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Thursday, April 30, 2015

Seduced by Sunday by Catherine Bybee [FYI, Upcoming]

Title: Seduced by  Sundaynday
Author: Catherine Bybee
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Genre: Contemporary Romance

Summary

Meg Rosenthal: Matchmaker by day, realist by night, Meg is not about to get swept away by a charming, darkly handsome businessman in a designer suit. She’s come to a beautiful secluded resort to evaluate the private island’s potential for her agency, not to ogle its owner. But there’s something about the magnetic man that’s hard to resist, even for a woman who refuses to fall in love.

Valentino Masini: A successful and drop-dead sexy businessman, Valentino is used to having the finer things in life. Yet he’s never wanted someone the way he wants Meg, who’s stirring up a hurricane of trouble in his heart. But just as he decides to convince her to stay, someone else decides it might be time to get Meg off the island…permanently.
                 
Excerpt

Val brushed the side of her face with the back of his hand, moved closer.

Meg stopped playing, felt her pulse jump.

“Where’s Michael?” Val whispered.

“Michael?” The name didn’t register.

Val lifted his left eyebrow. “The man you’re here with.”

Right. “He’s a …” Damn, he smelled edible.

Val’s palm captured her neck and guided her to her feet. “He’s just a friend, isn’t he, Margaret?”

The way Val’s lips moved drew her closer. The need to taste them, feel them on hers was impossible to walk away from. “If I told you we were more than friends…”

Val’s eyes traveled from her lips to her eyes. “Then I’d have to let you go.” He loosened his fingers on her neck, but instead of moving away, Meg leaned in.

“Sounds like you might regret that decision.” She laid a hand on his firm chest. The man wasn’t soft under his stuffy suits.

“I don’t pursue another man’s woman.”

He wasn’t moving away.

“Good to hear, Masini.” She lifted her lips close to his, felt his breath mix with hers. “I don’t belong to anyone.”

Val hesitated for a nanosecond, and then took her lips. His closed-mouth kiss started off soft, like a hesitant man worried about rushing. Yet when Val wrapped his free hand around her waist, and his body fit against hers, Meg opened for him, encouraged him to taste.

When he did she lost it. He tasted of bourbon and sex. God help her, she wanted to crawl into his kiss and explore it for hours. The man kissed like he was on a mission. And maybe he was. Who knew if Val Masini made it a weekly occurrence to kiss a new woman? Somehow, she didn’t think so. He was too reserved most of the time.

Not now … not with his tongue exploring her and his strong hands pressing the small of her back closer. Every hard ridge of the man met with every soft curve of hers.

The kiss went on until she found her chest tightening with a familiar warning. Sexual excitement had to be paced or she might find herself in a full-blow asthma attack. A frustrating fact of her life in the last few years. One that kept her single most of the time, her encounters lukewarm at best.

Val was threatening the air in her lungs with just a kiss.

A heated knock her on her ass kiss, but a kiss nonetheless.

She eased away and Val chased her lips.

She tried to slow her breathing, couldn’t catch a deep breath. “Wait,” she managed, pulling away.

“Too much, cara?”

You have no idea.



Author Biography

New York TimesUSA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Catherine Bybee not only has experience writing about mending hearts, but she’s also helped fix a few during her tenure as a registered nurse. These real-life experiences sometimes make their way into her books, giving her Weekday Brides and Not Quite series the personal touch that readers have come to adore. Born and raised in Washington State, she now writes full-time from her sunny home in Southern California.

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Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Spotlight: Sinful by Joan Johnston [FYI, Upcoming]



Casting call of who would play whom in SINFUL

This is a tough one! I just saw Scott Eastwood in The Longest Ride and kept falling into his eyes. The camera loves Clint Eastwood’s son, and I could sit and watch him on screen all day. Tall and lean and with a six-pack of abs and those killer eyes, I can easily imagine him playing Connor Flynn.

Kate Hudson would be spot on to play Eve Grayhawk. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, she has the sort of “moxy” I see in my character, who grew up as the youngest of King Grayhawk’s “Brats.”





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From beloved New York Times bestselling author Joan Johnston comes a sizzling contemporary Western romance beginning another chapter in the Bitter Creek series.

After a tragic accident takes Delta sergeant Connor Flynn's wife, he faces the toughest fight of his life-battling his in-laws for custody of his two young children. He needs a make-believe wife to take care of the kids while he runs his Wyoming ranch. Who better than a woman he already knows and likes-his late wife's best friend? Forced to live under the same roof, Eve must hide a love that has never died, while Connor fights his growing need for a woman who was forbidden fruit during his marriage. Can two lonely people set adrift by fate and haunted by guilt find redemption in the healing embrace of love?

