#GIVEAWAY Showcase Low Country Dreams by Lee Tobin McClain

Hello friends today I'm excited to showcase book 2 in Lee Tobin McClain's Safe Haven series, Low Country Dreams. Lee's wonderful publisher #Harlequin is also sponsoring a #giveaway, details below.
Enjoy!

ISBN-13:
 9781335017666

Publisher: Harlequin


Release Date: 5-28-2019


Length:
 384pp

Safe Haven #2

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Overview:

Return to Safe Haven, where a new beginning with your first love is only a heartbeat away…
Yasmin Tanner has devoted her life to making other people’s dreams come true. But between running Safe Haven’s women’s center and caring for her brother, the long days—and lonely nights—are catching up with her…until Officer Liam O’Dwyer knocks on her door. She had good reasons for breaking Liam’s heart all those years ago, but that hasn’t made sharing their small town any easier. She’s missed him—that’s painfully clear to her now. But that’s not the only secret she’s keeping from him…

Ever since Yasmin left, Liam has kept his head down and his chin up. But when a woman from Yasmin’s women’s center goes missing, leaving her teenage son alone, it hits home for Liam. He’ll do whatever it takes to reunite this family…even work closely with the one woman he can’t forget. Yet as late summer days turn into cozy autumn nights rekindling the past, Liam suspects Yasmin is hiding something. And where her loyalties fall could mean the difference between lost love and a second chance at forever.

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Low Country Dreams US & Canada Only
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Read an excerpt:

CHAPTER ONE

WORKING LATE IN a small Southern town shouldn’t feel this creepy.

Yasmin Tanner looked out the office window of the church where the Safe Haven Women’s Center was located. Live oaks draped with Spanish moss broke the moonlight into a crisscross pattern. Lighted upstairs windows in a few houses along the street indicated that other night owls were still awake.

Awake, although safely ensconced at home with their families.

Maybe it wasn’t creepy so much as just lonely.

Yasmin turned back to the center’s old desktop computer, where a spreadsheet displaying the in-the-red budget was the real scary problem she was avoiding. If they couldn’t find another source of funding, the center might have to close.

The thought of all her clients who needed her—the women who showed up in a panic, often with kids—made her heart ache. No, the center couldn’t provide overnight accommodations, not anymore, but they could help clients escape abusive domestic partners, help them find a place where they and their kids could be safe. If that safety net went away on her watch...

She propped her chin on her hand and stared out the dark window for another minute, then forced herself to sit up straight and study the budget again. Surely there was some way they could manage. Maybe if she let her own salary go for another month...

A loud pounding at the door made her heart jump. She stood and backed into the darkness, adrenaline rushing through her body. Abusers sometimes came to the center angry, considering it to have broken up their relationship. But women in need came at all hours, too. If she could help someone, she’d do it.

More pounding. She tiptoed to another room in the church and peeked out the window.

Her brother, Josiah? What was he doing here at this hour?

She rushed to open the door. “Joe! What’s going on?” She took his hand and pulled him inside, studying the face that she used to be able to read, but that now remained an impassive mask. A symptom. But his fists were clenching and unclenching. Something had happened.

Someone was behind him... Uh-oh. Her heart gave an extra hard thump. “Rocky! Is that you?” She reached out and grasped the young teen’s shoulder. Rocky was a terrific kid who lived in a rural area about fifty miles inland. His mom kept making the wrong choices and ending up here.

But why was he here with her brother rather than with his own mother?

“Hide, hide.” Josiah urged Rocky toward the church door and looked at Yasmin. “Where can we hide?”

“What happened?” Josiah had a lot of delusions that confused him, but Rocky usually knew the score. She looked from one to the other. “How’d you two meet up? Why are you wanting to hide?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Josiah kept repeating the words, looking into the center as if enemies might be hidden behind the pamphlet-holder or potted plants.

“Come on.” She ushered both of them into the center, and only then did she notice the police car cruising along the street toward them.

The way her heart skittered made her mad at herself.

She was through with Liam. She wasn’t going to give him another thought. She needed to focus on Josiah and Rocky, not her maddeningly attractive ex.

“Are you in some kind of trouble?” She watched her brother’s nervous hands pluck at his shirt.

He didn’t answer. Her Einstein-smart brother was now next to nonverbal on his bad days. She wanted to lean into his tall form, let him put an arm around her and explain the situation, tell her that 

everything would be okay, make high-level jokes that only the two of them would understand.

Heart aching, she turned away and studied the young teenager before them. He’d probably grown six inches since the last time she’d seen him. His hair curled messily down his neck and his shirt reeked of perspiration.

His eyes were wide and terrified.

“What’s happened? What are you doing here?” She put an arm around the thirteen-year-old.

He shrugged away and brushed a fist across his eyes. Whoa. He was a tough kid, and if he was crying...

“Where’s your mom?”

He hunched back, then spun and made for the door.

Josiah stepped in front of him and shook his head. “Stay here. Have to hide.”

They glared at each other for a minute and something passed between them, some communication Yasmin didn’t understand.

Then Rocky shoved past Josiah and looked out the door, cautiously, as if assessing whether it was safe to leave.

And froze.

Which made sense when Yasmin saw the black-and-white parked at the curb. Liam emerged and faced them, shading his eyes from the streetlight overhead.

Just looking at her former boyfriend made Yasmin’s chest go tight. Time slowed down and tugged at her gut. What was Liam doing here? Had Josiah or Rocky—or both of them—done something wrong?

