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Can a one-night stand turn into happily ever after?
Bar owner Kevin Kowalski is used to women throwing their phone numbers at him. Even if lately he's been more interested in finding Mrs. Right than Miss Right Now. Enter Beth Hansen.
Kevin and Beth may have started out all wrong, with an impromptu passionate encounter at a wedding, followed by a walk of shame. Yet Kevin knows there's more to their relationship than a one-night stand. Especially when Beth turns up pregnant.
Kevin may be ready for the "next step," but Beth doesn't want a relationship with a former playboy, however irresistible he might be. And it's going to take a lot to convince her to go on a second date with the father of her childÂ….
- Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, on Exclusively Yours
"This is the perfect contemporary romance!"
- RT Book Reviews, on Undeniably Yours
"Sexy, sassy and immensely satisfying"
- Fresh Fiction, on Undeniably Yours
"This contemporary romance is filled with charm, wit, sophistication, and is anything but predictable"– BN.com Romance Blog on Yours to Keep
October
Every time the New England Patriots chalked one up in the win column, Kevin Kowalski got laid.
A score for them was a score for him. Not that he was always looking for a companion on a Sunday night, but the offers weren't scarce. As he slid a foaming mug of Sam Adams down the polished surface of the best damn sports bar in New Hampshire's capital city—which just happened to list his name as proprietor—he caught a blonde watching him. The Pats were lining up at first and goal on the big-screen, but her eyes were on him, letting him know the New England quarterback wasn't the only guy in scoring position.
But tonight he was having a hard time concentrating on the blonde with the chemically enhanced lips, surgically enhanced boobs and alcoholenhanced sex drive giving him the you could go all the way look.
He was too busy keeping his eye on the brunette at the other end of the bar. It wasn't just the fact she was pretty, with a mess of dark brown hair falling to her shoulders and eyes to match. Or that her fisherman's sweater and jeans hugged her body in all the right places, though that certainly didn't hurt.
Mostly he was keeping an eye on her because her date was going downhill in a hurry. Either the guy in the uptight, button-down shirt and khakis had had a couple before he'd walked into the bar or he had the alcohol tolerance of a high-school freshman, because it had only taken a couple shots of Scotch for Drunken Asshole Syndrome to kick in.
Now there was some body language going on between the couple, and her body wanted away from his body. His fingers would start looking for a soft place to land. She'd deflect. Rinse and repeat.
Jasper's Bar & Grille had three rules. No smoking. No throwing beer mugs, even at the Jets fans. And when a lady said no, it meant no.
The Patriots scored, and the glasses shook on the shelves as a triumphant roar filled Jasper's. The blonde hopped up and down on her bar stool, her boobs testing the bungee ability of her bra straps.
And the jerk with the wandering hands raised his empty glass to wave it in Kevin's general direction.
He made his way down to the couple but ignored the glass. "We won't be serving you any more alcohol, but you're welcome to a coffee or a soda, on the house.''
Uptight Guy's face turned as red as a Budweiser label, and Kevin sighed. He was going to be one of those guys. Jasper's had a zero-tolerance policy, so as the guy's ass lifted off the stool, Kevin gave Paulie the signal and watched her roll her eyes as she reached for the phone.
"I'm not drunk and I want another goddamn Scotch!"
The woman put her hand on the guy's arm, as if to push him back onto his seat. "Derek, let's—"
"Who the hell are you to tell me I can't have another goddamn Scotch?"
Uptight Guy's badass act was diluted a bit by the weaving. "I'm the guy who reserves the right to refuse you service."
"Beth, tell this asshole to gimme another drink."
Kevin shook his head. "You're cut off."
It happened fast. Kevin wasn't sure if the guy was throwing a punch or reaching in to grab him by the shirt, but his elbow hit his date and knocked her backward. She didn't fall, thanks to the guy sitting next to her, who was pleasantly surprised to find himself with an armful of brunette, but it distracted Kevin enough to allow the guy to land a weak, glancing blow to his jaw.
