"I"m so sorry," she whispered.
More silence.
She dropped to her wobbly knees in the sand and shoved her wet hair out of her face with shaking fingers. "Dr. Scott? Did you hear me?"
"Yes."
She waited for the rest of his response, desperately gripping the phone.
"You might have lost Tank."
"Yes," she said softly, hating herself.
"If that"s true, I owe you a big, fat kiss."
Grace pulled her phone from her ear and stared at it, then brought it back. "No," she said, shaking her head as if he could see her. "I don"t think you understand, I lost Tank. In the water."
He muttered something that she"d have sworn sounded like "I should be so lucky," but that couldn"t have been right.
"I"m two minutes away," he said. "I got a break in the ER and was coming home to make sure you showed."
"Well, of course I showed-"
But he"d disconnected. "Why wouldn"t I show?" With a huff, she put her phone back in her purse and got up. Two minutes. She had two minutes to find Tank.
Also by Jill Shalvis.
Simply Irresistible.
The Sweetest Thing.
Heating Up the Kitchen (cookbook).
Christmas in Lucky Harbor (omnibus).
Small Town Christmas (anthology).
Head Over Heels.
Lucky In Love.
"Jill Shalvis is a total original! It doesn"t get any better."
-Suzanne Forster, New York Times bestselling author.
Praise for
Jill Shalvis.
and Her Novels.
Head Over Heels.
"[A] winning roller-coaster ride... [a] touching, character-rich, laughter-laced, knockout sizzler."
-Library Journal (starred review).
"Healthy doses of humor, l.u.s.t, and love work their magic as Shalvis tells Chloe"s story... Wit, smoking-hot pa.s.sion, and endearing tenderness... a big winner."
-Publishers Weekly.
"The Lucky Harbor series has become one of my favorite contemporary series, and Head Over Heels didn"t disappoint... such a fun, s.e.xy book... I think this one can be read as a stand-alone book, but I encourage you to try the first two in the series, where you meet all the characters of this really fun town."
-USAToday.com "The writing is, as always, very good. Shalvis makes her characters seem like reflections of ourselves, or at least our relatives. She also makes the scenarios real, not too sweet or too violent. Definitely a good choice for a rainy afternoon."
-RT Book Reviews "A Perfect 10. A truly fun and engaging tale from beginning to end... readers will not be disappointed... Be sure to put this one on your book buying list and get ready to snuggle down for some hot reading."
-RomRevToday.com "Chloe and Sawyer are my favorite couple of the series... These two set the pages on fire!... It"s entertaining, sweet, steamy, and one of my favorite contemporary romances of the year!"
-GoodReads.com "5 stars! A truly delightful read that had me chuckling while reading it... a nice blend of romance, humor, and drama. Definitely going on my keeper shelf. I highly recommend this one."
-SeducedByaBook.com
The Sweetest Thing
"A wonderful romance of reunited lovers in a small town. A lot of hot s.e.x, some delightful humor, and plenty of heartwarming emotion make this a book readers will love."
-RT Book Reviews "A Perfect 10! Once again Jill Shalvis provides readers with a s.e.xy, funny, hot tale... The ending is as sweet as it is funny. Tara and Ford have some seriously hot chemistry going on and they make the most of it in The Sweetest Thing. Trust me: You"ll need an ice-cold drink nearby."
-RomRevToday.com "Witty, fun, and the characters are fabulous."
-FreshFiction.com "It is fabulous revisiting Lucky Harbor! I have been on tenterhooks waiting for Tara and Ford"s story and yet again, Jill Shalvis does not disappoint... A rollicking good time... If you have not read the first book yet, this one will certainly compel you to do so... The Sweetest Thing is shiny and wonderful book goodness."
-RomanceJunkiesReviews.com "This is a fun and flirty story of past loves, secrets, and three sisters whose lives draw the reader in. For a good-time romance, check this one out."
-Parkersburg News and Sentinel (WV) "A fun-filled, s.e.xy, entertaining story... [satisfies] one"s romantic sweet tooth."
-TheRomanceReader.com.
Simply Irresistible.
"Hot, sweet, fun, and romantic! Pure pleasure!"
-Robyn Carr, New York Times bestselling author "4 stars! [I]ntroduces some wonderful characters with humor, heartwarming interaction, and an abundance of hot s.e.x. Readers will be eager for the next story."
-RT Book Reviews "This often hilarious novel has a few serious surprises, resulting in a delightfully satisfying story."
-LibraryJournal.com "Heartwarming and s.e.xy... an abundance of chemistry, smoldering romance, and hilarious sisterly antics."
-Publishers Weekly "Shalvis"s writing is a perfect trifecta of win: hilarious dialogue, evocative and real characters, and settings that are as much a part of the story as the hero and heroine. I"ve never been disappointed by a Shalvis book."
-Smartb.i.t.c.hesTrashyBooks.com "One of those books that totally and absolutely encapsulates its t.i.tle... utterly irresistible. The romance instantly jumps off the page... Jill Shalvis seems to have a golden touch with her books. Each one is better than the previous story."
-RomanceJunkiesReviews.com "A beautiful start to this new series. The characters are as charming as the town itself. A pleasure to read."
-FreshFiction.com "A Jill Shalvis hero is the stuff naughty dreams are made of."
-Vicki Lewis Thompson, New York Times bestselling author of Chick with a Charm "Jill Shalvis has the incredible talent for creating characters who are intelligent, quick-witted, and gorgeously s.e.xy, all the while giving them just the right amount of weakness to keep them from being unrealistically perfect."
-RomanceJunkies.com.