Liam adjusted his gun belt and clicked on his portable radio, smooth, automatic movements she’d seen him perform dozens of times, and then walked toward the church. Their eyes met and held, until Yasmin looked away, yearning gnawing at her gut like hunger. There’d been a time when she would have run to him, flung her arms around him and asked him to come help her sort out this situation, sort out all her troubles. But life’s hard truths had forced her to mature and to stand her ground, solid and independent. She couldn’t lean on anyone. In particular, she didn’t want to lean on dark-haired, blue-eyed Liam O’Dwyer.

She glanced back. Josiah stood motionless by the church door, Rocky beside him. Neither looked ready to panic or bolt, at least not immediately. She moved down the church steps and onto the cement sidewalk, palms sweating, heart in her throat.

You’re an idiot. You’re supposed to be over him.

Liam spoke first. “What’s going on here?”

“Nothing I can’t handle.” She watched as he stepped closer, alert and confident. She loved that certainty in him, had loved it since 

fifth grade when he’d waded into a group of kids teasing her and made them stop with a few sharp words.

Just like then, he made it clear that he could control the situation. For one thing, he was an excellent marksman and could get his Taser or gun out in less time than it would take either Rocky or Josiah—or Yasmin herself for that matter—to take a threatening step in his direction, or run away.

She also trusted that he was the kind of cop who wouldn’t shoot unless it was the absolute last option, necessary to save lives.

And she didn’t need to be thinking about his good character, or his protective nature, or the slight, sexy swagger in his walk. “Why are you here?”

“I got a phone call.” He watched her for a moment, let his eyes travel slowly from Rocky to Yasmin to Josiah. “From your next-door neighbor.” He gave a sideways nod toward old Mrs. Jackson’s house.

Yasmin’s shoulders relaxed a little. If Liam’s visit only had to do with her nosy neighbor, then it could be quickly resolved and she could send him on his way and deal with whatever had brought Rocky and Josiah here tonight.

She could get back to her policy since their breakup: maintain distance between them.

When she saw him around town, she usually managed to ease into a different aisle at the grocery, turn down a different street. She’d locked her phone in her car more nights than one to prevent herself from giving in and texting him in a fit of late-night weakness.

In a small town like Safe Haven, avoiding your ex was difficult, but not impossible.

Except now, in the middle of the night, with a puzzling situation on your hands.

---

LIAM LOOKED AT the woman he used to love, standing there with her brother and some kid, and wished old Mrs. Jackson next door wasn’t quite so observant and quick to leap to conclusions. When she’d called in a disturbance just a few minutes ago, said there were a couple of men skulking around the center, he’d rushed to respond, worried Yasmin was at risk.

Looked like a false alarm.

He and the other officers joked that as much as Mrs. Jackson knew about what was going on in town, they’d soon have to give her a badge. But truthfully, Liam was glad for it, glad to live in a place where people watched out for one another.

More than anything, he wanted to be appointed police chief in this place. To devote his life to taking care of it, and to show he was worthy of doing that.

But it was hard to stay focused on his goals with Yasmin in front of him. She looked like she’d lost a little weight, and even though he’d always liked her curvy figure, he had to admit she looked great. She’d taken to wearing her blond-streaked hair in long, wild curls, and even in jeans, she looked classy. Daughter of a Safe Haven blue-blooded mother and a biracial physician father who’d died young, she’d grown up with all the financial advantages, but he didn’t begrudge her that, nor envy her. Her family had its share of problems.

What did make him mad was the chip on her shoulder when she was the one who’d dumped him. He gestured toward the two-story house next door. “Since Mrs. Jackson called in a disturbance, it’s my job to investigate.” He reached the church’s front steps, tore his eyes away from her and tried to see into the building.

“Everything’s fine.” She glanced back at her brother and the young boy.

“Hey, Josiah, good to see you again,” he said to Yasmin’s brother, who was backing into the church. One of Liam’s fellow officers had mentioned Josiah had gotten a little eccentric since arriving back in 

Safe Haven a couple of months ago, but Liam hadn’t had much contact with him. There’d been no reports of his causing any trouble.

Liam focused on the kid. “Who’s that?” he asked Yasmin, keeping his voice low.

She bit her lip, shook her head rapidly. “Client confidentiality. And speaking of clients, I need to take care of this one, so...”

She started to back in, letting the door close, but a loud, angry voice came from inside the center. Was that Josiah, or someone else? If there were another male visitor to the center, it would make sense of the whole “disturbance” thing. Liam climbed the rest of the way toward the church doorway and looked in.

The same voice came, less angry. It was Josiah.

Liam frowned. “You okay, Josiah?”

Josiah didn’t answer, but he didn’t look upset, either. Putting thoughts of Yasmin’s brother and his issues aside to think about later, Liam shrugged and turned. And realized that Yasmin was only inches away.

He sucked in a breath and there it was: her musky cherry perfume. He cleared the sudden thickness in his throat. “You sure I can’t help?”

“Yes!” She stepped back and lifted her hands like stop signs. “I’m fine, Liam. Go solve crimes, or whatever.”

Fine, dismiss him. Maybe a cop wasn’t important in the upscale world of a doctor’s daughter, but let someone steal her diamond tennis bracelet and she’d call the police, all right.

Which wasn’t exactly fair, since Yasmin’s family money seemed to be mostly gone and she wasn’t a superficial lady of leisure. He forced his mind to stay in the here and now. “Seems like there’s some kind of problem.”

“One I’d like to take care of.” She turned away, then, as the boy scuttled past her into the church. She looked back over her shoulder. “I’ll call 911 if I need anything.”

Because God forbid she should call him directly. He looked at the lift of her chin, the pout of her full lips, and his body tightened. Even after everything she’d done.

