Quiet Storm, Season 2, Episode 6 (Rising Storm) (11 page)

BOOK: Quiet Storm, Season 2, Episode 6 (Rising Storm)

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Marcus Alvarez fled Storm when his father’s drinking drove him over the edge. With his mother and sisters in crisis, Marcus is forced to return to the town he thought he’d left behind. But it is his attraction to a very grown up Brittany Rush that just might be enough to guarantee that he stays.

Take the Storm
by Rebecca Zanetti

Marisol Moreno has spent her youth taking care of her younger siblings. Now, with her sister, Ginny, in crisis, and her brother in the throes of his first real relationship, she doesn’t have time for anything else. Especially not the overtures of the incredibly compelling Patrick Murphy.

Weather the Storm
by Lisa Mondello

Bryce Douglas faces a crisis of faith when his idyllic view of his family is challenged with his son’s diagnosis of autism. Instead of accepting his wife and her tight-knit family’s comfort, he pushes them away, fears from his past threatening to undo the happiness he’s found in his present.

Thunder Rolls
by Dee Davis

In the season finale …

As Hannah Grossman grapples with the very real possibility that she is dating one Johnson brother while secretly in love with another, the entire town prepares for Founders Day. The building tempest threatens not just Hannah’s relationship with Tucker and Tate, but everyone in Storm as dire revelations threaten to tear the town apart.

Blinding Rain

Rising Storm, Season 2, Episode 7

By Elisabeth Naughton

Now Available

Click
here
to purchase.

Secrets, Sex and Scandals …

Welcome to Storm, Texas, where passion runs hot, desire runs deep, and secrets have the power to destroy… Get ready. The storm is coming.

As Tate Johnson struggles to deal with his brother’s relationship with Hannah, hope asserts itself in an unexpected way. With the return of Delia Burke, Logan’s old flame, Brittany and Marcus see an opportunity to help their friend. But when the evening takes an unexpected turn, Brittany finds herself doing the last thing she expected—coming face to face with Ginny…

* * * *

Logan pulled the bottle the rest of the way off the shelf and sloshed whiskey over the ice he’d already filled in a glass as he glared at his oldest friend. “My life
is
fucked when Marcus Alvarez, bad boy extraordinaire, has become the voice of reason.”

Marcus chuckled as he sat on the barstool and rested his forearms on the gleaming bar top. Dark hair fell over his eyes, and he shook his head to force it back. “What can I say? I’m wise beyond my years.”

Logan huffed and added Coke to the tumbler, then moved down the counter and set the drink in front of one of Murphy’s regulars. Grabbing a dishtowel, he wiped his hands as he walked back to the computer, keyed in the order, then turned to stand in front of Marcus, more relieved than he wanted to admit that his friend had shown up at the perfect time and saved him from making yet another terrible decision. “It’s two o’clock on a Wednesday. What are you doing in here? Shouldn’t you be working?”

“I was.” Marcus grabbed a pretzel from a bowl on the bar and popped it into his mouth. The bar was only sporadically filled, but in a few hours it would be hopping. “Took off early. I’m meeting Ian in a bit. We’re heading out to look at some property.”

Logan nodded and tossed the towel over his shoulder as he studied his friend. Marcus’s family life might be shit in a hundred different ways now that his old man was back in town, but Marcus had something solid. He had Ian Briggs on his side—a man who was more of a father to Marcus than Hector Alvarez had ever been. Logan knew Marcus was stressed about what was happening with his mother and sisters now that his abusive father was back in the picture, but because of Ian, Marcus had a shot at a real future now—a partnership in a new ranch, land soon to build a home, freedom from the hell he’d grown up in. Heck, Marcus even had the perfect girl to start his new life—Brittany Rush. The prettiest girl in all of Storm, Texas.

Logan’s chest pinched because he knew that wasn’t true, at least not for him. The prettiest girl in Storm, Texas, wasn’t blonde and blue-eyed like Brittany. She had dark curly hair, even darker eyes, and a belly that was rounder every time he saw her thanks to her pregnancy, growing a child that would never be his.

His mood took a serious nosedive, and he glanced back toward the bottles on the shelves behind him. Man, he needed a drink. Standing here talking to his friend should make him feel better but all it was doing was making him relive the shitstorm that was his own life. Why couldn’t he stop thinking about Ginny Moreno? He hadn’t dated her that long. She’d already been pregnant when they’d met. They’d never even slept together. That baby growing inside her was never going to be his, and he’d known that from the start. So what did it matter if she was carrying Jacob Salt’s kid or Senator Rush’s brat?

Bile swirled in his gut, edging its way up his esophagus. Because it mattered to him. It mattered that she’d slept with a married man. It mattered that she’d told the world she was carrying Jacob’s baby so the truth about her affair with Senator Rush would never come out. But mostly, to Logan, it mattered that she’d lied to him. That during the months they’d dated when he’d thought they’d connected on a deeper level, the whole time she’d just been using him to make herself feel better.

That’s what really burned. That he’d been a fool the whole time. That he’d been played. He’d shared everything with her—his time in Afghanistan, the friends he’d lost, even his fucking PTSD—and she’d shared virtually nothing. Nothing that the rest of the world didn’t already know. Everything that mattered, everything intimate and secret and true about her she’d kept from him. And now he wasn’t even sure who she really was.

1001 Dark Nights

Welcome to 1001 Dark Nights… a collection of novellas that are breathtakingly sexy and magically romantic. Some are paranormal, some are erotic. Each and every one is compelling and page turning.

Inspired by the exotic tales of The Arabian Nights, 1001 Dark Nights features
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling authors.

In the original, Scheherazade desperately attempts to entertain her husband, the King of Persia, with nightly stories so that he will postpone her execution.

In our version, month after month, each of our fabulous authors puts a unique spin on the premise and creates a tale that a new Scheherazade tells long into the dark, dark night.

For more information about 1001 Dark Nights, visit
www.1001DarkNights.com
.

On behalf of Rising Storm,

Liz Berry, M.J. Rose, Julie Kenner & Dee Davis would like to thank ~

Steve Berry

Doug Scofield

Melissa Rheinlander

Kim Guidroz

Jillian Stein

InkSlinger PR

Asha Hossain

Chris Graham

Pamela Jamison