Spotlight & Giveaway: The Best Kept Secret by Tawna Fenske

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome romance author Tawna Fenske to HJ!

Hi Tawna and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, The Best Kept Secret!

Helllllllllooooooooo, lovely readers! Thank you for joining me to talk about my new rom-com, The Best Kept Secret. If we were together in person, here’s where I’d tackle-hug you and maybe sneak an awkward butt pat. Aren’t you glad it’s virtual?
 

Please summarize the book a la Twitter style for the readers here:

After she rescues her sister’s ex from a loopy response to pain meds, Nyla has to keep Leo’s biggest secret while trying not to fall for him.
 

Please share the opening lines of this book:

“Surprise party for Patrice in the physician’s lounge at three!”

Nyla Franklin looked up from coding a patient chart. A dark brown curl flopped over one eye, and she blew it off her forehead for a clearer view of Aiko.

Her fellow nurse peered over the cubicle wall like a golden retriever dropping a ball at the feet of a Little League pitcher. “I thought you’d want to know,” Aiko continued as Nyla finished typing the code for pertussis. “There’s an ice cream cake and one of those old-timey barbershop quartets to sing happy birthday.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• Several years ago, author pal Katherine Kayne invited me and several other authors for a full-day plotting session with the legendary Susan Mallery. We were each asked to bring an outline for our next project and we’d work together to plot each book. THE BEST KEPT SECRET was born out of that process, and also why I got lucky enough to have Susan’s lovely quote on the cover.
• While I have to keep this vague for obvious reasons, there’s a reason I wanted to write a story about a divorced father who discovers accidentally that his son is not biologically his. Researching and digging into both the technical/DNA aspects as well as the emotional side of things was such a cool experience, and I hope I’ve done justice to a story that’s not as unique as you might think.
• The story kicks off with Leo having a hilariously loopy response to pain meds and saying some zany stuff as a result. I may or may not have this exact reaction to pain meds, and this may or may not be why doctors almost never prescribe them to me!
• While The Best Kept Secret reads as a standalone, it’s part of my “Where There’s Smoke” series about the brave smokejumpers and wildland firefighters battling blazes like we see out here in the Pacific NW each year. Leo (the hero of this book) is a former smokejumper turned pilot, which is a fascinating part of aerial firefighting. The bravery it takes to swoop straight into a fire and drop retardant blows my mind every time I see them out battling wildfires around here.
• Leo’s pre-teen son, Seth, was very much inspired by my kiddo (now 20) when he was that age.

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

Leo and Nyla have known each other for years, since he was married to her sister. They’ve always admired each other’s kindness, humor, and commitment to family, but it’s not until they’re forced to team up guarding Leo’s secret that they start to see each other in a new light.
 

Using just 5 words, how would you describe Hero and Heroine’s love affair?

Hot friendship with huge baggage
 

The First Kiss…

Credit goes to Susan Mallery for suggesting the idea of having Leo kiss Nyla as a way to get her to stop talking. In 40+ published rom-coms, I’ve never written this particular first kiss setup! Here’s an excerpt…

The urge to touch her overwhelmed him. To hold her against his chest, to stroke her hair and lend her some comfort.

Or maybe he was just a horndog. How had he never noticed how beautiful she was, how her mouth looked lush and kissable?

She licked her lips and half the blood left his brain. “How can you stand it, Leo?” she asked. “How can you sit there knowing what you know and not want to ask a million questions?”

He hesitated. “Maybe I don’t want to know the answers.” He’d never voiced anything like that out loud. He couldn’t believe he’d said it at all.

Nyla looked at him, assessing. “I guess I can understand that.” A shock of hair fell over her eye, and Leo had the inexplicable urge to tuck it behind her ear. He shoved his hands into his pockets to keep himself from reaching for her.

She bit her lip, snapping Leo’s attention to her mouth again. For fuck’s sake.

“I can see why you might feel better not knowing the who or the why,” she said. “But don’t you at least want the how?”

