Excerpt: 'One in a Million' by Jill Shalvis

Jill Shalvis has yet another book coming out! This week's is One in a Million, Lucky Harbor book 12 and the final book in the series. HEA gets to share an excerpt from One in a Million AND Jill is offering five commenters here a Lucky Harbor book from her backlist (winner's choice).

Here's the blurb about One in a Million:

As the brains behind wedding site TyingTheKnot.com, Callie sees it all: from the ring to the dress, the smiles . . . to the tears. It's that last part that keeps her single and not looking. Getting left at the altar will do that to a girl. But when Callie returns to her old hometown, she finds that her sweet high school crush is sexier than ever. And he makes it hard to remember why she has sworn off love.

Tanner is a deep-sea diver with a wild, adrenaline-junkie past - and now his teenage son is back in his life. How can Tanner be a role model when he's still paying for his own mistakes? It's hard enough that gorgeous Callie has appeared in town like a beautiful dream, challenging his best laid plans to keep his heart on lockdown. Though there's something about being around her again that makes him feel like he can be the man she - and his son - deserve. Little Lucky Harbor holds their past; can it hold a beautiful new future?

And the excerpt …

"It smells great in here, doesn't it?" Tanner asked.

Callie did her best not to give herself away with a blush. "Really great."

"It's the vanilla," he said.

Actually it's you, she thought but didn't speak. Didn't dare. She was already tongue-tied again. It was the way he had of focusing in on the person he was talking to, she decided. He gave his full attention, totally present. Rare in today's electronic world. When Tanner Riggs looked at you, you knew he wasn't stressing over his grandma driving everyone batty or whether or not his hair looked good today. Which for the record, it did. It looked dark and silky soft to the touch— Her phone buzzed with an incoming text from one of her brides and she nearly jumped out of her skin.

//Is it hard to get a plane flying over my wedding with a banner that reads HE FINALLY PUT A RING ON IT AND JUST IN TIME TOO as the minister says "you are now pronounced man and wife?"

Oh boy. Callie hit reply and typed out her response:

//Do you really want your three hundred and fifty guests to know

you're having a shotgun wedding?

While she was waiting on a response to this, already mentally preparing to figure out how to do the banner as tactfully as possible, a white bag appeared between her eyes and her screen.

Tanner, offering a daring smile if she'd ever seen one.

"A Boston cream," he said.

"Are you trying to make me be bad?"

He smiled, slow and wicked, and Callie's face heated. "You know what I mean," she muttered, looking around to find no one paying them any attention at all. The fakers.

"Just eat," he said. "Enjoy."

"Why?"

"Suspicious thing, aren't you?" He stretched out his left leg with a long, slow exhale as if he were in pain. She thought of what her grandma had told her about the guys losing a friend and nearly Tanner as well, and her heart ached for him. She wanted to ask him if he needed anything, Advil, or … a massage. But just before she could make a total fool of herself, he shifted, and his right thigh bumped hers.

He didn't pull back. She doubted if Tanner knew the definition of pulling back.

"Consider the donut a bribe to let me share your table," he said. "And a thank you for doing so."

"I didn't say yes."

"Take a bite and you won't say no."

She narrowed her eyes. "Everything you say sounds dirty."

His head went back, and he laughed softly. The amusement transformed his features, and she found herself staring openly at him.

Still smiling, he leaned in. "You know what this means, right?"

She had no idea, and still staring at him, she shook her head.

"It means you're the one with the dirty mind."

She bit her lower lip, and when he laughed again, she took a bite of the Boston cream — in spite of having already eaten her earlier old fashioned chocolate glaze — and moaned in pleasure.

Tanner stopped laughing. He looked at her mouth, and his eyes went black, and right there in the middle of the crowded bakery, Callie felt herself go damp. It was crazy, and she sat staring at him, mentally tearing off his clothes when her phone buzzed with another text from her bride.

//You're right. Disregard banner.

Callie smiled. She'd long ago discovered that most of her brides needed the ideas to be their own. Thinking she was in the clear, she started to set her phone aside but it buzzed again.

//I do want to be carried in though, on a fancy litter. Can we do that? And I was thinking of 3-D invitations, delivered with 3-D glasses. What do you think?

"Good Lord," Callie muttered.

"What?"

"I'm dealing with a bride who wants me to design her 3-D invitations to be delivered with 3-D glasses, which I can totally do. But she also wants to be carried down the aisle. On a litter."

He smiled. "Interesting job you've got there."

"Yep. Always lots of fires to put out." She went still as it sank in what she'd just said and how that would sound to a man who'd actually been in a fire for his job. Literally. "God. I didn't mean…"

"I know."

She met his gaze. "I realize that, next to the jobs you've held, mine's a piece of cake. I don't even have to leave my house to do it."

"Or wear pants," he said.

Crap! She'd forgotten. She felt her face go hot. "Bad habit. I usually only dress from the waist up for Skyping clients," she admitted.

"I'm liking this story," he said. "Tell me more. Slowly. In great detail."

Her face got even hotter. "You're playing with me."

"Yes," he said and flashed that killer smile.

Good Lord, he was potent. She had to shake it off. "Um, I should tell you I'm not interested in playing. My life's … full." God, she was so awkward. She'd like to think it was the clothes she was wearing but she knew better. It was her. "It's just that I'm not interested in love," she blurted out. "I don't believe in it."

He just sipped his coffee all calm and relaxed. "No?"

"No. Not at all. Not even a little, tiny bit." Please, Callie, just shut up. "It's not for me."

"Makes two of us," he said easily. "Eat your donut."

She stared into his unfathomable eyes and found herself unwilling to let this go. She knew why she wasn't interested in love. It was because love was a romantic fiction, and with the exception of her crazy parents, didn't last.

But why wasn't he interested in love? Was it his failed marriage? To keep herself from asking, she shoved in another bite. Heaven. She licked the sugar off her lower lip and then watched his eyes follow the movement of her tongue. She stilled, swallowed, and then was tempted to do it again, if only to get another one of those delicious shivers his gaze invoked. "If I gain a single ounce over this," she murmured, her voice a little husky, "I'm coming to find you."

His eyes gleamed, speaking as clearly as any words could have.

He'd be fine with that …

And she? Well, in spite of her ridiculous "I'm not interested in love speech," she knew she was in trouble here. Big trouble. Because love she could resist. Lust, as it turned out, not so much. And she was sinking in lust fast, going down without a raft or life vest in sight. "We shouldn't make a habit of this," she said. "Sharing a table. I like to be alone with my coffee."

"And your donuts." He laughed again when she blushed. "And I disagree about making this a habit," he said. "We're providing each other a service by sharing a table."

"How so?"

"If we sit together, you don't have to pretend to be working to be left alone," he said, "and I don't have to answer the incessant questions."

"Questions?"

"If my leg hurts, how come my son's bound and determined to be as wild and reckless as I was, why don't I remarry, blah blah."

She was afraid to admit she'd like to ask him all those same questions and more. "I wasn't pretending to work to be left alone," she said. "I really was working."

He grinned, his teeth white against his tanned skin and stubble. "Good. Go with that. It's almost believable."

Yeah. She had a problem. Because her decade-old crush? Fully reinstated.

Find out more about Jill and her books at jillshalvis.com. And don't forget to leave a comment here for you chance to win a previous Lucky Harbor book from Jill!