Saturday, June 15, 2013

Father's Day First Chapter Free Read: Witness Protection Program

Witness Protection Program was my second Rebel Ink Press title and it remains one of my most popular to date.  So for Father's Day, I thought I'd share the first chapter and if you like, the links to buy follow the excerpt.  I think it's a fast-paced, exciting contemporary read with some homey appeal but you can see what you think!


Blurb:

 

When a routine trip to the local discount store turns in to a gunfight,
Kendra Driscoll must face the fact that her witness protection cover is
blown and she's in federal custody until further arrangements can be made.
Tucked away in a safe house in southern Arkansas, Kendra reverts to being
Deborah Kincaid, for now.

When Timothy Campbell dodges bullets and throws Kendra Driscoll into his
van, he knows better than to mix business with pleasure. Witnesses are
off limits. Period. So why is it then that Cam finds himself impossibly
drawn to the woman he's charged to protect?

As Kendra gets to know Cam, she realizes he isn't as unyielding as he looks.
Underneath his gruff exterior, Deborah finds a kind, sensitive man and
soon, she realizes she's falling in love. And when events turn ugly and
Cam suffers a life-threatening injury, it's up to Deborah to face her
enemies and deal with the danger for the last time.

 

 

Chapter One

 

            If the first shot hadn't whistled over her head before shattering most of the olive oil bottles on an end of aisle display, Kendra might've thought it was nothing but firecrackers thrown by some teen playing a prank.  By the time the second report echoed through the grocery department of the discount store, she hugged the floor, sprawled across the light beige tiles behind the produce bin of potatoes.   Although she hadn't been around firearms in several years, she recognized the sound of an automatic weapon in hands that knew how to make it walk and talk.  Earlier still, she drew memories from a childhood spent shooting clays and hunting.  Her daddy taught her to shoot with the boys and she'd excelled.  She knew too well the damage a bullet could inflict and crawled a few more feet to put an open freezer case between her and the unseen shooter.

            Each time the gun fired a chorus of shrieks and screams echoed in her ears, shriller than the retort.  Somewhere she could hear a baby crying and an older woman’s voice praying, thick with fear as she said ‘Our Father.’   Kendra heard a few muffled curses but she thought prayers were far more appropriate given the situation.   She prayed too, silently, as she peered around the end of the freezer, which she recalled were nicknamed “coffin cases.” That now seemed eerie and prophetic.

            A rank stench of gunpowder flared her nostrils and she smelled the metallic, unmistakable smell of blood.  Moans from somewhere up near the front entrance indicated there were wounded, if not dead, and as she hunkered down, praying for deliverance, more gunfire blasted.   Shots pinged off metal and thwacked into shelved goods with an ugly sound.   More glass broke and Kendra heard someone cry out with a muffled sound that boded ill.  

            From where she lay, she saw a Nike encased foot bent at an odd angle and with her head still low to the floor, she watched a spreading line of blood.   She didn't want to know where it originated or from whom so she retreated, too upset to shed a tear and much too scared to make any noise.

            She couldn't catch a glimpse of the gunman or determine if there was one or more.  Kendra wriggled backwards, like a snake, moving along the base of the freezer case with the idea she might reach a different position with a better view.  Halfway there, her leg caught on something and she jerked, trying to free it but she couldn't budge.   Just as she turned to look for the problem, a large hand, encased in a black leather glove, clamped down over her mouth.

            “Don’t scream,” a male voice whispered in her ear.   Whoever he might be, he was behind her and she couldn't see him at all.   However, he smelled of Irish Spring soap and peppermints.  “Take my hand.”

            She tried to ask why but with his hand blocking her mouth, she couldn't speak so she shook her head to refuse.   He snatched her left hand with his free one and jerked hard enough she had to move with him or be drug behind.  He took his hand off her mouth but she didn't dare make a sound or speak.  In a crouched position, he maneuvered her past three more open freezer cases and then went wide to the left through a door that led back into the storerooms.   Once that door swung closed behind them, he stood upright and faced her.                                                He loomed tall above her, six feet or better, lean and lithe.   His blue jeans fit his chiseled body like an outer skin and his plaid flannel shirt looked cozy.   On his hip, a Smith and Wesson .40 caliber pistol fit into a nylon holster attached to his wide leather belt.  His black eyes bored into hers, vital and filled with strength.   The solemn expression on his face seemed carved from solid granite.   He looked capable and very dangerous.  In fact, he reminded Kendra of a leopard she watched once at the zoo, graceful and somehow beautiful yet deadly.

