Spotlight & Giveaway: His Enemy’s Daughter by Sarah M. Anderson

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Sarah M. Anderson to HJ!

Hi Sarah and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, His Enemy’s Daughter!

 
Hi, everyone! Happy Summer!!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

The title really does sum this one up–the hero is the enemy, the heroine is the daughter and they are not on the same team until attraction overpowers everything else.

Pete Wellington’s family used to own the All-Stars Rodeo until his father lost it in a poker game to Chloe Lawrence’s dad years ago. He wants his rodeo back! And now that Chloe’s in charge of the show, he’s got a plan–she’s just a pretty–okay, drop dead gorgeous–face and she can’t possibly understand how to run a rodeo, so he’ll get himself hired and push her out from the inside.

But Chloe lives and breathes the rodeo and she knows exactly what Pete’s trying to do and she’s awfully tired of being underestimated just because she’s a Rodeo queen. However, Pete’s right about one thing–she needs help and all the riders and contractors like Pete. Especially when her hot-headed younger brother causes a huge mess and half the riders threaten to walk away from the All-Stars. Against her better judgment, she agrees to hire Pete to help clean up the mess.

What starts out as a simple situation–Pete’s trying to steal back his rodeo, Chloe knows it–gets more and more complicated as they both realize neither is quite the person they assumed the other was. Pete’s not just the enemy’s son and Chloe really does know her stuff. Add to that the long-simmering attraction between them and this is a situation that’s bound to explode!
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

I love Pete–he’s a man’s man and doing what he thinks it right, even if it’s a little underhanded and slightly devious. Plus, when he realizes he’s wrong, he adjusts his way of thinking. Who doesn’t love a man who admits when he’s wrong?

Chloe agrees, like when she thinks, “Pete Wellington had always been the wrong man. How had he become the right one?”

Pete, for his part, does his best to adjust when things aren’t quiet what he’d spent the last ten years thinking they were. This is my absolute favorite line of his, which he thinks after he gets into a brawl with Chloe’s brothers Oliver (His Best Friend’s Sister) and Flash (His One Night Stand, coming April 2019!) and her father, Milt. In that manly way, they’ve got to beat the crap out of each other before they can talk about feelings and stuff.

“I think I love her.” The room spun at that statement. He didn’t know if it was love or a concussion.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• I had the most fun writing Pete and Chloe because they had *all* the witty banter. They start out from a place of intense distrust and dislike but underneath that there’s a current of attraction that they’ve been ignoring for the last ten years or so. Combine long-simmering crushes with sheer antagonism and it’s a recipe for the best banter I’ve written in a looong time!
• The All-Stars rodeo where Pete and Chloe begrudingly decide to join forces in Sikeston, MO, is based on the real-life Bootheel Rodeo. I went down to the rodeo in 2016 with my family–we were heading down to Memphis and stopped on the way because Dwight Yoakham was the musical act and my husband’s not really into country music but even he appreciates a good Dwight! We got the worst mosquito bites at that rodeo but it was great. So that’s what I modeled all the All-Star rodeos on.
• The other rodeo they go to, the Pendleton Round-Up, is one I haven’t been to. But it’s out close to Maisey Yates’ stomping ground in Oregon, so I asked her a lot of questions!
• Finally, I had a lot of fun building up to Flash’s story. We learn he’s got a massive crush on Brooke Bonner, the country music singer, but we have to wait to find out what happens with them!

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

Well, FIRST goes all the way back to when he’s 20 and she’s sixteen and they feel that first spark of attraction and interest but he’s got a chip on his shoulder about how his dad lost the rodeo to her dad and even as a teenager she’s not about to let a man condescend to her and everything goes wrong from the beginning. Fast forward twelve years or so and they’ve settled into the feud like a pair of comfortable jeans. It’s only when they realize that they both want the same thing–the All-Stars to succeed–that they can put their old grievances aside and work together and once that happens–once they stop looking at each other as The Enemy–then it all falls into place. That physical attraction that’s simmered for years bursts out into the open but now it’s tempered with maturity and respect. Pete really does appreciate how Chloe protects the rodeo and she sees that he’s not the same hothead he was, either–he has some solid ideas on how to make the rodeo better.

If your book was optioned for a movie, what scene would you use for the audition of the main characters and why?

The sexual tension between them needs to be off the charts so this scene is super important.

Of course it was Pete Wellington, poking his head around the door and then recoiling in shock.
“What do you want?” she asked, fighting the urge to drop her head in her hands. She didn’t want to mess up her extravagant eye shadow, after all. Then she’d be even further behind schedule.
He was here for a reason. Was it the usual reason—he wanted his rodeo back? Or was there something else?

