He’s ready and waiting. She’s wanting…but wary.
Runaway Groom
Watkin’s Pond, Book 1
The groom is back in
town.
Abigail lost her best friend years ago when he ditched her
at the altar like a loaf of stale bread. Now he’s back and determined to do
whatever he has to—even lie, apparently—to get under her skin. Although he
makes her hormones rev to life in a way that no one has since he left, she is equally
determined not to fall for his boy-next-door charm.
His bride-to-be is
somewhat reluctant.
Braxton Dean was too young and stupid to know better when he
walked away. Years of trying to fill the Abby-shaped hole in his heart have
left him empty, and now he’s going to win back his girl—or get over her. But
first he needs answers. Particularly why she never responded to any of his
letters.
With the help of their friends, the two battle it out. The army?
An entire town of busybodies. The prize? Happily ever after.
Warning: Contains
indignant old ladies, steamy sex (but not with indignant old ladies), seduction
cake, and condom bouquets. Yes, we went there.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Runaway
Groom:
July 7, 2005
Abby,
I’m sitting in a diner
in the desert. The sun peeking over the mountain lights up everything in these
reds so bright they almost hurt the eyes. You’ve never felt a hot like this,
all dry, nothing like the days that we went swimming over at Watkin’s pond…
I don’t really know
why I’m writing you. I don’t have answers and right now you probably want them.
I just know I couldn’t do it.
I miss you though.
Love, B
Knuckles white, Abigail put her beat-up Ford Focus in Park,
and glanced at her best friend. “I can’t do this.”
“Pussy.” Applying a coat of lipstick to her lush red lips in
the mirror, Carnie shot her a glance. “You can do this. It isn’t like you’re
about to face a firing squad. It’s just a bonfire.”
Shoving her hand through her short, pixie-cut brown hair,
Abigail blew out a frustrated breath. “I would rather face a firing squad. If
you ditch me to go running off with the new boyfriend…”
Carnie gave her a dirty look, tucking her red hair behind
her shoulder. “I would never do that. I know how bent out of shape you get
every time we go anywhere that Braxton might be. Really, though, it will be
fine. The crap happened a thousand years ago. You’re adults now.”
Abigail didn’t feel like an adult. She felt like the
rejected teenager even thinking of Braxton Dean.
It didn’t help that he’d become sexier with age.
Heartbreakingly handsome, Braxton made her thighs clench with just a glance. She
needed to remember the pain and humiliation rather than how it felt to be
pushed into a bed by him. Better to remember the chest-constricting, blinding
terror when he’d ditched her and vanished rather than remember his face a mask
of unleashed passion and his green eyes wild with need. The former would keep
her knees together.
The terror of that time—it wasn’t something she shared with
anyone, not even Carnie.
Remembering gave her the strength she needed to peel her
fingers from the wheel. “You’re right, of course. I can do this. No big deal.
We’re both more mature now. He probably won’t even say a word to me.” The last
came out a bit hopeful, even to her own ears.
“Yeah, at his birthday bonfire, he isn’t going to say a word
to the woman he dated for years and ditched at the altar like a loaf of stale
bread. Really, Abs, you need to get pissed off rather than feeling pissed on.
You’re totally the injured party here.”
“He had his reasons. I’m sure he did.” Why was she defending his dumb ass?
“What reason could be good enough for that grand act of
douchebaggery?” Carnie raised one well-plucked brow at her. “Besides, these are
our friends. You need to remember why
we’re here. He took off. He stayed gone. This is our town. You’re going to walk
in there and show him what he is missing. Rub in his face what he can’t have.”
“I don’t know. He really wasn’t a jerk…not most of the
time.”
“Let’s just go find Mike and the crew, and have a good time.
All of our friends from high school are here and it’ll be good to catch up with
them.”
Nodding, stomach still a bit of a knot, Abigail opened her
door and stepped out into the muggy Ohio night. Stars hung like tiny lanterns
above the recently mowed field and the sound of laughter carried on the breeze.
The bonfire, a huge conflagration, was surrounded by what looked like hundreds
of folding chairs, coolers and other party miscellany that beckoned Abigail
onwards. Who knew? Maybe she would meet someone new and end up being really
happy she wasted the extra five minutes to make sure everything was shaved and
neat?
Carnie strode with her usual impulsive bravery into the
melee. Abigail stuffed her hands in her jeans and resisted casting her head
down to avoid any stares that might be coming her way. Instead she held her
head high, but refused to meet anyone’s eyes. In small-town Ohio, everyone knew
she hadn’t seen Braxton since that fateful day when he left her standing,
flowers in hand, waiting for a runaway groom. Everyone knew that instead of
marrying her, Braxton—golden boy and football hero—ran off to parts unknown,
and she’d neither heard from him nor caught a glimpse of him when he’d come to
town until a few weeks ago. He only returned home now to help his father with
his tool store after his father’s stroke made it hard for the old man to get
around like he used to.