Uptight Guy, whom the woman had called Derek, sucked in a breath, as if he just realized what he'd done. Kevin watched as the guy's fightor-flight instinct kicked in and wasn't surprised when he chose flight. Sadly for him, Kevin was six-two and had some experience collaring yahoos, whether they were crooks back when he'd worn a badge or his four rowdy nephews. He reached across the bar, grabbed the guy by the scruff of the neck and yanked him back.
Derek was struggling like a pickerel on a hook and, when Kevin's grip almost slipped off the guy's collar, he jerked hard. Derek's head snapped around, and his nose exploded on the edge of the bar. Oops.
The guy screamed like a girlÂ…and the crowd went wild. Jasper's didn't attract a real rough crowd, but everybody loved a good fight.
"Good fight" being relative, of course. Derek cupped his hands over his face, trying to staunch the blood and let out a high-pitched keening sound that made more than a few of the patrons wince.
"Shut up or I'll knock your ass out," Kevin yelled at the guy which, of course, got everybody in the bar chanting. Do itÂ…do itÂ…do itÂ…
"Oh, my God, his nose!" Derek's date untangled herself from her neighbor and grabbed a couple of napkins off the bar. She tried to get to Derek's nose, but he kept pushing her away.
The crowd quieted when a couple of police officers walked through the front door. Derek's keening changed pitch when he saw them, from a pain-filled squeal to an oh, shit desperation.
"Hey, Kowalski," the older of the two cops said.
"Hey, Jonesy. Your old man like those tickets?"
"Are you kidding me? Tenth row, fifty-yard line? He was in heaven. Said to tell you thanks and give you his best."
"Glad to do it," he said easily, still holding on to Derek's collar. He fostered a friendly relationship with the local P.D., not only because he'd been on the job once down in Boston, but because any good businessman did. Especially businessmen who served alcohol. "Got a live one here."
"What happened to him?"
"Hit his face on the bar. You know how it is."
In the split second between Kevin releasing him and Jonesy grabbing for his wrists, Derek stupidly decided to make a break for the door.
The rookie made a move to stop him at the same time Beth did. She accidentally—at least it looked accidental—tripped him, and the young cop fell on his face. Jonesy jumped over his partner and did the nearing-retirement version of a sprint after Derek.
Beth was practically hyperventilating.
The rookie scrambled to his feet as Jonesy took down his prey in a half-ass diving tackle that made the crowd roar in approval. Rookie had his handcuffs out, but it looked as if Uptight Guy was going all-in on a resisting charge.
"Why are you doing this to him?"
Kevin's gaze swiveled to the woman, who looked almost as pissed as her date. "I didn't do jack to him, lady. Did you forget the part where he hit you?"
"He didn't hit me. He bumped me trying to hit you."
Yeah, that was so much better. "How about the groping? How many times were you going to tell him no?"
She actually rolled her eyes at him. "I had it all under control."
"No, now it's all under control."
"Look, it's not what youÂ… Forget it. You have to help him, though."
Since Derek had two hundred pounds of veteran cop kneeling on his head while the rookie tried to secure the cuffs, there wasn't much Kevin could do for him, even if he wanted to. Which he didn't.
"It's not what you think," she insisted.
"I'm going to sue you for everything you've got, asshole," Derek screamed over his shoulder. "And you, you dumb bitch, you're fired!"
Oops. Kevin looked at Beth. "I thought he was just a bad date."
She climbed onto a stool and dropped her forehead to the bar with a thunk. "You just cost me my job."
Only several years of fine-tuning his brain-to-mouth filter behind the bar kept him from pointing out she was maybe better off without it. "Want a beer?"
A beer? Rambo the bartender here thought a beer was going to fix the mess he'd gotten her into? Beth Hansen curled her hands into fists to keep from reaching across the bar and shaking him like a martini.
So Derek was a drunken ass. So what else was new? It was nothing she couldn't handle. She handled it once a week or so, as a matter of fact, and had been for three months.
After work, Derek would leave the office and walk down the street to have a drink. He'd call his secretary—that would be her—with some bogus excuse requiring her to stop by the bar. A paper that needed signing. A fax he'd forgotten to read but absolutely had to before he went home. She'd show up, he'd try to get in her pants, she'd put him in a cab and the next day they'd pretend it didn't happen.
