To celebrate Required Surrender hitting Amazon’s Top 100 Best Seller’s list in not only the US but in Canada too – how awesome is that, eh? And me hitting two of Amazon’s Top 100 Best Selling Author’s lists as well – I’m going to be doing a eBook giveaway. Just leave a comment and I will be pulling a name out of a hat…actually it’s a beret in honor of my next heroine’s fashion sense. Anyway, just leave a comment and on Monday April 1st 2013, I’ll post the winner. Now the cool part about this is, the winner can choose any book from my back list or they can be the first to get my next release once it’s out in May. Click on the picture below to read an excerpt of that one.

UPDATE!!!! I just learned today that all three of my “Surrender” Stories have been picked up for audio!!!! So very pleased and excited to hear this!!!!

Or click the cover below for a peek at my other books.

Thanks for playing!

Riley

Stare Me Down, will be out in May.

 And guess what? I have been offered an original song to put to my book video. It is SO awesome (the song I mean) totally romantic and *sigh* what a great opportunity. To say that I’m thrill would be understating the matter completely. I can’t wait to share it with you guys! But until then, if you hop on the link below, I have two excerpts. One is fun and the other is a smexy one.

Boy, I can’t stop smiling. Oh…and humming. The song gave me chills when I heard her sing it. Goosebumps, yeah that was what I got. *SQUEE!

Click on the photo to meet my guys…

I have brought this game up several times in my blog. There was this time, for instance here, You Know You Are Going To Hell when… and this time Uh Oh when Honey went out with his “golfing buddies” and stuck me with one of their wives who didn’t exactly approve of me. *insert hair flick here* Yeah, whatever. But most recently (last Saturday to be exact) I discovered why I’m usually treated as the pariah or, at the very least, with polite contempt when the “girls” and I are stuck hanging out together the odd time over the course of a year.

They make me feel less than welcomed because of Honey. Yep, I know I was shocked too. Not really. Well kind of. He’s usually so private about he and I and well…stuff. <- And by that I mean SEX. I do think I’ve mentioned I’m SO the opposite, right? If not, visit my blog history, but be warned. Heheheh.

Anyway, for three years he’s had this group he golfs with “occasionally” and less frequently than that the wives are brought together when the guys go out on the course. We usually do a big dinner. It’s great. Really. I get the silent, actually, it’s more like the “we barely tolerate you” treatment until the guys get back and then all of us eat and life is wonderful. I never say anything to Honey, because what’s the point? Quite simply, this is one time he enjoys himself and I don’t. I figure it’s a fair trade off as it’s the other way around the rest of the time in our lives. Poor guy.

Here’s the conversation on the way home.

Honey, “I can’t believe I lost by one stroke. (insert blah, blah, here as I tune out all the shite about how he laid-up and missed the chip shot. Or worse, how he got to the green in two on a par four and then three putted. *gasp* riveting) Now ( insert my ears perking up when I hear) The guys were laughing their asses off when we tallied, but they did offer to let me adjust my score card so I could claim my reward.”

“And how would they know about that?” I must pause here a moment to admit that I don’t think Honey has enough pressure going out onto the course with three guys who play golf semi-seriously, so I always come up with a special *reward* <- and by that I mean SEXUAL in nature, as added stress and incentive because, you know his life isn’t complicated enough living with me.

“I told them.”

Hm. Him not tripping over that admittance assured me of many things, but the most important? “Do you always share my promised rewards with those guys?”

“Sure,” he chuckled.

He doesn’t take his eyes off the road. Good thing, as he’d be burned to cinders from my glare and gee, he was needed behind the wheel at the moment. But when we got home…? *insert that annoying piano one note from Eyes Wide Shut, here* He was in deep doo.

 “And oh yeah, Tony won, so he said he’d be over at ten tonight to collect.”

Alrighty. He wanted to play this one casually, I could too. “I would have thought his own wife could manage, but if you insist.”

Now he laughed and it was the one that made it hard for me not to smile even though I was pissed. “You know I’d never let happen. And as to his wife managing? She gave up matching your kinds of rewards the second game out in ’09.”

The memory of a few of those “kinds” of rewards came tripping back up memory lane. No wonder the wives treated me like a leper at a nudist colony. And they say women gossip? *shakes head* I was going to get mad at Honey the moment we got home, but I changed my mind. I decided he’ll be punished enough when the next time he goes out with those guys there are no added incentives to win forthcoming from me. I’ll just keep quiet and wish him luck. Wow, talk about stress. He’ll be sweating the whole game as this will be so unlike me. *Cracks knuckles* I think I just killed two clubs with one golf ball. The Strutting Rooster Club shall have nothing to chatter about on the course and The Glaring Hens Association shall have no one to disparage because now that I can blame their less-than-welcoming attitudes on Honey, there’s no need for me to tag along, right? *sigh* Maybe Honey should get that reward after all. He may not have won last Saturday, but now that I think about it? I do believe I did. Yay!

Riley

At least that was what I was thinking as I watched my mother’s deceased fish swirl around in the filter bubbles. But before I get to this very deep and complex epiphany I am going to share, you need to know a few things. First? The fish. His name is “Skipper” and he’s destined to be the oldest living Beta fish around once Honey buys the next one today to carry on the never ending life of Skip. Second? My mother needs glasses and a talking to about basic common sense because you gotta know a fish floating flat on top of the water in the same circle over and over again is dead. But nope, she’s still feeding him and wondering why he isn’t eating. Meh, she’s not complaining though as she has assured me this is the liveliest the poor guy’s been in a week. <- Ah, yeah, no. Third? I used to do this stealthy bait and switch-a-roo the year of my daughter’s goldfish loving extravaganza. She was six at the time and when she got a hair up her butt about how unfair mean old mommy and daddy were she’d knot her clothes in a bundle and tie them on stick in preparation for the move. (Why, yes she did watch the Little Rascals) Invariably she’d grab a Glad Bag out of the drawer and scoop her fish into it with just enough water because, you know, she didn’t want to runaway alone. The running part of the away? That was to Grandma and Grandpa’s house one street over. Don’t ask. Trust me, she gets all her melodrama genes from her father. But hey, that is a whole other post.

