Happy Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is one of those days that many dread, many love, and many ignore. Me? I’ve been married so long that we try to celebrate each other throughout the year, which is very important, so we don’t generally make a large fuss on Valentine’s Day. But I do love the red, and the hearts and flowers and chocolate! And any excuse for wine and/or champagne!

What I love most is the fact Burn on the Western Slope has a Valentine’s Day scene. It was such a fun scene to write, and is still a fun scene for me to read again and again.

Even better, Burn on the Western Slope is available in a 3 book set for 99 cents! Whether you prefer Kindle, Nook, Kobo, or many others, you can find this set on just about any platform. If you prefer print, Burn on the Western Slope is available (not as a set) in print.

Buy links on my page here.

And now for an excerpt! In this scene, we see our hero, Garret, up on stage singing karaoke, and our heroine, Rayma, thinking of … well, you’ll see. We also meet Chayton, the bartender and Garret’s brother, and Naomi, Reagan’s cousin. Those two end up together in the next novel, Fatal Snag.

Side note: I absolutely LOVED writing Reagan and Naomi! Some of my favorite characters, if a writer could choose.

Enough babbling! Here’s the excerpt:

After downing the Valentine drink, she asked for another, urging the dizziness to hit. The more the merrier tonight. She yearned to get wild with this guy like she’d never been wild before. To hell with the damn consequences. She was tired of worrying about consequences and right now, didn’t see why two bright, responsible people should cause many. Who cared if he was a neighbor? Who cared if she might accidentally run into him after they had sex?

Who cared if he professed only to be friends? Friends slept together all the time.

“How is it?” Chayton asked.

Warm and ready. She stifled a giggle as she turned and handed him the empty cup.

“Wonderful. I need another.”

“That good, huh?”

“I’ll run twice the distance tomorrow on the treadmill,” she said, though she hadn’t gotten on a treadmill once since she’d arrived in Montana. “Hit me with another one.”

“You go girl.” Naomi struck her shoulder against Reagan’s.

“I’m in lust,” Reagan said, staring at Garret. He sang another song, a low, guttural, sad song that wrenched her heart in two.

Damn, he was sexy, and his voice was sexy, and his hair, his eyes, his hands…

A man sat beside her. A man who couldn’t hold a candle to the one she currently lusted after, and she declined a dance. She drank another cocktail and by that time, the room spun.

It felt good. No, it felt great.

After a third song, this one quick and screeching, the crowd roared and asked for more. “It’s someone else’s turn,” Garret said as he dismissed the crowd with a wave.
Chayton already had a Guinness ready for Garret when he arrived.

“That was great,” Naomi told him.

“Thanks.”

“You didn’t tell me you were a singer,” Reagan said, the twitter in her voice hovering between desperation and completion, like she knew she was about to have the most magnificent sex of her life.

“I’m not technically. I like to sing and do it for fun but I’m not a singer.”

“Better than a lot of singers I know.” She swept a finger across his silken cheek, something she’d been dying to do since she first met him. “You could quit your day job, whatever that might be.”

“It’s your turn.” That same guttural voice in which he sang kept her on the brink of losing her composure, or her sanity, or her clothes.

“What?” She plunked a hand over her chest, steadying her pounding heart by planting her heel, which had been propped on the barstool, on the floor. “Oh no, oh no, not me.” If he did have an urge to sleep with her, that would change as soon as he heard her sing.

“Oh come on,” Naomi said. “I’ll do it with you. We’ll sing ‘It’s Raining Men’ or something like that.”

“You want me to make a total fool of myself, don’t you?”

“Yes. Come on.” Naomi pulled her up, and she gave Garret one last lingering look before following her cousin to the stage. Her legs wobbled as she walked up one step, two steps, to the stage.

Her heart pounded in her throat but Naomi, the perfect being she was, broke the tension.

“We’ve never done this before,” Naomi said, shaking her hips, looking cute, and gaining applause. “So don’t be too hard on us.”

They had a blast, and Reagan couldn’t hear how bad she sucked over the loud speakers. Other women joined in the fray, and before long the entire crowd sang.

But she couldn’t take her eyes off Garret, who stood by the bar and watched.

“Okay, okay,” she told Naomi when their second song ended. “I gotta go. I’m gonna see if that hunky man wants to go home with me tonight.”

“What about me?” Naomi asked.

“You’re not invited.”

“But where am I supposed to sleep?”

Reagan’s giggle sounded a tad tipsy, a tad silly, and a whole lot horny. “With Chayton.”

Reagan moseyed down the stage, attempting to appear sexy even after all the drinks she’d consumed. She couldn’t remember anymore. She didn’t care. The drinks provided the courage she normally wouldn’t possess, and she needed the courage to kiss Garret again.

“Water, please,” she said to Chayton.

“You’re not going to get up there and sing?” Naomi asked Chayton.

“Are you kidding? I can’t sing to save my life.”

“You and Garret are brothers. You didn’t inherit the singing gene?”

“Half-brothers. He took after his mother. I took after mine.” His eyes grew shuttered, his voice harsh and remote, as if to say no more questions. He turned away to tend bar. Reagan met Naomi’s gaze and shrugged.

“That’s obviously out of the conversation piece,” Naomi said.

Reagan hadn’t seen Garret since she left the stage and she looked around, eager to find him. A man and woman dressed in red hearts performed a skit. Cupid came along and had the crowd roaring with laughter.

Reagan couldn’t pay attention. Where was Garret?

“How’s everything over here?” Chayton asked as he returned. “More water?”

“Where’s Garret?” Reagan flicked a piece of make-believe lint from her sweater. She didn’t want to appear too interested, but the words gushed out more suddenly than she intended.

“He had to leave,” Chayton said. “He does that sometimes.”