I'm super excited to share that our Christmas anthology is available NOW!!
A Merrily Matched Christmas
Unwrapping in time for Christmas 2017.
Snuggle up with new holiday favorites for a kiss under the mistletoe. From handsome strangers to second chances, this collection will keep your heart warm and toasty this holiday season! So grab some eggnog and a blanket and curl up by the fire with a sexy new book boyfriend!
Buy Link: http://amzn.to/2n03kzO
And for my blog pals, I have a special treat! You can read the first chapter of my story, A Merry Matchmaker Mess, free!! See it below!
Chapter
One
A beard could hide a lot of things, or at least
that was Ronnie’s first thought when she spotted Elijah Conrad coming out from
under her car. A veteran and genius like him had to have seen a lot of things,
yet his dark hair and beard kept her from reading his expression exactly.
He’d been the talk of Evergreen Springs, their
small town, from the day he came home. Two years later, and it hadn’t died down…
mostly because he was the enigmatic brilliant type. Elijah seemed pretty
oblivious to everyone’s interest in him—he just kept his head down and worked a
lot. Too much, in her opinion. Then again, he was partner in the engineering
company her brother started. Due to that, he’d been pretty busy securing
government contracts and doing a lot of math, so far as she’d seen. He needed
to get out more, live a little.
She considered herself gifted at helping others,
be it rescue animals or people in need of a little love, so she wasn’t fooled
by the sexy lumberjack kind of facial hair. No, it was in his eyes—just there!—that she could spot it.
He hurt. And he was lonely.
Eyes like that begged for a friend or… even better!
They begged for romance. Eli Conrad needed
someone to love who would love him in return.
Also, she’d probably been staring at him too
long. His lips, even under the rugged beard, were slowly tilting up and the
smile almost reached his gorgeous brown eyes. “Veronica?” he inquired in a
voice deep enough to curl her toes.
No one ever called her Veronica. She was Ronnie,
had been since about seventh grade. Only Eli bothered to even remember that she
had a full name. She didn’t know why that was so touching to her, but it was.
Yeah, whichever woman Ronnie set up with this guy
would be a lucky lady indeed. This man screamed sensuality in a way that should
be impossible, especially covered with oil. Ronnie cleared her throat before
managing, “Yeah, about the car…”
“Did you call your brother when it started making
the noise?” Eli asked. He rubbed a rag against his huge hands and Ronnie bit
her lip. He really was far too hot for small town life, but she’d find him a
match. It was what she did.
“Yes,” she answered. “He told me I should get it
looked at.” She burrowed a bit deeper into her winter coat. The wind smelled
like coming snow, and the leaden color of the sky agreed. She’d been lucky that
Eli was also on his way to work and saw her alongside the road. Since she was
running late, it wasn’t like many others would be headed toward work at this
hour and the shop was on a dead-end road in a mostly deserted industrial park,
especially on a Saturday.
“Did
you get it looked at?” he asked.
She nibbled her lip. She’d meant to follow her
brother’s implicit directions when she’d bought the new car. Check the oil,
check the tire pressure, check the blah blah blah. Sadly, there was always
something else more important to do. When the warning light popped up last
week, she’d asked her brother Mac to check it out… and his advice was to take
the car to a mechanic.
She hadn’t had time. Or, more honestly, she hadn’t
remembered other than when she was driving the car, and it wasn’t like she had
a handy blow up mechanic doll in the glove box.
She darted another look up at those sad eyes of
his. Was it wrong that she wanted to tug him into a hug? Probably, since she
planned to hook him up with someone else. She shouldn’t send mixed signals.
“No. In my own defense, it has been a really busy
week.” She was on the planning committee for a bunch of holiday events for
their small town, plus she had work, and the new palette from her favorite
makeup company released, so she’d had to film and edit a video reviewing it…
after she’d preordered it and waited for it to arrive.
Busy. Really busy. She liked to keep very busy.
“You probably should’ve listened to him,” Eli
pointed out, gazing back at her car.
“Well, I didn’t. Did you figure out what was
wrong with it?” she asked, trying not to focus on how very nice Eli’s ass
looked.
“You’re going to need to get it towed,” he said
simply. “Hop in my car. I’ll give you a lift to work.”
Not exactly how she planned to get close enough
to him to research who’d best fit him, but it would do. Cheerfully, she
followed him to his car and hopped in. She wasn’t that worried about her car,
but she was concerned with her projects.
And although Elijah Conrad might not realize it,
he was for sure her next project.
***
Mac’s little sister Veronica worked with him, but
for the most part, he hadn’t talked to her since high school. She was part of
the marketing and media team, so it wasn’t like he needed to interact with her
at work.
