In America the fourth Thursday in November is set aside as Thanksgiving Day. That is today! I am thankful for so much. It sounds kinda corny, but I am thankful for you, the people who read my books. Thank you for reading my books, for leaving reviews, for recommending my books to your friends, for leaving comments. I know I am not the Great American Novelist. I write stories because 1) I love to write. And 2) because I want people to be able to find an escape from life for a few hours. Life kinda sucks sometimes, right? If someone reads one of my books and has a few hours of relaxation and fun, then my job as an author is complete.

So THANK YOU! I know this time of the year gets pretty crazy, but try to find a couple of hours to grab a good book and relax.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I can’t believe tomorrow is Halloween! I know it is a favorite holiday for a lot of us, including Glory Peterson Wolfe, the heroine from Wolf’s Glory. I have a treat for you: a little peek at Shadow and Glory a year after their book ends. Read on!

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Glory folded her arms, considering the exterior of the small house her mate had built for her. It was painted white, with a wide porch of natural wood on three sides, and a chimney made of native Black Hills stone climbing the fourth. A wisp of smoke rising from the chimney showed white in the sapphire blue of the late afternoon sky. Glory stepped back a few yards, looking at the postcard-perfect view of the house against the reds and golds of the autumn foliage. It was cute. 

Glory didn’t do cute. How could she turn cute into scary? Halloween was only a few weeks away. Except for last year, she’d always gone all out decorating for her favorite holiday. Last year … Well, last year she’d been too busy to do anything for Halloween. Between surviving a plane crash, meeting and marrying a hunky werewolf, and finding out she’d gone forward to a time after Armageddon, she’d completely lost track of the days.  

But this year would be different. Glory put her hands on her hips, strolling from one end of the house to the other, considering where the spider webs would look most effective.  

“Sunshine.”

At the scolding sound of her hunky werewolf’s voice, Glory turned to see him walking toward her from his mother’s house a hundred yards away. Shadow was, as always, all but naked in just moccasins and a breechcloth. His hair, black and thick and heavy, hung down his back to his butt, leaving his broad, beautifully muscled chest bare. At six feet and six inches tall, he was the only man who made Glory feel petite. Hell, he was six inches taller than she was, and almost outweighed her. The fierce Lakota Wolf Clan warrior, who was a terrifying sight in battle, tenderly cradled a pink and blue bundle in one arm.  

“Sunshine,” he scolded again. “You are supposed to be lying down, resting.”

“Quit being so bossy. I just wanted to think about how to decorate for Halloween.” She lifted her face for his kiss and twitched the edge of the baby blanket aside to peek at their daughter’s face. “Hey, there, little Miss Vicki,” she cooed.

“Sh, she’s sleeping.” Shadow hooked his free arm around her waist and towed her up the steps of the porch into their house. “I thought you wanted to call her Victoria.”

“Well, yeah.” Glory watched him set the baby down in her cradle with as much care as if the afghan Lisa Madison had made was wrapped around nitroglycerin. “Victoria for my grandmother, Jillian for Jill, and Tara for your mom. But Victoria Jillian Tara Wolfe is a big mouthful for such a little thing.”

Not that Vicki had felt that little while she was being born. The books in Kearney’s library talked about the joy and beauty of childbirth. They were lucky she wasn’t allowed to burn them. Joy and beauty, her ass. Still, Glory didn’t remember the pain nearly as vividly she remembered the expression on Shadow’s face: terror and joy and awe, all mixed together, as he held the screaming scrap of humanity that was his daughter in his big hands. Glory wished cameras still existed. She never wanted to forget that sight or that moment in time.

“Hm … I wonder what she should be for Halloween? I think I could put together a little witch costume. Do you think we could get a pointy hat to stay on her head?”

“Sunshine, she’s only five weeks old.”

Glory reluctantly agreed. “She’s too young this year, but soon she’ll be going all around the neighborhood Trick or Treating, going to parties, playing with the boys …”  

“PLAY—” Almost too late, Shadow remembered to keep his voice low. “Playing with boys?” he hissed, his eyes taking on that weird werewolf glow.

“Uh-huh. You know, Chase and Raven and Matt.”  

His eyes went back to normal. “Oh, her cousins, you mean.”