Leo frowned. “What, like sex positions or something?” He shook his head. “No. No way.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Her voice had gotten louder, and she glanced at the door behind him and lowered it again. “I’m talking about the logistics. Did she know about it when she was pregnant, or figure it out after? Or maybe she doesn’t know at all, but if she does, is she planning to tell you someday? Like what if Seth develops some form of Myelofibrosis like I had? It can run in families, you know, and if Seth needed a transplant or—”

“You have to quit thinking of worst-case scenarios.” He stepped closer, conscious of the heat of her body. He ordered himself to stop creeping on her as he lowered his voice. “Look, there’s plenty of time for us to have the tough conversations when Seth gets older. For now, can’t he just enjoy his puberty?”

Nyla laughed, but the sound was brittle and a little wild. “That’s just it, Leo. Twelve is the age where he’ll start asking questions. He’s trying to figure out where he fits. You heard him out there—‘am I going to be tall like my dad, or short like my mom?’” She kept going, voice quivering on the edge of hysteria now, and Leo was starting to wonder who could hear them. “‘Will I be a math geek like my father, or am I going to struggle?’ What about musical talent or personality traits or his sense of place in the world? A kid this age, a sensitive kid like Seth, and what if he finds out on his own somehow, like if he does one of those tests for—”

He lunged for her mouth. Not in in a surge of passion, though that changed the second their lips touched. He’d only meant to stifle her words, to get her to shut up for just a second.

Or maybe he was kidding himself, because the instant they connected, his plans screeched to a halt. Her lips parted, and the kiss shifted from a chaste press of mouths to something carnal, something hungry. His tongue grazed hers, and Nyla gave a soft moan. She arched her body against his, and Leo found himself threading his fingers into her hair, tilting her head to deepen the kiss.

She didn’t fight him. She was kissing him back, kissing him like they’d done it a thousand times and still couldn’t get enough.

His brain screamed a warning. Nyla. This is Nyla!

But the rest of him didn’t listen.

Without revealing too much, what is your favorite scene in the book?

I’ll set this one up by saying both Leo and Nyla have an overwhelming need to rescue everyone. It’s why she’s a nurse and he’s an air tanker pilot who puts out forest fires. At a point when sexual tension is already running high, Nyla goes to a pond near the air base to feed ducks. When she spots one in trouble, she swims out to rescue it. Her heroic rescue doesn’t go as planned when a dog runs off with the shirt she left at the water’s edge. Then Leo shows up. Here’s how that goes down…

Leo blinked to clear his eyes, wondering if he’d suffered some kind of mild hypoxia coming in for that landing. Or maybe he’d inhaled trace amounts of ammonium phosphate dropping his load on the flank of that fire just now.
Those two things together might explain why Nyla was standing on the bank of Miller Pond wearing nothing but a wet bra, a band of denim around her thighs, and a look of total bewilderment.

“Shit.” Leo grabbed the hem of his T-shirt and whipped it off, giving it a covert sniff before tossing it to her. “Here, put this on.”

“Oh.” Nyla gaped as the shirt fluttered to the ground.

It landed in a heap between them on the damp dirt, and they both bent to grab it at the same time. Their heads connected with a sharp crack and Nyla teetered to the side.

“Sorry.” Leo caught her by the arms and pulled her upright, leaving the shirt on the ground. “Are you okay?”

She blinked a few times as if pulling herself from a daze. “Do I look okay?”

She looked pretty great to him, all warm curves and damp pink cotton. And, um…no panties, with her cutoff shorts wedged around her thighs. What great thighs, creamy and soft and—

“Shit.” He’d already said that, hadn’t he? He dragged his eyes to her face. “What—why—”

Why was he still gripping her by the arms, holding on like he was about to pull her damp, nearly naked body against his? He should definitely let go.

“What happened?” he finally managed as he dropped his hands to his sides and took a step back. “I thought I saw your car as I was coming in for the landing, but I didn’t know you’d be—”

“Naked and wet and stranded topless in the mud?”

“Yeah, that.”

Nyla shivered and he remembered his own T-shirt. Remembered he wasn’t wearing one, either, a fact made clear by the slow detour Nyla’s eyes took over his chest. With a tiny sound in the back of her throat, she grabbed the waistband of her cutoffs and yanked hard. That looked painful.
But she got them up, thank God, so she was covered now. She zipped up and fastened the button before squaring her shoulders and jerking her gaze back to his. “I was feeding ducks.”

