Kane Read online

  Dedication

  To my online friends who have become real life family. I love you guys.

  Copyright ©2019 Delaney Foster

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or locale is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form by any means or stored in a database or retrieval system, except in the event of brief quotations in articles and reviews, without the prior consent of the author.

  Cover design by: Poole Publishing Services, LLC

  Formatting by: Poole Publishing Services, LLC

  Content editing by: Erin Toland with Edits by Erin and Susie Poole at Poole Publishing Services, LLC

  Proofreading by: Kim Holm

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

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  Other books by Delaney Foster:

  A Woman’s Touch series:

  A Woman’s Touch

  A Man’s World

  Ever After

  The Perfect Gentleman

  Sin with Me series:

  Sin with Me

  Penance

  Absolution

  Standalones:

  The Secrets You Keep

  If reading books had an archnemesis, it would be writing reviews for those same books. I had a fanatical love/hate thing going with book reviews. I loved writing them for my blog because the sixty-thousand people that followed me and opened their browser every Thursday morning looked forward to them. And I hated them for that very same reason. People read (or didn’t read) books because Rie’s Reads told them to. Which was a lot of pressure on a girl. That’s also why I vowed to always be honest. Even the worst books had something redeemable about them, and I always made sure to end my reviews on a high note.

  I didn’t get paid for blogging. Reading was just something I’d always loved to do. Why not share that love and enthusiasm for books with the rest of the world?

  As much as I wished reading could be my full-time job, that sadly was not the case. In the real world, I ran my parents’ coffee shop. And it was ten minutes till go-time. I could set my watch by the usual rush of the “my blood type is coffee” crowd. Six-o-two. Every single morning. Except weekends. On weekends they waited till after seven.

  Common Ground was the only coffee shop/café in Hickory Falls, Georgia. My parents opened this place when I was a little girl. As far back as I could remember, everyone from age five to eighty-five came here to have a seat at the round wooden tables and eat freshly baked brownies and drink freshly brewed coffee. It was located on the corner of the two main streets in town, which meant that there was a perfect view of the city square through the black and white buffalo check curtains. There was no Starbucks or Cheesecake Factory in Hickory Falls. Kind of hard to fit all that in a town with only two stoplights. It was just our little café and Mabel’s Table (aka the best homemade burgers east of the Mississippi). We weren’t big, but we were cozy.

  I soaked in the last moments of silence that I’d have for the next few hours and inhaled the scent of pastries and coffee. The morning sun began to spill in through the windows. I’d helped my mother sew those curtains almost ten years ago. I couldn’t believe they’d held up all this time.

  My only co-worker, Alyssa, filled a glass canister of sugar on the last of the round, wooden tables. I sat in the corner with my laptop in front of me and favorite coffee mug full of French vanilla coffee. This was when I shared my thoughts with the world—early in the morning before our small town came to life. Soon, all the tables would be full, and the faint overhead music would be drowned out by morning conversation and laughter. I finished my latest book review and first cup of coffee.

  Rie’s review: The Girl Next Door

  I really wanted to like this book. I mean, in “the way your friends talk up the blind date they’ve set you up on” wanted to like. But sadly, this one had me wishing someone would call with a fake emergency and put me out of my misery. They didn’t. And I ended up fighting my way through the pages with a machete in one hand and a box of Dove chocolates in the other. Survival skills 101, y’all. Here’s where I tell you why: the main character was absolutely intolerable. There was never a moment where I didn’t want to punch her in the face. Seriously, she popped pills to sleep then she popped more to stay awake. Then, you guessed it, more pills because she couldn’t handle the reality of being awake. At one point I wanted to perform an intervention. How could her family possibly think that’s okay? Which brings me to my next point: the secondary characters were flat. Bring out the butter and maple syrup flat. The plot held my attention, though, so there’s that…

  I mean, this was the granddaddy of suspenseful plots. The only way it could’ve been any better is if someone would’ve murdered the pill-popping protagonist.

  One of the book’s seriously redeemable qualities is the writing. Imagine your blind date having the sense of humor of a bag of rocks, but man did he have a gorgeous smile. Or set of abs. Or whatever you’re into. That was this book for me. I really enjoyed the author’s voice.

  So, my advice to the author would be: Keep trying, Bennett Kane. You’ve got potential. I like your style. It might even earn you a second date.