Somewhere to Begin
Poison & Wine #1
By Mika Jolie
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: September 20, 2016
There are wounds
that never show on the body.
For twenty-nine
years, Colbie Bennington does as expected with an eternal smile stained on her
lips. The biggest chances she’s ever taken can be counted on one hand, three
fingers to be exact—her battered red chucks, painting her toenails a vibrant
blue, and her wedding dress. Always the dutiful daughter and a Stepford
fiancée, she has never acted on impulse, never been in love.
She’s never
lived.
On her wedding
day, Colbie ends a toxic relationship, drops the fake smile, and says, “I can’t
do this anymore.”
Navy SEAL Zander
Serrano returns home broken and burdened with a volcano of remorse. Too trapped
in a mental war to be at peace and too damaged to be at war, he shuts the world
out. The last thing he expects is to feel, especially for a runaway bride with
her own baggage.
Two empty hearts
marred in different spots find themselves drawn to one another. Each with their
own scars. Some, the world can see. Others, unseen to the naked eye.
They say two
broken people should not be together. But for Colbie and Zander, their
attraction is undeniable, unexpected.
Can two souls
with fractured parts be the best cure for each other’s wounds?
Starting over is
never easy, but sometimes in life, everyone needs somewhere to begin.
Somewhere to Begin by Mika Jolie
“Pity.” She scoffed. “You’re here out of
pity.”
“I don’t do anything out of pity.” If he did,
he would have never pulled a gun on a thirteen-year-old boy in the middle of
nowhere in Afghanistan, ready to squeeze the trigger when the kid had drawn a
fully automatic in his face. That was the nature of war. Sorrow and compassion
had long been stripped out of him. After twelve years serving his country, his
empathy had shrunk to something that could be accurately described as a professional
concern. During combat, apathy was a necessary evil. He did what needed to be
done to save his ass and his band of brothers. The same way he had reacted
after seeing Colbie’s frail body pinned between the steering column and the car
seat.
In the adrenaline rush, he’d forgotten his
pain. The strain of physical therapy vanished, and once again, he was a soldier
running toward the conflict. The entire front end of her car had crumpled with
the force of the head-on collision into the trees. Windshield shattered. Her
body limp, caught in a steel prison, an oily taste spreading through the smoky
air.
After banging on the window in a desperate
attempt to get her attention, he’d popped the door open. Locating the clip of
her seat belt biting into her chest, he undid it and dragged her out of the
car, away from the smell of gas. A mechanical reflex, nothing heroic.
“You feel sorry for me. No one has come to
visit me other than you, I bet.” There was a moment, just a fraction of a
second, when her face mirrored her emotions, utter devastation. Then she angled
her head to a more casual pose.
But the delicate curves of her lips revealed
a significant pathos of their own. She was wearing a mask. He recognized it.
“I want to be here,” he said and meant every
word. He’d been struck by her beauty since the accident, and for the last two
days, he’d been drinking her in like he was dying of thirst. Instant attraction
was the universe’s way of fucking with his head—one more shitpile to add to the
list of mental fuck-ups. As she adjusted her weight and moved her left hand,
his gaze fell on the bare finger where the engagement ring had been. “I’ll get
a nurse.” He turned to the door just as it slid open.
“Coming in,” a high-pitched voice called as
the door pushed open. Zander stepped back, making room for the doctor and
nurse.
“How is it going Mr. Serrano?” Nurse Jenkins
greeted him in her Jamaican born accent.
“Great,” he muttered.
Immediately, Nurse Jenkins surveyed the
electronic machine buzzing and clicking in a symphony of sounds. She scribbled
something on the patient’s chart, then passed it to the doctor. After a cursory
glance, he placed it in a slot on the wall.
“Mr. Serrano, good to see you again. I’m
going to check on our favorite patient.” The doctor shook Zander’s hand, and
then turned his attention on Colbie. “Miss Bennington, I’m Dr. Richard Sydney,
and this is Nurse Jenkins. You had a mild concussion from the whiplash along
with a couple of bruised ribs. How do you feel?”
“Fine,” she whispered.
Nurse Jenkins pulled out two pair of gloves
in the holder on the wall and handed one to the doctor. They buzzed around
Colbie, checking the bandage on her forehead, her vital signs, the IV, and her
heart rate before stepping back.
“Ready to go home?” Dr. Sydney asked in a
casual tone.
For a beat, her face became rigid with
tension but then quickly settled into careful neutrality. “Yes, I am,” she
answered.
