Teaser Tuesday: Sweet Montana Sky

Sweet Montana Book 1

SWEET MONTANA SKY

Someone is using superstition to cause trouble on the rodeo circuit.  An upside down horseshoe made Tabby Swanson’s skin crawl, but it wasn’t enough to keep her from training her prize horse, Tenderhook, for barrel racing so she could get a sponsorship.  When Kasper Dobbs shows up the ranch, she’s intrigued and hopeful.  The handsome businessman, and former local hockey star, has deep pockets.  It doesn’t hurt that he’s devastatingly handsome and makes her heart pound in her chest more than barrel racing.   It almost makes her forget about the strange happenings on the ranch until someone turns up dead, and she and Tenderhook suffer a near fatal accident in competition, threatening her rodeo days forever.

Kasper knows Tabby’s fall was no accident.  Being told you may never compete again is a fate he knows well.  He won’t let Tabby give up and insists on getting her back into training as soon as he can.  But how can he know if whoever caused her accident will try again?  He calls the Knight brothers to investigate the mysterious death and strange happens surrounding Tabby in the whole they can catch whoever is responsible before she takes another fall.  He wants to believe he’s doing it all in the name of business.  But he’s fallen hard for the cowgirl whose sunshine smile makes him want more than just to ride again.  He wants the girl for life!

Purchase SWEET MONTANA SKY now!

                         

Excerpt 

The rusted horseshoe above the old weathered crossbuck barn doors was turned upside down. Tabby Swanson’s stomach fell just a notch. Not everyone would notice a little thing like a downturned horseshoe. Not everyone would care. But Tabby did.

The nail holding it upright must have broken and caused it to slip. That is the only reason she could think why the horseshoe was upside down. Trip, the owner of the Lone Creek Ranch, was more superstitious than she was, and that said a lot.

She’d ask him about it later. When he was in a good mood. Right now Tabby just wanted to get on her horse and do a couple of good barrel runs to warm up and get ready for the day.
She grabbed the bridle in the tack room and walked the few yards down the center aisle of the horse barn toward Tenterhook’s stall. All the while, she fought the nervous tension building inside her.

Trip had been on edge all day. In fact, he hadn’t been this edgy since she moved to the Lone Creek Ranch nearly eight years ago. A stupid upside down horseshoe wasn’t the reason. She knew that. The rodeo world had many superstitions. Most people didn’t pay any mind to them even though they secretly knew all of them, like the upside down horseshoe.

Tabby wasn’t someone who went around wearing the same socks under her cowboy boots during the rodeo season like a few of the barrel racers she knew. But she wasn’t completely immune. She talked herself out of superstitious talk all the time and preferred to think that she was in control. Well, as in control as anyone could be. No one could be ready for swerving cars on the wrong side of the road, like the one that had taken both of her parents’ lives and shattered her world in a single moment.

But on that same day, she had taken control. And an upside down horseshoe was staying in the locker room for her ride today. Tenterhook was waiting for her.

As she walked down the center aisle of the barn, she saw a strange man standing in front of Tenterhook’s stall. She had never seen him on the ranch before. But that didn’t really mean anything. She mostly kept to herself and had a few friends in town and on the rodeo circuit.

She walked closer, but he didn’t seem to hear the sound of her footsteps. She did hear the soft crooning he made while talking to Tenterhook. He was completely out of place here with his freshly pressed dark suit and expensive shoes. She noticed an overcoat slung over the gate of the stall. She got within ten feet of him before he finally turned and looked at her.

“Is this your horse?” the man asked.

Now that she was close to him she could smell the scent of his aftershave. It was an odd thing to be smelling in a barn that usually smelled of hay and animal.

“He is,” she answered. “Can I help you with something?”

He shook his head and turned his attention back to Tenterhook. “I’ve seen this horse before. But I couldn’t have. He would be about twenty years old by now and this horse doesn’t look that old.”

Purchase SWEET MONTANA SKY now!

                         

Teaser Tuesday: Moment of Trust

Summer House Book 4

Moment of Trust

Six years ago Penny Munez made the mistake of leaving home too young and moving in with a man who beat her for recreation. She'd fled with the shirt on her back, no pants and no shoes and jumped into a car that had stopped at the traffic light, urging them to drive anywhere.  She didn't care where.  Now that she's on an island surrounded by water, the fear of looking over her shoulder hasn't stopped.  She doesn't trust anyone.  That is until Drake Sutton decided he was going to give her a reason to trust again. Drake knows a dark past when he sees one because he’s lived it on the streets and done things to survive that he’d rather forget.  Now he owns a successful business and he's calling the shots. But can Drake's love break down walls Penny has fought hard to erect to keep her safe?