She was almost inside when the boy came up behind her. He stuck his head out the door. “You look like him,” he said. His voice cracked, and Liam couldn’t tell if it was from emotions or just the normal hormonal changes a boy’s voice went through.

“Like who?” Liam asked.

The boy held out a much wrinkled and mauled business card, and Liam took it. His older brother Sean’s card, for his construction business. “Where’d you get this?”

The boy cringed back, and Liam realized he’d been too abrupt, had sounded like he was making an accusation. Not to mention the 

fact that his uniform could be scary to a kid, especially one who was for some reason at a women’s center without parents.

Kids, innocent victims of their parents’ problems, always got to Liam. “Sean’s my brother,” he explained gently to the boy, holding up the business card. “He’s on his honeymoon. Maybe I can help.”

But the kid crossed his arms tight over his chest. You had to look close to see the fear in his eyes, but it was there. Liam was familiar with it—the stark “my life has blown up” terror, and the bravado that hid it—from the inside.

“If he met Sean before,” he said to Yasmin, “it must have been here, at the women’s center. Was he with his mom?”

She bit her lip, then nodded. Behind her, her brother ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand up on end. Had Josiah developed a drinking problem, or started using? He wasn’t just nerdy and self-contained and brilliant, like he’d always been; his tension level was off the charts.

“Where’s your mom now?” Liam asked the boy.

A panicked look came into the boy’s eyes.

And Liam was thrown back into his past, to the day his own mother had disappeared for good. He’d been just a little younger than this kid. Why should he expect the boy to be coherent? He hadn’t been.

“He doesn’t have to answer your questions,” Yasmin said, her voice firm. “This isn’t an investigation. We’ve got it covered.” That last was shaky-sounding, like she wasn’t necessarily confident that she did have it covered.

“If there’s something wrong, it would be better for us to get involved right away.” He watched her lift her chin to argue, weigh the options and decide against it. She was rattled—he could tell by the way her teeth worried at her bottom lip. “I realize you’re in charge of a women’s center,” he went on, “and you don’t need men, at least men like me. But there are things I can do, like putting out a call for someone missing, that even you can’t match.” He heard the sarcasm in his own voice and clamped his mouth shut. It was wrong to dig up past conflicts when there was a hurting kid right in front of him.

“I’m taking him home with me,” Yasmin said, lifting an eyebrow as if daring him to argue.

“Do you have his parents’ permission?”

“Are you going to drag him into the station if I don’t?” she challenged. “I’m a certified foster parent, remember.” She turned to the boy. “Come on. Let’s go where it’s more comfortable and you can get some sleep.”

As Yasmin gathered her things, and her brother and the boy shuffled around in the hallway, Liam debated whether to call for backup and make this a formal case. He remembered with crystal clarity 

what it was like to be a kid caught up in official police business when all you really wanted was your mom. Yasmin was probably taking the right approach, trying to make the boy feel better by bringing him to a home environment.

The kid was clinging on to a backpack. Had both arms wrapped around it, like it wouldn’t be safe enough just sitting on his back.

The action pulled out more of Liam’s memories. He knew that was why the kid was hugging it, because he’d done the same himself. His own backpack had been a treasured link to his mother, her neat “Liam O’Dwyer” written in permanent marker across the label.

So...maybe he wouldn’t call this in, not unless the kid wanted him to. He cleared his suddenly tight throat. “You okay going to her house for now?” he asked the kid.

“Shut up,” Yasmin’s brother said.

Yasmin put her arm around him, her forehead wrinkling.

What was that about? Josiah was a couple of years older than Liam, so four years older than Yasmin, and undeniably a little odd in a chess-genius kind of way. But his social skills had always been okay.

“Shut UP!” Josiah said again, louder.

Yasmin wrapped her other arm around him in a quick hug, then said something to him and gestured back toward the church. But Josiah shook his head, his mouth tightening, eyes narrowing.

Liam left Josiah to Yasmin and knelt in front of the young teen. “If you tell us what you know about your parents, we can start looking for them.”

The kid pressed his lips together and looked away.

“He needs rest,” Yasmin said. “Come on, honey. I’ve got an extra room waiting for you.”

The boy’s eyes narrowed and he glanced over, his shoulders rigid, his jaw clenched.

Liam’s radio crackled. “Dispatch to 33-12. Are you 10-4?”

He hesitated only a beat and then keyed his radio. “10-4, Dispatch. No checks needed.” Then he turned back to Yasmin. “I’ll walk you guys there.”

“That’s okay,” Yasmin said, looking up at her much taller brother. “Josiah will be with us.”

“But someone’s trying to kill me,” Josiah growled.

Whoa. Liam looked at Yasmin again. “What’s going on?”

“He doesn’t mean it,” she said in an undertone.

He inhaled her perfume. “I’ll walk you home,” he said.

---

YASMIN DIDN’T WANT to be the kind of woman who needed a man’s help to get along in the world. In her work, she often saw that kind of dependency go terribly, terribly wrong.

All the same, she was grateful for Liam’s presence, no matter how much it hurt.

He was big and strong, knowledgeable about the town, packing heat. Safe Haven was just that, safe, but she’d had a weird feeling about tonight even before her brother had pounded on the church door and she’d opened it to see the angry, vulnerable teen he had with him.

Her heart ached for young Rocky. He’d been through so much—she knew it from his mom’s frequent visits to the center, when she’d dragged Rocky along.

Yasmin hadn’t been able to help them, not one bit, because his mom had always gone back to her abuser. Frustration about her center’s lack of resources and about Rocky’s mother’s weakness threatened to overwhelm her, but she stiffened her spine.

