Showing results by narrator "Rawlins Loretta" in All Categories

If anyone asks, I knew better than to flash my boobs for Mardi Gras beads. I still don't know why I did it. Maybe it was the dare from my two best friends. Maybe it was the guys on the balcony saying they'd throw Fireball shots with the beads. Or maybe it was the quiet guy in the corner of that same balcony with piercing gray eyes, wavy dark hair, and a smile so tempting I wanted to climb up there and lick it off his face. Maybe it was because I never thought I'd see them again. Not that it matters. Not today. Because the hotel I manage was finally bought.

Faculty wife Emily Stockwell Turner is beautiful, rich, and principled. However, five years in a marriage devoid of passion is enough to propel Emmy, despite her principles, into an affair with silver-tongued Will Thomas, a self-confessed libertine. The shocking, unforeseen consequences of their affair shatter Emmy's most cherished delusions about friendship, romance, and the ties that bind.

After years of bit parts in forgettable Hallmark movies and embarrassing commercials for feminine hygiene products, I'd been given my big-budget break: the lead in an Edwardian era social drama set on a sprawling estate in Sussex. Everything was going great until I discovered my costar and current flame was banging his way through the cast. That's when this Southern girl channeled her inner Scarlet O'Hara by hurling a vase at him. Turns out the owner of said vase, the infuriating Earl Whittingham, did give a damn about the priceless heirloom.

Marnie Somerset's new job at the Mystic Springs Library seems almost too good to be true. Yes, the small Alabama town is populated with more than its share of odd people, and she did have a flat tire on her way into town and hallucinate Bigfoot crossing the road, which made for less than a stellar start. But the library is fantastic, her new house is charming, and the hot local writer keeps crossing her path.

Ellie: Quick recap. My dad died leaving me an orphan. Jake stepped in and married me rather than letting me go to a foster home. Did I mention I was only 16 at the time? It was okay for a while until it wasn't. Because those feelings that I had for Jake as my oldest friend slowly turned into something else over the years. Feelings he could not deal with. So I did the right thing and divorced him. It was the right thing. I'm pretty sure it was the right thing. Okay it was probably the wrong thing...but I don't think either of us know where we go from here.

Two years after losing her husband in Afghanistan, Carly Lowry has rebuilt her life in Tallgrass, Oklahoma. She has a job she loves teaching third grade and the best friends in the world: Fellow military wives who understand what it means to love a man in uniform. She's comfortable and content...until she meets a ruggedly handsome stranger who rekindles desires Carly isn't quite sure she's ready to feel.

The 23-year-old heiress from one of Charleston's oldest families vanished a month ago. When her father hires private investigator Liz Talbot, Liz suspects the most difficult part of her job will be convincing the patriarch his daughter tired of his overbearing nature and left town. That's what the Charleston Police Department believes. But behind the garden walls South of Broad, family secrets pop up like weeds in the azaleas.

Stay out of the forest, Gran had said: it’s no place to be at night. Especially, when it’s a full moon. Zoelle Baudelaire should have listened. Now she must navigate a world she’d only ever read about in fairytales, full of formidable witches and domineering werewolves out for blood. Yet no story could have prepared Zoelle for Aleksandr ‘Xander’ Adolphus - the volatile Alpha of the Adolphus Pack - or the seductive soulmark that bound their souls together.

The road to self-discovery leads Maverick Kensington deep into the heart of New Orleans. The colorful characters, beautiful scenery, and a hot mess of a woman he finds along the way offer him the perfect place to reinvent himself. The French Quarter and Blue Bayou are exactly the change of pace he's looking for. Carys Matthews is young and inexperienced. Having her family's hotel dropped in her lap after her mother's untimely death.... She doesn't have time for relationships, but Maverick Kensington is worth an exception.

A faceless name. That's all she was when I agreed to play a part in deceiving her. And then the unexpected happened. We met. I yearn for her skin against mine. I crave her scent on my body. I want to make her laugh and then moan. And I do...in secret. I promised my business partner I wouldn't touch his sister. But I broke that promise. Our little dirty weekends together are no longer enough. I want my bohemian girl in my bed every night. She wants a ring, marriage vows, and babies...all things that I can't give her. Our romance is explosive. Our ending, miserable...unless I bend.

