Bloody Harvest, A Jake Stone Thriller (Book 15): The Jake Stone Thrillers, #15

By T.L. Peters

In this new installment of the Jake Stone series, Jake and Snowflake confront a mysterious female marauder preying on men.

"This is a short book, but one loaded with action and a slew of unexpected twists and turns. The story will keep you turning the pages well into the night to find out what happens next." Theodora

"Peters writes in his blog that he plans to take a break from the Jake Stone series to focus on other projects. I hope the break doesn't last too long. I, for one, am hooked on Snowflake. What a woman!!" Damsel

• Language: English
• Publisher: T.L. Peters
• Release date: Aug 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476178264

T.L. Peters

"There's no question that Peters is a master wordsmith." Gerry B's Book Reviews About the author: T.L. Peters is an ex-lawyer who enjoys playing the violin and giving his dog long walks in the woods. In between, he writes novels.

Book preview

Bloody Harvest, A Jake Stone Thriller (Book 15)

By T.L. Peters

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 T.L. Peters

License Notes

This e book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

To read more about the author and his other books, go to http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/tlpeters.

There’s no question that Peters is a master wordsmith. Gerry B’s Book Reviews

Chapter 1

As soon as Jake Stone turned the corner, he was clobbered in the mouth. He was on his way to run a few errands at a local convenience store a few miles from home. He had parked in back of the store and was coming around the side of the building when the huge fist crashed into his face, sending him sailing backwards onto the cracked and weedy pavement. All he could see in the first moments following the blow was a plume of tiny stars set against a dark and wavering background.

For a few seconds he thought he was going blind. Then he saw her hovering above him, a woman's woman if Jake had ever seen one. She stood six four and weighed about 260 sleek pounds of shapely curves and pulsating muscle. Because she was covered in body hugging black vinyl, even the most minute gyrations of her highly sculpted physique were easy to discern, even in Jake's currently somewhat groggy state.

Jake would have loved to get a look at her face, but she was wearing a black leather mask with holes cut out for the eyes, nose and mouth. He could tell that she had a nice full wide mouth with juicy red lips. Jake could see that much of her at least. And she had dark fiery eyes, and at the moment those eyes were pointed directly at him.

He tried to roll over onto his knees as a launching pad to eventually rise to his feet, but a side kick snapped against his rib cage and knocked him flat. He experienced a searing pain in his side and tried to feel around the injured area with his fingers to see if anything was broken. But this babe was in no mood to let him off the hook for even a second. She bent over him, grabbed him by his shirt collar and yanked him to his feet, or more accurately she hoisted him about a yard off the ground, gazing up at his agonized face as she held him in mid air while he flailed helplessly.

What do you want? Jake groaned.

The woman did not answer, at least not orally. Instead, she tossed him backward, and Jake soon felt himself gliding swiftly through the muggy summer air. It seemed for a while that he would glide on forever, such was the power in her arms and shoulders that had launched him in flight. But eventually gravity took its toll, and his rear end once again slammed into the hard pavement, this time his head snapping back and cracking off the edge of the building. He was dazed now and bleeding. Won't someone come and help me, he thought. But who was going to tangle with this mammoth woman once again hovering over him? Jake thought he saw a few passersby eyeing the melee as they scurried past, apparently not wishing to get involved.

What do you want? Jake repeated in a slurred monotone. Take my money if that's what you're after. I won't fight you.

The woman suddenly let out a boisterous chuckle, or maybe it was just the wind rustling the leaves in the nearby trees. In any case, she said nothing but instead grabbed his neck in one massive hand and again lifted him high off the pavement. She held him there with one arm, gazing at him with her dark sharp eyes. Jake hung limply, wondering if this was finally the end. After all the battles he had been through with his darling Snowflake and then with his charming daughter Fierce, this back alley mugging seemed somehow anti climactic. But Jake knew the rules. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

That morning it looked like he had gotten the short end of the stick. If only Snowflake had come with him, she would have taken care of this babe, but at the last moment she had begged off saying that she needed to put some more time in the weight room. Moreover, his son-in-law Dirk Cobb and his daughter Fierce were out in the woods somewhere on a picnic. There was no one who could help him, at least no one with the strength, fury and fighting skill to take on this monster of a woman head on.

Jake felt the air rushing from his lungs. Now he got the picture. She was going to hang him, with her muscular arm serving as the instrument of execution, his own personal gallows. Would she break his neck, or would she strangle him? That seemed like the only question left for Jake to ponder as his body weakened further and his vision began to grow dim.

Just as the lights were about to go out for the last time for poor Jake Stone, she dropped him. He landed hard on his kneecaps, but it was the most joyous landing he had ever experienced. He was still conscious enough to realize that he was not only alive, but that in a few minutes he would be in reasonably good shape, so long as this creature didn't start beating on him again.

He gazed up at the imposing chest heaving in slow but steady rhythm above him. He expected her to finally say something, be it a threat, an ultimatum, a warning, a demand for money, something that would give him a clue as to who she was and why she had so violently accosted him. But instead she remained deathly silent, her eyes flaming with dark brightness, her muscles taut and hard under the snug fabric.

What do you want? Jake muttered for the third time.

She responded by kicking him in the chest. It was a hard kick, but not enough to kill him, not enough to crush his chest like a grape being smashed with a concrete block. Jake knew she could easily have killed him, but so far she had only toyed with him, punished him perhaps being the more apt description, or maybe disciplined him would be the more accurate phrase. She had not hurt him severely, however, not yet anyhow. She had simply given him a good old fashioned working over. Jake was familiar with the concept, having spent so many years at the side of the violent and volatile Snowflake. But there had to be a reason this woman was keeping him alive. There had to be a message in it somewhere. Still, however, she remained silent.

Jake gazed at her calves looming a foot or two before his eyes. The thin vinyl fabric was not substantial enough to disguise their rippling intensity as the muscles rolled over and against each other like shifting slabs of concrete. His eyes peeked a little higher at her thighs and hips bulging like a rack of glistening bowling balls. As his eyes blearily drifted a few inches higher he noticed that her waist could not have measured more than twenty inches around and resembled a taut dense steel cord. Then came the massive ridge line of her chest, which Jake estimated to be some fifty inches in circumference, at least. A few inches higher her bosom began to slope down to meet her shoulders and neck in a sinewy embrace.

Again Jake glanced at her arms, vibrant, pulsating, with biceps at least fifteen inches around, forearms like iron rods, wrists supple and strong, and big meaty paws that he now noticed were covered with black leather gloves. No wonder his face stung so much. When she had punched him, the leather had nearly ripped his skin off. But still he was alive. Still he was conscious, if barely. What would she do to him next? What did she want?

Who are you? Jake squealed like a pig being led to the slaughter. Take off your mask. Let me see your face.

She answered by kicking him in the chest. The toe of her black boot seemed to find the weak spot in his diaphragm and left him gasping for air. She leaned over and grabbed the thinning hair on his scalp between her thick fingers and began to pull and twist it until Jake screamed for mercy. Then she let him go and paced around him as he squatted helplessly on the grimy pavement. What else could she do to me, Jake wondered. Why doesn't she just kill me and get it over with?

Jake was bending forward still gasping for air when he felt a strong hand reach around the back of his neck. Again, he was hoisted up into the air. This time he had had enough abuse from this nasty chick and, summoning one final burst of energy, he kicked backward with both legs, ramming his heels into her upper thighs. He thought for sure that the blows were hard