“Jena took a seat on the sofa, and Cole found himself with another dilemma. Should he sit next to her or take the other chair? Such a decision shouldn’t feel momentous, but it did. It felt as momentous as a choice between the past and the future. It felt like a choice between friendship and maybe more than friendship. He sat next to her on the sofa.” ActionDrugsRomantic SuspenseRomantic ThrillerAlligatorsParamedicWildlife Agent Book:Black Diamond Source: Black Diamond
“Jena Sinclair had taught him a couple of things about himself in the past few minutes that he didn’t want to know. First, sometime in the past five years, a deep fatigue had wrapped itself around him – not the fatigue that could be slept off with a soft bed and a warm blanket, but the fatigue caused by a tightened harness that restricted. That promised no end to long days and longer nights. A harness of his own making. Cole had realized another surprising thing too. Very surprising for the man who needed nothing and no one. He was lonely.” Romantic SuspenseRomantic ThrillerBayouAlligatorWildlife Agents Book:Black Diamond Source: Black Diamond
“I see you’ve got an unwanted visitor.” He walked to stand beside Doris just as she poked at the gator with the table leg and caused it to hiss and back up again. “Ma’am, would you please not poke the gator anymore? Hissing is his way of telling you he doesn’t much like that.” Romantic ThrillerLouisiana Bayou Book:Black Diamond Source: Black Diamond
“He’d danced around that story about why he’d moved to Terrebonne more smoothly than an Olympic skater on ice.” Romantic SuspenseRomantic ThrillerAlligatorsWildlife AgentsDrug Runners Book:Black Diamond Source: Black Diamond
“Jena shook her head. “Paul needs a life.” “Paul needs a woman,” Ceelie said.” Romantic SuspenseRomantic ThrillerAlligatorsBayou Book:Black Diamond Source: Black Diamond
“How ‘bout you, Jena?” He leaned closer, speaking in an exaggerated whisper. “We could go somewhere private. I know you probably got some scars from being shot, but you can’t see a scar in the dark, right?” The dickwad was offering her a pity fuck in a darkened room?” Romantic SuspenseRomantic ThrillerAlligatorsLouisiana BayouDrug Runners Book:Black Diamond Source: Black Diamond
“Everybody has scars; some are more visible than others, that’s all. But anyone without a scar is someone I don’t want to know because it’s someone who doesn’t feel things deeply. You have to understand loss to recognize a gift when you see it.” He leaned over and kissed her again. “You are my gift. I want to be yours, if you’ll let me.” Romantic SuspenseEmotional PainRomantic ThrillerAlligatorsBayou Book:Black Diamond Source: Black Diamond
“We have unfinished personal business I do believe.” He smiled. “And I do love to make you blush.” “It clashes with my hair.” DrugsRomantic SuspenseEmotional PainRomantic ThrillerAlligatorsBayouParamedicWildlife Agents Book:Black Diamond Source: Black Diamond
“The lieutenant paused at the low, rhythmic hum sounding from inside the cabin, obviously loud enough for him to hear. Jena moved farther from the door. "What the hell is that?" he asked. Jena lowered her voice. "It's Ceelie Savoie, chanting or singing or something." She paused, but couldn't resist adding, "She has some new chicken bones." There was a long pause. "Chicken bones. Golsalmighty." Warren sighed.” Romantic ThrillerVoodooBayou Book:Wild Man's Curse Source: Wild Man's Curse
“Since Paul wasn’t a big conversationalist—he was the anti-Mac, in other words, and today had been the longest she’d ever heard him speak in consecutive sentences—Jena watched the scenery for a while. Then she decided to study the inside of Paul’s truck to see what she could learn about him. Technically, it was exactly like hers and Gentry’s. It had a black exterior with a blue light bar across the top and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Enforcement Division logo on the doors. It was tech heavy on the front dash, just like theirs, with LDWF, Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office, and Louisiana State Police Troop C radios, a laptop, a GPS unit, and a weather unit. In her truck and in Gentry’s, the cords and wires were a colorful tangle of plastic and metal, usually with extra plugs dangling around like vines. Paul’s cords were all black, and he had them woven in pairs and tucked underneath the dash, where they neatly disappeared. She leaned over to see how he’d achieved such a thing, and noticed identical zip ties holding them in place. “Sinclair, I hate to ask, but what are you doing?” He sounded more bemused than annoyed, so she said, “I’m psychoanalyzing you based on the interior of your truck.” He almost ran off the road. “Why?” “Your scintillating conversation was putting me to sleep.” His dark brows knit together but he seemed to have no answer to that. She turned around in her seat, as much as the seat belt allowed, and continued her study. Paul had a 12-gauge shotgun and a .223 carbine mounted right behind the driver’s seat, same as in her own truck. The mounts had hidden release buttons so the agents could get the guns out one-handed and quickly. But where her truck had a catch-all supply of stuff, from paper towels to zip ties to evidence bags to fast-food wrappers thrown in the back, Paul’s backseat was empty but for a zippered storage container normal people used for shoes. Each space held different things, all neatly arranged. Jena spotted evidence bags in one. Zip ties in another. Notebooks. Citation books. Paperwork. A spare uniform hung over one window, with a dry-cleaner’s tag dangling from the shirt’s top button. Good Lord. She turned back around. “What did you learn?” Paul finally asked. “You’re an obsessive-compulsive neat freak,” she said. “Accent on freak.” Romantic SuspenseRomantic ThrillerRomantic MysteryLouisiana Bayou Mystery Book:Black Diamond Source: Black Diamond
“The bones said death was comin', and the bones never lied. Eva Savoie leaned back in the rocking chair and pushed it into motion on the uneven wide-plank floor of the one-room cabin. Her grand pere Julien had built the place more than a century ago, pulling heavy cypress logs from the bayou and sawing them, one by one, into the thick planks she still walked across ever day. She had never known Julien Savoie, but she knew of him. The curse that had stalked her family for three generations had started with her grandfather and what he'd done all those years ago. What he'd brought with him to Whiskey Bayou with blood on his hands. What had driven her daddy to shoot her mama, and then himself, before either turned forty-five. What had led Eva's brother, Antoine, to drown in the bayou only a half mile from this cabin, leaving a wife and infant son behind. What stalked Eva now.” Romantic SuspenseLouisiana BayouSouthern Mystery Book:Wild Man's Curse Source: Wild Man's Curse
“What a voice. Deep, throaty, but not in a sexy way. In a haunted way. A voice full of heartbreak and ghosts. I won't go back, I won't go home, 'Cause in this place, the dead still roam, 'Cause this time, Whiskey Bayou won't let me go.” Romantic SuspenseVoodooBayouSouthern Mystery Book:Wild Man's Curse Source: Wild Man's Curse