From My Keeper Shelf

I was just sitting here gazing at my bookshelf and thinking about keepers.
I have two shelves currently full of books I won't get rid of - this is pared down a lot from years past. After my book shelves collapsed when I was a teeanger, I had to learn my lesson about keeping every single book that passed through my hands.
While most of my keepers fall into the categories of YA, romance, non-fiction and research, I have one that doesn't really fit any of those labels.
Years ago when my kids were little I invested in a couple of the Look -Alikes books. They're amazing picture books in which miniature scenes or objects are built out of everyday items. The rocket ship, for instance is made from a thermos, pens, a shuttle cock, some buttons and various office supplies. The work that went into these models is phenomenal and I can stare at the pictures for hours. My kids have somewhat outgrown the game of the books - find all the objects you can hidden in the picture. But I haven't. I still love to look at them and I probably always will.
Do you have any unusual books on your keeper shelf?

Jewels on the web

I do a lot of surfing while I'm at work and my train of thought led me to this magnificent picture of clouds over New Zealand. These amazing formations represent what might be a new type of cloud - which is, on one hand, very cool, and on the other - a little disconcerting. Why, I have to wonder, is there all of a sudden a new type of cloud? Do clouds evolve? Did someone invent it? Or are our weather patterns and climate changing so dramatically that clouds aren't following same old routines any more?
Either way, the picture is a gem.

News Flash - You can't grow crunchberries

DH sent me this link today about a lawsuit that was thankfully thrown out of court, in which an angry consumer tried to sue the makers of Capt’n Crunch cereal for somehow leading her to believe that the ‘crunchberries’ in her cereal were actually real fruit.

Fortunately the judge ruled that any reasonable consumer would be able to tell that cereal balls are made, not grown.

Before you start checking your cereal boxes, just be informed – there is no real Froot in Froot Loops and Fruity Pebbles contain no actual pebbles.

Let the buyer beware.

Don't you hate it when...

The last lolcat in the box is all smooshed?

Don't wanna. Don't hafta. I'm retired.

Have you ever seen that t-shirt? I'm thinking about getting me one - since as of next Tuesday, I'm officially retired from fund raising.

Yep. My last bake sale is coming up. Hallelujah!

The milestone is bittersweet, I will admit. After three years of toiling for the Winter Guard, I'm done. DD is moving on to a new school and has decided to take a break from spinning and tossing for a while. In a way, it's sad because she's so good at it, and it's an amazing sport, but in a way - well, HALLELUJAH!

I've never been a joiner, so trekking to parent meetings, showing up at school functions, handing out cup cakes and making change for ravenous middle schoolers - it's all taken its toll on me. This year in addition to the bake sales, we did tag day [begging for money], a showcase at the school and a car wash. It's been all about collecting the cash, and now the year is winding down and I'm stepping down and we're heading off to a new school and new set of challenges, and maybe even a new activity.

It really wasn't all that bad. In fact, there were times it was kind of fun, even when I complained to myself that I was tired, busy, overworked, etc. I still felt a sense of accomplishment. Now, it feels good to look at the next few months and know I don't have to schlep to the school at odd hours for meetings and I don't have to carry around a box of quarters to make change. Oddly, I still feel a bit melancholy.

I'm going to see if there's a pill for that, because good golly, miss molly, I'M RETIRED!

Good news for romance

I saw this article today at msnbc.com about the trend for romance novel sales to increase in a recession.

It's nice to know some things are looking up.

Here's a question - in the face of economic uncertainty do you buy more books? Romances or just books in general? I tend to use book purchases for medicinal purposes. When I'm bummed, depressed, etc, I go book shopping. Also when I'm happy and in possession of some extra, unexpected money, I go book shopping. So basically I don't really need an excuse to buy books, or any excuse will do.

I don't think I've bought more books since the recession hit, but I certainly haven't bought any less. How about you?

Read-A-Thon

 I finished three books in two days. Reading them, that is. That's the biggest dent I've ever put in my TBR pile in a single week.

How? Well, the lack of valuable projects at work has had me aimlessly web surfing for days, so rather than do another damn Sudoku [I'm getting pretty good at them actually] I decided to embark on a mini-read-a-thon between making the office coffee and stamping the outgoing mail.

