This week's sample complete with that snog (kiss) are from my just released Time Travel Romance, "A Time To Love" (Champagne Books)
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A Time To Love
October 2011
ISBN # 9781926996561
Champagne Books
Time Travel romance
180 pages
73,500 words
$5.99 eBook format
Blurb:
Reclusive songwriter Samuel Baird lives on a remote Arkansas mountain in the Ouachita forest where he’s drinking his life away. The last thing he wants is a woman to complicate things but during a spectacular thunderstorm a woman arrives just in time to save his life. Annie says she’s from the late 1800’s and Samuel thinks she’s crazy. Even so, Annie manages to gain his attention and affection. In time she convinces him she did travel through time. To reach a happily ever after, Samuel and Annie must overcome several obstacles both past and present. Annie must reveal the secret she’s keeping and it’ll take a trip home to meet his family in Nashville to work out all the issues. The couple shares joy, tragedy, and family ties along the way.
Excerpt:
Still as a statue, Annie stood with unbound hair, her dress vivid against the green shades of the forest. With a bouquet of brown-eyed susans, purple coneflowers, and wild daisies in one hand, she reminded him of an Impressionist painting. Although the wind ruffled her long locks, she remained in place but he thought she was aware of his presence.
“What in the world are you doin’?” He ambled over and fired the question in a tone more curious than unkind. He halted when he heard the buzz of an agitated rattlesnake. Slow dread inched from his brain to clutch his heart. Despite the many serpents he had killed in his Eden, he feared the unseen ones the most. Those could strike without warning and find their mark before he could locate their position.
By the sound, so like maracas, the hidden reptile was near Annie. She stood motionless but her eyes cut to her feet and his hand contracted. His grip cracked the glass before it fell to shatter on the porch floor.
“Jesus God.” His whisper was a dry sound inaudible above the wind as he realized the serpent lay in front of her. A frenzied notion to grab the cotton hoe and attack warred with a desire to fetch the shotgun. He did neither because even a small motion might trigger a defensive reflex from the creature.
Time ceased and his senses heightened, sharpened with dreadful anticipation. He felt his nostrils flare with frustration because the situation was beyond his control. Chance would furnish the outcome. His breath ceased when Annie stirred, tossing her hair off her shoulders and turned in a graceful motion.
“God, Annie, don’t move.” He forced the words out with effort.
“He’s gone away.” The straight line of her lips formed an inverted arch as she smiled and made her way through the dense undergrowth.
“God damn it, Annie!” Discharged anxiety converted his worry into anger. “You almost got snake bit. What in hell’s name are you doin’ in the weeds anyway? I warned you about the rattlers.”
Her lips flattened as the smile disappeared.
“I reckon I know more than you do about the snakes! I was raised on this mountain! My brother Daniel got a snakebite five years ago and near died. I brought him through and he lived.”
Her proper diction and language yielded to simpler speech for the first time since her arrival, something he marked with fascination despite his turbulent emotions. If she could revert to her raising so could he.
“I was scared.” He spoke the unadorned truth like a challenge and faced her, so close that he could see the pulse beat in her temple.
One finger reached out and moved down the center of his forehead with gentleness.
“You’ve a worry line. You mustn’t fret so, Samuel.”
Heat from her finger sparked a fire that raced through his blood. Awareness of her sex heightened the sensitivity of his skin, which prickled. He shivered as if from fever and saw her eyes darken with the same force. Raw cognizance of their gender filled the moment and stretched between them, pregnant with potential. The old power locked them in place until a blue jay squawked from the top of a nearby pine and broke the spell.
“I brought you something from town,” Samuel said, his voice thick in his mouth like a stranger’s. He felt heat from the blush that brought color to his face as he led her to the cabin with the awkward gait of an unbroken colt.
Unexpected shyness closed his throat when he handed her his purchases. Too late, he discerned that she might read something more than he intended in his gesture but he could not take away the clothing. The way her long fingers touched the soft fabrics fueled the fire within and he poured a drink into a plastic tumbler.
“You’re most kind.” The inflections of a Victorian lady or the echoes of a romance novel returned to her voice. She must really believe she lived in the 1890s. Both his benevolence and confidence had been restored by the liquor.
He laughed and before he could answer, she bent and kissed him, her lips light and teasing on his mouth. The innocent caress flared the flickering flame into a blaze. He jerked backward, away from temptation.
“Annie, you shouldn’t do that.”
Her laughter oozed into his ears like warm honey over biscuits.
“Why not?”
“Most guys might get the wrong idea about you.” His tongue wet his lips as he spoke in an effort to banish the images that overflowed his mind and weakened his flesh.
“Did you?”
“No, I didn’t.” The words tumbled out, too fast, making them more confession than denial.
He clenched his teeth with a frenzied effort to avoid ripping the dress from her body and unleashing his lust. His suspicion that Annie understood very well his response to her flirtatious manner was confirmed when she laughed again, giggling with sweet, rich, appeal.
“I’ve no one else to kiss.”
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