Forbidden Bases by Alexa Fauli

 

 

Some rules were made to be broken.

Forbidden Bases

Bridger City Falcons Book 1

by Alexa Fauli

Genre: Sweet Fake Dating Sports Romance

CARTER

I’m Carter Blake—star first baseman for the Bridger City Falcons. Fame, money, women… I have it all.

Except the one woman I was never supposed to want.

Darcy Simmons is my best friend’s little sister. Off-limits. Always has been. But when she comes back to town, every line I drew years ago blurs fast. One bad night, one viral photo, and suddenly we’re pretending we’ve been secretly dating.

It’s fake. Temporary. Harmless.

Until it isn’t.

DARCY

Carter Blake was my teenage crush—the one I never got over. Now he’s a professional baseball star with a reputation that screams heartbreak.

Faking a relationship with him should be easy. Safe. No feelings allowed.

But the longer we pretend, the harder it becomes to ignore what’s always been there—and the more I risk losing my heart to the one man who could destroy it.

FORBIDDEN BASES is a sweet baseball romance featuring fake dating, brother’s best friend, no cheating, and a guaranteed HEA.

Some rules were made to be broken.


WHAT READERS WILL LOVE

✔ Fake dating
✔ Brother’s best friend
✔ Sweet and emotional romance
✔ No cheating
✔ Slow-burn tension
✔ Guaranteed HEA
✔ Perfect for fans of Hallmark-style romance with a sporty twist

 

 

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Carter

I pulled into the players' lot at Falcons Stadium, my truck's tires crunching over the gravel as I found my usual spot. The afternoon sun bathed the stadium in golden light, and I could already smell the freshly cut grass as I grabbed my gear from the passenger seat. Practice days had their own rhythm, different from game days—less pressure, more fine-tuning. I stretched my arms over my head, feeling yesterday's game still lingering in my muscles. Coach Miller would be waiting, probably already pacing the field with that damn whistle, ready to critique every move we made.

The locker room buzzed with the usual pre-practice chatter. I nodded to Rivera at his locker across from mine.

"Blake! How's that shoulder feeling?" he asked, tossing me a roll of athletic tape.

I caught it with one hand. "Better than your batting average." I grinned to soften the jab.

"You're an asshole," he laughed, pulling his practice jersey over his head.

I changed quickly, my movements practiced after years of this same routine. The smell of liniment and sweat permeated the air, familiar and oddly comforting. I laced up my cleats, grabbed my glove, and headed for the dugout.

The late afternoon sun hit me full in the face as I stepped onto the field. I paused at the top step, taking it in—the emerald expanse of the outfield, the reddish-brown dirt of the infield, and the crisp white baselines freshly laid down. This view never got old. A baseball field was the one place in the world that made perfect sense to me.

"Blake! Stop admiring the scenery and get your ass over here!" Coach Miller's voice cut through my moment. I jogged over to where the team was gathering along the first-base line. Coach stood with his arms crossed, his Falcons cap pulled low over his eyes, that perpetual look of mild disappointment etched on his face.

"Alright, listen up," he barked, not bothering to raise his voice—he never needed to. "Infielders with me. Outfielders with Coach Taylor. Pitchers to the bullpen with Ramirez. We're working on fundamentals today because apparently, some of you forgot what those are during yesterday's game."

A few guys chuckled. We'd won yesterday, but it had been sloppy—three errors and some baserunning mistakes that had Coach's veins popping out of his neck by the seventh inning.

I followed the rest of the infield to our positions. The dirt felt firm under my cleats as I took my spot at shortstop. Coach Miller stood at home plate, fungo bat in hand.

"Let's go! Double plays. Martinez to Blake to Thompson."

He smacked a grounder toward second base. Martinez fielded it cleanly, pivoted, and fired the ball to me. I caught it as I glided across second, tapped the bag with my foot, and threw to first in one fluid motion. The ball hit Thompson's glove with a satisfying pop.

"Again!" Coach called, already sending another one.

We fell into rhythm. Ground ball, scoop, throw, catch, pivot, throw, catch. My body knew what to do without my brain getting involved. The sun warmed my back, and sweat began to trickle down my spine. I loved this—the mechanical precision of it, the way my muscles remembered every movement.

"Blake! Watch your footwork on that double play!" Coach Miller's voice cut through my flow. "You're getting lazy with the pivot. Do it again."

I didn't argue. Coach's eyes missed nothing. Instead, I reset my position, adjusted my stance slightly, and waited for the next ball.

"He’s on your ass already?" Thompson called from first base.

"When is he not?" I shot back with a grin.

The next grounder came hot, a tough short-hop that I had to charge. I scooped it cleanly, stepped on second, and fired to first—textbook.

"Better," Coach Miller said, which from him was practically a standing ovation.