If he had his way, he probably wouldn’t interact
with anyone. His work took up most of his concentration—the mathematical
certainty of it all consuming his thoughts. Which was how he liked things.
Real life was uncertain—full of sticky emotional
and social interactions that he would rather not bother with, given his preference.
He hated the abstract, and feelings were almost always just that. Even knowing
that about himself, he had to admit he’d cast more than one glance in the
general direction of Veronica Murray.
He understood polar opposition, and Veronica was
likely as close to a living version of his opposite as humanly possible. Where
he was quiet and liked to take things in and consider them, she was constantly
talking, ever in motion, and seemed to light up whatever room she entered.
Which should’ve annoyed him. Usually, he found
that distractions were a bother. But something about Veronica always tugged his
eyes up from his computer screen or microscope. She had this hair, all wild and
platinum white, but with colored streaks that peek-a-boo-ed out when she
shifted and moved. Her pretty little oval face was always sparkling in some
way, whether it was some glittering color on her lips or some shocking splash
of vibrant hues around her already lovely eyes.
Her clothes seemed to be equally haphazard—from
boots with cartoon characters emblazoned on the leather to scarves of
surprising patterns. Always in motion, always glittering, she fascinated him on
some weird level he didn’t quite understand.
But the constant talking? He didn’t know how she
did it, to be honest. He almost always thought carefully before speaking,
considering his words and their possible impact before bothering to say a
thing.
She was like this stream of sound, rising and
falling in a way that soothed his ear yet was often more sound than words.
In the close confines of his car, the rattling
flow of chatter was surprisingly absent. Instead, she sat with her hands tucked
into her coat pockets and her eyes on the road ahead. One of her feet—this
time, clad in an almost knee-high boot of brilliant yellow—tapped on the floor,
and she practically twitched with energy.
“You’re awful quiet,” he pointed out as he turned
into their lot.
“I was thinking,” she answered, surprising him a
little. Based on his interactions—few though they might have been—with Veronica,
thinking before she spoke was something he would’ve figured she wasn’t a fan
of.
“About your car?” he began. An understandable
concern, as he didn’t have high hopes that her engine survived what looked like
severe neglect. “I can call a tow truck and have it taken to a garage for you—”
She waved a hand, face scrunching in annoyance.
That was something else he’d noticed about her. That pretty little face of hers
seemed a mirror to whatever mood or thought she might have. He wasn’t sure if
he’d ever met someone quite as expressive as Veronica, and he’d bet she sucked
at poker.
“I’m not worried about the car,” she muttered.
“You’re not?” He would be, if he was her. From
the looks of things, she’d been driving it either without oil or without an oil
change…
And, either way, she’d probably destroyed the
car.
“I was thinking about you,” she answered, hopping
out of the car on her side. He’d parked in his spot, and sat there for a second
after she’d gotten out, trying to decide why thinking about him would’ve caused
the consternation he’d noted on her face.
They were practically strangers, really. What
exactly was she thinking about him?
He met her gaze across the top of his car then
considered her petite face as a gust of wind caught and tousled her hair. That peek
of color popped out again—hot pink—and he wondered why he found it so damn
appealing.
“About me?” he said, at a loss.
“You’re single, right?” she replied.
He blinked at her, more than confused. Was she
asking him out? He couldn’t recall a time in his life when a woman had done
just that, so it would be novel. Would he say yes?
Part of him was curious about her—had been for
quite some time—but it probably would be a bad decision.
For one, she’d get bored with him pretty quickly.
She was so lively and colorful and vibrant. Compared to that, he was a dull
gray. A blob of dull gray.
He was the masculine equivalent of a potato.
For two, why would she? Because he happened to be
running late and saw that she was having car trouble?
She was still looking at him, so he locked the
car and ushered her toward the door. He wasn’t sure how to answer her
unexpected question, so he simply didn’t.
Once inside, she stomped her feet twice on the
rug and looked at him again. “Well, you didn’t answer? Are you seeing someone?”
He opened and closed his mouth, furrowing his
brows as he again tried to think of a single reason why she’d be asking.
He couldn’t come up with even one logical possible
reason.
“I’ll call for a tow and see about your car
getting into a mechanic,” he answered, heading toward his office. When in doubt, as his father used to
say, just don’t answer.
She dogged his steps, catching his arm before he
could hide behind his office door. “I forgot to say thank you,” she said.
She was shorter than him, he noticed. Not too
short for kissing, but shorter. “No problem,” he answered.
With that, he closed his office door and tried
really hard not to overthink possible reasons she would be curious about his
dating life. Better to focus on the tangible—get her car towed, into a shop,
alert her brother, and then back to work.
Math wasn’t abstract, it was logical and almost
always ended in a solid solution. Veronica Murray, however, was complicated.
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