Bayou Vows

The Bayou Bachelors

by Geri Krotow

Genre: Contemporary

Romance

Pub

Date: 1/8/2019

Not even

the wildest Bayou Bachelor of all can resist the right woman.

Jeb DeVillier has a lot of explaining to

do. True, he did steal millions from the sailboat business he ran

with his partner, Brandon, and disappear to South America. But Jeb

has a good reason—Brandon’s sister, Jena Boudreaux. A decade ago,

she broke his heart when she chose career over their relationship.

Still, when he learns she’s being held for ransom by drug dealers,

he doesn’t hesitate. He’ll save her life, no matter what the

danger.

When Jena called Jeb out of the blue, it

was to ask him to give her last words to her family. She knew the

risks when she took one final mission for the CIA. Suddenly, Jeb’s

riding to the rescue like her own personal Cajun knight. Yet now that

they’re both safe in New Orleans, he refuses to give her a second

chance.

That’s not good enough for

Jena. Because when you find someone crazy enough to risk everything

for you, the only sane thing to do is to hang on tight . . .

Rain battered the condo roof, and for the fifth time in as many minutes Jeb DeVillier reread the contracts from the many accounting firms eager for his CPA experience. He wondered which job he’d pick to start his life over. All four positions were out of state, far away from his native New Orleans, which had been his comfort zone for too long.

Away from Jena Boudreaux.

Usually the rain soothed him and gave him the peace he needed to think, but since he’d come back from Paraguay nothing had filled the crater in his soul.

Her face had been cut from lip to cheekbone.

No matter how many times he went over what happened last month—especially the part where he stole his best friend’s money to save that same best friend’s sister from certain death—he hadn’t been able to justify his actions to himself. At the very least he should have told Brandon he was taking the company coffers to Asunción, Paraguay, to save Jena.

She could have died. Should have, statistically.

He’d saved Jena by getting the ransom to the Paraguayan drug cartel in time, gaining a lifetime’s worth of stress in the process. His first trip to South America had been a matter of life or death. There’d been no time to think, no chance to second-guess. He’d received the alarming text from Jena and acted on instinct.

The image of her motionless figure, bloody and battered, flashed into his mind for the millionth time. Unlike any other memory in his life, this one didn’t fade. It grew stronger, the utter despair it elicited strangling out any flicker of hope left in his battered heart.

And he’d realized that he could no longer see Jena as a fuck buddy, and in fact, that he had never seen her like that. It’d been sheer stupidity to agree to her proposal in the first place. They’d reconnected last year at Christmas, after barely having seen one another in seven years. Like a fool, he’d convinced himself that the years and space had allowed him to see their shattered adolescent and college relationship for what it was: growing pains with a childhood friend and first love, nothing more. But their red-hot chemistry was still there, and it’d been too tempting to turn down no-strings sex with Jena. He’d gone along with her offer, anything to be able to be with her. Even risking his relationship with her older brother, Brandon Boudreaux, his lifelong best friend. They’d kept their sex-only relationship secret, and it worked. Until it didn’t.

Add

to Goodreads

Amazon

* Apple

* B&N

* Google

* Kobo

Bare

Devotion

The Bayou Bachelors #2

Sweet

and sultry, hot and wild…that’s desire, Louisiana-style. And

there’s no one better to explore it with than one of the Bayou

Bachelors…

Returning to her

flooded New Orleans home to face Henry Boudreaux, the man she jilted

at the altar, is the hardest thing attorney Sonja Bosco has ever

done—even before she discovers she’s pregnant. Sonja backed out

of the marriage for Henry’s sake. He wants to be part of his

father’s law firm, and his parents will never approve of an

interracial marriage. Better to bruise his heart than ruin his life.

Henry can’t forgive

Sonja, and doubts that he can trust her again. But learning that

they’re going to be parents means there’s no avoiding each other.

Springtime on the bayou is already steamy enough…now they’re

living in the same small space while their damaged house is repaired.

