Blog Tour, Excerpt & Giveaway:
The Magnolia Murders
By Aimee Nicole Walker

Sawyer and Royce: Matrimony and Mayhem, Book 1

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Exclusive Excerpt from The Magnolia Murders

Bones was waiting for him inside because he associated the rumbling garage door with the snick of the lid on his cat food. Royce was confident Sawyer had already fed the beast, but he let Bones do his best to manipulate him until he could verify his assumption.

“Are you my starving boy?”

Meow.

“Daddy didn’t feed you?”

Meow.

Bones added a dramatic tail swish as he darted into the kitchen. Royce pulled up short because Sawyer was staring into the open refrigerator with a blank look on his face. Royce glanced over and saw the ingredients for their favorite pasta dish scattered on the kitchen island. He ticked off the items to figure out what Sawyer had forgotten, but everything was accounted for, so why was he staring off into space? The noise-canceling headphones he was wearing meant he was listening to an audiobook or podcast. The distraction would make it easy for Royce to sneak up on him undetected, so he set Sawyer’s surprise on the counter and stealthily stalked across the room.

“Oh yeah,” Sawyer muttered. “That’s really good.” He was definitely listening to an audiobook.

That’s when Royce noticed the can of squirty cheese in Sawyer’s right hand and the open bag of sliced pepperoni and sleeve of crackers on the shelf in front of him. Son of a bitch! Sawyer had helped himself to Royce’s secret stash of fake cheese in a can. His shock was replaced by outrage when Sawyer made himself another cracker, piling on two slices of pepperoni and adding a very generous amount of cheese. Sawyer popped the entire thing in his mouth, closing his eyes as he chewed like it was the best thing he’d ever had.

“So good,” Sawyer mumbled around a mouthful of cracker.

Royce crept up beside him and said, “Isn’t it?”

Sawyer let out an inhuman squeak, whirled, and shot Royce in the face with the squirty cheese.

“My eye!” Royce shouted, covering the right side of his face and staggering over to the counter.

Sawyer shoved his headphones down around his neck and rushed to his side. “Baby, I’m so sorry. You scared the hell out of me.” Sawyer wrapped his long fingers around Royce’s wrist and tried to tug his hand away. “Let me see. We need to wash the cheese out of your eye. I can’t begin to imagine the chemicals in that orange shit.”

Royce’s charade crumbled when he burst into laughter. He lowered his hand and showed Sawyer the cheese had landed under his eye, not in it.

The love of his life fell back against the cabinets in relief. “You’re such a dickhead.”

“And you’re a sanctimonious asshole for”—Royce held up one finger—“invading my secret stash.” Two fingers. “Eating my guilty pleasure behind my back.” Three fingers. “Talking with your mouth full.” Four fingers. “And having the gall to lecture me about how unhealthy the cheese was after you got caught eating it.” Royce shook his head sadly. “Who are you?”

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