#MFRWhooks Blog Hop - An Excerpt from CHILL OUT - The Biggest Dog She'd Ever Seen

Today I'm featuring an excerpt from CHILL OUT, my Valentine romance novel. In this scene, Renata meets Noah and his dog Spike, an English Mastiff, for the first time. She gets a big surprise!

Excerpt:

His breath was hot on her face. Renata moaned as he licked the shell of her ear, his wet tongue rasping over her sensitive skin. Blindly, she reached up to touch his smooth hair, his soft beard, his wet nose…

Wait. His what?

Renata woke with a start. And came face to muzzle with the biggest dog she’d ever seen in her life. Or perhaps it was a pony. She wasn’t awake enough to tell.

“Holy crap!”

At her high-pitched squeal, the dog backed away from the sofa where she’d fallen asleep after arriving at her friend’s cottage. Renata climbed over the top of the sofa, then peeked over the edge and raised her fists. How boxing was going to help if the beast decided to rip her throat out, she had no idea, but she wasn’t going down without a fight.

“Where the hell did you come from?”

“He’s with me.”

Renata jumped at the sound of the deep male voice coming from behind her. She whirled around to face him, her heart in her throat. A long-haired man with a shaggy brown beard was unloading groceries in the kitchen. He looked as big and scary-looking as the dog. She lifted her fists a little higher, trying to disguise her fear.

“My husband is upstairs. With a gun. All I have to do is scream and he’ll be down here in a flash.”

“Relax, nobody’s going to hurt you. It’s Renata, isn’t it?”

Alarm bells clamored in her head. “How do you know my name?”

“Tyler told me. He’s an old friend. He loaned me the use of the cottage for a few weeks, but apparently he and Caroline had a miscommunication about who was staying here this weekend.”

Caroline Montgomery was her best friend and business partner. She and her husband Tyler owned the cottage in question. It was located on the shores of Falcon Lake, a little over an hour’s drive from Winnipeg, and Caroline had offered it to her as a refuge this Valentine weekend.

“I don’t believe you. Caroline would have contacted me. How do I know you’re not a thief?”

He held up a can of soup. “Do most thieves bring their own groceries to a heist?”

Blurb:

Renata Cabral needs to hide for the weekend. Her cousin’s Valentine’s Day wedding means she’ll face embarrassing questions from her large, extended family. Questions like “Why aren’t you married yet?”  Since the breakup of her last relationship, she’s not ready to answer that question. She invents a work-related excuse and escapes to a friend’s lakeside cottage.

Noah Brownlee has been hiding for two years. But now he’s ready to come home and mend his broken relationship with his brother. When a friend offers the use of his lakeside cottage, Noah arrives in the middle of a blizzard with his English Mastiff, only to find the place is already occupied. With her big brown eyes and quirky sense of humor, Renata stirs feelings he thought long dead.

As the blizzard rages, the candy hearts predict love. Can Valentine’s Day work its magic between them?

Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/Chill-Out

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