I think I have an entity that hides things from me. No joke! Twice in the past two months I bought allergy/mucus relief meds that got lost in my car. Maybe some entity was telling me not to take them, since I had been taking the meds a lot lately and some folks say they are bad for us. With the first set of meds, my calendar also disappeared. I still like paper calendars, and I depend on mine. Of course, I saw none for 2019 in the Dollar Tree, so I bought a notebook to fill in as a calendar and a calendar for 2020. As luck would have it, new calendars for the school year appeared in stores after I created my own. I didn’t find the lost one after I created one. Nor did the meds show up. Usually, things I replace show up to mock me. Maybe Mercury being in retrograde has something to do with my losses.

With the second set of meds I also had herbal tea bags in boxes. That bag never made it into my house, but it wasn’t in my car, either. The boxes should have made losing the bag less likely. BUT it didn’t! Again, maybe I wasn’t supposed to take the meds, but the tea?

The kicker, this time, is a blood pressure cuff and a pack of batteries. I bought it Sunday, but it didn’t make it into my house. Yes, I searched my trunk and the inside of my car, ’cause I tossed my wallet and my cell phone onto the driver’s seat and two larger bags into my trunk. The receipt for the BP cuff and I will go back to the store where I bought it and hope I left the bag in my buggy when I took it back inside.

The clerk seemed off when he rung up my purchases, but I know he gave it to me, and I know my allergy brain wasn’t working, soooo maybe I did take it back inside.

This summer has been crazy. I now have three books in the Protective Series.

Check out Protecting Melissa.

Protecting Melissa

Get your copy here!

Protecting Melissa is a Romantic Suspense set in Georgia.

Melissa isn’t looking for romance since the murder of her cheating, swindling husband. She wants to teach and mind her own business. However, someone her husband cheated is determined to make her repay money her husband stole before his murder in the bed of one of his paramours.

Complications arise when Gabe, her former crush, walks into her classroom to check on his son, one of her students. The kid has a secret, she knows that secret, and his father wants to know that secret.

When Gabe and Melissa leave a basketball game and find all four tires on her vintage Mustang flat, he determines she needs his protection, despite her insistence she doesn’t. Gabe and Melissa’s brother were best friends. He looked after her when she tagged along behind him and her brother. Since her brother is out of the country Gabe feels obligated to protect her, just until her brother returns.

Someone has planted cameras in her house and made intimate looking photographs he shares on the Internet with her students. Who is sending her threatening emails and how far will her go to get what he wants?

Excerpt:

Melissa and Gabe have been to the police station to report a threatening call from the night before and have returned to her house. Gabe has checked every inch of her house to make sure no one has been there or could get inside. Feeling safe, she checks her email.

Following the laughter, he found her at her desktop computer. “What’s so funny?” he asked.

“Email.”

He leaned over her shoulder, reading her message.

“Mom has her laptop with her. She sends stories about their stops. Look!” She pointed to a comment. “They’re having such a good time.”

“Be a shame to give them a reason to worry about you.”

“After all the stuff you did to my house, no one could break in here. I’m perfectly safe. So go away.”

She closed her mom’s email.

She didn’t recognize the next address. The subject line read Favorite Teacher.

She laughed again. “Probably a project for computer class. Let’s open the attachment and check it out.”

“No signature, darlin’. Do you recognize the screen name?” Gabe pulled a chair beside hers. Her gardenia scent nearly made his eyes cross with desire. Damn the situation. The damned situation was the reason he was alone with her and so close he could feel her body heat and the reason he’d had a hard-on much of the past two days.

“Do you really think I know all the screen names for my students? I have a hundred and forty students and a homeroom list of thirty. Then there are my past students and the faculty.”

“And they all have your email address?”

“A lot of kids use it to ask about assignments. Some keep in touch during school breaks and some send me photos. A few send me jokes and such. I discourage that because of the volume and time factor. Way too many kids.”

She downloaded the attachment and saved to the desktop. Then she opened it.

Her picture appeared on the screen. She stood in front of her classroom.

Gabe laughed. “An admirer, I see.”

“Probably from the yearbook candids.”

The first photo faded and a second one took its place. It showed Lissie running, concentration in her expression. It was grainy like an enlargement of a telephoto lens shot but still a good action photo. It grabbed his attention.

Seeing the third photo appear, he took the mouse from under her hand. Her gasp made him look at her, then back at the image of her sprawled across her bed, her eyes closed, the cover rumpled. Her gown had settled high on her thighs. One hand held the hem of the gown and the other rested on her breast.

“Pervert!” he growled. His cock loved the photo, but his conscience wanted smash the person who had taken it.

Gabe reached past Lissie to turn on her radio, in case someone was listening to them.

Her voice came out in a whisper. “How did that happen? Gabe, someone broke into my house and watched me sleep. That’s why I felt like someone was watching me.”

He grabbed his cell and dialed Bry’s number. (Bry is a cop.)

Lissie gasped. “Omigod!”

He wrapped an arm around her, waiting for Bry to answer his phone, and watched the next photo materialize on the screen. It showed her car with its slashed tires and Lissie examining them.

“Oh, shit! Come on, Bry, answer.” He pounded the desk. He muttered an obscenity as the voice mail rambled on. “Call me on my cell ASAP,” he muttered into his phone.

The final photo showed Lissie in her shower.

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