Shiloh Walker's Blog, page 155

A Forever Kind of Love…releases today

Now available…

You can always come home.

Second chances come a little harder.

Chase and Zoe were the high school golden couple. Football captain, cheerleader, prom royalty.

After graduation, though, Chase couldn't resist the urge to experience life outside their small town. He didn't exactly expect Zoe to wait twelve years for him, but now that he's back, he finds some small part of him hoping she did.

It's no big surprise she's married. The kick in the face is she married his best friend.

Zoe was devastated when Chase left, but she's filed those bittersweet memories under "Moved On". She loves her life, and loves her husband. She has all she needs. And Chase keeps an honorable distance.

One cold, wet, miserable day, tragedy turns Zoe's world upside down. Chase never expected her to simply fall into his arms, but a man can dream. Except his dream doesn't include the fact that this time, she's the one hitting the road…and he's the one left behind.

 

 

 

"I see you're not wasting any time clearing out of here."

"No reason to," she said, shrugging. "I can't stay here. It's too full of memories."

"There might be a time when you want those memories back."

She grimaced. "No. I'll still have the memories. Moving won't take them away." She brushed her hair back from her face and said, "This is a place for a family, Chase. Roger and I…well, we'd thought about it, maybe were going to try later. It was always later. Now we won't have a chance for later. And I don't want to walk around inside these four walls and think about the 'later' we lost."

Put that way, hell, he couldn't blame her.

Settling down on the ground in front of her, he peered inside one of the cardboard boxes. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"I don't know." She shrugged and looked around, staring at the various boxes. "There is just so much stuff. Roger kept everything. The clothes and stuff, I'll just give to Goodwill, but the other stuff? His books? His golf clubs?"

She slanted a look at him. "You play golf?"

"Only under extreme duress." He studied the golf clubs and said, "You can ask my dad. He plays. He might like them. Sentimental stuff, if nothing else."

Looking back at her, he had to fight to keep from reaching for her. Had to fight to keep from pulling her into his arms. Just to hold her. Just to cuddle her. She looked so tired…so worn and exhausted.

In the back of his mind, he thought about what Roger had told him. What Roger had said. Wondered what Zoe would say.

She needed time…time to heal, time to mourn.

Chase just needed her, the same way he needed her the past few months—hell, the past fifteen years, but he'd been too damn stupid to see it.

Jamming his hands in his pockets, he paced the floor, staring at the boxes, the odds and ends of the past fifteen years of her life.

Abruptly, he turned and stared at her.

"Why did you marry him, Zoe?"

Her hands stilled.

Then she went back to the task at hand, sorting through a box as though it was the sole focus of her life. "Is that really any of your business, Chase?" she asked softly.

"You married him two months after I left," he said, his voice bitter. Angry. Far more bitter, far more angry than he had a right to be, he knew. But two months—two fucking months.

"What would you have done if I'd come back?" he asked, feeling hollow inside as he stared at her bowed head.

Zoe laughed sadly. "What ifs. You know how empty those are? What ifs." She sighed and shoved the box aside. "What if you'd never left…or what if you'd taken me with you?" She sighed and drew her knees up. She stared at him and he waited for her to answer, waited so long he didn't think she was going to. But finally, she did. "Now there is a question," she murmured, she looped her arms around her knees and rested her chin on her upraised legs. With dark, wide eyes, she studied him. "And it's a good one. If you're so torn up about me marrying him, Chase, then you answer my question, and I'll think about answering yours. Why didn't you take me with you?"

One hand curled into a tight, impotent fist, Chase turned away, staring out the small slit of a window, out into the clear, cloudless sky. "I thought about it. For close to a year, I woke almost every damn day wanting to call you, ask you if you'd come join me, even when it wasn't possible. Shit. You were too much a part of me, Zoe. Eighteen years old and I couldn't breathe without feeling you, thinking of you. Sometimes it scared the shit out of me."

"You left me because you thought about me too much?" she asked, lifting a brow.