This series is an erotica series that contains sexual situations that are not intended for readers under 18 years old.

Purchase MOMENT OF TRUST now!

                         

Excerpt 

Penny
 
Only weird people love playing in dirt. Well, it’s only weird when you’re twenty-two years old and still playing in the dirt like I am. Maybe it’s the dirty feelings inside of me. The ones that I find hard to let go of. But I like to think it has more to do with good memories of making mud pies in the side yard with my next door neighbor when I was a four instead of the four years that are closest in my memory. The ones I want to forget.

Maybe that’s why I’d taken this job working for a landscaper. Sure, Drake Sutton is a hottie. Any girl who spent two seconds with the man would think that he belonged on the cover of a magazine, not playing in dirt like I do every day. But I’m the lucky one.

Yeah, lucky.

“Shit. Worms are eating the flowers.” I drop the bag of mulch I hoisted out of the back of the truck at our job site and crouched down to take a closer look at what I know is happening. Destruction of all our hard work this summer. The sun did its job. The rain fed the soil. But worms had conquered and are taking over the beauty of all the begonias lining the side of the Wayside Inn.

Turning one of the leaves over in my hand, I see the telltale marks that Drake warned me about when I’d started working at the Sutton Landscape Company at the beginning of the summer. I look at another plant. Then another.

Beverly Pickam isn’t going to be happy about this.

“Drake?” I call out. When I turn, I see my boss headed my way carrying another bag of mulch. His body is slick with sweat that has seeped through the white T-shirt he’s wearing. He always wears a white T-shirt because he says it reflects the sun when he’s working. He works hard and expects the same out me and Gus.

It had rained hard over the weekend and most of the mulch that had been on the ocean side of the Wayside Inn, had been washed down the sidewalk. It wasn’t enough to just sweep the mulch back into place. Drake wants it to look perfect all the time so he’ll be a shoe-in to get the contract again next summer.

He’s not going to like this either.

As I look at the begonia leaves I’d planted in front of the Inn earlier this summer, I sigh. Why does everything beautiful have to be destroyed by something?

This should be a normal job. Pull some weeds. Replace mulch that rain and wind had eroded from the flowerbeds. Then on to the next job site. They were going to have to fix this before they could move on.

Drake, the owner of the landscape company I’ve been working for this summer, walks up behind me and peers down at the brown leaf with holes burrowed out of it.

He yanks a leaf off the flower and then says, “Shit. Well, doesn’t this just suck?”

I chuckle as I look up at him, shielding my eyes from the hot sun. “What do you want to do about it?”

He sighs and glances down the length of the flower bed on the side of the building. “We still have a full month of tourist season to get through before I pull these flowers and put in mums to last through the end of October. Beverly likes her flowers pretty. In fact, this side of the building is normally her turf. She specifically asked for a little space.”

“Her turf? I thought the whole thing was her turf.”

“Her little garden. We planted the begonias. For some reason she put in petunias everywhere. We didn’t. I don’t know where she got these flowers from. They could have been from someplace with infested soil. That’s probably how these plants became diseased and infected the surrounding plants. I didn’t see any signs of this when I spread out the new mulch in the front of the building.”

“Damn. Regardless, we have to eat the loss and replace these flowers with healthy ones or it’s only a matter of time before the front looks as bad as the side and it’ll ruin my plantings for the fall. I’ll grab some spray.”

“We? If Beverly tampered with your landscaping, shouldn’t she be paying for it to be fixed?”

Drake stood still and looked up at the Inn. I can tell he’s pissed, but he has so much control over his emotions that I’m constantly surprised by his reaction to setbacks, no matter how big or small. When Gus, the other landscaper I work alongside with every day, got arrested the other night and dragged back to the mainland, I thought for sure Drake would fire him on the spot. Instead, since Gus is dating my roommate Lily, he stayed in constant contact with Lily about what was going on with Gus. He didn’t yell about being short a landscaper for the jobs he had scheduled for the week. I’d been all ready to defend Gus to Drake since I’d been there the night at the club when a fight broke out and Gus had to help drag my other roommate, Heather, out of harm’s way. I wanted Drake to know it hadn’t been Gus’s fault. He’d helped save Heather.

