Thursday, July 24, 2014

Release day for the FANTASTIC, Must-Read-Immediately PROTOTYPE!!!!!!

Did you ever stay up more than an hour too late because you just COULDN'T stop reading? That's what happened to me with Archetype by M.D. Waters....and the sequel Prototype, which releases today! Seriously, this is one of my favorite series of the year.

Emma looks forward to the day when she can let go of her past—both of them. After more than a year on the run, with clues to her parents’ whereabouts within her grasp, she may finally find a place to settle down. Start a new life. Maybe even create new memories with a new family.

But the past rises to haunt her and to make sure there’s nowhere on the planet she can hide. Declan Burke wants his wife back, and with a little manipulation and a lot of reward money, he’s got the entire world on his side. Except for the one man she dreads confronting the most: Noah Tucker.

Emma returns to face what she’s done but finds that the past isn’t the problem. It’s the present—and the future it represents. Noah has moved on and another woman is raising their daughter.

In the shocking conclusion to M.D. Waters’s spectacular debut, Emma battles for her life and her freedom, tearing down walls and ripping off masks to reveal the truth. She’s decided to play their game and prove she isn’t the woman they thought she was. Even if it means she winds up dead.
Or worse, reborn.


Here's your first sneak peek (one of my favorite scenes!):

Noah crouches and charges out of the hallway, gun raised. It takes me a moment to gather the courage to follow. This is a far different situation than the simulation. That was a room full of harmless cats compared to this hungry lions’ den.
Noah and I duck behind columns and large cracked plant pots. We are trapped. Declan took no chances with this capture attempt. His men fire from several levels of glass balconies. Resistance fighters either take cover or lie prone on the expansive glass floor, where the ocean sways in a calm juxtaposition to the room above.
Then I hear it. The unmistakable pitched slice of a hairline break zigzagging across the thick glass bottom. In the chaos of the room, no one else has noticed. A crack starts and stops, angling in several directions into the room. The imbalance of temperatures must be creating thermal stress. The ocean too cold. The plasma fire too hot. Not every shot from above has met with a target, and I know personally just how hot they are.
I elbow Noah and nod at the new danger. He curses under his breath and taps the com in his ear. “The floor is breaking. Everyone out.”
The second he finishes speaking, the crack darts into the center of the room. On closer inspection, this flaw in the glass is not the only one. More spiderweb into the middle and meet. The entire room watches in abject horror.
Noah takes my hand and we sprint into the open. Plasma fire rains down on the unstable floor. We are nearing the hallway, with its nonglass floor, when a massive splash fills the room. The floor collapses and I drop into the ice-cold sea.
The saltwater burns my open wound. Noah, already having made it to the stable floor, never releases my hand, and falls. He lands on his chest with his arm sunk into the ocean. His grip around my wrist is so tight I think he might break the bones.
I tuck the gun—how I managed to hold on to it is a miracle—into the back of my jeans and kick. My boots are heavy, making the process hard, and I am grateful Noah has not let me go. I could very well sink under their weight.
In my frenzied paddle to the surface, my ankle gets tangled in the steadfast grip of seaweed. Not two seconds later, Noah yanks my injured arm, and I yelp reflexively in shock and pain. I lose what little air is left in my lungs. Bubbles sneak through my clenched teeth and pop on the undulating surface. Black spots fill my vision and my lungs burn.
I am going to drown, which is ridiculous considering Noah is right there. I cannot even call for help.
Noah twists aside as the blue shots of plasma fire seek him out. He releases my hand in the process, and I immediately begin sinking into the obsidian depths. 

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Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Bromance Alert-Cause Who Doesn't Love Hot Guys Trying To NOT Talk About Anything Serious?

Can you believe Up To Me has been out for a month? I've been having the best time hearing comments from readers. One big one is that everyone is loving the bromance in this book. So here's a glimpse of my hot hero with his new BFF:



