Making Up Under the Mistletoe, A Heartwarming Christmas #excerpt

AHeartwarmingChristmasNext week (!!) this great collection of 12 stories by Harlequin Heartwarming authors will be available…for 99 cents! These stories are sweet romance at its best. Mine, Making Up Under the Mistletoe, features a married couple on shaky ground and a dog who needs a rescue. It’s part of the Fisher Brothers Christmas set. Amy Vastine and Carol Ross have written really fun and satisfying stories for the other two brothers. All 12 of these stories are set in Christmas Town, Maine, a magical place where Christmas lives. YOU WANT THIS! Check out the excerpt at the bottom…

Here is a description of the sets inside and the buy links:

A Heartwarming Christmas

This holiday season, warm your heart with 12 connected sweet holiday romances set in Christmas Town from 12 Harlequin Heartwarming authors who are USA Today, national bestselling, and award-winning authors.

There are four connected anthologies in A Heartwarming Christmas. That means each set of three novellas shares characters and storylines! This collection of PG-rated holiday romances are all set in Christmas Town, a location introduced in the 2014 Harlequin Heartwarming release Christmas, Actually. A Heartwarming Christmas will bring you laughter, tears, and happily-ever-afters (no cliffhangers), for more than 1200 pages.
Foreword by small town lover and New York Times bestseller Kristan Higgins.

Coming Home to Christmas Town anthology by Melinda Curtis, Anna Adams, & Anna J Stewart: Three adopted siblings gather for the holiday season and closure after their father dies.

The Fisher Brothers Christmas anthology by Carol Ross, Cheryl Harper, & Amy Vastine: Three brothers with a Christmas Eve family tradition in jeopardy until love leads them home.

Gifts of the Heart anthology by Tara Randel, Leigh Riker & Cari Lynn Webb: In the spirit of Christmas, three siblings reconnect to find romance, special gifts – and each other.

The Gingerbread Men anthology by Liz Flaherty, Patricia Bradley & Rula Sinara. When two sisters and their widowed mother are reunited for the holidays, falling in love isn’t on any of their Christmas wish lists, but sometimes the best gifts are unexpected…
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2qDNVGv

Barnes and Noble: http://bit.ly/1Lke6Vt

iTunes: http://apple.co/1IroXqZ

Kobo: http://bit.ly/1MyDrfJhttp://bit.ly/1MyDrfJ

Google: http://bit.ly/1KN3Mli

Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1I37GHt

Making Up Under the Mistletoe_Cheryl Harper (4)EXCERPT:

Ivy scrolled through the other messages she’d been ignoring all day long. All from Josh. All worried. Updating the website to reflect the next year’s season and tour dates had taken three times longer than it should have because she kept picking up her phone.

If she had an answer, she’d give it, but she’d have to spend time grieving first and she had no time for that. Not until Christmas was over.

Then her father would know they were splitting.

Josh’s parents, who’d taken her in and loved her like a daughter, would treat her like an acquaintance.

And she would be. The Ivy she’d been in the eight years she and Josh had been together would be shattered. Whatever she built out of that mess would be new.

I’m fine, but I’m driving tonight. Headed out on my first tour. I’ll call you later.

He didn’t deserve to worry, even if his stubborn insistence that he had to leave Christmas Town was tearing them apart. That morning, after she’d demanded to know what was in the PFD envelope she’d found while cleaning up their desk, he’d informed her he’d taken the entrance exam. Without telling her.

Outlining calmly all the reasons it was a bad idea to leave Christmas Town hadn’t worked. Instead of agreeing, he’d snapped, “For once in our lives, do what I want, Ivy. Come with me or…” She’d waited for him to fill in the blank on that ultimatum for half a second before running away.

Ivy stared hard at her phone for half a second, willing him to apologize, tell her she was right, beg her to come back.

Instead, all she saw was that she was two minutes later than she’d started.

“Work. Do the work. Then you have two days to convince Josh to change his mind.” She’d always been able to before. The anxious twist of her stomach made her wonder if this was the time she’d fail.

Standard operating procedure was to walk around the bus to check the tires and make sure it was road ready. She’d done all the research and built the safety checklist herself. She couldn’t skip it, not even to make up time.

As Ivy was trotting around the end of the bus, she noticed a long, skinny black nose poking out from behind the left rear tire.

Ivy squatted to peer under the bus.

A shivering black dog of indeterminate heritage stared at her, his or her ears quivering along with the tremors that shook a long body.

“Perfect.” Ivy held her hand out and wiggled her fingers. She wasn’t a dog person. Or a cat person. Or the kind of person that wanted to clean after any animal, two-legged or four-legged.

But she also wasn’t a monster.

“It’s too cold out here for you, baby,” Ivy said softly and made kissing sounds. Josh did that with every dog they ever met on the sidewalk. It must be the universal sound of “I’m an okay person” to dogs because this stray inched forward on his belly, shaking, while his tail pounded in hard thumps on the asphalt.

