About Me
- Pamela Clare
- I grew up in Colorado at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, then lived in Denmark and traveled throughout Europe before coming back to Colorado. I have two adult sons, whom I cherish. I started my writing career as a columnist and investigative reporter and eventually became the first woman editor of two different papers. Along the way, my team and I won numerous state and several national awards, including the National Journalism Award for Public Service. In 2011, I was awarded the Keeper of the Flame Lifetime Achievement Award for Journalism. Now I write historical romance and contemporary romantic suspense.
Seductive Musings
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Thursday, June 25, 2015
SOUL DEEP — First excerpt!
Soul Deep is finished!
Right now, I’m working hard to edit it and get it out to you by next week. This is an indie novella, meaning I’m publishing it myself. But at 50,000 words, it’s as long as some books being sold as novels these days.
I don’t have preorder links for it yet, because I don’t have a clone and can’t seem to get it all done at once.
I realized as I was editing that I haven’t shared any excerpts from this story yet, so I thought I should get in here and change that.
Soul Deep takes place a few weeks after Javier and Laura’s wedding in Puerto Rico (Striking Distance). We meet up with Janet Killeen, the FBI agent who spearheaded Laura’s protection detail, as she tries to pull her life together following the serious gunshot wound she sustained helping Laura. She's about to have an unwanted reunion with a man she despises...
From Chapter 1 of Soul Deep
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September
28
Janet Killeen
gripped the steering wheel of her Toyota Corolla, snow falling so thick and
heavy that she couldn’t see the side of the highway. Her windshield wipers were
clumped with ice and snow, the rubber blades no longer making contact with the
glass. She would need to pull over soon to clean the ice off—if only she could
see the shoulder so that she could
pull over.
Leaving Denver had
been a mistake.
She rolled down
her window and scooted forward in her seat, ignoring the sharp pain that shot
through her hip and pelvis at the motion. Reaching outside, she grabbed the
bottom of the wiper blade. Icy flakes hit her face, the cold almost taking her
breath away as she raised the blade and dropped it against her windshield once,
twice, three times. The thick crust of ice and snow broke off.
She rolled up the
window, turned her heater up a notch.
She’d left the
city first thing this morning, hoping to make it to the mountain town of
Scarlet Springs before the storm hit. She’d booked a room for a week at Forest
Creek Inn, a family-run bed and breakfast, and had been looking forward to
seeing the aspens and maybe even sitting on a horse again. It was part of a
promise she’d made herself, her way of celebrating her survival and the end of
rehab.
Having grown up in
Hudson Falls in upstate New York, she always yearned for fall color, and the
only place a person could find that in Colorado was in the high country during
that brief couple of weeks when the aspens turned. It had become her yearly
ritual, the one time of the year she put aside her badge and her duties as an
FBI special agent and let herself go.
Forecasters had predicted
up to eighteen inches in Denver and a good few feet in the mountains, but when
were the forecasters ever right about Colorado’s weather? Last week, they’d
predicted snow, and Denver had gotten hail and funnel clouds instead. Of
course, they’d just had to be right
this time.
You should have turned back.
Yes, well, it was
too late for that now. She needed to reach Scarlet Springs—or find someplace
she could pull off the highway and wait for a break in the storm.
She glanced down
at the speedometer. Ten MPH. At this rate she’d get there faster if she got out
of the car and ran. Except that she couldn’t run. She would probably never run
again. She was lucky to be able to walk.
You’re lucky to be alive.
Last February, a
sniper bullet intended for journalist Laura Nilsson, whose protection detail
Janet had managed, had ripped through Janet’s left hip, shattering the joint,
breaking her pelvis, severing her sciatic nerve, and damaging her vaginal
muscles before exiting through the front. Doctors had replaced her hip, used
plates to put her pelvis back together, reconnected the severed nerve, and
stitched her vagina, but her body would never be the same.
Gone were the days
of running daily 10Ks and rock climbing on the weekends. Though she had learned
to walk with a cane instead of a walker, her left foot still dragged. She didn’t
know whether she’d ever be able to ski or ride a horse or even enjoy sex again.
Little things she’d always taken for granted were difficult now—grocery
shopping, keeping a clean house, getting a full night of pain-free sleep.
And then there
were the nightmares.
Gun shots.
Screams. Pain.
That single bullet
hadn’t just ripped through her body. It had torn a path through her life.
