Title: The Keeper
Series: Fall River #1
Author: G.K. Brady
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Tropes: Small Town/Opposites Attract/Forced
Proximity/Grumpy-Sunshine/Black Sheep
Release Date: May 23, 2024
BLURB
A mountain blizzard. An injured dog. A romance that caught them both by surprise.
Hailey Bailey craves safety. Raised by an alcoholic father chasing a dream of surfing superstardom, the down-to-earth health inspector just wants a comfortable salary and benefits. But when she attempts to save a lost dog in a blizzard and causes a pickup truck to crash, she’s awed by the handsome driver who protects her from the storm.
Noah Hunnicutt can’t catch a break. Struggling to keep his tavern afloat and impress his judgmental father, the twenty-eight-year-old family pariah is also fending off an obsessed hookup and his money-grabbing, two-timing ex-girlfriend. To top it off, he never expected he’d be rescuing the very woman who made him wreck his truck. But with the gregarious beauty now stranded in town, he can’t say no when she offers to help him out by waiting tables.
Enchanted by the tiny hamlet’s cast of quirky characters, Hailey begins to envision a life there … with the hunky bar owner on her arm. But a series of menacing notes has her rethinking that future. Meanwhile, Noah discovers his troubles aren’t only with vengeful exes when the lovely lady’s smarmy boss arrives to shut his business down. As Noah grapples with doubts about Hailey's honesty, she contends with an increasingly hostile work environment that has her questioning her moral compass.
Can they overcome the outside forces working against them and cultivate a lasting love? Or will they be left to wonder what could have been?
PURCHASE LINKS
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PLAYLIST
EXCERPT
Hailey leaned against a cluttered credenza Noah needed to clear. “Did you know they call you the ‘keeper’?”
He shook his head. “Why?” He kept his eyes fixed on hers so they didn’t drift down to her neckline and all that skin.
“Well, the most obvious reason is you’re their favorite bartender. But apparently you have a reputation for listening to everyone’s troubles and keeping them to yourself. Your female customers are especially appreciative of your ability to keep a secret. I wonder why?” She sent him a sly wink.
“Oh,” came his witty response. While part of her statement gave him a warm flicker of pride, the other part made him squirm under her amused scrutiny. Or maybe the shots of whiskey sloshing in his empty stomach explained his sudden discomfort.
“I can’t blame them. You do shake a mean martini, barkeep. And the way you toss those liquor bottles. Phew!” She faked a forehead swipe.
For a breath-stealing moment, their eyes locked, and he couldn’t break it.
What is really going through that beautiful head of yours?
She cast her gaze down and pushed away from the credenza in an uncharacteristically jerky way, so different from her usual feline grace. A spray of greenery stuck to the hem of her skirt, and she plucked it off and held it in her open palm. “Oops, I hope I didn’t crush this. What is it?”
He ate up the distance between them, leaving mere inches of space, and lifted the vegetation from her hand. “Mistletoe. I really need to organize that credenza.”
Her pale blue eyes darkened as she scanned his face. “Mistletoe?” The word rolled out of her mouth in a breathless rush. Was it possible she was as hot and bothered as he was?
“It’s left over from Christmas last year. We had it hanging everywhere,” he stammered. “Dixie thought we could save it and reuse it this year, but it’s looking a little ragged.” He held it over his head to see if it would crumble.
“Barkeep, are you trying to get yourself kissed? If so, it’s the wrong time of year.”
He yanked his gaze back to hers. “I thought any time of year was the right time,” his mouth said for him.
A kiss wasn’t what he’d been going for … or was it? Hailey had been dancing in his line of sight and his mind’s eye, dousing him with hits of dopamine for most of the day, and the Jameson had dissolved his restraints into a mellow amber puddle.
He wanted her. Despite knowing he shouldn’t, despite the sirens blaring in his head. It wasn’t only his libido talking, though. Something else was at work, an undercurrent that was as powerful as it was vague and elusive.
For an electrified instant, he swam in the depths of those crystalline eyes, recording every fleck, every nuance of their shading, while a debate escalated in his head. He shouldn’t do this. It was a bad idea. The reason why was a little fuzzy, though, and the alarms faded to a dull noise.
She probably thought he had lost it as he stood there, holding the damn mistletoe in the air while he stared down at her. But if she did, she didn’t show it. Instead, she tilted her chin up and glanced at the desiccated plant, murmuring, “So are you just going to hold it there all night?”
Again, his mouth took over for his short-circuited brain. “Until I can invent a different reason why you should let me kiss you, then, yeah, I probably am.”
Her eyes flared and lowered to his mouth before slowly leveling with his again. “Who says you have to invent anything?”
AUTHOR BIO
Since childhood, all sorts of stories and characters have lived in G.K. Brady’s imagination, elbowing one another for attention, so she’s finally giving them their voice on the written page.
An award-winning writer of contemporary romance, she loves telling tales of the less-than-perfect hero or heroine who transforms with each turn of a page. She also writes historical fiction under the pen name Griffin Brady.
G.K. is a wife and the proud mom of three grown sons. When she’s not writing, she might be reading, traveling, drinking wine, listening to music, or gardening—sometimes all at once! She currently resides in Colorado with her very patient husband.
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