The Pick Up (Up Red Creek Book 1) by Allison Temple virtual tour | Spotlight, Excerpt & #giveaway @RiptideBooks @allitemplebooks

Welcome to The Pick Up’s blog tour, presented by Allison Temple and Riptide Publishing! The Pick Up is Book 1 in the Up Red Creek series. This cozy small-town romance tells the story of single dad Kyle, who moves back to his hometown with his princess-obsessed six-year-old daughter Caroline. He doesn’t expect them to stay long, until he meets Adam, Caroline’s too-hot and too-serious teacher.

Kyle’s life is going backwards. He wanted to build a bigger life for himself than Red Creek could give him, but a family crisis has forced him to return to his hometown with his six-year-old daughter. Now he’s standing in the rain at his old elementary school, and his daughter’s teacher, Mr. Hathaway, is lecturing him about punctuality.

Adam Hathaway is not looking for love. He’s learned the hard way to keep his personal and professional life separate. But Kyle is struggling and needs a friend, and Adam wants to be that friend. He just needs to ignore his growing attraction to Kyle’s goofy charm, because acting on it would mean breaking all the rules that protect his heart.

Putting down roots in this town again is not Kyle’s plan. As soon as he can, he’s taking his daughter and her princess costumes and moving on. The more time he spends with Adam, though, the more he thinks the quiet teacher might give him a reason to stay. Now he just has to convince Adam to take a chance on a bigger future than either of them could have planned.

Buy links: Riptide | Amazon

Excerpt...

Chapter One

When the third car hit the puddle and splashed cold brown water over his ankles, Adam gave up trying to dodge it.

“Hi, Mr. Hathaway!”

Adam gritted his teeth and pasted on a smile for the woman who had pulled up in front of the school’s loading zone in her German station wagon. “Hello, Mrs. King.”

Mrs. King hurried around the car to load her son in the back. When she turned, she smiled at Adam broadly and handed him a plate covered in foil. Cars were lining up behind her, waiting their turn to collect their children from school. He was going to have to make this quick before the honking started.

“The soccer club is having a bake sale,” she said, “but I made too many. I thought you might like them.”

Whatever was under the foil would be on the staffroom table as soon as he could go back inside. Just like the zucchini loaf the week before. And the gluten-free cookies the week before that, but Adam kept that information to himself. He took the plate and felt his smile stretch another quarter inch. Mrs. King flushed.

“You shouldn’t have,” he said. It seemed polite enough. He hoped she’d take the hint.

“Oh, it’s no trouble. I wanted to.” Behind her, children’s voices were asking when they were leaving. Adam glanced at the line of cars backed out onto the street. Mrs. King followed his gaze and seemed to understand that she was holding things up. “Everyone loves my brownies. And the way to a man’s heart is through his—” Her eyes went wide as she bit her lip, and her face flushed a little more. Adam maintained his bland smile and let her collect herself. She ducked an awkward half shrug, half curtsy, then averted her gaze as she darted around the front of her car, got in, and drove away.

The next car rolled forward. Adam remembered to avoid the puddle.

No one had told him about the perils of pick-up duty when he was in college. They had talked about the psychology of learning and how to engage young minds. No one had told him about the importance of rubber boots in the spring or what to do when the soccer moms descended on him.

“Hi, Mr. Hathaway!” Another woman waved as she loaded kids into her minivan.

He hadn’t expected to be the subject of so much interest among his students’ parents when he’d come to Red Creek the year before. Mrs. King had been doing her baked goods routine for several months. And he was pretty sure Sophia Townsend’s mom had memorized his schedule. She was consistently the first one in line to pick up her daughter on the afternoons that Adam supervised. She always wanted to speak to him about something: Sophia’s last math test, the upcoming PTA meeting, whether he thought Sophia was too young to take up the violin. Adam stayed polite, and under no circumstances did he ever suggest that Sophia’s mom call him or arrange a meeting with him after school hours to discuss further.

Jayden Tucker’s mom was the most direct and had asked him if he wanted to go on a date sometime. Trying to maintain some professionalism, Adam had taken the obvious out, which was that teachers getting involved in a relationship with their students’ parents was probably not a good idea. She’d purred that the school year was nearly over, and she was a patient woman.

He had not taken the other obvious out, which was to tell her the truth—that he was gay—because that was none of her business. No meant no. He told his students that all the time. It didn’t matter if it was asking someone out on a date or asking if someone would share a cookie they’d brought as a snack. The same rules applied.

