Only one way to tame
Crankenstein’s monster. Heart to heart combat.
While You Were Writing
Watkin’s Pond, Book 2
Coming
8/5/2014
Blurb:
Bestselling author and infamous town hermit Radcliffe
McQueen knows what he likes, what he doesn’t, and refuses to pretend social
niceties. Particularly with a red-hot mess of a woman who’s taken it upon
herself to smooth his rough edges.
She thinks she can change him? Bring it. He’s more than
willing to teach her the wisdom of doing things his way. Besides, it’ll
distract him from the horror of facing a blank page.
Stodgy. Stubborn. Sanctimonious. Sheri Riddle can
think of a long list of adjectives to describe her newest project. An artist by
trade, a personality renovator by calling, she’s sure she can transform the
blockheaded author into a reasonably personable human being.
Yet as they lock horns, each scrapes away layers of the
other until something happens that’s quite outside of Sheri’s plans. Something
that’ll take more than one taste of passion to satisfy…
Warning: Contains a temperamental
author, a moody artist, a sexy assistant and a hoarder house. Did we mention
rabid squirrels? Yeah, one of those too.
Enjoy
the following excerpt for While You Were
Writing:
The single steamer trunk could be called Sheri’s prized
possession. It also weighed a ton. Two feet tall and four feet across, her
brother hauled the thing out of his trunk while she slung her backpack on her
back. Radcliffe McQueen neither offered to help nor waited, instead sitting in
the front seat of his rusty antique truck tapping the steering wheel as if he
might drive away from her at any given moment.
An artist by trade, Sheri had started what she considered
her side venture years before. Like a calling, helping people gave meaning to
her life and inspired her artwork.
She named what she did “personality renovation”. Some people
could look at an old battered house and see the potential, the hidden beauty.
She found broken people, found their hidden potential, and helped them find
peace and happiness. She couldn’t resist her fascination with the hermit author
living in the same small town as her older brother, so she’d mixed business and
pleasure and hopped a plane to visit Lance and check the author out in person.
Radcliffe McQueen might be the most challenging case she
ever assigned herself. Most of the people she met and “renovated” wanted to
change, wanted to find happiness.
The snarly old man didn’t look like he wanted anything from
anyone. Then again, she’d barely scratched the surface with him. Her brother
hefted the trunk into the back of the truck and she pulled him into a bear hug.
“Thanks, Lance.”
He returned the embrace, using the closeness to whisper in
her ear. “Are you sure you’ll be okay? What if he tries something?”
Pulling away, she shook her head. “I’ll be fine. He is not
giving off that vibe at all. If anything, I think if I touched him, he’d be the
one freaking out rather than vice versa. It’s fine. Besides, I have a cell
phone. You’re not far. I’ll call you if he does even one strange thing.”
“Today, artist. I’ve things to do besides wait on you.”
McQueen called the words from his barely cracked window before rolling it back
up with a protesting squeak.
“Okay, I lied,” she modified. “I’ll call you if he does one
strange thing that scares me.”
Lance snorted and glared at the front of the truck. He
looked like a little boy, worried the playground bully might bother his sister,
so she punched his shoulder to relieve his concern. “Seriously, I’ll be fine.”
Turning from him, she jogged around the truck and got in.
McQueen didn’t look at her. Putting the truck in gear, he
headed out of the parking lot.
At a snail’s pace.
She could almost feel herself aging in the time it took for
McQueen to chug his slow and lumbering truck to his home on the outskirts of
the small town. Another decade passed while he avoided potholes and meandered
up his driveway. The entire drive, he neither spoke nor looked in her
direction, keeping both hands firmly on the wheel at exactly ten and two. She
cleared her throat. “So, you’re a very safe driver.” Complimenting those who
needed renovating often built up long disregarded confidence, helping them to
rejoin society as a functioning person.
Radcliffe neither answered nor seemed impressed with her
ability to find a silver lining. Actually, he could have gone deaf for all the
response he gave her.
Finally, after what seemed an endless amount of time in his
passenger seat, he parked and shut off the truck. Getting out, he plodded in
his hunched way to the house, not once glancing back.
He neither opened the door for her nor offered to help with
the steamer trunk. Sighing, she unbuckled her seatbelt and tossed her satchel
on her back. It took her nearly a half hour to lug the trunk out of the back of
the truck and into the house. Once she made it inside the door, she froze.
“Dear God, he’s a hoarder.”
Dust greeted her, dancing in what sickly light managed to
penetrate the filth covering his windows—wait, were those curtains? And filth.
It was a combo wall of light-resistant dirt and fabric. Not that she could see
much of the windows beyond stacks of flotsam that stood higher than her and
only allowed a small path to a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling and
trying bravely to penetrate the gloom with its lone illumination.
As if summoned by her words, Radcliffe appeared. He’d shed
his hat and overcoat, as well as the scarf and fingerless gloves he’d worn in
the store. He now stood in a button down shirt and worn jeans—still hunched
into himself, as if he’d prefer to hide from her rather than to speak. Hands
stuffed deep in his pockets, he shifted, chewed his lips and finally spoke. “You
may sleep in the bedroom off the top of the stairs. I don’t go up there and you
may not go in my office. I don’t care if the entire house catches ablaze, stay
the hell out of my office. It’s rule number two, understand?”
