Those damn evil pencils! But I have to admit, it’s good to have something to blame. Dear Editor, it’s not my fault. It’s the damn evil pencils!

Huh. I wonder if she’ll buy that…

Stress City.

So when Finger Lickin’ Fifteen, Janet Evanovich’s latest book, arrived fresh from Amazon, I did the sensible thing. I put it away for another time.

Not really.

I locked myself on the deck, threatened everyone I knew with life and limb if they bothered me, and inhaled the book. If you’ve read it, I’d LOVE to hear what you thought. If you’re reading something, anything, please share. And let us know what you’re loving. Some of my favorite books have come from hearing your suggestions. So let ‘em rip!

Bad news? I hear something outside and I’m alone. Still wearing the little black dress, I grab the Mag-lite and tiptoe out onto my deck in the pitch black night. I shine the light down on my driveway and find . . .

A bear.

Yes, there’s a big fat ass bear sitting in the center of my driveway, his legs straight out in front of him, my trash from the entire week spread out like a smorgesbord, and he’s moaning in pleasure as he leisurely makes his way through it all.

And yes, I realize smoregesbord is spelled wrong and I don’t care at the moment.

I’m still home alone, which means there’s no Alpha Man here to set off a firecracker at the bear’s ass and scare it off. I tried yelling and Mr. Bear just craned his neck and laughed at me.

Laughed.

Probably it was the little black dress and the tube socks and the wild hair. Apparently he didn’t get the memo about the crazy writer on deadline, and how laughing at her is a big mistake. I marched back out there with a bottle rocket and the matches and I proceeded to accomplish nothing but nearly light myself on fire. So I gave up on that I Love Lucy adventure and went for my camera. Problem is, it’s a pitch black night. No moon, heavy cloud cover and no starlight.

So you’re just going to have to trust me when I tell you this dude is huge and he has an ass the size of a VW Bug. There’s no way HE’D fit into last year’s little black dress.

It’s hard to believe from that picture that she’d be gone less than 24 hours later. I’m still reeling.

Alpha Man took one look at me looking at this picture as it came out of my camera and loaded me into the Jimmy. We went to Taco Bell, loaded up a big bag to go, and went to the lake to sit on the dock.

There were sailboats and pretty waters.

There was Taco Bell. I had a seven layer burrito without the onions and sour cream. Alpha Man pointed out that it was really a five layer. We lay back on the deck and watched the sky for awhile. That was nice. It was a good sky.

Ashes had a good time though I think she missed her buddy too.

I almost joined her but then I put my toes in and damn. That snow melt is cold.

But by the time we got home I felt better. Taco Bell and watching the sunset on the Sierras will do that for ya.

This is probably one of those stories I shouldn’t share with you because I know I’m going to get emails asking if I really did this, and yes. I really did this. The other day I was driving along minding my own business, singing loudly and off key to Leona Lewis’s latest. I was pretty much yelling “bleeding love, BLEEDING LOVE” at the top of my lungs when it happened.

I caught a glimpse of movement on the dash. Creepy crawly movement. Yeah. Coming right at me toward the steering wheel was a huge spider.

Now let me just back for those of you who are new. I have a spider phobia. Not a little oh darn, a spider, or even oh SCREAM, a spider, but a knee-knocking, bowel quivering, mind-bending phobia. I completely and utter lose it, become totally irrational. I can’t even LOOK at a picture of a spider without wanting to crawl into a little ball. I can’t kill them, I can’t do anything but hope to God that someone else is nearby to take care of it. And yes, I realize I need to get this fixed but it’s going to have to stand in line behind my other problems.

Back to the thing crawling at me while I’m driving. It’s truly a miracle I didn’t crash, and can you just imagine THAT police report. Driver distracted by spider, drives into tree.

Not pretty. So I did the sensible thing. I jerked the car to a stop and hopped out of it. Yeah, in the middle of the road. And yeah, I realize how stupid that is, you do not need to tell me. Did I start this by saying this was a good smart story? No, I did not. Sweating bullets, in tears, standing in the middle of the residential and thankfully empty street, I whipped out my phone and called Alpha Man. “T-there’s a BIG s-spider in my c-car!”

Well aware of my little problem, he immediately said “pull over”.

“I’m over! I’m standing in the middle of the road and I need you to come get me.”

Now I should tell you I am not exactly proud of how helpless I felt and was. I swear, 99% of the time I’m a modern woman who can fend for myself, but this was a SPIDER, people. A big, fat, hairy spider.

“Jill,” he said calmly. (Which at the time I so DID NOT appreciate). “I’m a half hour away. Just get back in the car, drive it home. Get the shop-vac out of the garage and suck the sucker right into it. You’ll be fine.”

