THE HALO LEGACY SERIES: April 2015

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Monday, April 27, 2015

PICTURE PERFECT TRAUMA

APRIL FOCUS ON PICTURE PERFECT LEGACY,

BOOK #1 OF THE HALO LEGACY

ROMANTIC MYSTERY SERIES

Now on sale for 99 cents!

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Rogue Phoenix Press!

***EXCERPT FROM PICTURE PERFECT LEGACY

copyright Genie Gabriel***

Staring at Collin, Marly waited for him to correct his statement. The expression on his face settled like a death knell in her belly. She turned to Tallie, waiting for her to laugh and offer reassurances…"Mom?"

However, Tallie simply stared back, the expression in her eyes as shocked as Marly's.

"You mean I'm not..." Devastation flooded through Marly's soul. She stared a moment longer at the woman she had called Mother all her life, then turned and fled. The door creaked mournfully behind her, a split-second before the blustery March wind snatched it closed with a thump of finality.

***

"Where's Marly?" Dawson turned to the brothers and quickly explained there had been a report of a beast-like creature in the area. While Grady stayed with Tallie, Dawson, Collin and Jeremiah spread out to search the property surrounding the house. With the instructions to follow a path running behind the barn, then take the right fork and listen for the water, Dawson set out in search of Marly. The whispers of twilight followed him as he hurried down the path, easily picking up the imprint of Marly's footprints in the muddy ground. More disturbing were the larger, jagged tracks that seemed to be following Marly…

"Marly, get down!"

She twisted toward the shouted warning. Dawson ran toward her, his face lined with grim determination, his gun pointed at--

Marly turned to look behind her.

A shadow, tall and jagged, loomed among the spiky masts of the fir trees. As adrenaline spurted through her body, Marly rolled off the boulder and landed in a crouch behind it, sheltered from the figure in the woods.

Friday, April 24, 2015

PICTURE PERFECT VILLAIN

APRIL FOCUS ON PICTURE PERFECT LEGACY,

BOOK #1 OF THE HALO LEGACY

ROMANTIC MYSTERY SERIES

Now on sale for 99 cents!

Buy now at

Rogue Phoenix Press!

EXCERPT FROM PICTURE PERFECT LEGACY copyright Genie Gabriel

The earth rumbled and shifted beneath his feet, like the bowels of a great, hungry beast. The desperate need to survive drove him to run as the immense slide of earth bit at his heels, threatening first to bury him, then propelled him forward. He stumbled. Fell. Groping toward what he hoped was daylight and fresh air.

The cold breath of snow on his face drew him; teased him with hope as the earth nipped greedily at his heels. Would the rumbling never stop? Would the giant monster never be still?

The light ahead grew brighter as the rumbling grew angrier. He leaped the last few feet toward the opening, then collapsed. His body spent. His lungs burning with effort. The snow embraced him as the mountain blew one last angry breath, closing itself to the invasion of men seeking to rape its bounty. Covering him with the debris of its displeasure.

Several months later...

The flash of a hairy beast in the mirror garnered a shiver down his spine. He quickly snipped at the longest of the beard with the scissors, then cocked the razor to finish the job. Swaggerty took the first swipe with the razor. As each strip of pink skin emerged, his confidence returned. The women always stroked his jaw and told him how handsome he was. The razor caught and pulled on a patch of skin. Swaggerty took an irritated smear at the spots of blood and tipped his chin for a closer look. Then he lifted the mirror from its rock perch to catch a stronger patch of light. This couldn't be. His skin--normally so smooth across the chiseled bone of his jaw--was dimpled in a thickened patchwork.

"No," he whispered, now running the razor in rapid strokes across the rest of the side of his face.

"No!" His bellow accented the shattering of the mirror against the rock. The razor and can of shaving cream followed.

"No," he whispered once more. Scars covered the entire side of his face. The side only recently thawing from its numbness.

Of course he should have realized the damage had been done...The world always conspired against him. Always trying to beat him down.

No more.

Now they would pay. All of them…

***

"The lab work came back."

Marly leaned forward in her chair. "And?"

"The blood type and DNA don't match Moose."

"Which means someone else was in Claudia's trailer after I left and before Moose got there."

Her brother nodded around a bite of roll. "Browning is giving Claudia the news today, hoping she'll tell him who the assailant was…"

"A teenaged boy was attacked last night." Dawson glanced around the room and lowered his voice. "The same kind of gashes Claudia had on her chest."

Disquiet skittered down Marly's spine. "Which means whoever attacked Claudia has claimed another victim?"

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

PICTURE PERFECT ACCIDENTAL WEDDING

"That's perfect. Absolutely perfect," Audrey walked a circle around Marly. "A bride in white lace and her dashing groom. We can use the text of some of these old laws on the brochure."

