Beaumont Bay
Twin switches and reunion romances reign supreme in this collab with USA Today Bestselling Author Jules Bennett. The country music industry has never been hotter!
“This is a page turner! I had a hard time putting it down. ”
Reading Order
This Harlequin series is a collaboration with my good friend, and incredibly talented author, Jules Bennett.
Excerpt
“Morning,” Cash said now, head still bent over his guitar.
She snapped out of the memory, frustrated by her naïve former self. She’d gone back and forth over the years about whether she should have or shouldn’t have given him her virginity. In the end, she hadn’t, and had ended up heartbroken anyway. On good days she told herself she was glad she hadn’t fallen any deeper for him, and on the bad ones she wondered if he wouldn’t have left her if she had slept with him.
“I didn’t want to interrupt.” She folded her arms over her chest. “I always enjoyed hearing you play.”
He peeked over his shoulder at her, one eye narrowed against the bright morning sunshine. The hand that had been strumming came to rest on the body of the guitar as she sat on the step next to him.
“You found coffee.”
“Well, someone drained the pot so I had to be resourceful.” She sipped from her mug.
“Well, someone slept so late that the batch I made would have burned if I hadn’t drained it.”
She turned her head to smile and found him smiling back at her. Utterly attractive and utterly distracting.
“Nice view you have here,” she said, reaching for an excuse to stop looking at his rough yet handsome face. The water appeared deep blue thanks to the sun, and a boat trolled by in the distance.
“I like it. It’s peaceful.” He went back to strumming, his eyes on the water. She wondered if he knew he was doing it, or if the instrument was a part of him. Her eyes tracked to the tattoo on his upper arm and she figured that it was part of him, quite literally.
“I didn’t kiss you yesterday, by the way.” If she didn’t say it now, she never would.
“Beg your pardon?”
“Last night you said I didn’t have to apologize for kissing you.”
“You don’t.”
A growl sounded in her throat and then her voice went an octave higher when she argued, “I refuse to apologize.”
“So you enjoyed it,” he concluded.
“You’re impossible.” She had to laugh, because if she answered truthfully she’d say she’d enjoyed it very much. What she hadn’t enjoyed was the way he refused to acknowledge his part in it. “For the record, you were the one who kissed me.”
“'For the record' is a very journalist thing to say,” he muttered, sounding displeased.
She was aware he was changing the subject, but she let him. She hadn't made much headway, and frankly it was probably best not to talk about kissing him. Especially since she was trying not to think about kissing him again.
“Gavin told me you weren’t a fan of journalists.”
“Ever since I became famous, the press has been challenging. Since the DUI, they’ve been as charming as a school of barracuda.” His fingers moved over the guitar strings and he sang, “And I wasn’t expecting the likes of you.”
He grinned. She rolled her eyes.
. . .
