Saying Goodbye

Title: Saying Goodbye

Author: Abigail DrakeGenres: New Adult, Romance
Publication Date: September 10, 2016
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Samantha Barnes always dreamed of seeing the world, and only has a few months left before she starts a semester abroad in Japan. Enough time to say goodbye to her friends, polish up her language skills, and maybe even squeeze in a quick fling with handsome fraternity boy Dylan Hunter.

All she wants from Dylan is something casual, and perhaps some mind-blowing sex, but things don’t work out as planned. Dylan wants a lot more from her than a hook-up. Before Sam realizes what’s happening, their relationship has become serious, something she never intended. And then she discovers Dylan is hiding a dark secret that makes breaking up with him nearly impossible.

Sam is running out of time. She has to leave soon. She has no choice. But leaving Dylan could mean more than just the end of their relationship. It could also mean destroying him completely.

What if you meet the right person…at absolutely the wrong time?

When Samantha Barnes starts her semester abroad in Japan, she brings along a heavy load of emotional baggage. With her ex-boyfriend in the midst of a mental health crisis back home, she’d been forced to make some difficult choices, choices that now fill her with guilt and remorse. She also made promises to him she isn’t sure she can keep, especially when she meets Thomas MacGregor, an irresistibly charming Scottish rugby player. Thomas is studying at the same university as Samantha, and, although she tries to fight it, she begins to fall for him. Hard.

Life in Kyoto is everything Samantha could imagine, but, when tragedy strikes, it sends her on a downward spiral into darkness. Will she be able to come to terms with what happened, and have a future with Thomas, or will she forever be plagued by regret?

Forgiveness is a tricky thing, especially when the person you need to forgive most is yourself.

As we walked through the lobby, I felt a little underdressed. Most of the women had on skirts, and the men wore suits. The only other foreigners, a group of men sitting in the bar, laughed and talked loudly, causing people to shoot them curious glances. The bar opened into the lobby, and they watched what looked like a very noisy and exciting rugby match on a large television. I suspected they might also be students, here for the Tokyo orientation, but we automatically steered away from them. They seemed rowdy, and had begun drawing annoyed looks from the hotel staff.

“Some people leave home for the first time and don’t know how to act,” said Hana under her breath.

One of the guys in the group stood up and yelled, raising his hands in the air. His booming voice echoed throughout the lobby.

“Bloody hell. They did it.”

I caught a glimpse of possibly the tallest, broadest guy I’d ever seen. He had a headful of unruly curls streaked with gold that made him look a bit like a lion. He wore jeans and a wrinkled dress shirt half tucked and half untucked into his jeans. He turned around and his eyes met mine for just a moment. A shockingly deep shade of blue, they lit up when he saw me.

“Oi,” he said, waving at us. We ignored him and ducked into the hotel gift shop.

“Do you think they’re in the Ritsumeikan group?”

Hana glanced over her shoulder. “Dr. Eshima told me there would be a bunch of ruggers from Scotland, England, and Australia in our group. This is the first year they’ve had a team, and they recruited the best collegiate ruggers in the world for training and marketing purposes. I would bet that is them.”

Dr. Eshima had taken a position teaching at Ritsumeikan this semester. I was excited, not only because I loved having him as a teacher. It would be nice to have another familiar face around.

“Ruggers?”

“Rugby players,” she said. “Uh-oh. Here comes one now.”

The giant lion man stood at the doorway of the gift shop, swaying slightly on his feet. His eyes scanned the shop until he found me.

“Oi,” he said again.

I feigned tremendous interest in the postcard collection, but he refused to take the hint. He came over, standing a little too close. Hana deserted me, sneaking to the far side of the gift shop to get two cans of grape juice from the fridge. Lion Man stared down at me, forcing me to acknowledge his presence.

“Yes?”

“I came to say hello.” It sounded more like “Ay kem ta sey halloo.” His eyes, only half open, appeared glassy. Definitely trashed, but he didn’t seem dangerous. Just very large, and loud, and Scottish.

“Hello.” I nodded at him and returned to my postcard perusal. My heart hammered in my chest. I forced myself to take slow, even breaths, feeling a now familiar tightening in my ribs.

