As you know, Her Hero To Love – Book I of the Love, Montana series is FREE through Valentine’s Day, so I figured it was the perfect time to give new blog readers a chance to sample the other two stories in the series. (And give my regular blog readers — like Shelagh–a chance to wander down Memory Lane.) I had a lot of fun with this book and researching the climbing locale in Santa Barbara was pure bliss. If you ever have a chance to hang out along that stretch of southern California coastline, I highly recommend driving inland for some spectacular views and a surprising piece of history.
A masked ball. Two star-crossed lovers. A New Year’s Eve kiss at midnight.
“It’s that time, my friends. Grab a glass of champagne and that special person. Here we go. Ten…nine…”
Bailey’s voice got drowned out by the crowd.
“Eight…seven…”
He closed his arms around Nicole to keep her safe as more people flooded onto the dance floor.
“Six,” she said, looking directly into his eyes. The lights had come up so he could study the subtle hues mixed in the blue of her irises.
Beautiful eyes. Familiar, somehow.
“Five,” a voice boomed to his left.
Tucker, who was holding Amanda the same way Justin held Nicole, gave Justin a guy-nod that seemed to say, “Way to go, bro!”
Justin liked to think he didn’t need his friends’ validation to feel good about his choices, but this time he was navigating new waters. Dangerous waters. This woman was about to become his boss. That couldn’t be good.
But Nicole didn’t feel dangerous or threatening.
“Four…”
She felt as though she’d been made to dance with him. They fit together perfectly. He liked every thing about her, except her job.
“Three…” If he and Nicole were going to do this, he had to make sure they had an end game in place.
New Year’s Eve. Maybe the weekend. They’d play that part by ear, but after Monday nothing could happen between them.
“Two,” he said softly.
“One,” she whispered, looking into his eyes with a question he was ready to answer.
“Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year,” he said before lowering his head to press his lips to hers.
He expected the usual few minutes of testing the waters, feeling each other out, but that didn’t happen. From the moment their lips met, he felt as if he’d crossed the Rubicon. This wasn’t a one-time deal. They’d done this a million times. Together. Theirs was a reunion of souls kissing across eons, remembering.
Her lips parted, her tongue seeking his without hesitation. He hadn’t expected such frankness, but her greedy pleasure made him need more, too.
He closed his eyes and immersed himself in her sweetness, a combination of honey and spice. He would have gone on exploring this newfound fascination forever if not for the sensation of something touching his head. He pulled back and look around.
“The balloons,” Nicole cried, letting go of him to tap at the large white, gold and silver balloons cascading around them.
Confetti shot from somewhere nearby added to the glitter and excitement. Nicole was pulled from his arms to exchange air kisses and hugs with perfect strangers. Justin found himself in a bear hug, too.
“Helluva thing, huh? Beats the crap out of last year,” Tucker said.
Justin clapped Tucker on the back. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I mean starting the year off with someone you care about. There’s a first time for everything, Ona always says.”
Ona, Tucker’s Cajun grandmother, was a font of truisms. Justin had met her twice and loved the dear woman as the grandmother he’d never had. I wonder what Ona would say about me kissing my future boss? Probably something arcane about not defecating where you eat, damn it.
He caught up with Nicole before anyone else could dance her away. He grabbed her hand and spun her slightly off-balance back into his arms. “Unfinished business,” he mumbled against her lips.
She may have started to protest but her reaction changed the minute she realized this kiss meant business. His tongue wasn’t polite or inquisitive. Justin knew what he wanted, and it started now. They were both breathless when he broke off the kiss before embarrassing himself too badly. His body reacted to her in a way he didn’t remember happening with any of his previous lovers.
My late father loved the newest and greatest electric gismos. We had electric shoe shiners (fluffy circles of red and blue), electric pencil sharpeners (that stopped working when a grandkid tried to sharpen a crayon) and, of course, a new fangled water flosser called a Waterpik ® (ours was olive green).
I wasn’t a fan of this messy machine. I’d give it a lame try every once in awhile, but I didn’t have time to wait for the tap water to warm up and the cold water was a shock to my system.
Fast forward many, many years. As a person who hasn’t taken care of her gums as well as she should have over those years, I am looking at receding–and thinning–gums. Thinning means minute particles of food can lodge in between the gum line and the tooth to cause irritation and infection. Even brushing with an electric toothbrush, which I use, can miss these particles.
Gail, my dental hygienist, periodically checks the health of this important tissue with a little probe. She pokes around each tooth and calls out a reading. “Two, three, two. One, two, two. Three, three, four.”
Fours aren’t good. Fives are worse.
The last time she gave my gum tissue an exam, it flunked. Well, it got a D, which in Debland is not acceptable. I asked Gail what I could do to help prevent further gum loss. “At this rate, my gums are disappearing faster than the glaciers.”
She recommended a water flosser. I drove straight to Costco and bought a Waterpik ®. Since that day, I’ve used it faithfully. One might say I’ve become addicted. Recently, I learned that you can add a couple of drops of your favorite mouthwash to the water and save a step in your nightly ablutions.
On Tuesday, I returned to my dentist’s office and Gail performed the probe. Holy hygiene, Bat Girl, the improvement was amazing! A-minus at the very least! Since this is the only thing new I’ve introduced into my oral health regimen, I’m going to credit my success to water flossing.
I thought I’d share this experience not because I own stock in Waterpik ®, but because some of you might be on the fence about whether or not to buy another “thing” to take up space in your bathroom. The answer is: Do it. Use it. And don’t look in the mirror while operating it (messy!!!). Don’t wait as long as I did. Your gums will thank you.
Deb
PS: Remember that classic line from Pretty Woman when Richard Gere thought Julia Roberts was doing drugs and it turned out she was flossing? Here’s her advice, by which I stand.
As you probably know by now, my second BookBub feature came out last week for HER HERO TO LOVE. The book has been selling well and I couldn’t be happier, but it’s still on sale through Valentine’s Day, so it’s still on my mind (hence this blog).
If you haven’t downloaded your free copy of HER HERO TO LOVE, you can grab it here from your favorite vendor: BOOKS2READ.
While setting up some promo this past week, I got thinking about “Men Friends” or, as some say: “Bromances.”
Because I’m a big fan of family sagas, I often choose to write about characters connected by birth, but not this time. The three heroes of the Love, Montana series are best friends. As different in personality and background as the Three Musketeers, Flynn, Tucker and Justin, are heroes in their own way—and hunks, any way you define the word.
This, of course, got me thinking about the Three Musketeers movies. When I Googled the title, I found listings from movie versions dating back to Don Ameche in 1939 (way before my time 😉 ) to a wide variety of cartoons and live action spin-offs, such as the Man In The Iron Mask.
