Rated
Jan 10
•
2 reviews
•
romance novels
• amazon.com
Gail Jones has played by the book all her life. She's an English teacher at the same high school she attended, best friends with the same girl she grew up with, close with her family and keeps her long, curly red hair twisted into a tight knot in the classroom.
Only once in her life did Gail truly let loose and give in to her passions, and that time is long gone. She hasn't seen Scott Sanders, the man who inspired that passion, since high school graduation. And for the most part, she's not sorry about that. Scott was warm, charming and sexy but he wasn't the kind of man who would have fit into adult life--especially not Gail's tightly controlled adult life.
Scott Sanders is coming home to heal and rebuild his foundations after losing both his marriage and his job. He doesn't know what the future holds, but he knows it isn't teaching physical education and coaching soccer at his old high school--at least, not for very long. For the moment, though, he's content to be among family and old friends in a familiar place. A new romance is the last thing he's looking for, especially one that might draw him back into old habits he's not proud of.
Despite the reservations each harbors, Gail and Scott quickly fall back into the easy friendship that always ran beneath their on again/off again romantic relationship. But the friendship seems fraught with danger to both of them, and their efforts to avoid being misunderstood or overstepping create confusion, hurt feelings and missed opportunities.
Gail, reluctantly drawn to Scott as powerfully as ever, reads his caution as disinterest and is unsurprised; he was always a successful ladies' man and she's sure that he has more enticing options that a Midwestern high school teacher who has never strayed far from home or done anything out of the ordinary. Scott, sinking happily into the easy warmth and intimacy he shares with Gail and wondering whether it might provide the opportunity for a relationship like he's never had before, can't entirely forgive himself for the way he treated Gail and a dozen other girls in his younger days and assumes that she can't, either.
Will they learn that some things are better left in the past, or build a future neither could have anticipated?
