2015 Rone Award Winner
★★★★½ InD’Tale Magazine
Digital ISBN 978-0-9862513-1-3
Print ISBN 978-0-9862513-0-6
Seeking peace while he decides between prestigious job offers, burned-out lawyer Matt Powell rents his boyhood vacation home at the Jersey shore on a nostalgic whim. However, discovering the lovely widow next door is his childhood best friend, Katie Vanburen, complicates everything. His old love for her hits hard, but this time around his feelings are anything but innocent. It’s decision time: the high-profile career he’s earned–or a life he never dreamed possible loving his girl next door.
Twenty years ago, Matt broke Katie’s teenaged heart when he vanished from her life after his parents’ divorce. She grew up, buried her childish dreams, and moved on. New dreams shattered with her unfaithful husband’s death, but now she’s a successful website designer and owns her beloved shore house. She’s delighted to renew their friendship, but unready to trust her heart again–even if Matt’s kisses tempt her beyond reason. But can her cracking defenses hold when Matt argues his case for love so eloquently, in bed and out?
Come fall in love at the shore!
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~ Excerpt ~
The Powell’s kitchen door squeaked open.
Katie peeked from behind the line of towels as a tall man stepped onto the landing.
Scanning about as if finding his bearings, he walked slowly down the stairs. He had short, curly, dark brown hair and sharp brows over a strong, straight nose. Broad shoulders filled the red polo shirt he wore untucked over loose khaki shorts, and he had long, muscular legs. At the bottom, he turned sharply, as if he knew she lurked behind the laundry. The strangest expression of longing filled his lean, intelligent face, and—
Complete déjà vu clobbered Katie as she raised her hand to give a neighborly wave. Pain warred with joy, strangling her greeting in her throat.
Matt? How could he be? Impossible, but this man had to be Matt. Katie pressed a hand over her wildly beating heart. Twenty years had passed, but the man was the spitting image of Edward Powell, Matt’s dad.
Why on earth hadn’t he come right over to say hello?
The delighted little girl in her burst through her shock and drove her bolting next door. She threw her arms around him. “Matt! Oh, it’s so good to see you!”
Several impressions struck Katie simultaneously through her dizzy joy. Matt felt astonishingly different in her hug. Of course he did, he’d grown taller and filled out since their last summer together twenty years ago when she’d hugged a boy goodbye. This Matt was all man, and he fit her exactly how a man should, rocking her with a wild, weird surge of enthusiastic craving.
However, while the marvel of his presence and her abruptly resuscitated libido burst and bounced through her, realization dawned that he stood stock-still in her arms. He should be hugging her back. Why wasn’t he hugging back?
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Come fall in love at the shore
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