"I left because I had to get out. I didn't deserve you, you know." He turned to look at her, aching inside. "I didn't realize it then, but I didn't deserve you. I never did. I was selfish, an immature brat of kid but one thing I did right—I did know you'd go with me. I knew that then. But I didn't ask. It didn't seem right to ask. How fair would it have been to drag you along when I didn't even know where in the hell I was going?"

"Maybe you were looking at it wrong," she suggested. "If I was with you, the where wouldn't have mattered."

order

Kindle | Nook | Samhain

Speaking out for victims of rape

For more info, follow the link below…

Support rape crisis centers and enter to win an advance copy of The Snow Queen's Shadow, by Jim C. Hines.

A Forever Kind of Love…#9

ebook release April 26 2011

You can always come home.

Second chances come a little harder.

Chase and Zoe were the high school golden couple. Football captain, cheerleader, prom royalty.

After graduation, though, Chase couldn't resist the urge to experience life outside their small town. He didn't exactly expect Zoe to wait twelve years for him, but now that he's back, he finds some small part of him hoping she did.

It's no big surprise she's married. The kick in the face is she married his best friend.

Zoe was devastated when Chase left, but she's filed those bittersweet memories under "Moved On". She loves her life, and loves her husband. She has all she needs. And Chase keeps an honorable distance.

One cold, wet, miserable day, tragedy turns Zoe's world upside down. Chase never expected her to simply fall into his arms, but a man can dream. Except his dream doesn't include the fact that this time, she's the one hitting the road…and he's the one left behind.

But she wasn't. She wasn't sure she'd ever be okay again.

She went to pull away from him—she couldn't take the touch of his hands—it didn't feel right having him touch her. Abruptly, she stopped and stared, realized they were in the brightly lit front room of her home.

The home she shared with Roger.

Roger.

The pain inside her rose up, grabbed her around the throat like a fist and she started to shake. She needed to cry, wanted to scream—where was he?

A hand touched her shoulder gently. Looking back at Chase, she stared at his face mutely.

"I called my dad—figured he'd know where Roger was," Chase said, his face neutral.

His eyes weren't.

Those dark blue eyes were anything but neutral, anything but calm. She couldn't entirely understand all the emotions she saw there, and she wouldn't let herself think about them, either.

"Roger is in Lincoln with your father, of course." Was that really her voice? So calm, so collected?

How could she sound so…unaffected when her life was on the verge of shattering?

Brain tumor.

MRI.

Tests.

Why aren't you here, you bastard?

The sobs trapped inside her chest begged to be set free and she turned away from Chase, took one slow step toward the couch, then another. "I appreciate you bringing me home. I'm sure you have other things to do, though," she said.

Calm, keep calm. Don't fall apart until he's gone…

"Zoe." He touched her shoulder again. His voice soft and low.

She broke. Shattered.

Sinking to the floor, she started to sob.

Preorder

Kindle | Nook | Samhain

BTW, if you preorder at Samhain?  It only costs $2.45… it's normally $3.50

And the winner is…

The winner for the eARC of A Forever Kind of Love is:

JenM who said: I love romances that are a bit different. One that sticks in my mind is Butterfly Tattoo by Deirdre Knight. Another one that I just read that was quite different was a self pubbed book called These Hellish Happenings by Jennifer Rainey. That was one where I was completely surprised by the romance that developed

Congrats Jen! You have 2 weeks to contact me at grimmhunter.shilohwalker(at)gmail(dot)com.

Happy Easter…

For my friends who'll be spending today in church…

[image error] image via Photobucket | undecorated image @ lilykinsss

I don't know if I'll be able to make it to church, just depends on how the belly is holding up from Friday and how I'm feeling in general. I want to go, though-I love Easter Sunday, so as long as I'm not falling apart…

And for those who are more about the chocolate-I can totally dig chocolate (want some now, need some now…)

[image error]

image via photobucket | fterezia

BTW…for the curious, wondered why Easter is later some years than others?  It has to do with the moon.  This comes from St James News**

Twice each year the sun shines directly on the equator and the length of day and night are nearly equal everywhere in the world. These dates are March 21st and September 21st.  They are known as the vernal (or spring) equinox and autumnal (or fall) equinox.