             Out in the store somewhere, more gunfire roared and screams followed but he didn't flinch or react. She cringed with each blast, fighting the desire to drop to the floor.  If he hadn’t held her in his grasp, she’d dropped, too.    His height and lethal manner intimidated her but not enough that she didn't attempt to break free.

            “Let me go!” She twisted her hand, struggling to work loose.

            He snorted and gripped harder.

            “Relax.  I'll get you out of here safe and sound.  Just stay calm and be quiet.”

            Her anger kindled, his bossy ways made her old-fashioned mad and without thought, she spoke, her voice louder than it should be.

            “I’m not going with you.   I won't be a hostage,” Kendra told him, her voice high-pitched and nasal.  “Leave me alone and go turn yourself into the authorities!”

            He laughed aloud as he reached into his front jeans pocket pulling out something he thrust in her direction; a gold badge formed with an outer circle around a five-pointed star. “United States Marshall” was etched around the rim.

            “Maybe I should've introduced myself,” he said with what might've been a smile on a less serious face.  “I’m Timothy Campbell, United States Marshall.”

               The reality sank in with speed.   He wasn't one of the shooters but a law enforcement officer and Kendra wondered why he wasn’t out there, taking down the suspect and saving lives in plural instead of just saving her own.    Questions flooded her brain so fast she didn’t know where to begin or what to ask.   He must've read the curiosity in her eyes because he pulled her forward toward a back exit off the storeroom.

            “Ask me whatever you want later,” Timothy Campbell said. “Right now, we need to move.  Let’s go.”

              He towed her outside with speed and into a waiting black Humvee where he opened the rear passenger door, shoved her inside and followed her onto the seat.   Before Kendra could assimilate anything more, the vehicle pulled out and reached the busy highway within seconds.  With the discount store fast vanishing behind them, she realized her car remained in the parking lot but at least her purse still dangled from her shoulder.   Numerous emergency vehicles raced past them headed for the scene.  She counted three ambulances, two fire trucks, multiple squad cars and more.

            “Wait!” she said, fumbling for the seat belts. “Where are we going? I need to cover this breaking story.  Shouldn’t you be back there, helping people or something?”

            He turned to her, his face still impassive.

            “We're going somewhere safe and the only place I need to be is here with you.”

            Anger flared, stronger than fear.   Her routine grocery-shopping trip halted with violence forced her to take cover, and now Kendra found herself in the back of an SUV hurling down the highway at breakneck speed.  She'd rather be anywhere else, even still crouched behind the freezer case in fact.  Where she should be was outside the store with a press pass and a microphone in her hand.

            “I don’t want to be here,” Kendra snapped.  “Take me back to the store, please.  I'm the news director for the local radio station.  I need to cover this story.”

            The Marshall shook his head.

            “No you don’t.  Do you know why the shooter was at that location?”

            She had no clue. 

            “Let me guess.  Did they overcharge him? Not have what he wanted in stock? Or was it just the first place he found where he could go postal?”

            Her sarcastic tone failed to get a rise but his reply struck her like a slap across the face.

            “He wanted you, Deborah.  You’re the target.”

            She caught her breath and held it, fear snaking through her body like live electricity.   Her first response to hearing her name, the name her mother picked out for her twenty-seven years earlier, was to run.  If she could've leaped from the fast moving vehicle, she’d done it but since she couldn't, she tried to bluff it out instead.

            “Who’s Deborah? My name is Kendra Lou Driskell.”

             He focused his full-strength stare on her and made eye contact.

            “That might get you brownie points but it won’t cut ice with me.  If you say it to the wrong individual, you might end up in the county morgue.  You and I both know you're Deborah Kay Kincaid and that you’ve been in the federal witness protection program for two and a half years.”