About Joan:

Joan Johnston (born Little Rock, Arkansas) is a best-selling American author of over forty contemporary and historical romance novels.

Johnston was the third of seven children born to an Air Force sergeant and his music-teacher wife. She received a B.A. in theatre arts from Jacksonville University in 1970, then earning an M.A. in theatre from the University of Illinois, Urbana in 1971. She received a law degree (with honors) at the University of Texas at Austin in 1980. For the next five years, Johnston worked as an attorney, serving with the Hunton & Williams firm in Richmond, Virginia, and with Squire, Sanders, & Dempsey in Miami. She has also worked as a newspaper editor and drama critic in San Antonio, Texas, and as a college professor at Southwest Texas Junior College, Barry University, and the University of Miami.


Also, enjoy an excerpt from the book-

CHAPTER 1 – SINFUL BY JOAN JOHNSTON
Her name was Eve. Not Evelyn or Eveline or Evette. Just Eve. The day she was born, her father, King Grayhawk, took one look at her large blue eyes, soft blond curls, and bowed upper lip and whispered, “Eve.” Apparently, she reminded him of some woman he’d fallen in love with as a younger man. That Eve, he’d declared, was the only woman he had ever loved.
Those words, spoken as her mother lay recovering from labor, must have been the final insult, because Eve was still a babe in arms when her mom ran off with one of King’s cowhands. Eve had grown up with the knowledge that her birth had caused a terrible rift between her parents. That marital fracture had left her and her fraternal twin sisters, Taylor and Victoria, and their older stepsister, Leah, as motherless children.
Eve felt burdened by her name. It didn’t help that she shared it with the woman who’d tempted Adam to sin in the Garden of Eden. In high school she was teased and taunted as she began to acquire seductive curves. She was sure one of those pain-in-the-butt Flynn brothers had started it, but the other boys had quickly followed his lead.
“Show me an apple, and I’ll eat it,” a boy would say, “so long as you come along with it, Eve.” Or, “Too bad you ate that apple, Eve, or we’d all still be running around naked,” followed by a lurid grin.

She’d gotten pretty good at sending back zingers like, “If God had seen you naked, Buck, He might have decided He made a real mistake only taking out a rib.” But the constant innuendo made Eve’s teenage life miserable.
That was the least of the trouble those four awful Flynn brothers—Aiden, Brian, Connor, and Devon—had caused her and her sisters over the years.
From her father’s rants at supper, Eve had known he was feuding with Angus Flynn. It wasn’t until she was eight years old that she understood why. Angus’s older sister, Jane, had been King’s first wife, and Angus blamed King for his unhappy sister’s death from an overdose of barbiturates. Eve had no idea whether her father was innocent or not, but he was sorely tried by Angus’s efforts to blight his life.
The animosity should have remained between their fathers, but it had bled onto their children. Angus Flynn’s four sons were infamous around Jackson Hole for wreaking havoc and causing mischief. After their aunt Jane died, as though a switch had been flipped, the Flynn brothers began aiming all that tomfoolery toward Eve and her sisters. It didn’t take long before King’s Brats, who’d done their own share of troublemaking around Jackson Hole, were giving as good as they got from those wild Flynn boys.
Eve could remember vividly the year fourteen-year-old Leah’s blueberry pie had been mysteriously doused with salt at the Four-H competition. Her stepsister had retaliated by shaving the flank of fourteen-year-old Aiden’s Four-H calf so it looked like it had the mange.
Some of the mischief she and her sisters perpetrated was merely a nuisance. Like putting an ad in the paper for a cattle auction at the Flynn ranch, the Lucky 7, beginning at 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning, offering their prize bull for sale, when no such auction existed.
Eve had helped Taylor and Victoria punch a tiny hole in the gas tank of Brian’s truck, so that when he and Devon headed off to hunt deer in the mountains, where there was no cell phone reception, they’d ended up making a long, bitterly cold walk back to civilization.
The Flynns had retaliated by placing slices of bologna in a vulgar design on the hood of Taylor and Victoria’s cherry-red Jeep Laredo. The next morning, when her sisters pulled the deli meat off the hood, the preservatives in the bologna caused the top layer of paint to come off as well, leaving the distinct imprint of male genitalia.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if the pranks had remained physically harmless. They hadn’t. When Eve was a freshman in high school, the cinch of her saddle had been cut before a barrel race at a local rodeo, and she’d broken her arm when the saddle broke free. Eve could remember how enraged Leah was in the moments before the ambulance carted her away. The Flynn boys were competing at the same rodeo in calf roping. They should have known to check their cinches, but Eve supposed they hadn’t expected Leah to retaliate so quickly. When Aiden roped a calf his cinch broke—along with his leg.
The mischief escalated into attacks involving other people. Taylor’s and Victoria’s prom dates were kidnapped by a couple of boys wearing hoods, who tied them to a tree so they never showed up. The twins were devastated. The fallout afterward was even worse. The kidnapped boys made it clear that it wasn’t worth the trouble to date a Grayhawk when it meant putting up with all the horseshit being shoveled by those crazy Flynn boys.
Since Eve had lived in the same small town her whole life, the “harmless” high school prank involving her name had been a continuing source of irritation. Most of the kids who’d gone to high school with her still lived in Jackson, and there was always some jerk who couldn’t resist prodding her, hoping to get under her skin.
Like now.
Eve wasn’t looking to hook up or make waves. All she wanted to do was sit at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar on the square in Jackson, along with the tourists who’d come to enjoy the last of the black-diamond ski season on the Grand Tetons, review the digital photographs she’d taken that day of the herd of wild mustangs she’d rescued, and enjoy her martini.
“Is that an apple martini, Eve?” a man called from behind her.

