Spotlight & Giveaway: Tie the Knot in Good Hope by Cindy Kirk

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Cindy Kirk to HJ!

Hi Cindy and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Tie the Knot in Good Hope!

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Tie the Knot in Good Hope is a heartwarming story about two people who have gone through a lot of heartache in their life but are coming out of these trials stronger.
 

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

“I won’t apologize for protecting my child. And I won’t apologize for wanting the fairy tale.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• This book has three meddling older ladies who are determined to bring Lindsay and Owen together.
• I love it that Lindsay, who’s been too easy-going, finally grows a spine in this book
• I learned a lot about flower arranging because of this book.
• One of my favorite scenes is the one with Owen, Gladys (who’s 96) and a fly. Yes, the buzzing kind.

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

This is a friends-to-lovers book. While always attracted to each other, Lindsay and Owen were initially friends. I have no doubt that this couple will live a long and happy life together.

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

This scene gives you a feeling of the connection between the couple:

“We need to talk.” Lindsay whirled back, and something in her eyes had a sick feeling taking up residence in the pit of his stomach.
“Okay.” He watched warily as she began to pace. Not far, just a few steps away and then a few steps back. It was an odd kind of dance.
Come close.
Walk away.
It was a game he and Lindsay had played for years. Until his defenses had been down and they’d gotten together for those few months after Mindy’s death.
“I went to the doctor yesterday.”
Owen’s blood turned to ice. Was she sick? Was that why she looked so pale lately? Was that what she’d been telling her friends yesterday?
There had been little laughter in the booth. All three women had looked so serious.
Owen thought of that time when the doctor had told him and Tessa why their daughter had been waking with severe headaches.
With his heart beating wildly, Owen took a step toward her and asked in a gentler tone, “Are you okay?”
Lindsay chewed on her lower lip, as if trying to decide how much to confide.
He moved closer, so near he could see the specks of gold in the blue depths of her eyes and smell the subtle scent of her perfume. “Tell me.”
Though he’d vowed to never touch her again after the night they parted ways, he took her hand in his and found it ice-cold. When she didn’t pull back, he began to warm the soft, delicate flesh between his hands. “You can tell me anything.”
Without warning, she shivered. A full-body shake that had the alarm bells in his head clanging even more loudly.
Owen enfolded her in his arms, pulling her tight against him in a gesture intended to comfort. She was his friend, he reminded himself. The fact that they were no longer dating didn’t change the fact that he cared for her, would always care for her.
Holding her this way felt so right. For a second, her head rested against his chest, just under his chin. He remembered how it had once been with them. Owen stroked her back, murmuring soothing words. After several long seconds, her trembling eased.
Though he told himself it was for the best, he felt bereft when she pulled back.
“Sorry.” Lindsay offered a wan smile. “I’ve been a little emotional lately.”
“Will you tell me what’s going on?”
Still, she hesitated.
“I’ll tell you.” Her gaze took on a distant look. “Just not tonight.”
The alarm bells that had stilled began to clang again.
“I’d say now is as good a time as any.” Owen gestured with one hand. “We’re alone and unlikely to be disturbed.”
“I don’t know.” Indecision blanketed her face as she turned away from him.
Owen reached out and grasped her arm. “Please.”
He wanted to help her. To be there for her. As her friend, he told himself, but the intense worry that gripped him told Owen what he felt for this woman went beyond simple friendship.
“Tell me,” he urged.
With a resigned sigh, she turned and met his gaze. “I’m pregnant.”

Readers should read this book….

• If they are particularly fond of friends-to-lovers stories
• If they like to read a heartwarming and uplifting romance
• If they like a well-written story
• If they need a break from the harsh realities of life

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

I just finished my Christmas book “Holly Pointe and Mistletoe” which is the first book in a new series.
My upcoming releases are: One Step Away (Hazel Green Book 2) in September, Holly Pointe and Mistletoe in November and Reuinted in Good Hope (Lindsay’s sister’s story) in Febr 2019!
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: One e-copy of each of the following will be given away:
1. Tie the Knot in Good Hope
2. Marry Me in Good Hope
3. Say I Do in Good Hope

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Would you marry someone if you were pregnant, if you knew he didn’t love you?

