I love titles with 3 things mentioned!!! Makes me think of the Wizard of OZ – lions and tigers and bears…oh my!. LOL

Anyhoo…

Today’s Tuesday tease is from my new (print) release of SABLE – ALWAYS A BRIDESMAID. The official release is May 17, but I had several author copies printed up because I’m going to a wonderful BOOKSIGNING this weekend in New Jersey Wine Country and wanted to have them available for purchase. Here’s the tease, first:

“Rough shift,” he said, sidling up to her as she buttoned her jacket.

“And it wasn’t even a full moon,” she quipped.

His grin shot out fast. “Can’t wait to see what that’s like in the ER.”

Her lids went to half-mast as she slid a glance at him. “Be careful what you wish for,” she said. “Full moons are nothing to make fun of around here.”

He shrugged and zipped up his jacket. “Can’t be any worse than trying to patch someone up with artillery fire exploding all around you.”

Her head whipped up and her unlined brow folded in on itself.

“Listen,” he said, “I’m starving and I imagine you are, too, since neither of us got a dinner break last night. Want to go grab something quick before heading home? The diner across the street makes the best waffles this side of the Mississippi.”

When a corner of her mouth lifted a bit, he felt ten feet tall. In the next instant it flattened again.

“I’m actually heading there for a breakfast meeting right now, so, sorry. I can’t.”

“Business meeting?”

When she rolled her eyes, he thought she looked all of sixteen years old again. Since he’d known her when she was that age, a familiar feeling of warmth moved within him.

Sable expelled a tortured groan. There was no other way to describe the sound that rumbled up from the back of her throat and blew past her lips.

“I wish it were a business meeting, but no.” When he cocked his head, she added, “I’m meeting with my cousin, Moira. She has something to”—she lifted her fingers in air quotes—“discuss with me, but I already know what it is and I really wish I had an excuse not to go.”

“Okay, now I’m seriously interested. What’s so horrible she wants to talk about?”

“Me.” Another eye roll.

“You?”

She nodded.

“What about you?”

“Not me specifically, I guess, but my unmarried, childless state.”

If he wasn’t mistaken there was a hint of bitterness in her tone, topped by a whole lot of embarrassment, solidified when her cheeks turned three different shades of crimson within a millisecond.

She closed her eyes and sighed. “I can’t believe I said that out loud. And to you, of all people,” she mumbled.

He’d think about the last part of her sentence later. For now, he said, “Let me take a guess here.”

She opened her eyes and – halleluiah – looked him in the eye.

“She wants to fix you up.”

Eyes closed again, she nodded.

“And you…what? Don’t want to be?”

Another nod.

“Because? You don’t like to be set up? Or you’re already seeing someone?”

He said a silent prayer it wasn’t the latter.

“The whole thing is ridiculously embarrassing, for starters,” she said. “I’m thirty years old and can get my own dates, thank you very much. But you’d think I was either twelve and knew nothing about the world the way my family acts, or pushing fifty and looking at a lonely later life with nothing for companionship but cats and Netflix movies.”

He wanted to laugh but kept the merriment inside him, understanding she was dead serious. She hadn’t said she was seeing someone, though, so that was telling.

And promising.

AND NOW the BOOK SIGNING:

I’ll be there both days!!! Come out and find some new romance authors to read, have some wine, bring some friends!! This promises to be a FUNFUNFUN event put on by the fabulous Roz Lee

And if you’re coming to the event and want to make sure you get a copy of thebooks I’ll be brining along, here’s a copy of the event preorder list for me: PREORDER