She nodded, glanced back at her trunk and considered how fun
it would be to lug it up stairs. “Is there someplace I could set up to work as
well? I mentioned I’m an artist and—”
His hand, held up as if to ward off her words, stopped her. “Don’t
babble. Yes, off the kitchen is a space. Gets good light. Should work. Don’t be
noisy.”
With that, he vanished with the very final sounding of a
door closing and a lock turning punctuating his desire to be done with the
conversation.
Glancing at the trunk, she sat on it and looked around.
Trying to bite back her horror, she searched for the Pollyanna side of the
situation.
She’d come up with something good about this…she was sure
there was something.
He could hear her moving around. He’d considered helping her
with the trunk, since the antique thing must have weighed nearly as much as his
unwanted houseguest, but resisted. It would set the wrong sort of precedent. He
wasn’t here to play housemaid to an eccentric artist obviously set on foisting
herself off on a stranger.
Thump.
She’d started up the stairs, from the sound of it,
ridiculous luggage in tow. Sliding into his leather chair, he spun for a moment
or two, listening for the next step.
Thump.
It took her very nearly five minutes between steps. He
sighed.
To tune out her pained progress, he booted up his computer
and connected to the Internet. Pulling up his favorite search engine, he
clicked in her name and allowed results to populate.
Thump. Three steps
cleared…only two flights to go.
She had a website, not surprising in this day and age. Even
the biggest hacks could create a free website and—
Thump.
The first sight of her work seemed to suck the very breath
from his lungs. Opening another gallery, he began to scroll through the images,
enchanted.
Thump.
Her talent glowed off the screen, as vibrant and alive as
the colors she chose to use. From twirling women bedecked in bubbles to
heartbreakingly sad panoramas, her gift was something even he couldn’t deny. He
leaned back, steepling his fingertips.
Why would a woman so obviously gifted in her field go up to
a stranger and ask to visit his home? The prices listed below the pictures—many
overridden with large red letters proclaiming them SOLD—bespoke an artist who
was far from starving. And yet she’d foisted herself off on him.
Thump.
“Dammit,” he muttered and punched the top of his desk. He
didn’t really have time for an enigma, and he certainly didn’t have time for
the guilt that riddled him with each of those damnable thumps. Pushing away
from his desk, he unlocked the door and strode up the steps two at a time, to take
the antique trunk from her.
With nearly as loud of a thump, she dropped to sit on the
step, blocking his passage. “Oh, don’t be bothered, Mr. McQueen. I have this.
One step at a time, right?” Her flushed face had burst out in sweat, leaving a
pale lock to stick on her forehead. More guilt swamped him.
He didn’t appreciate the addition of guilt into his routine.
He got by fine without any troublesome emotions, and if he’d chosen to indulge
in any emotion, he certainly wouldn’t choose guilt to break the pattern. “You’re
already bothering me.” He announced it and gestured at her.
She simply brushed the hair off her forehead and panted. “Well,
sorry about that.”
She didn’t sound sorry. “Move. I can’t carry this ridiculous
thing past your—” At a loss for words, he waved his hand with a bit more
enthusiasm.
“My what?” Her smile broke free, charming him if he would
allow it.
“Your person.” He
settled on the word and looked away from her, waiting for her to move.
Laughter bubbled out of her, a deep throaty thing that
wrapped him in intimacy and invited him to join her in mirth. “For a writer,
you’re not so great with the words. Anyone ever tell you that?”
He scowled at her.
“Sorry. You’re pretty sensitive about the writing thing,
huh?”
He resisted growling at her and she’d finally moved, so he
lifted the trunk and sped up the remaining stairs. Once he made it to the door
of the room he’d offered her, he dropped the trunk—which felt as if she’d
packed it with bricks—and turned to flee.
She’d come up behind him and his movement brought him in
direct contact with her tempting little body.
She smelled of vanilla and musk and woman. This close, her
diminutive size begged him to protect her, to touch her. Rather than back away,
she considered him by looking directly at him, head tilted back and eyes wide.
A single motion of her pink tongue moistened her lips and he found his gaze
locked on the curve of them. “You’re not old at all, are you?”
Her whispered words broke through the sensual haze her
presence awakened and he backed into the room to escape her. “No.”
She turned sideways, allowing the space for him to pass her.
He moved to do so, ignoring the zinging awareness she created simply by being
in his space. When he’d nearly passed her, she spoke. “I’m sorry. I didn’t
intend to break your rule and touch you.”
The sincerity of her words tempted him to be equally
sincere. To admit he liked bumping into her, that he’d like to do more than
bump into her. That he’d wanted, for the barest of heartbeats, to sample her
lips.
If he’d been a hero in one of his books, surely he would
have done just that—painting a seduction in words to encourage further and
future intimacies.
He wasn’t a man led by temptation, however, so instead he
straightened his back and cast words back over his shoulder. “Don’t let it
happen again.”
With that, he headed back to his office to look at more of
her art and consider the folly of inviting her into his home.
About the Author
Virginia Nelson believed them when
they said, “Write what you know.” Small town girl writing small town romance,
her characters are as full of flaws, misunderstandings, and flat out mistakes
as Virginia herself. When she’s is not writing or plotting to take over the
world, she likes to hang out with the greatest kids in history, play in the
mud, drive far too fast, and scream at inanimate objects. Virginia likes
knights in rusted and dinged up armor, heroes that snarl instead of croon, and
heroines who can’t remember to say the right thing even with an author writing
their dialogue. Her books are full of snark, sex, and random acts of
ineptitude—not always in that order.
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