TEASER TUESDAY! Patrick MacNeill

At one-twelve in the morning, Kate emerged from her dinky office clutching her fifth cup of coffee and an armload of charts. The unit was never totally dark or entirely silent. The halls vibrated with a fluorescent hum and the blips and beeps of monitors. From behind closed doors, she heard a cough, a moan, a muted television. Laughter and chatter drifted from the nurses’ station as they celebrated somebody’s birthday.

Solitary Kate hadn’t been invited, though she knew that if she stopped by the charge nurse would offer her a piece of cake. She turned the other way, down the hall, toward the patient rooms. The kernel of doubt hadn’t gone away. It swelled under her breastbone, a small, indigestible lump, a tiny hot spot that upset her stomach and her concentration.

She wasn’t on call tonight. Roberts, the attending, had taken the four o’clock rounds. She had no real reason to drop her sliding stack of paperwork and squeak down the brightly painted, dimly lit floor like a ghost in orthopedic shoes. No reason. Only a burning in her gut. Quietly, she depressed the handle to Jack MacNeill’s room and opened the door.

A pale rectangle of light spilled across the bed to the raised footrest of the recliner on the other side. Between the tall metal guardrails, Jack sprawled with little-boy abandon, covers pushed down and arms and legs every which way. A teddy bear with a limp bow and well-loved plush supported his bandaged hand. In the chair, facing his child, slept Patrick MacNeill.

Even relaxed in sleep, he looked hard and male and faintly dangerous. His wide shoulders crowded the oversize recliner to its limit. Ignoring her reaction to that long, well-muscled body, Kate slipped to the foot of the bed to check Jack’s chart. But she couldn’t dismiss the queer twist of her heart at the sight of Jack’s face turned confidingly to his father, or the way Patrick’s large hand protectively spanned his son’s knee as they slept.

Don t let it get to you, Katie Sue.

She forced her attention back to the patient chart, angling it to catch the light from the door. Blood pressure, temp, intake and output all looked normal. Good. Stepping to the side of the bed, she reached for Jack’s swaddled hand.

And then something made her look up, across his out-flung legs, into the deep-set, dark blue eyes of Patrick MacNeill.

From THE PASSION OF PATRICK MACNEILL Kindle - Nook - Apple - Kobo

Teaser Tuesday! The Passion of Patrick MacNeill

“Kate.”

Her hands stilled on the shoulder strap. She looked out at the moon- and fluorescent-washed parking lot. “What? “

He shifted on the seat beside her, checking to see if Jack still slept, and his knee brushed her thigh. With the engine shut off, the car’s interior was warm and close and very silent.

“I respect that you don’t have room for a grand passion in your life. Neither do I. Thing is,” he continued slowly, “I’m already spending too much time thinking about you. Wanting you. Imagining how it could be between us. Maybe it would be less...distracting for us both if we found out.”

She turned to face him, choosing indignation over the quaking in her stomach. “Are you suggesting we sleep together to get it out of our systems?”

“That’s one way to put it. Neither one of us wants a complicated relationship in our lives.”

With an effort, she kept her voice low, to avoid waking the child in the back. “And am I supposed to be flattered by this limited offer?”

He shook his head, his smile gleaming in the darkness. “Not flattered. Interested, maybe.” She was interested, all right. More tempted and more scared than she’d ever been in her life. She folded her hands tightly together in her lap to disguise their shaking. “I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.”

“Kate.” His deep voice was gentle. “I don’t want to hurt you. I like you. But you need to know up front how things are with me. I may want you until my teeth ache with it, but Jack is the center of my life right now. If that’s not enough for you, if I misunderstood you, just tell me no.”

Her nails dug into the backs of her hands. Kate had long ago accepted that she wasn’t the kind of woman men wanted to marry. Wade, brutally breaking their understanding, had gone so far as to suggest she wasn’t the kind of woman men wanted, period. But Patrick wanted her. And maybe she owed it to herself, just once, to experience a man like Patrick MacNeill.

From THE PASSION OF PATRICK MACNEILL, now on Kindle and Nook

Teaser Tuesday! The Temptation of Sean MacNeill

Rachel pushed open the screen door, blinking against the flood of sunshine that slanted under the eaves of the porch and poured over the driveway. A dark blot formed in the center of the brightness, taking on shape and substance and power. A man’s shape, she identified a moment later, lifting something—a box—from the back of a truck. Sean MacNeill, in a T-shirt with the arms ripped out and a faded baseball cap, moving like Apollo in the heart of fire.

Her knees, her spine and her jaw all sagged. She caught herself reacting to him for a moment purely as woman to man, warmed by the glow of his tall, dark and blatantly sexy good looks. It was totally involuntary. It was... stupid, she reminded herself.

