Shelter for Sophie – Sneak Peek

She’s shy, he’s stoic…not the hardest personality traits to overcome, but Sophie Carson and Roman “Chief” Proudfit have their work cut out for them.

Sophie has a crush on the silent-but-studly firefighter next door. She’s been pining away silently while secretly helping the hardworking man by mowing his lawn—which he thinks is being done by her nonexistent husband and/or boyfriend. He’s definitely not big on neighborly chitchat, but with her stutter, that suits Sophie just fine. But now a misunderstanding at a bar has put him even further out of her reach.

Roman’s difficult upbringing on an Indian reservation is a sore spot, so when he thinks Sophie is taking advantage of poor people for medical trials at her workplace, he lets her know exactly what he thinks. But when he discovers he misunderstood, he’s man enough to admit it…and also that he should have opened his eyes to his beautiful, sensitive neighbor sooner.

As the couple gets closer, each helping the other overcome lifelong pains, for the first time in years, Roman has something to live for other than his job. And, as he discovers when Sophie puts herself in danger, something even bigger to lose…

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Sneak Peek!

Sophie Carson smiled at her friends. They were sitting in the bar they liked to frequent—The Sloppy Cow. They tried to go out at least once a week, but sometimes, with their introverted natures, they didn’t quite make it.

When they’d met at the United States Army Institute of Surgical Research Burn Center, they hadn’t exactly hit it off. Autumn McCoy was forty-one and had been working at the Burn Center Annex in downtown San Antonio for years. She hadn’t been happy that her new coworkers were so much younger. Tory Brown was twenty-four. She’d received her PhD very young, and wasn’t exactly Ms. Social. Quinn Dixon was Sophie’s age, twenty-eight, and was gorgeous enough to be a model…except for the large birthmark on the edge of her face that went down her neck to her shoulder.

But as time went on and the women got to know each other, they’d realized that they all had similar concerns and fears about what others thought about them…and they became close friends.

“He seriously handed you twenty bucks and told you to have your boyfriend keep mowing his lawn and he’d pay for it?” Tory asked. “I would’ve died!”

Sophie nodded. “To be fair, I was just s-standing there gazing at him like an idiot.”

Autumn patted her hand. “Understandable, since you’ve had a crush on him since the day he moved in.”

Sophie could feel the blush in her cheeks. She hated how pale her skin was; anytime she was embarrassed, her cheeks flushed like a beacon, letting everyone know how uncomfortable she was. “It was ridiculous; I s-should’ve been able to s-say s-something.”

“Cut yourself some slack,” Quinn told her. “You’ll be better next time.”

Sophie shrugged. “M-maybe, m-maybe not. He isn’t around a lot and does his best not to m-make eye contact with anyone. Now that he thinks his neighbor is a m-mute freak, he’ll probably try to keep his distance even m-more.”

“You never know,” Tory said with a smile. “Maybe he’s intrigued now.”

Continue reading first chapter.