Eve turned to find Buck Madison, the former Jackson Broncs quarterback, grinning like an idiot at one of the pool tables in the center of the bar. Two of his former teammates stood shoulder to shoulder with him, giggling like teenage girls. All three were obviously drunk. She purposefully turned her attention back to the digital shot of the only colt in her herd. With any luck, Buck would give up and shut up. 
Eve smiled as she studied the image of Midnight frolicking with his mother, his black mane and tail flying, his back arched, and all four hooves off the ground.
“You look good enough to tempt a man to sin, Eve.

Buck’s voice was loud in a bar that had suddenly become quiet. Eve shut off her camera and laid it on the bar as she dismounted the Western saddle on a stand—complete with stirrups—that served as a bar stool. She glanced at Buck in the mirror over the bar as she gathered her North Face fleece from where it hung off the saddle horn. She wasn’t going to get into a war of words with a drunk. It was a lose-lose proposition. She had one arm through her fleece when Buck stripped it back off, dangling it from his forefinger. 
“Uh, uh, uh,” he said, wagging the finger holding the fleece. “I’m not done looking yet.”
She turned to confront Buck, her chin upthrust, her blue eyes shooting daggers of disdain. “I’m done being ogled. Give me my coat.”
She held out her hand and waited.
She felt a wave of resentment toward the Flynns, who’d started that whole Garden of Eden business in the first place. She couldn’t help the fact that she’d developed a lush female figure in high school. At twenty-six, she’d made peace with her body. There was no easy way to conceal her curves, so she didn’t try. But she did nothing to emphasize them, either.
She was dressed in a plaid western shirt that was belted into a pair of worn western jeans. She had on scuffed cowboy boots, but instead of a Stetson, she usually wore a faded navy-blue-and-orange Denver Broncos ball cap. She’d left the cap in her pickup, but her chin-length, straw-blond hair was tucked behind her ears to keep it out of her way.
“My coat?” she said.
As she reached for it, Buck pulled it away. “How about a kiss first?”
Eve had opened her mouth to retort when a brusque male voice said, “Give the lady her coat.”
Eve hadn’t heard anyone coming up behind her, which surprised her. She photographed wild animals in their natural habitat and prided herself on her awareness of her surroundings. In the wilderness, missing the slightest sound could result in being bitten by a rattler or attacked by a bear or mountain lion. She glanced over her shoulder and felt her heart skip a beat when she recognized her unlikely savior.
Connor Flynn.