We worked through the drills for another twenty minutes. The rhythm of practice wrapped around me like a comfortable blanket—the crack of the bat, the calls from teammates, the thud of balls hitting gloves. My shirt stuck to my back with sweat, and dirt collected in the creases of my palms.

"Water break, then switching to situational defense," Coach announced, blowing his whistle.

I jogged to the dugout, grabbing a paper cup and filling it from the cooler.

"Looking smooth out there, Blake," said Diaz, our catcher, as he filled his own cup.

"Thanks, man. How're the pitchers looking?"

"Chen's slider is nasty today. Cruz is still fighting his control."

I nodded, draining my cup and crumpling it. The water was cold against my throat.

"Blake!" Coach Miller appeared at the dugout steps. "I need you to work with Rodriguez on his transfers. Kid's got good hands but he's fumbling the exchange."

"Sure thing, Skip."

Rodriguez was our rookie second baseman, called up just last month when Pearson went on the injured list. Good kid, quick feet, but still learning the ropes.

I found him by the batting cage, nervously fielding grounders from one of the assistants.

"Hey, Rodriguez," I called, trotting over. "Coach wants us to work on transfers."

"Oh, yeah, sure." His eyes widened slightly. Working directly with a veteran always made the rookies nervous.

"Relax, I don't bite. Much." I grinned, positioning myself next to him. "Show me what you're doing."

The assistant coach hit him a grounder. Rodriguez fielded it well but fumbled slightly as he moved the ball from his glove to his throwing hand.

"I see the issue," I said. "You're rushing it. Let me show you."

I nodded to the coach, who sent a grounder my way. I fielded it smoothly, transferring it to my throwing hand in one fluid motion.

"See how I let the momentum of the ball carry into my throwing hand? You're trying to force it." I demonstrated again. "It's all about rhythm. Like dancing with a pretty girl—you've got to feel the flow."

Rodriguez nodded earnestly. "Can I try again?"

We worked for another fifteen minutes, his transfers gradually becoming smoother. Coach Miller watched from a distance, his arms crossed but his scowl a little less severe.

"Better, kid." I clapped Rodriguez on the shoulder. "You'll get it."

Alexa Fauli is a devoted sports romance author whose passion for the Atlanta Braves and love of hockey inspire her vibrant stories of competition and connection. When she's not dreaming up unforgettable characters who play hard for both love and victory, Alexa enjoys sipping toasted white mochas, watching anime romances, and cherishing time with her family. Her life is a delightful blend of heart, heat, and the magic that happens both on and off the page.

 

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Pieces of Blue by Liz Flaherty

Pieces of Blue

Liz Flaherty

Buy Links:

Amazon:  https://a.co/d/0dt0yjU9 

D2D: https://books2read.com/u/491qMp 

Things happen when you don’t intend for them to. Have you noticed that? 

A couple of years ago, Pieces of Blue was released by a new publishing company. Its reviews were good, its sales good—at least by my standards—and I was a happy camper writer.  

I’m still grateful to that company for seeing what I did, for encouraging and promoting and being timely and author-friendly. But at the end of the day, it didn’t work out, and Pieces of Blue was in the green room again, waiting to come back out. I wrote the second and third books in the series, and then, as publishing goes, Blue and I waited some more.  

But the truth is, my writing career has a sell-by date on it, and I was fearful it was going to pass. So, with the encouragement of the new publishing company, the rights were reverted and Pieces of Blue is out again. New cover by the wonderful Nancy Fraser and new beginnings for Colors, the Harper Loch Trilogy. 

Blurb 

Life comes in shades of blue... 

Self-imposed loner, Maggie North, has worked for bestselling author Trilby Winterroad her entire adult life, starting as simply his assistant and ending up as his ghost writer. Through ups and downs--including a divorce from an abusive husband--he has been the one person on whom she could always rely. So when Trilby dies suddenly, Maggie finds herself adrift, not sure what she’ll do or where she belongs in the world any longer. And the confusion continues when she discovers he’s not only left her his beloved dachshund, Chloe, but a house she knew nothing about, on a lake she’s never heard of. 

It only takes one visit for Maggie to fall in love with both the house and the small lakeside community. The longer she’s there, the safer she feels and the more her life begins to expand...as do her feelings toward her friend and Trilby’s attorney, Sam Eldridge. 

But is she really safe? Or are the glistening pieces of her new life about to shatter as an old danger returns? 

Excerpt 

Sam, Chloe, and I went for a walk around the lake later that day. Ben had collected the cans from where Sam put them in the recycle bin and told me three times I wasn’t a bother. Ellie was having a late lunch with Sadie in Placer. As big as the Burl was, I felt confined there. 

