When her father locks away a powerful man, Summer Miller
becomes the one marked to pay the price.
The sheriff, Jacob Darnell, swears he’ll protect her. But he
has always blurred the line between duty and desire. His badge is her shield.
His house, her prison. His touch, the most dangerous risk of all.
In Rosefield, every promise hides a lie. Every smile
conceals a weapon.
And the closer Summer comes to escape, the deeper betrayal cuts.
Because love isn’t salvation.
It’s obsession.
And vengeance isn’t the only thing waiting in the dark.
They
think I’m smiling.
That’s the part that always gets me—how
fucking easy it is.
A tilt of the mouth. A nod. A badge
pressed to my chest like a holy relic. People will believe anything if the
devil’s wearing a uniform. I could blow a man’s brains out in this bar and half
of them would call it justice. The other half would thank me for keeping the
peace.
But I’m not thinking about them. I’m
thinking about her.
Summer.
Out there, with another man like she’s
forgotten the name I carved into her life. The woman I dragged from the dark
and put under my roof. The woman I told myself I would keep.
The woman I have been in love with for
two years and have taken into my home to protect from the monsters that lurk in
the dark. But she’s dancing with that fucker for all to see.
That singing stray with hands too
familiar and eyes that don’t understand what it means to touch something
sacred.
And she’s smiling. Not the smile she
gives me. Not the one she wears when she thanks me through her teeth for the
silk I buy or the food I put on the table. This one’s real. Soft. Lit from
inside.
Unforgivable.
“She’s got moves,” some idiot mutters
nearby. “Didn’t think the sheriff would let her off the leash.”
My head turns slow. Wouldn’t want anyone
to think I’m the kind of man who loses control. Yet.
I find the voice. Lock eyes. Some oil-rig
rat with beer on his breath and death behind his teeth.
“You want to repeat yourself?” I say,
calm as a storm gathering under skin.
He chuckles. Weak. Backpedals. Good.
I’m not in the mood to bury another one
behind the diner.
Haywood says something beside me—laughing
about blood on a porch turning out to be barbecue sauce. I nod. Smile. Pretend
I give a shit.
I don’t.
I’m too busy watching her. Still swaying.
Still glowing. Still fucking mine.
He
touches her waist. My hand twitches, the urge to pull out my gun and shoot the
fucker burns through me like lava.
If she were smart, she’d be crying right
now. Begging me to make it stop. Begging me to get him to take his hands off
her. But she doesn’t—
She’s gotten stupid. Or brave. Or both.
From the first second, she was mine. Not
a passing obsession—an inevitability carved into me. I’ve memorized every
shiver, every tear, every defiance. She’s always belonged to me, even when she
thought she was running. She still looks at me like I’m the danger. Maybe I am.
But I’m also the only thing standing between her and the monsters who wanted
her. Who planned her destruction. And if she knew what they had planned, what I
had really saved her from, she would never lead a normal life again.
Every road she takes will always lead
back to me. Every breath she takes is already inside my hands. She can fight,
she can hate, but she’ll never escape. I won’t let her. Not now. Not ever.
I
haven’t owned her in the bedroom yet. I was never going to be the man to tie
her down and take her against her will. Hell, that’s the men I’m saving her
from. But right now, the idea of her in chains, taking every inch of my cock
and staring into my eyes sounds like heaven. Maybe that’s what she needs. Maybe
then she’ll stop eyeing bar rats and thinking it’s alright to let them put
their hands on her.
I’m a fucking monster. But a rapist?
No.
It takes every ounce of strength I have
to walk back to the table and sit, to hide the storm clawing at my insides and
let the room think I’m calm.
“I’m waiting for you baby,” I mutter
under my breath.
The song ends and he finally takes his
greasy fucking hands off her.
I want to stomp on his fucking throat—but
I won’t. I’ll play the long game. I’ll find out everything there is to know
about that son of a bitch.
She heads back over. Eyes down at the
ground. She knows. She fucking knows. She has the audacity to sit
there like nothing happened. Like she didn’t just look at another man like he
could save her. Like he could take her home and fuck her into forgetting I ever
existed.
I saw it—that flicker. That spark she
thought she could hide. She wanted him to look at her, to see her. To know she
was interested. And now she sits there, all wide eyes and trembling lips,
pretending she’s innocent?
No
“Had
fun with your boyfriend?” The words come out smooth, almost playful, but they
taste like rust on my tongue.
What I really want to do is drag her out
by the hair and make her confess how far she would’ve let him go if I wasn’t
here.
I was born and raised in Hull, England, where I still live
today with my four incredible children, two mischievous dogs, and a cat who
thinks she’s the boss of us all. Life in my house is busy, loud, and
wonderfully chaotic—but through it all, I’ve always had one constant: my love
for stories.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been reading and
writing. I was the kid who snuck books under the covers with a torch, the
teenager scribbling down half-finished stories in notebooks, and now the woman
whose imagination simply refuses to switch off. Stories have always been my way
of making sense of the world, and I’ve carried that passion into writing books
that dig into the messy, complicated sides of love, obsession, and survival.
When I’m not writing, you’ll usually find me surrounded by
my family, walking the dogs, or curling up with a book and a cup of coffee
(probably cold by the time I get to it). I’ve always had a soft spot for
anything furry, and our house is very much a mix of kids, pets, and chaos—in
the best possible way.
My debut novel, The Fall of Summer, is the first
in The Reckoning Duet, and it’s the story that’s been tugging at my
heart for years. It’s dark, it’s emotional, and it explores what happens when
love and danger collide. My hope is that these books make you feel something
real—whether it’s your pulse racing, your heart aching, or that little shiver
down your spine when a line sticks with you long after you’ve read it.
Thank you for being here and for supporting my journey as an
indie author. I can’t wait to share these stories with you, and I hope you’ll
come along for the ride.
With love,
Rebecca Dale
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