Spotlight - Molly Gets Her Man by Julie Rowe

 

 

Title: Molly Gets Her Man

Author: Julie Rowe
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Publisher: Entangled Ignite
Pages: 163
Language: English
Format: Ebook
Releases:  January 27, 2014

 

When flaky Las Vegas hairdresser Molly McLaren overhears hears a Russian hit man planning to kill a US congressman and take out Hoover Dam in the process, she becomes a target for murder. Now, on the run from the assassin and a dirty cop, she winds up in an eighteen wheeler with an ex-cop sporting a bum leg, a bad attitude, and a body built for loving. 

Grey Wilson just wanted to be left alone. No more Las Vegas. No more casinos. And no more floozy women like the one his best friend sent him to pick up on the side of the road. She talks fast, but her endless curves and sensuous nature make him want to slow down. Which is not in the cards. Grey knows he needs to unload his excess baggage. And quick. 

But when someone tries to kill the Vegas beauty, Molly captures his heart with her backbone of steel, and brains to boot. Now in order to grasp the future that had once seemed impossible, Molly and Grey need to keep Hoover Dam, the congressman, and their love from being blown sky-high.

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Excerpt:

 

Oh god, they were going to shoot her.

Molly McLaren took a deep breath and tried to calm her rioting nerves as she peeked around the car tire. Two hulking men scanned the parking garage at the end of the row of cars. Another stood fifteen feet away, a gun in his hand tucked behind his leg.

Petrov Grozney.

Why couldn’t he have picked a different hair salon to have his hair cut and colored in today? Or been assigned to a hairdresser who wasn’t an out-of-work translator as fluent in Russian as she was in English and who had understand every word he’d said?

But then, this was Las Vegas, where anything could and often did happen.

Footsteps echoed closer and Molly pressed herself close to the car she’d crouched beside, her tight capris cutting off the circulation to her lower legs. But that was nothing compared to what would happen if the Russian mob caught her.

There were worse things than getting shot. Just thinking about those things made breathing next to impossible.

The footsteps stopped, then moved away. Molly forced herself to take in a breath.

I can do this. I can do this. I have to do this.

She had to get out, but the only escape from the underground parking garage was an exit ramp several feet way. All it would take to be discovered by would be for one of the mobsters to turn her way.

She focused on her goal, sucked in as much air as she could, and made a run for it. Halfway to the exit, she ducked behind another tire. No gun shots, no yelling. Safe, so far. She tried to calm her breathing, but the echo of footsteps got louder again.

Blast. Grozney or one of his goons must have heard something and was coming back to investigate.

 

Think. She glanced around and spied a small piece of cement on the concrete floor, next to her foot.

 

She picked it up, then threw it as hard as she could toward the furthest corner of the garage.

A car alarm wailed and screeched. Grozney and his two hired goons ran toward it.

Molly dashed to the ramp and up into glaring sunshine.

“I’m your ride,” the truck driver said, but she wasn’t really listening.

Nope. She was staring. Gaping, really. The driver had now opened his door wide, and she could get a good eyeful of the man who was supposed to save her. For a moment, time froze. She knew rationally that not all overly large men with beefy muscles were brutes. Not all men over six foot and two hundred pounds beat up their girlfriends. Or whipped their daughters’ butts with a leather belt. But she knew that some did.

Boy, did she know.

And she’d had too many instances where big guys ruled her world—and had ruled her. All they had to do was shake a fist, and without one word, could get her in line.

She swallowed against the dryness in her mouth, stared at the huge guy sitting in the driver’s seat of the eighteen-wheeler, and finally managed to speak. “You’re who my brother sent to help me? The freaking Hulk?”

“If you’re not here for a ride,” the driver growled, “I’ll take off.” He slammed the door shut.

She glanced over her shoulder to see Grozney and his nasty enforcer-types emerging from the garage. Her heart leapt into her throat. She only had seconds before Grozny saw her.

“Oh God!” she squeaked.