What? I finally finished Alan Dean Foster's version of the new Star Trek saga. Was it good? Um...I have to say no. I guess I've spent too many years learning how to STICK TO ONE FREAKIN' POV PER SCENE to not have the book make my eyes bleed just a little. Also, and perhaps in his defense he may not have had a script to work with, or had an original script that changed, but some of the best bits of the movie are subtly different in the book and not better.

The next book I read was Always Looking up by Michael J. Fox. I don't read much non-fiction but this account of his life since retiring from acting due to Parkinson's disease and his political quest to lift the ban on stem cell research was interesting and inspiring.

Finally, I downed one of the BBC Torchwood Books called Almost Perfect. Any book with John Barrowman on the cover can't be all bad, and this one was rather cute and a very fast read.

This week, three books - next week - the world!

In Praise of Slowness

I stumbled upon THIS BLOG today. A writer and parent from England discusses the idea of slowing down and living life more fully, rather than more…fastly, for lack of a better term. I’m all for it.

I’ve been living in a constant state of flux for about a year now, trying to decide where I’m going, what I’m doing, and why I'm doing it, and I think the concept of slowing down is exactly what I’m looking for. I’m seeking to get back to enjoying my life, not just my writing, but every aspect of my life, and I’m trying to figure out how to get more accomplished not by cramming even more into every minute of my day, but by actually doing less and doing it well.

Sounds nuts, right? I probably am, but since I’ve hit 40 I’ve increasingly come up against the question, Is this how it’s supposed to be? I find that the way our society runs has become less of a bemusement to me and more of an annoyance. I’m seeking reality [while still having time to live in my fantasy worlds of course] and I think the only way to find reality is to slow down and look for it more carefully.

What do you think? Is faster better? Do you wish you had more time to do things, or just less things to do?

What am I watching?

Since the regular TV season is officially over now, the pickings are slim for some decent tube time.

Thanks to Netflix, I'm not totally board when I crash on the couch in the evenings. We've been working our way through Primeval {BBC Sci-Fi}, Cities of the Underworld {history channel documentary} and The Starter Wife {USA network series}. I've noticed that all shows seem to be better when you don't have to wait for new episodes. It's a lot easier to get into a show when you can watch 3 or 4 episodes in a row than when you have to hunt all over the TV guide to find the next airing.

Of course in addition to watching TV, I'm supposed to be writing. I am, really. I just finished a revision of my gargoyle story - now I'm trying to decide what to work on next. I want to write a novel over the summer...but too many ideas are clamoring for attention. I may have to flip a coin, or just spin the TV remote and see where I land.

Speaking of weather

'Tis now the season of the green dust here in sunny/warm/rainy/cold/balmy/frigid NJ.

Thanks to all that rain [the rain we did get as well as the rain we didn't get] - everything is in full bloom and shedding little pellets of misery on us all.

My throat is itchy, my eyes are sticky, my car is tinted green.

If we could make fuel out of pollen, I think we'd be in great shape. There's certainly a never-ending supply of it.

I'm boycotting weather

Or maybe I should just boycott all weather reporting services.

This weekend was supposed to be the town wide garage sale - in which we were participating. So I've been sticking little neon price stickers on my old junk all week, and collecting small bills and coins for change. Yesterday we got up [way too early I might add] and DH started moving cars and lugging tables up from the basement under a cloudy sky. The rain began before we started setting anything else up and since the forecast was for showers by noon and thunderstorms by 3:00, we decided to scrap the whole deal.

After that initial scattering of rain, the rest of the day was dry, cool and pleasantly breezy. In fact I went to visit other people's garage sales - the brave souls who ignored the weather reports and lugged their junk to the curb anyway. Sigh. By dinner time the sky was blue.

So, we decided to chance the 90-minute drive to Warwick, NY to go see Star Trek again at the drive-in! We put on our pajamas, packed the car with snacks [I bought a Red Bull for the trip because I was already tired from getting up so early] and off we went.

The kids were thrilled because neither of them remember our last trip to the drive-in when they were merely toddlers. After taking the winding roads to the outback of nowhere, we pulled in just 2 minutes before the show started and settled in [after an exhausting hike to the restrooms] to watch the movie.

Halfway through, the rain started, so we watched the movie with the wipers on while lightning split the sky above the screen. It was actually pretty cool. I'm glad I'd seen the movie before, though or I would have been mega-disappointed when the screen started to get wet. We also had a spider in the car! And after that gruesome discovery I was itchy for the rest of the night.

