HITCHED
LOVE BURNS SERIES BOOK SIX
.png)
Old flames burn the hottest, but can they survive the heat?
It was safe to say Bethany Mayer was questioning her life choices as she stuffed four layers of her tulle wedding dress into her ex-boyfriend’s pickup truck. She thought she had it all figured out. Move home to Woodvalley Pines. Marry her long-term boyfriend. Open her own medical practice. But one day, one decision, changed her life forever. Now, instead of being the talk of the town for her superior skills as a doctor, she’s the subject of the small town’s unhinged rumor mill.
Being his ex’s getaway driver as she ditches her own wedding wasn’t exactly how firefighter, Benny, thought his day was going to go. He’d actually been counting on finally getting some closure after a decade apart. This had to be the complete opposite of that, right? Now his first and only love was back in town and suddenly single. Never mind the deranged rumors flying around town about her runaway bride stunt, he was more scared of the truth. And the kind of trouble he was about to get into now he knows she’s sticking around.
It’s not only their shared past that’s unravelling as Benny and Bethany struggle to fight the spark that still burns bright. The flames may never die—but can love rise from the wreckage they left behind?
Excerpt
You’re going to hell, Bethany. Straight up, Lucifer shoving pokers up your a**, hell.
​
“You had to go for the ball gown wedding dress, didn’t you?” Bethany tutted to herself.
​
To be fair, at the time, she had no idea she would be trying to cram four layers of tulle out the bathroom window. In hindsight, a simple A-line would have been more suitable for this kind of thing.
​
Are you seriously thinking about runaway bride attire right now?
​
She was. Anything was better than thinking about what she was actually doing.
​
Finally free of the much smaller than she’d thought, bathroom window, she felt her heels sink into the freshly cut grass.
​
“Okay. Now what? Call an Uber?” she muttered to herself as her eyes darted around the church yard. Thank God everyone was inside. Well. Almost everyone.
​
Sh*t!
Before she’d even had a chance to gather her dress and realize that her heart was in her throat, the man in the black fitted suit was walking toward her. Their gazes locked.
​
Sh*t. Sh*t. Sh*t.
​
“What the hell are you doing?” the man hollered as he continued in her direction.
​
The nerve. He, of all people, had no right to be angry.
​
“You’re still smoking?” was her haughty reply.
​
Those familiar green eyes narrowed. “What?”
​
“You’re still smoking?” she repeated. “Don’t you know those things will kill you?”
​
Way to pull off self-righteousness mid-way through ditching your wedding, Bethany.
​
“That’s what you wanna talk about?” he scoffed, stopping just close enough for the sharp edge of his forest scent to wrap around her. “Not the fact that you just climbed out of that window behind you?” Benny pointed to the cloudy, rippled glass over her shoulder.
​
“Did you bring your truck?” she asked with a tilt of her head.
​
He blinked. “What?”
​
“Your truck, Benny, did you bring it?” She let out an exasperated sigh.
​
His look was beyond suspicious. “Of course, I brought my truck, B, I didn’t fucking fly here.”
​
F*cking smarta**. Some things never change.
​
Beggars can’t be choosers.
​
“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go!” Her hand was in his seconds later as she hurriedly dragged him across the abandoned courtyard. Dodging uneven cobbles and century-old tree roots as she went.
​
Just when she didn’t think this day could get more f*cked up, she was gathering four layers of tulle again and cramming it into her ex-boyfriend’s old pickup truck.
​
F*ck you too, universe.
