Cold Comfort (In From the Cold #2)

By Lee Brazil

Prince Charming wannabe Finn Lorensson is living his own fairy tale. Sure, his intended is more frog than princess, but what's love worth if you don't have to slay a few dragons on the way?

Cannon Malloy is adapting...to life in Flagstaff, the cold, teaching...and to Finn. He's about decided that letting himself be loved isn't such a bad thing after all.
When an opportunist from Finn's past threatens both love and career, can the frog save his prince?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lee Brazil
• Release date: Apr 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310205064

Lee Brazil

Somewhere in a small town in up-state New York are a librarian and a second grade teacher to whom I owe my life. That might be a touch dramatic, but it’s nevertheless one hundred percent true.Because they taught me the joy of reading, of escaping into worlds crafted of words.Have you ever been nine years old and sure of nothing so much as that you don’t belong? Looked at the world from behind glasses, and wondered why you don’t fit?Then turn the page and see... there you are, running from Injun Joe in a dark graveyard; there you are fencing with Athos; there you are...beneath the deep blue sea- marveling at exotic creatures with Captain Nemo.I found myself between the pages of books, and that is why I write now, it’s why I taught English and literature for so many years, and it’s why my house contains more pounds of books than furniture.If I’d had my way, I’d have been a fencer...or a starship captain, or a lawyer, or a detective solving crimes. But instead, I am a writer, and that’s the best thing in the world to be if you ask me, because as a writer, I can be all those things and more.If I hadn’t learned to value the stories between the pages, who knows what would have happened? Certainly not college...teaching...or writing.

Book preview

Prince Charming wannabe Finn Lorensson is living his own fairy tale. Sure, his intended is more frog than princess, but what's love worth if you don't have to slay a few dragons on the way?

Cannon Malloy is adapting…to life in Flagstaff, the cold, teaching…and to Finn. He's about decided that letting himself be loved isn't such a bad thing after all.

When an opportunist from Finn's past threatens both love and career, can the frog save his prince?

In From the Cold #2

Pulp Friction 2014

Cold Comfort

PULP FRICTION PRESENTS

COLD COMFORT

By

Lee BRAZIL

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Copyright 2014 ©Lee Brazil

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. As such, any resemblance to any persons, living or deceased, businesses, events, or locales is coincidental.

Cover Art by © Laura Harner

Cover art photo : © © CURAphotography - Fotolia.com- Fotolia.com

Editing by Jae Ashley

Copyright March 2014 © Lee Brazil

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the publisher

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Trademark Acknowledgements:

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following trademarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

Armani: Giorgio Armani, SPA

Crocs: Crocs, Inc.

Cub Scouts: Boy Scouts of America

Disney: Disney Enterprises, Inc.

Hot Wheels: Mattel, Inc.

Jazzercise: Jazzercise, Inc.

Louis L’Amour: Trustee of the Louis D. and Katherine E. L'Amour 1983 Trust

Mickey Mouse Club: Disney Enterprises, Inc.

Riders of the Purple Sage: Bright, Gary

Shelby: Carroll Hall Shelby Trust

Stetson: John B. Stetson Company

The Fly: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

The Lone Ranger: Classic Media, LLC

Tom and Jerry: Turner Entertainment Co.

Whose Line is it Anyway?: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Wile E. Coyote: Time Warner Entertainment Company

Cold Comfort

Chapter One

Professor Lorensson?

Finn glanced up from a stack of essay exams handwritten by his freshman class to find a handsome young man with a determined tilt to his chin and narrowed eyes hovering in his doorway. The aura of privileged overindulgence hung about the man, from his designer backpack, looped over one shoulder by a strap, to his carefully disarranged hair. He was a picture of spoiled petulance being denied what it wanted for the first time ever.

The man was vaguely familiar, a former student in one of his classes perhaps. May I help you?

You don't remember me, do you?

Finn squinted, but the shadows hung over the man's face, and he looked a lot like many other young campus men. Thin, moderate height, lugging a backpack and sporting a chin strap beard. I apologize. I usually do quite well with faces, but, no I don't remember you. Could he be a student in one of Finn's classes? Someone who had never managed to make it to office hours? Someone he hadn't spoken to face to face before? It was one of his requirements for all of his classes that each student see him at least twice a semester, the first time for a discussion of the material and the second to establish a topic for the final written exam. No…the man was familiar, but he couldn't be a student. Please come in. He gestured to the steel folding chair opposite his desk. His gaze caught on the single rose in a vase on the corner of his desk, and he smiled slightly.

I'm Lassiter, he announced before stepping farther into the room. The light from Finn's desk lamp cast his face in the right sort of shadow and a shoe dropped. Not a former student, no. A former lover, if a one-night stand could be classified as such. They'd met at a bar the previous summer, and the man's pale good looks had appealed momentarily to Finn's inner Prince Charming. Lassiter had proved to be more the spoiled stepsister than a Cinderella in need of rescue though, and that one occasion had been the extent of their relationship.

I think you can help me. The man sneered, approaching the desk where Finn sat and glaring down at him. You can tell me why you denied my request to be assigned to you for advisement.

Finn exhaled slowly, annoyance creeping through him. My policy on this is quite firm. It didn't matter that he'd never even seen the request. The dean of students was well