We stumbled home around midnight and flopped into bed. Today is cold and windy, so we're not doing the garage sale today either. SIGH. Off to go foodshopping. Weather be damned.

Still here!

I haven't fallen out of cyberspace, if that's what you're wondering. It's just been a mega-busy week. Between the regular job, taking extra hours at the part-time, part time job, proctoring the bi-annual ASE tests and editing, I barely have time to sit down, let alone blog.

To recap:

My query blitz yielded some interesting results. Of course I'm holding my breath and checking my e-mail obsessively.

I started rewrites on my rewrites of my gargoyle story. I'm going to whip that thing into perfect shape if it kills me.

I made an executive decision about writing - specifically that my next major project will be another full length novel and that I will try very hard to only work on one manuscript at a time at least over the summer. This means there may not be any novellas appearing for a while, so my name may be scarce among the epubs for a while.

It's season finale week with most of the networks, so as much as I'll miss my favorite shows, I may have nothing better to do but write in the coming weeks. Can't use good TV as an excuse any more.

I have renewed my obsession with Star Trek! After seeing the movie, I now remember why I grew up LOVING the show and the characters. I won't go so far as to say I miss being active in fandom - I'm not really a club person anymore, not that I ever was much of one, but I do realize how much I missed epic science fiction.

****

Well, off to Job # 3 now. I'll try not to go another five days without blogging.

Happy Mother's Weekend

I would have said Happy Mother's Day, but I believe that mothers really deserve, at the very least, an entire weekend.

We're going out to dinner tonight and taking my Mom. We used to do the actual Sunday dinner thing, but all the restaurants were so crowded and crazy. Both my mother and I tend to be a bit agoraphobic at times, and she despises waiting a long time in a restuarant to get a seat, so we switched to a Mother's Day Eve dinner which is much less stressful.

Tomorrow I've been promised French Toast for breakfast and we're going to see Star Trek. Then we'll probably order a pizza for dinner. [Even when you celebrate Mother's Day Eve, you still shouldn't have to acutally cook on Mother's Day.]

So what are your plans for this weekend?

It seems I can do the 'hot'!

To offset yesterday being cold, gray and rainy, the Universe sent me some awesome reviews!


Night Owl Romance had this to say about SKIN: 4.75/5 Wow! Hot, hot, hot! I was right there all the way with Makena and Darq. The author paints an intense portrait of these two as they explore the possibility of a relationship and what it might mean to them both.

And Manic Readers had this to say about GOING DEEP: 4 1/2 Stars! In Going Deep, Bernadette Gardner has crafted a wonderful futuristic love story. The setting is unique, the characters are complex, and the romance is both sweet and spicy enough to warm up the cold ocean.

Today, it's still a little bit cloudy and cold, Universe - so you're welcome to send some more great reviews any time!

When you just can't lose...

I saw this picture on I Has A Hot Dog the other day and I had to save it. Whoever the guy was who took this picture, he's pure genius.

Unless his girlfriend is allergic to dogs, he's got this proposal all sewn up. I'd certainly say yes and I don't even know the guy.

Have you ever heard of or come across a fool proof marriage proposal? I was always suspicious of the big public ones where someone gets hundreds of people in a stadium to hold up signs, or someone hires a skywriter, or puts a bill board on a bus. Then there was the guy recently who proposed on a bridge and then accidentally dropped the ring into traffic. Memorable yes, but way too stressful for everyone involved.

If you were going to write the perfect proposal, how would it go?

A piece of quiet

So what do you do when you have a piece of quiet?

I've got a little while to myself while the thundering herd is out collecting their Free Comic Books. I'm home blogging, naturally, and thinking about what else I could do on this sunny, cool spring afternoon.

There's laundry of course. And I could update Bernadette's website, work on putting up a free read, edit a novella I'm working on, read a book [I'm in the middle of a good one!], clean, collect items for the garage sale we're having in two weeks, take a walk, take a nap, or work on an entirely new story.

If I could do it all at once, I would. Of course, if I could be at the spot in this picture, I would be there instead.

The problem with weekends is, there's just too much to do. Too many choices. I feel paralyzed sometimes by how many choices I have and I'm always wondering if I'm utilizing my time the best way, or if perhaps I'm spending too much time worrying about how well I'm utilizing my time.

And the pieces of quiet that I get are entirely too small, so I have to use them wisely before they disappear.

