Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 105868 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105868 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Ace Osprey was born to fly—but a crash stole his wings and left him with scars he refuses to show. Grounded and restless, the former Navy pilot masks his broken pieces with charm and swagger. He swore he’d never get tied down again, but when Dr. May Smirnov walks into Knife’s Edge with secrets in her eyes and fire in her heart, Ace finds himself pulled into a storm he can’t outmaneuver.
May came to Knife’s Edge to hide, not to burn. The small-town doctor keeps her past locked away, but Ace Osprey is a temptation she can’t ignore—infuriating, magnetic, and far too good at peeling away her walls. Their chemistry is combustible, but in a town where women are turning up dead under the endless summer sun, desire might be as dangerous as the killer stalking the shadows.
When May becomes the next target, Ace has no choice but to fight for more than just survival. Protecting her means risking his heart—and the closer they get, the more certain he is that she’s the one thing he can’t afford to lose. In Knife’s Edge, love isn’t safe…but some passions are worth the danger
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
Ace Osprey was bleeding again.
Not a surprise. The guy showed up bleeding at least once a week. At this point, Dr. May Smirnov had spent more time stitching up the handsome jackass than she had with her own skin care routine. Which, admittedly, consisted of soap, water, and inexpensive lotion.
She had walked back into her clinic after a quick lunch down the street and now stared at him in the quaint waiting room while trying, really hard, to hold on to her temper. Pictures she’d taken of the outlying wilderness decorated the walls and failed to provide peace for once. As the small Alaska town’s only doctor, she had to act like a professional, even though she wanted to smack him atop his stubborn head.
“What now?” Okay. That sounded more like a ticked off girlfriend and not a doctor. She was not his girlfriend and never would be. “Ace?”
He lounged on the newish green leather chairs she’d managed to obtain just a day ago, his legs long, his eyes a mellow green tonight. “I tripped and fell.”
She ground her back teeth together and moved toward him, leaning to study the cut above his left eye. The flow had slowed to a trickle that ran down the side of his face to land on his grey T-shirt. “Looks like a ring caught you.”
He grinned. “You’re good at this, Doc.”
The cut wasn’t bad. She could bandage it with a butterfly. “Will I have another patient coming in?”
“Nah. I dropped him fast with a punch to the gut. He was coughing out blood a bit, but I didn’t damage anything inside him. The guy was already pretty tuned up with booze, and he went back to eating his lunch.” Ace still hadn’t moved.
She knew a lecture wouldn’t help. Even so, she owed him the truth as his doctor. “You need to stop this nonsense, Ace.” The guy was always getting in fights, but he never hurt anybody. Not really. And something told her he could if he chose. It was as if he wanted to punish himself. “Again, I have several names—”
“I don’t need a shrink, Doc,” he drawled.
The heck he didn’t. “Even if you won’t see a professional, why not drop by Smitty’s?” She could not believe she’d just suggested the old mountain man help Ace, but the guy was known to fix a head or two. At least, that’s what she’d heard. “It can’t hurt.”
“You don’t know that.” The smile widened, making Ace look even more roguish. “When Paul Leithy went up to Smitty’s for advice last week, Smitty threw him out a window. I guess Paul was being a moron.”
They were all morons. All men. Well, not all. But most. May straightened, fighting the very real urge to brush a lock of Ace’s dark brown, almost black, hair away from his angled face. He was at least half Inuit and had the strong features of his people. The very handsome features. Touching him in such a way would be very un-doctorlike, and she battled with herself every day to keep professional with him. “I’d like to throw you out a window.”
He barked out a laugh, and even that held charm. Well, a rough-edged, born and bred in the Alaskan wilderness, charm. “You know I’d let you put your hands on me any way you want.”
Ah, the flirty Ace was back. She wondered, not for the first time, what he’d do if she took him up on one of his invitations. Probably run for the jagged mountains surrounding them and disappear. He thought she was safe to flirt with because she worked as his doctor. True. He had a right to believe that. Besides, he’d been playing with plenty of the tourists in town for the fishing season. Young women looking for adventure, and from what she’d heard, they’d found plenty of it with Ace. Apparently the Alaskan native was a ‘god’ in bed.