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Excerpt from Tie the Knot in Good Hope:

“You’re pregnant?” Ami’s voice rose, but she pulled it down.
Lindsay saw the shock in her eyes. She had no doubt that she’d had the same look in hers when the doctor had told her she wasn’t sick, but pregnant.
Eliza simply gazed, unblinking, those almond-shaped gray eyes giving nothing away.
Lindsay’s heart beat like butterfly wings in her throat, and she suddenly felt lightheaded. To steady herself, she took a breath and forced herself to look around the café. Anything was better than seeing the shock and questions in her friends’ eyes.
It was a mistake. While Dan talked, Owen stared. At her.
The odd look in his eyes had her heart shifting into overdrive. She’d spoken in a whisper, barely loud enough for the two women sitting across from her to hear. As she wasn’t facing Owen, he couldn’t have read her lips. No, she reassured herself, he hadn’t heard. She was being paranoid.
“Lindsay.” Eliza’s voice held an urgency.
Lindsay returned her attention to her friends. A tightness filled her chest.
She. Would. Not. Cry.
Not here, surrounded by so many people who knew her, knew her mother.
Not here, with Owen so close.
Calling on an inner strength she hadn’t known she possessed, Lindsay forced a smile. “I’ve always wanted a child.”
But not like this. Not without a husband.
“Are you sure you’re pregnant?” Ami asked.
“Sometimes, a missed period is just that.” Eliza spoke with false heartiness.
“The doctor confirmed it this morning.” Being a wife and mother had always been Lindsay’s dream. She couldn’t count the times she’d visualized walking down the aisle in a white dress.
In her mind, the ceremony was small. Lindsay didn’t like big splashes. But the mystery man at the front of the church was always looking at her with such love that it brought tears to her eyes.
The second part of the dream took place a couple of years later. He was at her side, rejoicing in the news when they learned they were expecting a baby.
Not meant to be, Lindsay thought, squaring her shoulders.
“When are you due?” Ami asked.
“March twenty-seventh.”
“We’ll have our babies around the same time.” Genuine excitement, filled Ami’s voice. “It’ll be wonderful.”
“Lindsay hasn’t said whether she’s continuing the pregnancy.” Eliza’s gray eyes never left Lindsay’s face. “Or whether she plans to keep the baby.”
Seized with a sudden urge to lash out, Lindsay curbed the impulse. None of this was Eliza’s fault. Her friend wasn’t advocating those options, simply letting her know she had choices.
But she didn’t have choices. Not regarding the little one growing inside her. “I want him or her. I know it probably doesn’t make sense. Heck, I don’t even have a job.”
To her horror, Lindsay felt a couple of tears slip down her cheeks. She brushed them aside with a quick swipe of her fingers and prayed no one else in the café had noticed.
Ami’s expression softened, and tears filled her own eyes. “Oh, Lin, I—”
“You both know I never wanted to be a single mother.” She didn’t want to interrupt her friend, but if Ami started crying, Lindsay knew she wouldn’t be able to hold it together.
Too late, Lindsay realized she shouldn’t have brought this up in a public venue. She should have thought of an excuse to meet at Hill House, where the Cherries met. Or even trumped up some reason to get together at one of their homes. There, she’d have been assured privacy.
When Eliza opened her mouth, Lindsay continued, not giving her a chance to speak.
“I’ve seen what that can be like. My sister has had a rough time.” Lindsay paused, wondering why she was comparing herself to Cassie. She wasn’t at all like her older sister, who had four children by three different men.
“Your sister wasn’t even sixteen when she gave birth to Dakota,” Ami pointed out. “You’re thirty-one. A mature woman with a stable—”
Ami didn’t finish the thought. She didn’t need to, because Lindsay knew where she’d been headed. Lindsay had a stable job. Now, she didn’t.
Would things have been different if Shirley had dropped her bombshell after the doctor’s visit, rather than before?
For the best, Lindsay told herself, but the assurance rang false.
“You’re a strong woman.” Eliza made the pronouncement, and the look in her eyes dared her to disagree. “When you hold that new life in your arms, you’ll realize you’ve been given an unexpected blessing.”
Some of the tightness gripping Lindsay’s heart eased at Eliza’s confident tone. “You really think so?”
“Darn right I do. And I just realized I’m going to be the odd one out. I won’t have a child to bring to the playdates you and Ami are going to arrange.” Eliza tapped a perfectly manicured fingernail against the Formica tabletop. “Kyle and I will have to step up our efforts.”
Lindsay smiled, not sure if Eliza was joking. But true or not, the thought of playdates with Ami and her children brought a lightness to her heart.
“Have you told Owen?” Despite being voiced in a soft, gentle manner, Ami’s question had Lindsay jerking as if she’d been poked with a cattle prod.
Pure reflex had her blurting, “What makes you think it’s Owen’s baby?”
Eliza chuckled. “Who else? Unless you’ve been hooking up with the minister.”
Lindsay straightened, stiffened.
“Eliza,” Ami chided.
The executive director of the Cherries lifted her hands, a not-so-innocent expression on her face. “I assume nothing. You never know what people do behind closed doors.”
That the statement held some truth couldn’t be denied. Last spring, Lindsay had been engaged to Pastor Dan Marshall. But their relationship had never been a physical one, and once she’d broken off the engagement, she’d seen him only in passing. And, of course, in church.
“It’s Owen’s baby.” Lindsay swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat. “And no, I haven’t told him.”
“Though neither of you planned this pregnancy, I think he’ll be excited.” Ami continued to speak in a low tone, as if determined to make sure her voice didn’t carry past the confines of their booth. “After Mindy—”
“My child will not be a replacement for Mindy.” The vehemence in Lindsay’s tone took all of them by surprise.
“I wasn’t saying that,” Ami hastened to reassure her. “One child can never replace another. I was just—”
When Ami paused, a look of abject misery on her face, Eliza stepped in. “I don’t presume to speak for Ami, but I thought the same thing. Owen was a loving, caring father.”
“He was.” It was all Lindsay wanted to say on the topic. At least for now.
Owen had been a stellar father. When he and his wife had divorced and she’d moved away, he’d been granted full custody. Mindy had been the light of his life. When she was diagnosed with a brain tumor, he’d been at her side.
When the fight had proved futile, he’d done everything he could to make his smart and funny eight-year-old happy.
Her friends were right. He would want to be a father to this baby.
“When he finds out I’m pregnant, he’ll ask me to marry him.” There wasn’t a single doubt in Lindsay’s mind that that was how the conversation would go.
Ami and Eliza said nothing for several seconds. Then they both nodded.
Eliza lifted a dark brow. “What will you say?”
“I’ll say no.”
Surprise lit the depths of Ami’s green eyes. “You love him, Lin.”
“I do.” Lindsay saw no reason to deny the truth. Besides, she’d already confessed the depth of her feelings to her friends when Owen had dumped her six weeks earlier and broken her heart. “But he doesn’t love me. He didn’t even want to continue to date me.”
That had hurt the most. Lindsay understood his heart was tender. He was still grieving for Mindy. But she’d thought they had a connection, hoped in time friendship would turn into love.
She’d been willing to wait.
Though he’d insisted he wanted to remain friends, he’d made it clear he didn’t want to continue to date her.
“Maybe he’s changed his mind.” The doubtful expression on Ami’s face told Lindsay her friend didn’t believe that any more than she did.
Lindsay shook her head vigorously. When the doctor had given her the news, she’d wanted oh-so-much to travel down a road strewn with hearts and flowers.
Maybe Owen loved her.
Maybe, if he didn’t, after they married, he would grow to love her.
Maybe—
Lindsay pressed her lips together and slammed that door shut. She was going to be a mother. She couldn’t afford to indulge in foolish dreams.
“What is it you want, Lin?” Eliza’s gaze searched hers.
“I want what you have with Kyle. His eyes light up whenever you walk into a room.” Lindsay blinked rapidly to clear the tears that had reappeared and turned to Ami. “I want what you have with Beck. He uses any excuse to take your hand in his, to touch you.”
The women remained silent for several seconds.
“I don’t want someone who’s only with me out of obligation. I already know how it feels to be planning a wedding with fake feelings—because I was the one faking it. I want a man who adores me, who can’t wait to marry me. And I not only want those things from my future husband, I want to feel the same about him. I want real love.” Lindsay squared her shoulders. “If I can’t have that, I’ll go it alone.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Love always finds a way…