“Miss Bennington,” Dr. Sydney continued,
“those marks on your arms—”
“They’re nothing,” she cut in. “I tripped. A clumsy
accident on my part.”
Zander studied her clasped hands. He
recognized the excuse to avoid the situation. An art he’d mastered since
returning from Afghanistan.
“Miss Bennington, the marks on your arms are
not from a fall, nor were they obtained in the course of any sporting
activity.” Dr. Sydney glanced over at Zander and then scribbled something on
his notepad. “If you are in danger—”
“I’m not in danger.” She met the doctor’s
questionable stare. Her face was expressionless with no sign of feelings. The
shutters were drawn shut.
Lucky for her, Zander was good at reading
body language. He caught the subtle way her thumb pressed on the tip of her
ring finger. She was most likely ashamed, and her brain was busy racing for
ways out.
Silence lay in the room. Zander folded his
arms tight across his chest, watching, trying to figure out her story.
Someone’s favorite pastime had been to hit her. That was clear. If he were a
betting man, he’d bet the culprit was her fiancé. Feeling sick to his stomach,
he scrubbed a hand over his face.
“You can press charges,” Doctor Sydney
advised.
“I’m fine, Doctor.” She lifted her chin in an
attempt to look confident. “I’m ready to go home.”
But her dark, hollow eyes showed she was
neither.
After a slight hesitation, Doctor Sydney
nodded. “Nurse Jenkins will bring the release form for you to sign.”
“I bought you a change of clothes,” Zander
said once they were alone. He picked up a cream shopping bag and handed it to
her.
“You went shopping?” Her head shifted in his
direction. When he didn’t answer, she smiled. “You’re a sweet man.”
“I’m not sweet.”
She unfolded the basic white cotton tee and
examined the dropped V-neck. “This is pretty.”
He shrugged, making a mental note to send
Paige a thank you text for helping him pick out the outfit. She had insisted on
the shirt—something about it being simple and feminine.
Colbie checked the label attached to the
waist of the jeans and then narrowed her eyes at him. “How did you figure my
size?”
He hadn’t. When Paige asked for a
guesstimate, his response had been about five foot seven inches tall, curvy,
C-cup breasts. “I went with a friend.” And spent forty long minutes listening
to the woman his sister had lovingly dubbed as the fourth musketeer as she
scolded him for not returning her calls or text messages. “Where is home,
Colbie?”
A shadow crossed her beautiful features, but
she quickly recast her face into one of disinterest, erasing the crestfallen
look. “Medham.”
“Your parents?”
She nodded.
“Are you going back there?” That question was
met with stony silence. Once more, he studied her finger where the diamond had
been. “Married?”
“No.”
“The night of the accident, you were in a
wedding dress.”
“I’m not married.”
“What’s your story?”
“What does it matter?” she challenged, her
eyes locked with his.
“Do you have somewhere to go?”
After another long pause, she let out a long
breath, licking her lips in a nervous little gesture.
“Let’s try the truth,” he said, and waited.
“I lost control of my car and crashed.”
Malarkey detection was one of his strength,
right now, his ears were buzzing. “Tell me you’re not going back to whoever
left those marks on your arms.”
Her chin tilted up, ready for battle, but her
eyes welled up with a sadness no one should possess. They showed her soul,
broken and damaged. Zander fought the desire to scoop her up, take her home,
and pour love into her until she felt safe enough to cry out whatever pain
tormented her.
The thought almost made him laugh . . . or
cry . . . or both. It was the biggest joke ever because he was dealing with his
own crap and had absolutely nothing to give.
“Don’t worry about me.” She cleared her
throat and tucked an unruly lock of hair behind her ear. “I’ll figure something
out.”
Everything about her told his intuition she
was a trap, yet he walked right in and let the door swing shut. “Get dressed.
You’re coming with me.”
Mika Jolie is
the bestselling author of the Martha’s Way series. She lives in New Jersey with
her Happy Chaos—her husband and their energizer bunnies. A sports fanatic and a
wine aficionado, she’s determined to balance it all and still write about life
experiences and matters of the heart. Let’s face it, people are complicated and
love can be messy. When she’s not weaving life and romance into evocative
tales, you can find her on a hiking adventure, apple picking, or whatever her
three men can conjure up.
She loves to
hear from readers. Connect with Mika on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and
Amazon.
For latest news
on her current works-in-progress, interviews with fellow authors, or just to
see what she's up to, check out her website: http://www.mikajolie.com or sign up
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I love this cover a bit too much. :O
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