COMING
FRIDAY
7 PM PST.
LAUREN RICO
AUTHOR OF:
Welcome to Mayhem, Minnesota, home of the Knitty Kitty, The Little Slice of Heaven Pie Shop, and O’Halloran’s Pub—owned by the four young women known as The Whiskey Sisters.
In the wake of her divorce, Jameson O’Halloran has gone man-vegan. And this is one diet she’s determined to stick with. Even when her long-lost ex-brother-in-law shows up looking like two scoops of double dutch dipped in chocolate… She’s not giving in.
It’s been a decade since Scott Clarke left his family and his hometown, never to return. But when tragedy strikes, he finds himself dragged back to the land of gossip, judgment, and the one woman he absolutely, positively, without a doubt can never have. His brother’s ex is off-limits. He just needs to keep repeating that to himself until it sinks in.
The shelf is a little too high for my short self, and I’m only able to brush the dishes with my fingertips.
“Oh, here, let me help you with that…”
Before I can object, he’s standing behind me, reaching over me to get the dishes. For a brief second, his front is pressed against my back. His broad, muscled, perfectly sculpted front. I feel a wave of unwelcome warmth beginning under my collar and creeping up my neck.
“Thanks…” I murmur awkwardly, keeping my back to him for a moment longer in an attempt to quash my blush.
“Okay. I’m just going to grab a shower before my brother gets here, if you don’t mind.”
“Nope. Not at all,” I say quickly. “You go right ahead.”
Once he disappears around the corner, I silently smack my palm to my forehead.
What was that, Jameson? Why the blush? He’s just your ex-husband’s brother, that’s all. This is insane. I’ve got to stop this childish behavior. No. More. Men. Remember? No thinking about men. No looking at men. No fantasizing about men.
Especially not that man!
I’m still shaking my head and silently berating myself when I hear him behind me.
“Hey, Jameson, do you happen to know if my dad keeps an extra toothbrush around? I dropped mine in the toilet and…”
I don’t hear the end of his sentence because, when I turn to face him, I suddenly can’t hear anything. I’m too entranced by the sight of him wearing nothing but a towel around his waist.
Oh, crap, oh crap, oh crap… I am in so much trouble here. No men. No men. No men… I repeat the mantra over and over again in my head, but clearly, the rest of my body isn’t getting the memo.
Mischief and Mayhem:
Julia James has spent most of her life hiding in plain sight. For her, the cello was a way to get past a hellish childhood. Even now that she is one of the top cellists in the country, and a contender in the most prestigious, high-stakes music competition in the world, she hopes no one will notice her.
But then someone does.
A chance (or is it?) encounter brings her to the attention of the distractingly sexy, charismatic French horn player, Jeremy Corrigan. As he helps her to embrace her talent, her sexuality, and her past, Julia thinks she might finally be headed toward her ‘happily-ever-after.’
Unfortunately, happily isn’t so much ‘ever-after’ for Julia.
The lines between love and obsession are blurred in REVERIE.
I inhale every phrase, and my entire body moves in a
circular pattern, cello lovingly embraced between my knees. It takes me to
places I don’t usually allow myself to go, places buried deep in the back of my
mind.
My mother lives here, in this place where the music
brings me. She’s a young woman, not much older than I am now. I can see her
pretty, fair face. She has freckles like me, and a head full of coppery curls.
I imagine her leaning over me and tucking me in. She brushes the hair from my
forehead and tells me to have sweet dreams. But they are not sweet at all. As
my bow slices across the strings, I hear her and my father yelling through the
night. I dig into the Bach harder, recalling the crash of objects hurled and
the smack of a hand on someone’s face. Whose? I don’t know.
My fingers move frantically now, recklessly. The music
could break apart and shatter in an instant. But it doesn’t. It slows and
begins the lament. The crying. Her tears. There it is. He slapped her, this
time. The cello is a wordless voice, heaving and sighing with the weight of her
sorrow. The bow carries my fear with it as it swings to each string in turn. My
parents are so volatile. They cannot hold our fragile life together. It just spirals
out of control, picking up speed again, until it reaches a fever pitch.
Without warning, my hand slips across the D string,
lurching forward and sending my bow flying across the room. It hits the floor
with a sickening ‘thwack,’ returning me instantly to the tiny, pitch-black room
in which I have lost myself once again.
THIS IS A DOWNLOAD
L.E. Rico didn’t set out to be an author. In fact, she’s made a name for herself as a classical music radio host—doing her best to make the music and the composers relevant by putting them into a modern context. It was just a few years ago that she discovered a passion for writing that blossomed into an entire novel. And then another. And another. And, while she still spends plenty of time on the radio, telling the stories of the great composers, she spends even more time composing her own great stories.
Twitter: @TheLaurenRico
Instagram @LaurenRicoAuthor
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