I’m delighted to announce that volume 1 of Summer Romance on Main Street, with my novella Beached as one of six stories of summertime love, will be released on 15 June. US 99c is terrific value for more than 150,000 words, so grab it now. Click on my novella title for buy links and my blurb, or read on for an excerpt.

“There.” Dave turned off the tap, and dropped a handful of dirty implements into the soapy water. “I’ll boil a kettle to give the silver beet a head start when the girls arrive. A river cruise could suit you, Zee. No waves.”

Zee used the dish mop he’d just picked up to flick some soap suds at Dave. He’d never live down the condition in which he’d landed in Valentine Bay, but the teasing from his workmates was good natured.

At the sink, he had a good view of the big turning zone outside the triple garage. He glanced up idly when the Masterton people mover drew up, then froze, his hands hovering above the hot water. Nicola Watson? What was Global Earth Watch’s gun attorney doing in Valentine Bay? He’d last seen her on television, leaving the courtroom in which she had just lost her case against O’Neal Hotel Corporation. A loss aimed at destroying GEW’s credibility and that had been orchestrated in a plot between Miss Watson’s colleague and fiancé and Zee’s brother, Patrick O’Neal.

Discovering the machinations had been the final straw that precipitated Zee’s flight from his career, his family, his trust fund, his name, and the United States.

“She’s a stunner, isn’t she?” Dave said, and Zee accepted the excuse for looking as if he’d been bashed across the side of the head. Though he’d known the lovely Miss Watson was a New Zealander, he’d not known she was here in her home country. He had certainly not known that her family owned a house in the fishing village where he’d come ashore.

“She sure is. A lawyer, I think you said?” He finished scrubbing the brush across the base of the pot and put it on the rack for Dave to dry. Would she know who he was? They’d never met, and he didn’t court the camera the way his father and half-brothers did. Nor did he look like the other O’Neals, red hair to their black, finer boned, with his mother’s grey eyes. Any family resemblance needed another O’Neal for comparison.

If she realized who he was, he would tell her he was not an O’Neal anymore, if he ever really had been. One of his last acts in repudiating the family had been to legally change his surname back to the one on his birth certificate; his mother’s name. And if Ms. Watson didn’t know who he was, he wouldn’t say anything that would sour the evening for Becky and Dave.

He’d made his decision just in time, as the two women came into the kitchen from the mud room—back porch, the New Zealanders would say.

Becky went straight into her husband’s arms for the kiss with which they always greeted one another, turning her head to make the introductions from that safe harbor.

“Niks, this is our lodger, Zee Henderson. He lives above the garage.”

Ms. Watson showed none of the hostility she owed an O’Neal, offering instead a friendly smile and a hand to shake. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Henderson.”

“Zee, please,” Zee begged. “If anyone calls me Mr. Henderson, I look around for my grand-dad.”

Nikki crossed the room to greet Dave with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, Becky having left her husband to check on the status of the dinner. “You’re an American,” she observed to Zee.

“Guilty, as charged.”

“Niks works in New York,” Becky observed. She touched the kettle, decided it was hot enough, and poured some water into the waiting pot. “Or, at least, she used to. Have you ever been there, Zee?”

“I sailed from New York.” Zee grimaced. “Turned out to be a bad idea.”

Nikki looked from Zee to Becky. “Why? What happened?”

“He gets sea sick,” Dave explained. “By the time the boat berthed in Valentine Bay, he’d been sea sick for six months. He staggered off onto the wharf, took hold of a bollard, and swore he was never leaving land again.”

Becky took up the story. “So Dave brought him home, and the New Zealand Immigration Service gave him a new name, and a year later here he is.”

Nikki raised one elegant brow. Close up and in person, she was even more gorgeous than on television, her face devoid of makeup and not needing it, her long hair caught back casually with a couple of hair slides and a clip. “Gave you a new name?”

“My name is Zachary Henderson, ma’am. Only the immigration officer thought I said Thackeray. When I told him ‘zee’ for ‘Zulu ’, Dave thought it was hilarious.” New Zealanders called the last letter of the alphabet ‘Zed’. “Around here, they’ve been calling me ‘Zee’ ever since.”

“Except when we call him Drift,” Dave corrected.

Nikki’s eyes sparkled. “Short for driftwood?”

“Right,” Zee agreed, as he let the water go and wiped out the sink. There. Becky liked to start a meal with a clean kitchen, and Dave liked her to be happy. “I’m beached, and that’s the way I plan to stay.”

“There are worse places than Valentine Bay to be beached.” Nikki had taken the drying cloth from Dave’s hand, had dried the last of the pans, and was putting them away, clearly familiar with Becky’s kitchen.

“There are few better,” Zee said. And the place was improved by having her in it. New Zealand had a worldwide reputation for scenic wonders, and she was certainly that!