Today I’m pleased to get a chance to visit with my heroine,
Lynsey Reznor, from my contemporary romance Back
To You. Lynsey is going is going to talk a bit about her reasons for
leaving Unity when she was a teenager.
NNB: Lynsey, thank you for agreeing to talk about your early
years in Unity. Can you tell me about your life before you left at sixteen?
LR: Well, the only family I had was my mother. My father died
when I was young—I don’t remember him. I had a normal childhood, I guess. My
mother was always there for me. I loved her tremendously.
NNB: I understand you have always been a whip-smart cookie!
LR: I suppose so. I skipped over two grades, so I was actually
sixteen in my senior year of high school.
NNB: When you were sixteen, you were offered a scholarship to a
school in Lausanne, Switzerland. Did you feel torn between accepting the
scholarship and staying on in Unity?
LR: Sixteen was a difficult age for me. I developed a crush on
my best friend Suzy’s brother, Nick. I thought he liked me as well, but…he chose
to peruse a relationship with another girl.
NNB: That must have hurt very much.
LR: My first love, my first heartbreak. It caused me to rebound
to another guy.
NNB: Caleb Smith?
LR: Yes, Caleb. A decent guy, but he pressured me for a
commitment I wasn’t ready for.
NNB: So you fled Unity?
LR: Pretty much. But I certainly don’t regret it. I even stayed
on in Switzerland an additional four years. I feel quite grateful to have been
able to travel and be educated in Europe. My French became fluid and
effortless, and I learned to ski. All in all, a great life experience.
NNB: I heard there was also a romance with an Olympic ice hockey
player?
LR: Ah…Jean-Luc. How I did enjoy my time with him. But the
relationship ran in its course. We do remain friends to this day. He’s a coach
with an NHL team now. Every time his team came to Florida we always would get
together for dinner and speak to each other in nothing but French. He is still
the smoothest man I’ve ever known.
NNB: Sounds like fun. Do you miss Miami yet?
LR: Not really. Like my time with Jean-Luc, my time in Miami was
great while it lasted, but a thing of the past nonetheless. I am happy,
excited, and looking forward to returning to my hometown of Unity.
NNB: Much luck, Lynsey, I wish you nothing but the best and I
hope you find everything you are looking for in Unity.
Read more about Lynsey and her life in Unity in Back To You, available now at Bradley
Publishing!
Blurb:
On the surface, Lynsey Reznor seems to have it all. She is beautiful,
brilliant, and a successful true-crime writer who has been living the past
decade in Miami. But what Lynsey lacks is what she needs the most—a family.
After the death of her mother, and yet another failed
relationship, Lynsey makes an impulsive decision to return to her hometown of
Unity. But Unity will present its own bittersweet memories, most notably, her
first love, Nick Lincoln.
Twenty years ago, Nick broke teenager Lynsey’s heart when he
decided to marry another. He had his own private reasons—reasons he never
explained to Lynsey. Now she is back, along with a chance to reclaim her love.
But Lynsey wants answers from him that he may never be able to give out of duty
and guilt.
Excerpt:
When he heard her, he came to
her, took her into his arms, and kissed her. It was a comfort that he wasn’t
regretting their lovemaking. She didn’t think she could handle being rejected
by him twice in her lifetime.
“Do you have to leave soon?” she asked.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to, but I have
to.” He went to the stove and prepared her a cup of coffee. “I think we should
start planning our wedding. We could be married at Christmas.”
She was taken aback. Is this his proposal? This was
supposed to be so romantic and memorable, not talk about planning a Christmas
wedding while he stirred a cup of coffee.
“Do you even want to get married?” She
took the coffee mug he offered. “I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that you told
me you weren’t sure you ever wanted to be married again. You said you didn’t
see fatherhood in your future, and Nick, I want a baby…more than one. I grew up
as an only child and I was so alone. I don’t want my child to have to
experience that.”
“Well, I didn’t use a condom last night.
You could be pregnant right now,” was his reply.
