want to lose you again.” He didn’t think he’d survive a second time.
The love in her eyes deepened, and she reached up to smooth the worry lines in his face. “You won’t lose me. I’ve missed you so much, Skip. You’re not just the love of my life, you are my best friend. Don’t worry, I’m strong enough now.”
Moisture collected in his eyes and throat. He hadn’t realized how afraid he’d been that he’d truly lost her five year ago. Or that after last night and the light of this morning, the reality of a future with him would be too much for her. He shouldn’t have doubted his resilient, little wren. “I love you with everything that is in me and as soon as we get through this week, I don’t want to wait another day to marry you.”
“Do we have to wait until then?” She gave him a crafty smile. “I’m sure your sister has a perfectly good priest we could maybe borrow after her ceremony. Want to elope with me?”
Bet your ass, he did.
The End
Sample chapter for
HOOKED
a novel in the Alaskan Adventure series
by Tiffinie Helmer .
Prologue
She’d always known she’d die this way.
The strong tidal current dragged her farther into the unforgiving depths of the Bering Sea. She kicked and lashed until her limbs grew heavy, cold. Useless. Everything inside her screamed. She was too young. She had too much to live for.
She had to kill that fucking bastard.
Salt water burned and blinded. Filled her mouth and nose. Smothered and squeezed the life out of her.
She’d cheated this bitch of an ocean fifteen years earlier, but she wouldn’t again. She’d never been destined to live through the sinking of the Mystic.
Pain exploded in her chest, and her lungs flamed with the need for air.
Blackness swallowed her.
Chapter One
Sonya Savonski screeched her ATV to a stop alongside the dirt runway as the puddle jumper touched down. The prop airplane had just made the fifteen-minute hop from King Salmon to the small fishing village of South Naknek, Alaska.
“That was not a fair race,” Peter hollered, parking his four-wheeler next to hers.
“Only because you lost.”
“I’m towing a trailer,” he pointed out, tossing his head to the side, and clearing his eyes of dark hair. At seventeen, Peter hated to lose at anything.
“An empty trailer,” Sonya said. “It comes down to the better driver, little brother.”
The plane taxied toward them, the noise deafening. The engines thundered down and welcomed silence followed. A door opened, and passengers began to climb out. Most gazed around, not surprised by the wind-whipped banks, low-lying tundra, and the gray-green waters of the Bering Sea promising adventure, money, and possibly death. This wasn’t the tourist-friendly part of Alaska.
Fuel and exhaust mixed with salty sea air and the smell of fish. Call her crazy, but it was a scent Sonya loved. The scent of fish meant money. Hopefully this fishing season they’d get stinking rich.
“There they are.” Peter pointed to their grandparents as they stepped down from the plane.
Gramps chatted animatedly while Grams seemed to listen with rapt attention. Sonya knew that look. Margaret Savonski was woolgathering.
Peter rushed up to them, and Gramps’ face spilt into a grin as he grabbed him in a man hug. It had been weeks since they’d all seen each other. Sonya and Peter had headed out to open camp for this summer’s commercial sockeye season, knowing it would be one for the books—they were drifting and set netting this year.
Their nonconformist plan was bound to upset some fishermen.
Gramps greeted her with a bear hug. “How’s my favorite granddaughter?”
She responded with the expected, “I’m your only granddaughter.”
Nikolai Savonski’s dark brown eyes twinkled, and dimples cut deep grooves in his salt-and-pepper whiskered cheeks. A navy seaman’s cap hung lopsided over his thick wave of silver hair. He was a breed apart.
“Nikky,” Grams said, “you and Peter
Eoin McNamee
Alex Carlsbad
Anne McCaffrey
Stacy McKitrick
Zoey Parker
Bryn Donovan
Kristi Jones
Ciaran Nagle
Saxon Andrew
Ian Hamilton