Tennessee Waltz by EA Hunt Book Tour and Giveaway :)
Tennessee
Waltz
by
EA Hunt
Genre:
Contemporary Romance
Life
was good for Country Crooner Rhett Ravel. His latest album was a hit.
His fiancée was carrying his child and he was about to take his
career in a new direction. Nothing could stop him.
Bella
Cayn was an upcoming novelist who's newest book was about to put her
on the map and take her career to levels people only hoped for.
Nothing was standing her way.
Both
were getting what they wanted. Had worked hard for their little
slices of heaven but what happens when one's heaven turns into hell
and the other was sent to save them giving them the comfort needed
escape the hell they found themselves in.
“So there seems to have been a
mix-up,” Ms. Greene said. She was going to hit Carlton, her
husband, for this. He was supposed to have put Bella in the small
cottage they had on the back of the property, not in the third floor
apartment.
“A mix-up?”
Bella heatedly said. “This isn’t just a mix-up; this is a
disaster!”
She and the man she now knew as Rhett Ravell had argued back and
forth about whose room they were in until their raised voices, and
his retreating dog, had carried down to the first floor of the inn.
“And that’s putting it mildly!” Bella said as she shook her
head. “I’m naked in my room, and this man…” She gestures
towards Rhett, “…opens the door with a bottle in his hand,
screaming that this is his room.”
“I wasn’t screaming,” Rhett
interjected as he took a sip of his drink. He sat down on the
windowsill.
“And what do you call screaming
at the top of your lungs, ‘WHO
ARE YOU, AND WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN MY ROOM?’”
Bella mocked in a deep voice while looking at him.
Rhett chuckled into his glass.
“What else was I supposed to say? I see a naked woman in my room,
and I have to wonder why she’s there – especially when I didn’t
hire her!”
“Did you
just imply I was a hooker?”
Bella questioned.
“I’d place you as more like a
high-class call girl,” he replied, his eyes roaming her body.
Before she’d covered up, he had
gotten a real good look at the curves Bella’s deep caramel skin
housed. She definitely had an hour glass figure, with a little more
weight in the hips, and an ass he was positive he could balance a
tray on.
“Well, that’s better!”
Bella said.
He raised an eyebrow. Most women
would hate being compared to a prostitute.
“My momma always told me, if I
was going to be in any profession, be the best. And last I checked,
high-class call girls went for a thousand an hour with an all-night
rate of ten grand,” Bella informed before she faced Ms. Greene, who
was trying hide a smirk. “Now isn’t there something we can do
about this?” she questioned, pulling her robe tighter around her
body. She’d seen how Rhett was looking at her. Though the man was
ruggedly handsome, he was not the type she wanted to get involved
with.
“I agree. I would like my room
back – without her in it,” Rhett said as he poured more whiskey
into his glass.
“Being anywhere near you, Mr.
Ravell, is not how I planned to spend my vacation,” Bella snapped
back.
“So you know who I am?” Rhett
questioned. He’d hoped the months’ worth of facial growth had hid
him somewhat.
Bella faced him. “Though I’ve
been in Europe and Asia the last four months, you have been
front-page entertainment news for most of it,” she informed him.
“I’m sure I have been,”
Rhett replied. Since he’d been at the Prestige, he hadn’t really
listened to the radio and had avoided the news at all cost.
“Yes, well, I don’t want to
be anywhere near a man like yourself.”
Rhett pointed at himself with his
hand, holding the whiskey glass. “Myself? Lady, you are a piece of
work. You are in my
room with my
things, and you are trying to make it sound like it’s my fault.”
“I told you before, I didn’t
know this was your room,” Bella reminded him.
“My crap is all over the
place!” Rhett countered. “I have shaving stuff—”
“That you haven’t used in a
while,” Bella finished for him.
Rhett continued, “…and there
is man-soap in the bathroom. Plus, I have clothes hanging up in the
closet. Did you think all that was left behind by some person who had
checked out? And how in the hell did you miss the dog bed by the
French doors leading to the balcony?”