“I want you to put on some damned clothes,” Pete said through the open door. At least he wasn’t staring.

Chloe frowned at her reflection. “It’s a sports bra, Pete. It’s the same one I wear when I go jogging. The same basic style women across the country wear when they’re working out.”

It was a really good bra, too. Chloe had perfectly average breasts. And she’d come to a place in her life where she was happy with perfectly average breasts. She liked them. They were just right. Anything bigger would make cantering around arenas every weekend downright painful.
That didn’t mean she hadn’t gone out of her way to buy a high-end sports bra that provided plenty of padding. Everything about the Princess of the Rodeo was bigger, after all. She did a little shimmy, but nothing below her neck moved. She was locked and loaded in this thing and her boobs looked good. And completely covered. “It’s not like you can see my nipples or anything.”

“Dammit, Chloe, it’s a bra,” he growled back through the door. “I can’t… You’re… Look, just put on some clothes. Please.”

Oh, she liked that note of desperation in his voice. Was it possible she’d misread the situation? For almost ten years now, she and Pete had been snarling at each other across arenas and in parking lots. She’d always thought her physical attributes had no impact on him because he’d never reacted to her before in that way.

But he was reacting now. She could hear the strain in his voice when he added, “Are you decent yet, woman?”

She stood, her reflection grinning back at her. “I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” she said, plucking the heavily sequined white shirt off the hanger and sliding her arms through the sleeves. “I’d be willing to bet large sums of money you’ve seen your sister in a sports bra and never thought twice about it. And yes, I’m decent.”

“Let’s get one thing straight, Lawrence—you are not my…” Pete pushed his way into the dressing room, which was not designed to hold a man his size. The space between them—no more than a foot and half—sparked with heat as his gaze fell to her chest. “Sister,” he finished, his voice coming out almost strangled as he stared at the open front of her shirt.

“Thank God for that,” Chloe said lightly as she brushed her hands over the sequins—which conveniently lay over the sides of her breasts. “I pity Marie for having to put up with you, I really do.”

She’d never had a problem with Marie Wellington, who worked her wife’s ranch in western Texas. But then again, Marie had made it clear some years ago that she didn’t care if the Wellingtons got control of the All-Stars or not. “It’s just a rodeo,” Marie had confided over a beer with Chloe one night. “I don’t know why Pete can’t let it go.”

In the years since then, Chloe hadn’t gotten any closer to finding out why, either. But if the man was going to torture her, she was going to return the favor—in spades.

Her hands reached the bottom of the shirt and she took her time making sure the hem was lined up.

Pete’s mouth flopped open as Chloe closed the shirt, one button at a time. She probably could’ve asked him for the keys to his truck and he would’ve handed them over without even blinking. She had him completely stunned and that made him…vulnerable.

To her.

She let her fingers linger over that button right between her breasts as Pete began breathing harder, his eyes darkening. The cords of his neck began to bulge out and she had the wildest urge to lick her way up and down them. The space between them seemed to shrink, even though neither of them moved. Her skin heated as he stared, tension coiling low in her belly.

Crap, she’d miscalculated again. Did she have Pete Wellington at her mercy? Pretty much. But she hadn’t accounted for the fact that desire could be a two-way street. He’d always been an intensely handsome man. She wasn’t too proud to admit she’d had a crush on him for a couple years when she’d first started riding at the rodeos, until it became clear that he would never view her as anything more than an obstacle to regaining his rodeo.

But the way he was looking at her right now, naked lust in his eyes instead of sneering contempt?
He wanted her. And that?

That took everything handsome about him and made him almost unbearably gorgeous. Her pulse began to pound and, as she skimmed her fingers up her chest to ostensibly reach for the next button, she had to fight back a moan.

“There,” she said as she fastened the last button, and dammit, her voice came out breathy. “Is that decent enough for you?”

Readers should read this book….

Because enemies to lovers is, if I do say so myself, one of the hottest tropes out there. There’s a thin line between love and hate and passionate feelings one way or the other can easily switch the other way, especially in a long-standing family feud like this one!

There’s a scene in a parking lot of a honky tonk where one second they’re fighting and the next he’s got his hands all over her and she is kissing the heck out of him and neither of them want to stop but they really don’t know how to deal with this very real thing between them and it’s awkward and hot and ALL the good things at once!!

I really love this book, in case you didn’t notice.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I’m just finishing up the Billionaires and Babies book that’ll be out in February with–and I do not say this lightly–my most tortured Desire hero and easily one of my top three most tortured heroes ever. It’ll be called Seduction on His Terms and I pulled out all the stops on this one!! Then in April of next year, Flash–the hot-headed youngest of the Lawrence clan–finally meets his match in His One Night Stand!
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: A print prize pack (US only!) with copies of the first two books of the First Family of Rodeo, His Best Friend’s Sister and His Enemy’s Daughter, PLUS three epub copies of winner’s choice of His Best Friend’s Sister or His Enemy’s Daughter (international!)

