A Gift for Tenderness (1989) is a romantic novel by American author Peggy Webb. Nothing much happens in small Peppertown, Mississippi, and sweet, 30-year-old Clementine “Clemmie” Brady longs for romance and excitement. When handsome Michael Forrest appears, he seems the answer to her dreams. However, a run of bad relationships has made Michael wary of love, and he sets out to prove himself a Don Juan, rather than Clemmie’s knight in shining armor. Webb realized she wanted to be a writer at the age of 13, explaining in her biographical blurb, “In our family there was always a romance or a divorce or a scandal going on…and always someone willing to tell it.” Webb has written 70 novels and 200 humor columns. A Gift for Tenderness was a RITA Award Nominee for Traditional Romance in 1990. Clemmie Brady grew up in Peppertown, population 200, and now runs the local boarding house. The business helps pay for her twin brothers to attend college. Clemmie loves the big old home, enjoys the “day-to-day dramas” of small-town life, and takes pleasure in chatting with her eccentric boarders. For the last seven years, since her parents’ deaths, Clemmie has lived a quiet life. A church secretary, she is a “model of responsibility and decorum.” She spends her summers canning and her winters sewing and crafting. The only romance in her life is long past: She was engaged to her high school sweetheart, but he died during an air force training mission. Now, on her 30th birthday, she wishes for a man. As she blows out all the candles on her cake, she hears a knock at the door. Opening it, Clemmie sees Michael Forrest, “the most gorgeous hunk of male flesh she’d ever seen.” Michael has golden hair and amber eyes. Clemmie thinks her wish has come true. Michael owns an independent film company and is scouting locations for the horror movie he plans to film locally; he needs a room for a week. Michael is attracted to Clemmie’s black hair, green eyes, and pouty mouth—and her innocence. Nevertheless, Michael thinks Clemmie’s blushing naiveté must be a ruse. All the Hollywood women he knows are hard-hearted and selfish. Michael does not want any more relationships but decides to seduce Clemmie. He puts on his “Michael the Ladykiller” façade, kissing Clemmie’s hand and licking the spot where she has frosting on her fingers. Clemmie is “giddy and shaking, elated and scared.” She envisions taking Michael to the church social, but Michael offers thinly veiled sexual suggestions. Taking offense, Clemmie responds that the men she knows have morals, and she does not even know if Michael is married. Finding her old-fashioned morals quaint and refreshing, Michael realizes that Clemmie truly is good, kind, and innocent. He accompanies her grocery shopping, though he distracts her so much they drive off the road. He bids $1,000 for Clemmie’s box dinner at the church social so no other man will take advantage of her. Clemmie calls up wholesome memories of the one happy time in Michael’s childhood when his Grandmother Forrest would sing and bake gingerbread. Michael discovers that, like Clemmie, the people in Peppertown are genuine and friendly. One of Clemmie’s boarders, the elderly, deaf, and feisty Miss Josephine Tobias, reads in the tabloids that Michael is facing paternity and palimony suits. Clemmie, however, senses that Michael is playing a role with her. She knows he is vulnerable and frightened underneath his roguish exterior: a “battle-scarred knight in tarnished armor.” After a passionate kiss in the backyard gazebo, Michael decides to leave to keep from getting too close to Clemmie. He tries to warn her away, telling her he is not a gentleman, and she should not trust him. Back in L.A., even Michael’s expensive parties cannot drive Clemmie from his mind. He returns to Peppertown with his movie company and announces to the press that he plans to romance Miss Brady. Michael gives a small part in the film to Miss Josephine, thrilling the old woman. Clemmie shows up on the movie set, determined to play Michael’s romantic game so that when he leaves again, no one will get hurt. One evening, Michael appears at the boarding house on a white stallion, gives Clemmie a gorgeous gown, and together they ride to a romantic dinner staged beautifully at the movie set. Enjoying Michael’s vitality and laughter, Clemmie knows she has fallen in love with him. Michael admits that the paternity accusations are untrue; Clemmie tells him he would be a wonderful father. Despite his desire for Clemmie, Michael refuses to have sex with her, knowing she is the marrying kind and he is not. He thinks Clemmie deserves someone better than him and more than a one-night stand. Michael leaves Peppertown after he finishes filming the movie. Clemmie thanks him for the excitement and glamour he brought to her and Miss Josephine’s lives. On Thanksgiving, Michael returns to his lonely, empty home and finds Clemmie there, roasting a turkey. Clemmie tells Michael that she had to come to tell him she loves him. She says that she is not asking for anything, she just needed him to know her feelings. Michael confesses that he loves Clemmie but could not admit it to himself. Michael proposes, and they get married the next day. They passionately consummate their marriage. After a week in L.A., the couple returns to Peppertown for a second wedding ceremony filled with family and friends. Several happy years later, Clemmie and Michael live in L.A. with three children and two dogs. They spend every Thanksgiving together in Peppertown.

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Peggy Webb

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