Teagan Ransom has finally settled in a place she can call home, spending time with new friends sheadores, focusing on a fulfilling job, whilst reconciling the past and laying the groundwork for the future.
That is until Garrett Frost moves in next door. He’s obstinate and too bold, a raging and disruptive force of nature. Teagan recognizes the ghosts that haunt him, the torment driving him. Garrett would be risky in any form, but wounded, he’s far more dangerous. Tegan fears he could pull apart everything she has worked so hard to build, but Garret’s too determined…and too tempting.
Emotional and heartrending, Butterfly in Frost marks a brilliant return by global sensation Sylvia Day, the No.1 international multimillion bestselling author of the Crossfire saga.
Extract:
The hard lump of ice inside me still hurts. I’m angry. I’d had each day planned out going forward. A new city, new friends, new routines. Half a year’s worth of therapy and reconditioning, for what? My neighbors move, and I feel as if I’ve been deceived. As if the new life I’ve built came with a guarantee that nothing would change. With conscious determination, I exhale and try to push out my anxiety with it. I pull my keys from my pocket as I approach my front door and slide one into the dead bolt. When the lock opens, I use the same key in the original midcentury doorknob that sits in the dead center of the door. Once inside, I relock them both, toss my keys on the end table, and disarm the alarm before the grace period runs out and the earsplitting siren goes off. Going through each step in the same established order settles me some. But it’s being back in my home, alone, that provides the greatest relief. I gaze longingly at the couch, so exhausted I just want to curl into the cushions and sleep forever. I know what it means to feel this tired; I know what’s coming. That doesn’t mean I can stop it. Instead, I look ahead to the wall of windows overlooking the Sound. The left side of the butterfly roof wings up and over the double-sided fireplace and dining room, with clerestory windows following the graceful rise so nothing blocks the majestic view.
Just beyond the verdant hump of Maury and Vashon Islands, the sprawling Olympic Mountains lie west and run south. Some days, fog conceals the range so thoroughly, it disappears. But on cloudless days like today, I can see the snowcapped peaks stretching down the coast.
I soak it in, letting the familiarity calm me. I stand in the center of my living room long enough to watch another massive cargo ship lumber by on the way to Tacoma. Sunlight glitters off the gently moving water, and crab-trap buoys bob to the rhythm. It’s quiet here, so very different from the frenetic pace and noise of New York. I could hardly hear myself think there, with life beating at me from all sides, a very busy medical practice, and an ever-present camera crew. Here, I can be alone with my thoughts, with no one to judge me or pity me or expect me to “get over it.”