The vernal equinox coincides with Easter and  the special days that are related to it. They are days that do not fall on a fixed calendar day: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Pentecost….

In 325 A.D. The Council of Nicaea established that Easter would be held on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox. Easter is delayed one full week if the full moon is on Sunday, which decreases the chances of it falling on the same day as the Jewish Passover.

The latest date for Easter is April 25th, so you can see it comes pretty close to that this year, April 24th. This last occurred in 1943 and won't happen again until 2028. The earliest date for Easter is March 22nd. This last occurred in 1818 and won't happen again until 2285.

I kinda like it when Easter is bit later than a bit earlier.

 

Info from Copyright 2011 St. James Plaindealer. Some rights reserved, and the article the info came from was written by Wayne Fritzinger, Staff Writer St. James Plaindealer

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A Forever Kind of Love… ebook giveaway

I promised I'd do a giveaway of this here on the blog.  It's slipped my mind…I blame it partly on feeling lousy and partly on being a ditz.  O.o

You can always come home.

Second chances come a little harder.

Chase and Zoe were the high school golden couple. Football captain, cheerleader, prom royalty.

After graduation, though, Chase couldn't resist the urge to experience life outside their small town. He didn't exactly expect Zoe to wait twelve years for him, but now that he's back, he finds some small part of him hoping she did.

It's no big surprise she's married. The kick in the face is she married his best friend.

Zoe was devastated when Chase left, but she's filed those bittersweet memories under "Moved On". She loves her life, and loves her husband. She has all she needs. And Chase keeps an honorable distance.

One cold, wet, miserable day, tragedy turns Zoe's world upside down. Chase never expected her to simply fall into his arms, but a man can dream. Except his dream doesn't include the fact that this time, she's the one hitting the road…and he's the one left behind.

So here's your chance to win.

You might have guessed, this book is a bit of a tear-jerker.  It's got a happy-ending, I swear.  But it's…well, not exactly your typical romance, I don't think.

It was actually a book I'd submitted elsewhere before Samhain and it was rejected-at first, revisions were requested, but I wouldn't make some of the revisions, because it changed the book too much.  So the end decision was the book would be too hard a sell as a romance.

I dunno…I guess we'll see.  Do you like atypical?  Okay with one that's off the beaten track? What's the most unusual romance you've ever read?  Tell me one.  If you don't have an atypical romance you can think of, then just tell me a book that's stayed with you.  I'll draw a name from those comments (randomly) and that person gets the download.

Standard rules apply:

do NOT post this to twittersweeps, sweepstakes sites, etc. If it happens, I reserve the right to end this contest without drawing a winner.
open across the globe
this is for an ebook, not a print book.  If you don't read ebooks, you can enter, but if you win, there's no substitution offered.  If you won't read it…well, do you really wanna enter? O.o
By entering the contest, you agree to respect my copyright-this means you will not post my book to filesharing sites/sell/share, etc.
The winner's name will be posted here-probably Sunday  (hint, hint Nicole) and the winner must contact me for the prize.  If you don't contact me within the stated two week period, you forfeit your prize.
Rest of my rules at the disclaimer page
By entering any of my contests, that means you've read and agree to the rules posted in the disclaimer.  So if you haven't read, you might wanna.

UTA: If you don't see your comment right away, don't worry. I messed things up when I broke the blog and everything is being held in moderation. Ugh.

The good news, the bad news

I always prefer my news to be balanced…if I get bad, I like to get good, too.  And honestly, the bad news isn't anything too terrible.  We can manage it.

image via Dreamstime Free

Managing it, though, comes via another surgery.  Today's turned out to be more of a diagnostic thing than planned.  It was over quick, and they found the problem fast. I don't wanna go into details about it, but there's nothing lifethreatening.  The next surgery is just another necessary-necessary as in I do it, or I live with the pain.

