Title: Lake Bride Author: Shanna Hatfield Series: Holiday Bride #5 Genre: Sweet Contemporary Western Romance
Fall in love with a soldier, a nurse, and a small-town adventure brimming with delightful characters, amusing animals, and abiding hope.
Twenty-one steps. The past two years of Bridger Holt’s life have centered on the twenty-one steps he repeatedly walks back and forth as one of the sentinels guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Now that his duty is coming to an end, Bridger has no idea what to do with the rest of his life. Guilt from his past and trepidation about his unknown future drive him to the mountain cabin he inherited from his beloved uncle to gain clarity and direction. The quirky residents in the nearby town of Holiday, the assortment of wildlife that adopts him, and the woman who shines a light into his tattered soul might be what Bridger needs to find the redemption he seeks.
Outgoing, upbeat Shayla Reeves spreads sunshine wherever she goes. Holiday has become her home, and she enjoys spending time in the mountains around town. She adores the patients in the dementia facility where she works as a nurse. But something is missing from her mostly joyful world. When she mistakenly camps on private land owned by the mysterious and brooding Bridger Holt, she realizes what her life is lacking isn’t adventure but love.
Will two opposite personalities overcome their challenges and figure out a way to build a future together?
Find out in this sweet love story full of hope, small-town humor, and the wonder of falling in love.
USA Today Bestselling Author Shanna Hatfield writes sweet romances rich with relatable characters, small town settings that feel like home, humor, and hope.
Her historical westerns have been described as “reminiscent of the era captured by Bonanza and The Virginian” while her contemporary works have been called “laugh-out-loud funny, and a little heart-pumping sexy without being explicit in any way.”
When this farm girl isn’t writing or indulging in rich, decadent chocolate, Shanna hangs out with her husband, lovingly known as Captain Cavedweller. She also experiments with recipes, snaps photos of her adorable nephew, and caters to the whims of a cranky cat named Drooley.
Dallas Walker is haunted. He won’t ever forget the horrors he witnessed while working undercover to bust a human trafficking ring, but he has a plan to start a new life. Coming home to his family is step one. Getting to know his alluring new neighbor could be step two. If only she’d give him a chance…
Maggie Ellis just wants to be left alone. She’d rather spend her days spinning clay into art and feel nothing than open herself up to another devastating loss. But her sexy new neighbor with a lonely look in his eyes isn’t giving up. And he makes her question everything…
Together, Dallas and Maggie might have a shot at happily ever after. But only if they can let go of the past and hold on to each other when it matters most.
Claudia Connor is an award winning New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Contemporary Romance, including the beloved McKinney Brothers series. Claudia writes, warm, heartfelt romances with a bit of steam, a lot of family and always a happily ever after.
Claudia attended Auburn University, where she received her undergraduate and masters degrees in early childhood education, and completed her studies in Sawbridgeworth, England. When she’s not writing, she enjoys movies, reading, and travel, with a heavy dose of daydreaming during all three. Claudia lives near Memphis, Tennessee, with her husband and three daughters.
Why? Because people break up—and sometimes they should. But when I learn that entertainment attorney Cyrus Hart is someone else’s mistake, I can’t believe it. He’s smart, successful, and sexy as hell.
When a chance encounter with Cyrus turns into something more, I can’t help but fall for him. Our chemistry is undeniable. But his ex used my company to send him that letter—and that’s a problem. Especially since he doesn’t know I own the company.
How can this possibly work? I know from experience that the riskiest ventures are the worthiest ones…but falling for Cyrus Hart may be my biggest gamble yet.
Cyrus
I’m a man with a plan—college, law school, a great career. So far, so good.
Until a stranger shows up on my doorstep and reads me a breakup letter from my girlfriend. My carefully laid plans unravel.
But then I meet someone new. It’s spontaneous. It’s electric. And it’s not according to plan.
It’s not a lie. My hastily thought-of plan drove me here. But part of me hasn’t decided if it also wasn’t simply the desire to see her again. Or an exercise in self-control. Dangling what I shouldn’t take in front of me to see if I possess enough discipline to keep my hands to myself, to walk away. Or tempt myself with this sensual form of edging by embracing what I shouldn’t.
