SUDDENLY MINE
Author: Samantha
Chase
Series: Montgomery
Brothers #9
Release Date: January
29, 2019
About
the Book
Love is a sanctuary
Christian Montgomery is burnt out—the family business might be his entire world, but his father's judgment means Christian never stops working. His only respite is gazing at the beach and the carefree surfers riding the waves...especially the curvy redhead who's caught his attention.
Sophia Bennington has just fled from her small Kansas town
to California, where she's trying her best to embrace her new beginning. Soon
Christian and Sophia find one another, and it feels like sanctuary. But when
their difficult pasts catch up to them, will they run away from each other?
EXCERPT
“I hate jogging.”
Christian came to a halt on the sand and
turned to see Sophie bent at the waist, breathing hard. She waved him on as she
shook her head, her long ponytail swinging from side to side. “Um…what?”
Angling her head, she glared at him. “I hate
this. The jogging. It’s totally not my thing.” Then she let out a loud breath.
“There. I said it.”
When he was beside her, he crouched to get
eye-level with her. “If you wanted to stop, you just had to say so. I know I
picked up the pace there, but you shouldn’t feel like you have to keep up.”
She shoved him and he fell back on his ass,
and couldn’t help but laugh. When she went to straighten, he grabbed her hand
and tugged her on the sand beside him. “Christian!” she cried. “Dammit, now
there’s going to be sand everywhere.”
“It’s a beach. Of course there’s sand
everywhere.”
“Seriously?” she deadpanned. “I meant on my
clothes.”
“Ah. Gotcha,” he said. “So what’s going on?”
She grimaced as she tried to get comfortable.
“I’m not a runner. I thought I could be, but I can’t.”
“Oh. Okay.” He paused. “Then why did you keep
agreeing to come with me?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought I
wasn’t giving it a fair shot. My surfing isn’t improving, so I thought maybe
this would be something different to try. Turns out, I hate it.”
“Hate’s a bit of a strong word,” he
countered. “I mean maybe—”
“No. Trust me. I hate it.”
Message received. If her words weren’t strong
enough, the vehemence behind them and the scowl on her face were.
“O-kay,” he responded slowly. “So do you want to head back to the house?”
“O-kay,” he responded slowly. “So do you want to head back to the house?”
“Only if we can walk,” she said, coming to
her feet. Without looking at him, Sophie began walking away. Christian quickly
scrambled to his feet and went after her, grasping her shoulder and forcing her
to face him.
“Hey. What’s going on? Are you mad at me?”
Her shoulders sagged and her brows furrowed.
“No. Why would you even ask that?”
“Soph, you got up and started walking away,
what was I supposed to think?”
“Maybe that I was heading back to your
house?”
As much as he wanted to take her at her word,
something was up. Her tone and her stance were both defensive, and if there was
one thing he was learning about Sophie, it was that she rarely acted this way.
She was always smiling and encouraging. When she went to move out of his grasp,
Christian held firm. When she tugged a second time, she growled with
frustration.
“What?” she cried. “What is your problem?”
“My problem?” he parroted, loudly.
“Sweetheart, that’s a question for you. You can’t possibly be this upset over
jogging.”
“Who says I’m upset?” she asked, her voice
dripping with sarcasm.
Christian leaned in until they were almost
nose-to-nose. “You’re acting awful dodgy, Soph.”
“Dodgy? You’re calling me dodgy?” she asked
incredulously and then pulled back. “Wait. What’s dodgy?”
He laughed. “Sorry, love. Every once in a
while, some lingo I picked up while I lived in London slips out. I have no idea
why.”
“Are you insulting me?”
His eyes went wide. “You know what, you are acting
dodgy. Which—for the record—means you’re acting suspiciously. Now, I don’t know
about you, but I can stand out here all night and wait you out. I’ve got
nothing else to do, since we’re not jogging. So you can either spill it and
tell me what’s got you all twisted up or we can stand here until the tide comes
in. Your choice.”
And for a minute, he thought she was going to
opt to wait for the tide to come in.
Thankfully, she started to speak.
Thankfully, she started to speak.
“Fine. I—” She stopped and sighed. “I hated
having to confess about jogging.”
Seriously? That was it?
“Back home, I never would have said anything.
