Apricot Sunshine Devereux-Miller needs to stay lost. Her eccentric
aunt's home in Apple Valley is the perfect
place to forget her cheating ex-fiancé and get her no-longer-perfect life back
under control. Plus, it couldn't hurt to fix up the house and turn its
neglected orchard into a thriving business. And if Apricot can keep
Deputy Sheriff Simon Baylor's two lively young daughters out of mischief, maybe
she can ignore that he’s downright irresistible—and everything she never dreamed
she'd find ...
Simon isn't looking to have his heart broken again. He already has
his hands full raising his girls. And lately he's thinking way too much about
Apricot's take-charge energy and unwitting knack for stirring up trouble. He
can't see a single way they could ever be right for each other. Unless they can
take a crazy chance on trusting their hearts—and risking the courage to finally
find their way home.
Link to Follow Tour: http://www.tastybooktours.com/2015/06/the-orchard-at-edge-of-town-apple.html
Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22891404-the-orchard-at-the-edge-of-town
Goodreads Series Link: https://www.goodreads.com/series/115429-apple-valley
Goodreads Series Link: https://www.goodreads.com/series/115429-apple-valley
Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/the-orchard-at-the-edge-of-town
Excerpt
Excerpt
She unlocked it and
pulled it off the rack, the old 1940s Schwinn as sturdy as any modern bike, its
oversized wicker basket roomy enough to carry groceries from the farmers’
market she loved to visit on Saturdays.
Used to love to visit.
Now she planned to spend
Saturdays closed away in Rose’s house until she decided what she wanted to do
with the rest of her life. The life that she’d planned to spend with Lionel.
She climbed onto the
bike, bunching the dress up around her thighs, the strap of the dainty little
blue purse Lionel’s mother had loaned her tossed over her shoulder. The key to
Rose’s house was inside. Otherwise she might have been tempted to throw the purse
into the roadside ditch and leave it there.
If only she could do the
same with the past thirty six hours.
Actually, she’d like to
do it with the past five years. Toss them into a ditch, let them be covered by
dirt and time until the only reminder that they’d ever been there was a tiny
little lump of nothing.
Seeing as how she
couldn’t do that, she started pedaling, her legs pumping, the poufy skirt
shredding as it caught under the wheels and in the spokes of the old bike.
All that money down the
drain.
All that time.
All that commitment and
trust and faith that things would work out.
Gone!
Just like that.
Hot tears burned behind
her eyes, but she’d be darned if she was going to let them fall. Lionel didn’t
deserve them. What he deserved was to be forgotten, and that was exactly what
Apricot intended to do. She also planned to down a quarter-pound burger and an
entire batch of homemade fries. Two things that she hadn’t eaten since Lionel
had moved in three years ago. He believed in organic whole foods. Raw.
Apparently he did not
believe in fidelity.
“Better to learn that
before the vows than after,” she told herself. A magpie screamed a response.
Rose would have said it was a sign of trouble. Apricot didn’t believe in signs
and portents. She believed in hard work and integrity. She believed in doing
her best and in treating people with respect. She believed in keeping the peace
and compromising.
“And look where that got
you,” she muttered.
This time, the magpie
didn’t reply.
She pedaled like mad for
ten minutes, then coasted down a small hill, her lungs burning, her ribs chafed
from the built-in corset. She couldn’t wait to tear the dress off, toss it in
the burn pile, and set a match to it. Couldn’t wait to send her family over to
the condo to kick Lionel’s butt out, either.
Although, knowing them,
they’d already been there, and he’d already been kicked to the curb.
She still wasn’t going
back.
Not for a while.
Author Info
Shirlee McCoy spent her childhood making up stories and acting them
out with her sister. It wasn’t long before she discovered Nancy Drew, The Hardy
Boys, her mother’s gothic romances . . . and became an ardent fan of romantic
suspense. She still enjoys losing herself in a good book. And she still loves
making up stories. Shirlee and her husband live in Washington and have five
children.
Readers can visit her website at www.shirleemccoy.com.
Website: http://www.shirleemccoy.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shirlee.mccoy1
Twitter: https://twitter.com/shirlee_mccoy
GoodReads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/87925.Shirlee_McCoy
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shirlee.mccoy1
Twitter: https://twitter.com/shirlee_mccoy
GoodReads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/87925.Shirlee_McCoy
Rafflecopter Giveaway (Three Print Copies of ORCHARD AT THE EDGE OF TOWN (US Only)
a Rafflecopter giveaway
1 comment:
Thank you for hosting ORCHARD AT THE EDGE OF TOWN
Post a Comment