The Beckoning (Entangled Series Book 2)
Jill Sanders
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
The Beckoning
Jill Sanders
Contents
The Beckoning
Summary
Entangled Series
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Coming Soon: The Ascension
Other books by Jill Sanders
About the Author
The Beckoning
~ Entangled ~
Breanna & Ethan
© 2016 Jill Sanders
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Summary
Breanna is a reasonable woman. She doesn’t believe in things like teleportation or time travel. But after months of suddenly finding herself in faraway places and living through events that haven’t taken place yet, she’s beginning to think there might actually be something beyond the normal.
Ethan never believed he’d be living in his brother’s house, let alone with the woman that’s haunted his dreams and every waking moment for the past few months.
Entangled Series
The Awakening
The Beckoning
The Ascension… Coming Soon
Prologue
Breanna Garrett stood on a massive front porch with no clue how she got there. Glancing around, she guessed that she was back in a place she’d sworn to never return. Staring back at her was the dark-haired woman who had haunted her dreams for the past few months. She felt like she was in a strange universe.
For the past few weeks, her entire world had been turned upside down. Everything she’d come to know and trust had been pulled out from under her feet.
First, she’d caught her boyfriend cheating, then the bastard had actually cost her her job. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The very fabric of her normal world had just turned upside down and inside out. She’d always had the strange flashes, the moments when she seemed to be dreaming about events that would happen in the future. But now she’d started ending up places with no clue of how she’d gotten there or why.
But now, those green eyes looking back at her from across the porch had her believing in something more. If the dark-haired, green-eyed woman was real, what about the tall, brown-eyed, sexy man who’d also haunted her dreams?
Suddenly, her heart rate spiked, remembering what those dreams had held. Wondering if those, too, would come true just like this one had.
Chapter 1
Several Days Earlier….
Brea stood on the floor of the television studio and looked around. Two years ago, when she’d walked into the studio for the first time, she’d been so nervous as her new boss, Willard, had explained all the equipment.
So much had changed over the years. Gone was the shy, meek, and uncertain girl. Brea was now a woman who knew how to get what she wanted, and went after it. But it had taken a lot of time and work.
At one point, she’d been a poster child for nerdy, awkward kids. Now her braces were gone and she had perfect blemish-free skin. She’d spent countless hours watching YouTube videos on how to apply makeup and practicing new techniques. She’d even learned how to do fun and exciting things with her hair. She’d turned into a beauty queen, but she still remembered the pain and hurt she’d gone through all those years until she’d finally matured.
Two years ago, she’d nailed the interview at WSB, even though she was fresh out of college with her associate degree in art.
For the past two years, she’d fought and worked harder than she’d ever done and tomorrow she started her new job as head anchor for WSB. Just thinking about it had shivers rushing down her spine.
She loved her current job as investigative journalist, but she’d always dreamed of being head anchor. And when Debra, the current head anchor, had taken maternity leave, she’d begged Willard until he’d given her the position.
She grabbed her bag and headed out into the rainy night, making her way slowly through the traffic to her new apartment, ten miles away from the studio.
She parked in her designated spot and grabbed her bag, but just as she was ready to get out, a bright flash of light hit her, causing her to double over in pain.
The next thing she knew she was standing in a brightly lit grocery store. From the looks of it, it was the middle of the day.
She’d never been in this store before. Had she blacked out? Was she dreaming?
A woman bumped into her, almost causing her to fall into a bin of tomatoes.
“Sorry,” the woman murmured.
The woman had long straight dark hair. Her face was uniquely beautiful and her green eyes were mesmerizing.
The woman reached out to steady Brea, who was a little wobbly from the surprise of being in the grocery store.
She was shocked to see the woman’s green eyes go completely white, as if someone had drained all the color from her irises. The woman’s coloring disappeared until she was as white as a sheet.
“Hidden Creek holds your fate,” she said, just before she slipped to the ground in a pile at Brea’s feet.
Her words sent a shiver down Brea’s spine, and she woke to find herself once again sitting in her parked car, outside her apartment building, as the rain fell on her windshield.
All her life she’d struggled with these flashes, but in the past few months, she’d had them more often. Shaking it off, she ran up the stairs and bumped solidly into Drew.
“What are you doing here?” She narrowed her eyes at her ex-boyfriend. She’d met him on assignment last year when he was the head of WBNR, WSB’s rival station. One thing had led to another and they had started dating without Brea even knowing how she’d fallen for the overly protective, self-centered man.
