(Except Preston. He's been down that road before and still has the scars to prove it. And maybe Cameron, because he's super hot, but too hot-headed to be decent boyfriend material...)
Bidding on Brooks is the first of four books about the Philadelphia-based, wildly-handsome Winslow brothers who are all on the look-out for love.
(Except Preston. He's been down that road before and still has the scars to prove it. And maybe Cameron, because he's super hot, but too hot-headed to be decent boyfriend material...)
Railroaded into a bachelor auction by his sister, Jessica, Brooks Winslow asks his friend, Skye Sorenson, to bid on him to avoid the possibility of any romantic entanglements. Fiercely competitive and protective of those he cares for, Brooks was profoundly affected by the loss of his father at an early age. A witness to his mother’s terrible loneliness and his siblings’ grief, the ex-Olympian has never allowed himself to fall in love.
Skye Sorenson, the plucky mechanic at Sorenson Marina, where Brooks moors his three sailboats, is a credible sailor in her own right…and has quietly lusted after Brooks for years. But her longstanding friendship with Brooks has always made romance seem impossible.
When Skye agrees to bid on Brooks, the two cast off for a weeklong ocean adventure on Brooks’ sailboat, The Zephyr, where the last thing Skye expects to lose is her heart.
Return to the world created in the English Brothers books with this fresh foursome of scorching hot Winslow Brothers!
EXCERPT
“Please, Skye. Just listen.
You’re the perfect person for this. You’ve got to help me out.”
Skye
Sorenson rolled her eyes at Brooks Winslow, adjusting the brim of her baseball
cap as she swept past him and headed down the dock for her next job.
“I mean it,
Skye. I’m up a tree…and we’re friends. Can’t you give me a hand?”
Dreamy Delight needed a new
float switch and bilge pump, which would be difficult to manage with Brooks
Winslow standing on the dock, looking casually gorgeous as he yammered at her
about some charity event he wanted her to attend.
Gazing at
her hands, she noted they were still covered with engine grease from the oil
change she’d just handled on the outboard motor of a J-24 sailboat. Not wanting
to get black fingerprints on the white fiberglass of the motorboat she was
about to service, she took a bandana out of the back pocket of her overalls
then turned to face Brooks as she wiped her fingers.
“Are you
going to follow me around all afternoon if I don’t listen?”
“Umm…pretty
much.”
She sighed
with feigned annoyance. “Fine. You have my attention. Tell it to me again.”
Brooks
looked relieved and gave her a small grin that—damn it—made Skye’s stomach flutter.
“Knew you
wouldn’t let me down.”
“Haven’t
said yes to anything yet,” she said, shoving the bandana back into her pocket
and crossing her arms over her chest.
“My sister,
Jessica, is back in Philly this summer to get married. To keep busy, she’s
organized some big benefit for the Institute of Contemporary Art. She and her
girlfriends thought it would be fun to volunteer their single brothers to be
auctioned off.”
“Auctioned
off?”
“Yeah…a
bachelor auction.”
“Some
sister,” said Skye, unable to keep the teasing from her voice.
“It’s for
charity,” he said defensively, running a hand through his waves of jet black
hair.
“Okay. So
you got roped into it.” She thought back to an old movie she’d seen once where
women were auctioned off as dates. At each of their feet had been a pretty
lunch basket, and the man that was the highest bidder won a homemade lunch with
the girl of his choice. “What do you have to do? Have lunch with someone?”
“Oh, no,” he
said with irritation, pursing his lips. “Nothing that painless. Jess wants to
make money. Big money. She had to
think bigger than lunch.”
Skye stared
up at him. “Dinner?”
“Nope.”
“Two
dinners?”
“Nuh-uh.”
She gestured
to the sleek Sportscruiser moored at the end of the dock that she was supposed
to be working on. “I’m out of guesses, Brooks…and that pump isn’t going to fix
itself, so—”
“A sail.
She’s auctioning off a sail. With me.”
“Well, I
don’t know why you’re complaining. You love sailing. You love women. What’s the
problem?”
Skye tilted
her head to the side, looking at Brooks’ way-too-handsome face with a cheeky
grin.
Long ago
Skye had accepted the fact that Brooks would never see her as anything but a
great mechanic, a proficient sailor, and a long-time friend. She was—honestly
and truly—satisfied with that status quo between them. He was rich and
powerful, an ex-Olympian and world-renowned sailor from Philadelphia, while
Skye lived a much quieter life, working as a “handyman” at her dad’s marina in
Maryland. What they had in common was a deep love of boats and mutual respect
for one another’s nautical skills, and that was just enough to keep their
friendship intact.