Oh boy. You have no idea how difficult that all sounded. My knees were quivering but somehow, I got back into the car. I even drove home (only 3 blocks), even though I think I had my eyes half closed so I wouldn’t look at the HUGE SPIDER standing on my dash staring me down. By the time I pulled into the driveway as if my own ass was on fire, I had sweat pouring down my back. I ran out of the car and into the garage, making deals with God the whole way. “Please let the spider stay where I can get him, please don’t let him vanish in my car or I’ll never drive it again . . .”

I found the Shop-vac, yanked it down the driveway toward my car and turned it on.

No go.

The cord wasn’t long enough and it had pulled out of the socket in the garage. I ran back to the garage, searched out the extension cord and flipped it on again. Dust flew out of the thing and all over me. Spitting it out, I whirled to the car, heart in my throat . . . the badass spider was still on my dash but he was on the move, quickly heading toward the radio where I would never find him. Cringing, and yeah, okay I might have been saying “ohmigod, Ohmigod, Ohmigod” like a mantra, but hey, this was my first spider kill, I reached in close . . . and vacuumed the sucker up.

It happened so fast and so easily, I immediately went silent and still, staring at the vacuum. What the hell? I’d sweated buckets and used up every ounce of energy and it’d been THAT easy? Seriously? I felt so stupid that I went inside and rejuvenated with a box of cookies.

So here’s the question of the day. Is there anything that you thought you could never, ever, ever, EVER do? And did you? Did you have to recover with a box of cookies and a nap? Talk to me …

And I really did. I went to the docks.

But I didn’t work. I watched rocks.

And the duckies. They were cute.

But I wasn’t working. Even though I kept telling everyone who called me I was. And then Alpha Man stopped by and caught me counting clouds. “Where’s your stuff?” he asked.

Um.

“You’re all freaked out about your due book. I felt bad for you and I brought you your favorite.”

Which, by the way, is a MacDonald’s hot fudge sundae. I held out my hand for it and he shook his head. “Uh uh. This is for the freaked out writer working her fingers to the bone. I don’t see anyone who could go by that description.”

Dammit. I really hate it when I get caught.

I’ve lost all credibility.

(P.S. The Book Binge is giving away a copy of Instant Gratification, go check it out!)

Dear Lord,

So far today I am doing all right. I have not gossiped, lost my temper, been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or overindulgent.

However, I am going to get out of bed in a few minutes and I will need a lot more help after that. Thank you.

Amen.

(Sorry to be short and sweet and repetitive this morning but I’m on a deadline and it’s not pretty. But I also thought this cute little ditty perfectly described my state of mind at the moment)

P.S. There are frogs doing it on my grass …

And sits.

And every evening when I go out to put on the sprinklers, Ashes chases the bunny even though I ask her very politely not to. But this evening I remember when I opened the front door to make Ashes SIT and WAIT.

Inside the mudroom where she couldn’t see the bunny. But she KNEW it was there, she was quivering.

I believe it she could talk, she’d be saying GOTTA GET THE RABBIT, GOTTA GET THE RABBIT.

That or as was much more likely, since I was laughing at her, YOU ARE AN EVIL WOMAN!

This book is the third in the Wilder Adventure series, and doesn’t come out until next April but I just got the cover. I’m currently writing this book and thought maybe you’d like to see a very rough, very unedited sneak peek. Remember key words: rough and unedited.

Excerpt:
Harley opened the door to his knock and said nothing, which wasn’t polite, but she wasn’t feeling polite. She was feeling out of control, unnerved, and off-balance – three things that TJ Wilder probably never felt.

And something else he apparently didn’t feel — the need to fill a silence. Instead he stood there, well over six feet of hard muscle and testosterone, doing what he’d been doing all her life without even trying – affecting her brain cells, turning them to mush.

Yes, just looking at him turned her from an educated biologist into a drooling imbecile. He had a lot of sun-kissed brown hair, wavy and unruly, falling over his forehead and deep-set, assessing, sharp green eyes that missed exactly nothing. He was tanned from long days in the high altitude sun spent trekking and guiding across trails that would make a city guy’s bowels go weak.

“Why are you here?” she asked. Not exactly a friendly greeting, but her reasons for not being comfortable with TJ were as complicated as everything else in her life at the moment.

His eyes said he’d registered her tone and was thinking about smiling. “You going to invite me in?”

Ah, he speaks. But no. Hell, no. That would be a little bit like inviting in the big bad wolf.

To remind you, Instant Attraction came first (1/09) and

Instant Gratification is now shipping from HERE if you’re so inclined. Which I really hope you are.