Lauren Dane - Whiskey Sharp - Torn

Sometimes what you find isn’t what you were searching for

Beau Petty has been searching his whole life. Searching for a place that fills all the empty spaces in him. Searching for a way to tame the restlessness. Searching for answers to the secret he’s never stopped trying to solve. What he wasn’t searching for was a woman to claim all of him, but when Cora Silvera walks back into his life, he’s ready to search out all the ways he can make her his.

Cora has spent her life as the family nurturer, taking care of others. But now she’s ready to pass that job on to someone else. It’s time to make some changes and live for herself. It’s in that moment that her former teenage crush reappears and the draw and the heat of their instant connection is like nothing either of them has experienced. He craves being around her. She accepts him, dark corners and all.

Beau thinks Cora’s had enough drama in her life. He wants to protect her from the secrets of his past, even if it means holding back the last pieces of himself. But Cora is no pushover and she means to claim all those pieces.

Also By Lauren Dane

The Best Kind of Trouble

Broken Open

Back to You

Whiskey Sharp: Unraveled

Whiskey Sharp: Jagged

Whiskey Sharp: Torn

Second Chances

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Goddess with a Blade

Blade to the Keep

Blade on the Hunt

At Blade’s Edge

Diablo Lake series

Diablo Lake: Moonstruck

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Cascadia Wolves series

Reluctant Mate

Pack Enforcer

Wolves’ Triad

Wolf Unbound

Alpha’s Challenge

Bonded Pair

Twice Bitten

de La Vega Cats series

Trinity

Revelation

Beneath the Skin

Cherchez Wolf Pack series

Wolf’s Ascension

Sworn to the Wolf

Chase Brothers series

Giving Chase

Taking Chase

Chased

Making Chase

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Whiskey Sharp: Torn

Lauren Dane

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08328-7

WHISKEY SHARP: TORN

© 2018 Lauren Dane

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

May we all be fortunate enough

to be understood by those who love us.

Author Note

While Pioneer Square and SoDo are two very real neighborhoods in downtown Seattle, I’ve taken some liberties. Added some buildings, renamed a few, as it helped flesh out the characters and their stories. Still, Pioneer Square is every bit the former home to bootleggers and the criminal element partly responsible for the face of the city today.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Author Note

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Extract

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

Pointed west home beckons.

Waits for you like a lover.

NOT TOO MANY hours after getting off an airplane, Cora approached Whiskey Sharp—a barbershop, and in the evenings, a bar. The lazily swirling red-and-white candy cane sign out front was illuminated and the interior lights cast a shine against the gold-toned flourish of the shop’s title on the front glass doors.

Inside, it smelled of sandalwood and amber, two of the more popular scents of the products used in hair and beards. Music played loud enough to feel like an embrace but it didn’t drown out the low hum of conversation from the people knotted around the bar area.

Alexsei Petrov, Maybe’s husband, but also Cora’s friend, owned and ran the place that had become another home for Cora. He saw her come in and smiled, tipping his chin to where Maybe stood, working at her station. Giving someone a shave by the looks of it.

Three months before, her friend’s hair had been platinum blonde, but currently the tips were a brilliant teal blue that bled into a wash of purple.

It would have looked absurd on most people, but Maybe managed to make it seem retro and futuristic at the same time when she coupled it with high-waisted gray pinstripe pants and a crisp white button-down shirt.

Rachel stood, her hip resting against the table, a smile on her face reserved for the client who Cora now recognized as Rachel’s man, Vic, sitting in Maybe’s chair getting that shave.

The weight of the familiar was lovely and bloomed through her belly. This was another one of her places. Full of her people.

“You bitches are still the hottest chicks I know,” she said as she approached.

Rachel looked over, her eyes widening in pleasure and recognition. “You’re here!”

“I told you I’d come by,” Cora said, swallowed up into a hug.

“I know but you’re here now. Yay!” Maybe took over the next hug, smacking a kiss right onto her lips before stepping back.

Laughing, she got hugs from the wild bearded Russians, as Rachel and Maybe referred to their dudes.

“Everyone missed you. Not more than us, naturally, but still,” Rachel said after Cora had been loved up on by all her friends. “Three months is way too long to go without seeing you.”