Dani Collins: His Blushing Bride - Free!

I've been in a small fluster lately. My parents moved in with us back around Mother's Day.

Coincidentally, that was my husband's birthday this year. That's pretty much what every fifty-something man asks for his birthday, isn't it? That is mother-in-law move in with him? Actually, Mom has been doing a lot of the cooking, so he's genuinely quite happy. (I do next to zero, so...)

And it's not a health issue that caused this, so we're all grateful for that.

No, it was flooding. My parents came to us one night as a precaution. My dad was angry with himself that he didn't 'stay and fight it,' but that turned out to be a good thing. Those who stayed were evacuated in the middle of the night, some of them sound asleep and unaware that their bedrooms had an inch of water on the floor until they stood up.

My parents' house was surrounded by water for about twelve days. No injuries, no fatalities in the entire area, so that's another win! But my parents have a few more steps before they're approved to go back in. It's proceeding, slow but sure. As disasters go, this has all been fairly manageable. We keep focusing on the bright side and today I have another one.

I get to offer you a free eBook!

His Blushing Bride is a sweet and sexy romance between a playboy nerd and a virgin school teacher.

Piper and Bastian think they can have a no strings affair and promptly trip into love. I have a lot of favourite scenes in this one, but one of them is when Piper tries to lock Bastian out of the bathroom. I adore when a confirmed bachelor realizes he's an idiot. Don't you?

His Blushing Bride is free on all platforms for a limited time. Here are all the quick links:

Amazon:

US | CA | UK | AUS | Nook | iBooks | GooglePlay | Kobo  

His Blushing Bride is Book Four in my Love In Montana series. If you like to read in order, they go like this:

1) Hometown Hero

2) Blame the Mistletoe

3) The Bachelor's Baby

4) His Blushing Bride

4.5) Scorch*

5) His Christmas Miracle

*Scorch takes place in Glacier Creek, not Marietta, but Piper and Bastian come for a visit. 

Read more about this series here and enjoy!

Dani Collins is a USA Today Bestselling author of forty titles for Harlequin Presents, Tule's Montana Born, and herself. She lives in Canada with her husband and parents. So much for empty-nesting, but she's making the most of it! 

Join her newsletter and you'll receive a link for Cruel Summer, a short ebook she wrote for you, Dear Reader. 

His Blushing Bride - More Marietta!

Are you as in love with Marietta as I am? We, the authors, are seeing a lot of comments like this on Netgalley, Goodreads and Amazon:

"I've genuinely loved the Marietta Mini series from Tule publishing..."

And we look, yes, we do! We want readers to be as excited to visit this wonderful town and all our characters as we are to write their individual stories.

Which is why I'm so pleased to be part of the latest "Married in Marietta" Bride series. Have you seen the covers?

Very pretty, right? I happen to have bookmarks that look like this. If you would like me to mail you one, contact me through my website (http://danicollins.com/contact/) or message me through Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/DaniCollinsAuthor) with your postal address. I'll pop one in the mail to you.

Now, I'll be honest. One of the reasons I love visiting Marietta is to visit my own characters. While I do my best to pick up other authors' characters for a line or two, I feel most comfortable bringing my own back onstage. In His Blushing Bride, you'll see all the characters from my previous three Montana Born novellas.

Bastian (Sebastian) is actually the brother of Liz from Blame The Mistletoe so I thought it would be fun to include a bit of their interaction for you here:

Excerpt from His Blushing Bride:
(note: I cleaned up the language in this posting. The book uses real swears.)

Bastian ran out to the ranch first thing, gave Blake a hand for an hour, then drove his sister into Bozeman where she shopped for maternity wear and stock for the spa. He bought a new laptop, tablet, and phone along with a few more shirts and shorts, a decent suit for the wedding, some sunglasses and—

“What are those for?” Liz asked in a tone so accusatory, the entire drugstore stopped to glance their way.

“I begin to see how you wound up pregnant,” Bastian said dryly. “Did I make a big deal about you buying a breast pump?”

She gave him the tight-lipped, displeased older-sister look, but stowed whatever she wanted to say until they were in the car.

He threw the bag with the box of condoms at her feet. No way was he going to apologize for being a healthy, responsible adult.

“I guess my real question is, who are those for?” she said, delicately shifting her feet away from the bag.

“Seriously?” She wasn’t teasing. This was a real question, and he couldn’t believe it was coming out of her mouth, directed at him and not her teenaged daughter. “It’s none of your business, Liz.” He shouldn’t have to point that out.

