Tuesday Tales: From the Word PEOPLE

Happy July! Welcome to this weeks Tuesday Tales. I’m beginning a new novel today, this one will be lighter than my last book and is a Christmas Romance. Naughty Rudolph, the name of a cocktail as well as the hero of the story will be with you until October. Here’s a peek at the opening scene.

People often considered thirteen to be an unlucky number. They weren’t wrong. October 13 was shaping up to be the worst day of my life. All of my carefully made plans for the future had just blown up in my face. This wasn’t anywhere near what I’d expected tonight. I’d assumed something very different. Assumptions really are for fools.

I knew something was up the moment Doug invited me to Thanksgiving dinner at the Cactus Grill, Osoyoos’s premier restaurant. For the last five years, I’d cooked the turkey dinner with all the trimmings and then sent him home with enough prepared leftover meals to last him at least two weeks. How the man could eat the same thing day after day was a mystery, but there was some comfort in knowing he wasn’t difficult to please—well, that was as long as things went according to plan since he was the least spontaneous person I knew. Tonight was definitely out of his comfort zone. Paying sixty bucks for a steak was as out of character for him as was the deep blue suit with the white shirt and striped tie he wore. It wasn’t that he was cheap, but the man pinched a dime so tightly that he could tell whether or not the queen wore a bra.

I stared at him. For all his faults, this was the man I’d hoped to marry, the man I’d selected to father my children, the man with whom I’d planned to grow old, not that there was a great deal of choice in the 5,500-soul town. In addition to the suit, he’d gone all out, getting his dark brown hair cut and his beard trimmed, so why wouldn’t I expect that he’d finally decided to propose?

I choked on the mouthful of beer I’d just taken, grateful that I hadn’t spewed it across the table and all over my new salmon wool dress.

“You can’t be serious. Dawson City? In the Yukon?”

He chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s where it was the last time I visited in August. The place is like nowhere else on earth. I’d always intended to go home, you knew that, but until now, there weren’t any opportunities for me.”

Had I known that? If I had, I would never have considered him as husband material. After five years of friends with benefits, I’d assumed that home was here in Osoyoos with me. Mistake number one!

Don’t forget to check out the other Tuesday Tales.