A horn honked. Son of a bitch. Gray lost his footing and stumbled into a bush. A large bush with needle-sharp thorns to help break his fall. He wrenched his back to avoid going any deeper into it and landed on his ass in the mud. Next to a frog. Or a toad. Something small, green and slimy-looking Gray was glad his hand hadn’t landed on.
The door slam coincided with a deep roar of laughter. “Nice moves,” said Ward as he came around the front of a shiny black truck.
“Did you honk at me?”
“Yeah.”
Gray looked down at his right arm, now streaked with thin red cuts to resemble a Picasso-esque version of a tic-tac-toe board. “Why the hell would you do that?”
He scratched at his beard with one hand. “To say hi.”
“Next time, use words. A word. A one-syllable word. Hi. Is that so damn hard?”
“What crawled up your ass?” Ward snarled.
“Half of this damn bush, apparently,” he yelled back. The frog ribbited at him, hopped right across his thighs and into the lush tumble of vegetation. The absurdity of the whole damn thing hit Gray and he laughed. He laughed so hard he wheezed. It didn’t take long before Ward joined him. Just in the laughing, not in the mud.
When Gray finally caught his breath, he said, “Sorry. For biting your head off.”
“Sorry I tried to be neighborly. Should’ve known a big-city type like yourself wouldn’t take kindly to it.” Still chuckling, Ward extended a hand to pull Gray up.
He grabbed on right below the frayed cuff of the red and black plaid flannel shirt. And said, “Bite me,” as he rose from the mud puddle with a squishing, squelching sound.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Stupid to run on a road and not pay attention. Lucky I didn’t run right into a deer or something.” Gray shook out each leg and ankle carefully, checking to be sure he hadn’t twisted anything with his idiocy.
“Want a lift back to the Manor?”
“No!” The word came out too fast, too harsh.
Sure enough, Ward’s eyebrows shot up. “Want a lift anywhere but the Manor?”
This was where guys excelled. They caught a whiff of a sticky situation and provided immediate action to get as far away from it as possible. No stupid talking things to death. “Yeah. That’d be good.”
Ward rummaged in the bed of the truck, and then threw a trash bag at him. “You’re a mess. Sit on that.”
Well, shit. Just when Gray thought he couldn’t feel any worse, any dumber. He climbed into the cab of the truck, wincing at every crinkle of the plastic beneath his ass like he was an incontinent geyser. This was definitely a low point.
“You and Ella have a fight?” Ward asked as he accelerated back onto the road.
“Not yet.”
Another few miles sped by. Neat rows of vineyards, bracketed by a squat winery and wide pasture land with horses, in an endless loop on one side. On the other stretched the lake, a deep Prussian blue he remembered from the single semester of art he’d taken as an elective in college. Staring at it soothed him. Just enough to take the edge off his temper. Enough to keep him from pounding his fist against the window.
“You piss Ella off, that’s your business.” Ward said it straight and simple, like he was recounting box scores. “You hurt her, I come after you.”
“Noted.” And more than fair. Gray would do the same. That is, if he had any long-term friends to go to bat for. Guess if his mom ever started dating again he could roll out a similar threat. Although he’d be so happy for his mom he’d be more inclined to buy the guy the biggest steak on the planet.
“Is this bad enough I should beat you up pre-emptively?”
Gray shifted, rustling the plastic. Thought about it. About how much it would hurt Ella to know he’d lied to her. How angry she’d be to discover his real reason for being here. Then an even scarier thought hammered into him. What if she thought it was all a sham? That he’d gotten close to her, that he’d bared himself like never before, just to insinuate himself into her life? That she was a task on his to-do list to assemble his report?
“Might be a good idea,” he said in a low monotone.
Another few miles of beautiful sameness sped by. Ward reached back between the seats then handed Gray a six-pack of soda. Grateful, he snapped two out of the rings, opened them, and set one in the cup holder for Ward. The fizz of the carbonation was the only thing that broke the silence for another five minutes.
Then, when they stopped at a winery entrance to let a party bus slowly back out into traffic, Ward thumped his hands against the steering wheel. “You’re gonna have to tell me.”
“What?”
“What you were running from. Or how you’re about to fuck things up with Ella. Take your pick.”
Gray watched an already-wasted-before-noon woman flash him a hit of tangerine bra from the party bus, then sink back into her seat, laughing maniacally. “I pick anything but those two topics. I’d rather talk about ways to get rid of skunk stink. Or even describe the Technicolor misery of when I got food poisoning from a street vendor taco in Mexico.”
“Well, I pick anything but those two topics. Talk about god-awful. You must be conversation constipation at dinner parties.”
“Only if people try to peek at my emotional tighty-whities.” Gray gave the woman a polite thumbs-up as they drove away. He hoped she’d make it to lunch without throwing up. And doubted she’d last that long if they hit even one more winery.




Monday, July 21, 2014

Droolworthy Cover Reveal Of London Legends Rugby Series!

Tempting The Player by Kat Latham - 300 px wide


I had the honor of being in a Christmas anthology with Kat Latham last year. Why was it an honor? Because 1) she's a super sweet and funny person and 2) a fantastic writer....I've even got proof. Because this week, Kat is a finalist in the RITA contest - the biggest award the romance genre gives out. So, duh, you should buy her books!

And speaking of, today is the cover reveal of book 3 in her London Legends series. Look at those amazing abs! Drool.

