“Sure you did, hotshot.”
His laughter was big and happy, and I loved him so much that it hurt. He was my home. And I was his. And this entirely perfect, crazy night was entirely us. I wouldn’t change a thing.
Second Epilogue
Lydia
“You cannot live there forever.”
Watch me, I thought, as I attempted a one-handed fold of one of my sweaters. A broken arm was absolutely murder on organizational attempts, but after ten weeks of the cast, I was getting pretty good at it. My friend Jill couldn’t see me, because I was not in a FaceTiming sort of mood, but my determined silence didn’t deter her.
“We all get it. The accident was super-duper scary and everything, but you’re like, twenty-one and living in your parents’ basement. It’s not a cute look.”
I pinched my eyes shut, because she had no idea how little I cared. I still couldn’t get behind a wheel of a car without having an anxiety attack. The second I was out in public and a paparazzi aimed a long lens camera in my direction, my entire body went cold and prickly. But my friend—whose concern was motivated by her lack of social scene without me—didn’t want to hear any of that.
All Jill wanted was my access to really cool people and really cool places back. My shiny new hermit lifestyle didn’t appeal to her at all.
“Besides, the accident was months ago. Like … let’s find a good shrink who’ll give you some good pills and move the hell on, you know?” Jill pushed on, completely unaware that her blasé tone had me wanting to punt-kick my phone into Lake Washington, just beyond the stretch of my parents’ backyard.
Carefully, I set the sweater onto a shelf in my closet and ignored the fact that my hand was shaking a little bit. It did that a lot. Anytime someone backed me into this particular corner, where I was forced to think about moving back into my apartment.
The unfortunate truth was she wasn’t the first to have a mini-intervention.
My sister was concerned.
My parents were concerned. And not because they gained a blonde squatter in their basement with excellent taste in clothing. The last ten weeks, I knew exactly how much I’d changed, and what that must look like to them. Unlike Jill though, their worry—coming from a place of love—actually made me feel safe. Cared-for. Protected. It made me never, ever want to live by myself again. I loved the chaos of their home. The people filtering in and out who worked with and for my parents. I loved falling asleep in my bedroom knowing that I wasn’t alone in the house.
Like I’d conjured him with the thought, my dad knocked gently on the doorframe. I held up a finger and then pointed to the phone laying on the dresser next to me.
“Jill, I gotta go,” I told her. “Something just came up.”
“Ugh. Fine. Call me later, bitch.”
My dad smiled when I disconnected the call with a vicious punch of my thumb.
“I hate when she calls me that,” I said. “It’s not a flattering nickname.”
“It’s really not,” he agreed. “Do you have a couple minutes?”
I eyed him. “What’s with that tone?”
Dad adopted an innocent expression. “Can’t a father ask his daughter to come upstairs?”
“For what?”
“Your mom and I want to talk to you about something.”
I shoved my feet into my fuzzy black slippers, tugging up the hem of my favorite gray sweats so they didn’t drag on the floor. Lately, they’d been slipping off my hips, as some unintended weight loss had been another unfortunate side effect. Pre-accident Lydia loved her curves. “Lead the way.”
He set his hands on his hips and studied me for a second. “Do you maybe want to,” he gestured vaguely at my hair, “brush that?”
With a self-conscious pat to the birds’ nest sprouting out of the top of my head, I glanced in the mirror hanging on the wall next to my dresser. Yikes.
Maybe I did look a little … homeless. With a yank and a twist, I attempted to smooth my hair into something a bit neater, but honestly, with the amount of dry shampoo we had going on in that situation, it was kind of a lost cause.
As I tugged the last few loose strands into place, I narrowed my eyes at the look on my dad’s face. He looked nervous. He never looked nervous. “Is there someone up there or something?”
Dad pinched the bridge of his nose, then let out a sharp exhale. “Okay, your mom thought we should do this a different way and if you don’t act completely surprised, she’ll know I warned you.”
“Oh Lord, what?” I groaned.
“Just remember, we love you and we’re worried and that’s the only reason why.”
“What did you do?” I set my hands on my hips.
He did some hand-hip-setting of his own, which was how I knew this was really serious. “He’s … he comes highly recommended.”
“Who does?”
Dad held up a hand. “And he’s a former player, I got his name from Logan.”
“Who is?”
“He only played for a few years before he got injured, but he ended up working security.”
“Who?” I stomped my foot. Like a toddler.
It wasn’t my finest moment.
“He’s a … professional driver. Sort of,” my dad hedged. “And he’s going to escort you wherever you need to go.”
“What?” I yelled. There was no cold tingling in my body now, no shaking hands, as I brushed past my dad and started up the stairs.
“You’re supposed to act surprised,” he whispered frantically.
“Too late,” I tossed over my shoulder.
As I cleared the landing, I only caught the briefest of glimpses of my mom’s face, obviously my yelling had reached her ears.
She said something to my dad, or me, but I couldn’t hear a thing, only garbled words that didn’t penetrate the buzzing in my ears as he unfolded his great big body from the couch in the living room.
Tall and scary. It was the only way I could describe him, with the arms and the beard and the chest and the eyes. If I crossed him in an alley, I’d run the hell in the opposite direction.
Those eyes of his, even darker than the hair on his head, never moved from my face, but I felt like he’d taken my measure in a single heartbeat.
“No way,” I said. “Not happening.”
His expression never changed.
If my parents thought they were saddling me with this terrifying driver slash bodyguard slash guard dog, they were sadly mistaken.