Everyone watched to see how she’d handle it.
She wouldn’t give them a show to chew over for the next decade.
She’d act like it was ancient history, like she hadn’t spent years wondering
how a man could go from saying he loves her to leaving her to stand alone
against a whole swarm of gossips with nothing better to do than tear her to
shreds for being moronic enough to think he would stay.
She concentrated so hard on what she wouldn’t do, she slammed
to an abrupt halt against a firm chest. His
firm chest. Braxton. He smelled the same, damn him.
Even over the scent of wood burning, the ripeness of summer
and the bitter tang of someone’s spilled beer, she inhaled his soap, familiar
cologne and under it all, simply Braxton.
Her stomach clenched. Part of her wanted to smack him and
demand answers. Part of her wanted to run away. Part of her wanted to pull his
face down and kiss him because she’d missed him so much.
Instead she hid behind an armor of polite civility and gave
a short, sharp nod. “Braxton.”
“Abby.” The word came out almost a plea. His eyes held a sad
look she quickly identified. He pitied her.
Double damn him. “Happy birthday.”
And even though she promised herself she wasn’t going to
give everyone a show, promised herself she wouldn’t feed the rumor mills...
The sound of her slap rang out across the field. Even in the
flickering light from the bonfire, her handprint marked his strong jaw and she
couldn’t ignore the pleasure it gave her. Silence seemed to spread across the
night as he touched his cheek. Her mouth hung open, shock rippling through her
as his gaze locked on hers.
“I deserved that.” The timbre of his voice seemed to stroke
across her skin, stirring up a potent cocktail of emotions—lust, love, fury and
pain. The worst part was disgust at herself for feeling anything.
“You deserve worse.”
Instead of arguing with her, which almost would have made
her feel better, like it meant something to him, he simply nodded. “Wanna go
somewhere to talk?”
About the Author
Virginia Nelson believed them when
they said, “Write what you know.” Small town girl writing small town romance,
her characters are as full of flaws, misunderstandings, and flat out mistakes
as Virginia herself. When she’s is not writing or plotting to take over the
world, she likes to hang out with the greatest kids in history, play in the
mud, drive far too fast, and scream at inanimate objects. Virginia likes
knights in rusted and dinged up armor, heroes that snarl instead of croon, and
heroines who can’t remember to say the right thing even with an author writing
their dialogue. Her books are full of snark, sex, and random acts of
ineptitude—not always in that order.
Links
1.
So…RUNAWAY
GROOM, huh? Did you ever know any of those in real life?
Nah, mine stuck
around for that part. It was after the wedding ceremony was over that we
started having problems…lol
2. I love scenes in runaway bride movies, like Julia Roberts scampering away from the altar, or in The Graduate, where Dustin Hoffman steals Katherine Ross from her wedding and they’re riding on a bus, her in her wedding gown. Brides running away on motorcycles, on horseback. How does your groom do it?
He just leaves before the ceremony takes
place. No phone call, no notice…he just never shows up at the church when Abby
expects him. Not as dramatic, but she lives in a small town. It is quite hard
to live down being the girl who got left at the altar like a loaf of stale
bread.
3.
Did
you have any trouble redeeming your RUNAWAY GROOM?
Sure! Abigail isn’t
terribly interested in his reasons for why he left and, when she finally lets
him tell her, she smacks him down—hard. The reason he couldn’t forget her was
she was his best friend…which is exactly the reason it is hard for her to
forgive him.
4.
If
they made a movie of RUNAWAY GROOM, who’d play the heroine?
Maybe Katie Holmes
or Zooey Deschanel? Brown haired, 30s,
lovely, but in an understated way.
5.
And
(maybe more importantly, LOL) who’d play the hero?
Jonathan Rhys
Meyers or Colin O'Donoghue could both pull off Braxton. Handsome, dark haired,
light eyed…a little bit naughty. Brax is the kind of man who is willing to
bring up that one time you skipped wearing underwear because he asked…and
pretty likely to ask you to do it again.
6.
If
they made a movie of YOUR life, who’d be you?
Me? Yikes. Melissa
McCarthy has the bod and the attitude. Dye her hair rainbow colors and she’d
nail it.
7.
What
would they title it?
Stranger than
Fiction
8.
What
type/flavor of wedding cake? Go ahead, be graphic. I will live vicariously
through the sugar.
