Cold Nose, Warm Heart
by Mara Wells
Publication Date: 1/28/2020
Genre: Contemporary
Series: Fur Haven Dog Park #1
A poodle, a black lab and a Chihuahua walk into a dog
park…
All Caleb Donovan has to do to redeem his family name
is take a rundown Miami Beach apartment building and turn it into luxury
condos. Easy, right?
Unfortunately, that would also turn the local dog park
into a parking lot and the neighbors aren't having it. Caleb is faced with
outright revolt, led by smart, beautiful building manager Riley Carson and her
poodle, LouLou.
For Caleb, this project should have been a slam dunk.
But even more challenging than the neighborhood resistance is the mutual
attraction between him and Riley. It would be so much easier just to stay enemies.
Can Riley and her canine sidekick convince Caleb that
what's best for business isn't always best for the heart?
Mara Wells loves stories, but
especially stories with kissing. She lives in Hollywood, Florida with her
family and two rescue dogs—a poodle-mix named Houdini Beauregarde, and Sheba
Reba Rita Peanut, a chihuahua-mix. To find out more, you can sign up for her
newsletter at marawellsauthor.com.
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Excerpt:
“LouLou!” a hoarse voice called.
“LouLou!”
“Over here!” Caleb yelled, not sure
where the voice was coming from, but hearing the pain in it and wanting to do
anything in his power to make that pain stop. What could he say? Rescuing furry
damsels in distress brought out his mushy side.
Through the sheets of rain, he
spotted Riley limping along the sidewalk across the street from dog park. She
didn’t look much better than LouLou had, hair flattened and plastered to her
head, clothes sticking to her as though she’d taken a dunk in the ocean. And
was she barefoot? All those shoes outside her front door, and she’d run out in
the storm without so much as a flip-flop to protect her?
“You’re a pair, aren’t you?” He
whispered to LouLou, waving frantically to get Riley’s attention. “Over here!
Riley, I’ve got LouLou!”
Riley looked
across the road, and he knew the moment she saw them. She collapsed to her
knees, hands over her face, and a giant sob racked her body. So they’d be
staying out in the rain a little longer. He crossed over and knelt beside her,
the soaked poodle between them.
“It’s okay. She’s okay. You’re okay.” He
sounded like an idiot. He knew it, but he kept saying stupid things anyway.
“I’ve got her. She’s right here.”
Riley sucked in a big breath and looked
up at him with her tilted eyes. “Thank you.” She held out her arms for LouLou.
He shifted the dog’s weight to Riley’s hold, but LouLou curled her paw around
his wrist, tight.
Riley’s chin sank. “I deserve that.”
“No,
it happens.” Caleb didn’t know what he was talking about. What happened? Rain?
Dogs running loose in the streets? “You didn’t do anything wrong.” He knew that
part at least was right.
“I couldn’t find her.” She scrubbed at
her face with the heels of her hands, eyes red and lids swollen from crying.
“And now she’s hurt. What happened to her paw?”
“She’s fine, just a small piece of
glass.” He pried LouLou’s paw off his wrist and handed the dog over, surprised
at how giving her back felt like a loss. If he felt this attached after such a
brief time with the dog, how bad must Riley have felt when she realized LouLou
was missing? The impulse to make Riley feel better kept his assurances flowing.
“Eliza patched her up, and she’ll be good as new in no time.”
“Thank you.” She buried her face in
LouLou’s fur and stood, but as soon as she did, she lost her balance and keeled
over with a squeak.
Caleb reached out to steady her. “What’s
wrong?”
Riley closed her eyes and leaned heavily on him.
“Think I stepped on something.”
“Let me see.”
Feeling a sense of déjà vu, he
crouched to inspect the bottom of her foot, dark with dirt and specks of gravel
stuck to it. “Looks like a bad bruise. Maybe from a rock.”
Riley bit her lower lip. “Sounds
right.”
“Of course.” One careful step
forward. Then another. “Thanks for taking care of LouLou, but you don’t have to
hang around.” She winced and took another step, face as white as the knuckles
clutching her dog. “I’ve got it from here. No problem.”
It was painful to watch. Still,
she’d said to back off, so he did. Until she stumbled, almost dropping the
poodle, and a car horn blared at her for hogging up the road.
“This is ridiculous.” He scooped
her up, exactly like he’d done with her dog. Unlike LouLou, she wasn’t
grateful.
“Hey! What’re you doing?” Riley
couldn’t bat at his chest because she was holding onto her dog, but she glared.
“You can’t swoop in and take over everything.”
“Hang on
tight. I’m taking you home.” Caleb clutched Riley and LouLou against his chest,
her legs over his arm like in some damn rom-com movie, and strode back toward
her condo. If he wasn’t mistaken, he could hear Eliza’s cackle following them,
but he didn’t care. It felt good to save LouLou, and it felt even better to
have Riley in his arms.
***
Excerpted from Cold Nose, Warm Heart by Mara Wells. © 2020 by Mara Wells. Used with permission of the publisher, Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of
Sourcebooks, Inc. All rights reserved.
MY REVIEW:
Cold Nose, Warm Heart by Mara WellsMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book was so cute! Full of adorable dogs and throw in some romance and it makes a great story.
Caleb's family has been dragged through the mud. He has lost what dignity he has and is trying to make something of himself and not to end up like his father. Caleb's grandfather wants to give him an apartment to redo if only he can get his brothers to sign on board. Brothers who have nothing to do with him.
Riley is the apartment manger of her grandmother's apartment and is run down but Caleb wants to change it all together and take out the dog park that all the neighbor's use as a play area for the dogs but is also a meeting place for the neighbors. Caleb and Riley butt heads from the very beginning and things don't look good for either of them to get their ways.
I received this from Harlequin and NetGalley for the ARC.
View all my reviews
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