Byron, the skier she’d been dating, had ended things during her second month of
rehab. He’d said that he’d changed and needed to move on, but she’d known he
was turned off by her lack of mobility and had run out of patience waiting for
them to have a sex life. But that wasn’t all of it. When she returned from this
little vacation, she would be going back to work, but not to the position she’d
held before the shooting. She’d be taking a desk job instead. An agent who
couldn’t run or stomach the thought of holding a firearm was an agent who
couldn’t leave the office.
The life she’d
known had vanished in a split second, and she missed it, even grieved for it,
crying tears she didn’t share with anyone.
Melodie, her
younger sister, saw this as a sign that Janet should leave the FBI, find a
husband, and start a family before it was too late. Setting aside the fact that
Janet’s biological clock seemed to have wound down, her injuries would likely
make sex and pregnancy difficult even if by some miracle she could get
pregnant.
Janet and Melodie
were very different people. Melodie had always wanted to be a mother, and Janet
had always wanted to be a superhero and save the world. It wasn’t that Janet
didn’t want a husband or kids, but her life as a special agent had been busy
and fulfilling enough without them.
Besides, finding a
husband wasn’t like shopping for patio furniture. A woman could spend years
looking for the right man and still not find him. Janet had had her share of
boyfriends and lovers, but after Byron, it seemed to her that a woman might be
better off on her own.
Despite whatever
her sister might think, Janet didn’t regret her choices, not even her decision
to volunteer for Laura’s protection detail. She had always admired Laura and
was proud to have played a role in saving her life. Laura had just married
Javier Corbray, that sexy SEAL lover of hers. Seeing her move on from the hell
that had been her life to claim some happiness had been the best reward Janet
could have received.
She would adapt
and find a way to do the things she loved again. That’s exactly why she’d made
this trip—to reclaim some part of her life for herself.
Snow had begun to
build up on the wipers again, the tail lights of the truck that was at most ten
feet in front of her barely visible. Janet rolled down her window once more,
scooted forward, then grabbed the wiper blade and tapped it against the glass,
dislodging the snow and ice.
It seemed to be
coming down even harder now, the wind driving the snow straight into her
windshield. How could the driver in front of her even see where he or she was
going? Were they blindly following someone else’s tail lights like she was? If
so, what was guiding the person in front?
She needed to get
off the road. She tried to remember if there were any gas stations or small
towns between here and Scarlet Springs. She didn’t think so. The only place she
knew of for certain was the Cimarron Ranch, but she wouldn’t stop there even if
she knew where it was. Jack West, the man who owned it, was as big a jerk as he
was handsome. She’d had a less-than-pleasant exchange with him when she’d gone
there as part of Laura’s protection detail to make certain the place was
secured.
I know every man, woman, and child on my
land, SA Killeen. I don’t need you checking IDs or running background on my
people. I understand you want to protect Ms. Nilsson. So do I. But I’ve got
twenty men here, every single one of whom knows how to use a firearm. They’ve
all been made aware of the situation. Laura is safe under my roof. I guarantee
you that. Now, either come inside for a bite to eat, or get the hell off my
property.
She’d only been
trying to do her job, and West had ordered her off his land as if she’d been
nothing more than a trespasser. She’d been furious at—
Ahead of her, the
red tail lights swerved. The highway seemed to vanish from beneath her tires,
the car sliding sideways down a steep embankment, coming to a rest with a
sickening crunch.
Janet found
herself holding the steering wheel in a death grip, her heart slamming in her
chest. She took a few deep breaths, tried to dial back on the adrenaline.
Way to go, Killeen. This was one way to get
off the highway.
She wasn’t hurt,
and the car was no longer moving—two reasons to be grateful. The car had come
to rest at close to a forty-five-degree angle, what looked like a fence post
pressing against her crumpled passenger side door.
She knew there was
no way for her to get back onto the road, not without trading her Corolla for,
say, a M1 Abrams tank. She would have to call for help. The tow would probably
cost a small fortune, to say nothing of the damage to her car and the fence.
Consider it all a tax on stupid.
She turned off the
vehicle, took off her seat belt, and bent down to retrieve her handbag off the
floor. She pulled out her cell phone. No bars. “Damn it!”
She had no choice
but to climb back up to the road. She might be able to flag down a trucker with
a radio who could call for help on her behalf. Or maybe someone would come
along who was willing to give her a ride to Scarlet Springs.
She grabbed her
cane and pulled up the hood on her parka, determined not to be one of those
drivers who wandered from their vehicles high in the mountains and froze to
death. She pushed the door open—lifted it, really—then turned in her seat and
tried to step out of the car into the snow.
