Bestselling Author Delilah Devlin
HomeMeet Delilah
BookshelfBlogExtrasEditorial ServicesContactDelilah's Collections

Blog

Insomnia and Blasted Muses! (Contest)
Tuesday, January 12th, 2021

UPDATE: The winner is…Roberta!
*~*~*

I’ve been to many psychics over the years, and on several occasions, I’ve been told I have three muses—one a very old man, and the other two frisky females. I’m not sure which one woke me up at 3:15 from a great, dead sleep with the solution to my book story problem—the “who done it” and the ending.

Once up, I didn’t fight them (although I think it was just the grumpy old man). I quickly jotted down the notes in my head then sat at my desk and painted one very ugly postcard, and this one, which I love…

Over the years, I’ve decided insomnia’s not a horrible thing if I don’t fight it. Forcing myself to remain in bed and counting sheep or listening to fake rain falling on tin roofs only annoys me more. So, I take advantage of the quiet and do whatever I want. Sometimes, I actually catch myself yawning and head back to bed.  Sometimes, like this morning, I have kids to wake up for online class, so I’ll be up all day. Hopefully, I’ll be plenty tired tonight and the muses won’t be able to pry me from bed again.

So, how about you? Do you battle insomnia? Have you figured out what works for you in coping with the problem? Comment for a chance to win a free book—winner’s choice from my backlist!

 

Desiree Holt: Rawhide: Cut the Cards (Excerpt)
Monday, January 11th, 2021

Rawhide: Cut the Cards

It’s a card game like you’ve never played before!
Rawhide is back!

Have you been missing the trips to Rawhide, the ultra-exclusive BDSM club on the northwest side of San Antonio, Texas? Well, it’s time for another trip, and this one has a few twists. First of all, the club has a new Dungeon Master. His name is Reulas, and he runs a strict establishment. Nothing is barred as long as you follow the rules. Secondly, he has sanctioned the introduction of a new card game called “Cut the Cards.” Each card pictures some form of BDSM activity. The sub cuts the cards then draws a certain number. Any cards that picture acceptable activities are set to the side; those that are not are replaced in the deck. After the sub has made her/his choices, then the Mistress or Master makes their choices and…the game is on!

Rawhide: Ace in the Hole

Cut the Cards
Kelly LeBlanc was hot and aroused at being selected as part of a demonstration for Rawhide’s members and guests. A card game for sex? What fun! But then she meets the Dom, Tanner Sloat, and finds all her wildest fantasies are about to come true.

Blackjack
He was everything Nia March ever dreamed about in a Master. As he takes her to levels higher than she’s even been, touching something deep inside her, she wonders if she can protect her heart.

Texas Hold ‘Em
Sage Drummond thought she’d never recover from the effects of a relationship filled with cruelty, but she craved the role of sub. When she tentatively dips her toe in the waters at Rawhide, the last thing she expects to find is a Master who will satisfy her needs as well as heal her heart. Can it last?

Dealer’s Choice
Cade Sullivan was one of the most in-demand Doms until a tragedy sent him hiding from the world and out of the D/s life. Working at Rawhide gives Fiona Wilder the urge to try the D/s life. Can she be the key to help Cade forget the past and build a life with a sub that is all his?

Two of a Kind
They each bring their baggage to a night at Rawhide that is supposed to be nothing but fun—a night of intense D/s play. Neither is prepared for the intense connection they make or how it will change their lives.

Get your copy of Rawhide: Ace in the Hole here!

And a snippet from Cut the Cards

Tanner Sloat was everything subs imagined Doms to be, power flowing from his body. It was hard to ignore the bulge at his crotch, and it had cream flooding the tiny crotch of her thong at the sight of it. Her nipples hardened, poking into the soft material of her halter. At once, she imagined herself on her knees in front of him, his cock on her tongue, her hands squeezing his balls. Would he spank her if he thought her performance lacking?

Oh, yes! Please!

She was instantly even more wet and needy, and he hadn’t even said hello to her yet.

When she looked up at Tanner, a tiny knowing smile flirted with the corners of his mouth and sexual hunger flared in his eyes. He raked his gaze over her slowly, taking in every inch of her. Now she knew what the phrase “undressing someone with his eyes” meant, because that was exactly how she felt. At that moment, if he’d told her to strip naked, get down on her hands and knees, and let him fuck her ass, she’d have done it without a moment’s hesitation.

