When Max blatantly and clumsily flirts with Fredi, Fredi’s stereotypical view of Max is shattered. Is this a build-up to a gay bashing? Cautiously believing Max is closeted and is trying to come out, Fredi decides he’s game to put a little spice into Max’s life, whether it’s in the colors and fixtures he’ll use to turn Max’s dilapidated cabin into a showplace or over one of the many lunches and dinners they share talking about the remodel. Who can blame a guy for adding a little sensual pleasure as he retools Max’s life visually? Besides, Fredi has a backup plan if he’s wrong about Max’s intentions.
Life would be all wine and roses if it weren’t for Max’s former friends and their conservative families. Alarmed with Max’s obvious infatuation, they make it their business to save him from sliding into hell.
With the battle on, will Fredi and Max win the fight for a life of happiness together?
During the recession at the beginning of the 21st century, many gays and lesbians moved from the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento to the Sierra Foothills. FLAG (Foothills Lesbians and Gays) was formed. This series was written for them.
Other Books in the Series:
Conversation between Fredi and Jimmy
In Redesigning Max, the second book in the Foothills Pride series, Fredi Zimmer, an out-and-proud interior designer and architect, is hired by adventure guide Max Greene to refurbish Max’s wilderness cabin in the Sierra Nevada mountains in Northern California.
Fredi’s best friend barista Jimmy Patterson (What’s in a Name? book 1 of the Foothills Pride series) has recently gotten together with bar owner Guy Stone.
All of these characters live in Stone Acres, a fictional former Gold Rush town, now turned tourist destination.
Fredi: Wow. This is so fun. I get to interview Jimmy.
Jimmy: Or maybe I’m supposed to interview you. After all, it’s your book that we’re celebrating.
Fredi: Ugh. Oh, no!
Jimmy: You don’t want people to read your book?
Fredi: What? No! Yes! You’re right. Yes, I want people to read it.
Jimmy: So my first question is what can you tell us about yourself that’s not in the book?
Fredi: Oh, look at you, so Stephen Colbert.
Jimmy: Puleeze! Colbert? I don’t think so. Jimmy Kimmel, maybe? Nah. Oh, how about Billy Porter or Ru? Or maybe Lily Tomlin? I kinda like thinking of myself as her. (Slight pause.) Now shut up and answer the question. We don’t have all day here.
Fredi: Um, what about me don’t people know? Well, one fun fact is that I have a full-size mannequin that I like to dress up and put in my condo window during holidays. How’s that?
Jimmy: Beside the point. Tell us about you. Something personal. Something juicy.
Fredi (blushes): Well, until Max, I never did virgins. You know. A lot of work and a lot of balking. I mean, who needs it? Explain, explain, explain. Then checking. You still wanna? And more checking? How was it? Are you freaking? Blah, blah, blah. By the end of the night, you feel like you’ve run into a wall about a million times and your partner—if you did it all right—is in euphoria. Without you. Yeah, sure, you came, but you didn’t come, if you know what I mean.
Jimmy (sighs): Okay, TMI, but yes, juicy. How about I ask a more specific question? In the book, you say that you’d seen Max around town and thought he would be worth getting to know when you weren’t so busy. Was there anyone else you’d seen around and thought you might try for?
Fredi: Honey, I’m not sure you want to ask that question since…. Well, your Guy was considered the most eligible bachelor in town once upon a time. You think I was immune to those muscles, that marvelous chest, those wild thighs, and his bitable, lickable backside? You don’t know how many nights I sat on the sidelines at the bar watching you two chatting and thinking Guy deserved someone a little more seasoned, a little more—what was the word you used for the coffee drink you named for me? Oh, yes, someone a little more lusty….”
Jimmy: Okay, I think time’s about up here. It’s a good thing I love you dearly because, girl, I’d be hating on you now. So let’s wrap it up and ask Pat Henshaw, the author of our books, what’s happening in her life.
Pat: Thanks, Jimmy. I’m still trying to decide if it was a good idea for you to interview Fredi. What was all that?