“I hope you’re ready to go now.”

His annoyed tone caught her attention and she whipped her head back around, then scrambled toward the truck. He had no idea just how ready to leave she was. “Yes, I can leave now. Right now in fact,”

“Good.” He revved the truck.

A gun shot echoed across the cement lot.

A second one followed it, and Molly jumped for the door, grabbing the door handle and banging her knee against something hard. She bit back a yell and struggled unsuccessfully to pull herself up to the window, aiming to climb through it to get into the high cab. A large masculine hand wrapped around her wrist and gave an almighty yank.

“Ow!” Her arm nearly came out of its socket, but with the man’s help, she made it through the window, only to land landed face-down on something soft, a masculine grunt accompanying her arrival.

Oh, God, what had she squished? She positioned her hands under her and pushed, but the truck jerked forward and the unexpected momentum knocked her flat on her face again, her legs still sticking out the window, but her head and torso firmly inside. “Oooph.”

That’s when she realized Grey was yelling.

“…the fuck! Are those cops?”

When she didn’t answer right away, he shifted gears with his hand and held her flailing legs down with his elbows, then muttered under his breath, “What the hell have you gotten me into, Mike?”
Blaming her brother—now that made her mad.

“They’re not cops,” she snapped. “And what’s with trying to rip my arm off?”

“Who the hell is shooting at my truck?”

The truck’s speed stabilized. She struggled to brace herself, only ended up with one hand on a thick thigh and the other on what she took to be rock-solid abs. She raised her head to see a large expanse of denim and a zipper fly right in front of her. Her gaze followed the denim down two long massive legs, ending with the biggest pair of work boots she’d ever seen. She quickly flicked her gaze the other way to see a leather belt, plaid shirt with snap closures, shoulders the size of Rhode Island, a neck thicker than a redwood tree, square jaw, high cheek bones, and something that either was a dimple or a scar on the man’s cheek.

Oh, heck. She’d gone from the frying pan straight through the fire and landed on Hercules. Her brother’s friend was the largest man she’d ever seen except on TV. Too big. Three men were trying to kill her and now she’d landed directly on top of one scary looking trucker.

Whoever came up with the fight or flight response needed to add a third option: freeze.
Somewhere high above her, the man growled, “You gonna lay on my lap all day, or find yourself a seat?”

“Sorry,” Molly managed to say. She scrabbled around, pulling her legs into the cab and scooting over on the bench seat until she was as far from the man as she could get. Mike had promised she’d be safe with his best friend, who he’d promised would be in the parking garage in a running semi, but Molly’s body didn’t quite trust her brother’s faith in his friend. She managed to steady her breathing, fighting against the desire to leap out the other window.

She cast a quick glance at the driver. Not a single muscle in the man’s face moved as he steered the big vehicle down the street.

“…about landing on your…um—” Her gaze slipped down to his crotch. Wait—was it her imagination, or were things expanding down there? “Maybe I should just get out of your truck… Um…take a taxi maybe?”

 

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About Julie Rowe

A double Golden Heart finalist in 2006, Julie Rowe has been writing medically inclined romances for over ten years. She’s also a published freelancer with articles appearing in The Romance Writer’s Report, Canadian Living, Today’s Parent, Reader’s Digest (Canada) and other magazines. 

Julie is an active member of RWA and its subchapters, Heartbeat RWA, Calgary RWA, The Golden Network, Hearts Through History and RWA Online. She coordinates Book In A Week, and online workshops for Heartbeat and Calgary RWA. 

Julie is now teaching for Keyano College in her home city of Fort McMurray, AB, Canada. She teaches a variety of workshops for the Workforce Development department at Keyano College. 

Julie enjoys teaching and volunteering, and is a passionate promoter of life-long learning. She’s the owner/moderator of the Announce Online Classes email loop, which promotes online classes hosted by a large number of writing organizations, for writers on a wide variety of topics and skill levels, taught by some of publishing’s best writers and writing instructors. 

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