Glory hid a grimace. Their daughter was going to have a hell of a time finding a boy brave enough to date her. That was years away, though, and Glory’s thoughts were on something in the present. She watched her mate put another log on the fire, admiring the way the muscles in his back bunched and smoothed as he moved. Her mate was mouthwateringly sexy. “For this year, I have the perfect costumes for us.”

He turned in a flare of hair, eyes wide in apprehension. “I don’t wear costumes,” he warned her.

“Good,” she purred. “I like you naked best. I thought I could be Little Red Riding Hood and you could be the Big Bad Wolf.” She let her fingers comb through his hair, smooth down his chest to the knot of the cord that held his breechcloth up. “But I don’t have a costume, so I guess we’ll just have to pretend. If I took off my clothes, could you pretend to take a red cloak off me?”

He swallowed hard. “Sunshine, is it too soon? It’s only been a few weeks.”

“Almost six weeks. Jill says everything has healed up just fine after the birth.” She succeeded in loosening his breechcloth. It dropped, showing that though his words were reluctant, his body wasn’t. She took him in her hand, loving the heat and the weight of him. “I’ve missed you, Big Guy.”

His teeth caught her earlobe. “I’ve missed you, Sunshine. I’ll go slow, I promise.”

“Go as fast as you want, but remember the baby’s sleeping. Don’t roar and howl at the end like you always do.”

“Me?” He let go of her ear to give her a wolfish grin. “Who is it that screams my name when she comes?”

She faked a scowl. “I’m not anywhere near as loud as you.”

Shadow lifted her lightly into his arms and shouldered his way into their bedroom. “We’ll see,” he threatened.

Glory surrendered to his hands and mouth. This was a contest she could live with. And if she lost, well, she could live with that too.

Twenty minutes after their bedroom door closed, a roar and a scream woke the baby. In the cradle her grandfather had carved for her, Victoria blinked startled blue eyes, shoved a tiny fist into her mouth and fell back asleep.

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I hope you have a safe and Happy Halloween!

What a long, hot summer it has been! It was the second hottest summer on record in my neck of the woods, here in Fargo, North Dakota, USA. It cooled down nicely in the past week, although Sunday is expected to be 93 (about 33 or 34 Celsius). Of course, some of you are probably welcoming spring about now.

I have kept myself very busy during this long hot summer. The day job has been (as always!) stressful. I did write quite a lot for the first half of the summer, and that was fun. The second half found me buried under other stuff. Like playing with Little Miss Dottie, my new kitten. That should be fun, but I am her favorite chew toy, so… But what is not at all fun is cleaning out my mom’s house to get it ready to put it on the market. Man, my mom was *this close* to being a hoarder. The realtor’s photographer is coming on Wednesday 9/22/21 to do pictures and that is the day it is officially for sale. So tomorrow I go once again to do some final cleaning. You know, washing windows, scrubbing the registers and switch plates, etc. Part of me hates to see it go. My family lived in that house for 45 years! But it will also be good to have it gone. Then I will be able to get back to a more productive writing schedule!

So… Writing news. I am about 2/3 done with the rough draft for The Storm King. My goal was to have the rough draft done by September 1. Yeah. Not so much. To get myself back into it, I am going through the rough draft chapter by chapter and doing some self editing. I thought I would share the first three chapters with you here. This is still very rough but I hope you will enjoy it.

The Storm King, the Lords of Erebir, Book 1

Jerriel of Erabir is a warrior king who was captured by his enemies when he was a teenager and made their slave. The enemy governor’s daughter fell in love with him and helped him escape. He swore to come back with his father’s army to avenge himself and to take her home to be his wife. Now, ten years later, he has conquered his enemy, city by city, and has taken brutal revenge on those who enslaved him. All that is left for him to do is find his Lady Valdis and live happily ever after.

But Ashley Johnson is not Valdis. She is an older-than-average college student who used to write dreamy romances to while away her time in the treatment rooms at the cancer center. She never finished the story of Jerriel and Valdis, but now that she has somehow been dropped in the middle of the world she created when she was sixteen, she’s going to find out how it ends.

This Jerriel is nothing like the sweet teenager she made up. She is not the beautiful noblewoman she wrote about. Can they each learn to love the true self of the other?

Chapter One

I was so close. After way too many years I was almost done with school. I let out a breath and closed my laptop before looking across the table at my roommate who was also my best friend. “Maya, I am finally going to get my degree.”

