Kissing Under The Mistletoe: The Sullivans (Contemporary Romance) (31 page)

Enjoy the following excerpt from THE LOOK OF
LOVE...

Chase almost missed the flickering light off
on the right side of the two-lane country road. In the past thirty
minutes, he hadn’t passed a single car, because on a night like
this, most sane Californians—who didn’t know the first thing about
driving safely in inclement weather—stayed home.

Knowing better than to slam on the brakes—he
wouldn’t be able to help whomever was stranded on the side of the
road if he ended up stuck in the muddy ditch right next to
them—Chase slowed down enough to see that there was definitely a
vehicle stuck in the ditch.

He turned his brights on to see better in the
pouring rain and realized there was a person walking along the edge
of the road about a hundred yards up ahead. Obviously hearing his
car approach, she turned to face him and he could see her long wet
hair whipping around her shoulders in his headlights.

Wondering why she wasn’t just sitting in her
car, dry and warm, calling Triple A and waiting for them to come
save her, he pulled over to the edge of his lane and got out to try
and help her. She was shivering as she watched him approach.

"Are you hurt?"

She covered her cheek with one hand, but
shook her head. "No."

He had to move closer to hear her over the
sound of the water hitting the pavement in what were rapidly
becoming hailstones. Even though he’d turned his headlights off, as
his eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, he was able to get a
better look at her face.

Something inside of Chase’s chest clenched
tight.

Despite the long, dark hair plastered to her
head and chest, regardless of the fact that
looking like a
drowned rat
wasn’t too far off the descriptive mark, her beauty
stunned him.

In an instant, his photographer’s eye
cataloged her features. Her mouth was a little too big, her eyes a
little too wide-set on her face. She wasn’t even close to model
thin, but given the way her T-shirt and jeans stuck to her skin, he
could see that she wore her lush curves well. In the dark he
couldn’t judge the exact color of her hair, but it looked like
silk, perfectly smooth and straight where it lay over her
breasts.

It wasn’t until Chase heard her say, "My car
is definitely hurt, though," that he realized he had completely
lost the thread of what he’d come out here to do.

Knowing he’d been drinking her in like he was
dying of thirst, he worked to recover his balance. He could already
see he’d been right about her car. It didn’t take a mechanic like
his brother, Zach, who owned an auto shop—more like forty, but
Chase had stopped counting years ago—to see that her shitty
hatchback was borderline totaled. Even if the front bumper wasn’t
half smashed to pieces by the white farm fence she’d slid into, her
bald tires weren’t going to get any traction on the mud. Not
tonight, anyway.

If her car had been in a less precarious
situation, he probably would have sent her to hang out in her car
while he took care of getting it unstuck. But one of her back tires
was hanging precariously over the edge of the ditch.

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Get
in my car. We can wait there for a tow truck." He was vaguely aware
of his words coming out like an order, but the hail was starting to
sting, damn it. Both of them needed to get out of the rain before
they froze.

But the woman didn’t move. Instead, she gave
him a look that said he was a complete and utter nut-job.

"I’m not getting into your car."

Realizing just how frightening it must be for
a lone woman to end up stuck and alone in the middle of a dark
road, Chase took a step back from her. He had to speak loudly
enough for her to hear him over the hail.

"I’m not going to attack you. I swear I won’t
do anything to hurt you."

She all but flinched at the word
attack
and Chase’s radar started buzzing. He’d never been a
magnet for troubled women, wasn’t the kind of guy who thrived on
fixing wounded birds. But living with two sisters for so many years
meant he could always tell when something was up.

And something was definitely up with this
woman, beyond the fact that her car was half-stuck in a muddy
ditch.

Wanting to make her feel safe, he held his
hands up. "I swear on my father’s grave, I’m not going to hurt you.
It’s okay to get into my car." When she didn’t immediately say no
again, he pressed his advantage with, "I just want to help you."
And he did. More than it made sense to want to help a stranger.
"Please," he said. "Let me help you."

She stared at him for a long moment, hail
hammering between them, around them, onto them. Chase found himself
holding his breath, waiting for her decision. It shouldn’t matter
to him what she decided.

But, for some strange reason, it did.

...Excerpt from THE LOOK OF LOVE by Bella
Andre ©2012.

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THE LOOK
OF LOVE

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The following Bella Andre titles are
available in electronic and paperback format.

The Sullivan Family series

The Look
of Love

From
This Moment On

Can’t
Help Falling In Love

I
Only Have Eyes For You

If You
Were Mine

Let Me Be
The One

Come
A Little Bit Closer

Always On
My Mind

One
Perfect Night

The
Way You Look Tonight

Kissing Under The Mistletoe
(Mary & Jack’s story,
coming September 24, 2013)

It Must Be Your Love
(Mia Sullivan's
story, coming Winter 2013)

Bad Boys of Football series

Game For
Love

Game For
Seduction

Game For
Anything

Take Me series

Love
Me

Take
Me

Stand-alone Novels

Candy
Store

Ecstasy

Red Hot
Reunion

Tempt
Me, Taste Me, Touch Me

Hotshot Firefighter series

Wild
Heat

Hot As
Sin

Never Too
Hot

Having sold more than 2 million books,
New
York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author Bella
Andre’s novels have appeared on Top 5 lists around the world. Known
for “sensual, empowered stories enveloped in heady romance”
(Publishers Weekly), her books have been Cosmopolitan Magazine “Red
Hot Reads” twice, have been translated into nine languages, and her
Sullivan books are already Top 20 bestsellers in Brazil. Winner of
the Award of Excellence, The Washington Post has called her “One of
the top digital writers in America” and she has been featured by
NPR, USA Today, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and most recently
in TIME Magazine. She has given keynote speeches at publishing
conferences from Copenhagen to Berlin to San Francisco, including a
standing-room-only keynote at Book Expo America on her publishing
success. Harlequin MIRA is releasing her bestselling Sullivan
series in print throughout 2013 and 2014 in the US, UK, Canada,
Australia and New Zealand.

If not behind her computer, you can find her
reading her favorite authors, hiking, swimming or laughing. Married
with two children, Bella splits her time between the Northern
California wine country and a 100 year old log cabin in the
Adirondacks.

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