THE DISH.
Where authors give you the inside scoop!.
From the desk of Cynthia Garner.
Dear Reader, You"ve now met several characters from my Warriors of the Rift series, and in SECRET OF THE WOLF you get to know Dante MacMillan and Victoria Joseph. Dante"s a man with a lot of people depending on him, from his colleagues to his sister, who"s just getting over chemotherapy treatments and an unexpected divorce-as well as three lovely four-legged friends named Big Ben, Studm.u.f.fin, and Sugardaddy.
Some of the real events that happened in the Phoenix area while I was writing this book included a huge dust storm called a hab.o.o.b. The first one that blew through the area shut down Sky Harbor Airport. The monster was around 5,000 feet high when it slammed into Phoenix, but radar indicated it had reached heights of 10,000 feet prior to hitting the city. It was caused by the winds that come with our monsoon season, but instead of a rain storm the Phoenix area got a dust storm.
I think I"d rather have monsters in the form of werewolves and vampires, thank you very much. A 10,000-foot-high wall of dust is too apocalyptic for me. (Come to think of it, I may actually prefer a zombie apocalypse over a hab.o.o.b. The one we had was very reminiscent of that one scene in The Mummy. Of course, if Brendan Fraser came along for the ride...) While Dante and Tori didn"t have to put up with monster dust storms, they did have to work with other monsters while they focused on a special project during their off-duty hours that brought them close in more ways than one.
As with Kiss of the Vampire, I have extras up on my website: a character interview with Tori, some pictures of Scottsdale where the story takes place, and a character tree showing the Council of Preternaturals and their hierarchy.
Look for the next installment, Heart of the Demon, coming soon! Finn Evnissyen may not be all he seems to be.
Happy Reading!.
From the desk of Jill Shalvis.
Dear Reader, A few years ago, my family went camping. We brought our boat, and on the first day there, we launched it on the lake for the duration of our stay. My husband gave me my choice of driving the truck and trailer to the campsite or driving the boat across the lake to the dock. It was windy, and I"m a boat wuss, so I picked the truck. Halfway around the lake, I got the trailer stuck on a weird hairpin turn and had to be rescued by a forest ranger. He was big and tough and armed and overworked, and undoubtedly underpaid as well, but the man helped me out of a jam so my husband wouldn"t kill me. Ever since then, I"ve wanted to write a forest ranger into one of my books as a hero.
Enter Matt Bowers. Big and tough and armed and overworked and underpaid. Like my real-life hero, he also stopped and helped a damsel in distress. Of course, Matt gets a lot more in the bargain than my poor beleaguered forest ranger ever got. Matt Bowers gets waitress Amy Michaels, beautiful, tough, jaded... and in desperate need of rescuing. She just doesn"t know it yet.
Hope you enjoy watching these two warily circle each other on their path to true love. Like me, neither of them takes the easy way. I mean, what"s the fun in that?
Our family had a great summer at that lake, and it"s a great summer for me this year too with not one, but three Lucky Harbor novels. So if you enjoy AT LAST, don"t miss s.e.xy Special Ops soldier Ty Garrison in Lucky in Love and handsome doctor Josh Scott in Forever and a Day, coming in August.
Happy Reading-all summer long!
the desk of Molly Cannon.
Dear Reader, There used to be a bar way out in the country where my husband and I would go with a bunch of our friends to dance on Sat.u.r.day nights. We"d drive for miles and miles down these dark, unlit roads, and then in the distance we"d see the glow against the night sky from the pole lights in the parking lot. We"d pull in, the gravel crunching under our tires, and the place would be packed. After we found a place to park, we"d scramble out of our cars and head inside. The sound of country music and the smell of beer would hit us like a wave when we walked in the door. And the building-it was gigantic, a big, barn-like place-but we"d find a table and settle in for a night of two-stepping, drinking beer, and hanging out with our friends.
As I danced, I couldn"t help but do a little people watching. The women would all be dressed to the nines in their dancing outfits, trying to catch someone"s eye. The men would be on the prowl but doing their best to play it cool. I"d keep my eye on the blonde woman in the yellow dress: She"d come with one guy, but she danced with another one all night long. Or the tall, stern-looking cowboy at the bar who never took his eyes off the short, dark-haired girl in the pink shirt for a single second. She huddled up with a group of girlfriends, so I wondered if he"d ever work up the courage to ask her for a dance. There might be a couple arguing in one corner, and a couple kissing in another. It was always quite a show: love, l.u.s.t, broken hearts, maybe some cheating, and a lot of hanky-panky-all played out to the quick-quick, slow-slow beat of a country song. That dance hall is gone now, and the countryside has been swallowed up by neighborhoods and paved roads with streetlights, but I haven"t forgotten the nights I spent there.
So it"s no accident that the first scene of my book AIN"T MISBEHAVING takes place in a parking lot. Not just any parking lot, but the parking lot outside of Lu Lu"s, the local watering hole in Everson, Texas. When Marla Jean Bandy decides it"s time to quit spending nights home alone after her divorce, when she decides it"s time to bust out and have some fun, Lu Lu"s is just the kind of place I thought she needed. Decked out in a tight red dress and her best cowboy boots, she"s ready to get back out there and have a good time... until Jake Jacobsen, a childhood crush, shows up and tries to run interference. Marla Jean is about to find out that a parking lot on a Sat.u.r.day night can be full of delicious possibilities.
I hope you enjoy AIN"T MISBEHAVING and have fun getting to know Marla Jean, Jake, and all the meddlesome, well-meaning folks in Everson, Texas.