Holy shit!

She swallowed and curved her mouth in a smile. “Welcome to Rawhide.”

He dipped his head once. “I can see you’re everything Reulas said you were.”

And exactly what was that?

“Tanner is just back from a tour of duty as a member of a Delta Force team,” Reulas explained.

Ooo-kay. So that explained the ripped body. She wondered if he had any interesting scars. Without realizing it, Kelly licked her lips.

“I picked up a little game while I was in…a different country,” Tanner said. “When I mentioned it to Reulas, it interested him. He suggested giving a little presentation to the members.” His eyes looked her over again. “From everything he told me, I thought you would be an excellent choice for a game partner. You enjoy exhibitionism, right?”

Did a bank have money? Heat sizzled through her at the idea of performing before this crowd with this highly sexual man.

“I do,” she answered. “Can you tell me what the game is about?”

He held out a deck of cards. “Take a look at these. The idea is each partner goes through the deck and removes any position or activity that they absolutely will not do. Then they go through them one at a time.”

“Of course, no one expects to complete the entire selection in one session,” Reulas added. “So each partner picks his or her top three and then they begin.”

Kelly cocked an eyebrow at him. “Your email sounded intriguing, and everyone is always looking for something new. I’m sure that’s why there’s such a big crowd tonight.”

Reulas nodded. “If I’d told them you were going to be part of the performance, we’d have been so crowded the fire marshal might have shut us down.”

“Reulas tells me you are a particular favorite.” Tanner’s voice rolled over her nerves like the electric wand she loved so much, sending sparks along the surface of her skin.

“He’s very kind. But I do my best to please.”

“As a good sub should.” He gave her a penetrating look that pierced all the way to her pussy. Her inner walls clenched, and she had to resist the urge to squeeze her thighs together.

“Why don’t the two of you step into the little alcove over there?” Reulas pointed. “You can select your cards. When you’re ready, I’ll get everyone’s attention and announce the beginning of the performance.”

*~*~*

Where else can you find me:
www.facebook.com/desireeholtauthor
www.facebook.com/desiree01holt
Twitter @desireeholt
Follow me on
BookBub https://www.bookbub.com/search?search=Desiree+Holt
Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Desiree- Holt/e/B003LD2Q3M/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1505488204&sr=1-2-ent

Signup for my newsletter and receive a free book:
https://desireeholt.com/newsletter/

Life in the Devlin House (Contest)
Sunday, January 10th, 2021

UPDATE: The winner is…Jeanine Lesperance!
*~*~*

Just a quick note about what this day means to me, and then I’ll move on. One year ago today, my mom passed away. She was at home, being cared for by my dd and myself because she wanted to be home until the end and knew she wasn’t going to beat her pancreatic cancer. I’d just walked away to get a washcloth to clean her face and returned. I began gently cleaning her face, talking to her, telling her that my sister was nearly there, hold on, when I realized she wasn’t breathing. One minute later, my sister arrived, too late to tell her goodbye. It was such a sad, sad day, but the only thing I can be thankful for is that she didn’t live to see what was to come just two months later. She left in peace.

So, here we are…how many months in? We cope. We also find joy. Little things matter more. My 16-year-old granddaughter has become our hairstylist. She watched YouTube videos so she could cut our hair. Here she is giving her 7-year-old sister a trim last night.

And isn’t she lovely? All that lovely strawberry-blond hair. She’s going to be a redhead like her mama.

We mostly stick close to home. Get our groceries delivered curbside, pick up our takeout masked. The one place we frequent, because it’s a big open, well-ventilated warehouse is our local flea market. We make that an event. See the treasures we found yesterday?

My mother had a collection of that old-fashioned, mid-century white Corning Ware with the blue flowers. We’ve been slowly adding pieces (it’s very collectible!). We paid $6 for two pieces, now we’ll have to hunt down lids on eBay (something else we enjoy—the hunt!). My dd got rid of all our plastic storage dishes and mixing bowls, and we’re replacing them with midcentury Pyrex (also, very collectible!). That brown set with the mushrooms we got for $40. If you think that’s insane, see how much it goes for on eBay! See the bent glass serving tray? It’s midcentury as well by George Briard ($10).