Connor was third in line of the Flynn brothers, but he’d been at the top of the teenage troublemaking list. He was thirty now but, if anything, his reputation was worse. He’d done three tours as a Delta sergeant in Afghanistan before leaving the military with several medals to prove his heroism in battle. 
He’d paid a high price for his long absences from home serving his country. A year ago his wife, Molly, who’d been Eve’s best friend, had died in a car accident while Connor was overseas. After the funeral, he’d agreed to let Molly’s parents take his kids into their home while he served the nine months left on his final tour of duty.
Now they were threatening to keep them.
Connor had ended up in a court battle to get his two-year-old son and four-year-old daughter back. So far he hadn’t been able to wrench them away from his late wife’s parents. They’d argued to a judge that Connor was a battle-weary soldier, a victim of post-traumatic stress, and therefore a threat to his children. According to all the psychological tests he’d been forced to endure to prove them wrong, he was fine. But seeing him now, Eve wondered for the very first time if Molly’s parents might not be completely off the mark.
Connor looked dangerous, his sapphire-blue eyes hooded, his cheeks and chin covered with at least a two-day-old beard, and a hank of his rough-cut, crow-wing-black hair resting on his scarred forehead. His lips had thinned to an ominous line.
If she’d been Buck, she would have handed over the coat in a heartbeat. But Buck wasn’t known for his smarts.

“Butt out!” Buck said. “This is between me and Eve.”
Without warning, Connor’s hand shot out and gripped Buck’s throat. Buck dropped the coat to protect his neck, but Connor didn’t let go. His inexorable grasp was slowly choking the big man to death. Even using both hands, Buck couldn’t get free.

Eve looked around the bar, expecting someone, anyone, to intervene. No one did. She wouldn’t have interfered except she knew that Connor might be turning the lock and throwing away the key where custody of his kids was concerned. She didn’t step in for Connor’s sake. Ordinarily she wouldn’t have thrown a glass of water to douse a Flynn on fire. But she cared very much about the future well-being of her dead friend’s children, who needed their father alive and well and out of jail.

Saturday, April 25, 2015

My Not So Super Sweet Life by Rachel Harris

Author:  Rachel Harris
Series: My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century
Number: 3
Number of pages: 190
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Date published: 21 April 2014
Buy on: AmazonAmazon UK


Rating: 4 stars

"Cat Crawford just wants to be normal—or at least as normal as a daughter of Hollywood royalty can be. And it looks like fate is granting her wish: she’s got an amazing boyfriend, Lucas; her fabulous cousin, Ale


ssandra, living with her; and her dad planning his second marriage to a great future stepmom. That is, until her prodigal mother reveals on national television that she has something important to tell her daughter…causing a media frenzy.

Lucas Capelli knows his fate is to be with Cat, and he’s worked hard to win her over once and for all. Unfortunately, Lucas has his own issues to deal with, including a scandal that could take him away from the first place he’s truly belonged.

As secrets are revealed, rumors explode, and the world watches, Cat and Lucas discover it’s not fate they have to fight if they want to stay together…this time, it’s their own insecurities.

Well, and the stalkerazzi."


Review:





A review copy was provided by Entangled through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 
Author:  Rachel Harris
Series: My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century
Number: 3
Number of pages: 190
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Date published: 21 April 2014
Buy on: AmazonAmazon UK


Rating: 4 stars

"Cat Crawford just wants to be normal—or at least as normal as a daughter of Hollywood royalty can be. And it looks like fate is granting her wish: she’s got an amazing boyfriend, Lucas; her fabulous cousin, Ale


ssandra, living with her; and her dad planning his second marriage to a great future stepmom. That is, until her prodigal mother reveals on national television that she has something important to tell her daughter…causing a media frenzy.

Lucas Capelli knows his fate is to be with Cat, and he’s worked hard to win her over once and for all. Unfortunately, Lucas has his own issues to deal with, including a scandal that could take him away from the first place he’s truly belonged.

As secrets are revealed, rumors explode, and the world watches, Cat and Lucas discover it’s not fate they have to fight if they want to stay together…this time, it’s their own insecurities.

Well, and the stalkerazzi."


Review:

My not so super sweet life is about Lucas and Cat. It is also about the closer Cat needs in order to solve, as much as possible, her different issues form "My Super Sweet Sixteenth century".

I loved it. I loved how Cat got over Lorenzo, how logan is his look alike but not the same and I loved their relationship together. I loved how she got over her trust issues one baby step at a time and how he faced his problems.

Rachel Harris's series is the kind the deals with real issues with real characters and the guys are mouthwatering, the girls' alliance is real and the messages are positive.

4 stars for the book and 4.5 I'd love you for eternity and through the barriers of time stars for the whole series. Really, this is something I think every teen girl should read.
A review copy was provided by Entangled through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 


Thursday, April 23, 2015

A Tale Of Two Centuries by Rachel Harris


Author:  Rachel Harris
Series: My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century
Number: 2
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Date published:  6 August 2013
Buy on: AmazonAmazon UK


Rating: 4 stars

"Alessandra D’Angeli is in need of an adventure. Tired of her sixteenth-century life in Italy and homesick for her time-traveling cousin, Cat, who visited her for a magical week and dazzled her with tales of the future, Alessandra is lost. Until the stars hear her plea.

