Saturday Snippet
Today's topic is gift. That could really mean almost anything. I decided to go a little more literal and use my Christmas novella, It's Not Christmas Without You in the HOLIDAY KISSES anthology. It comes out December 6th from Carina Press. I don't have a cover or link yet, but soon…
Something or someone thumped against her front door early the next morning. At the sound, Carrie jumped and a black smudge of mascara slashed across her cheek.
"What the hell?" A glance at the small clock on her bathroom counter told her it wasn't seven yet.
After barely sleeping and hours of trying to kick the image of Austin's ridiculously handsome face out of her head, she'd showered and gotten as far as drying her hair and throwing on a robe before the thud. Thanks to the scare, the make-up application was a bust and would need a second attempt.
But first, the door. She wiped off the smear and dropped the tube into the sink. Stepping into the entry, she cursed under her breath and generally worked her nerves into a full-blown fury as she went. There were twenty apartments on her floor and if someone had wandered to the wrong door she'd scream. She glanced through the peephole and her planned unreasonable explode-on-a-stranger rage fizzled. A whirring mix of anxiety and unwanted hope spun around in her belly. The sound of whistling hit her a second later.
No, no, no.
She'd thought about Austin nonstop and now he appeared at her door and…she was a dead woman. No way would her shaky control withstand this. Staring at him through the safety of a window and from six floors up last night made her twitchy enough. Smelling him, seeing him, hearing him, being inches away from touching him. It was all too much.
To keep from bending, she focused on her frustration over his stubbornness. He pretended to listen to her talk about her job but he didn't really hear her. The anger at his refusal to see her as more than the woman who'd always been there for him washed over her. She let it fuel her until it pounded in her ears.
She threw open the door and glared. "How do you know where I live?"
"Uh, hello?"
How the man could look so yummy so early in the morning was a mystery. Hair ruffled from the air and a chill on his skin that swept over her from two feet away. The faded jeans and checkered shirt hanging open over a gray tee added to the scruffy, just-out-of-bed look that never failed to make her jaw drop.
She ended the visual tour with a practiced frown. "You can't possibly expect a warm welcome at this time in the morning."
"It's seven."
"Your point?"
He executed the perfect eye roll. "I've been up for two hours."
"You're not normal." Her gaze bounced down to his hands and she wondered how she'd missed the two cups of what looked like coffee and a white bag of something in the carrier.
The man knew how to get to her. She'd once joked about how a woman could forgive a lot for a man who brought her breakfast. She was trying to weasel a coffee run out of him at the time.
"You've enjoyed my early rising in the past," he said.
She bit down on her lip to keep from laughing at his dumb joke and the sexy smile that followed. "You haven't explained how you found me."
"We come from a town of, like, ten people. They lined up to tell me how to find you."
Traitors. "So, Mitch squealed. That would explain why he won't answer my calls."
"Your brother has to work with me." When she snorted, Austin talked louder. "Then there's the part where I threatened to kill him if he didn't spill."
"I'm going to smack the crap out of him when I see him again." She stood back and opened her arm to usher Austin out of the hallway. "Come in before we give the neighbors a show that will get me evicted."
"In that robe? I'd be willing."
Her skin warmed everywhere his gaze touched. She grabbed her lapels and gathered them in her clenched fist to stop that sort of thing. "I wasn't expecting company."
"I'm not complaining."
Her all but naked and his gaze traveling down her front spelled disaster. "I'll go get dressed."
Before she could shuffle off to the bedroom and lock the door behind her, he raised his hands. The move put the goodies he brought at eye level. "Are you sure you don't want to try these first?"
The smell of deep roast filled her senses. Hot man and hot coffee. Who could resist that combination?
"What's in the bag?"
"A cinnamon-swirl pound cake to go with your grande nonfat vanilla latte." He shook the bag as he spoke.
The evil coffee pimp remembered her usual order.
______________________
Don't forget to check out the other snippets:
Anne Rainey
Mari Carr
McKenna Jeffries
Myla Jackson
Taige Crenshaw
Selena Blake
Vivian Arend
Alison Kent
Lauren Dane
Lacey Savage
Shiloh Walker
