If you had the chance to read The Bourbon Kings by J.R. Ward, you might be chomping at the bit to see what else can possibly happen to these characters! I know I am!! Lucky for us, the second book, The Angels' Share, will be released this month, on July 26th. While you wait, we're happy to share a little excerpt from the book to tide you over. Find it after the page break. If you need a little refresher on what's going on, here is our review of The Bourbon Kings.
Excerpt from THE ANGELS’ SHARE by J. R. Ward
Toyota trucks were not supposed
to go seventy-five miles an hour. Especially when they were ten years
old.
At least
the driver was wide awake, even though it was four a.m.
Lizzie King
had a death grip on the steering wheel, and her foot on the
accelerator was actually catching floor as she headed for a rise in
the highway.
She had
woken up in her bed at her farmhouse alone. Ordinarily, that would
have been the status quo, but not anymore, not now that Lane was back
in her life. The wealthy playboy and the estate’s gardener had
finally gotten their act together, love bonding two unlikelies closer
and stronger than the molecules of a diamond.
And she was
going to stand by him, no matter what the future held.
After all,
it was so much easier to give up extraordinary wealth when you had
never known it, never aspired to it—and especially when you had
seen behind its glittering curtain to the sad, desolate desert on the
far side of the glamour and prestige.
God, the
stress Lane was under.
And so out
of bed she had gotten. Down the creaking stairs she had gone. And all
around her little house’s first floor she had wandered.
When Lizzie
had looked outside, she’d discovered his car was missing, the
Porsche he drove and parked beside the maple by her front porch
nowhere to be seen. And as she had wondered why he had left without
telling her, she had begun to worry.
Just a
matter of nights since his father had killed himself, only a matter
of days since William Baldwine’s body had been found on the far
side of the Falls of the Ohio. And ever since then Lane’s face had
had a faraway look, his mind churning always with the missing money,
the divorce papers he had served on the rapacious Chantal, the status
of the household bills, the precarious situation at the Bradford
Bourbon Company, his brother Edward’s terrible physical condition,
Miss Aurora’s illness.
But he
hadn’t said a thing about any of it. His insomnia had been the only
sign of the pressure, and that was what scared her. Lane always made
an effort to be composed around her, asking her about her work in
Easterly’s gardens, rubbing her bad shoulder, making her dinner,
usually badly, but who cared. Ever since they had gotten the air
cleared between them and had fully recommitted to their relationship,
he had all but moved into her farmhouse—and as much as she loved
having him with her, she had been waiting for the implosion to occur.
It would
almost have been easier if he had been ranting and raving.
And now she
feared that time had come—and some sixth sense made her terrified
about where he had gone. Easterly, the Bradford Family Estate, was
the first place she thought of. Or maybe the Old Site, where his
family’s bourbon was still made and stored. Or perhaps Miss
Aurora’s Baptist church?
Yes, Lizzie
had tried him on his phone. And when the thing had rung on the table
on his side of the bed, she hadn’t waited any longer after that.
Clothes on. Keys in hand. Out to the truck.
No one else
was on I-64 as she headed for the bridge to get across the river, and
she kept the gas on even as she crested the hill and hit the decline
to the river’s edge on the Indiana side. In response, her old truck
picked up even more speed along with a death rattle that shook the
wheel and the seat, but the damn Toyota was going to hold it together
because she needed it to.
“Lane . . .
where are you?”
God, all
the times she had asked him how he was and he’d said, “Fine.”
All those opportunities to talk that he hadn’t taken her up on. All
the glances she’d shot him when he hadn’t been looking her way,
all the time her monitoring for signs of cracking or strain. And yet
there had been little to no emotion after that one moment they’d
had together in the garden, that private, sacred moment when she had
sought him out under the blooms of the fruit trees and told him that
she’d gotten it wrong about him, that she had misjudged him, that
she was prepared to make a pledge to him with the only thing she had:
the deed to her farmhouse—which was exactly the kind of asset that
could be sold to help pay for the lawyers’ fees as he fought to
save his family.
Lane had
held her, and told her he loved her—and refused her gift,
explaining he was going to fix everything himself, that he was going
to somehow find the stolen money, pay back the enormous debt, right
the company, resurrect his family’s fortunes.
And she had
believed him.
She still
did.
But ever
since then? He had been both as warm and closed off as a space
heater, physically present and completely disengaged at the same
time.
Lizzie did
not blame him in the slightest.
It was
strangely terrifying, however.
Off in the
distance, across the river, Charlemont’s business district glowed
and twinkled, a false, earthbound galaxy that was a lovely lie, and
the bridge that connected the two shores was still lit up in spring
green and bright pink for Derby, a preppy rainbow to that promised
land. The good news was that there was no traffic, so as soon as
Lizzie was on the other side, she could take the River Road exit off
the highway, shoot north to Easterly’s hill, and see if his car was
parked in front of the mansion.
Then she
didn’t know what she was going to do.
The newly
constructed bridge had three lanes going in both directions, the
concrete median separating east from west tall and broad for safety
purposes. There were rows of white lights down the middle, and
everything was shiny, not just from the illumination, but a lack of
exposure to the elements. Construction had only finished in March,
and the first lines of traffic had made the crossing in early April,
cutting rush-hour delays down—
Up ahead,
parked in what was actually the “slow” lane, was a vehicle that
her brain recognized before her eyes properly focused on it.
Lane’s
Porsche. It was Lane’s—
Lizzie
nailed the brake pedal harder than she’d been pounding the
accelerator, and the truck made the transition from full-force
forward to full-on stop with the grace of a sofa falling out a
second-story window: Everything shuddered and shook, on the verge of
structural disintegration, and worse, there was barely any change in
velocity, as if her Toyota had worked too hard to gain the speed and
wasn’t going to let the momentum go without a fight—
There was a
figure on the edge of the bridge. On the very farthest edge of the
bridge. On the lip of the bridge over the deadly drop.
“Lane,”
she screamed. “Lane!”
Her truck
went into a spin, pirouetting such that she had to wrench her head
around to keep him in her sights. And she jumped out before the
Toyota came to a full stop, leaving the gearshift in neutral, the
engine running, the door open in her wake.
“Lane!
No! Lane!”
Lizzie
pounded across the pavement and surmounted barriers that seemed
flimsy, too flimsy, given the distance down to the river.
Lane jerked
his head around—
And lost
one hold of the rail behind him.
As his grip
slipped, shock registered on his face, a flash of surprise . . . that
was immediately replaced by horror.
When he
fell off into nothing but air.
Lizzie’s
mouth could not open wide enough to release her scream.
Posted by
arrangement with New American Library, a member of Penguin Group
(USA) LLC, A Penguin Random House Company. Copyright © J.R. Ward,
2016.
J.R.
Ward is a #1 New
York Times bestselling
author with more than 15 million novels in print published in 25
different countries around the world. The books in her popular Black
Dagger Brotherhood series have held the #1 spot on the New
York Times hardcover,
mass market, eBook, and combined print/eBook fiction bestseller lists
and have debuted in the top 5 on the USA
Today bestseller list.
Prior to her writing career, Ward worked as a lawyer in Boston and
spent many years as the Chief of Staff of one of Harvard’s
world-renowned academic medical centers. Ward currently lives with
her family in Kentucky where she has learned to enjoy and appreciate
all things Southern. Connect with her online at www.jrward.com,
Facebook.com/JRWardBooks,
and Twitter.com/JRWard1.
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