Sometimes, like today, he'd even drag her out on a weekend. Maybe not ideal working conditions, but she'd suffered worse.
But this time Derek's usual bar was closed for renovations, so he'd kept on walking until he'd come to Jasper's Bar & Grille. Now her boss had a broken nose, and she had no job.
A beer wasn't going to help.
She lifted her head and propped her chin on her hand. "Did you have to call the police?"
"Yup."
"You could have let it go."
He rested his palms on the edge of the bar and looked her in the eye. God, he was tall. And that wasn't all he had going for him. Besides the height and the blue eyes and the dimples, he had broad shoulders straining the seams of an ancient Red Sox T-shirt and thick brown hair that had that careless style of a man who didn't want to fuss with it. Probably mid-thirties.
"Lady, he punched me in the face."
"It wasn't much of a punch," she muttered, since she couldn't deny it. "I almost had him talked into a cab, but you had to go and make it a big deal."
"Hey, Kevin," a younger guy called out. "Can we make a mimosa?"
"This is a sports bar, not Easter brunch." He turned back to her, shaking his head. "All I did was tell him he was cut off. Not only do I have the right, but when a patron's visibly intoxicated, I have the obligation. And I ain't exactly a turn-the-other-cheek guy when it comes to getting punched in the face."
Anonymous
Posted March 8, 2012
What is this, why does it show publication date as this February??? That is false, this was released last year, I almost bought the same book twice because the cover is decieving. All three books have different coverst from previous ones and I feel this is wrong. Whoever is doing this, either publishing co or B&N please stop or I certainly will not purchase from these authors again. Same goes for books by Linda Lael Miller, her covers changed and I by mistake pruchased same book twice because of different cover.
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted February 14, 2013
Loved the story. 600+ pages. Romantic and funny. Enjoyable characters. The first book was just as good and it was free on nook made me buy thus one and i was NOT disappointed.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted February 6, 2012
Why? One word: Beth. 'Nuff said. -___-
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted February 3, 2012
##Old book, new cover. Beth (the female lead) is awful and so does not deserve kevin's love. So very annoying. Dont bother.
2 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Undeniably Yours by Shannon Stacey Book 2 in the Kowalski Series ISBN-978-1-4268-9072-7
Kevin Kowalski had been a Boston cop until he found his wife in their bed with his boss. After beating his boss up and divorcing his wife he bought a bar. The night Beth Hansen came in his bar changed everything. Three weeks after he first seen Beth, and caused her to lose her job by having her boss arrested in his bar, she was at Joe & Keri's wedding. She was serving at the open bar. When the night was over he found her outside in the gardens. And before they knew it they were spending the night together.
Beth Hansen was a nomad of sorts. She was the only surviving child because her mother miscarried. They were a bit overprotective so Beth started traveling. She would work awhile and when she had enough money she moved to the next town. She had a great night with Kevin Kowalski and as she went to leave to get some breakfast he mumbled about locking the door behind her. Forget her fairy tale night, she was just some bimbo to him. So she left.
Three weeks later Beth found that the 2% chance of a bad condom had happened and she was pregnant by a man who did not want to see her again. She went to the bar to tell him and he went into Mr. Take Charge mode, just what she ran away from. Before she knew she was moved into an apartment above the bar and across the hall from him. It had ended up her crappy apartment had lead in the paint.
The book is mostly about the dance between them. They both cared about each other but Beth could only believe he was thinking of the baby. They hardly knew each other. She was thrown into the Kowalski family head first with Thanksgiving dinner. His sister-in-law Lisa had married Mike because she was pregnant and she agreed with Beth about being cautious.
Paulie Reed was Kevin's assistant manager at Jasper's Bar. No one knew she had been hiding the last five years from a aristocratic type lifestyle. Until Samuel Logan the Fourth came into the bar. She had left him at the altar. She loved him but felt he was marrying her because their society lifestyle put them together. There is a secondary story of Sam pursuing Paulie.