I only had a tiny
wedding cake from a grocery store—a birthday cake repurposed at the last minute
by scrawling our names on the top—so if I’m getting or writing a cake? It has
to be chocolate with whipped icing and ganache filling. Layers of chocolate,
towering so high toward the ceiling it looks as if it will topple in a giant
chocolate avalanche that you could just swim in…
9.
What
type of ring? Big? Small? Platinum? Jewels? Rainbow Loom?
My darling son
would say rainbow loom, but if I’m picking for me? Platinum with blue stones
around the diamond or maybe chocolate diamonds. If I’m picking for Abby? She’s
a traditional gal, so I think she’d prefer yellow gold and a nice, not overly
pricy, diamond set. Then again, any ring that actually got put on her finger
rather than sitting in a jewelry box would have pleased her.
10. What’s your perfect / ideal / dream
honeymoon location?
Mine would be to
tour Ireland, maybe for a month or two to really soak it in. I think Abby would
like to stay at a nice, local B&B…since she wouldn’t plan on leaving the
room.
11. What are some wedding traditions you
absolutely love?
The dance with the
parents always touches me. I think because I’m a mother and there is something
so final about your child picking who they are spending their life with that it
tears me up to think of my own children starting their lives with someone... I
bawl at every wedding, regardless of my relationship with the couple, but
especially for those I know and love. It is such a beautiful, life affirming
event and life is full of so many dark ones.
Also, cake. Because…cake.
Also, cake. Because…cake.
12. What are some wedding traditions you
absolutely loathe?
Dress sizings. Gah,
the dreaded three-way mirror. I’ve been a bridesmaid far more times than I’ve
been a bride so, yes, having my fat actually measured is traumatic. Can’t we just get me a tent to wear and be done with it?
13. As a reader, what’s your favorite type of
hero? What do YOU look for in a hero?
I love to read
historicals and my favorite kind of hero comes from those—the rake. Other than
that, I love my heroes like I love my real men—knights in rusted and dinged up
armor, heroes that snarl instead of croon, men who are heavy on the intelligent
snark and low on the charming prattle. I like my men to be men—which means,
yeah, they’re not afraid to cry, but they don’t WANT to cry. They don’t always
say the right thing, but they try to be good people as a general rule. And
brains? Brains are a must. Talk nerdy to me, baby.
14. As a writer, what kind of hero do you like
to write best?
Book two in my
Watkin’s Pond Series, the follow up book to Runaway Groom, features probably one of my favorite
heroes of all time. He’s not a terribly nice guy, he was very hard to redeem,
but he had a heart of gold under his cactus like armor of snarl and growl. I
like those heroes best because they are a challenge to wrangle…and often think
more than they say. (Literally, he might have a paragraph of thoughts in his
point of view, but all he said to the heroine was, “No.”) Writing a character
like that? Well, it’s a bumpy ride, (I described him as barbed wire in my
brain) but it is soooo worth it in the end.
15. What’s your favorite kind of heroine?
Smart, unbreakable
even when the odds are stacked against them, sometimes lacking in elegance and
grace, and willing to go toe to toe with the hero rather than swooning when he
bats his eyes at her. Not that my heroes do a lot of eye batting, but you know
what I mean.
16. Can you
tell us (without having to kill us) what you’re working on now?
I would hate to have
to kill anyone…blood stains are really hard to get out of carpet. Instead, I’ll
tell you what is coming out soon.
Runaway Groom releases in January from Samhain and it’s
the first of an at least five book series. The second book of the series, While You Were Writing, is slated to release in October of 2014.
These stories are all set in small town Ohio and feature heroes who aren’t
afraid to get a bit of mud under their nails. I can’t begin to tell you how fun
it has been for me to write what I live daily—small town life full of small
town snark.
Magical Curves, the first of a paranormal trilogy, also
releases in January, but with Evernight Publishing. Featuring a plus sized
bookworm who travels to another world in her dreams to spend time with a
magical prince in a kilt…who finds out that her dream world might be more real
than reality… this series has been a blast for me to write.
I don’t have a release
date for Calling Caralisa, but it is also the first of a planned five
book set, The Bond of Three Series, with Ellora’s Cave coming some time in
2014. This series features ménage situations for a race of people…who aren’t
quite like anything I’ve ever read or written. I look forward to introducing
readers to their world.
Other than that, I
have two stories currently out on submissions. The first is a contemporary with
a hero inspired by Robert Downey Jr. (swoon) and the second is another paranormal,
this one dealing with an unexpected pregnancy. All in all, lots of exciting
things coming this year!!
Thanks so much for
having me! These questions were fun J
And thanks so much for stopping by to play, Virginia!
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