Will they let duty drive them apart or will they dare to fall?
DARING TO FALL
Hidden Falls #2
T.J. Kline
Releasing Jan 17, 2017
Avon Impulse
T.J.
Kline returns to Hidden Falls with the sweet and fun story of a small-town
firefighter and the stubborn woman who refuses to fall for his charms.
Emma Jordan
has returned home after her father’s death to run the animal sanctuary that had
been his legacy. But strange things start happening, and it seems that someone
is out to shut her down, someone who doesn’t mind putting lives in jeopardy to
see it through. When Hidden Falls’ sexiest fireman starts to ask
questions, Emma needs to make sure his charm doesn’t distract her from keeping
her dreams alive.
Ben McQuaid
has an obligation as a local fireman to protect the community, even from a
well-meaning wildlife veterinarian who’s in way over her head. But, it’s
becoming hard to keep his loyalty to the town and his desire for the pretty vet
separate. As Ben and Emma become caught in a dangerous game of cat and mouse,
their feelings for each other are growing.
Will they
let duty drive them apart or will they dare to fall?
T. J.
Kline was
bitten by the horse bug early and began training horses at fourteen—as well as
competing in rodeos and winning several rodeo queen competitions—but has always
known writing was her first love. She also writes under the name Tina
Klinesmith. In her spare time, she can be found spending as many hours as
possible laughing hysterically with her husband, teens, and their menagerie of
pets in Northern California. That is, when she isn't running around the
California Gold Country researching new stories.
“Hey, Ben, I have a favor to ask.”
Ben McQuaid rolled his eyes skyward. Of course, his
brother Andrew needed another favor. Lately, Ben seemed to be the one doing the favors more often than receiving any. But, that’s what
brothers did for one another, right? And with six siblings, most of them
younger, that added up to be a lot of favors.
“Make it quick, I’m on my way into the fire station for
my shift.”
“Good, because this is more of an official call than a
favor anyway. I need you to head down to the Quinn place on Mosquito Road.
Apparently, there’s a cat stuck in a tree. It seems stupid to call it in to the
firehouse and drag the engine out for a cat. See? I’m actually doing you a favor and saving you all that cleaning and polishing you
have to do just for driving a truck out of the garage.”
They’d be cleaning the engine anyway. Plus, without an
engine, Ben had no ladder to get up the tree. “So, what you’re suggesting is
that I shimmy up the tree the way I did when we were ten to get the football
you and Grant would get stuck.”
Andrew’s chuckle sounded through the receiver. “Pretty
much. Look, the call just came in from dispatch and you’ve got to drive by
there on your way into town anyway. No sense in making it an official call.”
There was nothing about this that was a favor
for Ben. “What’s wrong, is there an apple fritter with your name on it? This
way you save yourself the effort of having to fill out another police report,
right?” Andrew wasn’t fooling him.
“There’s that too.” Ben heard Andrew address someone else
in the background. “Hey, I have to run. There’s a domestic dispute at the
winery. You got this, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll take care of it,” Ben said with a sigh.
“Thanks. I owe you one.”
“One?” Ben muttered to himself as the receiver
disconnected in his ear and he took the turn off onto Mosquito Road. “You owe
me more than that.”
He wasn’t looking forward to this. Hollister Quinn was
one of those old guys who spoke his mind, loudly and often. He’d been the first
in line to protest the latest upgrades being done to spruce up their small
foothill town. Said he liked it rustic, the way it’d been for years and that it
should stay that way. However, now that there was talk about Hidden Falls
trying to become more of a tourist attraction along the way to Tahoe, an idea
that would bring higher profits for local businesses which, in turn, kept the
town thriving, Quinn was complaining even more. A visit with Quinn, even to
retrieve a kitten, was sure to bring a lengthy lecture about how the people of
Hidden Falls were selling out. Ben rubbed the knots of tension already building
at the back of his neck.
Pulling into the circular driveway in front of the Quinn
house, he maneuvered his pickup between several other vehicles, none of which
were Hollister’s. A crowd was already gathered under one of the tall pines in the
front yard.
