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.... What had
happened to the person trying to help her? Had she imagined it?
Blackness
threatened to draw her in. She had to resist it. Erin sucked in a breath and
tried to focus through the pain. She’d had an accident. She was alone in a
ditch. It could be hours before someone found her. She had to move, get up to
the road at least. She shouldn’t move, but she had to.
She opened
her eyes and saw a haze of yellow slashes. She blinked and tried to focus. The
colors shimmered and would not turn into solid shapes. She blinked rapidly,
tears threatening to blur her vision more. What was wrong with her eyes?
Finally
she understood. Weeds were growing inches from her eyes, too close for her to
focus. She lay on her stomach, head turned to the side. If she concentrated,
she could feel the ground despite all the aches.
Erin
flexed her right hand until she felt the ground beneath her. She waited until
her brain understood where her arm was. She took a deep breath and gritted her
teeth. With a groan, she pushed with her hand and rolled over. She lay gasping.
“Shoot.”
Had she
said that? She didn’t think so. She forced her eyes open. She gazed up into a
face, almost close enough to kiss. Blue eyes stared down at her. They seem to
grow larger, filling her vision like the sky, drawing her in like a pool of
cool water.
“Hold on,”
a man’s voice said. “Don’t try to move. I’m calling for help.”
Help. Yes,
help would be good. She closed her eyes with a sigh.
“Stay with
me,” the voice demanded. Annoying. She wanted to sleep.
She heard
more words, something about an accident, but didn’t try to make sense of them.
Her head pounded.
A hand
grabbed her wrist. “Don’t move.” Had she? She must have, her arm was in the
air, her fingers brushing her head, although it felt strange, wrong, swollen
and stiff and distant. Oh, right – she was wearing her bike helmet. She always
wore her helmet. You never knew when you might have an accident.
The
strange hand gently guided her arm down until it lay alongside her again. Erin
whimpered. Rough fingertips brushed her cheek. “You’ll be all right,” the voice
said. “Everything is going to be okay.”
Oh, good,
Erin thought. That was all right then.
“Look at
me. Stay with me.”
Erin
blinked against the brightness until the blur above her resolved into those
blue eyes. She could get lost in those eyes. She wanted to get lost and let
everything else slip away.
The pain
in her head started to shriek. No, it was something outside. A siren, wailing
ever louder as it drew closer. Lights flashed in the corner of her vision. She
moaned and closed her eyes against the pain.
The voice
whispered over her, husky and gentle. “You’re all right now. You’ll be all
right.”
The Mad Monk’s Treasure, a Romantic Adventure by Kris Bock
The lost Victorio
Peak treasure is the stuff of legends – a heretic Spanish priest’s gold mine,
made richer by the spoils of bandits and an Apache raider. When Erin, a quiet
history professor, uncovers a clue that may pinpoint the lost treasure cave,
she prepares for adventure. But when a hit and run driver nearly kills her, she
realizes she’s not the only one after the treasure. And is Drew, the handsome
helicopter pilot who found her bleeding in a ditch, really a hero, or one of
the enemy?
The Mad Monk’s Treasure follows the hunt for a legendary treasure in the New Mexico
desert. In The Dead Man’s Treasure, estranged relatives must follow
a series of complex clues in a competition to locate a buried treasure.
In The Skeleton Canyon Treasure, reader favorites Camie and Tiger
the cat help a mysterious man track down his missing uncle. Each book stands
alone, with no cliffhangers.
Read excerpts
at www.krisbock.com or
visit her Amazon page. Sign up
for the Kris Bock newsletter for
announcements of new books, sales, and more.
Kris Bock writes novels of suspense and romance with outdoor adventures and
Southwestern landscapes. Kris lives in New Mexico, where she enjoys hiking, watching
the sunset from her patio, and hanging out with her husband and their ferrets.
Her home office looks out on nature, complete with distracting wildlife such as
roadrunners and foxes. Her BFA in photography is used mainly to show Facebook
friends how lovely the Southwest is.
I have this one and hope plan to read it over the holiday season!
ReplyDeleteI have this and plan to read it over the holidays!
ReplyDeleteYay!
ReplyDeleteFeel the heroine's pain. Hope she will be all right. Who is blue eyes?
ReplyDeleteThis is an excellent evocation of horrible situation. I hope never to be in her shoes, but if I am, I imagine I might feel much like this.
ReplyDeleteGreat scene. You have her confusion wonderfully written. Tweeted.
ReplyDeleteThe sense of disconnection and confusion shows well. Great writing here.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever had an accident like this, Kris? Erin's distorted perceptions feel incredibly real. It's hard to believe this came purely from your imagination.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Lisabet! I fell off my bicycle into a drainage ditch. I wasn't semi-conscious as she is, but standing up in 18 inches of water in the dark and trying to figure out what had just happened was certainly disorienting. I also broke my finger, an injury I gave to Erin.
ReplyDelete