“This isn’t California, you know. Word gets around. Just tell me it’s not Petra’s teacher,” she said shortly.

“It’s not Pet’s teacher,” he lied.

“Liar,” she blasted, bracing an elbow on the door and covering her eyes. “Seriously, Bastian. Do you have to sleep with every single female that crosses your path? There’s a word for it, you know. Man-whore.”

“I think you’re a whore if you take money for it. When you do it just ’cause you like it, you’re a slut.”

“I see. This is how we’re playing? Nearly a doctor and you still haven’t grown up?”

“Stick with, ‘Quit screwing anything that moves.’ The ‘Get a real job’ speech is Dad’s.”

“I just don’t know why you can’t commit to one woman, settle down, and—”

“Yell at my kids?” he cut in sharply. “Make my wife cry? Be so unbearable to be around that my son tells me to get lost and my daughters get married out of high school? How did that work out for you, by the way?”

She kept her face to the window, not answering.

He swore under his breath. “Did I make you cry? Now I feel like a jerk.”

“You are a jerk.” She sounded cross, not hurt. When she looked at him, her face was worried. “Is that really it, Bastian? You don’t think you’d make a good husband? Because I think you’d be a great dad.”

He sighed, annoyed. Frustrated. And kind of relieved she’d say that. There were times when he envied his sisters. Their kids were great and their middle sister’s marriage was actually pretty good.

But marriage and family life had always struck him as suffocating. A trap. Their father sure hadn’t been happy. Men weren’t the only ones to feel that way, either. The women, the sheer multitude of unhappy wives who’d hit on him because they couldn’t stand their husbands… Why set himself up for infidelity and a messy divorce when he could skip getting married altogether?

Which wasn’t something he needed to say to his pregnant, engaged sister. She was upset enough. She knotted her hands over the bump in her lap. “Dad had PTSD. I wish our childhood had been different too, but there’s nothing we can do but accept it.”

Yeah, their old man had been the gift of misery that kept on giving while they were growing up. In some ways, he still was. He set very high standards, especially for his son, and wasn’t very forgiving of deviation. But Liz was right. They couldn’t go back in time and change anything. Bastian had fully accepted that. But…

“Listen. It looks like you’re getting it right this time. Blake seems great. I had to wonder about your decision to marry and have a kid and move to off-the-map Montana, but I respect your choice, Liz. And I’m making a different choice,” he summed up firmly. It was something their father had never made peace with.

Liz was slightly more progressive. She sighed out a long, suffering, “Fine. Live your life the way you want. But—not with Pet’s teacher.”

He wasn’t going to plead his case. He simply would live his life however he saw fit and Piper had the same option.

~ * ~

I'll be at the Romantic Times Convention in Dallas when this posts and, as I write this, His Blushing Bride is only available for pre-order so I only have the quick links below, but it is releasing on all digital platforms:

Amazon: US | Cdn | UK | iBooks

Have you been spending time in Marietta? Who are some of your favourite characters? Remember to email me with your postal address if you'd like a bookmark!

Love Those Cowboys! : : Anne McAllister

After a dozen years – which is a long time to be in a desert, believe me – I have come home to a cowboy hero.

Today, I hope, my new book, Last Year’s Bride, will be released -- the last of eight In the Montana Born Bride Collection (except I believe we will now have a novella by Sarah Mayberry answering the question: Who won the Great Wedding Giveaway. Stay tuned.)  I sometimes wondered if I would ever get to write a cowboy again.

And then Jane Porter offered me a chance to do so – and you can’t believe how fast I said yes.  It isn’t that I don’t love my Greek guys or my Caribbean guys or even the ones who don’t know a saddle from a bridle.  They are all capable of making my heart beat faster because, in their own way, they are closet cowboys (don’t tell!).  They are competent, capable men who get the job done and get on with things with a minimum of drama.  And they like women who are as capable as they are – and sexy, too.

But, still, I missed my cowboys – the ones who were just a little rougher around the edges in some ways and more gentlemanly in others than the rest of the bunch.  So I was thrilled when Cole McCullough decided I should write his story.

I wasn’t so thrilled when he told me he was already married and was getting a divorce because it was The Right Thing To Do. 

“Sez who?” I asked him.

He looked started, as if it weren’t a matter for discussion. He’d decided. End of discussion.

But I thought Nell might have something to say about that. And she did. But Nell knows her man. She knows that arguing never solved anything with Cole. She had to Show Him that them spending forever together would work.