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Enemies to lovers is one of my favorite tropes to write because the tension sizzle from page one! What’s your favorite trope to read and why?

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Excerpt from His Enemy’s Daughter:

“Man, that’s a good burger.”

“It’d be better with a beer.”

“True.” She sounded wistful about it. “But there’s no way in hell I’m going to drink around you, Pete.”

“Why not?” He was real proud that he managed to keep any hurt he might or might not have felt at that sideswipe out of his voice. “I’d never go after you like those idiots tried to. You know that.”

She turned and gave him a long look—such a long look, in fact, he began to squirm. He hid it behind scrounging for fries in the bag.

“That begs the question, doesn’t it?”

She was setting him up for something but damned if he could see where this was going. Was she about to remind him he was a man again? “What question?”

“How would you go after me?”

He almost choked on a fry. So much for changing the subject to something safer. “Pardon?”

There was no way she meant that question in a sexual sense and it definitely wasn’t a come-on. Even if he’d like it to be.

She set her empty container aside and swung around, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back against the side of the truck. With the ice and her wounded hand in her lap, she stared at him. “How are you going after me? Like, right now? Because we’ve danced around each other for a decade, Pete. Ten years of push and pull and not once—not once—have you ever been nice to me, much less defended me twice in one day.”

He was thankful it was dark because his cheeks got hot with something that felt like shame and he’d rather take a punch than let Chloe Lawrence see him blush.

“And don’t you dare try to pass it off as if you haven’t been that bad or that mean because I’m not in the mood for bull tonight, Pete.”

“How about tomorrow? We could have this talk tomorrow.”

Light from the streetlamp across the way shone off her smile. “I’ve recently discovered that my tolerance for BS has lowered significantly. Why are you here, Pete? Why are you defending me? Why, after all this time, are you treating me like a person? Like—” she swallowed but didn’t look away “—like a friend?”

Man, it was tempting to protest his innocence. The phrase you never could take a joke danced right up to the tip of his tongue before he bit it back.

She was right. Trying to blow off all the ways he’d attacked and undermined the Lawrence family and their management of the All-Stars over the years would be complete BS. Because he’d thrown everything he had at them—including but not limited to lawsuits—and nothing had worked.

But what was he supposed to say now? She knew why he was here and he knew why he was here. But he couldn’t come right out with the truth, not before he and Chloe had the terms of his new position in writing.

“Maybe things changed. Maybe…” He said something that was supposed to be a bald-faced lie. “Maybe I changed.”

Funny how that felt a lot like the truth.

But it wasn’t, not really. The Lawrence family still owned the All-Stars and Pete wouldn’t stop until he got it back. Chloe was just an obstacle Pete had to work around.

He looked at his obstacle. She was watching him from under her lashes and Pete had the sinking feeling she could tell what color his cheeks were.

“It won’t work, you know.”

“What won’t?”

“Don’t play dumb, Wellington,” she scoffed. “It’s beneath you and it’s beneath me. This scheme you’re working on—it won’t work. You’re only here for one reason. You want your rodeo back.”

What he wanted was to lean forward and kiss her. Not just because he wanted to get her to stop talking—although he did. He wanted to know if things really had changed between them or if it was all just smoke and noise, like the fireworks they set off at the start of every rodeo.

He looked out at the night sky. The bar wasn’t too far away from the highway but, aside from people coming and going from the bar, the rest of the street was quiet, with only the occasional semi rumbling over the overpass.

“Did it ever occur to you that you’ve won?” he heard himself say. “That you’re right?”

“There, was that so hard?” She spoke softly, but he could hear the amusement in her voice.

He shot a hard look at her. “You’ve got a hell of a mouth on you, Chloe Lawrence.”

It wasn’t right, how much he liked that grin on her. “Don’t change the subject. You were telling me I was right?”

“Yeah.” He swallowed and had to look away. These words, they weren’t the reason he was here but…did that make them any less honest? “It’s been ten years and nothing’s changed. I’m never going to pry the All-Stars away from your family. God knows I’ve tried everything, but you people are worse than deer ticks during a wet spring.”

“There’s the Pete Wellington I know,” she muttered, but at least she didn’t sound like she was going to punch him when she said it.

“I can either keep beating my head against the same brick wall that is Chloe Lawrence and her irritating brothers or…”

“Or you can get hired on to run the rodeo?” Yeah, she wasn’t buying this.

But was he lying, really?

