Fierce Shadows Read online

  Fierce Shadows

  Shadows Landing #4

  Kathleen Brooks

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locale, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

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  An original work of Kathleen Brooks. Fierce Shadows copyright @ 2020 by Kathleen Brooks.

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  Kathleen Brooks® is a registered Trademark of Laurens Publishing, LLC.

  Created with Vellum

  Bluegrass Series

  Bluegrass State of Mind

  Risky Shot

  Dead Heat

  * * *

  Bluegrass Brothers

  Bluegrass Undercover

  Rising Storm

  Secret Santa: A Bluegrass Series Novella

  Acquiring Trouble

  Relentless Pursuit

  Secrets Collide

  Final Vow

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  Bluegrass Singles

  All Hung Up

  Bluegrass Dawn

  The Perfect Gift

  The Keeneston Roses

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  Forever Bluegrass Series

  Forever Entangled

  Forever Hidden

  Forever Betrayed

  Forever Driven

  Forever Secret

  Forever Surprised

  Forever Concealed

  Forever Devoted

  Forever Hunted

  Forever Guarded

  Forever Notorious

  Forever Ventured

  Forever Freed

  Forever Saved (coming July/August 2020)

  * * *

  Shadows Landing Series

  Saving Shadows

  Sunken Shadows

  Lasting Shadows

  Fierce Shadows

  Broken Shadows (coming October 2020)

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  Women of Power Series

  Chosen for Power

  Built for Power

  Fashioned for Power

  Destined for Power

  * * *

  Web of Lies Series

  Whispered Lies

  Rogue Lies

  Shattered Lies

  * * *

  Moonshine Hollow Series

  Moonshine & Murder

  Moonshine & Malice

  Moonshine & Mayhem

  Moonshine & Mischief (details coming soon)

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Also by Kathleen Brooks

  About the Author

  For L:

  Be Brave. Be Determined. Be Fierce.

  Prologue

  “Mom, I said I’m not going,” Allie Crisp said with a roll of her blue eyes.

  “But the show starts in ten minutes,” her mother complained. Allie was so over this family vacation. It was great her parents were taking her and her little sister on vacation before Allie started her second year of college, but come on. Her mom wasn’t giving her any room to be herself. Allie was being treated as if she were her fourteen year old sister instead of an almost nineteen year old who had lived away at college for the past year. One year with no curfew, no reporting in to your parents, and no stupid song and dance show at a resort.

  “Mom, I don’t want to go to the show. I’m going to walk on the beach and make my way back to the room,” Allie said again.

  “Honey, let her have her space. She’s used to being on her own.”

  Allie shot her dad a thankful smile. He always got her. Allie’s little sister was the needy one. She’d always wanted to be the center of attention. Not Allie. She was content to let her sister have the spotlight.

  “Fine,” her mother relented. “Be careful. Don’t wander too far. We’ll see you in a little while.”

  Allie rolled her eyes again. “It’s not like I can go anywhere. The resort is the island.”

  “Come on, Mom. I can’t wait for the show,” Allie’s younger sister, Claire, said as she slipped her hand into their mom’s and sent a smirk to Allie. Yeah, yeah, she was the favorite. Allie already knew that.

  Allie watched as her family walked through the lobby of the Palm Meadows Island Resort. They were from Missouri and Allie went to college in Indiana. Why would Allie want to be stuck in a show when there was a beautiful beach right outside?

  Allie walked out of the lobby and down the boardwalk. She stopped and pulled off her flip-flops before the boardwalk transitioned into the sandy beach of the small island off the Charleston, South Carolina shore. It had been pretty cool actually. The only way onto the small private island was by a ferry. They’d driven their minivan onto it and then were able to get out and watch as they made the twenty-minute boat trip to the island. But that was where the cool ended. Her mother and sister were driving her crazy. They all wanted her to be the same high school nerd with no life she’d been before college. But she’d tasted freedom and she wanted more.

  This summer she was on a mission to break out of her shell. She’d started in college. She’d gone to some parties and even drunk some beers. Now Allie was going to have a summer fling and come back to college ready to do something more than sloppy make-outs at a party.

  Allie heard the music from the beach nightclub and paused. It was a club for twenty-one and over at the pool bar. She looked at her tight tank top and her skirt. It was one her mom picked out and went down to her knees. Allie rolled it at the waist until it was at mid-thigh and took a deep breath. She was going to be nineteen next month. That was close enough to twenty-one.

  Allie walked with purpose up the short boardwalk that led to the club. The late summer air was hot and humid, even at nine at night. The back wall of the club facing the ocean was wide open with the pool between it and the beach. Music was blasting and the dance floor was full of people too young to sit through some silly show. How Allie wished she were one of them.

  Allie skirted the dance floor and made her way to the bar. The bartender looked to be in his early to mid-twenties. Surely he wouldn’t card her. He was a compatriot in youth, Allie told herself as she took the only open seat at the bar that lined most of the back wall. To her left was the walkway to the main hotel now sitting back a distance. To her right was a walkway to the pool. But right in front of her was her summer fling.

  “What can I get you?”

  “A drink to start and then we’ll see where you can take me,” Allie said with a bat of her eyelashes.

  The hot bartender with longish beach-blond hair that hung over his eyebrows smiled at her. “Let’s start with your ID and then see where it goes.”