And that is exactly what she set about doing because, stubborn and bull-headed as he was, Cole McCullough was a keeper. He was a man to have on your side til the end of time. Nell knew that. She just had to convince him that she’d still be there – no matter how long it took.

I’d refer you to my website for an excerpt, but somehow amazon is even faster than my webmistress. So . . . excerpt right here:

Chapter One

"It's only one blessed night!" Sam McCullough smacked his hand on the old round oak dinner table as he rose and glowered across the meat loaf at his son. "You're not going to tell me you've got a date.”

“No.” Cole had plenty of practice keeping his voice even. “I just don’t like the notion of doing business at a Valentine’s Day dance.”

“It’s not a dance,” his sister Sadie corrected. “It’s a ball.” She used her fingers to put quotes around the word, as if her enunciation weren’t enough. She was grinning like the Cheshire cat from the old storybook she used to lug around when she was a little thing. Now she was nineteen and read fashion mags.

“The ‘ball’ –“ Sam’s voice made the same quotation marks his daughter’s had “ – is a business proposition itself. You reckon Troy Sheenan is in it for the pretty music? You better believe he’s got his eye on the bottom line.”

“And it’s a damn sight blacker than ours,” Cole muttered. He forked in another bite of his grandmother’s meat loaf, but he didn’t take his eyes away from his father’s. Under the grizzled stubble on Sam’s cheeks, Cole saw the wash of red that meant the old man was getting riled. He knew his grandmother saw it, too. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that her fork had stopped halfway to her mouth. She pressed her lips together, but then after a brief moment the fork continued its journey and she took another bite and kept on chewing.

“Ours won’t be red much longer. I’m workin’ on it,” Sam said, both hand pressing down against the table as he leaned to ward Cole. The cords in his neck stood out.

“So’m I,” Sadie chipped in cheerfully. “Got an interview Sunday afternoon.”

Sadie’s job prospects – she was a marketing major at MSU whose work experience was largely confined to waiting tables at the diner in Marietta and writing ads for the Copper Mountain Courier and the Bozeman Chronicle -- were not going to save them from foreclosure, and they all knew it.

Cole wasn’t convinced anything was going to save them – and wasn’t sure he wanted it to. As much as he loved the ranch that had been in his family for a little over a hundred years – and had been his life for virtually all of his own thirty years – he knew the pain of fighting a losing battle, of watching his father die a little more each day as their financial ground eroded beneath them. It seemed to him that his dad’s new plan, running cattle for his old friend – and now millionaire several times over – Tom McKay, wasn’t much better than any of the others he’d come up with over the past dozen years.

“One Saturday night,” Sam pressed him. “One little dance. It’s not like you have better things to do. It’s not like I’m askin’ you to marry the girl!”

Cole’s jaw went tight. Good thing, too, he thought grimly. He rolled his shoulders and tried to ease the feeling of carrying not just the ranch, but the entire Absaroka mountain range on his back.

“You might have fun,” his grandmother remarked, her tone mild. She smiled at him over the cup of coffee she cradled in her hand. “Been a long time since you’ve had some fun, Cole.”

It wouldn’t be fun to go a fancy “ball” at the old Graff Hotel which in his youth had been a rundown flea bag joint and had recently been “restored to its former glory” by local-rancher’s-son-made-good. Troy Sheenan, the older brother of one of Cole’s classmates, Dillon Sheenan, had parlayed his smarts into millions of bucks in the California technology market and had decided to spend a lot of it locally, restoring the Graff. Cole had always liked Troy, and he admired his decision even though he wasn’t sure he understood it. And maybe it was just envy that had him squirming at the thought of turning up at the Graff as if he belonged there with all the rich folks.

But he couldn’t see any way out of it. Not if his grandmother was sticking her oar in. Emily McCullough rarely voiced a comment when he and his father locked horns. She watched worriedly, but she didn’t speak up unless she was worrying about Sam’s dodgy heart. He’d had a heart attack in his mid-thirties, right after Sadie’s mother had upped and left.

“Congenital defect,” the doc in Bozeman had said. “But we can do something about it.”

Or they could have if Sam had agreed. He hadn’t.

“No time,” he’d said succinctly, checking himself out of the cardiac unit as soon as he could pull on his boots and slap his hat on his head.

“You’ll have all the time in the world if they bury you,” Cole had argued often since, and his older brother Jeff had shaken his head and muttered, “Damn fool.”

But no one told Sam anything, least of all his sons or his mother. Only Sadie could occasionally worm her way through a chink in the Sam McCullough armor.