Best friends make the best lovers.
Libby Hart and Matt Ogden are perfect for each other—as friends. They’ve known each other for ages. They act as each other’s plus-ones. They even share custody of a dog. And if there’s always been a little spark between them, so what? It’s never been worth jeopardizing their friendship.
Professional rugby player Matt is fighting for a starter position with the London Legends—and that’s not the only thing he’s fighting. A crippling fear of flying means he’s struggling to get his career off the ground. He has no time for a relationship, even if Libby does make him ache. As an airline pilot, Libby’s looking for a stay-at-home husband so she can have a family without sacrificing her high-flying career. Matt’s certainly not that man.
But just because they don’t have a future together doesn’t mean they can’t have a right now. When Matt asks Libby for help overcoming his fear, they agree to take a vacation from their platonic relationship—whenever they fly together, they can have sex. It’s the perfect way to resolve all that built-up tension. As long as they can avoid getting a little too comfortable…
And to make it easy for you, here are her buy links:
 Amazon: http://amzn.to/1mLF6k1 
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1mx8Rpj 
Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/1mLG9jX 
Books a Million: http://bit.ly/W0j7ML 
Kobo: http://bit.ly/1mYzZyP 
Google Play: http://bit.ly/1jEMsHq

About Kat

Kat Latham - 350px
Kat Latham is a California girl who moved to Europe the day after graduating from UCLA, ditching her tank tops for raincoats. She taught English in Prague and worked as an editor in London before she and her British husband moved to the Netherlands. Kat̢۪s other career involves writing and editing for charities, and she̢۪s traveled to Kenya, Ethiopia and India to meet heroic people helping their communities survive disasters. Find out more on her website: katlatham.com.
Follow Kat: 
Site: http://katlatham.com/ 
Blog: http://katlatham.com/blog/ 
Newsletter: http://katlatham.com/newsletter/ 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KatLathamRomance 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/katrinalatham 
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/KatLatham1/

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Third Degree-Hot New Baseball Romance Is Out Now!

The Diamond Brides Series -- All's Fair in Love and Baseball! Yeah - how can you possibly resist a series like this? You can't. Plain and simple. Especially once I mention that this particular book has four great reasons to pick it up: baseball, sexy smooches, amazing food, and oh, its written by the super talented Mindy Klasky. (By the way, you should just pick up every book in this series, because they're a great way to spend the lazy days of summer!).

If you can't take the heat…

Chef Ashley Harris wants to own a restaurant – that's why she attended culinary school, and that's why she's working for the world's most lecherous restaurateur.

Raleigh Rockets third baseman Josh Cantor wants to launch his investment restaurant with the family recipes he loved growing up. Josh has been promised that treasure trove – but only if he can convince his grandmother that he's dating again, after a traumatic divorce.

When a cooking reality show comes to Raleigh, Ashley and Josh must compete against each other to achieve their dreams – even when the flames in the bedroom roar higher than the ones in their kitchens.  In the end, only one of them can win Who Wears the Apron.  Will their relationship survive this trial by fire?



Here's a peek at sugar and spice and everything nice…

Ashley Harris slammed her meat cleaver into the chicken bones, severing the dark-meat quarter at its joint. With the efficiency of long practice, she shoved the resulting pieces to the side of her cutting board.

“Whoa!” said Dustin Parsons. “Remind me not to make you angry!”

“I’m not angry,” Ashley said. Whack. Another chicken quarter severed. “I’m working.” Whack.

Her fellow chef shifted his grip on his own knife, making short work of converting a yellow onion into perfect half-moons of eye-smarting crunch. “Of course,” he agreed as Ashley slammed her way through another innocent chicken leg. “You always grit your teeth when you work.”

“I’m not,” whack, “Gritting my teeth.”

“Ash, babe, I can hear you half-way across the kitchen.”

She paused in her chicken dissection for long enough to give Dustin a well-deserved glare. The man was absolutely unflappable. And that was a good thing, given the heat in the kitchen where they worked. Outside the restaurant, it might be a chilly November afternoon, but inside, the kitchen was already climbing toward ninety degrees—and that was before the giant pots of water were set to boil for the pasta dishes that were the mainstay at Mangia Italian Kitchen.

Ashley set her cleaver on her cutting board. “It’s November 3rd,” she said.

“Excellent!” Dustin crowed. “I knew working near the university would rub off on you! And they said you’d never master reading the calendar!”

She twisted her lips into a frown to show her dissatisfaction with her colleague’s sarcasm. “I was supposed to hear from Wake Up Wake County by the first.”

Dustin’s mouth framed a comical O. He could tease all he wanted, but Ashley had her heart set on competing in Who Wears the Apron. The most popular morning viewing in Raleigh, Wake Up had been promoting its first-ever cooking contest everywhere, with ads on TV and radio, even on the sides of city buses.

Dustin recovered by asking, “I thought you had a Master Plan?”

The Master Plan. She’d worked her way up through local Raleigh restaurants—busing tables in high school, working as a hostess and server in college, progressing from salad chef to line chef to head chef in the seven years since graduation. She’d planned on staying three years at Mangia, learning the ins and outs of the restaurant business, mastering recipes as the head chef while she observed all the front-of-house operations. After all, Raleigh scion Duke Throckmorton was the owner, and he believed in quality cooking; he was willing to spend money on fine ingredients, even costly out-of-season treasures like copious amounts of basil in November.