I added some odd bits to our haul—the yellow tin ($1) that I intend to cut up for tin jewelry, the small wood inlay picture frame ($1.50) that I’ll fill with a painting, the ceramic disk with raised lettering depicting the Cherokee alphabet ($6), which I will use to set my brush pot on for use on my art table, and I think I’ll press it against a gel plate covered in paint for background marks. See the yellow swan? It arrived in the mail today, so I added it to the display. I used a picture of it for the last jigsaw puzzle I posted.

So, we craft and “hunt” and have family movie nights. We’re fortunate, and we know it, because we aren’t hurting for money or searching for food banks. This situation isn’t normal, but the kids are happy, learning to cook and cut hair, and we have a little farm of animals they care for. We’re busy and not feeling especially stressed out about the restrictions. My police officer SIL got the vaccine this week, which is a huge relief. Hopefully, sometime this year, the rest of us will get it, too. We have lots to look forward to—warmer weather, swimming this summer, working on flower beds. We spend evenings talking about the trips we want to make to familiar haunts once it’s safe—Beale Street in Memphis, New Orleans.

We’re enjoying simple pleasures. Grateful we’ve, so far, dodged the virus while missing my parents and grandmother, who left us just before all this hit. We are finding things to be happy about and grateful for during this long-ass pandemic.

I’d love to hear how y’all are coping and whether the vaccine is headed your way soon. What plans do you have for when we get back to something approaching “normal” again. Comment for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card.

What’s coming on January 19th! (Excerpt)
Saturday, January 9th, 2021

I loved writing my Montana Bounty Hunters series, and I’m really enjoying “meeting” the hunters and townsfolk in my new spinoff series, Montana Bounty Hunters: Dead Horse, Montana. The stories are all fun. The heroes are hot and very physically capable (even Brian, folks!). The heroines are all strong, smart, and sassy. And their adventures are often so dang funny. I love getting to “live” inside this world while I write, and it’s very, very gratifying that so many of you love these stories, too. It’s a good thing because I’ll be writing them for a long time.

Book #2 of the series, Preacher, releases on January 19th! I’m still putting the finishing touches on the book. Preacher and Laura have been so much fun to write. And yes, they fall for each other really fast. Write what you know is what they tell authors to do, and since, in my life, I only ever fell in love really, really fast, I write from a place of knowing what that’s like. No long buildup from friendship to happy ever after. No. Not for me. It’s insta-lust until one or the other realizes they really “like” being with that other person. Plus, dangerous situations can force people to have to learn to trust each other quickly. Et  voilà! Love happens.

I’ve included the opening of the story here for you to enjoy, just so you can meet more of the hunters in this series and get a taste for the kind of job they do. There are mentions of the cable TV show the original bounty hunters cast do and “Bounty Hunter Barbie” who is Lacey Jones and a fan favorite from the original series, too. Lacey and her man Dagger are in Dead Horse for a while until Cage (the hero from the first book) staffs up his office. I swear you don’t have to read the other books to figure out who’s who!

Buckle up—and pre-order your copy now! The book will be available only on Amazon, at first, and it’ll be FREE in KU. Print will come shortly afterward.

Preacher

Preacher

An ex-Delta Force soldier, now Montana Bounty Hunter, finds himself bemused as he slips naturally into protector-mode when a small-town dessert chef is threatened by mysterious attacks.

Pre-order your copy now!

From the opening of Preacher

“Preacher, got my eyes on the back door.”

Dylan “Preacher” Priestley eyed the ground between his position, hiding behind a tree in a neighboring yard, and the front door of the property they currently surveilled. Twenty feet tops. Marti, his partner on this takedown, had already circled the house while he’d stood watch, sliding along the wood siding and popping up to peer into windows. According to her, there were three men inside playing poker around the kitchen table. One of them was their target, Jasper Quigley.

“Cage is on his way here,” Preacher said softly. “There will only be the three of us. Dagger and Lacey are still making their way back from Anaconda.” Jasper’s meek-looking mama had sent Dagger and his girlfriend on a wild-goose chase, telling them Jasper had holed up there.

Yeah, Jasper was probably feeling pretty smug right about now. He’d given them the slip twice now. Once, when a bartender in Anaconda, whom they’d promised money for a tip, had let them know he was playing cards in an illegal game in the backroom. The second they’d crashed through the door, the skinny fucker had bailed out a window and was on his bike and gone before Cage, who’d been watching the back door, could manage to get around the side of the establishment.