He nodded, not sure he was following. “I often get naked to do that.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” A wobbly smile tugged the corners of her mouth. “I mean, I was feeding ducks and I saw an injured one getting bullied and I thought it might die, so I didn’t think.”

“Sure you did.” It was exactly what he loved about her. “You thought to rescue it, right?”

“Right, only it turned out it wasn’t even a real duck.” She jerked a thumb toward the shore where a plastic hunter’s decoy lay motionless on its side.

“Yep.” Leo returned his gaze to Nyla. “That one’s probably not needing any medical attention.”

If your book was optioned for a movie, what scene would be absolutely crucial to include?

As you might guess from the setup, there’s a point where Leo needs to address the elephant in the room and ask his ex-wife how their kid came to have DNA that’s not his. Since Nyla’s close with both Leo and her sister, she agrees to join the conversation. Unfortunately, the discussion takes place as the three of them attempt to move a couch. It…uh…doesn’t go as planned.

“Leo, say something,” Nyla ordered. “Can you talk?”

“Christ, my nuts.”

Mandi made a choking sound as Nyla slid under him so his head was in her lap. His blood whooshed in his ears, and oddly enough, the pain ebbed a little. For the moment, all he could see was her. Nyla with her soft hair, peering down at him, Nyla with the undersides of her breasts straining against her T-shirt.

Concern filled her blue eyes. “You’re too pale, Leo.”

He tried to grin, but it felt more like a grimace. “You’d be pale, too, if a hide-a-bed crushed your junk.”

“I’m so sorry,” Mandi panted. “It’s not serious, is it?” She gave a strained little laugh. “I mean, it’s not like he’s never been hit in the nuts before, but—”

“Stop it!” Nyla put a hand on his brow and glared at her sister. “Testicular trauma can lead to scar tissue that hinders sperm production or even result in the loss of testes and cause infertility and ohmygod Leo—say something! Are you okay?”

Crap, she must’ve seen something in his eyes. The strain of struggling not to pass out or throw up or kiss her again like he’d been dying to for days. The dizziness was getting to him, and it might have nothing to do with getting nailed in the nuts.

He licked his lips, figuring he needed to answer. “Yeah.”

It came out an unconvincing croak, and Nyla’s brow creased. “I’m serious, Leo. An injury like this isn’t something to laugh about.”

What had she said about infertility? He’d gotten lost in the words, or maybe that was Nyla’s eyes. Had he ever seen this exact shade of blue? Maybe once, flying over the Cascade Mountains. God, his crotch hurt, but looking up into Nyla’s sweet, lovely face with her palm on his cheek—

“‘S’okay,” he managed to wheeze, forcing a small smile so she’d know he wasn’t dying. “Pretty sure my junk still works.”

Because of course he felt twinges down there, and not just the painful kind. The kind that said, “hello, pretty lady with your hand dangerously close to my cock.” He was a red-blooded man with his head in the lap of a beautiful woman. If he was dying, this would be one helluva way to go.

Nyla frowned. “We should get you to the hospital. If there’s damage, you could lose any chance of ever fathering a child someday.”

Mandi made a soft sound. “Well, there’s Seth…”

She trailed off as they both stared at her. Mandi’s brow furrowed as her gaze darted from him to Nyla and back again. “What?” Her voice sounded strained. “What just happened here?”

Leo groaned. “That didn’t go like I planned.”

He closed his eyes and willed himself to pass out.

Readers should read this book …

If they enjoy laughter, tears, and tingly bits all in one tidy package.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have planned?

While this book wraps up my Where There’s Smoke series, the other two standalones in the series (THE TWO-DATE RULE and JUST A LITTLE BET) are also available for readers just discovering the series.

