Author:Michelle Hazen
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: August 13, 2019
What could two
troubled souls from different walks of life have in common? Maybe everything.
Andra Lawler lives
isolated at her family’s horse ranch, imprisoned by the memories of an assault
in college. When she needs help training her foals, she hires a Haitian-Creole
cowboy from New Orleans with a laugh as big as the Montana sky.
LJ Delisle can’t
stand the idea that Andra might be lonely—or eating frozen TV dinners. He bakes
his way into her kitchen with a lemon velvet cake, and offers her cooking
lessons that set them on the road to romance. But even their love can’t escape
the shadow of what they've been through. Despite their growing friendship and
his gentle rapport with the horses, LJ is still an outsider facing small-town
suspicions.
Before they can
work through their issues, LJ is called home by a family emergency. In the
centuries-old, raggedly rebuilt streets of New Orleans, he must confront
memories of
Hurricane Katrina
and familiar discrimination. And Andra must decide if she’s brave enough to
leave the shelter of the ranch for an uncertain future with LJ.
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Excerpt from Unbreak Me
Copyright @
Michelle Hazen 2019
Andra opened her front door, and the frown
froze on her face as LJ’s shoulders filled the doorframe.
He was holding . . . a cake?
“Um, hi,” she managed.
Oh crap, she’d promised to talk to him about
the horses.
“Look, I’m sorry. I know I said I’d come talk
to you a couple days ago, but then Socks kicked one of the grooms, and Mary Kay
lost a shoe, and I completely forgot.” She hadn’t forgotten, so much as she was
. . . working up to it. Giving him a few days of seeing her around the ranch
when she was in control of herself, before she got close enough she’d have to
see his opinion of her in his eyes.
He shrugged, careful not to tip the tall cake
off its platter. “I think we got off on the wrong foot the day we met, and our
do-over didn’t really stick.”
Oh God. Apparently, he wasn’t tiptoeing around
anything today.
LJ grinned—a playful, twinkly-eyed one that
made him look like he was just having more fun than everyone else. “Besides,
nobody’s afraid of a guy with a cake.”
A smile tugged at the edges of her mouth.
“I’ve never heard that.”
“No? It’s completely true. Not to mention,
bringing a cake is the best excuse to eat some. I mean, it’s yours. You don’t
have to share. Of course, if you don’t, you may want to pass a tissue or two my
way, is all I’m saying.” He widened his eyes mournfully.
She glanced at the cake, the white icing
whipped into gorgeous swirls. “Did Stacia make that? She used to be terrible at
baking.” She gripped the edge of the door a little tighter. Maybe her friend
had been practicing. It wasn’t like she knew what Stacia was up to these days.
“I’m a little offended. A man doesn’t bring a
borrowed cake for an apology.” He lifted the platter and gave it a waggle.
“We’ve got lemon velvet with French buttercream here. You oughta get it out of
the heat soon, though. The sun melted the frosting some on the way over. It’s a
hike to get up over here, you know it?”
Oops, he was feeling around for an invitation.
Duh, and she was still standing in her door like some kind of freak. “Um, come
in.” The least she could do was feed him some cake and try to act like a normal
person. She stepped aside and racked her brain for small talk that didn’t
involve anything on four hooves. “You know, I can’t quite place your accent.
You said you were from Louisiana, but I’ve met lots of people from there at
rodeos, and they didn’t sound quite like you.”
“Well, you can tell I’m from the South because
I interrupted your workout with dessert.” He tipped his head toward the yoga
mat she’d left by the couch. She smiled, and his grin brightened a couple more
watts. “Seriously, though, I think I’ve got a little bayou country from my days
on my uncle’s horse ranch, cut with the rhythm of the Lower Ninth, maybe some
southern drawl creeping in from the Mississippi border. And New Orleans has a
sound all its own, always has.” Between one word and the next, his words
straightened to all square corners instead of luscious curves. “Then again, if
my mother is listening, I sound strictly like the Yankee university she helped
pay for.”
“Your mom doesn’t like your accent?” Andra
frowned. “Doesn’t she have one?”
“Mama thought I wouldn’t get a decent job
unless I talked like a white banker from Wisconsin.” He shrugged.
Her eyes widened. “That’s not fair. Why should
you have to fake an accent to get a job?”
“That’s the way the world works. People have
ideas about what intelligence should sound like, and I don’t expect I’m going
to change all of them on my own.” He winked. “I tutored English composition for
work study all through college, so I can play the game. I have to admit,
though, sometimes it’s nice to sound like home.”
Andra laughed, a little self-consciously. “I
don’t think I even realized we had an accent up north until you imitated it.”
“Oh, it’s an accent all right, sweetheart. And
you’ve got it thick as anything.”
Heat crept into her skin at the endearment,
though she didn’t get the feeling he was really flirting with her. She glanced
away, the afterimage of him seared on her lids. His deep-brown eyes were a
couple of shades darker than his skin, and they always seemed to be laughing.
He was handsome, with high cheekbones and sensual lips. The kind of man she
would have looked twice at, once.
ABOUT
Michelle Hazen
Michelle Hazen is a
nomad with a writing problem. Years ago, she and her husband swapped office
jobs for seasonal gigs and moved out on the road. As a result, she wrote most
of her books with solar power in odd places, including a bus in Thailand, a
golf cart in a sandstorm, and a beach in Honduras. Currently, she’s addicted to
The Walking Dead, hiking, and Tillamook cheese.
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