The second time he’d escaped had been when he’d dropped by his best friend’s house for a shower and a resupply before heading back out into the woods in Gallatin National Forest. A neighbor they’d also offered to reward for information regarding his whereabouts had called to let them know when Jasper had just rolled in. By the time they’d mustered the team, Jasper had been long gone, and according to his buddy, he was camped out in the woods where they’d never find him.

With over 2,800 square miles of territory to search in Gallatin, they’d decided to set up cameras to watch all the likely places he might return to…his mom’s, his best friend’s, his girlfriend’s. That way they wouldn’t have to rely on anyone else. And since Anaconda, Jasper’s stomping grounds, wasn’t far from Dead Horse, they could be there the second their tech guru and general flunky, Fredericka “Fig” Newton, let them know.

She’d called an hour ago, having spied a man on a bike arriving after dusk at Jasper’s best friend’s house.

While they hadn’t been certain the man was Jasper, it had been over a week since the twice-convicted felon had come in for a resupply, and the weather had cooled considerably. So, they took the chance since there were only days to go before the bounty ran out.

Footsteps crunched in the dried leaves behind him. Preacher tensed and glanced behind him, just making out a large, burly shadow moving toward him.

His boss, Cage Morgan, lifted his chin when he got closer. “What do we have?”

“Marti’s already scoped out the place. Three men are in the kitchen playing poker. Jasper’s one of them. She sliced one of Jasper’s tires while she was at it to make sure we don’t have the same issue we had in Anaconda.”

“Knew I liked that girl.”

In his ear, he heard a soft grunt coming from Marti.

Preacher’s lips twitched. After working with her for two weeks, he was certain “the girl” had the personality of an old wooden post. “It’s a shotgun house. Going in the front, kitchen’s right past the living room on the right.”

“They armed?”

“One of them is wearing a shoulder holster. Since they were all seated, she couldn’t see what the other two are packing.” Preacher dug into a pouch on his web belt and pulled out an extra earpiece which he handed to Cage.

Cage took a moment to flick it on and insert it in his ear. “You hear me, Marti?”

“Yeah, boss.”

“Got a plan, Preach?”

Preacher shrugged. “Break down the door and kick some ass…?”

“Sounds good to me,” Marti said in his ear.

Cage grimaced. “Let’s try a little more finesse. I don’t like that we can’t be sure whether they’re going to draw weapons.” He let out a sigh. “Hey, Marti? Think you can be our Lacey tonight?”

“I wish like hell one of you two had boobs,” she muttered.

Preacher chuckled, following Cage’s thread and Marti’s disgust.

“I’m stripping,” she growled.

Cage patted his shoulder. “You get around to the back. She’s going in the front. When she’s had a chance to suss out whether they’re all armed, she’ll let us know.”

“What am I supposed to say?” Marti groused. “Hey, is that a gun in your pants or are you just glad to see me?”

Preacher grinned in the shadows. Marti’s flat tone made the snarky comment all that much funnier.

“Yeah, like that,” Cage said, his smile gleaming.

“Okay. Stashed my shit,” she said.

Preacher gave Cage a thumbs up then made his way from the tree line to the corner of the house, just in time to see Marti crouch low and edge her way along the side of the house before straightening beside the porch. It looked like she’d taken a knife to her T-shirt to cut off the arms and most of the neckline, then she’d tucked the tight shirt into her black cargo pants. Her hair was loose and fell in fluffy waves around her shoulders; her lips were glossy and red. Until the moment she stood beneath the porch light, he hadn’t realized she was actually kind of cute.

He kept moving until he was behind the house and stood in the shadowy space beside the wooden back steps.

“Here goes,” Marti muttered. “Gawd, I can’t believe I’m letting you pimp me out.”

“Suck it up, buttercup,” Cage whispered.

Preacher listened as she knocked on the door.

After what felt like forever, the front door creaked open a crack, and then made a longer creaking noise as it widened. “Can I do something for you?”

“Ooh, what a big gun you have! Wow, are you some kind of cop or something?” Marti asked, sounding like a bad actress in a porn movie with her little girl tone and slight lisp.

“Or something,” the man said, his slithery tone telling Preacher that the man liked what he saw.

“Um, I was wondering…”

Preacher imagined her twisting her hair around a finger.