The sound of the coffee grinder at the other end of the coffee shop almost drowned out my words, but Maya looked over the top of her own laptop and smiled. “Yeah, you are.  It’s been a long, hard road, but you are almost there, and you’ve fought like heck for it. You deserve it.”

Tears stung my eyes. It had been a long, hard road. I hadn’t graduated from high school until I was nineteen, hadn’t started at the university until I was twenty, and now would be getting my BA at twenty-five. At the same age, Maya was working on her doctorate.

“I’m a little old to be getting my first degree.”

My best friend blew a raspberry. “Ashley, you’re not old. There’s a woman in one of my classes who must be pushing sixty. I think you are amazing. Consider what you went through. A lot of people would never have gotten this far.”

I glanced away, pretending to check out the coffee shop. I didn’t want to think about ‘what I went through’. Keeping up with my schoolwork after being diagnosed with ALL—Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia—at fifteen had been impossible. My normal had gone from giggling with Maya about nail polish, hairstyles, and boys to chemotherapy infusions, baldness, and bone crushing pain.

Maya pointed a finger at me, its perfectly rounded nail painted a glaring purple. “I know what you are thinking. But that is done. You are cured. Your hair is halfway down your back—it is gorgeous, by the way, you witch, so thick and glossy, like polished walnut—and you are about to have your B.A.”

I had to laugh. My hair was medium brown, boring brown, and I usually wore it in a high ponytail that brushed my back a few inches below my shoulders. All the weight I’d lost during my fight with leukemia was back. Sadly, it had all taken up residence in my midsection. I was just a little over five three, and my legs were long and slim compared to my poochy belly. My eyes were brown, too, but I liked to thing they were a pretty shade of brown, almost golden brown, with a slight tilt at the outer corners. They were the only beautiful thing about me. Maya, on the other hand, was a tall blonde with sky blue eyes and a slender, hourglass figure. She looked like a bimbo, but her mind was brilliant. She was getting a PhD in chemistry. I was pretty sure bimbos had no interest in being chemists. Only the fact that she was the best friend anyone could ever have prevented rabid jealousy from blackening my heart. At sixteen, when most girls spent an hour every morning getting their hair ready for school, Maya had shaved her beautiful blond hair off to give me moral support when my hair fell out in clumps from chemo. See? Best friend ever.

Let me know what you think. Please be kind! As I said, this is just the rough draft 🙂 I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

First, a little bit of news. I am still working on The Storm King and hope to put out a little teaser in a few weeks. I’ve had a terrible cold for the past two weeks. It was so bad that I had to take some time off from work. I even had a Covid test, just to be sure. It was negative. But I went several days without writing a word. I am back to it now, and the manuscript is at 38383 words, but that break put me back from my expected first draft deadline of September 4. Also, my nephew and his family are coming into town tonight and I hope to spend some time with them this weekend. I haven’t seen them since my mom’s funeral two years ago. The next weekend my cousin and his family are coming up from Milwaukee. So I will lose some writing time, but it is so nice to see people I don’t get to see very often.

My next bit of news is about my new furbaby. Her name is Dottie. She is about 6 weeks old now. A friend rescued her and her motherless siblings when they were maybe a week old. I kinda fell in love with her pictures and today Callie brought her home to me!

I hope you are enjoying summer (unless you are on the other side of the world. Then I hope you are enjoying winter) with lots of good reading and no covid!

Anyone who knows me knows I love cats. In the past few years I’ve had to put two of my furbabies to sleep. Merry was almost 17, and Dixie had health issues that couldn’t be fixed without a very expensive surgery, and maybe the surgery wouldn’t be successful anyway. It is always hard to put our babies to sleep. Masuka is getting up there in age too.

A friend recently rescued a motherless litter of six. She is bottle feeding them and looking for furever homes for them. I fell in love with this little calico. I have staked my claim and Callie thinks she should be ready to come to me in a month or 5 weeks. I kinda like the name Dottie but I’m not sure. What do you think? What would you name this adorable little girl?

When I think of the Fourth of July I think of potlucks, picnics, kids games and of course, fireworks! Anyone else? I remember writing a scene in Wolf’s Oath that had fireworks. Well, not literal fireworks. Because, ya know, gunpowder based fireworks would be dangerous in the bedroom. *smirk* I thought I’d share that chapter here. FYI This is the wedding night scene. At first Connie told Des she wasn’t ready to have sex with him. Spoiler: she changes her mind when she sees him getting ready for bed. To read it, click HERE. Warning: For adults only!

