Exclusive: Cover Reveal and Excerpt of The Golden Hour by L.M. Halloran

I’m loading up a bin with used glasses for the morning kitchen staff when the front door opens with a groan of damp wood and a blast of frigid air. The cold hits my bare neck and I shiver as I turn to see who’s come in, praying it’s an earlier customer who forgot something. It’s not.

My initial flare of irritation—I was hoping to shut down a bit early—morphs to curiosity as the newcomer drags down the hood of his coat. 

Men aren’t supposed to have mouths like that.

Not the most dignified thought, but impossible to avoid. This man doesn’t belong here. He’s too… chiseled. Otherworldly. He belongs on the covers of magazines, not in a backwater bar in the middle of nowhere, Oregon.

He scans the dim barroom, bright blue eyes watchful and slightly haughty. Those remarkable eyes meet mine briefly, flit away, then snap back to my face. Now they reflect surprise. 

I don’t look like I belong here any more than he does. I’ve certainly been told it enough in the year I’ve been here. 

Frozen, I’m stuck in a movie of my life as he walks toward me, eye contact an electric thread between us. Not until he settles on the bar stool directly in front of me do I blink and slam back to reality. His scent teases my nose. Something warm and tingly. Like a hug—preferably the naked kind. I glance at his hands. Strong and sinewy. Then his shoulders, broad and muscled beneath a soft flannel.

“W—what can I get you?”

“Whiskey neat,” he says in a rich, melting baritone. A slow smile lifts the corners of his mouth. “Do I have something on my face?”  

The casual acknowledgment of our staring contest zings through my body. I haven’t been looked the way he’s looking at me in a long time—not counting the handful of lecherous old men in town. 

I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be seen.