Anyway, what’s up with the books in the series and what’s coming? My new publisher, JMS Books, is republishing the Foothills Pride series with new covers and minimal editing from now through October.
Then in November and December, they’re reissuing Blame It on the Fruitcake, The Orpheum Miracle, and Making the Holidays Happy Again, my previously published holiday stories. I also hope to have a new holiday story out then too.
I guess the biggest news is that I’m working on additional novellas in the Foothills Pride series for 2021. There’s a lot coming and a lot in store for my readers.
Pat is giving away a $10 JMS Books gift card with this tour – enter via Rafflecopter:
By the time we got to the Rock Bottom Cafe, I felt like I’d bottomed out. I was hungry, tired, and feeling the first twinges of a headache.
Max hadn’t exaggerated about how much I’d hate the Rock Bottom’s decor. It was the worst of rural cafe: hellacious plastic flowers, grotesque plastic-covered booths, peeling gangrene-painted beadboard walls, pockmarked linoleum floor, and faded food-stained menus. It made the cabin look almost palatial, except it didn’t smell as bad.
As Max slid into one side of a booth and I into the other, he said, “Food’s great here. Okay?”
I glared at him, but I had to admit the odors coming from the kitchen wove seductively around us.
After we’d ordered and had gotten glasses of iced tea, which I liberally dosed with artificial sweetener, Max leaned back in his side of the booth and blew out a little breath.
“So guess here’s what you need to know about me.” He was looking at the tabletop. “I was an only kid when my folks died. Raised by my aunt and uncle with their four boys. I was the youngest and nobody cared what I thought, so I don’t talk much.”
Oh dear. I wasn’t sure which of those statements I should answer, if any. My heart bled for the beautiful man in front of me who would give me a raging hard-on if I let my libido take control.
His words and lack of self-pity made me want to create a unique space where he’d feel completely at home and that would soothe him when he needed it. I probably wouldn’t end up his BFF or someone he could unbend with, but I could create a warm cocoon to shelter and coddle the man or let him entertain his friends comfortably.
The image of the young Max feeling like an outsider when he was thrust on his uncaring aunt and uncle to raise was banished by the waitress who put lunch in front of us.
“Oh. My. God!” I nearly drooled into the chili and homemade bread as I tasted them. “This is incredible.”
“What’d I tell you?” Max gloated. “Said you shouldn’t be put off by the decor. Some of us are more than our decor.”
I spooned up a couple of bites, then looked at Max. “You really do think I’m a snob, don’t you?”
Why was it so easy to get him to blush? I hadn’t a clue, but his quick, mercurial red cheeks had me intrigued.
“No, no, I don’t think you’re a snob,” he protested. “I mean, you’re just so….” He waved a couple of fingers at me, but kept his elbows on the table as if protecting his bowl of chili.
“I’m so what?”
Max shrugged. “I don’t know. Beautiful. And fancy,” he added, ducking his head over his bowl.
Ah, I understood now. Max was intimidated by my suit.
“Look, you came to get me in the coffee shop. I was dressed to take a rich lady through her house later this afternoon. I can work in jeans and a T-shirt”—did Max think I wore suits every day?—“or anything I want. Pajamas even. You just caught me on a suit day.” Which, I didn’t add, was too often for even my overblown sense of style.
Now Max was staring at me.
“Yeah, right. You wear jeans,” he scoffed, but looked interested, intrigued.
I shrugged. “Okay, not when I’m with a client. At home I’m way more casual.” I might have sounded a tad defensive.
“Yeah, right,” Max muttered with a grin.
I left it lying there. It wasn’t worth fighting about. But it bothered me that he saw such a divide between us. I was just a man, wasn’t I? Just like him, right? What was he going on about? Sheesh.
Now retired, she enjoys reading and writing as well as visiting her older daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren on the East Coast and playing havoc with her younger daughter’s life in NorCal. She thanks you for reading her books and wants you to remember that every day is a good day for romance.
Author Website: https://pathenshaw.com
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