Des Wolfe

I hope all my American readers have a very happy and safe Fourth!

I think everyone will agree that 2020 was a bad year. The first half of 2021 was rough too. Some of you may know that on July 10, 2020, I was diagnosed with Stage 3c colorectal cancer. Cancer is a scary word. Would I die? The surgeon told me that a majority of people with my diagnosis live 2 to 5 years.

Oh, boy. Scary stuff. My oncologist, though, was a cheerleader. He said we could and would fight this. He laid out a treatment plan for me. First, infusion chemotherapy every other week, with an infusion pump to wear at home for two days. That started in August and ended in December. After that, 28 daily radiation treatments with oral chemo pills. I finished that on January 21st. It wasn’t always easy, but I powered through all that, and CT scans and MRIs showed the tumor had shrunk enough that surgery was likely to be a success. They couldn’t guarantee it until they were actually in and saw what was there. My surgery was at the Mayo Clinic to remove the tumor and the affected lymph nodes. When I woke up the surgeon told me she was sure they had gotten all of it. YAY!!! Party time! Being sick a=from chemo and burned from radiation was worth it!!

However, a week later she called me (a surgeon renowned in her field called personally!!) to tell me that the pathology report had found a secondary kind of cancer called well differentiated neuroendocrine tumor. This type was fairly rare and was good at masquerading as healthy cells. She was still sure she had gotten all of it, but I would have to go back in three months for another scan to see if this other cancer was detected anywhere else.

Can you imagine how hard it was to wait for three more months to find out if the cancer had spread? I drove down to Rochester on June 22, had the scan, and met with Dr. Hobday, the Mayo oncologist, on June 23. That’s when he gave me the news:

I AM CANCER FREE!!!!

I had hoped and prayed that I was. And I thought that I was, because for an entire year I had NO interest in writing but

on June 4 I had an idea for a new story. Actually, an old story. I have a bunch of old notebooks that I had scribbled stories in years ago. I remembered one story I had started about 20 years ago but never finished. Suddenly I really really wanted to find it and finished it. I had to go through a ton of old notebooks to find it. I did find it and I am pleased to say I have improved as a writer in the past twenty years 😉

So, I am pretty much re-writing it from scratch and I am loving it. The title is The Storm King. It is a fantasy romance between a conquering king (think Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan, only much sexier) who is set on conquering the lands of his enemies, who had captured him as a teen and made him a slave. The only person who ever treated him decently there was the governor’s beautiful young daughter. She helped him escape, and gave him a pearl pendant on a gold chain as a souvenir to remember her by. He swore to return and marry her. But there is a big twist. More about that to come in the future. I expect it to be around 60,000 words, and I am at 16,450 right now. So I have a good start on it. My goal for the rough draft to be done is September 1. The next story is the Fire Prince, and The third in the trilogy is The Ice Lord. I haven’t been this excited about writing for years!!

So that is my update. I am doing well. I still have a little recovery from surgery to get through, but I feel like I have my life back. Here is hoping for a much improved second half of 2021. I hope you all are well and have wonderful reading material to keep your kindles and nooks busy this summer.

I started writing Gina’s Wolf as soon as I finished the last edits on Victoria’s Cat. I loved Gina, with her self control and take-no-crap attitude toward the hero. And Cole honestly tried to set aside his Alpha tendencies to please his mate. The setting and the Omaha versus Kansas-Missouri storyline was intriguing. There were some bad guys that dearly needed to be taken down. I really loved the story. I should have been able to finish it a couple of years ago. But…

The last couple of years have been hard for me. Noisy neighbors made it hard to concentrate on writing. Moving home and taking care of my mom cut into my writing time. In fact, I struggled to find any pleasure in writing. Then when my mom died I completely lost my mojo for about a year. But then I was SO CLOSE to finishing the book I was able to push through it. Thank God my editor mostly liked it. She pointed out places that needed some work and pointed out things she liked. I think Gina’s Wolf turned out pretty great. I hope you will enjoy it!