            His harsh tone cut through her feeble bravado like a steak knife through a tender T-bone steak.   His voice had a no-nonsense quality that refuted any possible argument but she heard a kindness beneath the gruff words that steadied her long enough she was able to sit back and exhale.

            “How do you know they were after me?” Kendra asked, wondering if she could just be Deborah again since her cover was now transparent. 

            “You're watched, of course. We had a tip that proved to be correct,” his voice remained even.  “Everyone in the program is monitored.   Didn’t you realize that?”

            “No, I didn't.”

            A chill crept up her spine as comprehension that someone kept track of her every day, maybe each hour sank in, and her notion of hard-won privacy was just an illusion.   So was any real safety, she mused, if someone tracked her to Bargain Mart and started shooting.  She wasn’t safe. Worse yet, she never had been.

            He sighed, “Don’t they brief you any better than that? Did you think Max was your sole contact?”

            She had. The older agent who posed as her uncle Max became like real family to her and living her brand new life, she never thought the old one would come to haunt her, let alone touch her.

            “Yeah, I did.  That’s what they told me when I got my new identity.   Does Max know what happened or that you’re taking me against my will?”

            “You ask too many questions but I’m a nice guy so I’ll answer them, one at a time.  Whoever told you such information didn’t know what they were talking about in the least.   Max knows what went down at the discount store.  He also knew we were tracking a lead that put a hit man on the scene to take you out.”

            Poor Max, she thought, summoning an image of the older gentleman with his suspenders, rimless spectacles, and classic music collection.  Although she called him “uncle,” he was more like a grandfather and she guessed he’d worry.

            “I need to call him and let him know I’m all right,” Kendra said, digging into her purse for her cell phone.   
              “Deborah, it's been handled,” US Marshall Campbell said as his large hands removed the phone from her small one.  “Max is relocating himself and you'll be doing the same, soon.”

               She thought of the life she'd built piece by piece out of nothing.   She came to this small town tucked into the foothills of the Ozark Mountains with a manufactured background and got a job at the local radio station.   That tiny apartment she rented on the second floor of an old house became her haven.   Her plants bloomed there and the greenery made it seem as homey as her grandmother’s kitchen.  In the windowsill, African violets blossomed year round and she grew herbs in a tiny dish garden she used as seasoning when she cooked.   She created a cozy zone with cheap pillows from Bargain Mart, rummage sale knick-knacks, doilies that she crocheted herself, and an old patchwork quilt she bought at Tina’s Treasures downtown.   Her collection of used furniture was vintage but not antique.  That apartment became her home, an almost real one and she thrived there.   Now the stranger who whisked her away from a deadly shooting spree told her she was about to be uprooted again.   Everything in Kendra rebelled against that and she told him so.

            “I don’t want to go anywhere else! I’ve built a life here in Hickory and I like it.”

            His eyes met hers, dark and unfathomable, but he nodded as if he understood.

            “I'm sorry about that but it’ll happen Deborah. Do you prefer Debby, Deb, or Deborah? We'll be spending a lot of time together so I might as well get it right.”

            Thirty months passed since anyone called her Deborah or Debby and the names sounded strange in her ears.

            “I like Kendra.”

            Kendra was smart, a perceptive woman who knew her own mind and didn’t let a man into her life to destroy it.   She seldom dated and wasn't in any relationship because that got too complicated.  Kendra went to church without fail each Sunday morning, not because it was part of her cover but because she liked it.  Kendra, she thought, was probably a better person than Deborah once was. And she was wiser.

            “Your time as Kendra is over.  If you don’t tell me what you like, I’ll just call you Deb because it’s short and simple.”

              Nick called her that for the same reason.

            With as much dignity as she could summon, Kendra finally spoke up. “In that case, I’d rather you called me Deborah.  What would you like me to call you, Tim, Timmy or Timothy?”

            For the first time since he grabbed her, he smiled. A genuine grin lit his face like sunshine streaming through storm clouds, stripping away at least ten years.

            “Neither.  My friends call me Cam and you can, too.”

