We’re so pleased to have author Garrett Leigh dropping in today on the tour to celebrate her latest release, Soul to Keep, book two in the Rented Heart series. We have an excerpt from the book to share with you as well as a giveaway, so be sure to check out the entry details below.
Welcome, Garrett!
About the Book
Universal Buy Link
Length: 62,000 words
Cover Design: Black Jazz Design
Rented Heart Series
Rented Heart (Book #1) – Universal Buy Link
Blurb: Recovering addict Jamie Yorke has returned to England from California. With no home or family to speak of, he sticks a pin in a map and finds a small town in the Derbyshire Peak District. Matlock Bath is a quiet placeóhe just needs to get there, keep his head down, and stay clean. Simple, right? Until a chance meeting on the flight home alters the course of his so-called life forever.
Ex-Army medic Marc Ramsey is recovering from life-changing combat injuries while pulling nights as a trauma specialist at the local hospital. Keeping busy is a habit he canít quit, but when Jamieóso wild and beautifulóbursts into his life, working himself into the ground isnít as compelling as it used to be.
Marc falls hard, but chaos lurks behind Jamieís fragile facade. Heís winning his battle against addiction, but another old foe is slowly consuming him. Both men have weathered many storms, but the path to the peace they deserve might prove the roughest ride yet.
The Excerpt
On the first weekend in February, Marc pulled a double shift. Staff sickness left him no option but to grab what sleep he could and keep on working until cover arrived, and it was the early hours of Sunday morning before he called a cab home, too knackered to risk driving.
After being gone so long, he expected to come home to an empty house, and that was depressing. Jamie’s moods were erratic, but his presence in Marc’s day-to-day life had become consistent enough for him to get used to it, and his heart skipped a beat when he dumped his coat and shoes in the hall and found Jamie in the kitchen. Breakfast and a dose of Jamie’s acerbic company was just what he needed before he passed out for the rest of the day.
But for once Jamie wasn’t cooking, and he shrank away when Marc approached him, his face contorted in pain. Marc dropped his bag, all thoughts of sleep forgotten. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.” Marc caught Jamie’s arm and forced him to look at Marc. “Why are you holding your shoulder like that? Have you hurt yourself?”
“No.”
“Liar,” Marc said again, but gentler this time, as it was clear by Jamie’s hunched stance that he was in some serious discomfort. “What happened?”
Jamie scowled, though it wasn’t as fierce as usual. “I fell off the ladder.”
“The ladder?” Marc’s exhaustion-addled brain took a moment to compute what on earth Jamie could have been doing up a ladder before he remembered the rickety wooden ladder attached to the shelves that held his mother’s collection of ghoulish pewter animals. “Jesus. I told you not to go up that rotten thing. How high were you?”
Jamie’s silence said it all, and Marc’s vague concern morphed instantly into worry so tangible he could almost taste it. “Show me where it hurts. Did you hit your head?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
Jamie started to shrug but then seemed to think better of it. “One of the rungs collapsed. I can’t really remember hitting the deck, but my shoulder and ribs are killing me. Happy now?”
“Let me see.”
Marc advanced on Jamie without waiting for an answer and examined him quickly and methodically, as best he could with Jamie clothed. There was a red mark on his temple, but that wasn’t unusual—Jamie had a habit of banging his knuckles on his head when he was frazzled. Marc wondered if that had happened overnight, and then a terrifying thought occurred to him. “When did you fall?”
“Um . . . I don’t know. Last night, maybe? What day is it?”
“Sunday. Did you fall yesterday or on Friday?”
“Yesterday. It must’ve been. I went home on Friday, remember?”
The fact that Jamie remembered and Marc didn’t was perversely reassuring, but Marc was still horrified by the fact that Jamie had injured himself hours ago and been alone ever since. “I need to check your ribs and shoulder out. Can you take your T-shirt off?”
“Hmm?”
“Your T-shirt,” Marc repeated. “Don’t worry. I won’t jump you.”
Jamie’s lips turned up in the faintest hint of a pained smile, but it was laced with an emotion Marc couldn’t quite decipher as Jamie fingered the hem of his punky T-shirt. For a moment, Marc thought he’d leave it on and push Marc away with the special brand of silence that was so disturbing—like he’d forgotten how to scream. But then he gingerly pulled his T-shirt up, revealing his taut, lean abdomen, and gestured for Marc to help him ease it over his head.