Anyway, here’s the epiphany that came to me while I’m making plans on how to bury the body and host the resurrection with Grandma being none the wiser.

When my daughter was younger I tried so hard to shelter her from death because she had her whole life ahead of her and I didn’t want her scared by things dying. I figured everyday life was hard enough even for a six-year-old, so I kept up continually replacing Fred. (Why yes she watched the Flintstone’s) Then yesterday, whilst I was hypnotized by the churning corpse in my mom’s fish tank, the thought that this was no different came to me. Only with my mom I’m trying to shelter her from dying things because the majority of her life is behind her. A very sad but true fact.

So here’s the conversation I had with Honey a few minutes ago:

“Thanks for getting the fish. I don’t want mom upset.”

“Over the death of a fish? It isn’t even a good one.”

“This is SO not about the fish and you know it.”

“Are we back to that again? Your mother has lived a good long life.”

Me *blink, blink* then, “What does that have to do with the price of eggs?”

“Well, life is for the young so…?”

Imagine me gasping, no choking over that one. Because in terms of how the eggs related to all this? He and aren’t exactly spring chickens anymore. Wtf? The guy was—I’d say short sighted, but that didn’t even cut it in this instance. Stupid, yeah that’s what he was.

I stare right at him. “You better hope that when our time comes it’s me that goes first.”

He scowls as oddly enough he doesn’t like to talk about death and me in the same sentence. He does, however, love to expound upon the topic of his own demise and how I would spend the rest of my spinsterhood pining away for him. Hmm.

His tone is low and serious. “You know that better not happen.”

“I’m convinced it should. I mean, who else will stand at the gates and beg the divine one to let you in? Certainly not all the “old” people you deemed had lived long enough.”

Him *blink, blink* then, “Are you suggesting I’m going to hell because I’m honest?”

“No. I’m suggesting you’re going to hell for being an ass.”

*shakes head* Men!

Riley

Again, seriously people? This is the title I have to post to get you to click? All right, pipe down. No judging. I promise. Where was I…?

Oh, yeah.

The one who won’t shut up. That would be that bird I blogged about here.

Now, the lies come in to play because Honey lied when he promised we wouldn’t be bothered at night when we were…well, you know, as birds are sleeping. Good thing, right? Don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be bothered when, well…you know. So, I’m like okay, I’ll deal with the annoying squawking bugger all day. I mean I love animals probably more than Honey and Honey has had Steven King to deal with. (I blogged about him here)

So here’s the progression of our hostage taking.

The bird known first as the “little guy” Actually I think Honey called him “cute little guy” at first, moved into our backyard and chirped most of the day. Every day. And I kid you not, there are only two things a guy sings so enthusiastically about. He’s either putting something into his woman or she’s pushing something of his out. Truthfully? I’m thinking how long can this last? If it’s sex not long and if it’s birth not too long either, right?

Wrong.

He is singing all day and half the night, most nights. We can’t keep the doors open, bad enough, but worse is the fact that you can still hear him and just two nights ago he discovered the hanging lantern on my bedroom patio. Now he perches there and sings, sings, sings. Seriously, I don’t know where he gets the energy.

He went from being called, “The cute little guy” to “Relentless” to “The Relentless little shit who has a mind of his own.”

And now? There’s no sugar coating it. He is “The Little *ucker”. But work with me here. The bird (which is no more than an inch and a half high) has to give up sometime right? This is what I say to Honey a 4 o’clock this morning when we’re both staring at the ceiling.

“Don’t they migrate, or something?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

He turns his head to look at me. “Should I go ask him?”

“Yes and while you’re out there shoo him away.”

“I’m not going outside at this hour. I’m naked.”

“So.”

“He’ll settle down in a minute.”

After a full three minutes goes by and he’s still chirping, honey throws off the duvet, “F%$# Hell!” He whips open the slider and disappears. I hear a couple of claps and some rustling before he comes back in. “There. Peace and quiet.”

Unfortunately his head barely hit the pillow when our Little effer started again. Only this time he was twice as loud.

Honey looks right at me and scowls, “Does he sound louder to you?”

Being that I was wide awake I stopped whispering and answered, “Yep.”

I was expecting him to get up again or at the very least be pissed, so when he chuckled I was curious. “What’s so funny?”

“He reminds me of the kids.”

I’m looking all over the place trying to connect those dots, but I come up empty. “How?”

“They always made me pay when I got mad at them. Do you remember the time…?”

So there we were, just like that other night the little guy woke us up, doing something unexpected at 4:15 in the morning. Honey and I played “can you top this” as we swapped amusing antidotes of how we tortured our children with our child rearing methods. (And, hey, by torture I don’t mean actual. I mean the kind of planned and plotted psychological mind-melding that’s impressive and…well, you get the idea) I was laughing so hard at one point I was crying. And after a while when we gave it much thought and deliberation Honey and I decided we should quit bitching about the Squawker and just adopt him. He’s such a stubborn pain in the ass it’s like he’s already one of our own.

I think I’ll call him Oscar.

UPDATE!!!!!!

Meet Oscar. It is 11:24 on Saturday March 9th and he’s singing his heart out in a tree by my open office slider. It’s loud and annoying. I’m ready to hang myself off one of the palms. Geezus!!!! Kinda cute though, no?

Riley