            “Cam,”   She tried it out, liking the sound of it, short and to the point.  It suited him, she thought. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.  Now that we're friends, tell me where you’re taking me against my will.”

             His grin broadened despite her sarcasm.

            “We’re going to a safe house until things settled down and we decide if you remain in danger or not.”

            “Where's this house?”

            Cam shook his head.  “I can’t give you the location.   Try to trust me.  I'm one of the good guys, remember.”

             She wanted to believe him but she wasn't sure if she could.  Trusting a man came hard after what happened with Nick and all that followed.  As she struggled with the heap of newfound knowledge thrust at her she wasn’t sure if she could.   As she tried she said a brief, private farewell to Kendra, to the feisty, capable woman she wanted to be and slipped back into Deborah’s skin.

            “I'll try,” Deborah said.  “That’s all I can promise. I'll try.”

            Cam turned his head toward her and nodded.

            “That’s good enough for now.”

            Deborah stared out the tinted windows of the SUV watching the countryside fly past as her thoughts soared with the same speed.   After building a life here, her possessions were now cut down to the clothes on her back and her purse, nothing more.   Her small network of friends vanished with the miles and Max, the only family she had for the last two years, was suddenly out of her life.   She'd never see him again, she thought, and with that tears sprang to her eyes.   Her own family might as well be dead; she could never see or interact with them again.   As Kendra she was often tempted to try but today’s unexpected turn of events underlined why she'd been wise to leave them alone.

            One question mattered enough to risk Cam's ire to ask it.

            “Who's after me?”

            Cam turned his head to stare at her, a worry line dividing his forehead into two neat halves.

            “Are you trying to tell me you don’t have any idea?”

            He sounded like he thought pursuit by killers, hired or not, was just a day in the life of Kendra Driskell.

            “I don’t.”

            Cam snorted.  “Surely Nick Bianco’s girlfriend knows better than that.”

            He said the name and she froze, her mind filled with images of Nick.  

            He snorted again.  “Yeah, I thought so.”

            Deborah found her voice.  “It’s not like that. It isn’t what you think.   It never was.”

            Cam’s black eyes smoldered like two jet stones as he stared back at her.

            “Isn’t Mr. Bianco the reason you ended up in the program?”

            She couldn't lie.  “Well, yes but – “

            “But?” He sounded skeptical, almost angry.

            “It’s a long story but I was never really his girlfriend,” Deborah said, searching for the proper words that would help her explain. 

            His eyebrows, lighter than his eyes, rose at the words and his lips tightened.

            “Deb, let’s get a few things straight.  My current assignment is to protect you and we'll be spending a lot of time together, like it or not.   I can’t help you or keep you safe if you won’t be straight with me.   I'm the one person you can’t lie to.”

            Cam used the short form of her name to needle her and it worked.   Anger rose in her like yeast increased bread dough.

            “I’m not lying,” Deborah said, scooting so she could face him.  “You don’t understand and you won’t give me a chance to explain.  None of your people ever did.  They all judged me and looked at me as if I'm some kind of loose woman but I'm not.  I never was.”

            He folded his arms across his chest looking very formidable, more like an Old Testament prophet without the beard.  His piercing gaze made her feel like she was about seven years old and in the principal’s office, seconds from a scolding and a sound spanking.

            “You know, I actually want to believe you,” Cam said in a voice as stern as his face.  “You have this air of innocence and I find it hard to imagine you with a hardened criminal like Nick but I’ve read the case file.    Everything in it indicates you were as close as any woman could get to Mr. Bianco.”

            Deborah wanted to cry.  This was the very attitude she encountered more than two years ago when every federal prosecutor and judge treated her like a hostile witness when all she wanted to do was tell the truth, nothing more.   She came forward willing to provide facts and details because it was the right thing to do but when the trial ended, her reputation was ruined and her life as she knew it over.    Let there be a way to get back my life and restore my reputation, she thought. Even her own family treated her as if she sinned and she wondered, as she did often, if they even thought about her anymore.

            “Then the file is wrong,” Deborah finally said with a calmness she truly lacked.

            Cam quirked one eyebrow her direction and looked her over with disdain.

