I just 1 week LOVE MATCH releases into the book reading world and I am stoked and excited!!
SO, of course, today’s teaser is a little snippet from the book.And a familiar face pops up here.
“Hey, kids. Happy Happy,” Kick Loomis said, leaning over the bar so he could be heard. Befitting the occasion, he was wearing a black t-shirt with colored suspenders over it emblazed with Happy New Year and the year running up them. “What are ya drinking? I’ve got a few specials going tonight.”
Surprise shot through him when Layla ordered the champagne cocktail to his beer.
“What?” she asked when she smacked her lips and groaned after the first sip and found him staring at her mouth. “I love champagne and this is good.”
Kick overheard her, grinned, and gave her a thumbs-up before making his way down the bar.
I’m getting all the final edits together for LOVE MATCHto release on May 21st so I decided to give you a little tease today on what’s to come between the pages.
First, this is a slow burn, small-town, small-town boy, cinnamon roll hero, careerwoman heroine love story. The intimacy is behind closed doors and the emotions are high.
But…it still has some lightheartedness, lest you think it is a heavy tome. LOL
This scene is Layla’s re-introduction to the home she spent many happy childhood summers in. The place needs some…fixing up, to say the least.
Her expectations of a hot shower went out the window after two minutes, naked and lathered up inside the claw-footed tub when the water suddenly switched to ice cold. Shrieking like a banshee running for the hills, she turned the knob all the way to the left, then right, in a feeble attempt to heat the stream up again.
No luck.
Switching the shower off, she grabbed a towel, shaking like a naked maraca, her hair still dripping with shampoo, some of it running into her eyes, wrapped herself into it and climbed out of the tub. She flipped on the sink hot water tap and as soon as she felt the temperature go warm, shoved her head underneath it to rinse her hair. She considered it an actual miracle she got the shampoo all out before the tap went icy like the shower.
Layla never got toweled off and dressed so fast in her life. With her hair slung up in a twisty towel and her cold and still shaking body now clothed, she turned the shower hot water tap again just to see what would happen. Cold water continued to flow even after three minutes.
“So much for that promised hot shower,” she mumbled as she donned thick socks.
Down in the kitchen, the unwashed dishes and wine glasses from last night’s dinner were propped on the counter. She tried the sink tap and found the same issue. No hot water.
Back in her bedroom she tugged her laptop case from the floor and pulled out the notebook she routinely used when making notes for a client and wrote at the top of a clean page hot water tank.
Might as well see what else needs fixing.
“But first, tea.”
Back in the kitchen, she found her grannie’s old metal teapot, the one she remembered using as a teenager, filled it with the cold water and then put it on the stove. When she turned on the flame knob, the persistent clicking sound indicated the pilot light needed to be engaged.
Rolling her eyes, she found matches in a side drawer, struck one, and then lit it, forgetting that she’d turned the knob to high heat status. A burst of red-hot flames ringed around the burner. Jumping back with another shriek, Layla lost her grip on the match, and it fell, still lit, to the floor. Before it could damage the faded linoleum, she stomped it out with her foot, forgetting she wore only socks.
As the subtle burn scorched through the wool, stinging her foot, she jumped up on the other and grabbed the now scorched one, letting loose with a stream of curses her mother would have fainted at if she’d been within hearing distance.
Once the stinging stopped, she dropped her foot and placed the tea kettle on the now-lit burner after regulating it down to a medium/low flame.
On a sigh, she muttered, “Why the heck did I think this was a good idea?”
While the water heated, she wrote stove on her list, then added linoleum under it.
Watching a kettle boil wasn’t the most exciting thing in the world, so Layla puttered around the kitchen to discover what else needed attention or updating.
Before the water came to a boil, she’d discovered the wood was rotting under the sink, the cabinet shelves above the stove were all warped, and the microwave, which looked like it had been an original model back in the 80s, didn’t work.
Reinforcing herself with a strong cup of tea, she carried it about the house with her to see what else needed attention. Now, her tea long gone, the cup sitting somewhere in Grannie’s parlor, she considered her list.
Her two-page list.
It’s gonna be a fun challenge to fix this place up!!
Just hopping in today to make sure you all know that I’ve got a GOODREADS GIVEAWAY running for book 1 in the HEAVEN’S MATCHMAKER series,MIX & MATCH (Jasmine & Donovan). It’s live right now and goes until April 15.
The reason I’m doing a giveaway on a book that released a while ago is in anticipation of book 2’s release on May 21. LOVE MATCH (Layla & Cody) is currently up for preorder, but I wanted to give everyone a chance who hadn’t read book 1 to do so now so that they’d be caught up when book 2 releases.
Just as an FYI – you don’t have to read the books in order. They are standalone books with similar characters in each. If you’re anything like me, though, you like to start a series at the beginning! That’s the Taurus in me, I guess.