One mystical spell later, Alessandra appears on Cat’s Beverly Hills doorstep five hundred years in the future. Surrounded by confusing gadgets, scary transportation, and scandalous clothing, Less is hesitant to live the life of a twenty-first century teen…until she meets the infuriating—and infuriatingly handsome—surfer Austin Michaels. Austin challenges everything she believes in…and introduces her to a world filled with possibility.

With the clock ticking, Less knows she must live every moment of her modern life while she still can. But how will she return to the drab life of her past when the future is what holds everything she’s come to love?"


Review

Between This and the first book in the series I liked this one better. Maybe because it's heavier on the romance, but even then the romance is quite light, and so very cute :)

I really liked Alessandra with her self discovery, and the way she saw modern days through her 16th century maiden eyes.

I loved the friendship between her and Cat, I loved her relationship with Austin- the supposed and self proclaimed bad boy.

But even more than that, what I love most about this series is that Cat and Alessandra and their friendship and their relationships with their boyfriends are an example to how you CAN be yourself, and how friendship and relationship SHOULD BE.

In a world where there are so many insecurities, self doubts and stupidity is celebrating more than ever. Where most MCs in books are TSTL and dependant on men, where a hot guy that stalks you is a hot guy so WHAT do I care if he stalks me when he's hot? where many of the relationships portrayed in books are abusive to some degree. I think that Cat, Alessandra, Austin and Lucas are a role model as to how to have friendship and a relationship between partners. As to how to be kind, supportive and yourself. How to deal with real life issues- from fitting in to family issues.

I loved it. Someday, when I'm older and have kids I'd like my kids to read this series.

Monday, April 20, 2015

My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century by Rachel Harris


Author:  Rachel Harris
Series: My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century
Number: 1
Number of pages: 260
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Date published: 18 September 2012
Buy on: AmazonAmazon UK


Rating: 4 stars

"On the precipice of her sixteenth birthday, the last thing lone wolf Cat Crawford wants is an extravagant gala thrown by her bubbly stepmother and well-meaning father. So even though Cat knows the family’s trip to Florence, Italy, is a peace offering, she embraces the magical city and all it offers. But when her curiosity leads her to an unusual gypsy tent, she exits . . . right into Renaissance Firenze.

Thrust into the sixteenth century armed with only a backpack full of contraband future items, Cat joins up with her ancestors, the sweet Alessandra and protective Cipriano, and soon falls for the gorgeous aspiring artist Lorenzo. But when the much-older Niccolo starts sniffing around, Cat realizes that an unwanted birthday party is nothing compared to an unwanted suitor full of creeptastic amore. Can she find her way back to modern times before her Italian adventure turns into an Italian forever?"


Review:

I have to admit I was surprised by this one. I was so sure it will be just another easy fluffy read and instead I discovered yet another author to love. 

This story deals with issues like; speaking your mind, accepting yourself, accepting that sometimes things change. 

There is cute romance here and friendship. 

I think what I loved most was the fact that it never got dark even when it dealt with some serious subjects, It was so matter-of-factly I liked that. 

While reading the book I kept on thinking "This is the kind of book I'd like my daughters to read (when I'll have kids). It will give them a positive message and will show them that it's allright to be yourself."

It has been months since I read the book so I can't write an article any more. However, I still remember the feeling I had- and that was a fantastic one!

Friday, April 17, 2015

Spotlight: The Truth About Us by Janet Gurtler [FYI, Upcoming]


