Thunder Road, the second novel in my new Witches of Wheeler Park series, will be out on Wednesday, June 3rd, so that means it’s time for a little peek at the book! This scene is from fairly early in the book, since I didn’t want to give away too many spoilers!
Tears burned in my eyes, and I made myself drink some more water. Losing it wasn’t going to help me…or help Jake. Sooner or later, he’d forget about me. Probably sooner, just because…what did we have to tie us together, really? A few kisses, that was all. Sure, those kisses had been mind-blowing, had shown me just a little of what it might be like to be with someone who seemed to be my perfect match in every way, but still. We hadn’t professed our undying love for each other or anything close to it. Jake would get over me.
He had to.
I’d just lifted the water bottle to my lips to take another sip when someone knocked at the door of my hotel room. The sound made me jump, started my heart thumping in my chest, even though I knew it had to be the bellman. Maybe I’d dropped something in the elevator, or maybe he’d decided the tip I’d given him wasn’t big enough and he’d come back to demand more.
No, it didn’t work that way…did it? This was the first time I’d ever stayed in a hotel with valets and bellmen, so I supposed it was entirely possible that I’d unwittingly committed some kind of gaffe.
For a second or two, I contemplated ignoring the knock. After all, whoever was out there couldn’t know for sure that I was even inside the room. I could have gone back out again — either to leave the hotel entirely, or to go upstairs to the rooftop bar I’d seen mentioned on the hotel’s website. Even in my current depressed state, I’d thought that a rooftop bar sounded pretty cool.
But after the person outside knocked again, I decided I’d better go and see who it was. I put down the water bottle on the table in the sitting area, smoothed my hair as best I could, and headed over to the door.
As soon as I opened it, I got a weird little tingle at the back of my neck, the one that Jake had said meant I was in the presence of a witch or warlock. The man outside was no one I knew, tall and good-looking, probably of Spanish descent, with his near-black hair and eyes, his warm-toned olive skin.
“Hello,” he said pleasantly, although there was something about the way his deep brown eyes fixed on me that made a worried little shiver trail down my spine. “I am Gustavo Castillo. May I speak to you for a moment in private?”
“About?” I replied, trying to sound nonchalant, as though strange warlocks showed up on my doorstep every day.
His brows drew together slightly. “I think you know what this is about,” he said, then added in an undertone, “You are a witch in another clan’s territory, and our prima hasn’t given you permission to be here.”
Well, hell. I’d thought if I just kept moving, if I didn’t stay in any one place for very long, then there was a good chance my presence wouldn’t be detected. Obviously, that had been a false assumption. How the prima of the local clan had been able to divine that a strange witch was moving through her territory, I had no idea, but I supposed the “how” of the situation didn’t matter as much as what I intended to do about it.
“I’m sorry — ” I began, but the stranger didn’t let me get any further than that.
“I am not the one you should be apologizing to,” he broke in, although he uttered the rebuke in almost a kindly tone. “You can give your explanations to Genoveva Castillo. She wants to speak with you.”
Pre-order Thunder Road at these stores:
AMAZON • BARNES AND NOBLE • APPLE BOOKS • KOBO • GOOGLE PLAY
