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INTRODUCTION

When I introduced Poppy in Rowdy and Sale to become the character who readers askedto get a book, asked when her story was coet a happy-ever-after They demanded that she love and be loved better than any of h hell and back, and without a doubt, ht and be good to her

I think that speaks to e all love to read romance soand that there really, truly is sos that may have happened to harden a heart disappear That there is souide us to a better place no ht feel Readers didn’t want her to be afraid anymore They wanted her to be romanced and won over

Make no ood romance;) … but it’s not the norm for me I have never considered myself a romantic at heart I love love, and I adore all the sexy, sweaty things that go with it But hearts and flowers, wooing and soft persuasion … yeah … I ain’t got no tierous, and a whole lot roove for this book—the one that was about hearts healing and real ro It required soft and I am much more comfortable with hard

It’s not very often I sit down and put two people with pure hearts together It’s a rare case when I’, who are si better out of each other and out of the at least one of my main characters all kinds of twisted and torn, but that isn’t the case here Yes, they both have demons to slay and ood people who have had more than their fair share of bad thrown their way … they are so much more than what they have experienced More than any other characters I have ever written, when they stu to be honest, I had a rough end of 2016 Things with fa professionally … itoptie But that’s why I write, why I tell the stories I do It’s an escape, a way to live in a place that has all the things realityat the moment

In order to do these two justice, it took so deep, some honest self-evaluation and self-exaet to the soft center of myself that I usually keep hidden from the world Really, I like to pretend it doesn’t exist at all I desperately wanted to get it right—for Poppy and Wheeler, but irl who had been ruined to be Salvaged and returned to her foruy to finally catch some kind of break

I think I ended up exactly where I was supposed to with all of it … I mean at the end of it all I was emotionally spent and exhausted in the best way I think I took a hundred naps! It’s been a journey, the best adventure I could have ever asked for, one shared with h these eleven books set in my favorite place I couldn’t be any happier here we (and all of our friends caught between the pages) ended up

This is where we belong

~Love & Ink

Jay

When you go in search of honey youby bees

—Joseph Joubert

I was the kind of guy that thought I had it all figured out It caht up in chaos and upheaval When I was old enough to call le- dedication I knehat I wanted Every move I made, every step I took, movedof from the minute I realized I was all on my own A realization that cale time I was forced to bounce from one temporary home to the next

I clung to the idea that I would do everything differently I would make decisions which would lead to a life that was easy, sh-end shocks I found the girl that was rip I went out of ive her any kind of reason to go I ht feel trapped there as ti to wiggle her way free

I started a business, bought a house, and made plans … soto so I wanted since the tiivefor since the minute I was left on my own

I had my eyes on the prize, the promise of what could be if I worked hard, took care ofthat the person as supposed to love me and care forend, but there was nothing I could do when the rope was cut

At that point all I could do was fall

I feltso hard to hold on to slip the day she walked intobehind one of my friends Rowdy St Jaot the majority of my ink done He called and asked me to empty out my shop of employees and other custoirlfriend’s sister in to look at a car He didn’t need to explain why the garage needed to be cleared out, not that I would have asked The girl had been all over the news et away fro ordeal was splashed all over the news Her husband had abducted her at gunpoint Salem, her sister and Rowdy’s lady, had been a victim of the attack as well Poppy Cruz only ith the lunatic she wassafe It had resulted in a night back from Without question I cleared out the shop so she wouldn’t have to worry about being surrounded by a bunch of dirty, boisterous ile and delicate as she appeared to be