Her feet slipped, and she fell, instinctively reaching out with her
hands to stop herself, her legs sliding beneath the car. The door swung down,
almost hitting her in the face before she caught it.
Using her cane to
steady herself and support her weight, she crawled out and got to her feet
again, sidestepping the door and letting it slam behind her. Then she began to
climb the embankment.
There couldn’t be
more than twenty feet between her and the highway, but it might as well have
been a mile. Last winter, she would have been able to do this without
difficulty, but now it was a struggle. Again and again she slipped, gaining
only a few feet despite intense effort, her thigh and hip aching, sharp flakes
of snow biting her face.
Swoosh!
A wave of white
billowed down on her from above, knocking her backward down the embankment,
losing her all the ground she’d gained.
Snow from a Colorado
Department of Transportation snowplow.
Thanks a lot, CDOT.
Chilled to the
bone, she shook off the snow, climbed to her feet, and tried again, this time
setting her cane aside and attempting to crawl up the slope, dragging her left
leg behind her. But the snow was too deep, and she was soon out of breath and
badly chilled.
If she didn’t
stop, she’d soon be hypothermic.
By the time she
was back in the car, she was exhausted, freezing, and in pain. She would have
to wait here until the storm let up. When the snow stopped, she would wave out
the window at passing drivers. Someone would see her and call for help. In the
meantime, she had a space blanket, water, ibuprofen, her Kindle, and chocolate
covered almonds. It wasn’t the Forest Creek Inn, but it would do.
# # #
Jack tossed the
last bale into the bed of his Ford F-250 pickup, the cold biting his nose, the
air fresh with the scent of new snow. A good four feet had fallen overnight,
and the National Weather Service was saying the mountains could expect more
this afternoon. He needed to get hay up to the herd in the high pasture before
the flakes began to fly again.
He’d been working
since before dawn, plowing the road to the ranch’s front gate then seeing to
the horses. His son, Nate, normally took care of these things, but he’d stayed
at the family townhome in Denver, not wanting to drive up the canyon with
Megan, his wife, and Emily, their daughter, in the middle of a blizzard. Jack
supported that decision. He didn’t like taking chances with the lives of those
he loved.
Chuck, the ranch’s
foreman, stepped out of the barn. “Want me to come along?”
Jack frowned. “Is
that your way of saying you think I’m too old for this shit?”
“You kidding,
boss?” Chuck laughed. “You’re in better shape than most of the younger guys.”
“If that’s true, I
ought to fire the lot of you.” Jack grinned, opened the cab door, and climbed
into the driver’s seat. “Say, did you get the last of this business with Kip
resolved? I don’t think ill of the man, but I don’t want him having the keys to
the bunk house now that he’s no longer an employee.”
Jack had been left
with no choice but to fire the man. Kip Henderson was a great cattleman,
skilled with steers and horses, but he was also a slave to the bottle.
“I took care of it
yesterday. I’ve got his key on my desk.”
Jack shut the
door, buckled the seat belt. “I appreciate that.”
Chuck stepped back
to give the truck room. “See you when you get back.”
Jack turned the
key in the ignition, the 385-horsepower engine roaring to life. He headed down
the road toward the main gate, his gaze traveling over the valley. Apart from
his time in the army, he’d lived his entire life here, the third generation to
call this mountain valley home. His family had done well, running black Angus
and breeding quarter horses, managing to hang on through thick and thin to a
way of life that had largely vanished from the state.
The Cimarron had
been transformed overnight into a landscape of white, ribbons of golden aspen,
dark patches of evergreens, and crags of red rock adding color to the
mountainsides. The beauty of it was enough to take a man’s breath away. Then
the sun peered through the clouds on the eastern horizon, sending a shaft of
pink light across the snow, making it sparkle.
Theresa, you would love this.
Whether Theresa
could hear his thoughts, Jack couldn’t say, but after almost forty years of
being married to her, it was hard to experience life and not want to share it
with her. She’d died seven years ago of an aneurysm, and Jack had never stopped
missing her. One moment she’d been inside making lunch, and the next she’d been
gone. He’d found her lying on the kitchen floor, and his world had come
crashing down.
Still, life went
on, and Jack had had no choice but to go on with it. When Nate had been wounded
in Afghanistan, badly burned in an IED explosion, Jack had devoted himself to
helping his son heal and regain his strength. Now Nate was happily married, his
wife Megan and their little Emily bringing joy back into the house.
And if there were
days—and nights especially—when Jack felt lonely, well, that was just the price
he paid for the privilege of having lived so damned long.
