Zack (Cold Fury Hockey 3)

Reparation

Affirmation

Confessions of a Litigation God

The Forever Land Chronicles

Forever Young

Stand-Alone Titles

If I Return

Uncivilized

PHOTO: MARIE KILLEN

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author SAWYER BENNETT is a snarky southern woman and reformed trial lawyer who decided to finally start putting on paper all the stories that were floating in her head. Her husband works for a Fortune 100 company that lets him fly all over the world while she stays at home with their daughter and three big, furry dogs who hog the bed. Bennett would like to report that she doesn't have many weaknesses, but can be bribed with a nominal amount of milk chocolate.

sawyerbennett.com

Facebook.com/BennettBooks

@BennettBooks

The Editor's Corner

Summer is here! Are you ready to take the vacation of a lifetime with Loveswept? Come on, let's go places...

New York Times bestselling author Kathy Clark takes us to Colorado in the first two books of her new Denver Heroes series, After Midnight and Cries in the Night. Fans of Nora Roberts will adore this series of pulse-pounding romance. South Carolina is our next stop for New York Times bestselling author, Sawyer Bennett's Cold Fury novel Zack--get ready for a very emotional ride. Head to Florida in Falling Fast by USA Today bestseller Tina Wainscott, where first love and long-awaited redemption smolder. Then enjoy a little western romance from USA Today bestseller Maggie McGinnis in Once Upon a Cowboy. Jennifer Chance's Rule Breakers series turns up the heat as a wealthy playboy and a beautiful con artist engage in a high-stakes game of seduction in Risk It. And author Charlotte Stein releases Never Loved, the first novel in the Dark Obsession series, which tells the story of a beautiful wallflower who falls for a chiseled street fighter--and learns just how dangerous love can be.

Plus a special treat for romance fans--welcome to Vegas in Play Me, the entire series from New York Times bestselling author Tracy Wolff is now on sale as one book! Sebastian and Ethan--Oh My!

Travel the country with Loveswept and stay tuned for more in July, because next month's travels are just as exciting!

Happy Romance!

Gina Wachtel

Associate Publisher

Read on for an excerpt from

Ryker

by Sawyer Bennett

Available from Loveswept

Prologue

Ryker

It all seems to happen at once.

The washing machine starts shaking hard during the spin cycle, and while I'm able to easily ignore the way it bangs up against the dryer while I braid Violet's hair, I can't help the full body cringe when I hear the liquid laundry detergent that I had sitting on the top fall and hit the tile floor.

Yup...that resounding splat was the sound of the plastic splitting open and I can clearly see in my mind the slick blue detergent leaking out onto the floor. I can imagine it clearly because I did the same damn thing last week. Overloaded the machine because I'm too lazy to do two loads when I can cram it all into one, causing the machine to tip off balance and dislodge all the crap I had sitting on top.

My fingers, however, never miss a beat. They keep grasping and crossing over the thick, dark locks of Violet's hair while she quietly hums a song to herself, swinging her little legs back and forth happily. At age seven, she's the quiet one...the dreamer. I don't have to see her face at this moment to know that there will be a tiny smile and a far away look in her gray eyes as she spins another epic fantasy story she's creating in her beautiful head.

"D-a-a-a-d," Ruby shrieks from upstairs.

It's a sound that once used to cause all the hair to stand up on my arms and more than once caused me to go tearing after the call of my youngest daughter thinking she was being murdered by an intruder. I've since come to recognize that particular shrill cry as one of excitement and wonder, and I can't help but grin over what Ruby is possibly in to now. At almost five years old, she refuses to accept the concept of a well-mannered, indoor voice and goes balls to the wall in everything she does.

"Is the house on fire, Rubes?" I call back.

Her little voice shouts back to me in a squawk. "No."

"Have aliens landed?" I keep my voice just loud enough to carry up the stairs but still decibels below her own.

"No," she yells, and there...right there...that's a little giggle from her.

"Did Timmy fall down the well?"

"No, Dad...but you have to come here," she yells, and to give her credit...it's toned down just a bit. When I don't answer her right away, she calls down in a sweet voice that makes my heart pitter patter. "Please, Dad."

Brilliant, little brat. Throwing in some manners to throw me off my game.