But Drake never uttered a harsh word about Gus and how he’d landed in this situation. He just took the news that Gus was sent to the mainland and went back to work as if I’d told him that Gus had called in sick with the flu or something.

“If I want to stay on the island and have any chance of getting next year’s contract, I’m going to have to take the loss.” He sighs as he looks down at his hand and crumples the dry leaf in his fist.

I watch him walk back to the truck. Such control.

“You plan on staying on Nantucket after the summer?”

Drake glanced toward the long stretch of beach the Wayside Inn was located on. “Don’t you? How can you leave a place like this?”

I wanted to say it was easy. Rachel always says that women like me need to move on. But I can’t deny that leaving here will be hard. I only have another month on the island then…I’ll be somewhere else. Meeting new people. Trying to make new friends.

I look at Drake and the thought of it leaves me cold.

Purchase MOMENT OF TRUST now!

                         

Teaser Tuesday: New Release! EVERYTHING AND MORE

The Goddess Circle Series Book 1

Everything and More: Chasing Cupid

Montana (Tana) Reeves is about to lose her apartment because her ex-boyfriend left her with the rescue dog, Cupid, he'd used to sweet-talk her into their relationship. Losing her apartment over a dog is bad enough, but veterinarian Jett Billings' gentle way and sexy smile melts her heart just as much as the sweet beagle does, and Tana quickly realizes that as she was chasing Cupid, she fell in love with both of them.

Purchase EVERYTHING AND MORE now!

                         

Excerpt 

She was pretty. Pissed off, but very pretty. Jett arched his back gently so she wouldn’t notice. The scratches from the dog's claws were starting to sting his back. He’d been injured worse by animals before. Most of the time, it was because they were scared and vulnerable.

Tana actually thought Cupid was trying to save him. As irritated as Jett had been when Cupid had climbed on top of him and scratched the hell out of his back while he was swimming, the whole thing was rather sweet. Animals had such big hearts. In the few moments he’d been watching Cupid, he knew this little girl had a huge one. Too bad this woman didn’t see it that way.

"Look at her," Tana said. "She loves you more than she loves me anyway. What does it say about me that my dog loves you more? And you're a stranger."

"Do you want my opinion?"

"Yes."
He chuckled as he bent down and patted the dog again.

"Your ex is an idiot."

She laughed, watching his loving gentleness with Cupid. "Wow, is that your expert veterinarian opinion?" 

"No. Just an observation. She’s a sweet dog. She’s just not trained. Neither are you."

"Me?"

"I’ve learned that the truest of truths are best when delivered with a hug and a tail wag."

"For real? That’s how you gauge the truth?"

"I haven’t had a whole lot of luck with long-term relationships with women, but I’ve had a lot with animals. I have learned that a dog can usually spot a good heart even if the owner is resisting."

"That’s deep. You get relationship advice from dogs."

"I haven’t been steered wrong yet. You’re also very naïve."

"Ouch."

"I speak the truth."

"That doesn’t mean the truth doesn’t hurt."

He stood back up, and so did Cupid. She nudged his hand with her nose to get his attention again, and he naturally complied with her request and stroked her behind her floppy ears.

"So what are you going to do?"

"About what?’

“The dog.”

Purchase EVERYTHING AND MORE now!

                         

Teaser Tuesday: Moment of Truth

Summer House Book 3

Moment of Truth

Sometimes the wrong love turns out to be right...

Heather Connelly made that dreaded mistake most young girls in love made. She followed a boy to Nantucket, convinced he loved her. And then got dumped in a public and humiliating way that ended in a pub brawl. With her heart ripped to shreds, she wanders the beach drowning her tears in a bottle of wine, trying to figure out how to give it one more try. She finds the open door to his suite on the beach and climbs into bed naked wanting to show him just what he'll miss. Their love making is electric and nothing like she'd ever experience before. She's convinced she's won him back. But the next morning she wakes and realizes...she climbed into the wrong bed. Can this wrong man be perfect right for her?