I would have just kept doing it and hating every second of it. Since I moved, I
made the decision not to do that anymore. After all, there’s no reason for me
to do things I don’t like, right?”
“Well, no but—”
“I believe in honesty,” she went on, as if
Christian hadn’t said a word. “And I expect it in return.”
“O-kay.”
When she looked up at him, her green eyes
were wide and sad. “Why are you here, Christian?”
Not sure where this was going, he replied,
“Because we said we were going jogging.”
Shaking her head, Sophie reworded her
question. “I mean, why are you here with me?”
Now he was confused. “Same answer. I don’t
understand where—”
“Gah!” she cried and pulled out of his grasp.
She paced a few feet away and returned. “You’re out here jogging because your
doctor encouraged you to get out and get some exercise, right?”
He nodded.
“And you’re out here because you left work at
a reasonable hour and this was a way to pass the time, right?”
He nodded again.
If anything, her expression grew even sadder.
“You don’t need me to jog with you, Christian. I’m sure you have other friends
you could have called to do this with you if you really didn’t want to run
alone.”
His mouth opened and closed, because he
didn’t have a clue how to respond to it. He did have friends—not a lot, but
there were certainly guys he could call to go for a run with him. But if truth
be told, he didn’t want to run with them. He enjoyed the time he and Sophie spent
together, and he’d been hoping that the more time they spent around each other,
the more she’d see that they could be more than friends.
So far, that hadn’t happened.
Now it sounded as if she wasn’t even
interested in being his friend.
So he had to speak up, and hopefully wipe
that sad look off her face.
“Look, I could call a buddy or two to jog
with me, but I’ve enjoyed spending time with you. I thought you felt the same
way. But if I read something that wasn’t there—if you were only being nice
because of the whole anxiety attack thing—then…you should know that you’re not
obligated to be here. And there’s certainly no pressure for us to be friends.”
“Christian…”
“I’m sorry if I’m monopolizing your time,” he
said quietly. “I’m sorry if I made you feel like turning down my offer of
friendship wasn’t an option. That was never my intention.”
“Now I’m confused,” she said.
Sinking both of his hands into his hair and
tugging with frustration, he went on. “I don’t want to be a charity case,
Sophie. Clearly, it’s been far too long since I’ve tried to be friends with a
woman and I suck at it. I thought it was what you wanted and—”
“It is!”
He shook his head. “No. It’s really not. The
look on your face says otherwise.” With a weary sigh, Christian turned and started
toward his house. “I should’ve just kept my damn distance. This is why I work
so much—because dealing with relationships on any level is awkward as hell.”
Sophie fell in step beside him—almost jogging
to keep up with his much longer stride. “Okay, I think we’re having two
different conversations, because I never said I didn’t want to be friends. I
just don’t want to jog.”
Snorting with disbelief, he kept walking.
“For the love of it,” she snapped, grabbing
his arm. “Will you slow down? I already told you I hate jogging and you’re
making me jog to keep up!”
When he stopped abruptly, they collided. Christian reached out to steady
her before she fell over and then instantly released her. Touching Sophie was
so not what he needed right now. He looked at her expectantly, although the
last thing he wanted was to hear her make excuses for why he’d misread the
situation
Don’t
miss the other books in the Montgomery Brothers series
Wait
for Me - https://www.chasing-romance.com/wait-for-me
Trust
in Me - https://www.chasing-romance.com/trust-in-me
Stay
with Me - https://www.chasing-romance.com/stay-with-me
More
of Me - https://www.chasing-romance.com/more-of-me
Return
to You - https://www.chasing-romance.com/return-to-you
Meant
for You - https://www.chasing-romance.com/meant-for-you
I’ll
Be There - https://www.chasing-romance.com/ill-be-there
Until
There Was Us - https://www.chasing-romance.com/until-there-was-us
Suddenly
Mine - https://www.chasing-romance.com/suddenly-mine
About
the Author
Samantha Chase is a New York Times and USA
Today bestseller of contemporary romance. She released her debut novel in
2011 and currently has more than forty titles under her belt! When she’s not
working on a new story, she spends her time reading romances, playing way too
many games of Scrabble or Solitaire on Facebook, wearing a tiara while playing
with her sassy pug Maylene…oh, and spending time with her husband of 25 years
and their two sons in North Carolina.
Website: https://www.chasing-romance.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamanthaChase3
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