Doug’s death had trapped her in a high-stakes game with uncertain rules and her children’s future on the table. A joker like Sean MacNeill wouldn’t help her odds at all. But, goodness, he was gorgeous to watch.

He saw her. Setting down the box, he straightened, pushing back the brim of his cap with his forearm. His slow smile thumped into her midsection and quivered like an arrow. “Hey, beautiful.”

“Oh, please.” She flapped her hand. “You can call me Rachel.”

“Rachel.” He lingered wickedly over the name, rolling it in his mouth like something delicious. “Well, it suits you. But then, so does ‘beautiful.’”

She was amused. “Me, and everyone else you know?”

He came up to the porch, all long bones and male muscle, and tipped back his head to look at her. Her heart actually fluttered. “How do you figure that?” he asked.

“Well, for a man who must spend his time in the company of a lot of women, ‘beautiful’ is convenient. I mean, it saves you the trouble of remembering who you’re...” Rolling off of, she thought. “With,” she finished.

From The Temptation of Sean MacNeill Available for Nook and Kindle.

Teaser Tuesday! from MAD DOG AND ANNIE

Maddox watched Ann walk away from him—Annie, with her grave, sweet eyes and her small, serious smile and her skin so fine a look could bruise it—feeling like he’d just been socked in the chest. Enjoy his meal? He’d be lucky if he could even taste it.

Hell. He’d stayed away for twelve lousy years, and she was separated.

He slid out from behind the table, overtaking her before she reached the hostess station.

“How long?” he demanded.

She slapped a receipt on the spindle by the cash register, her movements quick and agitated. “What are you talking about?”

He caught her elbow. “How long since you and Rob broke up?”

Broke up. Shit. Now he even sounded like some high school moron.

She turned, her face white. “Let go of my arm.”

He loosened his grip. “Just tell me how long.”

“A year. Let go of me.”

Her eyes were dark and enormous, the pupils nearly swallowing the green. Damn. He was thirty-one years old, a veteran cop, a sergeant, and the sight of the woman could still reduce him to a raging lump of testosterone. He released her abruptly.

Beneath her neat white blouse, her breasts rose and fell with her breath. “I have work to do,” she said clearly. “Customers. Would you please leave me alone?”

Customers. Right. He glanced around the dining room. People were staring. Bag lady Baggett had practically fallen into her plate in her eagerness to eavesdrop. And over by the kitchen door, the Misses Minniton were glaring at him as if he’d firebombed their garage sixteen years ago instead of merely throwing up into their rosebushes after drinking too much beer one hot August night.

“Sure thing, darlin’. You don’t have to ask me twice.”

Oh, now, that was cool. He sauntered back to his table, feeling like an idiot, and sat with his back to the wall so he could keep an eye on the room and on Annie. Gladys Baggett met his gaze and smiled, very tentatively. He stared back until she reddened beneath her makeup and looked away.

“Catfish sandwich,” the waitress said, sliding it expertly in front of him. “Will there be anything else?”

Her smile, wide and white against her honey-gold skin, suggested there could be. Not everybody in Cutler remembered him as the town screw-up. Of course, the waitress probably didn’t remember him at all. She must have been skipping rope on the playground when he’d left home.

“No. Thanks.”

He picked up the sandwich, looking over the thick sliced bread at Annie seating guests on the other side of the room. From a distance, she looked sixteen again, too skinny and so pretty with her quick, neat movements and shy smile. Her smooth light brown hair still brushed her shoulders when she walked, and she still had the nervous habit of tucking it behind one ear. From a distance, he couldn’t see the faint lines bracketing her mouth or the wariness in her eyes.

She didn’t come near his table again. Well, she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t want anything to do with him, any more than she had in high school. His fault, he acknowledged, coming on to her like a gorilla on Viagra. Again.

The catfish tasted like paste in his mouth. He needed a cigarette. Dropping a couple bills on the table, he made his way to the cash register, choosing a moment when Ann was ringing up another customer and couldn’t avoid him.

“Annie.”

She took his receipt and busily punched some buttons on the register. “How was your lunch?”

“Fine. Look, I—”

“I’ll tell Val. She’ll be glad you enjoyed it.” She handed him his change, not quite meeting his gaze.

He was suddenly, unreasonably ticked off. Maybe once upon a time, in a dumb effort to win his father’s notice, he had run wild. But he’d never done anything to make Ann afraid of him. Only that one October night... And he’d stayed away from her after that, hadn’t he?

“Maybe I’ll be back for dinner,” he said.

She looked at him directly then, and her eyes that he remembered as the color of spring grass were cool and sharp as a broken beer bottle. There was a bump in the bridge of her nose he didn’t remember at all.