“Do you have a phone I could use? My date left me on the side of the road, and my phone’s still in his damn car.”

“Now, sweetheart, that’s no way for a man to treat a pretty little thing like you.”

Pretty little thing? While just medium height, Marti had an athlete’s build.

“You really think so?”

Preacher shook his head, thinking he’d underestimated his partner’s feminine powers. She was flirting with the thug, and he was eating it up.

“Why don’t you come inside? I have a phone. You thirsty? Need a drink?”

“What do you have?”

The sound of footsteps followed.

“Lookie, boys, at what showed up on my doorstep.”

Chairs scraped.

“That such a good idea?” one male voice asked.

“No big deal,” Marti’s host said. “She needs a drink.”

“And a phone,” she said, in a soft voice.

“Gotta be thirsty. How far did you have to walk?”

“Damn near a quarter mile,” Marti said. “In the dark. I was so happy to see your porchlight on. I was getting worried.”

“Well, don’t you worry about a thing now. Jasper, get her the chair out of my bedroom. Better yet, give her yours. You go fetch the other for yourself.”

Chairs scraped again, likely from the two remaining men and Marti seating themselves.

“Such a gentleman,” Marti crooned.

“Not too much o’ one.” The horse’s ass who was chatting her up laughed like a hyena at his own joke.

Footsteps clomped closer. Something thudded on the floor. “She’s sitting in front of my cards.”

“Jasper, we’ll get back to the game,” Horse’s Ass said.

“Well, you all have some fine hardware there,” Marti murmured. “Don’t think I’ve seen so many guns since my daddy took me to church in Whitefish.”

“Need to know how many,” Preacher whispered.

“You spend much time in Whitefish?” Horse’s Ass asked.

“My daddy used to go there a lot, until Mr. Whitcomb went and got himself arrested.”

“You knew Barney Whitcomb?” Jasper said.

“I met him a time or two. Seemed like a nice man. Can’t believe they’re trying him for kidnapping and assault. Daddy said the guy he hurt probably deserved it.”

“He did, indeed,” Jasper said. “I was supposed to be there the night the FBI and ATF took him off.”

“Really? Well, aren’t you lucky? You coulda been sitting in jail with him.”

“Oh, I’m lucky all right. Had some bounty hunters after my ass a while back. Dumbasses never could catch me.”

“Seriously? Bounty hunters? Like Dog the Bounty Hunter?”

Preacher rolled his eyes.

“More like those fake bounty hunters on Bounty Hunters of the Northwest.”

“Do you really think they’re fake?” Marti asked, her voice tightening a tad. “They all look like they can take care of business.”

A laugh sounded. “Come on, you ever seen Bounty Hunter Barbie? She’s got her own action figure now. It’s all fake. Besides, if they were really good at their jobs, don’t you think they’d already have caught my ass?”

Marti’s laugh tinkled.

Preacher shook his head. Hell, he’d never heard her laugh before. And it tinkled.

After a pause, Marti said, “Oh, that’s good. I was really, really thirsty.”

“Got more where that came from,” Horse’s Ass said, sounding like he was talking into her ear.

“Bet you do,” Marti said under her breath, her flat voice sounding almost like her old self. “My daddy bought me a little Remington pocket pistol to carry in my purse. Fits my hand just right.”

“What are you doing?” Cage whispered in warning.

“Mmm. I just love the way a gun feels in my hand when I squeeze off a round.”

“That the only thing you like to squeeze off?” Horse’s Ass whispered.

“I swear I get off on the feel of steel in my palm.”

“Well, you should feel this one,” another male said.

“That one’s so big,” Marti said, sounding a little breathless. “Not sure my little ole fingers can get all the way around it. Ooh, but I like how that feels.”

Cage chuckled. “Get ready, Preacher. Our little missy is gonna get all the guns.”

“If she doesn’t get raped first,” Preacher bit out.

“Try mine,” Jasper said as Preacher climbed the steps and stood in front of the back door.

“Well, let me see. I’m not sure which I like better. That first one was heavy and so wide it gave me shivers. This one’s not so heavy, but it’s looong.” She giggled. “Let me feel yours.”

Horse’s Ass said, “Shoulda tried mine first. It’s the best.”

“Well, now, I have all three. However, do I choose?”

“Now!” Cage said.

Preacher raised his foot and kicked open the back door. The sound of more splintering wood echoed in his ears.