How big was your last piece of quiet?

477,131 words

I did some math today.

Surprising, huh?

I decided to calculate the number of words I have written and NOT PUBLISHED. Yep. The number above represents the total words contained in a collection of 26 novellas and short stories that I wrote all before I decided to embark on the journey to be published.

This isn't the sum total of everything I've ever written before the 33 titles that I have sold. This is just the adventure series I embarked on partly to entertain DH and myself back when I didn't think I had the chops to be published.

Now, everyone who is reading this is saying - well, go ahead and get those 477,131 words published! And I wish I could, but this stuff just needs so much work to make it submittable. It's a daunting task and one that I would love to be able to blink my eyes and have magically done, but one I'm still not sure I really want to put the time and effort into.

Sometimes it's easier to start new.

But these 477,131 words will always be there, in a universe I used to love to play in. And there are so many stories still not told...the question is, do I want to go back and rehash what's already been done, or move forward?

Do you have old stories gathering dust that you'd love to pull out of moth balls and submit? If so what keeps you from doing it? The amount of work involved or the desire to forge new territory and leave the past in the past?

From the Bureau of Useless Statistics

I’m all for the “greening” of America. Really. I recycle. I use cloth bags when I go food shopping [love them btw!]. I don’t leave my car running for 45 minutes to warm it up on cold winter mornings – and I’m all for any idea that will save energy and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

However, I must protest the latest trend from the television networks and advertisers who are using useless statistics to sell products or convince people to go green[er].

It’s great to give people facts, but they have to actually make some sense. For instance, recently while watching one of my favorite shows I saw a PSA featuring well-known actress [I don’t recall the exact wording of the commercial which is why I’m being vague]. The actress explained how something simple [like turning off lights etc] could essentially save millions of dollars ‘enough to wipe out the credit card debt of’ a huge number of people.

I thought, how absurd a statistic is that? If I shut my lights off I might lower my electric bill by a few cents. And if everyone shuts their lights off, they might lower power usage by a considerable amount, but I don’t see the power companies sending checks out to thousands of people to help pay off their credit card bills with that saved money. In fact, I have heard of power companies INCREASING rates in order to make up for falling energy usage. So technically if I use less power, my power company will make less profit, thus forcing them to raise my bill anyway. No money to pay off credit cards then.

Another commercial for a national retail store encourages people to buy larger boxes of cereal, with the hook that if everyone bought a double box of cereal, thousands of pounds of cardboard [and hence trees] could be saved each year. It sounds like it makes sense, but think about it. The cereal company is still going to make the smaller boxes of cereal because it makes them more profit to sell two small boxes of cereal than to sell one large economy size box of cereal. While they might produce fewer small boxes of cereal if people actually bought fewer small boxes of cereal, the money they saved on cardboard for that brand would not translate into less cardboard being used overall, it would translate into the company coming up with another product for which they could use that cardboard.

Useless statistics.

If you want people to shut off their lights [or buy a bigger box of cereal] tell them: if you shut off your lights, you will save money on your electric bill. If you buy a bigger box of cereal you will spend less in the grocery store. People will respond to that, but they won’t respond to the idea that shutting off their lights will help thousands of people get out of credit card debt. It won’t. Buying a bigger box of cereal won’t save trees, it will just free up some cardboard for the cereal company to use in some other way.

Have you heard of any useless statistics? Have you heard a “go green” PSA that made you change your habits significantly?

Hot ticket!

Okay, I have to confess a couple of things.

One, over the years, as I've gotten older, I've found a lot less enjoyment in going to the movies. I have no patience for the nitwit in the row in front of me who is talking on the cell phone. I can't deal with the lunkhead behind me who brought his 2-year-old to a PG-13 movie and the kid is kicking my chair for two hours. I don't like to walk on sticky floors. I hate sitting through 30 minutes of previews. Butter-flavored topping is NOT the same as real butter.

HOWEVER...[two] I have to admit, I'm a bit psyched about this year's crop of summer movies. I'm especially jazzed about the Star Trek movie. [Yes, I'm a Trekkie. I was born a Trekkie.] As much as many die hard members of Trekdom have much to say about how this story BLOWS THE CRAP out of Federation continuity, I will readily agree that the trailers look absolutely awesome. You can bet I will be there some time on opening weekend, letting my geek hang out.