Now she tossed her dark hair and said stoutly, “I’d go, but I don’t suppose Tom McKay’s daughter would want to dance with me.”

A faint smile flickered across Sam’s hard face. “Don’t reckon,” he said drily. Then he turned his gaze back to Cole. “It’s a real live cowboy she’s hankerin’ to meet.”

Cole had heard a lot about Tom McKay’s daughter in the last week or so. The opposite of his sister who had never been sick in her life despite growing up teething on spurs, Lacey McKay had been frail and sickly for much of her life. Her father’s rough-and-tumble Montana childhood had been the stuff of fantasies. A liver transplant two years ago had given her a new lease on life. And a promise from her father had brought her to Marietta to see the stuff of her fantasies in person. That apparently included meeting “a real live cowboy.”

“I ain’t pushin’ you to marry the girl,” Sam pointed out. Again.

No chance of that. Cole couldn’t count the number of times he had heard his father hold forth long and hard about the foolishness of thinking “hot-house city girls” could survive the wilds of rural Montana. He could recite Sam’s diatribes by heart, had grown up on them. The words ground together like stones in the pit of his stomach.

“What do you say, Cole?” his grandmother asked quietly. “I won’t even put much starch in your shirt.” She gave him a gentle coaxing smile.

She knew he’d do anything for her, so she rarely ever asked. She had been the shelter of his youth, the one he had always been able to count on, who had kept him steady and strong when so often he had wanted to go right off the rails. If she hadn’t protected him from every bit of his foolishness, it was only because she hadn’t been there at the time.

She worried about his dad. Sam was her only son. He was hard and stubborn and could argue a fence post into the ground. But she loved him. So did Cole – when he didn’t want to hit the old man over the head with a shovel.

Now he wiped his mouth on his napkin, set it beside his plate, then pushed his chair back from the table and stood up so that he could meet his father’s gaze eye to eye. It was gratifying that, for the last decade, he had an inch and a half on his father and it was Sam who had to look up.

Now their gazes locked, Sam’s blue eyes as hard as the ice on the Yellowstone River. Cole knew what they were saying: It’s for the ranch. It’s your duty. A man does his duty. Always.

He let his breath out slowly. “Fine. I’ll go.”

“Right. There’s a dinner beforehand." Sam was breathing easy now. "Be a good time for you to talk to him about how many cattle we can run. I’ve been thinking Angus from that spread down in Utah. Or there's a place in Idaho – the Bar Nine Hollow – that would be a good place to pick up some.” Confrontation over, foreclosure forgotten, business at hand, Sam moved right on.

But Cole hadn’t forgotten. He carried his plate to the sink. Sam was still giving orders when Cole walked out of the room.

#

Trish Morey: The Lighter Side of Romance

What I love about romance is that it comes in so many delicious flavours. From sweet to spicy, angsty to flirty, contemporary to historical to futuristic to paranormal to everything in between. I love the sheer breadth and depth that romance affords both readers and writers.

When I write my Harlequin Presents, the stories generally veer toward the angsty. Big conflicts. Strong alpha heroes and frequently vulnerable, if gutsy on the inside, heroines. I love those stories. But my other love is romantic comedy, and there isn’t a huge amount of scope inside your average Presents for comedy. Wit, yes. A wry smile, absolutely. A cutting retort from your heroine that makes your hero’s ears bleed and your reader punch the air with her fist, sure. But laugh out loud comedy? No. It would be wrong.

So when I was offered the opportunity to write something for Tule publishing, a story where I set the creative boundaries, I jumped at the chance. And so Second Chance Bride was born. And just to really shake things up, I started it in a brothel. Yup. A romance that begins in a brothel :)

And oh my, I had such fun with this story! I took my hapless heroine, Scarlett Buck (yup, why the hell not?) all the way from Marietta, Montana, and dropped her in the outback of Western Australia with no cash and a pressing need to get home. Luckily for her, she meets Mitch, but to find out what happens next, you’ll have to read the book.

But here’s a wee taster - Mitch and Scarlett are in Broome, and Mitch finds something in the closet...

She was just drying off when she heard him yell, “What the hell is that?”

Darn. She had a fair idea where he was and what he’d found and realized that maybe the gown hadn’t been quite as well hidden as she’d hoped. After all, there was at least a hundred yards of tulle in the skirt. But there were at least a dozen yards of closet too. Did he have to go open that particular one? 

Anyhow, no point admitting anything just yet. He was a man after all. Maybe he’d just found the ironing board. 