You can find Gina’s Wolf at

Amazon.com https://amzn.to/2QUyu8a

Amazon.uk https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08GJTF11H

Amazon.de https://www.amazon.de/dp/B08GJTF11H

Amazon.ca https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B08GJTF11H

Amazon.au https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B08GJTF11H

Apple https://books.apple.com/us/book/ginas-wolf/id1529122354?uo=4&mt=11&at=1010l9S2

Barnes & Noble https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ginas-wolf-maddy-barone/1137539713

Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/gina-s-wolf

Strong Hearts, my comtemporary romance that was part of Paige Tyler’s Dallas Fire & Rescue Kindle World, has re-released. So if you wanted to read it but couldn’t because it was only availble on Amazon, here is your chance. I really love Brutus. He and Denise are flawed people who manage to make their love work in the end. 🙂

Buy it at Amazon.com

Buy it at Amazon.uk

Buy it at Amazon. ca

Buy it at iBooks

Buy it at Barnes & Noble

Buy it at Kobo

Hello! I need your opinion here. As I close in on the finish of the last book I will write in this world (at least for a while. I kinda a have an idea for a story for Laura the Lobo) I want to let everybody see old favorite characters. It’s not really feasible though. I have started a scene at the Plane Women’s House where the weary wolves and their ladies sit down for a meal. My intention was for characters to have a walk on parts, Just a minute of screen time as a sort of a final farewell. But I am not sure that is really best. It drags the story out. And how much will Gina care about people she doesn’t know?

It might be better for me to have an epilogue where Carla, Rose, Lisa and Tami sit down in a year or so for a cup of coffee while they watch their children and grandchildren. They can talk about how their lives are so different than they expected them to be the morning in 2014 when they boarded the plane.

What are your thoughts?

Meanwhile, here is your snip with the beginning of the scene at the Plane Women’s House.

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Chapter Sixteen

“Almost home,” Cole said.

Gina leaned over him to look out the train window. At first, she saw nothing but dead grass wet with spring melt. No town. No farms. No trees. No people. In a minute, the train chugged up a slight rise, and by leaning further over Cole she could see a panorama of grasslands bordered by bare trees, and faintly, a low line of buildings in the distance. Kearney?

“Twenty minutes,” Cole said, pulling her back into her seat with an arm around her waist. “We’ll be at the station in a bit, and two hours after that, we’ll be home.”

Anticipation twirled around nerves. “And you ― I mean, we live outside Kearney, right?”

“Yes, about six miles north.”

She took his hand and held it tightly. Soon she would see her new home. He had described the place he called the den to her, and she wasn’t sure she understood it. It was a one-story building from the Times Before with lots of sleeping rooms. It had once been a hotel, where many people could stay during their travels. There was a big kitchen and a large dining hall where they all ate together, and a communal room where the Pack gathered in the evenings to sing and play games. It would be nothing like the formality in the President’s mansion in Kansas City, so Gina was sure she would like it. The only thing that nagged at her was the lack of privacy. He’d said they would have their own room in the den, but with wolf hearing, everyone would know what they were doing in their room. She ran her gaze over Cole’s handsome face, down the thick column of his neck, to his wide shoulders tapering to a narrow waist and sighed. He still hadn’t made love to her even though she felt much better. Even her mom was on the road to recovery

She glanced back over her shoulder. Her mom rested on a cot near the back of the train car. Jay sat next to her, holding her hand and whispering to her. The rhythmic rattle of the train drowned out what he was saying. Her mom’s mouth, less swollen than it had been three days ago, had a gentle curve. Gina was sure it wouldn’t be long before she had a new stepfather.

In the seat across the aisle, Patia and Ray also held hands and murmured quietly together. Considering that only a few days ago Ray had been near death, he looked incredibly healthy. Ray’s dad, Mayor Madison, was drowsing with his head slumped against the window, his wife’s head on his shoulder. Even as Gina glanced at them, they straightened. There were a dozen other pack members in this car, and their excitement, though suppressed, was clear. Everyone wanted to be home.

The sliding door at the front of the car opened and Taye came in. Half the men from the Clan and Pack had left Omaha on four feet, running over the Nebraska prairie to bring word back to their kin of what had happened in Omaha. That still left over one hundred men to board the train and guard their women and wounded. Too many to fit into one train car.

Taye walked down the aisle, swaying easily with the rocking of the train, nodding at the men from his pack. He paused to touch his daughter’s head with gentle fingers before giving Gina a smile.

“Almost home,” he remarked to the train car in general.

Mayor Madison stood up and stretched. He said with feeling, “I can’t wait to be home and quit of this Omaha business.”

His wife said teasingly, “Eddie, are you afraid that Marty has run Kearney into the ground?”