Here's a list of some other movies being released this summer which, in my humble opinion, range from being mildly noteworthy to being MUST SEEs. Which ones will you plunk down your hard earned cash for and which ones will you wait for the DVD?

Battle for Terra [animated coolness]

X-Men Origins [I live with a super-hero fanatic. This is a must see]

Star Trek [I met DH at a Star Trek convention. We can't miss this.]

Angels and Demons [loved the book. loved the controversey]

Terminator: Salvation [it's got to be better than The Sarah Conner Chronicles]

Up [Disney's next toy commercial]

Land of the Lost [who else misses the Sleestak as much as I do?]

Transformers 2 [the first one ROCKED, seriously, it did]

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs [shouldn't it be Twilight of the dinosaurs?]

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ['nuff said.]

So what's your hot ticket for the summer?

Sneak Peek Day!

Okay, I promised you an excerpt from my upcoming Samhain release, The Matchmakers...and here it is!


****

Nick didn’t remember going to bed. He barely remembered inspecting his truck by flashlight and finding his cell phone on the floor under the passenger seat, then running his hands along the paint job as he looked for the scratches and dents that couldn’t have disappeared without a trace. He vaguely recalled his third beer and the four times he’d picked up the phone to report his wingless, green-eyed faerie to the police. Now, it all seemed like a dream that could be easily forgotten.

During those first few minutes of partial amnesia after he’d pried his leaden eyelids open, he thought again about leaving town. He’d been in Bayerville for eight months. That was longer than he’d stayed anywhere since he’d left home about twenty minutes after he turned eighteen. Twelve years of roaming the country, seeing the world, had taken him as far south as Acapulco and as far north as Nova Scotia. There were dozens of places he’d promised to return to and hundreds he’d vowed to stay away from.

Bayerville, Pennsylvania was a pretty little place that presented itself at a time when he needed a break. He’d found a furnished apartment with a month-to-month lease and started taking carpentry jobs to pay the rent. He’d gotten comfortable.

He’d begun to think “comfortable” might be a good place to be for a while, and that made him nervous.

Settling down meant it wouldn’t be so easy to pack up and leave when things got sticky—and they always got sticky eventually. When the wanderlust hit him, he might be torn up about leaving certain things, or certain people, behind, and that was something he definitely didn’t want.

That thought chased away the pleasant blur of sleep, and the events of the previous night settled in his conscious mind like a lead blanket.

He had a stalker. Or maybe a real faerie. Come on. She had to be a magician of some sort. There must be a reasonable explanation for everything he’d seen last night.

“Matchmaker. Right.” He laughed as he rolled out of bed and drew up the window shade on a cool, breezy Friday morning. All that crap about true love. There was no such thing. Love came and went. He’d been in love once or twice. At seventeen he’d been desperately in love with a girl in his twelfth grade homeroom. Sandy something. She’d had the bluest eyes he’d ever seen, and kissing her made him feel like Superman. At the prom, he’d suggested they sneak out to the parking lot and spend a little time in the back seat of his dad’s car. He’d brought a blanket and a fresh box of rubbers just in case.

She’d slapped him and called him a worthless, horny dick. Not surprisingly, that desperate feeling of love had faded before final exams were over. The next girl, to whom he’d made a similar suggestion, thought it was a great idea, and he’d never given Sandy what’s-her-name a second thought.

At twenty-five, he’d met Clair Bainbridge in Tallahassee, Florida and spent four months high on endorphins. The aspiring dolphin trainer had the body of a sea goddess and she could swim like a mermaid. Hell, maybe she was a mermaid for all he knew. She sang like a siren and made love like it mattered. She was the girl of his dreams, and he’d walked away forever after she asked him to move in with her.

That desperate feeling went away again in the months that followed, and Nick never questioned why. Love faded. That was a fact. The newness wore off after a while. None of it was real or “true”. He’d made damn sure all the women who had come after Claire knew that.

Tinkerbell was crazy. Nick had nothing to lose. Life without having to worry about falling in love didn’t seem like a punishment at all.

When the doorbell rang, he shot a nervous glance at the bedside clock. He hadn’t planned on sleeping until ten-thirty, but since he had nowhere in particular to go this morning…what if she’d come back early?

Damn. He’d planned to be long gone by noon. Now he’d have to make up some new excuse to get rid of her. He grabbed a t-shirt from the bureau and slid into yesterday’s jeans. Raking his fingers through his hair, he headed for the living room but stopped to snag a piece of cinnamon gum from the nightstand before he left.

