Here’s a quick look at Red Hot Reunion.
Excerpt One:
Hope let her mind drift back to high school and inwardly cringed as she remembered the chubby girl she used to be: sixty pounds overweight with hand me down clothes that never seemed to fit quite right and an aching sadness that never seemed to go away.
She had been a frequent target for the popular girls. They had ridiculed her weight, her second-hand clothes, and the fact that she lived in the Elwell trailer park.
There had been many days when she had gotten home from school and went into her bedroom to cry. She hated them, hated school, but she hated living in the old, rundown single wide the most. Taking charity and never feeling like she was enough.
She knew her mother had done her best, pulling double shifts at the diner, but she had barely earned enough money to scrape by each month.
Hope had offered to get a job to help out, but her mother firmly declined. She had insisted that Hope stay focused on school and study hard so she could get a scholarship. It was the only way she could go to college.
When Hope graduated, she had a full ride to Texas A&M. She chose to major in computer science and had taken extra software engineering classes. Now, ten years later, she was successful and had been able to move her mother into a small apartment close to hers.
She was proud of her accomplishments, but still harbored strong feelings of resentment for the girls who had made her high school years a living hell. Especially the ring leader, Brittany Derwin, who had repeatedly called her fat trailer park trash.
Hope gritted her teeth and added an extra mile to her daily run.
Excerpt Two:
They walked side by side down the sidewalk, chatting easily and glancing into store windows. Hope stopped to admire a necklace and heard someone calling her name. She looked back to see Delia hurrying towards them and swore softly.
“I thought it was you! Hi, Flynn. Are you two having a date night?”
“We are,” Flynn confirmed, draping an arm around Hope’s shoulders and giving her a reassuring squeeze.
“Excellent! Matt and I are going to do a bit of last minute shopping before our honeymoon cruise. We leave Wednesday. He’ll be here in a minute; he’s parking the car,” Delia chattered on. “Why don’t you join us? We can grab a bite to eat after.”
Hope forced herself to smile. “We just ate,” she declined, “and were about to head back home. I have an early-morning business meeting.”
“Some other time, then.”
“Some other time,” Hope echoed.
Delia burst into laughter as her husband walked up. “Hope Mathison, you’re a liar. There is no meeting, is there? But it’s okay. I get it. You still don’t like me. One day we’ll be friends.”
Hope waited patiently while Flynn and Matt chatted for a few minutes. Her breath exploded into a whoosh of relief when they were finally able to walk away.
Flynn firmly kept his arm around her shoulders as they made it to her car. “A date isn’t a bad idea,” he said quietly. “A real date, Hope.”
Hope froze. “Why?” she whispered.
Flynn cupped her face, his thumbs grazing her cheekbones, and slowly lowered his lips to hers.
His kiss brought her senses to life. Heat spread through her, and her eyes closed as she let him deepen the kiss. Her fingers closed around his wrists as pleasure bloomed. When he raised his mouth from hers, she was filled with an aching need for more.
They were both breathless as Flynn stepped back. “That’s why,” he told her, his voice low and edged with passion. “We’re attracted to each other. Why can’t we explore that? Just think about it, and I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Red Hot Reunion is a Kindle Worlds novella and is only available on Amazon. You can pick it up for 1.99
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