Title: Molly Gets Her Man
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Author: Julie Rowe
Publisher: Entangled Ignite
Pages: 163
Language: English
When
flaky Las Vegas hairdresser Molly McLaren overhears hears a Russian hit man
planning to kill a US congressman and take out Hoover Dam in the process, she
becomes a target for murder. Now, on the run from the assassin and a dirty cop,
she winds up in an eighteen wheeler with an ex-cop sporting a bum leg, a bad
attitude, and a body built for loving.
Grey
Wilson just wanted to be left alone. No more Las Vegas. No more casinos. And no
more floozy women like the one his best friend sent him to pick up on the side
of the road. She talks fast, but her endless curves and sensuous nature make
him want to slow down. Which is not in the cards. Grey knows he needs to unload
his excess baggage. And quick.
But
when someone tries to kill the Vegas beauty, Molly captures his heart with her
backbone of steel, and brains to boot. Now in order to grasp the future that
had once seemed impossible, Molly and Grey need to keep Hoover Dam, the
congressman, and their love from being blown sky-high.
About Julie Rowe
A
double Golden Heart finalist in 2006, Julie Rowe has been writing medically
inclined romances for over ten years. She’s also a published freelancer with
articles appearing in The Romance Writer’s Report, Canadian Living, Today’s
Parent, Reader’s Digest (Canada) and other magazines.
Julie
is an active member of RWA and its subchapters, Heartbeat RWA, Calgary RWA, The
Golden Network, Hearts Through History and RWA Online. She coordinates Book In
A Week, and online workshops for Heartbeat and Calgary RWA.
Julie
is now teaching for Keyano College in her home city of Fort McMurray, AB,
Canada. She teaches a variety of workshops for the Workforce Development
department at Keyano College.
Julie
enjoys teaching and volunteering, and is a passionate promoter of life-long
learning. She’s the owner/moderator of the Announce Online Classes email loop,
which promotes online classes hosted by a large number of writing
organizations, for writers on a wide variety of topics and skill levels, taught
by some of publishing’s best writers and writing instructors.
Excerpts to use
Excerpts:
Oh god, they were going to shoot her.
Molly McLaren took a deep breath and tried to calm her rioting nerves as she
peeked around the car tire. Two hulking men scanned the parking garage at the
end of the row of cars. Another stood fifteen feet away, a gun in his hand
tucked behind his leg.
Petrov Grozney.
Why couldn’t he have picked a different hair salon to have his hair cut and
colored in today? Or been assigned to a hairdresser who wasn’t an out-of-work
translator as fluent in Russian as she was in English and who had understand
every word he’d said?
But then, this was Las Vegas, where anything could and often did happen.
Footsteps echoed closer and Molly pressed herself close to the car she’d
crouched beside, her tight capris cutting off the circulation to her lower
legs. But that was nothing compared to what would happen if the Russian mob
caught her.
There were worse things than getting shot. Just thinking about those things
made breathing next to impossible.
The footsteps stopped, then moved away. Molly forced herself to take in a
breath.
I can do this. I can do this. I have to do this.
She had to get out, but the only escape from the underground parking garage was
an exit ramp several feet way. All it would take to be discovered by would be
for one of the mobsters to turn her way.
She focused on her goal, sucked in as much air as she could, and made a run for
it. Halfway to the exit, she ducked behind another tire. No gun shots, no
yelling. Safe, so far. She tried to calm her breathing, but the echo of
footsteps got louder again.
Blast. Grozney or one of his goons must have heard something and was coming
back to investigate. Think. She glanced around and spied a small piece of
cement on the concrete floor, next to her foot. She picked it up, then threw it
as hard as she could toward the furthest corner of the garage.
A car alarm wailed and screeched. Grozney and his two hired goons ran toward
it.
Molly dashed to the ramp and up into glaring sunshine.
“I’m your ride,” the truck driver said, but she wasn’t really listening.