“We’re closed for dinner Monday through Thursday,” she said. “But I can make a reservation for the weekend if you like.”

“Never mind. I might not be around then.”

Just for a second, her pretty lips parted, and his heart revved in his chest like a dirt-track race car. And then she hit him with her fake, hostessy smile, and he knew he’d been imagining that brief moment of regret.

“That’s too bad,” she said.

“I’ll get over it,” he drawled. So, they both were lying. He wasn’t about to admit his breath still backed up in his lungs every time he looked at her. “Goodbye, Maddox.”

She didn’t have to tell him twice.

* * *

Now available for Nook and Kindle

Teaser Tuesday!

Wow, the Labor Day weekend went fast!

Here's a little something to sweeten the start of the work week.

* * *

"How long have you been renting from my mother?” Rachel asked as soon as they were out of earshot of the kitchen.

“Not long,” Sean said easily.

She jingled her keys, hurrying to keep pace with his long stride. “I t’s going to be awkward, negotiating two cars in the driveway.”

“I can live with it.”

“And there’s the problem of space. Bedrooms...”

“Hey, I’m willing to share.”

She dipped her head, letting her hair swing forward to hide her smile. “Very generous of you,” she said dryly. “But it may be...” She swallowed. Go on. Say it. “Maybe now that we’re here, it just won’t work out.”

He stopped, giving her a long, slow once-over from surprisingly shrewd brown eyes. “Maybe. You might want to take that up with your mom. She doesn’t like living alone.”

“She won’t be alone. She has her grandchildren now. She has me.”

“Like I said, you should take that up with her.” Plucking the keys from her hand, he opened the rental truck’s door. His gentlemanly gesture confused her. Put her at a disadvantage. But short of wrestling for the keys, there was nothing she could do.

He handed them back. “Look, I’m not getting in the middle of some family thing. I’ve got family enough of my own. As far as I’m concerned, your mom is just a nice lady with an empty garage.”

“And a cozy house.”

That long-boned, laid-back body tensed. “The garage isn’t livable yet. I only agreed to stay in the house because your mother said it made her feel safe. But I’m not dogging for anybody to feed me or mother me or keep track of my comings and goings, and I’m sure not looking for hassles.” He took a quick, annoyed breath. “Clear?”

“Yes,” said Rachel, a bit breathless herself at his unexpected vehemence. Could she believe him? “Thank you, that’s very clear.”

“Good.” He waited until she climbed up into the cab and then closed the driver’s side door. “You two talk it over. I’m taking delivery on a new table saw, and I’d kind of like to know where to put it.” His wicked grin glimmered. “Don’t go jumping in with suggestions, now, beautiful.”

Her laugh sputtered, surprising them both. His smile broadened. Softened. Got personal.

“That’s right,” he said, though what he was agreeing to or approving of Rachel couldn’t have said.

Ambling forward a few steps, he stooped to grasp the steel T-handle of the garage door. Rachel watched the muscles flex beneath his shirt, and then the old door screeched and lifted, revealing his truck. His bright, new, shiny truck. Red, with Massachusetts plates and a bumper sticker that read, Women Love Me, Fish Fear Me.

She shot him a look, trying not to smile.

He grinned. “A present from my sister-in-law. She has a weird sense of humor.”

The words popped out before she could censor them. “She must, if your brother’s anything like you.”

He laughed. “Nah. My brothers are both respectable now.”

He climbed into his candy-apple-red truck. Rachel concentrated on negotiating her rental vehicle backward along the gravel, as cautious and awkward as a pregnant woman on roller skates. She felt the soft bump as her rear tire ran on grass and then the firm, flat road.

Sean MacNeill gunned his motor. His galvanized, oversize toolbox gleamed as he reversed toward her at twice her speed and cut smoothly onto the road.

Rachel sighed. She had too much at stake here to risk an attraction to some twenty-something carpenter in tight jeans and a kick-ass truck.

Whatever his motives, Sean MacNeill was a complication she didn’t need and a distraction she couldn’t afford.

Whatever her mother said, he would have to go.

From THE TEMPTATION OF SEAN MACNEILL

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Teaser Tuesday!

Con MacNeill rubbed sweat from his chest. This Carolina town was too damn hot for a Boston boy.

He leaned against the wall of the First Baptist Church, seeking shade and the cool prickle of brick against his back. Main Street, North Carolina, was not his scene at all. But with Lynn’s wedding scheduled for three weeks from today, even Boston had begun to feel uncomfortably warm. Too many parties. Too many phone calls from mock or mutual friends eager to pry or express sympathy. He was better out of it. All of it. The offer from Edward Cutler couldn’t have come at a better time.

Nothing like a new challenge to get a man over being fired.

