Beyond the Book: The Horse Did What?

Do you like horses? My heroine Aimee had never ridden a horse until her car broke down and she accepted a ride from Cade McCoy who was riding his horse. Here's what happened the first time she tried to ride a horse.

The horse snorted, distracting Aimee from her thoughts. “So, do you want that lift?” Cade asked.

“You mean on the horse?”

His lips twitched as his eyes danced. “Why not?”

Was he laughing at her? He was! He was laughing at her. “I don’t mind riding your horse,” she said, her chin going up as it always did when a challenge presented itself.

“Excellent.”

He swung up on the horse and extended his hand to her. “Put your foot in the stirrup, and I’ll pull you up.”

Aimee confidently stuck her foot in the stirrup and took his hand. She’d never been on a horse before, but how hard could it be? Just a little step up, right?

Wrong. The horse was taller than she thought. As she floundered and scrambled against the animal’s side, Cade gave her arm a jerk and set her in place behind him. The minute the horse felt her weight it farted, a long, drawn-out expulsion of air that seemed to go on forever.

Cade laughed as if it was the most hysterical thing he’d ever heard.  

Beyond the Book: Fortuna

A merry tale of life, love and confusion in a small town.

Fortuna is the name of the house my heroine's fiance bough for them to live in. You can see a little bit of Fortuna on the cover, but not too much. The house was a total wreck and actually leaned to one side when Rocky bought it. He wanted to restore it, but Aimee wanted to gut it and start over. Here are Aimee's first thoughts about Fortuna.By the way, Fortuna is the goddess of luck and good fortune.

Rocky grabbed her hand before she could scold. “Let me show you the house, hon. It’s just incredible. I can’t believe how lucky I was to find it.” He beamed at June. “Thanks to you I didn’t buy that tacky McMansion for sale on the other side of town.”

Aimee’s teeth ground together.

With Cade and June following, Rocky indicated the room to the right of the fallen door. “This is the living room.” He pointed toward the ceiling. “See that pretty molding up near the ceiling?”

Aimee shook her head. “No, but I do see some crumbling plaster. Is that what you’re talking about?”

Rocky closed his eyes as if her assessment of the molding pained him. “Hon, this house was built in 1750. Of course it needs a little work.”

“With historical properties one focuses on the potential, not the current condition,” June inserted.

Aimee’s lips tightened when June’s snarky tone registered.

They left the living room and went straight into the room on the left of the fallen door. “This is the dining room,” Rocky said. “Don’t go into the far corner. We have a hole in the floor.”

Aimee bounced on the supposedly safe part of the wooden floor. “I’m not sure we should be in here at all. It feels spongy to me.”

Cade stepped into the hall.

From the hallway, Rocky led them to the back part of the house. “Here’s the kitchen, hon.”

“Much nicer,” Aimee approved as her eyes swept the room. “The kitchen must have been redone in 1920. Is that a woodstove over there?”

June scowled and Cade laughed.

“Hon,” Rocky reproved.

The bedrooms were no better, but the bathroom . . . “There are no words,” Aimee whispered. She kicked the claw-foot tub and dislodged a rain of rust particles. They made a pretty pattern where they drifted across the dirty floor. What did the floor look like? Was it black and white? No, maybe gray and white, or maybe brown? “Rocky . . .”

“Don’t worry, hon.” He patted her shoulder. “We have outside facilities. I told the contractor he’d need to work on the bathrooms first thing.”

“No, he’ll need to shore up the entire thing first, or it’s going to fall down and kill us.”

Cade’s eyes were full of laughter. “Hey, Rocky, where are the outside facilities?”

“Look out the window.”

Aimee rushed to the window and looked out. She saw an outdoor shower with absolutely no way to conceal oneself. Not far away she saw a small, crooked hut. No! It couldn’t be. Her grandmother had told her of such things, but . . . “Is that hut an outhouse?”

Rocky nodded. “Uh-huh. It has two holes and some catalogues from 1955. You won’t even have to take a book with you.” He pursed his lips. “I don’t really know why they needed two holes. Maybe people in the country make communal bathroom visits.”

Aimee tried the deep breathing technique that usually calmed her. It had no effect whatsoever. She gripped the window frame, which of course had no glass in it. “We can’t live here. Besides the fact that the place is falling down and actually tilts to one side, we don’t have a stick of furniture, a working bathroom or kitchen, or a bedroom fit to sleep in.”

June cleared her throat. “You aren’t using your historical imagination, Aimee. Take your cue from Rocky. He appreciates the opportunity to be the caretaker of such a fabulous property. With his vision and foresight, this will be one of the most beautiful homes in West Virginia.”