For the next hour, Audrey orchestrated a "wedding" for Dawson and Marly…"One more photo for the brochure," Audrey stated. "You may kiss the bride."

Marly didn't think Dawson would really kiss her. Yet the wicked gleam in his eye should have warned her…

A FEW WEEKS LATER...

A few heartbeats of silence was worse than any reaction he had imagined. "What do you mean we might be married?"

When Dawson spoke, he chose his words carefully. "Do you remember the night we walked through a wedding ceremony to take photos for a brochure?"

"I remember."

"Audrey Chambers told me the marriage ceremony we went through might be legit."

The words came out of Dawson's mouth, but refused to register in Marly's brain. "You mean legit as in we're married?"

Dawson nodded. "The old ordinances she found in one of the trunks gave Halo's mayor pretty broad powers, since the mayor was the only elected official within a couple days' riding time."

Disbelief settled on Marly's face as her mind scrambled to absorb this news. "And Audrey is Halo's current mayor, which would give her those broad powers."

EXCERPT FROM PICTURE PERFECT LEGACY copyright Genie Gabriel

APRIL FOCUS ON PICTURE PERFECT LEGACY,

BOOK #1 OF THE HALO LEGACY

ROMANTIC MYSTERY SERIES

Now on sale for 99 cents!

Buy now at

Rogue Phoenix Press!

Monday, April 20, 2015

PICTURE PERFECT DISAGREEMENT

APRIL FOCUS ON PICTURE PERFECT LEGACY,

BOOK #1 OF THE HALO LEGACY

ROMANTIC MYSTERY SERIES

Now on sale for 99 cents!

Buy now at

Rogue Phoenix Press!

EXCERPT FROM PICTURE PERFECT LEGACY

Don't take my baby. Please don't take my baby. The woman's plea whispered in the steady swish, swish of the wipers. Her image wavered among the falling flakes of snow, horror streaking in anguished tears down her face.

Marly O'Shea shivered and forced her attention back to the narrow, twisting road grudgingly carved out of the side of the mountain…A gust of angry wind blasted around a curve, rattling the canvas top of the Jeep. The flurries of snow grew heavier, layering the road in a relentless white. Marly shifted into a lower gear and concentrated on what she could see of the road illuminated by her headlights. Until she realized the headlights careening through the darkness weren't hers. They bore down on her, like a missile seeking its target. Adrenaline spurted through Marly's veins. She leaned on the horn and steered the Jeep as far to the side of the road as possible without sliding off the edge. Brighter and brighter, the lights obliterated the darkness until Marly thought they would explode. Then, as suddenly as they appeared, the lights jerked away, bouncing down the road behind her and quickly disappearing…

This morning, she still struggled to regain the calm façade she had worked to cultivate in her job as a child welfare worker. What had twisted her nerves so tightly? The accident or the determined drive to find the birth mother in the case that could boost or destroy her career?

With a deep breath, Marly paused in front of the sheriff's office. Hopefully, this modern day lawman would know where to find the woman she sought…"She may be using the alias Claudia Black. The address I have is Fool's Gold Road."

"I know the area." Dawson rubbed the scar above his eyebrow, stalling while he tried to dispel long-ago memories knotting in his gut…Fool's Gold Road provided an uneasy haven for those skating the edges of the law, generating more emergency calls than any other area in Dawson's territory. He typed the name Claudia Black into his computer. Sure enough, several notations came up. A neighbor reported hearing an argument as she drove by one night. A concerned churchgoer called when Claudia abruptly quit coming to services. A report from the hospital detailed injuries not consistent with Claudia's explanation.

Looked like life on Fool's Gold Road hadn't changed much since Dawson was a kid...With everything in his legal power, Dawson would protect this baby from the scars of not hiding quickly enough; from nightmarish memories that would haunt him into adulthood.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

PICTURE PERFECT CAREERS

APRIL FOCUS ON PICTURE PERFECT LEGACY,

BOOK #1 OF THE HALO LEGACY
ROMANTIC MYSTERY SERIES
Now on sale for 99 cents!

Buy now at

Rogue Phoenix Press!

***

Would the pain of missing her dad ever lose its edge? Though Bernie chose the uniform of a police officer, Marly thought he would have made a top-notch caseworker. He wouldn't have had to carry a gun and maybe he would still be alive. She brushed away the sheen of tears from her eyes. Bernie wouldn't want her to be sad. He would want her to carry on his work of searching out those who had lost their way and getting them back on the right path.

***

As he had done for years, Dawson ate dinner with Bill and Audrey Chambers, who had been his saviors when he was a teenager struggling to find a direction in his life. Bill's firmly quiet guidance and Audrey's cheerful yet determined demeanor had steered him to a path in law enforcement instead of ending up on the other side of a cell door.