Con crossed his arms against his chest, shutting down the flare of frustration. Define the problem, he reminded himself. That was the way he operated. Solve the problem.

He surveyed the street, spanned by a banner that proclaimed the town of Cutler’s Seventh Annual Super Summer Sidewalk Sale. From the church parking lot to the county courthouse steps, racks of out-of-season clothes competed with bins of plastic trinkets. Halfway down the block, Arlene’s Country Cafe supplied coffee and doughnuts to passing patrons, while the rival establishment on the opposite corner handed out clear plastic cups of...Lord knew what.

Con narrowed his eyes at the freshly painted green-and-white sign over the door: Wild Thymes. Cute. Very cute. As he watched, a vendor leaned forward from beneath the cool canvas awning to offer an elderly customer a plastic fork and a smile.

Sunlight dropped across her face. Her tawny hair blazed, stirred by a hot breeze. For that one moment, sun and wind combined to create a vision of light and movement that burned like summer sparkling on lake waters. For that one moment, the woman leaning across the plank counter was Woman, divine and incarnate. Wild yearning uncurled in Con’s Celtic heart. Awe breathed through his Catholic soul. She was Eve before the Fall. She was Niamh of the Golden Hair, legendary love of Oisin. She was the Lady on the White Horse in his mother’s stories.

Desire hit him, hard and low. And striking harder, unrecognized and unwelcome, possibility assailed him like the sea.

Then the breeze dropped. The woman turned her head to talk to someone over her shoulder. Green shade drabbed the golden hair and dimmed the radiant face, leaving only a waitress, chatting up a customer.

Teaser Tuesay!

Kate pressed her legs together on the edge of the mattress, hoping to make her thighs look thinner. Downstairs she could hear Patrick moving around, talking to the dog. Nerves jitterbugged in her stomach.

She was cold. The skin of her arms and legs bumped like uncooked chicken. But her cheeks were hot. She could feel the blood heating there, and beating in her throat and in her chest, and pooling warm and liquid in her lower body.

Look before you leap. Think before you speak. Analyze before you act.

She would not be foolish like her mother or trusting like her sister, both of them mothers and alone before their thirties But how could she examine her options when all she could see was Patrick’s intent face? How could she hear herself think over the drumbeat of her blood?

He was the worst man in the world for her. A patient’s father, a grieving husband. A man too used to getting his own way and too aware of his effect on women.

But he had granted her rights, given her welcome, shared his house and his son and a piece of his soul with her. She admired him, perhaps more than any man she’d ever met. His utter reliability, the way he supported his mother and loved his son and was simply there for every member of his family in a way that no one had ever been there for her...Oh, she liked that a lot. It made her want him. It made her want to be there for him.

Kate might have held out against her own desire. She could not resist Patrick’s need.

She shivered, thinking of Wade Preston, the blond Apollo of Jefferson University Medical School. He’d told her he needed her. He’d even claimed to love her. But his need hadn’t outlasted their shared residency, and his love hadn’t survived the discovery of her background, so unsuitable for a doctor’s wife in Baltimore.

This is different, she thought, rubbing her hands nervously on the goose-bumped flesh of her thighs. Wade, pledging his future, had been miserly with praise and stingy in bed. Patrick promised her nothing. But she suspected, with a newfound feminine instinct, that he would be generous with his passion. At the very least, he seemed really to want her. And she wanted him.

The door opened, and he was there.

The Passion of Patrick MacNeill

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The MacNeills are coming!

I'm having so much fun revising my backlist for release in ebook format. But - gulp - I actually found my hero using a pay phone at one point. Lots of technology tweaks to do! The emotions, though...The emotions still feel fresh and true.

***

He rested one hand on the wall above her, close enough for her to feel the warmth emanating from his body, close enough for his breath to touch her face. She saw his eyes, with their thick, short lashes, his pupils nearly swallowing the blazing blue. Her stomach squeezed into her chest, crowding her lungs. She couldn’t breathe. She felt the warmth of his arm, close by her head. She heard her blood thundering in her ears, and the rasp of his quickly indrawn breath.

He kissed her.

It was over before she could say if she liked it, before she had time to react. He lifted his head, and she felt the absence of his mouth more keenly than she had felt its pressure a moment before.

“Well?”

She lifted her chin. She had to, to meet his gaze. “Well, what?”

His firm, well-shaped lips curved at the corners. “Are you going to object?”

She dug deep for a cool response, her hands pressed flat to the wall behind her. He was probably the most vital, potent man she’d ever met, and she was merely unattractive Katie Sue Sinclair, too smart for her own good and stupid with men. She couldn’t let him see how he got to her, how she was affected by his nearness. He would eat her alive.

Maybe she wanted him to.

--from THE PASSION OF PATRICK MACNEILL