            “Is it?” He didn't sound very sure. “Well, you’ll have plenty of time to convince me at the safe house.   You won’t like what I need to do now.”

            Deborah bristled.

            “And what would that be?  Are you going to handcuff me?”

            “That’s a good guess and close,” Cam said as an evil grin flirted with his lips. “I have to blindfold you so you can’t reveal the location of the safe house.”

             “No.” The word pushed past her lips before she could even think about it. “You can’t do that.”

            He pulled out a blindfold.  “I’m sorry but I have to.”

            “I haven’t been paying any attention to where we are at or where we’re going,” Deborah protested.  “I won’t reveal the location.”

            “Good.  But just in case, let me put this in place.”

            His hands were deft for such a large man as he tied the blindfold over her eyes with swift skill.   Panic hit as soon as everything went black but as soon as she realized she could breathe, she calmed, irate but resigned, to temporary blindness.

             Unable to see, Deborah’s thoughts turned toward prayer and an attempt to remain focused. As such, she recited every Psalm she knew from memory, silent but steadfast.   The age-old familiar words helped ease her angst and leached some of the horror from the morning’s events.  Although she couldn't forget the gunfire ripping through Bargain Mart, the blood, or that foot lying so still, she reached deep within to find fortitude and the strength to face whatever came next.




 


 

 

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From Sweet to Heat: The Romance of Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy



Blog: Rebel Writer: Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy



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Sunday, June 09, 2013

Take A Stroll Back To The 1940's....with last year's historical romance, In The Shadow of War!


 

 

Private Ben Levy from Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, stationed in the wilds of southern Missouri at a new Army camp carved out from the fertile fields and farms of pioneer stock, now displaced. The soldiers stationed at the base call it "Camp Swampy", something one of the real recruits who spent some Army time here will remember and use in his now famous comic strip, "Beetle Bailey".

 

Ben Levy - Benny to his Ma and nearest and dearest - comes from a Jewish pop, Aaron Levy, now deceased after a tragic bakery fire and an Irish-Catholic mama, a mixed marriage. I'm more than a little familiar with such things having both Catholic and Jewish in my own family tree so trust me, it happened on occasion. And the custom of the time was that the children would be raised Catholic so Benny, despite his Jewish name, is a good Catholic boy, a former altar boy and all.

 

In fact, that's where he meets Bette Sullivan, small town first year school teacher, at church. She notices the nice looking guy with dark hair, a cute snub nose, beautiful gray eyes, and spectacles. So after Mass she throws her earring at his feet to get his attention and attraction sizzles between them.

 

Before the war, before the Army, Benny's a grease monkey, a mechanic and it turns out, the Army realized they could use his skills.

 

In The Shadow of War

 

Rebel Ink Press May 17 2012

 

$5.99

 

206 pages
ISBN # RIP0004104


 

 

 

Blurb:

 

Her great-granddaughter wants to know if Bette remembers World War II for a school project and her questions revive old memories….

Small town school teacher Bette Sullivan's life was interrupted when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941 but her world changed forever when she met Private Benny Levy, a soldier from the Flatbush neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York stationed at Camp Crowder, the local Army base.
 
Their attraction is immediate and mutual but as their relationship grows their love and lives are shadowed by World War II. As the future looms uncertain the couple comes together with almost desperate need and a powerful love they hope can weather anything, including the war.

 



 

Here's a little excerpt to give readers an idea of Benny:

 
In the last week of July, on a Monday, she finished Robinson Crusoe and decided she’d visit the library to check out another book. The weatherman predicted highs over a hundred degrees, but Bette walked slow and kept to the shade. Her thoughts headed out toward Crowder as she wondered what Benny might be doing and when he might call or get a pass.

Bette emerged from the library into the humid afternoon, Wuthering Heights in one hand, to find Benny standing on the sidewalk in front of an Army jeep parked askew. He wore dirty fatigues stained with oil and grease. Her heart danced with a wild joy, but faded as she realized something must be wrong. Before she could say anything, he rushed over and grasped her by the shoulders with grimy hands.

“Are you okay?” he demanded, voice hurried and almost hoarse.

“I’m fine, but you’re not,” Bette said. “What’s the matter, honey?”