Bella swallowed. She wasn’t
paying attention, that’s how. She had been so tired that she’d
completely ignored all he’d pointed out to her. “I—”
“I what? …am sorry? You
should be! My privacy was invaded, not yours!” Her shoulders
slumped, and he saw the glistening of tears in her eyes, and Rhett
cursed himself. “Damn it! I’m—”
“No.” Bella wiped at her
tears. “You’re right. I invaded your privacy.” She looked at
Ms. Greene. “If there is another room in the inn, I would like to
take it,” she said as her fatigue was coming back full force.
Between the tour, her neighbors, and now this, she was exhausted and
ready to fall over. And she would – just as soon as she could find
a bed to fall into.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have
anywhere else for you to stay,” Ms. Greene said.
“That can’t be possible. When
my publicist’s assistant booked this place, you said you had more
than enough room. That you were practically empty … when she
inquired about privacy for me to rest….” Bella couldn’t head
home and deal with the constant barrage of townspeople, and now she
was about to be kicked out of the B&B she had hoped to find some
rest in.
“That was the case when she
booked the room three weeks ago when we were expecting you,” Ms.
Green said.
Ugh. These reservations were
three weeks old? Shangela, Vanya’s assistant, must have made them
before she had solid appearance dates in Australia.
“If there is nothing here, then
there has to be something somewhere else,” Bella said. She would
hate to move her things again. Her body was protesting, but she
couldn’t….
“You can stay here,” Rhett
told her. He stood up from the windowsill and placed his glass on it.
“I can’t,” Bella said, not
facing him.
“You can,” he insisted as he
walked over to her. He’d watched silently as the wind had been
taken out of her sails and her body revolted at the idea of moving
anywhere but to a bed. He placed his hands on Bella’s shoulders and
turned her towards the bed. “Now, in bed,” he told her.
“I can’t stay here,” Bella
yawned, already breaking down into sleep mode.
“I will sleep on the floor,”
Rhett told her as he gently pushed her toward the bed. He pulled back
the covers and placed her in bed and put them over her.
“That’s not fair. This is
your room. I can—”
“Go where?” Rhett questioned
as he watched her eyes droop.
“The next town,” Bella said
sleepily.
“All booked there too,” Ms.
Greene told them. “It’s the American Association of Beekeepers
Annual Conference,” she shrugged as Rhett looked at her. “Who
knew we had enough beekeepers to fill up all the hotels and such.”
Rhett was sure not all of the
people were beekeepers. Some were vendors selling their wares or
salespeople trying to make deals with the beekeepers. “How long is
the conference?”
“Five days,” Ms. Green
replied. “We are already two days in” she finished
“What about the tiny house I
saw out back?” Rhett questioned. He’d walked the property a few
times with Whiskey Girl and had seen the little house empty.
“Being used by a beekeeper who
lives full-time in the tiny house and didn’t want to change his—”
Both became still when a tiny
snore came from the bed. Rhett chuckled at the sound.
“Laughing at a young woman is
unbecoming,” Ms. Greene told him.
“Yeah, but she’s not awake,”
Rhett retorted.
“Come downstairs for dinner.
I’m sure Whiskey Girl and Mr. Greene are starving. Plus it will
give Bella a chance to sleep.”
Bella. So that was her name.
Rhett turned from the woman in his bed. She definitely lived up to
her name.
Author EA Hunt was born the youngest of William and Natlean Bills' four children. EA was raised in Joliet, IL; an suburb of Chicago, and went to college at Kentucky State University where she earned her Bachelor's Degree in Liberal Arts and sung in the Gospel Ensemble. EA had two daughters, Tayla Elizabeth and Ava Elease. EA, Tayla and Ava reside in Marietta, Ga, an suburb of Atlanta, Ga.
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Congrats on the tour and I appreciate the excerpt and the great giveaway as well. Love the tours, I get to find books and share with my sisters the ones I know they would enjoy reading and they both love to read. Thank you!
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