Hi guys, we have Jackie Keswick popping in with her upcoming release House Hunt, the third book in The Power of Zero series. We have a fantastic guest post where Jackie chats about House Hunt and Gareth & Jack and it also has some great snippets from the book. So enjoy the post! <3 ~Pixie~

House Hunt

Jackie Keswick

Jack Horwood hates owing favors. But when a simple day out to treat Gareth to the best oysters in England leads to a discovery of drugs and counterfeit money—things that neither Jack nor Gareth have the jurisdiction to handle—he has to call in help. Help that doesn’t come cheap, and that forces him to do something he promised himself he’d never do again—walk away from Gareth and the family he’s starting to make for himself.

Three months undercover is a long time. After missing Gareth’s birthday, Jack is determined not to miss their first anniversary. But coming home and being home are two very different things. So when he is asked to assist with a corporate espionage investigation, Jack can’t say no, despite knowing it will impact his already straining relationship.

Except, of course, he’s walking into a trap….

Excerpt

The best-laid plans can, and often do, go awry. We all know it, but I’m convinced that Jack Horwood must have skipped that lesson. Hello, everyone… I’m Jackie Keswick and I’m stopping by on the blog tour for the third Power of Zero story, House Hunt. Thanks so much for inviting me!

We left Jack and Gareth at the end of Ghosts finding their feet in a new relationship. A relationship that suddenly included not just the two of them, but also two teenage boys.

Settling into any relationship – adjusting schedules and egos and finding the best way to work as a team – can be tricky enough, even without having two jobs, helping troubled boys or hunting pimps. It’s no wonder, then, that Jack and Gareth encounter the odd hiccough along the road.

Gareth needs to control people and events around him. Jack has a habit of going silent when something bothers him. At least until he’s sorted out the matter in his own mind. They’re both learning to cooperate and each go to some lengths to be there when the other one needs it. At the beginning of House Hunt, it’s Jack’s turn.

Gareth Flynn loves oysters and Jack, to make up for being stuck in his own head a little more thoroughly than usual for the last few weeks, decides to treat him to a day out to sample some of the best oysters in England. He arrives in some smart, unexpected transport, and when Gareth queries what he’s up to, Jack has a logical answer all ready:

“You keep whining about the lack of decent oysters, and I’m sick of hearing it. I’m going to get you some of the finest oysters in England, and then I’ll watch you eat them until you pop.”

“You don’t even like oysters.”

“So not the point.” Jack filtered onto the anticlockwise side of the M25, slid into the outside lane, and floored the throttle. Traffic was light that early on a Sunday and he hoped to be off the road to hell before that changed. “The real point here is that oysters are one of your favorite foods. And you whine about the bloody things even when you’re at Simpson’s eating them. So now you won’t have to.”

Gareth finds the oysters delicious and well worth the early start to their morning. They talk, they wander along the beach and, finally head inland to a secluded corner of the Weald. Jack isn’t looking for trouble. But as often before, he finds it anyway.

The afternoon slipped gently toward evening when they returned to the car park. Two other cars were left beside Jack’s TVR, one of them the beat-up green Rover that had attracted Jack’s attention earlier in the day. And just as it had then, the battered heap gave him the collywobbles. Earlier, he’d been too tightly wound to focus on much beyond Gareth. It had helped him brush off the feeling of dread growing in his gut. Now, Gareth was no longer such a distraction and apprehension drew his stomach into a tight, hot ball. He stepped closer and circled the car. One of the front tires was flat, which might explain why the car had been left here. Or then again, it might not.

“The boot lid’s not properly shut,” he called out.

“So the lock’s broken.”

“Would you leave your car in a public car park with a broken boot lid?” Jack queried. “Not to mention that it would rattle like a son of a bitch while you’re driving.”

“Not everyone is as OCD as you are.”

“I’m not OCD.”

“Says you.”

Jack turned his back on Gareth’s teasing and took the last few steps to the old car. As far as Jack was concerned, Gareth could tease all he wanted. It wouldn’t change that the hair stood up on the back of his neck. Or that a battalion of butterflies played hockey in his guts. Instincts were instincts for a reason. And Jack’s were at DEFCON 2.

He pulled the knife from the sole of his right trainer and carefully slid it along the edge of the loose boot lid. Nothing caught or snagged, so he angled the blade to go under the lid and walked around the back of the car again, moving much more slowly this time. The tension in his gut grew like a wave, hanging suspended and ready to crash over him, and he knew without a doubt that something was wrong with this car. He tasted blood, realized his lower lip was bleeding, and made a conscious effort to relax his jaw and unclench his teeth. Maybe he should have called the bomb squad, rather than play this by ear. Gareth was standing a few meters behind him, and if this all blew up in his face, Gareth would be caught in the blast too.

He wanted to shout a warning, but he shoved his teeth back into the cut in his lip and swallowed the words. Telling Gareth to leave would not produce the desired result. Jack knew that much without asking. If anything, it would bring Gareth to his side only faster.

The toe of his shoe touched the rear tire of the Rover, and Jack stopped. Even angled in, his blade had found no obstruction, nothing that prevented him from lifting that lid. And if he put aside his sudden panic about Gareth’s safety and thought about the matter logically, his instincts didn’t shout bomb at him, anyway. He’d been in that situation and knew what it felt like. This… this felt more like an installment of Dead Body in the Trunk.

When he lifts the lid and gets his first good look at the contents of that boot, Jack will wish that he had found a dead body. He’s never dealt with a homicide and could have handed off the problem with a call to the local police. But faced with a drug dealer’s honesty box and a stash of counterfeit money, Jack has to call Lisa Tyrrell for help. Before he knows it, Jack is embroiled in police work again. Building his new life with Gareth could fall by the wayside unless they both decide to ditch the plans they’ve made and go with the flow.

Trusting and just letting things happen are not key skills of either one of them. It’s good then that they have friends who want to see them happy. Friends who don’t mince words and will knock heads together at need. Daniel and Nico come to mind here. Gareth’s mother is another staunch proponent and, of course, there’s Aidan Conrad. And with people like these at their backs, the best-laid plans might come out right for Jack and Gareth after all.

About Jackie

Jackie Keswick was born behind the Iron Curtain with itchy feet, a bent for rocks and a recurrent dream of stepping off a bus in the middle of nowhere to go home. She’s worked in a hospital and as the only girl with 52 men on an oil rig. She’s spent a winter in Moscow and a summer in Iceland and finally settled in the country of her dreams with a husband, a cat and a tandem.

Jackie loves stories about unexpected reunions and second chances, and men who don’t follow the rules when those rules are stupid. She has a thing for green eyes and tight cyclist’s butts and is a great believer in making up soundtracks for everything, including her characters and the cat.

Jackie’s current obsession is a green-eyed hacker-turned-vigilante by the name of Jack Horwood. The first two parts of his story, Job Hunt and Ghosts, are available from Dreamspinner Press and anywhere books are sold.

For questions and comments, not restricted to green-eyed hackers or recipes for traditional English food, you can find Jackie Keswick in all the usual places: 

Twitter | Facebook | Jackie’s Website