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 COMEBACK OF CONN MACNEILL

MacNeill stayed out of her way. To reward him, she selected the two largest cinnamon buns and dropped them on a plate.

“Anything else?” She smiled at him.

Conn’s sexual response was instant and unwelcome. Holy saints. Val Cutler stood before him in jeans and a soiled cook’s apron, and he reacted as if she were naked. Above the line of the bib, he could make out the name of her restaurant, stenciled over her breast. She was flushed and messy, her braided hair springing loose around her face, a faint sheen of sweat above that full upper lip.

He wanted her mouth.

Dammit, the woman wasn’t even his type. He preferred them sleek and smooth and elegant. And right now, he’d prefer no distractions at all. He needed Edward Cutler’s recommendation more than he wanted his daughter.

“Something to drink?” he suggested levelly.

“Iced tea?”

His mother Bridget sometimes drank tea, Irish Breakfast steeped strong enough to stain the cup. The MacNeill men all drank coffee. The one time Conn had tried the Southern brew—at a rest stop outside Petersburg, where he’d been forced to pour more oil into his thirsty car—it had coated his teeth like flavored corn syrup.

“The sweet stuff?” he asked cautiously.

“No. I use a herbal blend. Raspberry, mostly.”

Worse and worse.

“Fine. I’ll give it a shot.”

She busied herself with a glass and ice. “Here you go. Thirty-five gallons brewed fresh every morning.”

He could see the marks of her warm fingers against the cold, cloudy glass. To test himself, to test her, he deliberately brushed her hand as he took it from her. Her fingers were slim and wet.

She gave him a freezing look. Conn grinned at his own conceit. Apparently his libido was safe with her, after all.

The Comeback of Conn MacNeill, available for Kindle and Nook!

Teaser Tuesday! Mad Dog and Annie

Snatching a couple of dirty glasses, she got busy, got moving, got her mind off Rob’s latest threats and Mitchell’s outgrown sneakers and the things she did and should have done with Maddox Palmer back in high school.

No regrets, she reminded herself. Figure out what has to be done now, and do it. After nine years of having the spunk and the tar whaled out of her, initiative still came hard. But she was learning, she thought with satisfaction. In the past year, she’d had to learn.

The cheery little bell over the door summoned her back to the hostess station. She grabbed a menu and a smile to welcome the new customer and then stopped dead and let both of them slide.

It was him. Maddox Palmer, in the flesh. In jeans, she corrected herself, and a tan T-shirt that almost matched the color of his skin. She squeezed the menu tighter. This time the Cutler grapevine was right. He was handsomer than ever.

He had to be over thirty now, big and broad and somehow harder. Solid. His face had a lot more lines. Well, he was three years older than her, though only two years ahead in school. He’d been kept back in first grade, she remembered, the year his mama died. He had thick brown hair that his new short cut couldn’t tame and hooded eyes that still saw right through her, and a juvenile-delinquent slouch that made him look tough and ready to react to whatever punch life threw at him. He dangled a cigarette between two fingers of his right hand, and he still had that not-a-dimple in his chin that tempted every good girl to press a finger to it.

Ann damned the way her heart speeded up just at the sight of him. She’d given up Big, Bad and Dangerous to Know almost a year ago.

He smiled crookedly. “Hey, Annie.”

Like they were just passing in the hall in high school. Like he’d never shared gum or secrets with her on the school bus or filched cookies from her mother’s kitchen or stood up for her on the playground.

Like he’d never grappled with her in the back seat of his father’s unmarked police car and then walked right past her locker the next day.

Well, he could take his “hey” and...and... Her racing brain stumbled. Nice Southern girls simply did not think that way. Take his hay and stack it, she amended silently.

Teaser Tuesday!

“What do you think you’re doing?” Allison hissed.

Matt glanced back down at her, his lids heavy. A corner of his mouth kicked up in a smile. “Kissing you. I’ve wanted to since you got here.”

Another dark thrill chased through her. “Your whole family is downstairs."

“Well, that’s why I waited,” Matt said reasonably.

She bit back a smile. “What will they think? Your mother. Josh.”

“My mother will think we’re involved. Which is why you came, remember? And Josh already knows.”

It was hard to remember anything with her blood still pumping, her head still spinning from his kiss. She pressed her lips together. She could still taste him on her mouth. “If you invited me to save my reputation, you’d better get downstairs.”

“I didn’t . . .” Matt stopped.

Her heart drummed in her chest. She held her breath in anticipation. “You didn’t . . . what?”

“Nothing.” He smiled again crookedly. He glanced down at his wet shirt front and then at the bed. “Need help changing?”

From CAROLINA HOME

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