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About Me
I am a romance writer. That's not easy to say. Most people have preconceived notions about romances, and the people who write them. Let me tell you! Writing isn't for sissies. I got my first rejection in April 2004. That makes me a professional. In what other field are you considered a "professional" when you don't get called back for a second interview?
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Upcoming Releases
His and Hers Dalmatians Moonlit Romance April 2008
My Favorite Blogs and Websites
Bronwyn Parry, Author & Golden Heart Winner! Crystal Jordan, Author Kate Rothwell, Author Laura Hamby, Author Tori Scott, Author Nell Dixon, Author Denise Patrick, Author Valerie Parv, Australia's Queen of Romance Joanna Sandsmark, Dog and Kitty Author!!! Elisa Adams, Author Sharon Cullen, Author Meg Allison, Author Michelle Styles, Author Julie Cohen, Author Becca, Writer and People Watcher Sally Lawton, Playwright & Author Ainsley MacQueen, Author Jennie Adams, Author Cindy K Green, Author Bronwyn Storm, Doggy Author!!!
Works in Progress
Winter Miracles
The Husband Checklist
Resurrection
Professor Kennedy's Ghost
Everyday HeroThe Baby ContractAlmost On My OwnThe Stone CityDaddy's Little GirlsSkin DeepThe Dog Next Door
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April 2006
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Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Ah! Sweet Release At last! His and Hers Dalmatians is available for sale at Moonlit Romance. I've ordered my copies and can't wait for them to arrive. Here's the blurb and an excerpt: Callie and Hayden James have nothing in common, other than their last names and a pair of Dalmatians. Their relationship was just as volatile after their divorce, so they split up the dogs to maintain the peace. After two years apart, attending the wedding of mutual friends forces Callie and Hayden to see each other again. Can this event lead to a truce and sharing custody of the dogs? _____________________________________________________ Excerpt #1 Hayden’s ex-wife reappeared at the head of the table and stopped. Callie looked directly at him, and he smiled at her, wondering what was going on in that complex mind of hers. She glared at him before returning to her spot at the table to perch on the edge of her seat. The animosity he’d expected had returned in full force. And it was directed at him. “What did I do?” he asked her in a low voice. “Nothing,” she answered, but the color on her cheeks and the grim set of her mouth said otherwise. Anger radiated from her, singeing his skin with its intensity. Leaning back in his chair, Hayden adjusted the knot of his tie. This was familiar territory. The last year of their marriage had consisted of daily exchanges like this. When he had realized he would be seeing her this weekend, Hayden had almost looked forward to fighting with her. Her hostile silence slashed through his composure, and the conversations surrounding him became background noise as Hayden’s body tuned in to Callie’s. She hated him. Still. The depth of her emotion ignited his own passions, and the years of their separation fell away. She was the same woman, his Callie, no matter how her appearance had changed. And he still wanted her. After retrieving her beaded bag from the table, Callie stood and announced that she had to leave. Her mumbled excuses were met with regret from the members of the wedding party, while the bride stood and kissed her on the cheek before she made an abrupt exit. After a moment of indecision, Hayden followed Callie out the rear door of The Black Horse. “Callie, wait!” A couple of cars crept through the alley behind the Salt Lake City pub, and he dashed between them to catch up with her at the edge of the parking lot. She spun around to face him, taller than he’d remembered in her spindly black heels. “Hayden, I don’t feel like fighting.” Maybe not, but her face was still flushed, and electricity surged between them. “Neither do I,” he said, catching her bare arm in a light grasp. Before their divorce, a moment like this might have erupted into a fight, complete with raised voices and maybe a few tossed plates. If Callie turned to the dramatic to make her point, which had been her usual habit. Now he felt perfectly calm, as though he stood in the eye of the storm while chaos swirled around him. This moment was inevitable. “What do you want?” She looked vulnerable, the line of her mouth soft, her eyes dewy and dark. “I don’t know,” was his honest response. Her smooth, rose-scented skin taunted him. He rubbed his fingertips back and forth over her arm, tempting himself with memories of long, hot, summer evenings pressed against her in the backyard hammock. How had everything turned to sh*t after that first year? “Let me go,” she whispered. ________________________________ Excerpt #2 Callie rechecked the brooch securing her gauzy, iridescent peach-colored shawl over her bare shoulders. It didn’t provide much warmth, but it hid her skin somewhat. She shifted her seat on the cold, stone steps leading to the front door of the church where the wedding was to take place. At any moment. All that was missing was the best man. She had been stationed on the porch to wait for him. Fortunately the air was much warmer than her impromptu chair. May had arrived, but it was too early in the morning for the late spring sun to have warmed up the terraced entrance to the church. A limousine pulled to the curb in front of Callie. Probably the car for the bride and groom, she surmised. The rear door opened, and Hayden stepped out. His tuxedo was immaculate, sharp, and showcased his bold cheekbones and dark blue eyes. She wished he’d gotten ugly over the past two years, but if anything, he looked better than ever as he approached his fortieth birthday. You’re just suffering from the deprivation of male company. Don’t forget, he’s a superficial, womanizing jerk. Not your type at all. Someone had forgotten to tell her body that he wasn’t her type. She shivered, a bone deep tremor that started at the base of her spine. As she watched him ascend the stairs with fluid ease, the shiver turned to heat, and she burned with memories of his hands on her skin, his lips on the nape of her neck. He’d always said he loved for her to put her hair up, because he could set her on fire with the slightest attention to the back of her neck. The day she’d cut her hair, she’d felt freed from its weight and the weight of her past. Now she felt exposed and vulnerable. “Waiting for me?” Hayden reached down, presumably to help her get up from the stairs. “Somebody had to. Janie’s mom wouldn’t relax until I volunteered to come find you,” she said, accepting his hand against her will. Her already heightened senses leapt higher as she caught the scent of his musky aftershave. Suddenly her backside and thighs weren’t so cold. “Trust you to make the dramatic entrance.” He grunted in response, tugging her toward the church’s double doors. They creaked slightly as they entered the building, and organ music greeted the pair. “I’d better go into the chapel,” he said. “You go do whatever the girls do.” He dropped her hand and disappeared into the sanctuary. Who did he think he was anyway, some kind of rock star? Who came to a wedding in a limo? He kept the entire party waiting, and then he arrived in a hired car to make the grand entrance. That was Hayden for you, she fumed, caring more about impressions and appearances than people. “Callie!” Janie’s younger sister poked her head out of one of the meeting rooms down the hall. “Come on! It’s time for the processional.” _____________________________________ Excerpt #3 “Don’t worry about calling your shots,” Hayden said, stepping back. “All right.” Callie bent over the pool table, holding her cue awkwardly under her left arm. “Help me?” He groaned mentally. Standing behind her to guide her shot fit in perfectly with his mid-dinner plot of getting her to stay the night. It wasn’t so perfect for his post-dinner resolution of chivalry and self preservation. He took a step closer, daring no more. Her citrus-clean fragrance tempted him to take another step forward. “Grip the end of the stick lightly.” “All right.” She loosened her hold on the cue and then propped the stick across the knuckles of her right hand. “Like this.” He lifted the cue off her table hand. “The stick needs to glide lightly across your skin. This hand is just to steady the stick while you push and aim with your left hand.” He repositioned her cue so that it rested between her right index finger and thumb. “Use your other fingers for stabilization.” “Now I remember.” She flashed him a brief smile before taking the shot. The cue ball bounced harmlessly off the bumpers. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.” “Come on. Try again.” Callie walked along the two free sides of the table. The other two sides were hemmed in by the corner of the room. “I’ve got a shot,” she said, taking aim from a new location. “I’m going for the thirteen. Maybe it’ll get into the pocket if I hit it just off center.” “Remember your table hand is just a guide. The power comes from your shooting arm, so judge how hard you need to hit the ball.” “Watch thirteen,” she said, sparing a look at him before returning her focus to the table, her short sable hair fanning against her cheek. She pushed the stick forward in practice a couple of times, and then she made her shot. Her aim was true, but she’d hit the cue ball too hard, and the thirteen ball bounced off the rim of the pocket. “Great shot!” He meant it. She’d never played well when they were dating, but she never let her discouragement show. “You want to go again?” “No, it’s your turn. I’ll watch and try to pick up