“Come on. We don’t have time for a lot of conversation, mister.” She wasn’t sure why she thought this dog was a boy.

Probably because he was disrupting her plans. She should name him Josh Junior.

The first kiss: Most Likely to Turn Up the Heat

SummerLovinSummer Lovin’ will be available May 19 (but you can preorder now). 14 stories! Get it while it’s 99 cents!

Amazon ::: BN.COM

How about an excerpt? Here’s the first kiss…

(And if you’d like to win a copy, hurry over to my Facebook page and enter to win my fabulous giveaway or party with me on May 19)

“I’m going back to Dallas.”

She stared at the sky again. “So, what? I should be all excited about some short-term affair?”

He would be. Why shouldn’t she?

“No, but you could do dinner. With me.” This hadn’t been in his plans for the evening. He’d intended to buy a nice woman a couple of drinks and then to take her back to his place. He’d vacuumed with that in mind.

Arguing in a parking lot had never crossed his mind.

He’d rather be facing off with Sue than trying to charm a stranger.

“This game, it’s been fun,” Max said as he eased close enough to hear the catch in her breath. “You teasing me, me resisting. Did you ever figure out what would happen if you caught me?”

Sue braced one hand against the car door. “No. Excellent game play. You’re a worthy opponent.”

Max’s rough chuckle was loud in the silence between them. “Winner chooses the spoils. You and me. Dinner.”

TUTHRev“Are you sure you’re the winner?” Sue pursed her lips. “Maybe we’re still playing.”

“I’m not.” Max took her hand in his, reminded of the hot thrill of holding her hand while he ran a finger under the hem of her skirt. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“I wish I knew the answer.” Sue stepped closer, pulled his head down, and kissed him. Whenever he’d imagined a clench like this with her, it had been hot. But in the dusty gravel lot of the Two Step, she burned him alive. Her lips were sweet against his, but when he teased into her open mouth, she returned the favor. Each brush of her tongue lit a spark.

Pulling her closer was the only option. When she shifted against him, each graze of her soft stomach robbed his brain of important blood flow. The giggles of a group of women walking to their cars, none of whom he recognized, got his attention through the haze of heat.

“Where’s a fireman when you need him?” Sue whispered. “My underwear is smoking.”

Excerpt 1, Greek Gods Bearing Gifts

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Greek Gods Bearing Gifts (Click for the back cover copy and Buy links!)

Before Hannah could breeze on to the next part of the tour, the old familiar scratchy intuition telling Liberty to seek and find unfolded in the center of her chest. She slowly walked one aisle, vaguely aware of Frank saying, “No sense in trying to stop her now. She’s in the zone.” The jumbled aisle of laptops, small appliances, and school band instrument cases was a black blur. Bright lights above stung her eyes. The cold chill down her back slowly warmed with each step. Ignoring the pull in the past had meant headaches and sore muscles. Giving in was easiest.

At the end of the aisle, she paused in front of an old bank vault door.

When she touched the door, nothing happened. Normally she could feel…something…when she located whatever it was that drew her. Had being separated from the real world, locked away in a small spot filled with the bare minimum, erased her skill? Liberty couldn’t decide whether that would be good or bad news. She wouldn’t be who she thought she was anymore, but normal would be worth learning to live with the change. “The pawnshop has a vault?”

“Well, not really.” Hannah’s smug tone was replaced with an insider’s excitement.

Instead of slick polished metal of today’s high-tech vaults, this one was bronze and covered in artistic icons: trees, flowers, woodland creatures. It was beautiful, clearly one of a kind.

Hannah pressed her thumb against an intricately engraved rose, then stepped back. “I guess you’re ready. Whatever you do, don’t touch the spindle wheel. The alarms you would not believe.”

Instead of opening out, the door swung soundlessly in. Liberty took two steps forward to see another immense bright white room lit by fluorescent lights and filled with more shelves.

“Here we’ve got one big safe filled with special pieces. There’s another computer system for these.” Hannah tapped a beat-up laptop perched on a stone table. “Before you start exploring back here… Well, I should come with you the first two or three times, until you’re comfortable. Some of these items can be unpredictable.” Hannah smiled encouragingly before she shifted Liberty back and closed the door. Immediately, the ache building behind Liberty’s eyes and faint nausea faded. She wiped clammy hands on her rough jeans.

Living with this every day would be a misery. And so dangerous. Anything the gods wanted to keep hidden had to mean danger.

“What have you gotten us into now? Why don’t you seem amazed by this magic vault and hidden room with ‘unpredictable’ items, Frank?” Fear and anger made her heartbeat loud in her ears. Their whole lives, their father had warned them to keep away from the gods. Hide from the gods. Hide from police. Stick together.

All she wanted was normal.

This was a whole collection of crooked waiting to happen.