(The McCain Saga #3)
Publication date: October 14th 2014
Genres: New Adult, Romance
Synopsis:
It was another day at the ranch, training horses and working fifteen hour days. And then the last person I ever expected showed up. Lake McCain: a Marine, tall, ripped—and the best friend of my dead fiancé. Cal died to save Lake, and now Lake claims that he carries a debt to me that he can never repay.
I wanted to brush him off. But then my mom, the manager of the ranch, went and hired him. We spend hours working together with the horses. Lake doesn’t say much. He’s layered and dark and he tries to seem shallow and simple. But he isn’t. There are things under his surface that matter. He works, quiet and strong, and never once lets me down.
Until he confesses that he may be falling in love with me. I can’t deny that there is something between us. But a relationship? I just can’t. I’ve used up all my chances at love. My past relationships have ended in death or disaster, and now I have to live with all of that.
I’m Riley James, and there are depths to Lake—depths to myself—that I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand.
The McCain Saga
EVER AFTER DRAKE
MOMENTS OF JULIAN
DEPTHS OF LAKE
PLAYING IT KALE (January 20, 2014)
I wanted to brush him off. But then my mom, the manager of the ranch, went and hired him. We spend hours working together with the horses. Lake doesn’t say much. He’s layered and dark and he tries to seem shallow and simple. But he isn’t. There are things under his surface that matter. He works, quiet and strong, and never once lets me down.
Until he confesses that he may be falling in love with me. I can’t deny that there is something between us. But a relationship? I just can’t. I’ve used up all my chances at love. My past relationships have ended in death or disaster, and now I have to live with all of that.
I’m Riley James, and there are depths to Lake—depths to myself—that I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand.
The McCain Saga
EVER AFTER DRAKE
MOMENTS OF JULIAN
DEPTHS OF LAKE
PLAYING IT KALE (January 20, 2014)
EXCERPTS
#1
“Lake?” I call quietly. No reply.
I push the door open a bit more and step
inside. I look back toward the
bedroom. As far as I can see, it’s
empty. And the door to the bathroom is
open and the light off.
“Lake?” I call once more.
A soft snore pulls my eyes to the couch,
and there I find him.
He’s changed into a pair of dry jeans,
but that’s all he’s wearing. A thickly
muscled arm is lying across his eyes, his other arm hanging down toward the
floor. Bare feet hang over the arm of
the couch.
His perfectly sculpted chest bears seven
stars tattooed over his left breast.
His brows are furrowed, his expression
concerned.
He’s a soldier who’s engaged in combat
and he’s seen some horrible things. He
saw Cal blown to pieces. I can only
imagine the hell he must be seeing behind those lids right now.
I’m torn. I want to wake him from whatever nightmare I
know he’s having. But I also know about
PTSD and how dangerous it can to be to wake a soldier in this state.
His left shoulder twitches violently. His face winces.
“Lake,” I say, soft and gentle.
He gives a little twitch, like me
calling his name entered his dream, but he doesn’t wake.
“Lake,” I say, this time louder. I keep my distance, standing by the door.
He jerks up from the couch, half sitting
up. His right hand reaches for his hip,
as if he’s searching for a sidearm. His
eyes sweep the room and fix on me.
They’re bloodshot and wide.
“It’s okay,” I say, keeping my tone even
and calm. “It’s just me.”
His breathing is hard and fast and it
takes a minute for him to calm down and realize he isn’t out on the
battlefield, in the middle of a warzone.
“What do you want?” he asks. His voice is hard and flat.
Soldiers don’t like admitting when
they’re dealing with post-field issues.
I’ve caught him in a moment of trauma, and he doesn’t like it.
“Mom’s just about got dinner ready and
asked me to come get you,” I say. I’m
not offended by his hard tone. I
understand. “I’m sorry to wake you, but
you looked like you were in a place you needed extraction from.”
He looks at me for another really long
minute. Lake has the most impassive
eyes. I can’t tell what’s going on
behind them. Is he angry? Is he embarrassed? Indifferent?
It’s impossible to tell.
“Yeah,” he finally replies. He climbs off the couch and walks to the
bedroom. He looks over his shoulder at
me just before he disappears behind the door.
My eyes drop away from him, embarrassed to realize he’s just caught me
staring and embarrassed for the fact that I was.