Shouts sounded from inside.

“Give me my gun!”

Clattering sounded and then a loud thud.

Preacher ran through a mud room and down a short dark corridor.

“Babe, why’d you toss the table?”

“Bitch! You set us up!”

When he stood in the kitchen doorway it was to see Marti standing over the men, a long-barreled revolver in her hand.

“Not so fake now, huh, Jasper?”

Flashback: Family Values (Contest–Two Winners! Plus Excerpt!)
Friday, January 8th, 2021

UPDATE: The winners are Annie Kavanagh and Amy Dudley!
*~*~*

Depending on how long you’ve been reading me, you might not be aware of my naughty, nine-book, cowboy ménage series, Lone Star Lovers. All my sexiest fantasies are rolled up in those stories. Two cowboys, three cowboys, four… All that attention on one lucky girl… Heck, it’s not really fair, and there must be something in the water in Two Mule, Texas because there’s a whole lotta sharin’ goin’ on. 🙂

Comment for a chance to win your choice of
one of my Lone Star Lovers books! 

Family Values

Family Values

Three brothers competing for one woman’s heart learn the values of patience and sharing….

Angelina Flores lived a perfect ranch-kid childhood, complete with three princes on horseback who treated their housekeeper’s daughter like a princess. At age eighteen, the fairytale came crashing down when she realized she had to choose between Brand, Nate, and Eli McAffee. And when she did choose one—she lost all three.

She’s older now. Wiser, thanks to her college education and a few years’ distance. A distance she’d planned to maintain…until her mother begs her to fill in at the ranch while she takes care of a sick relative.

The minute her boots hit the front porch, the memories come flooding back, right along with the hunger. It’s tough to put the past behind her when temptation is so close. Especially since the brothers seem bound and determined to woo her. Separately. Together. Whatever it takes to keep her right where she belongs—in their arms.

An Excerpt from Family Values

For Angelina Flores, stepping across the threshold of the MacAfee ranch house was a moment filled with both nostalgia and pain. The dull thud her boots made on the natural, planed-oak flooring was a familiar sound—and not one she’d heard anywhere else. The faint smells of beeswax and Pine-Sol mixed with the scent of the freshly cut roses in the Mexican crockery atop the rugged fireplace mantel. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine herself at ten years old, running with her muddy boots through the family room to tell her mother about her day, about the animals and the cowboys—her new friends, who’d let her ride behind them on their tall horses.

Her childhood had felt enchanted. And she’d had three handsome princes fawning over her, showering her with pretty clothes and dolls. Even then, she’d dreamed of growing up and having a fairytale wedding, and when they’d teased her and asked her which one she’d choose for her husband, she’d asked why she couldn’t choose them all.

How prophetic that now seemed. As, when she’d approached graduation from high school, two of the McAfee men had suddenly let her know of their individual interest.

Oh, she’d been flattered. And thrilled. Until the moment she’d realized she really would have to choose. Then she’d been filled with dread, because she didn’t want to hurt any of them, and she didn’t know how she could favor one over the other, especially when she was also interested in the third.

Angelina shook her head to rid herself of the painful memories and entered with trepidation, wondering what her welcome would be like once the brothers returned home. The last time she’d been here, in this room, she’d been led through it by a hard hand clamped around her upper arm. She’d been escorted crying and half-dressed back to her room off the kitchen, and then her door closed in her face.

The next morning, she’d been taken by the same hard-faced man through the back door to his Expedition parked beside the porch. The chill in the morning air not nearly as cold as his final goodbye at the Dallas airport.

She’d been eighteen, and the only place she’d ever called home was her home no more.

Angelina took a deep breath and stepped farther into the room. She set her suitcase on the floor beside her and tilted her head to listen for any sounds of movement in the house. Her mother had said the MacAfee boys were at an auction in San Angelo, and that she’d have the place to herself for the weekend, to acclimate and to shore up her nerves.

“Mama, you know why I can’t be there,” she’d said in the early morning hours, holding back her hair and squinting at the digital alarm beside her bed.

“I have no one else I can trust, mija. It’s been years. Things have changed. You have changed. No one will say a word about the past. Have I ever asked anything of you, Angel?”

Angelina’s shoulders had slumped. “I don’t know if I can go there,” she’d whispered.

“I know it will be hard, Angel. I know. But you must take my place and look after the boys while I am away. Do this for me, please?”