Tonight, things were going to change. She might not be able to save the women’s center, but tonight, she was determined to save this one child.

One person at a time, one good deed at a time. That was her motto ever since Josiah and his problems had come to live in her house.

“I think they’re over there,” Josiah said, waving toward a row of palmettos lined up in front of some Main Street shops. “They have weapons.”

“Who’s over there?” Liam’s voice was calm, but his eyes scanned the area Josiah had indicated. “I don’t see anybody. Why do you think—”

“Shhh!” Josiah hissed.

Liam didn’t react except for tensing his jaw.

In the old days, she’d have clung on to that strong, muscular arm. She’d have asked his advice about Rocky, explained her brother’s diagnosis, how he now saw things that weren’t there. If only she hadn’t done what she’d done to push Liam away. It had been for his own good, but she hadn’t known how the evenings would stretch on without his company, how she’d long for his strong arms around her. How often she’d grab her phone to text some funny detail from her day before she remembered and backspaced out the message.

“They’re listening,” Josiah was saying to Liam.

“Let’s just get home, Joe,” she said to her brother. “Then we can talk about it.” She’d found that confronting Josiah about his delusions was counterproductive. Treating him with the same respect she’d held for him when he’d been well was the best way to handle his bad days.

She looked over at Rocky, who trudged half a step behind them, staring at the ground, clutching his backpack. She longed to hug him and tell him everything would be okay.

Except she didn’t know that.

What she should do was to interrogate him, to find out what had happened to his mom and whether his stepdad was on the loose. But she had a good sense about kids. Rocky couldn’t handle much more tonight.

Why had Josiah brought Rocky to the center? The fact that the boy had showed up there wasn’t a huge surprise, since he’d come several times with his mother. And Josiah tended to wander the town, so having him arrive at the church was no big deal, either.

But for them to arrive together, and upset, and without Rocky’s mom, that scared her. They didn’t know each other. What had brought them together? What had they seen?

What had they done?

“You work at the library, right, Josiah?” Liam spoke casually, conversationally.

Josiah gave a grunt of assent, and a little of the tension tightening Yasmin’s shoulders eased up. Helping Joe get a job at the library had been the best thing she’d done for him. If anything could bring reassuring normalcy to her brother’s life, it was the world of books and Miss Vi, the ancient, straight-backed woman who ran the Safe Haven Public Library as carefully and firmly as if it were the Pentagon.

“That Miss Vi, she’s really something,” Liam continued. “She laid down the law for me and my brothers when we came to town. I 

was about your age,” Liam added, turning back to address Rocky.

“Miss Vi is good,” Josiah said.

Liam nodded. “That she is. I’ll never understand why...” He paused for effect. “Why my brother Cash put a frog in the drawer where she kept the checkout stamps.”

A smile tugged at Josiah’s mouth, and when Yasmin glanced back at Rocky, he looked marginally less upset.

“She jumped a mile high when she opened that drawer and saw that frog. And when it hopped up onto the shoulder of her dress...” Liam chuckled.

Yasmin’s heart warmed toward him. He knew how to calm people down and put them at ease.

He was good to the core, and if things were different...

“No frogs, no poison!” Josiah said suddenly, firmly.

Both Liam and Rocky looked startled. Rocky moved to Yasmin’s side, putting her between himself and Josiah.

Liam looked over at Josiah with speculation in his eyes. “I’m sorry, buddy, I was just making conversation.”

Josiah put both hands to the sides of his head and shook it.

Yasmin wrapped her arms around her brother from the side, her heart aching. “We’re almost home.” Was she going to have to put him in the hospital again? He hated that more than anything.

Just the feel and smell of her big brother brought tears to her eyes. He’d been her hero, ever since she was small. He’d protected her, taught her how to do math, taken her out to play when their mother was too stressed and depressed to deal with her. He’d been her rock through a childhood that hadn’t been easy, despite the material abundance.

Now, she had to be his rock.

The trouble with tonight was, she had to take care of Rocky, too, and deal with Liam, which presented a painful challenge even in the best of times. She was being pulled in too many directions.

As they approached her house, though, Yasmin’s tight muscles relaxed and she let out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding. She loved her cozy little home, with its pocket handkerchief front lawn surrounded by a picket fence. Yellow coneflowers had just burst into bloom, visible even at night against the cottage’s white siding.

If she could just get inside, get Rocky and Josiah settled—

“So guys.” Liam stepped ahead of the group, effectively blocking their way. He looked from Rocky to Josiah and back again. “Before you go inside, could you tell me if something happened tonight I should know about?”

Rocky stopped abruptly and pressed his lips together, his whole body tensing.

Josiah put his hands on Rocky’s shoulders. “No. No.”

“Were there people threatening you?” Liam pressed.

“Liam!” Yasmin put a hand up, ready to physically push him away to protect her brother and an innocent child. “Everyone’s tired. Leave them alone.”

Liam didn’t budge. “Since Josiah mentioned threats, and Rocky is out after curfew without a parent or guardian, I just want to know if something out of the ordinary happened. The safety of this town is my responsibility.”

“Rocky’s thirteen. You can’t interview him without parental permission.” Yasmin sidled past him, opened the waist-high gate and gestured for Josiah and Rocky to go through. She watched them walk to the porch and up the steps. Then she turned and stood in front of Liam, preventing him from coming into her yard.

They were so close that she could smell his aftershave, and it reminded her of the days when she’d have welcomed his help with any situation she found herself in.