I’ve also got a new series launching in April about a trio of hitmen who set out to start new lives in small-town Oregon, but danger––and love––track them down where they least expect it. The three-book Assassins in Love series is rom-com like all my other books, but with a suspenseful edge. The first book, KILLER INSTINCTS, releases April 7, with the next two books coming in May and June. I’m so excited for readers to meet Matteo and Sebastian, and Dante was already introduced in the final book of my Ponderosa Resort series, DR. HOT STUFF (though you don’t need to read that to hop right in with KILLER INSTINCTS). You can learn more here: https://amzn.to/3sBvgsG

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: We’re giving away one paperback copy of THE BEST KEPT SECRET to a U.S.-based reader.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: How good are you at keeping secrets? Have you ever been in a situation where you felt like you needed to spill someone else’s secret for a good reason? Or have you ever asked someone to keep a secret and found out they couldn’t do it for whatever reason? I want to hear anything you’re willing to share!

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 
 

Excerpt from The Best Kept Secret:

Here’s an excerpt from the first chapter when Nyla goes to see Leo and finds him loopy on pain meds….

Nyla parked at the curb and got out with the soup container pinned under one arm. Where did Seth say he’d left the library book? If Leo was out cold—which he might be if they’d drugged him for surgery—Nyla would have to go hunting for the book. She hustled up the walkway and rapped twice on the door.
No answer.

She hesitated. Rang the bell.

Silence.

Then the thud of off-kilter footsteps. Nyla crossed her fingers she hadn’t woken him. Meds had an odd effect on Leo, which was half the reason she’d stopped by.

The deadbolt clattered, and the door flew open to the echo of Leo’s rumbling baritone. “Nyla!”
He swayed on his feet like a drunk pirate as he gripped the edge of the screen door separating them. His espresso-dark hair was overdue for a trim, and a spatter of white paint dotted the shoulder of his faded green T-shirt. “You brought me a human head.”

She frowned. “What?”

He nodded at the blue container under her arm. “‘What’s in the box?’” He hooted at the joke, which Nyla vaguely recognized as a movie quote of some kind. It wasn’t like Leo to laugh at his own jokes, so her nursing antennae perked up and wiggled.

“It’s a head, right?” Swaying again, Leo tapped the edge of the container through the screen door. “You know, the movie Seven?”

Nyla studied his face and cursed the damn dentist. They must have given him something that made him extra-loopy. Thank God he’d given himself the whole week off work. Handy to own the company. This was definitely not a man who should be flying planes anytime soon. She watched him closely, noting the sluggishness of his movements. She’d seen plenty of drug sensitivities in her career, but the way Leo Sayre metabolized meds was something else entirely.
“You told them you can’t handle Morphine, right?”

“Yep!” Leo smiled proudly. “Codeine, too, since that’s a ribbit flib.”

“A wha—oh, a derivative?”

“Right.” Leo gave her a crooked grin, then turned and walked into the living room.

Nyla hesitated. “I’ll just come in, then.”

She pushed through the screen door to follow and caught sight of what he was wearing. Wasn’t wearing.

“Uh, Leo?”

“Yep?” He vanished around the corner to the kitchen, but not before Nyla got an eyeful of his snug blue-and-green striped boxer briefs hugging the muscular curve of his ass.

“What happened to your pants?” she called.

“I took them off,” he yelled over the slam of the refrigerator door.

Great.

Ignoring the warmth in her cheeks, Nyla glanced around the living room. “Maybe you could put them back on for just a sec while I check your vitals?” She spotted a pill bottle on the coffee table and picked it up, scanning the label while Leo clattered around in the kitchen.

“No problem,” he shouted over the rattle of plates. “Got it covered.”

“I brought you some soup,” she called. “I’ll uh—set it on the coffee table while you put on some pants.”

Nyla studied the pill bottle. Oxycodone Hydrocloride.

Percocet. Hell, that could make even normal people loopy. She sat down on the gray wing-backed chair before wondering if she should run back out and grab a stethoscope. No, better to start simple.

Footsteps signaled his return, and Nyla looked up to see Leo had ditched the T-shirt and was bare-chested under an apron printed with characters from the Simpsons. Leo’s light skin glowed faintly tan, like he’d been working outside without a shirt. Across his broad expanse of chest, Homer Simpson’s face tilted at an odd angle as Leo flopped onto the loveseat next to Nyla’s chair.

