Faked (Ward Family #2)(73)

As Carl flipped on the mounted TV facing the bar, I kept my eyes on my beer, careful not to turn and gawk. Because he sounded hot. Really, really, grade A level ten hot, and I didn’t want to pout if he turned out not to be grade A level hot.

Leaving a seat open between us, he slid his tall, broad frame onto a stool and folded his large hands together in front of him on the bar. Ink crawled up his forearms, as did ropey muscles and strong veins.

Have you ever tried to check out a man without him noticing? It takes skill, people.

His attention never once wavered from the soccer game that appeared on the screen, on the emerald green grass and brightly colored jerseys of the players passing the ball back and forth before the start of the game.

Match.

Whatever.

I snorted into my beer.

“Not a fan of football?” he asked.

Instead of turning fully to see if his face was as hot as his voice and hands and forearms, I kept my eyes forward, just like he seemed to be doing.

“Football, yes,” I said. “The real one.”

He whistled at the jab. I tried to hide my grin by taking another sip of my beer.

When he replied, his voice was dry, mild amusement hanging off every deliciously spoken syllable. “Hate to break it to you, love, but that sport you Americans call football is not the real one.”

Now I did turn, because Mr. Hot Voice and Muscley Forearms didn’t want to go down that road. And when I did, I froze.

The face matched everything else. It matched, surpassed, blew the voice and muscles out of the water.

And when I smiled at him, he did some turning of his own.

His gaze studied my face carefully for something. Whatever he saw caused him to relax. “What?” he asked.

I pointed at the TV. “I don’t think this is an argument you want to get in with me.”

He licked his bottom lip, and reflexively, I felt my thighs clench together. His eyes, an indecipherable color in the dim light of the bar, never strayed from mine. “Carl, put another drink for the lady on my tab, if you please.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Who said I wanted another one?”

His thumb tapped the surface of the bar. His lips curved into a devious smile that made my toes curl inside my shoes. “Because I’m about to give you an education, love.”





Floored, Lia’s book, and the third standalone in the Ward Family series,

is coming December 2, 2020.

Preorder now!





Want to read the first Ward sister’s hate-to-love romance? Check out Molly’s story, Focused, HERE!





Find out where the Washington Wolves got started (and where we meet Logan and Paige for the first time!) in the The Bombshell Effect, a hate-to-love workplace romance between the feisty new team owner and the broody QB. Check it out HERE!





Acknowledgments


Let me start with a note to my readers who were expecting Finn to be the hero. I tried. I REALLY, REALLY TRIED. I tried for a couple of months, actually. After writing a really solid chunk of words, I hit a wall. No matter how many pep talks I gave myself (or got from writer friends), I could not move forward with this book, and it’s the first time that’s happened in the 8 years since I started writing. Something was wrong, and no matter what I tried, the story wasn’t working.

The reason I dedicated this book to Fiona Cole is because it was in one particularly violent, emotional voice message rant about why my brain was broken and why I couldn’t write this book, I said something like “I just freaking wish that freaking Finn had a freaking brother or something and I could’ve written him.”

I stopped. I let my brain catch up with what had just come out of my mouth. And INSTANTLY, I knew that’s what I needed to do. Everything clicked into place, as Bauer was starting to form in my head. I threw away every word I’d written. I started from scratch, and felt amazing about the story that I had plotted.

Then the world exploded. LOL. Writing a book during quarantine, when I was trying to home-school my kids and manage a really anxious time to live in this world was not easy. Actually, it was really, really hard at first. I had to keep my blinders on, and let Fiona yell at me that unless writing made me feel WORSE, I had to just freaking do it.

So that’s what I did. And I could not have done that without her.

That’s the thing about this job. Yes, it’s solitary. No one could write this book for me, but on the flip side of the coin, I could NOT have written it and written it on schedule, if it wasn’t for the friends I’ve made through this book world. Fiona was one, and the others, who encouraged and listened and commiserated and cracked the whip (Kathryn Andrews, Kandi Steiner, Amy Daws, Brittainy Cherry, M.E. Carter, and Staci Hart), THANK YOU is entirely insufficient.

To my husband, who was the sane one in our marriage during quarantine.

To Najla Qamber for another stunner of a cover.

To Janice Owen and Jenny Sims for cleaning up my mess of a manuscript.

To Michelle Abascal Monroy for keeping me organized during release.

To Michelle Clay for reading, and soothing my frayed nerves that I didn’t completely screw this one up.

To Enticing Journey for the promo help.

To my reader group, The Sorensen Sorority, for being AWESOME.

And as always, to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.