Lindsay Lohmeier’s life is no bed of roses. After struggling at a job she loved, but ultimately lost, she opened her own florist shop in Good Hope. Her budding business won’t be her only new addition. Lindsay is pregnant. While she’s happy to open her heart to her baby, opening up to the father is another story.

The last thing Owen Vaughn expected to hear was that he was going to be a father—again. He’s been down this road before and it ended in pain so devastating he thought he’d never heal. Still, he won’t abandon his child or Lindsay, the woman who–before they broke up–had been a bright spot during his darkest days.

Owen proposes, but Lindsay wants her child to grow up in a family built on love, not obligation. As they spend time together preparing for the baby, old feelings resurface. Owen encourages Lindsay to find her own way, hoping she’ll see this pregnancy has given them something special…a second chance at love.
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Meet the Author:

Cindy Kirk started writing after taking a class at a local community college. But her interest in words began years earlier, when she was in her teens. At sixteen she wrote in her diary: “I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t be a writer.” After her daughter went to college, she returned to her passion and jumped straight into composing book-length fiction. She loves reading and writing romance novels because she believes in the undeniable power of love and in the promise of the happily ever after. An incurable romantic and an eternal optimist, Kirk creates characters who grow and learn from their mistakes while achieving happy endings in the process. She lives in Nebraska with her high-school-sweetheart husband.
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