Finding Southern Comfort
by Barbara Lohr
Publication Date: November 17, 2014
Genres: Contemporary, Romance,
Ryan Stone is a less than average teenager. He doesn’t have fancy clothes. He doesn’t carry around the latest smartphone and he definitely doesn’t have an MP3 player. Instead, he goes to school, does his chores and dreams of a new life away from Brookfield where he’s expected to follow in his blue collar family’s footsteps. Hadley Carter is America’s Pop Princess. A successful recording artist living her dream with a sold-out tour and a handful of Grammy’s there isn’t much that she wants for, except love. But finding love on the road is near impossible when all she longs for are romantic dinners, a nighttime stroll on the beach and holding hands with someone who isn’t going to exploit her. When a chance encounter introduces Ryan to Hadley, will he be like her adoring fans looking for a way in, or will it be Hadley who pursues Ryan even though it might cost her the only career she's known.
Heidi is the author of USA Today, Digital Book World, Amazon and Barnes & Noble Bestselling novel, Forever My Girl. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, she now lives in picturesque Vermont, with her husband and two daughters. Also renting space in their home is an over-hyper Beagle/Jack Russell and two Parakeets. During the day Heidi is behind a desk talking about Land Use. At night, she's writing one of the many stories planned for release or sitting court-side during either daughter's basketball games.*Stalking is encouraged! *Website: http://heidimclaughlin.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/HeidiJoVT
Fate Buchanan just wants to escape the constraints of her old life. After checking her mother into rehab and catching her fiancé with her maid of honor the night before their wedding, she ran. Angry and hurt, she’s aching to do something reckless.Dean Maxwell is having one last summer of freedom before taking over his family’s multi-billion dollar medical conglomerate. When he sees a beautiful woman running down the beach alone after dark, he knows it’s not safe. So he does something impulsive.When their paths cross unexpectedly after a night of unbridled passion, neither of them can forget the memory of the affair they shared. What began as one night is about to become a whole lot more.*While part of the Second Chance series, this novel is a standalone.
“God, you’re so f*cking beautiful.”Her eyes widened up at him. She could only imagine how she looked. Hair messy and damp, his shirt sliding off one shoulder, eyes glazed over.“You are.” He shook his head as if searching for the words to explain his attraction to her. “That first night, swear to everything holy, I thought you might be some mythical creature come to steal my soul. But you were so damn beautiful that I would have given it to you.”She kept quiet, afraid to move or speak and risk breaking the magic that kept him with her, kept him from running. He wasn’t running. He was opening up and being honest.Dean lowered himself into the bed beside her, propping on one elbow and facing her. Fate mirrored his position and admired the way the moonlight lit his handsome face.“I asked the universe for a sign. It sent me you.”Her whispered confession made him smile. But his expression turned serious far too soon for her liking. “I felt it the moment I saw you. A compulsion like I’d never felt before, as if some unseen force propelled me toward you without my consent. I’ve felt it ever since.”Fate rested her head on her hands and nodded against them. “I feel it too. I’m just…a little afraid of it. Of what it might cost us.”“My mom used to say that things worth having didn’t come easy and that the kind of girl that was worth waiting for wouldn’t wait on anyone. Those two adages keep coming back to me every time I think of you.”She inched her hand over toward his. “Do you do that often? Think of me?”Dean kept eye contact, only breathing and watching her. “Define often.”Fate grinned. “More than once a week.”The slight curve of his lips faded and his gaze became a heavy, tangible thing she could feel pressing into her.“I thought of you every day, Fate. And I didn’t even know your name. Even after I did… I think after that, it was more like several times a day.”She wanted to keep this moment, to keep him here with her just like this. Both of them exposed and vulnerable. It was real and honest and—despite her exhaustion— exhilarating. But she knew it wouldn’t last forever. Nothing ever did.“Sleep with me tonight. Don’t leave. Just… Just sleep with me, please.”He nodded, letting his fingers interlace with hers between them and placing a soft kiss on the top of her hand. “I’m not going anywhere. Goodnight, sweetheart.”“Goodnight, Dean.”
Caisey Quinn lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her husband, daughter, and other assorted animals. She is the bestselling author of the Kylie Ryans series as well as several New Adult Romance novels featuring country girls finding love in unexpected places.
