Saturday Sneak Peek #2

My drug-addled mind drifted
backward. I gradually recalled smiling to myself as my brand new fire engine
red Lamborghini Aventador J, that I had affectionately nicknamed AJ, hugged the
pavement and maneuvered the snow-covered curve in the mountain road. She gently
leaned like a palm tree in the Santa Ana wind. It had only been a month since
I’d bought the luxurious automobile, a gift to myself after I had received the
nomination for best supporting actor in a recent blockbuster film. This was the
first time I’d driven it out of state, and so far she’d performed like a prize
thoroughbred.

Of
course, I could’ve flown, but then nobody would’ve have been able to see my new
ride. I remembered bobbing my head to the thumping beat of the song playing
through the superb sound system. Thank God for satellite. Up in the mountains,
regular radio reception would probably work a brother’s last good nerve.
Thankfully, the snowstorm that had just visited the Telluride area was now
over, but I’d silently wished I had left Los Angeles earlier. The sun was
slipping behind the mountains and the impending darkness made me jumpy. Heavy
rain and some minor mudslides were the worst weather I’d ever dealt with in my
fifteen years living in California. But, even as a Chicago native who had
learned how to drive in snowstorms, my stomach clenched and I eased off of the
brake when the car’s rear end fishtailed. Probably not the best car for
mountain climbing. Maybe I should’ve rented a Range Rover. Why worry
about that now? According to the GPS, there was less than an hour left to my
destination.

I remembered turning up the volume,
switching my thoughts to the little bon voyage party I’d had the night before
with Reese and retreating into my thoughts. The descending sun and visions of
that sweet, young thing riding me like her life depended on it took my
attention from the road sign warning of a barely visible hairpin turn up ahead.
Once I realized the danger ahead and eased onto the brake to prepare for the
turn, it was too late. At only forty miles an hour, the road conditions and the
fact that the car had no weight in the rear made it impossible to handle the
turn. The sight of a jagged mountain wall rushing toward the windshield was
last thing I remembered.

“I can’t feel my legs. Am I
paralyzed?”

“Oh, no, Mr. Breland. The surgeon
administered a local anesthetic and also prescribed a morphine drip, so you
wouldn’t experience any post-surgical pain.”

I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment
while I tried to make sense of everything I’d just heard.“But my head hurts,” was all I managed in
response.

“You have a concussion. I’ll make
sure the doctor is aware. We can’t give you anything else in addition to the
morphine without his order. He should be here shortly.”

“Does anyone know I’m here?”

The brunette checked his chart on
her hand-held computer. “It says here that EMS contacted someone, but I don’t
have that information either.” She apologized again. “You do have a visitor in
the waiting room. He’s been here for several hours.”

“Who? '

“It’s Devon Burke,” she answered
with restrained excitement in her voice.

“Can he come in?”

“Certainly. Will you get Mr. Burke,
June?”

Maybe it was just the heavy narcotic
playing tricks with my mind, but I thought I saw Nurse June smile on her way
out of the room. Almost everyone knew Devon these days, since he was blazing a
trail in Hollywood as a sought-after leading man. I closed my eyes and didn’t
open them until Devon’s heavy baritone punctuated the rhythmic beep of the
monitor.

“I can’t leave you alone for five
minutes without you getting into some kind of trouble,” Devon said from the
doorway with a trace of laughter in his trademark voice.

“Don’t make me laugh. My head
hurts.”

“Sorry.”

“That leash Shontae has you on
stretches this far?”

“Oh, you’re laying up here looking
like The Mummy Returns, and you got jokes?” Devon moved closer and
suddenly stopped. “I got a call from Craig last night. Shontae and I didn’t
want you to be here alone.”

“Thanks, man.” I sighed. “Looks
like I really effed it up this time.”

“Hey, you’re alive. That’s all that
matters.” Devon approached the bed again with hesitant steps and just stared
for a few beats. “Damn, V. What happened?”

“All I can remember is trying to
take a curve on 141. The next thing I knew, a mountain was coming at me.” I
groaned. “What’s taking that doctor so long?”

We had been friends since we starred in a film together a
few years earlier. Before he permanently relocated from New York to California,
Devon often camped out at my apartment whenever he came to L.A. for auditions.
In spite of our personality differences, our relationship quickly developed
into what some Hollywood reporters had the nerve to call a “bromance.” Dev was
my boy. We shared the personal details of our lives that couldn’t be revealed
to others, and we trusted each other implicitly. Both of us had learned early
on that our lives in the Wood required a certain amount of discretion. It felt
good to have a confidante in a town where private lives were considered
everybody’s business.

Devon sank into a chair in the
corner and angled it toward the bed, but he seemed to be at a loss for words. I
must look like hell.

Book Two in the Stafford Brothers Series

Book One in the Stafford Brothers Series

About Me

Shades of Romance Magazine 2011 Author of the Year, Chicki
Brown has published nine novels and one novella, all of which have made
different Kindle bestseller lists. A voracious reader since she was a child,
Chicki grew up in New Jersey reading everything she could get her hands on. Now
she concentrates on reading romance, women’s fiction and suspense. When she is
not writing or reading, Brown devotes her time to mentoring aspiring authors.

Chicki was born and
raised in New Jersey and now calls suburban Atlanta, Georgia home.