The darkness of midnight in Missouri blurred the hard edges around them, making buildings indistinct lumps on the landscape and he wasn’t sure where one parked car ended and the next began. “The All-Stars is everything to me and I’m never going to get it back. I’ve lost more than one lawsuit and you won’t sell. I’m running out of options.”

That was the unvarnished truth and it hurt to admit it.

“So I can either cut my losses and walk away from the one thing I love in this life or I can suck up my pride and ask you to hire me on as a show manager. I won’t try to undermine your authority, and I can keep doing the only thing I love—running the rodeo my father started.”

He looked back at her. Had she bought that last bit? Because, yeah, some of that was the truth. But the part about not working against her was the mother of all whoppers.

She sat forward, her head tilted to one side as she studied him. Could she see where the truth ended and the lies began? Or had the darkness obscured the difference?

Chloe shook her head and swung her legs off the back of the truck. “And I’m supposed to believe that a man whose middle name might as well be Grudge is just going to turn over a new leaf and work under me?” She hopped down, cradling her hand, and began to walk away. “That you’ve decided my family hasn’t ruined your life after all?”

He scrambled after her and caught her by the arm, spinning her around to face him. “Chloe, stop.”
“I don’t buy it, Pete,” she said, her brows furrowed as she stared up at him. But she didn’t pull away from him, so that was something. “It’s a great story, a real heartbreaker. It’d make a hell of a country song but you’re asking me to believe that you’re going to back me up when I want to do things differently in your beloved rodeo? Because you’ve changed?”

“Yeah,” he said, his tone gruff as he lowered his head to hers. “Yeah, I am.”

Kissing Chloe Lawrence was not part of the plan but was that stopping him as he brushed his lips over hers? No, it wasn’t.

Because he was kissing her anyway, dammit. Not the rodeo, not the princess—her, Chloe with the smart mouth and the right hook and it felt so right.

She sighed into him, one arm going around his neck as the ice bag landed on his boot with a thud. He didn’t care because Chloe opened her mouth for him and Pete got a little taste of heaven when her tongue tested the crease of his lips.

Holy hell, this woman. Why hadn’t he kissed her before this? He could have been doing this for years!

He groaned, pulling her into his arms as he took what she gave and came back to ask for more. Greedily, he drank her in, shifting until he had her backed against the side of the truck. “Chloe,” he whispered against her skin as he trailed his mouth down her neck. “God, Chloe.”

She knocked his hat off his head and dug the fingers of her good hand into his hair. “Don’t talk,” she said, sounding almost angry about it. But then she lifted his hand to her breast and even the touch of her chilled skin wasn’t enough to cool him off. “Just don’t talk, Pete.”

“Yes, ma’am.” But that was the last bit of thinking he was capable of as his fingers closed around her breast. The warm weight filled his palm and he moaned at the feeling of her nipple going tight between his fingers. He went rock hard in an instant and suddenly, he needed more.

He needed everything. From her.

“Yeah,” she breathed, which was all the encouragement Pete needed. He shoved his knee between her legs and ground his thigh against her sex. She gasped and bore down on him.

Her heat surrounded him and he grunted, shifting back and forth while she rode his leg. She threw her head back, which seemed like the perfect time to explore her breasts. He had to keep one hand braced on the truck so he didn’t lose his balance, but he slipped the other one under her loose tee and cupped her breast again, teasing her nipple through the thin fabric.

“Lace,” he murmured as he tugged the bra cup down and finally, finally got a handful of nothing but Chloe. “I wondered.”

“Shut up and kiss me,” she growled, pulling his mouth down to hers and kissing him with such raw desire that he almost lost control right then.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 

Book Info:

To get what’s rightfully his, he’ll need to get past her.

But this ain’t her first rodeo…

Pete Wellington’s mission: take back his birthright, the All-Stars Rodeo. First, he must earn the trust of Chloe Lawrence, daughter of the city slicker who stole Pete’s legacy. But this princess of the rodeo isn’t who he imagined. Chloe has beauty, business savvy and spirit, leaving Pete to wonder…has he been aiming at the wrong prize all along?
Book Links: Amazon | B&N | iTunes | kobo | Google |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Sarah M. Anderson is an award-winning author who writes contemporary snarky and sensual romances featuring cowboys and bull riders as well as billionaires with and without babies. She won RT Reviewer’s Choice 2012 Desire of the Year for A Man of Privilege. The Nanny Plan was a 2016 RITA® winner for Contemporary Romance: Short.

Sarah spends her days having conversations with imaginary cowboys and billionaires. Find out more at www.sarahmanderson.com and sign up for the new-release newsletter at http://bit.ly/sarahalerts.
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | GoodReads |