“What?” He sighed and leaned against her door, smiling over at her. “Can’t a guy visit his ex?”
“No. Not when that guy is the same creep who cheated with three…”—she narrowed her eyes and counted the women she’d heard associated with him— “make that four other women.”
He shrugged. “So, I’m not a one-woman kind of guy. Invite me in and I’ll remind you why you went out with me in the first place.”
Brea’s blood began to boil. “Maybe some women find that charming, but not me.” She sidestepped him and was trying to get her door open when his hand gripped her wrist.
“I heard you got the he
ad anchor job at WSB.”
She stilled. “So?” She glared over at him.
“So, you might want to think about playing nice with me.” His smile grew slowly.
“Why?” Her eyes narrowed. “What does WBNR have to do with my new job?”
He shrugged, but she could tell he was hiding something. “I just think it would be much better for you if we were on…”—he leaned in and sniffed her hair— “better terms.” His hand went to her waist and pulled her close. She felt his arousal against her hip and shivered with disgust.
Jerking her arm away and taking a step back, she finished opening her door. She walked inside and blocked him from entering.
“No, I think I like exactly where we left things. You running away with your tail tucked firmly between your legs.” She glared down at his pants, and smiled. “And me with my dignity.” She slammed the door in his face and leaned against it.
The last time she’d seen him, he’d been running from their apartment in nothing but boxer shorts, jeans and shoes in hand, as she waved her favorite five iron in the air.
She’d allowed his—what did you call the woman your boyfriend was cheating on you with? Mistress? —to get dressed quickly and leave with some dignity. After all, it wasn’t the woman’s fault that Drew Debris was the sleazy, no-good, cheating scum that he was.
Although the other woman was Kelly Reynolds, a woman who worked at WSB and knew that she and Drew had been seeing one another for months. That he’d moved in with her less than two weeks prior to the incident.
All in all, she was far better off without Drew in her life. The relationship had started to become somewhat of a burden, and she’d been thinking of asking him for her keys back. She was pretty sure he’d used her place for his tryst with Kelly so that he’d get caught and have an out from their messed-up relationship.
Dumping her bag, she kicked off her heels and went into the kitchen for a glass of wine. She heated up a slice of pizza from last night’s dinner in the oven while she sipped her wine.
Hidden Creek. She felt a shiver run down her body. Was there even such a place? She flipped open her laptop and did a quick search. There was a small town an hour away called Hidden Creek.
Eating her heated pizza, she took the next half hour to glance through images on the web. There were recent news articles from a local paper.
She felt the blood drain from her face when she saw that morning’s article about a woman with “gifted powers” who had solved a murder. The image was a little blurry, but there was no doubt that it was the raven-haired, green-eyed woman she’d just seen fall at her feet.
The investigative journalist in her wanted to drive down and dig deeper, but she had to settle for what she could find online instead.
She read the article several times. It seemed that the woman, Christina Warren, had stumbled upon an old high school friend shortly after her friend’s lover had killed her husband. She claimed that she’d known the incident had happened, even though she’d been across town, and had insights as to the wife’s involvement.
The wife’s lover had confessed after several hours of questioning, but the woman herself was not talking and had lawyered up pretty quickly.
Brea spent the next hour researching everything she could about the psychic, which wasn’t much.
It appeared that she had recently moved back to Hidden Creek after both of her parents had perished tragically in a car accident. There were a few grainy photos of her as a young blonde woman, no doubt from a school yearbook or a newspaper clipping.
She read every piece of information she could on the woman, but by the time she crawled into bed that night, she was no closer to answers than before.
Had she just dreamed of being in Hidden Creek? She had always had those “dream” moments. They were almost like memories, except most of the time the events hadn’t happened yet. In the past few months, she had gotten more and more of them and about people she didn’t know. What did it all mean?
That night, after falling into bed, she was plagued by dreams. The same ones she’d been having for a few months.
The sexy dark-haired man with chocolate eyes moved towards her slowly. His eyes focused only on her. Then he reached out and touched her, and she felt herself melt under his hands.
Suddenly, he pushed her up against a wall, and his hands roamed over her until she moaned with pleasure.
Clothes disappeared quickly. Soon skin touched skin.
When she woke from the dream, she was hornier than even, leading her to believe that she just needed a man. Any man. Soon.
