Stoking the Embers (New Adult Romantic Suspense): The Complete Series
Read Stoking the Embers (New Adult Romantic Suspense): The Complete Series Online
Authors: Leslie Johnson
Tags: #new adult romance suspense
Complete Series
By
Leslie Johnson
Copyright © 2015 Leslie Johnson
Published By: Atrevida Publishing
Table of Contents
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are all made up in my mind. In other words, nothing is to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
© 2014 Leslie Johnson
Published by: Atrevida Publishing
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Don’t miss a single installment of Leslie Johnson’s captivating romance series.
Book Description
Steamy and hot. Dark and disturbing.
She seeks security. He seeks freedom. They both think their lives are mapped out. Until an accident brings them together and their worlds collide, bringing passion they never expected.
But, in their shadow, evil exists. Subtle and soundless. Insidious and menacing. It won’t stop until it tears the lovers apart.
Welcome to the lives of Stephanie, a nursing student only months from receiving her degree, and Ken, a firefighter training to become a paramedic—two people dedicated to saving lives.
Will the embers of their budding relationship be smothered or stoked? Do they have the power to save themselves from the evil between them?
Book 1 — Chapter 1—Stephanie
Turning onto Sunset, my hands are like leaden weights on the steering wheel. I’m so tired; it’s bone deep. I could cry, knowing I still have hours of studying to complete before bed. I can’t continue this schedule much longer, something’s got to give. But I don’t know what that could be… job: gotta have it to eat; school: gotta have it for a better future; boyfriend: gotta have him for…
For what? I don’t know how to answer that question. Support? Love? Neither of those words feel right.
The sports car flying past me rocks me from my reverie. He’s so fast, my car shakes from the wind shear he leaves in his wake. Where did he come from? I check my mirror, looks like he’s the only one driving at breakneck speed.
I speed up too, wanting to be home and put this shitty day behind me. I have to focus on my studies, I have to do well on Donovan’s exam. Plus, I have to work tomorrow, the morning shift from six a.m. to noon.
Bath first. Study second. Dinner somewhere in between—probably ramen noodles, again.
Although my windows are up and the air conditioner is on full blast in relief of this hot Vegas day, I hear it. Metal on metal, the bams and pops of a wreck. Glass exploding, steel wrenching and then quiet.
I drive forward, trying to see the damage. Oh my god. One. No two. No three cars are involved.
Even though the radio is still playing, the stupid red sports car is unrecognizable. It now resembles a piece of the term paper I have so many times wadded in my hand. It’s under a white van—oh no, it’s a small church van—the kind that seats eight or sometimes twelve. There’s also a convertible involved. It’s lying on its side, girls hanging from their belts.
This is bad. This is very bad. I’ve got to do something to help.
Pulling as close as I dare, I look around and see two people talking on their phone. Good. They’re calling 911 I’m assuming. Now on to step two.
I grab the stethoscope I keep in my backpack for nursing clinicals and pop open the glove box and pull out the pathetically small first-aid kit I keep in the car. I jump out, running to the trunk and snatch two towels and a ‘just in case’ sweater I always keep in there. Looking back at the wreck, I know there’s nothing in my car that can treat the injuries I’m about to witness.
There is no time to think, I run to the wreckage. I smell smoke and gasoline… blood. I run toward it anyway. The sports car is first and so badly damaged I can’t see inside. The driver must be dead. This can’t be survivable. I run to the van that the car rammed into from behind.
It is a church bus, oh God, filled with elderly men and women who appear to have been going on a field trip. I pull at the door handle on the sliding side door, knowing it won’t open, but I try anyway. The impact has crumpled it and it’s stuck. I couldn’t have opened it if I had super strength. The passenger side door opens and I jump inside and check the driver. His face is bloody, but he appears relatively okay despite the dash crumpled back on his legs.
“Can you move? Can you get out?” I yell at him and he shakes his head.
“My leg’s stuck.” He pulls on his leg as if to prove his point and his face contorts with pain.
The sports car had hit the van in the back, pushing it into the convertible of girls coming through the intersection. Through the shattered front window, I see people trying to help the girls, who are bleeding but conscious, to get out. Good thing they were all buckled. If not they would have been laying on the street, most likely dead.
Focus.
“Help is coming,” I tell the driver and cross between the seats and to the front row of the van. There is a mixture of injuries, cries and moans. I ignore those who are conscious and aware and try to make my way to the back, where the scene becomes more and more ghastly with each hunched over step I take.
Two dead, a man and a woman in the backseat, holding hands. The woman had fallen over into his lap. Tears fill my eyes. I’m not ready for this. I’ve never seen death this fresh, this brutal.
The two people in the seat just before them are seriously hurt. Blood’s everywhere. I pull on gloves from the kit and do my best to access the injuries. I tear apart the towel, pressing the cloth to the most grievous of wounds.
My heart beats in my throat and the smoke makes my eyes tear, but I say as calmly as I am able, “Everyone who can, get out. Hurry.”
The smell of plastic burning is horrendous. I glance and see no one is moving. I see people milling around outside, unsure what to do. I scramble to the front of the van and yell, “Help me get the less injured out of here.”
Taking a deep breath of fresh air, I turn back into the gore and hurry past the hands that are reaching out to me, trying to make me stop to help their wounds. I say, “I’m sorry, let’s get you out of here”, but I don’t stop for them. I know time is running out for the man and woman I was previously trying to help.
Once again in the back, I cut the sleeve off the sweater I’d brought with me and use it as a tourniquet on the man’s heavily bleeding leg. I’m just a student. I’m not ready for this. Their lives couldn’t have been in less capable hands.
Focus.
I’m worried about the woman’s neck and yank off the scrub jacket I was wearing for clinicals. Folding it, I create a neck brace of sorts and use the tape in the kit to secure it around her neck.
Pulses. They both have pulses, but both are weak and thready. They need a hospital. Surgery. Oxygen. Oh God, we all need oxygen, the smoke in the van is getting worse. I yank off my t-shirt, leaving me in my tank top, and tie it around my face, a feeble barrier against the smoke.
Having done all I can do for these two, it’s time to save the others. Everyone will die if the van catches on fire, or worse, explodes. People are trying to help the frail passengers navigate between the front seats and out the passenger door. They’re going too slow, not one person has made it out. The passenger seat… is there a way to remove it?