How do you like your romance? Dramatic? Sweet? Medical? Suspenseful? Or are you like me and like to mix it up a little and throw in a little romantic comedy (or something else) every now and then?

Leave a comment about your reading preferences and two lucky people will receive a $10 Starbucks gift card.

Happy reading,

Trishx


*** Trish's winners are Mary Preston and Bonnie! Please email totebag@authorsoundrelations.com with your mailing info.***

Katherine Garbera: The Reluctant Bride

The Reluctant Bride was one of those stories that just sort of came to me all wrapped up.  I have never been impulsive at all so when I was kicking around ideas for the Great Wedding Giveaway, I thought what about someone who just said yes and got married.  But there’s not much conflict in that and for good fiction there has to be conflict. 

So I thought what if she said yes, got cold feet and ran.  Just that inkling was enough to make me start creating the characters.  Risa loves weddings and brides.  She’s a florist who’s been working in Vegas at a very posh wedding center. 

Monty is the kind of guy who never gives up so it doesn’t matter that Risa isn’t where he left her, he’ll find her and reclaim her. 

From there I had the fun of being in Marietta, MT again.  I just love the stories that have been set there and am always happy as a reader to go back there.  As a writer it’s like coming home.

Here’s a little except:

Stupid.

            She wasn’t sure about herself, but Monty; God knew she wished she had his confidence.  There was a marked difference in their reactions to tragedy.  He wanted to cram in as much life as he could…she wanted to hide and protect those she cared about.  His mouth moved over hers with the confidence and surety that she’d ever only experienced with him, and she knew that she wasn’t going to pull back and walk away.  Instead she slid her hand up his chest and curled her fingers around his warm neck,  burrowing between the warm downy collar and the man. 

            He was here because he wanted to be her man.

            Right now, it felt like he was, as his mouth moved over hers and sent shivers of desire coursing through her body.  It had been a long seven months apart.  She parted her lips and his tongue slipped inside her mouth and she sighed.

            He tasted just like she remembered.  It was silly when she tried to define Monty, but there was something spicy in his kisses and yet, at the same time, something that soothed the restlessness inside of her.  When he wrapped his arms around her, she felt like she’d found the home she’d always wanted.

            A safe place to land. But she wasn’t sure she believed in home any more.

            She’d always been a rambler.  And even this kiss wasn’t going to be enough to help her put all of her doubts and fears aside.  His tongue rubbed over hers, as his hands slipped lower to cup her buttocks and she stopped thinking.

            Stopped trying to analyze this and have it all make sense.

            Kisses weren’t supposed make sense, were they?  They were supposed to transport lovers to someplace magical and distant.

            And for her, his kisses did.

            His hands anchored her to the real world, and his mouth tempted and teased her to follow him.  To leave behind her worries on this dark deserted highway and focus on the one thing that was real: Monty.

            He plunged his tongue deeper into her mouth, and she felt the first stirrings of desire shivering through her nerves and pooling in the center of her body.  She tunneled her fingers through the silky hair at the back of his neck, twisting them to make him move his head the way she wanted.

            He did.  Increasing the pressure on her and deepening the kiss until she was aware only of Monty and his mouth, his arm around her hips which held her to him, and his hand which roamed up and down her back.  His touch was warm, even through the thickness of her coat. 

            She pulled her head back and, from her angle, could look down on his half-closed eyes.  This was the face she’d missed.  The expression that had haunted her dreams.  He was the man she thought she wanted to marry.  The man who she’d taken a leap of faith with  and said yes to.

            But then he opened his eyes and slowly let her slide down his body, before he stepped back, spreading his arms out to his sides.  He rubbed one hand over his jaw and his mouth and turned his back to her.

            She had no idea what he was thinking, but could venture a guess that it wasn’t very nice.

            Why should it be?

            She was playing a game in his eyes.  And she had no way of really making him see that her being lost and confused was just as disheartening from her point of view. 

            “Um…”

            “What?”  He glanced back over his shoulder.

            Yeah, what?  Time to take a break.  Run again…

            “Thanks for changing my tire.”

What about you?   Have you ever been impulsive and said yes and then thought better of it?  I’m the kind of gal who is stubborn so I wouldn’t run, I’d stand my ground and pretend that it was working out just the way I wanted it too!

I’m giving away a copy of all four previous Great Wedding Giveaway titles today as well to one lucky commenter.  


*** Katherine's winner is Janine! Please email totebag@authorsoundrelations.com with your mailing info.***