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Let Me In by Erin McCarthy
(Blurred Lines #3)
Publication date: September 25th 2014
Genres: Contemporary, New Adult, Romance
Synopsis:
A girl in danger…
Aubrey Walsh never dreamed that she would find herself in an abusive relationship, but after her boyfriend hits her so hard he breaks her tooth, she flees the University of Maine to hide on a remote island with her best friend. Only to discover that she is pregnant. Terrified of what will happen if Jared finds out, she is walking along the rocks, deciding her future, when she slips.
A guy with a secret past…
After a job gone wrong, Riker has left the assassin business and is incognito as a ferryboat operator off the shores of Maine. It’s a lonely life, and when he sees a young woman almost fall off the rocks, he doesn’t hesitate to save her and take her in, though he’s determined to stay unemotionally uninvolved. But when the truth about her situation is revealed, he will do anything to protect Aubrey and her unborn child.
Even marry her. Even kill for her.
When Jared comes looking for the only girl who has ever rejected him, Riker won’t allow it. And Aubrey is torn between protecting herself and her child, or protecting the mysterious husband she has come to love.
And when chance brings them together but fate tears them apart, can their love survive the storm?
Excerpt
LET ME IN
“What’s wrong?”
Cat asked me, turning towards me as I came into the living room.
“Nothing,” I lied,
putting my hand in my pocket so the stick wouldn’t slide down out of my sleeve,
where I had tucked it. “I’m going for a
walk.”
So I could cry and
rage in private.
But she didn’t
believe me. She knew me too well.
“Aub, come
on. You can tell me. Did you hear from Jared?”
I heard from Jared
all the time. I had changed my number,
but then he’d found me on social media.
I’d blocked him, then he’d emailed me.
No matter what I did, he found a way to track me down. A way to alternate between coaxing and
cajoling me with pleas for me to come home, vows of love, and scathing
condemnations on my character. How a man
could claim he loved me and turn around and call me a dick-sucking whore was
something I would never understand. Then
again, how could a man who loved me knock out my teeth and leave me bleeding on
the floor?
But this anxiety
wasn’t about a communication from Jared.
It was about what
I’d been suspecting but was determined to ignore.
“I haven’t heard
from Jared today. I just want to take a
walk. Am I allowed to do that?” I sounded bitchy and I knew it, but I needed
to get away, to escape.
Living with Cat
and her boyfriend, Heath, for the last month had allowed me time to think,
feel, heal. I was grateful to both of them
for taking me in when I hadn’t been able to face my family with the shame of
what had been done to me, what I had become.
I owed Cat everything for hiding me, helping me to feel safe, not
pressuring me to make decisions, and listening to me when I needed to
talk.
I wasn’t ready to
share this yet though. I wasn’t even
ready to admit it.
Her look was one
of sympathy, which made me feel worse. I was the girl everyone felt sorry
for. That was the identity Jared had
created for me.
“Of course you can
do that. I just don’t want you to keep
everything bottled up. You can tell me
anything.”
“You just don’t
want me to throw myself off a cliff,” I said dryly, leaning over the back of
the couch and giving her a hug from behind.
“For which I thank you. No
worries. I’m not suicidal.”
I wasn’t. The opposite in fact. Staring into Jared’s eyes, seeing his rage,
had made me realize just exactly how much I wanted to live.
Even now, even
with this, I wanted to survive more than anything. I wanted to reclaim my life, find me
again. Or at least a new version of me.
She leaned forward
and glanced up at me over her shoulder.
“I still can’t get over your hair.”
She touched the ends of loose, auburn strands. “It’s so different now that you dyed it.”
I was a natural
blonde, but that didn’t feel right anymore.
There was nothing carefree and beachy about the way I moved, always
glancing over my shoulder, keeping my mouth closed as much as possible,
self-conscious of the two missing teeth on the back right side. Dark auburn suited me better. It was moody, mysterious. It made my skin seem pale, and that was how I
felt. Pale. Fragile.
“Redheads are
feisty,” I said. “I’m trying to find my
inner feisty.”
“You’ve always
been feisty. And the master of sarcasm.”
Not anymore. Cat had been living on an island off the
coast of Maine for the last eighteen months.
She’d never seen me with Jared. I
was glad. The less witnesses to my
humiliation the better, and maybe with her seeing me as I had been, I would
become me again.
“I think the
feisty got knocked out of me.
Literally.”