I lovelovelove my tiny New England town of Heaven, and Olivia Joyner, the local matchmaker, is the featured “star” of each book.
Divorced and lonely, nurse Jasmine Green retains the services of Heaven, NH’s very own successful matchmaker, Olivia Joyner. The bar scene and dating apps give Jasmine hives and Liv’s reputation is stellar. If anyone can help guide her through the quagmire that dating has become, Olivia can.
Architect Donovan Boyd is ready to settle down. He wants the kind of marriage his parents have; long -lasting, filled with love, children, and joy. But even after a year of living and working in Heaven, he’s still considered an outsider by many. Finding the type of woman he’s looking for is hard in the tight-knit community. Retaining Olivia Joyner to help him find his forever love is one of the smartest things he’s done, especially after she sets him up with Jasmine Green.
But the red-haired, green-eyed beauty wants a different kind of marriage from the one Donovan considers ideal.
Can these two strong-willed people learn to compromise so they can both find their happily ever after? Or will their relationship forever be relegated to the friend zone?
Running away from a public scandal may be cowardly, but to Layla Warton, it’s her best option.
After her politically connected fiancé is indicted for a laundry list of crimes, Layla wants to put the public ridicule and shame of her guilty-by-association status behind her. Not easy to do when all her supposed friends and supporters lose her number and the taint of scandal-adjacent destroys the successful design business and life she’s built for herself.
Happy childhood memories and the blessing of a local friend push her toward the tiny New England town of Heaven where she spent summers with her loving grandparents. Hiding out in the town until the scandal dies down is the perfect plan.
With the paparazzi hot on her tail, an ancient family home she needs to get livable, and a contractor too hot for her sanity, Layla worries she’ll never be able to get her old life back.
She was nervous. It was in the way she twined her fingers together and then unclasped them a few times. No old robe tonight, just the same clothes she’d worked in. The monkey slippers were on her feet, though, and he grinned down at them.
“My sister, Abra, had a pair of slips like yours when she was in high school. Hers were purple cats, though. She claimed they were the most comfortable things she’d ever worn.”
Julia nodded, still not making eye contact. Michael decided it was time to find out why.
“Are you mad at me?”
Her head snapped up and finally – finally – she looked at him. Those delicate, platinum brows tugged together, a thin, deep line forming between her eyes.
“Mad? No. No, not at all.” Her head shook with the declaration.
Michael stayed still, his body resting against the jam. He nodded. “Okay, if not mad, then…what? You haven’t looked at me for days. Whenever I have to speak to you, you acknowledge I do without ever saying a word back or looking at my face. Makes me feel I did something to hurt or insult you.”
Years of being a silent observer to the behaviors of his sisters taught him many things. Most importantly, when they said the word fine they were anything but, and if they gnawed on any body part – especially one on their faces – it meant they were upset about something.
Julia fit into the lip-chewing category.
A hot burst of lust exploded in his midsection when she pulled a corner in tight, and bit down.
How was it possible to be jealous of teeth?
“I’m…sorry.” Her gaze dropped to the floor as she shook her head.
“There’s no need to apologize. Just talk to me, Julia. What’s going on? Is the schedule too much for you? Do you need some time off? Or is your asshole ex still bothering you?”
“No, it’s none of those.” Her body folded in on itself with a sigh and she moved to sit at the table. Michael joined her.
“Talk to me.”
She stared down at her hands for a few beats. Then, “Did you ever feel like despite everything you were doing, you were never making a dent in anything?”
“Every single second of the past week.” He snorted.
Her head shot up, that delicate quirk in her brow showing itself again.
“Don’t look surprised,” he said. “It’s not a secret I’m drowning here. I had to stoop way below my comfort level today and ask my sisters for help. Believe me, that’s no easy thing to do, especially with Abra. She’ll never let me live it down.”
His joking tone finally had her relaxing. Her torso slid backward in the chair and she unwrapped her fingers from one another.
“I truthfully do not know how my mother does everything she does, every day, and still manages to remain upright when she turns the open sign to closed every evening.”
A grin split the mouth she’d been gnawing moments before. “Your mother is amazing,” she said. “And the kindest person I’ve ever met.”
“Truth. So tell me, why are you feeling like you’re on the down escalator when you’re trying to go up?”
Julia blinked a few times. “That’s a fairly accurate analogy.”
“Wish I could take the credit but I read it in one of Abra’s books. It stuck with me because I feel that way more than I’d like to admit.”
She studied him, her gaze drifting across his face, down to his mouth, then shoulders. He had the insane notion to sit up straighter, like he was back in school and being graded on good posture.
The breath she let loose was as pregnant as his sisters.
“Remember when I told you about Jeff and…everything?”
He nodded.
