THE SUMMER SEEKERS
Author: Sarah Morgan
ISBN: 9781335180926
Publication Date: 5/18/2021
Publisher: HQN Books
Book
Summary:
Teaser Excerpt:
Kathleen
It was the cup of milk that saved her. That and the salty bacon she’d fried for her supper many hours earlier, which had left her mouth dry.
If she hadn’t been thirsty—if she’d still been upstairs, sleeping
on the ridiculously expensive mattress that had been her eightieth birthday
gift to herself—she wouldn’t have been alerted to danger.
As it was, she’d been standing in front of the fridge, the milk
carton in one hand and the cup in the other, when she’d heard a loud thump. The
noise was out of place here in the leafy darkness of the English countryside,
where the only sounds should have been the hoot of an owl and the occasional
bleat of a sheep.
She put the glass down and turned her head, trying to locate the
sound. The back door. Had she forgotten to lock it again?
The moon sent a ghostly gleam across the kitchen and she was
grateful she hadn’t felt the need to turn the light on. That gave her some advantage,
surely?
She put the milk back and closed the fridge door quietly, sure now
that she was not alone in the house.
Moments earlier she’d been asleep. Not deeply asleep—that rarely
happened these days—but drifting along on a tide of dreams. If someone had told
her younger self that she’d still be dreaming and enjoying her adventures when
she was eighty she would have been less afraid of aging. And it was impossible
to forget that she was aging.
People said she was wonderful for her age, but most of the time
she didn’t feel wonderful. The answers to her beloved crosswords floated just
out of range. Names and faces refused to align at the right moment. She
struggled to remember what she’d done the day before, although if she took
herself back twenty years or more her mind was clear. And then there were the
physical changes—her eyesight and hearing were still good, thankfully, but her
joints hurt and her bones ached. Bending to feed the cat was a challenge.
Climbing the stairs required more effort than she would have liked and was
always undertaken with one hand on the rail just in case.
She’d never been the sort to live in a just in case sort of
way.
Her daughter, Liza, wanted her to wear an alarm. One of those
medical alert systems, with a button you could press in an emergency, but
Kathleen refused. In her youth she’d traveled the world, before it was remotely
fashionable to do so. She’d sacrificed safety for adventure without a second
thought. Most days now she felt like a different person.
Losing friends didn’t help. One by one they fell by the wayside,
taking with them shared memories of the past. A small part of her vanished with
each loss. It had taken decades for her to understand that loneliness wasn’t a
lack of people in your life, but a lack of people who knew and understood you.
She fought fiercely to retain some version of her old self—which
was why she’d resisted Liza’s pleas that she remove the rug from the living
room floor, stop using a step ladder to retrieve books from the highest shelves
and leave a light on at night. Each compromise was another layer shaved from
her independence, and losing her independence was her biggest fear.
Kathleen had always been the rebel in the family, and she was
still the rebel—although she wasn’t sure that rebels were supposed to have
shaking hands and a pounding heart.
She heard the sound of heavy footsteps. Someone was searching the
house. For what, exactly? What treasures did they hope to find? And why weren’t
they trying to at least disguise their presence?
Having resolutely ignored all suggestions that she might be
vulnerable, she was now forced to acknowledge the possibility. Perhaps she
shouldn’t have been so stubborn. How long would it have taken from pressing the
alert button to the cavalry arriving?
In reality, the cavalry was Finn Cool, who lived three fields
away. Finn was a musician, and he’d bought the property precisely because
there were no immediate neighbors. His antics caused mutterings in the village.
He had rowdy parties late into the night, attended by glamorous people from
London who terrorized the locals by driving their flashy sports cars too fast
down the narrow lanes. Someone had started a petition in the post office to ban
the parties. There had been talk of drugs, and half-naked women, and it had all
sounded like so much fun that Kathleen had been tempted to invite herself over.
Rather that than a dull women’s group, where you were expected to bake and knit
and swap recipes for banana bread.
Finn would be of no use to her in this moment of crisis. In all
probability he’d either be in his studio, wearing headphones, or he’d be drunk.
Either way, he wasn’t going to hear a cry for help.
Calling the police would mean walking through the kitchen and
across the hall to the living room, where the phone was kept and she didn’t
want to reveal her presence. Her family had bought her a mobile phone, but it
was still in its box, unused. Her adventurous spirit didn’t extend to
technology. She didn’t like the idea of a nameless faceless person tracking her
every move.
There was another thump, louder this time, and Kathleen pressed
her hand to her chest. She could feel the rapid pounding of her heart. At least
it was still working. She should probably be grateful for that.
When she’d complained about wanting a little more adventure, this
wasn’t what she’d had in mind. What could she do? She had no button to press,
no phone with which to call for help, so she was going to have to handle this
herself.
She could already hear Liza’s voice in her head: Mum, I warned
you!
If she survived, she’d never hear the last of it.
Fear was replaced by anger. Because of this intruder she’d be
branded Old and Vulnerable and forced to spend the rest of her days in a single
room with minders who would cut up her food, speak in overly loud voices and
help her to the bathroom. Life as she knew it would be over.
That was not going to happen.
She’d rather die at the hands of an intruder. At least her obituary
would be interesting.