But now he was dangerous to her. She had to keep her distance, to protect her own heart. To protect him.

And to protect her brother. Because she was getting a strange feeling.

Josiah’s doctors had been adjusting his meds. But they hadn’t gotten it right yet, because it seemed that the voices in her brother’s 

CHAPTER ONE

WORKING LATE IN a small Southern town shouldn’t feel this creepy.

Yasmin Tanner looked out the office window of the church where the Safe Haven Women’s Center was located. Live oaks draped with Spanish moss broke the moonlight into a crisscross pattern. Lighted upstairs windows in a few houses along the street indicated that other night owls were still awake.

Awake, although safely ensconced at home with their families.

Maybe it wasn’t creepy so much as just lonely.

Yasmin turned back to the center’s old desktop computer, where a spreadsheet displaying the in-the-red budget was the real scary problem she was avoiding. If they couldn’t find another source of funding, the center might have to close.

The thought of all her clients who needed her—the women who showed up in a panic, often with kids—made her heart ache. No, the center couldn’t provide overnight accommodations, not anymore, but they could help clients escape abusive domestic partners, help them find a place where they and their kids could be safe. If that safety net went away on her watch...

She propped her chin on her hand and stared out the dark window for another minute, then forced herself to sit up straight and study the budget again. Surely there was some way they could manage. Maybe if she let her own salary go for another month...

A loud pounding at the door made her heart jump. She stood and backed into the darkness, adrenaline rushing through her body. Abusers sometimes came to the center angry, considering it to have broken up their relationship. But women in need came at all hours, too. If she could help someone, she’d do it.

More pounding. She tiptoed to another room in the church and peeked out the window.

Her brother, Josiah? What was he doing here at this hour?

She rushed to open the door. “Joe! What’s going on?” She took his hand and pulled him inside, studying the face that she used to be able to read, but that now remained an impassive mask. A symptom. But his fists were clenching and unclenching. Something had happened.

Someone was behind him... Uh-oh. Her heart gave an extra hard thump. “Rocky! Is that you?” She reached out and grasped the young teen’s shoulder. Rocky was a terrific kid who lived in a rural area about fifty miles inland. His mom kept making the wrong choices and ending up here.

But why was he here with her brother rather than with his own mother?

“Hide, hide.” Josiah urged Rocky toward the church door and looked at Yasmin. “Where can we hide?”

“What happened?” Josiah had a lot of delusions that confused him, but Rocky usually knew the score. She looked from one to the other. “How’d you two meet up? Why are you wanting to hide?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Josiah kept repeating the words, looking into the center as if enemies might be hidden behind the pamphlet-holder or potted plants.

“Come on.” She ushered both of them into the center, and only then did she notice the police car cruising along the street toward them.

The way her heart skittered made her mad at herself.

She was through with Liam. She wasn’t going to give him another thought. She needed to focus on Josiah and Rocky, not her maddeningly attractive ex.

“Are you in some kind of trouble?” She watched her brother’s nervous hands pluck at his shirt.

He didn’t answer. Her Einstein-smart brother was now next to nonverbal on his bad days. She wanted to lean into his tall form, let him put an arm around her and explain the situation, tell her that everything would be okay, make high-level jokes that only the two of them would understand.

Heart aching, she turned away and studied the young teenager before them. He’d probably grown six inches since the last time she’d seen him. His hair curled messily down his neck and his shirt reeked of perspiration.

His eyes were wide and terrified.

“What’s happened? What are you doing here?” She put an arm around the thirteen-year-old.

He shrugged away and brushed a fist across his eyes. Whoa. He was a tough kid, and if he was crying...

“Where’s your mom?”

He hunched back, then spun and made for the door.

Josiah stepped in front of him and shook his head. “Stay here. Have to hide.”

They glared at each other for a minute and something passed between them, some communication Yasmin didn’t understand.

Then Rocky shoved past Josiah and looked out the door, cautiously, as if assessing whether it was safe to leave.

And froze.

Which made sense when Yasmin saw the black-and-white parked at the curb. Liam emerged and faced them, shading his eyes from the streetlight overhead.

Just looking at her former boyfriend made Yasmin’s chest go tight. Time slowed down and tugged at her gut. What was Liam doing here? Had Josiah or Rocky—or both of them—done something wrong?

Liam adjusted his gun belt and clicked on his portable radio, smooth, automatic movements she’d seen him perform dozens of times, and then walked toward the church. Their eyes met and held, until Yasmin looked away, yearning gnawing at her gut like hunger. There’d been a time when she would have run to him, flung her arms around him and asked him to come help her sort out this situation, sort out all her troubles. But life’s hard truths had forced her to mature and to stand her ground, solid and independent. She couldn’t lean on anyone. In particular, she didn’t want to lean on dark-haired, blue-eyed Liam O’Dwyer.

She glanced back. Josiah stood motionless by the church door, Rocky beside him. Neither looked ready to panic or bolt, at least not immediately. She moved down the church steps and onto the cement sidewalk, palms sweating, heart in her throat.

You’re an idiot. You’re supposed to be over him.

Liam spoke first. “What’s going on here?”

“Nothing I can’t handle.” She watched as he stepped closer, alert and confident. She loved that certainty in him, had loved it since fifth grade when he’d waded into a group of kids teasing her and made them stop with a few sharp words.

Just like then, he made it clear that he could control the situation. For one thing, he was an excellent marksman and could get his Taser or gun out in less time than it would take either Rocky or Josiah—or Yasmin herself for that matter—to take a threatening step in his direction, or run away.

She also trusted that he was the kind of cop who wouldn’t shoot unless it was the absolute last option, necessary to save lives.