Nope. She was staring. Gaping, really. The driver had now opened his door wide,
and she could get a good eyeful of the man who was supposed to save her. For a
moment, time froze. She knew rationally that not all overly large men with
beefy muscles were brutes. Not all men over six foot and two hundred pounds
beat up their girlfriends. Or whipped their daughters’ butts with a leather
belt. But she knew that some did.
Boy, did she know.
And she’d had too many instances where big guys ruled her world—and had ruled
her. All they had to do was shake a fist, and without one word, could get her
in line.
She swallowed against the dryness in her mouth, stared at the huge guy sitting
in the driver’s seat of the eighteen-wheeler, and finally managed to speak.
“You’re who my brother sent to help me? The freaking Hulk?”
“If you’re not here for a ride,” the driver growled, “I’ll take off.” He
slammed the door shut.
She glanced over her shoulder to see Grozney and his nasty enforcer-types
emerging from the garage. Her heart leapt into her throat. She only had seconds
before Grozny saw her.
“Oh God!” she squeaked.
“I hope you’re ready to go now.”
His annoyed tone caught her attention and she whipped her head back around,
then scrambled toward the truck. He had no idea just how ready to leave she
was. “Yes, I can leave now. Right now in fact,”
“Good.” He revved the truck.
A gun shot echoed across the cement lot.
A second one followed it, and Molly jumped for the door, grabbing the door
handle and banging her knee against something hard. She bit back a yell and
struggled unsuccessfully to pull herself up to the window, aiming to climb
through it to get into the high cab. A large masculine hand wrapped around her
wrist and gave an almighty yank.
“Ow!” Her arm nearly came out of its socket, but with the man’s help, she made
it through the window, only to land landed face-down on something soft, a
masculine grunt accompanying her arrival.
Oh, God, what had she squished? She positioned her hands under her and pushed,
but the truck jerked forward and the unexpected momentum knocked her flat on
her face again, her legs still sticking out the window, but her head and torso
firmly inside. “Oooph.”
That’s when she realized Grey was yelling.
“…the fuck! Are those cops?”
When she didn’t answer right away, he shifted gears with his hand and held her
flailing legs down with his elbows, then muttered under his breath, “What the
hell have you gotten me into, Mike?”
Blaming her brother—now that made her mad.
“They’re not cops,” she snapped. “And what’s with trying to rip my arm off?”
“Who the hell is shooting at my truck?”
The truck’s speed stabilized. She struggled to brace herself, only ended up
with one hand on a thick thigh and the other on what she took to be rock-solid
abs. She raised her head to see a large expanse of denim and a zipper fly right
in front of her. Her gaze followed the denim down two long massive legs, ending
with the biggest pair of work boots she’d ever seen. She quickly flicked her
gaze the other way to see a leather belt, plaid shirt with snap closures,
shoulders the size of Rhode Island, a neck thicker than a redwood tree, square
jaw, high cheek bones, and something that either was a dimple or a scar on the
man’s cheek.
Oh, heck. She’d gone from the frying pan straight through the fire and landed
on Hercules. Her brother’s friend was the largest man she’d ever seen except on
TV. Too big. Three men were trying to kill her and now she’d landed directly on
top of one scary looking trucker.
Whoever came up with the fight or flight response needed to add a third option:
freeze.
Somewhere high above her, the man growled, “You gonna lay on my lap all day, or
find yourself a seat?”
“Sorry,” Molly managed to say. She scrabbled around, pulling her legs into the
cab and scooting over on the bench seat until she was as far from the man as
she could get. Mike had promised she’d be safe with his best friend, who he’d
promised would be in the parking garage in a running semi, but Molly’s body
didn’t quite trust her brother’s faith in his friend. She managed to steady her
breathing, fighting against the desire to leap out the other window.
She cast a quick glance at the driver. Not a single muscle in the man’s face
moved as he steered the big vehicle down the street.
“…about landing on your…um—” Her gaze slipped down to his crotch. Wait—was it
her imagination, or were things expanding down there? “Maybe I should just get
out of your truck… Um…take a taxi maybe?”
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