Better still, she would stay alive and prove herself capable of
independent living.
She glanced quickly around the kitchen for a suitable weapon and
spied the heavy black skillet she’d used to fry the bacon earlier.
She lifted it silently, gripping the handle tightly as she walked
to the door that led from the kitchen to the hall. The tiles were cool under
her feet—which, fortunately, were bare. No sound. Nothing to give her away. She
had the advantage.
She could do this. Hadn’t she once fought off a mugger in
the backstreets of Paris? True, she’d been a great deal younger then, but this
time she had the advantage of surprise.
How many of them were there?
More than one would give her trouble.
Was it a professional job? Surely no professional would be this
loud and clumsy. If it was kids hoping to steal her TV, they were in for a
disappointment. Her grandchildren had been trying to persuade her to buy a
“smart” TV, but why would she need such a thing? She was perfectly happy with
the IQ of her current machine, thank you very much. Technology already made her
feel foolish most of the time. She didn’t need it to be any smarter than it
already was.
Perhaps they wouldn’t come into the kitchen. She could stay hidden
away until they’d taken what they wanted and left.
They’d never know she was here.
They’d—
A floorboard squeaked close by. There wasn’t a crack or a creak in
this house that she didn’t know. Someone was right outside the door.
Her knees turned liquid.
Oh Kathleen, Kathleen.
She closed both hands tightly round the handle of the skillet.
Why hadn’t she gone to self-defense classes instead of senior
yoga? What use was the downward dog when what you needed was a guard dog?
A shadow moved into the room, and without allowing herself to
think about what she was about to do she lifted the skillet and brought it down
hard, the force of the blow driven by the weight of the object as much as her
own strength. There was a thud and a vibration as it connected with his head.
“I’m so sorry—I mean—” Why was she apologizing? Ridiculous!
The man threw up an arm as he fell, a reflex action, and the
movement sent the skillet back into Kathleen’s own head. Pain almost blinded
her and she prepared herself to end her days right here, thus giving her
daughter the opportunity to be right, when there was a loud thump and the man
crumpled to the floor. There was a crack as his head hit the tiles.
Kathleen froze. Was that it, or was he suddenly going to spring to
his feet and murder her?
No. Against all odds, she was still standing while her prowler lay
inert at her feet. The smell of alcohol rose, and Kathleen wrinkled her nose.
Drunk.
Her heart was racing so fast she was worried that any moment now
it might trip over itself and give up.
She held tightly to the skillet.
Did he have an accomplice?
She held her breath, braced for someone else to come racing
through the door to investigate the noise, but there was only silence.
Gingerly she stepped toward the door and poked her head into the
hall. It was empty.
It seemed the man had been alone.
Finally she risked a look at him.
He was lying still at her feet, big, bulky and dressed all in
black. The mud on the edges of his trousers suggested he’d come across the
fields at the back of the house. She couldn’t make out his features because
he’d landed face-first, but blood oozed from a wound on his head and darkened
her kitchen floor.
Feeling a little dizzy, Kathleen pressed her hand to her throbbing
head.
What now? Was one supposed to administer first aid when one was
the cause of the injury? Was that helpful or hypocritical? Or was he past
first aid and every other type of aid?
She nudged his body with her bare foot, but there was no movement.
Had she killed him?
The enormity of it shook her.
If he was dead, then she was a murderer.
When Liza had expressed a desire to see her mother safely housed
somewhere she could easily visit, presumably she hadn’t been thinking of
prison.
Who was he? Did he have family? What had been his intention when
he’d forcibly entered her home? Kathleen put the skillet down and forced her
shaky limbs to carry her to the living room. Something tickled her cheek.
Blood. Hers.
She picked up the phone and for the first time in her life dialed
the emergency services.
Underneath the panic and the shock there was something that felt a
lot like pride. It was a relief to discover she wasn’t as weak and defenseless
as everyone seemed to think.
When a woman answered, Kathleen spoke clearly and without
hesitation.
“There’s a body in my kitchen,” she said. “I assume you’ll want to
come and remove it.”
Excerpted from The Summer Seekers by Sarah Morgan. Copyright
© 2021
by Sarah Morgan. Published by HQN Books.
Buy Links:
Author Bio:
USA Today bestselling author Sarah Morgan writes hot,
happy, contemporary romance and women’s fiction, and her trademark humor and
sensuality have gained her fans across the globe. Described as “a magician with
words” by RT Book Reviews, she has sold more than eleven million copies of her
books. She was nominated three years in succession for the prestigious RITA®
Award from the Romance Writers of America and won the award three times: once
in 2012 for Doukakis’s Apprentice, in 2013 for A Night of No Return and in 2017
for Miracle on 5th Avenue. She also won the RT Reviewers’ Choice
Award in 2012 and has made numerous appearances in their Top Pick slot. As a
child, Sarah dreamed of being a writer, and although she took a few interesting
detours along the way, she is now living that dream. Sarah lives near London,
England, with her husband and children, and when she isn’t reading or writing,
she loves being outdoors, preferably on vacation so she can forget the house
needs tidying.
Social Links:
Twitter: @SarahMorgan_
Facebook: @AuthorSarahMorgan
Instagram:
@SarahMorganWrites
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