The next morning, she was exhausted, having got only a few hours of sleep.
When she walked into work, she was shocked to see Allison Verica sitting behind the news anchor desk, appearing to get ready to go live in less than an hour.
Karen, one of the makeup artists, grabbed Brea’s arm and dragged her into a small conference room.
“Did they call you?” she whispered, glancing out the door as she shut it behind them.
“About?” Brea frowned.
“The take-over?”
Brea got a sinking feeling in her stomach. “What take-over?”
“WBNR’s taken over WSB.”
“What?” It almost came out as a scream, and Karen hushed her.
“Yes, first thing this morning. They stormed in here and let half the staff go.”
Suddenly Drew’s surprise visit last night made sense. “Is Drew…”
Karen nodded and let out a low growling sound. “He’s the one that’s been handing out pink slips.”
“You?” she asked, but Karen shook her head.
“I guess I’m one of the lucky few.”
Brea took a deep breath, closing her eyes. She knew what was coming. Maybe she should have invited him in last night… No, she would not take the low road to get what she wanted. Straightening her shoulders, she nudged her chin up and opened the door.
“Guess we’ll see where I stand.” She disappeared down the hallway to go find Drew and see if she still had a job.
Ethan Kincaid had found his calling at the tender age of seventeen when he’d joined the ROTC program. He’d discovered that he was born to be an elite warrior. His skills surpassed most in his class. So, naturally, he’d joined up after graduation while his brother, Michael, had gone a different direction.
During basic training, he’d been head of his squad. After, they’d sent him on secret mission after secret mission until, one day, they made him a squad leader.
His uncanny foresight into a mission had been a huge asset. Soon, he began to think that he’d learned that skill instead of it being a freak of nature. It had always been part of his life and was something he’d hid from even his brother.
He’d first noticed his “hidden skill” when he and Mike had been picked on by Travis Pence, a bully in grade school.
Travis and his buddies had been planning to jump them on their way home. At least that’s what his gut had told him. So, he’d pulled his brother to the soccer field that day after school for an impromptu game, which had taken them a completely different route home.
All that week, he’d dragged his brother different places until finally Mike stopped him.
“What’s going on?”
He’d told him that he’d overheard Travis talking about beating them up, but that was a lie. He’d never heard anyone talking about it. Instead, he’d just… known.
He wasn’t even one hundred percent sure of it himself until Mike confronted Travis, who confessed everything.
At first, he’d thought of it kind of as a super-power, but then it had grown annoying. Knowing how to avoid tests or whether a girl would say yes or no if he asked her out had been helpful, but other times, it had caused trouble. People didn’t like it when you knew too much.
He’d been the one to warn his brother that his best friend and partner on the force, Cameron, was going to betray him and try to kill him. All for a quarter of million dollars in
drug money.
He’d called his brother less than an hour before Mike shot and killed Cameron in a dark alley. Mike had already guessed Cameron’s involvement in the missing money, but he hadn’t known that Cameron was on to him.
When Ethan called, Mike had gone on high alert. He’d let his partner lead him into the trap, but Cameron had ended up paying the ultimate price.
Mike had moved out of Atlanta to a small town about an hour away, and then things had started to get really strange.
Along with his uncanny second sight, he’d started having dreams of a silver-eyed woman, who called to him.
No matter what he did, he couldn’t shake those dreams. Then they started happening to him while he was awake. It was making it hard to concentrate and he was losing track of time.
He’d thought about holding back and not going on missions, but then… duty called. Besides, he was pretty sure he just needed a break. He scheduled one after his next mission.
Chapter 2
The morning after the station’s take-over, Brea found herself almost a hundred miles away in Hidden Creek, Georgia. She felt like she was about to pass out. She still had a job, thanks to some very quick thinking and all the research she’d done last night about Christina Warren and Hidden Creek.
Drew had been about to give her walking papers when she’d pitched an idea even he couldn’t turn down.
An insider scoop on the mental stability of a psychic, or a woman claiming to be one.
The news of Christina Warren had even hit the papers in Atlanta. As of today, everyone in the state of Georgia was talking about Hidden Creek.
Naturally, she’d told Drew she’d front the cost of her trip as long as he promised that if he liked the story, he’d keep her on as a freelance investigative journalist.
He’d narrowed his beady eyes at her and, thanks to some choice words from Willard, had agreed.
