CHOOSING BRAVERY: #WeekendRead 

Last weekend, I shared chapter 1 of Élodie Rousseau & Lachlan Bravery’s story (the wilderness guide & the fugitive tracker in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains, 1868).

Now it’s time for chapter 2!

SAMPLE SATURDAY/SUNDAY – EXCERPT

CHAPTER 2 

Four months later (following chapter 1)…

Through the trees circling the cave where his humanity had almost ended, Lachlan Bravery saw everything his heart desired and dreaded. His wildly beautiful savior had finally left him. Élodie Rousseau had taken her sharp wit and tender heart and returned to the place that had torn him apart.

After a grim childhood in the far north and an equally arduous rise to fame crisscrossing the continent hunting fugitives, how could such a small patch of earth—that he’d only seen once and now couldn’t remember clearly—have this much power over him? He’d survived too much for his strength to desert him completely.

Ignoring the aches and pains nagging his still mending flesh weakened by months of lying flat on his back, he limped to the edge of the trees separating him from Élodie and the cave, and froze.

The familiar nightmare roared down the mountain and hit him like a landslide.

Lashes of freezing cold and scorching heat bit his flesh. The seasons—then years—whipped by, blinding him. As did his struggles to find the outlaw gang who’d murdered his mentor.

Crazed laughter rang in his ears as he caught each fugitive. Next came the condemnations, his and theirs, as he hauled them to jail. How could a famous tracker find them but not Jellon Jerome’s body?

A monster’s consumed your master. The beast’s holed up in a cave.

An unearthly scream. Kill or be killed.

I choose bravery.

Three whispered words. They yanked him free from hell. Same as when he’d first heard them.

He came back to earth with only Élodie Rousseau between him and absolute madness. His name on her lips had stopped him from putting a bullet in her heart. She hadn’t been talking about choosing him, though. Back then she hadn’t known his name or his reputation.

He ran a shaky hand through his hair and across his face, tracing the scars, reminding himself of what was real. His world was ugly and brutal, inside and out.

He had no bravery. No choices.

Save one.

Staying sane enough to keep Élodie away from this cavern and his insanity was all that mattered. He pushed past his weaknesses, out of the trees, and up the slope to halt her and Alexandre Duval. The man she’d left him for.

Surprise widened the Frenchman’s dark eyes—so very different than the man’s crown of golden hair. A glower of disapproval quickly followed. The leather-bound journal he’d been scribbling in shut with a gunshot sharp crack. After only a week at Fort Shelton, a fort in name but not form, Duval had made it clear he disliked Lachlan intruding on what he’d decided was his territory: Élodie plus any artifacts or unusual land formations on this mountain.

Duval’s gaze went to the cave first and Élodie second. He had his priorities wrong. When his focus finally found Lachlan again, the furrow on his brow deepened—a single wrinkle marring the man’s perfect appearance and life.

Golden Boy huffed out a breath. “Why are you here, Tracker?” His river smooth voice couldn’t be more different than Lachlan’s backwoods rasp. The man’s superiority rang clearest in his word choice. He’d yet to address Lachlan by his name. He’d chosen to reduce him to a single word.

Lachlan sealed his lips against firing back with the double-barreled moniker he’d given Duval. Verbal battles had never been his calling. No matter what he said, this suave Golden Boy would win.

Besides, a long time ago in another life, his profession and perfect track record had meant everything to him. Then Jellon had died. And every day he failed to find his mentor’s body, the label of Tracker had chipped away his self-worth until he despised the word.

But not today. Today, being a tracker had allowed him to find Élodie and stop her.

Her hazel eyes, usually sparking with so many emotions they rivaled an autumn forest at full blaze, shone with only one sentiment.

Concern.

She’d been aware of him lurking in the trees. She’d let him take his time choosing to turn back or join her and halt her ascent. He’d wasted too much time. She’d gotten too close to the cave. She stood two strides above him, one above Duval, with her back to—

His mind grappled for the words to explain the horror that had shredded his reality. If the devil’s spawn sprang out of this rift, Élodie wouldn’t see the monstrosity until it was too late. The woman he’d learned so much about during the months of his recovery was often impulsive but never flat-out careless.

Worry and bewilderment loosened his lips. His words burst out gruff and a hundred times more imprudent than she could ever be. “Why do you continue to put your life in jeopardy? You know you’re not safe here.”

WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

• Find out more on Amazon US | CA | UK | Aus

Choosing Bravery is a stand-alone novella set in a beautiful but dangerously unforgiving wilderness. It’s also the third book in my award-winning Lonesome Hearts series which can be read in any order. Brave the wild. Bury the past. Choose your destiny.