“Don’t joke about
it.” Her dark eyes searched mine. “I don’t think that’s healthy.”
Nothing about it
was healthy. But I was trying my best to
cope. And when she looked at me like
that…that’s when I needed to escape.
“I’ll be back in
an hour tops. Don’t send Heath out
looking for me again. I promise I’ll be
fine.”
That was why I’d come
to Cat in Vinalhaven—it was remote, isolated.
Everyone knew everyone, and the only way on the island was by
ferry. If, for some insane reason, Jared
tried to track me down, I would know immediately that he was there. It made me feel safe, protected. Walking helped clear my head.
The porch door
slammed behind me, and I put the hood of my sweatshirt up. It was only September, but I was always
cold. I used to think I would go to grad
school down South. Now, the future was a
great gaping hole filled with fear.
And a baby.
I fingered the
stick stuck up my sleeve and tried to process the truth. I was pregnant. With Jared’s baby. Tears filled my eyes as I walked down the
gravel drive towards the shoreline, my feet moving faster, my head hunched
down. Heading in the direction of the
least possibility of seeing any other humans, I cursed when I realized almost
immediately that the guy who lived in a crumbling farmhouse was out in his
yard. Chopping wood with his shirt
off. He was in his mid-twenties and I’d
seen him twice before. He never smiled,
he never waved, he never spoke to me, and he was muscular, ominous. There was no joy on his face, only a kind of
silent disdain as he watched me walk by.
He was the kind of man who could corner me, beat me, rape me, kill
me.
Five years ago, I
would have seen his sweaty shoulders, watched the ripple of muscles in his
back, and I would have flirted with him, smiled, flipped my hair. He might have flirted back and we might have
gone into his farmhouse and fucked just because it felt good. Now, the thought of him touching me made me
flinch in fear, and I rushed past him, glancing up only to track his movements,
make sure he wasn’t following me.
Cat had said that
his name was Riker and he was harmless.
That he’d come back from being in the military and he had PTSD, so he
kept to himself. Riker was sweet, she’d
insisted. He had always been a good
guy.
Whatever. What he was then didn’t make him that now,
and I was afraid of the intensity of his stare.
He was doing it
now. His ax paused as he eyed me. Then his gaze shifted back to the log and the
sun hit the blade as it came down with a violent whack. I winced.
The wood split in two directions and tumbled to the ground.
Suddenly, it was
too much—the realization that a guy forty feet away could frighten me, that I
was pregnant, that I had let myself get in this situation by wanting so
desperately to be important to Jared in the beginning that I had ignored all
the warning signs. I started to run,
wondering how I was going to support myself and a child, afraid that if Jared
ever found out, he would take my baby away from me. Knowing that, at some point, I had to face my
family.
I ran, pumping my
arms hard, the hood falling back off my head, my lungs straining. When I reached the edge of the island by the
rocks, I came to a crashing halt, sobbing in frustration. Yanking the pregnancy test out of my sleeve,
I stared at the pink line showing my new reality.
“It’s not fair,” I
whispered.
I’d always wanted
to be a mom. But not like this. Not with that
man.
“No,” I said,
louder this time. “No. This isn’t fair!” Then I pulled my arm back and hurled the test
stick as hard as I possibly could.
I was panting, my
vision blurry from tears as I watched it sail through the air and drop down
onto the rocks. Leaning forward to see
where it landed, I slipped on the wet turf.
Suddenly, I was
falling and screaming and trying to grab on to anything. Pain
shot through my hip, but clipping the rock helped slow my fall and I
landed on my chest, my legs dangling, my grip tenuous, but no longer free
falling. The air whooshed out of my
lungs and I clawed at the slippery rock with my feet, trying to find a ledge to
haul myself up. But my shoes slid around
uselessly and I paused, panting, arms straining. I was wasting too much energy and I needed to
think.
Looking up, I
opened my mouth to scream for help.
What I saw almost
made me lose my hold entirely.
A man’s face
stared down at me with dark, intense eyes.
Riker.
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AUTHOR BIO
USA Today and New York Times Bestselling author Erin McCarthy sold her first book in 2002 and has since written almost fifty novels and novellas in teen fiction, new adult, and adult romance. Erin has a special weakness for New Orleans, tattoos, high-heeled boots, beaches and martinis. She lives in Ohio with her family, two grumpy cats and a socially awkward dog.
Author links:
Giveaway
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