Adam watched the last van pull out of the parking lot. His shoes were soaked through, his socks squished uncomfortably, and his pants were wet from the knees down. All he wanted to do was go inside, pack up his lesson planning, and go home to his apartment and TV.

A flash of yellow caught his eye as he turned. It was Caroline Fenton, covered in a bright-yellow poncho. She was sitting on one of the low concrete planters by the front door of the school. She wore red rain boots designed to resemble fire trucks and clutched a purple backpack in her hands.

“Hey, Caroline,” he said, walking toward her. Caroline was new in his class. She had only been with him for a few weeks. It was odd for someone to enroll their child so late in the school year, but the principal had shrugged, said the family had recently moved to Red Creek, and her father wanted to get her settled and socialized as quickly as possible.

Caroline smiled as Adam approached. Her smile and her delight with everything the first grade had to offer were welcome additions to his class. She stood out in many ways. The first thing was her name. In a sea of Sophias, Emmas, and Isabellas, Caroline’s name seemed less trendy. Her style stood out too. Most of his students might have walked off the set of a Gap Kids commercial, all khakis, pinstripes, checks, and polo shirts. Caroline came to school most days in brightly printed leggings and T-shirts for bands and comic books she wasn’t old enough to know about.

“Hi, Mr. Hathaway,” she said.

“Is your mom late?”

“My mom’s in heaven.” Caroline said it like heaven was down the street next to the library, but her words made Adam’s stomach knot. He’d known that Caroline’s mother had died, but the question had slipped out on reflex.

“Your dad, then?” he said. Caroline shrugged. Adam’s socks squished in his shoes. “Do you want to come inside and wait where it’s dry?” Hopefully one of the administrators would still be in the office, and he could leave Caroline with them to sort out where her father was. He’d done his bit for the afternoon’s pick-up duty. It was time for someone else to take over.

Just as Adam was about to ask if there was someone they could call, yet another Range Rover pulled in front of the school. Caroline straightened as it stopped opposite them. The driver’s-side door opened, but instead of a frazzled mom, a young man appeared. He was dressed in skinny jeans and a worn wool coat unbuttoned down the front. Despite the rain, there was a pair of sunglasses perched on top of a head of hair that was too perfectly disarranged to be accidental. A babysitter maybe? Or a nanny? He had a Bluetooth earpiece clipped over one ear, which, in Adam’s opinion, was a sure sign of chronic douchebaggery. That was too bad, because in another life, Adam would have said he was attractive.

“Daddy!” Caroline ran toward the man, rubber boots squeaking as she went.

Adam froze. Not the nanny. A parent.

“Hey, Jelly Bean!” Caroline’s father smiled at his daughter with an affection that Adam didn’t always see in the usual crush of after-school pickup. The man had the same eyes as his daughter: a warm brown like coffee on a cold morning.

Both sets of eyes were focused at Adam.

“Hi,” the man said as he shifted Caroline against one hip.

Allison Temple is a romance writer from Toronto, Ontario. She lives with her very patient husband and the world’s neediest cat. Her debut, The Pick Up, will be published by Riptide Publishing in 2018.

Allison has been writing since the second grade, when she wrote a short story about a girl and her horse. Her grandmother typed it out for her and said she’d never seen so many quotation marks from a seven-year-old before. Allison’s fascination with the way characters speak and communicate with each other in novels has not diminished in the ensuing thirtyish years.

Despite living in Canada’s largest city for more than a decade, Allison’s fiction writing draws inspiration from her small-town roots. Originally from Brockville, Ontario, she knows what it’s like to live in a place where nothing is more than a ten-minute drive away, and you’ll see everyone you know on Saturday morning at the farmers’ market. Her first job was selling coffee and making sandwiches at a bakery that has been family owned for over a hundred years. She was once given an award for “most improved tomato slicer.”

Since that early professional start, Allison has been, at various times, an odor lab technician, environmental consultant, corporate proposal writer, and marketing manager. She fills her free time with writing, community theater stage management, and traveling to destinations with good wine.

Allison came late to reading and writing romance novels. She didn’t read her first one until she was twenty-six years old, but it has been a landslide since then. She loves LGBT romance for the stories it tells and the characters it brings to life. She is very excited to be joining the circle of passionate and talented authors in the genre, and credits Heidi Cullinan and Marie Sexton for introducing her to it.

Connect with Allison:
Blog: allisontempleblog.wordpress.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/allisontemplebooks/
Twitter: twitter.com/allitemplebooks

Riptide giveaway... To celebrate the release of The Pick Up, one lucky winner will receive a $25 Riptide credit! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on March 10, 2018. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!

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