Window Over the Sink: Beating in Time by M. J. Schiller

BEATING IN TIME, Last Chance Beach Romance, #15

Music took him away from her. Music brought him back. But are their hearts still beating in time?

Once upon a time, their hearts beat as one…

Drummer Levi Cannon knows that all the platinum records in the world won’t fill the Remi-sized hole in his heart.

I left Last Chance Beach and Remington Lawson behind when I took my shot at fame and fortune, but I had no idea what I was sacrificing. Now that a fundraiser has brought me home, I want more than anything to win her back. But it’s been eight years. There may be a bridge that connects the island to the mainland, but am I a fool to think that I can build something that will span the chasm of all those years?

Remi Boyd knows that her love for her brother’s best friend has never died.

But what kind of fool would I be to trust him again after he broke my heart? I was a child when he left. Now I’m a woman who’s been a wife and I’m also a mother to the most precious girl in the world. I can’t drag her through some torrid affair, and that is clearly all Levi can offer me.

Music took him away. Music brought him back. But is it too late to recapture what they once had? Or can Last Chance Beach work its magic for them?

Excerpt

Remi

I parked in front of Wyatt’s—so he could pull in the driveway when he got back—and took the groceries for our weekly dinner inside to prepare. When I set the sack on the only counter with free space in his small galley kitchen, I didn’t see the saltshaker and knocked it onto the floor. I sighed.

What’s that they say about spilled salt?

Not remembering which shoulder the old adage advised using, I threw some over both to cover my bases. I was wound as tight as a tangled bobbin knowing that I’d be seeing Levi tomorrow. It was absolutely ridiculous to feel that way, but I just wanted to avoid any awkwardness. I hadn’t seen him since our one magical night together eight years ago. But I was probably worrying too much. Mr. Rock Star Super Star probably forgot that night a long time ago. I’m sure our moment was less than a blip on his radar after all the women he’d probably been with. Still, I couldn’t chase the anxiety away for some reason.

I spied the broom behind the small kitchen table and crossed to retrieve it to clean up my mess. But as I took hold of it, I heard a noise in the garage and froze. I knew Wyatt wasn’t home yet because he hadn’t even left when he called fifteen minutes earlier, having forgotten, somehow, that it was his day to pick up the kids. Last Chance Beach didn’t have a lot of crime, so I really wasn’t worried about an intruder, but it definitely could be an animal. Although I didn’t relish facing the thing, I knew if I waited for Wyatt, we could have two potential repercussions. One, my daughter, Misty, would want to keep it for a pet. Or two, she’d freak because she’d think we were hurting or scaring the pest by chasing it outside. Or, now that I thought of it, there was definitely the third possibility, which would be her doing both.

Okay. You can do this. Just reach in and open the garage, and he’ll run out. Easy peasy.

I tightened my grip on the broom, wielding it as a weapon, and slowly opened the door. I’m not sure why, as the thing was likely not poised to jump on me the minute he spotted me, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I went through a list of animals it could be, because it sounded large, and decided a possum was my worst-case scenario. Those prehistoric beasts were ugly and repulsed me. As the door opened and my view became wider, I saw him standing in front of his old drum set. He was looking in the opposite direction, but I knew that body and shoulder-length, dark, curly hair. I recognized the way the dusky blue of his T-shirt stretched across his broad back and hinted at his musculature. His jeans accentuated the man’s fabulous ass. He hadn’t changed one iota. My heart leaped. Hearing me, I suppose, he turned.

His smile chased the cobwebs from the corners of the room. “Remi.” Then the smile faded and his brow furrowed. “Are you going to bash my head in?”

“What?” Then, realizing I still held the broom aloft, I brought it down and hid it behind me. What for? He’d already seen me brandishing it. “Oh, sorry. I heard a noise and…” My throat was dry as I stared into his face, awash in a thousand memories of him. Most of them in this garage, but some elsewhere…at our kitchen table, at the beach, on one of the worst nights in my life, and on one of the best. I cleared my throat. “I thought you were an animal.”

He gave me that easy grin of his that could make me do anything. “Well, I can be, if you want.”

“What? No. I mean…I thought maybe a possum got in here or an armadillo…or something.”

He walked toward me, and I fought not to retreat from him. “I knew what you meant, Remi.” He stopped a few feet away. “It’s…really good to see you.”

Buy links:

Books2Read: https://books2read.com/BeatingInTime

Amazon: https://mybook.to/BeatingInTime

https://www.amazon.com/BEATING-TIME-Chance-Beach-Romance-ebook/dp/B0BRH7KQP2?ref_=ast_sto_dp

Nook book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/beating-in-time-m-j-schiller/1142904265?ean=2940186568353

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/beating-in-time

iTunes: https://books.apple.com/us/book/id6445329638

Bio

M.J. Schiller is a retired lunch lady/romance-romantic suspense writer. She enjoys writing novels whose characters include rock stars, desert princes, teachers, futuristic Knights, construction workers, cops, and a wide variety of others. In her mind everybody has a romance. She is the mother of a twenty-seven-year-old and three twenty-five-year-olds. That's right, triplets! So having recently taught four children to drive, she likes to escape from life on occasion by pretending to be a rock star at karaoke. However…you won’t be seeing her name on any record labels soon.