Love, Tussles, and Takedowns (25 page)
Read Love, Tussles, and Takedowns Online
Authors: Violet Duke
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Contemporary Women, #Contemporary, #Romance
“What’s wrong with wanting to know what the woman is thinking for a change?”
“Zip it. Here she comes.”
Xoey looked more perturbed than annoyed.
Lia and Dani exchanged a look. Yeah, alright. Hudson had an excellent point. Now how to get a peek at that playlist?
“Lia, no offense but these song selections kind of suck. How do you even work out to this music?”
Hudson stretched out his hand.
But Dani was quicker.
Her jaw dropped as she saw the song title currently flashing on the screen.
Oh, it was no use. Lia was beyond curious now. She peered over just as Xoey switched it over from Bluetooth to speaker.
And like a Titanic tide, the inimitable powerhouse vocals of Celine Dion came booming out of the little watch.
Lia stifled an incredulous giggle while Hudson proceeded to do a much more terrible job keeping in his humor.
“Oh my God.” Dani’s eyes widened as she scrolled through and showed Lia all the songs that were loaded up on the playlist. When they saw the last few songs played, Dani gasped and turned her stunned gaze over to her best friend.
“Xoey, according to this, you’re in love.”
Xoey froze. And then shot her panicked eyes over to the nearest exit.
-- THE END --
Xoey & Isaac’s story is up next!
Specially-Priced Pre-Order Available NOW
And turn the page for more upcoming book info!
UPCOMING BOOKS
Special Discounted Preorder Prices!
Love, Exes, and Ohs
(Aug 2014)
Love, Sidelines, and Endzones
(Oct 2014)
-- AND --
Want more of the Spencer men and their foster brother Drew?
Then stay tuned for the next Cactus Creek chapter...
The UNFINISHED LOVE Series
(Cactus Creek Reunions)
Chasing Addison (Caine)
Tempting Kennedy (Max)
Wanting Mia (Gabe)
Keeping Skylar (Drew)
And yes, that’s THE Skylar from the Nice Girl series,
all grown up and ready for her HEA.
Coming in 2015
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
New York Times & USA Today bestselling author Violet Duke is a former professor of English Education who is ecstatic to now be on the other side of the page writing wickedly fun contemporary romance novels. When she’s not writing or feeding her book-a-day reading addiction, Violet enjoys tackling reno projects with her power tools, trying pretty much anything without reading the directions first, and cooking ‘special edition’ dishes that laugh in the face of recipes. She lives in Hawai’i with her two cute kids and similarly adorable husband.
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EXCERPT FROM JESSIE EVANS
LEATHER AND LACE
Lonesome Point, Texas, Book One
by National Bestselling Author
Jessie Evans
Cowboy bikers, fireworks, and romance, oh my…
Wild girl, Mia Sherman, has a secret—she isn’t as fearless as she pretends. Descended from Lonesome Point, Texas’s founding family, Mia grew up hearing tales of an old Irish curse that had followed the Shermans to America. At age twenty-four, Mia is still terrified of the stories, because they aren’t stories. They are a warning about what will happen if Mia allows love and romance into her life. The curse struck Mia’s grandmother and her great-great-whatever grandmother, and Mia knows she could be next. The first-born daughter of every generation is cursed to lose her husband on her wedding night, which is one of the many reasons Mia has sworn off relationships.
Until the fateful day Sawyer Kane rides his Harley into her life …
Rancher turned restoration expert, Sawyer Kane, can’t believe his luck when the feisty owner of the lingerie shop next to his hotel turns out to be the curator of his latest project, a ghost town he’s been sent to restore. He’s looking forward to long, hot days talking history, and hotter nights with Mia, but the redhead with the killer smile seems determined to keep him at a friendly distance. But when a dangerous man from Mia’s past arrives in town, Sawyer finds himself drawn into her inner circle, and into the legend of Lonesome Point itself.
Can true love conquer all, even a centuries-old curse? Mia and Sawyer may be the first to find out.
Excerpt “Leather and Lace”
© Jessie Evans 2014
When you live in a town as small as Lonesome Point, Texas—a bend in the road, sustained by tourism to a ghost town, barely clinging to its dusty spot on the map—you learn how to make your own fun.
Mia Sherman had lived in Lonesome Point almost her entire life, and knew how to take a sleepy Saturday night, and turn it into the stuff legends were made of. As the only twenty-something in town who could trace her lineage back to the Wild West days when Lonesome Point was settled, Mia felt practically obligated to cause trouble.
