Free Brand Me (Imagine Ink Book 2) by Verlene Landon

Richard threw his temper tantrum. She’d remember to ask Michael for some extra blankets. With her decent stash of protein bars and granola, she’d be good.
    She entered the cabin without knocking and with the determination to resist the temptation within and stay the course. Michael was curled up on the bed like a little boy fitfully resting. His pain was obvious, both physical and mental. This man had demons.
    What most people didn’t know about her was that she was a grief counselor. Just on a volunteer, a.k.a. free basis, for now. She loved working a beach job with her girls, but her dream had always been to open her own business. Her mother encouraged her to have a fallback career until her business degree could “get her where she wanted to be.”
    It was no struggle for her to choose, the choice had been made for her the night of her junior prom, she just didn’t know it until her mother suggested a second degree. So, she got a bachelors in psychology as well as business, wanting to help people who struggled with demons, but more so, help the ones who cuddled with them.
    They were the people who needed help most desperately—people like her, and obviously Michael—people who threw their arms around the necks of the ghosts that haunted them because it was less painful than fighting them twenty-four seven, or so it would seem.
    However, she never thought of it as a safety net career or even a career at all. It was something she did from her heart. It wasn’t a business. It was a deeply personal calling. When most people realized what her paying job was, they lumped her in with Botoxed, blonde bimbos who possessed more grams of silicone than brain cells. Well, past job now. The retail store for fit ladies was becoming a reality. No longer would her job uniform consist of bikinis and wet suits.
    So, when she said this man had demons, she knew what she was talking about. There were way too many haunted souls in this world, souls tormented by the minions of Hell—most of whom she knew on a first name basis.

    “ O kay , Wingman, upsy-daisy,” Tori barked as she entered. She dropped everything on the foot of the bed and rummaged through his shaving kit until she found the brown bottle with the white oval pills. She made her way to the side of the bed and handed him the glass from the bedside table and two pills.
    “Let’s see if this can take the edge off a bit, hmm. From the looks of the storm brewing out there, a snowmobile trip to town would be ill advised until it passes, unless you’re used to traipsing about through the snow, because I’m sure as Hell not. It appears some hydrocodone will have to do.” Sitting on the bed with one knee bent in front of her and the other foot dangling off, she watched him follow her instructions.
    Michael took the offered pills, and chased them with the tepid water. “Thanks, babe. And Wingman? I can live with that. Between the pills and the bit of cognac I had while you were gone, I should be right as rain in no time.”
    Well, that’s a good sign, he had the wherewithal to at least look slightly cowed by her expression. “Seriously? You couldn’t have told me that before I let you take a schedule II narcotic? How much did you drink? Do you have a drinking problem? I’m not trying to pry into your personal life, but I need to know how worried I should be.”
    Inside, she was terrified, not so much because of the cocktail he’d just taken, as long as it wasn’t a common occurrence, he would probably be fine, but because of Walker.
    Hearing Michael talk about drinking reminded her of her brother and she wondered if he was all right. Last she’d saw him, he seemed to have pulled himself out of that dark place, but she didn’t know if he’d contacted Erika. If Erika rejected him, would she return to a world where her best friend and her brother were just shells of their former selves? She hoped not.
    Deciding to take this trip with Richard wasn’t an easy choice to