Please help me welcome fellow Bluestocking Belle Lizzi Tremayne to another First Kiss Friday. Happy reading and enjoy!

Blake and Lena are finally talking… and maybe more, after a lovely friendship—with undercurrents—has slowly developed, neither wanting to destroy this fragile love they have begun…

Excerpt: THE KISS

“Who was he?” Blake’s voice was edged with steel.

“He?” I turned my head away.

“The man who wouldn’t let you feel safe in any man’s arms.”

I hesitated until he gave me a little jiggle.

“He… he was another vet student. A few years ahead of me. Thinks he’s god’s gift…. but he’s just a bully.”

“What did he do?” Blake growled, tension locking his every muscle.

“Wined and dined, then proceeded to get demanding. When I resisted, he got rough. When I wouldn’t go out with him again, he threatened me. I still have nightmares.”

“What’s his name?”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s graduated and gone. I’ll never see him again.”

“Did you report him?”

“What’s there to report?”

“You’re that scared of him, eh?”

I nodded and stared off into the distance. “It would be his word against mine. Just drop it, please. I’m happy now. I didn’t think I’d let a guy near me again, but your patience won out.” I looked into his eyes and his lips lowered to mine, softly, gently, in a kiss, then he lifted his head.

“Okay?”

“Better than okay. Fantastic,” I said and sought his lips myself this time.

His body stiffened and hardened “against me as the kiss deepened and somehow spread between us. I opened my lips to his soft request and he asked for more. I gave it willingly and soon forgot my surroundings in the rolling wave catching us up, until a wet nose worked its way under my armpit, and I giggled.

Jake LaRue grinned into my face.

“Jake, you know just when to show up, don’t you?” Blake said, shaking his head. The other two dogs crowded around, now Jake had broken the ice. We patted them and looked up to see Myrtle coming out the front door.

“We’re screwed now,” I whispered.

“No, we ain’t,” he replied.

I’d learned his mantra last week. It broke the tension when things weren’t going quite to plan.

“Off again, more golf,” Myrtle said, not looking down at us. “Don’t wait up.”

“She’s getting cocky,” Blake said.

Myrtle turned and shook her head. “Just leaving you two alone, or you’ll never get together.” She stomped off.

We stared at each other.

“Are we really taking too long?” I whispered, joking.

“Maybe. If Myrtle thinks so, we might indeed be.”

“Do you think we should do something about it?”

“Got any bright ideas?” He raised a lazy brow at me.

“A few…”

“I’d like to see them… shall we go inside?”

My heart pounding, I slid to the deck and stood, reaching a hand out to him. He took it and rose, then kissed my hand, picked me up and carried me over the threshold and up the stairs.

We didn’t awaken until the dawn peeked through the east-facing windows and spread its light over Blake’s big four-poster log bed.

“Good morning,” he whispered, his arms snug around me.

“Mmmm… I don’t think they get any better,” I said and rolled over, still in his arms, to face him.

“No, surely they don’t. And it’s only Sunday morning. We have another whole day more.” He took my lips with his and pulled me hard against him.

“But what about the horses?” I leaned back and looked into his hooded eyes. Eyes that were anything but sleepy.

“Found a note slipped under the door an hour ago. Myrtle’s feeding everyone. Complete with threats.” He held it up and read it aloud. “If you come down those stairs before ten, I’ll murder you both.”

“I’d sure hate to see her get arrested for a double murder,” I murmured.

“Me too. See? She even brought up a breakfast tray.”

I shook my head and chuckled under my breath. “Wonderful woman.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lizzi’s novella, Once Upon a Vet School #6: Fifty Miles at a Breath, is set Southern California in 1987.

Once Upon a Vet School #6: Fifty Miles at a Breath

Horses bring them together and their future looks rosy—it’s the present they can’t handle.

A summertime stint at a small animal clinic takes veterinary student Lena away from her beloved horses, but at an endurance ride she finds horses— and her ideal man, veteran pilot Blake. She decides she can’t do without him and his world— after finishing vet school, that is.

Blake’s past experiences don’t help his attitude when Lena heads back to vet school. Things don’t improve with the distance and her workload. His green-eyed monsters strain the already-tense situation, but at least he has his horses and dogs.

The final race tests their horse’s endurance—and Lena’s and Blake’s, as well. The pair must come to terms with their fears and make the right choices to create the future they so desire.

About Lizzi Tremayne

Unpretentious, eminently readable Contemporary and Historical Fiction… by a horse vet!

Lizzi’s awarded historical and contemporary suspense, women’s, YA, and veterinary fiction has an equestrian flair, part and parcel of her other life as an equine veterinarian and carriage competitor.

The Long Trails historical fiction sagas follow a growing list of dashing heroes and heroines from the wilderness of 1860 Utah to Colonial New Zealand, Historical Scotland, and Tsarist Russia. Not necessarily in that order!

In the Once Upon a Vet School series, you’ll find the tale of a gutsy equestrian who dreamed of becoming a vet—her life on the way and beyond. Did YOU ever dream of becoming a vet?

Lizzi grew up riding wild in the Santa Cruz Mountain redwoods, became an equine veterinarian at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, and practiced in the California Pony Express and Gold Country before emigrating to New Zealand. Her writing is awarded in fiction and veterinary nonfiction.

When she’s not writing or reading, she’s swinging a rapier or shooting a bow in medieval garb, riding, driving a carriage or playing on her hobby farm, singing, or working as an equine veterinarian.

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