Publisher: Red Adept Publishing
Release Date: February 13th 2017
Synopsis
Love is worth fighting for.
Alexa Wolving has just one rule: never give a guy a second chance. That works just fine in the safe life she’s built. In the charming town of Willowdale, her day job as a librarian balances perfectly with her evening job as a black belt instructor. But when she attracts the attention of a stalker, Alexa’s carefully built world begins to crumble.
Drew Cosimo knows he broke Alexa’s heart five years ago when he took his first Ranger assignment and disappeared from her life. Now that he’s out of the army, he’s moving back home to Willowdale. He’s not looking for a fight, but making peace would be easier if Alexa hadn’t told the entire town he was a money-grubbing jerk. Despite the tension between them, Drew is quick to offer his protection when a stalker forces Alexa from her home.
As the stalker’s attacks escalate, Alexa and Drew are forced to face their painful past and the simmering attraction between them. They must fight to save each other before everything they care about goes up in flames.
Excerpt
She stepped forward. “Clearly, I was wrong to challenge you. This all smells amazing.”
“An amazing meal for an amazing lady.” When she stopped short, Drew realized instantly that she took his comment as a compliment of her looks—and didn’t appreciate it. He plowed on. “What you did tonight, the way you handled yourself with your cats, you were amazing.”
Alexa flushed a little, but she continued to her chair and sat. Drew caught a scent of something citrusy as he pushed in her chair. Her hair fell in smooth waves of honey brown and looked incredibly touchable. She’d freshened up before she came out, he was sure of it, and his chest swelled a little that she’d taken the trouble. Drew took his own seat across from Alexa.
She cleared her throat, but her voice still sounded a little husky when she spoke. Maybe she was as nervous as he was. “What do we have here? I recognize some of these but don’t know their names.”
She sounded impressed, and Drew felt a flood of pride. “The one with the shrimp is couscous paella, and beside it is roasted eggplant and feta, which you can dip with pita chips. This orange soup is a pumpkin curry soup, and then of course there’s the salad, which has asiago cheese.”
“Wow.” Alexa’s eyes spoke her enjoyment, and she made an appreciative sound after popping in a chip full of the eggplant and feta.
Drew couldn’t help himself; he spooned up a bit of the pumpkin soup and passed it to her. “Here, try this.”
She barely hesitated before taking the bait, and when she did, her eyes flew wide open and her mouth made a sensuous little pout. “Mmm, that’s good!”
Drew grinned and just managed to stop himself from spoon-feeding it to her. He was getting way too much of a thrill out of feeding her. While he would like to think it was all motivated by a protective desire to follow Detective Rawlings’s orders and make sure Alexa ate, the burning in his groin said otherwise. He could watch her eat all evening without caring about his own food, if only she’d let him.
Alexa took another bite, again with obvious enjoyment. Down, boy! He hadn’t gotten where he was in life by following his baser instincts wherever they led him, and he wasn’t about to start now. He hadn’t even been thinking about the fact that Alexa still hated his guts and, moreover, had a stalker creep gunning for her. No way was he going to be the man she chose as her only alternative to a stalker.
Time for a little idle conversation to lighten things up. Too bad he sucked at chitchat. Drew cleared his throat. “It’s a good thing I made it to the store yesterday and had the pumpkin and eggplant on hand.
Otherwise, we would have had nothing but spaghetti.”
“Spaghetti’s good too,” Alexa said.
She puckered her lips as she blew on her soup, and Drew’s imagination instantly replaced the soup with her slurping on a long, skinny spaghetti noodle. He shifted in his seat.
“Where did you learn to cook like this?” Alexa asked.
Drew shrugged but mentally leapt at the chance to get his mind out of the gutter. “I spent time in the Mediterranean while on assignment, and I liked the food. While Dad was having chemo, he needed to eat, but he didn’t have much of an appetite, so I taught myself to cook. Dad always loved homemade European food.”
Alexa tilted her head, her eyes on his face. “Your dad spent a lot of time in Europe, I take it?”
Drew nodded. “We were based out of Europe for several years. Germany, Italy, Greece.”
“Is that when he took the photos? I saw some from Russia too. And one in Wales.” She added salad to her plate and dug in.
“You recognized the church in Wales?” Drew asked, impressed.
Alexa colored a bit. “I like to study history, and sometimes I look at travel magazines.”
He opened his mouth to ask if she would ever like to visit Wales but caught himself just in time. What was he thinking? It would sound as though he were asking her to go with him, and no way was that a good idea.
He took a quick bite of soup to cover his pause. “I think he took those trips after I was grown, though it’s hard to say.” Drew kept his tone casual and watched Alexa take a bite of salad. “He was MI, so we never knew for sure where he was on assignment.”
“MI–that’s military intelligence, right?” Alexa asked. “Aren’t those assignments pretty dangerous?”
Drew nodded. “Sometimes—though much of it is paperwork and analysis. But if he was doing any dangerous work in the field, he was always protected by Special Forces. That’s part of why I became a Ranger. As a Ranger, I was a part of the military teams that used to keep my dad safe.”
Alexa went still. “What a beautiful thought. Did your dad know that’s how you saw it?”
Drew shrugged a little uncomfortably. “I don’t know. Maybe. We swapped stories some, while I was taking care of him, but I don’t know if it ever came up.”
Nodding, Alexa took another bite, but Drew didn’t try to fill the conversation lull.
How was it that he’d just told Alexa something so personal that he’d never even explained it to his dad? Was it just because she was female and easier to talk to? Or was it something more? And if there was something more, what did that mean for him?
About the Author
Lily Black believes in true love, but is also quite sure going after it is the scariest thing we’ll ever do! She explores this dynamic in her romantic suspense novels, which are set in the small imaginary town of Willowdale, where people dream big, love deeply, and kick butt if necessary. She has a black belt in Chung Do Kwan Tai Kwon Do, and has also trained in everything from judo to broadswords. She lives in North Carolina, where she works as a content editor for a small publisher, and divides her free time between the mountains and the sea with her very patient and loving husband and their teen daughter. She is also the co-creator of the Book Ninjas’ Blush-O-Meter. Readers everywhere search the Book Ninjas’ online catalog for romance, YA and chicklit novels in all genres, and find books that match their preferred blush level!
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