Chapter Reveal & Giveaway: Loving You Always – Kennedy Ryan

A Message from Kennedy Ryan…

Hey, everybody! I’m so excited to partner with these four amazing blogs today and share chapter one from LOVING YOU ALWAYS. Some of you may have read an early version at the end of WHEN YOU ARE MINE. It has been edited some, so you should read again! 🙂

If you haven’t read WHEN YOU ARE MINE, this chapter is a major spoiler, and you probably want to skip it! BUT we still have goodness for you! There’s a rafflecopter for an e-copy of WYAM or LYA. And for those of you ready to read LYA, I’m hosting a week-long book party/group read with a grand prize of $100 VISA Gift card, guest authors swinging through, and daily giveaways. Just join the read along to qualify!

Thank you! Enter and enjoy! 🙂

Kennedy Ryan

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Please join us for the LOVING YOU ALWAYS release party on October 9th!

Want to join the read along for LOVING YOU ALWAYS on October 13th? Click here! 

  “How ya feeling?” Kerris Mitchell settled onto the bench at the kitchen table beside her husband, Cam.

The month since the funeral had been just as hard as she had imagined it would be. Cam missed Kristeene terribly. How could he not? She had been like a mother to him. Kerris had done everything she could think of to soothe him and take his mind off the dull pain. Cam had been shocked and incredibly moved by Kristeene’s generosity in her will, as Kerris had been. She had left Cam a small fortune in stocks, along with the Land Rover he’d always loved so much. She’d willed a significant portion of her wardrobe to Kerris for Déjà Vu, the high-end consignment shop she owned with her best friend, Meredith.

“How do I feel? Like the king of the world.” Cam touched her stomach, his hand a warm weight through the silk of the kimono she wore after her shower.

Kerris smiled at how gentle and considerate Cam had been since she’d told him about the baby.

“I mean about Kristeene.”

“It’s like having the worst day and the best day of your life…on the same day.” Cam pulled his dark brows together even as the corners of his mouth turned up. “Ms. Kris would be so happy for us. You’re happy, right?”

“Of course.” She leaned her shoulder into his. “This is what we’ve talked about since the beginning. A family of our own.”

“And you don’t…you don’t regret anything?” A small storm brewed behind Cam’s blue-gray eyes, but the hand resting on her stomach remained steady.

Kerris knew, of course, what he was asking; the image he couldn’t shake. There were moments when her mind would, of its own volition, revisit that moment, too; when her guard would slip, and she would be in Walsh’s arms again. Feel his touch. Smell him. Taste him.

“I don’t regret anything.” She placed one hand over his on her still-flat stomach and ran the other hand over the silky dark hair hanging past his ears. “I’m as excited about this baby as you are.”

His eyes plumbed hers, looking for the truth. She hoped what he saw satisfied.

“I wonder how she’ll look.” Cam finally spoke, a goofy grin at odds with his handsome face.

Kerris wondered, too. Since there was no record of either of her parents, she had no idea which ethnicities had collided to create her ambiguous looks: amber eyes, dark, silky hair, and skin the color of pale honey. Cam knew his parentage, though it wasn’t much of a lineage. His prostitute mother had been half black and half Hispanic. His father, a white man. Some random john. He was routinely mistaken for everything from Italian to Puerto Rican. With their mishmash of a gene pool, there was no use trying to peg their daughter.

Wait? Daughter?

“Did you say ‘she’?” Kerris laughed and ran a fond hand over the unruly spill of Cam’s hair. “You know something I don’t?”

“I just always think of the baby as a girl. I’ll be happy with whatever, though. Healthy is what’s important, right?”

Kerris nodded and smiled. Cam kissed her before standing to his feet.

“I’ll be late for work if I don’t get outta here. Not that I’ll be working there much longer.”

“Cam, you have to be careful with that money Kristeene left you.”

“I’m not staying in that shitty graphic design job when I have stock worth millions, baby.”

“I get that, but you don’t have it yet.” She walked over, grabbing his hands between hers. “It’s a huge estate that’s incredibly complex, and it’s still being settled, papers have to be executed. I think it’s good. Gives you some time to really think about the best thing to do with the money.”

“You know what I’ve always wanted to do.” He leaned down to kiss her nose. “I want to paint. Sebastian—you remember Sebastian, right? You met him at Kristeene’s birthday party the night we got engaged.”

“I remember him.” Kerris walked over to clear their breakfast dishes from the table. “Every time I’ve swung by his gallery, he’s never there.”

“Been in Paris.” Cam threw his voice over his shoulder as he moved toward the office to grab his backpack and laptop. “He’s back. He thinks I should take a year to study in Paris. He says I have a lot of raw talent, but I need it refined. I need to train and study.”

“A year?” Kerris’s hands froze over the sink waiting for their breakfast dishes. “What would we—you mean live in Paris for a year?”

Three is me…in the excerpt reveal in line! Before me was True Story Book Blog and after will be Shh Mom’s Reading .  Be sure to continue on to find out what happens in the next reveal. 

The man she can never have . . . 

Kerris Moreton should be the happiest woman in the world: She has a successful business and is about to start the family she’s always wanted. But the man of her dreams-the one whose green eyes see straight into her soul and whose gentle hands make her body hum with pleasure-is not hers.

 Each secret moment with Walsh Bennett serves to remind Kerris of what she’s missing. And every stolen hour makes it harder to see her future without him. But being with Walsh would betray a sacred promise and upend her perfect life. When tragedy strikes, the razor’s edge between love and loyalty grows sharper than ever. And Kerris must decide where her heart will fall

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*NOTE: Just for pre-ordering, your copy of LOVING YOU ALWAYS is currently discounted for the great price of $2.99! Grab your copy now, and your mind, e-reader (and wallet!) will thank you. 

Chapter 1 Blog-Hop Order

Part 1: Schmexy Girl Book Blog

Part 2: True Story Book Blog

Part 3: Cocktails and Books

Part 4: Shh Mom’s Reading 

Kennedy Ryan writes contemporary romance and women’s fiction. She always give her characters their happily ever after, but loves to make them work for it! It’s a long road to love, so sit back and enjoy the ride.  In an alternative universe and under her government issue name, Tina Dula, she is a wife to the love of her life, mom to a special, beautiful son, and a friend to those living with autism through her foundation Myles-A-Part, serving Georgia families.

Her writings on Autism have appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul, and she has been featured on the Montel Williams Show, NPR, Headline News and others. Ryan is donating a portion of her proceeds to her own foundation and to her charitable partner, Talk About Curing Autism (TACA). 

Her interview series MOMMIES DO THE MOST AMAZING THINGS is featured each month in Brooke Burke’s online magazine Modern Mom.

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