She’d taken a deep breath and gripped her cellphone harder. “How long? How long must I stay?”

“Your Aunt Cecilia is having a hysterectomy. I might be weeks.”

Angelina shook her head. Her stomach twisted in a knot, and sudden nausea made her skin clammy. “I’ll have to call my boss. Damn, he’ll probably let me go. I just started there.”

Gracias, mija. You will see. You worry for nothing. The past is the past.”

But the past wasn’t so distant that she didn’t feel the same longing as she gazed around the room for dreams she’d shattered when she’d followed her heart to make the biggest mistake of her life. And she would never forget the shame.

After picking up her bag, she trudged toward the kitchen and beyond it, to the small bedroom that had been her own when she was a child and the world had seemed such a bright place, full of romantic possibilities.

But princes didn’t exist, at least not in her realm. And she wasn’t a starry-eyed chatterbox anymore, eager to sit on certain cowboys’ knees. She was a college graduate. Had her own job—maybe. Her own place. She’d made a life for herself. The fact she still felt pangs of loneliness late at night when she went to bed alone was something she’d eventually outgrow. Someday. And somewhere far from the MacAfee ranch.

Odd Collections (Puzzle-Contest)
Thursday, January 7th, 2021

UPDATE: The winner is…Debbie Caswell!
*~*~*

I’m a collector of odd objects. My daughter says I’m a hoarder, but I’m slowly sharing my obsessive nature with her. She’s now collecting vintage Pyrex mixing bowls and refrigerator dishes and hunts them down on eBay and at flea markets with zeal. 🙂

I have many collections. A few of them include fortune-telling teacups, Russian lacquer boxes, McDonald’s kids toys (I have all the How to Train Your Dragon figures!), superhero Funko Pop figures (I have an RGB one—she was a superhero to me!), Strangling ornaments, weird and funny pens, to name a few…. And I also collect antique depression glass vanity powder jars from the 40s and 50s. I have five of them now. They aren’t expensive at all, but they are “collectible”. Most are glass with an animal on top. The puzzle is a picture of my latest acquisition. You can even rest a lipstick between its wings!

Puzzle-Contest

Solve the puzzle then share something about collecting, whether it’s something you collect or your mother/sister/dad/whoever collected. Comment for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!

My Etsy Store is Open, plus a New Contest & Open Contests!
Wednesday, January 6th, 2021

UPDATE: The winner is…Eileen McCall!
*~*~*

If you’ve been following me for very long, you know I have an obsession. Not my writing. That’s not obsessive at all. Nope. That’s just part of my DNA. I’m a crafter, and I know there are a lot of us out there. I love sitting down at my table and playing with beads and wire and pulling out my paints, crayons, pastels, and pens to create art.

2020 kept me at home, and I dabbled like mad in my craft room to keep away the dark shadows and boredom. Now, I have so many completed projects that I thought now was the time to reopen my Etsy store, The Emerald Casket. So, here it is. I don’t have a lot on the “shelf” right now, but I’m posting new items every day. If you’re interested, go take a look, but here are a few things I am or will be offering soon….

These are handpainted earrings. My dd loves them. They’re light and fun. I used copper wire and ear wires, plus pretty Czech glass seed beads.

Here, I have handpainted postcards, sold in bundles. Don’t you want something special to send to family and friends?

And of course, bracelets, since I love making and wearing them. This one’s made with a silver bead, hematite, and matte onyx beads.

I’m excited and working on posting new items every day. I opened yesterday and am stoked because I had my first sale! Woot. I hope you’ll visit the store often, and if there’s something you see that’s not quite what you want, send me a note. I have custom-made items in the past, and my prices are very reasonable.

So, that’s the sales pitch. What I don’t sell there, I’ll pack up and take to local craft shows—once it’s safe. In the meantime, I’ll be puttering, experimenting, and obsessing over my beads and paint…

Do you have an obsession? Share for a chance to win a download of your choice from my backlist of books!

Open Contests

Enter while you still can!

  1. New Year’s Eve Puzzle-Contest!This one ends soon! Win an Amazon gift card!
  2. What I’m looking forward to in 2021 (Puzzle-Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
  3. Diana Cosby: Inspiration From Nature – Wildlife (Contest) — Win a signed book!
  4. Join me at Delilah’s Corner! (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!