But who couldn’t admire a body like that?
#2
“Thank you for this,” I say, my voice
small and quiet. “This was all you. You didn’t have to, and no one asked. But you did it. And for that, I’m grateful.”
Lake slides his hands into his pockets
and takes a few slow steps toward me.
His eyes drop to the ground at our feet.
“You know, for a long time, I’ve felt like I didn’t really matter. If that makes any sense. Being in the Marines helped some. But you know that feeling of emptiness?” he
looks up at me, his eyes opening up in a way that I can see. And I do know. “It was always there. But being here lately? It’s changed that. I love what we do here. I love working the ranch and the long days
and the feeling that I’m doing something good.
That I’m doing something important.”
He takes two more steps toward me. He’s close enough that I can smell him
now. The sweat of the day. The scent of his shampoo from this morning. And something that is so Lake that it sends
my head spinning.
“But it’s not just the ranch and the
work, Riley,” he says quietly. His voice
is low and warm, just like the day outside.
“It’s you, too. When I’m around
you, I feel like I matter.”
Something builds inside of me, something
that resembles a thousand hooves beating across the fields at sunrise.
One slow, carefully thought out step at
a time, he closes the space between us.
He places a hand on the wall on either side of my head, boxing me
in. His eyes study my face. My cheeks, my nose, my lips. His face is so close.
Something in my blood jumps to life, and
I’m staring at his mouth.
“What’s holding you back, Riley?” he
finally says. His voice is low and
rough. And there’s a mountain of
unspoken words behind it. “Why won’t you
let yourself go?”
INTERVIEW
Tell us
a little bit about The McCain Saga.
This is
a family saga about three brothers and one sister. The McCains all have big personalities and
crazy love stories. And they always have
each others backs. Each book is told
from a different woman’s point of view, Kaylee Ray, Sage McCain, Riley James,
and Whitney Ford.
Describe
DEPTHS OF LAKE in five words.
America-ranch-horses-Marines-love.
Each of
the McCain books is told from a different characters point of view. Which of them to you relate to the most?
There’s
certainly a little piece of me in each and every one of them. I’d say I have Kaylee’s positive outlook on
life, Sage’s ambition, Riley’s independence, and Whitney’s creativity. But the one I relate to the MOST is probably
Sage. We both have a bit too much pride
and are always reaching for something more.
Writing
adult contemporary romance is a new thing for you. What made you decide to make the jump to that
genre?
I was
actually working on a YA paranormal when I started feeling a bit overwhelmed
and burned out. I’d just finished my
sci-fi series in one year, and I needed something different. I needed something that was just FUN to
write. So I sat down and started on
MOMENTS OF JULIAN. It wrote it exactly
how I wanted to write it with no readers in mind. It was therapy for me. And then I couldn’t stop thinking about her
brothers. And that’s how The McCain
Saga came to be!
So, what
else have you written?
I have
my most popular series, a NA paranormal romance: the Fall of Angels trilogy
(BRANDED, FORSAKEN, VINDICATED, and novelette, AFTERLIFE). And then my NA post-apocalyptic romance: The
Eden Trilogy (THE BANE, THE HUMAN, THE EVE, shorts THE RAID and THE
ASHES). And then I have a YA contemporary
standalone, WHAT I DIDN’T SAY.
Give us
an insight into your main character. What does he/she do that is so special?
Riley
James is a country girl through and through.
Both for the fact that she runs a ranch and trains horses, and she’s the
daughter of a career Marine. She loves
America, and was engaged to a Marine.
And then he died. So when Lake,
another soldier, comes into her life, she’s a bit broken. But she’s one of the strongest women you’ll
meet.
How can
readers discover more about you and you work?
Website: http://www.kearytaylor.com/
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AUTHOR BIO:
Keary Taylor grew up along the foothills of the Rocky Mountains where she started creating imaginary worlds and daring characters who always fell in love. She now resides on a tiny island in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and their two young children. She continues to have an overactive imagination that frequently keeps her up at night. She is the author of THE EDEN TRILOGY, the FALL OF ANGELS trilogy, and WHAT I DIDN'T SAY. To learn more about Keary and her writing process, please visit www.KearyTaylor.com.
Author links:
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