no man’s land, inhabited by small bands of outlaws.”

“Tell me what you know about each of them,” Garrick said.  “We need to decide which one Tybold is most likely to have approached.  Then we won’t have to recon each tribe.”

“I disagree.  We need to learn as much as possible about each of them in order to know their strengths and weaknesses.  I can give you a better idea about each tribe once I’ve had time to do more research.  Right now, my preliminary information indicates the Nerutas are the most likely to accommodate Tybold. They are the most aggressive of the three and the most warlike.  They would definitely want the weapons Tybold may have to offer.”

“So the Zolthor and the Otula are allies?”

“You’d think so, common enemy and all, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.  Whereas they both will war on Nerutas, they will also go to war with each other if provoked.  Then there are the nomadic desert dwellers, which are at war with no one and act as negotiators when needed.  It’s really a interesting dynamic,” explained Kiti.

“What type of government does each have?  Are they monarchies?”  Garrick munched on some of the fried tingo root and sipped his wine.

“No.  The leadership is earned through combat.  I believe the Zolthor have the best potential for what we need.  They are the most stable of all three of the main tribes.  The current leaders, called the Valmud, have been winning the challenges for the last six generations.  Not only are they smart, but they’ve also brought their people’s technology forward twice as fast at the other two.  They’re the strongest of the three, but also the least likely to accommodate Tybold.”  Kiti warmed to her subject.  She’d done a lot of research and it was all she could do not to jump up and down with the information.

It was so nice to be able to talk to someone again.  Garrick had always been a good listener, she just never realized he was such a handsome listener.  It was almost enough to make her tongue tied.  What she wouldn’t give to be using her tongue on a certain part of his anatomy.  Good grief, Kiti, what has gotten in to you?

“Why do you say that?”  Garrick’s deep baritone brought her out of her reverie and back to the conversation.  If Garrick noticed her lapse he didn’t mention it.

“Everything I’ve read indicates the Zolthorians are an honorable people.  Honor above all.  That wouldn’t fit with Tybold, who as we know has no honor.   Tybold will have tried to gain their trust though.  He can appear to have honor when it suits him and they control the largest of the known kalcion deposits.”

“I knew it was a good idea to bring you with us,” Garrick said with a huge smile.  “Kiti, you’ve provided us with more information than we could have gathered through a month of observation alone.”

“Thank you,” Kiti felt heat rise to her cheeks at the unexpected praise.  “But my only reason for coming on this mission is to apprehend Tybold.   He’s got to pay for what he did.”

“I agree.”  Garrick changed the subject to something more palatable.  Food.  “What do we have for dinner?  Can we talk about things other than the mission?  I’ll never be able to digest my food if we don’t.”

“Sure.  Though you may have to remind me.  When it comes to Joridan and making Tybold pay, I tend to be single-minded.”  Kiti led the way to the small, square dining table.  She’d put the roses in a large glass container in the center of the table and stopped to sniff their sweet fragrance again.  She couldn’t seem to get enough of it.  “I thought we’d try one of Audra’s favorite meals.  Her mother Maggie’s recipes are in the computer and the food synthesizer can create it up for us.  It’s called “chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy.”

They looked at each other and shrugged.  Both of them had tried some of the recipes Maggie had brought back from Earth.  This was a new one.

After they’d eaten their fill of the delicious gravy covered, deep fried meat and mashed potatoes, Garrick put his fork down. “That’s not bad.  I think Maggie could teach the palace chefs a thing or two.”

“I’m sure Audra has them doing just that.  Especially now with her pregnancy she’s been hungry for all sorts of things that aren’t Centauri foods.  A great favorite of hers is pickles and ice cream.”  Kiti made a face.  “I like both, but not together.”

They laughed, shared some stories about their friends and finished the bottle of noskberry wine.  By the time Garrick got up to leave, Kiti felt a little tipsy and a whole lot horny.  It’d been a long time since she’d had sex.

So when Garrick leaned down to give her a kiss on the cheek, she turned her head and caught him on the lips. He moved to pull away, seemingly surprised by her boldness, but she would have none of it.  She grabbed the back of his head and brought his lips back to hers.  Garrick gave up his resistance and kissed her deeply before he broke the kiss and rested his forehead against hers.

“Kiti.  We can’t.  I don’t want to be rebound sex for you.”

She pulled away from him, stung by the truth of his words.  “I’m sorry, Garrick.  I…I don’t know what got into me.”

He caressed her cheek with his knuckle.  “Don’t mistake my reluctance as rejection.  I very much want to make love to you.  But when I do,” he took that same knuckle and lifted her chin until she looked him direct in the eyes, “it will be because you want to make new memories, not forget old hurts.”  With that he kissed her hard and left.  His scent remained and her body ached.

Kiti reeled.  Garrick wanted her for more than just a tumble between the sheets.  He knew about Anton and didn’t seem to mind.  Did he really care for her?  Could he love her?  That kind of thing just didn’t happen.  At least not to her.

Everyone assumed she’d been devastated when Anton and Lara announced their marriage.  In fact, she’d been relieved.  What did it say about her?  Had she been with Anton only because he was convenient, because he was familiar?  She supposed many successful marriages were based on those traits.  But she wanted more.

She wanted it all.

The kiss Garrick gave her hinted at the “more”.  Was it possible the love of her life had been this close all the time and she’d been too blind to see him?  Or was he only a rebound?  Was she reading more into his words than he meant?  Was all this just the wine talking?  She wished she knew.

Damn!!  What the hell was he waiting for?