Food is love. At Christmas, anyway.

Food is love.

Somewhere in all my books, the hero feeds the heroine. Maybe because I’m married to a man who can cook, I find something sexy and satisfying about a man providing for his mate. Or maybe food really does equal love...one way that we show love, anyway. Mothers baking cookies or cutting up meat for their children. Girlfriends consoling each other with wine and chocolate. Husbands and wives sharing bites and tastes in a restaurant.

Christmas is all about love. So it makes sense to me that it’s also all about food.

Come dish about your favorite holiday dishes for a chance to win a signed copy of Carolina Home!

Join me at herding cats and burning soup.

Freebie Friday!

In the Christmas spirit, it's Freebie Friday! Comment on my Facebook Author Page or join my mailing list to be entered to win my CAROLINA HOME and Sabrina Jeffries' TWAS THE NIGHT AFTER CHRISTMAS. Do both and double your chances. ;-) I'll be drawing names Sunday night and announcing a winner on Monday!

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.

Book Club Discussion Questions for Carolina Home

1. There are four point of view characters in CAROLINA HOME: Matt, Allison, matriarch Tess, and ten-year-old Taylor. How did the Tess and Taylor’s viewpoints impact the story? Which character did you feel most emotionally connected to and why?

2. When Allison apologizes for her parents’ behavior at dinner, Matt excuses them. “They were being parents...[they] Want what’s best for you. And they know I’m not it.” What are Allison’s parents’ hopes and expectations for their children? How are they the same or different from Tom and Tess’s hopes for Matt, Meg, and Luke or Matt’s hopes for Josh?

3. How realistic did you find the small town, island setting? How did it add to the story?

4. There’s an eleven-year age difference between Matt and Allison. Did it bother you? Why or why not?

5. How does Tom’s example as a father influence Matt and Luke?

6. Matt left college to raise Josh. Do you agree or disagree with his decision? What do you think of his statement: "I worked damn hard to get where I am. To get what I need. That's enough for me"?

7. How did Matt’s interactions with Taylor affect your view of his character? What about his relationship with Josh? How does the presence of children affect the story?

8. Matt is a serial dater. Allison thinks she’d “had sex with other guys for less reason and certainly with less attraction.” They go to bed with each other pretty quickly. When does their relationship change? What do they offer each other besides sex?

9. Allison’s eagerness to experience life led her to try many different things. Do you she will be happy on Dare Island? Why or why not?

10. Matt remembers “watching his parents get ready to leave for some function on the base, his dad, tall and formal in his dress blues, his mom, unfamiliar in a dress that glittered and clung. The look of pride on his father’s face, the secret shining in his mother’s eyes. The same look they wore now, as if they were the only two people in the room, in the world. Matt had felt, well, weird seeing them that way for the first time, two grown-ups, two strangers, two characters in a story, as if he and his sister and brother were only spectators, minor participants in their parents’ fairy tale.” Why do you think the author chose to focus some scenes on Tom and Tess’s relationship? Did it add or subtract from your interest and enjoyment of the primary romance?

Teaser Tuesday!

Meg stole a glance at Sam’s profile as they left the bobbing lights of the waterfront behind. He looked good in moonlight, strong cheekbones, straight nose, sculpted lips, chiseled chin. And then there were those not-quite- dimples, the promise of humor, the flashes of empathy. Any woman could be forgiven for losing her head a little over Sam.

It wasn’t just his good looks and his money and his charm. Okay, those things didn’t hurt. But the real appeal was his willingness to put himself out, the way he’d driven to the airport to pick her up or built that ramp for her mother, without looking for payback, without figuring the angles or calculating the cost. She liked that about him. She liked him a lot.

He had always been a friend of Matt’s, a friend of the family. There was no reason after all these years that Meg couldn’t count him as her friend, too. Her good, close friend.

But nothing more.

The clouds against the blue velvet sky were the colors of an oyster shell, purple, gray, and milky white. The last time she had been alone in the dark with Sam, he’d kissed her senseless. If he tried anything this time, she was ready. She would just say no.

But despite his words in the restaurant, he was being a perfect gentleman.

She shivered a little from the breeze and disappointment.

He slanted a look at her. “Cold?”

She wasn’t stupid. She recognized a line when she heard one. “Is this where you offer to put your arm around me to keep me warm?”

“No.” He slid out of his jacket. “This is where I give you my jacket to keep you warm.” He put it around her shoulders, smiling down at her, making her feel safe and warm and cared for. His jacket smelled like him, masculine with a hint of expensive soap. “Then I put my arm around you,” he said, suiting the action to the words.

Meg smothered a laugh. “Where did you learn this move, high school?”

He grinned back, not smug, just...Sam. “Why not stick with what works?”

from Carolina Girl, coming June 2013

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

Now available on Kindle

and Nook

Teaser Tuesday! The Temptation of Sean MacNeill

Now available on Nook!

There was a strange man in Rachel’s bedroom, in Rachel’s bed. A naked man, she guessed, by the hard curve of shoulder that showed in the light from the hall. A strange, naked man.

Her mother must be thrilled.

Rachel wasn’t. Not at 2:00 a.m. Not after driving half the night with her two children sleeping in the back seat of a rental truck. Desperation and caffeine were the only things keeping her going. At this moment a naked Brad Pitt couldn’t have thrilled her.

Heart sinking, she regarded the long, well-muscled body tenting the flowered sheets. What on earth was she supposed to do now? She couldn’t put her kids to bed in that firetrap of a spare bedroom. She couldn’t even see the room’s twin beds beneath the piled cartons. A hotel room—even if she were willing to drag the children another half hour down the road, which she was not—was beyond her means. And waking her mother... No, she couldn’t cope with her mother right now.

Bad enough that the break-in had forced her home. She certainly wasn’t explaining it to her mother in the middle of the night, as if she were some teenager caught sneaking in after curfew.

The only solution, the only practical, adult solution, was to rouse this naked stranger and oust him from the only available bed. Any minute now an accusing Lindsey and a sleepy-eyed Chris would come stumbling up the stairs, and she needed a place to put them.

She cleared her throat. “Excuse me?”

He didn’t stir.

She took a cautious step forward. “Hello?”

The stranger shifted onto his back, revealing a threequarter profile that could have made Penelope abandon her weaving or Juliet forget poor Romeo. A muscled chest, its nudity emphasized by a perfect pattern of dark hair, stretched above the sheet. A small gold hoop like a pirate’s winked from his exposed earlobe.

He was young, she noted. Her stomach sank to join her heart in her neatly tied running shoes. Young, unshaven and outrageously good-looking. Oh, help. What was her mother thinking?

She pressed her lips together, light-headed from hunger and trembling with fatigue. After Carmine Bilotti’s threats, she should be able to take one half naked stranger in stride.

She opened the door wider, hoping the light from the hall might wake him. It sliced through the room and fell across the pillow.

The man in her bed opened his eyes. His dark gaze jolted her heartbeat. And then a slow smile curved his wide mouth and he dropped his head back onto the pillow. “Sweet Mother in Heaven, please don’t let me be dreaming.” He raised his hand, stopping Rachel’s interruption before she could get properly started. “Or if this is a dream,” he continued, “then don’t let me wake up. Amen.”