Title: Matchmakers
Series: Matchmakers
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: 5 Prince Books
Formats Available In: All eBook
formats & Print
Release Date: June 13, 2013
Digital: ISBN
13:978-1-939217-56-1 ISBN 10: 1-939217-56-3
Print:
ISBN 13: 978-1-939217-55-4 ISBN 10: 1-939217-55-5
Blurb: Cellist Sophia Burkhalter
thought ten years in Europe performing with an exclusive ensemble
would have made it clear that she wasn’t a candidate for her
grandmother’s matchmaking. After all, she’d walked away from the
man she loved, leaving him back home in Kansas City.
David Kendal had fallen in love with
Sophia, a match orchestrated by her grandmother and his aunt.
However, the unexpected appearance of the daughter he never knew he
had—and Sophia’s sudden, subsequent departure for Europe—thrust
him into the role of single father.
Carissa Kendal has only ever wanted the
best for her father. It doesn’t take long for her to realize that
the very woman who broke her father’s heart might be the one to
make them a real family.
Can Carissa and the women who
originally played matchmaker to the duo convince them that love is
worth a second try? Or will careers and past mistakes tear them apart
forever before they have a chance to reconcile?
Excerpt:
Sophia filed off
the airplane along with the other groggy passengers. The red-eye
flight to Kansas City had knotted up her stomach. What in the hell
was she doing back here?
Perfect
persuasion and just the right amount of guilt had gotten her on that
plane.
Perhaps the
tightening of her stomach wasn’t the flying—it could very well be
that she’d returned to the very place she’d run from ten years
ago.
She’d run from
a man and shattered the hearts of people she loved. The guilt stung a
little deeper. She should have come home years earlier.
Sophia followed
a small group of women from the plane into the ladies’ room.
Exhaustion weighed down her shoulders. Within the hour, she’d be at
her grandmother’s house, tucked into her childhood bed, and asleep.
In the meantime, she splashed cool water on her face to keep herself
alert.
She dried her
face and hands and adjusted the scarf at her neck to ensure it hid
the secret she kept from the world. She picked up the carry-on
luggage at her feet and headed toward baggage claim.
“Sophia.”
The husky voice
was soft and male and made her knees weak when she heard it. She knew
that voice as well as she knew her own. The knot in her stomach
returned, but this time it was like a fist in her gut.
She turned to
see him standing there in his pilot’s uniform with his suitcase at
his side—David Kendal, the very man she’d run from so many years
ago.
He took his
pilot’s hat off and revealed the dark, wavy hair that she’d once
run her fingers through. It was now speckled with hints of
sophisticated silver. His uniform was striking on him—just as it
had always been. Even in the early morning hour, she felt her skin
tingle when she looked at his broad shoulders and knew what it was
like to rest her head against his chest.
“David.” His
name floated from her lips in a sigh. Ten years had passed since
she’d last laid eyes on him, and now he was as large as life
standing before her.
“I thought
that was you on the plane.” He was walking closer to her, and her
trembling knees wouldn’t allow her to run the other direction.
The scent of his
cologne washed over her. His dark eyes were smoky and wide as she
watched him take in the sight of her.
“You look
wonderful.” He stepped closer, and Sophia gripped her bag tighter
and tried to swallow the ball of fear that had lodged in her throat.
He gripped his hat tighter. “I’ve been following your career.”
“Really?”
The muscles in her shoulders tensed. “Why?”
“Why?” He
chuckled and took one more step closer, and her throat constricted.
“Sophia, you’re…” He shrugged as though brushing off a
thought. “You’re very talented.”
Sophia shook her
head, trying desperately to remove all thoughts of him from before—of
what she’d lost. She sighed. “David, it was nice to see you. I
really need to get my luggage.”
She turned from
him, head up, shoulders back, and strode toward the elevator,
stepping in as the door closed. She leaned her head against the back
wall and closed her eyes.
How was it
possible that after ten years he could stir such feelings in her?
Sophia took inventory of what she was feeling. There was a surge of
attraction between them. Then the anger she’d felt for years
accompanied the thought of him. She’d walked out on him. His
betrayal was much stronger than the attraction. It had given her
purpose to make something of herself. Her success as a concert
cellist sprang as much from her desire to succeed as it did from a
need to escape her feelings for David.
Sophia opened
her eyes when she heard the elevator doors open. The small group of
others who had been aboard the plane with her stood watching the
empty luggage carousel go around. Sophia waited for her cello case to
arrive in the oversized luggage. It killed her to have to check the
instrument, but there were no other choices. It was times like this
she wondered why she didn’t play the violin. She could carry that
onto the plane.
Relief flooded
her as a man brought her the case. She quickly opened it and examined
the instrument to assure herself it had arrived in one piece.
Her trip was to
last two weeks. She’d wanted to pack only one bag, but against her
better judgment, she’d packed two. When the two suitcases dropped
to the carousel, she pulled them off and stacked them. One hung from
the other, and she slung her carry-on over her shoulder. With a
grunt, she hoisted her cello to her side. She started toward the curb
to collect a cab.
Footsteps
clattered on the tile floor behind her.
“Sophia.”
She wouldn’t
let herself turn to see him hurrying to her.
“Let me help
you.”
“I travel like
this all the time. I do not need your assistance.” Her voice was
cold.
“I wouldn’t
be a gentleman if I didn’t offer to help a lady in need.”
“A gentleman?”
He’d already taken her suitcases from her and wheeled them out to
the sidewalk. “Mr. Kendal, I assure you I do not need you.”
“No, you made
that perfectly clear when you disappeared and left your engagement
ring in the sink.” He kept walking, forcing her to follow.
“Where are you
going?” She tried to keep up with him, but his long stride kept him
a hefty distance ahead of her.
He pointed off
into the parking garage. “My car is parked just over here.”
“Your car?”
She trotted to catch up with him. “I’m taking a cab.”
“I don’t
want you in a cab in the middle of the night,” he said, unwavering
from his path.
She grunted and
quickened her step again.
“I don’t
care what you think—”
“I know.” He darted a stare in her
direction.
About Bernadette Marie:
Bernadette Marie has been
an avid writer since the early age of 13, when she’d fill notebook
after notebook with stories that she’d share with her friends.
Her journey into novel writing started the summer before eighth grade
when her father gave her an old typewriter. At all times of the
day and night you would find her on the back porch penning her first
work, which she would continue to write for the next 22 years.
In 2007 – after
marriage, filling her chronic entrepreneurial needs, and having five
children – Bernadette began to write seriously with the goal of
being published. That year she wrote 12 books. In 2009
she was contracted for her first trilogy and the published
author was born. In 2011 she (being the entrepreneur that she
is) opened her own publishing house, 5 Prince Publishing, and has
released contemporary titles and began the process of taking on other
authors in other genres.
In 2012 Bernadette Marie
found herself on the bestsellers lists of iTunes and Amazon to name a
few. Her office wall is lined with colorful PostIt notes with
the titles of books she will be releasing in the very near future,
with hope that they too will grace the bestsellers lists.
Bernadette spends most of
her free time driving her kids to their many events. She is
also an accomplished martial artist who will earn her conditional
second degree black belt in Tang Soo Do in October 2012. An
avid reader, she enjoys most, the works of Nora Roberts, Karen White,
Megan Hart, to name a few. She loves to meet readers who enjoy
reading contemporary romances and she always promises Happily Ever
After.
Author Contact Info:
Thank you for having me!
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