Title ANGEL KISSES AND HOLIDAY WISHES (Christmas Comes to Dickens)
Author Peggy Jaeger
Genre Holiday Romance, Sweet Romance, First loves, surviving loss, medical romance
Book Blurb
Can a first love be rekindled when the past is filled with heartache?
After a personal tragedy, Sage Hamilton left the town she’d grown up in and the boy she’d given her heart to. With a vow never to return, Sage forged on with her life in order to forget the sadness of her past.
Keith Mills loved Sage from the first moment he spotted her ambling down the hallway of their middle school. And she’d felt the same about him. Or so he’d thought until she’d walked away from everything they’d meant to one another with a tearful and rushed goodbye.
But now, eighteen years later, she’s back and, as the town’s new doctor, it looks like she’s staying. Can Keith put the hurt of Sage’s dismissal to bed for good? And will she want to rekindle the love that had burnt so bright all those years ago?
This story was originally part of the CHRISTMAS COMES TO DICKENS Anthology published in 2020.
Excerpt
Dragging in a calming breath, Sage mentally prepared herself to see the man she’d left standing in angry and emotional tatters eighteen years ago.
She heard him before she ever laid eyes on him.
“Where’s my grandmother’s doctor?” he bellowed from the nurse’s station. “Get him up here right now.”
“I already paged Dr. Hamilton,” Deb said, her voice staying calm and controlled.
Sage stopped as she turned the hallway corner and spotted Keith.
He was impossible to miss.
From his impressive and imposing six-foot-three height he towered above the diminutive nurse as he stood, arms akimbo, glaring down his nose at her.
An annoyed scowl twisted his mouth, but the memory of how seductive and alluring those full lips could be when pulled into a wicked grin burned bright in her mind.
“Where’s Doc Martin? He’s been my grandmother’s physician for decades. Who is this Hamilton person?”
“Keith.”
No amount of preparation could have prevented the full effect of Keith Mills’ gaze from shooting through Sage when he turned to her.
As a teenager, he’d been all gangly arms and monkey hands, bony shoulders, and narrow hips. His face had yet to fill out, but even back then his features hinted at a classic, movie star handsomeness to come.
As a man now, he’d outgrown the teen gauntness and his body had settled into perfect male proportions. Those bony shoulders spanned a yard and dropped into arms bulging underneath a fitted shirt. That hint of good looks had blossomed into a face sculpted by the gods of gorgeous. Cheekbones cut from glass sat over a square and powerful jaw. All in all, he’d grown into one magnificent man.
Damn him.
Whatever he’d been about to say died before he gave it a voice. In the span of a heartbeat his expression went from annoyed to confused, his eyes widening, then the corners pulling into a squint, his lips lifting from their frown to form a wide O of surprise.
“Sage?” Incredulity graced his voice – a man’s voice. Rich and deep; hard and commanding. A shiver of intense and unexpected longing zipped down her spine at the timbre.
She swallowed and beat back the panicked nerves tumbling through her system. “It’s been a long time.” She walked toward the nurse’s station, her gaze steadier than her trembling hands.
Indecision blasted through her the nearer she came. Be professional and shake his hand, or hug him like a long-lost friend?
“What are you doing here?”
The irritation behind his question decided her response. She clasped her quivering hands in front of her and said, “You wanted to speak to me about your grandmother. Why don’t we go down to the cafeteria to talk? Corrine’s still in surgery and it’s going to be a bit before you can see her.”
Slipping her hands into her lab coat pockets, she tilted her head, indicating for him to follow as she began walking toward the elevator bank.
“Wait.”
She stopped, mid-stride, and turned back around.
“I don’t understand.” He shook his head, his eyebrows lifting to his hairline. “You’re my grandmother’s physician? You’re...Dr. Hamilton?”
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub)
Amazon: Kindle copy: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09ZS1J731
Amazon: Print copy: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09ZCQPQ5R
Author Biography
Peggy Jaeger writes contemporary romances and rom coms about strong women, the families who support them, and the men who can’t live without them.
Family and food play huge roles in Peggy’s stories because she believes there is nothing that holds a family structure together like sharing a meal…or two…or ten. Dotted with humor and characters that are as real as they are loving, Peggy brings all aspects of life into her stories: life, death, sibling rivalry, illness, and the desire for everyone to find their own happily ever after. Growing up the only child of divorced parents she longed for sisters, brothers and a family that vowed to stick together no matter what came their way. Through her books, she has created the families she wanted as that lonely child.
As a lifelong diarist, she caught the blogging bug early on, and you can visit her at peggyjaeger.com where she blogs daily about life, writing, and stuff that makes her go "What??!"
Social Media Links
Website/Blog: http://peggyjaeger.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/peggy_jaeger
Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00T8E5LN0
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/peggyjaeger/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peggyjaeger_author/