Despite making his first million by 25 and then turning his small company into a nearly billionaire dollar empire, Slade Sullivan couldn't feel any lower. Recently divorced, he's gone to Nantucket Island, a place where he'd visited on many occasions as a child, to lick his wounds and regroup. When a beautiful woman climbs into his bed and begs him to make love to her, he can't resist. But in the light of day he realizes his huge mistake. She's nearly twenty years younger than him! He knows he should end it right there, but he can't resist this woman who makes him look at truths he's never wanted to see. Can their summer fling become a lasting love?

This series is an erotica series that contains sexual situations that are not intended for readers under 18 years old.

Purchase MOMENT OF TRUTH now!

                         

Excerpt 

Heather

I should have learned my lesson from all the losers my mother brought home with her when I was a kid.  I’m a magnet for them, too.  Except…Jason wasn’t a loser.  He didn’t beat me up or try to get me drunk just to get in my bed.

I did that on my own.  The beating up part was the mind fuck of my life.  The drinking made me forget it.  And everything else…well, that was everything else.

I dig my toes into the cool sand and drop to the ground.  The salty breeze coming in from with the surf bathes my face enough to ease the nausea that is wedged in the pit of my stomach.  I hate being sick.  I won’t be sick.  Not for him, dammit!

The water is coming in further and soon I’ll be able to feel the surf hit me. Make me wet. But I don’t care.  Out here in the darkness, no one can find me.  No one can judge me.  No one can hurt me.

The crowd of people who’d gathered outside the nightclub I’ve worked at for the last six weeks is thinning.  The sound of people talking and laughing and walking along the beach as they make their way back to their hotels and beach houses echoes around me.  But no one bothers me.  I’m invisible here.  I want to be invisible…until I hear Jason’s voice. 

Jason. 

A tear trickles down my cheek and I let it travel to wherever it wants to go.  I don’t bother to stop it.  I like the cool air against my wet skin.  I can feel that, just like I feel the slight pain beneath the sweatband around my wrist.  And the bruise on my face that doesn’t sting anymore.  It just aches like the aching in my chest.

Jason had loved me once.  How could I have been so wrong about that?  But now he’s being a dick of monumental proportions.  The only reason I even came to Nantucket was because I was sure he still wanted me here. Well, fuck.  He hadn’t wanted me tonight even though he’d asked me to wait for him after my shift.  But then he’d started kissing that fuck-faced bimbo...Chelsea. Right there on the dance floor. For everyone to see.

I run my hand over the pain growing in my chest.  Tonight was a total waste.  Being here on this island is a total waste.

“What the fuck did I do?” I hear Jason say.  And I’m just pathetic enough to care about what that is.  “I totally fucked it up.”

This is what makes me pathetic.  Because I do care.  Does he regret kissing that Chelsea girl and making me look like a wretched fool in front of all the people at the club?  Does he regret pushing me and making me stumble against the freakin’ bar and hitting my face?  I can tell that my cheek is swollen.  And I saw the look on my roommate Penny’s face.  She saw it too.  They all saw it. 

I rub my head where it hurts and realize it’s not from being hit, it’s from having my hair yanked.  I don’t know who did it.  Everything happened so fast and then I was on the floor and people were climbing over me.

I think, but my head is still fuzzy.  I’d had a few shots after seeing that first kiss on the dance floor.  I needed to finish my shift and that was the only way I was going to get through it.

Double shots at the bar.

Bringing a tequila and beer to Jason.

“Fuck you,” I’d said when I saw him arguing with that dick from Hyannis.  I downed the tequila myself and then…and then…

I feel pain in my head and then I’m on the floor being stepped on.

The next thing I know Gus was dragging me out of the club.

Oh, God, who saw this?  Most of the people who’d witnessed the brawl on the dance floor tonight are regulars.  They know how I feel about Jason.  They’d seen us together.  And they’d seen what Jason had done.

The sound of Jason’s voice floats through the night air down to the beach where I’d rather hide from all those pitying stares.  All those people who saw my roommate Lily’s boyfriend, Gus Jennings, drag me out of the pit of the dance floor as Jason and some loser from Hyannis got into that fight…over Chelsea.

“I need to get laid,” I hear.  I sway in the sand as the alcohol finally hits me and makes my head swim.  It’s numbing.  But I don’t want to be numb.  I’m a fighter.  I’m a survivor.  Fuck Chelsea, whoever the hell she is.  If anyone is crawling into bed with Jason, it’s going to be me!

Purchase MOMENT OF TRUTH now!