New Year Kiss with His Cinderella
by Annie O’Neil
on-sale Dec.28
Harlequin Medical Romance
Blurb:
From a midnight kissβ¦to a reunion in the ER!
When Dr. Carter shares a New Year’s kiss with a captivating stranger, he doesn’t expect a reunion. Then he walks into Saint Doloresβs ER the very next dayβ¦and discovers sheβs his new colleague! Awkwardly, their smoking-hot attraction hasnβt gone away! But for Carter, life has meant staying mobile, and he canβt simply lay down roots. Yet thereβs something about Nurse Avery and Nashville thatβs starting to really feel like home.
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/new-year-kiss-with-his-cinderella-annie-oneil/1139663410?ean=9780369712417Β
Harlequin:Β https://www.harlequin.com/shop/books/9781335408990_new-year-kiss-with-his-cinderella.html
*****
Excerpt:
βYouβre that confident, are you?β she asked, her tongue dipping out for a quick swipe along her lips.
She was warming to him. Good.
The guy whoβd climbed on the bull after her had been thrown off and someone else was climbing on. Carter would glue himself to the bull if thatβs what it took to stay on the longest. But it wouldnβt take that. Back in Texas, heβd called his riding paying the bills. His sister had called it sheer stupidity. Theyβd both been right.
βNever met a bull who didnβt take to my winning personality.β He tipped the brim of his hat to her.
Her eyes didnβt leave his. βIf you win my money, Iβm not taking it.β
βAnd Iβm not letting you walk away empty-handed.β
She frowned. βI guess youβd better come up with something else, then. I donβt steal prizes that arenβt mine.β
He held his hands out, then ran them alongside his body. βApart from my guitar, this is the only other thing Iβve got on offer.β
He wasnβt actually broke. He wasnβt a thief, either. That role in the family was already taken.
A loud roar from the crowd filled the air as another contender climbed aboard the longhorn.
She tilted her head to the side, and he took the few moments she was assessing him to do the same. Skin that looked so soft there probably wasnβt a thread count high enough for it. A body that rocked the hell out of her double-denim getup. A pair of cowboy boots that definitely werenβt just for show. Goddamn she was sexy.
βWell, then,β she said. βI guess youβd better get on up there and show me what you got.β When she met his gaze, he was pretty sure he wasnβt only seeing neon lights flaring in her eyes.
She put out her mittened hand. They were going to shake on it, apparently.
Carter smiled. Progress. She liked him, too. Enough to want to see him show his stuff atop a mechanical bull anyway. Maybe she merely wanted a good laugh. Either way, he could work with that. Not that heβd be seeing her again, butβ¦it was New Yearβs Eve. The bit of him that believed in destiny, that hoped that fate wasnβt something only poets spoke of, wanted her appearance in his life to signify something more than a chance meeting. Yet another moment in time that would slip through his fingers when reality reared its head and cut things short. Again.
It surprised him how much he wanted her to be a sign of good things to come. Needed it, even. Perhaps if he won that kissβ¦
He put his thumb and index finger on the tip of her thumb. βMay I?β
She didnβt say anything, but she didnβt refuse. Just watched, mesmerized, as he tugged off her mitten, slowly, so that when their hands finally met, it would be flesh on flesh.
The atmosphere changed. The sounds of the crowd dulled and somehow, the way the world can sometimes, everything stilled so that it seemed like it was just the two of them out here in the middle of Nashville with nothing but a few flakes of snow between them.
*****
Author Info:
Annie spent most of her childhood with a leg draped over the family rocking chair and a book in her hand. Novels, baking and writing too much teenage angst poetry ate up most of her youth. Now, Annie splits her time between corralling her husband into helping her with their cows, listening to audio books whilst weeding and spending some very happy hours at her computer writing.
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