Title: Christmas in River’s Edge
Author: Nan Reinhardt
Genre: Sweet Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Tule Publishing
Book Blurb:
You can go home again…
After a painful divorce from her high school sweetheart, triplet Jenny Weaver returns to River’s Edge with her young son. While happy to be reunited with her sisters and working at the family’s marina, she has no intention of jumping into the dating pool, especially going into the holidays. Then Gabe Dawson, once a shy nerd who tutored her in history classes, arrives home transformed into a handsome hunk who makes her pulse race.
Archeologist and history professor Gabe Dawson thought he’d long ago outgrown his teen crush on Jenny. Back in town for a few months to help his mom post surgery, he can’t resist reaching out to Jenny. She’s as beautiful, warm, and funny as he remembered and soon Gabe is reconsidering his future.
Gabe is determined to seize this second chance, but can he convince a very wary Jenny that a globe-trotter is ready to come home for good this Christmas?
Excerpt:
Gabe pulled his Land Rover up to the curb on Primrose Lane, slightly down from Jenny Tuffington’s cottage, and peered through the darkness. She was home. There were lights on in the house, which, of course, there would be. It wasn’t that late—only about eight thirty. It seemed late, though, because he’d been at the hospital for hours. This was probably a terrible idea, but he wanted to see Jenny—needed to see her—although he had no idea why. It was instinct, almost as if the Rover had turned up Primrose Lane of its own volition with an exhausted Gabe at the wheel.
A deep breath later, he was out of the car and headed up the sidewalk, leaves crunching under his feet when he opened the wrought iron gate at Jenny’s front yard. The porch light was on, and as he came up the steps, he noticed an empty wine bottle on the settee table, along with three glasses. The cushions on the chairs and settee were crushed and creased, as though folks had been lounging in them. She must have had company earlier—three glasses. Perhaps her sisters. Maybe he should’ve called or texted first.
Well, he was here now, and there was no point in lurking on the shadowed porch. He pressed the doorbell just as the sound of another car spun him around. A sleek, low-slung Corvette came to a stop right in front of the gate, bass thumping from its interior. The person inside—it was definitely a man’s silhouette—sat for a moment, shaking his head to the beat of the blaring music before turning the car off.
Gabe watched with interest as the guy opened the car and hopped out, hip-checked the door shut, and then vaulted over the low gate . . . sort of. Unfortunately, he’d misjudged the height and caught the back of his denim jacket on one of the spikes across the top. “Dammit!” He turned, trying futilely to release the fabric, but he was in an awkward position. With another muttered oath, he slipped his arms out of the sleeves and, as he yanked the jacket free, Gabe heard the sound of ripping denim. That jacket was probably a goner.
As the man drew nearer, he looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place him—short brown hair, brawny shoulders, a baseball cap, and a belly that hung ever-so-slightly over his belt. Shrugging into his torn jacket, the guy clearly didn’t even realize Gabe was on the porch until he was halfway up the steps. He stopped dead and scowled. “Who the hell are you?”
Gabe squared his shoulders. “I might ask you the same question.”
The man lifted his chin and stepped onto the porch, his sneakers squeaking on the shiny wood floor. “This is Jennifer Tuffington’s house, right?”
“Who wants to know?”
The guy glared at him. “I’m her husband. Who are you?”
Ah-ha, that’s why he looks familiar. It was Ryan “Tuff” Tuffington, the uber-popular football hero in high school, who wouldn’t have so much as glanced in nerdy Gabe Dawson’s direction back then.
“Ex-husband?” Gabe reminded him with a dubious gaze. “I thought Jenny was divorced.”
Tuff merely looked down his nose at Gabe, an expression he’d no doubt mastered in high school and perfected in the ensuing years. “Look, dude, I don’t know who the hell—”
Suddenly, the front door swung open and there was Jenny, dressed in jeans and a Weaver’s Landing Marina sweatshirt, her long hair swept up into a messy bun, and her brandy-colored eyes flashing. “What the hell’s going on out here?”
Buy Links:
Tule Book Store: https://tulepublishing.com/books/christmas-in-rivers-edge/#order
Author Biography:
Nan Reinhardt is a USA Today bestselling author of sweet, small-town romantic fiction for Tule Publishing. Her day job is working as a freelance copyeditor and proofreader, however, writing is Nan’s first and most enduring passion. She can’t remember a time in her life when she wasn’t writing—she wrote her first romance novel at the age of ten and is still writing, but now from the viewpoint of a wiser, slightly rumpled, woman in her prime. Nan lives in the Midwest with her husband of 50 years, where they split their time between a house in the city and a cottage on a lake. Talk to Nan at nan@nanreinhardt.com
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