While reunions stir love and lust in a romance, they also stir conflict as the characters’ individual goals and plans collide.
To those around her, artist Kay seems a happy free-spirit. However, she hides the pain of her childhood and dysfunctional family from everyone. For her, love is only true in fairytales and friendship is all she will allow. She believes she is content with the quiet, organized life she’s made for herself and the peaceful, friends-with-benefits relationship with Nate.
Nate’s photography career keeps him abroad most of the year, and that very absence has helped make him the one man who’s been able to get past Kay’s wary heart. However, despite his love of travel and adventure, Nate longs for commitment and settling down. Coming from a close, loving family, Nate believes love is forever and Kay is his forever.
Naturally, this leads to a few problems.
Excerpt –
Nate took a long swallow of the beer he didn’t really want. So, how did he fix this mess he’d made?
Night had settled in, the music long ended, and everyone sat kicked back in beach chairs. They’d hang out yacking and joking along until they couldn’t keep their eyes open, as they did every year. He couldn’t relax. Kay had abandoned his lap for the chair beside him. He let his hand stray over to rest on her arm, tracing his fingers over her skin. He just wanted to get her alone. So they could relax.
So they could talk.
Trouble was, everyone always made talking out a problem sound like it was so simple and solved everything, but actually doing it, and securing the desired outcome without screwing up, seemed about as easy as rowing upriver with a teaspoon.
Their future was on the line here. Big stakes.
And to be honest, as much as he wanted answers, he was too damned tired. His nap in the afternoon had been nice, but nowhere near the real rest he needed. He just wanted to crash with Kay in his arms, stop worrying, and sleep.
Question was, would he be sleeping with Kay tonight, or on the Whisper by himself? He’d planned to move the Whisper around to her cove in the morning.
A stifled yawn from Kay was his cue. He downed his beer and stood. He made his voice come as casually as he could. “Walk you back to camp? I’m majorly jet-lagged and need to crash.”
He got some guffaws and heckling from their friends. He laughed and ribbed them right back. Just like old times.
He held out his hand. Come on, let me go with you. Let me work this out.
Kay set her hand in his, regarding him with uncertain eyes. “Yeah, it’s late.” She stood and waved to their friends, giving them a smile. “We’ll see you all in the morning. Sleep tight.”
The conversation of the camp faded behind them as they hiked their way up the hill and along the trail to Kay’s camp.
Stars powdered the dark sky above. Their footsteps on the dry, rocky ground crunched along, loud in the quiet above the faint lapping of the lake over gravel and sand below. Bats winged in dark blurs.
He gave her hand a soft squeeze. She squeezed back.
They reached the bottom of the trail into her camp. “Kay””” What he wanted to say crowded his head. Apology, plea, demand all snarled in his mind, clogged in his throat. Shit.
She backed a step away. “Nate, honestly, I need space on this.”
“Is it because I asked wrong? I fumbled that.”
Great, now you sound even lamer.
She sighed and looked away. “No, that’s not why. I never planned on ever marrying, anyone.”
A chill, sick sinking plummeted through him. “I believe we can make it work.”
“But I don’t know if I believe it.” She turned to him, her expression despairing and confused.
His heart clenched. Was he dealing with far heavier stuff here than her merely having cold feet about their relationship? He’d never imagined”¦She’d never been married, so it couldn’t be mental shit from a bad marriage and divorce like JoAnn had gone through””
Hell, could it be worse? His mind choked on worse. Assaulted? Abused? No, as a survivor of an abusive relationship, and very protective of Kay, JoAnn would have warned him if he’d been wandering into that territory. They’d never said anything more than a simple “be careful, don’t hurt her,” no different from the casual “be careful” conversation he’d had a few years ago with his now brother-in-law, Zeke. Right?
Except Kay had pride and she never talked much, if ever, about deeply private things. So if some shit like that had happened, what if she didn’t tell anyone? Shit.
How little he really knew about this woman he loved staggered him. Together, they’d always been so in sync, in bed and out. They’d talked so easily online over the years while apart. He was such a fool. Everything had been so easy. He’d never thought.
For a moment, a blind rush of anger punched through him. He wasn’t much for using his fists, subscribing to the lover, not a fighter theory of life, but he’d happily beat the crap out of the asshole who’d hurt her and left her so damned skittish and sad.
With no clue what else to do, he caught her hand and gathered her close. She tensed, but he just wrapped his arms loosely around her, enough to hold her where he needed her. A long knife-edged moment, and then with a nod, she slid her arms around his waist and rested her head against his shoulder.
“I swear you can talk to me, Kay. No matter what the problem.” Please, let that be true. He stroked his hand over her hair, nuzzled her cheek, and brushed a kiss to her forehead. “Like always. Anything. Anytime. Talk to me.”
She sighed and, little by little, with each breath, relaxed against him.
So how did he go about convincing Kay, heck, coercing her, into admitting she loved him like he knew she did? Damn it, he knew she did. How did he dig out and fix what hurt her? Twelve days, he only had twelve days.
And what the hell are you going to do if you fail?
No. He couldn’t deal with that thought right now. No wasn’t an option. Somehow, he’d figure this out.
She’d asked for space. Giving her space was the last thing he wanted. His raw, fresh fear demanded he hold tight. He cleared his throat, not wanting to hear her possible answer, but needing to ask, to do the right thing and be fair. “Do you want me to sleep on the Whisper tonight?”
His heart hovered in his throat for the several steps they walked along between his asking and her answer.
“No. I want you to stay.”
Thank you, God.
Just don’t screw up again, Quinn.
“Let’s get some sleep, okay?” He’d figure it out. Somehow. He caressed his hands over her shoulders, ignoring his body’s rousing leap at the idea of being in bed with Kay.
Give it a rest, dude. Whatever the hell she wasn’t talking about wasn’t going to be fixed with sex.
He lit the lantern. The intense white glow drove back the shadows but ruined their night sight, making the dark beyond deeper. He pulled his toiletry kit from his backpack. Getting ready for bed was so comfortably familiar. They fell into their joint routine as if a year hadn’t gone by: teeth brushed, a last piss, faces washed, swimsuits stripped off, rinsed and hung to dry.
He thought of the master bathroom in his new house and its two huge windows to the lush green of the yard and the blue Pacific beyond. It’d be like bathing in the Garden of Eden. He’d stood in that room and seen Kay and himself there, as clear as he saw her now as she unbraided her hair and brushed out the tangles.
God willing, and if he didn’t mess this all up anymore, he would.
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Come fall in love at the river
Blurb
What’s a girl to do when her summer lover wants forever?
Haunted by dark memories of her parents’ volatile marriage, artist Kay Browning keeps her heart locked behind a free-spirit facade and contents herself with the comfortable affair she has every summer with easygoing photographer Nate Quinn.
The only trouble with her plan? This summer Nate’s come to Lake Mohave to claim the lover he can’t let go. He’s done with the endless traveling and settling for temporary homes and temporary loves. Kay’s always been more than just a vacation fling, and now he must convince this woman, who sees love as a course to certain heartbreak, to take that leap of faith and learn how safe love with the right man can be.
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