Was she a dangerous infatuation, or a second chance at love? ➱ Bonded for Life a Small Town Second Chance Romance by Sharon Buchbinder Book Pre Order Tour & Giveaway
Was she a dangerous infatuation, or a second chance at love?
Bonded for Life
by Sharon Buchbinder
Genre: Small Town, Second Chance, Romantic Suspense
Releases November 15th
Prologue
Victory Shores High School
Victory Shores, New York
Twenty-Five Years Ago
Lola Getz threaded her way through the crowd, anxious to get to her
locker to grab her books for her next class. Members of the football team,
spread out between the locker-lined walls, streamed toward her and blocked her
path.
Madre de Dios. Just what I need today.
A hulking offensive linebacker stepped in front of her and stared down
her blouse. “Hey, Chica! Why are you in such a hurry?” Waves of body odor
rolled off him and over Lola.
Wishing she had a can of deodorant to hose him down, she waved a hand
in front of her face to dispel the B.O. “I have to get to class.”
“I have to get to class,” he mimicked in a high-pitched voice. “Why
bother? You’re going to get married and change diapers.”
How many times in her life had she heard this sexist crap? She was
sick and tired of being told all she was good for was to take care of a man and
to breed. She was an artist, a damn good one, and no one was going to take that
away from her. No one.
Someone pinched her butt. Hard.
She whirled and kneed the creep in the crotch. The quarterback, who
often bragged he was the smartest player on the team, howled and dropped to the
floor.
Lola considered the writhing boy. “Not so smart now, are you?”
Ms. Cross, the Women’s Studies teacher, materialized at her elbow.
“Where are you supposed to be, Lola?”
“I was trying to get to my locker—until this pack of hyenas attacked
me.”
“Go on. I’ll take care of them.” Ms. Cross yelled, “A month’s
detention for the entire football team.”
“Aww, come on!”
“Not fair.”
“We were joking!”
“She attacked the QB!”
“I didn’t do nothing!”
“Dickhead made us do it!”
Escaping the tumult, Lola raced down the hall and around the corner.
She skidded to a stop at her locker and yanked the door open. She had a
fraction of a second to register something didn’t belong in the narrow space—a
scrawny kid!—before he fell on top of her.
With a loud “oof,” she landed flat on her back on the floor. The boy’s
face smashed into hers, his beak of a nose pressing into her right eyeball. In
the moment, all she could think of was, “At least he doesn’t reek of B.O.!”
“Ohmigod, ohmigod!” The kid scrambled to get up, slid on the
notebook-paper-strewn floor, and fell on top of her again.
A sharp elbow jabbed her in the breast. “Watch it, compadre!” she yelped.
His arms flailed and sought purchase on the recently waxed floor.
“Sorry,” the kid moaned. “Sorry, so sorry!”
She attempted to roll out from under him, only to get tangled in his
legs.
Madre de Dios. What
else can go wrong today?
The poor boy’s expression as he tried to get off her, only to slide
with a clang into the metal locker, set her off on a burst of giggles.
“Ohmigod, you’re crying.” His face creased with worry. “Don’t move.
I’ll get the school nurse.”
Shaking with mirth, Lola gasped, “No. Stop. Don’t go.”
He knelt at her side and peered into her eyes. “Your pupils are
dilated. You’re in shock.”
“I’m fine, I swear.” She sat up and wiped a tear off her cheek. “Who
put you in there?”
“My arch-enemy, Dick Heade, and his merry football henchmen.” The kid
extended his hand and assisted her to her feet. “They think it’s tons of fun.”
“What a cabrón!”
“If that means what I think it means, yeah. He is a—”
“Bastard.”
“I was going to say dickhead, but then that’s his name.” The boy
shrugged. “Overkill.”
If the kid hadn’t been as skinny as a decoration for Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead,
he would have been cute—and sexy in a Johnny Depp kind of way. When he’d been
on top of her, he’d rubbed her in all the wrong places—and caused all kinds of
sensations that she’d never felt before. In fact, she hadn’t wanted the feelings
to stop. Where had that come from? And he’d made her laugh. No other guy
in this school had made her giggle like that before. “What is your name,
amigo?”