She averted her gaze and tried not to notice the well-toned pec peeking around the edge of the apron. She was here as a professional courtesy. And for Seth. She couldn’t forget her nephew’s library book.

Leo smiled and dropped an oval-shaped blue melamine platter on the table. “I brought us snacks.”

Nyla looked at the assortment. An oblong zucchini, stem still attached. A bowl of dry Cheerios. A carton of raspberry yogurt with the foil peeled halfway back. A red-and-white striped dish dotted with brown pellets Nyla guessed might be cat food.

She looked back at Leo. “They gave you Percocet?”

“What? Oh, yeah—apparently gum grafts can be painful, but I don’t think I’ll take it again. Makes me feel kinda…feathery.”

“Feathery?”

Leo held up an arm as though inspecting it for a layer of down, and Nyla did not look at his biceps. “Right,” she said. “Um, how many Percocet did you take?”

“Only one. Doctor’s orders.”

Two-point-five milligrams, which was a low enough dose for a guy Leo’s size. He was six three, probably one-ninety. Still, the elevator clearly wasn’t going all the way to the top floor.

Normal Leo was the dependable guy who owned a multistate air tanker company supplying fire suppression aircraft across the Pacific Northwest. He flew big planes, the ones that swooped low over burning forests to drop retardant with a level of precision that blew Nyla’s mind. His smokejumper pals loved to joke how it was amazing Leo could even get airborne, as big as his balls had to be to fly the kinds of missions he did. That Leo was valiant, smart, and skilled.

This Leo was a drunk frat boy. A drunk frat boy with an alarmingly chiseled physique, a lopsided grin, and very little clothing.

Also, the room was way too hot.

Nyla cleared her throat and focused on assessing the patient. “Did you drink any beer or wine or—”

“Nope. Nuh-uh, no way.” Leo shook his head and reached for the pill bottle, knocking it off the table. He drew his hand back and grabbed a Cheerio instead. “I did just what it said on the label.” He looked at the Cheerio a little sadly, then flicked it back into the bowl. “Can’t have solid food, either.”

“Right.” Nyla studied him, trying to figure out if he looked flushed. Not really, but he did have a certain glow. Or maybe that was her projecting. She should turn on a fan or something.

Howie the Wondercat ambled in, orange-and-white ringed tail swishing like a battle flag. Spotting Nyla, he trotted over and leaped onto her knee. She stroked a hand down his spine, recognizing his move as a ploy for food and not a genuine sign of affection.

“Hey, Howie.” She rubbed a knuckle behind his ear, keeping one eye on Leo. “I can’t stay long, but you’re going to need to keep an eye on this guy, okay?”

Howie gave a grumble-purr and flicked her face with his tail. He seemed to share her suspicion about the contents of the red-and-white striped dish and stretched for it with whiskers twitching.
Nyla turned her attention back to Leo. He was staring at the zucchini and mumbling something about a xylophone.

“Percocet can cause weird side effects, even at a low dose,” she said. “Especially for someone with known drug sensitivities.”

“I’m a sensitive guy.” He looked up and grinned, and Nyla couldn’t tell if he was joking. It wasn’t untrue, but it also wasn’t like Leo to talk about himself like that.

She leaned closer, checking his pupils. They looked normal, two equal-sized black spots swimming in rings of deep maple. “I think the best thing to do right now is get you to bed so you can—”

“I have to tell you something.” The earnestness in Leo’s eyes was enough to halt Nyla’s words.
“What do you have to tell me?”

“I didn’t really lose my virginity to Shelby Carmichael my sophomore year.” He rested a hand on the zucchini as though swearing an oath. “I know she made this big deal about going around telling people we hooked up after homecoming, right?”

“I—” Nyla stopped herself from pointing out that she’d only been in eighth grade and oblivious to Leo’s sex life, fictitious or otherwise. “Okay.”

“She wanted to, but she’d had a lot to drink, so I took her home and put her to bed, but I never even kissed her.” Leo smiled, revealing the tiny chip in one tooth from the time he caught a metal bat in the mouth while teaching Seth to play baseball. “Hey!”

Nyla jumped as Leo smacked the sofa cushion, sending Howie flying off the couch. The cat glared, but Nyla kept her expression as neutral as possible. “Hey what?”

