Publisher: Harlequin
Publication Date: August 2021
Man's best friend
…is this cop's most trusted partner
New to the Grave Gulch Police Department, K-9 detective Brett Shea feels like
an outsider among its many Coltons. Even Annalise, his dog's trainer, is a
Colton! But when she's attacked by a man pretending to be her date, Brett vows
to track down the criminal. Though he's sworn off forever love—which is proving
harder by the day—Brett will protect her at any cost.
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Buy Colton K-9 Target by Justine Davis
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My thoughts:
Colton K-9 Target is the 8th book in the Coltons of Grave Gulch series. This one is Annalise and Brett's story. I enjoyed the book. I thought the catfishing mystery was interesting and fast paced. Annalise and Brett had great chemistry and their fall for each other made perfect sense given the amount of time they had known each other. I loved how Annalise was able to show Brett what family is supposed to be like. This book reads well as a stand alone. The series is written by different authors and seems to have a serial killer story line that runs through the series. There is enough back story given for events in the previous books that I didn't feel lost. I definitely recommend this one.
Excerpt of Colton K-9 Target by Justine Davis (Aug
24)
Annalise stared into the darkness, hoping that forcing
herself to keep her eyes open would perversely trigger the overwhelming urge to
sleep. It was her last resort; she’d been lying here for two hours, unable to
find a way to turn off, or at least slow down, her whirling thoughts.
And the fact that a few minutes ago Brett had come to her open
doorway and lingered a moment didn’t help.
She’d heard the faint creak of a floorboard and felt a spike
of that adrenaline rush before she realized it was him. That realization caused
a spike of an entirely different kind until she heard him walk away and
realized he’d only been checking on her.
What did you expect? That he’d climb into bed with you?
She rolled over and buried her face in her pillow, wondering
why these wild thoughts kept careening into her mind. What kind of woman was
she, to have been so very excited about her date tonight—never mind that it had
all been a scam—yet almost simultaneously so attracted to this man who had no
interest at all in her that way? Or in anything like the kind of relationship
she was looking for?
I’m not looking for what you’re looking for.
He meant it. She didn’t doubt that. And she knew she should
consider it fair warning. A warning some men would never bother to give. Why
had he? She felt her cheeks heat at the thought that maybe he knew, how she
reacted to him. Maybe she’d betrayed it somehow. That would be embarrassing.
They’d always gotten on well in the joint training sessions with Ember, but her
focus had been on the smart, willing dog, not on him.
Well, not any more than usual. Qualified, capable K-9
officers with a record like his weren’t thick on the ground, and he’d proven
that rep well-earned in their first exercises together. That he was quietly
competent and apparently unaware of his own looks were big points in his favor,
in her book.
She’d assumed at first he was married, because how could he
not be? He didn’t wear a ring, but some men didn’t. Then Troy had told her a
week later he wasn’t and had never been.
You have to believe in love before you can give up on it.
She sighed into the darkness. That just might be the saddest
thing she’d ever heard. Yet he didn’t seem sad to her. Or bitter. Just…closed
off. Except with Ember. That alone told Annalise that he wasn’t completely
closed off.
But that didn’t mean she should be lying here thinking about
him.
And about what she would have done if he had climbed into
bed with her.
“I can drive myself—”
“I know you can,” Brett said patiently to Annalise the next
morning, “but I have to drop Ember off anyway.” He didn’t mention that he also
didn’t want her taking off to go get lunch or something. He wanted her under
observation at all times, and he’d already called Sergeant Kenwood to let him
know to keep an eye on her; the man might be retired from active duty, but his
instincts were as sharp as ever.
“But I’ll need my car to get home.”
“I’ll pick you up when I come get her,” he said, with a
scratch of the Lab’s soft ears. “After I talk to the two other women this jerk
targeted.”
“I want to take Apple and Jack,” she said. “I don’t want to
leave them alone. They were scared, too.”
And that was Annalise Colton in a nutshell, he thought.
“Fine. There’s room. And Ember won’t mind.”
And so he ended up with a carload of three dogs and the
woman adored by them all.
Including you?
He yanked his mind off that fruitless path. He drove, trying
to concentrate on mentally organizing his day.
About the Author
Justine Davis lives on Puget Sound in Washington State,
watching big ships and the occasional submarine go by, and sharing the
neighborhood with assorted wildlife, including a pair of bald eagles, deer, a
bear or two, and a tailless raccoon. In the few hours when she's not planning,
plotting, or writing her next book, her favorite things are photography,
knitting her way through a huge yarn stash, and driving her restored 1967
Corvette roadster—top down, of course.
Connect with the Author
Website:
https://justinedavis.com/ Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/JustineDareDavis Twitter:
https://twitter.com/Justine_D_Davis
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