Trouble shadowed his eyes and as he paused to light a Lucky, hands trembling.

“Something’s wrong,” he said in an awful tone. “I don’t know what but I got a feeling. Ma gets them like this, some Irish bullshit and I’ve got it a few times before. It always means someone I love…”

He cut off the word, dragged hard on the smoke then continued. “It means someone I care about’s in trouble and something terrible’s happening or will. I came to town to check on you ‘cause I got worried but you’re okay so it’s gotta be Ma or David. I don’t know what but I know it’s something bad.”

Alarm flared in Bette like a just struck match even as she caught his brief mention of love. He’d all but declared he loved her. But she couldn’t rejoice now. Benny’s obvious agitation scared her and she couldn’t help being concerned. She’d never seen him this way, emotional and upset, so nervous he smoked the Lucky in swift puffs. Whatever affected him must be powerful, she thought as she tried to offer comfort.

“Tell me how you feel,” she said. “I don’t understand.”

 In Bette’s quiet world no one but her late Granny Sullivan ever experienced premonitions or odd connections with loved ones. Granny called it fey and she’d predicted her own death days before in a matter of fact fashion. Bette never felt such strange stirrings, but she believed Benny even though it terrified her.

“My nerves are jangling,” he said.“I feel hot, then cold and shaky inside. Christ, it feels like the weight of the world is on my shoulders. Sweetheart, I’m glad it ain’t you and I don’t think its Ma. I’d call her up to be sure but if everything’s a-okay, I’d scare her to death and it’d cost a fortune. It’d take too long anyway. I figure its David.”

Benny lit a fresh smoke from the smoldering butt of the first. “The kid’s out there with his ass hung to the wind in New Guinea flying ancient A24’s. Half his letters are blacked out so I don’t know how bad it really is, but it sounds like they’re going against Jap Zeros all the time.”

Bette cupped her hand over his cheek.

 “You’re just tired,” she said.“You’ve been working hard and you don’t get enough sleep. Maybe you have indigestion or something. That’s all it is.”

She didn’t believe it even as she said it and Benny didn’t buy it either.

 “Naw,” he said. “I don’t feel good for sure but it ain’t any of those things.”

"Come up to the house for a while,”she said. “Get calmed down and have some iced tea or something.”

Benny shook his head. “I can’t, sweetheart. I shouldn’t even be here. I’m supposed to be in the motor pool right now tearing into the engine of a transport truck. I hauled ass to come check on you and if I don’t get back soon, they’ll list me AWOL and then I’ll be in some deep shit. I really gotta go.”

He cursed more than she’d ever heard him, but Bette didn’t care. She’d heard earthy words before. Her father and brothers used them often enough, but Benny’s words just demonstrated how upset he was.

 
“Can’t you stay just a few minutes?”Bette asked. “I’m worried about you, Benny.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “It’ll pass, it always does, but I’m going to be antsy waiting for the shoe to drop. I’ll see you in a couple of days, Friday for sure. Sarge promised me a pass. Give me a quick kiss, would you?”

“Sure,” she said, choking down tears balled tight in her throat.

 
Bette put her arms around his neck and kissed him, slow and tender. She held him close, uncaring his filthy fatigues might stain her dress and they remained locked together for a few sweet moments. Then he pulled away and brushed her hair out of her face.

 
“Bye, Bette.”

“Benny?”
 
He’d turned toward the jeep but he turned back. “Yeah?”

 
“Can you call me later so I know you’re all right?”

 
Benny hesitated for just a moment and nodded. “Sure, doll, I will. Don’t worry, really.”

 
Bette wanted to run after him, hold him in her arms again, but she didn’t because she couldn’t. Instead she swallowed down a sob and nodded, standing still on the sidewalk and watched as he drove away too fast in the jeep. When it disappeared over the hump of the hill, she let the tears slide down her face and tasted their salt in her mouth.
 
And how about one more little snippet including a kiss:

 
“It’s good enough,” Benny said. “I like the first part best. You could write me a letter, too, once in awhile. It’s nice to get mail. I get letters from Ma, a few from Aunt Nora and other family, some from David but that’s it. On the days I’m stuck on post, it’d be nice to hear from you.”