“I was dusting right before you got here—”

“In your underwear?”

“—and I was wondering why the furniture polish has real lemon in it, but the lemonade mix has artificial flavoring?”

“I have no idea.” She also had no idea how a guy who looked like Leo—a guy who owned his own business as well as an apron and apparently a bottle of furniture polish—had managed to remain single for six years. “Did you ever end up going out with that woman who slipped you her number at Seth’s ball game?”

“What woman?”

Guess that answered it. “Never mind.”

Howie hopped onto Leo’s lap, intent on trying his luck elsewhere. The cat curled into a donut shape with his chin on Leo’s knee and one eye on the dish of kibble. Leo began to scratch him behind one ear, eliciting a raspy purr so loud Nyla could hear it from her perch on the edge of her chair. “Did you know cats have two-hundred-and-thirty bones in their body?” Leo asked. “I saw that on the Nature Channel.”

“No kidding? Humans only have two hundred and six.”

“Whoa.” Leo leaned back and an apron string slipped off his shoulder. Nyla started to reach out and fix it, then thought better of it. He really ought to put on some clothes.

“There’s also the Blue Tits,” Leo said as casually as if they were discussing Seth’s grades.

“Blue Tits.” Nyla was almost afraid to ask. “What are Blue Tits?”

“They’re sort of like a chickadee. In these little European villages, Blue Tits would follow the milkmen and poke holes in the foil on top of milk bottles.”

“They drank milk?”

“Yep.” Leo gave her a mournful look. “But they couldn’t really digest it, and sometimes they fell in and drowned.”

“That’s terrible.” She reached over and caught Leo’s wrist above the hand that wasn’t scratching Howie. She found the steady thrum of his pulse and checked her watch. The seconds ticked past, but Leo didn’t pull back. Sixty beats per minute. Pretty normal.

“Blue Tits, huh.” She wondered if there really was a bird by that name. She’d have to Google it later. She tried to think of something else to say, something to keep him talking. At least this way she could monitor his vitals, make sure he didn’t do anything like cooking naked or drunk-dialing exes. His most notable ex was Nyla’s sister, Mandi, and she’d be understanding, but still. It was probably best to watch him a while longer to be sure it was safe to leave him alone.

Birds. Keep him talking about birds.

“I always wondered what the story was behind the one-winged dove Stevie Nicks was singing about,” she said.

Leo cocked his head. “One-winged dove?” He gave her an odd look. “You’re not talking about ‘Edge of Seventeen,’ are you?”

Nyla hummed a few bars in her head until she got to the chorus. Yep, that was it. “‘Just like a one-winged dove, sings a song sounds like she’s singing—’”

“White-winged.” Leo grinned. “You’re goddamn adorable the way you hear song lyrics.”

A candle-flicker of heat warmed Nyla’s cheeks, and she couldn’t say if it was embarrassment from a lifetime of singing the wrong words, or the result of his effusive praise. Had Leo ever uttered the word “adorable” before?

“Crap.” The song lyrics rearranged themselves in her brain. “You’re right. White-winged makes way more sense.”

Leo smiled and picked up the yogurt. There was no spoon, so he held it like a cocktail glass. “Want to know something else weird?”

“If you’re going to tell me Jimmy Hendrix isn’t really singing ‘Excuse me while I kiss this guy,’ I already found out.”

Leo laughed, but there was a solemnness in his expression that wasn’t there a few seconds ago. A tight web of lines crinkled his brow, and his eyes had gone dark. “Did you know Seth’s not really mine?”

Nyla stared. “What?” She started to laugh but then stopped abruptly.

He was serious.

Leo shook his head and stroked Howie from neck to tail. “He’s mine, obviously. Obviously. I’m his father and he’s my boy. My booooooy!” He cackled at the line Nyla recognized from countless Harry Potter marathons with Seth, but unease pricked at the back of her brain.

“Why would you say something like that?” Her voice snagged in her throat, and she ordered herself not to panic. This was a drug reaction, nothing more.

“It’s true,” Leo said, and his grave look told her it was. Or at least Leo believed it was. “Seth’s blood type is O.”

