Whispers on the Wind Book Blog Tour and #Giveaway #LoneStarLit

You let him kill her.

The angry female voice in the pre-dawn hour jolted Cooper Delaney from a restless sleep.

Adrenalin pumping, he rolled to the right and automatically grabbed his pistol from the nightstand, fully expecting to see a stranger beside the bed.

Nothing but moonlit shadows. He swiveled his head to the left.

The room was empty.

He blinked and drew in a deep breath, trying to dispel remnants of the dream making sleep all but impossible for over a month. Always the same dream; a shadowy figure begging Coop to find her. That was it…find me, please. Two weeks ago, the voice changed and insisted Coop had to stop him.

Stop who? From what?

Tonight, the dream exploded into a full-blown nightmare.

He put the gun back on the table and lay down, right arm over his eyes. “Shit,” he whispered as the vision replayed through his mind. Powerful hands gripped her throat, the eerie silence punctuated by ragged gasps as she struggled for air. Blood trickled from her nose and the corner of her mouth. Dark hair wedged into a jagged cut across her forehead. Terror-filled eyes stared at the figure bent over her.

All the while, the voice reproached…you didn’t stop him.

At forty-three, Coop considered himself a straight-forward, no nonsense lawman, well known and respected as the Sheriff of Baker County, Texas. He looked at the facts, the evidence, and made logical, rational decisions. And yet, the dream was so real, he smelled the metallic odor of blood, felt the dampness of the earth around her.

“Dammit.” He lowered his arm and punched the bed. I’m losing my fricking mind.

It was bad enough when the voice invaded his sleep, but two days ago, he heard it at the kitchen table where he sat eating breakfast. Wide awake. This time, she warned he – whoever he was – would kill again.

He tossed the sheet aside and sat on the edge of the bed. Heart pounding, his breath hissed as he gulped in air. Elbows on his knees, he cradled his head in his hands. “Just a dream,” he murmured, “a bad dream.”

He stumbled to the window and shoved it open with an angry thrust, gasping when the rush of cool night air caused gooseflesh to prickle his sweat-coated body. “A dream,” he whispered, willing himself to believe. “Nobody died.” He pulled down the sash and pressed his forehead against the glass pane. “Nobody died.”

When his racing heart finally slowed, he pushed away and headed for the bathroom, stopping at the foot of the bed as he tried to remember if Miss Eva had guests tonight. A curse escaped parched lips as he grabbed his jeans from a chair. Why in the world did she want to go into the B&B business anyway?

Even as the thought flitted through his mind, he knew the answer. She decided he needed a wife and used the lovely Antebellum home to lure prospects. Hence, the majority of her guests were single women looking for a good time, or to change their marital status. He lost track of the propositions, both subtle and otherwise, thrown his way in the last six months. When had women become so forward?

He opened the door and padded on bare feet to the bathroom he shared with his son, Jason, when he was home from college. Guests used the one across the hall.

Since sleep was out of the question at this point, he threw on a shirt and headed downstairs for coffee.

Light showing under the kitchen door stopped him cold. “Crap. Company.”