Alas, he also believed that hiring Ashley to cook in his kitchen gave him the right to put his hand on her ass every time he walked by. He brushed against her boobs, too, whenever he thought he could get away with it—the guy was oblivious to the danger of a freshly-sharpened chef’s knife. Just that evening, he’d caught her by the fry station, and she’d seriously contemplated adding his octopus hands to the neat rings of cornmeal-dusted calamari.

But that would have been a disaster, if the health inspector stopped by.

Now, she shrugged as Dustin shifted his attention from onions to mushrooms. “The Master Plan is one thing—I’ve been salting away part of my paycheck for months. But winning Apron would put me ahead by years. One hundred thousand dollars… Do you know how long it’ll take for me to save that? And a year of consulting with Gerald Brown is worth that much again.”

The famous expert on restaurant management had taught at Mid-Atlantic Culinary Institute, the cooking school where Ashley had pursued an advanced degree after college. He’d been ancient then, teaching all his classes from an armchair at the front of the room. Who knew how long the genius would remain in the business? But Apron promised his services for one lucky winner—for an entire twelve months.

And all she’d had to do was complete her application, double- and triple-check the forms where she listed her past experience in restaurants, provide evidence of her undergraduate degree in business management, present her course work at Mid-Atlantic. She’d drawn up a menu for a multi-course meal, focusing on traditional Southern foods that she’d spiced up with her own unique flair.

But Wake Up was now two days past its own deadline. Ashley was fast losing hope that she’d be one of the ten lucky women to compete against ten men, preparing a single dish for the next round of the contest. This opportunity was going to fall apart the same way culinary school had become a disaster.

Well, not the same way. She hadn’t slept with anyone connected with Who Wears the Apron.

She’d learned her lesson at cooking school. Then, she’d welcomed the physical attention from star chef and professor Martin Davies. Those sly touches, the unexpected encounters that heated up the walk-in freezer, the hidden caresses that led to late-night dinners, to wild nights in bed, and more…

Crap. They’d also led to her leaving Mid-Atlantic in disgrace. She never should have fallen into the habit of spending the night at Martin’s place. She never should have been caught there when the dean of students stopped by for a morning consultation on curriculum. Her dalliance with Martin had cost her a diploma, and it had changed the way she thought about all men in her life. She’d take a tumble in the sheets if she liked a guy well enough, but she wasn’t about to spend the night. Not when the cost could be so high.

If she could just launch her own restaurant, she wouldn’t have to deal with any of this crap—grabby Throckmorton, the lingering shame of Davies, the frustration of working in someone else’s kitchen, of cooking to someone else’s requirements.

“Well,” Dustin said gamely. “You don’t know they told the winners on time. Maybe it took them longer to review the applications than they thought it would.”

Ashley shook her head. “It’s a good thing you’re a great cook,” she said. “Because you’re a really lousy liar.”

One of the waiters spun through the kitchen’s swinging doors. “They’re heeere,” he chanted, announcing the first paying customers of the evening. Ashley turned her attention to Mangia’s traditional Italian meals, setting aside her dreams of a New Southern feast all of her own making.
<p style="text-align: center;">* * *</p>
Six hours later, Ashley was finally sitting on one of the high barstools at the counter that passed for a table in her own apartment’s kitchen. She’d poured herself a glass of pinot noir and flipped through her mail, which consisted entirely of paper flyers that the mailman shoved into her mailbox. Shaking her head at the ads for products she’d never use, she reached for her laptop.

Sure, she hadn’t had any email when she got home. But that had been fifteen minutes ago. Anything could have come in since then.

There was a message waiting. A message with impossible good news.

She blinked hard and read the words again. Another gulp of pinot, a hard shake of her head. The email stayed the same.

“Congratulations! Wake Up Wake County is inviting you to Round 2 of Who Wears the Apron!”

Ashley glanced at the time on her phone. It was well after midnight. Too late to call any civilized friend. Well, Dustin wasn’t civilized. She punched his number and waited for his weary answer.

“I could have sworn we just said goodbye half an hour ago.”

She laughed. “And I could have sworn you were wide awake, sitting with your feet up on the coffee table, even though you know Sheila would be furious if she was up too. You’re drinking a Blue Moon, and you’re watching porn on your computer.”

“Ah, friendship,” Dustin said. “You know me so well. What’s up?”

“Listen to this: ‘You are one of ten women competing in our contest, which will air in a series of special segments on our usual morning television show. You have been randomly assigned to present your first dish, which can be any course from any menu, to our judges on Friday, November 14. On that date, our judges will also announce the five men and five women who will move on to Round 3. Please see the attached document for all rules and regulations related to Who Wears the Apron! Congratulations and good luck!’”

“Holy shit!”

“Hush!” she said. “If you wake Sheila now, she’ll really be pissed.”

“She’ll be thrilled she gets to share your news!”

“Yeah, right.”

“Seriously, Ash. That’s great! What are you going to make for Round 2?”

And that was the hundred-thousand dollar question, wasn’t it? What was she going to cook? “Any suggestions?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t bother to stifle his yawn “I’ll have about a dozen for you. Tomorrow, when I see you at work.”