I don't like pain.

So it's all good news, I guess, just tempered with a bit of bad news…the only real way to manage this is through surgery, but the surgery is simple. Oddly, I'm not throwing confetti.  I am relieved, however…very, very relieved.

I don't want anybody to worry if I'm not commenting on the blog or around twitter/facebook a lot.

I know I haven't been online much for the past month or so.  A lot of that is because I'm not feeling too good and it's hard to balance everything not-necessary with the necessary-the necessary is A) my family-always, B) my deadlines. Beyond that, the rest is extra and I have to juggle it in when I can.  So if I'm not around as much, that's why.  I'm here, I'm around and I'm mostly okay…just conserving energy.

Friday 56

Hey all, Nicole here. Are you ready for the weekend? I know I am . My #Fridayreads will be Primal Bonds by Jennifer Ashley.   If you haven't done a Friday 56 before, grab the nearest book (doesn't have to be the one you're reading…in my case it *is*) just the closest one. Turn to page 56 and give us the 5th sentence. You can add a sentence or 2 around it if you want.  Happy Good Friday all .

That surprised him.

A Forever Kind of Love…#8

ebook release April 2011

You can always come home.

Second chances come a little harder.

Chase and Zoe were the high school golden couple. Football captain, cheerleader, prom royalty.

After graduation, though, Chase couldn't resist the urge to experience life outside their small town. He didn't exactly expect Zoe to wait twelve years for him, but now that he's back, he finds some small part of him hoping she did.

It's no big surprise she's married. The kick in the face is she married his best friend.

Zoe was devastated when Chase left, but she's filed those bittersweet memories under "Moved On". She loves her life, and loves her husband. She has all she needs. And Chase keeps an honorable distance.

One cold, wet, miserable day, tragedy turns Zoe's world upside down. Chase never expected her to simply fall into his arms, but a man can dream. Except his dream doesn't include the fact that this time, she's the one hitting the road…and he's the one left behind.

Apparently working for his dad paid well, Chase thought, pulling up in front of the large, custom-designed brick home.

He'd been by the house a number of times, but the few times he'd been invited, he'd refused.

Going inside that house, seeing where Roger lived with the woman Chase still wanted, that was more torture than he really wanted.

Plus, he wasn't overly keen on renewing the friendship he'd had with Roger. Maybe it was petty of him, but he didn't care. Some part of him still felt like Roger had moved in and taken something that had been Chase's. Until he could get over that, he was better off not pretending or forcing a friendship he didn't really feel, he figured.

It was definitely better for Zoe and Roger.

Parking to the side of the long, curved drive, he climbed out of the car and came around to the side. When he opened the door, Zoe just sat there.

Swearing, he crouched down and waited for her to look at him.

For the next minute, all she did was stare straight ahead.

Finally, unable to bear the silence, or that look in her eyes, he reached out and touched her arm. "Zoe, what's wrong?"

Vaguely, Zoe heard Chase's voice but it didn't seem real.

She knew she was in his car, and she knew he was talking on his phone, and although part of her understood the words, all they did was bounce around inside her skull, kind of like a ball in pinball machine—none of them connected. Nothing made sense.

Brain tumor.

MRI.

Roger…where in the hell are you? You're supposed to be here.

Here. With her. Just where he'd always been, for the past fifteen years. Why wasn't he here now?

She started to shake, barely able to think, hardly able to breathe.

Brilliant light shone in her face and she flinched, hiding away from it. Hard, hot hands caught her arms and she lifted her head, stared dully at Chase.

"Hey, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, thank you," she said woodenly.

Preorder

Kindle | Nook | Samhain

Question… bulletin boards and such

Question for people.  Would there be any interest in having a bulletin board set up here on my site?  I'd be dumping the thing on Nicole's lap, although yes, I'd pop in.

Mostly a place for people to talk about the books and stuff.

Thoughts?