UPDATE: The winner is…MARG!
*~*~*

Puzzle-Contest

I chose this image for you to “un-puzzle” because I’m a very, very mean person. Kidding. (Using my Kristen Wiig voice there!) However, I wanted a challenging puzzle today, so I’m inflicting my desire upon you. So…mean. 🙂

So, for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, solve the puzzle and tell me your time, then let me know what image you think is missing from this illustration!

UPDATE: The winner is…Lori Sisson.
*~*~*

I’m groggy today. I spent a good portion of the day trying to watch the inauguration while I was editing. Then, because I was obsessed with the TV, I turned everything off last night and painted. By the time I actually looked at a clock, it was past midnight! And of course, this a.m., I still had to be up to help get kids ready for online school and testing. So…groggy.

Today, I have tons more editing to do. Plus, I have to spend some time either writing or thinking about Hardman’s story. I almost have the opening scene done, and it’s a very fun takedown. On a cold-ass river. Guess who gets soaked to the bone by the skip? Yeah, you’ll have to wait.

But here’s a picture of a Montana river. Something to tide you over. I’ve used this landscape background before on a cover. I love it so much!

Contest

For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, tell me what “thing” you have to do today. Big or small. 

 Open Contests

Enter while you still can!

1. My day, so far… (Contest–2 Winners!) — Win a FREE book!
2. Tell me a story… (Puzzle-Contest) — Win a FREE book!
3. Cover Reveal! (Contest) — Win a FREE book!

It’s Sunday, and I’m still being a little lazy after last week’s craziness. I finished up my plans for the coming week, so now, I think I might kick back and play some Fishdom on my phone. Anyone else play that game? It drives me nuts!

Anyway, just wanted to remind you about Preacher, which releases tomorrow after midnight (the print version is already live)! I can’t wait to hear what you have to say about the story! For sure, let me know if you’re still loving the bounty hunters. I hope so because I truly have a blast writing them.

Open Contests!

1. Life in the Devlin House (Contest) — Ends soon! Win an Amazon gift card!
2. Insomnia and Blasted Muses! (Contest) — Win a FREE book!
3. Monica Corwin: The Pressure of A Series End (FREE BOOK and Excerpt) — Everyone can get a FREE book!
4. My day, so far… (Contest–2 Winners!) — Win a FREE book!
5. Tell me a story… (Puzzle-Contest) — Win a FREE book!

UPDATE: The winner is…Jennifer Todd!
*~*~*

It’s Saturday! I’m catching up on email and administrivia! I finished and uploaded Preacher a couple of days ago. I can’t wait for you to read it! The book releases on Tuesday, January 19th! I hope you already have it pre-ordered. 🙂

In the meantime, let’s have some fun!

Puzzle-Contest

For a chance to win a download of any of my currently available Montana Bounty Hunters, tell me what awaits her at the bottom! Have fun with this challenge!

UPDATE: The two winners are…Savonna and Daphne Cochran!
*~*~*

Yes, I spent two hours in a dentist’s chair this morning. Why? I broke a tooth biting into a piece of Mentos gum on Monday. Yup. Gum. Weirdest sensation ever. The gum’s hard shell was surprisingly crunchy. It took me a minute to figure out why, but then my tongue touched the inside of a tooth that was no longer there. My first words after I made the discovery? Fuckety-fuck-fuck-fuck! I’m not polite when I’m pissed.

The doctor saw me that afternoon then told me, “Want the good news? I don’t have to pull your tooth.” The bad news was I would need a crown. And without dental insurance, you know I’m out a chunk of change. 🙁 They scheduled me to come in this morning to ground down what was left of my tooth and give me a temporary crown until the permanent one arrives around February 1st.  So, I’m back home with half a numbed mouth having to slurp my coffee because I can’t feel the lip of the cup. (Dang, I’m whining, aren’t I?)

Now, I don’t hate going to the dentist. I’m not afraid, even when he pulls out that huge-ass needle (as he did today to numb by mouth). I was on a deadline this week to finish a book—which I did yesterday. I was only worried about how much time my visits were going to consume. But I did pass a woman on her way back to an examination room who looked about ready to pass out. So, I do know a trip to the dentist can be traumatizing to some.

My question to you for a chance to win your choice of a download of a book from my backlist is…are you chill with your dentist visits or are you like the poor woman who looked like she was walking to her death? I’ll choose two winners!

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!

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

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.