Damn. Marc bit his lip, his breath caught in his chest. He’d always sensed that Jamie was hiding something beneath his artfully grungy clothes, but the sight of him so exposed and vulnerable, his pale skin, painted dark with tattoos and marred by a mottling of burn scars, still stunned him. Beyond beautiful, Jamie was like no man Marc had ever seen. He longed to trace the sinister lines of ink, but with Jamie trembling in pain, the past would have to wait.
Marc put his hands on Jamie’s bare torso, feeling cautiously for any abnormalities that could indicate breaks or fractures. Years of field medicine had taught him to work without the aid of the technology he now enjoyed at the Chesterfield Royal, and he was soon reasonably satisfied that Jamie had just badly bruised his shoulder and ribs. He placed a hand on Jamie’s chest. “Breathe in for me.”
Jamie obeyed. His lungs moved freely, his winces and gasps coming only when Marc moved him this way and that. “Am I broken?”
“I don’t think so. You’re going to be mighty sore for a few days, though, and I’d imagine you’re not interested in taking any pain relief?”
“I can’t.”
“There are plenty of non-narcotic and opioid drugs that you can take.”
“So why assume that I won’t?”
“Because you like punishing yourself.”
Jamie wrenched himself from Marc’s grasp. “That’s not fair.”
“I know, but that doesn’t make it less valid. I’ve got boxes of naproxen, ibuprofen, and paracetamol upstairs, but you’re not going to let me give you any of it, are you?”
“For someone who claims not to know much about addiction, you’ve got a pretty accurate take on what goes on in my fucked-up brain.”
“You’re not fucked up. You’re recovering, and that’s a journey I’ve been on, even if my path to the bottom was different. It took me a long time to accept that I didn’t deserve to be in the pain I was in, which is why I can see that you’re not there yet.”
Jamie shook his head, his hand flying to his injured shoulder. “You didn’t deserve it, but I do. Don’t you get it?” He turned away, blanching in pain. “I blew myself up—I am the fucking bomb.”
He started for the kitchen door, his T-shirt still draped over a nearby kitchen chair. There was no doubt in Marc’s mind that Jamie would walk home without it if he let him, but as he reached out and grabbed Jamie’s hand, he realised that he had no intention of letting Jamie go home at all. “Jamie.”
Jamie stopped and didn’t resist as Marc tugged him backwards into a careful embrace. He knocked his head on Marc’s chest. “What?”
Marc chuckled. “You know what. Do you really think I’m going to let you out of my sight while you’re banged up and hurt? I know you don’t want drugs, but there are other ways of dealing with pain. Let me help you . . . please?”
“Don’t say ‘please.’”
“Why not?”
“Because there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you when you say shit like that.”
About the Author
Garrett Leigh is an award-winning British writer and book designer, currently working for Dreamspinner Press, Loose Id, Riptide Publishing, and Fox Love Press.
Garrett’s debut novel, Slide, won Best Bisexual Debut at the 2014 Rainbow Book Awards, and her polyamorous novel, Misfits was a finalist in the 2016 LAMBDA awards.
When not writing, Garrett can generally be found procrastinating on Twitter, cooking up a storm, or sitting on her behind doing as little as possible, all the while shouting at her menagerie of children and animals and attempting to tame her unruly and wonderful FOX.
Garrett is also an award winning cover artist, taking the silver medal at the Benjamin Franklin Book Awards in 2016. She designs for various publishing houses and independent authors at blackjazzdesign.com, and co-owns the specialist stock site moonstockphotography.com with photographer Dan Burgess.
The Giveaway
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Follow the Tour
April 2 – Joyfully Jay, Lost In Love Book Blog, Foxylutely, Sinfully
April 3 – The Novel Approach
April 4 – Love Bytes, Kimmers’ Erotic Book Banter, Kiss Like A Girl, Katie’s Book Corner
April 6 – Cupcakes & Bookshelves, Mikku-chan, Mainely Stories, Gay Media Reviews
April 9 – My Fiction Nook
April 11 – We Three Queens, Mirrigold, Love Unchained, Open Mind for a Different View
April 13 – Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words, The Geekery Book Review, MM Good Book Reviews, Diverse Reader, Sexy Erotic Xciting
April 16 – OMG Reads
April 18 – Love Bites & Silk Ties, Wicked Faeries Tales, Making It Happen
April 20 – Bayou Book Junkie, Reading In Sarah’s Corner, The Way She Reads, Jim’s Reading Room, Au Boudoir Ecarlate