Nate had given him
his blessing to remarry and wanted him to join some online dating service, but
Jack couldn’t see how any good could come of that. Not that he didn’t have
anything to offer a woman. There was the ranch, of course, and he had money.
And, unlike a lot of men his age, he didn’t need a pill to get an erection. But
he hadn’t dated in forty years and wasn’t sure he’d even know what to say to a
woman.
Hell, no, that
wasn’t for him. He’d been married once and knew what it was to love a woman and
be loved in return. He and Theresa had made a good life together, and they’d
had a son. Now, she was gone, and Jack’s job, as he saw it, was to be there for
her son and his family.
He reached the
main gate, which he had already opened, and turned onto the highway. The road
was slick and snow-packed—not surprising given how much snow had fallen. It was
unusual for the state to get a blizzard this early in the fall, but this was
Colorado. He’d seen it snow on the Fourth of July.
He was about a
mile east of the turnoff to the high pasture when he saw a fence post out of
alignment with the others. It took a moment longer before he realized why the
post had been knocked to the side. A car had slid off the road, down the
embankment, and struck the fence. The car itself was all but concealed by a big
snowdrift, just a bit of tail light and rear bumper showing. CDOT plows must
have buried it during the course of the night, concealing it under a few feet
of snow and slush.
Someone was going
to have a fun time digging that out.
He continued on to
the access road and turned off the highway, stopping to lower the snowplow. It
was slow going the rest of the way as he cleared the road. By the time he
reached the pasture, the cattle were waiting for him.
He parked the
truck, got out, and climbed up into the bed, cutting the cords that bound the
bales and tossing hay over the fence to the hungry animals, mostly pregnant
cows. They jostled against one another, lowing, their breath sending up clouds
of condensation.
“Mind your
manners, ladies. Someone might think you were raised in a barn.”
When he’d spread
the hay out over the snow, he got back into his truck and headed home, his mind
on a hot shower and strong coffee.
Bitch and moan
though he might, he loved this life. Other people were out there right now
fighting traffic on the highway so they could sit in offices all day doing
bullshit work for other people, and he was out here, breathing mountain air,
being his own boss, and doing the kind of work that left a man’s body tired but
filled his soul.
Back on the
highway, he made a mental note to repair that fence post once the owner of the
car had their vehicle towed. As he passed the car, he saw that the headlights
were on. Was someone down there?
He pulled off onto
the shoulder, parked, then called Chuck on his sat phone. “Hey, I’m on my way
back. There’s a car off the road just past mile marker one-thirty-three. I
think someone’s still in the vehicle. I’m going to check it out.”
He turned on the
truck’s hazard lights and pocketed his keys, then climbed out of the pickup.
Why anyone had gone out in yesterday’s blizzard without all-wheel drive was
beyond him. Didn’t they realize they were in Colorado?
He grabbed a snow
shovel out of the back, then crossed the road, snow squeaking under his boots.
The slope was steep, and he slipped and slid his way down to the vehicle. A few
minutes of shoveling, and he’d managed to dig out the driver’s side window.
Through the
frost-covered glass, he could just make out a woman’s face.
She rolled down
the window. “Jack West?”
He found himself
looking into a pair of familiar green eyes. Her dark hair was a longer than the
last time he’d seen her, and there were lines of weariness on her face. Still,
he recognized her immediately.
“Well, hello,
there, SA Killeen. It seems you’ve run into a little trouble.”
Copyright (C) 2015 Pamela Clare
Soul Deep will be out early next week! Watch for the release announcement here!
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8 comments:
That was amazing!! Thank you for sharing it, I can't wait to read the whole book!
This is going to be one of your best,Pamela. I'm very much looking forward to the rest of the story, especially since I can relate being closer to Jack West's demographic than most of the hot junks you write about!
You do know I meant hot Hunks, don't you?Darn auto correct!
wow. you are powering through and I'm beyond excited to have 2 books coming from you soon.
LOL@Linda. Hot junk is good too :)
Thank you, duskrider! Thanks, Linda and Michelle.
@Linda... I certainly hope my heroes have hot junk. ;-)
Can't wait to read Soul Deep (of course I do have to wait until you publish the book). Soon??? Please???
Thanks, Sharon
Sharon, I'm hoping to have the story to you all by Monday or Tuesday at the latest. We're working hard through the weekend to get it to you. :-)
Pamela
Love the sound of this book. It is past time that relationships between older couples are included in the genre. Maturity does have its rewards. I hope the release of SOUL DEEP is a great success.