“Webster. Webster Bond.”
“Hmm. Stirred but not shaken. I like that in a man.”
His face became a deep red. “And you are…?”
“Lola. Lola Getz.”
The class bell rang.
“Mierda. Late—again.”
****
Dazed, Webster watched the hypnotic sway of Lola’s hips as she walked
away. She tossed a glance over her shoulder and smiled at him. His heart did a
flip-flop sort of thing, and he grabbed his chest. Do I need to see a doctor?
Or did she make my heart go into overdrive?
She was so different from the other girls. Nice. Sincere, not fake. And beautiful. Her long black hair had
smelled like roses and summer days. And her centerfold body, curvy and soft in
all the right places….
He closed his eyes and recalled the moments she’d writhed beneath him.
Heat traveled from his head to his toes and all points in between. For a
nanosecond, he’d contemplated calling after her, getting her number, asking her
out. The idea had evaporated the moment he’d spotted Dick Heade grinning at him
with his Hollywood-white teeth. His was the smile of a shark about to devour
his prey.
“Oh, hey, Dick. How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to see you fall on top of the booty-licious Mexican
exchange student, Dweebster.”
Webster wished he could knock that smug look off his tormentor’s face.
He had to turn the tables on Dickhead or the cabrón, as Lola had called
him, would never stop bullying him.
“I agree, she’s nice. Thanks for the set-up.”
Dick frowned and tilted his head like a dog hearing a high-pitched
sound.
“For the record, her name is Lola,” Webster added. “Lola Getz.”
Dick smirked. “Well, I’ll see she gets
what she needs.”
“She needs to be left
alone.”
“Who died and left you in charge?”
Webster winced.
“Did I hurt your feelings, Dweebster? Daddy’s dead, Mummy’s trying to
keep a roof over your heads?”
Webster clenched his fists in his pockets. Punching Dick in the mouth
would be a bad idea. The jerk’s father was president of the school board and
could get people fired. Webster’s mother needed her job as the secretary for
the counseling department at Victory Shores High School to pay the bills.
“What’s the matter, Dweeb? Cat got your tongue?”
“Lay off him.”
Dick faced his blonde girlfriend. “Hey, Beth! Ready for study hall?”
Seniors had more liberties than other students, including a free
period to roam the halls. Study hall was a euphemism for going under the
bleachers and making out. Beth, a cheerleader, probably knew every bench by
name, rank, and serial number.
“We’ll go in a minute.” She faced Webster. “Sorry about your dad.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.” It had been eight months since the car
accident. Sometimes, like now, the ache from his father’s sudden death felt
like yesterday. Other times, he forgot his father was gone—until his mother
brought home day-old bread and thrift store clothes. Their lives had been
turned upside down by his father’s death. And Dick knew it.
Dick opened his mouth to say something, but Beth grabbed his arm and
pulled him away. “If you want to study,
I suggest you shut up.”
Webster let out a long breath and stared up at the ceiling dotted with
pencils and spitballs. He couldn’t wait to graduate and get away from all these
jocks, jerks, and jackasses.
With one exception: a
dark-eyed girl named Lola who’d probably forgotten about him the moment she’d
flipped her hair over her shoulder and sashayed down the hall.
Sharon Buchbinder has been writing fiction since middle school and has the rejection slips to prove it. An RN, she provided health care delivery, became a researcher, association executive, obtained a PhD in Public Health, and is an administrator in higher education. She is the author of the Hotel LaBelle Series, the Jinni Hunter Series, and the Obsession Series. When not attempting to make students and colleagues laugh or writing, she can be found walking her pugs, Agent Frank and Igor Valentino, waiting on her Maine Coon cat, Buster Brown, or breaking bread and laughing with family and friends.
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ReplyDeleteThis looks like an enjoyable read. Thanks for hosting this giveaway.
ReplyDeleteI like the excerpt. Sounds really good.
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