Welcome to Baldwin’s Shore, the small town where everybody has a secret…
Brooke Bartlett is no exception. She’s been in love with her brother’s best friend for half her life, her dirty little secret. With Luca on the other side of the world, the temptation stayed out of reach, but now he’s back, and he’s not the only one. Brooke’s stalker is watching from the shadows, and he’s got his own ideas about her future…
Luca Mendez’s time in the army taught him two lessons—that to survive, he has to shoot straight and guard his heart. But when the woman he turned down all those years ago begs him for help, he finds he’ll do anything to see her smile again.
Dirty Little Secrets is a standalone romantic mystery novel in the Baldwin's Shore series.
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Excerpt – Brooke…
Some people called Baldwin’s Shore the end of the world.
Until I turned eighteen, I’d just called it home, but now at the age of twenty-six, having made my escape and ended up right back where I started, I had to agree with that sentiment.
Another twig cracked, and this time, I knew I hadn’t imagined it. There was something behind me. Or someone. My fingers tightened around Vega’s leash, and I began to walk faster. Did I have a phone signal? Not even one bar. Dammit.
The forest that surrounded the town changed with the seasons. In winter, when the sun shone through skeletal branches and frost glistened on textured bark, when the snow crunched underfoot on an otherwise silent trail, the place was magical. In spring, when the trees burst into life and in fall when leaves drifted in riots of colour, I jogged or hiked every chance I got so I didn’t miss nature’s magic. And in summer, the dappled shade provided a welcome respite from the heat.
Today? Today, on this gloomy Monday in early April, it felt like hunting season, and I was the prey.
I never used to get jumpy like this. A year ago, I’d have written off the rustles as a deer in the bushes, or maybe a squirrel, but today? Today, my mind cycled through wolf, cougar, bear, and settled on man. The worst predator of all. Think I was overreacting? Perhaps…perhaps I was.
After all, I wasn’t totally sure I’d been assaulted in my own bed just over a year ago. Not a hundred percent, but definitely ninety-five. I couldn’t remember a thing between feeling hot and a little headachy and waking up naked at eight o’clock the next morning with an ache between my legs and bruises on my arms that hadn’t been there the day before. The smell of stale sex still hung in the air, but I had no idea who I might have brought home with me. And I might even have wondered if I’d dreamed the whole thing, if not for the note. One line on a piece of paper torn from the pad I kept on my bedside table.
YOU WERE EVERYTHING I IMAGINED.
There was no signature, only a heart with an arrow through the middle. Cupid. I’d read the words. Read them again because my brain had barely taken them in the first time. Read them a third time, and then staggered to the bathroom and vomited everything left in my stomach.
My recollections of that morning were fuzzy, but I remembered sitting by the toilet with my arms wrapped around my legs, rocking back and forth as I tried to work out what had happened the night before. Had I met a guy? Every time I reached for a memory, it skittered out of range. What had I done? I’d been drinking, but not that much. At least, I didn’t think so.
Turn over, Brooke.
It came as a whisper, but where from? Was it a memory or just my mind trying to fill in the blanks? I struggled to my feet, nearly fell because of the pins and needles in my legs, and stumbled into the bedroom. The sun was high in the sky, light streaming in through the window and illuminating the marks on my pillow. Two ovals of spidery black streaks and a pair of smudged red lips, all surrounded by a pale peach halo. At some point the previous night, I’d had my face smushed into the cream cotton, hard enough to rub off my make-up. I wouldn’t have slept like that. Would I? The sheets were clean, but that musky scent… It still lingered.
A chill ran through me, partly because I hadn’t turned the heating on but mostly because…because I thought I might have been raped, but I had no way of proving it. I didn’t need to get a degree in criminal justice to work that one out. All I had in the form of evidence was a few unexplained marks, a note that could have been sweet or creepy depending on the interpretation, and a feeling.
And now, one year and sixteen days later, I had a dog I’d adopted in the hope that he might help me to feel safe again, a “Happy Anniversary” card from my bogeyman, something behind me in the trees, and a heart threatening to hammer its way through my ribcage.
I ran.
Excerpt – Luca…
“Buddy, I need a favour.”
One advantage of spending seven years in the US Army, most of them as a Ranger, was that I could go from fast asleep to wide awake in half a second. Who needed more than an hour’s shut-eye anyway?
“Sure. Did you run out of beer again?”
Whatever Aaron wanted, I’d do it. He’d saved my ass more times than I wanted to count, including the night before last when I’d found myself on a plane out of Asmara with thirty minutes’ notice.
“Run out of beer? Are you kidding? No, Brooke’s dog hurt its leg. Can you borrow Deck’s truck and drive them to the veterinarian?”
“Brooke?”
“My sister? The brat who borrowed your Seahawks hoodie to use as a superhero cape and fell off the roof? Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten her?”
If only. I’d sure as hell tried. For years, I’d tried, and it was the only thing I’d failed at since I left Baldwin’s Shore. Brooke Bartlett was the forbidden fruit I’d dreamed about every damn night, the girl whose photo I’d secretly carried with me from Afghanistan to Algeria and everywhere in between. My lucky charm. If Aaron ever found out, he’d kill me. No matter how much training I might have had, I’d be a dead man.
“Sure, I remember her. She lives in Coos Bay, right?” Which would give me forty-five minutes to get my game face on. “She has a dog now?”
“Yeah, she adopted the mutt from the shelter two weeks ago. And she’s in Baldwin’s Shore.”
“Visiting?”
“No, she moved back. Decided the city wasn’t for her and rented the Crowes’s garage apartment.”
Ah, fuck. Why the hell hadn’t Aaron told me that? Actually, I could answer my own question: because every time he mentioned his baby sister, I changed the subject.
“I thought Brooke had a car?”
“She does, but she went out hiking on the Eagle’s Nest Trail.”
Brooke was on the trail? Alone? There were cougars up there. And bears, and rattlesnakes. I had one leg in my pants before I finished the thought.
“How far did she get?”
And where was my gun?
“She’s waiting at the trailhead. Do you remember where the veterinarian’s office is?”
“Behind the feed store?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Thanks, buddy.”
I threw on a T-shirt, tossed a handful of mints into my mouth, and debated shaving. Nah, didn’t have time. And besides, women found the stubble sexy, or so they said. One night in a bar, an army buddy had asked a group of Rangerettes to rate my attributes, and the stubble had come in third, right behind my muscles and my smile. For some reason, chicks dug the dimples. Which kind of made up for being nicknamed crater face in junior high, but—
Hold that thought right there.
I didn’t need to look sexy around Brooke. There was only one thing worse than wanting my best friend’s little sister and not being able to have her, and that was knowing she wanted me too. And once upon a time, she had wanted me. Three days before I left for Basic Training, she’d broken down in my room and told me she didn’t want to lose me. That she liked me. That she’d wait for me. And I’d done the honourable thing and lied. I’d lied and told her I didn’t feel the same, and then I’d sent her away.
Fuck.
Okay, no smile, no muscles, no stubble.
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