It is a great story and not really centered around sex. Kevin and all the Kowalski's are loveable characters that become real in the stories. I would suggest reading Exclusively Yours first. The first book introduces all the Kowalski's and you get to know Kevin as well.
Book received through NetGalley for Review
Book contains language and sexual situations.
2 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.I really enjoy this authors writing. She reminds me a little of Nora Roberts and Lori Foster with her characters. This is the second book in the Kowalski series and I think even better then the first. The Kowalski family is so much fun and you wish they were real. Kevin is the type of guy you'd really love to spend the rest of your life with.I enjoyed Beth too but had a few problems with her. At times she was a pain in the butt with her "I can do it my way and alone attitude". Of course that didn't stop me for reading the story. I also enjoyed Paulie and Sam's story but felt it was to close to Kevin's and Beth's. This is a must read.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted May 1, 2013
I really enjoyed this book, which follows after Exclusively Yours (another really good book). I loved the main characters, Kevin and Beth. Well written romance!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted April 17, 2013
545 pgs. Not for young readers. Well loved Kevin n his whole family. Loved paulie she was a great character. The leading lady (oops i forgot her name) is a pain but shes very independent. You can understand her but she can be very frustrating. Wished their resolution was longer towards the end but the story was worth a read. Thanx
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted March 31, 2013
It was hard for me to really enjoy the book because I found Beth very annoying and too stubborn. I still finished the book and it was cute overall, but I think Beth treated Kevin awful and didnt deserve him.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.jmbosmom
Posted March 21, 2013
I got the first book in this series for free and liked it so I bought this book. I liked Kevin's character in the first book but in this book he is adorable. Beth is a little slow getting with the program but Kevin is patient and over all I enjoyed their story.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.lovetoreadSJ
Posted March 8, 2013
okay
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted March 3, 2013
The kowalski family is great. Love how the author has developed them. And enjoyed the romance story within the romance story.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted March 2, 2013
I reallt do think this is a wonderful book. With twist and turns,love and hate. This is one of my favorite books ever
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.1jhawk
Posted February 22, 2013
This is a great read! I really liked the book and will buy more from this author.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted February 18, 2013
Loved it.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted February 14, 2013
It was a great book.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted February 10, 2013
I enjoyed reading it! Although I felt this author moved too quickly through the timeline and missed out on some keys points. You could not feel the romance in this book like her other books.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Robsessed
Posted February 9, 2013
Loved! Loved! Loved this book!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.I enjoyed the first book in this series, because of the maturity of the couples and the writing. The female protagonist in this entry, Beth, was a pain. Although her age was never mentioned in the story I assumed she was in early twenties. It's really weird how her attitude strikes just the right notes initially but then becomes a discordant cacophony of irritation following her change of circumstance. Her desire for independence and self-reliance comes across as stubborn arrogance once she has to face the consequences of her choices.
***Spoiler*****
Beth is stubborn because she refuses to need anyone, arrogant because she acts as though her choices were all her own and only effected herself and HER child. Beth's body may be her own, but the child had two parents. I really hated how she willfully ignored the needs of the other parent in the situation they both got themselves in. I also hated that she never acknowledges what Kevin suffered as he waits for her to make up her mind. She only thought of herself and HER child--what she wanted, what they needed. When she let's Kevin help it's almost as though she's doing him a favor. Speaking as a child of a parent with that mentality this protagonist does not come off as heroic or admirable--only stubborn and arrogant.
Anonymous
Posted January 29, 2013
I disliked the girl in this book so much i could hardley finish it she was so annoying for no good reason she ruined the book i was very sad because i liked kevin it seemed the author just couldnt think a creative way to keep them out of bed but this did not lead to sexual tension "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Overview
Can a one-night stand turn into happily ever after?
Bar owner Kevin Kowalski is used to women throwing their phone numbers at him. Even if lately he's been more interested in finding Mrs. Right than Miss Right Now. Enter Beth Hansen.
Kevin and Beth may have started out all wrong, with an impromptu passionate encounter at a wedding, followed by a walk of shame. Yet Kevin knows there's more to their relationship...