Publication Date: July 14th, 2015
When Isabelle Martin steps onto Sawyer Auto Repair’s parking lot, she can’t believe it’s come to this. After dropping out of a school she never really wanted to go to in the first place and dumping a boyfriend she never really loved to begin with, she thought coming home to Claremont, North Carolina would solve all her problems. Instead, she’s still reeling from her mom’s death six months earlier and trying, but failing to help her dad, who’s sunken deep into a whiskey-fueled depression. Working in the local, motorcycle club-owned, auto shop’s office is a last resort, but it’s the only option she has...even if it means working with Caleb Sawyer, the bad-boy biker with swagger to spare who used to drive her up the wall in high school.
Caleb Sawyer is on the fast-track to a downward spiral. He used to think he had the world at his feet--all he has to do is be patient, earn his keep in the club and in the shop, and his legacy within the Iron Horsemen MC will be his for the taking when the time is right. But that just doesn’t mean anything without his old lady by his side, who wants to leave Claremont more than she wants to stay with him. When the bottom finally drops out, nothing prepares him for the impact and he deals with it the only way he knows how--with whiskey and women. Despite all that, being around Isabelle Martin, the girl whose feathers he ruffled so easily in high school, somehow brings him back to life. She doesn’t take any of his crap, but she calls him on it without judgment and without pity.
Despite some initial animosity, Caleb and Isabelle quickly realize that the perceptions they had of each other in high school couldn’t be further from the truth. The more time they spend together, the closer they become and the more they gravitate towards each other. Both are at a crossroads, but stuck in reverse. Isabelle needs help; she just doesn’t know how to ask for it. Caleb needs a life preserver; he just doesn’t know where to find one. And ultimately, on the path to rediscovery and identity, all roads lead them to exactly what they need--each other.
Book #1 in the Carry Your Heart series that follows Caleb and Isabelle’s journey spanning the course of eight years.
EXCERPT
TOUR SCHEDULE
Caleb
“Coffee?” she gestured towards the empty cup
to my right. When I nodded, my mouth too
full of peanut buttery awesomeness, she poured me a cup with a smirk.
“Do I want to know why you’re out on the prowl
tonight? Or...wait, if you just finished up with some random chick, I’m not
sure I want to hear about it,” she crinkled her nose a little as she spoke and
if I didn’t know her better, I would’ve thought her tone was a little harsh.
Good thing I did know her well enough to recognize sarcasm in her voice when I
heard it.
“I’m trying this whole bein’ sober thing,” I
grinned back at her. “Shocking, right?”
“Who knew you’d grow up to be so responsible?”
she shot back and she bit her lip to keep from laughing.
“Gotta grow up sometime, I guess,” I replied
good-naturedly.
“Well,” she smiled softly. “If it helps, I’m glad you’re not face down
in a gutter somewhere.”
“I’d much rather be here with you, darlin’,” I
winked.
She just rolled her eyes and tossed an empty
sugar packet at me. I gestured down to
the open notebook to her right and forced myself not to peek at, careful to
respect her privacy and her space.
“Whatcha workin’ on over there?”
She looked back at me sharply and then her
expression shifted from surprised to confused to tired and finally rested on
forlorn. I didn’t have it in me tonight
to even begin to understand what any of that meant or what my words had to do
with anything. It was almost midnight
and we should really be in bed.
Mind
outta the gutter, Sawyer.
Separate. In different beds. Sleeping.
Nothing else.
“Oh,” she answered finally. “Nothing all that important really. I was trying to figure out some stuff, but
that didn’t work out too well.”
“Alright, so when do I get to commission
something?”
She frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” I shrugged as I shoveled another bite
of pie into my mouth. “I figured you’re
gonna be rich and famous someday, so I better get an Isabelle Martin original
while I can still afford it.”
“Aw,” she called out in a sing-song voice.
“You called me Isabelle.”
I wagged my fork at her. “Don’t get used to it.”
“Okay,” she leaned forward a little more. “So, say you were to actually commission
something. What would you request?”
That one was easy.
“My bike.
Definitely. I can already see
her…”
Isabelle’s shoulders shook with laughter. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Did you just refer to your motorcycle as a she?”
I blinked back her. “Uh. Yeah.
That’s what she is. She’s
beautiful and she’s perfect and if you so much as say a bad word about her, I’m
gonna get up from this table right now and I won’t ever talk to you again.”
Her hand covered her mouth to muffle her
laughter. “Whoa, buddy. Simmer down.
I promise,” she made a cross sign over her heart, “I won’t say anything
bad about her.”
All she got from me for that was an eye
roll.
“I mean, you’ll really do it, right?”
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About the author:
K. Ryan is a former English teacher, who graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in 2009.In between ‘real life’ duties, she’s been writing the Carry Your Heart series quietly on the side for the last two years. When not writing, she’s either binge-watching something on Netflix, running, reading, or cheering on the Packers.
She lives in the Green Bay area with her crazy-supportive boyfriend and the best decision of her adult life, a not-so-stray cat named Oliver.
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