Versions of You: Sneak Peek
Welcome to story that blurs the lines! This genre-bending novella brings together everything I adore about romance… from small-town warmth to historical depth to a bit of the paranormal. In this exclusive preview, meet a heroine who’s caught between the pages of her favorite stories and the pull of real-life love. Grab a cup of coffee and step inside Between the Pages where every version of love has its moment. N.B. This sample is unedited.
Chapter 1
Kitchi Falls, Pennsylvania
Was there any better smell than paper and rain?
I turned the page of my current read, a paranormal romance novel with a vampire hero. With a thousand things to do, from inventory to ordering, reading should be low on the list. But it was raining, my favorite time to crack open a book, so I gave myself permission to take some time off.
Less than a full sentence in, the door of my shop swung open, the tinkling bell that alerted me to new customers drowned out by the sound of driving rain.
“Are you out of your mind?”
Nolan immediately took off his jacket, shaking it and giving my terrified cat his own shower. Putting my book on the counter, I laughed as James ran through Nolan’s legs and into the stacks.
“You know he hates getting wet,” I said, pretty sure that’s why Nolan did it in the first place.
Hanging up his soaking rain jacket, Nolan headed straight for the coffee counter, putting a new pod into the machine.
“Pretty sure he hates his name more.”
The cat in question returned, unscathed, and jumped onto the counter. Petting the tiger-striped stray Nolan found abandoned behind his and his father’s hardware shop, I ignored my best friend and talked directly to my adorable fluff ball.
“What do you think, James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser? Do you like your name?”
Nolan, coffee in hand, pulled up a stool on the other side of my counter, the deep, familiar sound of his laugh as comforting as the aroma of the delicious dark liquid he’d poured. “Tell her it’s ridiculous.”
At the sound of his voice, James turned away from me and headed straight to his favorite person. Traitor.
“Tell him,” I said, as if my cat had a clue, “that just because he knows you like being pet under your chin, it doesn’t make up for getting you wet.”
I watched the two of them as the flickering of an always-present candle danced on both their faces. The man who was as steady a presence in my life as my parents. The cat who alternately liked and hated me, sometimes in the same sixty-second span. A bookshop that, while it might not be paying for an oceanfront vacation home anytime soon, thrived enough to bring me a steady income. Life was good. So what if I didn’t have a date for my cousin’s wedding this weekend? Or if my mother wouldn’t stop asking if I was seeing anyone.
I wasn’t.
Pushing thirty. No prospects in the love department. But I had plenty to be grateful for.
“You still lost in,” he nodded to my book, “there?”
Nolan picked up my latest read. The Vampire’s Temptation. “What’s tempting him?”
“Maybe the vampire is a girl.”
“Is it?”
“No.”
He put the book back, taking a sip of coffee as James bounded off the counter.
“My little contrarian.”
I was Nolan’s little everything. That was his favorite expression, and one that got him into trouble recently. His latest ex—and Nolan had a lot of them—wasn’t a fan of our close friendship. But I didn’t feel too badly since she wasn’t really for him anyway.
“So what exactly are you doing out in,” I waved my hand toward the window of my shop where Between the Pages was written in big, bold letters, “this?”
“Lucas’ tattoo chair’s hydraulic lift was jammed, and he had an appointment tonight.”
Although the owner of Grunt Ink, just down the street, went to high school with Nolan and me, we’d gotten closer to him and his wife more recently.
“Were you able to fix it?”
Nolan looked at me with those brown eyes of his, waiting until I took it back.
“Ok, ok. Stupid question. Of course you were.”
“Good girl.”
I nearly spit out my own coffee—one of the many things Nolan and I had in common, being able to drink caffeine at night—at that.
“What? Isn’t that what your heroes say?” He nodded to my book.
When I stopped laughing, I answered, “Yeah. But not like that.”
His brows raised.
“It’s a sex thing. They say it as a praise kink. Like when…” Oh geez. How the hell did I explain it to someone who never read a romance book in his life? Or any book, for that matter. Which was one of the things we definitely didn’t have in common. I’d had my nose in a book since middle school, and Nolan had been avoiding them for even longer than that. “Never mind. Did you eat yet?”
“Not unless beef jerky counts. Why?”
I grudgingly admitted defeat. “No way I’m getting any more customers tonight. Besides, I’ve been craving a chicken cheesesteak. Any interest in KC’s for a late dinner?”
Before I even finished the question, Nolan headed to the back room. James jumped onto my lap.
“Where did he go?” I asked, petting his head with one hand and opening my book with the other.
The story of my life—finishing a chapter when I had other things to do. But there was something about the lure of the page, the characters in a romance especially, that felt safe and exciting all at once.
“And so it seems we will have a bit of fun here in,” he waved his arms around him, “Stone Haven.”
Lawrence ground his teeth. “Fun? If you call the murder of an innocent woman—”
“Innocent?”
Kenton lifted his chin. “She is Maiorium,” he repeated. “And for that, she cannot be allowed to live.” He lifted his glass. “A toast to our little secret. And to Alessandra Fiore’s last days on earth, poor thing.”
He downed the remainder of his drink, stepping around Lawrence and gripping the railing of the second-story balcony.
“Have fun attempting to save her.”
And just as Lawrence turned to walk away after muttering a curse under his breath, he added, “I hope you have better luck than you did in Caltabellotta.”
He wasn’t surprised when Lawrence pushed him from the balcony. Indeed, he allowed it, and laughed the whole way down to the ground, despite the risk of discovery.
Taunting him had been worth it.
“Figure out why he’s tempted yet?”
I jumped at the sound of his voice, startling James, who bounded off my lap. Closing the book, I stood up.
“I already know that. It’s on the back cover blurb.”
Nolan scrunched his nose, reminding me of the skinny basketball player who asked me for help writing a paper in seventh grade. We’d been inseparable since, although Nolan was no skinny seventh grader anymore. He’d filled out in all the right places since then… a brown, floppy-haired, hazel-eyed hunk who was as reliable now as he’d always been.
“Where’d you go?”
“Dumped my coffee. If I knew you’d be willing to close up early, I’d be at KC’s with a beer in hand already. I knew you’d go back to the book. Sometimes I think you like them more than real people.” With a wink, he added, “Let’s go, baby.”
Baby. He’d been calling me that for years, and I still smiled every time. He also had apparently flipped the “Closed” sign, cleaned up the coffee station, and stacked the romance display I’d been reorganizing, quietly tidying the shop while I’d been lost in my book.
“Thanks,” I said, tidying up the counter.
He knew what I meant.
“Anything to get out of here sooner.” Nolan put his still-wet rain jacket back on. “Please tell me you have an umbrella somewhere.”
That would have been a brilliant idea, except… “I had no idea it was even supposed to rain.”
KC’s Taphouse was less than a block away, but we were still going to get soaked.
Before I could stop him, Nolan had taken off his jacket and was already putting it on me.
“Just because I forgot mine doesn’t mean—”
“Stop wiggling.”
Knowing Nolan’s single-minded determination, I listened. No way he’d let me out of this shop without his jacket. His jacket smelled like cedar and soap, and I couldn’t tell if the warmth spreading through me was his or mine.
Coming in November, stay tuned!