Trouble was in her blood.
She crouched lower behind the shrubs across the street from her Cousin Lula’s, tea shop, her best friends Bubba and Ugly Ross—so named because he had the misfortune to be uglier than the other Ross in town, not because he was actually ugly—squatted beside her. She hadn’t intended to panty her cousin’s front yard along with the rest of downtown, but a dare was a dare, and Mia didn’t take a dare lightly.
“Okay, I’ll do it,” she said, waving off the high five a well-lubricated Ross aimed at her shoulder. “Congratulate me after the mission is complete. Rendezvous in twenty minutes at my place for beer.”
“Good luck, solider.” Bubba chucked her on the shoulder, before grabbing one large canvas bin full of sale panties and heading north, Ross hot on his heels.
Mia snatched her bin full of underpants and the few reduced price bras she hadn’t been able to sell—sale bras always did better than panties, especially panties the color of radioactive vomit—and hustled down the street in the opposite direction.
She had purchased the hideous undies at a deep discount, thinking she could move lime green underpants as long as they were cheap enough, but when the lingerie had arrived, the color was even more obnoxious than it had looked on the website. The shipment was non-returnable, so she’d done her best hard sell—advertising the underpants as Shock ’Em Dead Knickers, guaranteed to catch your man’s eye in the bedroom—but in six months she’d only sold two pairs.
It was time for the panties to go to a better place.
Mia circled the square, draping underpants from the decorative metal curlicues at the base of the antique gas lamps the Lonesome Point Betterment Society had put in a few years back, before clipping all four bras to the flagpole in the middle of the square, and running them up to the top. The rope squeaked a bit as it slid through the pulleys, but Mia’s footsteps as she hurried out of the square and down the street, were silent. When she was in prank mode, Mia moved like a ninja warrior, at one with the sidewalk, the warm summer breeze, and the parking meters she graced with extra-small neon thongs as she swept by. She pantied the barbershop pole at Justin’s Cuts, the front porch of Harmon and Harmon, Attorneys at Law, and the swinging wooden plaque advertising ghost town walking tours before reaching the delicate white picket fence surrounding Tea for Two’s front garden.
With cat like grace, Mia jumped the fence, landing with only the slightest crunch in the gravel. She tiptoed through the rose bed to the stone path winding through the impeccably maintained yard. In just a few minutes, she had blessed each of Lula’s
Takes One to Gnome One
Collector’s Edition garden gnomes with a bright green panty hat, before emptying the rest of her bin into the bone-dry birdbath. She took a moment to admire the way the puddle of panties glowed in the moonlight like the mucus of a diseased alien before turning back toward the fence, and running right into Lula’s gardening stool, knocking it the ground.
Mia froze, silently praying that the falling stool hadn’t been as loud as she thought, but then she heard it—the scrape of chair legs against a hardwood floor, coming from the second floor of Tea for Two.
She cussed beneath her breath, leaping the fallen stool and sprinting for the gate. She reached the picket fence and vaulted over, but when she landed on the other side, and started for the curb, she was jerked back into the boards. The fence rattled, and Mia cussed again as she reached behind her, fumbling to liberate her tee shirt from the top of the fence post, cursing her decision to embrace the retro trend and wear an oversized cropped shirt over her purple spandex tank top.
She had just wiggled free, when Tea for Two’s front porch light flicked on behind her, casting jagged, fence-post shadows across the sidewalk.
It was a deadly omen if Mia had ever seen one.
Without risking a glance over her shoulder, she sprinted off the curb and across the street, gunning it for the protection of the Blue Saloon’s hedge with everything in her. Her fists pumped like pistons and her thighs burned with the force of her exertion, but she knew she wasn’t going to make it before the door opened behind her, not unless she did something drastic.
Later, Mia would blame it all on the whiskey, but in the heat of the moment, diving into the bushes and rolling onto the parking lot pavement on the other side seemed like a perfectly acceptable plan. Sure, she might end up with a few scrapes, but she would escape without being made as the Panty Bandit, and that would make it all worth it. The fact that anyone with half a brain would know that the prank-inclined owner of the lingerie shop was responsible for pantying downtown didn’t matter. If no one caught her in the act, she would still have plausible deniability.
And so she jumped, diving arms first through a narrow opening in the hedge, bracing herself for impact with the pavement on the other side. But instead of flying through the air, and starting her roll as she lost momentum, Mia collided with a wall of firm, human flesh.
Available July 14
th
, 2014
Learn more at Jessie’s website
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