“Okay,” she said. “Be that way.”

“You’re not going to sleep, are you?”

She was already opening up the vast collection of recipes on her computer. “Of course I’m going to sleep. It’s late, and work was exhausting!”

“Don’t try to con a conner. You’ll be up all night, and you’ll be a bitch at work tomorrow.”

She laughed. “But you’ll love me anyway.”

Dustin agreed and signed off, and she dove into her files, trying to find the one dish that would guarantee her victory in Round 2.
<p style="text-align: center;">* * *</p>
Josh Cantor brought his grandmother a fresh old-fashioned. “You know, Angel, some people would say it’s too early to be drinking.”

She plucked the orange slice from the rim of the glass and ate the juicy triangles of fruit before she used the rind to point at him. “And some would say you’re too young to be correcting your elders. I waited until 5:00 yesterday.”

She probably hadn’t. Angel wasn’t remembering things very well these days. At least not the things she didn’t want to remember.

Josh folded himself onto the rattan loveseat. He was sweating like he’d just finished a full workout in the gym at Rockets Field, even though it was the first week of November. His grandmother insisted on outfitting her deck with massive space heaters, the sort that should have been used on a restaurant patio. Angel had lived in Raleigh her entire life, but she still refused to admit that North Carolina experienced winter weather. In fact, Angel refused to admit anything that didn’t agree with her view of right and wrong—a view that was increasingly narrow as she grew more frail.

He passed his grandmother a cut-glass plate with the deep-fried olives he’d made for her that morning. “Can I get you anything?” he asked. “A napkin? Something else to snack on?”

Angel cocked her head. With her outrageous flowered scarf wrapped around her forehead, she looked like a pirate with a passion for poppies. “I’ve got a napkin from the first three times you asked, boy. And I don’t need you to fatten me up with anything else. Are you going to ask me for a favor, or just wait for me to doze off so you can take what you want?”

Angel always could see right through him. He looked at his scuffed shoes and wiped his palms against his jeans. Christ. Alzheimer’s or no, she was going to toss him out on his ass if he didn’t man up. He looked her right in the eye and said, “Angel, I want your recipe book.”

He didn’t just want it. He needed it. He’d gotten the email yesterday—he was one of ten men selected for Who Wears the Apron. The contest couldn’t come at a better time—November was the off-season so he had time to compete, time to fight for the hundred-grand purse and a consultant who could help him turn his dream of a successful investment gig into a reality. But all the time in the world was nothing, if he didn’t have Angel’s recipes to back up his bid for success.

“What are you going to do with a bunch of tidewater receipts?” She plunged her thumb and forefinger into her drink and pulled out the first of the three cherries Josh had given her.

“Use them for my restaurant,” he mumbled.

“What’s that?” She put down her glass and eyed him like a fox considering a chicken dinner. “I could have sworn you just said you wanted to use Cantor family recipes for that money pit you’re planning.”

“It’s not a money pit!”

“How much have you sunk into it so far?”

Shit. He was going to lose this argument. But he didn’t have any other option, so he said, “It wasn’t my fault the lease fell through.”

“On how many places?”

God, he should have waited until she had a couple more drinks in her. Maybe an entire bottle of whiskey. “Three, Angel. But there were circumstances beyond my control.” He could recite all the details for her, explain why it was so goddamn hard to set up a restaurant while he was busy with his real job.

But Angel had never followed baseball a day in her life. She didn’t care that he was a Gold Glove third baseman for a team that had missed the playoffs by one game. She didn’t give a damn about his batting average or his on-base percentage. In fact, Angel only cared about one thing, and he was a little surprised she hadn’t mentioned it yet.

“Just like it wasn’t your fault that nice girl broke up with you over the summer. You told me she was the one, Josh. You said you were going to marry her.”

Ding, ding, ding! “Perfect, Angel. I thought we might actually talk for five minutes before you got around to that.”

“I thought you might actually follow through on a promise that you made me! You’re turning thirty on March1st. Your father was married on his twenty-first birthday!”

And dead by his fortieth.

But Josh wasn’t cruel enough to say that out loud. Sure, he’d lied to Angel about Shelby. He’d made things sound a lot more serious than they were. What the hell else was he going to say? She’s moved on to a hockey player now.

She’s only turned on by cock in a uniform, Angel. If she can’t screw in a locker room, she can’t come.

Yeah. Angel might be losing her short-term memory, but he was pretty sure she’d remember that. He settled on a vague excuse: “Things didn’t work out with Shelby.”

“And they didn’t work out with Chelsea before that. Or Madison. Or Paige.”

Shit. Maybe her memory was better than she let on. Better than Janice claimed anyway. The home health aide always had looked on the dark side. “What do you want me to say, Angel?”

“I want you to say, ‘I married the woman of my dreams yesterday, we had mind-blowing sex in the honeymoon suite, and your first great-grandchild is due in nine months.’”

“Christ!”

“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, Josh Cantor. I’ve got a bar of Ivory in the front powder room, and I’m not afraid to use it on that mouth of yours.”

Great. His senile grandmother was ready to pimp him out to any woman with a womb, but she’d wash his mouth out with soap for a little swearing? He took a deep breath and reminded himself he wasn’t a rebellious kid any more. Time to get this conversation back to where he needed it to be.

“Come on, Angel. How about it? Will you give me your recipes?”

Her lips tightened into a thin white line. “I’m giving them to Beau Dumont.”

“Beau Dumont is a cold-hearted son-of-a-bitch with a stick up his—”

“Josh!”

“But Angel! If you give him your recipes, he’ll just convert them into some low-fat, low-calorie, no-taste cardboard to serve in the dining rooms of that nursing home of his.”

“And I’ll be living in that home, sooner rather than later.” She waved off his protest. “No, you don’t need to lie to me. I’m getting worse. Just yesterday, I left the stove on until the copper teakettle glowed green. It’s only a matter of time before Janice won’t be enough.”

“Then we’ll hire someone else.”

Angel’s fingers scrabbled on his wrist. “Josh, love. I understand that you want to take care of me. You want to do what’s right. But we both know I’m going to end up in Beau Dumont’s home.”

“Even if that’s true, you can’t give him your recipes!”

She took a healthy swallow from her old-fashioned and looked at him slyly. He recognized the new look; she’d been using it for the past few months, when she was bargaining for something she really shouldn’t have. “I’ll tell you what, boy. I’ll give you my recipes when you give me a great-grandbaby. Get cracking. I want you married by March 1st.”

Jesus. Had she slipped that much? She was babbling nonsense. “Now, Angel—”

“I want to hold another newborn, Josh. I want to know the Cantor name will go on, even after I can’t remember it.” She startled him by cupping his chin with her hand. “I want you to be happy, boy. All women aren’t like that Harpy.”

Harper, he started to correct her, but there wasn’t any reason. Hadn’t been since the judge stamped his divorce decree. He’d had no reason to think about Harper since he’d turned over two sets of house keys, his car keys, and the lion’s share of his bank account. The last alimony check was due on December 31, and he couldn’t wait to sign his name.

The judge had declared her a corporate spouse, a good woman devoted to doing anything, everything, to making Josh’s baseball career a success. In the court’s eyes, Harper had sacrificed early and often, giving up her own possibilities for career advancement so she could help Josh move up the ladder of major league baseball.

Corporate spouse, my ass. Harper had been a supportive spouse about the same way he’d been a faithful, dedicated husband. But she’d been a hell of a lot smarter than he had. She’d hired an investigator and gotten pictures.

Snapshots and a sympathetic judge, and Josh was poorer than he’d ever been in his life.

If he’d listened to everyone—Angel included—and signed an ironclad pre-nup before marrying Harper, he might not need a restaurant for investment income. He might have a decent retirement plan in place, a balance sheet that reflected his worth on the field and off. He might not be worried about how he was going to pay his own mortgage, plus the cost of Angel’s looming nursing home, along with her medical bills.

But Harper’d had him by the balls when he’d proposed to her. By his dick at least. He’d been stupid enough to think he was in love when they got married, and he’d refused to let any legal bullshit ruin that. He’d been an idiot.

Angel shook her head, as if he’d admitted his remorse out loud. “You’re scared, boy. And it’s my job to break you of it. That might be the last thing I do for you.”

He didn’t want to think about Angel being gone, so he growled, “I’m not some horse you can train to saddle.”

She snorted. “You’d be a lot easier to handle if you were. When you broke your arm sliding into second in Little League, I made sure you got out there the very next season. When that aluminum bat broke your nose in high school, I got you to the doctor, had you fitted for a face mask, and got you back in time for the college scouts to see what you had. I’m not letting you throw away the rest of your life, just because that creature hurt you.”

“So let me get this straight. I need to find a woman, marry her, and get her knocked up by March, or you’re giving your recipes to Beau Dumont.”

She frowned but didn’t call him on his language. “I can live with a wedding. The baby might take a little time to catch. I’m not unreasonable.”

Of course not. Angel was the goddamn voice of reason.

She went on. “For now, you can have the recipes, one at a time. For every week you’re dating the same girl, I’ll give you another recipe.”

“Right, Angel. And what am I supposed to do? Have that girl sign a goddamn affidavit?”

“Language!” she tutted. But then she said, “I’ll accept a photo as evidence that you’re courting.”

Maybe it was the disease, but she sounded perfectly reasonable. She was honestly talking about trading recipes for romance, and he was supposed to act like that was normal.

But what other option did he have? He needed Angel’s leather-bound recipe file. “I get to choose which recipes.”

She eyed him steadily. “Of course.”

“And you’ll be reasonable about proof, at least for the first few weeks. Any decent woman would be frightened off in half a minute, if she knew you were blackmailing me.”