Know your enemies. It's good advice - and Kate always thought she did. But everything has changed: there’s a new force at the head of the Thrall collective. A force brilliant enough and ruthless enough to hide its sinister plan behind humanitarian work - building and funding halfway houses to ease the victims of drugs and the Thrall back into society

Setting up a dating website with the guy I've been in love with since I was five wasn't my smartest idea. Especially since he's my best friend's brother - thankfully, she's okay with the fact I'm pulling a Sandy, and I'm hopelessly devoted to him. Which is why it's time to get over him. So I do something crazy and ask Dominic Austin to find me a date. He does - if I find him one, too. Since we own Stupid Cupid, it should be easy, right? And it is. My date is perfect. His date is perfect. Everything is perfect. Until he kisses me.

Here's the deal. I'm 16, and I'm getting married. Super weird, I know. It was just me and my dad. We lived on a cattle ranch in Montana. He died suddenly, leaving me an orphan (which is still a thing). I'm 16 months away from being a legal adult, so I have two choices. A foster home or marry Jake Talley. My dad's foreman and really, my best friend. It's legal. It solves all my problems. Except now, I'm living with Riverbend's hottest cowboy - my husband in name only - and I'm still in high school. Where no one wants to date weird, married Ellie.

Destroy is beautiful, strong, charismatic, and charming. He is also selfish, shallow, petty, and jealous - or is he? One misunderstanding centuries ago resulted in his being labeled as not good enough, untrustworthy, self-serving. To hell with them, he knew who he really was! A strong, dependable, good male of strong character who was very pleasant to be around and even more pleasant to look at. If only he had a female or even friends to notice those things. He'd been alone for so long the bitterness had begun to seep in.

Romance isn't an option for Holly Greenwood. With her wedding planner career on the line, she needs to stay focused, and that means pleasing her demanding boss, not getting distracted by her mind-alteringly hot neighbor.... Ex-marine Kevin Vandemeer craves normalcy. Instead he has a broken-down old house in need of a match and some gasoline, a meddling family, and the uncanny ability to attract the world's craziest women. At least that last one he can fix.

Somebody pushed Shelby Poinsett out her second-floor library window, and it wasn't her husband. At least that's what Charleston's most prestigious law firm wants Liz Talbot to prove. Liz must run the spectrum of Southern society, from the local homeless shelter where Shelby volunteered to the 100-year-old book club where Charleston's genteel ladies are dying to join, to bring a killer to justice.

Private Investigators Liz Talbot and Nate Andrews have worked their share of domestic cases. So when Tammy Sue Lyerly hires them to find out what her husband is hiding, they expect to find something looney but harmless. After all, this is the guy who claims to have been a DEA agent, a champion bull rider, and a NASCAR driver. But when he turns up dead the morning after Liz and Nate deliver incriminating photos, Tammy Sue becomes the prime suspect.

Sergeant First Class Avi Grant's return to Tallgrass, Oklahoma, is a long-deferred wish come true. With her final tour in Afghanistan over, Avi can focus on her future - a job here at home and a family of her own. There's just one thing she has to do first: visit her beloved commanding officer's widow and share her grief. The last thing she expected was to feel an instant attraction to the woman's son. Too bad the sexy surgeon is impossible to ignore...and even harder to resist.

Matt Osborn had no idea coaching his five-year-old nephew's soccer team would get him so much attention from the mothers—attention he doesn't want now that he's given up on love and having a family of his own. Yep, Matt's the last of his bachelor buddies and plans on staying that way. That is until he finds himself face to face with the woman who broke his heart.

The Charleston streets are dressed for the holidays in sophisticated Southern style: topiaries adorned with red ribbons, garland entwined with white lights, and poinsettias potted in gold planters. The high-class bordello in a stately historic home is certainly no exception. When Private Investigator Liz Talbot's dear friend, Olivia, swears she saw a dead body in the parlor of this bordello, one Olivia accidentally co-owns, Liz promptly comes to her aid.