Nyla took a steadying breath. “And you are?”

“AB.”

“I see.” She didn’t speak, waiting for Leo to fill in the rest. Her skin was prickly and the big copper clock above the couch made a frantic tic-tic-tic sound.

“Mandi’s B-negative,” Leo said. “I remembered her talking about it back when she did the bone marrow thing with you. I guess it’s kinda rare.”

“Yes.” Nyla slid a hand over her abdomen, not sure what else to say. She’d been the recipient of Mandi’s bone marrow, the reason her sister had undergone a painful procedure without batting an eyelash.

This had to be a mistake. Leo was confused, or maybe this was another loopy drug response or— “How long have you thought this?”

Thought, not known, but Leo didn’t seem to catch the distinction. “Four years.” He leaned back against the loveseat and closed his eyes, still gripping the yogurt in one big fist. “When Seth was eight.”

Four years? This couldn’t be— How could he—

“You’re positive about this?”

“One hundred percent.” Leo opened one eye and jerked a thumb toward the office, startling Howie. “You can go check the medical records if you want.”

“I—maybe in a minute.” She swallowed hard, not sure which question to ask first. “Have you said anything to Seth?”

“Of course not.” The rough edge to his voice was enough to steer her away from that line of questioning. She watched him peel the foil off the yogurt and lift it to his mouth like a can of beer. His throat moved as he swallowed, and Nyla sat watching, waiting for the rest of the story.
This was a hallucination or something, right?

Questions. She should ask more questions. “What about Mandi?”

Leo lowered the yogurt container and looked at her. “What about her?”

“Did you talk about it or ask her to explain or—”

“No.”

Numbers whirled in Nyla’s brain, reminding her of the time Seth stuck his fridge magnets on the merry-go-round and sent dozens of bright plastic digits flipping into the sand. Seth was twelve, and Leo and Mandi split six years ago. So that would mean—

“You think Mandi had an affair,” she said. “Is that what you’re saying?”

Leo shrugged, but there was a flicker of unease in his eyes. A flash of the real Leo fighting his way up through the fog. “We’d been divorced two years by the time I found out. Best to let sleeping frogs lie, right?”

“I—” Nyla didn’t know what to think or say. “This can’t be true.”

Leo studied her, agitation now clouding his expression. “Sure, maybe not.” He cleared his throat. “I think I’m going to go lie down now. I’m really tired.”

“But Leo—”

“Seth’s library book is on his desk,” he said. “Right next to his earbuds. Could you take those to him, too?”

“But—”

“Thanks for the soup.” He wedged the yogurt container into the center of an asparagus fern and stood up. “Would you mind locking up when you leave?”

Tic-tic-tic went the clock, while Nyla’s heartbeat pounded at the front of her skull. This must be a mistake. Her senses clouded with the smell of raspberry yogurt and a metallic taste in her mouth.
“Leo,” she said again, but he was already halfway down the hall. She stared at his naked back, and the yellow strings of the apron, at the blue-and-green stripes of his boxer briefs.

What the hell just happened?

Excerpts. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Book Links: Amazon | B&N | iTunes | Goodreads |
 
 

Meet the Author:

When Tawna Fenske finished her English lit degree at 22, she celebrated by filling a giant trash bag full of romance novels and dragging it everywhere until she’d read them all. Now she’s a RITA Award finalist, USA Today bestselling author who writes humorous fiction, risqué romance, and heartwarming love stories with a quirky twist. Publishers Weekly has praised Tawna’s offbeat romances with multiple starred reviews and noted, “There’s something wonderfully relaxing about being immersed in a story filled with over-the-top characters in undeniably relatable situations. Heartache and humor go hand in hand.”

Tawna lives in Bend, Oregon, with her husband, step-kids, and a menagerie of ill-behaved pets. She loves hiking, snowshoeing, standup paddleboarding, and inventing excuses to sip wine on her back porch. She can peel a banana with her toes and loses an average of twenty pairs of eyeglasses per year. To find out more about Tawna and her books, visit www.tawnafenske.com.
Website | Facebook | Twitter | | Instagram |