Mayor Madison’s face creased in a smile. He was a handsome man. Thirty years from now Ray would look just like him. “I’m sure my brother has been conscientious, but his new wife might be a distraction.”

The train whistle shrieked. Gina looked out the window again and saw they were entering Kearney. Home? She gripped Cole’s hand tighter. He looked down at her with a smile so tender her breath caught. She didn’t know what living at the den would be like, but Cole would be there, so it would be home. She smiled back.

“How are you feeling, Mrs. Summer?” Taye asked.

Her mother had decided to go back to her first husband’s name. She said since Todd had already had a wife, she had never been legally married to him. Gina approved.

“Well enough to walk off the train on my own, Mr. Wolfe. I don’t need to be carried on the cot.”

Taye considered. “The wounded in the car behind this one will disembark first. Jay, when they are off, you’ll help Mrs. Summer down the steps and into the station. Then Ray will go. Cole, you and Gina will be third. Then everyone one else will follow.”

The train slowed as it passed through Kearney. It wasn’t a big city like Kansas City or Omaha, but it looked well kept. The streets were clean and the buildings she saw seemed to be in good repair. A gaggle of pre-teen boys ran alongside the train as it passed, waving excitedly. With a hissing of brakes, the train slid to a halt beside a long building whose roof extended into a shelter over a platform.

Gina watched Jay help her mother up from the cot and guide her slowly, gently, along the aisle to the door with one burly arm around her waist. Ray stood up without any help, although Patia hovered close as they exited the train. Gina took a deep breath and stood up. Cole walked very closely behind her, and for once he didn’t push her aside so her could go out first and check for danger.

After she stepped down from the train it was a whirlwind of new faces and some that were vaguely familiar to her. Ray Madison was there, hugging his brother, Eddie, and sister-in-law, Lisa, and his nephew who was almost his own age. His wife, the big blond woman named Victoria, was there. Gina remembered her in the coffee shop the first time she’d laid eyes on Cole. Victoria almost smothered her in a giant hug, congratulating her boisterously for accepting Cole’s mate claim. She met an older man with long iron gray hair in two thick braids. Des was the head of the pack that lived in Kearney. Connie, his wife, was a gruff woman with direct gray eyes and silvery white hair.

“Come over to the house,” Connie said to Taye. “Renee has been cooking since White Horse brought the news that you’d be on the train today.”

Taye cast a considering gaze over his wounded, especially Gina’s mom. “That would be great. Might not stay too long though.”

“No problem,” Said Des gravely.

His wife nodded. “Bet you’re all tired and longing for your own beds.” She turned to the Madisons. “You’re welcome to join us. We’d be glad to have you.”

Eddie Madison shook his head with a smile. “Thanks. We appreciate it, but I want home.”

“Another time,” Des said, still grave.

Patia raised appealing eyes to her father, who shook his head sternly. Patia sighted and gave Ray a tender kiss. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

It took about twenty minutes to walk to the house they called The Plane women’s House. It was a three-story brick building with stone lions perched on either side of stone steps. Gina had heard of this place. It was a famous restaurant. At the top of the steps was an older man whose gray streaked black hair was as thick and long as Des’.

“That’s Hawk,” Cole whispered in her ear. “Renee is his mate. Do you remember her?”

Of course, she remembered Renee. She was the chef whose food had made The Plane Women’s Eatery famous. But she knew Renee for other reasons. Renee had been taken prisoner along with Victoria when her Todd’s men had stopped their train and taken them captive back in … Gina caught her breath. That had been only a month ago? Shock rooted her feet to the stone step she was climbing.

Cole instantly stopped too. “Gina? Are you okay?”

A month ago, she had barely known Cole. In fact, she’d been scared of him. She shook her head in disbelief.

“Dad!” Urgency sharpened Cole’s voice. “Get a doctor. Gina’s―”

“No, I’m fine,” she cried. “I’m fine.”

 There were at least seventy of them here, and all of them stopped to look at her with worry.

“Really, just fine.”

To prove it, she gave everyone a big smile and started up the steps again. Hawk watched her with concern in his dark eyes. His sharp gaze moved to spot a little behind her. “Bring the ladies right in.” He sounded as bossy as Cole at his worst, but kind too. “Clear the way.”

In only a minute Gina was seated at a square table with Cole on her left and her mom on her right. Jay was across from her.