**CLOSED** Congratulations to Cathi Gil, the winner! Cathy has won the $10 Starbucks card and copies of my ebooks!
Welcome to the Rendezvous Blog Hop, an EXCLUSIVE sneak peek at excerpts from a group of authors who write fun, feel-good romantic comedies! So, hop on board, enjoy some exclusive excerpts, and go in the draw to win a bunch of great prizes!
Here’s how it works: Once you’ve read the exclusive excerpt below from my new release, One Last First Date, sign up to my newsletter and you will automatically go in the draw to win a collection of my ebooks and a $10 Starbucks card. Then, click on the links to the other authors in the hop, enjoy their excerpts, and enter their competitions. There are some great prizes and loads of books up for grabs, so what are you waiting for?
If you’re already on my newsletter list, follow me on Bookbub, leave a comment below, and you too will go into the draw.
Here’s my exclusive excerpt from One Last First Date:
I leaned down to collect my purse from the hook under the bar. As I stood and turned to leave, the skirt of my dress must have caught on the barstool because, the next thing I knew, I was dragging the stool across the floor as I tried to walk.
Argh!
I stopped, glanced at Parker beside me, hoping he hadn’t noticed. But of course he had. Who would fail to notice a piece of furniture stuck to someone’s clothes?
“Are you all right, Cassie?”
I channeled my inner Control Queen. “Yes. Thank you.” I shot him the breeziest smile I could muster and turned my attention to my dress’s recent attachment.
I tugged at it; it stayed put. I tugged again, nothing. It was firmly wedged in the stool’s wooden join. Tension crept across my forehead. How did this even happen? A barstool attached to my dress simply wasn’t part of the look for my One Last First Date.
I had images of myself dragging this stool around with me for the rest of the date, even bundling it into my car at the end to head home.
I leaned down and peered at my dress. In the low-lit bar, it was hard to see exactly how the dress was attached. I grabbed hold of the fabric and twisted it, hoping to loosen it off.
“Do you need a hand?” Parker asked.
I looked up and shot him a terse smile. “No, I’ve got this. Thank you, though.”
He shrugged, watching me tug. “It looks pretty stuck.”
I tugged and tugged. It still wasn’t budging. I took a deep breath, trying to quell the now frantically buzzing bees in my belly. I needed to give this all I’d got before the evening was ruined. I grabbed a firm hold on the fabric and pulled with all my might. In an instant, it snapped free, my hand—still holding my dress—hurtling upwards.
I blinked, unable to prevent contact, as my fist smacked straight into my face, causing my head to snap back. “Ow!” I screamed, clutching my nose, still holding the skirt of my dress. My eyes began to water with the throbbing pain.
“Cassie! Are you okay?” Parker asked, his voice filled with concern.
“Yes, I’m fine,” I lied.
Why oh why oh why did this have to happen on my One Last First Date?
My dress still in my hand, I glanced down. No underwear flash from the front. Good. Slowly, expecting the humiliating inevitable, I turned my head to look behind me. Oh, god. I scrunched my eyes shut and dropped my skirt immediately.
In my wisdom, I had made the decision to wear something I was wearing the day I met Parker. After all, who was I to mess with Lady Luck? I needed all the help I could get to make this the best One Last First Date known to humanity. No pressure there.
I was not a frilly, complicated underwear kind of girl. I liked practical, plain white cotton. Occasionally, I’d go crazy and buy a different color—I had pink, salmon, and even lavender in my not-so extensive collection—but really, I was a plain ’n practical panties kinda gal.
But this pair? They were a joke present from Paige for my last birthday. Plain white, yes. So far so good. However, emblazoned across the back were the words Bite Me! in bold red letters with a blue outline. Seriously? I mean, come on!
I consoled myself with the fact Parker was standing in front of me. There was no way he could have seen what was written across my butt. And then I remembered the mirror behind the bar. Oh, god.
“Cassie! Lean back, hold your nose here. We need to stem the blood flow.”
Blood flow?
Underwear logos were forgotten immediately. In a daze, I did as Parker instructed, sitting back down heavily on the offending barstool.
I heard Parker ask the waitress for some ice in an efficient, doctorly tone. As I sat, head back, I wished I had a remote control so I could rewind the events of the last few seconds—was that all it’d been?—and get a do-over. Jeez, how I would love a do-over.
We hadn’t even got to dinner yet! This was so not the impression I wanted to make on my future husband.
Parker, proving to be every inch the caring doctor of my fantasies, gently placed a bag of ice wrapped in a towel on my nose. I winced, and he handed me a wad of tissues, which I immediately placed above my lips.
“The ice will help stem the flow as well as lessen any swelling.”
Swelling? Great.
“Thanks,” I muttered from my awkward position, only able to catch a glimpse of Parker out of the corner of my eye. “I’m so sorry about this.”
“Don’t be. It could have happened to anybody.” He smiled at me. “Well, maybe not anybody.”
I let out a weak laugh. It hurt.
“Try and stay still if you can, Cassie. I’ll need to check to see if it’s broken.”
Oh, this was getting better and better.
Parker pulled the ice pack away from my nose. “Hold still, this may hurt.” He gently tweaked it, moving it from side to side. I must have looked beyond ridiculous. In all my fantasies of how tonight would go, not a single one involved my future husband gently tweaking my bloodied and painful nose as I leaned against a bar, surrounded by onlookers.
“Miss Dunhill? I think you’re going to live. Your nose is not broken,” Parker declared at the end of his examination.
To my eternal humiliation, tears stung my eyes. I blinked them away quickly. Whacking myself in the face and flashing the world’s tackiest underwear at the man I wanted to marry was more than enough humiliation for one night.
To be continued …
One Last First Date is my latest novel and is available right now for just 99 cents! Or you can read it for free on Kindle Unlimited. It’s only available from Amazon
To enter to WIN, sign up to my newsletter and you’ll go in the draw to win a collection of my ebooks and a $10 Starbucks card. The winner will be announced here on June 4, 2017, so be sure to check back then.
If you’re already on my newsletter list, follow me on Bookbub, leave a comment below, and you too will go into the draw.
Now it’s time to visit the other blogs on the hop to read some more exclusive excerpts and win some more great prizes!
I hope you had fun and thanks for stopping by!
KateÂ