And with each passing day they’re getting a little more honest. A

lot more real. And realizing that nothing—not even New Orleans at

Mardi Gras—glows brighter than the desire they’re trying to deny…

Sonja Bosco’s grip on the leather-covered steering wheel lessened when she saw the empty driveway in front of the house that had been more than her home for the past three years. It had been her very heartbeat. Henry’s car could be in the garage, of course, but she doubted it. According to what she’d ascertained from their shared receptionist, he was hard at work in the New Orleans office of Boudreaux Law. She’d gathered the courage to call into the main office in Baton Rouge, run by Henry’s father, late last week. The senior Boudreaux knew she planned to report back to work later this morning. Three weeks and two days after she’d left NOLA, left St. Louis Cathedral, and more significantly, left her ex-almost-husband-to-be, Henry, on said altar.
Of all the degrees, positions, and dreams she’d aspired to, runaway bride had never made the list. The tug of remorse at her emotionally cataclysmic decision was strong, but her will to jump into her new routine, whatever that was going to look like, was stronger.
She parked her BMW in the driveway for what would be the last time. Her finances as a single woman demanded she sell the once cherished Beemer, and her status as Henry’s ex meant she’d never again live in the house they’d built together. If only it didn’t still feel like home. As much as she dreaded seeing the devastation the flood had done to it the last two weeks, maybe it would crack the code on the invisible signal that made her body home in on this place as if it were her last grasp for freedom. Hell, it wasn’t just her body. Her soul had planted roots here, damn it all to hell.
The graveled drive felt so familiar under her sandaled feet she almost wept. Home. She’d needed to be here, by herself, licking her heart wounds these past few weeks, instead of holing up in a close elementary-school friend’s backwater cabin. She hadn’t had Wi-Fi and had refused to check her phone, save to let her parents and family know she was still breathing, and was safe from the flooding rains that pummeled so much of the bayou two weeks ago. The flooding had been so extensive she couldn’t get back to the river house if she wanted to, not without a boat and the help of Henry or his brother Brandon.
She’d only gone out twice, each time to the tiny local grocery store.
Where the third pregnancy test she’d purchased gave her the same result as the previous two, before the wedding. She was pregnant, newly so. Not only was Henry Boudreaux her ex-groom and ex-fiancé, but he was also her baby daddy. She couldn’t muster the tiniest of smiles, much less a giggle, at the humor of it. She, Sonja Bosco, didn’t think she’d ever laugh again.
The heavy wooden front door opened with a single turn of her key. It stuck a bit in the frame, and she wondered if it might still be swollen from the devastating rains that soaked the area the week after the wedding. So much so that Poppy, her best friend and appointed honeymoon house sitter, had had to leave for higher, drier ground. And had promptly fallen in love with her rescuer, Henry’s brother Brandon.

Add

to Goodreads

Amazon

* Apple

* B&N

* Google

* Kobo

Fully

Dressed

The

Bayou Bachelors #1

There’s

nowhere hotter than the South, especially with three men who know how

to make the good times roll. But one of the Bayou Bachelors is about

to meet his match…

New

York City stylist Poppy Kaminsky knows that image is everything,

which is why she’s so devastated when hers is trashed on social

media—after a very public meltdown over her cheating fiancé. Her

best friend’s New Orleans society wedding gives her the chance hide

out and lick her wounds...

Brandon

Boudreaux is in no mood to party. His multi-million dollar sailboat

business is in danger of sinking thanks to his partner’s sudden

disappearance—with the company’s funds. And when he rolls up to

his estranged brother’s pre-wedding bash in an airboat, a

cold-as-ice friend of the bride looks at him like he’s so much

swamp trash.

The

last person Poppy should get involved with is the bad boy of the

Boudreaux family. But they have more in common than she could ever

imagine—and the steamy, sultry New Orleans nights are about to show

her how fun letting loose can be…

“New

Orleans serves as a strong supporting character in Fully

Dressed

Krotow gives an inside view on the sights, sounds, and tastes of the

bayou.” —RT

Book Reviews

Add

to Goodreads

“Poppy!”

Poppy Amberlin Kaminsky had never been so happy to hear her real name, no matter that she’d spent the last eight hours and had taken a taxi, train, and plane to do so. All to get to a place she swore she’d never come back to after a Spring Break visit almost a decade ago.

It was hard to tell whether the New Orleans’ Bayou air or her best friend’s cloud of Kate Spade Live Colorfully perfume embraced her first, but once Sonja’s arms crushed her against the familiar curvaceous figure of her college bestie, it didn’t matter. Poppy meant to give the bride-to-be a reassuring, ‘glad to see you’ hug, but instead ended up holding on for dear life. Tears shoved past her carefully made-up eyes, threatening to drip off her lash extensions. They were the only part of her previous life that she’d kept.

Sonja pulled back and stared. “Let me get a good look at you. What the hell did you do to your hair?”

Amazon

* Apple

* B&N

* Google

* Kobo

You say it took six years of submissions (and rejections!) to sell your first novel. Why did you keep going?

Why not? I wish I had the “magic” formula for how long it takes to sell, to make a bestseller list, to write the best story ever. The answer is that it’s different for each and every writer. The venue, be it indie-pubbed, digital-first, paperback, etc–doesn’t matter. What matters is STORY. It will take the rest of my life to be able to make the words on the page accurately reflect the vision in my mind. That said, even if I decided to “leave” writing and enter corporate life, nothing would change–I’d still be a writer. Writers write.–

Today I keep going because it’s clear from the readers I meet and my reader mail that these stories about military characters and families are important and worth the extra effort to get them to the page. My gratitude to our vets will never be deep enough.