November 17, 2021
I'm a little jet-lagged tonight (Tuesday) after hopping on two planes to get home from my short trip to Austin. My son was the perfect host despite trying to tie loose ends together before his two-month trip to Argentina starting on Saturday. He took me to his favorite taco joint after picking me up at the airport, then we walked around the UT campus a little (it was game day so there was quite the carnival atmosphere on campus). That night we sat in his backyard and grilled out with his three roommates and a few other friends who came over to say 'hi'. The next three days consisted of more eating, a little shopping, and much catching up on his plans. It was the perfect getaway.
Two more days until A Forever Kiss in Silver Leaf Falls arrives! I'm loving the reviews coming in for this book and the series overall. The other authors and I have been talking about something fun in December to celebrate the release of Christmas in Silver Leaf Falls, the sixth and final (for now) book in the series. Stay tuned! If you'd like my novella to pop onto your Kindle the minute it releases, hit the pre-order button below.
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I was late in e-mailing the winners of last week's Clean My Shelves contest because of traveling, but congratulations are in order for KAYLENE Z. & CYNTHIA D. for winning the Nora Roberts and Janet Daily books respectively! Ladies, check your e-mails for details.
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Before I share Chapter One of A Forever Kiss in Silver Leaf Falls, please note that I'm sharing one Christmas-y new release which sounds absolutely charming! So be sure to check it out at the very end of this l-o-n-g e-mail.
Happy Reading!
Dawn
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A FOREVER KISS
IN SILVER LEAF FALLS
Chapter One
September never looked better to Andi Vandermeer.
As a lifelong New Yorker, she’d seen thirty-three falls transform Central Park, but nothing compared to this Vermont autumn. She’d purposely moved the desk chair and her pottery wheel from the motel room out onto the concrete slab behind the Starlight Motel. Here she could marvel at the golden tapestry of leaves against the impossibly blue sky. The late-morning sun warmed her bare shoulders as she sat hunched over the wheel, her hands slick with wet clay. It was a rare moment, getting to work on her wheel. She’d bask in this self-indulgent moment for as long as…
“I didn’t do it, Dillon!”
Andi eased her foot off the pedal to stop the wheel and spun around. Behind her, Dillon and Kenzie stumbled toward her. Kenzie wrapped her arm protectively around Dillon’s shoulders, but her expression was anything but sympathetic. Tears stained Dillon’s ruddy cheeks. His free arm hung limply at his side. When he knew he had Andi’s attention, he dropped his shoulder a little more.
“Did too! You pushed me!”
Kenzie’s frown deepened when five-year-old Dillon let out a wail loud enough to scare the birds from the silver maple overhead.
“I didn’t do anything,” she repeated, a note of annoyance in her tone. “And he’s faking it. He always does.” A year older than Dillon, Kenzie had outgrown her patience with him when high drama reared its head. And with Dillon, that was a given.
“Am not!” Dillon cried. “Look.”
He thrust his arm toward Andi, almost making her lose her balance on the chair. A quarter-sized spot on his forearm was skinned, pinpricks of blood showing on the scrape.
Andi held his arm to examine the wound. “I think it will be fine, Dillon. We can clean it up and put on a bandage.” She gave him a reassuring pat on the arm.
“But it hurrrts!” The word came out in three syllables instead of one. Her adopted son was no stranger to exaggeration. He’d inherited that lovely trait from Andi’s sister, Alana.
“I know it does, honey.”
Kenzie didn’t seem to feel all this attention on Dillon’s overblown injury was warranted.
“He was chasing me and scraped his arm on the bricks,” she said, pointing to the corner of the motel. “Over there.”
“You didn’t have to runnn!” Dillon whined as he threw back his head to cry to the heavens.
Andi sighed. As much as she loved Dillon and felt for all he’d been through, sometimes his over-the-top personality wore her to the bone. Dillon Hinkley loved hard and played hard. He also called attention to every injustice done to him. Loudly.
“I said I was sorry,” said Kenzie in a small voice. “Even though it wasn’t my fault.”
Somehow that got Dillon’s attention. He looked at her until a smile broke through his misery.
“I forgive you,” he said between sniffles. Dillon swiped at his nose. “Wanna ice pop?”
Kenzie’s face brightened. “Sure!”
And just like that, their best-friend status was restored.
Andi shook her head, chuckling softly to herself, while she eased her foot down on the pedal again. Slowly, the pottery wheel came to life.
She let out a deep sigh to cleanse away the tension that took hold whenever Dillon acted up. After two years, it still overwhelmed her to think Dillon was now her responsibility. And her next thought always turned to Alana.
Her hands coated with clay, Andi brushed away a lock of hair from her face with her wrist. The kids squealed somewhere on the other side of the motel. They’d been running laps around the property for the last hour, and it sounded like they were at it again. Sure enough, she swiveled in the chair just as Dillon and Kenzie sped around the corner again, bolting toward her, Dillon now the chasee.
“Andi, help!” Dillon cried, laughing as Kenzie made a grab for him.
Their speed surprised her as they raced past, making her foot unintentionally press down on the foot pedal. That ramped up the wheel to light speed. The wet blob of clay she’d been working flew off-center, pelting her with clay chunks and spraying the milky slip in a five-foot radius.
“Hey!” she yelled feebly, even though Dillon and Kenzie were long gone.
