Lincoln is off for its first round of edits! Yay. I’ve been terribly busy around our house this past two months with the landscaping cleaning up the things Mother Nature finished off, so Lincoln was a bit behind my timeline, but I made it only three days late. Whew.
I’m now working on bonus chapters and the first chapter of Dodge, the next book in the Bounty Hunters series. But first, Lincoln will be first releases on September 18, 2018 in a box set with 7 of my accomplished author friends, titled Love Under Siege. More about LUS coming soon, actually on June 28, 2018 we have a big cover reveal scheduled on the USAT Blog, so stay tuned.
In January, Lincoln will be available on its own with its bonus chapters included in the preorder and available from my eStore. So bonus chapter lovers, stay tuned, time will fly by, just think summer is almost half over!
That’s all I have for an update, but just for fun how about the first chapter (unedited of course). AND, I’ll be revealing the cover soon.
Lincoln – Chapter 1
Lincoln hit the floor with a thud. The air flew from his lungs, his legs wrapped around his prey, his arms tightened and bunched as he held this disheveled man with the putrid breath off his chest.
“You want a piece of me, you big son of a bitch? I ain’t scared,” his prey spat.
Groaning as he heaved the gangly criminal from his body, he rolled and scrambled to his feet, a quick pounce on the man—not just any man, but the man who’d beat the crap out of his wife, left her for dead, then failed to show up in court—one Jimmie Molder, yelled as all the breath he had in him whooshed from his lungs. The smell of stale beer, stale cigarettes, body odor and bad breath, the worst of all smells, flew into his face with that yell. It was damned near enough to make Lincoln let go, but not quite.
Taking just two breaths to regain some of his lost strength, with a grunt he hefted Jimmie from the floor and with a fistful of ripped, grimy T-shirt, thrust him in front of him and out the door of the bar. His face may have opened the door for him, but he didn’t care right now. The filthy piece of shit hit him in the back of the head with a pool stick, and that girl fighting bullshit didn’t sit well.
Ramming Jimmie’s body against his pickup truck, Lincoln held both of his dirty hands together in one of his big paws while he pulled the zip tie from his back pocket with the other hand. Binding him tightly, he lay his forearm across Jimmie’s shoulders as he dialed the local PD. Abe, his German Sheppard, barked from the back seat, his face pressed against the window, the gap left for him to get some fresh air not enough to get his big head through, but the incessant barking was deafening.
“Yeah, this is Lincoln Winter, and I’ve got Jimmie Molder tied up in front of the Two Timin’ Saloon.” Looking at his pup, his simple command, “Ruhig,” quieted Abe down.
“Great job, Lincoln. Did you want to bring him in or do you need officers to come and welcome him home themselves?”
“I don’t want this filthy slug in my brand-new truck, so I’d appreciate it if your finest could escort this snake’s belly to jail in style.”
Ending the call, he may have added a little extra pressure to his prey, pressed up against the truck, if the groan and mumbling from the lips pressed into his shiny new Ram were an indicator. Hopefully, the cops wouldn’t be long in getting here, and he could run his new baby through the car wash to get Jimmie’s filth off it. He’d hate for the paint to peel.
Sirens in the distance had him hopeful, and the small crowd that now gathered at the front of the bar watching Jimmie’s capture worried him just a bit. He couldn’t take on more than three or four of these guys if they decided to jump him and help Jimmie, but he was stuck here right now.
Jimmie kicked back at him, catching his shin on the second kick, which caused Lincoln to grab two fistfuls of shirt and throw him to the ground. His face may have hit the pavement on the way down, but he didn’t care about that either. Dammit.
Flopping down to sit on Jimmie’s feet, he wrapped his hand around the zip tie holding Jimmie’s hands together and held him in place. A quick survey of the side of his truck showed some saliva, but no other nasty looking marks. Maybe he’d need to get himself an old beater truck to run these criminals down. He had the money. Shit, money was flowing in from all sides these days. If it weren’t for Dodge helping him run criminals, he’d be working damned near twenty-four seven.
When he’d had this idea and posed it to Ford, he honestly thought they might have a few lean months, but with all of their contacts, they’d found business right away and sadly that meant there were seedy criminals all over the damned place. Their response to that of late when discussing it has been, “And that’s great for business.”
Now in their fourth month, Ford only focused on lining up their runs, and he and Dodge were on the road hunting the bastards down. Ford had done this for about twenty years prior to their business formation while Dodge had been a state trooper and he was first a cop then a detective down in Arkansas, where he was from. The move to South Pass had done him a world of good. Sweet little house on the lake, Abe at his side. The only thing missing was a sweet hot wife like Ford had. Only not the pregnant part, not yet anyway. Ford had gotten Megan pregnant before they got married. He wasn’t going to do that. He just wanted someone to spend his free time with. Someone that didn’t need fancy ass dinners and shows and champagne.
The tires of the police car crunched on the gravelly pavement and brought him from his daydream or stupor, whichever it was. Recognizing both officers immediately, he greeted them with a huge smile.
“Evenin’, boys, look what I’ve got for ya.”
Reaching forward and grabbing a handful of greasy hair, he pulled Jimmie’s head up for inspection.
Officer Randy St. John knelt in front of Jimmie and chuckled. “Looks like his face has some improvements on it. Got a room for you, Jimmie, and we promise to make sure you get to court, so Lincoln here doesn’t have to come looking for you again.”
“Fuck you!” Jimmie spat, and both officers laughed.
“We won’t, but I’ll bet you’ll find a fuck buddy in jail the first day there,” the second officer, Jerry Robards teased.
Jerry pulled a sheet of paper from his back pocket and signed it. Handing it over to Lincoln while his partner took over pulling Jimmie to his feet, Lincoln smiled and took his ticket. It was worth two thousand dollars to the agency and a cool one thousand went straight to him. It was his fourth ticket this week, and it was only Wednesday.
“Thanks, Jerry. Don’t let this piece of shit get away now; I’m sure there’s a boyfriend waiting for him in prison.” Laughing as Jimmie began swearing up a storm, his body put in the back of the police car. He shook hands with Jerry, waved at Randy and hopped in his truck, noticing the crowd at the front of the bar had already gone back to drowning their sorry asses in liquor.