“Great,” the old man complained as Ben edged closer to
the chaos. “Please, tell me you’re here to do something productive, not just
here to gawk like everyone else. I need someone to get that damn thing outta my
tree.” He pointed to where a tabby kitten yowled loudly from a high branch on
the tree.
Ben squinted, following the old man’s gaze. “Are you sure
that’s a cat? It doesn’t look—”
“What else would it be?” Quinn rolled his eyes before
glaring at Ben and shoving him toward the god-awful howling the cat in the tree
was making. “Do your job, fireman, and get that thing down.” He turned away,
muttering something about the woman running the animal sanctuary down the road
but Ben didn’t quite catch it and he wasn’t about to risk having the old man
rip him a new one again.
“Sure thing, Mr. Quinn,” Ben agreed, wondering again why
he’d wanted to be a firefighter. Sweating it out with the cattle on his
parents’ ranch sounded a hell of a lot better right now than climbing a tree to
get the shit clawed out of him by a frightened kitten.
He glanced around at the large group of neighbors that
had come to watch, curious at the interest for a simple kitten stuck in a tree.
It wasn’t a big enough deal to warrant this sort of hullabaloo. The kitten
yowled louder and Ben had just lifted his foot onto the ladder Quinn had left
braced against the side of the tree when Ellie Quinn, the old man’s daughter,
hurried to his side.
“Ben, I’m sorry. I tried to get my dad to just leave the
poor thing alone, but you know how he is.” She shot him a coy smile and her
eyelashes fluttered.
Ellie was a nice woman. The same age as his younger
sister and obviously interested in him. She was sweet, kind to everyone she
met, a member of the local women’s shelter planning committee and generous to a
fault. In fact, she was exactly what he wanted in a woman, plus she had a “girl
next door” quality that made her adorable. His mother had been trying to set
them up for months, reminding him that he should be giving her grandchildren before
she was too old to enjoy them. The problem was, Ben wasn’t attracted to Ellie
at all. He wanted to be, but every time he was around her, there was no
stirring in him, no warm fuzzies like he’d had with other women. Nothing to get
a rise out of him, so to speak, at all. It was almost like he wanted
to continually find himself getting screwed over by crazy women. “Don’t worry
about it, Ellie,” he said, waving a hand in her direction and looking up the
tree. “I’ll just get this guy down and he’ll take off back home.” Ben wasn’t
nearly as confident about his ability to get the cat down as he sounded but
Ellie was sweet. He couldn’t blame her for her cantankerous father.
She cocked her head and gave him a confused look. “Oh.
Um, okay.”
Putting one foot over the other as he climbed the ladder,
trying to ignore the jeers and shouts from below, Ben pulled himself into a
fork in the tree, hanging his legs over the branch as he straddled it. He could
barely see the spotted fluffy coat of the kitten but, from what he could see,
it was definitely young. He’d never understand how a stupid animal could get
itself into a tree but couldn’t get back out. Then again, it wasn’t like people
didn’t get themselves into some pretty precarious positions they couldn’t
figure their way out of.
Tucking his feet under him so he was squatting on the
limb, grateful for the heavy tread of his work boots, Ben reach for a thick
branch to his right, using it to swing him to the V beside where the cat was
hiding. The gasp from the onlookers below nearly made him laugh. Sure, falling
would be painful but the fifteen-foot landing into mulch couldn’t hurt any more
than the second story floor of an old farmhouse collapsing from under him
during a call and dropping him into the concrete basement below. Those two
fractured ribs had hurt like hell.
Straddling the second branch, he watched the kitten for a
moment. The poor animal was scared out of its mind. Its big blue eyes were
round with fear and, from this vantage point, he could see that it was a matted
mess. Tiny claws clung to the rippled bark of the tree and he wondered how he
was possibly going to convince the frightened animal to let go without his very
vulnerable bare arm replacing the tree trunk under its claws.
“Here, kitty,” he called quietly. The cat turned toward
him and he saw the unmistakable black tufts over the kitten’s ears. It turned
away again, edging out onto the branch and he saw the stubby tail.
Holy crap, that is not a cat. It’s a
freakin’ bobcat kitten.
“Shit,” he muttered. “That damn brother of mine owes me big time.”
Thank you for featuring Daring To Fall! Brandy, Tasty Book Tours
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