Whether you're having fun or not. Haha!
It's been a wild, upsetting week here, and the next month or two look like more of the same, so I'm just trying to remember to breathe so I can get things done anyway.
The good news is I have plenty of things to read to make me feel better, when time allows. Better news is in less than two weeks, we have the annual Love Is In the Air booksiging coming up, and an afternoon in a greenhouse full of lovely plants and romance readers is bound to put an end to any winter blues we might be feeling. I will have a complete list of authors when we get just a little closer, but I have started a chat on my Facebook page for the event. I'd love to hear if you are thinking about joining us this year.
Because this week has been so insane, I have to admit I haven't gotten much writing done (at my monthly writing group night, I left with less words than I started the night with), plus I'm still waiting for my reader friends to get back to me with their thoughts on the books they're reading for me, so I haven't been able to pin down a release date yet for the final book in the Medusa's Daughters Trilogy. I spent a few minutes yesterday staring at its cover to make me feel a little better--I've shared pics of the model on the cover who represents the hero, but not the cover itself yet; as soon as I can share a release date, I will be plastering that cover everywhere! In the next few days, though, I need to work out my February writing goals, and, knowing what I do about the day-job for the next six weeks, I'm going to have to adjust my first quarter goals overall, which doesn't make me super happy, but there isn't anything I can do about it, except adjust the first quarter and the rest of the year as well, so I will.
Before I get back to the weekend to-do list, I have a quick snippet for you from Freeing Medusa.
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Hunter had to do more digging to find Katharine than he’d guessed would be necessary. It took him several hours and finally a phone call to a friend at the DOT to get her mailing and street addresses. By then it was too late to show up at her door unannounced, or even to call. So in the morning, he checked in at the office to see what Mary Ann had on tap for him. Luckily, he had a couple hours free before he had to meet with a new client. Time to see Katharine.
He debated getting a gift certificate for a lingerie store to take along, to replace the underwear he’d destroyed, then decided that might be a little much, considering he was still virtually a stranger.
Instead, he picked up a fistful of daisies aa nearby florist and drove across town to the address his buddy had given him last night. A neat little one story white house with an attached garage. Two narrow flowerbeds flanked the two steps to the front door.
And a tall guy in black shoved open a window at the side of the house as Hunter eased his car along the street.
Heart pounding faster, he didn’t stop in front of her house, but parked down the street several houses–and the way the homes were spaced on her street, it was far enough the guy wouldn’t hear him and automatically assume he was coming to Katharine’s. He left the daisies on the seat and sprinted back to her house, through her neighbors’ yards. He peered around the corner of her house. The side window was open, and there was no sign of the man. He was inside.
Hunter’s pulse quickened. No time to call the cops. He stepped up to the front door, noting the alarm company sticker in the front window. He didn’t want to do damage to her door, though, or alert the intruder to his entry, so he pulled a set of picks from his pocket, jiggling one carefully in the lock until the latch gave. Then he stepped inside, holding his breath while hoping the alarm would take a few seconds before it went off.
There was silence through the little house. Maybe she hadn’t set the alarm. He shut the door noiselessly, then heard a low voice.
Good thing he hadn’t given up carrying. He whipped his gun out as he crept through the living room, past the empty kitchen and an office. He stopped when he got to the open door of the bedroom and leveled his gun on the dark man standing beside her bed with a wicked, slightly curved blade in his hand. In the open collar of his shirt, a gold pendant gleamed, something too small for Hunter to identify. A few feet from there, the curtain fluttered in the breeze coming through the open window.
“Drop it,” he said evenly, hoping Katharine stayed right where she was, lumped beneath her blankets.
The guy jumped, startled, clearly so absorbed in his own plans that he hadn’t paid any attention to the rest of the house. Good thing for Hunter, and for Katharine. Bad for the intruder.
From the corner of his eyes, Hunter saw movement on the pillow, but he couldn’t take his attention from the intruder. He just hoped she stayed in her spot on the opposite side of the bed long enough for him to deal with this asshole.
“Do you truly want to stop me?” the other man said in heavily accented English. “From killing this monster?”
“No monsters here, buddy. Drop the knife. Now.” He jerked his gun toward the rocking chair in front of the closet where the weapon wouldn’t be easily reachable again. More movement on the pillow. In his peripheral vision, it looked like a couple of snakes. That couldn’t be. He kept his gaze on the other man. “Do it.”
The man’s dark eyes narrowed, mouth tightening, his expression furious. “It is my duty to kill the Medusa.”
Hunter thumbed off the safety on his gun. “If you don’t drop your weapon now, I’m going to put a very large hole in you. One you will not recover from.”
The dark guy muttered something Hunter couldn’t understand, something foreign, and, after a few more seconds, tossed the blade away, but not where Hunter had indicated. Instead, he threw it over the bed so it stuck in the plaster wall beside the mirror attached to her dresser. When Hunter glanced away from him to be certain the dagger hadn’t done any damage to Katharine, the intruder lunged out the open window.
“Fuck.” He strode to the window in time to see the back of the other guy vanishing around the neighbor’s porch a few dozen yards away. He pulled his head back inside and froze.
Those were snakes on the pillow, several of them.
“Katharine,” he said quietly.
“You should go, Hunter.” Her voice was choked, hushed.
His gaze stuck on the snakes. They were in her hair. “Honey, there are snakes–”
“I know. You should go.” She sucked in a harsh breath, and the lump of her under the blankets contracted.
His frown deepened. That could not be. The snakes were not just in her hair, they were her hair. His eyes widened, and his jaw dropped. “Honey, I think you’d better tell me.” His racing mind called up the other man’s words–“the Medusa.”
But those old myths weren’t real.
One of the dark snakes lifted its head from the pillow in his direction and hissed at him.
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Now I have some paper shredding to do, and a quick newsletter to send (are you signed up yet? The link is below!) Besides the rest of the to-do list, I am taking a break this afternoon to go with a friend to the movies, to see something we've seen before but know will make us feel better. What do you do when you need a pick-me-up? Grab a much-loved book for a re-read? Watch a movie you've seen a hundred times? Meet a friend for coffee? Something else? I'd love to hear about it!