Book 2: The Sunshine Valley Series
A Very Merry Match
The holidays are served up with some spice in this small-town romance featuring a woman who must maintain a secret identity and the man who begins falling for her.
This Christmas, all Mayor Kevin Hadley wants is to give his five-year-old son whatever his heart desires. Only Tad has fallen head over holly for his pretty, sweet-as-sugarplum teacher. When attraction sparks between Kevin and Mary Margaret, the single dad thinks she may be the answer to his and his son’s dreams. But after Mary Margaret reluctantly turns him down, Kevin decides it’s time to embark on a new campaign — one for Mary Margaret’s heart.
Mary Margaret Sneed usually spends her holiday baking and caroling with her students. Yet this year, she’s swapped shortbread and sleigh bells for a second job to pay off her late husband’s debts. Mary Margaret would love to go tree trimming with Kevin and his son, but she won’t risk his political future with her controversial side gig. Only the town’s meddling matchmakers have determined there’s nothing a little mistletoe can’t fix . . . and if the Widows Club has their way, Mary Margaret and Kevin may just get the best Christmas gift of all this year.
Includes a bonus novella by Hope Ramsay!
Tropes: small town, second chance romance, matchmakers, holiday romance, single dad, teacher romance, rom-com
Excerpt:
The stool next to Kevin listed to one side as Jason Petrie tried to belly up to the bar with his broken leg. A clatter of crutches, a scrape of stool footings, and the blond, blue-eyed cowboy had half his butt on the seat. His casted leg rested gracelessly to the side.
Noah had a beer in front of Jason before the cowboy released a put-upon sigh or had time to glance over his shoulder at his ex-girlfriend Darcy.
“Before you start off with your smarmy metaphors and clichés, Kev.” Jason paused to sample his beer. “Remember that I’m the only guy in town who shows up to drink with you.”
And wasn’t that a sad state of affairs?
Kevin signaled Noah for another whiskey. He’d been nursing his first for thirty minutes, and he was walking home. “I have no life.”
“Good mayors rarely do.” Jason drank some more beer. “You’re like priests. Nobody trusts priests who get out there and have a life either.”
Kevin scowled at him, annoyed that his opinion mirrored his ex-wife’s, doubly so when he realized they were both right.
If he was ever going to re-activate his social life, he needed a steady girlfriend, someone as boring as he was, someone who was never the talk of the town, someone who wouldn’t ruin his political chances.
“Excuse me.” Mary Margaret Sneed picked up Jason’s crutches and leaned them against the bar. She wore blue jeans, tall black boots, and a chunky fisherman’s sweater that hinted at her curves. She had a full mane of red hair, a pair of tender blue eyes, and was like the Pied Piper when it came to making children behave. “I hate to interrupt, Jason, but…I heard you might be hiring part-time workers.”
“Yep.” Jason patted his walking cast beyond the fringe where he’d cut off one leg of his blue jeans. “The logistics of bull semen collection, storage, and order fulfillment are not what the doctor ordered for another few weeks.”
“Whereas drinking beer is,” Kevin murmured.
Mary Margaret and Jason both paused to look at him. Kevin stared into his whiskey glass.
“I’m looking for a part-time gig,” Mary Margaret continued in that church-girl voice of hers. “But I can’t work until after school during the week.”
“Ahhh.” Jason gave her another once-over. “Didn’t you know? Iggy is a vampire. He and the bulls do all their best work after happy hour.” While Jason explained the horrors of collecting bull semen, storing it with proper labeling in cryogenic units, and shipping it out, Kevin studied Mary Margaret out of the corner of his eye.
She was the complete opposite of his ex-wife. Soft-spoken. Openly kind. Stable. The type of woman a man who was one step from the priesthood would date. It didn’t hurt that she was beautiful or that she knew how to dress well enough to fit in but not loud enough to stand out. He’d seen her circulate in a crowd and not steal the limelight from anyone. She checked a lot of boxes.
And if he looked at the soft bow of her mouth, he could imagine kissing her. And if he imagined kissing her, he could imagine pressing the length of that long, tall body of hers against his. And if he could imagine that…
Kevin sipped his drink, unused to envisioning getting physical with one of his constituents, especially his son’s kindergarten teacher.
He snuck another glance at her.
At that thick curtain of red hair, at her creamy skin, at the delicate way her fingers interlocked and squeezed intermittently as she listened to Jason.
Kevin swallowed thickly.
With all this talk of the priesthood, a switch had been flipped inside him. It’d been months since he’d burned the sheets with a woman. He could probably look at any single woman and imagine…
He glanced over his shoulder at Avery. She was single and his age. Unlike Mary Margaret, when she wasn’t wearing her theater uniform, Avery’s clothes showed more skin and clung to her curves. But as much as he stared, he couldn’t imagine getting busy with Avery.
His attention shifted back to Mary Margaret, to intelligent blue eyes and a soft laugh. She shifted her feet, and then he couldn’t stop thinking about her long legs.
“Noah,” he croaked, a dying man in need of a sanity-leveling drink. He held up his empty glass.
The Story Behind the Story
I’ve always wanted to write a take on Footloose for adults. And when I created Mary Margaret, kindergarten teacher in a small town, I thought, “Here’s my chance!” A woman who can dance but lives in a conservative little town. Who would be the worst person for her to fall in love with? The mayor, of course!
Mary Margaret’s dead husband left a lot of debt and a teacher’s salary alone isn’t going to get her in the clear, especially when she’s approached by a couple of thugs from an online gambling casino. She paid her way through college by dancing in a burlesque review (fully clothed!). And a burlesque club just opened in a larger, nearby town. If only she can keep her moonlighting job a secret and avoid succumbing to the kisses of the mayor, she’ll have a very merry Christmas.
Get Your Copy Today!