At least this time she’d rung the bell.

He opened the door a cautious crack, and Miranda threw herself into his arms. “Nicky!”
He backed up, clamping one arm around her waist to steady her, then swung her around and deposited her on her feet in the middle of the living room. He kicked the door shut as he let go of her.

“Hey…there, Miranda. How are you?”

She thrust one curvaceous hip forward and gave him the look he knew so well. That dark, mysterious, brown-eyed come-on that said, “What, me married?”

It had been his undoing three weeks ago when she’d hired him to build her new pool house. Now it just made him miss the open road.

“Skip and I are separated.” The announcement came with a triumphant smile, which faded a bit when Nick didn’t immediately respond in kind. “Aren’t you happy? He moved out last night. He’s on his way back to Boston right now. He’s got some little bimbo there, I just know it. But I don’t care. What’s wrong, Nick? You look like you have something caught in your throat.”

“I just—I’m surprised he left. From the way things sounded last night, I figured you’d be the one moving out.”

She shrugged, did a pirouette and plopped on the couch. “I just reminded him that our pre-nup requires proof of infidelity, and he’s got nothing on me. I’ve got copies of his cell phone bills and his credit card receipts from all his business trips this year. He wasn’t on the phone with the Boston office fifteen times a day, and the firm isn’t sending him to Pompano to get three-hour massages and shop at Victoria’s Secret. If the slut in Boston finds out about the slut in Pompano, I might just end up a wealthy widow.”

Nick had that tight feeling in his chest again that came whenever he felt a female net starting to close around him. Miranda jumped up and sidled into his embrace. She ran her fingers over his chest and up to the stubble on his lower jaw. Her dark hair tickled his chin.

“I’m writing the checks now, and I’ve got a lot of projects for you, Nick. Come finish the pool house, and then we can pick up where we left off last night.” Her lips, painted a sugary shade of pink, drew into her trademark pout.

Sex on a pile of two-by-fours suddenly didn’t appeal to Nick. He put his hands on Miranda’s shoulders and pushed her back just an inch or so. Her sweet pout flattened into a frown.

“What’sa matter, Nick? I promise Skip won’t be back.” Her fingers moved over the skin around his eye, which he just realized didn’t hurt a bit. “He must’ve pulled his punch. You don’t even have a bruise.”

“Miranda, it’s not…I don’t? Oh…uh, if you want me to finish the pool house, I will, but…”
But what? Yesterday, she’d told him she loved him. Why was that knowledge such a turn off? It wasn’t that he didn’t find her attractive anymore, he just—

“Nick, baby, aren’t you coming back to bed?”

The familiar voice had a sexy, sleepy purr to it that sent Nick’s blood rushing to his extremities. All of them. He backed up a full four steps away from Miranda.

He turned and saw Calliope sauntering out of his bedroom, and his heart thumped once, hovering on the precipice of the next beat. She wore one of his work shirts, open to the third button. The tails of the plaid flannel swayed around her bare thighs as she yawned and blinked languorously at him.

Jesus! His bedroom windows were locked. Where the hell had she come from?

Miranda’s gaze turned to ice cold daggers, and she came at him, fists balled. “Who the hell is she?”

He caught Miranda’s wrists and held her while she showered him with a mix of Italian and English expletives.

“I…just met her.” That didn’t come out right, but he couldn’t take it back.

“You picked her up on the way home from my place?” Miranda struggled against his grip. She kicked his right shin, but he held her off despite the pain.

“No!”

“Well, actually, yes.” Calliope winked at Miranda, then leaned on the doorframe and stretched. The movement raised the hem of her borrowed shirt barely an inch, but the distraction cost him. Miranda broke loose and cracked him across the jaw with her open palm. It stung, but not as much as Skip’s punch had.

“Miranda, she’s a stranger—some girl who followed me home. She’s crazy!”

“Mmm, that’s right, lover. Tell her how crrrazy I am! Meow!” Calliope did a sexy shimmy and clawed the air.

Miranda growled. “I can’t believe you! You said we—I thought you—” Miranda sputtered at him, obviously at a loss to pin any promises on him.

Nick gaped as Calliope turned and glided back into the bedroom. “When you’re finished out here, cowboy, I’ll be waiting for another ride.”

****