"I'll be right there," I tell her as I finish the last of Violet's braid and manage to efficiently bind it with a hair elastic. Leaning over, I place a kiss on her head. "All done, Dreamy Dwarf."

Violet leans her head back and gives me an upside-down grin. I love the sprinkle of freckles on her nose and it compels me to kiss her again.

"Do me a favor," I tell her as I turn toward the living room. "Get the cereal and milk out for me while I go see what your sister needs?"

I don't bother waiting to see what she does, because Violet has become my metaphorical right hand over the last few months. While she still loves for me to braid her hair and help with her homework, she's also relished taking on a bit of a caretaker role since the girls moved in with me permanently this past summer.

They've been here almost six months and I actually feel like I know what in the hell I'm doing now. It wasn't always like that and thank God for Kate's help or I would have gone insane in those first few months of becoming a single parent of two little girls. Kate patiently helped me establish a routine, taught me how to braid hair, to distinguish excited shrieks from cries of pain, and most importantly...how to conduct the perfect princess tea party.

I skirt my way through the living room, bending over to pick up one of Ruby's dolls from the floor and bound up the stairs taking two at a time. I find Ruby in the bathroom that she and Violet share, bent over the toilet and peering at something.

She shares the same dark hair and gray eyes as Violet, except her locks spring out everywhere in a mass of tiny curls. I have no idea where that came from, but assuming it's a rogue strand of ancestral DNA from either me or my soon-to-be ex-wife, Hensley. Both of us as well as Violet have fairly straight hair, so Ruby is definitely dipping into the family gene pool with her wild curls, but damn...they totally fit with her personality.

"What's up?" I ask, as I walk over to the toilet.

She straightens up, shoots me a grin, and points. "Look...a spider."

I cautiously take a step forward and lean over, grimacing as I look in the bowl.

And holy shit...a spider the size of a T. rex is floating on the surface, all eight legs spread out, bent and poised to look as if it's ready to leap out and attach itself to my face. I suppress a full spinal shudder and reach a tentative hand toward the handle to flush it.

Two things happen almost simultaneously that take at least three years off my life.

The spider somehow manages to skitter across the water, the beast so large it actually creates waves, and Ruby shrieks at me, "No. Don't kill it, Dad."

It is with a major blow to my pride--as a man, as a dad, as a six-foot, six-inch professional hockey player nicknamed The Brick because I'm as big and tough as a brick wall--that I jump backward at least

two feet from the monster-infested toilet and banshee-crying sprite, causing my hip to slam into the corner of the sink.

"Shit," I curse loudly and Ruby's eyes go round, followed by her lips.

"Oh, Dad...that's a bad word."

No shit.

I smile at her as I rub my hip. That's definitely going to leave a bruise. "Sorry, Rubes. I'll put a dollar in the swear jar."

She merely nods her acceptance of my apology and turns worried eyes back to the toilet.

"You have to save it," she implores.

Yeah...that's not going to happen. Not now. Not ever.

"Sure, baby," I tell her as I take her by the shoulder and turn her toward the bathroom door. I swear the spider glares at me with a million red, evil eyes. "Go on down and get breakfast. Violet's fixing your cereal. I'll get the spider out."

"Okay," Ruby says as she pulls away from me, but continues to give me instructions. "But let it out the front door and I'll bring it some food later."

"Sounds like a plan," I assure her as she disappears down the stairs. When I hear her feet hit the bottom landing, I turn toward the toilet, intent on a quick flush to put me out of my misery.

Except that when I look in the bowl, the fucking thing is gone.

I'll just go ahead and admit it. Spiders just scare the living hell out of me. I have no clue why, and while I would battle the biggest, baddest monster to the death for my daughters, I'd much rather flush a little spider down the toilet.

I immediately scramble backward out of the bathroom, grabbing the doorknob and shutting it quickly behind me. My heart is racing a million miles an hour, the thought of that furry hell beast now loose in my house.

Just one more thing on the list of things I still need to do today.

Get the girls dressed and ready for school.

Take the girls to school.

Clean up the spilled laundry detergent.

Finish the laundry.

Arm myself with a can of hairspray and a lighter to torch the rogue spider in the bathroom.

Pick up my dry-cleaning.

Workout.

Team practice.

Pick up the girls from Kate and Zack's house.