#MFRWhooks Blog Hop - An Excerpt from HOME FIRES - Nice to Meet You

Today I'm featuring an excerpt from HOME FIRES, my World War Two era romance. After the war, British nurse Anne Wakefield travels to Canada to marry her Canadian fiancé. But when she arrives she discovers he's already married someone else. So Anne finds herself living with her ex-fiancé's family, including his brother Erik, at their farm. They take a trip into Emerald, the nearest small town, and everyone is very curious about Anne:

Excerpt:

As soon as she entered the dry goods store with the Gustafsons, all conversation stopped, and everyone turned their attention toward them. Though she’d been warned her presence might cause an unusual reaction, she wasn’t prepared to be stared at like the prize chicken at the country fair.

Beside her she felt Erik tense, and when she dared a glance she saw his jaw clenched in anger. Astrid took her hand and led her toward the front counter.

“Hello, Myrtle. I’d like to introduce you to Anne Wakefield. She’ll be staying with us for a while. Anne, this is Myrtle Johansson. She and her husband own the dry goods store.”

Anne extended her hand. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. Johansson.”

“Pleased to meet you too, Anne. I’ve heard so much about you.”

Anne didn’t want to question exactly what she’d heard. Instead she smiled. “I believe Mrs. Gustafson has a few things she wishes to purchase.”

With that she stepped back and let Astrid take over the conversation. Unfortunately, one of the store’s patrons took her backing away from one conversation as an invitation to start another.

“Anne Wakefield, how nice to meet you. Some people said you wouldn’t show your face in town, but I told them you have nothing to be ashamed of. You can hold your head up high in Emerald as far as I’m concerned.”

Anne had no idea what to say. She blinked at the large woman in the blue wool coat for a moment before answering with, “Thank you.”

This seemed to please the woman. “The nerve of that Gustafson boy, getting engaged to you when he already had a girl back home. And then leaving you high and dry. You must be so angry you could spit.”

Erik stepped to her side and touched her elbow. “Anne, I don’t think Mrs. Weldon has properly introduced herself. Mr. and Mrs. Weldon farm about five miles east of Emerald.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Weldon.”

“Well, how do you do, Anne Wakefield.” She tittered. “Silly me. I was so excited to meet you, I forgot to tell you who I was.”

“That’s all right.” Anne had no idea why she’d be so excited to meet her. Life in Emerald must run at an exceedingly slow pace if she was the highlight of conversation.

“You must come and visit us while you’re here. Have you decided if you are going to stay in Emerald or go back to England?”

“My plan is to go back to England,” she said. Was there a polite way to end the conversation? She was aware that the half dozen or so other people in the store were listening.

“As I said, it was so unfair of Lars Gustafson to leave you high and dry like that. If I was you, I’d want to tell him off real good. I’d want to shout from the mountaintops how badly he’d treated me. Don’t you want to do that, Anne?”

Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/Home-Fires

Blurb:

Anne Wakefield travels halfway around the world for love. But when she arrives in Canada from England at the end of World War Two, she discovers the handsome Canadian pilot she’d fallen in love with has married someone else. Heartbroken, she prepares to return to London, though she has nothing left there to return to. Her former fiancé’s mother makes a suggestion: marriage to her other son.

Badly wounded and scarred during the war, Erik Gustafson thinks he’s a poor substitute for his brother. Although he loves Anne almost from the first time he sees her, he cannot believe she would ever be able to love him as he is – especially as he might be after another operation on his bad leg.

Anne sees the beauty of his heart. The cold prairie winter may test her courage, but can she prove to Erik that her love for him is real?

Check out other authors and excerpts in the blog hop: