Excerpt Monday was so heavily attended that Bria and Mel decided to get it organized.  So they made a blog and spent a lot of time and effort to make it look good (and succeeded!)  From the EM home page you can get to the blogs of all the writers participating this month.  At the end of my excerpt post below, you will see a handful of links to randomly chosen participants as well.

If you write romance, you should seriously consider participating.  My sister in law bought one of Kirsten Saell’s books last month based on her excerpt.

Okay, next E.M. I’m going to post something from the novella coming out at Samhain but today I’m posting from my big WIP, the one that’s been stuck at  86K while I retool the front end and try to get the ending down on paper.

In this scene, Rocky Mountain Pack Alpha and single father Cade MacDougall has just lost another nanny.  And he’s just discovered that his nephew’s foster mother is dismayingly smoking hot.

*****

Michael was hanging up the phone in Cade’s office when he walked in, slamming the door behind him.

“Okay, I told the service what happened.  They’re gonna call us back after they talk to Mrs. Palmer, but of course we’re getting the fee back.  I really thought she would work,” Michael said sadly.  “She wasn’t a nympho, a thief or a drunk.”

“She was just crazy,” sighed Cade, collapsing into one of the guest chairs.

“You want your chair back?”

“No, I want my day back.  I want to rewind and start over.”  Taking a cigarillo out of the wooden case on his desk, he lit it up and tipped his chair back.

“Oh s***,” Michael groaned.  “What now?”

The last time he’d lit up indoors, it was immediately after finding a naked nanny waiting for him, uninvited, in his bed.  Smoking indoors meant it was a bad day.

He took a long drag.  “I’m wondering if I made a mistake.”

“You don’t make mistakes,” Michael said with a perfectly straight face.

“Watch it, wolf.  I’m serious.  This could be a problem.”

“We’ll hire another nanny, Cade.  Euri can handle things till we do.”

“That’s not the problem. The female outside?   You were right, that’s Dylan’s cousin, his foster mother.”

Michael let out a low wolf whistle.  “Sweet.  Which one of the wolves is she banging?  Oh man, you don’t think she’s–”

“Get your mind out of the f****** gutter!” He hadn’t meant to snarl, but the insinuation that his nephew might be living in some kind of white trash cliché chafed his already frayed nerves.

“Sorry, bro,” his best friend said quietly.  “I’m an asshole.  So she’s hot.  What’s the problem?”

“I made your brother a deal about the three of them – the uncle, the foster mother, the weird f******* roommate.”

Michael frowned.  “Deal?  What kind of deal?”

“I told Nick I’d look after the girl and the two other wolves.  Let them stay as long as they want.  In return he recognizes our pack and me as the Alpha.”

“You didn’t tell me you’d given them an open invitation.”

Cade shrugged as he took another drag. “Getting Houston’s recognition is worth some inconvenience.  Nick should’ve said something about the female, though.”

A woman we’ve never met, who looks like that, hanging around as long as she wants?   After all the s*** with the nannies?”

Cade gazed at his second steadily and took another drag on the cigarillo.  He might castigate himself for an error in judgment; that didn’t mean his wolf could do it.

His tone was mild but tinged with iron as he drawled, “Last I heard, Michael, I was the Alpha and this was my home.  I just figured I could decide who gets to visit and for how long.  Like I did with you.  No one told me I had to put it up for a vote.  Who’s on the committee?”

“Point made, point taken.”

Neither of them spoke for a few minutes.

“Where the hell is she, anyway?”

Michael glanced outside and shrugged.  “She’s wandering around the yard, looking lost and lucious.“

“Hey, wait.” Michael’s normal sardonic expression had returned.  “Listen.  If this all blows up in your face, do I get to say I told you so?”

“No.  But if you’re good, I’ll let you clean up the mess.”

****

More good reads for Excerpt Monday:

Mel Berthier – urban fantasy (PG-13)

Lynn Chandler – romantic suspense (PG-13)

Babette James – fantasy  romance (PG-13)

Bria Quinlan – romantic comedy (PG)

Kirsten Saell – erotic romance (rating NC-17)

Kate Willoughy – fantasy/paranormal erotic romance (NC-17)

Filed under: The Romance Genre, Writing