Janet Gurtler
The Truth about Us
Sourcebooks Fire  April 7, 2015
ISBN 9781402278006  Trade Paper/$9.99 U.S.  Ages 14+
Praise for Janet Gurtler
“Just right for fans of Sarah Dessen and Jodi Picoult.” —Booklist
“Powerful…a gripping read.” —VOYA
Flynn’s from the wrong side of the tracks, but he may be just right for Jess…
The truth is that Jess knows she’s screwed up. She’s made mistakes, even betrayed her best friend, and now she’s paying for it. Her dad is making her spend the whole summer volunteering at the local soup kitchen.
The truth is that she wishes she was the carefree party girl everyone thinks she is. She pretends it’s all fine. That her “perfect” family is fine. But it’s not. And no one notices the lie…until she meets Flynn. He’s the only one who really sees her. The only one who really listens.
The truth is that Jess is falling apart, and no one seems to care. But Flynn is the definition of “the wrong side of the tracks.” When Jess’s parents look at him, they only see their differences, not how much she and Flynn need each other. They don’t get that the person who shouldn’t fit into your world might just be the one who makes you feel like you belong.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
RITA Award finalist Janet Gurtler’s young adult books have been chosen for the Junior Library Guild Selection and as Best Books For Teens from the Canadian Children’s Book Center. She has had her writing compared to Judy Blume and Jodi Picoult and that makes her happy. She has volunteered at a few soup kitchens and hopes to do more. Giving back is so important. Janet lives in Okotoks, Alberta, Canada, with her husband, son, and a chubby black Chihuahua named Bruce. Visit her at www.janet-gurtler.com. Or connect on Facebook or Twitter @janetgurtler.



The Truth About Us
By Janet Gurtler
Sourcebooks Fire
April, 7 2015
Praise for Janet Gurtler
                                “Just right for fans of Sarah Dessen and Jodi Picoult.” –Booklist
                                 “Powerful…a gripping read.” VOYA
Book Info:
Flynn’s from the wrong side of the tracks, but he may be just right for Jess…
The truth is that Jess knows she’s screwed up. She’s made mistakes, even betrayed her best friend, and now she’s paying for it. Her dad is making her spend the whole summer volunteering at the local soup kitchen.
The truth is that she wishes she was the carefree party girl everyone thinks she is. She pretends it’s all fine. That her “perfect” family is fine. But it’s not. And no one notices the lie…until she meets Flynn. He’s the only one who really sees her. The only one who really listens.
The truth is that Jess is falling apart, and no one seems to care. But Flynn is the definition of “the wrong side of the tracks.” When Jess’s parents look at him, they only see their differences, not how much she and Flynn need each other. They don’t get that the person who shouldn’t fit into your world might just be the one who makes you feel like you belong.
Amazon | Apple | B&N | BAM |!ndigoIndieBound | Kindle
JANET GURTLER:
RITA Award finalist Janet Gurtler’s young adult books have been chosen for the Junior Library Guild Selection and as Best Books For Teens from the Canadian Children’s Book Center. She has had her writing compared to Judy Blume and Jodi Picoult and that makes her happy. She has volunteered at a few soup kitchens and hopes to do more. Giving back is so important. Janet lives in Okotoks, Alberta, Canada, with her husband, son, and a chubby black Chihuahua named Bruce.








Excerpt:
The greenhouse is sort of shaped like an old barn. It’s opaque with plastic and steel siding. The door is open, and I follow Wilf inside and pause and then breathe it in. The smell nourishes me. Moist air fills my lungs. I’ve forgotten how much the scents of greenery soothe me. It reminds me of different times. Simpler times.
“Nice,” I tell him, looking around at rows of plants on tabletops and plants stacked on the floor. I realize I’ve missed the satisfaction of nurturing plants.
There’s a man on a ladder in the middle of the greenhouse, fixing a shelf, with his back to us. A little boy stands at the bottom of the ladder, watching. Wilf walks over and pats his head and kneels down to his level. “How are ya, big guy?”
The little boy stands taller and giggles and holds out his hand. He’s got it wrapped tightly around a plastic blue train.
The man on the ladder turns and looks down at me. My heart stops.
It’s not a man at all. It’s him.
Flynn.

My face burns.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
Wilf frowns and then looks at me. “What’s up with you kids these days? In my time, we treated nice--looking young ladies with respect,” he says to Flynn gruffly. “Flynn, this is Jess. She volunteers here.”
I say a silent thank--you to him for calling me nice--looking and glance back at Flynn.
“Since when?” he asks.
“Since now. How about, ‘hello, nice to meet you’?” Wilf says to prompt both of us. “Is that so hard?”
“We’ve already met,” Flynn says.
My cheeks stay on fire as he climbs down the ladder.
“The shelf is fixed,” he says to Wilf. “Slumming?” he adds to me as he jumps to the floor. He folds up the ladder and then leans it against a counter lined with plants.
The little boy stares back and forth.
I try to think of something light and witty to save the moment, but my mind is blank. Instead, I panic. “What’d you do to get stuck working at this place?” I say, channeling my inner Nance.
“What’d I do?” He stares at me and then his lips turn up. “I didn’t have the right daddy, I guess. I’m here to have lunch. With my little brother. I’m not a volunteer.”
My stomach drops. Fail. Epic fail.


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