I knew Sam was disturbed because the empty cans at the fish shack hadn’t clicked with him as being of possible importance. “I’d be a failure as Finlay, wouldn’t I?” 

I couldn’t see him failing at anything, although I doubted he’d been all that good at marriage. Some people just weren’t. I thought his wife was one who had likely needed patience from her partner—maybe more of it than Sam had to give.  

“You don’t need to be Finlay.” I looked up at him, shaking my head. “You just need to be Sam. You’re the best Sam there is.” 

Was I, right in the middle of my personal maelstrom of panic and dread and regret, flirting with Sam Eldridge? He was my friend. My lawyer. My ukulele partner—although we were admittedly better together when we confined our musical performances to instruments we could actually play. The fact that I thought he was the handsomest man I’d ever met was just a late-in-friendship observation, as was the warm ripple of my long-inactive girl parts that accompanied his presence. I’m fifty-two years old, for heaven’s sake. I don’t have a flat stomach or perky boobs. My libido was … 

Well, alive and well is what it was. Even with every nerve I had jangling with worry over what would happen next. Would the next kitten be dead? Would I? I thought there might be something wrong with sexual thoughts cavorting around in my head and other areas, too, but I couldn’t for the life of me think of what it could be. 

We’d been playing around since I’d come to the lake, building on the feelings we were discovering—at least, I thought he was discovering them, too. But I wasn’t in a place to act on them; if Greg Mathis’s release from prison took me down a rabbit hole of horror, I couldn’t take anyone else with me.  

Maybe we could … No maybe to it, I told myself forcefully. While I’d never been a fan of purely physical relationships, they did have their place. Right now, that was all Sam and I could have.  

He held my gaze long enough for me to realize I was lying to myself. He took my hand. “I don’t know where we are,” he said, his voice so low I had to strain to hear, “or where we’re going, but even if all we have going is friendship, Maggie North, we’re in this together. Okay?” 

“Be still, my soul, be still …” The line was from an A. E. Housman poem I’d read when Tim was alive and I thought life was full of promise. I’d memorized its first stanza and held onto the words through those days of so much love and so much loss I knew I’d never see its like again. 

I hadn’t, either. But Sam’s eyes, the shade of which I’d determined from a color wheel were cerulean, made me think I should add a yet to that thought. Because together sounded more wonderful than I could have ever imagined.  

Especially now. 

Bio and links

Liz Flaherty has spent the past several years enjoying not working a day job, making terrible crafts, and writing stories in which the people aren’t young, brilliant, or even beautiful. She’s decided (and has to re-decide most every day) that the definition of success is having a good time. Along with her husband of lo, these many years, kids, grands, friends, and the occasional cat, she’s doing just that. Find her on Facebook or her blog, Window Over the Sink. A girl just can’t have too many friends!

https://linktr.ee/lizflaherty 

 

Seasonal Reading Guide: Western Romances for Every Mood by Caroline Clemmons

 

Welcome, Dear Reading Friend 

Have you ever reached for a western romance because of your mood as much as the plot? Maybe you wanted a comforting Christmas story after a hard day, or an adventurous ride when life felt a little too quiet. With more than ninety western romances and related stories on my shelves, even long‑time readers sometimes ask, “Where should I go next?” 

Think of this as a friendly, personal guide from me to you—a way to match your mood to one of my books or series. Whether you’re craving cozy comfort, high‑stakes drama, family sagas, or a touch of time travel, there’s a story waiting for you under that big western sky. 

 

When You Want Comfort and Found Family 

Some days you don’t want fireworks; you want kindness, community, and a hero or heroine who makes you feel safe. Those are days for small towns, front‑porch swings, and stories where family—by blood or by choice—wraps around the couple like a quilt. 

Series to reach for: 

• Men of Stone Mountain, Texas – A rugged Texas setting, brothers you can count on, and neighbors who pull together when it counts. 

• The Kincaids – A sweeping family saga near fictional Kincaid Springs, Texas, filled with loyalty, second chances, and that big‑family warmth. 

• Pearson Grove – A smaller series with deep community roots, where the town matters almost as much as the couple at the heart of each book. 

If you’re in a “give me comfort and connection” mood, start with the first book in Men of Stone Mountain or The Kincaids and let the family pull you in. 

 

When You Want High‑Stakes Adventure and Danger 

Other days, you want danger, gun smoke, and the thrum of risk behind every kiss. Those are “adventure” reading days, when you’re ready for outlaws, ambushes, and heroes and heroines who fight for their lives and their love. 

Good choices for that mood: 

• Men of Stone Mountain, Texas – Along with the family warmth, this series includes ranch feuds, hidden enemies, and life‑or‑death confrontations in the Texas hills. 

• The McClintocks – A family series with stubborn cowboys, determined heroines, and plenty of trouble riding over the horizon. 