As you might expect, Aimee's reply to June, the realtor who sold the house to Rocky, isn't too polite, but that's an excerpt for another day.

Buy link: http://amzn.to/23yoW2d

Fortuna: Aimee's First Horseback Ride

Aimee's first horseback ride.

Was he laughing at her? He was! He was laughing at her. “I don’t mind riding your horse,” she said, her chin going up as it always did when a challenge presented itself.

“Excellent.”

He swung up on the horse and extended his hand to her. “Put your foot in the stirrup, and I’ll pull you up.”

Aimee confidently stuck her foot in the stirrup and took his hand. She’d never been on a horse before, but how hard could it be? Just a little step up, right?

Wrong. The horse was taller than she thought. As she floundered and scrambled against the animal’s side, Cade gave her arm a jerk and set her in place behind him. The minute the horse felt her weight it farted, a long, drawn-out expulsion of air that seemed to go on forever.

Cade laughed as if it was the most hysterical thing he’d ever heard. He turned around to say something, took a look at her face, and wisely decided to say nothing. She’d had to put her arms around him, and she still felt him shaking with laughter. Barbarian.

Beyond the Book: Fortuna

A merry tale of life, love and confusion in a small town.

Welcome to Beyond the Book. Today I'd like to introduce you to Fortuna, a romantic comedy that releases January 28. I'm having a FB release party on Monday Feb. 1, and I hope you can come. I'll be giving away some pretty nice prizes. For today, I thought I'd share one of my favorite scenes from the book. In this excerpt my heroine Aimee and her fiance Rocky go to a church dinner where Aimee encounters an enemy.

 Rocky joined her near the end of the table just as she took the lid off a square plastic container. He peered into the dish. “What’s that?”

Aimee took a look and saw something that reminded her of meatballs: blue, perfectly shaped meatballs. She giggled. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Both of them stopped snickering when a buxom blonde wearing a tight, flowered blouse approached with a frown on her face. Aimee gasped. This was the woman from the coffee shop at the funeral home.

The woman recognized her at the same time. “You!”

“Yeah, I recognize you too.” Aimee tried to instill the proper amount of disdain in her voice.

A second, older woman who looked somewhat like the blonde wandered over to the table to see what was going on. Fortified by the newcomer’s presence, the buxom blonde gestured wildly toward the table. “What are you doing to my bean balls?”

"Bean balls?"

"Yes. You were staring at my bean balls."

Aimee giggled even though she tried not to. “I was just taking the lid off them. Honest.”

“Well, I don’t like the way you were looking at them. Don’t you know it’s better for you to eat healthy food?”

Aimee gritted her teeth, amusement gone. “I was looking at them because I had no idea what they were.”

She wondered if the blonde was about to have a stroke. Her face was that red. Actually, it matched her skirt pretty well, which, by the way, didn’t match her tight blouse. The woman gave Aimee the evil eye. “You are a hateful, mean woman. I’m sorry I ever met you. First you misrepresented yourself at the coffee shop, and now you mock my bean balls.”

“I did not!”

Without warning the blonde jerked the plastic container away from Aimee. It scooted across the table and crashed into a gelatin salad, taking a corner off its molded perfection. The blue bean balls went everywhere, rolling around the table like marbles on steroids. ”Look what you’ve done,” the blonde wailed. “Nobody will want to eat them now.”

She snatched a bean ball and hurled it at Aimee, who ducked just in time. “You missed me,” she taunted. She had no sooner finished speaking before a second bean ball flew through the air. This one caught the shoulder of her new blouse.

The blonde laughed.

Aimee grabbed a bean ball from the table and threw it at the blonde. She hit the woman right in the chest. “Help me!” the blonde shrieked. “She hit me in the heart. Where’s the sheriff?”

From the corner of her eye, Aimee saw the priest hurrying their way. She fired one final bean ball, which hit the blonde’s forehead with a beany thud.

Rocky grabbed her arm. “They’re circling the wagons. Let’s get out of here.”

Practically running, they made their escape from the church. Rocky took the precaution of locking the truck doors. He sighed. “I guess we can’t come back to this church either. Are we going to become atheists?”

“Of course not!”

Sunk in gloom, they drove back to Fortuna. The jinx was still on as far as churches were concerned.

Obviously, Aimee and Rocky have had some trouble in other churches. I hope you enjoyed the excerpt. Look for Fortuna on 1/28. I think you'll like it. By the way, this excerpt is based on a real event.