some pointers.” Hayden took his shot, and the cue ball smacked against the three-ball, which tumbled into the right center pocket. “Go again,” Callie said. “No need to give me extra turns.” “Practice is the only way to get better,” he protested, but he had lined up his next shot the moment she urged him to take another turn. “Four-ball.” He took one of the short sticks down from the rack and went to the far side of the table next to the wall. “I should have gotten a smaller table,” he lamented. “It would have been easier to play in here.” “But it wouldn’t have been what you wanted,” she responded. She seemed to understand him, maybe for the first time. “Right. This was what I wanted.” Hayden’s shot was true, and number four went directly to the pocket next to Callie on the outside of the table. But it didn’t sink all the way, didn’t rumble down the ball track to the retrieval area. “What’s up with that pocket?” he asked. She plucked the ball out of the hole. “There’s something stuck in here.” Her hand disappeared into the table, and she started laughing. “You missing something?” Before he saw what she had found, he knew what it had to be. The unmistakable ring of keys sounded as she jiggled them in his direction. “Who keeps their keys in the pool table?” ______________________________________ Excerpt #4 Callie had forgotten two things—how much she disliked playing pool and the reason she had played it anyway during their courtship. Having Hayden standing behind her to make subtle adjustments to her position fired her hormones as much now as it had five years ago. Though he kept an appropriate distance between them, she felt his heat along the surface of her skin. She should have headed home after tea. It was too late now. She couldn’t leave, even though she knew she courted danger by staying. “Your posture is too stiff,” Hayden said. “Relax.” “I’m trying.” How could she relax when she longed for the forbidden to happen, right here at the pool table? “Maybe this will help.” His hands covered her shoulder muscles, his thumbs kneading the base of her neck in a circular motion. She hadn’t wanted this, truly. But her body craved the familiar touch all but forgotten by her long dormant desire. “Mmmm.” Her head dropped forward to allow him greater access to the ultrasensitive skin at her nape. His thumbs and fingers pressed into the tight muscles along the slope of her shoulders, gradually returning to her neck to rub his thumbs up and down the length of it from the base of her skull to the neckline of her sweater. Her pool cue dropped to the felt top with a dull thud, and Callie gripped the edge of the table while willing herself not to be seduced by a pair of skillful thumbs. The pressure of his touch changed. She knew that caress, knew she was losing her internal battle not to react to it. As of its own volition, her sweater slid down her arms and she gasped when Hayden’s palms made contact with her goosebump-covered skin. His lips were hot on her neck, and Callie’s nails dug into the felt bumper on the pool table. “Stop me, Callie,” he murmured against her skin. “Say no. Say it now.” “I can’t,” she moaned. I can’t. His arms circled her waist, drawing her into his heat as his mouth continued to explore the exposed skin along her collar. Enough. It was time to tell him to stop or to turn around and kiss him properly. Her body chose the latter course, and somehow she turned inside his embrace to meet his lips with her own. Their mingled hunger shocked Callie. She clutched his shirt in her fists as he pressed her backside into the rim of the table. She pulled at him, wanting him closer, needing what she had missed every night during the past two years. Breaking the kiss, Hayden tipped her head back with his thumb. She struggled to catch her breath, gratified to see that he was panting too. If he hadn’t been as needy as she was, Callie would have been embarrassed. Instead she experienced a surge of passion and forgotten tenderness toward the man she had once loved. Her arms and legs twined around Hayden, and he carried her to the couch where he set her down on a mound of pillows. Their kisses grew more obsessive until Callie thought she’d go mad if they didn’t take it to the next level. She wanted him on top of her, possessing her completely. The mountain of cushions quickly became uncomfortable, and she pulled a couple of pillows from under her back and threw them. “Help me,” she mumbled, unable to tug more of them from beneath their combined weight. Hayden lifted her up and tossed the rest of the pillows. When she’d arrived at his front door, this was the last thing Callie had expected to happen. A bitter fight had seemed a lot more likely than shared lust, flat on her back under her ex-husband, happy as hell about it. Labels: free read, romance novel
Posted at 8:26 AM by Grace Tyler
 
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