#Banner’s Renegade #SweetFuturisticRomance

Posted: July 2, 2021/By: achristay@aol.com

Banner’s Renegade: Pregnant, Angela escapes an abusive marriage. But when stranded on a storm-tossed planet, sinfully seductive cargo pilot, Clint Banner, becomes her only hope for survival.

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BLURB: Banner’s Renegade

Pregnant and on the run from her abusive ex-husband, Angela is determined to make a fresh start. Leaving Earth behind, she journeys to a far-off world where she finds peace and safety living in a small mining settlement. Nearly a year later, Angela’s luck changes and her life is endangered when a deadly snowstorm sweeps down upon them.

Sinfully seductive “freight dog’” Clint Banner, offers her and her newborn daughter warmth and shelter aboard his snowed-up and grounded cargo ship. Days pass as the storm rages on. Everything’s fine the first week. Trouble starts after that. What Angela and Clint are unprepared for is their mutual desire for more than just survival. Could Clint Banner hold the key to a future Angela has only dreamed of?

EXCERPT: Banner’s Renegade

A knock at the door startled her from her thoughts. Who would be at her door? It couldn’t possibly be Emily. Over the weeks since Lainie had been born, Emily had become accustomed to walking in with a simple “yoo hoo.” There was no one else she could think of who would come visiting. Angela absently smoothed her hair and tried tugging her short, tattered cutoffs back into place. “Hello?” she said as she opened the door then went deathly still.

Clint Banner’s sensual mouth slowly curved into an amused grin as he lazily took in, from head to toe, every delectable inch of Angela’s disheveled appearance. “Hello, Angela.”

Tendrils of shiny honey blond hair had worked their way loose from her ponytail to feather haphazardly about her cheeks and neck. And she looked, Clint thought, almost as disheveled as she did a year ago when she’d met him at the spaceport with Piper. Splatters of white paint now replaced the dust and grime she wore back then, and he pondered if she had any idea that there was even a smudge across her cheek. At least she no longer looked sickly.

He lazily wondered, too, if they were the same short cutoffs she’d worn a year ago. Today she had topped them with an equally shabby plaid shirt with rolled up sleeves and shirt tails tied in a knot beneath her breasts. Dear god, she was stunning.

His eyes were still twinkling with amusement when he finally asked politely, “May I come in?” At her flustered hesitation, he added, “Don’t worry. I’m not in the habit of ravishing young ladies wearing white war paint.” He sobered, gave her another once over then with a slight wag of his head he added softly, “Although, I must confess, with you in that outfit, I find it damned tempting.”

Nearly groaning aloud, Angela glanced down at her scandalous attire and bare feet. She wanted to slam the door in his face and save herself additional humiliation. Instead, she mindlessly stepped aside, allowing him to enter.

Clint Banner, of all people. She had forgotten how tall and crazy handsome he was. His breathtaking presence nearly stole the oxygen from the room. Silently she took in his swarthy, bronzed features. He was very dark. Suntans like that weren’t acquired by simply laying around in the sun. They were acquired by hours of working outside. The tiny squint lines that fanned from his eyes were just another indication of being outdoors. Petroleum geology? Wasn’t that what he had gone to school for? She couldn’t recall anything at the moment. It was as if her brain had been swept clean the instant he walked through the door.

“Nice little place you have here.” he said, glancing around in appreciation.

She stood facing him with her hands on her hips. “How’d you find me, Clint, and why are you here?”

“How’d I find you?” One side of his mouth kicked up at the corner as he flicked hooded eyes over her once more. “Let’s just say I find you… stunning and unforgettable.” His tone was slow and seductive as he spoke, and Angela was drawn to the vertical slash of dimples on each side of his mouth as he smiled.

It was a sin for a man to have a smile like that, but she couldn’t allow herself to focus on that now. “Please, Clint. I’m serious.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. You weren’t easy to find, Angela. You covered your tracks well. In fact, I was about to give up when Rae remembered you’d asked to borrow her computer to look for a job and a place to live. Even though you tried to erase your tracks, Rae managed to find where you had been searching up here in Aurora two weeks before taking off. She found both your application for this cabin as well as employment.”

“But why are you here? Is everyone all right at home?”

“Everyone’s fine, Angela.” He sauntered over to the fireplace and inspected a small picture she had on the mantle. “Two weeks ago,” he said, turning to face her,” some guy came snooping around asking about you.”

The announcement hit her like a horse kick, and she slumped against the door. “What did he look like?” she all but whispered.

“I have no idea. But from the questions Rae said he’d asked, I can only imagine he looked all business. Suit and the whole works.”

Angela listened in a daze. Her world—the world she had worked so hard to build for herself and Lainie had suddenly begun spinning out of control. “What sort of questions?” she asked, her throat tight.

“That’s why I’m here. And I have a few questions of my own.”

“Clint, I tried not to involve your family in my problems. All I wanted was to start a new life for myself.”

“Well, sunshine, guess what? We’re involved. And the first thing I want to know is, are you, or are you notdivorced from Mason Cooper?”

“Why?”

“Divorced?” he repeated. “Yes or no?”

“Yes. We’re divorced.”

“Alright. And another thing,” he went on, “who owned Piper at the time you sold her to Rae?”

“I did. She was my horse. Why do you ask about Piper? Mason gave her to me shortly before we were married. You had to have seen my name on her papers when I gave them to you.”

Clint slowly shook his head. “Thing is, Angela, once you married Mason, he automatically became half owner of everything that was yours, unless you had a pre-marital agreement that said the horse was off-limits. Why the hell does he want your horse anyway? Is he into horses?”

“That’s just it. He doesn’t want the horse. He wants to make me suffer, and that’s his only reason. It’s always given him pleasure to hurt me. He wanted nothing more than his freedom, and at the same time to strip me of what little happiness I had known.”

Clint scowled, “What kind of sickness is that?”

“I suppose he’s married to someone else now and blissfully happy. And, you know what? That is just fine with me. I don’t ever care to see or hear from him again. Ever.”

Suddenly there came a sound from somewhere in the back of the cottage as Trixie came rushing down the short hallway to greet him, whining, wiggling and wagging her tail with uncontrolled excitement at seeing Clint again.

“Hello, girl,” he said, bending down from his tremendous height to give Trixie a belly rub.

It always amazed Angela how quickly Trixie had taken to Clint. Not just accepted him, but was genuinely happy to see him.

“Okay,” he said at last, rising once again to his full height. “We’ll worry about Piper later. Now, for why I’m really here. You can’t stay here, Angela. Like I said you covered your tracks well, but the bottom line is, if I found you, so will they. Therefore, we need to leave right away. The sooner the better because there’s a—”

“Leave? I can’t just up and leave, Clint.”

“Yes, you can. Did you hear what I said? If I found you, so will they.”

“But I was on Rae’s completely private server with security and—”

“And that’s all true. But according to Rae, your asshole-ex comes from money. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Money unlocks a lot of doors, Angela.”

“But—”

“But nothing. Besides, there’s a powerful storm coming, and I intend to be down out of these mountains by the time it hits.”

KEYWORDS

Futuristic Romance, Science Fiction, Alpha Male

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