Free Read Details
Have you read Seven-Night Stand and want to read the next installment for free?
Would you like a peek into the Harrington world before deciding if you want to buy one of the books?
Want to read a free novella with a grumpy Luke-from-Gilmore-Girls-esque hero?
Just like free stories?
Well, I’ve got something just for you!
On October 24th, my next newsletter will go out. If you sign up for the newsletter before then, you’ll get special details on how to get this novella for free right away! (Basically it will involve emailing me your email address/file preference and I will email it to you).
If you’re not big on newsletters, I will post it on my website or on Wattpad (or possibly both) in November. By signing up for the newsletter, you’re just guaranteeing an early look (and also contests, other early looks, news about releases etc). The newsletter will only come out once a month and I promise not to spam you.
Here is a blurb and small excerpt for Finding You, Harrington Book 1.5
Blurb: Ellen Stephens lives for adventure. Quitting her job at a production company in LA to go with a startup in small town Kansas, of all places, is just the fresh start she’s looking for after a life of privilege and a very famous father leaves her feeling like she can’t be herself. She’s going to make friends and a life that are about her, not who she’s related to.
Hank Green has had enough adventure to last him a life time. An ex-Marine who completed four tours in the Middle East, he’s seen everything there is to see. Add in a lifetime of taking care of people, including his clinically depressed father, and Hank just wants peace. Taking a job as a security officer for a TV production company at Harrington Airfield seems like the perfect way to spend the rest of his life.
Until he meets Ellen. She’s too young, too happy, and too…bright. He wants nothing to do with her or anyone like her, so why does he find himself constantly drawn to helping her out? Ellen can’t help but be intrigued by her grumpy neighbor. Aside from being hot, it’s hard to resist a grumpy guy who’ll shovel your walk, even if he’s intent on not making friends.
Though they might be opposites, they also might be just what the other needs.
Excerpt
Chapter One
Ellen Stephens looked at the pretty new row of townhouses and grinned so wide it hurt her cheeks. The first step in her next grand adventure, and nothing put her in a better mood than an adventure.
Even if that adventure was in Kansas.
It was kind of Wizard of Oz in the opposite. She’d left the bright lights and dazzling colors of LA behind for a tan newly constructed home on a plot of brown overturned earth. A grey sky and more tan newly constructed houses beyond.
It was the picture of a suburbia she’d never known, growing up in a bustling, busy city. So, it was an adventure. A new job awaited her tomorrow. Well, technically it was the same job she’d been doing back home for the past three years–assistant at a production company.
But now she’d be working for a friend, working toward an idea she’d helped come up with. It was no backpacking through Europe or sightseeing through Thailand, but she’d had enough of that in her early twenties. Now she was newly-turned twenty-seven. No more backpacking the world living off Daddy’s considerable dime.
No more LA and pretty much getting her way because of who her dad was. No one here knew. She’d managed to keep that a secret at her old job at Tyson Productions for two and a half years, and that was in the heart of Hollywood. She was pretty sure her secret could be kept forever in the middle of nowhere Kansas.
The idea of a fresh start was impossible not to be excited about. She loved her family, but she was eager to make a life for herself that wasn’t connected to her dad’s fame. Wasn’t connected to the wealthy and influential friends she’d made growing up.
She was eager to leave the bubble of all that, not because it had been awful, just because she’d never felt…real. Somewhere along the line she’d stopped feeling like a real person in charge of her own life.
And somewhere along the line the friends had faded away, her sister had all but cut her out, and she’d found herself…lonely. LA might be full of people, but when everyone she’d counted on drifted away to focus on their own lives…all those people packed into the city just added to the feeling she was alone.
She was going to change that here. She would find friends who lasted and a life that was solid and fulfilling. Vivvy had done that here, surely Ellen could follow suit.
She turned back to the moving van. It had taken her fifteen minutes to get it parked on the street close enough to the curb it didn’t impede traffic without actually being in her little postage stamp yard.
Of course there was now a little rut in said yard from her parking attempts, but, hey, that was just part of the experience. Nothing could get her down today. With her own money, with her own two hands, she’d driven from California to Kansas in an oversized van packed full of almost all her worldly possessions.
Late winter cold snuck around her legs as she pushed the back door of the moving van open. Though she’d known Kansas would be considerably colder than California, the way the frigid air seemed to sneak right up inside her jeans was a surprise.
Ellen whistled as she picked up the first box from the overcrowded back, too happy with all the opportunities in front of her to be worried about the weather. By the time she was through half the boxes, she was no longer cold. She was sweating under her layers of sweaters and her coat.
As she picked up the next box, a car pulled in front of the townhouse on the corner. One of those sleek, intimidating black SUV things that the paparazzi or cops always seemed to drive.
The man who stepped out could have been a cop. He was big and intimidating, just like his car. She couldn’t imagine him being paparazzi, especially in Kansas. Oh, maybe he was like the sheriff of the little town. How cute would that be?
Cute, but probably not reality. She didn’t imagine cops in small town Kansas made enough to afford that kind of car.
He glanced at her, then the moving truck, his expression completely blank as he did so.
“Hi!” Ellen greeted with a wave, setting down her box. “Do you live there? I’m the new neighbor.” She gestured toward her house.
The man stopped his walk up to his house and looked at her again, his forehead a maze of deep lines as his dark eyebrows drew together. He had pretty blue eyes on a tanned face. He had to be older than her, judging by the deep grooves around his frowning mouth. There might have even been some stray strands of grey in his close-cropped brown hair.
“Yes.” His voice was rough, as if he didn’t use it all that often. He probably didn’t, in fact, because instead of saying anything else, he simply walked away. Didn’t even give her a minute to introduce herself.
Ellen frowned after his impressive form–tall, broad, in good shape, very good shape judging from the way those jeans hugged his butt. Ellen’s lips immediately curved at that thought.
In the plan she had in her head, she made great friends with all her neighbors. Block parties and borrowing sugar and all that. Wasn’t that what a subdivision in the Midwest was supposed to be like?
Well, she still had plenty of neighbors down the line of townhouses to find a friendly one. There was probably a grumpy neighbor in every subdivision. In fact, that’s what she’d call him. Grumpy. It suited his stiff strides and his rough voice and the lines on his face.
Man, Grumpy was kind of hot. Too old for her. Too grumpy for her. But, hot nonetheless.
Filed under: excerpts, Finding You, Harrington Airfield Series, romance, Seven Night Stand
