After Always
by Barbara J. Hancock
Genre: YA Mystery & Suspense
Release Date: October 1st 2018
Entangled Teen
Summary:
by Barbara J. Hancock
Genre: YA Mystery & Suspense
Release Date: October 1st 2018
Entangled Teen
Summary:
Lydia’s life felt like it ended when Tristan died. Sure,
they had their problems and he could be a little…intense at times. But he’d
promised to love her forever…
When her parents propose a summer across the country with
a music teacher who runs an inn, Lydia agrees. But it’s different from what she
expected. There’s a presence there she can’t quite reconcile—and it feels like
it’s hunting her. It seems Tristan’s promise followed her…and may have graver
consequences than she could have known.
Then there’s Michael Malone, the one light spot in an
otherwise dark existence. Lydia can’t help but be drawn to him, and as they try
to uncover the evil plaguing the inn, they grow closer. But guilt over
Tristan’s death still consumes her. Can she and Michael uncover what evil lurks
in the inn before it takes another victim?
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Purchase links can be found here: Entangled Publishing
Excerpt:
The
hard gravel in my chest tried to beat faster, but I breathed in and out, slow
and steady, and told myself it didn’t matter. The sudden beauty I’d seen in his
everyday sort of features didn’t matter.
But when Michael’s amber eyes cut sideways
and he caught me looking at his face, it did matter.
He got quiet. Even quieter than usual.
I got quiet as well.
We both seemed to hardly breathe for a little
while.
I wasn’t only drawn to him because I’d
noticed his physical attractiveness. And it wasn’t only his warmth, although
I’d had a constant chill for months that seemed to ease as we stood there, side
by side, as it always eased around him. It was his calm. His stillness. More
than anything I was like a skittish wild creature being lured by an
outstretched hand. I stared at his face because I didn’t know whether I should
trust my instinct to run away or follow the urge to edge closer and dispel the
cold a little more.
Then, he spoke again and I looked away from
the movement of his finely shaped jaw.
“There’s always something that needs doing.
And I like the work. I like Stonebridge,” Michael said.
I looked back at him thinking “like” was such
an odd word for the monstrously huge old place. I wasn’t sure I liked it at
all. I found myself strangely nervous in dark stairways and blind corners. And
uncomfortable with all the closed and locked doors.
“I like the activity this time of year
especially. The guests coming and going. I like staying busy. And Mrs.
Brighton. I like her, too,” Michael said. “She hired me several years ago. I
was sixteen. Lied. Said I was older. She must have known. I was a foot shorter
back then. And I’d never even changed a light bulb. She hired me anyway.”
I couldn’t imagine a shorter version of the
guy beside me. Or one who hadn’t always known exactly what he was doing. The
young man I knew seemed to face the challenge presented by the aging hulk of
Stonebridge with undaunted determination and know-how.
“She started paying me more when I decided to
take engineering classes at the community college,” Michael continued.
“You’re an engineer?” I said. I had been so
certain that I would be a concert pianist. Before. After, my high school
graduation had come and gone in a blur of grief. Now, I was in limbo. Uncertain
if I could face tomorrow much less a future at a conservatory that once
threatened to come between me and Tristan.
“Will be. One day,” Michael replied. So
simple. So certain.
I looked behind us at the great hulking house
I’d needed to escape from that morning. I saw something very different in it
than Michael saw. He saw opportunity and possibility. I saw dust and decay.
Just then, one of the swirling gulls above us
shed a feather. I had turned back to the cove but the fluttering movement of
the black-tipped gray feather as it fell caught my eye.
It would fall down, down, down to the ocean
in the cove and be washed out to sea. I watched it fall. The haphazard dip and
swerve of its trajectory was hypnotic in its inevitability.
Michael had seen it, too.
He didn’t wait for it to fall. He stepped to
the edge of the cliff where a low rail at his knees would probably be useless
in stopping his momentum if he slipped. He reached up and out for the feather
until it floated into the palm of his hand. Then, he closed his fingers and
pulled it back over land. All so sudden and quick and carelessly graceful. I
found myself holding my breath again.
“I like gulls, too,” Michael said, twirling
the saved feather in his dexterous, calloused fingers. “Some people think their
calls sound sad, but they would change their minds if they would only watch
them fly.”
He held the feather out to me and I reached
and took it from him, like a gift, before I stopped to consider.
From his hand to mine, the gull feather
passed and with it came the realization—I didn’t know how I felt about
Stonebridge, but I liked Michael. More than I should. The feeling was warm and
soft in my chest, unexpected and frightening. I was never supposed to be warm
and soft again. I was supposed to continue to harden and cool until I was an
unfeeling statue of Lydia, incapable of love and loss and remembering pain. I
didn’t want to risk another relationship. Not only because I had promised
Tristan forever, but because that vow had turned out to be a mistake even
before he was lost at sea.
About the
Author
Barbara J. Hancock lives in a cabin in the
foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains with her many rescued pets and the guy
who lured her into the wilderness with promises of lots of peace and quiet for
writing. To this day, the Appalachian wildwood is the best gift she’s ever been
given. Her favorite pastime (besides animal rescue) is bringing darkly romantic
stories to life by firefly light.
Author
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