Holy cannoli, y'all! It's finally here! We are so excited to bring you the Release Day Launch for K.A. Tucker's BURYING WATER! BURYING WATER is a New Adult Romantic Suspense novel, published by Simon & Schuster and it will blow. You. Away! Check out the excerpt, teasers, and giveaway then run--don't walk--to your nearest retailer!
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The top-selling, beloved indie author of Ten
Tiny Breaths returns with a new romance about a young woman who
loses her memory—and the man who knows that the only way to protect her is to
stay away.
Left for dead in the fields of rural Oregon, a young woman
defies all odds and survives—but she awakens with no idea who she is, or what
happened to her. Refusing to answer to “Jane Doe” for another day, the woman
renames herself “Water” for the tiny, hidden marking on her body—the only clue
to her past. Taken in by old Ginny Fitzgerald, a crotchety but kind lady living
on a nearby horse farm, Water slowly begins building a new life. But as she
attempts to piece together the fleeting slivers of her memory, more questions
emerge: Who is the next-door neighbor, quietly toiling under the hood of his
Barracuda? Why won’t Ginny let him step foot on her property?
And <em>why</em> does Water feel she recognizes him?
Twenty-four-year-old Jesse Welles doesn’t know how long it
will be before Water gets her memory back. For her sake, Jesse hopes the answer
is never. He knows that she’ll stay so much safer—and happier—that way. And
that’s why, as hard as it is, he needs to keep his distance. Because getting
too close could flood her with realities better left buried.
The trouble is, water always seems to find its way to the
surface.
BURYING WATER Excerpt:
Prologue
Jesse
Now
This
can’t be real . . . This can’t be real . . . This can’t be real . . .
The words cycle round
and round in my mind like the wheels on my speeding ’Cuda as its ass-end slips
and slides over the gravel and ice. This car is hard to handle on the best of
days, built front-heavy and overloaded with horsepower. I’m going to put myself
into one of these damn trees if I don’t slow down.
I jam my foot against
the gas pedal.
I can’t slow down now.
Not until I know that
Boone was wrong about what he claims to have overheard. His Russian is mediocre
at best. I’ll giveanything for him to be wrong about this.
My gut clenches as my
car skids around another turn,the cone shape of Black Butte looming like a
monstrous shadow ahead of me in the pre-dawn light. The snowy tire tracks
framed by my headlights might not even be the right ones, but they’re wide like
Viktor’s Hummer and they’re sure as hell the only ones down this old, deserted
logging road. No one comes out here in January.
The line of trees
marking the dead end comes up on me before I expect it. I slam on my brakes,
sending my car sliding sideways toward the old totem pole. It’s still sliding
when I cut the rumbling engine, throw open the door, and jump out, fumbling
with my flashlight. It takes three hard presses with my shaking hands to get
the light to hold.
I begin searching the
ground. The mess of tread marks tells me that someone pulled a U-turn. The
footprints tell me that more than one person got out. And when I see the
half-finished cigarette butt with that weird alphabet on the filter, I know
Boone wasn’t wrong.
“Alex!” My echo answers
once . . . twice . . . before the vast wilderness swallows up my desperate cry.
With frantic passes of my flashlight, my knuckles white against its body, I
search the area until I spot the sets of footprints that lead off the old,
narrow road and into the trees.
Frigid fingers curl
around my heart.
Darting back to my car,
I snatch the old red-and-blue plaid wool blanket that she loves so much from
the backseat. Ice-cold snow packs into the sides of my sneakers as I chase the
trail past the line of trees and into the barren field ahead, my blood rushing
through my ears the only sound I process.
The only sign of life.
Raw fear numbs my senses,
the Pacific Northwest winter numbs my body, but I push forward because if . . .
The beam of light
passes over a still form lying facedown in the snow. I’d recognize that pink
coat and platinum-blond hair of hers anywhere; the sparkly blue dress that she
hates so much looks like a heap of sapphires against a white canvas.
My heart freezes.
“Alex.” It’s barely a
whisper. I’m unable to produce more, my lungs giving up on me. I run, stumbling
through the foot of snow until I’m on my knees and crawling forward to close
the distance. A distance of no more than ten feet and yet one that seems like
miles.
There’s no mistaking
the spray of crimson freckling the snow around her head. Or that most of her
long hair is now dark and matted. Or that her silver stockings are torn and
stained red, and a pool of blood has formed where her dress barely covers her
thighs. Plenty of footprints mark the ground around her. He must have been here
for a while.
I know that there are
rules to follow, steps to make sure that I don’t cause her further harm. But I
ignore them because the sinking feeling in my stomach tells me I can’t possibly
hurt her more than he already has. I nestle her head with one hand while I
slide the other under her shoulder. I roll her over.
Cold shock knocks the
wind out of me.
I’ve never seen anybody
look like this.
I scoop her limp body
into my arms, cradling the once beautiful face that I’ve seen in every
light—rage to ecstasy and the full gamut in between—yet is now unrecognizable.
Placing two blood-coated fingers over her throat, I wait. Nothing.
A light pinch against
her lifeless wrist.Nothing.
Maybe a pulse does
exist but it’s hidden, masked by my own racing one.
Then again, by the look
of her, likely not.
One . . . two . . .
three . . . plump, serene snowflakes begin floating down from the unseen sky
above. Soon, they will converge and cover the tracks, the blood. The
evidence.Mother Nature’s own blanket to hide the unsightly blemish in her yard.
“I’m so sorry.” I don’t
try to restrain the hot tears as they roll down my cheeks to land on her
mangled lips—lips I had stolen plenty of kisses from, back when I was too
stupid to realize how dangerous that really was. This is my fault. She had
warned me. If I had just listened, had stayed away from her, had not told her
how I felt . . .
. . . had not fallen wildly in love with her.
I lean down to steal a
kiss even now, the coppery taste of her blood mixing with my salty tears. “I’m
so damn sorry. I should never have even looked your way,” I manage to get out
around my sobs, tucking the blanket she loved to curl up in over her.
An almost inaudible
gasp slips out. A slight breeze against my mouth more than anything else.
My lungs freeze, my
eyes glued to her, afraid to hope. “Alex?” Is it possible?
A moment later, a
second gasp—a wet, rattling sound—escapes.
She’s not dead.
Not yet, anyway.
About K.A. Tucker:
Born in small-town Ontario, K.A. Tucker published her first book at the age of six with the help of her elementary school librarian and a box of crayons. She is a voracious reader, and currently resides in a quaint town outside of Toronto with her husband, two beautiful girls, and an exhausting brood of four-legged creatures.
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