Jump Zone: Cleo Falls (21 page)

Acknowledgments

S
pecial thanks to my dear friend Elba, who encouraged me to leap and then held my hand during the entire adventure. I’m eternally grateful.

My heartfelt appreciation to my beta readers—Rebecca O’Sullivan, Shana Baptista, Sherry Patterson, and, with minimal coercion, James Watkinson (who saw the heavily redacted ‘PG13’ version)—for their feedback and direction.

I’m blessed with an amazing and supportive network of writers that include Katy Evans, Cynthia Sax, Olivia Loch, Christine D’Abo, J.K. Coi, Amy Ruttan, and Maureen McGowan, who inspire, push, challenge and enlighten me. They make me laugh, listen to me whine, let me cry, and know just when to snark-slap me back to reality.

About Wylie Snow

M
ost authors will tell you that they wanted to be writers from a very young age. Not me. I wanted to be a detective like Nancy Drew, or a wildlife expert like Jim Fowler, or an archaeologist like Indiana Jones. I even wanted to own my own island resort and make fantasies come true!

I didn’t do too badly… I married a detective, worked in a zoo, explored ancient shipwrecks, and spent 18 glorious years living on a sunny island.

As for those fantasies… That’s another book ;)

I love to hear from readers. You can write to me at
[email protected]

Visit my website for information on upcoming books:
www.wyliesnow.com

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Other books by Wylie Snow

GAME ON

Secrets, lies, lust ... whatever it takes to win.

C
lara Bean, Europe’s most respected restaurant critic, lands on American soil to do a promotional tour with a sports icon. But how will she keep her career-ending secret from her deliciously handsome new partner? She quickly learns that all games have rules, even falling in love.

L
uc Bisquet can’t seem to score any points with sassy, sexy Clara despite the palatable chemistry between them. But he’s willing to endure as many penalties as it takes to crack her icy reserve, because winning is everything.
Game on!

Here’s a sneak peek at the next book in

the Jump Zone trilogy…

Jump Zone:
Libra Rising

Prologue

City of Gomeda

I’d always presumed that being in love would feel fuzzy and warm.

It’s not. Love is painful. And cold.

Love is lonely.

Five days ago I died. Then
he
showed up to revive me, only to kill me again, slowly, from the inside out.

Every part of me hurts, even more than when the frigid river tugged me under, even more than when the crushing pressure burned my lungs and I was tossed like an arbitrary scrap of flotsam over an eighty-foot waterfall.

If I even
think
his name, I get piercing sting in the middle of my chest that makes me want to howl like a dying wolf. The pain radiates through my limbs and I have to fight to keep from curling up in a ball.

There are moments I loathe Libra Cade with blackness darker than a moonless night in the Taiga, and a yoctosecond later, I yearn to gaze into his pale blue eyes, feel his breath against my hair, see the half-smile that makes my knees turn gooey.

Then I remember that it was his fault that I died the first time, his fault that I smashed my kayak because his mythical aer-o-plane distracted me. I hate him.

Then suddenly I feel his phantom touch, his thumb grazing over the scar on my cheek with aching tenderness, or his lips softly kissing the notch on the curve of my ear. He made me believe I was beautiful, even if for just one night.

Trevayne and his human hounds told me that Libra died on the trip south to Gomeda. They said he fell off the boat in the middle of the night and the acidic water of the Dead Lakes melted the flesh from his bone.

But I know differently. I know he used my technique of slathering on bear grease, just so he could escape being around when I awoke from the most recent blackout.

I press my palm against the cool glass of my prison and marvel at the city aglow in lights. It’s awesomely beautiful and I though I want to go home even more than I want to breathe, a piece of me is excited by the odd angles and curves of the tall buildings, the strange glittering colors of the skyline.

Libra is out there. He’s lost himself amongst the eleven million people of Gomeda and I’m betting he’ll never set foot in my Taiga forest again.

He’d better not.

I’ll kill him if he does.

COMING DECEMBER 2013