“Everything he did had a short-term and a long-term consequence. Short term, he stole from me and left me with no available savings. Long term, I now have legal fees for lawyers I needed to hire to get me out of the financial mess he put me in. Unraveling every account he opened in my name, then drew funds from, has made my credit score plummet. I need to pay back a portion of what he took. There are legal ramifications if I don’t. My lawyer is trying to get all the penalties waved since I was the victim of identity theft, but that takes time. And money for court fees. Money I don’t have.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t know if you know this but your mother is letting me live here for free. If she didn’t I’d be in a shelter somewhere with Blake because I can’t afford housing.”
“What about your parents? Wouldn’t they take you in?”
The thin, harsh line her beautiful mouth pulled into told him the answer.
“My parents want nothing to do with me or Blake. They blame me for bringing Jeff into their lives and question my judgment about people. In truth they weren’t big fans of my husband, Tony, either. But at least he was honest. The worst thing he ever did was die, in their opinion, and leave me nothing but medical bills. Which I paid off, in full. I sold our house, paid off the mortgage and then used the remainder for the hospital and care bills, leaving me with nothing. I was just starting to get back on my financial feet again when I met Jeff.”
“And we know how that ended.”
He wasn’t surprised his mother had given her a place to stay, free of charge, or a job. Which had him asking, “Is waitressing something you’ve done before?”
Harper Vale is my kind of woman and heroine: smart, snarky, doesn’t suffer fools, introverted, and has a dream.
Here’s a little insight into what happens after she’s fired…
In the elevator, the guard demanded her badge and security code card, which she handed over without a word into his meaty outstretched hand. Harper was too furious to feel embarrassed when the questioning stares and raised eyebrow glances of co-workers shot at her as she was escorted through the lobby and out the front doors. She was met at the entrance by another guard holding her backpack and told it contained everything in her desk of a personal nature, including her bike helmet.
The pack was unzipped, indicating they’d searched through it. A sense of violation shot through her and the anger swimming inside her intensified.
“Don’t try to come back into the building,” the Neanderthal said. “You’ll be stopped, detained, and handed over to the police for trespassing.”
“Don’t worry, Dickhead,” she said, her voice carrying clearly into the lobby. “I have no intention of ever coming back here.”
He tossed her a speaking glance and it took every ounce of will she could summon not to shoot him a middle finger salute as he strode back into the building on legs ridiculously too large for his pants.
Seething, she made her way to the bike rack and slipped her helmet on. After searching her backpack she found her wallet, phone, house keys, an emergency bike repair kit, and an old pack of peppermints, everything she typically carried with her. She’d never brought any pictures or other personal items into her workspace to clutter it and make it homey. To her, it was merely a space to work.
Ten years, she muttered, as she wove her bike through traffic. Ten years of her life devoted to a company that never appreciated her and now accused her of being a thief.
Lunch hour traffic was unusually thick and it took her an extra half hour of zipping in and out of traffic before she made it safely to her apartment. Throughout the trek, her anger grew to a boiling point.
She wanted to hit something. Hard.
Paying for a session at SCHMASH blew into her mind but was quickly discarded. She’d been fired which meant her income was now gone.
Fired.
How in the world had this happened? She’d done nothing—certainly never stolen from him. Or anyone.
And where had that bank account with her social security number attached to it come from?
If she possessed fifty thousand available dollars it certainly wouldn’t have been in a bank in another country. She’d have invested it in her project, not socked it away on foreign soil.
Someone had set her up. That was the only explanation. Someone had stolen something from Kirkpatrick, sold it, and made it look like she was responsible.
Why? Who the hell hated her so much?
She may not be best friends with anyone at K.I. but she’d certainly never done anything to warrant this.
As she pulled her bike off the elevator, Ginger’s door flew open.
“Oh, Harper. I thought you might be the delivery person. I’m waiting for my new fruit of the month delivery. Whatever are you doing home in the middle of a workday?”
Nerves raw and emotions in chaos, the last thing Harper wanted was to get into a gabfest with her nosy, however nice, neighbor.
“Just taking some personal time,” she said, shoving her bike through her apartment door. With a forced smile, she added, “I’ve got a bunch of vacation time saved and if I don’t use it I lose it.”
Ginger’s expression told Harper if given the slightest indication she wanted company, the woman would be in her place in a heartbeat.
“Oh, well, enjoy the afternoon, then, dear. I’m off to pack for a visit with one of my sons for a few days.”
“Enjoy.”
“You as well.”
She shut herself into her apartment, fell back against the closed door after slamming it against the stuck portion, then slid down it to the floor. The tears she’d been valiantly holding back were finally allowed to rain down her cheeks.
Harper dropped her head against her knees and let them free.
~~Intrigued? Preorder here: Amazon Watch the trailer here: You tube
Add it to your GOODREADS WANT TO READ LIST here: goodreads
Peggy Jaeger, Author 