I’d had the first anxiety attack of my life not long before I left for Japan, and the lack of control had been as frightening as the attack itself. I’d had a few close calls since then, but never another full-blown attack.

I took a deep breath and tried to calm down as I analyzed the situation. For all his size, the rugby player wasn’t an actual threat. He was just a large, good-looking drunk who wanted to flirt. As soon as I realized that, my heart rate slowly returned to normal.

He tilted his gigantic head to one side, looking a bit like a golden retriever. Maybe that was his spirit animal. Not a lion but a big puppy with giant, overgrown paws.

“Do we have problem, sorority girl?” he asked, his eyes on the Greek letters appliqued onto my hoody.

I gave him a tight smile, wanting to hide the fact my hands still shook from the adrenaline rush I’d just experienced. I shoved them into the pocket of my hoodie. “I don’t have a problem. Excuse me.”

I tried to slip past him, but he blocked my way. “Aren’t you high and mighty?”

“Aren’t you drunk and sloppy?”

His friends laughed. They stood at the entry of the shop waiting to see what might happen.

“Come on, Thomas,” one of them said. “Leave the poor girl alone.”

He straightened his spine, making him seem even more ridiculously tall, and made a half-hearted attempt to tuck in his shirt, bringing my attention to both his six-pack and his bulging biceps. In spite of his rudeness and slovenly appearance, I found him attractive. Scary thought. A wall of muscle, charm, and Scottish hotness, he probably picked up women as easily as picking up a pair of socks. The last thing I needed right now.

“Let me try this again, the proper way. Hello. My name is Thomas Alexander MacGregor. How do you do?”

He gave me a very formal bow and held out a beefy hand. Against my better judgment, I took it. “Samantha Barnes.”

He swayed again on his feet, but kept my hand firmly gripped in his. I wondered what would happen if he passed out in this tiny gift shop full of delicate glass trinkets in elegantly lit display cases. Thomas MacGregor, built like a redwood tree, would take out half the shop if he fell. The little Japanese woman behind the counter seemed to think the same thing. She watched our interaction with wary eyes, her fingers hovering above a button on her desk. Thomas didn’t even notice her. He only had eyes for me. Bleary, bloodshot eyes, even if they were a beautiful shade of blue.

“Samantha Barnes. You are lovely. Really lovely. Not the friendliest girl I’ve ever met, and a bit stuck on yourself, I’d say, but lovely. As lovely as an angel, in fact. Why don’t you and your friend join us for a drink?”

I wiggled out of his grasp and ducked around him. “No, thanks.”

He spun around, almost losing his balance. “Why not?”

Hana and I slipped out of the shop, but I paused in the doorway. “Didn’t a MacGregor try to kill Peter Rabbit?”

He frowned, his eyebrows coming together as he thought about it. “That was Farmer MacGregor. And Peter Rabbit got away, if I remember the story correctly.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “So I guess history will repeat itself.”

He left the shop and watched as I walked toward the lobby with Hana. “You won’t even have one wee drink with me, little rabbit? Why?”

“Because you are a drunken, rude, overbearing Scottish ox. And you’ve already had one ‘wee drink’ too many.”

His friends cheered; laughing so hard they nearly fell over. One of them shouted, “She’s right, Tommy. You are a bloody ox.”

He got very red in the face and lumbered back to his friends. “No chance with that one. Pretty to look at for sure, but as prickly as a damned thistle. You were right. I owe you a pint, Malcolm.”

My ears burned as we walked away. Hana gave me a sympathetic look. “Well, hopefully you’ll never have to see him again,” she said.

I sighed. “I’m not that lucky.”

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Abigail Drake has spent her life traveling the world, and collecting stories wherever she visited. She majored in Japanese and International Economics in college and worked in import/export and as an ESL teacher before she committed herself full time to writing. She writes in several romance genres, and her books are quirky, light, fun, and sexy. Abigail is a trekkie, a book hoarder, the master of the Nespresso machine, a red wine addict, and the mother of three boys (probably the main reason for her red wine addiction). A puppy named Capone is the most recent addition to her family, and she blogs about him as a way of maintaining what little sanity she has left.