What happens when the grumpy bodyguard and the football princess are stuck together?
I cannot wait for you to find out.
Lydia’s story will hit your Kindle early 2022!
The Bet, a standalone sports romance, is coming soon.
Preorder now!
Curious how Luke Pierson and Allie Sutton fell in love? If you like hate to love/single dad romance, then their story is for YOU.
Here’s a small snippet from The Bombshell Effect (Washington Wolves book 1)
“I, umm, I came to bring you these.” I held out the plate of cupcakes and he stared at them for a weighty second. If it were possible, his eyes got even flintier. His chest was heaving, and the white t-shirt he wore was soaked in sweat like he’d been working out. His hands were wrapped in boxing tape, and it made my stomach curl, but not in the good way that you want your stomach to curl when standing in front of a gorgeous, sweaty man. “I just wanted to introduce myself.”
“Why?”
My smile dropped a fraction. “Why did I bring cupcakes?”
His eyes met mine and one dark brow lifted slowly. The cold, icy flush of embarrassment slipped down my spine, which I straightened stubbornly.
“Why did you want to introduce yourself?”
“Because I thought it would be a nice thing to do,” I told him, pushing brightness into my voice and refusing to drop my smile further. Jerk. That was the unspoken addition to the end of my sentence.
“I don’t eat sugar.” He folded his arms over
his chest.
“Okay, fine.” I pulled the plate closer to me like it was my very sugary, cupcakey shield. Rational, I know. “Sorry I was trying to be neighborly.”
“Neighborly,” he repeated, and his mouth twisted like he just sucked on a lemon.
I lifted my chin and smiled again, determined to salvage this. “Yes. Neighborly. Your … daughter waved at me and I thought I’d be nice and come say hi.”
If I thought he looked cold before, it was nothing compared to the way his face transformed at the mention of the little girl.
His eyes narrowed and pinned me with enough ice that I actually stepped back. “So you’re as smart as you are original, that’s good to know.”
My mouth dropped open. “Excuse me?”
“I’ve got a list of reasons that have been used by women prettier than you, blondie, and that’s on the flimsy side when it comes to reasons you show up on my doorstep.”
The absolute friggin nerve of him made my jaw pop open. “Who do you think you are?”
One side of his lips curved up, but it was cold. “Uh-huh. Can we be done now?”
“Are you kidding me right now?” I gasped. It was amazing how the body could switch from cold to hot without changing the shape of your skin and bones, because now I was on fire.
“Do I look like I’m kidding?” He flicked his eyes up and down my body, and my sugary shield was no match from the derision I saw on his face. “You can go back next door now. We’re set on baked goods for the foreseeable future.”
You know, there were moments where I prided myself on my even temper. My ability to stuff my immediate reaction and keep a pleasant expression on my face, honed by years of practice of being marginally well-known and judged for every single piece of my life, from my face to my body to my upbringing, my parents’ money.
This wasn’t one of them.
Everything I’d been shoving down for the last week since I got the call about my dad’s heart attack, all the silence that I’d ignored because it was hiding too much, the empty house, my empty family tree, the crappy cupcakes and the fact that it was difficult enough for me to lift my hand to knock on the door in the first place, oh, it all came roaring through my body in an ugly, cacophonous rush of anger.
That’s the only reason I can explain why I shoved the plate of cupcakes at his chest.
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(available to read with your KU subscription)
The Ward Sisters
Focused
Faked
Floored
Forbidden
The Washington Wolves
The Bombshell Effect
The Ex Effect
The Marriage Effect
The Bachelors of the Ridge
Dylan
Garrett
Cole
Michael
Tristan
Three Little Words
By Your Side
Light Me Up
Tell Them Lies
Love at First Sight
(Published by Smartypants Romance)
Baking Me Crazy
Batter of Wits
Steal my Magnolia
Oh my, this book was a glorious test of my patience. I thought it would go one way, and as I was writing, it just … didn’t. Faith and Dominic were a big leap from my last book, and that’s always a little scary as a writer. The vibe of their story was always going to be very different from Forbidden (which is what I wrote before this), because I knew Faith needed someone to shake her world up a bit.
Instead, Faith and Dominic shook up mine.
Through it all, I had a couple sounding boards who probably wanted to duct tape my mouth shut when I kept questioning whether I was on the right path for their story. To Fiona Cole and Kathryn Andrews, I just cannot thank you enough. You walked me through the hardest rewrites I’ve ever done, and I owe you both tremendously.
To my husband and kids, for just … all the things.
To Julia Heudorf for taking the time and energy to beta.
To Najla Qamber/Qamber Designs Media and Regina Wamba for such a fun, sexy cover.
To Jenny Sims and Julia Griffis for the edits and proofreading.
To Ginelle Blanch for giving it a last read.
To Tina and Michelle for being invaluable to me the last few months.
To my readers—I adore you.
“Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not grow faint.”
Isaiah 40:31
Karla Sorensen is an Amazon top 20 bestselling author who refuses to read or write anything without a happily ever after. When she’s not devouring historical romance or avoiding the laundry, you can find her watching football (British AND American), HGTV or listening to Enneagram podcasts so she can psychoanalyze everyone in her life, in no particular order of importance. With a degree in Advertising and Public Relations from Grand Valley State University, she made her living in senior healthcare prior to writing full-time. Karla lives in Michigan with her husband, two boys and a big, shaggy rescue dog named Bear.
The Lie : a bad boy sports romance Page 26