The old sleeveless shirt she used as an art smock was now more mud-colored than red. Maybe it was time to call it a day. She needed to drive Kenzie back home anyway. Her brilliant idea of asking her father, Wes Davis, if Kenzie could come for a play date hadn’t worked as well as she’d planned. Dillon and Kenzie had become fast friends after Wes rented a room when he’d come back to Silver Leaf Falls a few months ago. They’d since moved to another place in town, but Dillon missed his friend. As much as Andi loved having Kenzie visit, their rambunctiousness wasn’t conducive to her getting anything done this morning.
The clay began to dry on her hands. She stood and shook off what she could, but she really needed to wash them under the spigot. Andi turned to head in that direction.
“Oof!”
She hit a brick wall when she turned. A brick wall that wasn’t supposed to be there. And oddly enough, it looked like a man. A very large, very immovable man. Who now happened to wear two clay handprints on the front of his denim shirt.
“What is this?” He stepped back, grimacing, and swiped at his shirt.
“I’m so sorry. It’s just clay. Here, let me.”
She grabbed the rag draped over the water bucket next to the table. Still rattled from Kenzie and Dillon zipping by a moment ago, she wasn’t thinking straight. Now this guy stood before her, wearing more of her clay than was on her hands. And he acted like she’d purposely used his shirt for a rag. When Andi brushed the front of his shirt, she only managed to spread the mess. His shirt was now dirtier than her wheel after an afternoon of throwing.
“Please stop,” he said quietly as she gave it one more useless swipe.
“I’m so, so sorry,” she repeated, because she didn’t know what else to say. He made her nervous, glaring at her like she’d ruined his favorite shirt. “It’ll wash right out.”
“I should hope so.”
Andi hooked her thumb over her shoulder to where Dillon and Kenzie disappeared. “If you saw streaks of yellow and pink fly by a few minutes ago, that was Dillon and Kenzie. I’m sorry if they got in your way.”
“They’re…fast. Yours?” he asked distractedly, scanning the area before pulling out his phone.
“The boy is mine.” Andi studied him while his fingers flew over the screen.
He glanced at her wheel on the patio, then back at her. “Who are you?”
Andi thrust her hand forward then thought better of it and crossed her arms instead, tucking her hands safely out of sight.
“I’m Andi. Andi Vandermeer. Do you need a room?”
He lifted his chin as his brows pinched together. “I have one, thanks.”
“Oh.” She felt the now-dry clay pulling her skin taut. At least her hands would get a nice exfoliation treatment before she got around to rinsing them. “Then what can I help you with?”
“Help me with?” He narrowed his eyes, looking perplexed.
He had the longest lashes. And those sky-blue eyes, just hypnotizing. They might be the prettiest eyes she’d seen in a long time, maybe ever. She recalled seeing a similar colored crayon in the box of pastels she’d just bought but hadn’t gotten around to using.
“Yes, what do you need?” she asked again. Their conversation seemed to be going around in circles. Stop looking at his eyes and focus.
“Wait, you’re able to rent rooms?” he asked incredulously.
She looked toward the addition built onto the back of the motel office, to the empty carport there. “Yes. I’m not the owner, though. That would be Bill and Jane Evers. But they’re not here right now. Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
He looked kind of lost. Maybe he was inquiring about a long-term vacancy. The neon sign out front had burned out months ago. There was no telling if the Starlight had room or not by looking at the darkened “no vacancy.”
The guy shook his head absentmindedly. “Do you know when the Everses are due back?”
Okay, so this guy wasn’t going to share his name or what business he had with Bill and Jane. She was beginning to think he was either a shady salesman or…or—
Dillon and Kenzie dashed into view again, this time running circles around the grassy area in back of the motel. “Soon. I hope.”
“So, what else do you do in town besides”—he lifted his chin toward the motel—“rent rooms at the Starlight?”
He turned those blue eyes on her again. If Andi wasn’t already annoyed, she might get lost in them. Instead, she planted her hands on her hips and pressed her lips together. He needed to answer a question or two before she indulged him again.
His gaze roved over her. Then down the front of his shirt. He gave it a half-hearted brush. “Never mind, it’s not important. What I do need to know is—”
The Everses’ white sedan caught their attention as it pulled into the parking space. Jane opened the passenger door before Bill even had in park.
Jane rushed toward them, her arms outstretched.
“What a surprise,” she cried as this man enveloped her in a hug. “I didn’t think you were coming until Monday.”
“I didn’t want to risk not seeing you guys before you headed to Burlington,” said the stranger wearing her handprints on the front of his shirt. If Jane noticed, she was cheerfully oblivious. “Besides, you still like surprises, right?”
Andi stepped back as the realization dawned on her. It all made sense now.
Bill hobbled over, tossing his keys in the air and catching them, wearing a grin as wide as Lake Champlain. He joined his wife in a three-way embrace.
“Good to see you, son,” Bill said, clapping him on the back.
This happy family reunion had come two days early.
Reese Evers had finally returned to Silver Leaf Falls.
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SWEET AND SWOON-WORTHY RECOMMENDATIONS
(Clicking on the cover will take you to the sales pages)
With this snowman, I thee wed ⏤
Do Lacie and Jared risk accepting Harper’s Inn’s magical interference to see if romance has a chance? Or is pursuing this snowman-sanctioned marriage going to destroy their friendship for good?
"Total awws and warm fuzzies! This holiday romp will keep your heart invested as you turn those pages. This is full of heart, acceptance and the magic of Christmas dreams. It's the most wonderful time of the year in this zaney, unforgettable holiday book." - Amazon review
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(Clicking on the graphic below takes you to my Amazon author page)
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