And she didn’t need to be thinking about his good character, or his protective nature, or the slight, sexy swagger in his walk. “Why are you here?”

“I got a phone call.” He watched her for a moment, let his eyes travel slowly from Rocky to Yasmin to Josiah. “From your next-door neighbor.” He gave a sideways nod toward old Mrs. Jackson’s house.

Yasmin’s shoulders relaxed a little. If Liam’s visit only had to do with her nosy neighbor, then it could be quickly resolved and she could send him on his way and deal with whatever had brought Rocky and Josiah here tonight.

She could get back to her policy since their breakup: maintain distance between them.

When she saw him around town, she usually managed to ease into a different aisle at the grocery, turn down a different street. She’d locked her phone in her car more nights than one to prevent herself from giving in and texting him in a fit of late-night weakness.

In a small town like Safe Haven, avoiding your ex was difficult, but not impossible.

Except now, in the middle of the night, with a puzzling situation on your hands.

---

LIAM LOOKED AT the woman he used to love, standing there with her brother and some kid, and wished old Mrs. Jackson next door wasn’t quite so observant and quick to leap to conclusions. When she’d called in a disturbance just a few minutes ago, said there were a couple of men skulking around the center, he’d rushed to respond, worried Yasmin was at risk.

Looked like a false alarm.

He and the other officers joked that as much as Mrs. Jackson knew about what was going on in town, they’d soon have to give her a badge. But truthfully, Liam was glad for it, glad to live in a place where people watched out for one another.

More than anything, he wanted to be appointed police chief in this place. To devote his life to taking care of it, and to show he was worthy of doing that.

But it was hard to stay focused on his goals with Yasmin in front of him. She looked like she’d lost a little weight, and even though he’d always liked her curvy figure, he had to admit she looked great. She’d taken to wearing her blond-streaked hair in long, wild curls, and even in jeans, she looked classy. Daughter of a Safe Haven blue-blooded mother and a biracial physician father who’d died young, she’d grown up with all the financial advantages, but he didn’t begrudge her that, nor envy her. Her family had its share of problems.

What did make him mad was the chip on her shoulder when she was the one who’d dumped him. He gestured toward the two-story house next door. “Since Mrs. Jackson called in a disturbance, it’s my job to investigate.” He reached the church’s front steps, tore his eyes away from her and tried to see into the building.

“Everything’s fine.” She glanced back at her brother and the young boy.

“Hey, Josiah, good to see you again,” he said to Yasmin’s brother, who was backing into the church. One of Liam’s fellow officers had mentioned Josiah had gotten a little eccentric since arriving back in Safe Haven a couple of months ago, but Liam hadn’t had much contact with him. There’d been no reports of his causing any trouble.

Liam focused on the kid. “Who’s that?” he asked Yasmin, keeping his voice low.

She bit her lip, shook her head rapidly. “Client confidentiality. And speaking of clients, I need to take care of this one, so...”

She started to back in, letting the door close, but a loud, angry voice came from inside the center. Was that Josiah, or someone else? If there were another male visitor to the center, it would make sense of the whole “disturbance” thing. Liam climbed the rest of the way toward the church doorway and looked in.

The same voice came, less angry. It was Josiah.

Liam frowned. “You okay, Josiah?”

Josiah didn’t answer, but he didn’t look upset, either. Putting thoughts of Yasmin’s brother and his issues aside to think about later, Liam shrugged and turned. And realized that Yasmin was only inches away.

He sucked in a breath and there it was: her musky cherry perfume. He cleared the sudden thickness in his throat. “You sure I can’t help?”

“Yes!” She stepped back and lifted her hands like stop signs. “I’m fine, Liam. Go solve crimes, or whatever.”

Fine, dismiss him. Maybe a cop wasn’t important in the upscale world of a doctor’s daughter, but let someone steal her diamond tennis bracelet and she’d call the police, all right.

Which wasn’t exactly fair, since Yasmin’s family money seemed to be mostly gone and she wasn’t a superficial lady of leisure. He forced his mind to stay in the here and now. “Seems like there’s some kind of problem.”

“One I’d like to take care of.” She turned away, then, as the boy scuttled past her into the church. She looked back over her shoulder. “I’ll call 911 if I need anything.”

Because God forbid she should call him directly. He looked at the lift of her chin, the pout of her full lips, and his body tightened. Even after everything she’d done.

She was almost inside when the boy came up behind her. He stuck his head out the door. “You look like him,” he said. His voice cracked, and Liam couldn’t tell if it was from emotions or just the normal hormonal changes a boy’s voice went through.

“Like who?” Liam asked.

The boy held out a much wrinkled and mauled business card, and Liam took it. His older brother Sean’s card, for his construction business. “Where’d you get this?”

The boy cringed back, and Liam realized he’d been too abrupt, had sounded like he was making an accusation. Not to mention the fact that his uniform could be scary to a kid, especially one who was for some reason at a women’s center without parents.

Kids, innocent victims of their parents’ problems, always got to Liam. “Sean’s my brother,” he explained gently to the boy, holding up the business card. “He’s on his honeymoon. Maybe I can help.”

But the kid crossed his arms tight over his chest. You had to look close to see the fear in his eyes, but it was there. Liam was familiar with it—the stark “my life has blown up” terror, and the bravado that hid it—from the inside.

“If he met Sean before,” he said to Yasmin, “it must have been here, at the women’s center. Was he with his mom?”

She bit her lip, then nodded. Behind her, her brother ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand up on end. Had Josiah developed a drinking problem, or started using? He wasn’t just nerdy and self-contained and brilliant, like he’d always been; his tension level was off the charts.