Angel didn’t react to his accusation. “I always know when you’re lying to me, boy, so don’t even think about trying anything. But yes, I’ll be reasonable.”

Shit. What else was he going to do?

He took her glass as she held it out for a refill. He measured out sugar and bitters, added a teaspoon of water. The steel muddler was heavy in his palm as he took out his frustration on the ingredients.

He’d gotten through the first round of Who Wears the Apron on the power of his ideas. All right, his ideas, and maybe his name. The TV station probably liked the idea of bringing a local celebrity into the competition. But now he’d have to up his game. Now he’d have to prove he could cook.

He couldn’t lose Who Wears the Apron if he had Angel’s recipes. So he’d just have to see what he could do about finding a bride. Or at least a woman whose picture he could deliver into Angel’s eager hands. It was the least he could do for his grandmother. It might be the last thing she remembered.
<p style="text-align: center;">* * *</p>
Ashley walked into the green room at the television station, reminding herself to breathe. She’d gotten home from Mangia at midnight and immediately set to work on her entry for the cooking contest. After a shower at four in the morning, she’d gotten dressed, slapped on makeup to try to imitate a living, breathing human, collected her food, and headed down to the studio.

It only took her a moment to discover her major mistake: she hadn’t worn her chef’s whites.

She’d thought about it, of course. She had a clean uniform at home, the white pants, the long tunic with its buttons marching down her chest. She’d even considered donning a pleated toque.

In the end, though, she’d decided it was presumptuous to wear the costume. She’d settled for sleek black pants, a soft green blouse that picked up the color of her hazel eyes, conservative pumps that pinched her toes but would make her look a lot more attractive than the clunky, comfortable shoes she wore to work.

But everyone else had gone with the chef clothes. The room shimmered with white. In the heat of so many bodies, she could smell starch. The pleats on some of those hats looked sharp enough to slice open an unsuspecting palm.

“Refrigerator needed?” asked a harried young woman.

“What?” Ashley forced herself to focus.

The intern, or whatever she was, checked a clipboard. “You’re Ashley Harris, right?”

“I—Yes. How did you know that?”

“You’re the last one to arrive. Do you need a refrigerator for your food?”

“No.” Ashley had planned her dish carefully, not certain there’d be a fridge, or a stovetop or oven, either. She didn’t want to take a chance that anything could go wrong—not when three bites of food stood between her and the career of her dreams.

“You can put your dish over there, then. We drew numbers at random before you got here. You’re last.”

That was good, wasn’t it? Leave the judges with her entry on their tastebuds?

Or maybe it was a disaster. They might have loved some of the earlier treats, might have ranked them so high there wasn’t any room left for Ashley’s work.

This was stupid. Ashley should have done something complex, something delicate and complicated, something that drew on every skill she’d ever mastered in any class at cooking school.

But what chance would that type of food have under studio lights? What chance would her work have to shine on a morning TV show, when any sane person was chugging down coffee and eating a bowl of cereal?

Well, there wasn’t any cereal in sight, but she could smell the coffee on the far side of the room. She deposited her covered plate on the table the intern had indicated, and she crossed the room for a dose of caffeine. She was just stirring in powdered creamer when a man reached in front of her for a cup.

“Looks like we’re the only two who didn’t get the memo.”

Ashley glanced up, prepared to paste on a smile and relinquish her spot by the coffee table to one of her competitors. Instead, she nearly dropped her cup of coffee. “Josh Cantor!”

The man next to her grinned and offered his free hand. She shook automatically, her lips moving by reflex to introduce herself. “I’m Ashley Harris.”

By a conservative estimate, she’d shaken about a million hands in her lifetime. The first had been her father’s, when he’d told her she needed to learn how to conduct herself like an adult. He’d taught her how to offer a firm grasp—not too hard, not dead-fish limp. He’d taught her to offer her hand first when the other person was male, to wait for an older woman to make the initial gesture. He’d taught her to look in the eyes of the person who stood in front of her.

But he never told her what to do if she started to drown there.

Josh Cantor had the most gorgeous eyes she’d ever seen. They were blue, but that was like saying that a ghost pepper was hot. They had gold flecks in them, glints that made it seem like he was laughing. At the same time, his gaze was attentive, direct, as if the famous ballplayer had focused every ounce of his concentration on her.

Or maybe that message was flowing with the heat that radiated from his palm to hers. She could feel the strength in his fingers, the taut wires that caught a baseball on the fly, that sent the red-stitched sphere flying across the infield with deadly accuracy. His wrist flexed, just the slightest tightening of his muscles, and she felt herself pulled closer to him, just a heartbeat, just a breath.

The corners of his lips curled into a smile, like he knew precisely what he’d just done, how he’d just captured her. The amusement was reflected in those amazing eyes, and she was trapped all over again. He practically purred, “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

And she snorted. Just a little breath of amusement, an acknowledgment that the line was cornier than the ground meal in her pantry. She pulled her hand from his. “Really?” she asked. “You can’t come up with anything better than that?”