“Then I will,” Betty told him, moved he’d want her to and sad she hadn’t thought of it before. “You’d get mine quick.”

“I sure would.” Benny underlined her bottom lip with his thumb several times. “I’m awful sweet on you, Bette.”

She parted her lips to tell me how she felt, “Benny, I...”

“Shaddup,” he growled, low and soft, not fierce.

His mouth found hers and the moment their lips touched magic burst into being between them, tangible and alive. Enchantment quivered through her veins as his warm mouth tasting of coffee fired her with heat. He grasped her hard in one arm and his other hand grasped the back of her head to hold her still to kiss. Her lips responded, so full and greedy in answer to his mouth she could’ve savored sweet candy. Benny moved his lips to her throat and trailed them down with slow fire, teasing and tantalizing as wicked little chills of pleasure shivered through her. He lingered at the base of her throat, kissing the soft hollow there with light smooches. Betty arched against him, unable to keep the tiny sounds of delight she made from being audible. With more daring Benny slipped the neckline of her dress down lower until his lips touched the very tops of her breasts, his breath warm against the lace of her chemise. She liked his touch and her body responded with desire, a powerful potent need so strong she wasn’t sure she’d be able to say no if he continued. Bette forgot they sat on the steps of her aunt’s porch in view of a dozen neighbors. She knew nothing but the delicious sensation of his mouth against her skin and the silvery charm of the night.

Maybe they kissed for five minutes, maybe it lasted an hour. Time didn’t mean a thing as Bette took pleasure in the moment, but when Benny stopped, she ached for more. She stared into his eyes with a smile.

“If I don’t quit, I won’t,” he said with honesty.

“Don’t stop.” Her voice emerged as a soft breathe in the stillness of night.


Video here:

http://youtu.be/k8anriKBuTU

 

Purchase Links:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1110895080?ean=2940014427760

http://www.amazon.com/In-The-Shadow-War-ebook/dp/B0083V4RUW/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1337249940&sr=1-1

http://www.bookstrand.com/in-the-shadow-of-war

http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-intheshadowofwar-792577-148.html

Wednesday, June 05, 2013

A Tale of Two Houses: How History Helped Shape My Novel "In Love's Own Time"


Since the release In Love’s Own Time (Rebel Ink Press) last year, I’ve been telling people it’s a contemporary/historical/paranormal/time travel/fantasy story but I’m not sure if they believe me – until they read it.  In Love’s Own Time offers elements of all the sub-genres.  As far as inspiration goes, I’ve shared several other places the connection between a huge old Edwardian beauty in the small town where I live and my subdivision.  In short, my neighborhood was a flourishing fruit farm with apple and peach orchards, strawberry fields, and more in the early 1900’s.  Profits from the farm enabled the owner to build the house in 1904 but he died, unmarried and childless the next winter from pneumonia.  Although some of the inspiration comes from this, it’s also a tale of two houses….the house where I grew up in St. Joseph, MO and the house Howard Speakman, the real man, built.




            Howard’s house was built with strawberry season profits.  The home stands on almost a full block of land.  Back around 1900, it was the upscale neighborhood for the up and coming to build homes but today it’s just another vintage neighborhood.  This house acquired the name of “Twin Oaks” long after Howard Speakman built the place but I’ve admired it since moving to town.  I discovered it by accident, a wrong turn onto a side street just off the beaten path and wondered for years about the story behind it.  Because it reminded me of my own childhood home, I never forgot about it.  When I moved to my present home and researched the history of the land, it delighted me I had a small connection between my place and the old beautiful house.

            The second of two homes is the house where I spent my first and formative years in my hometown of St. Joseph, Missouri.  Also brick, my childhood home – which my cousin and I sometimes called ‘Tara’ like Scarlett O’Hara’s plantation – rambled three stories tall too but it was built in the early 1880’s so it’s Victorian rather than Edwardian.  The distinct differences might be visible only to a student of historical architecture or someone with a lot of diverse interests like me but they’re present.   Built by a family of medical doctors who practiced at the hospital just up around the corner on the next street, our home passed back and forth between two prominent physicians’ families thanks to some intermarrying of sons and daughters (or maybe it was daughters and sons).  When my parents bought it in the 1960’s, they were the first non-related folks to own the place.