“Where’s your mom now?” Liam asked the boy.

A panicked look came into the boy’s eyes.

And Liam was thrown back into his past, to the day his own mother had disappeared for good. He’d been just a little younger than this kid. Why should he expect the boy to be coherent? He hadn’t been.

“He doesn’t have to answer your questions,” Yasmin said, her voice firm. “This isn’t an investigation. We’ve got it covered.” That last was shaky-sounding, like she wasn’t necessarily confident that she did have it covered.

“If there’s something wrong, it would be better for us to get involved right away.” He watched her lift her chin to argue, weigh the options and decide against it. She was rattled—he could tell by the way her teeth worried at her bottom lip. “I realize you’re in charge of a women’s center,” he went on, “and you don’t need men, at least men like me. But there are things I can do, like putting out a call for someone missing, that even you can’t match.” He heard the sarcasm in his own voice and clamped his mouth shut. It was wrong to dig up past conflicts when there was a hurting kid right in front of him.

“I’m taking him home with me,” Yasmin said, lifting an eyebrow as if daring him to argue.

“Do you have his parents’ permission?”

“Are you going to drag him into the station if I don’t?” she challenged. “I’m a certified foster parent, remember.” She turned to the boy. “Come on. Let’s go where it’s more comfortable and you can get some sleep.”

As Yasmin gathered her things, and her brother and the boy shuffled around in the hallway, Liam debated whether to call for backup and make this a formal case. He remembered with crystal clarity what it was like to be a kid caught up in official police business when all you really wanted was your mom. Yasmin was probably taking the right approach, trying to make the boy feel better by bringing him to a home environment.

The kid was clinging on to a backpack. Had both arms wrapped around it, like it wouldn’t be safe enough just sitting on his back.

The action pulled out more of Liam’s memories. He knew that was why the kid was hugging it, because he’d done the same himself. His own backpack had been a treasured link to his mother, her neat “Liam O’Dwyer” written in permanent marker across the label.

So...maybe he wouldn’t call this in, not unless the kid wanted him to. He cleared his suddenly tight throat. “You okay going to her house for now?” he asked the kid.

“Shut up,” Yasmin’s brother said.

Yasmin put her arm around him, her forehead wrinkling.

What was that about? Josiah was a couple of years older than Liam, so four years older than Yasmin, and undeniably a little odd in a chess-genius kind of way. But his social skills had always been okay.

“Shut UP!” Josiah said again, louder.

Yasmin wrapped her other arm around him in a quick hug, then said something to him and gestured back toward the church. But Josiah shook his head, his mouth tightening, eyes narrowing.

Liam left Josiah to Yasmin and knelt in front of the young teen. “If you tell us what you know about your parents, we can start looking for them.”

The kid pressed his lips together and looked away.

“He needs rest,” Yasmin said. “Come on, honey. I’ve got an extra room waiting for you.”

The boy’s eyes narrowed and he glanced over, his shoulders rigid, his jaw clenched.

Liam’s radio crackled. “Dispatch to 33-12. Are you 10-4?”

He hesitated only a beat and then keyed his radio. “10-4, Dispatch. No checks needed.” Then he turned back to Yasmin. “I’ll walk you guys there.”

“That’s okay,” Yasmin said, looking up at her much taller brother. “Josiah will be with us.”

“But someone’s trying to kill me,” Josiah growled.

Whoa. Liam looked at Yasmin again. “What’s going on?”

“He doesn’t mean it,” she said in an undertone.

He inhaled her perfume. “I’ll walk you home,” he said.

---

YASMIN DIDN’T WANT to be the kind of woman who needed a man’s help to get along in the world. In her work, she often saw that kind of dependency go terribly, terribly wrong.

All the same, she was grateful for Liam’s presence, no matter how much it hurt.

He was big and strong, knowledgeable about the town, packing heat. Safe Haven was just that, safe, but she’d had a weird feeling about tonight even before her brother had pounded on the church door and she’d opened it to see the angry, vulnerable teen he had with him.

Her heart ached for young Rocky. He’d been through so much—she knew it from his mom’s frequent visits to the center, when she’d dragged Rocky along.

Yasmin hadn’t been able to help them, not one bit, because his mom had always gone back to her abuser. Frustration about her center’s lack of resources and about Rocky’s mother’s weakness threatened to overwhelm her, but she stiffened her spine.

Tonight, things were going to change. She might not be able to save the women’s center, but tonight, she was determined to save this one child.

One person at a time, one good deed at a time. That was her motto ever since Josiah and his problems had come to live in her house.

“I think they’re over there,” Josiah said, waving toward a row of palmettos lined up in front of some Main Street shops. “They have weapons.”

“Who’s over there?” Liam’s voice was calm, but his eyes scanned the area Josiah had indicated. “I don’t see anybody. Why do you think—”

“Shhh!” Josiah hissed.

Liam didn’t react except for tensing his jaw.

In the old days, she’d have clung on to that strong, muscular arm. She’d have asked his advice about Rocky, explained her brother’s diagnosis, how he now saw things that weren’t there. If only she hadn’t done what she’d done to push Liam away. It had been for his own good, but she hadn’t known how the evenings would stretch on without his company, how she’d long for his strong arms around her. How often she’d grab her phone to text some funny detail from her day before she remembered and backspaced out the message.

“They’re listening,” Josiah was saying to Liam.

“Let’s just get home, Joe,” she said to her brother. “Then we can talk about it.” She’d found that confronting Josiah about his delusions was counterproductive. Treating him with the same respect she’d held for him when he’d been well was the best way to handle his bad days.

