Just Not Mine - Cover
Reveal
Rosalind James
Contemporary
Romance
Date Published: June 5,
2014
Destiny has a way of sneaking up on you . . . or of
smacking you in the face.
Hugh Latimer's coping with a few problems just now. A broken
hand, missing the European rugby tour . . . and a half-brother and sister who
are playing havoc with his love life. Instead of packing down in the scrum,
he's driving the carpool to ballet--or forgetting it's his turn. When he hears
his neighbor wailing out bad pop in the wee hours, it's the last straw.
And then he was standing just the other side of the kitchen
bench, and she was looking at the depth of his chest, being reminded about the
size of his arms, and he was smiling at her, and her hands had stilled on her
knife.
“Do the ballet run, then?” she asked him, forcing herself to
start cutting through the dense orange flesh again.
“Yeh. I take it you finished the job? Get your
swim?”
“Yeh.” She smiled herself. “Bet I had a better
time.”
He laughed. “Bet you did. I was going to say I’d take the kids
home, because we all need showers, but d’you need a hand here
first?”
She needed to stop smiling at him. “Again, a hand’s what it’d
be. Don’t think you could do too much with one.”
“I can do quite a lot with one,” he said, the look in his eyes
letting her know exactly what he could do, and suddenly, her oven wasn’t the
only thing warming up. All he was doing was standing there, and he was still
sending tingles to places they had no business being, evoking every shivery,
delicious sensation that the most heated on-screen kiss failed to arouse, and
it took all the training she had not to show it.
She looked down again hastily, resumed her hacking progress.
“Nah, got this. Go take your shower. Then come back and help me christen my new
deck.”
He glanced sharply at her, opened his mouth to say something,
then shut it, and she realized what she’d said and very nearly blushed. She
never got flustered with men, and she’d worked with, dated, been chatted up for
years by men infinitely more handsome, polished, and urbane than Hugh could
dream of being, but she was flustered now.
All he said,
though, was, “Right. See you in a bit. Hour or so OK? Enough
time?”
“Perfect,” she said. “See you then.” And kept chopping her
vegies, moving around her dark little kitchen in her bare feet, and did her
best to pretend that this was about a thank-you and nothing more.
Rosalind James
PERSONAL STUFF: I met my husband Rick at UC Berkeley when I was
21, so I really do believe in True Love and Happily Ever After—which helps a
lot in writing about them! We renewed our vows a few years ago with the help of
our two grown sons. Our home base when we’re not having our own adventures is
in Berkeley, California, where the summers are foggy and the food shopping is the
greatest.
WHY NEW ZEALAND: My husband’s job as an engineer, and mine as a
marketing consultant, have given us the opportunity to live in many different
wonderful places in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand. During the latest
stint, 15 months living and working in Auckland, I fell in love with New
Zealand: the beauty and diversity of the landscape (not to mention the
seascapes), the Maori culture and its integration into the country’s life, and,
perhaps more than anything, the people: modest, good-humored, unfailingly
polite and hospitable, and so very funny. I wanted to share what I
loved so much about the country with everyone I knew—and didn’t
know!
THE BOOKS: We had traveled to Wellington to watch the final of
the Rugby World Cup in a pub as the start of a North Island holiday. I was
absolutely overwhelmed by the intensity of All Black fever that gripped the
entire nation during the World Cup, and the stature of the players themselves
at all times. I had never seen anything remotely like it. I started wondering
what it would be like to be so intensely admired and instantly recognizable in
a country that has zero tolerance for bad behavior—and how hard it would be to
find the right partner in that kind of spotlight. And that is where JUST THIS
ONCE was born—walking through the rhododendron gardens of Mt. Taranaki, two
days after the World Cup final. Writing that first page was terrifying, but
within weeks, I knew that I’d finally figured out what I wanted to be when I
grew up.
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