Liking damned near everyone who crossed my path. I prided myself in being about the nicest guy you’d ever meet. Little did I know I was now standing in the flames.

Maybe I should have clung harder to the promise I’d made to never allow myself to get burned. One that had the power to plow through me with the force of a speeding truck that’d lost its brakes. He stared at me for the longest time, taking me in as if he knew me, before he tilted his head and slanted me the cockiest grin.

He took a single step forward and into my direct line of sight. Maybe I should have braced myself for impact.įor the collision I never could have anticipated. My eyes squinted against the blinding rays of late-afternoon sun that spilled in like a flash flood behind the man who suddenly took up the entirety of the doorway.Ī concealed figure cast in shadows and silhouettes. As a warning to steel myself for the debris littering the road ahead. Maybe I should have taken the way my heart suddenly sped as a premonition. Lost to the feel of the wood beneath my hands as I shaped and sanded away the rot and decay to expose the true beauty hiding underneath. I guess I’d been too absorbed in my work to note the moment. When the stagnant comfort we’ve cut out for ourselves will take a sharp turn south, or when everything we know will come to an abrupt, excruciating end. When the direction we have been traveling will shift. We rarely know when our lives are about to change. Hollywood Chronicles, a collaboration with USA Today Bestselling Author, Rebecca Shea Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.ĬRAVE – the first in the brand new, sexy, heart-stopping series, Love the Way You Lie, from A.L. Names, characters, places, and plots are a product of the author’s imagination. The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Please protect this art form by not pirating. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the publisher.

Hold onto hope al jackson