Heaviness descended upon her heart. This
was so not how she wanted this morning to be, and certainly not the marriage
proposal she had dreamed of. “I’m on the Pill—I won’t get pregnant if that’s
all you’re worried about.”
“I’m sorry, that’s not the only reason we
should get married.”
“Then why?” she asked suspiciously.
He let out an exaggerated sigh. “Lynsey, I
don’t have time to get into this with you right now. What do you want me to say
in the five minutes I have before I leave for work?”
She couldn’t believe his glib
attitude. “How about saying something to
me like…‘I love you, Lynsey, and I made a tremendous mistake by not marrying
you twenty years ago?’ That would take you less than thirty seconds to say, and
you could have easily gotten to your precious job on time.”
Suddenly his jaw set and his eyes
narrowed. “I didn’t make a mistake by not marrying you twenty years ago! I let
you go to become a success in life—and you did. I can’t regret that!”
“So, what I thought all these years was
correct. I was nothing to you but a quick and easy way to shed your virginity.”
Just saying the words was devastating.
“That’s not it at all,” he vehemently
insisted. “You were always so intelligent. I mean, you were a sixteen-year-old
senior in high school! Just how many grades did you skip over, anyway?”
“Two,” she answered in a low voice.
“Do you know what would have happened if I
hadn’t married Kelly?” He didn’t wait for her reply. “I’ll tell you what. You
and I would have been ostracized by everyone in this town! We would have had to
be married right away, and we would have had to live with your mother, because
I had no money.”
“My mother loved you. She would have been
happy to have us live with her,” she interjected.
“And we were so naïve, Lynsey. You would
have graduated high school with either a big belly, or a baby in your arms…if
you had graduated at all.”
She crossed her arms over her breasts and
looked at the floor. She was too afraid that if she looked at him she would
break down. “Some of the girls in school were married. A few of them had
babies.”
He lifted her chin and forced her to make
eye contact with him. “And you were too smart to be stuck in this town, and
just another housewife. You would have become bored and resentful.”
“I wouldn’t have known the difference,”
she countered.
“I had serious doubts then. I still have
doubts now,” he admitted.
Her dark lashes flew upward. “What is that
supposed to mean?”
“I believe that you will become bored and
restless in Unity and will want to go back to Florida or maybe California. I
have a job and a family here, Lynsey. I don’t ever want to give that up. I’m
afraid that we’ll have a child, and you’ll take my baby and leave. I can not
allow that to happen.”
She couldn’t believe what he was saying.
Nothing was further from the truth. “Do you think I would have sunk so much of
my savings into that house just to abandon it? I would never, ever do what
you’re saying. But if circumstances changed, I would expect you to support what
was best for our family. Couples who are committed make sacrifices for each
other!”
It was becoming clearer and clearer that
things were rapidly falling apart between them.
“Lynsey, didn’t what happened between us
last night mean anything to you?” he asked.
She chuckled unpleasantly. “I suppose that
with us living in such close proximity, last night was inevitable. But don’t
worry about it happening again, Nick. When you get home this evening, I won’t
be here.”
“Where are you going to be?”
She wanted to hurt Nick like she was now
hurting. “I’m sure that Caleb wouldn’t mind me bunking down at his house for a
week or two.”
“Over my dead body,” he seethed. “I will
drag you away from him kicking and screaming if it comes to it. I’ll handcuff
you to my bed if need be. Believe me, Lynsey, I’ll do it!” He flopped down into
a kitchen chair and buried his face in his hands.
“I have to go now, Nick. I’m meeting your
sister for breakfast. Listen to me. You need to pull yourself together. In your
line of work, bad things happen when you lose your concentration.”
When he didn’t reply, she let out a sigh
of resignation and headed for the door. At the last minute she turned to him.
“Thanks for almost making it happen between us.”
Twitter: BatesNatalie
2 comments:
Regina~Thank you so much for featuring me at your beautiful blog today!
It was my pleasure, Natalie-Nicole! I loved this interview, I've already bought the book. Can't wait to read it! :-)
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