Ryan Cosgrove and
Liliana Delgado are on a collision course with destiny. They don’t know
it yet, but before the night is over their lives will be forever
changed.
Spending Valentine’s Day at a burlesque bar, hadn’t been Liliana’s ideal way of spending a Friday night. She’d much rather be back on campus doing homework… until she meets Ryan. Tall, athletic, and gorgeous, Lili can’t keep her eyes off him, and despite his gruff manners and drunken disposition she’s intrigued.
Ryan’s got demons, and they’re deep, dark, and eating him alive. Regardless of his attraction to the petite brunette he’s tired of fighting, of pretending the last fifteen years haven’t been a daily struggle just to get out of bed every morning. That night he decides to end his pain, to leave it all behind and float away into the blessed darkness of oblivion. But fate has other plans for him, Lily finds and rescues Ryan, determined she’ll not only save his body, but his soul too.
This is their moment…
Spending Valentine’s Day at a burlesque bar, hadn’t been Liliana’s ideal way of spending a Friday night. She’d much rather be back on campus doing homework… until she meets Ryan. Tall, athletic, and gorgeous, Lili can’t keep her eyes off him, and despite his gruff manners and drunken disposition she’s intrigued.
Ryan’s got demons, and they’re deep, dark, and eating him alive. Regardless of his attraction to the petite brunette he’s tired of fighting, of pretending the last fifteen years haven’t been a daily struggle just to get out of bed every morning. That night he decides to end his pain, to leave it all behind and float away into the blessed darkness of oblivion. But fate has other plans for him, Lily finds and rescues Ryan, determined she’ll not only save his body, but his soul too.
This is their moment…
Chapter
1
Liliana
The smells are the first things that hit
me. Huddling into myself, knees tucked under my chin as the hospital doors
whisk open and shut, a sick sort of feeling sinks its claws into my stomach.
I’m ill. Have been for days.
Throwing up, always nauseous, and my
boobs hurt.
Biting my lower lip I glance at my
father sitting beside me. Angry doesn’t even begin to describe how he’s
feeling. The school called, said his daughter was puking her guts out. He’d
seen me puking my guts out for the last ten days. Every time he’d give me a
look that said, “Girl, that better not be what I think it is.”
I close my eyes as the ache in the back
of my skull intensifies.
The smells in here are awful-- blood,
sweat, and vomit. Beside me a little kid is hacking her lungs out. I’m not a
germaphobe, but each time I get blasted with the spray I tuck further into
myself and count to five before taking another breath.
Surrounded by people, but I’ve never
felt so alone.
I wish mom was here with me. She would
hug me, tell me it will be okay. But she hasn’t been feeling good the last
year.
Doctors say she’s in the beginning
stages of multiple sclerosis, which means Dad had to come.
The doors slide open with a loud whoosh.
Huffing the bangs out of my eyes I look up and my heart stills.
In fact, everything seems to freeze.
It’s a strange sensation, sounds grow dim, and the world recedes to a pinprick
of light, a halo that surrounds him.
I have no idea who he is, a perfect stranger in a room full of them, but
something about him stands out and makes me notice.
He has dark wavy hair and intense blue
eyes. He stands squinting in the doorway and it’s obvious why he’s here. The
entire left side of his face is a swollen mass of discolored skin. He grabs the
corner of his jaw and I notice his knuckles are also split open. Hard eyes scan
the waiting room, and for a second, I glimpse in his face the same emotion I’m
feeling right now.
Anywhere
but here…
Then our eyes meet. He’s older than me,
I can tell. There are whiskers on his cheeks, and he doesn’t look like a boy.
Especially not like the boy who did this
to me.
The look lasts only a second, but feels
more like an eternity-- a stolen moment in time that exists outside of where
we’re at right now. But like so much in my life, it’s fleeting.
He sits far in the back of the room.
I want to turn and look. To see if I’d
been right and he’d understood-- if somehow a stranger understood exactly what I was going through.
But I can’t, because then a nurse comes
out and calls my name.
“Liliana Delgado?” Her voice is calm, cool,
and it sends chills straight through me. Wrapping the ends of my thick sleeves
around my closed fists I sit like a deer in the headlights, spooked out of my
mind with a mouth tasting like cotton.
“Get up,” my father growls low, for my
ears only.
Coming here, it’s just a formality. We
all know, but it’s one of those things that you can ignore until you no longer
can.
Swallowing hard, I look back at the guy
one last time.
He has his face turned and is staring at
the wall. No one is going to save me from this.
Grabbing my stomach, I force my feet to
move. The nurse’s smile is small, but reassuring. My father’s look is full of
hate.
An hour later he won’t even look at me.
The test is positive.
At fourteen, my life is over.
***
Ryan
Fuck! This is just what I need.
The bastard cracked my jaw in two places,
granted they’re hairlines, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t throb like a
sonofabitch.
It was worth it though.
I smirk, even though doing it makes the
pain feel like someone’s shoved a hot poker through my face. I don’t care. It’s
done. Over. Never again.
The doctors gave me pills, sent me home.
Home.
I don’t have one of those anymore.
But I don’t care. I’m more free now than
I’ve ever been. My parents, they’ve never believed me. Just think I’m a big
fucking screw up. I barely graduated high school. There goes Ryan, such a disgrace to his parents. Such good god-fearing
people, what a shame to be saddled with something like that.
I’ve heard it all before.
It stopped bothering me a long time ago.
But today I had to do it-- had to
confront my uncle, because I’m eighteen and I’m a man and I had to show him
that.
Never again. Not to anybody else. I
pounded that truth into his fat face with my bloody fists.
Flexing my fingers I stare at the
swollen and distorted mass of tissue. The sun is beating down on my head. All I
have left in this world are the clothes on my back. I’m not going back home,
couldn’t even if I wanted to.
My dad kicked me out after the fight,
says he can’t handle me anymore. Honestly, I think he would have found a reason
anyway, but this fight was the perfect excuse-- a way for him to maintain his
spotless reputation within the community.
All I ever wanted is for him to fucking
believe me. But his chance is over. I’m done and no matter what anybody else
says, I’m not stupid, but with my grades there won’t be any college in my
future.
Glancing down the busy street it takes
me all of two seconds to decide where I’m going.
Away.
Far, far away from Austin, Texas. In
fact, I want out of the country.
I can’t breathe here anymore.
I’m joining the Marines and I’m going to
war.
Author Bio:
Marie Hall Website/Facebook/Twitter/Goodreads/Amazon Author Page
On top of that she’s a confirmed foodie, she nearly went to culinary school and then figured out she could save a ton of money if she just watched food shows religiously! She’s a self-proclaimed master chef, certified deep sea dolphin trainer, finder of leprechaun’s gold at the end of the rainbow, and rumor has it she keeps the Troll King locked away in her basement. All of which is untrue, however, she does have an incredibly active imagination and loves to share her crazy thoughts with the world!
Giveaway:
Reviews by Tammy & Kim:
(1) ecopy of A Moment provided by Marie Hall. Please allow Marie time to send you the book as all the blogs will be submitting to her around the 19th. Thanks!
Grand Prize for all blogs combined is a $50 Amazon or B&N giftcard.
**This is promo post only. Neither Kim nor Tammy have read or reviewed this book.**
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