Claire Cain's title "Where you Go" came in at number 8 in the Best Indie Books Title of 2018
buylink: https://amzn.to/2CTgsio
Synopsis:
When Alex Moore leaves New York in search of a slower pace, her life is turned upside down at the sight of her oldest friend and first love Luke Waterford. In Nashville, Alex is shocked by their instant attraction and the sense of home she feels with a man she hasn’t seen in ten years. Luke’s time in the Army has made him even more beautiful, even more interesting, even more appealing than ever. But the more they’re together, the more Alex fears she’ll have to sacrifice everything she thought she wanted.
Excerpt: “So… you’re back,” I said abruptly, flopping down in the plastic chair and huffing out a breath to calm myself. Simmer, Alex. Simmer. “It’s been a long year,” he said. One side of his mouth quirked in a smile, but it was more weary than lighthearted. “And now what?” I heard myself ask. It wasn’t that I didn’t mean to ask him, but that I was amazed I was able to speak in a somewhat normal tone instead of the croak and squeak I felt like making. My whole body was lit with an awareness of him—his closely cropped hair and glacially blue eyes. Years ago, I visited Alaska with my family. We took a helicopter to a glacier and hiked around on the slab of melting ice with rain jackets on our bodies and crampons on our feet. I remember looking into one of the crevices, which the guide had called a “crevaahsss,” and thinking it looked like the most terrifying depth. The white snow intensified as it slipped down into the unknown oblivion of the hole, and the outer edges were bright blue. As the slopes gave way to darkness, the blue deepened into a navy-black that chilled me in a way I’d never forgotten. So when I said his eyes were glacially blue, I meant it. They chilled me. It was a haunting kind of blue. And maybe it was my imagination, but I was sure they’d gotten more intense since I’d seen him a few years back, maybe because of the slight tan on his face or the gentle silver streaks in the longer hair at the crest of his widow’s peak. There was nothing left of the boy whose mom had shared my mom’s nursing bras. Which was ridiculous. Because what universe was this? Yes, of course it was him. Just older. Wiser. Hotter. Ok, stop. This was Luke Waterford, longtime friend, friend from in utero, former co-creator of Mud Pies, Inc., in the sandbox in the backyard at his parents’ house. Absolutely no cause for alarm. “I have some time off now, so I’ll stick around another day or so. Then report back and we start training again in a few months.” He folded his hands on the table and looked at them now laced together and stretched out between us in a strangely open gesture. “Wow. Training again? You just got back.” I was still working to clear my head, forgetting all sense of the art of conversation. I took a deep breath and inhaled the sultry smell of coffee surrounding us at our corner table in the coffee shop that had sprung up in our town sometime after we both moved away. We hadn’t even ordered coffee, but I wished we had so I’d have something purposeful to do with my hands, my mouth.
Social sites for the book: Goodreads: https://bit.ly/2xiQeQl
B&N paperback link: https://bit.ly/2MvRgxR