The first
time Skye had ever seen Brooks Winslow was the day he came down to her father’s
marina to claim the fifteen foot Primrose wood-hulled sailboat gifted to him
from his parents for his fifteenth birthday. He swaggered into Sorenson Marina,
flashing his perfect smile at her, and her ten-year-old heart had grown wings
as she’d discreetly followed him down the dock. She was instantly infatuated
with Brooks, of course, but much more, Skye harbored a deep devotion to his
Primrose, the most beautiful little double-ended Daycruiser she’d ever seen.
Her stomach had been in knots as she walked behind him from a discreet
distance, hopeful that he would handle the little sailboat with the grace and
care she deserved. But Skye’s worries turned out to be unfounded. He’d treated
that pretty boat with respect and skill, and Skye had breathed deeply with
relief, whispering, “I’m gonna marry you someday,” as he sailed away.
Twenty years
later, Skye knew two things for certain:
One, that
Brooks was one of the most talented, natural, organic sailors she’d ever met in
her life. Heck, he’d made it all the way to the Olympics and come home with a
medal to prove what Skye had always known—that any boat was safe in his hands.
She respected him more than most of the sailors she knew.
And two, the
chances of her ever marrying him were next to none in the approximate area of
zero. He was gorgeous and rich and talented and fascinating…and completely out
of her league.
“Not a one-day sail,” Brooks continued in a
terse voice, jettisoning her memories as he prompted her back to their
conversation. “Not even two. Jessica signed me up for a cruise. From Baltimore
to Charleston.”
Skye felt
her eyes widen as she stared at him. “That’s a week. Minimum.”
“Yeah.”
“Crew?”
Brooks
grabbed the back of his neck with his hand, rubbing. “Nope. It’s supposed to
be… romantic.”
A romantic
cruise. For a week. Alone. With Brooks.
Lucky girl, she thought,
ignoring the ridiculous spike of jealousy that jabbed a little at her heart and
made her feel instantly guilty.
She couldn’t
help her attraction to him, but the fact that it was totally unreturned made it
manageable in a way that didn’t hurt. For heaven’s sake, it wasn’t like she had
feelings for Brooks beyond
friendship. She just liked looking at him. Her eighty-year-old granny’s heart
would flutter at the sight of Brooks’ thick, dark hair, flashing sea-green
eyes, square jaw, muscular body, and perennially-tan hands that handled a boat
with the same finesse that he probably handled his women. Noticing Brooks’ good
looks didn’t make Skye unique or special, and it didn’t mean she wanted more
from him than friendship either (she tried to convince herself). It just made
her human.
“Romantic,”
she murmured. Turning away, she looked out at the harbor where sailboats bobbed
up and down in afternoon sun.
“Yeah.”
“But you
won’t know who she is,” said Skye, “until she wins you.”
“Bingo,” he
said.
“And then
you’ll be trapped at sea for a week.”
“Precisely.”
“She could
be anyone.”
“Yep.”
“Does your
sister really hate you?”
Brooks
scoffed. “No. But she really loves modern art.”
“Okay. Yeah.
It’s a pretty sucky situation. But how can I help?”
He grinned.
“You can bid on me.”
About the author:
Katy Regnery, award-winning and Amazon bestselling author, started her writing career by enrolling in a short story class in January 2012. One year later, she signed her first contract for a winter romance entitled By Proxy.
Now a hybrid author who publishes both independently and traditionally, Katy claims authorship of the six-book Heart of Montana series, the six-book English Brothers series, and a Kindle Worlds novella entitled “Four Weddings and a Fiasco: The Wedding Date.” Katy’s short story, “The Long Way Home” appears in the first RWA anthology, Premiere, and she has published two standalone novels, Playing for Love at Deep Haven and the Amazon bestseller, The Vixen and the Vet, which is book one in Katy’s a m o d e r n f a i r y t a l e collection. The Vixen and the Vet was nominated for a RITA® in 2015.
Katy lives in the relative wilds of northern Fairfield County, Connecticut, where her writing room looks out at the woods, and her husband, two young children, and two dogs create just enough cheerful chaos to remind her that the very best love stories begin at home.
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