To Jenny at Seedlings Design for taking my vision and turning it into a beautiful cover for this book!
To the Readers in my Facebook Reader Room who helped brainstorm a title for this book (and who help me with research more often than they realize!)
To Chelsea Gallivan, for being the most inspirational dancer I’ve ever met. So thankful for your friendship.
To my Studio kids and families. For the support and joy you bring into my life. You are such a gift to me.
And especially to you, my readers. I hope you know how special you are. I hope you know that your kind words (either directly to me or via a review or social media) are so greatly appreciated. I hope you know that these stories are my way of sharing my heart with you, and I am so grateful to have that opportunity. You mean the world to me.
Stay Tuned for a Sneak Peek of
Just One Kiss . . .
Carly Collins hated running late. She’d carefully calculated the amount of time it would take to drive from her house to downtown Harbor Pointe (eight and a half minutes), but she hadn’t accounted for being stopped in the driveway by Frieda Jenkins, who walked her Corgi, Elmer, at the same time every single day.
Frieda was sweet and lonely, and she was a talker.
After a long and detailed description of her arthritic challenges, Frieda said, “If you need some help with the yard, my nephew Barry is available. It must be hard to keep up with everything as a single mom.” Frieda tossed a disdainful look at Carly’s overgrown yard.
“No, ma’am,” she said with a smile, “my son and I enjoy taking care of our yard.”
Enjoy might’ve been pushing it.
Frieda raised one thinly lined eyebrow and gave a tug on Elmer’s leash. “Best get to it, then, I suppose.” She trotted off, Elmer at her side, leaving Carly feeling like a Harbor Pointe pariah, the single mom with an embarrassingly overgrown yard and no real plans to catch up in that department.
Who had time?
As she drove downtown, she glanced at the clock on the dashboard of her Honda Civic, well aware that she was cutting it very close.
Sometimes life was simply too much.
The Memorial Day weekend traffic was, as expected, insane. She’d had the perfect parking place in mind, but as she neared Mulberry Street, she found the road blocked.
I should’ve walked.
Her phone buzzed.
You’re going to miss him! Hurry!
Her sister Quinn’s text shifted Carly’s nerves into panic mode. Carly’s son, Jaden, was riding on a float in the big parade, and Carly didn’t want to miss it, though at sixteen, Jaden probably didn’t care one little bit if his mom was there. But that was just it. He was sixteen—and Carly knew he wouldn’t be home many more years. She’d already moved in to “soak it all up” mode thanks to the nurses she worked with.
Her unit manager at work, Dara Dempsey, made a point to lament the fact that her youngest was heading to college in the fall, leaving her to become a “lonely old cat lady with no social life whatsoever.” Dara would always follow up with, “It goes so fast, Carly. Get all the time you can with that boy because he’s going to grow up and leave you and then what will you be?”
Actually, Carly didn’t say so outright, but she hoped she would be Dara’s successor. The woman had announced on Thursday she’d decided to take an in-home private care position that would allow her the freedom to set her own hours, better for visiting her youngest in college.
Carly had immediately thrown her hat in the ring as a candidate for the pediatric nurse unit manager at Harbor Pointe Hospital.
And she thought she had a really good chance of getting it.
Carly had spent the last sixteen years of her life as Jaden’s mom, ruled by his calendar and his school events and his activities. She didn’t want to completely lose herself once he went away to school or, more likely, to train for some big ski competition. A promotion would be just the challenge she needed to make a life for herself now that Jaden was growing up.
And maybe it would keep her mind off the fact that her son was growing up, whether she wanted him to or not.
She shook the thoughts aside as she pulled her Civic into a spot on the grass that was absolutely not supposed to be a parking place.