She’ll always have a place in my heart, always. But slowly, over the past few weeks, the people in my house have been talking about yellow lab pups, and sending me texts. I suspect a coop …

From Oldest at a pet store: “Look who wants to come home …”

From Middle at a basketball game: “I found a new friend looking for a home…”

From Alpha Man: “Look what I found …”

Uh huh. They all managed to just happen upon yellow lab pups. They’re all big fancy liars is what they are.

But they’re wearing me down.

Do I really want to be up all night with a puppy? Deal with the chewing? The accidents? The general destruction a puppy brings to a house?

Sigh … I think I do.

So while I’m obviously going insane, tell me about your pets. Do you have dogs, cats, hamsters? Oh, wait. That’s us. Talk to me …

I have to go shovel now. Snow. Lots and lots of snow. Apparently Mother Nature didn’t get the memo that spring is almost here. That fickle, pms-y bee-yotch.

Oh, wait. Maybe that’s me today …

Too much?

Prologue

If you asked TJ Wilder to choose between a warm autumn night in the Sierras or a warm woman, he knew that most people would put money on him taking the woman.

And while that might have been true in his wild, unchecked youth, tonight they’d have been wrong.

Not that he didn’t love women. He did. Short or tall. Willowy or curvy. Sweet or hot-as-hell sexy– actually, make that especially hot-as-hell sexy. Over the years he’d loved plenty.

But he loved the Sierras, too. And while it was true that the tall, rugged, remote mountain peaks could be deadly dangerous to both life and limb, the mountains couldn’t break a man’s soul.

At least not without permission.

And TJ no longer let anything break him. He didn’t let anything break him or get to him, period. He was cool, calm, and prepared, always. Cam and Stone had long ago accepted this, that as the oldest brother, TJ just knew things, like which direction to go on the mountain, whether on skis or a bike, or in the helicopter. He knew which of their outdoor expedition company clients would be a pain-in-the-ass, and he could sense trouble a mile away.

Usually.

And then, as he walked through Moody’s Bar And Grill after a quick dinner with Cam and Stone, feeling full and surprisingly content for the moment, something plowed into his chest with the force of a cyclone.

Not something. Someone.

Harley Stephens. AKA the one source of trouble that he’d never managed to avoid.

Absorbing the impact, he managed to keep them both from tumbling to the floor, and as his brain registered how warm and soft she felt in his arms, she lifted her face, the scent of her filling his head. That’s when something else hit him too, the same inexplicable sense that he always got with her, the deja vu feeling that he’d been here before. Not in the doorway of Moody’s with the fiery Indian summer sun setting behind her and the sound of the dinner crowd behind him, loud and rowdy . . . but having her practically wrapped around him.

So feel free to make my day and go forth and preorder from the bookstore of your choice!

In the meantime, in Jill’s World, I’m currently juggling a visiting Mother-In-Law, hormonal teenagers and an Alpha Man who is suddenly ready for a new puppy. I swear, if one more person in my household so much as looks at me cross-eyed or asks me for something before my book is due, I will NOT be held responsible for my actions.

You’ll all come visit me in prison, won’t you? You’ll send cookies?

That sucker was me. First instinct – panic. Second instinct – righteous indignation. Hey, EVERYONE is speeding, not just me!

Turns out, he wanted to talk about my registration sticker. Or lack of. HUH? I know for a damn fact that sticker came in the mail two weeks ago, and that Alpha Man put it on. So I launched into this whole spiel of how the sticker was applied, and if it’s not there now that’s because the stickers are cheaply made and there’s been so much sand in the road because of the snow, and things are dirty and THIS IS NOT MY FAULT, THE STICKER WAS ON, and don’t you have real criminals to catch?

He never blinked. “Registration, please.”

Okay, now we’ve discussed my organizational issues, right? I distinctly remember Alpha Man saying he was going to apply the sticker and would I please put the registration away. I just don’t remember actually DOING it. No one is going to be surprised to discover the registration wasn’t in the dash holder. Or in the pocket by my seat. Either of which would have been logical. No, my registration, after many minutes of panicked searching and no little swearing, was found BENEATH my seat in the original DMV envelope.

Unopened.

Uh oh. Planning Alpha Man’s slow torture in my mind, I tried a sheepish smile. My humorless Cop did not smile back.

Not good. Definitely going to kill Alpha Man. I think I even said this out loud as I opened the envelope, and the registration AND THE STICKER popped out. Yeah. Not good. “Are you going to give me a ticket now?” I asked, no longer quite so righteous.

“Lady, at this point, I should follow you home so I can just arrest you now for the murder of your husband.”

Turns out he did have a sense of humor. But for those of you who know my husband, you might want to call him and say your last good-byes …

A good romance will be the brain candy.

So help a girl out and let’s have some recommendations. What have you read or are you reading that you are LOVING?

Both adorable. Email me with your snailmail and a few book choices!

Original Post:
I was looking through photos earlier today and found a baby shot of Sadie the day she came home from the humane society at five weeks old. We gave her a bowl of milk and she drank it until she nearly popped and thought she’d gone to heaven. She’s looking a little blissed out, to say the least.

So your mission, should you accept, is to caption the photo for me. Something short and sweet. I’ll draw a few winners for a book from my backlist.

I recovered thanks to a rack of double stuffed Oreos.

So now I’m lazy. Here’s what I’m writing right now. It’s rough. It’s unedited. And I was high on cookies when I wrote it:

Lilah reached for the leash – yes, the damn ornery duck had a leash – and slipped it around Abigail’s neck.

“Quack.”

“Shh.” Then she grabbed the box of babies.

It was damn heavy, but she had her dignity to consider so she soldiered on, turning, only to bump right into Brodie’s broad chest. “Excuse me.”

He backed up enough to let her move, helping her support the box with an ease that had her envying his muscles instead of drooling over them.

“You’re really walking?” he asked.

“Well when I skip or run, Abigail’s leash gets tangled in my legs.”

“Smartass.” Brodie looked into the box at the two puppies and pot-bellied piglet. To his credit, he didn’t so much as blink. “They potty trained?”

“No.”

He grimaced. “How about the duck?”

“She’d say yes, but she’d be lying.”

He exhaled. “That’s what I was afraid of.” He took the box from her, the underside of his arms brushing the outside of hers.

And though it was warm enough outside, she shivered. In response, his curious gaze briefly touched on hers. “You okay?”

“Peachy.” Nothing that a good man-man orgasm wouldn’t cure … “But what are you doing?”

“Giving you a ride.” He narrowed his eyes at the duck on the leash. “You. You will behave.”

“Quack.”

Without another word, he strode to his truck and put the box inside, leaving Lilah no choice but to follow.

She looked down at Abigail. “You heard him,” she whispered. “Be good.”

Off to shovel some more. And maybe eat some more Oreos.

Especially since we get these, gulp, wolf spiders. They’re big and hairy and aggressive and they FREAK ME OUT.

This morning I was brushing my teeth with I saw it out of the corner of my eye. A big ass spider in the corner of the sink. Waiting to kill me.

It was too.

So I went screaming from the bathroom, spitting toothpaste everywhere. Middle came running. “I’ll save you mom.”

I gave her specific directions to the spider and she nodded. I went downstairs and made breakfast and got everyone out of the house and started writing … It wasn’t until that night that I remembered to thank Middle for getting the spider.

“Oh,” she said, biting her lower lip.

“You DID get the spider.”

“Yes.” She shook her head. “Except no. I forgot.”

She forgot. We went running to the sink. Spider gone. It’s running free in my house, waiting to get me for ordering its execution.

I have to move now.

The answer is no. Is it warm yet?

Dammit, no. It is not warm yet. I dream fondly of a hot sun and sand between my toes…

So does Ashes.

Oh and question of the day. We were watching Amazing Race last night and Alpha Man said it would be fun to do that show. I nodded vaguely and kept my panic to myself. No. It would not be fun to do that show with Alpha Man. I’m fairly certain we wouldn’t survive it. One of us would kill the other. So here’s my question. Think of the person closest to you, whoever that may be. Could you do Amazing Race with that person? Without killing them?