• Selected short stories like Stone Mountain Reunion offer a quick dose of suspense and reunion romance without committing to a long novel.  

If you’re in the mood to sit on the edge of your seat, pick a Men of Stone Mountain title with “Bride” in the name—behind every bride is a secret, a danger, or both. 

 
When You Want Holiday Cheer and Christmas Magic 

When December rolls around—or when you simply need Christmas in July—holiday romances can feel like wrapping yourself in a warm blanket. These stories lean into hope, forgiveness, and the simple joy of being loved just as you are. 

For holiday happiness, try: 

• Holiday Hearts (from A Dickens Christmas) – A novella where ambition, office gossip, and holiday magic collide in a modern setting, originally written for a Christmas anthology. 

• Stone Mountain Christmas – A return to familiar characters and a beloved setting, with a festive twist and the promise of healing old wounds. 

• Other Christmas‑themed stories collected on my short stories page, many originally written for seasonal anthologies. 

When your mood calls for twinkle lights, snow (real or imagined), and hard‑won happy endings, reach for one of these holiday stories and let the season work its magic. 

 

When You Crave Mail‑Order Brides and Second Chances 

Mail‑order bride stories are for the mood when you want courage, reinvention, and the thrill of strangers becoming soulmates. These heroines and heroes take enormous risks—often with very little—because they believe there must be something better ahead. 

For that mood, good starting points are: 

• Texas Hill Country Mail Order Bride – A full series built around brides coming to Texas with hope, fear, and secrets of their own. 

• Loving A Rancher (Montana) – Brides and cowboys in big‑sky country, with marriages of convenience and unexpected love. 

• Individual mail‑order bride titles and novellas scattered through multi‑author projects and short story collections. 

If your mood says “fresh start, please,” these stories deliver courage, compromise, and the deep satisfaction of watching two strangers choose each other for real. 

 

When You Want Time Travel, “What If,” and a Little Magic 

Sometimes even the most devoted historical‑western reader wants a touch of the impossible—a door between eras, a second chance across time, or the sense that destiny nudged two people together. That’s when my time‑travel stories come in. 

Look for: 

• Texas Time Travel – A series that blends western settings with time‑slip elements, sending modern characters into the past (or vice versa) and asking how love survives across centuries. 

• Selected short stories with a slightly magical or speculative twist, such as those in themed anthologies on the short story page.  

Save these for days when your imagination wants to wander beyond strict history and ask, “What if I could step into another time and still find home?” 

 

When You Only Have Time for a Short Escape 

Not every reading mood fits a full‑length novel. Sometimes you’re in the doctor’s waiting room, between appointments, or simply too tired for a long story. That’s when short fiction shines. 

On my website, you’ll find a curated selection of: 

• Western romance short stories such as Stone Mountain Reunion and Holiday Hearts that give you a complete love story in one sitting. 

• Other anthology pieces—seaside stories, weddings, and more—brought home to live together on the short‑stories page. 

When your mood says “just a taste, please,” these short works deliver the emotional payoff of a happy ending without the time commitment of a full series. 

 

A Quick Mood‑Matching Table 

Here’s a simple guide you can save or bookmark when you’re deciding what to read next. 

Your mood	Try this first
Comfort and found family	Men of Stone Mountain, The Kincaids, Pearson Grove
High‑stakes adventure and danger	Men of Stone Mountain, The McClintocks, select shorts
Holiday cheer and Christmas magic	Holiday Hearts, Stone Mountain Christmas, other shorts
Mail‑order brides and second chances	Texas Hill Country Mail Order Bride, Loving A Rancher
Time travel and “what if” stories	Texas Time Travel series, time‑tinged short stories
A quick, one‑sitting escape	Short stories collection on my website

Use this table whenever you stand in front of your book stack (physical or digital) wondering which of my stories fits your day. 

 

How to Find the Right Order for Your Mood Reads 

If you discover a new favorite mood—say, “comfort with a little danger”—you might want to read an entire series in order. To make that easier, I’ve put together a dedicated Reading Order page that lists my main series and how they fit together, including shorter works like Stone Mountain Christmas and Stone Mountain Reunion. 

You can also browse the “Books” section on my website to see all my series and stand‑alone novels at a glance. Between the Reading Order guide and this seasonal mood guide, my hope is that you’ll never feel lost about what to pick up next.  

 

Thank You for Riding Along With Me 

Every time you choose one of my books—whether it’s a rugged Texas historical, a Montana mail‑order bride story, a time‑travel adventure, or a cozy Christmas novella—you invite me into your day. That is a gift I never take for granted. 

My wish for you is simple: that you always have the right story for your mood waiting on your nightstand, e‑reader, or library hold shelf. When you’re ready to ride into a new world with me, this seasonal guide is here to help you choose our next adventure together.