If you’ve never read any of Caroline Warfield’s stories you are missing out. But today on First Kiss Friday she’ll be sharing the first kiss scene from her latest release Christmas Hope. Happy reading and enjoy, my lovelies! Take it away, Caroline.
At this point in Christmas Hope, Harry has known Rosemarie a little over a month. He met her when she rescued his grandmother’s Bible from the Somme. It is Christmas 1916 and life is very uncertain. This kiss is a promise.
Excerpt:
Harry pulled the Bible over. Most of the pages were warped from water damage, and some were stained from the mud, but it felt familiar all the same. It never failed to fill him with thoughts of home. I will take them there.
Foolish that. You don’t know what tomorrow will bring, or when this war will end.
Rosemarie returned, looking as flustered as she had when she found him at her door. “He’s asleep,” she said as if he didn’t know it.
“Rosemarie, may I stay tonight?” His gaze never left hers.
She put up both hands as if to defend herself and blushed.
Before she could speak, he rushed on. “I mean no disrespect. I will sleep on the floor by the stove. Soldiers are used to sleeping rough.”
Her body relaxed, and she blinked.
He continued, “I rented my own boat this time. I can leave, but it’s dark, and I—” He sighed. “I really want to spend Christmas here.”
She stepped closer then. “I want it, too,” she whispered.
Her face was inches from his. She reached up a hand to push back his hair. He leaned in to smell her scent, all roses and woman.
Before he could close the distance for a kiss, she put a hand on his chest. “You will sleep on the floor. By the stove,” she said tartly, one brow raised.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, smiling.
He took her mouth gently. At her eager response, passion flared, and his kiss deepened before moving to her neck and the warm spot under her ear. The sound of her moan almost undid him.
An urge to ask her to marry him almost drove him to foolish declarations. Not now. Not yet. But perhaps someday. When all this is over, I will take her home. Let tomorrow bring what it brings. For now, this kiss will have to be enough.
He lifted her, carried her to her rocker, enfolded her in his arms, and began to kiss her in earnest.
Christmas Hope
By Caroline Warfield
After two years at the mercy of the Canadian Expeditionary force and the German war machine, Harry ran out of metaphors for death, synonyms for brown, and images of darkness. When he encounters color among the floating islands of Amiens and life in the form a widow and her little son, hope ensnares him. Through three more long years of war and its aftermath, the hope she brings keeps Harry alive.
Rosemarie Legrand’s husband left her a tiny son, no money, and a savaged reputation when he died. She struggles to simply feed the boy and has little to offer a lonely soldier, but Harry’s devotion lifts her up. The war demands all her strength and resilience, but the hope of peace and the promise of Harry’s love keep her going.
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About the Author
Award winning author Caroline Warfield has been many things: traveler, librarian, poet, raiser of children, bird watcher, Internet and Web services manager, conference speaker, indexer, tech writer, genealogist—even a nun. She reckons she is on at least her third act, happily working in an office surrounded by windows where she lets her characters lead her to adventures in England and the far-flung corners of the British Empire. She nudges them to explore the riskiest territory of all, the human heart.
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