She looked over at Rocky, who trudged half a step behind them, staring at the ground, clutching his backpack. She longed to hug him and tell him everything would be okay.

Except she didn’t know that.

What she should do was to interrogate him, to find out what had happened to his mom and whether his stepdad was on the loose. But she had a good sense about kids. Rocky couldn’t handle much more tonight.

Why had Josiah brought Rocky to the center? The fact that the boy had showed up there wasn’t a huge surprise, since he’d come several times with his mother. And Josiah tended to wander the town, so having him arrive at the church was no big deal, either.

But for them to arrive together, and upset, and without Rocky’s mom, that scared her. They didn’t know each other. What had brought them together? What had they seen?

What had they done?

“You work at the library, right, Josiah?” Liam spoke casually, conversationally.

Josiah gave a grunt of assent, and a little of the tension tightening Yasmin’s shoulders eased up. Helping Joe get a job at the library had been the best thing she’d done for him. If anything could bring reassuring normalcy to her brother’s life, it was the world of books and Miss Vi, the ancient, straight-backed woman who ran the Safe Haven Public Library as carefully and firmly as if it were the Pentagon.

“That Miss Vi, she’s really something,” Liam continued. “She laid down the law for me and my brothers when we came to town. I was about your age,” Liam added, turning back to address Rocky.

“Miss Vi is good,” Josiah said.

Liam nodded. “That she is. I’ll never understand why...” He paused for effect. “Why my brother Cash put a frog in the drawer where she kept the checkout stamps.”

A smile tugged at Josiah’s mouth, and when Yasmin glanced back at Rocky, he looked marginally less upset.

“She jumped a mile high when she opened that drawer and saw that frog. And when it hopped up onto the shoulder of her dress...” Liam chuckled.

Yasmin’s heart warmed toward him. He knew how to calm people down and put them at ease.

He was good to the core, and if things were different...

“No frogs, no poison!” Josiah said suddenly, firmly.

Both Liam and Rocky looked startled. Rocky moved to Yasmin’s side, putting her between himself and Josiah.

Liam looked over at Josiah with speculation in his eyes. “I’m sorry, buddy, I was just making conversation.”

Josiah put both hands to the sides of his head and shook it.

Yasmin wrapped her arms around her brother from the side, her heart aching. “We’re almost home.” Was she going to have to put him in the hospital again? He hated that more than anything.

Just the feel and smell of her big brother brought tears to her eyes. He’d been her hero, ever since she was small. He’d protected her, taught her how to do math, taken her out to play when their mother was too stressed and depressed to deal with her. He’d been her rock through a childhood that hadn’t been easy, despite the material abundance.

Now, she had to be his rock.

The trouble with tonight was, she had to take care of Rocky, too, and deal with Liam, which presented a painful challenge even in the best of times. She was being pulled in too many directions.

As they approached her house, though, Yasmin’s tight muscles relaxed and she let out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding. She loved her cozy little home, with its pocket handkerchief front lawn surrounded by a picket fence. Yellow coneflowers had just burst into bloom, visible even at night against the cottage’s white siding.

If she could just get inside, get Rocky and Josiah settled—

“So guys.” Liam stepped ahead of the group, effectively blocking their way. He looked from Rocky to Josiah and back again. “Before you go inside, could you tell me if something happened tonight I should know about?”

Rocky stopped abruptly and pressed his lips together, his whole body tensing.

Josiah put his hands on Rocky’s shoulders. “No. No.”

“Were there people threatening you?” Liam pressed.

“Liam!” Yasmin put a hand up, ready to physically push him away to protect her brother and an innocent child. “Everyone’s tired. Leave them alone.”

Liam didn’t budge. “Since Josiah mentioned threats, and Rocky is out after curfew without a parent or guardian, I just want to know if something out of the ordinary happened. The safety of this town is my responsibility.”

“Rocky’s thirteen. You can’t interview him without parental permission.” Yasmin sidled past him, opened the waist-high gate and gestured for Josiah and Rocky to go through. She watched them walk to the porch and up the steps. Then she turned and stood in front of Liam, preventing him from coming into her yard.

They were so close that she could smell his aftershave, and it reminded her of the days when she’d have welcomed his help with any situation she found herself in.

But now he was dangerous to her. She had to keep her distance, to protect her own heart. To protect him.

And to protect her brother. Because she was getting a strange feeling.

Josiah’s doctors had been adjusting his meds. But they hadn’t gotten it right yet, because it seemed that the voices in her brother’s head were getting louder, more overwhelming.

Her mother’s words echoed in her head: He gets so angry now. I’m afraid of him. He can be violent.

She didn’t believe it, couldn’t. Not of the brother who’d been her idol for so long, helping her navigate life in their family and in their town.

He’d always been a good person, loving in his own way.

Mom just hadn’t been strong enough to deal with the changes in Josiah, so it was better that he’d moved from Mom’s little apartment in Charleston to live with Yasmin in Safe Haven.

Yasmin was glad he was here, glad to help him in his time of need.

But what if the voices had told him to do something awful?

“I’ll back off for now,” Liam said, still close enough to make her breathless. “But this isn’t over, Yasmin.”

Book one available now

About the author:

Lee Tobin McClain read Gone With The Wind in the third grade and has been an incurable romantic ever since. When she's not writing emotional love stories with happy endings, she’s probably driving around a carload of snarky teen girls, playing with her rescue dog and cat, or teaching aspiring writers in Seton Hill University’s MFA program. She is probably not cleaning her house.

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