            So I grew up in a similar sort of house, one considered by many to be haunted.  And the paranormal did seem like our normal there.  When you live with the odd little things everyday you don’t think of them as unusual until you live somewhere else where glitch odd moments don’t happen. 

            Between these two houses, the actual history, and the idea of a ghost in the house, I came up with the story for In Love’s Own Time.  Factor in my almost lifelong fascination with time travel, ghostly encounters, and love of history – you’ve got the elements for the story.  And maybe the fact I adored the old movie The Ghost and Mrs. Muir as a child and bought a DVD of it to share with my kids adds into the recipe too.  I always thought it unfair the sea captain and the widow couldn’t be together until her death, sweet as the end of the movie might be so I conjured up a way someone in love with a ghost could cross the veils to be together in the flesh.

            Here’s the blurb and an excerpt from In Love’s Own Time:


There may be no place like home and nothing like love…..when history teacher Lillian Dorsey inherits a three story Edwardian brick mansion from the grandfather who banished her pregnant mother decades before, it’s a no brainer.  She’ll visit the place, see it and sell it.  Instead Lillian’s captivated by the beautiful home and intrigued by the ghost of the original owner, Howard Speakman.  Soon she’s flirting with the charming, witty gentleman who’s been dead for more than a century and before long, they admit it’s a mutual attraction.  Still, when she’s alive and he’s dead, any shot at being together seems impossible.

But where there’s a will, there’s a way….one afternoon while pretending to visit the past the impossible becomes a brief reality.  If they visited 1904 before, Lillian knows they can do it again and if so, she can prevent Howard’s untimely death.  With a combination of love, powerful hope, and stubborn will, Lillian bends time to her will and returns to the summer of 1904.  But Howard’s death looms ahead and if she’s to find a happy ending, she must save him from his original death.

 

 


 

            “Lillian.” Howard sounded hoarse, his voice cracking with emotion although she wasn’t sure which one, fear, elation, or sorrow.  “This is 1904.”

            “How could it be?” Even as she protested, she knew it was true.  The old house was new.  The smell of fresh paint mingled with the Dutch cake aroma and as she’d noticed earlier, the book covers were bright.  Howard’s sheet music pages never yellowed but sparkled unblemished white.  It was true and if it was 1904, then Howard was alive.  He wasn’t a ghost.  

            Lillian reached for him, stretched out her hand to touch him, and closed her fingers over his arm.  Through the wool of his sleeve, his skin was warm, so alive, and tears formed in her eyes.  Her right hand stroked the curve of his cheek and she clasped his hand with the other.   He twined his fingers through hers, tight as if he might never let go, and pulled her right hand to his lips, brushing her skin with a faint, soft kiss.

            “Oh, Howard.”  Her voice broke.  “Howard, you’re real.”

            She could touch him now and she could smell him, a rich masculine aroma of soap and leather, and the outdoors.  Before, he’d been a ghost, not tangible, not touchable but for now, he was both and she reveled in him with every sense.  She touched his hair with trembling fingers and rubbed her cheek against his suit jacket.  When she lifted her face, his eyes blazed with emotion and she knew before he bent down they’d kiss.

            In her dream, the kiss’d been sweet but in reality, it was sweeter.  His lips heated hers, melted, and moved against her mouth until she couldn’t breathe.  She put her arms around his neck and he held her, one hand flat against her back.   Until now, he’d been unattainable, almost fantasy, but now he was a man, a man who held her in his arms, and she wanted him.  Desire burned like a wavering candle flame but without warning, Howard released her.

            “Lillian, I forgot myself.  You must forgive me.”

            Her lips, bruised from his mouth, stretched into a smile. “I’ll never forgive you if you don’t kiss me again, Howard.”

            “I shouldn’t.” His voice sounded muffled. “But I’ll, sweet Lillian, though I shouldn’t.  However, for the moment I’m alive. Carpe diem!”

 

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