Format: ebook
Source: borrowed through Kindle Unlimited
Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Date read: June 30, 2025
Teachers' Lounge
1. Passing Notes
2. Band Together
3. Ex Marks the Spot
4. Past Tents - Paperback | Kindle
5. The Best Medicine
Stacy Travis
| Website | Amazon |
Synopsis (Goodreads):
Clay Meadows runs a fast mile, but that hasn’t helped him catch the one who got away.Thoughts on Past Tents: With his reputation as a one-date wonder (which sounds like he's a loser or something. Frankly, Clay is NOT a loser.), Clay is nothing more than a co-worker to Ally. Sure, sure, he's her brother's best friend and she learned what is means to appreciate the male body when he grew up almost overnight when they were younger, but he is decidedly off limits. Mostly because he's also never indicated there might be even a glimmer of attraction on his end.
His jam is teaching Shakespeare, coaching track, and camping in the mountains.
The last thing he wants is a scaredy cat art teacher with wild blond hair and devilish charm joining him on the Green Valley High senior retreat.
Or does he?
When his lifelong crush and best friend’s sister is assigned as his co-chaperone, Clay sees an opportunity.
He’ll cure her fear of bugs, bears, and flimsy tents. She’ll fall in love with the wilderness. He won’t fall in love in the process.
Even in close quarters—and a shared tent—Clay vows to keep his school crush firmly where it belongs—in the past.
Until she edges open a crack in his heart and allows him to believe she likes what she sees.
Ally Dalbotten is stubbornly self-sufficient and determined to protect her heart from unreliable men.
She hates camping. And dirt. And wild animals. And the wilderness, for that matter.
The last thing she needs is the all in hottie of the English department revealing his Clark Kent alter-ego and flexing his camping muscles—along with his pecs.
But under the façade of a man who runs from commitment Ally finds a vulnerable soul with a secret he’s carried for years.
Ally has a choice—risk that Clay is another guy destined to break her heart…or trust that he’s the one who will love her forever.
Is true love only past tense, or could it be the future?
Joke's on Ally, because the reason Clay goes on one date and then breaks things off is because his date isn't her. In fact, he's been hung up on Ally since the first time they met, but he shoved all those feelings down and pretended they didn't exist because (a) hitting on his best friend's little sister seemed all sorts of wrong (plus the age difference when they were younger) and (b) he honestly didn't think she saw him as more than her brother's friend.
Clay also has some other issues that make him feel like he wouldn't be the best choice for the girl of his dreams. Issues like depression. Speaking of his depression, his parents are staggeringly unsupportive in helping him deal with it. It's just a mental thing, right? And he can get over it by being positive, RIGHT?? So Clay deals with things on his own and he mostly has a handle on it. Except when he doesn't. (Brains are wonderful when they work correctly and an absolute BEAR when they don't. Also, depression lies and his keeps floating the idea that he's not good enough for someone like Ally and that's something he needs to tackle and figure out before these two can have their HEA.)
To be fair, Ally also has some deep rooted issues she needs to deal with thanks to her mom's insistence that all men will leave and it's better to never rely on one than to be left. If you hear something enough, you start to believe it even if you don't want to. Yeah, there's a lot going on there and both Ally and Clay have personal speedbumps they need to get over on their road to their happily ever after.
Practice camping trips, some unexpected shared tent time, a few steamy kisses, friends who have each others' backs, a man who needs to trust he can handle anything life throws at him, and a lady who needs to trust her dude will figure things out. *thumbs up* all around.
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