🌟 BOOK BLITZ 🌟 Man Down by Kate Meader {EXCERPT + GIVEAWAY!}

Man Down by Kate Meader

Release Date: July 28th 2020 by Kate Meader LLC

Series: Rookie Rebels #3

Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

I’ve been texting the wife I lost, the woman I loved beyond measure . . . Now someone else has answered back.

Gunnar Bond is broken.

Three years ago, he lived through the car crash that took his wife and twins away from him—though “lived” barely describes his current state. Giving up professional hockey, going off grid, and drinking himself into oblivion are his coping mechanisms. Another is texting his dead wife about his days without her. Therapeutic? Doubtful. Crazy? Definitely. But those messages into the ether are virtually the only thing stopping him from spiraling to even darker places.

Until someone texts back …

Sadie Yates is losing it.

Suddenly guardian to a little sister she doesn’t know and a misbehaving hound she’d rather not know at all, she’s had to upend her (sort of) glamorous life in LA and move back to Chicago. The nanny has quit, the money’s running out, and her job is on the line. The last thing she needs is her sister’s hockey camp counselor, a judgmental Viking type, telling her she sucks at this parenting lark. Thank the goddess for her sweet, sensitive, and—fingers crossed—sexy text buddy who always knows the right thing to say. In the same city at last, they can finally see if their online chemistry is mirrored in real life. She just needs to set up a meeting …

A ruined man who claims to have used up all his love is surely a bad bet, but Sadie’s never been afraid of a challenge … even one that might shatter her heart into a million pieces.

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{EXCERPT}

Gunnar must be losing his mind. This woman infuriated him, yet he couldn’t stop thinking about her. About her lush curves and bright eyes, that mobile mouth and stubborn chin. A part of the attraction was how much he obviously pissed her off—which was somewhat his fault and somewhat hers. After years of numbness, the novelty of feeling something, anything, was so electrifying that all considerations about the fact he was kissing the wrong person were easily set aside.

The wrong person? Why had he thought that?

Possibly because she wasn’t kissing him back.

Fuck.

She wasn’t kissing him back.

He stopped. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“No?” A question rather than outright agreement.

“This isn’t what you want. I—” He scraped a hand through his hair.

She peered up at him, her eyes big and round as silver moons. No censure, only … confusion.

“You surprised me. Big time.” Her lips curved into that slayer smile and his heart kicked hard against his rib cage. “I thought you didn’t like me.”

“I don’t.” It was out so fast that it could only be true. “But then like doesn’t have much to do with this, does it?”

“This?”

He waved between them, indicating the this he meant.

“You’re … attracted to me?” Her eyes grew impossibly rounder.

“That is usually why someone kisses someone.”

“But you don’t like me?”

“I don’t know you. To be honest, we seem to rub each other the wrong way.”

“We know why that is. You accused me of being a neglectful guardian and frankly, your apology was not good enough.”

Here we go again. “I apologized, but some people prefer to hold grudges because they enjoy being mad at anyone other than themselves.”

“That’s what you think this is? I’m misplacing my anger and directing it at some poor guy who doesn’t deserve it?”

“Why else would you hold on to it?”

“Clearly because I’m annoyed at wanting you!” Her hand flew to her mouth. “That’s not what I meant to say.”

A pleasant shiver of surprise rolled through him. He had been right. There was something worth pursuing here. “What did you mean to say?”

“That I don’t buy your psychobabble. I can be mad at you for several reasons. I am woman. I contain multitudes.”

He rubbed his mouth, hiding his smile. Sadie Yates was going to be a lot of fun. Only that’s what he’d thought about Angel, who had ignored the couple of texts he’d sent her.

Sadie reared up on tip-toes, all fire and indignation, and pushed at his chest. “Don’t you dare laugh at me.”

“Why not? You’re being funny right now.”

“I’m not. I don’t even like you and …” Her brow furrowed. “I want to.”

“You want to? Why?” A weird statement and a weirder question, but he needed to know.

“It’s like when everyone reads the latest New York Times bestseller and loves it, but you’re all ‘who cares? Why are people loving this junk?’”

Comparisons with junk. Definitely on brand. “So you’re wondering why your opinion of me is so out of step with the masses. Maybe because you like to go against the grain to be contrary.”

“Maybe because I have taste. As far as I can see, you’re a judgmental dick who happens to be tall and bearded. That’s all you have going for you. Unreasonable height and killer facial hair!”

“Poor me.” He felt another smile coming on. “Sadie?”

“What?”

He stepped in closer. “You don’t have to like me. You don’t have to think what everyone else does. Half the time, I can’t tell if people are being nice to me because they like me or because I’m a famous hockey player or because I have a sad backstory that invites pity.”

AUTHOR BIO:

Originally from Ireland, USA Today bestselling author Kate Meader cut her romance reader teeth on Maeve Binchy and Jilly Cooper novels, with some Harlequins thrown in for variety. Give her tales about brooding mill owners, oversexed equestrians, and men who can rock an apron, a fire hose, or a hockey stick, and she's there. Now based in Chicago, she writes sexy contemporary romance with alpha heroes and strong heroines who can match their men quip for quip.

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