The ambiguous answer seems to be the correct one, though. The tension slowly ebbs out of her body, and she props an elbow on the chair’s arm.
“That makes the two of us, then, because I haven’t figured out yet why I came here.” She huffs out a soft breath. “I’m certain of one thing, though. This isn’t right or smart.”
“Why? Because you’re Val’s friend?” I slice a hand between us. “She’s already seeing someone new. Probably was before she sent you to do her hatchet job. So I don’t care about that.”
“Is that what this is, then?” she murmurs. “Revenge? Payback? You plan to throw”—she twirls a hand in the air—“whatever we’re doing here back in her face one day for breaking up with you and moving on too quickly?”
I almost laugh long and loud at that bullshit.
“There aren’t many things that are a one hundred percent certainty. Weather, election outcomes, the price of gas, Hollywood marriages. But this I can state without a shadow of a doubt. Not happening.”
She studies me, and I can practically read all the questions in those brown eyes. How can you? Why? What happened?
But she lifts her cup and drinks, and instead of asking what she so clearly wants to know, she says, “Not my business.”
“Isn’t it? When you chose to put yourself in the middle of our relationship, it became your business.” The moment comprehension dawns, her eyes widen, then narrow. But I lean forward, a smile curving my mouth. And that smile? It’s possible it isn’t nice. Because nice doesn’t accurately describe this uncomfortable and unwanted gnawing inside of me. I’m feeling hungry. “You owe me.”
I both hear and see the hitch in her breath. The almost nonchalant note in her voice belies the worry in her eyes. Too bad for her; I make a living at reading people. Too bad she’s shit at hiding her emotions. God, I could fucking feast, become a damn glutton on her honesty.
“What?” she whispered.
“You heard me.”
“Yes, I heard you.” My own breath really shouldn’t quicken or my blood pump hotter at the sound of those words coming through clenched teeth. Or the sight of her hand wrapped tighter around her cup. As if only her grip on the cardboard container is preventing her from transferring it to my neck. “But obviously I don’t understand your meaning. I owe you for what?”
For witnessing my weakest moments since leaving my aunt’s house. For reminding me that my life, my world, is not in my control. For throwing me back to that twelve-, fourteen-, sixteen-year-old uncertain boy again.
For refusing to be evicted from my head like a sexy, stubborn squatter.
For being my answer, my salvation, in this moment, when for years I’ve vowed to depend only on myself.
And her most heinous sin? For deviating from my carefully laid-out plans. For stepping outside those lines and hungering for something, someone, I have no business desiring.
But I say none of that because those reasons are mine and mine alone.
She gets, “For not stepping back and letting Val have the guts to do her own dirty work. Instead, you allowed yourself to be her patsy, and I’m pissed with you and her about that. I’m also mad as hell that you both stole the chance for me to have my say.”
A starkness enters her eyes, and she briefly closes them before glancing away, her hair concealing most of her profile. Fisting those curls and moving them out of the way so I can see her expression, her thoughts, is such a fierce urge I shift away from her.
“I didn’t think about that. About stealing your voice. I’m truly sorry for that.”
I believe her. But I’m not letting it go that easily. It isn’t in my interest to.
“Look at me,” I say softly. I order softly. And a coil in my gut draws almost painfully, sweetly tight when she obeys. “You owe me. And I’m offering a form of . . . penance.”
She loses that pained, haunted expression, and anger tautens the skin across her cheekbones, emphasizing their boldness, their strength. As perverse as it might make me, my cock pounds at the sign of her ire. Yeah, I’m turned on, and part of me is hoping she takes it out on me with teeth and nails.
Well shit. When did I become a man who enjoyed an edge of pain with his pleasure?
Published since 2009, USA Today Bestselling author Naima Simone loves writing sizzling romances with heart, a touch of humor and snark. Her books have been featured in The Washington Post and Entertainment Weekly, and described as balancing “crackling, electric love scenes with exquisitely rendered characters caught in emotional turmoil.”
She is wife to Superman, or his non-Kryptonian, less bullet proof equivalent, and mother to the most awesome kids ever. They all live in perfect, sometimes domestically-challenged bliss in the southern United States.