He shrugged and sipped his coffee. “I was going to try ‘What’s your sign,’ but I thought that was a little dated.”

“Taurus,” she said, and she refused to admit to herself how handsome he was when he laughed.

She’d studied Josh Cantor’s face, not six weeks earlier. Her best friend, Jamie Martin, had taken on a job with the Raleigh Rockets, photographing the baseball players for a promotional calendar. Ashley had looked over Jamie’s shoulder, helping to select the best shots. Now she felt a hot blush melt over her cheeks as she thought about those photos of Josh on a construction site, his biceps popping as he leaned on a baseball bat, the tight muscles of his thighs perfectly clear against his tight white uniform pants.

White… Like the clothes preferred by all the chefs around them. What had he said when he approached her here at the coffee table? They were the only two who hadn’t gotten the memo?

She nodded toward his jeans and the plaid shirt he wore open over a plain white tee, managing to take in her own Dress for Success outfit with the same gesture. “We’re flat out of luck if they ask us to cook something out there.”

“But we sure manage to make a strong first impression.”

She sipped her coffee. Despite the creamer she’d added, it was bitter, nearly burned. “Not as strong as this coffee,” she said, twisting around for the sugar.

“So what do you think of the competition?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Those dates stuffed with bleu cheese were a huge hit on Monday. And all the judges raved about the cajun quiche.”

“You actually watched the other days’ contestants?” He sounded shocked.

“Sure. Didn’t you? Don’t you want to see what you’re up against?”

He could barely be bothered to shrug one shoulder. “Not really. I’m going to cook what I’m going to cook. Seeing other people’s food isn’t going to change what I can do.”

He grinned as he said it. She recognized that devil-may-care look, complete with the hair he hadn’t bothered to run a brush through that morning, with the slight crookedness of a nose that had been broken at some point and imperfectly set. Josh Cantor was a rebel. And she was willing to bet he was one hundred and eighty degrees away from her, at least where cooking was concerned.

Ashley couldn’t help but glance at the sheaf of papers she’d slipped into her purse as she hurried out of her apartment that morning. Over the past week, she’d taken careful notes of each competitor’s dish. She’d studied their ingredients, charted their food by cuisine. Her goal was to take the judges’ tastebuds by surprise—she’d wow them with her cooking, but also by her creativity, her sheer imagination.

Josh followed her gaze. “What have you got there?”

“Nothing,” she said too quickly. She snatched the papers out of her bag and folded them in half, the better to hide her analyses.

“Doesn’t look like nothing,” he said, reaching for them.

“Hey!” she exclaimed, tucking them behind her back.

He twitched his fingers against her side, the quick snap of a devilish older brother. She flinched and leaned forward, and he plucked the pages from her hand. He nodded as he studied them, his eyebrows coming together in fierce perusal. “Very thorough, Miss Harris. Very thorough indeed.”

“Those are private!”

“Really?” He grinned. “I think of something other than spreadsheets when I hear that word.”

That devilish smile took her breath away. She should be furious with him, taking her notes like that. She should be outraged that he’d touched her, that he’d darted those fingers against the silk of her blouse.

Then why was she trying to figure out how to get into a wrestling match with him, just to get her papers back? Why was she picturing him closing his fingers around her wrists to stop her? Why was she imagining him pulling her close to that bright white T-shirt, folding those plaid-covered arms around her and kissing her hard enough to—

“Josh Cantor!” That was the intern calling him.

He handed Ashley’s papers back with a lopsided grin. “Good luck,” he said, and then he stepped close—close enough for her to catch the scent of him, lemon covering a base of spicy pepper. Her belly swooped to her toes, and she realized he was going to kiss her. She turned her head to the side, offering him her cheek, and she felt the velvet heat of his lips near her ear.

“Your blouse is undone,” he whispered.

She threw her arms across her chest as he turned away with soft laughter deep in his throat. He didn’t look back as he collected a cardboard box from the table and headed after the girl with the clipboard. Ashley whirled toward the coffee maker, only looking down when her back was squarely to the room.

What the hell? Sure enough, the middle button on her blouse had slipped free. Humiliated, she could only see the soft folds of fabric, the green silk draping to cover her chest. But she couldn’t help but wonder if he’d glimpsed her bra. She’d purposely worn her most practical underwear—stiff underwire, boring taupe—and for just a heartbeat, she couldn’t decide if she regretted her practicality.

What a jerk! He could have said something to her earlier. He never should have teased her into a wriggling struggle over those papers. She wanted to melt into the floor, collapse into a puddle, and never look another human being in the face again.
 
Author Bio:
Mindy Klasky learned to read when her parents shoved a book in her hands and told her she could travel anywhere through stories. As a writer, Mindy has traveled through various genres, including hot contemporary romance. In her spare time, Mindy knits, quilts, and tries to tame her to-be-read shelf.