You can find her online at www.caiseyquinnwrites.com
Connect with Caisey on Social Media
Grace Kendall knows what it’s like to have life knock you on your butt. She’s been through hell and made it back. She’s fine with trusting no one and expecting nothing until a night wind blows something quite unexpected onto her doorstep in the rain.The scruffy, yet gorgeous enigma known as Nathan Henley steps inside her apartment and brings with him all those feelings Grace has tried so hard to tuck safely away. Beneath his bruised and damaged exterior, she senses all the dark and beautiful secrets lost within the tarnished diamond of his lonely heart.Like everyone before him, he must be too good to be true. She resists his mystery as long as she can, but she knows that any woman would gladly throw themselves against his rock hard chest and shatter helplessly into a million lustful pieces.When Grace finally decides to trust again, her ex-boyfriend Jack returns to her life with his crooked grin and the past comes crashing down. With the world spinning all around her, Grace must do more than trust, she must fight for the salvation of her own lonely heart.*Content Warning: this book contains explicit language and sex. Mature readers only.*
He raises my chin with one finger and smiles at me with a sincerity that is worrisome rather than reassuring. I’m not sure what game he’s playing, but everything in me screams that this is indeed a game.“You’re so innocent,” he says.“You mean naïve?”He shakes his head, staring deep into my eyes. The smell of his tanned skin is intoxicating. My heartbeat increases making me feel faint.Control yourself, Grace, is all I manage to think. He’s not the man I kissed at the library. I take a breath and pull myself away from the physical and emotional closeness he’s trying to build between us.This will never happen. It cannot happen. I’m not bad looking, but I’m not exactly calendar material. There’s no way a man like this could be interested in me. Taylor is the one who’s always gotten the attention when we went out together or met new people. Whatever Nate’s issues are, they have nothing to do with me and I don’t need another troubled man in my life.“This has been interesting, but I think it’s time for you to go,” I say. “It’s getting late and I’m exhausted.”He looks frustrated. “I haven’t said what I came here to say.”“Well, just say it already.” This might have come off as a little aggressive. I try to soften it up. “Or don’t say it.”“Will you be my friend again?”His meaning escapes me. “Are you asking if things can go back to normal?” I say, shrugging my shoulders. “Sure, why not?”“I want us to go back to that moment when I invited myself for dinner,” he says slowly. “I want us to start from that exact moment.”I get up and lock my eyes on his. “Why, Nate? I mean, we had no problems being shelter buddies and getting along in our strange way. That seems to be our most peaceful state. Why do you need to make it something more? You sound a little crazy wanting to go back to a moment in time. Why?”“Because you’re the most curious person I’ve met in a long time.”“Me? I’m the curious one?” I laugh in an exaggerated manner.“It’s more of a curiosity I feel when I talk to you, when we’re close, when we kiss, when my body feels your warmth,” he says almost scientifically.I make sure to give him my most incredulous glare. “Really? If it was the kisses and warmth you were after you pretty much fucked that up.”“I know I did,” he says like a sad puppy. I sincerely want to jump his bones, but resist. “That’s why, Dear Grace, I am asking to be friends only.”“Silly Nate,” I say. “Forgive me, it’s Nathan, right?”“Nate’s fine,” he says. “Anything your voice says is fine by me.”“What girl can be only friends with you?” I say weakening.Instead of an answer, he puts one hand behind my head and pulls me back down to the couch with his face close to mine. “I don’t care about any other girl,” he says.My whole body loses the will to resist as he parts my lips with his tongue. He tastes like honey and cinnamon. He tastes like happiness. He gently bites my upper lip, letting a finger trace my ear ever so slightly.
His arm tightens around my waist sending splintered pulses along my spine. I fight to keep a simple truth from him, that he could make me do whatever he wants. I hide a thousand yeses from him, desperate that if they all spill out at once there would be nothing left of me to love.
Alison Foster loves reading a good love story almost as much as she loves writing one. She spends her time dreaming up strong heroes and even stronger heroines and she enjoys finding unexpected strengths within her characters when they are in the most unexpected places.She believes that passion makes the world go round and that a sexy grin is as sweet as candy. She loves interacting with readers, so feel free to drop her a line.*Stalking is encouraged! *TWITTER https://twitter.com/alisonsreads