Graveyard Dog by Darynda Jones
Graveyard Dog, a Charley Davidson novella from New York Times bestselling author Darynda Jones & 1001 Dark Nights is now live! Michael Cavalcante has one thing on his mind when he knocks on Izzabel Walsh’s door at two in the morning, half-dressed and a bit toasted: fix the woman’s heater and get back to bed. He vows never to cover for his maintenance tech again, especially after he gets tased and knocked out with a frying pan for his efforts.
Izzy thought she was safe. She’d dyed her hair, changed her name, and moved 1,500
miles away, and still they found her. When a member of her ex’s motorcycle club
knocks on her door in the middle of the night, supposedly to fix a perfectly good heater, Izzy panics. Not only have they found her, but they would soon discover she has a daughter. Aka, a weakness. Aka, leverage. She needs time to think. To plan. To figure out how to keep the sexy neanderthal quiet. But she has no idea how to, short of murder. Can she win him over to her side? Or will he be just like all the others once he finds out what she is capable of?
Michael has one chance to convince Izzy he doesn’t want to harm her or her daughter, but more than that, he wants to know who does. And why. And where he can find them. After all, how else is he going to make sure the two sprites, who have wound their way into his heart, are safe?
She had hair the same color as the girl’s, hanging in soft waves around her face and past her shoulders. A similar bow-shaped mouth and eyes the same ashen brown confirmed their relationship.
“She’s not my daughter,” she said, frantically clutching the girl to her.
Or not.
“Mama,” the girl pouted, placing the accent on the second ma, her lower lip jutting out.
“She’s the neighbor’s kid. They’re British. I just watch her from time to time.”
The girl tried to shake out of her grip. While she failed, she did manage to turn in the woman’s arms and look up at her. “Why do you always say that?” she asked in her soft British accent—one the woman didn’t have.
The laugh that escaped the older woman was so exaggerated and forced that Michael was appalled such talent had somehow eluded Hollywood scouts. She pulled the girl to her and petted her hair until he worried the child might go bald. “She’s a bit dramatic.”
The girl pushed at the brunette’s hands. “Mama, stop.”
“Look,” Michael said, growing impatient. And numb. “Like I said when you answered the door this morning, I got a call about your heater.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my heater.”
“Then why did you call?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“I didn’t. But you know that already.”
“I do?” He did? He was lost. Had he come to the wrong apartment? Damn it. How much had he drunk? He tried to count on his fingers but could no longer feel them.
The woman pushed the girl behind her as she walked closer to him. So close he could have easily taken her out with a single sweep of his leg and a triangle chokehold. And it wasn’t like an oven—dishwasher?—door handle could hold him if he didn’t want it to. Maybe for a few seconds. But he’d once fought a bear. Long story. He was fairly certain he could take an appliance door under the right circumstances.
Clearly not a criminal mastermind, the woman leaned close to him, the scent of peach shampoo washing over him, and said the oddest thing he’d heard all day. And he’d heard a lot of strange things already. “Be still.”
He could barely move as it was. How much stiller could he get?
“You will forget the girl in sixty seconds.”
“Mama!” the girl shouted in protest, tugging at the woman’s robe—a micro-thin garment that did little to conceal the curves underneath.
How the fuck was he just now seeing them? The curves. It was the frying pan; it had to be. Because as she leaned even closer, her beautiful face came into focus, and he felt a rippling punch to his gut.
Unhinged and beautiful.
Just his type.
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